Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

Thelonious Monk always wanted a table tennis table near his "office" too, either at the rehearsal studio, the recording one, or at festivals, seems that jazzmen are avid TT players, like also famous jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette

I've recently, after some feedback, changed the focus of my FH slightly. Here's before the change (about a month ago): Here's after (about a week ago): And for another interesting comparison from 2 years ago when I, for the most part, wasn't sure what I was doing. I really hope I won't have to make more drastic changes to my FH and that I'm now on the right track, but every time I think that there's always something more to chase after. It'd be interesting to hear thoughts on differences between the second and the first clip, if I didn't know what I've changed I don't think I'd be able to figure it out myself.

I love tennis but I didn`t have learned it professional, Do everyone know any sites for learning online?

Originally Posted by Richie

Thank you! Maybe you can let me know your opinion 😀 and I'll let you know what my thoughts have been.
Here's a movement drill, it's possible I regress a bit here but I still think I'm mostly doing what I'm aiming to do.

In the first FH video (from a month ago) you transfer the energy from the ground, leg, hip, torso, arm, and the stroke has spin venom. All is there. But it feels like the arm is moving in synchrony with the torso. As the torso is rotating, so the arm moves with it. It appears you add some forearm muscle driven acceleration, which occasionally results in a bit elevated shoulder at the end.

In the second FH video the start of the chain is the same, you let the torso (and things before) rotate, but start to move the arm a tiny bit later. The torso acquires some momentum in advance (primary acceleration) and as TTNuri put it, this momentum is transfered to the arm via shoulder joint. Now the arm already has some momentum, and you don't need to add so much more. You can let it go. As a result, you can use less muscle and be more relaxed. You have let the body do the (some) work for the arm.

In the third FH video, you do this in Falkenberg, which is different level. Although it looks simple, it isn't, imo. I try to do it too, but on robot only, we here can't play with people, and it is uncertain when we can again.

With BH, I can not say much. What I noticed, is that my shoulder is more strained from BH spin than from FH spin now. So I am now focusing more on being lazy, let the body do the work. I have the best feeling when I also feel the hip rotation there too, and pushing the left foot. I am not focusing on it, but that is when I have the best feeling. You also do this counter-move with free-arm, which Der_Echte mentioned recently too.

I think children learn more linearly, they start, and linearly are instructed to add more and more speed, and it goes with their growth. For the adult learners I think more non-linear learning is better. Do the movement in various arm-speeds, slow, middle, fastest. This works as error-correction, you can't really move the arm, both relaxed and truly fast, in a wrong way. So if you try, both relaxed and fast, the body does. It may not work the other way, learning only slow, and hoping you can speed up later. You may have learned something what you simply can't speed up.

I am looking forward your explanation and total refutation of my BS :-)

Originally Posted by Richie

Thank you! Maybe you can let me know your opinion 😀 and I'll let you know what my thoughts have been.
Here's a movement drill, it's possible I regress a bit here but I still think I'm mostly doing what I'm aiming to do.

I've also recently been working on my BH vs backspin, Brett Clarke is currently helping me work on this. Still trying to figure out the feeling in the body to drive the arm more. Btw I have zero concern for where my bat ends up/points or whatever. I just let it end where it wants.

Try tucking the racket between your legs when you bow., the straighten the back. This video already looks better but straightening your back and getting low by tucking the racket between your legs (feeling that way) may get you closer to the movement.

Originally Posted by latej

In the first FH video (from a month ago) you transfer the energy from the ground, leg, hip, torso, arm, and the stroke has spin venom. All is there. But it feels like the arm is moving in synchrony with the torso. As the torso is rotating, so the arm moves with it. It appears you add some forearm muscle driven acceleration, which occasionally results in a bit elevated shoulder at the end.

In the second FH video the start of the chain is the same, you let the torso (and things before) rotate, but start to move the arm a tiny bit later. The torso acquires some momentum in advance (primary acceleration) and as TTNuri put it, this momentum is transfered to the arm via shoulder joint. Now the arm already has some momentum, and you don't need to add so much more. You can let it go. As a result, you can use less muscle and be more relaxed. You have let the body do the (some) work for the arm.

In the third FH video, you do this in Falkenberg, which is different level. Although it looks simple, it isn't, imo. I try to do it too, but on robot only, we here can't play with people, and it is uncertain when we can again.

With BH, I can not say much. What I noticed, is that my shoulder is more strained from BH spin than from FH spin now. So I am now focusing more on being lazy, let the body do the work. I have the best feeling when I also feel the hip rotation there too, and pushing the left foot. I am not focusing on it, but that is when I have the best feeling. You also do this counter-move with free-arm, which Der_Echte mentioned recently too.

I think children learn more linearly, they start, and linearly are instructed to add more and more speed, and it goes with their growth. For the adult learners I think more non-linear learning is better. Do the movement in various arm-speeds, slow, middle, fastest. This works as error-correction, you can't really move the arm, both relaxed and truly fast, in a wrong way. So if you try, both relaxed and fast, the body does. It may not work the other way, learning only slow, and hoping you can speed up later. You may have learned something what you simply can't speed up.

I am looking forward your explanation and total refutation of my BS :-)

I really appreciate your thoughts! The weird thing is that I find it tricky to actually remember what has gone on before, so I can't be 100% confident even in my own experience and memory of it lol.

In the 2 year old clip I was for sure consciously using my arm during the forward swing as I thought that would add extra power, but I also knew I should be doing something with my body/hips. So in the oldest clips there were two main problems.
One was that I was rotating my hips back and forward. The second was the conscious use of the arm. This is why it looks so tense. I've been told a lot since I started playing table tennis to "relax". The problem is that looking tense is a symptom of a problem and no amount of being told to relax fixes that (at least for me, maybe others are smarter than me and intuitively know what to do, then being told to relax might work). The problem was I didn't know what to do in what order and many players here often say to "use" the forearm etc. So in that clip and during that time I just thought that I needed to "use" the forearm which instead lead to overusing the whole arm.

In the month old clip - I'm letting the arm do what it wants and not to my conscious experience tensing the arm or the shoulder, but it's also possible I'm misremembering and that you're right that I'm slipping in some arm and shoulder. One of the problems from the two year old clip has been solved to some extent. but I'm still left with the second main problem. I'm consciously rotating my hips back and forward as far as possible (and I'm doing this more than the 2 year old clip) and I think this is why it looks like my shoulder is more elevated as my body and hips are rotated a bit more compared to the second video. I only noticed the shoulder thing when you pointed it out.

In the latest videos I've tried to stop rotating my hips consciously and instead been trying to do what should've been obvious - and really I should've known better, yet I haven't been doing it. Maybe I've done it before and then changed technique for some reason. In the latest FH vs block video I'm trying to push more with my left leg to let my hips rotate and then the rest of the body follows along, it feels a bit like I'm loading my left leg to jump. Maybe in the first vid I'm pushing a bit with my left leg, but my main focus there was to just rotate my hips back and forward. In the latest fh vs block I'm really focusing on pushing with my left leg, making the appropriate backswing and letting the rest happen.

I think to improve this more I need to practice every variation of leg push and backswing, when there's little time - small backswing and a little push and when there's more time big backswing and hard push from the leg and glute. But all of that is subconscious and I will just let my body intuit that during practice. I also think I can let my arm fly a little bit more and "relax", like Lula says I could let the wrist snap into the ball more perhaps. The leg push also needs to become more automatic, in the latest video especially there was no time to think about it, so hopefully I'm on the right track to getting it ingrained. There's always something to work on and I accept that it'll never be perfect, but the process is enjoyable regardless

Originally Posted by Lula

@Richie! I think it is important to try to think about the whole part and not get too focused on just the motion of the stroke. So you can move well and do the stroke, transition from backhand to forehand, when it is irregular and so on. The stroke do not need to be perfect regarding the technique as long as it it functional.

maybe wrong to talk about the stroke now haha.

With forehand i think it looks like a bit like you are a bit tense in the arm? maybe becuase it looks like you hold the racket wit the head up alot so never relaxes the wrist? Not sure about this, but it looks like you use the body well, so if you are tense in the arm the arm will not move faster despite you rotating the body good. So you could try to relax the arm a bit more and see how it feels.

With the backhand opening it is good that you come out alot so you can get the power forward, but are you fast enough if the ball comes shorter? Try letting him push maybe short in fh and long i bh. It is easy to fool yourself that you are best on the ball when you know where it comes. I still think it is good to come out alot since it is faster to work in than back, but maybe do not need to work out so long? or it is okay, as long as it works when the ball can come short as well. One option could be to work on step in perhaps.

@NL thank you, this is very helpful advice, recently I was trying to do the backswing closer to my body and I will try to do it even more like you say. I think before I've been doing the backswing too far away and then it's difficulty to get the feeling that the body is helping with the BH stroke.
It's funny how I can think that I'm doing something, then I look at the video and it simply isn't the case. In my mind I'm bowing very low, but there is obviously some way to go.

@Lula thanks for your thoughts. I agree with you and I'm trying to think of the stroke as a whole and for it to be as flexible as possible. The only thing I've really been focused on is the start of the stroke and the backswing, the rest doesn't seem to be under conscious control.
I wish I had a coach that could feed me multiball, if that were the case I wouldn't even be serving backspin and letting my training partner push to my BH. I'm just trying to practice the BH vs backspin in isolation as I try to find the feeling on how to use the body better. When I can do that I'll practice pushing short and then letting him push long to my BH. The only difference then as I see it is that I need to jump back fast and possibly shorten the backswing and how much I use my body.