Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[suds79]

Well the last couple of weeks have been a complete no show for me as this cold kicked my butt. Have missed the last two weeks of club. Thankfully, I'm back to full health now. Have taken some of this time to practice my serve.

There's a good video from ping skills where they talk about serving into the danger zone. Look it up.

Basically in my service practice I wasn't focusing on what type or how much spin I can get on the serve like I normally do. I was focusing on placement & height of the bounce. I placed a couple of towels across on the far end that would be considered the danger zone. From there I focused on serving it to where the ball either bounces before that zone or after if I am going for a deep fast serve. It was a great tool. You could immediately tell if you had a good serve or not based on if the table hit the table or towel. I found that no matter what type of serve i did. side/back, side/top, pure back, dead, etc., If I had it bounce shot before the danger zone, the ball was always a two bouncer before going off the table.

It was my general observation that I have been essentially hitting the serve too hard slamming that first bounce into the table. That first bounce far too often close to the end of my table. Should shoot for more middle of the table more often. I'm serving much softer now and am working with generating the quality spin without needing excessive blade speed. Just have to contact the ball thin.

This has been something I've wanted to work on for some time as many of my serves tend to go just off the table and are subject to getting looped. I suggest try it yourself for service training.

Now the next step will be to see if I can repeat the same serve in a game situation where you're a little more pumped up.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Have taken some of this time to practice my serve.

There's a good video from ping skills where they talk about serving into the danger zone. Look it up.

NL posted that vid a few pages back ... for others who didn't see it before:

I did an hour of serve practice last Saturday, didn't think of using a towel or other target ... however, i was working to try to get a pure downspin serve which was totally foreign to me, that is out of the pendulum motion.

Yin-Yang ... i tend to serve too fast and long ... like you working on serving slow and short.

EDIT: Glad to hear you are over your cold too!

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

You all guffaw me when I request 9 points, however ...

it is not without precedent ... from A TTD Meeting 2.5 Years in the Making from Nov 27, 2013 (coincidentally Nov 27th was Bruce Lee's birthdate), one of TTD's beloved moderators, Carl, talking about playing Matt Hetherington:

Perhaps if he played with his right hand or gave me 8 points, I would have a chance.

p.s. I was searching for something and came across that thread

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

13 May/Saturday, fellow TTD member and CCer '42andbackpains' feeding me multiball. Edited fluff out, although the fluff contained some early missed shots or misfeed, it also contain 42&bp constantly reminding me of the looping stroke ... my 'muscle memory' (such a misnomer, muscles have no memory) keeps going for the oldschool 1980's sidespin loop with the long windup stroke ... looking to have a shorter/compacter stroke and loop topspin instead of sidespin ... need to trust the rubber also ... 42&bp's chastisement echo my lessons with Der_Echte and NextLevel from 2 Oct 2016.


Also I see what Carl spotted previously, my left arm sometimes goes a little wonky when looping. During warmup pace, i seem to be able to keep left arm relatively stationary, but during multiball/pressure, my structure/form has been compromised.


For a good laugh, warts and all (i'm on the far side dressed in black):

0:00 - 1:00 - FH warmup
1:00 - 3:48 - First basket FH loop (2nd basket of FH loop not included in this edited)
3:49 - 5:48 - 3rd basket - FH loop 1st ball, FH loop drive 2nd ball - i gassed out and quit in the middle of the 3rd basket as it was unproductive

 

[suds79]

i was working to try to get a pure downspin serve which was totally foreign to me, that is out of the pendulum motion.

I get it. That's one that's tricky for me as well. Sure I could flatten out my paddle (basically parallel to the ground) and contact the bottom of the ball going forward to get a good amount of backspin but i don't like that version of the serve because I think it's a dead give away what it is... No deception. Furthemore, that's not really out of the pendulum serve.

I've been having success thinking of it this way. Try this out.

So you are doing your pendulum motion. The way I see it, you can either get side/back (I don't think you can get pure back out of the pendulum motion give the way the blade is angled. There always will be some element of side IMO) on the early part of your pendulum swinging downward (which I think is probably the most common way IDK) or at the very end of the swing...

"Wait what suds? wouldn't the end of the pendulum swing be more of topspin when the blade is coming up?" True. But not if you're focusing on trying to hit more on the front of the ball. A nice plus is that it's easy to switch between your side/top. Side/top your either contact more of the side or back of the ball at the end of your pendulum serve. Or side/back if at the end of your pendulum serve you're trying to contact more front of the ball. It's almost like you're scooping the ball. I will say if you do this, try to really get some force into the ball because it wont' have much forward momentum. Truth of the matter is you'll probably never actually hit the pure front of the ball but your scooping action coming under the ball will probably be more.

There are videos kinda demonstrating this but lets take a look at that famous Ma Lin backspin service video where he's bringing the ball back into the net over & over. (Side note we should take into account this was back in the celluloid days) There is no way on a high toss he can hit the back of the ball and generate that much spin to do that. I'm convinced he's hitting the front of the ball which is aided by the high toss.

Something to think about. There are videos of people showing they can do this. But I think 95% of them are all done with extremely high bounces that would get killed so take that into account. Not an easy serve to do.

 

[suds79]

+1 thanks for sharing OSP

I like the drill of 42andbackpains feeding you a mixture of backspin & no spin or slight topspin balls for you to adjust.

I think learning to transition from that loop motion to back to more normal is challenging but important to learn. So easy to send that 2nd ball long also.

I will see if I can get my club training partner to feed me balls like this. I have a robot at home but I don't like that it feeds basically high spin on everything. Top, or back, etc. I don't get to practice vs slow no spin balls as often as I'd like to.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

I get it. That's one that's tricky for me as well. Sure I could flatten out my paddle (basically parallel to the ground) and contact the bottom of the ball going forward to get a good amount of backspin but i don't like that version of the serve because I think it's a dead give away what it is... No deception. Furthemore, that's not really out of the pendulum serve.

Totally agree on lack of deception due to serve not out of pendulum motion.

"All warfare is based on deception."
~Sun Tzu

But I figured I should at least work on having a decent pure backspin serve first ... as I had none to begin with.

I've been having success thinking of it this way. Try this out.

So you are doing your pendulum motion. The way I see it, you can either get side/back (I don't think you can get pure back out of the pendulum motion give the way the blade is angled. There always will be some element of side IMO) on the early part of your pendulum swinging downward (which I think is probably the most common way IDK) or at the very end of the swing...

"Wait what suds? wouldn't the end of the pendulum swing be more of topspin when the blade is coming up?" True. But not if you're focusing on trying to hit more on the front of the ball. A nice plus is that it's easy to switch between your side/top. Side/top your either contact more of the side or back of the ball at the end of your pendulum serve. Or side/back if at the end of your pendulum serve you're trying to contact more front of the ball. It's almost like you're scooping the ball. I will say if you do this, try to really get some force into the ball because it wont' have much forward momentum. Truth of the matter is you'll probably never actually hit the pure front of the ball but your scooping action coming under the ball will probably be more.

There are videos kinda demonstrating this but lets take a look at that famous Ma Lin backspin service video where he's bringing the ball back into the net over & over. (Side note we should take into account this was back in the celluloid days) There is no way on a high toss he can hit the back of the ball and generate that much spin to do that. I'm convinced he's hitting the front of the ball which is aided by the high toss.

Something to think about. There are videos of people showing they can do this. But I think 95% of them are all done with extremely high bounces that would get killed so take that into account. Not an easy serve to do.

Ah, thank you suds! Much to mull over and work on, thank you again!

 

[NextLevel]

+1 thanks for sharing OSP

I like the drill of 42andbackpains feeding you a mixture of backspin & no spin or slight topspin balls for you to adjust.

I think learning to transition from that loop motion to back to more normal is challenging but important to learn. So easy to send that 2nd ball long also.

I will see if I can get my club training partner to feed me balls like this. I have a robot at home but I don't like that it feeds basically high spin on everything. Top, or back, etc. I don't get to practice vs slow no spin balls as often as I'd like to.

Turn down the apin and have it hit into the table as if serving to reduce the spin further.

 

[Richie]

I know there's a lot of emphasis on deception but I personally think loading the ball with spin is more important (if you can then deal with the spin of the return etc). Up to a certain level, even if they know what spin is on the ball, it's sometimes so heavy that they can't deal with it (which is also deception I suppose).. or they underestimate the level of spin that is on the ball.

In my opinion, in order to develop the most effective serves I think one should focus on generating spin first, then focus on placing the ball well with danger zones in mind as well as variation of placement in combination with spin. Lastly deception which can be achieved in different ways.

Some people I play will add in all kinds of extra movements before/after the serve and just end up serving a float serve because of this. One podcast which Brett Clarke was on (I can't remember which one), if I recall correctly, talked about the russians and how they just loaded the ball with spin on their serve and it was like a bomb hitting the table. But as I said.. it needs to suit your game. One heavy backspin serve and a nospin serve and just varying the placement could be all you need. I know I definitely don't think about placement enough.

 

[NextLevel]

Suds79,

It is good that you are figuring some of these things out. In general, it is the kind of stuff a good coach shows you if they know what they are doing.

By the way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with serving flat and underneath the ball to get heavy backspin. You just need to hide your handle with your body so it is harder to tell how fast the blade is moving. Learning to come up underneath the front or to swing that way with confidence is how you get the heaviest backspin, whether you add sidespin or not. Sidespin does reduce the backspin depending on how the returner approaches the ball so I recommend being able to serve pure heavy backspin so that the returner has to show different angles to return the serve perfectly. Some people will pop up the side backspin on certain approaches to the return. My backspin serves are absolutely my highest level serves and I can serve to 1600 USATT players without them successfully pushing one over the net in a game and sometimes in a match.

And of course, every good heavy spin serve needs a backup no spin variant to attain its full potential. I can pretty much serve a no spin variant of all my serves. It is extremely important for dealing with the people who seem to be able to push every serve and cause problems using my spin. Then the pushes pop up or go long. Or even into the net sometimes. But you need heavy enough spin to make the threat real.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

i think the most important, and i lost again a few matches because of that, is to keep the serve LOW (and SHORT).
even if you serve no or little spin, but the ball is low and short, there's not much your opponent can do.

Then try to put more and more spin. sometimes, or often, just a LITTLE bit of spin is better than a lot of spin. because a good receive will kick your own spin back at you and make the 3rd ball more difficult...

 

[TTHopeful]

Ma Lin set a trend with this serve. It has so much spin! I wonder if he could do the same with the plastics?

 

[NextLevel]

I know there's a lot of emphasis on deception but I personally think loading the ball with spin is more important (if you can then deal with the spin of the return etc). Up to a certain level, even if they know what spin is on the ball, it's sometimes so heavy that they can't deal with it (which is also deception I suppose).. or they underestimate the level of spin that is on the ball.

In my opinion, in order to develop the most effective serves I think one should focus on generating spin first, then focus on placing the ball well with danger zones in mind as well as variation of placement in combination with spin. Lastly deception which can be achieved in different ways.

Some people I play will add in all kinds of extra movements before/after the serve and just end up serving a float serve because of this. One podcast which Brett Clarke was on (I can't remember which one), if I recall correctly, talked about the russians and how they just loaded the ball with spin on their serve and it was like a bomb hitting the table. But as I said.. it needs to suit your game. One heavy backspin serve and a nospin serve and just varying the placement could be all you need. I know I definitely don't think about placement enough.

Well said. The real issue is technical competence when serving. I had decent serves but only a deceptive backspin no spin thing when I first started working with Brett. My game went in the last two years from serving to get into rallies to being unable to win matches if my opponent returned my serves too well. The technique to achieve heavy spin I learned was shorter, and with the smaller motion, I could execute tricks faster and make serves look more similar as there were no obvious tell take follow through as is typical with lower level spin serves. But when I see people teach serving, there just seems to be a lot of stuff missing. The closest thing I have seen to a really good serving video is the new one "Serving is. A Ritual Part 1" on the ITTF website.

By the way, loading up the ball with spin is important even if you can't deal with the spin on the return. It might get you enough free points if mixed in with serves when you can deal with the spin in the return but they look similar.

Finally, knowing what I know now, it is best to find a good coach and take lessons on serving. Focusing on spin can be dangerous if the technique for doing so is large and inefficient. You have to have your serving ready to layer on all the deception and no spin and if you don't want it to be pure luck, work with a coach who can show you how your serves will evolve so you aren't doing things that keep you from easily getting better.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Heavy spin on serves is good. Varying spin on serves is good. It is cool to see how when you serve heavy backspin over and over and then take a little off, you often get a nice loose ball to crush.

If you give light backspin over and over and then you load one up, you get a net.

When you read your opponent, you can kind of figure out what a good strategy is. And yes, that is deception. And what you need to work on is the heavy one.

For me, often, a good strategy is loading backspin over and over and forcing the opponent to push long on it. Because my opening vs heavy backspin these days is pretty solid. And when I do that the opening loop is going to come back HEAVY.

After the opponent starts feeling comfortable that he is handling the backspin, I take the spin off and make it light, close to no spin. But some. By the time they get used to the switch, I've gone back to heavy and they are netting the serves.

But, yes. The mechanics of heavy are what to work on.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[Boogar]

300 Pages ! The Goon Squad will never find out what we are planning, if its written here!

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

For me, part of the idea is letting the opponent get comfortable thinking they have solved the problem while they are actually giving me what I want. And then using the change in level of spin to mess with their head and their self confidence.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Today i had a 1:1 lesson not with the usual coach. It is always a bit confusing because they're not teaching the same thing.
In TT like in many other things, there's not just a single answer to every problem. I've had a problem for too long having a high error rate on the 3rd FH attack mainly because of #1 bad foot placement #2 not enough backswing , or so I thought.

Todays coach, a young player, recommends me
- NOT to use too much my waist, use more arm instead. (Don't turn the shoulders as well)
- Don't move the left leg, nor the right one. transfer weight from the RH leg to the LH leg
- To not lose the balance, it is important that the right knee bends forward and not towards the (right) side.

He put a small wooden board standing on the right of my left foot, stuck a ball below my left shoulder, and make me hold with my open left hand a ball while executing the FH.

Here is where it gets a bit more interesting:
arm the FH always the same way wherever the ball is coming, if its coming naturally in the hitzone, no adjustment to make
elif the ball is not very deep, when starting the swing, go to the ball and end up with the LEFT foot forward,
else if the ball is going a bit too much to the right, do a cross step, hit the ball while stepping to the right with the LEFT foot first, the right foot will just be there just to get the balance back.

This is NOT the traditional way i was taught. its maybe the younger style ? the advantage is to favour quick lateral steps either side, with the feet more parallel to the table than with other technique, its also to gain reaction time because the first half of the gesture is the same: take more or less the same backswing wherever the ball is coming on the FH side, and that gives an important extra split second to react as well.

 

[ttmonster]

I am trying to visualize what you are saying and its too difficult by reading ... may be you can take a video when you get time ...

Today i had a 1:1 lesson not with the usual coach. It is always a bit confusing because they're not teaching the same thing.
In TT like in many other things, there's not just a single answer to every problem. I've had a problem for too long having a high error rate on the 3rd FH attack mainly because of #1 bad foot placement #2 not enough backswing , or so I thought.

Todays coach, a young player, recommends me
- NOT to use too much my waist, use more arm instead. (Don't turn the shoulders as well)
- Don't move the left leg, nor the right one. transfer weight from the RH leg to the LH leg
- To not lose the balance, it is important that the right knee bends forward and not towards the (right) side.

He put a small wooden board standing on the right of my left foot, stuck a ball below my left shoulder, and make me hold with my open left hand a ball while executing the FH.

Here is where it gets a bit more interesting:
arm the FH always the same way wherever the ball is coming, if its coming naturally in the hitzone, no adjustment to make
elif the ball is not very deep, when starting the swing, go to the ball and end up with the LEFT foot forward,
else if the ball is going a bit too much to the right, do a cross step, hit the ball while stepping to the right with the LEFT foot first, the right foot will just be there just to get the balance back.

This is NOT the traditional way i was taught. its maybe the younger style ? the advantage is to favour quick lateral steps either side, with the feet more parallel to the table than with other technique, its also to gain reaction time because the first half of the gesture is the same: take more or less the same backswing wherever the ball is coming on the FH side, and that gives an important extra split second to react as well.

 

[42andbackpains]

Then try to put more and more spin. sometimes, or often, just a LITTLE bit of spin is better than a lot of spin. because a good receive will kick your own spin back at you and make the 3rd ball more difficult...

I agree. I have been practicing the underspin serve for about 2 to 3 months now and now starting to develop mid to heavy underspin serves. Now my issue is lifting with my opening backhand loop is much harder now due to my mid to heavy spin being returned to me for the 3rd ball attack. Now something more to work on.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

300 Pages ! The Goon Squad will never find out what we are planning, if its written here!

Hahahaha. You are right. I won't. Hahahaha.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy