So Coach Tao Li is posting videos again :)

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- soft hand right off bounce.
- increasingly firmer hand
- move bat through black a little
- let ball bounce up a little and go through more
- step back inches and use a little longer stroke... until you are a step back and countering/looping
- stay right off bounce loose wirst and go through ball for spin
- use change of grip pressure at impact with acceleration for speed and spin (more speed with allowing ball to rise a little)


this is very interesting... do you think this would work in normal mult-ball block training, i.e. as you progress through the drill you alter your stroke through all the above steps ?

My son does a blocking drill but wants to be a bit more aggressive when he has enough reaction time to be so

I could go on forever about how to do block variations to increase pace of ball, increase spin... or take way either.

They are all important to know to either keep the ball safe or use for pressure or winners.

The ways to add pace are: FIRMER grip at impact and hitting through the ball

The ways to add spin are: Softer grip at impact and go through ball off center... and vary an increase of grip pressure right at impact while accelerating through ball off center

The ways to remove pace: use a very light grip... stick out bat and hold very light... or stick it out there and REDUCE grip pressure at impact... or stick it out there with light grip and let bat come back a little at impact.

To kill heavy spin: stick it out there and loosen grip at impact... or stick it out there with a very loose grip and go through ball a tiny closer to center... this will kill spin and make opponent think ball will kick, but it doesn't.

All these ways (except the fastest powerful counter from block) are much easier to do right off the bounce. it will require more touch and timing to get it right further from bounce.

All these variations are possible ways to play more aggressive with the block as it robs time or changes spin imperceptibly.

These kind of variations are not really actively coached a lot. Most coaching centers on the macho-man power or high spin stuff. Having control of touch and impact of ball on a block can be a high level skill for any player...

Good thing about these are it is pretty easy to start training aby of these of you know the basic concepts.
 
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I agree that he proably knows what he talking about and that you do not have to be a good player to be a good coach. I think alot of the coaches become good at what they do because they actually stop their own playing career early and start being a coach instead. I just thought it was interesting that his own thechnique do not look so amazing in my opinion.

I would consider me as a coach for young kids that want to learn the strokes. I thnk we, or atleast in Sweden have it coaches at the wrong places sometimes. I think the best coaches should be with the beginners, so they learn the strokes correct from the beginning so they can have the correct techniqque from the beginning and can work on becoming safe. In many cases i think the better coaches come later, so the kids learn the wrong techniqe and later need to change it so we waste time. I can image asia have is better at this since they proably have more competent coaches, so they also can have good coaches with the beginners.

I agree with Echte that a microstroke is good when you want to block aggressive. Many times players only have a passive block or a giant swing kill shot they want to do against a loop. The last one is difficult and i think it is better to have something inbetween so you get the advantage and then you can kill the ball. I also would say that placement and variation of tempo is very important when you are blocking. By doing this the opponent can not loop so hard because they will need to move alot and do not know where the ball is coming so it is easier to block their shots and eventually they will come wrong to a ball and do an easy ball that you can kill. Try thinkng that if you can think " this is an easy ball" it proably is, and you can try to loop back. If you do not know have hard or aggressive you should play and even more when you blocking i think it is good to think of a scale of 10. If they play 9, you can only play 1 hard, but if they play 3, you can play 7 hard. And so on.

I have blocked way to much in my career and would consider my blocking game as my best shots so i know somewhat alot about blocking, so ask away if you want to know something about blocking.
 
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Then we can get into the mach-man blocking...

One easy way to visualize how to control placement is to NOT try to place ball by adkusting wrist angle, arm angle, contort the shoulder joint...

One key to consistency is to square the hips and body in the directing you are blocking...

Sooooo, a great offensive variation of blocking is to TURN THE HIPS in the direction you want the ball to go right as opponent impacts ball. Opponent is usually never watching your hips, but your bat.

If, for example, you are in a BH to BH corner exchange and want to block the ball quickly down the open FH line... all you gotta do it turn hips 20-30 degrees subtly as opponent impacts and then do your natural medium pace block... opponent is so expecting it to go right back to BH corner, but it goes right by him or her down FH line.

This is a real effective shot if you are doing 2-3 BH to BH drives to each other... this so totally changes the rhythm that it wins points over and over.... until they pay attention to your hips or tendencies blindly.
 
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Coach Lula said:
I would consider me as a coach for young kids that want to learn the strokes.

Lula, I see also a very large potential for you as a very effective developmental coach for adults. You have the skills, attributes, and inclination for it all. I would have to see you in person, but I will bet a good sized lunch you also have the leadership for it as well.

I think we, or at least in Sweden have it coaches at the wrong places sometimes.

This is a profound concept and not so often agreed upon topic. There are many paths and all decisions have impacts positive and negative spanning from now to across the years.

I think the best coaches should be with the beginners, so they learn the strokes correct from the beginning so they can have the correct technique from the beginning and can work on becoming safe.

This is similarly profound thinking (that means GOOD and important). One could argue that a beginning player with promise ought to be with a youth Basic/Developmental coach until a certain point of fundamentals becoming solid, then go to an elite High Performance Coach with perhaps a couple Specialty Coaches. Maryland TTC develops many elite junior players with that approach. The have some kids start out with Larry Hodges then go to the Elite High Performance Coaches. Hard to argue with their record of growing elite players. West Coast USA does it with mostly keeping kids with the elite High Performance Coaches... can't argue against their record either.

In many cases i think the better coaches come later, so the kids learn the wrong technique and later need to change it so we waste time. I can image Asia have is better at this since they probably have more competent coaches, so they also can have good coaches with the beginners.

That is a not so optimal situation and tough where that happens.
....

I have blocked way to much in my career and would consider my blocking game as my best shots so i know somewhat alot about blocking, so ask away if you want to know something about blocking.

I really wish players would get into that discussion and many others for tactics/techniques general/specific discussions. You have a lot to offer TTD members and TTD/TT forums are a great platform to share/grow.

See my Bold and slightly larger text.

Lula, a real insightful post you made.
 
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See my Bold and slightly larger text.

Lula, a real insightful post you made.

Yes, adult players need more help! They have not so good opportunities.

What i have understood is that Larry is a very good coach with long experience so he is proably very good for the beginners. But i think that many coaches for beginners is nowhere near Larrys level But often more some older kids with not much experience other than they have played a little themselves and i Do think that alot of Times they are not good enough to teach beginners how to Do the strokes.

Thank you for the kind words! It is also nice to have you in this community! And i agree tactic and technique discussions is more fun than all the same equipment threads.
 
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Yes, adult players need more help! They have not so good opportunities.

What i have understood is that Larry is a very good coach with long experience so he is proably very good for the beginners. But i think that many coaches for beginners is nowhere near Larrys level But often more some older kids with not much experience other than they have played a little themselves and i Do think that alot of Times they are not good enough to teach beginners how to Do the strokes.

Thank you for the kind words! It is also nice to have you in this community! And i agree tactic and technique discussions is more fun than all the same equipment threads.

Larry pretty much gets the role of the coach initially developing the fundamentals of a kid's foundation... but Larry is also very good at Tactical Coaching and Organizational Coaching roles.

Larry was never a top elite amateur player, but he knows TT, tactics, organizational leadership and several other things prolly 4-5 levels above his playing level.
 
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I think it is important to note that coaching a adult beginner is different than coaching a elite junior.
You get those textbook style strokes, that some adult beginner can't just get right.

ie, what cluelessdad said....

I think Coach Tao Li is targeting a specific audience.
It may be good for one type of audience (some adult that just want to be able to top spin the under spin ball), but it is not good for the other (an elite junior)

I think what Der_Echte said about coaches is important, but it is also about the different type of students.

I have a 40 year old student, playing for the 3rd year only
For him, he just wants to spin the ball, so I don't care about text book when I spend the little coaching time we have.
With a 12 year old beginner, I also don't force textbook straight away, I will first get him to hit consistence, then slowly I will fix the stroke.

I wish you guys can take textbook and go to a beginner and just say 1, 2, 3, and see if they "click" and can hit correctly.
if such magic wand exists, please tell me where to buy :p
 
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Next Level does a good job consistently expressing the ideas and "battle-focused" stuff needed to identify and work upon with adult learners.

Some adult learners do not have an inclination to start over and re-learn everything (kinda like the CHN/KOR system wants you to do)

Some adult learners are physically challenged and will never be able to do explosive far-ranging footwork... but can learn footwork effective to get them into position for shots they do most.

Next Level very well summarizes what is needed for adult learners... adaptation of coach and analysis/identification of what a player has and what they can do and what they want to do and what their learning span is.

Tony is a realist for sure too.

If I got shot for every time I got sideways of a pundit coach in opinion or approach or technique or tactic, I would be like Super Swiss Cheeze and look worse than a cheeze grater.
 
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A comical (or tragic depending on POV) thing is USA for private coaching is adult players paying USD 80 per hour session of private lesson for YEARS and improving fundamentals overall or their match play level.

This is the fault of both player and coach raking in the money (well, coach only can keep so much of it if he doesn't own the club).

Some players are just not having the inclination to do the work. Some of them just want a really skilled consistent practice partner. Some players want to improve on a tiny micro segment... like a BH Smash vs a high ball or a certain serve/attack to be the hero on the office rec table. Some of the players have no real idea after even years of how to judge whether a coach is effective - they just know coach is real high level and that's gotta be good stuff, right? Some do not want to improve level, they just want the exercise or social with coach (especially if student is guy and coach is elite ex-pro female) Some are just mentally not gunna be dedicated. We got many kinds and other nations likely have them too.

Even in Korea, a land we look up to for growing all these pro players... amateur TT average level is pretty much the same as middle of road club player.... 1400-1500 is average level. Top end of Korean amateur system is significantly weaker than top end of USA. Korea had 2 amateurs in region north of Seoul who play over USATT 2300 level. (this excluded coaches, who are ex-pros/ex-elite amateur) For that many players, (1000) USA would have 10 or more that level or much better.
 
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I think it is important to note that coaching a adult beginner is different than coaching a elite junior.
You get those textbook style strokes, that some adult beginner can't just get right.

ie, what cluelessdad said....

I think Coach Tao Li is targeting a specific audience.
It may be good for one type of audience (some adult that just want to be able to top spin the under spin ball), but it is not good for the other (an elite junior)

I think what Der_Echte said about coaches is important, but it is also about the different type of students.

I have a 40 year old student, playing for the 3rd year only
For him, he just wants to spin the ball, so I don't care about text book when I spend the little coaching time we have.
With a 12 year old beginner, I also don't force textbook straight away, I will first get him to hit consistence, then slowly I will fix the stroke.

I wish you guys can take textbook and go to a beginner and just say 1, 2, 3, and see if they "click" and can hit correctly.
if such magic wand exists, please tell me where to buy :p

I am interested that you go for consistency first then the technique. I think this is common and that we also do it in my club but i am starting to change how i see it. If we let them play like they want and do not focus very much on the strokes i think they will learn the wrong kind of strokes and will then need to change them at a later time. I feel that is almost a waste of time, but maybe important for the feel of the ball and to become more safe.

In my club now i try to focus very very much on that they do the correct technique from the beginning. Alot of shadow training without the ball since it is easier to do the correct stroke then. I think that if they just learn correct from the beginning they can then work on becoming safe with those shots.

But of course it is difficult to make it correct at the beginning and we still need to play with the ball to improve. And it needs to be fun. But i think it is important to focus alot on showing them how to do the strokes so they do not practice and learn the wrong strokes.

Maybe im affected by my journey. I did not have good coaches so i learned the wrong technique and then when we practised i practised on something that i later needed to change. Do not how much that gave me. Later i changed the technique and needed to practice those and become safe on those. I would proably have become alot better if i learned the right technique from the beginning. That is why i think it is very important to have good coaches from the beginning.

But there are different ways to teach how to play. I am interested about your thoughts about this!
 
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I like much more technique of KJH than Tao Li. But he does not speak english.

What I like about KJH is his ability to nearly instantly see what an amateur player is doing wrong, communicate what was wrong, what is right, how to do it... and within 20 minute lesson they are mostly doing it right.

KJH is super good at explaining common errors of amateur and shows proper biomechanics... he can break down an explanation of each critical piece, and put it all together. He also keeps it real, he always says there is no single correct answer in TT.
 
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Maybe it's about guiding them in the right direction with the stroke development rather than trying to drill it into them so to speak. With the kids I mean. They pick things up pretty fast and if they realise a lot of body rotation, relaxed arm and a whip like motion gives them lots of speed they will soon be doing it! It's fun and they will beat their friends. Learning cool serves and backhand flicks etc should also be fun when they see how the better technique gives a better result. But you have to keep it fun enough that they get through that initial period where they don't quite get it and the results are bad. This should be a much shorter period than with adults though!
 
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Yes of course it always needs to be fun, but they also need to better a year later otherwise i feel that i almost have tricked them.

yeah, it is not good to drill something in them, but i think it could be possible to explain stuff and do shadow training and still keep it rather fun and i think we do it for such small amount of time so i think they can take it.

Have you been a coach alot? your students seem to be great haha

I do not know if i agree that kids always pick up things fast. Very individual. Some do, some do not. And i feel that you often need to explain stuff, show it and teach them in different ways to get them to understand it. I think it is way easier with adults, but they are proably better at listening and understanding. But i agree that they can learn alot by try and error and they can see what is happening when they do a certain thing. But i do that is also very individual, some kids do not thinks so rational so they actually keep on doing something that works good i think.

I also feel that kids in general have not so big attention span and can be really bad listeners so it can be difficult to explain stuff like cool serves. You need to explain things very short and visual i think.

I find it very interesting why some kids learn faster, listen good, have good focus and fight alot while some kids is just the opposite. If all kids were like the first kind of kid described they would be come good tabletennis players in no time.

I have been coach many years, and i do really think the players biggest problem is that they do not learn the correct technique from the beginning. I think can learn the correct strokes and also then practice them i think we will get very good players in the end. I think we sometimes play to much with a ball and it is to difficult to do the correct stroke, or change the stroke and also try to put the ball on the table. I alos think that we maybe rush to much. I think we should try to do easy exercises and almost learn one stroke at time so it do not get to difficult. And i really believe in shadow play, as long as they can do it serious and not hate it i think it is the biggest key for kids to learn the correct strokes. It is much easier to learn the strokes without a ball. but of course it is really important that we coaches know what we do and correct the strokes. I could be wrong and this is not the correct approach, but we have played alot with balls and i do not think we get the results that we want.

I feel that i have been a little negative here, but that is just my experiences. But that is not the whole picture, some kids listen well, have good attention and fight hard and it is proably beacuase of them i keep on being a coach. It could be the funniest thing in the world to be a coach but also serious soul draining.

In my opinion i think are making things sound better and easier than it is, but hopefully you have those experiences proably because you are a good coach, then you can give me more tips! haha or that you have great students. I think which attitude and respect kids have towards adults and how they behave towards adults could be very different in different countried and cultures. So coaches experiences could proably be very different. But Kids are proably formed and adapt to the environment so it also up to us coaches to set the standard. I know this to be true, if someone starts to talk alot or just play around it will spread like a zombievirus if you do not correct the behavior.

It would be interesting to here from fellow coaches here that coach kids how you feel about it and how we could do to make the training and coaching better. I think it proably is very difficult to coach adults, in example i feel that it is much easier but then i have not coached so many adults. But it would be interesting to also hear tips from you guys that coach adults.
 
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Fairly recently, coaching a retired senior with mobility issues, he has a good 4h vs topspin.

I had a Ipong robot set up in a recreation center room. Highest topspin setting, 40 mm balls mostly 3 star nittaku premium, some gambler 3 star, balls are slick old. Table slick top surface where more spin stays on the ball.
Your technique has to be very good under these conditions to be consistent. At first he was super inconsistent, so I gave him a technique adjustment similar to prostyle, checked his grip, ok, feet position ok, twisting upper body issues, technique out of sync. I adjusted, had him do it in slow motion speeding up to medium sometimes. Within 20 minutes he was consistent vs the robot balls.
 
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Fairly recently, coaching a retired senior with mobility issues, he has a good 4h vs topspin.

I had a Ipong robot set up in a recreation center room. Highest topspin setting, 40 mm balls mostly 3 star nittaku premium, some gambler 3 star, balls are slick old. Table slick top surface where more spin stays on the ball.
Your technique has to be very good under these conditions to be consistent. At first he was super inconsistent, so I gave him a technique adjustment similar to prostyle, checked his grip, ok, feet position ok, twisting upper body issues, technique out of sync. I adjusted, had him do it in slow motion speeding up to medium sometimes. Within 20 minutes he was consistent vs the robot balls.

Okay cool! well done! what was the keypoints that made the different do you think? do the stroke in slowmotion?

Many times i think the challenge is not to teach technique or change their strokes but more to get them to be motivated, listen well, have focus and fight hard. Atleast with children.

It is somewhat interesting to coach people with mobility issues do to things like handicap like being in a wheel chair. I have coached some players like this during the years and it can be very different from players that do not have handicap and can move well. in my opinion there is much more tactics involved and placement is much more important. And It is also almost like a different word in the paratabletennis, there is much more pips of all sort. I find this diversity very fun since alot of players often use inverted and i do like pips.
 
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Lula, I think Fruitloop touch based on some of my answer.
I think let me give you the exact example of the kid in my earlier post, I guest I also take it case by case at times.
This kid started a year ago at home, coach was youtube. Then he joined a club, the club coaches couldn't help him as he wanted to be a penholder, so they sent him my way. My first session with him, he was using a premade bat, and was the 2nd time playing (1st time at the club) on a proper table.
He could not hit 3 balls in a row.

So, I first get him to hit 3 balls, 5 balls etc in a row.
i slow made the action smaller, which allowed in to hit more balls in a row.
We did 2 sessions a week, and the 1st week, I just focus on him getting the ball on and getting him to control "trying to kill me" with 1 shot.
2nd week, I made minor adjustments, for him to add more spin (by then I loaned him one of my many spare Cpen setups), by 3rd week, I think his FH technique is close perfect - just need to drill it in with thousands of shots.
He takes 1 week off, comes back, the technique is wrong again, so we tuning it again....

Come to RPB
He has never done it before and shots don't even land on the table - that is if he is lucky enough to even touch the ball.
I get him to first block the ball - don't hit the ball, let the ball come to him with slow multi ball - obviously I aimed at his bat.
Slowly this become a rally of 1 to 2 balls in a row and eventually adjusted his RPB

So I do adjust technique, but not when the player can't even contact the ball.
this is what I mean by consistent before making technical changes, as I see no point with perfect stroke but no feel on the hand.
 
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