Advice on my strokes?

Just so you know, as silly as it seems, this video shows that relaxed whipping action NextLevel is referring to better than any other I can think of. And it also shows the timing of the body movement. All with a teddy bear!!!



Sent from the Oracle of Delphi by the Pythia

Below is my teddy bear imitation video.

I tend to have a limited body rotation because of my knee issues, but here is a session with a friend where I was teaching sidespin looping - around the 8th minute or so, I try to show him that he is swing too hard/tensely and that he doesn't need to swing as hard as he does to get a loop - spin comes from the wrist speed/forearm/elbow speed, while power comes from the body. So you will see that the way I loop in the video, I am not getting a ton of power, but I am getting a ton of spin. Right now, you are fighting to get spin because you tighten your arm and slow it down, while if you relaxed it, the spin would come naturally, then you could add your body rotation for power and the effect would be superior to what you are currently producing. You would also realize how much time you have to actually loop. And with the spin and control comes consistency of placement and you will start putting the ball in places that you want to with ease. And of course, since you are young, you can always rotate the body and get more power with full weight transfer. When you are relaxed, you can also impact the ball more squarely and get good spin. It is being tight that forces you to brush the ball so tensely.

If your problem is repeating the forehand topspin. I would recommend to slowdown and stay in control. The best way to learn is to start with a passiv block on the bal on it's highest point. Then if you feel like you can block every ball on the table, you can turn the passive block into an active block. If that goes wel you can change your active block into soft spin ( spin at highest point) at the table.

If you practise this a couple month you will see that you get much more consistent in spinrallies. But the key point is to stay relaxed all time. Dont make the mistake that you need to hit hard to created spin and speed.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G900F met Tapatalk

I'll talk about just one thing that everyone at your level does... PUSHING !

Your first push at 1:30 is generally what you want to do... you decide you want to push, you step to the bounce, look over the ball and take it early. I can talk about the many advantages to doing it like this and how it will win points both at your level and above my level. (YES, pushing can win points! and it can lead to chance to attack if done effective)

After the first one, you were REACH city for the rest of them. Even if your touch and timing isn't totally developed to make the shot how you want it (fast, slow, deep or short) at least you will be practicing sound fundamentals that will carry over to other areas. Anticipating the ball, making a decision already, moving to the contact zone are certainly things that you can apply to other shot situations.

Taking the ball early, you have the maximum command of possible angles. You also have the best control and potential to manipulate the spin with your change of grip, acceleration (full moderate or dead/fake) and impact dynamics. You also take away time from your opponent and vs aggressive opponents at your level, they will make many more misses if you know where to place the ball.

Consider practicing such an unheralded shot like this. You can also practice shadow stroke at table by placing a handcloth on the table somewhere and the ball on top of it, then practice your step in and small stroke imagining the ball is bouncing there and you are trying to take it off the bounce. It is easy to see the ball and get close to it doing it like this. Everyone at the club will look at you real funny, but 6 months down the road when you are killin' them with your push (and follow attack if they don't attack) the laugh will be on them.

If you are at home and have no TT table, you can practice this on the garage workbench to the kitchen table or whatever you have available to you.

This practice also helps your serve receive later on.

The next thing I would discuss would be serving, but I promised to only discuss one thin in this post.

nice

Hi shuki, your forehand loop looks very much like mine in that your left arm shoot out forward. I'm busy trying to correct this habit as i believe it causes two problems.
1) By sending your arm out forward, you are also sending your body backward to balance the weight. This means your stroke tends to be upward rather than forward and the reason you can loop backspin better than top spin. It could also be that your arm is going forward because your weight is going backward. Chicken or the egg but either way, same result, keep the arm in.
2) By having your arm out causes slower rotation of the body. Imagine a figure skater doing those fast circles on the spot. Arms out, slow, arms in fast. You need fast rotation for fast effortless loops, keep the arm in.

Shadow swings will really help this but it's something you need to fix. ..as do I.

yeah you're on the right track, try to relax your wrist more and slow the body movement down on the forehand loop, the power comes from the legs / hips not the body twist movement. Also your push needs a little wrist movement to add some spin to it, so it's a more effective shot. But you're on you way mate!! Keep up the good work.

Hope this helps.

Shuki said:

thanks everybody, a lot of this has been very helpful. I used to be VERY tight on my strokes, i thought i was pretty relaxed now. After you all told me i need to relax even more on them, I have improved quite a bit already from getting my body to relax more.

Click to expand...

Once you accept missing as well as experience, practice and time as part of the learning curve, relaxation comes naturally. Just focus on using proper technique, relax and let the rest follow. After periods of heavy practice, always de-stress your technique by looking for sources of tension and letting them go as well as doing 60-70% effort strokes as those should be your effort level during match play. In reality, competitive match tension will push up your effort
another 15-20% but if you don't have that relaxed, practiced quality to your play, the competitive tension will hurt your stroke quality much more easily.

Hi Shuki, i agree with NextLevel overall analysis. You should relax much much more.
FH topspin technique: the angle is a bit tricky, but i also feel your timing is a touch late, this is why you end up missing the ball so many times.
BH technique: against backspin, its on the table, but you're putting too much effort on it, because your wrist is not relaxed. against normal BH, i can hear from the sound your stroke is too flat. you should try putting more spin on it. go also for a more compact stroke in BH, you have to modify your technique.
pushes: take the ball more early, before the top of the bounce. for BH pushing, push with the head of the bat, not with the side of the bat. you have less control with your technique, especially vs sidespin, and you put in less spin as well.

start low and brush hard up with a light push