Backhand topspin tutorials are useless

[kase]

As a guy who is still learning to BH loop, I will notice that I still focus on tightening the arm and wrist first to initiate the stroke. This is of course completely wrong and results in balls going weakly into the net as the tension and power dissipates before the point of contact (especially when I time too early and reach for the ball).

To my monkey brain it makes sense that I need to focus and tense up my arm to prepare to hit the ball. If I isolate my focus to just my arm, there will be less to worry about and less to go wrong, right? (obviously wrong).

Hello,

If you want to focus on your body parts for the purpose of developing a new way to execute a stroke, that is fine, but you need to make sure the exercises you do are easy and simple so that you are not overwhelming yourself. You only need to do that for a few minutes, then notice the feeling and the ball that is produced from it.

Then it's time to move on and forget about body parts. When executing a stroke during regular training or a match you cannot think about how your body is working - you will fail. You need to think about producing the ball that you want and get your mind off of the mechanics. Your body will compensate if it needs to. Do not take your focus on the mechanics into the match or even into regular training, or it will become a habit and it will sabotage you. (I have had this problem)

This podcast may be helpful explaining why:

My suggestion would be to think more about positioning and variation and less on power / big movements. Most people lose because of lack of control, not lack of power. I recommend stabilising the wrist as this is a source of inconsistency and inaccuracy. If you do use wrist, you will get more spin / speed but at a cost. Even pros, who train hours per day, struggle with accuracy when using their wrists.

Once you have stability and accuracy, the BH can be deadly without ripping the ball, especially if you take the ball early, which will give you a lot of free power. Plus you will have much more control for when you need to defend, and you can also turn defence into offence very easily.

Remember slow-to-fast. Go slow until you contact the ball and then accelerate. This will make timing easier and give you better control (closed / open loop systems are mentioned in the above podcast too). You can also utilise breathing / grunting on ball contact to improve timing.

 

[turbozed]

I played arm only backhand loops for years and I turned out okay. We sometimes over intellectualize the learning process because we don't know how many roads can lead to Rome including thoae that take a seemingly wrong path. In the end, the main reason why you don't hit proper backhands in matched (assuming this is true in the absence of video tape review) boils down to two truisms - your body is using the stroke it trusts under pressure and you haven't trained the proper backhand under pressure enough for your body to feel it is worth initiating. Without pushing thr limits of your technique (which many people don't do because it hurts the practice session unless you are doing it as part of rapid multiball or with a coach who understands what the goal is), it is hard to develop technique that you trust under pressure. Very often the player that hits the ball better under pressure is simply the player who has practiced it more. And this is usually true regardless of technique, though when practice is balanced out, technique begins to make a difference (of course, I am missing such important things as reading the ball etc. Which invite a pressure of their own...)

Maybe we are describing different things. While under pressure with faster balls to my backhand I usually revert to a block. I'm pretty sure when I start meeting better players that send stronger balls to my BH, I'll need to develop a compact BH loop that looks like 'arm only.' But I'm guessing that even your arm only loops probably involve some sort of core contraction and maybe subtle hip shifting that produces significantly more quality than my 'arm only' loops.

My 'arm only' loop problems happen often on balls where I have plenty of time to hit so they are not reactive at all really. It's extra embarassing when my opponent gives me a slow ball the BH, I'm perfectly ready and tensing up waitng for it to come expecting to launch a BH winner, then my hand reaches out to meet the ball and it goes dribbling harmlessly into the net. These are balls that in practice I consistently crush with a loud punchy BH that I know I'm using my full body for (even though in video it looks like my body is completely still).

 

[turbozed]

Hello,

If you want to focus on your body parts for the purpose of developing a new way to execute a stroke, that is fine, but you need to make sure the exercises you do are easy and simple so that you are not overwhelming yourself. You only need to do that for a few minutes, then notice the feeling and the ball that is produced from it.

Then it's time to move on and forget about body parts. When executing a stroke during regular training or a match you cannot think about how your body is working - you will fail. You need to think about producing the ball that you want and get your mind off of the mechanics. Your body will compensate if it needs to. Do not take your focus on the mechanics into the match or even into regular training, or it will become a habit and it will sabotage you. (I have had this problem)

This podcast may be helpful explaining why:

My suggestion would be to think more about positioning and variation and less on power / big movements. Most people lose because of lack of control, not lack of power. I recommend stabilising the wrist as this is a source of inconsistency and inaccuracy. If you do use wrist, you will get more spin / speed but at a cost. Even pros, who train hours per day, struggle with accuracy when using their wrists.

Once you have stability and accuracy, the BH can be deadly without ripping the ball, especially if you take the ball early, which will give you a lot of free power. Plus you will have much more control for when you need to defend, and you can also turn defence into offence very easily.

Remember slow-to-fast. Go slow until you contact the ball and then accelerate. This will make timing easier and give you better control (closed / open loop systems are mentioned in the above podcast too). You can also utilise breathing / grunting on ball contact to improve timing.

Thanks for the info and perspective. I'll spend some time watching that video at some point since I'm actually interested in the theory of skill acquisition. From what I've read so far, I'll agree that performing a technique at a high level eventually means not thinking about how it's done.

That said, I don't see how I can just imagine producing the ball I want at this point and my body will just discover how to produce it. The fact that I'm imagining balls being ripped as winners and they're falling harmlessly into the net means that there's a disconnect between what my body thinks the ball is going to do to the versus what real world physics will actually produce.

During training I've tried to limit my training focusing on just one aspect of a technique. I remember researching this a bit last year and found a video that summarizes the current state of research. Here's a post I wrote with bullet point simplifications: https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/overwhelmed.30783/post-400167

If there's any research you've run into that maybe puts these modalities into question, then definitely let me know.

 

[kase]

"That said, I don't see how I can just imagine producing the ball I want at this point and my body will just discover how to produce it."

My approach is kind of imagining it like a video game. I visualise a yellow streak that I want the ball path to follow. When executing the shot I try to make the ball follow that path - I don't think about the parts of my body that will cause it to take that path (unless a very basic exercise to fix something). That's what I mean, I didn't communicate it effectively before.

The fact that I'm imagining balls being ripped as winners and they're falling harmlessly into the net means that there's a disconnect between what my body thinks the ball is going to do to the versus what real world physics will actually produce.

I suspect this is a focus / timing issue. If you are thinking about the mechanics of the shot, it will mess up your timing because your focus is on the mechanics instead of the ball, your position and timing. Also if you are rallying and thinking ahead, this will also cause you to lose focus on the present.

EG: if your timing is too early (rushed) and the ball arrives slower than you assumed, your body may compensate by reaching out with the arm so that you at least make contact with the ball. It may be weak but at least there is a chance of it going over the net - it's better than airballing.

I suffer from the above also and have thought / researched it a lot. When I find I'm in that situation, I think about being in the correct position and letting my 'muscle memory' do the rest (it's harder than it seems when you are an over-thinker.) I also try to adjust my energy levels if appropriate - am I too relaxed or too nervous? If I'm too relaxed, I don't move my feet and if I'm too nervous my strokes become too big and mechanical, which causes me to over-play the ball (hit long with less spin).

What works for me is when I try not to think about power, just good timing. If I do that, the power will come naturally, appropriate to the situation - especially over time as my confidence grows. I need to switch from 'thinking mode' to 'feeling mode' if that makes sense.

 

[NextLevel]

Maybe we are describing different things. While under pressure with faster balls to my backhand I usually revert to a block. I'm pretty sure when I start meeting better players that send stronger balls to my BH, I'll need to develop a compact BH loop that looks like 'arm only.' But I'm guessing that even your arm only loops probably involve some sort of core contraction and maybe subtle hip shifting that produces significantly more quality than my 'arm only' loops.

My 'arm only' loop problems happen often on balls where I have plenty of time to hit so they are not reactive at all really. It's extra embarassing when my opponent gives me a slow ball the BH, I'm perfectly ready and tensing up waitng for it to come expecting to launch a BH winner, then my hand reaches out to meet the ball and it goes dribbling harmlessly into the net. These are balls that in practice I consistently crush with a loud punchy BH that I know I'm using my full body for (even though in video it looks like my body is completely still).

So I was a blocker for most of my TT "career" in the early days, and even my best stroke (backhand topspin) was played largely with the arm. Most of the change in the physicality of my technique came when I learned to block with technique, no matter how inadequately. I developed an arm structure to play out of on forehand and backhand and learned to do small whip motions with that arm structure on both sides. IT gave me a new framework to play out of. I had to carry my preparation to the ball and time it over short distances (or sometimes over large distances when I was extra confident). I over time enhanced the body support and movement I put into those whip motions.

My main point though, again in the absence of video, is that your body is always executing what it believes has the best chance of putting the ball on the table as you desire. It is why I tend to make fun of just about anyone who only hits powerful 100% quality balls in practice. In my experience, 100% quality balls ruin my practice because I almost always lose my ability to time and control the ball when I go 100%. So if I have the right kind of partner, I train and swing at a lot of speeds and play at a lot of tempos, because very often, putting the ball on the table requires you to control balls that come at you at high tempos, not so much generate power on balls that come at you at high temps. And for the slower balls, a lot of the work is about using your legs to get into position so the ball comes into the right strike zone for your stroke to swing into it, not so much about the power you bring to the swing itself with your tensing up.

IT's one of the reasons why I have never understood why a lower rated player hits with a higher rated player and feels compelled to hit the ball hard. In fact, they should be taking every opportunity to learn to touch and control the higher rated player's ball. That will give them more than enough reward for their session.

The imagination thing kase is talking about works wonderfully if you actually work hard at producing various kinds of balls in practice at different kinds of temps to the point of almost surprising yourself. It does not work if you are consistently trying to produce only one kind of ball.

 

[omelet]

So I was a blocker for most of my TT "career" in the early days, and even my best stroke (backhand topspin) was played largely with the arm. Most of the change in the physicality of my technique came when I learned to block with technique, no matter how inadequately. I developed an arm structure to play out of on forehand and backhand and learned to do small whip motions with that arm structure on both sides. IT gave me a new framework to play out of. I had to carry my preparation to the ball and time it over short distances (or sometimes over large distances when I was extra confident). I over time enhanced the body support and movement I put into those whip motions.

My main point though, again in the absence of video, is that your body is always executing what it believes has the best chance of putting the ball on the table as you desire. It is why I tend to make fun of just about anyone who only hits powerful 100% quality balls in practice. In my experience, 100% quality balls ruin my practice because I almost always lose my ability to time and control the ball when I go 100%. So if I have the right kind of partner, I train and swing at a lot of speeds and play at a lot of tempos, because very often, putting the ball on the table requires you to control balls that come at you at high tempos, not so much generate power on balls that come at you at high temps. And for the slower balls, a lot of the work is about using your legs to get into position so the ball comes into the right strike zone for your stroke to swing into it, not so much about the power you bring to the swing itself with your tensing up.

IT's one of the reasons why I have never understood why a lower rated player hits with a higher rated player and feels compelled to hit the ball hard. In fact, they should be taking every opportunity to learn to touch and control the higher rated player's ball. That will give them more than enough reward for their session.

The imagination thing kase is talking about works wonderfully if you actually work hard at producing various kinds of balls in practice at different kinds of temps to the point of almost surprising yourself. It does not work if you are consistently trying to produce only one kind of ball.

I am really curious about this topic that is being discussed here: How does one learn a stroke?

I imagine what is being said is not "just imagine the stroke and stop thinking about mechanics even in practice (or even in shadow strokes)" but more like "start simple and focusing only on one thing at a time, and keep repeating, then add another edit to your technique step by step")?

Or am i getting it wrong? I know nothing about body mechanics theories/etc and am really curious about how to best learn/correct one`s form. [I am also aware there is no consensus on "perfect right form" and that one might see e.g. TiLong`s great video on BH Topspin against Backspin but he does not address how one needs to adapt ones`s stroke to short (slow, med, fast ball) vs medium long vs long (for all these one could factor in low, med, high height balls too). Like watching FZD match, his backhand stroke can look really off depending on the incoming ball but that is not "wrong" form, though there is a somewhat ideal "if you have time/space/energy" form (which is shown by many tips videos like TiLongs).

Appreciate the knowledge/etc.

 

[NextLevel]

I am really curious about this topic that is being discussed here: How does one learn a stroke?

I imagine what is being said is not "just imagine the stroke and stop thinking about mechanics even in practice (or even in shadow strokes)" but more like "start simple and focusing only on one thing at a time, and keep repeating, then add another edit to your technique step by step")?

Or am i getting it wrong? I know nothing about body mechanics theories/etc and am really curious about how to best learn/correct one`s form. [I am also aware there is no consensus on "perfect right form" and that one might see e.g. TiLong`s great video on BH Topspin against Backspin but he does not address how one needs to adapt ones`s stroke to short (slow, med, fast ball) vs medium long vs long (for all these one could factor in low, med, high height balls too). Like watching FZD match, his backhand stroke can look really off depending on the incoming ball but that is not "wrong" form, though there is a somewhat ideal "if you have time/space/energy" form (which is shown by many tips videos like TiLongs).

Appreciate the knowledge/etc.

Learning theory is a broad topic, so let me give you a very incomplete skeleton of an answer.

So I, like you and many others, worked with a variety of coaches over the years. The two most influential coaches were one at the amateur level who taught me a lot about how to hit the ball without really moving, and another at the national/international level who taught me a lot about how to generate good racket head speed by applying whip mechanics to a variety of strokes. Over time, he also began to get more technical about how to use the body to drive the upper arm and by proxy the racket through various paths and I am sure the Chinese are even more specific and technical in their advice. That said, there is also a lot of human learning theory tied to this that is important for learning anything. Mirroring people as children and adults is a huge part of things. Engaging the right muscles in exercises especially as a child is also critical as learning anything has neuro-linguistic aspects. Then there is the concept of adaptation.

One of the things that made a big impression on me was when the international coach and a mutual friend were working online together and he had the mutual friend learn to loop backspin without an instruction on how to loop backspin other than learning a backhand topspin in general. Over a period of about 15 to 20 minutes, the mutual friend learned to play topspins against backspin balls and adapted his stroke plane to the ball over time. He then proceeded to loop topspin balls off the table. So the international coach stressed that it was important to challenge people with adaptation so that they could develop the ability to adapt to different spins etc.

So very often, if I am teach a stroke, I have a broad template for the swing. Usually, as long as one good player does something similar or it checks a few boxes, I am good. The biggest thing I look for is swinging towards the ball. Both on blocks and on loops - making good contact. Many players try to spin so much they end up whiffing the ball or become inconsistent because they are not swinging towards the ball. Then I look for some sign of body usage and whip mechanics with limited use of the upper arm. All that said, if someone is playing at a high level with their swing because they are just good at reading the ball and the game, it is what it is, no point in wasting too much time with discussing other things.

Once the swing is reasonable, the rest for me is adaptation. Play against topspin, play against backspin, play against no spin, play against sidespin, play against pips and learn to adapt the stroke to more and more circumstances.

The amateur coach was very big on plays because he had a basketball background. So he would train his students on thirdball or serve return or to serve long and counter or serve long and block or a lot of things to improve specific sequences that were costing or winning points. He was an amazing backhand coach, his pride point was that he should never have a student with a bad backhand and as far as I know he was very successful. So he helped his students play faster and better by defining how they would play. That was partly how my backhand oriented blocking game developed at the time, it was much later working with the international coach that I developed footwork and forehand, though then my knees went away and it became a waste of time to train too much (but I am stubborn)...

In reality, what limits most players is first and foremost speed of play and ability to adapt given speed of play. Of course, spin, power, footwork etc. all affect speed of play and ability to adapt. But if you read the game well, you can always compensate with anticipation and touch. All those other things that are more easily teachable just allow you to compensate for not reading the game perfectly.

But what I did because of adaptation - I just try to incorporate a lot of different balls in my practice. I try to practice against backspin, topspin and no spin and various sidespins. When I loop to block, I always consciously vary the speed and vary looping distance so I am not locked into one speed or one tension. I try to play against opponents who are allowed to vary stuff to some degree so I can learn to adapt (but I am not healthy or fast enough anymore to allow infinite variation, but there has to be some or you will not grow). But of course, all this assumes that you have a good reasonable swing that you are okay with. Then you can practice adapting it.