Video Footage Safe Thread

[Der_Echte]

I did not speak much of your strong points... I will keep it to serves...

I normally see that players from your country at the amateur level tend to serve long nearly 100% and let opponent attack... and get into a fast hitting rally.

I rarely see any attempt to serve short to mess up opponent timing and footwork... even at advanced amateur levels I do not see this much from your country... yet I see YOU serve short occasionally to take advantage of this... and it made your long serves more effective.

So in this regard, your service strategy was a combat multiplier for you... you put in x effort and got 2x return.

 

[NextLevel]

Thanks, @UpSideDownCarl
I will try to use the backhand more in my real game to make it a part of my game, not just a "new skill". There is a phycological barrier but I don't mind losing some rating points to improve my game.
Thanks, @NextLevel. I get your point and it sounds pretty much right but I didn't understand wdym by saying about the circular motion through the backswing. I shouldn't stop my bat to give a ball more energy? I don't think it's really noticeable in Pro's technique but I suppose that it is something like Ma Long's circular FH backswing motion but on the BH? Could you tell me about it a bit more detailed please

Check out the Tom Lodziak video where he compares what he does to what Liam does. Both players actually track the ball with the backswing but the check mark motion or circular backswing is much more pronounced in Pitchford (for natural reasons) and ends up with his backswing leading with the wrist before coming forward. Not for everyone, but if you can get a bit more flexibility and do it, your topspin quality in terms of speed and spin you can bring to the ball on shorter strokes including close to the table topspins and backhand flicks will go up tremendously. You can see that the whipping is timed to the ball so that you can more quality over a short distance. It is easier to do or practice vs backspin balls but with practice it just becomes a natural part of your technique.

 

[turbozed]

Wanted to get some advice from the experts in this thread. The video below is me recently practicing some FHs. Wasn't really focused on consistency but trying out different ways of contacting the ball.

I especially liked the way 2 or 3 of the FHs I hit at around the 1:53 looked and felt. The contact sound is also a bit thinner so I guess I'm getting a better brush on these balls. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to consistently reproduce this shot. I'd really like my FH loops to look more like this. Think it gives me a better feeling for the ball and a safer arc.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing differently in those shots? It looks like I'm rolling over on top of the ball more, and maybe my racket angle is closed more than usual. Are there any other cues I can use?

 

[cytivrat]

Wanted to get some advice from the experts in this thread. The video below is me recently practicing some FHs. Wasn't really focused on consistency but trying out different ways of contacting the ball.

I especially liked the way 2 or 3 of the FHs I hit at around the 1:53 looked and felt. The contact sound is also a bit thinner so I guess I'm getting a better brush on these balls. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to consistently reproduce this shot. I'd really like my FH loops to look more like this. Think it gives me a better feeling for the ball and a safer arc.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing differently in those shots? It looks like I'm rolling over on top of the ball more, and maybe my racket angle is closed more than usual. Are there any other cues I can use?

I guess, more experienced players will give better advice, but from my point of view:
1. That around 1:53 your partner shots lands at comfortable area: you don't have to lean or pivot anywhere, they are just nice. In most of other situations you are getting one good ball, and then you have to move somewhere (which you sometimes do and sometimes don't), not sure whether it is done on purpose or not, but it affects your shots quality
2. It is hard to tell from this point of view, but it looks to me that your stance is wider on better shots
3. You are rotating your wrist clockwise at the end of the movement quite often. On those better shots you don't do this. I do this when I feel like I'm in a bad position or aftrad that ball will slip of my racket (like wet conditions or just in a bad shape) and won't get ball using usual motion. Also it might happen when you are trying to limit your power (it is hard to rotate wrist that way when you apply more force). Do you trust your equipment at that time or it is just uncoscious movement? Did you move to this setup from something slower and less spinny not long ago (or played with something slow and not very spinny for a very long period of time)?

Overall, I cannot tell that your shots quality is bad, actually it is quite good and getting better to the end of the video. So I suspect that you should just continue training and you'll get what you want.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

One of those very rare occasion where I actually won a match. It is rarer than spotting an albino unicorn. Enjoy!

p/s: Flextra, as you can see is not slow at all. It can be pretty fast and can make the ball be rather spinny when properly brushed.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

So so frustrating playing with this veteran player. His ball is soft and short. You smash, it goes out, you block, it goes into the net. His style is just return every back to my BH and wait for me to make mistake.

Old Uncle game style.

 

[Der_Echte]

@Gozo Aruna This opponent giving you all kind of easy chances, but you are RARELY ready or in position or using sound stroke or swing plane... that is why you miss the shots and you get afraid to attack the attackable ones (which are nearly every ball.

He did not put every ball to your BH... he put some to FH and some to middle, which you COULD have moved your feet to make space, but maybe your shoes weigh 20kg each.

Your opponent is a seller of ROPE... and you are a volume wholesale buyer.

He provides the rope and you are hanging yourself with it... time and time again. All he has to do is put the ball on the table and watch you commit suicide.

I go over a few of your missed attacks and show you why you missed them.

:19 You closed bat way too much and made a very forward weak swing vs a weak ball... of course the ball can only go forward and down. BAT ANGLE and SLOW STROKE

:41 FH Kill attempt - epic fail. You stayed in place, instead of move a little to side and a meter forward for the step around FOOTWORK AND STEP AROUND POSITION

:49 Ball came a bit to middle... you did the very same thing... tried to lean left of get it down, but leaning left only got you in trouble - you should have stepped a bit to left and a half meter or so forward to be in the effective strike zone there. FOOTWORK AND STEP AROUND POSITION

1:07 Ball comes to your FH, but a bit inside and pretty high - your shoulder. You start swing 1/3 meter below the table... is it possible to start swing there and get behind and a little on top of the ball that is now coming past your shoulder? Not unless you dislocate ur shoulder. The ball can only go out with that swing plane. SWING PLANE and POSITIONING

Most if not all of these errors are caused by not knowing what opponent did at impact and immediately knowing where the ball will with what when which speed which vector in 3D. You do not move to the effective place to attack because of this... and you compound it by poor footwork and swing plane.

Sometimes you go Crazy Cowboy attacking with too many long motions... but I also saw you give some balls to the uncle and he went full Crazy Cowboy and gave you some gifts.

I know the hall sucks and you do not have room to step around FH too much... so maybe stay closer to table or take a step to table and right of ball and use a strong BH attack taking ball on the rise chest high... very easy to see ball at that height and the momentum of the step turns into power on your shot.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

@Gozo Aruna This opponent giving you all kind of easy chances, but you are RARELY ready or in position or using sound stroke or swing plane... that is why you miss the shots and you get afraid to attack the attackable ones (which are nearly every ball.

He did not put every ball to your BH... he put some to FH and some to middle, which you COULD have moved your feet to make space, but maybe your shoes weigh 20kg each.

Your opponent is a seller of ROPE... and you are a volume wholesale buyer.

He provides the rope and you are hanging yourself with it... time and time again. All he has to do is put the ball on the table and watch you commit suicide.

I go over a few of your missed attacks and show you why you missed them.

:19 You closed bat way too much and made a very forward weak swing vs a weak ball... of course the ball can only go forward and down. BAT ANGLE and SLOW STROKE

:41 FH Kill attempt - epic fail. You stayed in place, instead of move a little to side and a meter forward for the step around FOOTWORK AND STEP AROUND POSITION

:49 Ball came a bit to middle... you did the very same thing... tried to lean left of get it down, but leaning left only got you in trouble - you should have stepped a bit to left and a half meter or so forward to be in the effective strike zone there. FOOTWORK AND STEP AROUND POSITION

1:07 Ball comes to your FH, but a bit inside and pretty high - your shoulder. You start swing 1/3 meter below the table... is it possible to start swing there and get behind and a little on top of the ball that is now coming past your shoulder? Not unless you dislocate ur shoulder. The ball can only go out with that swing plane. SWING PLANE and POSITIONING

Most if not all of these errors are caused by not knowing what opponent did at impact and immediately knowing where the ball will with what when which speed which vector in 3D. You do not move to the effective place to attack because of this... and you compound it by poor footwork and swing plane.

Sometimes you go Crazy Cowboy attacking with too many long motions... but I also saw you give some balls to the uncle and he went full Crazy Cowboy and gave you some gifts.

I know the hall sucks and you do not have room to step around FH too much... so maybe stay closer to table or take a step to table and right of ball and use a strong BH attack taking ball on the rise chest high... very easy to see ball at that height and the momentum of the step turns into power on your shot.

Der! I ❤️U!!!

Will read your comments mutiple times.

 

[Der_Echte]

@Gozo Aruna to continue on why you hate him hitting to ur BH... if you do a step in and BH hit to those higher balls he gives you on BH and get a few winners... you may suddenly be getting a lot of balls to ur FH that you luv to go full Chick Norris on those.

 

[dingyibvs]

That old uncle is moving a lot! Not playing the typical statute like old uncle style.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

Der,

You are really observant. I was psychologically afraid to step around because the next table is near.

But you are right, the root cause of all my problem stem from my poor footwork.

Now that I can spin better, my next goal is to improve my footwork so that my bat can reach the ball better.

At the next lesson, I'll ask my coach to help me do the step around / pivot FH drill so that I can kill for the point rather being pin down at my BH by annoying uncle targeting my BH all the time.

Such is the misery of a FH dominant player.

 

[Wrighty67]

Hi all

I have not posted here for a while as have been practicing and playing league matches a lot. Now that period is over I want to focus on my BH as an attacking weapon, including both loop drive/open up and topspin to flick.

First goal is to develop my open up/loop drive from more down to up to a more rotational And forward stroke with a more closed bat angle, hitting the ball top left side more than lower back middle. There is a very interesting video of ML practicing the extreme version of this stroke here;

My focus points are to start stoke further toward left thigh and not drop bat as low, weight transfer to left leg and snap to right, more forearm and much more wrist.

I would welcome any thoughts or observations on my first few goes here (it may not be pretty as it feels like carving out a new stroke) - what feels odd and hard to me is the left side start of the swing, and getting the body low by dropping left leg (like I naturally do on FH loop)

Thanks in advance.

 

[NextLevel]

Hi all

I have not posted here for a while as have been practicing and playing league matches a lot. Now that period is over I want to focus on my BH as an attacking weapon, including both loop drive/open up and topspin to flick.

First goal is to develop my open up/loop drive from more down to up to a more rotational And forward stroke with a more closed bat angle, hitting the ball top left side more than lower back middle. There is a very interesting video of ML practicing the extreme version of this stroke here;

My focus points are to start stoke further toward left thigh and not drop bat as low, weight transfer to left leg and snap to right, more forearm and much more wrist.

I would welcome any thoughts or observations on my first few goes here (it may not be pretty as it feels like carving out a new stroke) - what feels odd and hard to me is the left side start of the swing, and getting the body low by dropping left leg (like I naturally do on FH loop)

Thanks in advance.

Looks good. I wish someone would feed you multiball because I don't have an idea of how much spin is on that ball but all that said, it isn't quite how I would approach it. The twist doesn't have to be as obvious. The most important thing is the squat to get your paddle lower but you don't need to really straighten your arm swing to drop the paddle much. I would practice some light open paddle backspin hitting using a pancake stroke. Then I would then try to increase the pancake effect using the body and wrist/arm to swing in larger or smaller circles and vary the ball effect and contact thickness and contact point on the ball. The pancake hits the bottom initially but you come higher and higher on the ball as you swing faster and faster. So you can get a decent topspin vs backspin without dropping the arm so much. Think swing in circles or curves. Good luck. But the squat is the key to reduce the size of the arm swing.

 

[Wrighty67]

Looks good. I wish someone would feed you multiball because I don't have an idea of how much spin is on that ball but all that said, it isn't quite how I would approach it. The twist doesn't have to be as obvious. The most important thing is the squat to get your paddle lower but you don't need to really straighten your arm swing to drop the paddle much. I would practice some light open paddle backspin hitting using a pancake stroke. Then I would then try to increase the pancake effect using the body and wrist/arm to swing in larger or smaller circles and vary the ball effect and contact thickness and contact point on the ball. The pancake hits the bottom initially but you come higher and higher on the ball as you swing faster and faster. So you can get a decent topspin vs backspin without dropping the arm so much. Think swing in circles or curves. Good luck. But the squat is the key to reduce the size of the arm swing.

Thanks NL, what’s a pancake strike?

 

[NextLevel]

Thanks NL, what’s a pancake strike?

Start with your paddle open and hit the backspin ball by supination the forearm a little (turning the racket over from open to somewhat closed by hitting the ball - Ti Long haa a good video of this for the forehand not sure whetherhe has an analogous one for the backhand). Do it to hard and you may hit the ball off the table light backspin. Against very heavy backspin, it can be more effective than looping to be honest, but hitting requires precise spin reads because it is more spin sensitive than looping for spinny inverted so most players only use something like it when the ball is high or they have a perfect read of the ball based in experience or intuition. That way, you can learn the principle of using the spin on the ball as well as your arm speed once you learn how to transition the pancake hit into an approach for looping backspin.

 

[Wrighty67]

Start with your paddle open and hit the backspin ball by supination the forearm a little (turning the racket over from open to somewhat closed by hitting the ball - Ti Long haa a good video of this for the forehand not sure whetherhe has an analogous one for the backhand). Do it to hard and you may hit the ball off the table light backspin. Against very heavy backspin, it can be more effective than looping to be honest, but hitting requires precise spin reads because it is more spin sensitive than looping for spinny inverted so most players only use something like it when the ball is high or they have a perfect read of the ball based in experience or intuition. That way, you can learn the principle of using the spin on the ball as well as your arm speed once you learn how to transition the pancake hit into an approach for looping backspin.

I found the Ti Long FH vid - so a sort of forearm/wrist only open blade shot from what I can see. That’s my default BH loop that I’m trying hard to move away from - I’m consistent at returning balls like this but it’s weak and easily attacked. I’m trying to move away from this towards a more compact and attacking open up/loop that is more wrist focused and more rotational vs down/up.

 

[Der_Echte]

Hi Wrighty... you got a lot of motion going on for this shot... lots of shoulder/torso twist... elbow moving to the side and up during the swing... (although you are making better use of lower arm than in the past)... this extra motion makes it more difficult to time impact and make a whip... it is also moving the strike zone as you swing... it just gets in the way of transferring power to the ball and making clean efficient impact.

Maybe you practice it 20,000 times and you can make it work, but it just makes you work harder doing it like that.

Your robot is set to deliver the ball to nearly chest height once it gets to your strike zone... sometimes you get balls like this... this makes it difficult to do your topspin vs underspin for slow/heavy spin... except a loop drive or hit

I would like to see how you do vs a medium to heavy underspin ball that comes at you with a lower trajectory... you see this more in matches where the opponent is not giving you a sloppy push.

 

[Der_Echte]

Der,

You are really observant. I was psychologically afraid to step around because the next table is near.

But you are right, the root cause of all my problem stem from my poor footwork.

Now that I can spin better, my next goal is to improve my footwork so that my bat can reach the ball better.

At the next lesson, I'll ask my coach to help me do the step around / pivot FH drill so that I can kill for the point rather being pin down at my BH by annoying uncle targeting my BH all the time.

Such is the misery of a FH dominant player.

Yes, I see things, many of us are in a TT culture that tells to go macho man FH or go home if the ball comes a little or a lot to the BH. it takes some aggressive strong footwork and anticipation, but even old, heavy players can play a step around FH on a slower ball to the BH.

It is indeed good to step around and make a FH... the FH is very dynamic and powerful, so why not get it into play first?

However, the reality is that many players below a level under 20% of the top players in the field of players do not consistently have a good ready position, discern impact well, or have fast reliable footwork... so when such a player tries to make that FH play, it is often an error and point lost. That is why the uncle crowd can play safe and get errors... and blast a few of the high ball to keep you afraid.

What is NOT coached by many coaches is to be practical and use what you have to win points... even if it is the OPPOSITE of convention.

It is NOT a national crime on those balls a little or a lot to your BH to take a step and make a solid position with leverage and make a BH hit, drive, or loop drive... you have the position and leverage, so why not? You can make a strong, reliable high percentage attack that is pressure or wins points on its own... and you are not out of position for the return if ir happens, simply reset to semi BH with bat center chest... if ball comes to FH, simply move arm with bat to side, take one step with right foot and pound it... you are ready for this too. if it comes to BH, then one step forward and pound away.

It is not terrible to attack with BH from leverage and strength and be ready for another BH (or a 1 step FH)

If ball comes to your middle... then take a big step to your right with your right foot and get right foot at least 20 or 30 cm to the right of ball and now you set a strike zone to cover any area on the table with perfect control and power.

So what if coach wanted you to play a FH (that you would have lost 80% + of the points), you can get the same job done with easier footwork and better leveraged position with the BH... so why not use an easier strength when the opportunity presents itself?

 

[Der_Echte]

Again I articulate a similar point...

Now that you are making pressure and winning points on balls to your BH and vs balls to your body... now the opponent will avoid those areas... and the only places left are OUT or to your FH...

... Then when you get your FH going for winners, opponent realizes he is out of options to play soft... and now must play with more risk... which means more free gifts to you.

This means you brought more psychological war to the opponent and all you really did was be ready and execute a few BH shots you already knew how to do.

Your readiness to do so and enough strong execution is enough to make opponent play a lower level. You would have forced him to play lower... this makes it much easier for you to play.

 

[banbekas]

Hello everyone. I'd like to post a shor video of me warming up.

The video is short because I didn't expect uploading it would use so much mobile data. I'm the one in black and any suggestions and critics are welcome. Thank you.