What’s your most satisfying moment in table tennis?

[Der_Echte]

I am waiting for @UpSideDownCarl to pop on here and say his most satisfying moment in TT is when he dispatches the bumbling persistent pursuing Goon Squad through the various trap doors to a nasty fate at all his various Krack Haus 13s and mobile positions...

 

[ttmonster]

I am waiting for @UpSideDownCarl to pop on here and say his most satisfying moment in TT is when he dispatches the bumbling persistent pursuing Goon Squad through the various trap doors to a nasty fate at all his various Krack Haus 13s and mobile positions...

You mean these guys ?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I am waiting for @UpSideDownCarl to pop on here and say his most satisfying moment in TT is when he dispatches the bumbling persistent pursuing Goon Squad through the various trap doors to a nasty fate at all his various Krack Haus 13s and mobile positions...

View attachment 26079
You mean these guys ?

Best TT moment for me was getting squished repeatedly by Der_Echte, NextLevel and Smash_Fan at NYISC and/or at Lily Yips (well....at Lily Yip's Smash_Fan wasn't there).

Second best was when, barely 100 feet out of the parking spot, on the way to NYISC with Der_Echte driving, we came within a fraction of a millimeter from becoming a bumper ornament on a Mack Truck which was barreling towards us as we turned onto the West Side Highway in NYC. I was so grateful that I was still alive I was almost ready to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge yet again.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

First time I met Der in person, we met up at the Flushing 7 train stop (he was driving....in NY after a trip to Boston), and we went to the Korean TT club in Flushing NY. Within 20 min of being there, he had gotten us a discount on full day play and he had made every person in that club laugh as he spoke Korean with them and they were astounded that Der was able to speak to them like that....or was it also the things he said.....

30 min after that we were playing doubles vs an assortment of guys from the club and still, everyone was laughing as Der made a muscle, a big smile and said "by-yah" any time someone made a shot that was a clean winner. By the time Ming finally arrived, the club was really hopping with an energy it definitely did not have before we walked in.

Then, after our exploits, we ate at an all night Chinese restaurant at just about 1am. Der_Echte's chicken and beer hustle was a success and we were all going to be dog tired the next day when we got up to go do it again.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Quite a few candidates, but I keep coming back to this particular match, which was a bet for $50 with my late coach, God bless him, to beat a player higher rated than I was after I made fun of one of his tournament performances which included a match against this player.

I'll be darn!

What sort of black sorcery is this NL? All you do is just stand there straight as a coconut tree and just use BH flickerty flick of wrist and the ball goes flying over the net!!! It is dark magic I say!

• No bending of knees to get down low
• No power from the ground concept
• No body mechanics.
• You made it look so easy.

Are you a sorcerer?

 

[NextLevel]

I'll be darn!

What sort of black sorcery is this NL? All you do is just stand there straight as a coconut tree and just use BH flickerty flick of wrist and the ball goes flying over the net!!! It is dark magic I say!

• No bending of knees to get down low
• No power from the ground concept
• No body mechanics.
• You made it look so easy.

Are you a sorcerer?

Since you asked:

The opponent uses worn out inverted on forehand and anti on backhand so his balls don't really spin. Therefore, almost all the balls you see in that match are flat. Also, this was the 40mm celluloid ball and you could get away with much more without using the body correctly.
.
While that might not completely answer your question. hope that helps. But in general I am still an upright player now. In the end, it isn't going to make me world champion but it is quite possible to play reasonable table tennis without getting too low. But the limits it places on your game are real so I do selectively adapt to play better. But I didnt need to at that level and against that opponent who is basically a flat hitter.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Quite a few candidates, but I keep coming back to this particular match, which was a bet for $50 with my late coach, God bless him, to beat a player higher rated than I was after I made fun of one of his tournament performances which included a match against this player.

Mark Berg! Classic. The craziest and funniest things come out of his mouth as he is trash talking.

 

[ben1229]

Since you asked:

The opponent uses worn out inverted on forehand and anti on backhand so his balls don't really spin. Therefore, almost all the balls you see in that match are flat. Also, this was the 40mm celluloid ball and you could get away with much more without using the body correctly.
.
While that might not completely answer your question. hope that helps. But in general I am still an upright player now. In the end, it isn't going to make me world champion but it is quite possible to play reasonable table tennis without getting too low. But the limits it places on your game are real so I do selectively adapt to play better. But I didnt need to at that level and against that opponent who is basically a flat hitter.

Where is this place?

 

[NextLevel]

Where is this place?

It was the original official location of a club called Trolley Car table tennis Club in Philadelphia. They moved to a different space in the same location that wasn't as great. But it is still the primary full time club in Philly though some other places are available to play.

 

[ben1229]

It was the original official location of a club called Trolley Car table tennis Club in Philadelphia. They moved to a different space in the same location that wasn't as great. But it is still the primary full time club in Philly though some other places are available to play.

Oh nice, I thought was one of the nyc club.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Since you asked:

The opponent uses worn out inverted on forehand and anti on backhand so his balls don't really spin. Therefore, almost all the balls you see in that match are flat. Also, this was the 40mm celluloid ball and you could get away with much more without using the body correctly.
.
While that might not completely answer your question. hope that helps. But in general I am still an upright player now. In the end, it isn't going to make me world champion but it is quite possible to play reasonable table tennis without getting too low. But the limits it places on your game are real so I do selectively adapt to play better. But I didnt need to at that level and against that opponent who is basically a flat hitter.

Playing this game with a degenerative joint issue as NL has, you have to know when you don't need to wear your joints out.

As someone who has felt the power coming from his loops, even when he is straight up, his balls feel like baseballs hitting your racket because of the combination of speed and spin; but the amount of spin is definitely a large part of what makes the ball feel so heavy.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Quite a few candidates, but I keep coming back to this particular match, which was a bet for $50 with my late coach, God bless him, to beat a player higher rated than I was after I made fun of one of his tournament performances which included a match against this player.

Mark Berg! Classic. The craziest and funniest things come out of his mouth as he is trash talking.

At NYTTF back when it was open, I used to joke with him about how he was going to show off his footwork. He instantly shot back, "my footwork is walking to the table, and then walking back to the bench after I beat you."

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I'll be darn!

What sort of black sorcery is this NL? All you do is just stand there straight as a coconut tree and just use BH flickerty flick of wrist and the ball goes flying over the net!!! It is dark magic I say!

• No bending of knees to get down low
• No power from the ground concept
• No body mechanics.
• You made it look so easy.

Are you a sorcerer?

Also, I have to be honest:

Even with his messed up knees, hips and every other joint you can think of, I have never seen you bend your knees anywhere near as much as NL does and his mechanics are actually really good. You just may not understand what you are looking at. But even back then, a decade ago, NL's BH was vicious.

 

[ttmonster]

Looks like Der has managed to get TTD hopping once more ! It was about time the goon squad hijacked one of the threads !

 

[blahness]

I'll be darn!

What sort of black sorcery is this NL? All you do is just stand there straight as a coconut tree and just use BH flickerty flick of wrist and the ball goes flying over the net!!! It is dark magic I say!

• No bending of knees to get down low
• No power from the ground concept
• No body mechanics.
• You made it look so easy.

Are you a sorcerer?

I could see 1-3 easily in NL's strokes and also he has the correct idea for the arm movement - it's close to impossible to get the amount of power, spin and consistency he does without these elements. You can do weight transfer without bending knees too much (similar to what grandmaster on this forum does too) which still gives you a good quality ball, but based on my understanding, bending knees + hips more allows you to store more energy to explode into the ball which allows you to increase your upper limits on spin and power. Obviously without a worthy opponent who can't produce the amount of spin to challenge you it's actually unnecessary. That's why you see Fang Bo goofing around in the NA teams and still winning easily against everyone just standing and not moving much, because no one there could actually produce shot quality that could trouble him.

Btw I really despise players like Berg who stand there not moving much and using ugly arm only strokes just trying to use his weird crap rubbers to annoy ppl into making mistakes and winning. And he even throws his paddle like a pampered manchild when he loses. He's the epitome of what discourages a lot of more inexperienced inverted players in this sport. What an ugly style!

At least my combination penholder training partner actually has good footwork and attacks viciously with the FH. His long pips dropshots and attacks complement his game and are actually kinda artistic to watch.

 

[Richie]

Quite a few candidates, but I keep coming back to this particular match, which was a bet for $50 with my late coach, God bless him, to beat a player higher rated than I was after I made fun of one of his tournament performances which included a match against this player.

Man that was an exciting match. Was Berg aware a bet was made against him before the match?

 

[NextLevel]

Man that was an exciting match. Was Berg aware a bet was made against him before the match?

No, I don't think he was. My teammates and coach were watching so you can see me motioning towards them a few times.

Berg beat me in a rematch later in the day in another event. That was the last time he beat me though, I later could beat him in a variety of ways. I would probably topspin him off the table today with both wings.

My coach and I had worked on making my backhand solid as a core strength earlier that week. He laughed after the match that he didn't realize he had done too good a job...

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

No, I don't think he was. My teammates and coach were watching so you can see me motioning towards them a few times.

Berg beat me in a rematch later in the day in another event. That was the last time he beat me though, I later could beat him in a variety of ways. I would probably topspin him off the table today with both wings.

My coach and I had worked on making my backhand solid as a core strength earlier that week. He laughed after the match that he didn't realize he had done too good a job...

Back then Mark was pretty old and not in great shape. I wonder how old he is today. Last time I saw him was probably 2014-2015 and to me it seemed his skills were sliding a bit. Could have just been a perception.

Person to person he was a really nice guy. He did not seem to be trash talking in that match. But I heard him say some of the wildest things during matches whether the person he was playing could beat him or not.

For an old guy with real mobility issues, he was pretty darn good at what he did. I respect that. It is not a pretty style; but if you want to get good at playing, you have to learn how to play against that version of junk ball also.

 

[NextLevel]

Back then Mark was pretty old and not in great shape. I wonder how old he is today. Last time I saw him was probably 2014-2015 and to me it seemed his skills were sliding a bit. Could have just been a perception.

Person to person he was a really nice guy. He did not seem to be trash talking in that match. But I heard him say some of the wildest things during matches whether the person he was playing could beat him or not.

For an old guy with real mobility issues, he was pretty darn good at what he did. I respect that. It is not a pretty style; but if you want to get good at playing, you have to learn how to play against that version of junk ball also.

Mark was around 1800 then (his max was around 2000), and I was around 1500-1600 after about a year a few months of training - this match was in October 2012. He is around 1500-1600 now but Father time is undefeated and the cool thing about TT is that it keeps you going.

Living in Philly and working with the coaches I did gave me a respect for the dead ball. So while I understand how some players view it as a disrespectful style, I have always seen it as something I can beat and something I can use - I have forgotten how to use it as I got better lol, but it is something I am trying to introduce back into my game a bit. I used to flat hit at an 1800 level (as in play a match with either inverted or short pips and just smash, no real topspins), and I still smash loose balls on the forehand side, I just don't get to spend as much time at the table and training as I used to, which is probably a good thing lol.

But I think that if my body holds up, I can really shorten some points by taking some more aggressive risk. I am too comfortable spinning up the ball, which would be ideal if I intended to run around all day, but I don't, so I do need to get a big more aggressive on loose balls earlier in the point (or at least develop the ability).

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Mark was around 1800 then (his max was around 2000), and I was around 1500-1600 after about a year a few months of training - this match was in October 2012. He is around 1500-1600 now but Father time is undefeated and the cool thing about TT is that it keeps you going.

Living in Philly and working with the coaches I did gave me a respect for the dead ball. So while I understand how some players view it as a disrespectful style, I have always seen it as something I can beat and something I can use - I have forgotten how to use it as I got better lol, but it is something I am trying to introduce back into my game a bit. I used to flat hit at an 1800 level (as in play a match with either inverted or short pips and just smash, no real topspins), and I still smash loose balls on the forehand side, I just don't get to spend as much time at the table and training as I used to, which is probably a good thing lol.

But I think that if my body holds up, I can really shorten some points by taking some more aggressive risk. I am too comfortable spinning up the ball, which would be ideal if I intended to run around all day, but I don't, so I do need to get a big more aggressive on loose balls earlier in the point (or at least develop the ability).

Another thing about that video: man, you look so young and in such good shape. 10 years can be a long time.