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:
plus:
And you would be ready to do battle with the chicken lady.