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I’m no star in it, but have a reasonably solid fh flick. I think the main thing is stepping in and i think the relatively small flick-o-the-wrist is propelled from there, using a little hip-powered forearm whip with an explosive wrist snap.

They don’t all need to be kill flicks. When I realized that it fell into place.

yeh i'm not even trying to kill the ball, i just can't put power in it. making no mistake is the 1st step for me.
 
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yeh i'm not even trying to kill the ball, i just can't put power in it. making no mistake is the 1st step for me.

I train it by focusing on timing the contact, and then gently lifting (instead of pushing) the ball. Once you get the hang of that, add explosiveness to put a bit more pace (and a bit of spin) on the ball. That's what worked for me to get it going.

I was trained to do that type of flick on the bh sides as well. Now that the banana bh flick has come in vogue, that technique may have become obsolete, but it's still there — up to the point that it's messing with my ability to execute a proper chiquita. There, too, it's the timing of ball contact that's crucial, I think, but it seems to be slightly different between classic flick and chiquita.
 
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Forehand flick is like any other stroke in table tennis .. to be good at it , you need to be able to read the spin on the ball well and early enough , to be able to adapt your stroke to that and time it perfectly.
e.g if its a ball with little or more underspin and if you can meet at a height above the net , its the easiest to power flick because you literally don't need to add any spin to bring the ball on the other side. The underspin is going to bring it down for you , you just need to adjust your bat angle and power through it.
If its a dead ball , its easier with chinese rubbers to power flick it because the rubber is not bouncy so slight change in the above technique , that is the bat angle solves the problem
Now if you are dealing with a top spin then you need to cover and add your spin ... again all this changes if you are using a bouncy european rubber ...
one thing I try is if I am missing the timing on the flick or the ball is going long , I try to soft flick it first with better placement and then try to adjust my technique to add power as I start adapting to the ball ..

Why so many caveats ?
because its probably one of those situations where you have the least amount of time required to read the ball correctly and the chance to add spin is less and is difficult because of the short time and the amount of whip you can generate above the table on a short ball with only so much time in hand ...

like any other stroke you need to practice it .. and when you play the stroke trust your instinct to work it out for you ... if you over think it when you are playing you will always be stiff it and never get it .....

... easier said than done as always

PS .. forgot to add you need footwork to get inside the table in time .... the hardest part for some ... sometimes you can cheat on it a little bit if you are playing doubles but in singles ... you need to read the ball really early to get there if you are some slow slob like me :D
 
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So the training's week is almost over. Its a lot of fun and the kids are motivated. Its very interesting how different their abilities to learn and coordination are. Some can already rally the ball a couple hundred times even while doing the butterfly. And others can barely hit the ball to the other side. Still i think all of them have made great progress.

Cool thing is, the guy I am doing this together probably has a US rating of 2300+, so after and before class we usually hit some balls. He mostly plays with his weak hand, with which he still plays very good, even tho he never won so far :p Still its very intense to play against him, as he wants to win really bad! I think that's great attitude to push yourself even while training.
 
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Forehand flick key is to step in low and get close to the ball, keep your upper arm very parallel to the table and use the wrist and forearm to flick. After that it's very much a case of spin reading to determine bat angle and how much your brush vs hit etc. Multiball is perfect for practicing these. Especially random where they serve some long and fast to backhand so you don't step in too early (makes it more realistic) and also vary the spins.
 
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With flick, the most important thing IMO is to remember that the table is small and you don't need to lift you just need to get the ball forward and over the net. Contact point is more important than stroke speed for basic flick.
 
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Today I spent 2 hours with 2 different coaches, 1 hour of multiball, 1 hour with a chopper.

Here I practice attack vs defense on half table, FH diagonal then BH diagonal with FH, and in 2nd half i also do BH topspin.

sorry looks like the flooring is hollow so the tripod is moving each time I make a step, and as such the quality of the video is horrible !

I think its important to train with chopper coaches because I play very often choppers in tournaments.
 
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With flick, the most important thing IMO is to remember that the table is small and you don't need to lift you just need to get the ball forward and over the net. Contact point is more important than stroke speed for basic flick.

Agreed. Contact at highest point is most important. Against heavy backspin you will need a slightly open Face, but then it's still mostly a forward action, the blade angle ensures it doesn't go straight down into the net.
 
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Thanks for the all of the advice gents!

My plan for the evening was to practice the FH flick (even brought balls for multiball as Thursdays are without a coach) but I ended up playing with my favourite Vietnamese training partner who is like a living ad for Xiom Omega Pro. Extremely hard loops with massive amounts of spin. I spent a good hour blocking his loop. An extremely fun and useful practice when it comes to reading top spin and relaxing the grip.

(Fully aware that it's his technique producing the speed and spin as I can't get two loops on the table with his setup)
 
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With flick, the most important thing IMO is to remember that the table is small and you don't need to lift you just need to get the ball forward and over the net. Contact point is more important than stroke speed for basic flick.

Agree and understand but how do you produce the kind of speed like the little kid did? The impact did sound like an extremely hard BH flick where the sponge is fully compressed (the sound of wood I guess?).
 
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Agree and understand but how do you produce the kind of speed like the little kid did? The impact did sound like an extremely hard BH flick where the sponge is fully compressed (the sound of wood I guess?).

If the ball is high and you are in position, you can accelerate through almost anything. If you don't know the general technique for accelerating the racket, the hand component is showed in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooOY8AqK60c

If the ball is low, it is a perfect read of the spin and timing as well as a bit of use of the body. but it is usually low spin balls. Most pros do not forehand flick low backspin short balls because they do not see the forehand flick as a spin shot. Maybe a rare variation for rallying but most of them will push short or backhand sidespin flick.
 
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Takkyu_wa_inochi said:
I think its important to train with chopper coaches because I play very often choppers in tournaments.

Haha, my coach in Korea was a chopper... a lady chopper... and I learned footwork and offense there in Korea at this club with this coach.
 
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Today I spent 2 hours with 2 different coaches, 1 hour of multiball, 1 hour with a chopper.

Here I practice attack vs defense on half table, FH diagonal then BH diagonal with FH, and in 2nd half i also do BH topspin.

sorry looks like the flooring is hollow so the tripod is moving each time I make a step, and as such the quality of the video is horrible !

I think its important to train with chopper coaches because I play very often choppers in tournaments.

I like that you always seem so happy. Must be fun playing you or coaching you.

It is good that you Do not miss much and get somewhat good power. I would like to adress some things you Maybe can try. But like i Said, you already get a pretty good result so Maybe it is Dumb to change to much.

I think you start with the racket to high. I think you have your racket as you should play against topspin . You need to accelerate very good now to get the ball to go over. It would be much easier if you drop the racket down more so you come more under the ball. I also think you can bend your legs even more, then you Will come more under the ball even more and can use the legs to bring the ball over.

I also think you should try to relax your arm more and have it more extended. Now it looks a little like you are pushing the ball forward and not Swinging, snapping with the forearm. If you Do this you Will easier get more spin. You Will also benefit more from using the body. If you have the arm close to the body the arm Will not swing more when you use the body. So you Do not benefit much from using the body at the moment.

I am interested in how much they focus on technique in asia? Echte have explained that they focus only on it in korea. But when i see videos from you and Nicholasy i Do not think they seem to correct much. Maybe i focus on different things. Technique is subjective. And if they focus on the technique i think him and yours technique should be close ro perfect because you practice with so good players and coaches. I Do not mean that you guys technique is bad, not at all But i so not think i as a part time coach in Sweden should find room for improvements when you train with asian supercoaches haha. But then of course it is very difficult to have perfect technique and it takes time to correct a stroke.

I hope i Did not was rude here. Did not mean to. You seem like a very nice Guy and i hope only the best for you. That is why i take time and try to say things i think you could try to become better.
 
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I like that you always seem so happy. Must be fun playing you or coaching you.

It is good that you Do not miss much and get somewhat good power. I would like to adress some things you Maybe can try. But like i Said, you already get a pretty good result so Maybe it is Dumb to change to much.

I think you start with the racket to high. I think you have your racket as you should play against topspin . You need to accelerate very good now to get the ball to go over. It would be much easier if you drop the racket down more so you come more under the ball. I also think you can bend your legs even more, then you Will come more under the ball even more and can use the legs to bring the ball over.

I also think you should try to relax your arm more and have it more extended. Now it looks a little like you are pushing the ball forward and not Swinging, snapping with the forearm. If you Do this you Will easier get more spin. You Will also benefit more from using the body. If you have the arm close to the body the arm Will not swing more when you use the body. So you Do not benefit much from using the body at the moment.

I am interested in how much they focus on technique in asia? Echte have explained that they focus only on it in korea. But when i see videos from you and Nicholasy i Do not think they seem to correct much. Maybe i focus on different things. Technique is subjective. And if they focus on the technique i think him and yours technique should be close ro perfect because you practice with so good players and coaches. I Do not mean that you guys technique is bad, not at all But i so not think i as a part time coach in Sweden should find room for improvements when you train with asian supercoaches haha. But then of course it is very difficult to have perfect technique and it takes time to correct a stroke.

I hope i Did not was rude here. Did not mean to. You seem like a very nice Guy and i hope only the best for you. That is why i take time and try to say things i think you could try to become better.

I'm not upset, thanks vm for trying to help me.

As I've explained a few times in this thread I work with different coaches, for example this place is called "LILI", it's a school and according to their HP, right now they have 10 different coaches of different levels. This is the only 2nd time I have a session with coach SATO, I had like 4-5 sessions with another chopper (coach HISAKI) as well before, and plenty of other lessons with more classic coaches [since 2013].

We're focusing mostly on the result, and given I wasn't able to hit more than 2 max 3 loops in a row against a chopper before that special training started, i think its already a rather fast improvement.

When i play choppers, and do this drill in particular i am not trying to put power on the ball, i am looking for consistency first.

If I take the rally starting at 0:37 for example, i am hitting only 70% max power everyball, only the 7th one (2nd after a push) I am trying to put more power perhaps 80-85% ?

The technique I've been taught there, is to focus on timing. You can see that I'm playing rather close to the table, for the opening loop I will time the ball a bit late in descending phase, and the same if I make a push and a push comes back, but for all other loops, I try to take the ball early before the top of the bounce (not saying its ALWAYS the case). By doing this I achieve more consistency. With this fast timing, I suffer less from the backspin of the defender and its easier to put the ball back on the table. Sometimes you can even see that the angle of the racket is rather closed and i still put it on the other side despite the heavy (?) backspin and yes it feels a bit like I'm "carrying" the ball not snapping it on those slower loops.

Only when i feel the ball better, then i will try to hit much harder.

Another example, on the one at 7:07 only the first one, and the last 2 (missed the last one) i'm trying to put more power.
or one the one at 12:30 after 2 BH, i do 3 slower FH loops then i manage to make 3 stronger FH loops to win the rally.

Consistency is priority #1, and then #2 put variation of pace, attack stronger when there is an opening or when i feel the ball better. tbh i think at my level of play, more power is not going to make me win more points. Not making those easy mistakes will. [sometimes you can see me missing after a good ball the next one or two balls very quickly ...]

I think you are right when you say that i could extend the arm more. I think its got to do also at what distance I'm standing from the table. I'm used to be this close but maybe back 5-10cm ? would help? But its also a general problem, not just against choppers. I've also been told when doing FH not to move too much on FH side but extend my arm more , i would have even more power for those kind of balls.

I think for BH i have a pretty good image of where my hit point is. but yeh, FH, its not always the case that I visualize where the best hitting point is, so i can take the ball too near from my body and lose power; and I'm not too aware that I can reach balls a bit farther than where I'm hitting usually, and that I could hit them more easily/with more power if I adapted correctly.

---

You could see me talking with the coach, so he IS giving some technical advice, for example if I remember well, he said that one of the reasons why I miss some balls, is a lack of coordination body / arm where I would push the body UP FIRST and THEN start the swing instead of doing it at the same time.

---
With my main coach Sakamoto, he doesn't speak so much of technique, except basic things. He keeps it simple for me because in his eyes I'm only that advanced and the focus is not on very small details. It is much more important to correct the footwork and posture for example. We do a lot of the same drills everyweek so its normal we don't spend a lot of time on explaining the technique.
 
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I'm not upset, thanks vm for trying to help me.

As I've explained a few times in this thread I work with different coaches, for example this place is called "LILI", it's a school and according to their HP, right now they have 10 different coaches of different levels. This is the only 2nd time I have a session with coach SATO, I had like 4-5 sessions with another chopper (coach HISAKI) as well before, and plenty of other lessons with more classic coaches [since 2013].

We're focusing mostly on the result, and given I wasn't able to hit more than 2 max 3 loops in a row against a chopper before that special training started, i think its already a rather fast improvement.

When i play choppers, and do this drill in particular i am not trying to put power on the ball, i am looking for consistency first.

If I take the rally starting at 0:37 for example, i am hitting only 70% max power everyball, only the 7th one (2nd after a push) I am trying to put more power perhaps 80-85% ?

The technique I've been taught there, is to focus on timing. You can see that I'm playing rather close to the table, for the opening loop I will time the ball a bit late in descending phase, and the same if I make a push and a push comes back, but for all other loops, I try to take the ball early before the top of the bounce (not saying its ALWAYS the case). By doing this I achieve more consistency. With this fast timing, I suffer less from the backspin of the defender and its easier to put the ball back on the table. Sometimes you can even see that the angle of the racket is rather closed and i still put it on the other side despite the heavy (?) backspin and yes it feels a bit like I'm "carrying" the ball not snapping it on those slower loops.

Only when i feel the ball better, then i will try to hit much harder.

Another example, on the one at 7:07 only the first one, and the last 2 (missed the last one) i'm trying to put more power.
or one the one at 12:30 after 2 BH, i do 3 slower FH loops then i manage to make 3 stronger FH loops to win the rally.

Consistency is priority #1, and then #2 put variation of pace, attack stronger when there is an opening or when i feel the ball better. tbh i think at my level of play, more power is not going to make me win more points. Not making those easy mistakes will. [sometimes you can see me missing after a good ball the next one or two balls very quickly ...]

I think you are right when you say that i could extend the arm more. I think its got to do also at what distance I'm standing from the table. I'm used to be this close but maybe back 5-10cm ? would help? But its also a general problem, not just against choppers. I've also been told when doing FH not to move too much on FH side but extend my arm more , i would have even more power for those kind of balls.

I think for BH i have a pretty good image of where my hit point is. but yeh, FH, its not always the case that I visualize where the best hitting point is, so i can take the ball too near from my body and lose power; and I'm not too aware that I can reach balls a bit farther than where I'm hitting usually, and that I could hit them more easily/with more power if I adapted correctly.

---

You could see me talking with the coach, so he IS giving some technical advice, for example if I remember well, he said that one of the reasons why I miss some balls, is a lack of coordination body / arm where I would push the body UP FIRST and THEN start the swing instead of doing it at the same time.

---
With my main coach Sakamoto, he doesn't speak so much of technique, except basic things. He keeps it simple for me because in his eyes I'm only that advanced and the focus is not on very small details. It is much more important to correct the footwork and posture for example. We do a lot of the same drills everyweek so its normal we don't spend a lot of time on explaining the technique.

Okey. Cool to hear that you seem to have good opportunities to develop. I think it is great that you are better against choppers. I also agree that you proably never should play 100 % hard, should never chance. No one plays 100 % i think, because it is not safe enough.

I also play a chopper alot, and have been for the last 10 years. I also feel that it is important to take the ball early, the ball will have more spin the longer you wait.

I really agree that you should go for consistency first. Very hard in my opinion to loop hard against choppers if the ball do not go high. But i think if you try my advice i think you will be definely have more consistency and maybe also have an easier time to play harder without actually trying to play harder. Especially if you extend the arm more. Otherwise it will be like a golfer that tries to do the drive with arms very close to the body.

I think you can be correct, that maybe you have the arm closer to the body because you feel that you do not have time so close to the table. I do think you can stay at the same distance and extend the arm more, as long as you do not do a to big of a swing. Close to the table i think it is more about that you can not to do to big of a swing, and not that you have the arm extended.

I think you should move out of the table if you want to play harder a kill shot, becuse then you need more space to use the body. This is for topspin. But i do not know really how it is against choppers, if you back out to far the ball will have alot of spin and be low? But if the ball is high enough you could proably move out of the table a little and play harder.

Yeah, you have a very nice backhand.

You have never heard about creating a triangle? someone calls it the golden triangle. Surprised if your coaches have not told you this. It is not exact science haha, but might help a little. With the fh stance you have the left leg infront of the right, if you then extends your arms together it will create a triangle with the top where your hands meet and the bottom is your legs. Roughly there you want to hit the ball, so you will always try to create this. Hard to explain this in words, but maybe you get the picture. Try it, maybe it can help you!

it is interesting to see how other coaches work.

Keep up the good work! you are doing great!
 
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thanks vm for the golden triangle trick. I will try to remember that. You are not the first one to tell me that problem about my FH, so I'm trying to correct this, but i was told it in a more general context. I will try to think about it next time when doing this drill as well.

BH is getting quite better but a lot of flaws still. For example, if I go back only 30-50cms from the table, i got the timing totally wrong. my feet and arms don't work well together at all then. I'm only good at taking it quick after the bounce.

[thats why i almost never go back from the table, i can do decent FH, but if the ball comes to BH my shots are usually much weaker and/or passive ]

Also I changed quite a lot the technique when i changed to my new blade (Acoustic Carbon Inner from Korbel) I was mostly using the wrist, that was not enough against heavy backspin, and a bit too random result as well with the old setup, and with the new one, i was not able to brush the ball correctly because my grip was too tight.
 
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thanks vm for the golden triangle trick. I will try to remember that. You are not the first one to tell me that problem about my FH, so I'm trying to correct this, but i was told it in a more general context. I will try to think about it next time when doing this drill as well.

BH is getting quite better but a lot of flaws still. For example, if I go back only 30-50cms from the table, i got the timing totally wrong. my feet and arms don't work well together at all then. I'm only good at taking it quick after the bounce.

[thats why i almost never go back from the table, i can do decent FH, but if the ball comes to BH my shots are usually much weaker and/or passive ]

Also I changed quite a lot the technique when i changed to my new blade (Acoustic Carbon Inner from Korbel) I was mostly using the wrist, that was not enough against heavy backspin, and a bit too random result as well with the old setup, and with the new one, i was not able to brush the ball correctly because my grip was too tight.

Maybe you can try to think something like this. This sounds pretty strange, but some of my players understand what i mean. if you want to throw away the racket through the hall as far as you can. Then you would not like push the racket away with the arm close to the body. You would extend the arm and try to swing the racket away. Why? because it is more efficient. You get more power that way and the racket will fly longer.

Maybe you do not need to move away from the table?
As a coach i feel that people often do these problems. They only use wrist even a bit further away from the table so they get not power. And they do not lift the arm to where the ball is, they often have their arm under the ball so they are forced to loop upward so they get only a high arc with spin and no real power and also timing problem. I also feel that the guys that have problem with timing pretty often start with the swing to early so the ball and racket are to faar away from eachother so it will be much easier to miss the ball and time wrong.

I often use mostly wrist and forearm with bh against backspin me too. But i only get spin. So now i try to turn the stomach a little when i want to loop hard, and i feel that i get alot more power. Make sense since with the fh loop the spin comes mostly from the arm and power from mostly from the body. So i try to implement this with bh against backspin. It is nowhere safe but alot harder haha.

Yes, hold loosely is more important than people think, i think. There is a video on waldner when he plays a match and he notice that he holds the racket to hard when blocking so he just holds the racket with two fingers for a while before holding it with all fingers again. I think he felt that he hold the racket to hard so he relaxed in the ball and then hold the racket again. Good to hold loosly for the feel, be able to move wrist and forearm fast, benefit from using the body and to change the grip somehat to get better backhand and forehand quality and for more extreme angle shots.
 
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Progress. Played a tournament today. Won all matches in the pool. I have been fighting a cold all weekend and it caught up with me just before the quarter final. Fever and zero energy but I gave it a go. Lost a fairly tight match with 3-2. Managed to get my first yellow card as well. The umpire called a let after 4-5 hits at 3-5 in the last game. Need to work on my temper.

Question: Need to to replace my FH rubber as it has a 5cm crack in the top sheet. Thinking of trying 1,9mm sponge instead of 2,1. Unsure what I will sacrifice. Spin and speed or only speed?
 
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