Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[NextLevel]

after years of trying unsuccessfully, im managing to do (my own version of) the YG serve. not mastering it yet, but enough to try it in training and competitive matches.

it is quite spinny, i find it easy to put sidespin, while on hook serve i don't know how to put sidespin. the problem now is i get my own (heavy) spin back and i need to learn to deal with it !

I actually stopped serving the hook serve because of this lol. I used to load the ball up but when I got the ball back, it was so spinny I would struggle to attack. But more seriously, a lot depends on swing paths, racket angles and contact points. I find the people who struggle the most with sidespin almost always hit the ball only one way. You need to figure out where on thr ball to hit and also respect the height of the ball (if the ball is low and spinny with backspin, don't complain about missing low percentage drives that you might make behind other serves.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

If you do a YG serve to the BH, it almost forces them to push or flick with BH against the spin. This results in a ball with clockwise sidespin as if you are receiving a FH pendulum serve from your opponent. It is very easy to go with the spin and loop the 3rd ball with the BH, very difficult with FH unless you can pivot ultrafast due to the sidespin dragging it more towards BH side. If they push it to your FH, it is easier to do a fade loop or a straight loop, hooking it is a bad idea.

To be more precise, usually i serve from middle FH side, facing the table. My goal is to have a reverse sidespin serve to the opponents FH because a lot of players don't like it, especially in Japan where there is a lot of penholders very strong at waiting for serves to their BH and pivoting immediately. if I served from BH corner its more difficult to keep it short to the FH. and if I serve to BH opponent has more time to react.

At the moment im starting to be able to make either a reverse side-underspin to the short FH OR long reverse side-topspin to BH with a similar motion. I have a different grip for each but the unsuspecting opponent cannot really see it. I have not practiced much yet the knuckle serve or the fast (topspin) serve.

If they push to my FH my short serve to their FH, i know i get back all my spin, and that its easier if i wait a bit for the ball to go down and lose its spin, and aim for the middle of the table. at least in practice (not in match yet), i can put some on the table but still a lot in the net or outside, but even if I do, often I find my topspin is not deep enough and i can get countered rather easily. if it goes to my BH, I'm very uncomfortable and either i push it back or i make some kind of emergency loop in diagonal, because even if its not a very good shot, its the opposite where the opponent is, so it could be enough.

---
This and last week as i was experimenting with this new serve, i realized FINALLY (!!!) that maybe maybe the most pressing issue i have with the 3rd ball is I don't get back in position. it means i rush to try to go near to the ball before being back in position when there could be not enough information yet so i move to the wrong place (a bit too close or too far from the ball), unable to adjust after. Also, because i skip the step of getting back at the same place after a serve, it means im losing my referential in space, and getting panicked and confused. its more important not to lose the balance and get ready for anything, there is more time to react than i think.

 

[blahness]

To be more precise, usually i serve from middle FH side, facing the table. My goal is to have a reverse sidespin serve to the opponents FH because a lot of players don't like it, especially in Japan where there is a lot of penholders very strong at waiting for serves to their BH and pivoting immediately. if I served from BH corner its more difficult to keep it short to the FH. and if I serve to BH opponent has more time to react.

At the moment im starting to be able to make either a reverse side-underspin to the short FH OR long reverse side-topspin to BH with a similar motion. I have a different grip for each but the unsuspecting opponent cannot really see it. I have not practiced much yet the knuckle serve or the fast (topspin) serve.

If they push to my FH my short serve to their FH, i know i get back all my spin, and that its easier if i wait a bit for the ball to go down and lose its spin, and aim for the middle of the table. at least in practice (not in match yet), i can put some on the table but still a lot in the net or outside, but even if I do, often I find my topspin is not deep enough and i can get countered rather easily. if it goes to my BH, I'm very uncomfortable and either i push it back or i make some kind of emergency loop in diagonal, because even if its not a very good shot, its the opposite where the opponent is, so it could be enough.

---
This and last week as i was experimenting with this new serve, i realized FINALLY (!!!) that maybe maybe the most pressing issue i have with the 3rd ball is I don't get back in position. it means i rush to try to go near to the ball before being back in position when there could be not enough information yet so i move to the wrong place (a bit too close or too far from the ball), unable to adjust after. Also, because i skip the step of getting back at the same place after a serve, it means im losing my referential in space, and getting panicked and confused. its more important not to lose the balance and get ready for anything, there is more time to react than i think.

If you serve it to short FH, there are 2 ways of receiving and you have to see if they went against the spin or with the spin. If they went against the spin (for eg after FH fade receive), it will be as if you are receiving a heavy FH pendulum serve back to you (ball is curving towards your left). If they went with the spin (for eg tomahawk style chop), then it will be as if you are receiving a heavy BH pendulum serve back to you - the ball is curving towards your right side.

The way to attack both of these sidespins are different and I think it needs to be practiced separately.

 

[NextLevel]

I am only able to play once a week because my old club which prioritized badminton and pickleball wasn't making enough money from TT so it reallocated the TT space to badminton and pickleball and only does table tennis on weekend nights (with no promise as to how long that might last). A nice new full time club opened up but it is an hour drive from where I live and the extra distance sucks. But it is full time, TT dedicated and 25 tables. A possible knock is yhat the tables are light purple YINHE pro 25 and it has rubber covering on cement but I will support a full time club just because. Still hoping something opens closer to me but till then I just have to embrace the suck.

Been playing a few times at the new club. I lost to a fellow player who i haven't lost to in over a year while playing at hus church, I was trying to play with more power and my timing was off. My shoulder has been aggravating me a bit but I think it is because I haven't fully registered how to get more power out of my forehand. My spin is always great and my power is not terrible but I want to be able to drive the ball past people a lot more.

Attended a training session with 6 players at the new club run by my primary coach. One of the other players hits with a lot of power on every shot because he is younger and physical and it got me thinking that why don't I use more body on every shot? It came to a head when we had some team games and I was picked to play the single point to break the ties our teams had. He won the serve and served fast topspin to my middle which completely surprised me. I blocked the ball and it sat up and then he did a full body forehand and I didn't even register the ball.

Today I went to hit at a local part time club and I noticed that if I kept my elbow over my right foot or thereabouts and I used my hips to power the stroke, I got much closer to the power I was looking for. I could also recover reasonably well with it. Its going to take some practice to keep that consistent but I have decided that I need to stop focusing on just beating people I can beat and do something that enables me to beat some of the players I am trying to beat. Being able to kill loose balls with blinding speed and decent spin will definitely help. May share some video of the new stroke if I record myself at my next session.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

ok I think I

If you serve it to short FH, there are 2 ways of receiving and you have to see if they went against the spin or with the spin. If they went against the spin (for eg after FH fade receive), it will be as if you are receiving a heavy FH pendulum serve back to you (ball is curving towards your left). If they went with the spin (for eg tomahawk style chop), then it will be as if you are receiving a heavy BH pendulum serve back to you - the ball is curving towards your right side.

The way to attack both of these sidespins are different and I think it needs to be practiced separately.

I think I start to understand. I serve reverse side spin to short FH (assume we are both RH handed players)
If they went with the spin, it means for example they contact the ball on the RIGHT side with the racket going from left TO RIGHT ) ? That’s what you call the tomahawk chop ? It could be done with the strawberry too ? The ball will curve to the right for me and they will be ADDING SPIN so it may be even heavier than my own serve ?

If they went against the spin it depends how much spin they made on it, but isn’t the most likely case it’s reversing my spin but not all of it especially if they don’t take risk and try to control the ball. For example simple receive just with BH contacting the ball on the LEFT side with little side movement just a little bit FORWARD push. The ball will deviate a bit to the left like a pendulum serve but not heavy spin.

In the first case I really need to learn to deal with heavy reverse side-backspin which I’m not good at ( serve I hate most when receiving)
In the second case I should not go to hard on the ball if I’m not in good position because it has not a lot of spin / knuckle but if I am in good position I should not be afraid

 

[blahness]

ok I think I

I think I start to understand. I serve reverse side spin to short FH (assume we are both RH handed players)
If they went with the spin, it means for example they contact the ball on the RIGHT side with the racket going from left TO RIGHT ) ? That’s what you call the tomahawk chop ? It could be done with the strawberry too ? The ball will curve to the right for me and they will be ADDING SPIN so it may be even heavier than my own serve ?

If they went against the spin it depends how much spin they made on it, but isn’t the most likely case it’s reversing my spin but not all of it especially if they don’t take risk and try to control the ball. For example simple receive just with BH contacting the ball on the LEFT side with little side movement just a little bit FORWARD push. The ball will deviate a bit to the left like a pendulum serve but not heavy spin.

In the first case I really need to learn to deal with heavy reverse side-backspin which I’m not good at ( serve I hate most when receiving)
In the second case I should not go to hard on the ball if I’m not in good position because it has not a lot of spin / knuckle but if I am in good position I should not be afraid

Yes you are completely right on this.

 

[Tyce]

Off season experiment evenings part two. After the last time really putting the Pro 05 through the wringer, tonight it was the Pro 01 getting a run. I'm really just trying to get a feeling of where I want to go, inner or outer, stiffer or more flexible, limba or Koto...
I have played limba for most of my life and I have a fairly good feeling how it works. I have the angles and dwell times and just the general feeling of impact quite well etched in my subconscious.
Koto outer fiber is different. The impression of contact is different, concise and the complete structure is less forgiving, or at least feels like that at first.
Once I got used to it after an hour or so, the point where I start hitting difficult shots through feeling, I felt like started to understand the language of this blade (which is still basically a Viscaria type structure and balance).
While it is extremely easy to overhit and send balls flying wide, once you get loose and relaxed enough it's a really rewarding setup. It's very picky about that and that's certainly something I need to consider investing time in or not.
I've said before how rubbers just feel harder on this blade, and while that's still an easy way to put it, I don't think it's entirely accurate anymore. The blade is just really elastic, so the whole thing feels more elastic, not harder. The Viscaria archetype really works well with compacted strokes. I played a lot of balls out of position and flicked a little wrist on them, resulting in unpredictable spin. The low balance of the blade sure helps here, making it easy to generate a fast wrist movement.

I have a lot of deliberation to do if I want to make a decision which blade I continue with. Both play great in their own way.

 

[blahness]

ok I think I

I think I start to understand. I serve reverse side spin to short FH (assume we are both RH handed players)
If they went with the spin, it means for example they contact the ball on the RIGHT side with the racket going from left TO RIGHT ) ? That’s what you call the tomahawk chop ? It could be done with the strawberry too ? The ball will curve to the right for me and they will be ADDING SPIN so it may be even heavier than my own serve ?

If they went against the spin it depends how much spin they made on it, but isn’t the most likely case it’s reversing my spin but not all of it especially if they don’t take risk and try to control the ball. For example simple receive just with BH contacting the ball on the LEFT side with little side movement just a little bit FORWARD push. The ball will deviate a bit to the left like a pendulum serve but not heavy spin.

In the first case I really need to learn to deal with heavy reverse side-backspin which I’m not good at ( serve I hate most when receiving)
In the second case I should not go to hard on the ball if I’m not in good position because it has not a lot of spin / knuckle but if I am in good position I should not be afraid

The spin heaviness also depends on what the opponent did. For eg going with the spin allows the opponent to add a lot of spin to your existing serve spin if they use all the mechanics well. But they could also not brush so heavily to get a lower spin ball. With really good technique they can even convert it to a sidetopspin ball. It depends a lot on their technique if they are going with the spin.

But if they went against the spin, it is very difficult for them to add a lot of quality without risk. So this receive method mostly uses the properties of the inverted rubber to reverse the spin. So you will get in general whatever you put in the serve. For eg if you served heavy spin and they received by going against the spin it will be heavy too. If you served weak spin it will be weaker too.

 

[dingyibvs]

Pretty busy with work since returning from my trip, but got another training session in yesterday. The new form is getting pretty settled in now, no longer requiring much thought. It felt natural to loop with my leg and not using waist rotation. This allowed me to focus on fine tuning other aspects of the loop and improve consistency.

The change the made the biggest difference was looping a bit more forward with my arm and a bit upward. The second most helpful change was extending the activation sequence to my wrist/hand. Before I wouldn't relax my wrist fully while keeping my grip relatively loose throughout the stroke, now I relax my wrist and my grip but tightening both up at contact. The wrist activation sequence helped add some spin, while the grip activation really helped to make for more consistent contact.

Interestingly changes to the BH is both easier and harder. It's easier in that new forms, additions, etc. take much quicker, but it's harder in that any change immediately mess up my accuracy whereas on the FH side I can adjust racket angles, trajectories, etc. almost intuitively to compensate for the change. I guess that's because my BH has only recently developed, so it's easier to change, but how the ball comes off the racket isn't as intuitive yet.

 

[dingyibvs]

Had a practice yesterday, first in 3 weeks with a real person. The new FH form is coming along nicely! The extra waist rotation is almost completely gone, and the activation sequence has been nicely integrated. With the elimination of wasted motion, the power increased as well. Even my training partner remarked how it seems I'm looping harder than usual.

On a more scientific level, I guess it makes sense. Newton's 3rd law dictates that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. As such, every action taken by muscles above the legs results in an equal and opposite reaction transmitted ultimately to the legs. So really the only power generator in a FH shot is your leg muscles' concentric contraction against the ground, and the only job for the other muscles is to make sure that power is transmitted to the racket. It's actually the same on the BH side as well, except there is no time for a bit leg kick except against slow balls, so you usually initiate the activation sequence at the hip level. But even then, ultimately the power is provided by the isometric contraction of your legs against the ground.

Looking over my practice videos, I see that I can load my right leg a bit more to provide even more weight transfer, and I need to stabilize my racket angle so it's not shifting as much. The racket angle part is probably more a function of my constantly adjusting/developing body movement, it'll probably figure itself out once I'm settled on the movement of legs/body.

 

[latej]

On a more scientific level, I guess it makes sense. Newton's 3rd law dictates that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. As such, every action taken by muscles above the legs results in an equal and opposite reaction transmitted ultimately to the legs. So really the only power generator in a FH shot is your leg muscles' concentric contraction against the ground, and the only job for the other muscles is to make sure that power is transmitted to the racket. It's actually the same on the BH side as well, except there is no time for a bit leg kick except against slow balls, so you usually initiate the activation sequence at the hip level. But even then, ultimately the power is provided by the isometric contraction of your legs against the ground.

I see that a bit differently, and I think that your interpretation of the "every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" here is a bit misplaced... But let me not go into this now, it's not that important and not what I want and am able to articulate right now (after a celebration ;-) )...

What I want to express is following... There are people who are, as I call it, muscularly gifted. They are naturally muscular, and their muscles are capable of quick contractions... You, are amongst those people... I, am not totally ungifted, but not as gifted as you... And there are people, who are really not gifted at all in this regard... Those people have no chance but to develop the technique without much muscle... The technique like that is more deep, it is based on the bone structure only... And that is common for all of us, it's the core... But those people, they sort of can't add the shit to it, they must develop the pure natural technique only... A beautiful example is Jannick Sinner... You must concentrate on "effortlessness"... There was a video posted here by some TTD member, if I invest energy I can find it again, really nice, as a starting point... Cheers.

 

[Marvinn8686]

I see that a bit differently, and I think that your interpretation of the "every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" here is a bit misplaced... But let me not go into this now, it's not that important and not what I want and am able to articulate right now (after a celebration ;-) )...

What I want to express is following... There are people who are, as I call it, muscularly gifted. They are naturally muscular, and their muscles are capable of quick contractions... You, are amongst those people... I, am not totally ungifted, but not as gifted as you... And there are people, who are really not gifted at all in this regard... Those people have no chance but to develop the technique without much muscle... The technique like that is more deep, it is based on the bone structure only... And that is common for all of us, it's the core... But those people, they sort of can't add the shit to it, they must develop the pure natural technique only... A beautiful example is Jannick Sinner... You must concentrate on "effortlessness"... There was a video posted here by some TTD member, if I invest energy I can find it again, really nice, as a starting point... Cheers.

Great insight, such people get labelled as "natural athletes". They keep good physical fitness even without training and if they train they got great results. Some time ago my colleague asked to come with me to training. He wasn't playing for almost 30 years, since he was a teenager (having some success then though). Not really doing any exercises nowadays. After few minutes of warmup play he showed backhand drives and loops coming out of nowhere what were faster than by best hit forehand. The old coach said just "god, I haven't seen such explosiveness for years, he is even better than X". And X is the best regular player, also just recreationally goofing around but everyone knows he is a great allround sportsman, playing football on good level before and having top footwork and stamina at the age of 57 now. Such guys have usually success in sports, but that is life. Some guys learn fast new languages or understand math in a glimpse, some are gifted in fitness. Hopefully it is still possible to enjoy TT and have fun recreationally even if you don't have it yourself

 

[latej]

Great insight, such people get labelled as "natural athletes". They keep good physical fitness even without training and if they train they got great results. Some time ago my colleague asked to come with me to training. He wasn't playing for almost 30 years, since he was a teenager (having some success then though). Not really doing any exercises nowadays. After few minutes of warmup play he showed backhand drives and loops coming out of nowhere what were faster than by best hit forehand. The old coach said just "god, I haven't seen such explosiveness for years, he is even better than X". And X is the best regular player, also just recreationally goofing around but everyone knows he is a great allround sportsman, playing football on good level before and having top footwork and stamina at the age of 57 now. Such guys have usually success in sports, but that is life. Some guys learn fast new languages or understand math in a glimpse, some are gifted in fitness. Hopefully it is still possible to enjoy TT and have fun recreationally even if you don't have it yourself

Thanks, yes, some people are very talented, joy to watch... Still, I wanted to say - well, it's my hypothesis, doesn't have to be true - that I think that some people who are not really gifted muscularly - it sort of forces them to compensate by having a clean and efficient technique and power transfer... And those who are gifted muscularly, are in bigger danger of developing sub-optimal technique... But if they develop clean technique, obviously the muscles are yet another plus...

I knew yesterday night in the back of my head I shouldn't write after drinking Slivovice... Now I know it in all of my head ;-)

 

[backspacer]

Suh Hyo Won has officially retired.

 

[backspacer]

Suh Hyo Won has officially retired.

Very short tribute video from WTT.

 

[dingyibvs]

Had a short practice session yesterday. The focus was on loading my right leg more and tightening grip at contact. Both improved, and overall consistency improved including in 2-pt drills. Next up is FH loop from BH corner. I noticed that the pros only have their left foot a little bit forward during that drill, but I have it waaaay forward, so will work on correcting that.

After that will be BH/FH drills, so in preparation I also started doing some BH training. Last time I worked with a coach he told me to relax my shoulder and keep my elbow closer to the body. I've gotten better at relaxing the shoulder, so now I'm working on keeping the elbow a bit closer to the body. This actually made power generation much, much easier.

I figured out later that it's because if you jut your elbow out and try to rotate your shoulder, the natural movement is very much a down-to-up one, and the racket moves like a windshield wiper. But when the elbow is closer to the body the movement becomes much more back-to-forward. Crazy that it took me this long to figure it out, even after the coach told me to change it! The timing and hitbox will be a bit different, but the new motion feels so natural that it took no time at all to adjust. I just need to drill enough to make it my default stroke.

 

[NextLevel]

Had a short practice session yesterday. The focus was on loading my right leg more and tightening grip at contact. Both improved, and overall consistency improved including in 2-pt drills. Next up is FH loop from BH corner. I noticed that the pros only have their left foot a little bit forward during that drill, but I have it waaaay forward, so will work on correcting that.

After that will be BH/FH drills, so in preparation I also started doing some BH training. Last time I worked with a coach he told me to relax my shoulder and keep my elbow closer to the body. I've gotten better at relaxing the shoulder, so now I'm working on keeping the elbow a bit closer to the body. This actually made power generation much, much easier.

I figured out later that it's because if you jut your elbow out and try to rotate your shoulder, the natural movement is very much a down-to-up one, and the racket moves like a windshield wiper. But when the elbow is closer to the body the movement becomes much more back-to-forward. Crazy that it took me this long to figure it out, even after the coach told me to change it! The timing and hitbox will be a bit different, but the new motion feels so natural that it took no time at all to adjust. I just need to drill enough to make it my default stroke.

This will be interesting to see, i suspect what the coach is teaching is different from the dominant backhand paradigm but only video will tell.

 

[dingyibvs]

This will be interesting to see, i suspect what the coach is teaching is different from the dominant backhand paradigm but only video will tell.

Yeah, part of the reason I hadn't gotten around to changing that is because I see that FZD juts out his elbow quite a bit. But the coach told me that I should have my elbow at most 2 fists width from my body. I'm not traveling again until the end of the month so I want to attend some more coaching sessions, so yesterday I figured I should implement the last thing he taught me that I hadn't worked on much yet since I'm starting BH practices anyway.

This is my current BH form, which I find difficult to apply power in game situations as it takes a lot of effort. The issue is mainly when the ball comes to my body. I can't rotate my shoulder and the power is entirely generated by my arm using triceps extension. Obviously when I try too hard to add power I'd lose consistency. With the new form it feels a lot more effortless, so it'd be interesting to see how it can apply to games.

Current form with the elbow jutting out:

 

[NextLevel]

Yeah, part of the reason I hadn't gotten around to changing that is because I see that FZD juts out his elbow quite a bit. But the coach told me that I should have my elbow at most 2 fists width from my body. I'm not traveling again until the end of the month so I want to attend some more coaching sessions, so yesterday I figured I should implement the last thing he taught me that I hadn't worked on much yet since I'm starting BH practices anyway.

This is my current BH form, which I find difficult to apply power in game situations as it takes a lot of effort. The issue is mainly when the ball comes to my body. I can't rotate my shoulder and the power is entirely generated by my arm using triceps extension. Obviously when I try too hard to add power I'd lose consistency. With the new form it feels a lot more effortless, so it'd be interesting to see how it can apply to games.

Current form with the elbow jutting out:

The body usage seems a bit wrong, you don't need to rotate the shoulder too much but you do need to lean forward so you have room to backswing into your body. Your backswing is starting too far out and with not enough of a C shape to swing forward with power. You should feel that your backswing is somewhat under your body for powerful swings when you stick the elbow out. It feels like you are pushing the racket into the ball, you should feel a bit more like you are pulling the racket into the ball and the elbow is coming backwards.

 

[dingyibvs]

The body usage seems a bit wrong, you don't need to rotate the shoulder too much but you do need to lean forward so you have room to backswing into your body. Your backswing is starting too far out and with not enough of a C shape to swing forward with power. You should feel that your backswing is somewhat under your body for powerful swings when you stick the elbow out. It feels like you are pushing the racket into the ball, you should feel a bit more like you are pulling the racket into the ball and the elbow is coming backwards.

Actually I feel like I simply can't bend my arm into my body anymore without forcefully contracting my biceps, which I don't really think should be happening at the end of the backswing anyway. When I have my elbow lower, however, I can rotate my shoulder to get the racket closer to my body. For example, if I'm lying down and hold my elbow out at where I would hold it for a BH stroke and just let my forearm and wrist/hand dangle, the tip of my fingers would be about 1 inch away from my lower chest. If I do the same with my elbow lower then my whole hand would be resting comfortably on my upper belly.