Wrong footwork part 2

Wrong in footwork part 2

What are coaches and players thinking when they do shadow badminton? (shadow badminton is doing the footwork without a shuttle,  just the dry steps). For me it looks like they have just been taking their brains out and put it on a shelf beside the court. You see players running from the middle of the court to a corner, back again to the middle and to the next corner.

When I ask the coach why they do it, I get the very obvious answer: Because that is the way Lin Dan (or some other top player) is doing it this way. And you know something he is right, the real top players do come back to the middle of the court almost every time, and they have a very good reason for that haswell because the guy on the other side can play the shuttle back to him from any corner he get it in to any corner he wants to play into. But on the level 99% of all badminton players are playing at this is not the case they are physical and technical not capable to do that. 

Beauce of this the shadow badminton needs to be done in a compleet different way for the large group of badminton players who are not in the top 100 of the World. First of all are almost all the players who do shadow badminton just make a kind of racket movement when they come to the position where they should hit the shuttle in real time. They don’t make the real shoot and if I stop a player and ask him/her where did you just play the shuttle? They look at you like if they see water burning, I did not play the shuttle I do shadow badminton is what they tell you. WRONG you need to play a real stroke in your mind and you need to be able to see the type of stroke you just have been playing even (or especially) when there is no shuttle. Let's take a sample in the FH back corner where you just moved to in your shadow training. In your mind you play an attacking clear to the ARH/BH corner of your opponent, and you would move back like you ALWAYS do in shadow footwork training (to the middle) that would be the most stupid thing you can do. Your opponent can not play a cross clear into your ARH/BH corner so why should you go to the most neutral position on court? If your opponent can’t play there and you just moved to the middle of your court you give him/her the perfect solution to get out of this pressure clear you just played by playing back into your FH back corner again. And to get back pressure in your FH corner is 10x more hard to return and keep the attack going. 

So you don’t want to run back to the middle but you want to do a step forward following the line of the shuttle you just played in the ARH/BH corner of your opponent and bending towards the middle a little. Now you are sure that you will not get a clear back into your FH corner that will put you under pressure and you keep your attack situation you wanted to create in the first place. Shadow badminton is the perfect way to do technical footwork what is also tactically right, and what do most people do when they do this training? They don’t think at all but just make al kind of stupid moves that you don’t want to use in a game. 

I can give endless arguments why the shadow badminton that most people are doing is wrong but there is one that is too important not to mention, and that is the rhythm in the footwork. Good players don’t run the move very controlled over the court and there is a different kind of speed depending on the stroke they have been playing. After a long-line stroke you don’t speed out of the corner you more or less walk with the line of the shuttle forwards. If you play a cross stroke you move a lot faster out of the corner following the line of the shuttle (to the middle). You move faster to the shuttle then you would move back after you have played the shuttle. Now you tell me if you can see this things back when you see or do shadow footwork badminton? If you can see players doing this you see more than me and I may have to buy some new glasses. 

Ron Daniels is Elite Badminton Coach and teacher for Orø Denmark DGI Coach Education you can follow articles, videos and coach education on our FB site OrøDenmark and for more information about our coach education you can write to [email protected]