[transcript]
In this video we will cover three fundamental skills that we can all learn from the 2024 Paris Olympics women’s singles gold medalist, An Se Young.
These three fundamental skills are usually taught to us as beginners but are quite often overlooked, and will make a huge impact in your game if mastered.
Today we will mainly focus on retrieval, so we will dive in depth into why these fundamental skills make An Se Young so good.
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Like Kento Momota or Chen Long, An Se Young’s body control is phenomenal. Her ability to keep the back from twisting and turning too much while reaching for shots in the deep corners is nothing short of amazing.
While body control is most likely taught to us when we were beginners and intermediate in badminton, it is also a significant factor that will influence how well you are able to defend and last an entire rally, let alone an entire game.
Poor body control will result in inefficiencies in your game, and cause you to waste more energy.
An Se Young is a pro when it comes to being efficient and controlling her movements.
The main corner we want to focus on is her around the head corner.
This corner tends to be a huge problem for badminton players and is often one of the hardest corners to recover from. This is because of the big movements that the player has to do, with big hip turns and the scissor kick.
If we look at players like Tai Tzu Ying, we can see how Tai Tzu Ying lacks body control, and as a result, is very unstable when pushed to that corner.
However, when we compare this to An Se Young, we can see how stable she is. She is able to keep her body upright through an engaged core, and still have her bodyweight move forward after hitting her shot to help her recover.
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Everybody is taught footwork when they are just starting badminton. It is arguably the most important aspect of badminton.
When we talk about good footwork, it is easy to think about Lee Chong Wei’s buttery smooth footwork with his perfect split step timing, or Lin Dan’s ability to practically walk on the court. However, when we look at An Se Young’s footwork we want to focus on something entirely different.
While she has extremely good split step timing that allows her to retrieve shots that seem impossible to retrieve, she also has this fundamental skill mastered that allows her to recover much better and faster.
This fundamental skill is stretching out her left leg during lunges.
Pay attention to An Se Young’s left leg when she retrieves.
Do you guys see how An Se Young keeps her left leg as far stretched out as she can when she lunges?
This seems to be a staple in pro players that have good retrieval skills like Chen Long and Kento Momota, because it helps the player recover back into the middle.
The left leg essentially acts as an anchor that allows the athlete to recover smoothly without having to run backwards. Having the left leg stretched out as far as you can will also allow you take less steps on court and make the court feel smaller.
We can see how other players bring their left leg forwards instead of keeping it anchored in the middle. This causes them to take more steps in recovery and makes them less efficient overall.
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The third fundamental skill we want to cover is An Se Young having her racket lead first. This skill is often ignored and brushed off as unimportant, but the higher level you go, the more this skill needs to be mastered.
As you get better, you will play better opponents. The pace of the rallies will generally go up. This is why you must have your racket leading.
Having the racket leading is much faster than moving your feet first which is why An Se Young’s dive defense is so good. It also helps you make accurate judgements of how many steps you need to take to get to the shuttle.
When her racket is leading, she can immediately recognize how many steps she needs to reach the shuttle, and if she doesn’t have enough time to take extra steps or shuffles, she just simply dives.
This is what makes her the queen of retrieval.
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In summary, there are three fundamental skills that we can copy from An Se Young.
First, pay attention to your upper body. Make sure it doesn’t twist and turn all the time. This will help you become more stable.
Second, try your best to stretch out your left leg, right leg if you’re left-handed, when you lunge. This will help you recover to middle in less steps and make the court feel smaller.
And third, make sure you have your racket leading when you move to any shot to help you time your shuffles better and reduce the errors created from taking too little or too many steps
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