Looping slow no spin balls

Not many people analyze the backswing or the elbow or their stance

tldr; if you plan to loop hard, get your body lower but, don't lower your backswing too low.

Assuming you know how to topspin the ball well:

If you can loop underspin fine, but still loop out when encountering no spin, the quick short term solution is to let the ball drop down, close your racket more and then loop it (not too hard). It's not very effective, but it gets the ball on the table.

The long term solution(for those athletes who want to be competitive):
You can close your racket angle, but it will take away some speed.

Looping underspin serves requires you to drop the paddle low. After all, you must first go down low in order to go up fast.
If you drop the paddle too low, you are forced to hit upwards and it becomes very easy to loop the ball out if your opponent serves topspin or no spin.

Instead, just change the backswing. Bring your paddle back and a little less down. You still have to spin the ball of course.
Make you have a mirror or a video camera or something to help you look at what you are doing.
Most players don't realize how far their arm drops, since all they focus on is how fast they try to follow through. Players don't realize how much they drop their arms when they try to loop a no spin serve.

If you plan to snap your forearm, make sure you get your elbow low. The harder you plan to loop, the lower you would have to go.
(I'm a lefty penholder and I loop really hard, so my elbow is as low as the table or the net.)
If your elbow is too high, it is very difficult to hit forward. (you are almost forced to loop upwards, thus making people go out.
A forward motion is extremely important if you plan to loop hard and punish a serve, since going forward faster lowers the trajectory of your loop. And faster shots require lower trajectories.
Of course, the height of your elbow depends on the ball too(if it's really high or low), so adjust accordingly.
I have seen a lot of older players, and tall players especially who can't or don't get low enough.

One last thing thing is to lean forward. it is an easy way to change your looping motion into something that is directed in a more forward direction, lowering the trajectory of the loop even further. It also helps drop the elbow a little.

As a little extra:
Counterlooping openers and counter attacking is done the same way. Most people go out when they try to counterloop off of a heavy topspin loop because loopers like us are used to dropping our arm and lifting the ball. (This is fine in most scenarios) Instead, you have to raise your backswing to the appropriate height(the height of the loop matters quite a lot) and loop through the ball. Backhand punching follows the same logic. You don't drop your paddle. You raise it to the appropriate height and hit through the ball.

I can't counterloop those openers without leaning forward and raising my backswing a little and getting my body lower.

I have had this problem for years, since I loved looping underspin (and almost all I ever did, since the players I played then didn't block well). I would get frustrated when people served no spin, sidespin/topspin, because I would go out.

Having fixed this problem, I get to pretend to be Xu Xin and counterloop openers and flips all day and of course punish long and half long serves.

No 80-90 degrees is too open. Your looping motion would be forced into an upwards motion (since that's how you would spin it). Trying to hit the ball in a forward motion with that racket angle wouldn't even result in a loop(more like a drive or smash, which is still a fine way to return sort-of-high no spin serves).

This depends on how fast you want your shot to be. But generally, for half long no spin serves, it is more or less 45 degrees for me (and I loop kind of fast). Also, spin still matters here. We all say no spin here, but if you plan to loop hard, then you really have to pay attention as to whether or not the serve is light topspin/ light underspin/light sidespin or some combination. This stuff changes your racket angle too.

By the way, obviously we can't afford to loop everything with power, so 45-60 degrees would still be acceptable.

Get a mirror/camera and double check your original racket angle. I did that about 30 seconds ago.

However, following through in a mostly forward instead of a mostly upward motion is the key to controlling the trajectory of the ball here.

In a game scenario, don't think too much about stroke though. It mostly becomes a feel thing.

songdavid98 said:

Assuming you know how to topspin the ball well:

Click to expand...

At David Song, you may have missed it, but Archie has been playing with a premade (recreational) bat with totally dead rubbers until a few days ago. He is at the stage where he is trying to figure out how to brush and spin the ball and not bang into it and make flat contact. My guess is, this information is great, but great for someone else.

Just wanted to know who you are dealing with. He's been using the term loop for shots you would probably consider dead balls. But he's a good kid who wants to start learning higher level technique.

songdavid98 said:

Assuming you know how to topspin the ball well:

If you can loop underpin fine...

Click to expand...

For reference, some videos of Archie's fundamentals.

Archosaurus said:

Doing what he has told me has improved my faster shots, though. I figured it out on my own before, but I did the same things he's recommended and they worked.

Getting the same level of spin for slow brush shots is what is proving very challenging.

Click to expand...

Sounds good. Its just good to know that for now, this thread is sort of about you learning how to make consistent loop contact instead of banging into the ball. Right?

Archosaurus said:

Doing what he has told me has improved my faster shots, though. I figured it out on my own before, but I did the same things he's recommended and they worked.

Getting the same level of spin for slow brush shots is what is proving very challenging.

Click to expand...

You aren't supposed to get the same level of spin for obvious reasons which you will realize when you have more experience or logically figure out since you like to do so. You just try to get as much as you can.

Archosaurus said:

@UpSideDownCarl

You've forgot how much younger people can improve in a short time, haven't you? Doing the bounce drill with my new equipment is easy and multiple times smoother in that video, and my game bears no resemblance to the first video I posted.

It's common to think that people will always be exactly as they are when you meet them, and if there's not any hard evidence of it, then they haven't changed a bit, but don't you think that's a bit incorrect?

Click to expand...

Your still the same fool who keeps thinking in a week or two and 3 days playing with a new racket that the world has changed and you have become an expert. But, here I will quote a post from very recently, in fact, the time stamp on the post says 21 hours ago:

Archosaurus said:

I didn't record anything because I was out of battery and also time, but I'll get something next time. It's very similar to the last video I posted, for reference. I'm just trying to spin more.


I think I'm just simply bumping into the ball and not rolling it over the topsheet. Is it inconsistency in blade angle? How exactly would I go about fixing this with simple drills for example?

Click to expand...

So, in 21 hours you've stopped banging into the ball, you started brushing flawlessly and you are now the level that David Song made the assumption you might be?

Wow, the accidental troll is now graduating to high level player. Lets see some good footage of you hitting with a live human where we can see both you and your opponent and see the amazing improvements.

BTW: date stamps on the two videos are from April 15 and March 22 so, 2 weeks ago and 5 weeks ago.

In 5 weeks, without coaching and with no playing partners who know how to create loop spin, you have gone from beginner to expert. Good to know. We should call Ben Larcombe and tell him we've got a new candidate and a new challenge. Expert in one month. Or is that Expert in your mind.

Archosaurus said:

No, Carl. I haven't implied any of those things. I've just implied that I've actually improved a bit, but I'm still not there.

I'm a lot more "there" than on the very first video I posted, and I'm a bit more "there" than the 2nd video I posted, but not yet. I'm definitely not brushing flawlessly, otherwise I'd probably be getting more satisfactory results.

What I am now is really not what I'm concerned about, I'm a lot more concerned about what exactly I should do. There has to be some kind of exercise to enable me to learn the touch to spin the ball with a very vertical stroke. I can do it just fine when I serve, so why not when I swing upwards?

If it's my timing, how do I improve my timing? If it's my sense of blade angle, how do I improve my blade angle sensing? etc.

Click to expand...

And my post was to inform David that he gave great information for someone else. Your tendency to present yourself as higher level than you are clearly has an impact. And David answered to someone who is a decent player, who actually loops, who knows how to generate spin and make loop contact. And I was just informing him that he may have missed something.

And your response was:

Archosaurus said:

@UpSideDownCarl

You've forgot how much younger people can improve in a short time, haven't you? Doing the bounce drill with my new equipment is easy and multiple times smoother in that video, and my game bears no resemblance to the first video I posted.

It's common to think that people will always be exactly as they are when you meet them, and if there's not any hard evidence of it, then they haven't changed a bit, but don't you think that's a bit incorrect?

Click to expand...

Note, in the post I just excerpted, you bounce from responding to NL to me, because you are truly ADHD troll and can't help but argue with everyone at the same time.

If you were an honest person you would have told David, "well, honestly, I realize I am just trying to learn how to get good spin on the ball regardless of what kind of ball I am hitting against."

Archosaurus said:

Carl, instead of telling me how I should have presented myself, which is welcome in itself, I would still rather prefer it if you would give me help on the exact problem I am dealing with and asking about.

And @songdavid98 do post any further thoughts you have. Just understand that I'm not trying to learn a more efficient or deadlier brush loop: just a basic one.

Click to expand...

Well, actually I did. So did Baal. Here:

Baal said:

No, I think the answer is shear trial and error, so you figure it out yourself. That comes from multiball drills where someone feed you balls of various spins and speeds. As time goes on they feed you more varied balls but initially they concentrate on the balls you can make; then the balls you miss; then gradual increase in variation.

It is the only way to get to where you can do it without thinking about it when you are under pressure. You can't be thinking about mechanics when playing live.

In other words, on the ones you miss, you are given so many balls that you sort of figure it out. You try all sorts of things. One of those things will be the correct answer.

Click to expand...

And here is mine; I will leave out the comedy and leave my actual answer which took into account the fact that I know you don't have access to a coach to feed you multiball:

UpSideDownCarl said:

But you could try that ball bounce thing the way I do it:

Use 20-30 balls minimum so you get rapid succession practice. You keep trying to brush and every so often you feel something different. Then over time you start feeling it more and more often. And then you can do it every time when you do the ball bounce. Then you realize that while you are hitting with a real person you are still hitting flat and you start trying to brush and at a certain point you start getting it. Then at a certain point you can do it most of the time.

Otherwise you can go out and buy yourself one of those wheels:

When you are not brushing with that, when you bang into it you know. But if you bang into it hard, you can break your racket.

With any of the methods for learning that kind of contact, there will still be a transitional period where you can do it in the drill but not against a person.

The drills are just to get you to know how to brush and what it feels like. Then you have to experiment and practice to get in while playing against someone.

Click to expand...

David's comment was based on the idea that you are actually already looping. But you don't need more answers. You need to practice till you get it. If you had a good coach, you would learn it more quickly.

But somehow you don't get that your responses to DavidSong were misleading and fall right into the category that gets you in trouble over and over again.

Every ball is different. Fundamentals and principles are forever applicable. Knowing how to judge an incoming ball is a skill, and very central to what stroke you prepare. You fundamentals of basic stance and mental readiness are a foundation before you can read the ball.

When you get to a point after enough learning of basics and practical experience of this or that not not working, you will know almost instantly what you did wrong if something goes wrong.

When we are recreational players without any training or instruction or experience or means to meaningful practice to get the reps and experience, it is a damned difficult situation to learn and grow. NOT Mission Impossible, but damned difficult to grow at an acceptabe rate. TT is a tough sport to learn and even with proper help, it takes a LONG time to get good.

I started out as a slightly portly gent in my young 40s as a rec player. I THOUGHT I was a serious player, but my first 6 years, I had zero coaching or help. All I had was internet forums, which helped a LOT, and Larry Hodges; excellent basic TT book Steps to Success: Table Tennis.

My early forum days were pretty much like Archos. I was eager and keen about TT, loved playing and loved discussing it 100x more. I talked on matters like I was real solid, where I really didn't have but 20% of the experience needed. That is why I cut Archos a lot of slack and never really chimed in about calling him out for not really being solid and experienced about what he is talking about. All I saw was a kid loving TT and trying to participate with everyone. Archos took it to a new level about where I over-extended in my early days, but others have already done the deed of dime-ing him out, so it needed zero intervention from me.

Over time, ANY reasonable gent can do a decent job of discerning character, and the TT forums have a sufficient enough forgiveness and allow for tolerance to a good degree. Heck, they put up with me my first half decade of Der_Echte opening hiz mouth and jamming in foot and still do.

@der_echte

I like this most recent post. It's true, the better you get the less you ask questions as to "why didn't that go over the way I wanted" At my level, I've noticed a lot of player's don't quite have the fundamentals and adaptability that I have. So when I play someone around my level for the first time, I go through a variety of serves and find one that they struggled with immensely. I can then repeat the same serve 3-4 times in a row without them having any adaptation and still struggling to find out exactly how they should be hitting the ball.

And then even when they figure out how to get that ball over decently, I'm ready to counter that. Once you get to a certain level, lets say 1850-1900ish, doing the same exact serve twice in a row simply wont work because the opponent knows exactly what they did wrong and can correct their mistake immediately.

Thanks Shuki... but at 1900 level, even in the ringer infested East Coast... you can get away with it.

Serving effectively is both a science and art and also a mind game.

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