Give me some advice on my Forehand loop

says Spin and more spin.
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I am going to say 2 things:

1) if you put a phone in a shoe, it makes a good tripod. Then you can put the phone on a chair or table and point the camera however you want.

IMG_0404.JPG


2) Practice, practice, practice.

There were several good comments. But, if you practice, your shots will get better. Ignore the EJing. Stop messing with putting weird chemicals on your rubbers. Stick with ONE SETUP. Play only with that one setup for a few months. Things like footwork, being in the right place, spinning over the ball instead of spinning up the back of the ball, inconsistent contact as a result of inconsistent timing, those things will sort themselves out if you keep thinking about number 2) Practice. :)

If you played as a kid and you practice, things will come back to you.

Also, about the forearm/elbow bend (forearm snap) whatever you want to call it.....watch any top pro in slow motion.....Pause on the backswing and notice how bent or straight their arm is.....pause on the followthrough.....notice how much more bent their arm is. Use any pro whose forehand you like. If the arm is more straight at the end of the backswing/beginning of the swing.....and more bent in the followthrough, then, guaranteed, they bent their elbow somewhere between the backswing and the followthrough. The guys with the best forehands, that bend of the elbow starts just a tiny bit before contacting the ball.

However, it is freaking hard to go from having a locked elbow to getting it so your elbow starts bending at the right time during the stroke. So, feel free to try. But don't be frustrated if you find you can't get it to happen.
 
says Spin and more spin.
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So, here is the good news:

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I did take one more set from one other FH. But 2 is enough. Michael, you start with your arm straight. Your stroke ends with your elbow bent. Your arm is bending during the stroke. That is good news. It is just bending way way way too early. So, before you contact the ball, your arm goes from straight to bent and while you are contacting the ball, your arm is bent in the same basic position as where you see it in the followthrough photos.

So, that would also start improving just by playing as your timing gets better and you feel less rushed.

Hope that helps.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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At least, what I described, where the elbow bends too early is what happens most of the time. There are a few where it never bends and a few where it bends late. :) But on the ones where it never bends, or bends too late, your feet caused you to be too far from the ball. When your feet cause you to be too close to the ball, your elbow bends even earlier than normal.

So, still, #2: practice. :) The kinks will come out with practice. I think you are doing pretty good for only being a few months back at it after such a long layoff.
 
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Table tennis is something different with tennis. When you hit the ball, I feel there is something strange on your grip. I think you are bending your wrist, and that makes your loop have something like push.

And I think you may hit the ball too late. The best timing is to hit the ball at the highest pint or when it starts to fall.

Although you hit the ball too late, you said you hit the ball far front of you, that means you stand too far away from table .

So, I think you would need to pay more attention your grip, timing and stance.

I think I do stand far away from the table. I feel this spot is quite comfortable, because it allows you to attack with topspin with enough margin of safety and the ball landing in the table. I feel when I stand closer, my error rate skyrockets.

Some people say its best to hit the ball at the peak, but some people say its best to hit when the ball falls to around table level (which is why I stand far from the table). A recent teaching video from Ryu Seung Min said that the best height to hit the ball is table height.

Its all pretty confusing, not sure what is best. But I think I agree that my grip is too forehand, too much like tennis. Next time I will try to get used to hitting with the more "continental" backhand grip.

 
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Im trying to think where i can improve the most. If i were to rate myself
REceive is DFootwork DSlice push CTopspin BServe B+
loop against slice C+

Recently, ive been winning games against players who i lost straight games before. So im starting to get better condition. I win most points either off my serve or in topspin rallies. Im sort of neutral in slice situations, and relatively neutral attacking slice.

Where i lose the most points is returning serve, or just standing too still.
 
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I think I do stand far away from the table. I feel this spot is quite comfortable, because it allows you to attack with topspin with enough margin of safety and the ball landing in the table. I feel when I stand closer, my error rate skyrockets.

Some people say its best to hit the ball at the peak, but some people say its best to hit when the ball falls to around table level (which is why I stand far from the table). A recent teaching video from Ryu Seung Min said that the best height to hit the ball is table height.

Its all pretty confusing, not sure what is best. But I think I agree that my grip is too forehand, too much like tennis. Next time I will try to get used to hitting with the more "continental" backhand grip.


Height of the ball: It depends on what you are trying to do. If the ball is at or below table level there is no direct path for the ball to go (maybe around the net) so one has to move it "upwards" and add much spin to curve the ball's trajectory back down to the table. If one is trying to loop heavy chops one can let the ball drop a little bit lower (below peak) 1. to get some spin out of the chop (longer path -> less spin) and 2. to force oneself to add loads of spin but I would not let the ball drop below table height if I don't have to (looping a ball at its peak or slightly afterwards leaves the opponent with less time to position her/him right for her/his next shot)

Ma Long topspin against topspin (ball is hit at its peak or slightly below)

Same against backspin pushes
Looping chops

You can pause the Youtube videos with space and then use the . (forward) and , (backward) keys to step through every frame.

 
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One thing Waldner said that was interesting is that a player should be skilled at playing at all 3 distances. And then he defined what he meant by distances as: contacting the ball while it was on the rise, contacting the ball at the top of the bounce and contacting the ball when it is dropping.

But clearly, if you are attacking, the first two are more powerful because you are taking the ball as it is coming up so taking that energy from the ball's movement and being given as clear a path over the net as possible.
 
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OP: I'm so disappointed in H3 Neo.
H3 Neo: You're the one letting me down.

Problem: OP has a 90s stroke on both FH and BH. That's how Ma Wenge and Wang Tao looped, which was once considered the standard Chinese FH while the CNT was transitioning from the traditional penhold fast-attack style and studying the European shakehand style and figuring out how to adapt it to the Chinese shakehand style.
Solution: Since the 2000s, the leading concept has put an emphasis on penetrating the racket when looping by hit-brushing through the ball(as opposed to brush-hitting), which is supported by 2 recent separate studies by researchers in China and Taiwan.

Check out these videos where Li Sun explains it. Subbed by me but were taken down and reuploaded by a different user.

 
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OP: I'm so disappointed in H3 Neo.
H3 Neo: You're the one letting me down.

Problem: OP has a 90s stroke on both FH and BH. That's how Ma Wenge and Wang Tao looped, which was once considered the standard Chinese FH while the CNT was transitioning from the traditional penhold fast-attack style and studying the European shakehand style and figuring out how to adapt it to the Chinese shakehand style.
Solution: Since the 2000s, the leading concept has put an emphasis on penetrating the racket when looping by hit-brushing through the ball(as opposed to brush-hitting), which is supported by 2 recent separate studies by researchers in China and Taiwan.

Check out these videos where Li Sun explains it. Subbed by me but were taken down and reuploaded by a different user.

The one thing worth taking out from this Video. Don't imitate Ma Long, don't blindly imitate the coach. We are physiologically different.

 
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@Zeio, ould you elaborate a little bit more about the hit brushing and brush hitting? I don't quite understand the concept.

Don't focus on slow spin shots. They can smash them off easily. Hit the ball hard and make sure it's spinny all the time while you are hitting so hard.

And if the spin is still not enough. Get Andro R69, or Victas Sextuple Quadruple Extra

 
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Head turning is important and actually adds power to the ball, as by doing so you're turning the whole body accordingly like a pivot. And OP doesn't even move his head at all.

It's why even the thumbnail of this video shows Ma Long's head correct head position while hitting the ball, it's turned to the side, whereas OP just faces straight and only swings his arm in a sort of weirdly stiff and rigid way.
 
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Head turning is important and actually adds power to the ball, as by doing so you're turning the whole body accordingly like a pivot. And OP doesn't even move his head at all.

It's why even the thumbnail of this video shows Ma Long's head correct head position while hitting the ball, it's turned to the side, whereas OP just faces straight and only swings his arm in a sort of weirdly stiff and rigid way.

How does he hit the ball so hard (still with upward stroke), so near the table, without the ball going long.

 
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I find that when I am so close to the table, I need to close my racket head so the ball doesnt go long. But with the racket so closed, it often results in me swinging and missing the ball.
 
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Lycanthrope;353999

That goes to the question Kuba Hajto asked on #36: hit brushing. When hitting too much, the ball goes to net or out of table. When brushing too much, it is hard to hit the ball.

The concept is not complicated, but it requires lots of training. Hitting the ball first and brushing the ball when the ball is trapped into the rubber.

Is this even possible? I know that some guitarists can play well around 20 or even 30 notes per second (learned, fixed sequences) that is 33 ms to 50 ms per note but the contact time between the ball and the racket is less than 2 ms [1]. So if a racket is accelerated to 20 m/s (72 km/h ~ 44.7 mph) these 2 ms equal a distance of 4 cm (1.57 inch), at 10 m/s the distance is 2 cm (0.787 inch). Mistiming a shot by 2 ms would still result in hitting the ball more or less perfectly on the racket but mistiming the shot by just 8 ms at 10 m/s or 4 ms at 20 m/s will result in a miss.
This is very impressive considering all the processing and muscle action involved but I highly doubt that one can make further adjustments during the short contact time.

[1] E.g. references in "Vibroacoustic analysis of table tennis rackets and balls: The acoustics of ping pong", Russell, 2017
"This compares well with reported contact times of 0.6–0.75 ms for a 40 mm ball impacting a hard surface, at impact speeds between 4.9–9.3 m/s (Cross, 2014). Hubbard and Stronge (2001) and Zhang, Tao, and Zhang (2014) report longer contact times of 0.8 ms and 0.833 ms for higher contact speeds of 20 m/s and 21.2 m/s respectively. Even longer contact times, between 1.3 ms and 1.8 ms, are observed when the ball impacts a racket with rubber layers (Kawazoe & Suzuki, 2003, 2004a)." Kawazoe and Suzuki used a Butterfly Biside blade with Sriver rubbers which I think is not the fastest by todays standards.


The angle of the racket is changing during the swing. Keep the racket open first, and then close the racket when you start swing your forearm.



Li Sun said two things in the videos 1. "The point of hitting is to send power through the center (of gravity) of the ball. The closer to the center the greater the power. The farther from the center, the stronger the spin... Plastic ball... hitting must come first... if you brush first you can't hit anymore" (first video). "... once it bounces, borrow the upward force and swing at it..." (because the plastic balls bounce higher and skid less on the table than the old balls) and 2. "... aim straight forward, no trajectory necessary... just remember for BH backswing go back, do not go down ... swing hard not tense ... it goes like FH, for BH you need to "bump" into it ... don't create trajectory. The trajectory comes out once you bump into it (because of the high quality of todays equipment)" (third video). The second video is more about technique (don't use your arm, use your hips, abs and legs, don't move back move into the ball)
Maybe I'm wrong but I would say that Li Sun means that we should not contact the ball at the 12 to 3 o'clock position (brushing, over of the ball) but more at the 2 to 4 o'clock positions ("through the center of gravity of the ball").

 
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