Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[jonol]

You know, I wonder if training like that was a part of my problem. So I had been seeking power, wanting to get a good crack on every loop. Once I managed to do that against single point backspins, I set my robot to random points, 3 different speed/length balls, and then tried to do the same. Basically I was trying to do the drill you suggested...except doing a big swing with every shot.

I was never able to accomplish that, and now I'm thinking I probably shouldn't have tried because it's simply not the right way to approach it.

Yeah, I think these drills are good for learning how to 'build' a point.

Early in rallies often both players are close to the table, so you simply don't get the type of ball that you can load up for.

Learning to creating quality with timing and efficient movements, loading up when appropriate.

As you become more efficient, you can start to feel when you can really rip the shot.

 

[dingyibvs]

Had another training session today, this time with a better player (than me, that is). My coach was giving someone else a lesson, and afterwards he watched us a bit and gave me some pointers. As mentioned before, I've been dealing with a wrist injury. I was trying to make some adjustments, but besides limiting my wrist's range of motion I wasn't sure what to do.

My coach pointed out that my adjustments have led to me brushing too much on the FH side. He showed me some adjustments but then had to leave. My training partner then worked with me for a bit and finally was able to help me make the necessary adjustments. Basically, I didn't really need to limit the backswing in my wrist, I just need to limit the forward swing to merely tensing up the wrist to return it to neutral position and not letting it swing overly forward. Also, the flaring out of the racket should be done passively, by letting my arm leading a loose wrist, and not by actively flaring my wrist out. After these adjustments, I was able to get much better contact and control on the ball, though if I used power even just tensing up the wrist still hurt. That's probably just a function of my wrist having still not fully recovered though.

I then did some more BH opening loop practices, which went pretty well. My new BH rubber, Rxton 9, is really super easy to open up with. I'm pretty impressed with its capabilities, as it's got plenty of power if I can get a good whack as well. I think I feel pretty good with my BH opening loop now. Next up I need to work on the next shot. As I need to be able to kill a soft block, loop an active block, or enter into a BH rally against a counter.

 

[J-fed]

So. What's your approach to rubber damage. I took a chunk out of my FH rubber today whilst practicing FHs on the BH diagonal.
It's near the edge and won't affect my play but dang, it's there every time I look at the bat now. Just taunting me like a big unburst pimple.
How much do you care about such things and what are your guidelines for acceptability on damaged rubbers?

 

[Tyce]

Anything that's not in the outer 5mm I replace ASAP. If I notice it makes me uncertain or uncomfortable, I replace it ASAP.
Basically the sweetspot needs to be good, with some extra margin, and of course the specific areas used to serve.
If I hit the ball on the outer edge of the racket, fair chance it was going to be a bad shot anyway.
I have also replaced rubbers with damage outside the sweetspot and put the old one on my backup to use in practice, but usually that leads to me still trashing the rubber sooner than later.

 

[J-fed]

Anything that's not in the outer 5mm I replace ASAP. If I notice it makes me uncertain or uncomfortable, I replace it ASAP.
Basically the sweetspot needs to be good, with some extra margin, and of course the specific areas used to serve.
If I hit the ball on the outer edge of the racket, fair chance it was going to be a bad shot anyway.
I have also replaced rubbers with damage outside the sweetspot and put the old one on my backup to use in practice, but usually that leads to me still trashing the rubber sooner than later.

Yeah, it's about 2 or 3mm in so I'll not replace it yet, I'll wait until I see a rubber I'm fascinated with and then use it as an excuse.
Was practicing 4 to a table and it was unusual for me to do the inside out FH drill so I lost my bearings a bit. You live and learn eh.
Overall extremely fun session and the blocking practice against a real loop monster made good learnings. I compared the P3V to the Yinhe 955 and found the P3 to be way better from my POV. I could aggressively block most anything with it, but the 955 I could not block the real zingers. It is surprisingly confusing for a rubber with not much rep for big reversal though. He seemed totally perplexed by it, could barely string 2 loops together but against the P3 he could hit 4 or 5 until he made me miss or I got some nasty cut on one.
This makes my decision tough, but I think I'll go with the one I feel I can dictate with, not the one I feel like neither of us have a clue what's going on.

 

[Archosaurus]

So. What's your approach to rubber damage. I took a chunk out of my FH rubber today whilst practicing FHs on the BH diagonal.
It's near the edge and won't affect my play but dang, it's there every time I look at the bat now. Just taunting me like a big unburst pimple.
How much do you care about such things and what are your guidelines for acceptability on damaged rubbers?

No care at all unless it's a hole or bubble right in the middle. The only times I've ever replaced a rubber are due to sponge fatigue, topsheet wear or a bubble. Never because of a scuff or tear. They're cosmetic most of the time anyway.

Hell, I badly glued on my current FH rubber and it has a little bulge in the top corner, but I don't care about stuff like that anymore, I re-glue too often for it to warrant correction.

In competition the covering has to be 100% completely undamaged and 100% completely even but that's not really something that is checked around here in amateur competition nor will it affect the performance, so I'd try to have a spotless, perfect backup racket on hand but otherwise I think minor damage on the edge would pass for racket control.

 

[kindof99]

Basically, I didn't really need to limit the backswing in my wrist, I just need to limit the forward swing to merely tensing up the wrist to return it to neutral position and not letting it swing overly forward. Also, the flaring out of the racket should be done passively, by letting my arm leading a loose wrist, and not by actively flaring my wrist out.

Most of the time, your arm/hand/wrist/finger should be relaxed when backswinging, and then tense when swing forward. That relax to tense momentum is good enough for all the need from wrist.

The pause from backswing to forward swing is kind of a way to backswing your wrist as your body starts to move your arm forward but your wrist is still delayed due to the relaxation.

 

[RPB Enthusiast]

I think I've come to conclusion that Zyre-03 works much better on my backhand than forehand, but since I play penhold, I will stick with Zyre-03 on forehand until the beginning of November. I ordered Dignics 09c and Dignics 05 so I'm looking forward to trying those out, but if I don't like D09c, then I might just consider going back to DHS Skyline 2 Blue Sponge or Hurricane 3 Neo Blue Sponge. With my Viscaria Super ALC, I think I will enjoy it more with 09c and even H3N/S2BS since I've always enjoyed playing with Chinese rubbers and feel like I come back to them 🙂

 

[Archosaurus]

Expected H3 37A to be a lot more difficult to use on backhand, but it's actually really stable and very easy to make power with. It doesn't feel much slower than G-1 when attacking with it which is weird, but I guess G-1 also needs a larger swing for speed. I haven't even boosted the socks off it, just one layer which I don't really plan to re-boost.

It also blocks much better than harder versions do for some reason. Extremely easy to keep it tight and low without popping out. Maybe the extra grip from the sponge deflection gives it stability, but you'd expect less stability due to the spin sensitivity. Pushes are also extremely easy to keep low, fast and spinny. Also stupidly spinny on slow loops and flicks but that I expected. Maybe not quite Tenergy 05 FX levels in my hands, but really close.

I remember Jupiter 3 38A being similar, so maybe they're largely interchangeable.

The blue sponge is on its last legs (topsheet is fine but I abused the sponge) so I swapped to my commercial 40A orange sponge sheet for forehand and...it's H3? I think quality on the big shots is a little lower, but it's already overkill for my opponents, and in general rallying shots are slightly easier, so I see no downside to it currently given that OS is always cheaper than BS. Supposedly topsheet QC is really bad on commercial, but all of mine have been good to now.

 

[NextLevel]

Not the right place to post this but i couldn't resist sharing...

 

[Tyce]

Not the right place to post this but i couldn't resist sharing...

Giving me @Datscleva vibes

 

[dingyibvs]

Expected H3 37A to be a lot more difficult to use on backhand, but it's actually really stable and very easy to make power with. It doesn't feel much slower than G-1 when attacking with it which is weird, but I guess G-1 also needs a larger swing for speed. I haven't even boosted the socks off it, just one layer which I don't really plan to re-boost.

It also blocks much better than harder versions do for some reason. Extremely easy to keep it tight and low without popping out. Maybe the extra grip from the sponge deflection gives it stability, but you'd expect less stability due to the spin sensitivity. Pushes are also extremely easy to keep low, fast and spinny. Also stupidly spinny on slow loops and flicks but that I expected. Maybe not quite Tenergy 05 FX levels in my hands, but really close.

I remember Jupiter 3 38A being similar, so maybe they're largely interchangeable.

The blue sponge is on its last legs (topsheet is fine but I abused the sponge) so I swapped to my commercial 40A orange sponge sheet for forehand and...it's H3? I think quality on the big shots is a little lower, but it's already overkill for my opponents, and in general rallying shots are slightly easier, so I see no downside to it currently given that OS is always cheaper than BS. Supposedly topsheet QC is really bad on commercial, but all of mine have been good to now.

I tried the OS for ~1 month as well. My initial thought was the same as yours, "oh, it's just H3", but after using it for a while longer I found out its issues. It really happens when you hit into the sponge, then you feel that it doesn't have the dwell of the BS.

 

[Tyce]

I tried the OS for ~1 month as well. My initial thought was the same as yours, "oh, it's just H3", but after using it for a while longer I found out its issues. It really happens when you hit into the sponge, then you feel that it doesn't have the dwell of the BS.

Yeah OS is a bit more poppy (for H3) which does make it a bit easier to generate a dynamic shot, but harder to create a high spin, medium power shot. The experience is a bit more uniform throughout the power curve which does make it easy to use I guess.

 

[Archosaurus]

@dingyibvs
@Tyce

Yep I agree with those, I fell in love with BS due to that property. My brand-new OS spins about as much as my worn BS did before I replaced it. It's a lot more dynamic though, easier to make dangerous short strokes.

Mainly I was expecting it to be a lot worse but they're both honestly fine against who I play with. There's no scenario where BS is enough but OS isn't.

Note also that my 40A OS actually measured harder than my 41A BS so lol.

 

[Tyce]

@dingyibvs
@Tyce

Yep I agree with those, I fell in love with BS due to that property. My brand-new OS spins about as much as my worn BS did before I replaced it. It's a lot more dynamic though, easier to make dangerous short strokes.

Mainly I was expecting it to be a lot worse but they're both honestly fine against who I play with. There's no scenario where BS is enough but OS isn't.

Note also that my 40A OS actually measured harder than my 41A BS so lol.

Yeah I think BS is softer than OS for the same number.

 

[Archosaurus]

Yeah I think BS is softer than OS for the same number.

I'm sure the measurement is empirically correct, it's just that these things have a curve, it's not linear at all.

The pores are larger and more variable, although the cell wall thickness is probably higher but I've never seen a hi-res pic enough to tell for sure. Would need like 500x.

So it's probably going to be a little softer in small deflections and probably a little harder in high deflections. I think they mix in more natural rubber to make up for the overall softening that you get from the larger pores which is why it feels rougher and firmer to the hand.

It's probably why opinions are so mixed and some people say it's softer and some people say it's harder, when both are right, context just matters.

The orange sponge is probably a bit punchier because it's easier to get into that middle range of deflection and it's probably more elastic in that range, while blue sponge benefits from either brushing a lot or hitting through it a lot. It's kind of not great compared to orange sponge if you're doing something that's mild in both IMO.

 

[blahness]

Played a bit of TT after a damn long time (i lost track) of not playing TT and pretty much switching to badminton. Table tennis now feels a lot more fun lol after this break.

So one thing I brought over from badminton is way, way better understanding of footwork and body turning mechanics and I feel like i am way faster on my feet than I was prior to badminton. Previously I was always overwhelmed by speedier players and trickier older players because of my shitty slow footwork and slow recovery especially after my forehand loop.

So badminton footwork principles essentially boils down to this:

1) split step (ie literally let your centre of gravity drop to quickly load up your front foot). This is also accompanied by a rapid switch in the feet direction so that you get the optimal push off direction (ie sideways to the feet is always the optimal pushoff direction). This has to be timed exactly when the opponent contacts the ball because only then you will know where to move to.

If you are moving to the right you need to push off left foot and vice versa. This is obvious. But, if you need to move to the front or back you actually need to do a very slight rotation of your feet so that you can push off sideways to obtain a force component in the correct direction. So for eg to move right + backwards for a forehand, if you have left foot pointing at 12 o clock it just doesnt work. You need to immediately switch your left foot orientation to something like 1 or 2 o clock so that the side of the foot can push off powerfully with a component to the back. This rapid switching of foot directions can be trained easily at home and it allows you to turn super fast.

Without split step, it is impossible to move super fast into position. This is also why you can see the professionals always take this split step precisely when the opponent hits the ball so that they already have the energy loaded in the front foot to move super fast to whatever direction you need to move.

2) chasse (sideways) or direct 1 step lunge which is the fastest footwork to wherever you need to be. Fh pivot is a bit different because it involves body rotation which can also be done very explosive using the hips (something i never knew before badminton) - it is the same mechanism which allows a super fast feet direction switch.

3) the shot preparation step. So the split step allows you to reach the shot preparation step (ie where you plant your racket foot down just prior to making your shot). At this stage, you can no longer adjust your foot positioning as you have already committed to the shot.

4) perform the weight transfer to transfer momentum into your shot.

5) flow into the next split step.

A lot of TT tutorials do not have this split step concept tbh but basically all the pros do it. For me it is a game changer. I knew about split step previously but with badminton the amount of details that go into the split step is insane. For eg the feet turning to handle with directional changes, optimal pushoff is from the side of the foot.

Tbh TT distances are way less demanding than badminton so this is probably why split step education is pretty much nonexistent. People would be like 'just do footwork exercises' without understanding the mechanics and locking in bad movement patterns.

But in badminton, without a strong and powerful split step done correctly you have absolutely no hope to even reach a shuttle early so it forces you to actually learn it properly lol.

But TT is actually also highly positional in that, if you hit in a bad position your chances of producing a high quality shot with consistency is very low. But, i see a lot of people in TT (including myself) just compromise and use some upper body and arm shenanigans to compensate for the bad positioning to return a shot which kinda still works but is actually suboptimal.

Anyway i did like a few hours of hitting and had super long counter and loop rallies with a lot of people which was a lot more fun. I used to struggle to actually try to be consistent against people who just like to hit wildly, especially sudden fast af shots to my middle pocket and wide angles, but i somehow managed to counter most of these shots back and was in a "wall mode" by the end of the session. So, even against "annoying" practice partners who never place the ball consistently i can still train with them quite well and not miss.

But, i think i lost a bit of the feeling for spin and only managed to get some of it back at around the middle of the session. I think the D09c also oxidized/hardened a bit which is not great. But tbh, a lot of stuff is way easier to execute when in position than when out of position.

Anyway i feel like some of these new insights from badminton made TT a lot more fun for me and also i feel will bring me to an even higher level than before. Kinda excited lol.

 

[dingyibvs]

Played a bit of TT after a damn long time (i lost track) of not playing TT and pretty much switching to badminton. Table tennis now feels a lot more fun lol after this break.

So one thing I brought over from badminton is way, way better understanding of footwork and body turning mechanics and I feel like i am way faster on my feet than I was prior to badminton. Previously I was always overwhelmed by speedier players and trickier older players because of my shitty slow footwork and slow recovery especially after my forehand loop.

So badminton footwork principles essentially boils down to this:

1) split step (ie literally let your centre of gravity drop to quickly load up your front foot). This is also accompanied by a rapid switch in the feet direction so that you get the optimal push off direction (ie sideways to the feet is always the optimal pushoff direction). This has to be timed exactly when the opponent contacts the ball because only then you will know where to move to.

If you are moving to the right you need to push off left foot and vice versa. This is obvious. But, if you need to move to the front or back you actually need to do a very slight rotation of your feet so that you can push off sideways to obtain a force component in the correct direction. So for eg to move right + backwards for a forehand, if you have left foot pointing at 12 o clock it just doesnt work. You need to immediately switch your left foot orientation to something like 1 or 2 o clock so that the side of the foot can push off powerfully with a component to the back. This rapid switching of foot directions can be trained easily at home and it allows you to turn super fast.

Without split step, it is impossible to move super fast into position. This is also why you can see the professionals always take this split step precisely when the opponent hits the ball so that they already have the energy loaded in the front foot to move super fast to whatever direction you need to move.

2) chasse (sideways) or direct 1 step lunge which is the fastest footwork to wherever you need to be. Fh pivot is a bit different because it involves body rotation which can also be done very explosive using the hips (something i never knew before badminton) - it is the same mechanism which allows a super fast feet direction switch.

3) the shot preparation step. So the split step allows you to reach the shot preparation step (ie where you plant your racket foot down just prior to making your shot). At this stage, you can no longer adjust your foot positioning as you have already committed to the shot.

4) perform the weight transfer to transfer momentum into your shot.

5) flow into the next split step.

A lot of TT tutorials do not have this split step concept tbh but basically all the pros do it. For me it is a game changer. I knew about split step previously but with badminton the amount of details that go into the split step is insane. For eg the feet turning to handle with directional changes, optimal pushoff is from the side of the foot.

Tbh TT distances are way less demanding than badminton so this is probably why split step education is pretty much nonexistent. People would be like 'just do footwork exercises' without understanding the mechanics and locking in bad movement patterns.

But in badminton, without a strong and powerful split step done correctly you have absolutely no hope to even reach a shuttle early so it forces you to actually learn it properly lol.

But TT is actually also highly positional in that, if you hit in a bad position your chances of producing a high quality shot with consistency is very low. But, i see a lot of people in TT (including myself) just compromise and use some upper body and arm shenanigans to compensate for the bad positioning to return a shot which kinda still works but is actually suboptimal.

Anyway i did like a few hours of hitting and had super long counter and loop rallies with a lot of people which was a lot more fun. I used to struggle to actually try to be consistent against people who just like to hit wildly, especially sudden fast af shots to my middle pocket and wide angles, but i somehow managed to counter most of these shots back and was in a "wall mode" by the end of the session. So, even against "annoying" practice partners who never place the ball consistently i can still train with them quite well and not miss.

But, i think i lost a bit of the feeling for spin and only managed to get some of it back at around the middle of the session. I think the D09c also oxidized/hardened a bit which is not great. But tbh, a lot of stuff is way easier to execute when in position than when out of position.

Anyway i feel like some of these new insights from badminton made TT a lot more fun for me and also i feel will bring me to an even higher level than before. Kinda excited lol.

Ha, you're like a club mate of mine, who's also playing more badminton these days and has told me about his new appreciation of footwork and power generation.

As for the foot direction thing, I think I mentioned it a long time ago here. My belief is that that's the primary purpose of the "filler step" in TT, and why pros are always "bouncing". For me personally, I'm dealing with an issue that I and apparently also you find obvious, which is that I need to push off the left foot to move right. Instead I'm also moving right with a cross step motion, I lean first to the right before pushing with the left. I do something similar when reaching for a ball to my left. I tend to lean left and let my center of gravity get outside of my leg rather than bending my left knee out and maintain the center of gravity closer to the middle. This is gonna be the first footwork related issue I'm trying to correct.

 

[dingyibvs]

I had a lesson yesterday, helped confirm some recent findings and also learned some new things.

On the FH side, the coach confirmed the benefits of keeping the wrist loose and the racket head up. Apparently the racket head should be adjusted based on the spin, height, and timing of the ball. That also goes for the BH side which I also worked on later on.

In addition, he wanted me to move my elbow more forward during the forward swing. I couldn't figure out how to work that into my stroke, so I tried a bunch of things during the practice, though never quite got it right. After coming home and reviewing the video I think I finally figured it out. The best way to do it is feeling like you're hitting the ball with your elbow. By doing this it also made the wrist usage much more natural. Before my wrist would lead the elbow, but now I feel like the elbow is leading the wrist (not actually, but that's the feeling).

On the BH side, besides adjusting the racket head I also needed to adjust my racket height in general. He noticed the day before that I was missing way too many opportunity balls on the BH side. He fed me some opportunity balls and had me start with a much higher racket, so high that I was absolutely certain that the ball wouldn't even reach the net, that it'd just hit my side of the table. Yet, it worked. The contact was great and the ball landed deep on his side. My brain needs to be completely rewired for this phenomenon lol.

Also, I finally managed to record some BH service receive training footage last week. I couldn't really use any power with my FH due to my wrist injury, so it was a good opportunity to work on my BH. It took me until ~5 mins into the video before I figured out that I could use my body to help adjust for height, though I never was able to use proper footwork to help as well. You can also see how during periods where I have trouble attacking services that it affects the rest of my game as well, as I'm not ready for the ball coming back even when I do land an attack. So I think if I can launch the first attack more consistently it should help the rest of my game as well.

 

[blahness]

Ha, you're like a club mate of mine, who's also playing more badminton these days and has told me about his new appreciation of footwork and power generation.

As for the foot direction thing, I think I mentioned it a long time ago here. My belief is that that's the primary purpose of the "filler step" in TT, and why pros are always "bouncing". For me personally, I'm dealing with an issue that I and apparently also you find obvious, which is that I need to push off the left foot to move right. Instead I'm also moving right with a cross step motion, I lean first to the right before pushing with the left. I do something similar when reaching for a ball to my left. I tend to lean left and let my center of gravity get outside of my leg rather than bending my left knee out and maintain the center of gravity closer to the middle. This is gonna be the first footwork related issue I'm trying to correct.

Yep. Tbh a lot of these sound obvious now that i played and trained a lot of badminton, but i was pretty blind to them when i only played TT.

I havent tried a lot of serve and serve receive, probably would be super rusty now...