Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

I will try to make videos. Hard to do when i do not really have learned the footwork well enough. Like i said he is not the best at explaining. It also seems like he is still adding some stuff, everything is not so clear at the moment. I have not tried it so much either since i am a coach with him, so i think i need to work on it.

Move the legs and not the arm or lean the body i also think is very much an european thing. I have been teached that as a player and teach that as a coach. I played a little with chinese coach and i think he said i was suppose to lean at one moment, i did not need to move the legs. I was surprised by this, but he have not said this anymore.

I have also never posted videos before, so the practical stuff and my mix of swedish and english is making everything a harder step to do haha

Carl, how good do yoga work for anxiety? Any experience?

Lula said:

Carl, how good do yoga work for anxiety? Any experience?

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I think perhaps, the question would be, how do you adapt a yoga practice so that it is helpful to anxiety.

Forward bending positions are calming to the nervous system. Inversions are calming the the nervous system. Exhales calm the nervous system.

So, if you do a lot of forward bending postures, if you do standing forward bending postures where your head is lower than your heart, if you make the exhales long and slow and aim for exhales that are twice as long as your inhales (same amount of air in as out, just 2 times longer on exhale than inhale), those things will make your practice calm your nervous system and lower anxiety more than an normal practice would.

Shoulderstand and plow done intelligently and adjusted for the person, while adding the lengthened exhales would also dramatically help.

So, again, it would not be so much whether yoga is good for anxiety. It would be how you would adapt a practice to make it more beneficial to ease a person's anxiety.

Now all those things I said are general statements. When you have a real, living person in front of you you have to read and adjust things to what that person needs. But the principles are the same. Forward bends, head lower than heart for periods of time, long exhales, relaxed inhales that are not as long as the exhales, and maybe a true inversion.

Lying on your back with your legs up a wall and a book or two under your butt so your feet are higher than your hips and your hips are higher than your heart, lying there for 20 min and trying to exhale long and slow (2x longer than inhale) and inhale relaxed (but not long) would also be beneficial for the anxiety thing.

Watching table tennis with higher level players and coaches or discussing the game with high level players and coaches gives you a variety of insights and let's you know you different your naive perspective can be from a professional.

I remember one time a good player told me that a higher levels your backhand is important but the forehand is the point finisher. I heard Kreanga say the same thing but I didn't get it. Then talking to Brett, he would explain to me why despite Henzell being a backhand oriented player, he would play choppers with his forehand. And how no matter your orientation, there were times you just needed to play forehands to play reliable table tennis. All balls that are classified as junk or weak, which don't come through with good spin and timing are usually forehand balls so you can put them away or play them reliably as the forehand has a bigger strike zone.

It is easy to watch a match and see a guy pivoting and think he has a bad backhand or miss the backhand in junk balls and think he has a bad backhand. But I learned that the better players always want to abuse you with their forehand until you show that they can't and then you will see their backhand. It is only when you can make them play a forehand on your terms that the match becomes competitive. When you watch some matches with this insight your view of the game changes.

I asked a coach who has worked with a lot of kids what he thought of Harimoto's forehand. His comments were extremely insightful. He said it is the forehand of a boy. There is really nothing wrong with it, it just doesn't have a man's muscle behind it. Again a very different take from some of the things you hear when you see people discussing Harimoto as having a great backhand and a poor forehand. In fact, when LGL was commentating pn Harimoto vs FZD, one of his comments was that Harimoto still has the forehand of a boy (this was probably early 2018). I initially thought he meant that Harimoto had a weak forehand but given everything else he said about Harimoto, I now realize that LGL was simply placing Harimoto in the context of development. Because he repeatedly said that China has no youngsters at Harimoto's age playing on the same level.

To repeat something j have said a million times or so, don't argue too seriously with better or more experienced players. Just learn and adapt their logic. It may or may not apply to you.but the logic itself can be helpful if you understand it as you may be able to find your own solution or understanding.

So for me, learning things like footwork, I can watch s match and understand when a player used the footwork. If the technique is not right, then the reliability of the shot goes down as the quality of the opposition gets better as the best technique is usually the fastest and most consistent in the hands of good athletes.

Anyways that is what I meant. BTW, Carl and I still don't agree on the backswing while moving thing but it is okay, we all learn this a bit differently. You have to backswing while moving or you can't play fast TT, the real issue is how you load the swing so that you get a quality shot rather than just move and then swing from a sitting position with an early backswing. Most advanced footwork involves body rotation when you arrive at the ball, so it is not the basic two step where there is no rotation and you are just swinging when you get there. What you ideally want to be doing is arrive at the ball with the body twisting or the hips loaded. If Lula posts the video, it will be more mechanisms for doing this that we will learn from it.

NextLevel said:

Anyways that is what I meant. BTW, Carl and I still don't agree on the backswing while moving thing but it is okay, we all learn this a bit differently. You have to backswing while moving or you can't play fast TT, the real issue is how you load the swing so that you get a quality shot rather than just move and then swing from a sitting position with an early backswing. Most advanced footwork involves body rotation when you arrive at the ball, so it is not the basic two step where there is no rotation and you are just swinging when you get there. What you ideally want to be doing is arrive at the ball with the body twisting or the hips loaded. If Lula posts the video, it will be more mechanisms for doing this that we will learn from it.

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Not 100% sure we disagree. I know I backswing while moving.

What Mike and Mark were showing me was, getting there--turn open and backswing....the backswing and the turning opened where when I got there and were part of the footwork.

It was hard. And I don't necessarily think practicing something like that is for expecting to do it like that in match play. I think it is about training your body to get there faster, speeding things up so that, in real play things seem slowed down.

In the end I feel like, when you train a certain knowledge into your body, you need to develop it fully enough that it goes on auto pilot without you thinking about what you are doing. During match play you should not be thinking about the techniques. But if you have trained a decent amount, the technique falls into place without you needing to think it consciously. So, they were training me to track the ball with my feet, get there sooner and open, not necessarily because it would happen like that in real play. But to adjust to where the ball is more with my feet.

I also don't think that is a thing you must do. But for someone like me who played baseball as a kid where you can adjust your body and the bat to wherever the ball is and you do not move your feet, also being flexible I tend to adjust my body and my racket to the ball more than I probably should.

But that idea of tracking the ball with your feet....it is kind of alien to me and takes a lot of good training. So training to be able to do it better, in my opinion would be worth it.

I know with all that shadow footwork I used to practice, I never thought that would come into play in match play and I remember a point where I started feeling my feet just do the patterns without me thinking about it because of the ball that was coming at me. And I thought, that is kind of cool that my body just knew what to do, and it was fun to hear my feet squeak on the ground like that with a cluster of little steps.

mart1nandersson said:

My experiment with LP is progressing quite nicely. I didn't loose a single match during tonights top table during our club training. It's not pretty but I seem to win quite easily against quite a lot of loopers. One simple side swipe, let them loop (they often miss) and then chop (which is usually followed by a miss). I beat one of our better veterans (two winged looper who is 1600 Swedish TTA) quite easily... I normally get 3-4 points per set with inverted.

Wednesday is problematic as I have to play in the veteran league against the top team in the league. All three of their players use SP on BH and are quite good (1600-1800 Swedish TTA ranking... I guess quite similar to Lula's current level... division 2). Unsure what to expect. I suspect that I will get slaughtered as they're 50-70 years old and have probably played a lot against LP.

("have to play" = we wouldn't have had a full team unless I stepped in... would've preferred to stay at home).

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Just came across this unique LP playing style of another Swede. Hope you enjoy, too: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EjMvn2OQAww

Sent from my ZTE Grand S II LTE using Tapatalk

phorkyas said:

Just came across this unique LP playing style of another Swede. Hope you enjoy, too: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EjMvn2OQAww

Sent from my ZTE Grand S II LTE using Tapatalk

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He seems very passive here, or maybe the other guy put him under alot of pressure. He is often very aggressive i think, and is almost not a defender. He have a great backhand! If he had better forehand he would be really really good.

Gustaf Ericson, very entertaining player

phorkyas said:

Just came across this unique LP playing style of another Swede. Hope you enjoy, too: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EjMvn2OQAww

Sent from my ZTE Grand S II LTE using Tapatalk

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Played the veterans national championships yesterday, in both singles and doubles. Large venue, 56 tables in constant use for a few hundred participants at several age and rating levels. Great event.

Started out doubling, played a very poor first match against a double we really should have beaten easily. I think we needed to adapt to the venue, tables, balls. Gym floor, with low bounce and no followthrough, and one of the less bouncier/spinnier balls...

In the next few rounds we met doubles consisting of national division-level players with region-level players. We rised in level, started taking games and then matches, punching way above our rating.

That provided a good setup for the singles tournament. My pool consisted of four. I had a good start against a solid player using a regular dual inverted setup, then a harrowing match against a player using halflong pips (0X/0.5mm) in an active playing style. It took a lot of effort, and a very high concentration level, to wear him down.

The match for first position, then, I lost in five, after reaching 10-7 in the decider. A player using an anti BH, punchblocking with it and pretty good in varying pace and placement; still, I had him pinned then lost the focus needed to decide the match.

Even then, that got me to the main tournament. Made it to the semifinals, where I was outclassed by a player (also using anti) that simply was more solid and smart and could answer everything I threw at him. On the way to the semis, my quarterfinal game was a good one. A regular inverted attacker that blazed away to an 8-1 lead in the first game, and then I dug in my heels and slowly wrestled away the initiative. Made it to 8-5, then 9-5, then 9-8, then 10-8, then tied him at deuce and took the game 12 to 10. In the next few games I kept up the pressure, playing a classic 3rd and 5th ball attack game, but also an aggressive countering game. I finished the match in style, killing an aggressive opening loop by counterspinning it hard over the table.

A good tournament. I have to learn to adapt even better to anti pushblockers, maybe; can't remember being bothered much by these before...

So I have played quite a bit and lost a lot of matches trying to get my tournament form back and I can see that my physical effort is not there largely because of my right knee and I haven't really decide what to do. It is so much harder to end points on third ball everything is rally now. And I struggle when the points get long as I don't have the movement to stay in points.


The biggest lesson I learned is to sharpen my game. My game is just not sharp. I serve to short forehand, get a reasonable return and I am not ready to open. I keep looking for opponent's weakness rather than focusing on my game and my effort level.

The lesson I learned: there was an 1800 penholder in my group. He had beaten a buddy of mine 3-1 Last month so I knew he was good but I didn't know the full picture. He lost to a 1300 player in his first match. Then I played him and lost the first game and kept trying to figure out why he was 1800. Ultimately I lost 0-3. And then I realized that he wasn't really 1800 - he was someone who kept his rating low with bad losses but won the group by beating naive players like my self and my friend


But I realize I could have played much better if I had focused on my game and forgotten about his rating. So from today, I am going to sharpen my service and deliver my serve and return strategies with variation to everyone the same way. Try to bring back the discipline to my game that was gone. Forget the rating let them deal with your game and ball quality.

Nextlevel! That sounds like a good idea! Very important to know your playing style and how to play to get to your strengths. Without that you have no game plan, and i think it is more to up to chance and luck if we win the point. Very difficult, and maybe impossible to be good at everything and better at the opponent at everything. But of course it is good to look for players weakness. But playing style comes first i think. When i was younger i also looked much at players weakness, but got in some serious trouble if i did not find any weakness of my opponent. I did not know how to play then because i had not though enough and trained my playing style and game plan enough.

Trained a little myself today. Can do the banan flip pretty good, but i will work much more on it. Feel like this shot is much easier with the new ball because there is less spin in everyone serve so it is a good shot to do today. A good flip and you have the advantage. It is also interesting that in sweden we call the banana flip "tjeckflip" which is like czechflip or a flip of a czech. I think we call it this because petr Korbel did this shot alot, and invented the banana flip? I find it interesting that we call it that and everyone something else. any thoughts about this?

we have no rating system in Japan at our amateur level, so no risk of sandbagging..

I agree the banana flip is a key shot and have been working on it too recently.

At my last practice I was working with a top player in our area who was helping me as he's great at the shot, and his backhand in general. Afterwards he was watching me play (a guy who plays pimples both side and is really tricky) and as an exercise he said, 'play the game only using the backhand and you have flip or attack the first ball, no pushing'. I won easily, one game 11-3 (Which wasn't the point) but was a big difference to a guy I always struggle against and don't really enjoy playing. Was a interesting little exercise to do, helping positioning/movement as well as the stroke.

Takkyu_wa_inochi said:

we have no rating system in Japan at our amateur level, so no risk of sandbagging..

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Doesn't mean there is no sand bagging going on.

Many many players who are clearly 1-3 levels better than their division stay at a level by not winning tourneys.

Then for the team event, it is like releasing the sharks into open water.

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Hello guys!

Trained instead of being a coach in the last group tonigth. Very fun because i have wanted over 10 years for advice and help. Have only helped others to become better, but no one have tried to help me. I ask the chinese coach alot and learn very much. But the players in the group are pretty good, but to young? to play with focus and fight enough i feel.

So i do not know what i should do? What do you guys think?

Train in the group and get advice from the coach but feel that i almost waste two hours or train with a friend that is a little or much more better and most importantly, have much more focus and fight harder so i feel it give me more.

I think i will train one or two times per week in the group and learn stuff from the chinese coach despite the problems i experience. The stuff i can learn is worth it i think. But it is not so fun and hard to motivate you to play with these players.

find a happy medium ... like get the advise from the coach in the group class and then practice them with your friend ..

Lula said:

Trained instead of being a coach in the last group tonigth. Very fun because i have wanted over 10 years for advice and help. Have only helped others to become better, but no one have tried to help me. I ask the chinese coach alot and learn very much. But the players in the group are pretty good, but to young? to play with focus and fight enough i feel.

So i do not know what i should do? What do you guys think?

Train in the group and get advice from the coach but feel that i almost waste two hours or train with a friend that is a little or much more better and most importantly, have much more focus and fight harder so i feel it give me more.

I think i will train one or two times per week in the group and learn stuff from the chinese coach despite the problems i experience. The stuff i can learn is worth it i think. But it is not so fun and hard to motivate you to play with these players.

Click to expand...

Lula said:

Trained instead of being a coach in the last group tonigth. Very fun because i have wanted over 10 years for advice and help. Have only helped others to become better, but no one have tried to help me. I ask the chinese coach alot and learn very much. But the players in the group are pretty good, but to young? to play with focus and fight enough i feel.

So i do not know what i should do? What do you guys think?

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if you have the opportunity, take 1:1 (paying) lessons with the coach

Lula said:

Trained instead of being a coach in the last group tonigth. Very fun because i have wanted over 10 years for advice and help. Have only helped others to become better, but no one have tried to help me. I ask the chinese coach alot and learn very much. But the players in the group are pretty good, but to young? to play with focus and fight enough i feel.

So i do not know what i should do? What do you guys think?

Train in the group and get advice from the coach but feel that i almost waste two hours or train with a friend that is a little or much more better and most importantly, have much more focus and fight harder so i feel it give me more.

I think i will train one or two times per week in the group and learn stuff from the chinese coach despite the problems i experience. The stuff i can learn is worth it i think. But it is not so fun and hard to motivate you to play with these players.

Click to expand...

Just record the session. Usually that captures the information and you can then review, learn and fix.

So today, i went to my TT school (UPTY) to have my private coaching lesson with coach Sakamoto.

When I arrive there, first big shock.
There is a sign at the entrance saying that the school will close at the end of the month ! There was no announcement on their website. Sakamoto explained me he had no more time to manage the school, and that as a director of TT Saitama, he has a new project of making a TT training center in Saitama for both amateurs + professionals (different floors) and that would be more convenient for him to manage...

2nd shock when he told me that the other place where i was also going for lessons is going to close. I have not seen any official announcement, but the owner of the other school is Sakamoto's friend so every reason to believe this information.

Double shock ! i need to find another place with new coaches to get 1:1 coaching ... What a bad surprise .... :-/

So I do not know if I allowed to hop on this thread, but here goes!

I have been videoing myself a lot recently and I have been EJing a bit.
So when I use 1.9 tenergy on fh

Pros

better serves lower more spin, better control against topspin, more direct flat hits, better hitting float, bh feels better with my short pimples more direct

Cons

much worse off the table, less arc on loops, harder to lift heavy backspin, much worse blocking against incoming power



Max Tenergy

Pros

better loops, more arc, more spin I think, easier to counter act flat hits with spin,

Cons

feels slower on hits, serves harder to keep low and tight, seem to miss more against floats

I am surprised that I seem to drive faster with 1.9 than max?
I play at a few flat rubbish venues and it is hard to lift ball with 1.9.

Looking at my videos I actually seem more consistent when I use 1.9 tenergy on stiffer blades (force pro blue) for example.
Although when I am playing I often feel like I am playing better with Max

I think it is possible 1.9 works better as it makes me play positive shots, but possibly when I am a little tired not quite sharp it punishes me more.

What a conundrum.