My table tennis doesn't seem to be improving.

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if you are at the table, you should shorten your stroke. do NOT try to hit the ball at the top of the bounce !
Instead hit it always at your sweet point, which is like 20-30 cms in front of your belly. Depending on the incoming ball, it could be at the top of the bounce, just after the bounce on a very long ball, of in descending phase for a short and slower ball [then WAIT for it and lower your body even more as you will hit a lower ball]

For an amateur, with amateur footwork/technique/game reading ability, this piece is golden.
 
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@thefleifheit13
thanks but not my words, those of my coach. During many years, i took the bad habit on slower balls to go to the ball to take it early and i end up missing because the footwork and timing gets messy. I still have this tendency but fighting it !

Its much simpler just to wait, you don't need to step forward ! It may limit the number of choice because of hitting the ball below the net for example but the ball and placement quality should be higher to compensate for that

If the incoming ball is not 2+ bounces on the table, there is no need to rush to the ball, unless you have lightning footwork or the ball is really very slow and its an easy kill.
 
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says 2023 Certified Organ Donor
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Some Dude Named USD Carl said:
I will give a story with this.

About 3 years ago I was about 1600 but my strokes sucked, my shots were dead, a lot of the time a looper would come up and look at my racket after a few shots to see what kind of anti-spin or pips I was using only to see that I used smooth rubber and got the effect from bad technique. LOL.

It worked well in matches and I was good at match play but knew that I was not going to get much higher the way I played. So for about 2.5-3 years I undid my bad strokes and my old habits and just did a lot of block training and almost no match play.

At a certain point people would watch me play and think I was good and then they would see me play matches and realize I sucked pretty bad at match play and just looked good in practice. I was okay with it because I knew that I was trying to undo bad habits that resurfaced every time I played matches.

Anyway, in learning better technique I looked way better in practice but my actual match play level probably dropped down to about 1400 even though my strokes were good.

At a certain point I noticed that in match play, the few times I would play matches, I wasn't good but my technique stayed stable. I stopped reverting to most of the old bad habits.

That was a bit over 6 months ago and I realized I was ready for more full on randomized training. Since then, when I started doing a lot of different versions of game simulation drills, my level has jumped up and I am definitely better than I was before I rebuilt my game. In the last 6-8 months my level has probably gone up from 1400 to 1700-1800. Not sure the exact level.

At first any randomized drills, any serve and receive drills any different versions of drills that added a random element were good. At this point I do need to get more specific and do a few particular drills to get me better at a couple of specific skill issues. But at first any and all randomized drills were exactly what I needed.

Even though I have a couple of friends who have given me coaching none of the coaching has been consistent or sustained. Most of my improvement has actually happened as a result of me trying to figure out what I need to work on. It probably would have happened way faster with good coaching. But I am okay with the process I have used.

Did I just quote a non-existent forum member name yet a legit member? Send out the Goon Squad.
 
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The established forum members posting are dispensing advice that you couldn't get in 10 sessions of $75 USD an hour coaching in USA...

and YET you could follow EXACTLY what they are saying and still struggle to successfully apply what you are learning in match play right away.

This is a FACT.

WHY?

No matter what you do in training, it takes many months, sometimes longer for what you are doing successfully in training to become instinctive and more functioning in match play.

It's like that... and that's the way it is. (OK, maybe only Suga D knows that line)

There is an American saying:

Carl's NSA phone watching speaking cranky-azz parrot said:
No matter how much you shake and dance, the last few drops fall down your pants

That parrot is one wize-azz, but he is right.

Don't sweat it and follow the kind of things many other reasonable posters here say, and have a good bullcrap filter to sort it all out for yourself. You will know what/how to do it with enough time.

Heck, you even gotta use the bullcrap filter for what Der_Echte hiz-self sez... he is so full of crap, he is reminded of it daily as he has to declare a national emergency halfway through the morning and make a life or death dash for the restroom toilet to take care of the problem of being too full of crap.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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I always find it amusing when people give a lot of good advice to someone who they have never seen play and whose standard they do not know.

I find it amusing because I used to be one of those players who used to receive and give advice. The difference was that I was also a player who played many tournaments all over the East coast of the US and who got to meet or see some of the players who either I gave advice or who were giving me advice. And as I got better, I could see how little I knew and how misguided I was. A top 100/200 player in England was once taking advice on rubber from me without ever having see how I play (I was USATT 1800 then with no real forehand). I was taking technical advice from a player on what was important when looping when I realized later after watching him that he didn't know how to loop.

People, please if someone has never posted video of their play or given evidence of their playing level ( say league level in their nation, rating/ranking), treat all these posts asking for advice and also the advice you collect skeptically.

Usually, anyone playing at a level that is high enough for these issues to make a big difference has a much better way of asking the questions and a better pool of people to pose the questions to. But please post your response, I may get lucky and learn something...:cool:

This really is a great post.
 
says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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To have a reasonable chance of giving even remotely appropriate advice in this case we would have to know a whole bunch of things like:

1) How long have you been playing?
2) Can you give some sort of assessment of your level and skills, things like what you do well and what you feel you need to work on?
3) If you are playing a decent level chopper, how is your looping skill and consistency with FH and BH?

Also:

Don't get me wrong, It's not lack of practice I've been using this setup for a rather long time.

Can you be more specific about what you mean by: "a rather long time." ? Is that 6 weeks? 6 months? 6 years? 20 years? (Okay, we know it is not 6 years or 20 years because Mantra wasn't around back then. But that might be what I would be meaning if I said "a rather long time." I guess I am old. ;))

Is it possible for you to show video that shows specifically the shots you are having problems with with your setup?
 
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