serve suggestion or tips

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A good back spin serve will be low, go fast enough to get to the end of the table and then still have enough spin to return to the net. I use a lot of elbow and wrist hitting the ball at the tip of my paddle with the blade as horizontal as I can get it. This is hard to do and hard to return without pushing.
 
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ok i agree ... but i`m still not good enough to preform it .... do you ?
Yes, but I cannot consistently make the ideal back spin serve. The ball is sometimes too high, goes off the table before the back spin can stop the forward momentum, doesn't get near the edge, and sometimes I miss the ball completely because I am swinging flat and fast and timing must be perfect. Even if I don't make the perfect back spin serve each time it is still effective unless I miss the ball or the ball is too high.
 
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Quoting next level here

"I have always believed that it is a mistake to do most of your serve practice at the table and that you need to learn to generate spin first and then bring that spin to the table. People who almost exclusively practice their serves at the table tend to end up with something like what bobpuls has because the fine motor skills required to generate spin are no built first."


I really like Brett Clark's demonstration where he practices serving on a bed. it's a great option if you don't have a good floorspace at home for practicing service. I have a good floorspace with hard wood that I also use but I actually prefer using the bed. Really helpful when trying to understand how much spin you're actually imparting on the ball and with developing no spin variation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Someone who knows how to serve said:
I have always believed that it is a mistake to do most of your serve practice at the table and that you need to learn to generate spin first and then bring that spin to the table. People who almost exclusively practice their serves at the table tend to end up with something like what bobpuls has because the fine motor skills required to generate spin are no built first.

You got it right mister.

I think what happens is people kinda chicken out at teh last moment and pull up. They stop any accelleration and slow it all down for fear they hit long... when it is really a matter of impacting on bottom. What happens is players do not make their bat parallel to ground by the time of impact and they unconsciously know it, so they slow it down to a snail or swing down... trying to learn it all at teh table can be rough.

I also advocate trying to get teh grip, short swing accelleration biomechanics, timing and touch right before trying to go live.

Away from table anywhere there is a long floor space one can simply stand up, swing forward, impact below the ball and make it go forward a meter or so and allow it to spin back to the player and repeat.. a lot. Same thing at table, stand back from table a meter, chop forward and below ball, allow the ball to even go high at impact, it is OK, important part is to get the impact right, that means touch, timing, accelleration and impact point.

Once all that is in order, one can go to the table and so what if the serves are high... it is much easier to adjust that at the table with the swing plane, point of impact and where you are making the first bounce.
 
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Ok i have done a lot of practice on the floor and the bed and here are the first results...
this is cut from the video ... the success rate is only 30 %
but now i see the kick whn the ball is coming back .
Some of them are high, but still i think it is progress.
Sorry for bad angle but there were a lot of people ...
Am i going the right way ?
 
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says what [IMG]
Your serves are probably high because you're not so much brushing along the bottom and downwards as you are hitting the bottom with a horizontal angle and making the ball travel up and forward.

Here's an exercise:


Hold the bat in your serve grip, with the ball in your left hand. Swing your paddle down in a 45 degree angle and throw the ball into the paddle. Do this until you can get pretty good spin after the ball bounces upwards, then off the ground and goes to the right.

Then once you can make very good spin with this, do the same thing on the table, except try to produce some force towards the other side (Not too much, wrist and forearm only) so that the ball flies off your racket lower and far enough to get over the net.

Don't try to not hit the net: try to barely go over the net.
 
says what [IMG]

The motion they are doing is what I mean.

Experiment with swing angle to see what happens, and try to get a lot of spin.

You are throwing the ball into the racket so you will get more spin than normal, but this is the idea. Practice at the table to get the right angle. Try to swing a bit downwards, not so much towards the opponent. You don't want to think about lifting the ball at all to get it over the net: let the spin and bounce do it.

Also, when you serve, of course, don't throw the ball into the racket. ;)

Do the same motion with the hand.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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Ok i have done a lot of practice on the floor and the bed and here are the first results...
this is cut from the video ... the success rate is only 30 %
but now i see the kick whn the ball is coming back .
Some of them are high, but still i think it is progress.
Sorry for bad angle but there were a lot of people ...
Am i going the right way ?

bobpuls, these are pretty nice. The spin on all of them is decent and every so often you really get the spin very nicely. As you practice you will be able to control pulling past the ball while you spin under it and getting the ball to bounce just over the net. But that is not something to worry too much about. The spin is coming nicely. And you have decent control on those serves. I would say that is nice progress. Good work.
 
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This is really good progress ! I was so surprised and proud that you could take all the positive suggestions from here an incorporate them really well. A few things you could focus on is to see how hard your gripping your paddle, its should be really soft , just enough pressure to not let it fly off your hand, and then trying to get the contact point a little lower and use a little more waist . The transition will actually help you adding spin and power and plus getting into ready position quicker after the serve. You should always practice getting into the ready position after the serve once you have got the serve down to your satisfaction. Otherwise, a good short serve might work against you if they take it off the bounce and push it really deep to your body or out to to your wide forehand.
 
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This is good. Now you are getting real spin. Now you can have fun doing all kinds of things. But you had to get to this point first.

Need to see your serve from the front before I can make any technical comments. For thr height, just get lower and contact the ball closer to the net height. Well done.
 
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Thanks ...
i will continue practice .. i will follow your suggestions ... they are great and they works...
Thanks again ... i will post a new video after few training's ,but unfortunately they just remove the table from the pub and they replace it with billiard table :-( . now i have to find place to test my serve ....
 
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Ok after few weeks we have solved the table placement problem and now i have just perfect place to train....
Here is newest video vhere i have better angle and here i can see my bad movement and i can also see that im contacting the ball after the wrist movement so all the spin is gone.
And also i have recorded it slowmo but the software is unable to manipulate this kind of video... Sorry for the quality.
 
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It looks like you are using the pivot of upper shoulder and upper arm to get your swing... and those areas do not accelerate very well. it is limiting your ability to accelerate the bat to top speed in a very short time frame. It might be OK to use those to move the lower arm into preliminary position, but at a point, the upper arm has got to stop and let the lower arm move (and wrist at impact) that is how you move something forward and get the whip.

There are times where one can use a stiffer motion like that as a change-up inn the serve sequence, that has some potential for deception if you could incorporate a last moments arm and wrist.
 
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Bob, as discouraging as it already is, improving serves takes some time and practice to develop the touch and feel.

I was probably the absolute WORST my first few sessions trying to learn a short serve. It was so comical, the government had to move in, take over, then quickly classified those vids of it in the best interests for public health. If they had became public like youtube can make stuff public, the entire population in the world would develop severe muscular damage and paralysis from convulsion laughing without end at my epic fail(s) at attempting short serves. I did everything a body could do wrong and found ways to do stuff wrong no one had ever gotten wrong.
 
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Ok ... here is next session with much more focus on the wrist movement ......
i think is better but still far from perfect ..... but from this im now somehow able to do the first basic reverse pendulum serve...... i will update next video with it .
 
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