Well everyone has got to start somewhere. You start by trying.
I would advise everyone who knows how to loop to simply trying to loop everything that isn't short and low. They need to become more familiar with the looping stroke and what they can do with it.
My little brother isn't even 1400 and he can do this just fine.
The truth of the matter is, we don't even know if Archo can loop though. We know that, when he filmed the video I posted above, which was a few short months ago, he definitely couldn't. We know, back then, he was telling people way higher level then he was things like: "back when he was as bad as you are......" Anyway, if he can loop, we haven't seen any evidence of it.
But he is a good kid who likes philosophy, theory and likes to talk. He also likes to say things that make people believe they helped him figure out how to do what he was asking about. But often, when you scratch under the surface, it is just talk.
Like, days after we figured out that, for sure, he did not know what a loop was and couldn't do it, he was talking about, "now that I am brushing and getting heavy spin, all of a sudden, and now that I am really looping the ball...." And when push came to shove, he was talking about self hitting balls and the shots he was self hitting had very little spin still.
To be honest, I think he wants to learn. I think he wants to be able to do the things he is talking about. But I think he has this idea that, if you understand the theory, you can do it. And we know, in table tennis, it often takes training and practicing a skill over and over and over and over, hundreds and hundreds of times before you refine the skill. The theory can help. But you have to do the training. Especially if you are starting from a place where you think you can loop but you actually are hitting FLAT, like what Archo is trying to do in that video where he is trying to do that exercise.
With that video above, I had figured out, from the stuff he was saying that Archo actually did not understand brushing the ball, making thin contact or using the topsheet. I sent him this video:
The exercise in question starts at 18 seconds on that video. I asked him to film himself doing that exercise.
From it, you can clearly see, as the ball is coming down, that he does not know how to angle the racket to brush the ball. It is particularly clear on the second contact that he is hitting the ball with the racket at a direct angle and not brushing at all.
So, the tricky part is, figuring out where Archo really is at, at this point.
And, I go back to that original comment by NextLevel: he said: "Video?"
Without it, we don't really know what Archo is actually talking about unless we want to entertain the possibility that he is able to loop short balls from bellow the table.
But, as far as I am concerned, David has done nothing wrong. He gave a good answer that would be quite useful for most. And I think it is okay that he made the assumption that Archo is at a level where he could work on over the table looping. He really might be. But, personally, I think he may be better at looping short balls from under the table!
By the way, years ago, Michael Landers showed me what you need to do to loop over the table. I like to drop my racket low. It took me a long time to be able to keep my racket up for those so that I could loop forward over the table. It was great to work on that even if I wasn't quite ready for it when I was given the information. But, it is important to note, Michael Landers showed me what to do in person, based on something he was seeing me do and his ability to tell that my learning to do that would help me not drop my racket as much when I was looping from mid-distance. That is different from someone wanting written advice through the internet.
