I understand the comments like "you don't think when you play", guilty about that myself. But - I can totally see why this might be happening: all drills aimed at establishing basic technique, fundamentals etc. are trying to make sure that you are executing shots without thinking.
If main focus is on this, why are we surprised when during the point player can't think one step ahead? His reflexes are drilled into one thing and then a different ball arrives. And I suspect teaching how to analyze what happened and adjusting on the next point is rather different from multiball or even a single ball practice. Playing more matches will help (slowly...), but somehow coaches do not tend to teach this ("if you serve X, 80% chance ball will come here and you should do Y"), or may be I was unlucky.
Good points! I agree that learning and practicing the fundementals is very important! But i do think it is very important to not be like robots when we play and try to think why we do certain exerccises or why we do like we do. Try to have a purpose with alot of shots, especially serve and return and try to analyze like you say what happened if you miss or start losing points.
I have understood thay they focus on fundementals in Korea, and i think we all should do but i still think we need to be able to think when we play so we make the possibilities for victory in games higher. It does not matter if you have the best technique if you always loose because you play stupidly and without and thought. I understand that we work on the technique to be abe to win in the future, but i think we can not only look in to the future but need to try to also play good and win in the present.
So i do not really agree with the korean coaches and i find it strange that you guys practise with coaches that do not teach what pgpg is talking about. Im a real technique freak but i also think playing with thought and thinking what ball will come after this one is important and having a playing style where you know your strengths and weakness and practice with these in mind and play games with these in mind so you have a game tactic is somewhat as important as technique. I think coaches atleast would teach that if you do a nospin short serve they will push high or flip, or if you push long you need to have the racket high and be ready to block and stuff like this. Pretty basic stuff if you have played for a while and think a little.
Technique is good for the developement but the other stuff is good if you actually want to win games. I also think with a playing style you may not need to have perfect technique for all the shots since you do not need to use them as much. In ex Gatien could barely play backhand in my opinion, Gerell aswell but they worked around it with good serve, return game and good footwork. And the technique do not need to be perfect either, as long as it work for you. In example Keinath looks horrible while playing but is still a pro, Boll switch grip like crazy, pistej also loop forehand pretty funny and Schlager looked really stiff. Me personally have changed my technique to much i think, so i never became safe beccause i changed alot. Now i have really nice technique but i would proably have become better if i were happy with my techniqe and tried to become good at it. But maybe if i play my whole life i will benefit that i have changed my technique alot.
I think we could go on forever about this discussion, but i need to go out with the dogs now haha
Proably there are alot of different paths as Echte said. But i think we sshould focus on both technique and game tactics and i still find it strange that the koreans only seems to look at the technique. But maybe they have a very high standard of when the technique is good so it takes a long while before they focus on anything else. But i still think it is fun to win games so the other stuff is still important for that.