Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Garrison]

From "Bruce Lee''s Fighting Method: Advanced Techniques" Page 121

My coach of ages ago, Alex Tam, was an oldschool PH with SP. He had a fantastic BH smash! Tried to teach me and I couldn't get it. Was also frustrated when i wasted time to decide should i punch or go for a BH smash or swing around for the FH. I gave up on the BH smash and just focused on the punch. Saves on decision time.

Whoa I had no idea Bruce Lee wrote a book on advanced table tennis techniques! :O

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Whoa I had no idea Bruce Lee wrote a book on advanced table tennis techniques! :O

It is clearly obvious you have never seen him play!

 

[Boogar]

Hey guys, how are you all doing?

So the league Season is finished and our team got third in the group of eight. Sadly not enough for the rank up into the 3. league.

However my stats weren't all that bad. In the individual ranking of the league I placed third in about 50 people with 32:6 stats. 19:2 in the second part of the season ( we play every team twice).

I lost to a much higher rated player twice and in the last match I lost a very close match against a counter hitter who played his A game. He killed every slow and spiny topspin threw at him. At 0:2 i realized he couldn't loop all that well against backspin. So i got up to 2:2 but lost in the fifth due to 4 freaking net balls!In a row, from 6:6 to 6:10 and then he killed my long fast serve.

Still i am happy with my season. On the weekend of the 8. april im going to play a team tournament on Saturday and a singles on Sunday. Maybe I can get some more points to get up to 930 - wich is about 1750 usttr.

Another good thing is that i feel like i am improving a lot in the last couple weeks. I got a very good hint about the backhand flick from a good player and it really helped me! Gotta get some new video on that! I am curious on how it looks!

Plus a woman from Germany is staying at Bern for about half a year. She has a ttr rating of about 1500-1600 and plays in Köln. I learn a lot from playing with her. And today i even managed to beat her for the first time! Those fast games with super cool topspin rally are just so much fun!! Next time i will ask her if i can record a match against her.

Cheers!

Edit: The individual Ranking of my league:
http://click-tt.ch/cgi-bin/WebObjec...ingTotal&championship=MTTV+16/17&group=199340

 

[NextLevel]

... i got up to 2:2 but lost in the fifth due to 4 freaking net balls!In a row, from 6:6 to 6:10 and then he killed my long fast serve.

Cheers!

You still aren't listening.. but you may have been frustrated. Don't learn this lesson the hard way.

Good job! Get there soon!

 

[NextLevel]

My latest practice - you can see how heavily whip factors into my technique - forehands the first 8 minutes, backhands the next 5, inside out forehands the next 7, mixed stuff the next 4, then a match to close it out.

 

[Der_Echte]

Although having a little lower stance will help Suds, it is not what is killing his power and consistency on bh away from table. All he needs to do is get the waist down another foot and explode up and forward. He is in position, but hard to time such a big arm without starting kinetic energy from a braced and leveraged position.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

 

[Archosaurus]

I trained my backhand yesterday, for a few minutes, but we only had very little time and half of it was wasted.

I have looked at hours of video of myself and my partner, and even though I have seen him do some stupid deliberate mistakes on the block, he fails to admit that his racket is doing things that I can see but he can't feel. I don't know how I can convince him.

I made him hold the racket in place while he receives my stroke to prove that it is not the spin or anything and he can aim the ball if he tries, and tried everything including showing video to prove to him that his stroke is extremely inconsistent and keeps going all over the place, but he denies it because he can't feel it. His racket moves far too much and keeps going up and forward in a way that will throw even no-spin out, but he is adamant in that he is tapping forward and moving it slightly.

I don't know what to do. I will show him more and more video until he just accepts it. I have even blocked for him and told him to pay attention to what I do but it hasn't helped.

Now I kind of understand how TTD feels when I am stubborn and keep debating something that is probably a fact, just because I am trash at tabletennis and don't get it.



I would upload the video but he doesn't want his face to show anymore and it does show in the video, so take this. This is what I'm talking about. I think part of the issue is his need to extend his arm and keep the racket sideways, and I've tried to keep his elbow low and racket tip pointing up but it hasn't done anything.

 

[SchemeSC]

I think part of the issue is his need to extend his arm and keep the racket sideways, and I've tried to keep his elbow low and racket tip pointing up but it hasn't done anything.

I am terrible at backhand blocking, but I was always taught to keep the tip of the racket facing sideways. Your friend probably just needs to keep the racket higher and wait for the ball to come to him more. It's easy to have too much upwards motion in your BH block when you have the racket below the ball.

But hopefully someone's who's actually good at BH blocking will weigh in.

 

[Archosaurus]

I don't think it's so much as keeping the tip sideways or more up is wrong per se, I don't know. A lot of good blockers block sideways, so there's that.

I think for my partner, he is not blocking sideways because of a technique, but because of improper mechanics and understanding. It just doesn't look right to me. I block mostly vertical and haven't got issues like this.

If someone does know the hard theory on this, please do tell. I'm more concerned about how I can get my partner to understand why his ball is going out and how to fix it.

 

[NextLevel]

Mostly vertical is old school. Modern is sideways or diagonally upwards and sideways. Reason is that being vertical interferes with your ready position to play a backhand topspin or adjust the blocking angle as the wrist and forearm rotation in that plane is limited on the lollipop/vertical block.

Keeping the racket high is usually enough depending on the amount of topspin. So is having a small whip action or fixing your counterhit to be horizontal not vertical/lifting. The main thing in TT is to be willing to experiment and miss. People who don't think they are doing the best they can because they think they understand the full range of their strokes. You need to be willing to intentionally try to put the ball in the net sometimes as well as off the table to truly understand what your stroke and equipment does.

 

[Archosaurus]

That makes sense, about the blocking technique. I rarely backhand topspin, so I'd understand why I block nearly completely vertical normally. This also explains why yesterday when I was doing backhands, I was blocking much more sideways when I was trying to get the ball back in control if the placement went off. It's closer to where you want to be when doing a backhand.

Do you suggest I try to get him to hold the racket higher, and try to net the ball intentionally for some time?

 

[Der_Echte]

I am of a different school. There are many positions to block the ball and a different way to do them each, and they all have disadvantages compared to just blocking ball off the bounce or on rise a few inches away. Just get the bat there with a loose grip. If you step to the position and look over the ball, you will have stability and leverage. That is the easiest worry free and consistent way. Everything else gets more aggressive from that baseline.

 

[NextLevel]

That makes sense, about the blocking technique. I rarely backhand topspin, so I'd understand why I block nearly completely vertical normally. This also explains why yesterday when I was doing backhands, I was blocking much more sideways when I was trying to get the ball back in control if the placement went off. It's closer to where you want to be when doing a backhand.

Do you suggest I try to get him to hold the racket higher, and try to net the ball intentionally for some time?

Yes. You technical inconsistency and lack of ideal practice conditions may make this a nightmare, but get him to put the ball into the table on his side, work up to the net bottom, then to the net green, then to the net white, possibly even off the table. The range of information and racket angles will help him understand what he needs to do to block if he uses a shot relaxed technique.

 

[Archosaurus]

Yes. You technical inconsistency and lack of ideal practice conditions may make this a nightmare, but get him to put the ball into the table on his side, work up to the net bottom, then to the net green, then to the net white, possibly even off the table. The range of information and racket angles will help him understand what he needs to do to block if he uses a shot relaxed technique.

Sounds pretty good. I think I made him do something like this when he was learning to counterhit on the forehand. I guess it's time to go to the bare basics.

I've made him hold his racket still at angles to the corners and the middle while I loop into it, and showed him how to control the placement that way. This is a bit similar, right?

 

[Der_Echte]

My latest practice - you can see how heavily whip factors into my technique - forehands the first 8 minutes, backhands the next 5, inside out forehands the next 7, mixed stuff the next 4, then a match to close it out.

Ironically, an LP player picked up a Gergely on my recommendation if he wants to experiment with Korean punchblock LP style. He bought a sheet of Karis M from me and on his Joo S.H. (I call that blade an attacking blade) he cracked FH like crazy. On his Avalox P700 he cracked it too. Ditto with Gergely and hiz LPs had more spin continuation. He could move Karis on any of his blades and be stable... and he mostly hits on FH.

 

[Archosaurus]

Today was really, how to say it, bleh!

I did find out one thing, at least. I have mainly two kinds of loop contact, and my usual contact is really not that spinny, but I can produce a different kind of contact that feels like I'm grazing the ball more, and it's much spinnier.

I didn't get any footage of me looping like that on video so I'm not sure what it is, but if I had to guess I would say that my contact is sharper. I usually contact a bit flat.

I'll try to make that kind of contact my normal contact.

 

[suds79]

The wall of text would have been too much (you guys would have killed me )

So I posted my latest findings on my blog.

http://chroniclesofgossima.blogspot.com/

Check it out if you want.

A New Discovery: Part 1 & 2.

You guys know pretty much all of part 1. Maybe except the last couple of paragraphs.

part 2 I think you might find interesting. It talks about the natural angle of the blade comparing penhold to shakehand.

 

[NextLevel]

You are making a mountain out of what I think is a molehill. Modern rubbers let you hit the ball when looping. I tend to get much more spin than I would like to when smashing. It comes with the territory. Though on the other hand, since you limit yourself to cheap Chinese stuff, I can see why this may not be your experience.

 

[Archosaurus]

You are making a mountain out of what I think is a molehill. Modern rubbers let you hit the ball when looping. I tend to get much more spin than I would like to when smashing. It comes with the territory. Though on the other hand, since you limit yourself to cheap Chinese stuff, I can see why this may not be your experience.

Is this directed at me or suds?

 

[NextLevel]

Suds, though it likely applies to both of you.