Do you need ‘perfect’ technique to be good at table tennis?

TTFrenzy · Dec 17, 2017

first you need to define what perfect is. Wandering if anyone has perfect technique is pointless because no one is perfect and no one will ever be. Also u just dont play with technique. u play with creativity, service receive tactics and willpower etc. People forget its not only about one factor

To wrap it up good technique unlocks possibilities, bad technique just limits your evolution as a player, technically speaking! (pun intended)

TTFrenzy · Dec 17, 2017

also most of the players that critique you via internet are not to be taken seriously. 8/10 dont even know what they are talking about they just read some coaching tips and viewed chinese games highlights. So keep up the good job and post videos however you like. It is your right to post videos it is their right to comment

p.s. or you can disable comments

"democracy" is overrated

UpSideDownCarl · Dec 17, 2017

Another idea for the videos: take lots of video of your own match play. Lots. And then cut and past a few highlight shots, and perhaps one excellent rally; these should make you look as good as possible. Do some video editing magic, add some music and make an intro to your videos. Put it at the beginning of each new video. Guys like that, seeing your best shots, might be less likely to talk about your play skills if they saw highlights of you in action first.

Baal · Dec 17, 2017

I started as a kid so my technique is pretty orthodox. And I have lost badly to some ugly looking players. But if you look closely, they made solid ball contact, read spin well, returned serve well, didn't beat themselves, and didn't get mad when they messed up. And their technoque didn't lead to injuries.

NextLevel · Dec 17, 2017

UpSideDownCarl said:
From a technique standpoint, I got way way better. From an overall game skills standpoint, I may even have gotten worse.

After I broke USATT 2000, I spent a lot of time rebuilding my technique. My game now looks much better and more orthodox, but ratings wise, I have gained at most a 50 points in official USATT points, as my game is now easier for conventional players to read and play against. Yes, my potential ceiling is higher, but it isn't obvious my game is more troubling for *all* opponents.

Higher technique is predicated on the idea that spin make you more consistent and faster. But people who play know that it doesn't always work this way and that reading the game is also important.

UpSideDownCarl · Dec 17, 2017

First I will give some background on a post from NextLevel that is just below. Then I will tell what I think is a funny story that most likely relates to this subject.

NextLevel said:
I fully empathize with Tom in more ways than he will ever know. The best part of many of these youtube posts is getting to see the commenters play if they ever let you see them. It makes you take them less seriously in general.

I have played NextLevel. I have felt the amount of spin, speed and overall power in his shots. I have played many 2400 level players who are higher level than NL because they are young, fit, athletic and have been playing since they are kids whose overall ball quality is still not as high as NL’s.

The biggest thing holding NL back from being considerably higher level than he already is, is that he has an autoimmune joint disease that limits mobility in his knees, hips, spine, shoulders and wrists. The fact that NL is the overall level he is, is a testament to his focus and work ethic.

There are many people, usually lower level, who cannot see what level NL actually is. They look and think he is a beginner, because his strokes do not look like the strokes of the top pros. Yet, somehow they don’t see how many balls he puts on the table, how much spin and pace is on those balls, and how those balls are well placed to give his opponents problems to solve that limit their ability to respond effectively.

In short, these people are looking at the wrong things.

So, at one point, I posted a clip of Richard Dewitt and Philippe Dassonval in a thread. It may have been the same one or one of the other videos from that same match.

It was for a guy who was a low level player. He was talking about how he was better than NL and saying some guys who NL had no trouble taking care of were also better than NL.

The funny part is that he had seen highlights of Boogar, who is a good guy and thought Boogar was better than NL in spite of seeing footage of NL playing Boogar. Nothing against Boogar. But NL controlled the points and matches and without needing to play all out.

Anyway, so, I posted the video of Rich and Philippe and asked this guy if he thought he was better than them. Of course he said yes and of course he thought Boogar was better than them and other people that level were better than Rich and Philippe also.

So then I posted footage of a guy who is between 2400-2500 named Tahl Leibovitz and the guy thought he was better than Tahl. Which to me is just mind blowing because Tahl may have an awkward style and a bad attitude but he is a real artist with a racket.

Anyway, after that I posted footage of 2 2400 level players who play a more traditional style and this guy though he was about their level. Perhaps they were a little better than him. But not much.

I really would love to see footage of this character some day.

What is the point of all this? TT is a complex and technical game/sport. There is more going on which appears to be invisible to the untrained eye than words can express. For a guy like NL to get the combination of spin and pace on his shots that he does—I mean, when they hit your racket the ball feels like a golf ball—there has to be something going on at the level of how the topsheet and sponge dance with the ball, that allows him to produce such high quality shots.

And, Tom, if someone is paying attention and knows what to look for, they should see these things:

1) you are merely demonstrating the technique.
2) you shots have a nice arc and a good kick, which means they have good spin.

And if someone cannot see that, just ask them, politely, to post footage of them showing you how it is done.

Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

Loopadoop · Dec 17, 2017

Generally speaking, say up to 2200 USATT rating, it is to your advantage to be a little unorthodox, making you more difficult to play against.

bzing · Dec 17, 2017

Yes I believe that you'll never be truly good without a good technique and I believe you're a little bit delusional at thinking you're going to be some coach now teaching people how to play when in fact you haven't even got any good technique and nowhere near as good.

Andy44 · Dec 17, 2017

Lots of great comments on this thread to the effect that unorthodox technique isn't necessarily bad; it can sometimes be more effective because unfamiliar, and it can work even against quite high level players. And orthodox isn't necessarily good; it can even lead to injuries for some players. Perfect technique is a fantasy that goes away the moment you have to pick up the bat and decide how to hold it. Shakehand isn't any better than penhold, it's just a different series of compromises. Almost every technical choice is a compromise. I'd say good technique is anything that (1) doesn't cause injuries, (2) allows consistent hitting or brushing ball contact, and (3) allows quick recovery for the next shot. Better technique adds (4) more spin/speed without sacrificing #1-3, and (5) deception.

TableTennisTom · Dec 17, 2017

UpSideDownCarl said:
There are many people, usually lower level, who cannot see what level NL actually is. They look and think he is a beginner, because his strokes do not look like the strokes of the top pros. Yet, somehow they don’t see how many balls he puts on the table, how much spin and pace is on those balls, and how those balls are well placed to give his opponents problems to solve that limit their ability to respond effectively.

I think this is so true. And something I completely relate to. My technique is nowhere near as smooth as other players, but my consistency is high, my ball placement is good and my tactics strong. I'm a better player than I look for sure. It also reminds me of something my coach tells me. My coach is a former England international who played during the same time as Desmond Douglas, a former world top 10 player (back in the day!). He often talks about Desmond and says his technique was pretty quirky - often jumping around when playing shots - short topspin and drives rather than smooth, powerful loops. But he tells me "Don't look at how Desmond does it. Look at where he puts the ball." One of the reasons, according to my coach, as to why Desmond was so much better than anyone else in England at that time was because his ball placement was so exceptionally high. He was always finding angles, getting the ball close to the lines - stretching and squeezing his opponents. His technique may not have been as smooth as others, but his use of the ball was brilliant. This has always stuck with me.

UpSideDownCarl · Dec 17, 2017

Sorry, I want to talk about musical instruments, good mechanics, good technique, and a few other things.

If you couldn’t tell, I like this subject.

My memory was jogged to this by the comment about injury associated with technique that isn’t as good while playing a musical instrument.

So, this was a client who was a pianist and had a very unique and complicated body. His legs were very flexible in external rotation and the total opposite in internal rotation and his hamstrings were tighter than at least 95% of all the people I have worked with over the years which is a big, BIG statement. In fact his hamstrings were so short it made it hard for him to sit upright if his knees were pointing forward.

We were working together and he (I will call him Tim for simplicity) realized he had a problem that I might actually be able to help him with. His piano teacher had a specific idea of how Tim should sit. The problem was that the piano teacher understood what he thought this should look like. But didn’t understand the mechanics of the body in general or Tim’s body specifically well enough to get Tim to the desired outcome. In fact, all the teacher actually understood was how he thought Tim should look when sitting. And when Tim did what the teacher said he should do, he ended up injuring himself and not able to hold the position for very long either.

So Tim and I talked. He explained the theory of how the piano teacher wanted him to be able to use his legs, how the piano teacher wanted his spine more upright but angled forward.

And then Tim and I looked at video (back in the days when VHS was the only video most people had access to [emoji2]) of two famous piano players and what they were doing.

So I adjusted how Tim sat and had him have his knees pretty wide and adjusted a few other things and it worked and it worked pretty well for Tim’s body to get the outcome the teacher had said was the goal. And from a functional standpoint, there is no doubt that this was the ideal way for Tim to sit to achieve what the teacher hoped for.

But it didn’t look right to the teacher. He couldn’t see the desired outcome was actually achieved because of his attachment to aesthetics and a lack of understanding of how the body works in movement.

So, a week later Tim said that in his lesson, his teacher said the new sitting position was better, but still not “CORRECT”.

So in this session, I got him to sit in a position that worked well enough although not as well as the first version, but that looked close enough to what the teacher wanted that he would not see how we had done something to make it look how he wanted while still being okay for Tim’s body.

This one, the teacher accepted. And when that was the case, I discussed with Tim how, when he was not in a lesson he could sit either way. And when he was in a lesson he should just make it so the teacher could understand that he was sitting “correctly”!

What is the point of all this?

Useful biomechanics are dependent on the person, length of bones, size and shape of joints, mobility of joints, strengths, weaknesses.....each of us is unique.

Most people don’t think about length ratio between upper arm and forearm. But no two people on the planet have quite the same upper/lower arm length ratio and in fact, from left to right arm, things like that are usually slightly different in the same person.

Or arm length to torso length. Or upper to lower leg length ratio.

These things actually effect how you need to do any stroke.

So does shoulder joint range of motion. One person with:

• x shoulder rotation and
• n shoulder extension

Will have a very different stroke than a different person with

• y shoulder rotation and
• m shoulder extension

Two people with the same joint mobility and the same length ration in upper and lower arm but different mobility in hips and lumber spine will still have to have different strokes.

So, a lot of how good mechanics in TT or music are sometimes presented is flawed.

These are the things to look for on the subject of good mechanics.

1) EFFICIENCY of Movement.

I want to say that again: efficiency of movement.

Movement that is very far from efficient is actually what can cause injury. But this is different than correct or incorrect. The term is efficient.

If the movement is efficient, you will need a minimum of effort to create a maximum output. This is why Brett Clarke’s focus on whip mechanics is pure genius. That whip mechanics is about efficiency.

Where people hurt themselves in movement is when there is too much wasted effort in the action. Said another way: when the movement pattern is inefficient.

I will use a few examples from dance, gymnastics and sport.

A great gymnast does all the same things a very good gymnast does. What distinguishes the great from the very good? The very good, you can see a little more of their effort. They work a little harder than they should. The great gymnast, it looks closer to effortless. They use their energy as efficiently as possible. So things that are very hard, they still manage to make look easy.

So, Michael Jordan, when he was running in the open field, and moving through people and you just focused on MJ, he wouldn’t have looked like he was going very fast. But then when you widen your view you could see he was running circles around everyone else. Without him ever needing to think about it in that way, that is efficiency.

In the World Series, the Giants were playing the Angels. I don’t remember what year this was. But, maybe late 1990s or early 2000s like 2003. Angles were leading by a lot and it was the bottom of the 9th and the Angles brought in their big closer. This guy was throwing fastballs and the speed gun was getting readings like 105 mph, 107 mph. The first two guys who came up, they were swinging at the ball after it was hitting the catcher’s glove, that is how late they were swinging. Barry Bonds walks up to bat. The guy threw one pitch. BB swings and one pitch, home run. Don’t throw BB a fastball. His swing was so fast. It made the 48” piece of lumber he was swinging look like a toothpick. I have never seen a bat move quite that fast. And his swing....well....it looked effortless. Personally, I don’t care what people said about him and steroids. And there is no doubt he did them. But they did not give him those mechanics. What the steroids may have done is enabled him to do double the amount of batting practice without getting as tired. But the steroids did not give him those mechanics and that level of effortless speed.

So, where people get confused about mechanics is that, optimal mechanics will change person by person. And people want to think they can copy Ma Long’s FH and ZJK’s BH and end up with the best of everything without understanding how those guys adapted the mechanics to the needs of their bodies. And why one ended up being FH dominant with a very good BH and the other ended up being BH dominant with a very good FH.

And in our sport, there are many people who focus on the shape of the stroke and don’t understand what is happening between the topsheet, sponge and ball on different kinds of contact. Which is very very important to technique in TT.

Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

langel · Dec 17, 2017

"Change returns success
Going and coming without error.
Action brings good fortune."

Beauty in music is not only in tunes, but in silence between.
In TT beauty is not only in the hit, but in movement between

ttmonster · Dec 18, 2017

piao liang !

UpSideDownCarl said:
Sorry, I want to talk about musical instruments, good mechanics, good technique, and a few other things.

If you couldn’t tell, I like this subject.

My memory was jogged to this by the comment about injury associated with technique that isn’t as good while playing a musical instrument.

So, this was a client who was a pianist and had a very unique and complicated body. His legs were very flexible in external rotation and the total opposite in internal rotation and his hamstrings were tighter than at least 95% of all the people I have worked with over the years which is a big, BIG statement. In fact his hamstrings were so short it made it hard for him to sit upright if his knees were pointing forward.

We were working together and he (I will call him Tim for simplicity) realized he had a problem that I might actually be able to help him with. His piano teacher had a specific idea of how Tim should sit. The problem was that the piano teacher understood what he thought this should look like. But didn’t understand the mechanics of the body in general or Tim’s body specifically well enough to get Tim to the desired outcome. In fact, all the teacher actually understood was how he thought Tim should look when sitting. And when Tim did what the teacher said he should do, he ended up injuring himself and not able to hold the position for very long either.

So Tim and I talked. He explained the theory of how the piano teacher wanted him to be able to use his legs, how the piano teacher wanted his spine more upright but angled forward.

And then Tim and I looked at video (back in the days when VHS was the only video most people had access to [emoji2]) of two famous piano players and what they were doing.

So I adjusted how Tim sat and had him have his knees pretty wide and adjusted a few other things and it worked and it worked pretty well for Tim’s body to get the outcome the teacher had said was the goal. And from a functional standpoint, there is no doubt that this was the ideal way for Tim to sit to achieve what the teacher hoped for.

But it didn’t look right to the teacher. He couldn’t see the desired outcome was actually achieved because of his attachment to aesthetics and a lack of understanding of how the body works in movement.

So, a week later Tim said that in his lesson, his teacher said the new sitting position was better, but still not “CORRECT”.

So in this session, I got him to sit in a position that worked well enough although not as well as the first version, but that looked close enough to what the teacher wanted that he would not see how we had done something to make it look how he wanted while still being okay for Tim’s body.

This one, the teacher accepted. And when that was the case, I discussed with Tim how, when he was not in a lesson he could sit either way. And when he was in a lesson he should just make it so the teacher could understand that he was sitting “correctly”!

What is the point of all this?

Useful biomechanics are dependent on the person, length of bones, size and shape of joints, mobility of joints, strengths, weaknesses.....each of us is unique.

Most people don’t think about length ratio between upper arm and forearm. But no two people on the planet have quite the same upper/lower arm length ratio and in fact, from left to right arm, things like that are usually slightly different in the same person.

Or arm length to torso length. Or upper to lower leg length ratio.

These things actually effect how you need to do any stroke.

So does shoulder joint range of motion. One person with:

• x shoulder rotation and
• n shoulder extension

Will have a very different stroke than a different person with

• y shoulder rotation and
• m shoulder extension

Two people with the same joint mobility and the same length ration in upper and lower arm but different mobility in hips and lumber spine will still have to have different strokes.

So, a lot of how good mechanics in TT or music are sometimes presented is flawed.

These are the things to look for on the subject of good mechanics.

1) EFFICIENCY of Movement.

I want to say that again: efficiency of movement.

Movement that is very far from efficient is actually what can cause injury. But this is different than correct or incorrect. The term is efficient.

If the movement is efficient, you will need a minimum of effort to create a maximum output. This is why Brett Clarke’s focus on whip mechanics is pure genius. That whip mechanics is about efficiency.

Where people hurt themselves in movement is when there is too much wasted effort in the action. Said another way: when the movement pattern is inefficient.

I will use a few examples from dance, gymnastics and sport.

A great gymnast does all the same things a very good gymnast does. What distinguishes the great from the very good? The very good, you can see a little more of their effort. They work a little harder than they should. The great gymnast, it looks closer to effortless. The use their energy as efficiently as possible. So things that are very hard, they still manage to make look easy.

So, Michael Jordan, when he was running in the open field, and moving through people and you just focused on MJ, he wouldn’t have looked like he was going very fast. But then when you widen your view you could see he was running circles around everyone else. Without him ever needing to think about it in that way, that is efficiency.

In the World Series, the Giants were playing the Angels. I don’t remember what year this was. But, maybe late 1990s or early 2000s like 2003. Angles were leading by a lot and it was the bottom of the 9th and the Angles brought in the big closer. This guy was throwing fastballs and the speed gun was getting readings like 105 mph, 107 mph. The first two guys who came up, they were swinging at the ball after it was hitting the catcher’s glove, that is how late they were swinging. Barry Bonds walks up to bat. The guy threw one pitch. BB swings and one pitch, home run. Don’t throw BB a fastball. His swing was so fast. It made the 48” piece of lumber he was swinging look like a toothpick. I have never seen a bat move quite that fast. And his swing....well....it looked effortless. Personally, I don’t care what people said about him and steroids. And there is no doubt he did them. But they did not give him those mechanics. What the steroids may have done is enabled him to do double the amount of batting practice without getting as tired. But the steroids did not give him those mechanics and that level of effortless speed.

So, where people get confused about mechanics is that, optimal mechanics will change person by person. And people want to think they can copy Ma Long’s FH and ZJK’s BH and end up with the best of everything without understanding how those guys adapted the mechanics to the needs of their bodies. And why one ended up being FH dominant with a very good BH and the other ended up being BH dominant with a very good FH.

And in our sport, there are many people who focus on the shape of the stroke and don’t understand what is happening between the topsheet, sponge and ball on different kinds of contact. Which is very very important to technique in TT.

Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

Archosaurus · Dec 18, 2017

Yes, absolutely. If you don't hit the ball with 100% perfect textbook technique with the precision of a Japanese engineered, German built machine, then you might as well quit the sport forever.

brodolio · Dec 18, 2017

I think that there are basic rules which are objective and are the same for everyone. To me that is the "technique".
The rest is practice over time, which creates efficiency and constancy.

Just one example : FH topspin / counter

Basic rules
keep the arm relaxed and transfer the power from your feet to the racket (same for everyone)

How to achieve it
By using your whole body as much as you can, legs - waist - shoulders etc (same for everyone)

It doesn't mean that there is a mathematical-super-specific way to do that (I wish there were actually

)
. Indeed everyone develops his own way.
The real difference is how much you practice and training, in order to create an automatism. So you can use the proper technique as often as it is required.

Astorix · Dec 18, 2017

TableTennisTom said:
Hi all

I just posted a new article on my website and I'd like to know what you think.

http://www.tabletenniscoach.me.uk/do-you-need-perfect-technique/

The article was inspired by the comments I get on my youtube channel, where my technique sometimes gets completely trashed (it can be a brutal experience!)

What Youtube comments imply is that there is a ‘right’ way and a ‘wrong’ way to play table tennis (mine is clearly the wrong way). Unless you can execute your shots like Ma Long, you suck!

But how true is this? Do you have to play like the best professionals in the world to be any good at table tennis? Is there such a thing as ‘perfect’ technique? Can you be good at table tennis, even if your technique isn't text-book?

Thoughts please...

I made the experience that technique highly depends on the used materials/equipment in correlation with physical conditions and the exact situation.
It depends if you are small or tall.
If you are playing slow or fast, thick or thin rubbers, pimples in and pimples out. And so on.
Every situation, every single moment has it's own perspective and meaning. Take it or let it go, your choice.
I always try to look at things in all kind of different ways. one right thing may proof itself totally wrong in the nett situation.

Timo Bolls technique would be rather ineffective with Ma Longs racket and probably the other way around too.
what i wanna say is that what is right and what is wrong only applies to certain situations and have to be adapted to certain situations. Rather adapt yourself to the moment than try to filter in right or wrong.
Sorry for bad language, i hope you got the quintessence.

brodolio · Dec 18, 2017

Astorix said:
I made the experience that technique highly depends on the used materials/equipment in correlation with physical conditions and the exact situation.
It depends if you are small or tall.
If you are playing slow or fast, thick or thin rubbers, pimples in and pimples out. And so on.
Every situation, every single moment has it's own perspective and meaning. Take it or let it go, your choice.
I always try to look at things in all kind of different ways. one right thing may proof itself totally wrong in the nett situation.

Timo Bolls technique would be rather ineffective with Ma Longs racket and probably the other way around too.
what i wanna say is that what is right and what is wrong only applies to certain situations and have to be adapted to certain situations. Rather adapt yourself to the moment than try to filter in right or wrong.
Sorry for bad language, i hope you got the quintessence.

Mmm I dont' fully agree.
Look at Timo, Ma Long or whatever athlete at high level. Look at them closely.
The shots execution is different, but the principles behind are the same. Body rotation, power coming from the legs, relaxed arm etc..
So what is really different between athlete is the style. How you interpret those rules and apply them.

Example
Let's assume you use only your arm when doing a topsin, because of certain reasons.
You will notice that your arm gets tired quite soon. Your strokes are not so powerful etc. Why? Because you are not applying the basic rules. It means that you don't have a proper technique.
How you develop it, creates your own style which MUST be different from everyone else in the planet. We are unique human being.

NextLevel · Dec 18, 2017

brodolio said:
Mmm I dont' fully agree.
Look at Timo, Ma Long or whatever athlete at high level. Look at them closely.
The shots execution is different, but the principles behind are the same. Body rotation, power coming from the legs, relaxed arm etc..
So what is really different between athlete is the style. How you interpret those rules and apply them.

Example
Let's assume you use only your arm when doing a topsin, because of certain reasons.
You will notice that your arm gets tired quite soon. Your strokes are not so powerful etc. Why? Because you are not applying the basic rules. It means that you don't have a proper technique.
How you develop it, creates your own style which MUST be different from everyone else in the planet. We are unique human being.

I was going to make your same point but it really is kinda nit picking. There is some truth that tackiness of the rubber slows down the release of the ball and allows you to take fuller strokes at the table and away from the table. It is a part of the reason why the Chinese style is so consistently aggressive even in the short game on some shots and why they find it easier to push the ball short and tight on the forehand side.

But I do agree that you can play similarly with both tacky and non-tacky rubbers, but at that level, the subtleties would make some difference in how they adapt as the advantages are not the same and it would take a lot of time to make all the adaptations. One of the reasons Chinese like tacky rubber is that it allows for fuller strokes even when looping, with Tenergy you need more precision.

Astorix · Dec 18, 2017

I did not mention the "Basics" in my post but ofcourse i agree that they not only exist but totally make sense and should be kept in mind

Baal · Dec 18, 2017

Things that can look different on the surface may not be that different on the fundamentals.

Do you need ‘perfect’ technique to be good at table tennis?

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