Olympian Coach Giving me Multiball

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Why do you think people do little multiball?
 
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Why do you think people do little multiball?

Often people rather just play matches, or they think it’s a waste of time. If you can get a partner who can feed multiball consistently, it’s very helpful.
 
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Often people rather just play matches, or they think it’s a waste of time. If you can get a partner who can feed multiball consistently, it’s very helpful.

It is also very rare. Also, learning to feed the balls is not that easy. Feeding heavy underspin is not that easy. You have to have good thin contact.
 
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It is also very rare. Also, learning to feed the balls is not that easy. Feeding heavy underspin is not that easy. You have to have good thin contact.

True, but I would argue that learning to feed multiball is possible. Maybe treat feeding multiball just like any other TT skill, and you will definitely improve over time. It's worth the effort to learn how because it helps your touch and allows you to be a better practice partner.
 
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True, but I would argue that learning to feed multiball is possible. Maybe treat feeding multiball just like any other TT skill, and you will definitely improve over time. It's worth the effort to learn how because it helps your touch and allows you to be a better practice partner.

For me the hardest part is to feed long low underspin ball. For some reason I am able to do long pushes in a single ball fine, but when feeding balls to someone it gives me some issues.
 
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Because most people play for fun in small halls with little access to equipment.
My club doesn't have enough balls for multiball, nor the space without balls flying all over each others court.
And often can only play once or twice a week for a few hours.
And feeding isn't very fun hundreds of times in a row!
 
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In USA, I can say why. Most places where people play TT are not REAL clubs, but a rented gym or hall where tables are setup for a few hrs 1-2 times a week. There is absolutley ZERO netted of area possible to do multiball in these places...

MIGHT be possible to have 1.5 meter tall rolled up cardboard and section off an area for that... but still, the gym floor is hard wood and balls bounce out of the fenced off area so much they interfere with what else is going on or balls go under bleachers... so you lose a lot of practice balls.

Sounds like a bunch of EXCUSES, right? Yet, it is a reality that majority of places people play TT are not conducive to do multiball if they wanted to do so... and even if you wanted to do it, in most of those places where a hall is rented and tables are setup, all the tables are for match play... unless who is running things sets up a table or two witht the rolled up cardbboard for exclusive use of multiball and people rotate through there...

... but a reality is even if a dude running the rented operation WANTS to have a table or TWO for that purpose... it still takes some people who WANT to do that and are WILLING to pay for the lost balls and also it takes nearly everyone coming to that place to agree to have a few less tables. Training some people how to feed balls isn't much of an issue, it is at first, but that is not the largest challenge in USA where tables are setup in a rented hall.
 
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What der said. Plus 80% of players only play and never practice. Of the 20% who practice, 19.99% of them only forehand loop vs block or counterloop. That leaves about 150 people in america to do multiball.
 
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Because most people play for fun in small halls with little access to equipment.
My club doesn't have enough balls for multiball, nor the space without balls flying all over each others court.
And often can only play once or twice a week for a few hours.
And feeding isn't very fun hundreds of times in a row!

Why not just buy your club some balls... Some el-cheapo training balls on Aliexpress cost 20$ per 100. Are they crap? Yeah! Do they do the job in multiball training also Yeah! 20$ is not that much, it's about half of what I pay to play in my club per month. (my club has balls though...) Its one-time purchase, not that big of a cost. If you step on one. Not that bad, you still git 99 of them. Mine have a year or two of training after them, still got 80-90 of them, all of them are fine, although they are a bit on the easy to damage side. When it comes to balls flying to other courts ball catch net is a must. When I was training with my friend, we rented a squash court with a table tennis table and we gathered balls by hand. Feeding balls isn't fun, but it gives you time to recover. I suggest training in groups of 3, one feeds, one rests, one swing (and then change ofc).

PS: At the club where I train we use Panda training balls. They are better then Huieson, but more expensive. Good compromise if you need lot of them.
 
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Why not just buy your club some balls... Some el-cheapo training balls on Aliexpress cost 20$ per 100. Are they crap? Yeah! Do they do the job in multiball training also Yeah! 20$ is not that much, it's about half of what I pay to play in my club per month. (my club has balls though...) Its one-time purchase, not that big of a cost. If you step on one. Not that bad, you still git 99 of them. Mine have a year or two of training after them, still got 80-90 of them, all of them are fine, although they are a bit on the easy to damage side. When it comes to balls flying to other courts ball catch net is a must. When I was training with my friend, we rented a squash court with a table tennis table and we gathered balls by hand. Feeding balls isn't fun, but it gives you time to recover. I suggest training in groups of 3, one feeds, one rests, one swing (and then change ofc).

PS: At the club where I train we use Panda training balls. They are better then Huieson, but more expensive. Good compromise if you need lot of them.

Thanks you! I totally agree with you. If your goal is to get better, you can always work around the circumstances. If your goal is to just play and have fun, that's different and totally fine too. I'm just giving suggestions on how to get better, and people can decide whether or not to take my advice.
 
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UH, Ghost Rider, U never, never tried setting up a multi-ball area in a USA non-club rented gym and get away with losing only 1 ball. You will be lucky to have half of them remaining after an hour of people rotating in and doing their thing. You will be lucky if only 5 were stepped on and are likely to have a few hundred fly out of the barriers if you can get some and a LOT of those will be un-rcoverable deep under the bleachers where only the NYC modified rats can get to them.

Still, saying that, it will cost more than $20 to get a 100 balls shipped to you if you buy just 1 box... but even $40 USD for several people to have a chance to do enough multi-ball to put them into cardiac arrest and break out the gym's electronic defribillator is still a damn good price spread out amoung several people and the annoyance of 3 minutes of setting up rolled cardboard...

Then you get to open ANOTHER can of worms so to speak... USA clubs and TT playing places have some MILLIONAIREs, but getting them or even the average Joe to cough up even minor money to play the sport and a little more to half-way train is tough task. So many of these will wear the same $5 white t-shirt to the TT place and keep the same rubbers on their blade for years. You are not gunna get any cash outta that crowd... and there are a LOT more of that crowd in USA TT than you think.
 
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To give a perspective to everyone, where Brian is plays at, it is VERY POSSIBLE to modify his club's permanent facility to have more multiball with several methods.

Many old-school Korean places put a curvy drape bracket on the ceiling and have a long net down to floor (witht he hooks on top to slide in hte ceiling bracket) and pull it all the way around court for multi-ball and completely un-do it for match play. Once setup, takes only seconds to seal off a court. If ceiling too high, then brackets like the ones used to lower the garage opener motor unit can be used.

Some USA gyms I see that do this have a big net and they roll out 4 vollyball poles and drape the big light net over that lightly and call it a day - that one takes only a few minutes to wheel out the stuff and put it together. All kind of ways to make it happen if a few people REALLY want to get a little money and time together, but sry, Der_Echte has been a realist and apessemistic joker too long to expect much out of USA TT people.

Wouldn't be a national crime to show Der_Echte wrong in this.
 
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I've resumed multiball recently, 2x 1h session (last week and this week)... its difficult to get back in the rhythm but i feel its extremely good, not just for TT technique but especially for stamina. I also started to do some jumps and shadow training for 10mns in my running sessions (now a bit more frequently than once a week).

There is a tournament this Sunday so i made an extra effort to be as fit as i can. It may be (again) a shitty tournament, but physically i really feel im in good condition. i lost 2-3kgs, now back (temporarily) at 70kgs, its been quite some time..

in 1:1 training with the coach i could feel very much the difference. Of course i'm not 20 anymore, but i do feel rejuvenated from such training.

the exercises i did in multiball last time IIRC:

- FH (half table) 2x30 balls
- BH - middle - BH - FH 2x 10 times
- counter top spin FH 2x 40 , BH 2x 40
- stop receive + counter FH 2x20 stop receive + counter BH 2x20
- FH flick 2x40
- FH flick + counter-FH 2X20, BH chiquita + counter-BH 2X20
- BH chiquita 2x40
- BH chiquita + counter-FH 20, BH chiquita + counter-BH 20 (no more time...)

so I'm focusing a lot on in-out footwork exercises
 
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Still, saying that, it will cost more than $20 to get a 100 balls shipped to you if you buy just 1 box... but even $40 USD for several people to have a chance to do enough multi-ball to put them into cardiac arrest and break out the gym's electronic defribillator is still a damn good price spread out amoung several people and the annoyance of 3 minutes of setting up rolled cardboard...
I just spent about $160 US to buy 10 dozen orange and 10 dozen white Nittaku J-top plastic training balls.
I did this just so that we didn't need to touch the same ball. Each player only touches the color balls assigned to him.


Then you get to open ANOTHER can of worms so to speak... USA clubs and TT playing places have some MILLIONAIREs, but getting them or even the average Joe to cough up even minor money to play the sport and a little more to half-way train is tough task. So many of these will wear the same $5 white t-shirt to the TT place and keep the same rubbers on their blade for years. You are not gunna get any cash outta that crowd... and there are a LOT more of that crowd in USA TT than you think.
Yes, TT players are cheap even if they are millionaires. However, in my case getting the exercise is most important. Real millionaires did not get there by being frivolous with money.
 
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I was talking about these. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

As I said, not the best quality, but good enough for multiball. 15$ gives you 100 of those. Shipped. To your door.

When It comes to other equipment. One of the coaches made one of these:
Przechwytywanie.jpg
On attached picture you even have dimensions. So it is easy enough to make it yourself. If you have no permission to store where table are there are other constructions similar made from pvc pipes attached to the table via C-clamps. Or you can buy one for 30-40$.

My opinion is that, if you want to do multiball, you will. If you just want to play, you will, and that is fine. I would not hide behind any excuses though.
 
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I just spent about $160 US to buy 10 dozen orange and 10 dozen white Nittaku J-top plastic training balls.
I did this just so that we didn't need to touch the same ball. Each player only touches the color balls assigned to him.



Yes, TT players are cheap even if they are millionaires. However, in my case getting the exercise is most important. Real millionaires did not get there by being frivolous with money.

Some got wealth by luck, but in most cases, it is skills, hard work, and savings that contribute most to the outcome. This approach carries over to many other life areas.
 
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