Badminton Footwork Basics: 6 Moves and the Order to Learn Them

Start with your base position and split step. Then add the chasse, lunge, and scissor kick before connecting them in a six-corner drill. The aim is to reach the shuttle in balance and be ready for the next shot.

Find your base

Base is where you prepare for the next shot. For this drill, use a marker on the centre line, half a metre behind the short service line. In games, your base moves with the rally.

The six targets are front left, front right, mid left, mid right, rear left, and rear right. From this marker, the rear targets take a longer trip.

A full court is 13.4 m long (44 ft) and 6.1 m wide for doubles (20 ft); the singles width is 5.18 m (17 ft). With the short service line 1.98 m from the net (6.5 ft), this marker is roughly 2.5 m from the net and 4.2 m from the back line.

These approximate distances assume targets half a metre inside the lines. Move the marker back to about 3.3 m from the net and the front and rear trips become roughly 3.5–4 m. Changing the starting position changes how far you have to travel; use the table as a drill illustration, not a fixed rule for where to stand in a match.

Ready stance

• Feet about shoulder-width apart, square or with the racket foot slightly forward.
• Knees bent enough that your legs can push, not just your arm reach.
• Weight ready to move forward, without sitting back on your heels.
• Racket up in front of you, a little toward the backhand side, so the next shot needs no backswing to prepare.

Check your stance with a small push in each direction. If you have to stand up or rock backward before moving, reset and try again.

1. Split step: be ready to move

The split step is a small hop timed around your opponent’s contact with the shuttle. Land ready to push toward the shot. Keep it low so you can move away promptly.

Timing is the entire skill. The rhythm is: opponent prepares, you hop, opponent contacts the shuttle, you land and push. Hop too early and you land, pause, and lose the rebound that should carry you into the first step. Hop too late and you are still in the air as the shuttle leaves the racket, and you move in the right direction a fraction behind.

A 2024 study in Bioengineering compared lunges with and without a split step in 18 male players. It found changes in lower-limb joint angles and ground-reaction loading. Those findings do not establish that practising split steps prevents injuries.

Once the timing holds, the split step becomes directional: you land already biased toward the corner you are going to. Our split step guide covers where on court to split and how the landing feet change by corner.

2. Chasse: step, together, step

The chasse is a step-together-step, named from the French chasser because the trailing foot appears to chase the lead foot. It is the movement for the short trips in the table above: side to side in defence, and the approach before a front-court lunge. Because your feet never cross, you can brake or reverse mid-movement, which is what a rally keeps asking you to do.

• Step: the lead foot moves toward the shuttle.
• Together: the trailing foot closes the gap, quickly and lightly, without stopping.
• Step: the lead foot goes again, or turns into a lunge.

Stay at the same height throughout. The two errors that cost time are standing up between steps, so every push has to start from scratch, and letting the feet crash together, which turns the middle of the movement into a full stop. The third error is using the chasse for the 4–5 m rear trips; that is a turn-and-run job, covered under Movement 4. When a chasse is the wrong tool and a run or a cross-behind is faster, our chasse step guide explains how to choose by the gap you have to cover.

3. Lunge: reach the net in balance

Practise a split step, a chasse, and a lunge toward each front corner. Finish this drill on the racket leg: right leg for right-handers, left leg for left-handers. Use that leg to push back out of the corner.

• Racket leg forward. Finish this practice pattern on the racket-side leg.
• Torso upright, core braced. Do not fold over the front knee; you need to see the far court after contact.
• Both knees bent. The back leg is a brake and a spring, not a trailing post.
• Heel-to-toe landing. Land heel first, then roll through the foot with control.
• Front toes toward the shuttle, so the knee tracks the direction you are moving.

4. Scissor kick: turn back into court

For an overhead shot in the rear court, a scissor kick lets you rotate through the hit and begin moving forward again. It is one rear-court pattern to learn, rather than the answer to every shot behind you.

• Directional split step, landing already turned toward the corner.
• Pivot so your hips face the sideline and your weight loads onto the racket leg, which is now the back leg. Get behind the shuttle; do not reach back for it.
• Push off the racket leg and swap the legs in the air as you hit, like scissors closing.
• Rotate through the shot so the hitting action carries your weight forward.
• Land with the feet switched, knees bent, feet a little wider than your shoulders, facing the net.

The rotation is the whole point. Without it you hit, settle onto the back leg, and restart from a dead stop; with it, your first recovery step is already happening as you land. The errors are pausing on the back leg, over-rotating so the contact point drifts and the shuttle goes out sideways, and jumping before you can turn. Height is the last thing to add.

Full mechanics, landing strength, and the forehand-side version are in our rear-court scissor jump guide.

5. Recovery: prepare for the next shot

Recovery is where beginners lose rallies that their first movement had won. You reach the shuttle, watch it for half a second, and are still standing in the corner when the reply comes. From a front-court lunge, recovery is the arrival in reverse:

1. Push out of the lunge with the racket leg.
2. Bring that leg back toward the other one, staying low.
3. Chasse, or add a small hop on the non-racket leg, back toward base.
4. Arrive with the racket up and the knees bent, ready to split step again.

In this drill, recover to the marker after each rep. In a rally, recover toward a position that covers the likely reply; do not chase the exact centre regardless of your shot. A tight net shot can let you stay closer to the net. The cue is hit, recover, ready.

6. Put it together: the six-corner drill

Start at base, split step, move to a corner, and recover before going to the next one. Practise the individual movements slowly first. The sequence below is a suggested practice plan; use the checks to decide when you are ready to add speed or another movement.

Fixed order for the drill: front right, front left, mid right, mid left, rear right, rear left. Front corners are split, chasse, lunge. Mid corners are split and one or two chasse steps. Rear corners are split, pivot, scissor kick. Recover to base after every one. If the pattern falls apart, slow down; half-speed footwork that is clean teaches more than full-speed footwork that is not.

Without a court, use a clear space large enough for the movement you are practising. Avoid lunging or jumping beside an active court. Our shadow footwork guide has smaller-space variations.

How this changes in doubles

In doubles, your position and your partner’s position change which movements you need most.

• Front player: practise split steps, chasses, lunges, and short recoveries. Stay ready to adjust as the rally changes.
• Rear player: split, pivot, scissor kick, then recover forward toward mid-court rather than to the centre spot, because your partner has the front.
• Side-by-side defence: short chasse steps and the occasional sideways lunge. Stay low the whole time; the smash comes back faster than a full standing reset allows.

Choose one thing to practise

Find the problem you notice most often and use it to pick a movement for your next session.

Keep your next session focused on one movement. For a longer practice plan, see footwork or strokes first. For equipment questions, our court shoe guide explains the differences to consider.