One of the biggest weaknesses in badminton players at any level is their defence,
so in today's video we're going to teach you the fundamentals of doubles defence.
Now having the ability to play a drive, block or lift in your defence is going to massively help your game
and we're going to show you how throughout this video, so let's get to it!
So there are some key points to look at before we hit any defensive shot
and these are the starting position and the grip.
So for the starting position you want to be stood like this
with your legs bent and your feet slightly wider than your hips.
You also want to be slightly leaning forwards with your body weight going through the balls of your feet.
And for your racket it should be at an angle anywhere between this and this with your elbow out in front of you.
But a really important point is that we don't want it too far out in front of us.
If it's completely straight like this, you'll struggle to adjust your positioning
You'll also now have to bring your arm back and then forwards again to generate the power which is a waste of a movement.
Rather than just being like this.
Finally your body, grip and both arms should be nice and relaxed.
And where should you actually stand on the court?
Well if the attacker is on the same half as you, you should stand around here making sure you cover your line.
And if the attacker is on the cross you would stand around here
covering the middle of the court and facing the attacker in your stance.
So you need to use a backhand grip with your thumb on top of the racket like this.
And this is very similar to holding a frying pan so you can also practice at home.
So it would be like that
Anyway we're using a backhand grip as it gives us more coverage
and you'd use this backhand grip from here
all the way to around here.
Anything past this point you'd switch to a bevel grip
and you would do this rather than a forehand grip because it's less time to change to
and you can also still get a very effective shot from this grip.
We see a lot of players standing sidewards and taking the shuttle on the forehand like this in defence,
maybe because they can't generate the power and control from their backhand.
However this position is going to expose a massive gap in this area
and also limit your ability to play with control and power.
One final point is that your hand should be high up the grip
and this is to shorten the lever and give you more control.
This is similar to why you'd have your hand high up the grip on the doubles serve or when playing around the net.
Here are some key points for hitting all defensive shots, no matter if you're hitting a drive, block or a lift.
So firstly you want to use your fingers and thumb to generate the control and power.
And if you're hitting a drive or lift, you need to squeeze your grip more to generate the extra power.
Secondly, we don't want any floppy wrists.
A floppy wrist means you're going to reduce your control and power when hitting your shots.
Thirdly, you really want to hit through the shuttle
as this allows you the control to hit the shuttle in the direction you want it to travel.
And lastly we need to make little adjustments in our feet,
sometimes we might have one step further forwards.
But that's a bit more advanced so we'll discuss that in next weeks video on advanced doubles defence
so subscribe if you don't want to miss out.
So those 4 points as well as the stance and grip are the fundamentals for hitting any shot in defence.
So we'd highly recommend learning those first before you progress any further.
Now we're going to move onto how the block, lift and drive are different and how you can practice these.
We'd recommend learning the drive first as this will help you learn the block and lift better.
So depending what level you're at, you can start by learning the technique with a partner throwing it in from the side
or from the other side of the court like we're showing now.
A progression to work on your timing is to lift the shuttle, your partner smashes it
and you drive it back like the sequence we're showing now.
Some key points for the drive is to have a quick racket swing recovery
as the shuttle will come back at you quicker.
You also need to really squeeze your thumb and fingers as you hit it to generate the power.
You can practice just using your thumb and index finger
and removing your other fingers if you're struggling with this.
The block is very similar to the drive so you want to
keep a lot of the same technique so that your opponent can't
predict that you're going to play this soft shot!
so to do this you need to have really relaxed fingers and guide the shuttle over to where you want to play it!
the block is difficult the practice in a single shuttle routine
however you can grab a few shuttles like this, lift, they smash and you block either straight or cross
and then go again!
Again, similar to the drive you can step into the block and take it early
and then move forward towards the net to put pressure back on your opponents
now the lift is one of the most difficult shots to get consistently right but here are a few key points to help you out
so firstly as you hit the lift you want to make sure you keep your bodyweight leaning forwards and on the balls of your feet
if you find that you mistime quite a lot of your lifts it's probably because as you hit it you're going back onto your heels
and also lifting your body up at the same time and this is a common mistake we see.
You need to come underneath the shuttle with your strings to get height on your lifts.
And don't be afraid to have a bigger follow through as you'll have more time to get back into your ready position.
To practice this we'd recommend starting with a high serve and your partner doing half smashes at around 50% power.
You then just keep re-lifting to them.
For this you really need to use the push from your legs
as well as your thumb to generate the power.
And great timing is critical for this shot.
Again you can do this cross-court too.
There was lots of different information there so you might want to repeat parts of the video and take your time learning it
as for most of us, we can only process 1 or 2 things at a time.
There are slightly different techniques and setups you can use but as we've said
this video is just covering the fundamentals and we'll go through lots more in next weeks video on advanced doubles defence.
Well that's it for today's video. If you want to further improve your defence then watch this video here
And if you've enjoyed today's video then please give it a like, smash the subscribe button
and turn the notification bell on so you don't miss our future videos and we'll see you next Sunday!