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- Thread starter UpSideDownCarl
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Continuing from this thread here. So upon some self reflection from Tony's feedback and my coach's instructions, I went away and played a lot of games with people with better backhand than mine to learn from them, put in some more hours of multiballs and more drills. After all, hitting the training floor is the only way forward - then finally came a moment when I think it clicked for me.Now to keep this level of consistency up and start using it in match play...
You go over the ball nice! I think that if you want more power you can get the elbow more in front too the side, but with the downside that the pocket will become much bigger.
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Thanks! During recent sessions, my coach has asked me to start gradually add a bit more power via the elbow but still must let the wrist acceleration guide it. I'm comfortable enough with it to start cranking up the power level during third-ball drills and match play now and manage to land the ball on the table much more consistently than before here is a more recent practice (serve + attack drill starts at 0:29):
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Hi coaches and higher level players,
I present to you my Random Multi-Ball video ( unedited ). Train Ugly, Train Random. My coach told me to shorten my stroke, do you guys think my stroke is short enough?
I present to you my Random Multi-Ball video ( unedited ). Train Ugly, Train Random. My coach told me to shorten my stroke, do you guys think my stroke is short enough?
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I wouldn't say shorten the stroke so much as complete your stroke faster. By saying complete your stroke faster, I mean get back to a ready position from which you can quickly transition to play a forehand or a backhand because you should be playing in these drills out of a ready position of sorts. So when you finish the stroke, you need to get to that ready position faster out of which you can play a forehand (with the left foot lunge) or the backhand (with a slight bow/squat). You finish your stroke with your racket above your head on the forehand side and don't get back to ready, so you are rushed when the ball comes to your backhand or if you get to comfortable hitting backhands and don't use your legs to play the forehand (or get rushed with a ball to the middle), you feel out of place as well.On the whole the drill looks good and this is amazing work. Some of the things I say above will make more sense with practice, but whenever someone says shorten the stroke, they really mean that there is something in the stroke that they see that is taking too much time to recover from. You need to finish that stroke and recover quickly. Even if the stroke is big, the key is always the recovery - if you finish the stroke and recover, you can find the biggest stroke that lets you do that. Always remember, the recovery is largely about your use of the body to prepare the backswing and finish the stroke, it is rarely about what the arm is doing. You are sometimes taking the ball behind you because you aren't setting up the legs to hit it besides you.
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We are clearly talking about your forehand, right? Because your bh is already very compact.Coach has some outcome in mind. It would be useful to know what that is. Like, making the stroke shorter is not a good in itself, only to the extent it produces some other beneficial effect. If coach told you the effect he wants there would be much less guesswork.So NL's guess at the desired effect is faster recovery. That's def possible. But my guess is earlier contact timing on the forehand. You must be a little late reading the ball coming to the forehand, or you are always sitting on backhands. If you haven't done much random training then this is normal and expected.There is a point where you get the easiest power on forehands, it's roughly in a line with your front (left for rightys) knee. Oftentimes people will say take your stance, rotate your body 45 degrees to fh, and extend your arms til your finger tips touch, that is about where you ideally want to contact the ball on a forehand. You def do not want to contact it behind your body.I think your coach wants your forehand backswing to be shorter so you make contact closer to this triangle point even with your current level of ability to perceive and predict the ball. A shorter stroke with good timing is better in every way than a long stroke with crappy timing. But hearing from Coach what he wants to accomplish, instead of from NL and me, would be a spectacular idea.
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Not 100% sure late contact and slow reset are separate. A slow reset could cause you to be ready late for the next ball which could cause you to contact late. Late contact could cause you to be slow to reset on the next shot. The pattern can also become circular. Either can cause the other and then the feedback loop keeps you late on the reset, seeing where the next ball is going, the backswing, and the contact. Which came first..... But, good posts from both NextLevel and Brs.
And Brs's point about asking the coach is an excellent point. It would be worth asking your coach what he is trying to get you to achieve.
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Not 100% sure late contact and slow reset are separate. A slow reset could cause you to be ready late for the next ball which could cause you to contact late. Late contact could cause you to be slow to reset on the next shot. The pattern can also become circular. Either can cause the other and then the feedback loop keeps you late on the reset, seeing where the next ball is going, the backswing, and the contact. Which came first.....
And Brs's point about asking the coach is an excellent point. It would be worth asking your coach what he is trying to get you to achieve.
I agree with this, my view is that if Gozo finds a ready position to play out of faster out of which he feels comfortable playing both forehands and backhands and returns to that position (or something that feels like that position) after every shot, he will do better. Some of this comes with practice of course. I don't think his forehand was always late but what happens when you are rushed is that you start to do more work with the arm, and that makes you slower. It takes some practice to realize the body is doing 80% of the work and that if you just get the body ready, and feel equally ready to prepare the body after the shot, the arm doesn't really need to do anything, you just may be surprised by the quality of ball you produce with a body-driven stroke and very little arm. Though some of this requires you to get away from thinking you need to go all out to produce good shots.
Again the video is excellent, I don't want any of my commentary to obscure this.
Gozo! i keep saying the same thing every time. Biggest problem is still that you hit the ball behind your back when playing forehand. Hard to see from this angle but maybe you are playing to close to the table so it becomes harder to hit in front of you. You will have serious problem getting power in the stroke and go from forehand to backhand when hitting like that.
Try to hit forehand at the same place as your backhand. You can almost imagine a horizontal line from the backhand. Now you hit backhand at the line but very much behind the line when playing forehand.
Keep up the hard work, but the next video i want to see you hit your forehand more in front of you! 😀
Try to hit forehand at the same place as your backhand. You can almost imagine a horizontal line from the backhand. Now you hit backhand at the line but very much behind the line when playing forehand.
Keep up the hard work, but the next video i want to see you hit your forehand more in front of you! 😀
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hi Gozo random multiball is very difficult and demanding but you manage to do very decently returning many many balls on the table but like others said, you are rushed a lot of times and can't give your best shots, and forced to a late timing, forced to take the ball behind in FH etc, or not enough time to get the racket back into a better position for the BH.
i do myself a lot of (random) multiball, and i'd give you the same advice that i give to myself:
- try to bounce your feet as much as possible. Ideally you should do that ALL the time ! in practice, it demands a lot of muscles and stamina, this exercice is at a high pace, so it would be very difficult to do it on each ball. But try to be aware of it, and do it as much as you can, it will develop your muscles further, and help you have a better balance and timing.
- you could also try to count in your head "1-2" , "1" when your legs are in good position and you've locked your backswing, "2" when you hit the ball.
there should be ideally some good fraction of second between the 2. it would mean that you have time to play the ball properly instead of being rushed. It will help also you find a better rhythm and your own timing instead of being a "victim" of the timing of your coach - or opponent.
i do myself a lot of (random) multiball, and i'd give you the same advice that i give to myself:
- try to bounce your feet as much as possible. Ideally you should do that ALL the time ! in practice, it demands a lot of muscles and stamina, this exercice is at a high pace, so it would be very difficult to do it on each ball. But try to be aware of it, and do it as much as you can, it will develop your muscles further, and help you have a better balance and timing.
- you could also try to count in your head "1-2" , "1" when your legs are in good position and you've locked your backswing, "2" when you hit the ball.
there should be ideally some good fraction of second between the 2. it would mean that you have time to play the ball properly instead of being rushed. It will help also you find a better rhythm and your own timing instead of being a "victim" of the timing of your coach - or opponent.
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Gentlemen,
Thank you for your comments as usual.
1. This is a random multi-all drill and unless one trains like a pro, it is not gonna be pretty and nice. I have already expect my outcome not to be picture perfect (pretty ) like those you see of Pro players. I expect it to be awkward, clumsy, but to my surprise, I somehow manage to return more than expected balls to the other side. It is like the flight of the bumblebee, it is not elegant nor pretty, but it still get the job done.
2. Yes, guys, I feel rushed. The BH & FH transition is still giving me trouble. Takkyu, I'll try to be more bouncy on my feet next round. My coach always tell me not to rush, I have plenty of time to hit, especially my FH. Get into position first but alas! My muscle memory is not in sync. I shall try the 1-2 mental counting method recommended by Takkyu next time to establish a rhythm.
3. Lula, noted with your advice, I shall back-up a little from the table, perhaps half a step. Yes, that should give me a little bit more time to get into better position.
4. Brs, my coach did tell me to shorten my stroke so that I can recover faster to my ready position. He did say as I move to meet higher level players, the ball will surely come back to me faster.
5. Lula et al who said I am hitting late in the random multi-ball drill, please take a look at my FH warm-up, This should be my baseline FH where it is to only one side and comes at constant pace. In the video below, Am I still hitting late? I want to know whether this late issue is an inherent problem of my FH or is due to my poor / under-develop BH to FH transition skill. Do let me know.
Thank you for your comments as usual.
1. This is a random multi-all drill and unless one trains like a pro, it is not gonna be pretty and nice. I have already expect my outcome not to be picture perfect (pretty ) like those you see of Pro players. I expect it to be awkward, clumsy, but to my surprise, I somehow manage to return more than expected balls to the other side. It is like the flight of the bumblebee, it is not elegant nor pretty, but it still get the job done.
2. Yes, guys, I feel rushed. The BH & FH transition is still giving me trouble. Takkyu, I'll try to be more bouncy on my feet next round. My coach always tell me not to rush, I have plenty of time to hit, especially my FH. Get into position first but alas! My muscle memory is not in sync. I shall try the 1-2 mental counting method recommended by Takkyu next time to establish a rhythm.
3. Lula, noted with your advice, I shall back-up a little from the table, perhaps half a step. Yes, that should give me a little bit more time to get into better position.
4. Brs, my coach did tell me to shorten my stroke so that I can recover faster to my ready position. He did say as I move to meet higher level players, the ball will surely come back to me faster.
5. Lula et al who said I am hitting late in the random multi-ball drill, please take a look at my FH warm-up, This should be my baseline FH where it is to only one side and comes at constant pace. In the video below, Am I still hitting late? I want to know whether this late issue is an inherent problem of my FH or is due to my poor / under-develop BH to FH transition skill. Do let me know.
Gozo! You seem to get good quality but i still think you hit it to late. It will be very difficult to change from forehand to backhand if the game becomes faster. Some coaches talks about creating an traingle with the base between the feet and the top edge is where your fingers connect if you straigthen your arms out and forward. You should try to hit the ball somewhere around the top edge. I also think, like i said that you can compare it to where you hit the backhand. Maybe put a skipping rope straight on the floor starting from where you hit backhand and try to hit forehand at the same line, atleas you will see the difference.
Edit: i also think if you start leaning more forward you will hit the ball more in front. Some coaches talk about a rule that says that your knees and shoulders should be in front of your toes, by doing so you are leaning forward.
Edit: i also think if you start leaning more forward you will hit the ball more in front. Some coaches talk about a rule that says that your knees and shoulders should be in front of your toes, by doing so you are leaning forward.
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Based on your trigonometric explanation, I'd hit my FH too late and after the ball has passed the optimal hitting position, about a foot behind the imaginary tip of the triangle actually. Thats quite a lot of distance from the optimal point. I will certainly use your trigonometric visualization to assist me to hit at the optimal point. This is gonna be work in progress.
P/s: However, I still get a good amount of spin and power on my FH despite it being a foot ( approx: 31cm ) behind the optimal hitting position. After sitting back and thinking about it, I believe I compensate by using a lot of arm power. Not efficient way to use power but it does get the job done for now. I would love to learn to hit properly and efficiently going forward. I will certainly explore Lula's method.
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Lula's method is also what I was trying to say with this "Oftentimes people will say take your stance, rotate your body 45 degrees to fh, and extend your arms til your finger tips touch, that is about where you ideally want to contact the ball on a forehand." I failed geometry in school so my explanation probably makes no sense. It is definitely a real thing.
In the fh only video your timing relative to your body is much better. The visual proof of this is that your stroke almost always goes forward in a very pretty path. Of course random is 20x harder so you were late. It shows when you have to alter your desired stroke to swing more upward. That stroke path changes the properties of your shot, and also affects your recovery and body position for the next ball. If you could swing forward with good playing posture on a ball behind your body then it wouldn't matter very much except that your opponent has more time to react.
To echo NL, the key thing to observe in all your videos is that you are improving really fast. That's why with your coach and on here the talk now is about second-order qualities like timing and recovery. If you keep working like you are in a few months all we have left to talk about will be serve/receive and tactics.
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vs Bernardo, during the match... and especially late, you were impacting the ball too far in front of your strike zone. Most of the time, you only needed to take a small step forward and go for the shot... sometimes you just didn't wait for the ball to get into your strike zone (it was going to get to your zone even if you stayed put)
Many players do this and it is not uncommon. Just be aware of it and work to reduce and later eliminate it. One drill to do is have someone hit some balls out of there hand, and you, WITHOUT bat must do a footwork step or two to "Get There" to the spot to set the strike zone and you catch the ball with your bat hand in the sweet spot of strike zone doing a tiny stroke.
This gets you to get the feet moving first and gets you to practice a compact stroke to meet the ball right as it gets into the fat part of your strike zone.
Many players do this and it is not uncommon. Just be aware of it and work to reduce and later eliminate it. One drill to do is have someone hit some balls out of there hand, and you, WITHOUT bat must do a footwork step or two to "Get There" to the spot to set the strike zone and you catch the ball with your bat hand in the sweet spot of strike zone doing a tiny stroke.
This gets you to get the feet moving first and gets you to practice a compact stroke to meet the ball right as it gets into the fat part of your strike zone.
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I echo what DerEchte said but I would put it differently, I think you were trying to play a specific style because of the pips though I would argue that that style made you miss too many forehands by taking them too early and made you feel you had to rush the opponent. Pips are still effective 2ft behind where you stand, just not as effective as inverted. It might sound wrong and you never want to end up there, but you should practice being there a little so you don't get stuck thinking that you are dead back there with pips. You really aren't and someone like Bernardo really had no major weapons as far as I could see, maybe I need to play him to understand what pressure he was putting you under. I felt like you just missed a lot of shots against.
I liked the practice with the coach, solid hitting with the pips. There is some out of sync timing with the arm and the body, but the quality is much better than it used to be because as crazy as it sounds, the sync of the timing is way better than it used to be. You must love your practice sessions.
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Or we could go back and start revisit about which ALC blade to buy or which is better ESN or Nat H3 BS?🤣
Confession of an ex-EJ:
Using those would be funds to hire a proper coach has paid off better dividend compared to using it to buy this or that rubber / blade. The result speaks for itself ( with video proof ).
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BRS! I only watched the first clip. I think it is good that you try to take the ball early with the short pimples. Try to think that before the highest point it is okey to just block, but if you wait it up to the highest point you need to play harder.
The spins comes mostly from the forearm and the arm is probably more important when you play close to the table. Now it seems like you are not using the forearm, try to snap it together. Maybe you are standing to much to the right so you get the ball on you so are not able to use the forearm.
Keep up the hard work
Thanks Der, NL, Lula, for the good feedback
Der/NL - yes, I hate to be pushed away from the table. I got very angry with myself vs Bernardo for jumping back. He wasn't really pushing me back, it's more that I rock back on my heels and have to jump back for balance. But there will always be times where I do get forced back so it's important to be able to play at least one quality shot from either wing that far away. Then get my lazy azz back up to the table.
Lula - very interesting as always. Coach plays into my middle *a lot.* I didn't know being too far to the right would prevent the forearm snap so thanks for explaining. Some other times I think I'm just too tense to let my arm snap. I'm trying to use body rotation and not let my upper arm swing way back because I'm so close, but if my arm only moves the same speed as my body then no spin. That's something I really need to look closely at.
I appreciate all your comments so much I recorded one more drill for you. LOL This is the hardest one I do, one or two middle, one or two either side. I could cheat to my left for the first ball at the middle and not start off-balance from the first ball, but I don't see any point to doing that. This exercise comes towards the end of the session. It's meant to be a challenge.
Der/NL - yes, I hate to be pushed away from the table. I got very angry with myself vs Bernardo for jumping back. He wasn't really pushing me back, it's more that I rock back on my heels and have to jump back for balance. But there will always be times where I do get forced back so it's important to be able to play at least one quality shot from either wing that far away. Then get my lazy azz back up to the table.
Lula - very interesting as always. Coach plays into my middle *a lot.* I didn't know being too far to the right would prevent the forearm snap so thanks for explaining. Some other times I think I'm just too tense to let my arm snap. I'm trying to use body rotation and not let my upper arm swing way back because I'm so close, but if my arm only moves the same speed as my body then no spin. That's something I really need to look closely at.
I appreciate all your comments so much I recorded one more drill for you. LOL This is the hardest one I do, one or two middle, one or two either side. I could cheat to my left for the first ball at the middle and not start off-balance from the first ball, but I don't see any point to doing that. This exercise comes towards the end of the session. It's meant to be a challenge.
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