Too much sidespin on forehand topspins

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honestly, I think adding sidespin is a better choice when it comes to lifting a backspin; making it much easier.

if I were you, I'd suggest you don't think much about it and keep doing sidespin with your loop. the lack of power can be compensated by doing forward motion and a bit more snap. One last thing is it's placement.

If anything, taking the ball from the side is a good idea to counter slow spinny loop. it works like charm for me.
 
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honestly, I think adding sidespin is a better choice when it comes to lifting a backspin; making it much easier.

if I were you, I'd suggest you don't think much about it and keep doing sidespin with your loop. the lack of power can be compensated by doing forward motion and a bit more snap. One last thing is it's placement.

If anything, taking the ball from the side is a good idea to counter slow spinny loop. it works like charm for me.

Adding sidespin subtracts power from velocity and topspin, and the sidespin component of a shot doesn't help at all to lift a heavy push; wrong axis of force for lifting. You make it harder for yourself when you add sidespin. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes not. If the only forehand you can hit is a hook, I think it's a good investment of practice time to figure out how to unhook it.
 
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A couple of videos where I practice alone, which is quite often my only option. One is from my forehand corner, and the second one is from the backhand corner. I find it easier to perform the strokes from the backhand corner. I noticed that I also keep my wrist bent to the side (back?) during the stroke. Not entirely sure if this is because I wanted to focus on less hook, and more fade, but I think I do it all the time.

I will of course try to follow up with a video recorded during a match later on. Probably from a somewhat different angle, so hopefully it will still be possible to see what is going on.

 
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Adding sidespin subtracts power from velocity and topspin, and the sidespin component of a shot doesn't help at all to lift a heavy push; wrong axis of force for lifting. You make it harder for yourself when you add sidespin. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes not. If the only forehand you can hit is a hook, I think it's a good investment of practice time to figure out how to unhook it.

I agree with the last sentence. The rest that i disagree with I am sure comes down to language. I think looping with topspin when you don't contact the back of the ball but rather the side creates some sidespin and is the dominant stroke in table tennis. I think this is where the discussion gets confusing and why video is important.
 
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Whocarez, many good players would call your stroke a topspin stroke without losing sleep over it. You could learn to come over the top of the ball more and that just means making your paddle more parallel to the ground at the end of the backswing. Facing downwards is hook, facing upwards is fade topspin. Your contact is largely the modern approach and even if you make some modifications to make the topspin more direct, don't waste too much time. I think my stroke is essentially similar to yours and I have not had any major complaints about it from coaches that I have worked with.
 
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Does your loop have power and is it consistent?
I can sometimes apply power, but I would not say that it is consistent. Especially in match play when trying to do a series of loops. But opening against underspin is usually consistent enough for me to get the point going.
 
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A couple of videos where I practice alone, which is quite often my only option. One is from my forehand corner, and the second one is from the backhand corner. I find it easier to perform the strokes from the backhand corner. I noticed that I also keep my wrist bent to the side (back?) during the stroke. Not entirely sure if this is because I wanted to focus on less hook, and more fade, but I think I do it all the time.

I will of course try to follow up with a video recorded during a match later on. Probably from a somewhat different angle, so hopefully it will still be possible to see what is going on.


Info:

1) These videos do show that you need a more effective way to do the drill you are trying to do.

2) They also show that you are getting decent spin when you self hit. Which means you probably are getting decent spin when you face a ball that actually has spin on it.

3) You also should know, the drill you are trying to do is not worth doing from the FH side. The table is in the way. This is just something to do on the BH side of the table.

4) With the drill you are trying to perform, don’t worry about making the ball bounce towards you. I will post a video that shows a more efficient way to do basically the same thing. But you won’t be running to pick up the ball and running back to where you want to hit from. And you won’t need to pick up a ball after every shot. [emoji2]

5) In these videos, it does not look like you are using your hips enough. But I think this is more because of how you are trying to perform the drill than how you may actually do it in real play.

6) I agree with NextLevel that your stroke looks fine. Perhaps practicing the specific things you have trouble with so you have the option to vary placement. Like backspin balls or back/sidespin balls that go wide to the FH and you practice looping them down the line or around the net.

All this said, I look forward to seeing the FH in the real scenario you are talking about. Thank you for this video. I have a feeling your play level is better than you were presenting.

Here is a video of me doing self hit balls from the BH side:


Details to note:

* I have the balls in a bucket, on a chair, next to me as if I am going to feed multiball.

** I pick up a handful at a time. I have little hands. I am small. I can pick up 5 by reaching into the bucket without it changing the rhythm too much.

*** I am not thinking about getting the ball to bounce towards the edge. I am just dropping it. But because of the momentum of the reset of the stroke and the rhythm, the ball is naturally bouncing a little towards the edge.

**** Because I am on the BH corner, and my hips are to the side of the table—not behind the table—the table is not in the way of my stroke even though I am taking all of these shots over the table.

But I think your video shows you are a decent level player. And I am looking forward to seeing the real thing that is happening during matches when you open with the FH.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy
 
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3) You also should know, the drill you are trying to do is not worth doing from the FH side. The table is in the way. This is just something to do on the BH side of the table.
Haha, thanks :) Now that explains a lot. I actually watched a drill like yours, adapted it a bit for my own purpose, and failed.

5) In these videos, it does not look like you are using your hips enough. But I think this is more because of how you are trying to perform the drill than how you may actually do it in real play.
Yes, that is true for sure. This is something I have been working on lately since it is quite important for the stroke, but it will take time to fix. On the rare occasion when I get it right, it feels like you I "hit through" backspin with more power. I also think that I should be dropping my shoulder a bit more during the recovery, but then again, it probably matters more against backspin.

6) I agree with NextLevel that your stroke looks fine. Perhaps practicing the specific things you have trouble with so you have the option to vary placement. Like backspin balls or back/sidespin balls that go wide to the FH and you practice looping them down the line or around the net.
Thanks. This is a good suggestion.

**** Because I am on the BH corner, and my hips are to the side of the table—not behind the table—the table is not in the way of my stroke even though I am taking all of these shots over the table.
Yeah, I was trying to adapt this drill by standing more square to the table. But I guess this drill is more like a forehand pivot and standing sideways in the BH corner is the only way to do it right. I actually do the same drill in the BH corner when practising a small backhand topspin, alternating between down the line and crossover. Then of course I stand behind the table. Got a video of that and some serving too, but I will save it for later occasions in different threads.
 
In the videos of Whocarez I see that many of the shots are made with different blade and wrist angle, elbow move and wrist swing. In some shots there are two wrist swings. I think you should try to be more persistant, sticking to the last shot in the first video. When you get a persistant techniques like Carl in his video, then you may try to colour your shots with desired wrist angle and swing.
 
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In the videos of Whocarez I see that many of the shots are made with different blade and wrist angle, elbow move and wrist swing. In some shots there are two wrist swings. I think you should try to be more persistant, sticking to the last shot in the first video. When you get a persistant techniques like Carl in his video, then you may try to colour your shots with desired wrist angle and swing.
Yes, I am pretty sure that you are onto something here. I wonder if I should rather try to keep the wrist more fixed until getting a better swing.

I noticed that I have problems with coming over the ball, and unfortunately not getting the contact point as required (both the feeling and sound tells me that). I think my elbow is not always at the right height, and maybe I should keep it more parallel to ground and end up more forward. I think a shorter swing would help with this matter, but to achieve this, better acceleration is required. If I look at Carl's swing, it is quite small, ends up forward with good acceleration and contact point.

I tried to shorten the swing a bit, but still a long way to go. Sorry Carl, it is still a bit awkward to keep several balls in my hand and no chair is available ;)
 
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Yes, I am pretty sure that you are onto something here. I wonder if I should rather try to keep the wrist more fixed until getting a better swing.

I noticed that I have problems with coming over the ball, and unfortunately not getting the contact point as required (both the feeling and sound tells me that). I think my elbow is not always at the right height, and maybe I should keep it more parallel to ground and end up more forward. I think a shorter swing would help with this matter, but to achieve this, better acceleration is required. If I look at Carl's swing, it is quite small, ends up forward with good acceleration and contact point.

I tried to shorten the swing a bit, but still a long way to go. Sorry Carl, it is still a bit awkward to keep several balls in my hand and no chair is available ;)

One step at a time. In this one, with you are not running around as much and this is a big improvement. And now it is a little easier to see some of the technical details that are holding you back.

When you do the practice swings, it is clear that, in your head, what you are rehearsing as a good stroke will get in the way of your spin, acceleration and power. If you look, just at the practice swings, your elbow starts bent, and ends bent at the same angle. This means that all arm movement in the stroke HAS TO COME from your shoulder. You are also adding the body. But you don't want the whole arm movement coming from the shoulder joint. ESPECIALLY if your wanted a more compact stroke.

In your strokes in this video, you are doing a certain amount of that. But, interestingly, your stroke with the ball is MUCH better than your shadow stroke. So part of what this means is that, in your head, in your thinking about the stroke, in your internal imaging of the stroke, you are imagining the stroke in a way that is not going to be so effective.

Regardless of whether you want a big stroke or a compact stroke, on the backswing you want your arm to open till it is almost straight, close to no bend in the elbow joint; maybe a 3-7 degree bend in the elbow joint would be ideal if you want me to get technical. And during contact, you want your elbow to bend from that angle. That is where all that effortless acceleration comes from. When the followthrough is complete, the elbow should be bent past 90 degrees to about 110 degrees (or, if you were measuring the short angle, 70 degrees. [if straight = 0, then 110 degrees, if straight = 180, then 70 degrees, and straight could be seen as either 0 or 180. :)]).

In your stoke with the ball, you are moving and using your forearm. But not nearly enough.

==

Next issue, if you watch your body's followthrough movement, the rotation is bringing you off to the BH side and towards the camera and a little off balance. What is missing is the forward movement of the weight transfer and so you are overemphasizing the hip rotation and rotating too much.

If you watch when I am doing the stroke, the rotation turns me a little but I am still facing where the ball is going and the weight transfer moves my hips almost a foot forward. This translates into the racket arm's shoulder moving more than two feet in the direction of the stroke. That means I need to work much less to get power behind the ball because my whole body is moving in the direction the ball will go. And even though there is rotation, it does not pull me off to the side. It also brings me into the direction of the ball.

Now, when a top pro puts everything into a fade loop from that position on the table, I have seen them fall off to the side many times. So, if you were going for everything, knowing that the ball is not going to come back, that would be okay. But that is not the standard technique you want to train into your body.

All that being said, this version of the drill, despite not having a chair available, or a plastic crate, and not using a small bucket, but using your bag instead, you did the drill way better. So, good work.

==

I have just reminded myself of a woman I used to hit with a long time ago at a club that used to be in NYC's Chinatown. Everyone called this woman the chicken lady. The reason: she always had a bucket of balls and the bucket she used was a cardboard Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket. And it was full of balls; maybe a gross (144 balls). Anything would work: a $2.00 bucket for mopping floors. A big bowl from the kitchen. It just makes it easier to shove your hand in without thinking the bag will get disrupted and the balls will go all over.

So:

PLA-24.JPG

plus:

NMAH-JN2014-3961.jpg

And you would be ready to do battle with the chicken lady. :)
 
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In your stoke with the ball, you are moving and using your forearm. But not nearly enough.
An interesting observation, indeed. I do not know why I imagine a stroke with less arm movement. It could originally have been because I wanted to avoid tipping over to the side, but still keep the rotation. Or something like that... Anyway, what you are telling me is quite spot on. A more advanced player I had a chance to play with a couple of times, told me more or less the same. He mentioned that I should get more snap when using my arm and bend it more. Unfortunately, he was not able to show me this before leaving.

==
Next issue, if you watch your body's followthrough movement, the rotation is bringing you off to the BH side and towards the camera and a little off balance. What is missing is the forward movement of the weight transfer and so you are overemphasizing the hip rotation and rotating too much.
This is probably what feels like I am tipping sideways when performing the stroke. Not entirely sure how to think to start correcting this. Maybe just keeping in mind to move my body in the same direction as the ball? Some coaching is probably needed.

Thanks for the good input :)
 
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It is important to know that what happens in a self hit drill like this does not necessarily reflect what you are doing in real time. And the main thing this indicates is that grooving your loop strokes for a few thousand reps a few days a week would help correct what is going on without it having to be too cerebral. A lot of the time when the head is trying to tell the body what it should be doing, more things go wrong than right. Whereas, if you grove the stroke enough the body starts feeling what is more efficient and the technique improves though good training habits.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy
 
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I do not know why I imagine a stroke with less arm movement.

Sorry if this is parsing words.

When you are shadow stroking, you are using to much upper arm and not enough forearm: too much movement from the shoulder joint, the glenohumeral joint, to be even more specific, and not enough movement from the elbow joint.

The way you are shadow stroking shows that in your head your image of the stroke has the arm moving in a way that is less efficient.


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Here is my stroke self hitting. I think I used to use and probably still use too much arm and forearm and not enough bod on the forehand topspin. But I post it mostly to give whocares an idea of my sidespin and my contact point.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4aPh10ClZfU&feature=youtu.be&t=274

PS: the stroke should really begin in the ready position and end there. And you don't need to hit the ball hard. Just get the form right. Your drills hit the ball way too hard, whocarez.
 
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Regardless of whether you want a big stroke or a compact stroke, on the backswing you want your arm to open till it is almost straight, close to no bend in the elbow joint; maybe a 3-7 degree bend in the elbow joint would be ideal if you want me to get technical. And during contact, you want your elbow to bend from that angle. That is where all that effortless acceleration comes from. When the followthrough is complete, the elbow should be bent past 90 degrees to about 110 degrees (or, if you were measuring the short angle, 70 degrees. [if straight = 0, then 110 degrees, if straight = 180, then 70 degrees, and straight could be seen as either 0 or 180. :)]).

In your stoke with the ball, you are moving and using your forearm. But not nearly enough.
I have given this more thinking and reading. I believe there are two schools about this, either start with the arm quite bent and not moving much through the stroke, or starting with the arm quite straight. From what I am reading both ways can be right. The finish position should of course be around 90 degrees or a little more. However, I do not think that the arm itself contributes too much to the acceleration. Should I rather concentrate on getting more power from the legs and turning of the waist, where I believe most of the power comes from? And of course, keeping it forward, as mentioned earlier (which I have little idea about how to do correctly).

Thanks for the video NextLevel, you are right about hitting the ball too hard. I think the sidespin I sometimes get too much of, is because of bending my wrist either too much back or foreward. At least this is what I noticed in some of my videos.

I totally agree that a drill like this is quite different from what I am doing when playing and running around and doing all kinds of strange things ;) I guess as the thread has developed, it is not so much about sidespin anymore, but more about the general improvement of the topspin stroke. This is nice :)
 
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I have given this more thinking and reading. I believe there are two schools about this, either start with the arm quite bent and not moving much through the stroke, or starting with the arm quite straight. From what I am reading both ways can be right. The finish position should of course be around 90 degrees or a little more. However, I do not think that the arm itself contributes too much to the acceleration. Should I rather concentrate on getting more power from the legs and turning of the waist, where I believe most of the power comes from? And of course, keeping it forward, as mentioned earlier (which I have little idea about how to do correctly).

Thanks for the video NextLevel, you are right about hitting the ball too hard. I think the sidespin I sometimes get too much of, is because of bending my wrist either too much back or foreward. At least this is what I noticed in some of my videos.

I totally agree that a drill like this is quite different from what I am doing when playing and running around and doing all kinds of strange things ;) I guess as the thread has developed, it is not so much about sidespin anymore, but more about the general improvement of the topspin stroke. This is nice :)


You should get power from your core. What is not obvious in that video is that I have bad knees so I do not get as much from legs as I would like but I get enough from my core/hips to do my own stroke. That video is also 2 and a half years old.

The arm should be relaxed but the people who want you to keep it bent throughout the stroke and almost all the time are limiting your ability to hit and adjust to certain kinds of shots. Power matters and while most of it should come from the hips, some of it should come from the length of the arm to generate torque and when you also allow the elbow to add something, it increases racket head speed. I can hit both a bent arm and a straight arm forehand - my bent arm is more for countering and my straight arm is more for killing easy balls. Even Timo straightens his arms a little vs some balls.

But in the end, the most important thing is to answer the questions that Baal raised - is the stroke powerful and consistent? And power and consistency are not always about optimal technique. Of course some aspects of good technique or just brute strength from the core must be present, but some of it is just knowing where and how to contact the incoming ball with a swing trajectory and depth so that enough power goes into spin and enough into speed.

That said, if you can hit the ball the way I am doing it in that video, that is enough to see your technique. No need to dance around etc. Either hit the ball out of your hand (which I didn't do in that video but I can demonstrate if you want to see - some people feed the ball like multiball) or act like a base ball hitter, get into the right stance and just bounce the ball and hit it like you are feeding a multiball topspin loop like a CNT coach. This is enough to build your swing. The rest is moving into position and adapting the swing plane and contact point.
 
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A lot of good advice here already. As UpSideDownCarl has mentioned your shadow stroke looks good, but then you change your stroke when actually contacting the ball.

The biggest thing for me is your bat angle.

In your shadow play, your bat angle is more horizontal. When you start doing the stroke with balls, your bat angle goes more vertical. This makes it hard for you to get a good topspin contact.

So I would focus on keeping the bat angle more horizontal throughout the stroke.

Also, when making changes to my technique, I always find it easier to slow the action down to begin with. Play a safer and slower topspin and when you have reached high consistency with this, then start adding more speed.
 
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