Kim Jung Hoon covers basic FH stroke fundamentals - Intro

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Kim Jung Hoon made himself a club south of Seoul and has a lot of new instructional vids that have a LOT of REALLY GOOD STUFF for us amatures to learn from... just like his tak9.com vids.

I select one of them with a lot of nuggets -the FH stroke.

KJH is simply talking about very basic concepts... but we armatures get those fundamentals all wrong sometimes.

Here is the youtube vid, I explain his major stuff in general. Bonus points for anyone who can correctly state what are the 6 areas KJH summarizes at the end of the vid.


KJH starts off by talking about how important it is to have a decent form for your FH. He starts with the easy stuff.

:20 to 2:00 Grip !!!

- Some pros can have a loose grip way low. KJH recommends starting with a grip that is choked up all the way up to the wing of the bat. (Der_Echte note: I know many good amatures who use the wing of the bat to feel the impact, instead of their first finger)

- KJH recommends to choke up all the way to the wing. Do a test. Hold up bat and try to push the tip. Grip bat only tight enough to keep bat stable with a push of the finger.

2:00 and on KJH talks about the FH swing. Too many players try to rush their impact and hit too far in front. There is not much efficient power transfer going on there, this keep you hitting without power and on power shots you miss more.

- KJH recommends you impact the ball deeper in your zone, not in front of body, but on the side. He also spent a lot of time talking about why it is important to have a small backswing and rotate shoulders back.

- KJH spent a lot of time talking about why amatures who dont use a backswing try for a power shot and have a follow through that is way too long - that prevents recovery in a fast rally.

- KJH recommends rotating shoulders back for 30 percent of the swing and let the swing and its follow through cover 70 percent of the entire swing. This leaves the finish of the swing right in front of your face (instead of over your shoulder or behind Ur head) which allows you to reset quickly and hang in those fast FH to FH rallies.

- JKH recommends at least a fist depth or more between bat and nose at finish of storke.

- KJH recommends the height of finish should depend on individual, but most can finish around eyes/nose/chin level.

At 6:40 onward KJH talks up a storm about some basic parts of the FH swing.

- KJH emphasizes to use a backswing, look at ball, hold bat up (dont close bat - open bat angle. He is talking about basic incoming balls without a lot of topspin) impact on side, do not do excessive follow through, reset

from 8-11 min KJH emphasizes not to over swing and have too much a follow through.

- KJH says too much follow through will hurt your chances of making the next shot or keeping a rally

- KJH talks about the height of your finish. Nose level is baseline, some go a bit higher, some lower

- KJH emphasizes that there must be a backswing and a follow through.

- KJH discusses in detail the 30/70 concept of having 30 percent of your swing be a backswing that rotates shoulders back, then the rest be the swing/impact/follow through. The backswing and turning of shoulders are what keeps your follow through from being excessive.

Der_Echte Note: In Taekwondo, you are doing a swing on balance in a way so that immediately you can swing right away with the other side in rhythm immediately after impact and it is repeatable, so you are hammering away smoothly like an engine piston on balance with power transfer. One hit sets up the other in time and balance for a continued quick attack. The weight transfer is always set to immediately start with the other side to go into action with quickness and power.

11:30 KJH talks about how important it is to square your shoulders at impact towards where you want the ball to go. He demonstrates by doing it wrong (he does that a lot and it confuses those who do not understand Korea and watch his vids) then laters shows what happens when you do it right.

At the end of the vid, he summarizes 6 things, bonus points to all who can get all 6 right.

He finishes by encouraging practice (think - shadow... and club)

Hope you like hiz vids, they got a lot of worthwhile stuff.
 
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Great stuff! But i think he should have elbow more in front of body? Now it almost looks like he digs with a shovel and hits the ball alot on the side. But he is proably better than me so maybe im wrong :)
 
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Great stuff! But i think he should have elbow more in front of body? Now it almost looks like he digs with a shovel and hits the ball alot on the side. But he is proably better than me so maybe im wrong :)

Info. KJH is currently listed on the ITTF World Rankings at 121. However, I see what you are talking about. But I also see that his stroke goes very much forward and his racket starts at pretty much the same height as it ends. It is not easy to swing in such a horizontal plane. And I have a feeling that is actually very good form from a technical standpoint.
 
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This guy was world top 50 in his prime and had wins over people like Ovtcharov and Zhang Chao. Whatever you think of his technique, he is a (former) pro who enjoys coaching and making amateurs play better. IT's worth just listening to such people and noting any disagreements as not being about wrong vs or right but being more about different approaches you need to understand.

 
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I am not saying that its wrong what he is doing! I agree that you cant say what is wrong or right, everyone will do what suits their style of playing best. As a coach for younger players, i would advise playes to do exactly like that but also hit more in front of their body. My purpose with the reply was not to offend anyone, i just think its interestering to discuss technique and alot of fun to hear others opinions :D
 
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It is nice to discuss technique, but it is also nice to know the level of the player who you are discussing technique of. I remember someone looking at a video of Xu Xin's forehand and saying that Xu Xin was taking the ball too late. At which point, I said that this is essentially the best forehand in the world, if you are looking at something wrong with it, it probably makes sense to rethink what you think is true about the forehand.

What you are saying makes sense, but for me, I have found that the most important thing for power is to hit the ball while your body is rotating. However you make that happen is up to you.
 
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I am not saying that its wrong what he is doing! I agree that you cant say what is wrong or right, everyone will do what suits their style of playing best. As a coach for younger players, i would advise playes to do exactly like that but also hit more in front of their body. My purpose with the reply was not to offend anyone, i just think its interestering to discuss technique and alot of fun to hear others opinions :D
Lula,

I do not believe you offend anyone.

KIM Jung Hoon says it himself in almost every video he makes for a matures. He always says there is no Jung-Dap. That is Korean for Right Answer.

There is no One And Only way to table tennis.

KJH clearly explains his reasons for advocating the impact point to be on the side instead of front. Mostly, it is about efficient power transfer and quality/consistency. That doesn't happen hitting in front.

Another benefit also clearly explained is the shoulder rotation and finishing position. You rotate shoulders, you get more efficient and powerful energy transfer. Plus, when you rotate core and shoulders, then impact on side, you are making a long powerful stroke. When you impact on side with that back swing, a good chunk of your stroke is done and you make max power right at impact, then your follow through is naturally less long. This helps you stay on balance and finish stroke in front of you face, instead of way past it.

Obviously, this is valuable for those times where you are at the table in those fast bang bang rallies. It is also useful at distance, because you stay on balance ready to move to the ball.

KJH is super good at quickly identifying what a matures like us do wrong and he can and does clearly articulate and demonstrate what he says.

KJH way of impact might be different from another, but he makes sense with biomechanics.

Carl is an expert there, ask him... but be sure not to cause any EMF wave interference around him... his NSA Phone has auto responders connected to the HQ of the Goon Squad.

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Lula,

KJH explained from a power transfer and overall balance recovery perspective why it is important to impact the ball there....

Could you or your coach break down for us what happens impacting ball in front of body and why it helps? With a video breaking it down?

We are all ears and ready to look at anything. There isn't one sole answer. Personally, I am very interested in seeing the why of thing prom a process standpoint.

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Great stuff! But i think he should have elbow more in front of body? Now it almost looks like he digs with a shovel and hits the ball alot on the side. But he is proably better than me so maybe im wrong :)
As for elbow position, I will look for where he breaks down the elbow as part of the stroke... in this video and others. Next time I get to Korea, I will ask him personally.

On purpose, I do not do a full translation of every word. That would take a seriously long time and then one has to dig a little to see all the great nuggets.

My gist of his videos are like American Cliff Notes, which are the meat of the bone quick need to know important condensed points summary of real long books.

I ALWAYS get requests for a more full translation of the entire video or a segment.

The segment a TTD member mentioned was about making a TRAIL with your stroke. Imagine you take a pic of a street at night with a 10 second exposure... all the lights look like a trail of lights. KJH emphasizes the fast acceleration and relative straight line but with a little up then down concave aspect. He says his way of near straight line gives less spin. He says that pros who make more spin bring the bat from a lower height going upwards.

KJH says he himself swings from a lower start point for more spin, but a player should learn the forward swing way first, then later as he or she gets better, can have a good fundamental base to work from, which will allow a good adjustment of swing for that situation.

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It's very useful for teaching beginners. I'm always insecure how to introduce the shots.
Offtopic: korean sounds like a mixture of japanese and chinese. Chinese sounding words(+r characters) in japanese rhythm and stressing.
Korean words... around half are based on Chinese, much like English has Latin vocabulary origins. Over the years Koreans had Chinese for their writing and a different way altogether, King Lee Sae Jung came up with the Korean letters a few hundred years ago in the 1400s so Korean is a relatively new written language.

Mission impossible to learn all the basic grammar and some useful vocabulary, but once you command it, Korean is a most natural language you can think in it easily at that point.

Problem is, you gotta be real stubborn hard headed to stick with it through all the failures.

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This guy was world top 50 in his prime and had wins over people like Ovtcharov and Zhang Chao. Whatever you think of his technique, he is a (former) pro who enjoys coaching and making amateurs play better. IT's worth just listening to such people and noting any disagreements as not being about wrong vs or right but being more about different approaches you need to understand.

If we think a coach has to be world top ten to be a good coach, then we would have a serious shortage of coaches worldwide.

Look at Next Level. His level was around mine, until his recent increase of 2 levels.

He is often tasked with taking adult amature players who failed to develop with coaches 4 or 5 levels better players than him, but Next Level succeeds with them and they develop.

I believe NL does a much better job of articulation fundamentals and getting the player to work with what they have instead of trying to hammer in a predefined dogma.

That counts for a lot.

Anyone criticizing coaches or looking only at world elite players ought to try coaching an adult learner for a year and see if you can help them move up a few levels.

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Xu xin has a great forehand! It is my own opinion, Im a coach for young players and find theese kind of videos very interesting! Thank you btw! I agree that you need to use your body and rotation to get power. I believe that you shold hit the ball in front of you to be able to get the power from the body behind the ball. Like you are charging power from the body that unleashes when you hit the ball. If you hit at the side its hard to unleash it and i also thinks its much harder to control the ball. But i think you misunderstand me, i do not mean to much in front of the body. Then you will get no power, its lika hitting someone with an extended arm. I think people talk about hitting the ball in a triangle or in the power pocket. Maybe it is better to hit on the side if your recovery will get faster like you say! i do not know! :)
 
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may i ask how a korean ended up in the USA? :) also very interesting
 
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may i ask how a korean ended up in the USA? :) also very interesting
If you saw me in person like many TTD members have, or if you saw pics or video of me on TTD, like pretty much the entire forum has seen, you would know I am a 100 kg gent with glow in the dark white skin who looks nothing like Korean. I am 100 percent American first class all the way, but I got many European and Asian ways about me.

I just happened to be one of those who has Scottish plus Stubbornness when I learned Korean. I refused to give up no matter how bad it got... and let me tell you... learning Korean it gets messy bad in a hurry and stays that way a LONG time before it gets better.

There are not many people in the world willing to put up with repeated failure and bleak outlook very long. That is why the smart ones folded their cards early and went on to French or German... leaving only hard headed fools like me to carry on.

BTW, there are MANY Koreans in USA, they come here for school or business or to get away from Korea's number one problem... Too Many Koreans.

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A random pic of Joo SH hanging out with Korean friends somewhere in Europe.

74b09ab2a91824f64e59e290a7eb6ec3.jpg



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