Well-Known Member
It is a hard question. 6 hours a week is a good amount of.time. A lot of magic will be tied to things you may or may not control. So I will give a broad answer.
Ask your coach what his considered and honest goals for you are. You may not like the honest answer but only an honest coach who just doesn't want to take your money will give you an honest answer. What kind of player does he want to develop.you into? Why are you doing these drills and not some other drills? What does he want to aee before you do other drills? What are the elements of technique he wants you to get right etc.? What does he think multiball is improving for you?
He may have completely different answers from me and atill be a good coach. But a good coach will always be honest about what he has planned for you. Some coaches just don't know how to improve players. For me, I used to just let players train against my ball quality when I felt I couldn't do much for their technique. Or I would get them to read basic serves and make the first block of my first loop. But that kind of coaching is harder than multiball. But it helps players at all levels in terms of match play because even if they suck at doing what I described, it is still training them in the context of how a point evolves. In doing so, I would try to tell them what cues to pick up to tell where the ball was going or how to think about the right technical approach in the context of what we were working on.and to not wait until the ball got to their side before they prepared their stroke.
Tactics are always in the context of the specific details of a table tennis point. Strategy requires the coach to.have a vision of how he wants you to play. High level tactical or strategic advice is completely meaningless absent the ability to implement it based on experience and training.
Some broader tips for TT improvementThe first thing is patience. You are going to get better if you hit or play with better players whether you improve your technique or not because a lot of table tennis is reading spin and anticipating ball placement and being able to touch the ball and control it. Thia gets better with time.
The next thing is to find good players who are willing to feed your passion. One good friend at a decent level with decent technique and willing to hit with you will do more for you than lots of hours of coaching because the friend will usually watch you and show you things and be empathetic. A good club is a similar benefit. It is hard to improve outside a good relationship with other better players.
When doing drills with a coach, focus on serve and third ball (which many coaches will somewhat do) and receive (which many coaches are unfortunately reluctant to do - it is sad because serve return is extremely important) if a coach can teach you basic forehand and backhand strokes and how to use them to return serves to and attack weak returns, then that is most of the game. If you do multiball and your coach is not correcting your stroke, ask for feedback.
The harder part is how to move to the ball. Good footwork has technical aspects but the technical aspects are sometimes oversold and the conceptual framework is undersold. The conceptual framework is just to move the the ball in a way that allows you to be ready to hit it by the time it gets to you. Because the game gets faster, and you play better players, being able to anticipate and do this better is the basis of good footwork. Technical Footwork is probably the lowest priority thing for an adult beginner who isn't going to get really good but conceptual footwork is a must for every player. You should learn to move to the ball with your stroke prepared and develop ways of hiding your stroke or being equally ready to play multiple relevant shots depending on where the ball is placed. But this only makes sense when you have a good idea of how you use your legs to get into position to play the shots you need to play and how your legs affect the shots you want to play. Then over time you learn to play multiple shots out of superficially similar stances. But when you serve for example, you need to be ready for the return. That ability to connect shots is not tested by the drills you did in multiball. Even a bad serve and return drill is more match relevant.
too long didn't read - practice serve and attack and how to return serves with your basic strokes. Get friends who play at the level you want to play at and hang out with them. Learn to move with balance to the ball even if you don't do footwork drills. If you hang around good players and they hit with you, you will get better regardless of whatever else you do.
The problem with basic multiball is that it doesn't start a point the way most points start (with.a serve or a return), and it doesn't give you any feedback about the effect of your ball on the opponent. I get why coaches do it. But there are many coaches who also think it is useless and understanding why theh think so is more important than agreeing with them. A multiball drill is only as useful as the skill it is testing. It is like solving basic algebraic equations and expecting them to translate into solving engineering problems under pressure without really practicing solving engineering problems.
Matches force you to anticipate and move etc. in practice people are sometimes having fun hitting to each other. In matches, people are trying to make you miss and move. So connecting the physical skills of multiball to the tactical and mental aspects of matchplay needs to be done to make it match relevant. Otherwise it is possibly good exercise but the correlation to winning matches is not that high.
Thanks again for the very thoughtful response - I really appreciate the help.
I find myself struggling with the coach piece of this puzzle - being brutally honest, he's a nice guy and a decent player and I enjoy the sessions - but I have observed that nothing is pre-prepared or planned and is very much done on the fly with much repetition between sessions. I have no doubt improved my ability to react and move through this fairly fast multi ball, but the big issue I have with it is that my technique slowly but surely falls apart as I get more and more tired and find myself struggling to keep up with the seemingly never ending balls coming at me. It is without doubt more of a fitness drill than a technical one.
I feel I would benefit more by him serving at me and me serving to him and working up a third ball approach or 5th ball. I am not sure how he will react to this - he is the coach after all..
My challenge with club play is that the one session I go to tends to see me pair up with one player in particular who is around my standard and loves to play with me - we hit for 3h but it tends to be very drive dominated. This player is not the standard I aspire to be nor is he technically strong. The other club session is a very helpful 2h coaching session with lots of pre-planned drills, changing player after each one (3 ball, 5 ball, push etc) - ironically all set up by the same coach I then have my one to one with.
So I probably need to change the one club session and find some better players to work with - not easy as most of them don't come to the club sessions and if they do they play only with the other top players!
Nonetheless I feel some clarity is emerging.
P