"Euro" vs "Chinese" Play Style

People also underestimate the impact of equipment. Watch this match - can anyone watching this match tell me that Timo Boll's stroke is markedly inferior in spin and pace?


But in 2016, the ball is bigger and there is no longer speed glue, and one group of players is heavily boosting and using speed glue replicators, while another group says they are not.

i feel this entire topic is a bit silly. there is clearly the difference between the forehand arm movement its obvious the Chinese typically open the arm more for every shot, euro opens arm too but not usually to the same degree. surely the point against is that the marginal difference in arm degree make it a different style of shot (i dont really think so but then there are people who will tell you about the importance of using different types of marginal things such as sportive v racing bicycle for a casual rider when really its more about which fits rather than the style) surely no one is saying that a 6'2" player when facing shots of the same height and width will extend his arm and rotate his body exactly the same amount as a 5'6" man. not saying it makes a new shot but if they both extend the same amount one will always miss..

Thanks for sharing this Baal !! Golden words !

Baal said:

Although this talk about style (like how straight your arm should be) is anti-zen and makes for bad table tennis. Read this.

http://www.kendo.org.uk/files/TheUnfetteredMind.pdf Advice from a zen monk to a Samurai swordmaster, late 16th century.

Then train your technique until it is not conscious.

Here is the money quote:

Where should one put the mind?

I answered, "If you put it in your right hand, it will be taken by the right hand and your

body will lack its functioning. If you put your mind in the eye, it will be taken by the eye,
and your body will lack its functioning. If you put your mind in your right foot, your
mind will be taken by the right foot and your body will lack its functioning.
"No matter where you put it, if you put the mind in on place, the rest of your body will
lack its functioning."
"Well, then, where does one put his mind."
I answered, "If you don't put it anywhere, it will go to all parts of your body and extend
throughout its entirety.

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I suspect there is something significant in the way the very top Chinese players hit the ball that is worth copying for some people. Just as the Chinese learned in the late 90s-early 00s that they needed to develop players a little differently than they had before, I think European coaches will study and adopt many things from top Chinese players. It's always like that in sports.

There is more to than just having a straight arm, though. Somebody else noted that top CNT players starting from WLQ are ridiculously strong and fit (even when as with Ma Lin and Wang Hao they didn't always look it).

Also:

There are liabilities to playing that way, the chief being the time and training intensity required to learn to pull it off. Amateur players don't win and lose matches the same way Ma Long does. That is not opinion, that is fact.

Can you make your forehand better by making it look more Chinese? Possibly. You are going to need to train it for a long time. Ridiculous multiballs. If you do, will you be a better player? Possibly (although the multiballs will help you even if your forehand stays the same). But you're going to have to retool your BH too.

My honest guess is to what will most likely happen? Without knowing things like your age, height, weight, availability of coaching, number of hours per week you train, how you practice, and how long you have been playing, it is impossible to say. But I wouldn't be surprised if you tried it for awhile and eventually go back to hitting what is your most natural stroke.

Baal said:

I suspect there is something significant in the way the very top Chinese players hit the ball that is worth copying for some people. Just as the Chinese learned in the late 90s-early 00s that they needed to develop players a little differently than they had before, I think European coaches will study and adopt many things from top Chinese players. It's always like that in sports.

There is more to than just having a straight arm, though. Somebody else noted that top CNT players starting from WLQ are ridiculously strong and fit (even when as with Ma Lin and Wang Hao they didn't always look it).

Also:

There are liabilities to playing that way, the chief being the time and training intensity required to learn to pull it off. Amateur players don't win and lose matches the same way Ma Long does. That is not opinion, that is fact.

Can you make your forehand better by making it look more Chinese? Possibly. You are going to need to train it for a long time. Ridiculous multiballs. If you do, will you be a better player? Possibly (although the multiballs will help you even if your forehand stays the same). But you're going to have to retool your BH too.

My honest guess is to what will most likely happen? Without knowing things like your age, height, weight, availability of coaching, number of hours per week you train, how you practice, and how long you have been playing, it is impossible to say. But I wouldn't be surprised if you tried it for awhile and eventually go back to hitting what is your most natural stroke.

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Along the same line, as a result of trying to playing the way the CNT does, the player sacrifices longevity. At 38, Waldner nearly got the bronze medal at Athens. Samsonov is 40 and still in the top 10 and qualified for the Olympics. Can you imagine Ma Long, at 36, training the same way in preparation for the 2024 Olympics? The training and movement requirements for the CNT players' style does not favor the older player.

how about liu guozheng? part of the national line up at the world championships in osaka at 20 years old, born in 1980 same as ma lin, he was right up there with ma lin and wang liqin... until at age 24 injuries started holding him back and at age 28 he retired.

I've been in 2 top tier school teams in Singapore and the UK (Maris Stella High in SG, multiple times national champion and Uni of Nottingham, reigning BUCS champions), both of which have national level head coaches (ex-singaporean womens national coach, Chen Wei, and Alan Cooke, present England coach), and both of which takes up most of my free time.

There is a reason why Asians are ahead and dominating this sports.

Lets start with my training regiment back in SG.
2x4hr+2x6hr sessions per week
Day one of 4hr:
30 mins service practice, 2hr exercise (more focused on a single stroke than western routines, ill get to that later), 1hr match play (top table or coach appointed opponents), 30 mins physicals that include frog leaps (8x100m).
Day two of 4hr
Service changed to Multiball.

6hr training will see both service and multiball practices, both 1 hr.

Now for the training in the UK.
Training sessions available to 1st team players (averagely ranked 21 in England)
2x2hr+1x3hr+1hr 1-2-1 with a current England national player

Every session is basically 30 mins warmup, 1hr matchplay and exercise routines for the rest of the time.
There arent multiballs (except for those 1-2-1) or service practices.
Almost no physicals too, much less those hellish frog leaps.

The major difference i feel comes from the exercise routines.
Western ones consist of a plethora of different shots, like the famous Falkenburg.
And the ones we did in Singapore would consist of a single shot. Like if we are practicing short pushes today, we will be doing short pushes until we reach the number of rallies the coach sets (200 is the usual for easier ones like pushing and hitting, harder ones will be like 30 consecutive forehand topspins, so if you drop one, you start from 0 again)

Personally, I think the latter works much better when Im trying to tune up my technique.

It's probably worth mentioning the Singapore interschool scene is MUCH more competitive than the UK.
I mean, these sort of things happen in a secondary school league (half the players in there are my juniors from Maris Stella High/Primary).
Also, the team in Green (and black in the background) is Raffles Instituition, the absolute best middle/high school in the country in terms of both academics and sports. This means that on top of being top notch in Table tennis, those guys are some of the brightest/hardworking students around too.

The only way to really test Epid3xia's the theories would be to take a selection of, say, 250 kids trained the way the CNT prospects are trained. And another 250 kids from another area like Europe, trained the same amount, with similarly effective training techniques, with similar level coaching and then to see what would happen; if the non "Chinese" style would show worse, better or the same basic results as the results from the CNT prospects. You would probably need to study the results over the coarse of 10-15 years to get a real and useful answers.

Oh yeah, and you would have to have serious strictness about boosting: If you decide to let the kids boost, they all should do it. If you decide not to let them boost, you need to figure out a way to get people adhere to rules and not boost. But, you can't have some people boosting and others not doing it.

cakezxc280 said:

There is a reason why Asians are ahead and dominating this sports.

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This is what high school basketball is like in much of the US, including the enthusiasm of the crowd.

Places that care about something a lot tend to be better at it.

I have actually visited provincial training centers in China. They are factories. Good players only come from those places, and they barely pretend to put the kids in school (although I have heard they are doing a bit more than a few years ago).

Long hours of training everyday including weekends with tremendous amount of footwork in and out of the table. If you can carry your weight very very lightly you can deliver faster strong wider strokes easily. Its always been the bread and butter of chinese style. Work on legs all the way up

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I remember seeing footage in video of the CNT training where they make all of those guys train left handed. I guarantee that if you do that, it will make you better right handed. It is kind of cool. It has to do with left brain/right brain communication. As your brain sorts out how to do the same thing on the non-dominant side, a few things in the neural pathways on the dominant side where wires were a bit crossed up, repattern and some kinks in technique on the dominant side sorts itself out.

I also remember seeing footage of a game where the coach was throwing balls at the ground and the CNT player had to footwork to it and get their foot their before the ball. That is excellent training for learning to track the ball with your feet instead of your hand.

I also remember footage of training drills and they showed all the top CNT players where they drilled the players with multiball beyond the point of failure and exhaustion. You can see, their form has gone out the window, their legs are wobbly, their whole body looks like it has turned to jelly and the coach is insisting they keep going. Most people would not like that kind of training and it would only be useful if you had reached a certain level where it won't cause old, bad habits to recur, but training like that will definitely increase your stamina dramatically.

In those shadow footwork/stroke videos I made and the ladder footwork ones, when I used to have time to do them, I would push myself to that point of failure and keep going as well. Each week when I got to do those, my stamina was noticeably better than the week before. And it became harder and harder to get to that point of muscle failure. Wish I could still have the time to do that kind of cross-training. It really helps your stamina in things like multiball training.

It is part of why Michael Landers, feeding me multiball several different times said, "damn it, do you ever get tired." And one time, after 3 straight buckets of 2 point backspin multiball I went to use my asthma inhaler (I have asthma) and he said: "damn, that's the first time I've ever seen you use that thing. Good. At least I know I got you out of breath!"

Alone, those training drills that up your stamina like that won't increase your game skills (mine are truthfully much lower than my technical skills) but with all the various kinds of training the CNT does, they take care of that. And without question, they have far and away the most systematic and complete training system that encompasses all stages of development. And, not having to worry about the western mindset of not wanting to do something because it is "too hard" and is perceived as ABUSIVE makes it much more possible to really train people with unflinching discipline.


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Epid3xia, I'm not sure how long you've been playing, but I am going to assume that you have been playing several years at least and already have a solid foundation in modern offensive table tennis. I will also assume that part of the reason you started the thread is because you believe that if your strokes were more like Ma Long/ZJK/FZD and other top Chinese players, you would probably play better -- especially the way they hit their forehands.

And, if I am correct about that, then I respectfully suggest that it is already too late to make any substantive change in the overall shape of either your forehand or backhand and that any attempt to do it would take years if you succeeded at all. Chinese players strokes are shaped the way they are from childhood, and I think it is in equal parts a product of training techniques and the use of hard tacky rubbers on relatively slow blades in kids.

The best thing you can do is refine what you have and make it better by training to make it completely automatic and reliable, which also means getting physically stronger, fitter, etc.

In other words, if you train like Chinese players do, you will make massive improvements even with very European strokes. Is this possible where you live and can you fit it into the rest of your life? Depends a lot on your clubs and coaches and your work or job, and willingness to subject yourself to it. Personally, I would love to take about 6 months off and just do that, just to see what would happen.

Lacking that, for me personally, I win a lot more when I keep Appelgren in mind, and Persson. And Primorac. I'm not you, I am older and slower, but I know a lot of kids who are not going to be professional players but who would win a lot more if they thought a bit more in terms just keeping the damn ball on the table, which doesn't necessarily mean playing soft all the time, it means always playing in a way that keeps you in balance and ready, while keeping your opponent off balance.

I am increasingly convinced that staying in balance during a point is one of the single most important things amateur players can improve.

Bigger talent pool. If it was strictly their training paradigm and regime then no European/Japanese athlete would be close to the top 100 (much less top 10).

However, while 50% of the top 10 world ranked players may be Chinese, only 6% of the top 100 are Chinese too.

I am thinking Next Level might object to my last post based on something he posted awhile back. If I am remembering correctly (not a sure thing) he mentioned that he actually accomplished a pretty big change in technique which is how he went from 1400 to over 2000 in a few years. If I am remembering correctly, my response in advance would be that now that he has played longer and has surpassed 2000, he is pretty formed now and is not going to be able to make additional major changes in the shape of his stroke.

Of course we can all improve and tweak and refine and get more consistent. But not a major reshaping.

fais said:

Bigger talent pool. If it was strictly their training paradigm and regime then no European/Japanese athlete would be close to the top 100 (much less top 10).

However, while 50% of the top 10 world ranked players may be Chinese, only 6% of the top 100 are Chinese too.

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In reality it is probably higher than 6% since only a very small subset of CNT players get to ever play outside of their country and garner world rankings, but the ones you don't see are still awesome players.

But absolutely correct in the larger point. In China they produce a ridiculously large number of good players (>2550), far more than could ever possibly make a living playing the sport, sort of like the US and basketball.

some years back i had this wacky idea that i would have to reconstruct my forehand loop from scratch to a more "chinese" stroke because it was my weak point. all i managed to do was fix my timing and develop better mechanics in pretty much the same stroke that i already had. if you insisted on technically improving your forehand more and more it would slowly start looking more like a "chinese style" stroke. the problem is, you have lots of other areas to work on than just one stroke and the chances are that you will probably get better results if you work on other things and keep the maybe-not-so-powerful-but-consistent chicken wing.

as long as its good enough for your level at least. watching cnt vs euro players matches, would you say the chinese win because of more powerful forehands or because their service and receive is better, they get to attack first and they make fewer mistakes?

Baal said:

I am thinking Next Level might object to my last post based on something he posted awhile back. If I am remembering correctly (not a sure thing) he mentioned that he actually accomplished a pretty big change in technique which is how he went from 1400 to over 2000 in a few years. If I am remembering correctly, my response in advance would be that now that he has played longer and has surpassed 2000, he is pretty formed now and is not going to be able to make additional major changes in the shape of his stroke.

Of course we can all improve and tweak and refine and get more consistent. But not a major reshaping.

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Funny, I was actually thinking the same thing because I did a super gigantic major, major, absolutely complete makeover of a totally bad and very broken forehand. I've seen footage of NL's old FH and mine was more worser (I know, that is my grammar skillz: worse than worst). [emoji2] My FH was all from my shoulder, my elbow stayed bent at the same angle the whole time. When I was done with my FH my I would be turned towards the BH side with my right foot farther forward than my left foot. There was this weird circular pirouette like movement in my stroke that had a few of my friends searching their head about how I ended up with that. It was about 3 years of no coaching and training horrible technique into muscle memory. The hitches that are still in my stroke will be easy to take care of if I ever have the time to. But changing that stuff was ridiculously hard. And I actually think Baal's point is well taken. Most people would not do the amount of weird stuff I did to change my FH. I hit that bounce ball thing for hours with no body and no upper arm, just forearm snap to get it so I would get the forearm into my stroke. I did tons of shadow stoke work and then shadow footwork/stroke work to get the lower body/upper body/forearm snap with some upper arm but not the crazy ballet pirouette that I was used to. I also spent hours on a weekly basis on a friend's robot just hitting the most basic FH with good form because I could not do it with a human.

The way I broke things down and really took my FH stroke to complete beginner level, it was weird, I felt awkward and helpless. Without someone there for enough of it who actually knew what I should be doing to not form new bad habits or reinforce old ones, I definitely could not have done it. It took so much more repetition of totally boring drills that sometimes felt like torture than I had thought. Those weird in between points where, in practice I was starting to be able to groove a decent FH and then I'd play a match and all the old bad habits resurfaced, that may have been the hardest part.

Would I do it again for a more different FH of some kind. Well, I will still try and get out the last few kinks which are my wrist and my left arm. But I am not sure I can change the whole fundamentals another time. Because the first time I was going from unusable bad to adequate good. This time I would be going from adequate good to a different version of adequate good. But I do play with taking the ball from farther away from me on the FH at different ranges. And I am playing with the last touches of my wrist position and left arm.

So, for most cases, I would say it is true. It isn't, let's say, probable. Most people wouldn't torture themselves the way I did. Many people couldn't do it even if they did. But it is still possible.

Part of how I view what I do, the yoga thing, is taking un-useful or dysfunctional habits and patterns, helping people sort out how to replace the dysfunctional habits and patterns with more functional ones. You start with movement patterns and you can actually get people to change other harder to observe habits and patterns too.

But a table tennis FH is a WAY MORE COMPLICATED movement pattern than the simple ones I'd worked with on myself before that and WAY WAY WAY more complicated than movement patterns I ever plan to help anyone else to change.

My background in neuromuscular re-patterning made it possible for me to do what I did. At least with good eyes from someone who knew what I should be doing.

So, for the most part, yeah, people can't change that stuff when it has really formed and solidified unless they are totally rabid addicts like OCDCarl or NextLevel. Hahaha.

izra said:

some years back i had this wacky idea that i would have to reconstruct my forehand loop from scratch to a more "chinese" stroke because it was my weak point. all i managed to do was fix my timing and develop better mechanics in pretty much the same stroke that i already had. if you insisted on technically improving your forehand more and more it would slowly start looking more like a "chinese style" stroke. the problem is, you have lots of other areas to work on than just one stroke and the chances are that you will probably get better results if you work on other things and keep the maybe-not-so-powerful-but-consistent chicken wing.

as long as its good enough for your level at least. watching cnt vs euro players matches, would you say the chinese win because of more powerful forehands or because their service and receive is better, they get to attack first and they make fewer mistakes?

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This here is a great post and I agree with this all the way. You guys should Pound that like button. Posts like this and several of Baal's posts in this thread make me wish there was a SUPER LIKE button and that I could like a post more than once.

Work on all the details. For me, when I take my FH from farther away from my body, which I do from farther away from the table, my arm straightens out more before the FH snap closes the angle on my elbow joint.