In this video we're going to break down the technique of an overhead drop shot
and then give you some tips to improve your drops and take your game to the next level.
Hello and welcome back to Badminton Insight! If you're new here we're Greg and Jenny,
two professional badminton players releasing a new video every Sunday on all things badminton.
So first what is a drop shot and why do we use it? Well there are many different variations of
drop shots and different reasons for doing these but essentially a drop shot is a downward shot
from the rear court. It's played to force your opponent to take the shuttle below net height
and hopefully produce a weak reply or even enable you to win the point out right. It's also a shot
you can use if you're late to the shuttle and need to buy yourself some time and neutralize the rally,
and you would generally use the drop more often when your opponent has lifted right to the back
and you're not in a good position to play a smash. So let's start by breaking down the technique. The
first stage when learning the technique is to get the preparation right. For your stance you want
to turn your whole body so you're facing sideways, have your legs wider than shoulder-width apart and
most of your weight going through this back leg. So moving on to the grip and racket preparation
you should be in a forehand grip and your racket arm shoulder and elbow should be at 90 degrees
like this. You'll then have this non-racket arm up almost pointing to the shuttle and this will
help with your timing, balance and allow for rotation which we'll get onto in just a minute.
Don't emphasize this point too much but it can be a cue to help you remember to get this arm up.
Preparing like this helps you to create power, control and deception and is also the same
preparation for a clear or smash and if you're new to this, getting into this exact position will be
difficult as there's lots of things to think about at once but the more you practice the easier and
quicker you'll be able to do it in a game and we'll go through some practices in just a minute.
So back to the shot, now as the shuttle is approaching you start to rotate your body
and bring your arm through like you're throwing a tennis ball and you also need to rotate your hips
to create a nice relaxed rhythm and rotation for the next shot. And this rotation of the hips will
also enable you to recover after the shot. If you don't rotate your hips and just use your arm you
won't fully be able to rotate therefore creating an awkward movement and again losing control.
In fact you won't even be able to see where the shuttle is going! So you want to make contact with
the shuttle nice and high as you would for a smash or clear but you don't want your arm too straight
or even too bent as you'll lose power and control. You should also strike the shuttle just in front
of your body if you can - if you strike it in line with your body then it's too early in your
rotation. This is a point more relevant for the smash and clear but you do want all of these shots
to look the same. So as you've just seen we hit the shuttle with a flat racket face and not with
a big slice as that's a completely different shot but don't worry about hitting it too much
with a flat racket face as this is where people tend to switch to a panhandle grip like this.
So that's your basic drop now let's put it all together and show you how to practice it.
So we have seven different practices you can progress through to improve your drop shot.
Now firstly if you're new to this or just want to practice your technique
you can practice your preparation and movement by throwing a tennis ball or shuttle like this. As we
said before it's a very similar action. Next you can swap the shuttle in your hand for a racket
but we're not going to hit any shuttles yet as we're just doing the movement. This is another
good practice to focus on getting the technique right without worrying about hitting the shuttle.
For our third practice we're adding in the shuttle in a simple practice aimed
at isolating the shot execution. Here you can get a partner to high serve to you like this,
one shuttle at a time and you focus on the technical points that we discussed earlier -
your body and racket preparation and your rotation into the shot. Don't worry about aiming at first
but once you get the technique right you can add targets for both the straight and cross-court drop.
A quick tip is to make sure you reflect after each shot. Don't just do 100 drops in a row without
thinking about your technique. You could even video yourself to visually see where you might be going
wrong. The next progression is to keep the shuttle going in a rally, so stood on the spot getting
your preparation right and hitting consistent drops to a feeder who is continuously lifting.
You can then add some movement in across the back line to try and get the technique right while also
getting the movement right. This can be difficult at first which is why we're building up to this.
And look how I'm still recovering back into the court a little bit and not just running across the
back line. Despite this exercise being relatively basic we still practice it a lot in our training -
it's absolutely criminal to make such a simple mistake off a drop shot in a match and we see
so many people do this! But with some practice you can definitely eliminate these basic mistakes and
in general i don't think we practice the simple things enough. A further progression can be to
introduce more movement. This adds more variables into the routine and trains the body to respond
to different scenarios. For singles the feeder can play a shot to the service line like this
and then lift to any side of the court. The worker will then drop to the side of the feeder and you
repeat the sequence - we'd suggest for around 30 shots or a minute. And for doubles you can drop
and then play a mid-court push like this. Again start off in a patterned routine and then develop
it into a random routine where essentially you play any shot around the back half of the court -
just always play a drop shot from the back of the court. Although they can sometimes be a
little boring, those exercises are honestly great for improving your technique, movement and timing
under pressure, putting a real focus on your drop shots. We do however always like to make things fun
so if you want a challenge why not give exercise four a go, but add two shuttles in like this!
Here you can see we're quickly having to adapt and change our positioning as well as be ready
to prepare for the next shot as soon as we hit it. And our shots need to be quite accurate!
And finally it's important to note that there are seven different varieties of drop shots
but that's way too much information for this video so make sure you smash the subscribe
button and turn the notification bell on so you don't miss out on the future video on
that, and we'll see you on another video - maybe one of the ones we're about to show now!