Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

@NextLevel

Today I was looping topspin to topspin with my partner, I gave him my spinnier setup and took the worse setup.

He can spin pretty well in fact, he is just not consistent against difficult balls. He was generating enough spin that I couldn't loop his loop with my normal swing against block or drive. It only worked if I came more over it and to the side. Then I could spin it like it was any ball.

Is this "covering the ball" or just spin avoidance?

You are welcome , I am not saying anything on whether your reset is slow or not ... what I am doing is just passing along is some of the advice I received from my coaches ... "hit with 60-70% power and the power will automatically increase over time" ... there is one more aspect to it , I think if we try to swing 100% power you have to be very very conscious about not tightening up ...

I feel the other approach to increasing power is better , where you just stay focused on becoming loose ... the looser you are and if you are in the zone, you don't even have to think about increasing power ...

At the end of the day, in table tennis , the guy who puts one more ball on the table wins , and so I keep reminding myself , so its not worth hitting anything unless you can hit back the ball if it comes back ... of course there are exceptions where you are pretty confident you can blow past them ... but closed to the table short stroke loop is not one of those strokes ... 80% of the time .. unless you are focusing on third ball attack close to the table .. but that is a different drill altogether ...

OldschoolPenholder said:

This is an excellent point! Thank you monster!!

2 comments:

1. I have sometimes wanted to rev my engine and drive at 120mph (70 kmh?) but due to various factors I'm driving at 35 mph. I was ecstatic and in a high on Tues night, I was able to drive 55 mph - 120mph. Outside of working with Der 2 yrs ago and 42andbackpains feeding me multiball one time, I cannot SLOW loop due to various known/unknown factors. Granted I've not trained it enough in my 3 yrs of 'unretirement' off of a 30+ yrs break from TT. But a few known factors, I have some kind of mental block to slow looping and hence i've lost confidence in my looping, and i have in my head all the various corrections i need to be making and it's probably overwhelmed me resulting in a mental block and lack of confidence. This is evident when my partners start chopping to me.

2. I know my reset is slow, but I noticed as I progressively amped up the loops, even with the shortened strokes, the ball came back too fast for me. Given I'm actively trying to work at staying close-to-the-table-short-stroke-looping, i was noticing the slow reset, partly me, partly the ball blocked back. The Yin-Yang of it though is I'm slowly getting a little confidence at being able to resist my urge to step away from the table to loop with my longer stroke as well as confidence in looping.

Thanks for the tip! I will take my foot off the gas pedal next time I have an opportunity to work my short stroke loops.

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I jokingly refer to "K" as my arch-nemesis, a club member whom i've played matches with in the past where he just played steady and returned the ball ... i attacked, smashed, looped, etc. ... he gave me rope with which i've hung myself. i missed more than i made. i rushed my shots cos i saw a huge softball coming at me ... he won all matches. have not beat him yet. not looking to beat him per se... looking to see if my attacking game with all my defiencies can beat his steady game ... the younger me should have had a field day with someone who plays passively just to return the ball, sometimes lobbing, sometimes backing up just to back up. We haven't played a match in over a year.

Slow and steady wins the race. Duly noted monster! thank you again!

p.s. i don't disagree with you, but i'm sure you understand basic human nature and the satisfaction of overpowering your partner with a 100% smash or loop ... LOLOL

Don't worry I am in the same boat as you , but what has worked agianst the player you just described is not power by variation , loop spinny , loop less spinny and change the placement . People who take a step back and block everything back is basically waiting for you to make the mistake, and normally they have a zone where if you serve you will get an easy opening , so serve there , open with spin and keep spinning and changing up ... hope it helps ... also I feel you need to forget TPB for a while .. just try to play like Wang Hao , as if you don't have TPB ... because somehow you need to get out the instinct to TPB block out of your system first and then you can bring it back ...

OldschoolPenholder said:

I jokingly refer to "K" as my arch-nemesis, a club member whom i've played matches with in the past where he just played steady and returned the ball ... i attacked, smashed, looped, etc. ... he gave me rope with which i've hung myself. i missed more than i made. i rushed my shots cos i saw a huge softball coming at me ... he won all matches. have not beat him yet. not looking to beat him per se... looking to see if my attacking game with all my defiencies can beat his steady game ... the younger me should have had a field day with someone who plays passively just to return the ball, sometimes lobbing, sometimes backing up just to back up. We haven't played a match in over a year.

Slow and steady wins the race. Duly noted monster! thank you again!

p.s. i don't disagree with you, but i'm sure you understand basic human nature and the satisfaction of overpowering your partner with a 100% smash or loop ... LOLOL

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ttmonster said:

okay .. since NL already started this ... let me not hold back .. the only thing I noticed is that you are trying to over hit once you land a few shots ... I think a lot of us ( including myself ) has this notion that you need to keep raising your power level when somebody is blocking , the idea is not that , the idea is to fine tune the timing and the spin and consistency ... the power will automatically increase to its optimal level depending on how fast you can recover .... if you try overhitting in practice , it will give you trouble in singles especially because in game play the balls will come back and you will not be able to reset in time ... remember your muscles will be tighter and balls will fly faster in game play and so will the incoming blocks ...

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As my former coach would put It, "stop looping as if you are playing Timo Boll".

OldschoolPenholder said:

I jokingly refer to "K" as my arch-nemesis, a club member whom i've played matches with in the past where he just played steady and returned the ball ... i attacked, smashed, looped, etc. ... he gave me rope with which i've hung myself. i missed more than i made. i rushed my shots cos i saw a huge softball coming at me ... he won all matches. have not beat him yet. not looking to beat him per se... looking to see if my attacking game with all my defiencies can beat his steady game ... the younger me should have had a field day with someone who plays passively just to return the ball, sometimes lobbing, sometimes backing up just to back up. We haven't played a match in over a year.

Slow and steady wins the race. Duly noted monster! thank you again!

p.s. i don't disagree with you, but i'm sure you understand basic human nature and the satisfaction of overpowering your partner with a 100% smash or loop ... LOLOL

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I am a 2000 player and I play 2000 level opponents sometimes higher. Look at the number of times in my matches I hit a winner and the ball comes back (winner yeah right) and I am left out of position scrambling.

So don't think it is all about age sometimes you just need to learn to play at a tempo you can recover from against the right level of defence and counterattack.

At the lower levels you can hit and hope it doesn't come back. At the higher levels, you have to assume that if they can touch the ball it is coming back and you have to play with that mindset built into your strokes.

Archosaurus said:

@NextLevel

Today I was looping topspin to topspin with my partner, I gave him my spinnier setup and took the worse setup.

He can spin pretty well in fact, he is just not consistent against difficult balls. He was generating enough spin that I couldn't loop his loop with my normal swing against block or drive. It only worked if I came more over it and to the side. Then I could spin it like it was any ball.

Is this "covering the ball" or just spin avoidance?

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If it works or works, doesn't matter what it is called. Without video could be any combination of both but likely some spin avoidance.

ttmonster said:

Don't worry I am in the same boat as you , but what has worked agianst the player you just described is not power by variation , loop spinny , loop less spinny and change the placement .

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K actually has been saying the same thing to me. We used to practice a lot together, then i took time off, he practiced with others and got a lot better. Since I've been back, we haven't had a chance to hit together. But not tooting my own horn, but i get a sense that he thinks i should beat him if he plays pure defense. He knows i rush shots, etc. So although we don't have a chance to hit together as much as before, we chat and he continually drills it into me is steadiness, variation and placement.

People who take a step back and block everything back is basically waiting for you to make the mistake, and normally they have a zone where if you serve you will get an easy opening , so serve there , open with spin and keep spinning and changing up ... hope it helps ...

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I'm not looking to beat him per se, but i'm using him a gauge on my progress in my unretirement. If i beat him, it means i'm doing something right - playing steady, not rushing shots, etc.

also I feel you need to forget TPB for a while .. just try to play like Wang Hao , as if you don't have TPB ... because somehow you need to get out the instinct to TPB block out of your system first and then you can bring it back ...

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Years of muscle memory. I see it in my videos and noticed it while hitting all the time when FH to FH and ball comes back to my BH and without thinking the TPB is there. After the fact, I realized i had an opportunity for the RPB.

I retired some years before Liu Guoliang came onto the scene, as well as Wang Hao after LGL. At the time i retired from TT, Jiang Jialiang was the world champ after Guo Yuehua and Liang was a short pips PH. Lots of uninstalling/installing to do ...Thanks again monster!

You should feel hopeful as years ago, I wouldn't have even consider playing SH whatsoever! and look what happened!

NextLevel said:

As my former coach would put It, "stop looping as if you are playing Timo Boll".

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Ages ago, Alex Tam, Richard Ling, Doon Wong, Rey Domingo and Vicky Wong worked with me a little ... they all said: "Play steady, return the ball."

I am a slow learner LOL

NextLevel said:

I am a 2000 player and I play 2000 level opponents sometimes higher. Look at the number of times in my matches I hit a winner and the ball comes back (winner yeah right) and I am left out of position scrambling.

So don't think it is all about age sometimes you just need to learn to play at a tempo you can recover from against the right level of defence and counterattack.

At the lower levels you can hit and hope it doesn't come back. At the higher levels, you have to assume that if they can touch the ball it is coming back and you have to play with that mindset built into your strokes.

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Totally agree, still working on overcoming my urges/instinct/muscle memory LOL

Ages ago, I played a lot of chess. Like my TT, my chess wasn't all that great. My college chess buddies had a saying, "Hope chess." - a player that played a move in hoping his opponent doesn't play the correct response which will lead to the player's demise. So I had to learn to play slower and safer instead of going for the dubious checkmating attacks.

I should apply my chess to my TT LOL

Thank you Sir!

OldschoolPenholder said:

Totally agree, still working on overcoming my urges/instinct/muscle memory LOL

Ages ago, I played a lot of chess. Like my TT, my chess wasn't all that great. My college chess buddies had a saying, "Hope chess." - a player that played a move in hoping his opponent doesn't play the correct response which will lead to the player's demise. So I had to learn to play slower and safer instead of going for the dubious checkmating attacks.

I should apply my chess to my TT LOL

Thank you Sir!

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This is so hard to make automatic. I am also getting to the point that I have to assume all of my shots are going to come back. I still have a bad habit of standing straight legged, not recovering to neutral, if I think a particular shot is worth admiring because I think it should be a winner. this is all subconscious of course.

Nuke Skywalker said:

This is so hard to make automatic. I am also getting to the point that I have to assume all of my shots are going to come back. I still have a bad habit of standing straight legged, not recovering to neutral, if I think a particular shot is worth admiring because I think it should be a winner. this is all subconscious of course.

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Agree sadly.

OldschoolPenholder said:

Agree sadly.

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But we can still train out the habit. Albeit, not as fast as those damn kids that keep whupping my ass.

I had a lesson yesterday, first in a long while. I am training double inverted. I figure it will help me long term whether I decide to go back to chopping, or stick with attacking. It also teaches me how attackers think, and what tactics they try to employ. Some of those attacking tactic translate to defense, many don't.

The coach I work with on and off Charlene (NextLevel and Der_Echte know her), tells me I'm crazy to play defense because my backhand is my best stroke (many people tell me this). And just think, if I'm playing LP backhand and inverted forehand as a chopper, I essentially take my best weapon out of rotation unless I twiddle (which I do often but this can be detrimental for a returned ball).

She herself is backhand-oriented and went through several tactics for serve and attack for a backhand 3rd ball. We did many combos, serve short to forehand attack to deep backhand, then cross to the FH, stuff like that.
She also helped me with table positioning, keeping me in the middle of the left 3/4s of the table for BH use, and the final 1/4 for forehand, explaining of course that variation will occur and that the wide BH corner is exposed so be ready with footwork, yada yada. As a chopper positioning is far different, being off the table so this was good knowledge.

I liked that she was playing to my strengths.

We did work on FH flips and FH counters, because I struggle there. Her game is control and placement, and she is very consistent playing around 2100. Since I was playing double inverted, i was playing with a setup I don't use often, so there was a bit of adjustment there.

I then got a chance to play against a Korean Jpen player (ironic eh?) to try it out. Of course, going to the deep backhand is exactly what one wants to do against a TBP penholder. Worked well. Because I was specifically shoe-horning a new tactic into the game, I lost the first 2 games, but I finally fine-tuned it by the 3rd game winning 3 straight.
Overall it was a good day.

Good stuff Nuke Skywalker, good luck and have fun!

Nuke Skywalker said:

I liked that she was playing to my strengths.

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There are at least 2 types of coaches ... will keep it at 2 for this dichotomy and use Boxing as an example

Both were great coaches and both have passed:

Cus D'Amato, former coach/trainer/manager of a young Iron Mike Tyson as well as champs Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres and coach Emmanuel "Manny" Steward, worked with notable boxers/champs Thomas the Hitman Hearns, Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko.

Cus was known to, to borrow your phrase, shoehorn his boxers into the one style he taught, the Peek-A-Boo. Steward was the opposite .. instead of molding his boxers into one style, he worked with their strengths. Both produced champs, but yeah, generally a coach who coaches to your strengths is better overall for the player.

Of course, going to the deep backhand is exactly what one wants to do against a TBP penholder.

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Double-edged sword: as a TPB PH, if you are in your BH side, and you hit to my BH, i will punch it down the line, if you make it to your FH and hit to my BH, i will block and/or punch it to your BH. But yeah, better the TPB BH than face a monster FH.

NextLevel said:

If it works or works, doesn't matter what it is called. Without video could be any combination of both but likely some spin avoidance.

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The only thing I'm sure it is is spin avoidance. At least it really does feel so. Without it I don't have any time to do anything to the ball, it just flings off.

I'm still not understanding what "covering the ball" is. You've described it many times and better players probably get it, but I probably just haven't done it yet to get it.

Nuke Skywalker said:

But we can still train out the habit. Albeit, not as fast as those damn kids that keep whupping my ass.

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Beating kids is more about knowing what they don't train against and giving it to them. Of course, when they train against it you are toast. But I would say just learn to push heavy, consistently block them wide with transition from forehand to backhand and play with slow heavy topspin so they can't counterloop with their regular strokes.

Archosaurus said:

The only thing I'm sure it is is spin avoidance. At least it really does feel so. Without it I don't have any time to do anything to the ball, it just flings off.

I'm still not understanding what "covering the ball" is. You've described it many times and better players probably get it, but I probably just haven't done it yet to get it.

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It's about swing forward and making your contact come forward and over the ball. So you need to pull past the ball so to speak but not just stroke upwards behind it but forward and over it.

NextLevel said:

It's about swing forward and making your contact come forward and over the ball. So you need to pull past the ball so to speak but not just stroke upwards behind it but forward and over it.

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If I recall correctly, you mentioned before that the rotation can be achieved with different parts of the arm or the shoulder depending on preference. But when using full strokes, what about the overall arm trajectory compared to a looping stroke that doesn't attempt to cover the ball? Do you recommend exploring ball covering/no covering while maintaining the arm trajectory constant?

Oh Well,

You have had Karis on BH for a little while, is it doing what you need it to do?