The Jab Serve

Eli Baraty · May 21, 2016

Hi Everyone,

I developed a coaching video which shows the basic principals of the Jab serve. I don't think anyone has produced a tutorial about this particular serve so I hope those who watch will learn and enjoy the video.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me and more more detail about me here's my website [email protected]

thank you

darnner123 · May 21, 2016

This is a very good video explain it but i have no idea how are you supposed to generate a lot of spin with this.
It doesn't look like you can generate as much spin as the pendulum serves.

UpSideDownCarl · May 21, 2016

@darnner, you can generate a lot of spin with that serve. Very useful and deceptive serve.

@magictouch, it looks a lot like Brett Clarke's punch serve. He has a few videos on it. Some are public. Some you need to be a TTEdge member to see.

Here:

BTW: if you didn't know, Brett is lefty. So when he shows the serve righty, he is doing it with his off hand. But, the footage shows he can do it pretty well with either hand.

And either way, magictouch, good video and easy to see the mechanics of the serve. It doesn't have to be the first to be a good aid in learning a new and good serve.

UpSideDownCarl · May 21, 2016

By the way, what is the poll about. It looks like my answer could be at least 3 of the 4 questions in the poll. Yes, it is table tennis; yes, you called it the jab serve even if there are other names like punch serve; yes, it is a serving tip. It might even be a coaching video.

NextLevel · May 21, 2016

UpSideDownCarl said:
BTW: if you didn't know, Brett is lefty. So when he shows the serve righty, he is doing it with his off hand. But, the footage shows he can do it pretty well with either hand.

Nah, he flips the video recording to reverse the images.

Eli Baraty · May 21, 2016

hi,
sorry i didn't know Brett has this video and we seem to call it a different name

i did the poll by mistake also :-( forgive my ignorance

vvk1 · May 21, 2016

@magictouch - thanks for the great video.

@Dan - Perhaps you should add Eli to the list of verified pro's (or verified coaches)?

For those who don't know, Eli is a highly respected and well known coach here in London. If you play in a tt league here, there is a good chance you'd play against one of his former/current students.

As to the amount of spin that these serves could generate, earlier this season I had a chance to play against a team of Eli's students in the Barnet league, and they used jab/punch serves very effectively, with plenty of spin and variation. I got owned more than once

Baal · May 21, 2016

darnner123 said:
This is a very good video explain it but i have no idea how are you supposed to generate a lot of spin with this.
It doesn't look like you can generate as much spin as the pendulum serves.

You can generate a great deal of deceptiveness in spin, trajectory and placement. That is more important than absolute amount of spin, but also you might be surprised how much spin you can get. These days I use variations of this on about 2/3 of my serves.

Top Chinese women have been using this for longer than elite men, but Fegerl and Garell use it a lot. I started working on it a few years ago after wondering why Liu Shiwen almost never uses a pendulum serve, and after I faced the reality that no matter how many buckets of balls I practiced, my reverse pendulum was always going to be horrible. Jim Butler showed me strategic tips on how to used the jab serve more effectively.

I have been calling it a hook serve but jab serve is a better name.

I think this is an excellent video. Brett has one too, but we can never have too many coaching resources on the web.

fais · May 21, 2016

darnner123 said:
This is a very good video explain it but i have no idea how are you supposed to generate a lot of spin with this.
It doesn't look like you can generate as much spin as the pendulum serves.

Think about Bruce Lee's one inch punch and he managed to generate so much power with such little motion. I agree with you that it is harder, but I've been surprised before with what can be done with proper timing, weight transfer and contact position/type.

UpSideDownCarl · May 21, 2016

Yep, jab, punch, hook. And the more good videos on serving the better.

I do a similar but different serve that I call a hook serve that is a little similar and a little different where the motion is very small and the tip of the blade is pointing up. I know with that serve I can get a ton of spin with a tiny motion. But anyone on the receiving end of this serve well executed will know you can get a really good amount of spin.

And anyone watching magictouch's video can tell he is a pretty high level player.

Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

UpSideDownCarl · May 21, 2016

NextLevel said:
Nah, he flips the video recording to reverse the images.

That is funny. I always thought he just could do it from either side.

I tried to read the writing in the background before I posted that but it was hard while walking. Now I know at least part of why I had trouble reading it on my phone. Lol.

Tony's Table Tennis · May 21, 2016

Baal said:
You can generate a great deal of deceptiveness in spin, trajectory and placement. That is more important than absolute amount of spin, but also you might be surprised how much spin you can get. These days I use variations of this on about 2/3 of my serves.

Top Chinese women have been using this for longer than elite men, but Fegerl and Garell use it a lot. I started working on it a few years ago after wondering why Liu Shiwen almost never uses a pendulum serve, and after I faced the reality that no matter how many buckets of balls I practiced, my reverse pendulum was always going to be horrible. Jim Butler showed me strategic tips on how to used the jab serve more effectively.

I have been calling it a hook serve but jab serve is a better name.

I think this is an excellent video. Brett has one too, but we can never have too many coaching resources on the web.

Baal beat me to it "You can generate a great deal of deceptiveness in spin, trajectory and placement"
To me, the main goal of a serve is not to out spin your opponent, but to focus on deceptiveness.
Of course, garage players, I would just out spin them

Great video Eli!!

yuri.saldon · May 22, 2016

That's funny, today I was practicing exactly this server! I found easier to perform, and give me some points

Sent from my 2014819 using Tapatalk

BeGo · May 22, 2016

too many serve name, so difficult to tell apart.

Till now, I have yet to fully comprehend the difference between pendulum, tomahawk float, reverse pendulum, backspin, jab, etc.

They all look the same to me.

fascinating indeed.

Sent from my T1X Plus using Tapatalk

ttmonster · May 22, 2016

I think its important we call out the spin as reverse corkscrew .

The reason being most of the spin generated using this serve is not top or under rather corkscrew on different axes. The side spin is pure spin but that is where it stops.
Most people struggle returning the serve and even servers struggle understanding what they are doing even though they keep getting free points from it.

Why I suggest we call it out clearly is because the ball behaves differently depending on where you touch the ball while returning and is quite different when compared to regular pendulum serve where the spin axis on a perpendicular to the direction of motion . Here where the spin axes is on a plane almost or just slightly at an angle to the direction of motion.

I wish somebody makes a video on how to return this particular serve along different placements on the table

, it might help a lot of people understand the effect of spin.

Henning Ottosen · May 22, 2016

Thank you for sharing guys.

gmiller2233 · Jun 6, 2016

ttmonster said:
I think its important we call out the spin as reverse corkscrew .

The reason being most of the spin generated using this serve is not top or under rather corkscrew on different axes. The side spin is pure spin but that is where it stops.
Most people struggle returning the serve and even servers struggle understanding what they are doing even though they keep getting free points from it.

I think this statement is exactly correct. I've been working on it quite a bit and at first To be honest wasn't sure exactly what was going on. It wasn't until I really started horsing around with all variations of side,top, under and then trying a ghost serve hitting from under with side trying to get to to come back to the net that I could really see strange corkscrew thing more clearly. I was kind of expecting it to behave more like the pendulum serve just in reverse at first but it's not really the case.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ardenhouse165 · Jun 7, 2016

http://tabletennisengland.co.uk/news/archived/zak-abel-from-table-tennis-star-to-music-sensation/

More of Eli's talents!!!

Luis Nasche · Jun 12, 2016

This thread gave me a really good new weapon.

I can serve from my backhand pretty well, but I never found it disruptive and I don't like the positioning.

I've tried to master the reverse pendulum serve, but it always felt unnatural for me.

After studying the videos on this thread and dedicating time practicing it just became a very good new weapon. After adapting the motion to mimic my normal pendulum serve I may loose some spin, but I'm a firm believer that serves are not about heavy spin, but about being deceptive and now starting from the same base with almost the same movement I can sidespin left or right with topspin or underspin and I don't feel this serve unnatural like the reverse pendulum neither out of position like I feel backhanding or tomahawking a serve.

Placement is also easier with this serve than with reverse pendulum, at least for me.

Eli Baraty · Oct 8, 2016

Thank you but the real talent is Zak in the video, a former student of mine that was no.1 in England for his age and the year above. He hadn't played for 6 years prior to this video. Sang danced played TT, multi ball all in very tough condition and all in one take. He was sensational in this video.

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