More power needed in my forehand

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I really tried to relax my left arm in my latest attempt. (no sandles and even a proper table tennis shirt!!) I must admit it is a lot easier to focus on the left hand rather than to try to not raise the right shoulder in the stroke. Very smart coaching Carl. One coach taught me to reach across the body with my left arm to aid body rotation which I see has messed me up. I still look too upright and my stance is not low enough. I will try the not so parallel to the table tip to get more leg and hip action.

 
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body needs to be more relaxed and bending your body a little more forward. In terms of contact with the ball and racket, there should be more sponge compression aside from brushing. The timing also helps, you are taking the ball a bit late. Hit the ball at the top of the bounce or earlier.
 
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You have shown great improvement from your first video to the last one ... I would say focus on relaxing the upper body and keeping your shoulder low , just dropping the elbow to its normal level and snapping with forearm will help ... I am not sure if your wrist injury will become worse but normally in the standard forehand stroke you don't need to put conscious power from the wrist , you just need to release the wrist at the end of the forearm snap ... I would say at this point relaxation is priority one and it should automatically help in lowering the elbow ... the power should come from the waist snap and the forearm snap not from the shoulder ... if you can ignore the silliness the rest of the technical advice in the videos by this coach is just fine ..
 
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Here, a video about what is going on. I got a chance to make it tonight.


I can't emphasize enough how shadow strokes could really help you with so many of the details that are almost there, but have hitches in them. I recommend you see if you can practice shadow strokes in front of a mirror so you can see what you are doing. When a person can see what they are doing while practicing shadow strokes, it makes it so much easier to change things in a productive way.

I love practicing shadow strokes. And it is cool how it really actually helps your strokes.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy
 
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Much thanks for taking the effort to post a video. I can see my elbow is much higher than your shadow stroke. ttmonsters tip of relaxation could be a key. Is there a difference in elbow height in comparing the European style forehand vs the Chinese style? If I straighten my arm somewhat for whip in the backswing then the elbow is higher than a bent arm stroke??? Shadow swings coming...
 
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There are multiple videos by NextLevel and Brett Clarke to explain the whip and what is optimal and what is not ... I will try to find some for you when I can ... may be sooner than later ....

the key thing in any table tennis stroke is to keep the tension in your core, which helps in getting power from a more stable source , and then also prevents too much follow through that might cause imbalance ...

one thing about european and chinese style that I would like to mention here is really there is no two different styles , its more a collaborative efffort that has helped in evolving the technique as we now by efforts on both sides of the aisles ... I don't want to go into too much details ... there are threads on this very forum explaining that evolution ...

on any stroke your elbow should ideally be at a natural level , hanging from your shoulder ... it can be closer to the body it can be farther from the body but the key is that you should not be pulling the shoulder up to adjust to an incoming ball ...

somebody , I think most likely Larry Hodges said, if after a training session on table tennis anything other than your legs are sore , you must be doing something wrong ... keep that in mind ,its an excellent thumb rule indicator to know if there is any correction technique necessary ...

Much thanks for taking the effort to post a video. I can see my elbow is much higher than your shadow stroke. ttmonsters tip of relaxation could be a key. Is there a difference in elbow height in comparing the European style forehand vs the Chinese style? If I straighten my arm somewhat for whip in the backswing then the elbow is higher than a bent arm stroke??? Shadow swings coming...
 
i would still say your posture is hindering you from easily rotating your body. your posture is a little too straight and it also tenses your back muscles resulting to a partially stiff movement or rotation. lean a little bit forward and bend a little downwards. it could help a lot in your body rotation.
 
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Shadow play. Trying to focus on staying low, forward lean, relaxed left arm, the right shoulder not lifting, whip at beginning of stroke, finish position at right eye, being more relaxed.

No wonder table tennis is so hard!

I see I am still too upright even though my head said I was leaning forward. This habit is going to take a lot of work to correct.


 
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I think you are good with your body position. My understanding is the whip is not the initiating motion , the initiating motion is the hip snap , the forearm snap / whip when you contact the ball , so lets say when your hip is towards the end of its snap the whip motion should initiate ... oh and one more advise ignore the naysayer Archo , he is just jealous you made so much progress in so little time :p
 
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these not the most supportive words my friend .... when you try to support people you say positive things not scare them off ... criticism is only good when its constructive and/or directed towards self to a certain healthy limit ...

When you try to transition this stroke to a drill stroke, you'll fall back to your old habits because it feels right


@ttmonster You need to work on your reading comprehension, because I'm supporting Maurice.
 
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No thats not the point , its good that you are supporting him , give positive feedback , point out the things he needs to work on and wish him good luck ... you think the guy who is intelligent enough and has hand eye coordination better than most of us so much so that he can correct his form so quickly does not know that shadow stroke will take time to transition onto table play, then game play and then match play ... why point out the obvious and scare him unnecessarily ... anyways I don't want to hijack the thread , so no more on this here ... if you want we can take our fight to the daily table tennis thread , the mother load of hijacking ...
So where is the issue? Do you think he will perfectly ingrain the stroke with little effort?

Well, maybe. It's not impossible...
 
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I am not athletic and I know it will take ages to integrate the shadow form into my game. Even the stance issue of not leaning forward enough is going to be difficult to consistently do in a match. Give me 6 months though....

I have made a big breakthrough on my backhand topspin recently. I had just one lesson with Brett Clark when I visited Melbourne and he really helped me wait longer for the ball and do a better whip action.
 
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this is great infomation maurice , I would really advise seriously , take another trip to melbourne and get rest of the forehand form fixed , you have made a lot of progress and really we can only help so much , there is nothing like in person coaching especially for the basics
I am not athletic and I know it will take ages to integrate the shadow form into my game. Even the stance issue of not leaning forward enough is going to be difficult to consistently do in a match. Give me 6 months though....

I have made a big breakthrough on my backhand topspin recently. I had just one lesson with Brett Clark when I visited Melbourne and he really helped me wait longer for the ball and do a better whip action.
 
your toes should not be pointing straight, position them in such a way they point a little bit diagonal to left and to the right. just keep on practicing and you will be able to coordinate and simultaneously twist your body when doing back swing.
 
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