Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Dan]

Post 10000!

I was just about to post, this is the 10,001 post, then I realised your post is way cooler NextLevel

 

[Spookex]

After some testing, I found out that I prefer my black rubber on fh while keeping the faster red one on bh helps with rpb.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

After some testing, I found out that I prefer my black rubber on fh while keeping the faster red one on bh helps with rpb.

Just curious, what does the color have to do with the rest of what you said?

There are slower red rubbers and faster black rubbers. Or the same modern rubber should be the same speed whether red or black.

 

[Spookex]

Nothing really, just for me the color coding has always been:

fh - red

bh - black

Because of that it feels a bit weird to use black as fh.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Nothing really, just for me the color coding has always been:

fh - red

bh - black

Because of that it feels a bit weird to use black as fh.

The way I have looked at it, I serve with my FH. If my FH rubber is the black rubber, it actually makes it just a very small amount harder for the opponent to see the angle my rubber/blade face contacts the ball when I serve.

I don't know if it is really true. But I think it helps a tiny bit with serve deception. But aside from that, TT companies can make the red and black rubbers play the same when they want to. Some of the Chinese brands don't. But they could if they paid attention to the details and the science of the dyes.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Good to hear from you again OSP!

Strong FH in your videos! Your practice partner could not block some of your FH loops!
Good progress on your RPB too! I notice the impact of the RPB is quite flat, not sure if that is what you are aiming for, it has good power, but the trajectory is flatter hence it becomes a more risky shot if the incoming ball is low near the table.

Sorry I've been a stranger to the thread/forum. Just been busy. Haven't really made a lot of progress and old club is not the best venue to video. So I stayed off here.

Thank you for your kind words!

My RPB self-learning may have been backwards but I'm happy I went the path I did. I learnt/trained to block, punch and flat hit first before learning how to spin.

I am slowly practicing RPB spinning now. I did start off with flat hitting in the video... later in the video I did some spinning with wrist pivots. I may not have elbow pivoted all that much. But am slowly RPB spinning more.

I've been working on my backhand with more emphasis recently, trying to make the stroke more natural.

Just keep at it!

P.S. I see Si-Hing is spotting Carl 8 points in their next encounter. I'm expecting 9 points from you OSP when we ever meet, if you ever go to Perth or if I end up in U.S. (unsure which city) for a conference.

How do you know? It was supposed to be a secret!! Carl must have told you!

LOL at me

I sincerely do hope to meet up with you one day and play with a 9 points handicap from you!

P.S. my practice partner has played about 9 months only and has improved tremendously. he played one tournament in Westchester and won the U1000. Officially he is rated 995 or so. I feel he is about 1300 maybe 1400. Sometimea he blocks better, sometimes he misses the blocks.

 

[JeffM]

Sorry I've been a stranger to the thread/forum. Just been busy. Haven't really made a lot of progress and old club is not the best venue to video. So I stayed off here.

Thank you for your kind words!

My RPB self-learning may have been backwards but I'm happy I went the path I did. I learnt/trained to block, punch and flat hit first before learning how to spin.

I am slowly practicing RPB spinning now. I did start off with flat hitting in the video... later in the video I did some spinning with wrist pivots. I may not have elbow pivoted all that much. But am slowly RPB spinning more.



Just keep at it!




How do you know? It was supposed to be a secret!! Carl must have told you!

LOL at me

I sincerely do hope to meet up with you one day and play with a 9 points handicap from you!

P.S. my practice partner has played about 9 months only and has improved tremendously. he played one tournament in Westchester and won the U1000. Officially he is rated 995 or so. I feel he is about 1300 maybe 1400. Sometimea he blocks better, sometimes he misses the blocks.

No need to apologize for being away from the forum haha.
It is great to find someone as a training partner, and he shows alot of potential as he has a 100% winning rate at tournament (one tournament and won U1000)!

Here is a short session of a multi-ball session of me. Missed the last ball. LOL at me.
https://youtu.be/9ZhSEzV2Vls

P.S.
My geography of US, or in fact, of the whole world, is extremely poor, so I have no idea where you guys are located. Which location shall I look for my next conference to see if I can land on one of you guys' area?

 

[NextLevel]

https://youtu.be/mDDtAK3pO8c

Club final yesterday. The win is a bit deceptive ratings wise because he is a German player with only one US tournament prior to this, not sure what his TTR was.

 

[Lula]

https://youtu.be/mDDtAK3pO8c

Club final yesterday. The win is a bit deceptive ratings wise because he is a German player with only one US tournament prior to this, not sure what his TTR was.

Need to go to bed so only watched 1/3 of the game. Congratulations to being in the final!

I have some thoughts.

You have a Very nice forehand But i Do not think you should work so much forehand, only you know you can kill the ball or get an very easy next ball. Hard for you the get to the next ball because of your knees.

I also think Maybe you should avoid trying to get to open first. So Maybe serve more Nospin, topspin or topsidespin. Very hard for the body to loop against backspin. Need to bend the knees alot. But only you know how your body feels.

I also think you should try to serve and return much more to the corner and his pocket. If you get the opponent running by good placement then you Do not need to move so much. It looks like you Do very similar serve aswell. If you Do more different serves, especially with sidespin you can move a little beforehand since it is much more likely you Will get a certain return. Maybe bh Seve or reverse pendelum serve with sidetop towards their forehand so you can move earlier to the fh corner and kill the ball with your nice forehand.

Another option would be to try long pimple, anti, medium pips on the backhand to be able to slow down the game. One of my students have knee problems, the chinese coach want him to start with long pimple on the backhand and short pimple on the forehand and twiddle alot so he slow down the game. To hard for his knees otherwise.

Do you have very big hands or a very high grip? Maybe a bit of a fh grip? Maybe it is difficult to change grip, byt i think more of a bh grip suits the tabletennis today and for you too. Important to be good with backhand if you have trouble moving. I think you already have good bh But i think you could get better bh if you move the hand much more to the left when holding the racket. I also have a high grip but not as high as your looks. We get good control with High grip But lose the pendelum or What it is called.

Keep up the good work

 

[Der_Echte]

Good match Next Level, later, you figured out how to serve to him. He struggled with your side top and side. Opponent had no answer when you put on Ur McDonalds hat and hit those Quarter Pounders to the FH. MX-K is pretty Bad-azz on Ur FH on that blade. You had a lot of multi BH hit rallies too, some were flat, some were spinny blocked out.

I think your opponent might be 1700 or so over here in Bay Area.

 

[NextLevel]

Need to go to bed so only watched 1/3 of the game. Congratulations to being in the final!

I have some thoughts.

You have a Very nice forehand But i Do not think you should work so much forehand, only you know you can kill the ball or get an very easy next ball. Hard for you the get to the next ball because of your knees.

I also think Maybe you should avoid trying to get to open first. So Maybe serve more Nospin, topspin or topsidespin. Very hard for the body to loop against backspin. Need to bend the knees alot. But only you know how your body feels.

I also think you should try to serve and return much more to the corner and his pocket. If you get the opponent running by good placement then you Do not need to move so much. It looks like you Do very similar serve aswell. If you Do more different serves, especially with sidespin you can move a little beforehand since it is much more likely you Will get a certain return. Maybe bh Seve or reverse pendelum serve with sidetop towards their forehand so you can move earlier to the fh corner and kill the ball with your nice forehand.

Another option would be to try long pimple, anti, medium pips on the backhand to be able to slow down the game. One of my students have knee problems, the chinese coach want him to start with long pimple on the backhand and short pimple on the forehand and twiddle alot so he slow down the game. To hard for his knees otherwise.

Do you have very big hands or a very high grip? Maybe a bit of a fh grip? Maybe it is difficult to change grip, byt i think more of a bh grip suits the tabletennis today and for you too. Important to be good with backhand if you have trouble moving. I think you already have good bh But i think you could get better bh if you move the hand much more to the left when holding the racket. I also have a high grip but not as high as your looks. We get good control with High grip But lose the pendelum or What it is called.

Keep up the good work

Thanks for the kind words. I decided that I play TT for fun and enjoy coaching. After this November's Teams tournaments, I will mostly stop playing and continue coaching and working on my body for a while. Also stuff coming up in family and work that I need to attend to. My body feels better, but I also tend to overdo it. For this match, the opponent had beaten some good players I know so I didn't want to play long points unless I was forced to.

Playing with pips for me for the most part is not fun, probably because I don't leave the table to chop. I usually beat people who use pips at my level fairly easily. I may lose to them because I don't play them all the time, but if I play them more than once, I will lose the first and win the rest. I sometimes use pips for coaching to teach my students how to spin and how to read the ball by looking at what it did, rather than just assuming the stroke is the same as what happens with inverted.

Serves are a tricky thing. My best serves are my backspin no spin combinations, but obviously, the returns are easy if the opponent reads the serve. I haven't trained enough to play behind my sidespin serves, so I lose a lot of points when I use them. It is something I will look at in the first half of next year maybe. I mostly switch to sidespin backhand serves to improve my recovery. But if I get more comfortable behind them again, I will just use them. My usual problem is keeping the ball short with them when I serve sidetop. It isn't as consistent as I would like even with practice.

My grip I have worked on forever and I think it does what it needs to do. For me, part of the problem is that my lower three fingers have been heavily impacted by my arthritis, so moving the thumb up costs me control now and using the lower fingers will hurt my elbow. So I just make subtle changes between forehand and backhand. I don't backswing properly in matches on my backhand during topspin rallies and that is what I need to change. When I open with backhand I am usually fine because I have time.

 

[NextLevel]

Good match Next Level, later, you figured out how to serve to him. He struggled with your side top and side. Opponent had no answer when you put on Ur McDonalds hat and hit those Quarter Pounders to the FH. MX-K is pretty Bad-azz on Ur FH on that blade. You had a lot of multi BH hit rallies too, some were flat, some were spinny blocked out.

I think your opponent might be 1700 or so over here in Bay Area.

The serve change was really because I was tired of recovering on the backfoot. For some reason, when I serve with my forehand, I don't feel as engaged on the backhand. That he returned the serves badly was an accidental bonus.

I am a bit disappointed that they are discontinuing the Hadraw series, especially the VR. They deserve better than that. May have to buy one more for backup. MX-K has been good for my game.

We are all 1700 in the Bay Area. Just saying.

 

[Der_Echte]

Hehe, Bay Area pretty much immediately told me I didn't stack up very high as I thought I did.

Get the blade U luv while the gettin' is good. Sac player George done fell in love with the old-fashioned Arlyte Timo Boll Spark... he asked me to look for a second one for him (TTD member erm gave him one) I posted on forums and someone sold George one, but it wasn't so inexpensive and maybe not so easy sometimes.

 

[Lula]

Okey! Yeah, No reason to play if it is not fun. If you want to play good, it is proably a good Idea to try to take care of the body.

Nonetheless, it is fun to see that you are playing

 

[Amaken23]

Good evening everyone .

Just won by 4th league match in a row . Finally my win percantage is at 50%, so I can stop hiding in a cave from other members of my team . My forehand still needs some work but I finally managed to learn how to perform backhand flick to recieve serve. Our next 3 matches will be against (on paper) weaker opposition so we hope to win all of them . After losing 15 kg, I can honestly say I never felt better playing table tennis . Hopefully I can manage to lose another 5 until end of the year . And of course, finally learn to perform decent forehand topspin in a match instead of just blocking or countering all the time .

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

https://youtu.be/mDDtAK3pO8c

Club final yesterday. The win is a bit deceptive ratings wise because he is a German player with only one US tournament prior to this, not sure what his TTR was.

One thing that was a bit annoying to me viewing the video was, there was an obviously biased crowed rooting for your opponent. I don't mind that part. But, it seems they clapped for your mistakes and clapped no matter how your opponent won a point. And when you made some pretty great shots those people were just silent.

I don't know; it is just annoying to see people that uneducated about etiquette. I mean, fine, don't clap for your good shots. Fine, clap for his good shots. But don't clap for someone's mistakes.

But you played a solid match NextLevel.

 

[NextLevel]

One thing that was a bit annoying to me viewing the video was, there was an obviously biased crowed rooting for your opponent. I don't mind that part. But, it seems they clapped for your mistakes and clapped no matter how your opponent won a point. And when you made some pretty great shots those people were just silent.

I don't know; it is just annoying to see people that uneducated about etiquette. I mean, fine, don't clap for your good shots. Fine, clap for his good shots. But don't clap for someone's mistakes.

But you played a solid match NextLevel.

He coached some students at a nearby school and they came to play the tournament so they rooted for their coach. They were largely tournament newbies so they have to be ultimately forgiven. Thankfully it is my home club regardless and it is easier to hit ridiculous shots in your home club than on the road regardless of the cheering.

And since I won, I forgive them.

 

[thekleifheit13]

I was supposed to go to Samson's club last night, but ended up throwing my back out during my morning workout. All I did was stand up from the bench I was sitting on between sets, felt a shift in my back, then all kinds of pain. Upon further review, I let myself slip into spinal extension when squatting - a big no-no for me, thanks to spina bifida and deformed vertebrae. That probably started the trouble. Wasn't too bad at first but by 10 AM I had trouble walking and by 2 PM I was nauseous from the pain. I got in to my chiro at 5 and he helped a lot but I was/am still in decent pain. Hoping to be able to get to the club for a short hit around sometime this week at least.

 

[JeffM]

Today I played as a substitute in B grade, first time playing in B grade since my change over to Shakehand.
First singles, I lost to another shakehander who was clearly better than I am. Although I received advise from my coach after each set, I could not take a set, lost 3-0.

Second singles, I played against a shakehander, whom I have beaten when I was using penhold. I only barely won 3-2, and that was with the help of my coach.

Third singles, I have beaten this player with penhold before, but this time, I lost 2-3. It was a close one, but a loss is a loss.

Even though in training, my backhand seems stable enough, in match situations, it showed that it clearly wasn't. I had some great shots, and my backhand worked quite some times, but it also failed quite a lot of times. Also noticed that I need to practice receiving all different types of serves, as I had great trouble tonight.
Wasn't really a good night for me, but my coach comfort me, saying I got my first win in B grade with shakehand, which is true.

 

[NextLevel]

Played league today like I did last week. Last week I won one match and lost 4 as the bottom seed in the top group. The goal is to be more match tough in advance of the NA Teams during Thanksgiving weekend.

This week, as expected, I was in the 2nd group and the second seed, the first seed being the only guy I beat in group 1 last week. So the goal of coming first and getting a position in group 1 next week before the Teams tournament was in sight.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera. I lost my first match to a Fisher who smashed anything smashable both on and off the table. His foot stomping while serving drove me crazy. But I think it is really more first match symptoms and he fact that I had a lousy warm up coming into it.

I lost the first game of my next match too. It was funny because my opponent was someone I last played 8 years ago when I just started at my 3rd tournament or so. We met in the U1400 final back then. We have both come a long way given his 1900+ league rating and my 2000+ league rating. After losing the first game, I managed to win the next 3, overcoming a poor start in game 4.

I then played a young kid whose overall game was below my spin threshold. He got frustrated fairly quickly after being down 0-10 in the first game and was a bit annoyed that nothing was in his control. I suspect in another year, I will be losing to him all the time.

Then I played the top seed I beat last week. He is probably my most prolifically discussed opponent on this site, a medium pips penholder. Last week was deuce in the 5th and this week, I suspected something just wouldn't work. And in due course, I went down 0-2. I usually lose when this happens but I tried to fight the arrow of fate. I kept the initiative in the 3rd but kept staying close. I managed to win 11-9.

I honestly think the 4th and 5th games of that match were some of my best looping performances ever. Looping pip iys, relooping chop blocks. I think it is the first time in a while I regret not having my camera. I managed to pull out the match 3-2.

So I had to win my last match to win the group as the guy who beat me already had 2 losses. I played a young lady with short pips on the forehand. A friend of mine who hates playing her had discussed her game with me so I had a rough idea what to expect. I think that she had some bad losses so I didn't get her most positive game. Almost every net and edge went my way. I won 3-0 and won the group.

Goal achieved but in matches with my buddy, I tore my forehand rubber trying to play a short ball that I thought would come long. Have done my best patch job, I just hope it is going to stand the test of time. It still looks pretty tough. But I really hope no opponents complain, it is not a part of the blade I contact and it will play fine. Looks can be deceiving.

My movement is now better so I want to train a little. It is almost as if my body is now getting too close to the ball for me to know how to play it. Even good changes can lead to bad results...