Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Archosaurus]

Another day of playing with casuals, another day of missing 30% power shots against weird balls. Ironically it's really hard to play in a more tempered way that still allows beginners to rally with you without just doing drives and blocks. Mostly all the balls are a bit shorter than I think, much slower than expected, and it's impossible to read where it's going to go until it's left the bat. Back in the day I struggled a lot against players like this but I got over it eventually with just bruteforcing shot quality, so I might try that again, although I feel my physical condition hasn't caught up to play like that. Tiny movements feel like Olympic level feats due to my spaghetti legs. In the first weeks I was able to do pivots and stuff, but I think I'm not recovering in time, so I may need to decrease my training amount for the first months, because I can barely move right now and am reaching a lot.

Also getting some questionable unsolicited advice, like "don't start your backswing from below and hit into the ball from behind even against backspin" or "never slice into the bottom of ball even when pushing backspin, just hit behind it".

Yeah, okay, fine. I asked the person to demonstrate and of course the success rate on forehand loop against my backspin feed was 0% and to now I haven't seen any of my short backspin serves actually clear the net either. It's not like I don't know this. There's just a few people who are cocky because they can still beat me in games due to my various errors that they feel a need to give me advice. If they were able to demonstrate their theory in practice I would be more inclined to believe it is what I'm trying to say, but since I've played at far beyond their level in the past, I just don't buy it. The proof will be in the eating of the pudding or whatever they say, just need to get my shit together again.

 

[Tyce]

You gotta be stoic at this point. Let people have their talk and just play your own agenda. Can't let them get into your head, even for the fact that you might find it annoying. Who cares?
You're doing this for you, listen to your body and listen to your mind.

 

[jonol]

Most people who give overly generalised, unsolicited advice like that aren't worth listening or arguing with. I just say, "thanks" and then carry on.

Even if I can play certain shots consistently and with high quality, I won't give someone advice unless they specifically ask for it, or we are just having a friendly chat about a match we have played and analysing it. Even then I feel like I want to have a good idea of their specific equipment and have watched to see what type of error they are making.

I helped a friend improve their backhand considerably, but I asked to play some matches with their equipment first and also gave them some simple serves and pushes to see what errors they have. Only then I gave them advice based on what I knew worked well from using their setup, and to fix the specific issues I saw them make in drills.

I find it crazy that casual players have the nerve to just make broad statements about the "right" way to play, without any meaningful thought or experimentation behind it. Dunning-Kruger effect, I suppose.

 

[andymagata]

I notice things from another point of view, I tell my peers that are better players than me what I am working on or what seems to work better for me. For example I focus on hitting the ball on different places when I strike, or that I feel I get more control when I take a ball immediately after bounce. In the hope of them giving me a good advice or share their own experience. Usually, they look at me like I am a lunatic and quickly change subject to something like the weather.

 

[Archosaurus]

You gotta be stoic at this point. Let people have their talk and just play your own agenda. Can't let them get into your head, even for the fact that you might find it annoying. Who cares?
You're doing this for you, listen to your body and listen to your mind.

Yep. Actual good players and coaches almost fully understand my situation just looking at me play and have given me entirely appropriate and reasonable advice. It's really not a complicated situation so people don't say that much, a lot of it comes down to "hit ball more, get back in shape". Most people are normal and just enjoy the sport.

On the topic of listening to body, I made the executive decision to take a training day off and attend after a week because my legs are fatigued enough that I'm not able to move correctly anymore. It feels like a waste, but I know it's the right decision as a hobbyist.

Most people who give overly generalised, unsolicited advice like that aren't worth listening or arguing with. I just say, "thanks" and then carry on.

Even if I can play certain shots consistently and with high quality, I won't give someone advice unless they specifically ask for it, or we are just having a friendly chat about a match we have played and analysing it. Even then I feel like I want to have a good idea of their specific equipment and have watched to see what type of error they are making.

I helped a friend improve their backhand considerably, but I asked to play some matches with their equipment first and also gave them some simple serves and pushes to see what errors they have. Only then I gave them advice based on what I knew worked well from using their setup, and to fix the specific issues I saw them make in drills.

I find it crazy that casual players have the nerve to just make broad statements about the "right" way to play, without any meaningful thought or experimentation behind it. Dunning-Kruger effect, I suppose.

I would not call their play level necessarily impressive. As an USATT level, I guess around 700 and 1100 is appropriate. The 1100 guy took a few games off me when I was just messing around and feeling out the ball in the beginning, so I suppose he thinks himself my superior. I've started playing penhold against him so that he gets annoyed. Maybe I might need to play left handed or with sandpaper.

The 700~ guy was giving me advice during drills all of which was complete nonsense of course, but he had a quite consistent feed and block so he is alright. I played one game against him to demonstrate our difference when he was getting a little ahead of himself. In his case I can understand that he is so unskilled and inexperienced that he doesn't actually recognize the difference between his problems and more advanced problems, so I forgive him.

I tried to teach the 1100 guy how to actually feed backspin from the hand for drills when we had a disagreement over looping backspin and I wanted to demonstrate my hypothesis, but he didn't listen to me at all. Even the 700 guy could feed a consistent backspin from the hand. It boggles my mind that people who have apparently never done basic coaching things like feeding balls still think themselves some kind of expert.

Personally I have not given advice to the regular club players because I find it a bit rude and especially silly if I can't demonstrate it reliably, but I did give some load transfer and grip advice to a young kid who was fairly new because it was clear he had some talent. He adopted my advice on the spot and could immediately use it successfully so I think it was alright to give it. All of my advice was wrong and I "didn't know how to feed the ball correctly" according to the 1100 guy of course, so he asked for my bat and started doing nonsense drills with the kid for a good while. Even tried to walk off with my bat.

 

[OvrChkn]

Some days I'm debating switching to long pips because of mobility issues going from right to left due to reoccurring issues with lateral pelvic shift, which is hurting my timing to get to my backhand strokes. Working with a PT for the past few months and decreasing my time playing. Everything was getting fixed, then I had a big random setback this past month.

No issues going left to right, so I've become way more forehand dominant. Oddly enough, my enjoyment in the game has increased with my improvement in the forehand and left to right footwork over the past few months.

Match play has seemed to improve as well, I just do terrible in the beginning of games, then making comebacks.

 

[Tyce]

Post season testing is fully underway! Tonight we have a thin 7ply in Sanwei Fextra, clad in Fastarc G1 and Mercury 2 medium.
The blade is very controlled, judging by the amount of balls I was able to place on the white line. Nice low sound. Grip feels good to my hand. G1 was a good fit, great control and lots of potential, and not as easy to overhit it with this blade.
Mercury 2 played fine, but I have come to the conclusion I don't like the feeling. I want the ball to sink into the rubber and really feel that sponge engage, but this rubber just leaves all the feeling at the surface which gives me a disconnected experience.

Next up, Ma Lin Carbon with old sheets of T19 and T05. The blade is remarkably unremarkable. I don't know what other way to put it, but it just doesn't stand out in any way, which could be perfect. The Tenergies fit great and the more I try them the more I like it. Chances are rising high that my next rubber is a Butterfly one.

To be continued.

 

[dingyibvs]

As always, I'm working on a boatload of things. My coach says that my BH technique is now better than my FH technique, especially when I'm made to move, so I'm redoubling my efforts to perfect my FH technique. Main things are:

1) Do NOT backswing with the arm or the body, backswing with my hip only. This is gonna be my major focus going forward, as I think it's also the key to adjusting to different environments. That's because slight timing adjustments are done by the arm, as in when exactly to accelerate my forearm. With a smaller arm backswing I can commit later, giving me more time to judge and adjust to the ball. It also has the obvious major added benefit of quicker recovery in a faster rally. I've worked on this before, but I guess I never completely got there.

2) This is a more minor one, but basically I should keep my racket a bit more closed throughout the swing but also keep my racket a bit higher and focus on going forward more and less upward. This reduces the need to close the racket on contact, thus ensuring more consistent contact. This is especially useful when adjusting to different height of the ball, as well as against balls of higher spin. When I first started doing this, it almost felt like I was looping from up to down. I still backswing to a lower spot, but then as I forward swing I bring the racket up then try to convert all that energy to forward going.

On the BH side I'm working not so much on new technique but how to attack different balls. I'm also working on 2 main things.

1) Lately my focus has been applying my new technique of hitting more into the ball into loops vs. backspins. That's been going really well, I'm making rapid progress attacking backspins, just need to keep it up. This also has the major advantage of ensuring consistent contact, so a lot less whiffs especially in game situations and a lot better "grab" on the ball.

2) As my opening loops have improved, a new major area in need of improvement has emerged, which is re-looping. The keys to this as I've discovered is actually somewhat similar to point #2 on the FH side, which is that the focus needs to be going forward. I still need to backswing downward because after a quality loop vs backspin or an opportunity ball, the ball coming back has a ton of spin and will dip rapidly. If you want to re-loop (as opposed to just counter, which needs the racket high and take the ball early), you must approach the ball from below or you'll whiff. I used to go from down to up then back down to brush over the ball, but that results in very inconsistent balls, a lot of whiffs or near whiffs, or balls going long, depending on the quality of the contact. What I need to do is actually go from down to up and then maximally forward. This works against any ball of higher topspin, like opponent "tears", BH flips, and even opponent loops. Again, it feels kind of like going from below to meet the ball but then hit it downward at contact. I'm just starting to practice this, so will be a while before I can do this well in practice let alone in games.

 

[Archosaurus]

Post season testing is fully underway! Tonight we have a thin 7ply in Sanwei Fextra, clad in Fastarc G1 and Mercury 2 medium.
The blade is very controlled, judging by the amount of balls I was able to place on the white line. Nice low sound. Grip feels good to my hand. G1 was a good fit, great control and lots of potential, and not as easy to overhit it with this blade.
Mercury 2 played fine, but I have come to the conclusion I don't like the feeling. I want the ball to sink into the rubber and really feel that sponge engage, but this rubber just leaves all the feeling at the surface which gives me a disconnected experience.

Next up, Ma Lin Carbon with old sheets of T19 and T05. The blade is remarkably unremarkable. I don't know what other way to put it, but it just doesn't stand out in any way, which could be perfect. The Tenergies fit great and the more I try them the more I like it. Chances are rising high that my next rubber is a Butterfly one.

To be continued.

The Stratus Power Wood is a little bit too controlled for me after getting back into the game for a few weeks now, so I was thinking to eventually end up playing with either a Fextra 7 or Clipper Wood, although for now I'm going to try out a Sanwei Fextra 5X inner carbon and see how I get along with that.

Speed and control wise, do you think these 7ply wood blades are comparable to the softer inner carbons, like kevlar composite ones with Limba and Ayous?

I'm not planning to compete at all this year and just focus on training and experimentation, then settle on a setup for next year, so the EJ is in full swing lol.

 

[Tyce]

My Fextra (7) feels significantly slower than my Korbel. Korbel in turn is a step less powerful than Ma Lin Carbon and MLC is slower and less powerful than Innerforce Layer ALC.

(slower here means low power = less output, powerful means high power = higher output)

In terms of pure spin, Fextra is only just behind Korbel, I can make gnarly curves easy with both. As soon as we hit the carbon blades that goes down quickly. It's too easy to apply speed rather than spin unintentionally.

I used to have a Clipper wood, but that's quite a bit more power, I'd put it close to Ma Lin Carbon in terms of power and speed, and perhaps spin too.

Control is a weird term and depends very highly on the person doing the controlling.

 

[Archosaurus]

My Fextra (7) feels significantly slower than my Korbel. Korbel in turn is a step less powerful than Ma Lin Carbon and MLC is slower and less powerful than Innerforce Layer ALC.

(slower here means low power = less output, powerful means high power = higher output)

In terms of pure spin, Fextra is only just behind Korbel, I can make gnarly curves easy with both. As soon as we hit the carbon blades that goes down quickly. It's too easy to apply speed rather than spin unintentionally.

I used to have a Clipper wood, but that's quite a bit more power, I'd put it close to Ma Lin Carbon in terms of power and speed, and perhaps spin too.

Control is a weird term and depends very highly on the person doing the controlling.

That's really surprising to me, given that people describe the Stratus Power Wood as "a little bit faster than Korbel". So the Fextra 7 would be a step in the other direction then. I'll probably just need to try them all and see for myself. Luckily the Sanwei blades are on the cheaper end.

Control to me means how easy it is to intentionaly apply a specific type and amount of spin to the ball and how easy it is to intentionally add or remove pace from the ball.

I find the SPW fairly easy to spin the ball up with at low speed (although perhaps very slightly more difficult than a very soft blade, but a lot of that's just going to be me being worse than I used to be) and it's easy to get a lot of pace into the ball with both wings.

I do however wish the blocks were a little bit faster and flatter, and I wouldn't mind to get a bit more oomph out of the big swings. The vibration is also excessive, I don't need that obvious of a sensation. I would be okay with a more direct and shorter vibration.

 

[Tyce]

That's really surprising to me, given that people describe the Stratus Power Wood as "a little bit faster than Korbel". So the Fextra 7 would be a step in the other direction then. I'll probably just need to try them all and see for myself. Luckily the Sanwei blades are on the cheaper end.

Control to me means how easy it is to intentionaly apply a specific type and amount of spin to the ball and how easy it is to intentionally add or remove pace from the ball.

I find the SPW fairly easy to spin the ball up with at low speed (although perhaps very slightly more difficult than a very soft blade, but a lot of that's just going to be me being worse than I used to be) and it's easy to get a lot of pace into the ball with both wings.

I do however wish the blocks were a little bit faster and flatter, and I wouldn't mind to get a bit more oomph out of the big swings. The vibration is also excessive, I don't need that obvious of a sensation. I would be okay with a more direct and shorter vibration.

H3 is going to reverb into most allwood blades perhaps except something with a large variation between layers to kill the vibration. As for BH block, you are playing with the soft version of a slower tensor. Even changing from Df to regular Vega Europe could make the difference here. Something like Rakza 7 is a step up in bounce and thus block, and even that is still a fairly easy rubber to use.

Just judging from this post I would consider trying a different BH rubber, having more density there will help keep the FH vibration down. And in due time you can make a switch up to something like MLC (now Myth Carbon) which seems to have better build quality.

 

[Archosaurus]

H3 is going to reverb into most allwood blades perhaps except something with a large variation between layers to kill the vibration. As for BH block, you are playing with the soft version of a slower tensor. Even changing from Df to regular Vega Europe could make the difference here. Something like Rakza 7 is a step up in bounce and thus block, and even that is still a fairly easy rubber to use.

Just judging from this post I would consider trying a different BH rubber, having more density there will help keep the FH vibration down. And in due time you can make a switch up to something like MLC (now Myth Carbon) which seems to have better build quality.

I suspect the rubbers will influence it more than the blade does ultimately. My H3 is unboosted and old so it's not terribly elastic anymore. It can produce quality shots but it takes everything I have. I will be testing the new blade with fresh Battle II, and while I know it's not good to change more than one variable at a time, using a years old brick is probably not ideal either.

This Europe DF sheet is brand new so I'm not inclined to rip it off and replace it immediately, but I have been eyeing Rakza 7 as a step up later once the current sheet wears out. I'm not competing so I don't really care if I'm leaving performance on the table.

I went for Europe DF to get something that's much softer and slower than anything I've ever used (and because I found a sale) and it's still a bit slower than I expected it to be. Absolutely not bouncy at all, they might as well take the "TENSOR" label off.

In general though for now this is positive as brushing the ball is trivially easy. I am however bottoming it out even with my lousy backhand, it makes a quite poppy snap sound, so it might be on the soft side even for me.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Me in green tee with the size of HULK!

1. In this match, no, you will not see a lot of my big slappy fh winner coz' I was using D09C instead, the brushy type rubber.
2. I used D09C in this tourney, because I wanted to work on my serve as my main weapon.
3. I see that my fh seems to be very passive in this match.
4. Which is a mismatch for my style, if I had used Zyre03 on fh instead but that is another story for another day.
5. However, I wish to bring your attention to my service game for this video.
6. They look kind the same movement yes?
7. But the spin is not the same, no?
8. The placement also sometimes here, sometimes there?
9. I have Craig B and Andreas L to thank for it.
10. Their YT vid help me up my service game.

 

[Archosaurus]

Played a few days again, one casual session and one more structured session.

First time I'm feeling like I have a bit of touch coming back, and the game's not subjectively super fast anymore. Still huge problems reading more unconventional shots, but their quality is also low, so it's manageable.

Winning a lot of points just blocking and driving mid-rally and waiting for mistakes. If the game speeds up and I'm able to make it to the ball, I'm pretty sure I won every point with shot quality. Can't really close off points from things like small popups, I tend to still miss if there's time to think.

Footwork however is not like it used to be; very unathletic and old tactics like baiting out wide forehands to hit into their backhand corner is not working anymore. Gotta do a lot of PT and some specific drills for things like crossovers. May need to adjust my ready position to be more backhand oriented and not receive from the far backhand corner, but I kept doing it even when it wasn't working because who cares, practice games. If it was competition, I'd adjust in order to win.

Very random success rate; one game I'll go 1-11 then next game against same person it'll be a pretty clean 2 or 3 point lead. I think I won one match about 11-6 against a guy who was whooping me a few weeks ago.

I guess just typical U1500 kind of play level stuff. More points are lost than won. Hopefully by the end of the year I can move on towards a more serve oriented game enforcing my playstyle more.

 

[jk1980]

Me in green tee with the size of HULK!

1. In this match, no, you will not see a lot of my big slappy fh winner coz' I was using D09C instead, the brushy type rubber.
2. I used D09C in this tourney, because I wanted to work on my serve as my main weapon.
3. I see that my fh seems to be very passive in this match.
4. Which is a mismatch for my style, if I had used Zyre03 on fh instead but that is another story for another day.
5. However, I wish to bring your attention to my service game for this video.
6. They look kind the same movement yes?
7. But the spin is not the same, no?
8. The placement also sometimes here, sometimes there?
9. I have Craig B and Andreas L to thank for it.
10. Their YT vid help me up my service game.

i watched your video before reading your annotations and tbh the first 5 minutes ( i did not watch more) i asked myself if my memory was failing me or if you always had such a "terrible" backhand loop if i can even call it like that. Whatever you do when you dont push with your backhand and try to loop(?)/hit (?) the ball with it you basically slap the ball into the bottom of the net with no recognizable element of any technique that would indicate that you are "on the way" to performing a loop. perhaps i strongly notice that because i am improving my backhand and trying to actually use it more in matches and perhaps i simply never really looked for it in your videos but i do not remember you failing to often looping with your backhand. It might very well be that you never tried to loop backhand in the past and that is why i dont remember it, but with that rate of success or error rather you might as well simply only ever push with your backhand. sorry to be that harsh but that was what stood out for me when watching the video. for somebody who spams each and every thread with butterfly zyre propaganda (even when it may be taken as sarcasm) you are remarkably far away of using any modern butterfly rubber like dignics or zyre.

I recently played a player i would not win against because he had this backhand serve that had ambigious spin for me. Not really much backspin, if at all and if i pushed and even chopped it i would not create enough backspin to stop him from powerlooping or even slapping it for a winner.

Now having not played him for a few month i tried to loop or at least backhand flick every of these serves and even though the success rate might only be around 70% the whole match dynamic turned around to him being in need to react to my "opening up" and not enabling him to be dominant on his serves. I won quite convincingly and he said "you simply did hit every ball this time", while i felt that my service receive was way more important and my usual serve loop setup did work just as fine as it "always" did.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

you are not harsh at all my friend. My bh was S h 3 3 t !

I was mentally so focus on serve after watching Craig and Andreas YT vid I sort of forget everything else.

You are right to call out my shitty backhand this time.

NB: I did win 3 - 1, and my serves saved my arse. I won ugly!

 

[jk1980]

I was mentally so focus on serve after watching Craig and Andreas YT vid I sort of forget everything else.

Totally the same for me. I focus on being prepared to backhand loop after serve and getting into the right stance and when the ball comes to my forehand i suddenly am off balance and F it up even though it would have been the easiest ball to put away. i guess its just how our brains are working.

I had it quite some time when i thought in my head "i will backhand loop his serve" and then the serve is topspin to my forehand and suddenly i push it or it comes to my elbow and i am out of position because i focussed so hard on looping (or at least blocking/countering depending on the spin) the serve to open up the game.

In this game i got away with much, especially my number one weakness footwork (where i get drawn into a right foot in fron stance where i can't properly loop and only defend) and me not cogging back my wrist on backhand loops (which would have failed me if there was decent backspin in the balls i looped).

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Totally the same for me. I focus on being prepared to backhand loop after serve and getting into the right stance and when the ball comes to my forehand i suddenly am off balance and F it up even though it would have been the easiest ball to put away. i guess its just how our brains are working.

such is the bane for us amateur club level player who does not train everyday and only do this twice a week two hours session.

You focus on one thing and another falls apart... sigh...

 

[Archosaurus]

Was a bit daring and did one more session today. I will probably need to take the whole week off, but it's a clear sign my physicality has increased a lot. A few weeks ago playing 2 hours would wreck me for a week.

Worked on overall consistency, staying low in rallies and tried to re-develop a cross step into my game. I noticed I'm just not doing it for some reason, even when it was a staple of my game before, so I did some very simple drills to allow me to start doing it. It's so much easier when you just do it. The real test will be how fast I can make it automatic in matches.