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My focus over the past year+ has been on my BH, and it's finally starting to become a weapon in my game. It's been steadily getting better, but the issue is that it needed to be better than my push+defend+step around game to be useful, and now it's finally there. In my recent practices, I've been able to complete the last step, working my new BH into my game. I can now open up, counter, loop, drive, and defend without thinking, and I can make quick FH/BH transitions as well as step arounds.

Going forward, I'm gonna knock down if I wanna stay with the FZD ALC or the Q968. The FZD blade has been a dream, its like Vis with more flex and a much more comfortable shoulder/handle. So good that I wouldn't even wanna try out the Q if I didn't spend so much money on it already! After that, the focus will be to play many different types of players to fine tune my game.

I've wanted a good BH for so, so many years, and I'm finally doing it! It's already so sweet to use, and it's still improving rapidly. Technique-wise next step is gonna be service returns, both short pushes and BH flicks, as well as counter-loops. My counter-loops already aren't bad, but I'm gonna try to raise it to a level where people would be hesitant to try to attack anywhere my FH can reach.
 
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My focus over the past year+ has been on my BH, and it's finally starting to become a weapon in my game. It's been steadily getting better, but the issue is that it needed to be better than my push+defend+step around game to be useful, and now it's finally there. In my recent practices, I've been able to complete the last step, working my new BH into my game. I can now open up, counter, loop, drive, and defend without thinking, and I can make quick FH/BH transitions as well as step arounds.

Going forward, I'm gonna knock down if I wanna stay with the FZD ALC or the Q968. The FZD blade has been a dream, its like Vis with more flex and a much more comfortable shoulder/handle. So good that I wouldn't even wanna try out the Q if I didn't spend so much money on it already! After that, the focus will be to play many different types of players to fine tune my game.

I've wanted a good BH for so, so many years, and I'm finally doing it! It's already so sweet to use, and it's still improving rapidly. Technique-wise next step is gonna be service returns, both short pushes and BH flicks, as well as counter-loops. My counter-loops already aren't bad, but I'm gonna try to raise it to a level where people would be hesitant to try to attack anywhere my FH can reach.
You set a pretty high standard for the your back to be useful, I think that all you needed to make sure what that your backhand was not chopped liver for it to be useful and for you to feel comfortable that people could not go to it routinely to escape your forehand. People sense the difference between both sides (at least I felt I did and my opponents used to and in fact, I have probably biased and inaccurate feel that works for me that tells me when a player doesn't like his technique) so for me, I never tried to make my forehand better than my backhand, I just tried to make sure that people couldn't draw errors from it with impunity.
 
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You set a pretty high standard for the your back to be useful, I think that all you needed to make sure what that your backhand was not chopped liver for it to be useful and for you to feel comfortable that people could not go to it routinely to escape your forehand. People sense the difference between both sides (at least I felt I did and my opponents used to and in fact, I have probably biased and inaccurate feel that works for me that tells me when a player doesn't like his technique) so for me, I never tried to make my forehand better than my backhand, I just tried to make sure that people couldn't draw errors from it with impunity.
Well, FH is naturally stronger than BH. I just want my BH to be strong enough that even when it's the lesser of two evils for my opponents that I can still crush them with it, or as my competition improves, be good enough to create opportunities for my FH.
 
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Well, FH is naturally stronger than BH. I just want my BH to be strong enough that even when it's the lesser of two evils for my opponents that I can still crush them with it, or as my competition improves, be good enough to create opportunities for my FH.
Yep. As your BH improves, the FH moves ahead also. Where do you think most of the improvement with your BH has come from?
 
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Yep. As your BH improves, the FH moves ahead also. Where do you think most of the improvement with your BH has come from?
My BH was basically at zero, so I guess it's from everywhere :LOL: I got one coaching session, where I learned a few things, and the rest was just many, many hours of experimentation. Of the things I learned from the coach, there were two major points which took up most of my practice time and are things that I'm still constantly practicing to improve upon.

First thing I worked on, and it's something I'm still working on all the time is timing. It's by far the most important thing for BH shots. Even with everything else being crap, as long as you have good timing, accelerate your racket at the right time, you'll be able to hit shots with confidence and land them with confidence. Every once in a while, I find myself getting carried away working on other things and my timing gets worse and I go back to the basics and work on timing some more. Timing is way, way harder on the BH side because you're hitting the ball more in front of you, which is harder to judge than a ball to your side, gives you less time to judge it, and the BH stroke is smaller so the timing needs to be more precise.

Second thing is elbow positioning. To actually hit a shot with great quality, you need to have your elbow flared out and leading the stroke, dragging your racket forward. I try to do it whenever I can, however I can. Maybe it's leaning forward or to the side, maybe it's moving my feet, maybe it's sucking in my belly, but the stroke starts with my elbow. If you want to generate your own power, launch thunderous shots like FZD or LSD, this is a must. That being said, you can also play like ML and mostly borrow power or slow things down a bit so it's harder for the opponent to borrow power, in which case you don't really need to do this. Also, if you hit the ball too early, you can't lead with your elbow, so you need to get the timing right first.

Everything else is just details, which I figured out mostly through trial and error. There are too many learning points here to detail, things like footwork, body usage, racket movement, activation sequence, etc. Those all add to the quality and consistency of the shot, but they're more or less things you kinda just learn once. Once you develop a habit of using them, you don't really need to think about them again. Timing is something that needs to be worked on for as long as you're still playing.
 
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Wanted to poke here in this thread before asking in a dedicated thread: Does anyone know what the deal is with ITTF Coaching Accreditation and such? I am interested in starting down that path and after getting into their education platform and poking around, it seems that there are no courses or content or updates since 2021-2022. I can't seem to find anything about it that's up to date on how to go about this.
 
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My playstyle with SP on BH is getting better and better.
I'm regularly beating players higher rated and I feel more confident from week to week.
In a small tournament today I lost against 3 High rated pips players.
All 3 matches 3-1, and I'd have won all 3 of them if I was better at smashing/looping those semi high balls with little to no spin.
The balls would lose all their speed In the air and I'd either hit the ball over the table or miss the ball entirely.

It wasn't a tactics/strategy issue, if I simply hit those balls, I'd win all 3 matches.
It came down to 2 or 3 crucial points.

Sucks, but a good experience nonetheless.


They were also impressed by my twiddling and strong looping ability on both wings as a pips player.
Something they haven't seen before 😂.
 
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I've started going to the clubs a bit more often the past week or so, playing some matches, trying to work some of my recent advances into games, particularly my BH. My FH is progressing well in practice, but it's definitely not my default yet. Even in practice it takes a while before I find the rhythm and start doing the new form well.

Anyhow, last weekend, I played 3 matches at the Pleasanton club. One is a club who used to be a bit better than me, and I managed to beat him pretty handily. The other 2 were much above me, but I was really able to give them a run for their money. Those were the first matches I played in months, and I was able to identify a number of things to fine tune.

This week, I did a good amount of training to address those weaknesses and played 3 matches again. The first was at the Pleasanton club against probably the top regular at that club. I was able to take him to 5 games, losing basically on the short game. I worked on that a bit, and went to the Alameda club today and played 2 more matches. The first against a guy I've only beaten once. He's been training a lot too and was able to do some deadly BH flicks, a new variation in his game since I last played against him a few months ago. But my BH and service receive improvements were enough for me to win the game. The second match was against the top player there. He's been getting coaching regularly, once or twice a week, and well, he definitely managed to stay ahead of me lol. He didn't pull farther ahead, however.

Going forward, my focus will remain on the FH, trying to get the new form down to a habit. Secondary focus will be on service returns. I've been practicing those the past couple of weeks and have made a LOT of improvements. I think the contact/form is no longer a huge issue, the issue right now is mainly in judging the ball quickly enough and moving with the right footwork. I need to come up with a plan to improving that.
 
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says Making a beautiful shot is most important; winning is...
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Bat shit crazy setup: 10.5mm monster with T05H. Go loco!
image.jpg

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May I be able to do this and be happy always:
 
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Reflections from yesterday's weekly training session:
*Sweet spot is too small. Way too small. Does the sweet spot actually shrink when you improve? Or maybe I did not improve, if so I regressed...
*Still hard to smash without full commitment. You know, trying to play a ball that the oppo have a chance to return backfires many times Even Calderano missed some shots yesterday trying to play nice.
*Most oppos play with old rackets with worn out rubbers that where not great to begin with. I seem to be the only one in the entire club interested in equipment. (They still have better strokes.)
 
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Reflections from yesterday's weekly training session:
*Sweet spot is too small. Way too small. Does the sweet spot actually shrink when you improve? Or maybe I did not improve, if so I regressed...
i dont want to be the bearer of bad news, but if the sweet spot does matter more to you than before than it does not sound like your technique improved to a point where you would not really need to care about it. You would assume with better technique you would hit the ball in the optimal area more often than not hence no need to really think about the sweet spot of your blade.

*Still hard to smash without full commitment. You know, trying to play a ball that the oppo have a chance to return backfires many times Even Calderano missed some shots yesterday trying to play nice.
if you decide to smash, always go with at least 80% power. Anything less will make the spin in the ball more decisive and probably pull the ball down into the net. You gotta get over that threshold where your power is strong enough to make the spin an undesicive factor (which is of course only possible if the ball is also high enough to have enough clearance above the net)


*Most oppos play with old rackets with worn out rubbers that where not great to begin with. I seem to be the only one in the entire club interested in equipment. (They still have better strokes.)
That is the greatest environment to learn. The enemy cant create much spin with it so you are basically playing on "easy" mode and have serves that can be attacked most of the time. Also their pushes can be flipped or looped without having to have the greated of acceleration.

The only "downside" is probably, that you can not force your opponent that well to return fast serves for you to attack, because their rubber might be so dead that it will still keep the ball short to medium long.
 
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So I originally planned to finish revamping my FH by the end of Dec, then when it became obvious that wasn't gonna happen I thought maybe end of Jan. It really seemed like even that wasn't gonna happen, but finally, I think I've done it!

The whole process has been a frustrating exercise of two steps forward, one step back. I think I got one part down, then once I move on to the next part I start forgetting the previous part. This week I went back to working on hip rotation with right to left weight transfer, as in my previous session at the club I annoyingly went back to the more back to front and low to high body movement rather than a more purely right to left swing. I felt like I did well against the robot, then today when I practiced with my practice partner I totally forgot about even using it. I finally realized it when I moved on to the FH cross table to BH corner practice, then I focused on that part and finally everything came together! Before the end of the practice, I went back to the regular FH cross table to FH practice, and I was able to do it as well! Hip rotation, weight transfer, forward lean, activation sequence, grip, everything worked! Never have I had such good quality and consistency, it was amazing :cool:

Next step is to drill this final, complete form into my muscle memory, so that it'll seep through into my actual game play as well. When I'm not practicing my FH, my focus has been on service returns. I'm working on judging the service, BH flicks to all locations on the table and against all spins, and short pushes off the bounce against short services of all spins. As we all know, service/return game is the highest yield material, so I do anticipate a major improvement in my game play with this practice whereas I only expect incremental improvements with my BH/FH loop progress.
 
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I have been getting fitter slowly again partly as a result of physical therapy. My goal right now is to lose about 10 pounds so my movement will be fluid. While staying low is important, I think that the injuries it would encourage in my knees are not worth it and it is better to be more mobile and find a nuanced balance.

A couple of players, including my coach, asked me why I stopped using Dignics 80 and they felt my ball was better with it. So I am going to go back to it and the Garaydia ALC, even if it is slower, and just continue to improve my movement. I think my thirdball is actually deadlier with slower blades as I can attack loose balls harder and more confidently. I just have to accept the limits of D80 and not try to use it with a power focus as I tried to do with 05/09c. The other advantage of D80 is that it will discourage my brushing too much, since it plays better with more direct and open angles than D05 and brushes reasonably well when you need to lift the ball.

So will report back to this space in a month after working with old/new setup. I am not going to play any tournaments in the first half of this year, but I should get lots of practice playing league.
 
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The other major change I forgot is to emphasize body rotation when pulled to the forehand by a down the line ball. I sometimes get away with playing my forehand without weight transfer and I intend to make using weight transfer on almost all forehands a big focus.
 
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