Looping slow no spin balls

says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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Archie: just a few small pieces of info:

1) you keep practicing brushing till you can do it when you want. There is no rush. You will feel the ones that have more spin. 2 years from now you will laugh and think of how little spin those have compared to your technique in 2 years.

2) your cell phone's camera is all you need. You are not conducting a science experiment. You will see what you need to from your cell phone's camera.

3) YOU DO NOT WANT YOUR TRAINING PARTNER FILMING YOU. He can't film you and hit the ball back. YOU NEED PROPER FOOTAGE OF YOU HITTING WITH SOMEONE. This has little to do with brushing. I promise, you will see stuff you weren't expecting if you see footage from those angles I said while you are hitting with a real live human. That means you need to get a 3rd person to film for you. It should take less than 5 min for the person to get several clips of 15 seconds each from all 4 of those angles. SO FOR 5 min YOU NEED A 3rd PERSON. You can get a friend to do you a favor.

4) the footage is not about the brushing but seeing yourself will still help. I will continue to maintain that I don't need to see the footage and neither does anyone else here, unless you want to post it. But you seeing it WILL HELP YOU: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WILL SEE. Trust me. Seeing what you are doing will help you.

Find a friend to come to the table while you are hitting. Wait till you are warm enough. Like, make the person show up 30 min after you start hitting so you are warm. And get them to film from different angles while you hit.

I know, I am staying focused on these simple details. It's because you tend to get yourself wrapped up in a miasma of stuff that seems to distract you from what you need to focus on.

Too bad you don't have access to a good coach. He would make you work on the stuff you need to focus on instantly. No messing around.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus
 
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3) YOU DO NOT WANT YOUR TRAINING PARTNER FILMING YOU. He can't film you and hit the ball back. YOU NEED PROPER FOOTAGE OF YOU HITTING WITH SOMEONE. This has little to do with brushing. I promise, you will see stuff you weren't expecting if you see footage from those angles I said while you are hitting with a real live human. That means you need to get a 3rd person to film for you. It should take less than 5 min for the person to get several clips of 15 seconds each from all 4 of those angles. SO FOR 5 min YOU NEED A 3rd PERSON. You can get a friend to do you a favor.

As someone who hasn't read this entire thread, what are these angles? I'd like to do this myself aswell. I've noticed from some angles my strokes look damn close to what I think I'm doing, but from others they're completely different.

edit: sorry to make you reiterate what you've already posted
 
says Spin and more spin.
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As someone who hasn't read this entire thread, what are these angles? I'd like to do this myself aswell. I've noticed from some angles my strokes look damn close to what I think I'm doing, but from others they're completely different.

edit: sorry to make you reiterate what you've already posted

Oh, man. Are you going to make me quote myself.....again! I feel silly with how often I quote myself. But this quote is from the last page of THIS thread. I bet you could go back one page and find it easy. :) Well, I guess I can quote myself as much as Carl Jung or Mircea Eliade. Hahaha.

Yep. It's just down to practice.

The thread meandered but probably what you need to continue working on is brush contact.

At a certain point it will be natural. The rest, like when to make deeper contact, when to make thinner, when to make the loop slow and spinny, when to make it fast, they will start falling into place as you practice and become more successful at making loop contact when you choose.

As I see it, that is what you probably need to work on until you can do it every time.

The more specific and detailed information: your strokes are already decent. The contact may be different but the fundamental strokes won't change much. The angle of the stroke will change. You will feel that out. But the fundamentals of the stroke will remain fairly similar.

At some point you should get someone to video from your phone for you. You should have a real person hold the phone rather than your method of propping the phone on something and going to hit. If the person makes the video from 4 or more angles, you will be able to learn much more about what you are doing when you are hitting with someone. If each video/short is approx 15 seconds, that should be enough. Angles that would help you:

1) facing you from FH side
2) facing you from BH side
3) behind you from FH side
4) behind you from BH side

You can do more angles. But those 4 angles will give you different information about things you are doing.

Since mechanics are what they are, for observing your strokes you don't really need more than 15 seconds from each angle.

Whether you share those or not is up to you. But if you do that with someone looking in the camera and choosing the angles that give you good, full views of your strokes, it will help you and you will see stuff you did not know was there. For you, the most important of those views may be #1.

There. So Shuki, you might as well read my whole post. It explains why I keep trying to get Archie focused back on the simple priorities.

There have been lots of great posts about lots of different aspects of technique and looping of low balls, high balls, dead balls, topspin, backspin, multiball, blocking, chopping. Very little of this has to do with what Archie was actually asking. In fact what Archie was really asking should be rephrased. It is this:

How do I brush the ball and generate spin when I am feeding the ball to myself and it does not start with spin on it.

Answer: Brush and keep practicing. Brush and keep practicing.

The rest of the thread is great. But almost all of it is besides the point for Archie because: a) he doesn't have a partner who can actually block his loops, b) he isn't actually looping, he is driving, c) he doesn't have a coach, d) he doesn't have someone who can feed him multiball, e) he doesn't have a shortage of hitting partners who can feed him dead balls because most of us would consider all the topspin or chopped balls he receives from his hitting partners as very light or dead, f) he is really looking to learn how to brush consistently so he can start implementing that in his practice time with his hitting partners: in other words when he made the title to this thread, he really meant, how do I get really good spin when I self hit; what am I doing wrong. So it makes perfect sense how he got great answers about how to hit dead balls but not too many answers about the actual question he was trying to find answers to. (Brush and keep practicing). :)

But regardless of if he is brushing or not, him seeing actual footage of himself, where he is really playing with an opponent, not self hitting, would definitely help Archie even if he never let any of us see it.
 
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Okay. These are some of the best posts ever. And they have to do with how you generate spin. And they were directed to an infamous deadballer back in the day.

More than the sound, there is the ball trajectory and clearly the ball is going down instantly after than contact, it goes over the net only because the contact point is very very high. The real test of skill is to top spin this huge underspin ball with a contact point under the net, forcing you to create an arc.

I do think that if the bat speed matches the spin of the ball, you should get a returning spin not far from the incomming one, and it's obviously not the case here.....only judging from the bounce of the returning ball. It is possible to loop this ball by using "brut force", meaning as described by Pnachtwey, by reaching a very high paddle speed..........but it is also possible to loop this ball by touch.......has you described, by reaching a high dwell time (= "grabbing" the incomming spin).

Touch is everything in table tennis. I have faster arm speed on my FH loop than many of my team mates in my tt club, but a team mate is able to input incredible spin, more than me, even with is "slow motion" FH loop. He is able, thx to his touch, to deform the rubber even on "slow motion" strokes.

See this video of Shlager (serves) :

I do believe that anyone here can reach far higher bat speed on a pendelum serve than Schlager is using for most of his serves here. But nobody here is able to imput has much spin than Schlager. Thanks to his amazing touch, Schlager is able to input more deformation than us to his rubber, resulting to more spin than anyone of us, he is maximazing dwell time. And this is what you explain also at the end of your post, the acceleration is an important factor to reach a better dwell time/rubber deformation/higher spin.

@Pnachtwey

If youthinks that he is looping the robot ball, clearly there is someting mistaken about looping. Once again it's only because the contact point is ultra high that the ball is going over the net (I could get this beckspin ball past the net even without moving my racket, yup with a static racket, it would be ez, same are some adjustments anyone here will be able to falt hit the ball, you just have to adjust the racket angle).
It really looks like flat hits on underspin ball, the ball is going down right after the ball contact. With the same technique it will be impossible to loop this ball with a contact point under the net.

Pnachtwey you should try the same thing but just waiting for the ball to be under the net and try to loop it back by giving it an arc, with this level of underspin (150+rev/s) just to understand what we are saying here first. Then for improvement, a good thing will be to do exactly the same exercice as we see on the second video with his play mate..........but doing it seriously, meaning huge backspin on the serve, if possible huge backspin + short serve (for more advanced players, requires far more touch than huge backspin + long serve) and then a 3rd ball FH topspin.

Here I don't see the point, the serve is long without spin, the return hardly has any backspin and then a FH topsin that is not even meant to be a winner.......there much better usage of precious training time to be done !!!!

The serves have to be REAL serves, meaning that you concentrate on it to get maxium backspin (long serve if you cannot achieve short serve with huge backspin), this way you also benefit of this training to get also better serves. The training partner takes the ball right after the bounce to input huge backspin (the more backspin you put into your serve, the more backspin yopur partner will be able to input also, while keeping the ball low) into a low a long ball into your FH and then you execute an opening FH loop or killing 3rd ball attack. Repeat it hundreds of time.

This will be truly productive.

And, one more thing, there is no meaning executing 3rd ball attack drills if you don't have, at least, a huge backspin long serve, really, there is no meaning in it.
Table tennis is a constructive sport, its not like I can begin to train someone to do killing 3rd ball attacks if this guy doesn't have the serve skills to benefit from this traing. You won't be able to do 3rd ball FH attacks if your serves are so bad that it is easy to attack your serve.
Most of time, the coach instruction, during those type of exercices, is to attack right away if the serve is long for example....

Also, 9mm balsa core, please don't tell me there is also carbon in it, like a Joola Kool or Yinhe T11, what you are lacking the more right now is touch, not even speaking about technique or anything else, it is to FEEL the ball, to feel when you are giving spin (or not), to feel when your contact is good (or not), to FEEL. This is far more important at your level than the astronomical power of a 9mm balsa core. Get a 5 ply 6mm tick allwood with a lot of flex and if possible a ton of feedbacks (vibrations, sound), something like Stiga Offensive Classic.

Pnachtwey, you are right about the fact that when you topspin a backspin ball, the ball will always rotate (in the referential of the floor), but Carl is not an engineer and what he describes can be wrong if taken litteraly but it is so true when taken from a lambda tt player with a very good feeling.

Carl is describing his feeling, he has the feeling that when he executes a very good stroke, he can "grab" the ball. As I explained, here is just the feeling of being able to deform the rubber, maximizing dwell time and spin, the feeling you get when you have good arm/wirst accelaration. He wanted to explain that there is much more than your simple way to see physics in table tennis and he's done it based on his feeling (and I'm sure he has a pretty good one, because is table tennis "intuition" based on his feeling actually matches very often the physics, even if it's not 100% accurate, but dude......Carl is not a physics nerd and an engineer like I am, or you are, he tries to describe his FEEL with mere words, thats all).

Certainly the same feeling Schlager gets on all his serves, the amazing spin is not created by raw bat speed, it is creating by a combination of very big but very short acceleration (not long enough to reach very high bat speed, as I said I think anyone here can reach higher bat speed on a pendelum serve than Schlager on most of his serves, but nobody here will come close to his level of spin). This way, Schlager is able to maximize dwell time and to deform his rubber far more than anyone of use.

This feeling, to deform the rubber much more than a usual stroke would, even on serves, has been described many time with his own words by Carl.........for example Der_Echte will call it by the famous expression "Bang Impact", a compination of "Hand pressure mastery" and huge acceleration. Werner Schlager, the Elite, is able to get this "bang impacts" even on serves.

But I trully think you lack feeling, with more feeling you will understand far better what Carl is saying, feel is the alpha of table tennis, the omega is the touch and I think it is very very difficult to get a good technique without good touch and feeling.

To me, it looks like you are wanting to overcome your lack of feeling and touch by the usage of low grade physics, and judging from the video it doesn't look like this is a good trade for your improvement, for example you think that you are doing topspins against the robot backspin, it's not true, there is no spin in your ball, you can't feel it but you can at least SEE it, your balls have no spin, just watch the video.

See this video of Freitas touch and feel :

See what he is doing at 1:15 "the backspin catcher". A guy like Carl will instantly understand what Freitas is doing and the level of touch behind it, based on his own feeling. And you won't understand this based on low grade physics applicated to table tennis, because like many scientist would do and has you said, you will consider the dwell time as few milliseconds and thuus........somehow a constant parameter. You even wanted to "expose" the "myth" of long/shord dwell time....etc....but man, a guy like Carl will instantly understand what Freitas is doing the "backspin catcher", indeed he is minimizing dwell time as much as possible, so much that the ball is keeping its backspin after multiple contacts with the rubber, try to guess what will happen with a longer dwell time, try to do it yourself and try to FEEL the ball, the dwell time...etc..., there is now way to understand it with low grade physics once again, even introducing a friction coeficient....etc...won't help you here.

Now I understand why you wanted to "expose" the "long/short dwell time myth" on your famous topic, I trully think that you lack touch and FEEL, and into your hand there is no short or long dwell time blade/rubbers/whatever and you trully believe(d ?) it was a myth. But it's not a myth, you just can't feel it.

Sorry. I really couldn't resist. I figured, if we want to confuse Archie and add to the list of things he's interested in finding out how to improve on and get better at, then these posts will send his imagination running totally wild in a way that is completely worthwhile.
 
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@NextLevel

"Under-promise and over-deliver" is great. Definite +1 for that.

@SilentRain

I read your post, and I followed it today.

I've narrowed my focus down. My only goal is to get more spin with the same normal speed I play shots at, placing it just simply down the line from the middle.. Nothing technical. I'm not getting a lot of spin, but it's a good start.

That, along with @UpSideDownCarl's advice of a higher volume training method, I've started doing self hitting off the table with 3 balls in my left hand, dropping the next one as soon as I recover from my shot. Carrying a huge box of balls with me is not practical, but I could sneak a few more balls into my racket case, probably.

I managed to get a few sequences where I brushed 3 balls in a row with pretty acceptable consistency, but it's not quite there yet. I'm starting to develop a form now, and it's making things more consistent.

I took a short video just before I left, and of course the shots were absolute failures as well, but I'm seeing a small problem with my follow through. My stroke is a lot less flat, though, because I've been trying to stick to the "swing in same plane as blade angle" guideline. It'll probably fall into place once I get a bit better at this.

I think the best change I've done is the higher volume training. I don't have as much time to think between shots, but I do have a far better memory of what I just did. So +1 to Carl definitely.
 
says Spin and more spin.
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Archie, a small bag with 20 balls in it will be half the weight of your racket and not much bigger. You can carry 20 balls with you.

You can also find a little container that fits 20 balls to stash somewhere in that game room.

At a club I used to play at in NYC's Chinatown, there was a little old lady with a bucket of balls. Everyone called her "the chicken lady" because her bucket was a cardboard Kentucky Fried Chicken container shaped like a bucket. You can figure something out that will work, that you can leave and hide at the table and easily replace if it goes missing. You even could shape the bag into a bucket and just use that.

Truthfully, if you used 70-80 balls, it would be better. But 20 balls is easy to carry and gives you at least 20 hits before you have to pick up.

I've got little hands and I can put my hand in a bucket and come out with 5 each time. That guy who feeds multiball to ZJK looks like he gets 15-20 with each grab. And I am not sure his hands are much bigger than mine. 4 rounds of 5 before you ha e to pick up will be much more worthwhile.

Try it one time. See if you can sort out why I am repeating this yet again.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus
 
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NL, hahaha, true.

There's actually a ton of places where balls can get stuck and go out of view in my play area, so it's a bit of a pain, but I think I will still find some kind of practical way to transport a dozen balls or so with me. It's mostly a question of space in my bag, and I'm not inclined to carrying a spare bag with me.

You know, now when I think about it, I have a spare racket case. I could probably throw at least 10 in there. The rackets in it are actually unused premades and sealed up with a plastic wrap, so it'll not be a problem to take them out: they're not gonna degrade. So I might just use that as a ball "bucket".

Picture 187.jpg

Better than expected.
 
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Archie, don't let Carl break your back. He doesn't remember what it was like to pick up balls without a ball picking machine.

Hahahahaha. Nice. Even though it's not true.

When Ludovic was 10 he said to me: "I've never seen anyone your age do so much to pick up ball that are stuck behind things." By "my age" he meant old and grumpy. [emoji2]

That was at NYTTF which closed down a few years ago. But, at Spin, I pick up balls all the time and not always with a pickup.


That will work well. If you try it once and you don't feel the extra value of that amount in the case, then do what you choose. But I have a feeling you will be able to understand why that amount is worth using.
 
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