Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[JeffM]

Nice backhands Jeff...

Thanks ttmonster

 

[NextLevel]

Nice backhands Jeff...

The backhands were good but the two first strokes were lazy relative to those backhands. Something to think about. All balls without heavy topspin can be approached with shots similar to those backhands. That will raise your level if you get it right.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

There is also some spring in the legs when you crouch, but plenty of that can be gotten by staying on the balls of your feet with light bend, which is more similar to what runners do.

The "staying on the balls of your feet with light bend" is spot on IMO. Ages ago, i learned from sports where any movement is involved (which is probably all sports, well physical sports). I do that then, I do that now.

However, I'm watching other players and many don't do this. Although my club has many older members which just play for fun and fitness, some of the players who compete seem to me to be flat-footed also.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Happy Friday TTD Chit Chatters!

At my club, sometimes many members are present. As a result, most of the tables will warmup for 5 minutes or so, and then a 3 out of 5 match will be played. Sometimes, there are some tables off to the side which generally are training only. Usually the higher-caliber members play on those tables.

I don't really care about winning or losing matches. But keeping score helps me to see my progress in my unretirement.

Last night's workout:

0) Started to file away my handle, not quite there yet. May be a mental issue or not, I feel the contoured grip gives me a better grip and control of the blade. I don't know what the official term is of this 'thing' is, but the Avalox logo is embedded into the handle with a plastic covering. That may be in the way of my contouring the handle further

1) Played a gentleman who is a shakehander but plays with one side only. Very steady defensive player, sometimes will loop or smash. Played him one other time a few months ago and lost 3-2, most games close with 2 deuce games. IIRC, I was using my old racket.

I am very self-conscious when it comes to hitting with my partner when I don't know them that well. I can be 'spastic' and hit all over the place. Many factors with unretirement being the primary and well also, I have 1400 strokes lol. Feel bad in having my partner pick up balls constantly. I kept apologizing to him, he put me at ease and say 'Don't worry!' repeatedly ... i finally loosened up mentally and let it flow and let it go, and i started ripping some of my long stroke loops at 50% power/speed. Form-wise i have some 'challenges' (there are no 'problems', only challenges to be overcome!) ... but despite the lack of proper looping form, it felt good. I didn't have the foresight to try to video myself hitting. I asked his permission, so i have 2 short clips. We were just hitting probably 30 mins before someone showed up to call next. Was not able to hit more and video. Inspired by NextLevel's video-postings, I may post the videos, however, they are wacked ... behind me were a row of lockers, i opened one of them up, placed my phone to record, didn't realize the door hinge obstructed partially the view. (side note, will order a Joby, some small magnetic tripod thingy shortly).

Lost 3 straight to him at 6 and 7, mostly because I lost points on bad attacks as well as missed serves. After the match, he told me to relax, he liked blocking my loops as they were challenging for him, he said once relaxed, the loops were flowing, once i can consistently loop like that, he felt i can get to the next level. Also, sometimes I rush my serves, as a result, missed serves, he again said to relax and not rush the serves.

I thanked him profusely for the games and advice and look forward to hitting with him again!

2) Played E. next. She is a modern ph using a sh racket with phantom on the back. Since time immemorial I have always been psyched out by junk rubbers. Have played her 3 or 4 times in the past, mostly losses at 3-1. She has a good smash, not much of a looper, tricky server, good punch (push-block), uses her phantom well to facilitate her smashing.

Many people were waiting to play, I was still warm from my first partner, hit with E. 10x and we started a match. Lost 2 straight. But in those 2 losses, were some good points by me ... mostly serve fast pendulum sidedown to her, she uses phantom, 3rd ball loop. I missed most of my 3rd ball loops, what was key for me though, I was mentally prepared to swing around to 3rd ball loop. I will EXPLODE to smash if i serve sidetop and opponent pops it up. Looking to get rid of mental barriers of loop vs smash and THINK ATTACK. I'm more of a flat-hitter/smasher. Looking for the same explosiveness and speed i get from setting up for 3rd ball smash towards my 3rd ball loop.

I won 2 straight to tie the match 2-2. She had to leave so I got to stay on the table and played the next player. Mentally drained from tying the match vs E. Physically I didn't pace myself properly throughout the night in drinking water and gatorade. Thanked her for the games and said, "Next time!" and we both smiled lololol

3) Lost to the next player 3 straight. I had some good smashes as he popped up my sidetop and fast nospin serves. I tried 3rd ball looping with 40% success, feeling tired. I ate his illegal sidetop serves. i didn't call him out for the illegal serves. Despite playing modern ph style, he didn't use his reverse bh at all. He didn't loop. Just let me make mistakes on my attacks and won. Thanked him for the games.

-----

Sat down, watched some high-level players play. Cooled down and then walked home. I'm trying to lose weight, old, slow and fat LOL ... generally 90% mentally and physically drained from table tennis. I force myself to walk the 2,200 steps home which takes me about 25 minutes. One of the side benefits of joining this club as it's 3 train stations away from home. Have been a member since late April.

OBSERVATIONS

1) RELAX! JUST FLOW! BE LIKE WATER.

2) Not moving well, but felt good that i'm trying to 3rd ball loop. The reason I don't 3rd ball loop more is because i have a decent pushing game ... if i serve sidedown, and opponent pushes back to my bh, i push back to their bh and if they push back, I generally will 5th ball loop. I've have no qualms on 5th ball looping, probably because i have more time to move to set up vs finishing the serve and trying to rush myself to set up for 3rd ball loop.

3) I had this tactic ages ago but didn't remember it until recently as i watched other players do it, and finally able to implement it ... on serve returns, just touch the ball, let the serve bounce off lightly off my racket... not sure of the official TT term for it ... i add no spin or speed... obviously depends on the spin of the serve also. Did it against the first gentlemen in the 3rd game when I remembered it and also did it 3rd and 4th games vs E.

Thank you for reading my post if you did!

Generally Fri to Sun, I don't play TT. Busy with family stuff. Looking forward to Monday's workout.

Have a great day and awesome weekend TTD Chit Chatters!

 

[Archosaurus]

Today, I was playing like shit. Seems to be a trend now.

I captured video of me playing someone, but I don't know if he would want me to post it anywhere, so I won't. In fact, I can't: I looked at it, took notes, then deleted it for space. I can literally fill up my old phone's memory in one session.

As expected, form was pretty bad. Strokes themselves weren't too far off from how I self-hit, but my overall body movement was pretty bad. Wasn't moving well nor was I taking the balls in the ideal zone with my backhand and sometimes not even with my forehand. I knew it was mostly like this, unless I was really on fire and warmed up so I could start playing lower and more disciplined, but it was a good refresher. I know exactly what to work on: in fact I can already play how I want in drills: "just" need to translate to games.

I really need to learn a method to not be tense, without an extensive warmup. If I do drills for an hour, I will be warmed up, and play quite well. Disciplined form is much easier that way. Normally, I am not ideally warmed up due to the environment I play in: not exactly time for a full fledged warmup. That being how it is, I can try to improve my relaxation over the board and develop a fast warmup method to get me in the zone and muscles warmed up.

I found a better angle. It's similar to the angle NL films from, only more constricted. You can't see my opponent and my very wide backhand and forehand. Although you can see the opponent's side of the table to the endline.

I did an hour and a half or so of self hitting and filmed maybe 15 mins or so from that angle. Progressively, I got a lot better until I was hitting the shots how I want exactly where I want, and it was looking pretty good. Not a lot of pace or spin deliberately, but my consistency and placement was excellent.

The drill I was doing is not exactly realistic or good practice for improving quality per se, but it's only purpose was to ingrain the feeling of doing proper strokes. Also consistency training at low speed.

I took two balls in my hand, got low into a comfortable position facing crosscourt in my backhand court, threw a ball up in front of me without changing the angle of my back, hit a backhand crosscourt with strict form from low without changing the angle of my back, threw another slightly to my left, stepped around and hit a forehand down the line. I could also hook the backhand to go over the sideline, and also hook the forehand to go over the sideline. I also did fading backhand down the line, then fading forehand crosscourt. The consistency was good and it felt very good.

I've found that leaning much more forward is actually more comfortable when I'm low. To make sure I'm relaxed, I let my arms droop for a bit in that position. No back pains. Doing the strokes from this low position was effortless by the time I was nearing the end of the session. I can't transfer the videos now, but I might post them later.

I did some serves, too, and they were pretty good. Inspired by NL's story, I tried serving with my palm. I can only really serve relatively heavy sidespin with my bare hand, anything else is just too inconsistent. I believe the story.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

I really need to learn a method to not be tense, without an extensive warmup.

These work for me, I offer you these in hopes it can help you or set you on a Path of Self-Discovery to see what works for you.

1. Sit and just breathe. Concentrate on the in-breath, concentrate on the out-breath. Zone out background noise, only 'hear/feel' your breath. Long deep breaths.

VARIATION: breathe in for a count of 4 (or 3 or 2 if you can't do it for 4 count long deep breaths) - hold for a count of 4 - exhale for a count of 4 - hold for a count of 4 - repeat = inhale 4/hold 4/exhale 4/hold 4

2. IIRC, this is called 'progressive relaxation'.

Relax your body by tensing each body part up, and then let go/relax. Feel that letting go after the tension, that's relaxation physically, mentally just let all thoughts go. Proceed to next body part and repeat throughout your body.

When you need to relax, recall that relaxation after the body part tensing. If you cannot get into relaxed state during TT, physically tense your body and then let go. In time, you shouldn't have to tense up to relax, you will be able to go straight to relax.

If you need to 'anchor' it to some act or thing ... if you touch your racket a certain way, or bounce the ball off the racket, or bounce ball off the floor, or think of a word and associate it with the relaxed state, or a routine of a few motions and/or coupled with the 'trigger word'.

Personally, before a serve, i hunched my shoulders up to tense up, then exhale and unhunch my shoulders simulataneously, bounce the ball off the floor 2x and then serve. I can't get into a relaxed state right off the bat. Still need to physically tense up. Sometimes I just breathe in/out with 2 long breaths.

3. Close your eyes, visualize/recall pleasant times or a beautiful scene... mountains, fields, waterfall, virgin snow, good beer/drink, good food, sharing intimate moment with loved one, recall childhood vacation, etc. Feel how happy you are in that visualized/recalled scene. Feel relaxed.

At some point, you don't have to close your eyes, you should be able to get into that relaxed state.

Truly hope these helps.

EDIT: Baseball players have a whole routine, generally tar the bat, loosen/tighten their batting gloves, take a few swings then approach the batter's box ... once in, dig in and it's on

Basketball players before foul shots will bounce the ball a few times, look up at the basket, etc.

You get the idea.... good luck in finding what works for you!

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

JeffM,

Backhands look great! The modern ph style is a total mystery to me... i 'retired' around the time of Jiang Jialiang as world champ (1985/1987; traditional ph pips) ... so just before Liu Guoliang was world champ. I watched some of LGL's matches, as well as Ma Lin and Wang Hao, but just as a spectator and not as a player watching world-class players playing in hopes of gleaning some useful technique LOL. I marvel at their reverse bh skills.

At my club there are about 3 decent modern ph players ... one is 2000 or so... 2nd told me he maxed at 1950... 3rd is just a club player (i always lose to him, but we have close games) ... guessing he's maybe 1600 max but i've watched him play a 1900-2000 and he played well.

Watching these 3 play, in the deep recesses of my pea brain, I have the inkling of a notion to try the modern ph style at some point. Want to regain my game though as that is my foundation. I would have to learn many new techniques/tactics as the reverse bh opens up a whole new modern world for this dinosaur.

Thank you for posting your vid!

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Add on to my relaxation post:

Baseball players have a whole routine, generally tar the bat, loosen/tighten their batting gloves, take a few swings then approach the batter's box ... once in, dig in and it's on

Basketball players before foul shots will bounce the ball a few times, look up at the basket, etc.

You get the idea.... good luck in finding what works for you!

 

[Liten]

I usually just pretend the other guy is a clown.. Like:

 

[Archosaurus]

@OldschoolPenholder

Those sound like viable options. A lot of stuff like this was in "Ultimate Speed Secrets" by Ross Bentley. For some reason, I had only considered physical options, like simply using the muscles to warm them up. Mental options are more efficient, in my experience.

While it's necessary to warm up the muscles for good performance and to remove most of the risk of injury, I can bet you that high level players on average are relaxed no matter how cold they are. I'll need to really pay attention to high level mental performance techniques: I own a lot of material about that, after all.

 

[Nuke Skywalker]

Double inverted chopping continues to be fruitful. I now am more successful vs a select group of players that I am familiar with. Vs unknown players, I still tend to be more successful using pips. Still, if I trained this style I bet I'd develop consistency and a game plan vs new people. Serve return is a big x-factor, but my others strokes are better. Practice practice.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Double inverted chopping continues to be fruitful. I now am more successful vs a select group of players that I am familiar with. Vs unknown players, I still tend to be more successful using pips. Still, if I trained this style I bet I'd develop consistency and a game plan vs new people. Serve return is a big x-factor, but my others strokes are better. Practice practice.

Keep at it!

 

[Der_Echte]

Nuke... you gunna join TTD Member Gene Tuttle and me at the WDTTC Giant round robin?

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

 

[NextLevel]

The backhands were good but the two first strokes were lazy relative to those backhands. Something to think about. All balls without heavy topspin can be approached with shots similar to those backhands. That will raise your level if you get it right.

By the way, why did I make a big deal out of this? Let me explain a little. I am not saying you should kill the ball early but I am saying that you should strive to put spin on the ball consistently, which is something you do not always try to do but which should be a part of your style at the moment.

The other subtle reason is that it is more important to be able to loop earlier than it is to loop later in the point. Getting the first topspin in can lead to you beating players who are are far better than you are. If you know how to play with heavy spin, unless your opponent is a heavy spin chopper ( and there are very few of those since it is hard to chop with inverted ), you can basically loop any ball you want if you take your time to prepare to do it. Of course, as the opponent gets better, the quality of loop will matter more and more, but if you are consistently putting spin in the ball, good things will happen. Work on developing the ability to topspin all kinds of balls. Not with pace but with heavy spin. The pace will come later when you start reading the balls better and getting into position faster.

 

[bzing]

This is the best video to pump you up if you have a hard match or a tournament coming up.

 

[Boogar]

Hey guys I m back from the tournament. Unfortunately I got my Ischiatic nerve caught while,lifting stuff in the military and on top of that I got sick as well
Still played and lost to a much lower ranked player in the first series and was out of the first series as consequence.
In the second series i won my first match against a similar ranked player... but i played very poorly and almost lost despite leading 8:1 in two of three games. Then i got kicked out by a player much higher ranked. At least I played two very good games and almost took them from him.

Which leads to the next topic. I am playing with Xiom rubbers, however i noticed that they get wet very fast if its humid and the ball slips all the time. Do you know any rubbers that are similar to Xiom Omega V and Vega Pro?
Im thinking of going back to H3 neo with boosting it.

 

[Der_Echte]

H3 or any tacky Chinese rubber will do much better in high humidity.

If you can handle it on Fh go for it. Sometimes I use 999 on a custom Colestt.com sponge on Fh in summer.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

 

[Shuki]

I've often found that when I breath on my rubber and wipe with my hand, oils get on the rubber and are very difficult to remove. I test the rubber by pressing a ball against it and trying to slide it.

I use a rubber cleaning sponge and dab it every so often (6points)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ajtatosmano2]

Yesterday I played terrible in an U18 tournament. I marked X in doubles partner and get someone, who is a very good player. I was happy, thought we can win around 2 games, if we're lucky even 3. After that: first game, opponents are two pimples player, a chopper (long pips) and a guy who can chop and hit with long pips. I said OK, that won't be too hard probably, they aren't that good. The match begun. I receive: simple backspin serve, half long. I push it long and wide to the pips. The incoming ball is totally spinless and quite high. My partner did a big backswing and BOOOM! The ball missed the table with 3 meters (little bit an overstatement, but...you know, it was so easy). And that's how we said goodbye to the doubles.
Okay, nothing happened, it's just doubles. That's when the nightmare arrived. I neverever played that bad. I sweat from the shame..and my coach seen it! He travelled to the center just to help me and then...Oh my god! [suicide emoticon here]
I have to perform better, despite I will graduate this year, so less training. After crying out my sadness I can say that two weeks ago I beat U15 ranked 13 guy and was beaten 1-3 by U18 ranked 20 (if I remember correctly), so this week was a bottommost point.

 

[Der_Echte]

Ajt T...

Sometimes you experience such a defeat to know what is fun when you make a big win, don't sweat it.