We recently did a video here on youtube where we analysed our subscribers playing badminton and
what we found was that there were five mistakes that almost all of the intermediate players were
making that if they could change could instantly take them to an advanced level! So in this video
we're going to share these five mistakes and how you can fix them or avoid them entirely to take
you from an intermediate to advanced badminton player! Mistake number one is trying to win the point too early
We've all been there, you think you're in a position where you have a five percent chance of
hitting a winning shot so you go for it and whilst it is good to take these chances sometimes this is
often a big difference between intermediate and advanced players! Advanced players know that if
they play one, two or maybe even three more shots that still apply pressure to their opponents
but aren't as risky as going for a winning shot then this 5% can turn into an 80 or 90% chance of
hitting a winning shot so to fix this common mistake we'd recommend adopting the mindset
of an advanced player and having a focus on being patient and what we call building the rally. Viktor
Axelsen for example definitely has the skills to play tighter shots from positions like this but he
would risk making a mistake so instead he plays a less risky shot and still wins the point on
the next shot anyway! Again we're talking about him playing a shot that he knows he can make 10 out of 10
times here rather than maybe 8 out of 10 times because he's not in the best position possible
and this ability to be patient leads us nicely onto our second most common mistake - hitting too
many hard shots. Hitting every rear court shot as hard as you can is a huge mistake for two main reasons
firstly your opponents know where the shuttle is going to and that's often straight to their racket
and secondly trying to hit everything hard even if you're in a good position
can result in you ending up in a bad position! These two reasons are often combined together
and lead to a situation happening like it did to one of our subscribers Eric...
so instead of trying to hit every rear court shot as hard as you can you need to build the rally. Maybe
try playing a drop shot or slice to move your opponents in and then hit somewhere really awkward
like their right hip and then finally you can play a smash winner when you get the short lift and
it's important to mention that we're not telling you to hit slow and move slow the aim is to still
move fast and look like you can hit it hard but you have the ability to play a variety of quality
shots so let's show you what you should and shouldn't do! Here Greg is trying to win the point
too early and he's just smashing everything onto my racket and it's quite easy for me to defend
but now if Greg uses variety and I don't know where he's going to hit to I'm less prepared
and also slightly later on to each shot meaning that by the third shot i've hit a short lift and
he has an easy smash winner! And an added bonus is that it's going to help him save some energy too :-)
But it is important to keep in mind that this suggestion will of course depend on a.
How good your opponent's defence is, Jenny's is pretty good! And b. The quality of your first lift
obviously if this is really short then you would play your hard smashes! And if you find your
opponent is hitting a lot of hard smashes against you and winning the point this might mean that
your lifting isn't good enough which brings us on to our third common mistake, your lifting quality and quantity!
Now the importance of this third mistake is hugely underrated so let's briefly
discuss why you're going wrong with your lifting firstly most intermediate players
just lift way too much and this is a mistake we saw a lot in our subscribers footage!!
and the quantity of the lifts is often made much worse by the quality of the lifts
the lifts are often either too short or to the middle which means your opponents don't have to
move at all and this instantly puts you under more pressure! So how do you fix this mistake?
Well firstly you can try not to lift as much by using your net shots or pushes into the mid court
there's often more space than you think but if you have to lift or you think that is the best tactic
against your opponents then the one piece of advice that will most improve the quality of your
lifting is to have a loose grip this enables you to use your fingers and thumb which gives you more
control and actually more power! Lifting is that important we've already done two videos on this
so we'll link both of those in the description below if you want to check them out after learning
about mistake four and five and our bonus mistake! This fourth mistake is being tense and it's so
common with almost all intermediate players this impacts many areas of your game so it's really
important to fix! If you're tense at the net or mid court then you're likely to be holding your grip
tightly which reduces your ability to change between grips and have control of your shots
If you're tense in the rear court you won't be able to generate a fast racket head speed
which hugely limits your ability to create power in your smashes, and if you're tense in
your mind then you won't be able to think clearly and make good decisions in each rally
We told you being tense affects a lot of your game but how do you stop being tense?
well a good starting point that we'd always recommend is trying to focus on fixing how
you hold the racket as we said in one of our previous videos if you're holding the racket as
tight as you can it's almost impossible to change grip let alone change it quickly whereas if you're
holding it loosely look how much easier it is to turn the grip! So you should have a
gap between the grip and the palm of your hand whilst you're moving to the next shot
if you don't have this gap then you're holding the racket too tightly and you
won't be able to generate as much control and power! From our experience we found that by just
thinking to relax our hand this then helps us relax more in other areas such as in our mind :D
Now our fifth mistake is having your racket in the wrong position especially in the mid court, this is
a big one and it's something we saw a lot of in the clips our subscribers sent in to us! As you
can see here they're waiting with their rackets nearly touching the ground and you might not think
this is you but honestly record yourself playing and you'll realise it probably is! But why is this
a bad thing? We just told you to be relaxed and they definitely look relaxed?! Well from a low down
position it takes more time to get your racket to the shuttle resulting in you taking it later
and playing a worse quality shot or even a lift so when your opponent is playing their shot from
below the height of the net you need to get your elbow up a racket roughly in line with the height
of the net, there's absolutely no reason not to do this as they can't play a downward shot!
There are times where maybe it's not beneficial to have your racket up this high we've made a whole video
on that which we'll again link in the description below :) So they were our five mistakes but we have
a sixth bonus mistake for you and this is that as much as people think the new nimbus 4000 racket is
gonna magically improve their game, it's not! That's not just a broomstick Harry it's a nimbus 2000.
It's the development of your technical, tactical, physical and mental skills that will have the most
impact on your game but having said that if you are looking for some new gear to help you look the
part on court and also help your game a little bit then head to trmesports.com where you can get 10%
discount off the entire site using the code badminton insight at checkout! This discount
also applies to our new badminton insight bottle so we hope you enjoy using the offer and thank
you in advance for your support! Yeah we'll include a link to trme sports along with everything else
we've mentioned in the description below and if you enjoyed this video please give it a like, SMASH
the subscribe button if you haven't already and we'll see you in another video very soon :-)