I'm 62 years old and returning to table tennis after being an empty nester. I am a competitive SOB. I want to reach the highest level possible. I'm not satisfied beating 1300 level players.
What do I need to do?
1- Equipment...Should I take the DNA Platinum off of my Cybershape blade and put Rakza 7 on? (if so, what thickness?)
2- Robot Training...what specific drills should I work on?
3- What else do you recommend?
I appreciate your comments!
Keep 'em coming!!!
Hi
What is your style of play?
If you are FH dominant, like to step round BH and play FH drives and loops, then perhaps a change to a 2 wing attacker may be a better option, because as you get older, movement speed is gonna decrease. FH dominant style is very demanding physically.
Definitely get a good coach, and by good, I mean a coach that is able to work well with a ‘muddy‘ canvas rather than a ‘blank‘ one!!
Equipment - Ask your ’new’ coach !! They are not always experts on equipment, but they have actually seen how you play, what your standard is, what skill level you have etc
If you want. equipment advice, technique advice on this forum, then you will have to post footage of yourself playing, use the “safe video footage” thread to reduce the number of those able to reply.
The posts regarding using LP are also tied in to your style of play, so it has a double effect, change of equipment and style of play. It’s still a valid point though. There are a lot of veterans using LP’s at a good standard / level.
Robot training - depending on the robot you have?
Keep The sessions shortish, 2, 3 or 4 min length routines, breaks in between, maybe 8 or 10 routines in a session, robots are relentless, we aren’t!!!!
If your robot has variable spin capability, use this for serve return practice, because at least 50% of the ’Normal’ info is missing, ie a Serve Action, you will have to watch the ball flight like a hawk. Set it up for regular and irregular serves, you can then practice against a ‘known‘ serve and an ’unknown’ serve.
Pace / Frequency of balls, is important, not too slow, not too fast!!
Because you have a robot you have a table!!! Practice serves!! Serve practice should be bolted on to EVERY session you do with your robot. It can be used to split up routines, giving you a break etc
It is surprising how quickly you can lose serve consistency if you don’t practice serves regularly. remember to practice transition to ready position as part of your serve action. Ball watch WITH movement to ready position. When practicing serves it’s easy to forget this!!
Brs’s advice to get a serious training partner is also gold!!, if you both get coaching, the cost is halved!!