Video Footage Safe Thread

NDH

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Hi NDH,

How are you? Long time I did not post any video of my training. Below is my most recent. I think this might be my 12th of 14th lessons but I am not sure coz I have lost count.

Do you remember you told me to post my progress here. Well here goes. But before that, I want to recap a little. Do recall that I was lamenting how bad my BH was at opening ups and totally suck at it. Well, have a look at my latest BH opening up again.
Although I did not have a video, my latest BH to BH drive is now around twenty or more continuously without misses.
Gozo! You are the picture of consistency with those! Great job!!

It’s such an improvement on the previous video, and you seem to be getting great speed and spin on those shots!

Impressive improvement in a short space of time, and you are the perfect example of why you should spend money on a good coach!

Excellent work mate!

 
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Gozo! You are the picture of consistency with those! Great job!!

It’s such an improvement on the previous video, and you seem to be getting great speed and spin on those shots!

Impressive improvement in a short space of time, and you are the perfect example of why you should spend money on a good coach!

Excellent work mate!

Thank you friend for the word of encouragement.

I know my weakness, my coach know my weakness, all my regular club members know my weakness and they exploit it to the max in all the game play they do with me.

My coach has been working with me on my BH open up for the past one month or so with a 80:20 ratio. Where on each lesson, he will focus 20% on my FH ( it is functional and not much improvement needed ) & 80% on my BH. The above video is the result of a month's work that we put in focusing on my BH.

Darn it, it is not so easy for me as BH just does not come naturally to me. I must have hit thousands of those BH shots over the course one month period. Like they say, if you fail, try and try again. @Carl did advised me to do a lot of shadow movement in my non-playing time in front of a mirror. I did some of those, Carl, and my wife gave me the funny look.

Once I made my BH functional & more stable, say in a couple more lessons, I will request my coach to assist me with short around the net play, another area that I am weak and has been exploited by my opponents in match play.

Cheers everyone and have a good weekend ahead.

 
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Once I made my BH functional & more stable, say in a couple more lessons, I will request my coach to assist me with short around the net play, another area that I am weak and has been exploited by my opponents in match play.

Easy to train both skills together, like in this video from the very nice Road to Pro channel. https://youtu.be/bb_NMvirE2w

Coach serves short, you push short, he pushes long to your BH, free (or BH-BH)
You serve short, coach pushes short, you push back short, he pushes long to your BH ...

 
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Hi allI thought I would share some updates and a new video after the discussion a month or so back.My coaching is going well - we had a full reset and back to basics focus and have been working in that way for the last month. Less multi ball, and when we do it its slower and focused on the basic FH/BF strokes.My game has improved and I am certainly winning more matches in practice.I feel like my footwork has improved (long way to go still) and my movement is better - I am still concerned around the finish on my BH - it's an old habit and I am too high and lifting upwards but it's a work in progress.As always, any feedback or observations welcome :)
 
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Hi allI thought I would share some updates and a new video after the discussion a month or so back.My coaching is going well - we had a full reset and back to basics focus and have been working in that way for the last month. Less multi ball, and when we do it its slower and focused on the basic FH/BF strokes.My game has improved and I am certainly winning more matches in practice.I feel like my footwork has improved (long way to go still) and my movement is better - I am still concerned around the finish on my BH - it's an old habit and I am too high and lifting upwards but it's a work in progress.As always, any feedback or observations welcome :)

Nice to hear that it is going better. I often find that you give a player to much advice and it just becomes to difficult to focus. If you are you working on the change between forehand and backhand i think this exercise is good but i do not think you are practicing footwork. I also think you need to do more footwork based exercises, otherwise you will feel awesome here but in a real match you need to move more.

If you do one backhand one forehand exercise your coach could try to spread the balls a little more, sometimes in the cornes or towards the middle. This is what players do not understand playing against players that are a lower level then themselves - they spread the ball more so it is better practice if you want to win games since it is more similar like a real situation. Your coach are placing the balls so good all the time, good for basic strokes and transition but not for the footwork.

Keep up the hard work.

 
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User IB66 recommended me to post this here. (Old thread: https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...ow-to-break-the-habit-of-a-too-long-backswing )
I think my forehand stroke is too long and that I rotate my upper body too much on the backswing (my blade can be seen on the opposite side). I also open the angle between upper arm and forearm too much (backswing). Especially on counter topspin I can see the problem

Check out this match of me playing (I'm blue guy): 1:38
What are your thoughts on this, do you notice any other technical problems? Are there any tricks that can help me get the correct execution in my subconsciousness, or do I just have to train it very often?
 
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User IB66 recommended me to post this here. (Old thread: https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...ow-to-break-the-habit-of-a-too-long-backswing )
I think my forehand stroke is too long and that I rotate my upper body too much on the backswing (my blade can be seen on the opposite side). I also open the angle between upper arm and forearm too much (backswing). Especially on counter topspin I can see the problem

Check out this match of me playing (I'm blue guy): 1:38
What are your thoughts on this, do you notice any other technical problems? Are there any tricks that can help me get the correct execution in my subconsciousness, or do I just have to train it very often?

Hi, Loertig. As funny as it sounds, the problem with your forehand swing is first and foremost your left foot and to a lesser degree your right foot which should be a bit more side on (it should point a bit more outwards than it currently does, or at least, twist as well with your left foot into a lunge in one motion, and then you can push back towards the table with both feet when playing the forehand). The left foot turning inwards is the hinge that activates the power on all good forehand strokes as it allows the body rotation. There are a few exceptions for over the table strokes, but even then, the rotation is felt internally, it is just not visible to anyone watching. You backswing with your upper arm or not at all, and because your left foot doesn't rotate, your chest doesn't move backwards and give you room to play the ball besides you. So you block more on your forehand and really only loop when you have more time to turn side on.

If you are healthy, I would work on getting more power into your lunges. Your opponent has power co-ordination issues but what he does well on his forehand is that he always lunges to prepare (he however doesn't push back to square up so he uses only his arm and plays spinny shots with little power). If you can get used to jumping into your lunge when moving as well as lunging a little when playing your basic forehand, it would transform your game. Most of the movements and preparations in table tennis are done most quickly with the core and the lower body, not the upper arm. On your backhand, which is pretty solid, there is some room to also prepare there better with the core, though your approach there is not as compromised as your forehand.

It would be good to see your forehand topspin basic practice/warmup to get a better idea of what your base stroke looks like. I can see the issue in the matches, but if your base topspin is proper, then the issue might just be transition footwork, where you are not practicing moving into a position where you can play a forehand and are just face on to the table because you aren't practicing the transitions properly. But it is clear that you are not moving into position with your left foot properly set (or not twisting both feet to play forehands).

 
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Nice to hear that it is going better. I often find that you give a player to much advice and it just becomes to difficult to focus. If you are you working on the change between forehand and backhand i think this exercise is good but i do not think you are practicing footwork. I also think you need to do more footwork based exercises, otherwise you will feel awesome here but in a real match you need to move more.

If you do one backhand one forehand exercise your coach could try to spread the balls a little more, sometimes in the cornes or towards the middle. This is what players do not understand playing against players that are a lower level then themselves - they spread the ball more so it is better practice if you want to win games since it is more similar like a real situation. Your coach are placing the balls so good all the time, good for basic strokes and transition but not for the footwork.

Keep up the hard work.

Footwork is a complicated topic - as someone who had crappy footwork almost for all my playing career, and even when I tried to develop good footwork still had it crappy (and let everyone remember, I started serious training in my mid 30s for context and got round to fixing footwork in my 40s with knee trouble), footwork is something that for someone like wrighty67, it is better to understand what footwork tries to do and then try to train that than to do heavy formal footwork training. Because if you can perfectly anticipate, half the purpose of footwork is already solved!

 
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Hi allI thought I would share some updates and a new video after the discussion a month or so back.My coaching is going well - we had a full reset and back to basics focus and have been working in that way for the last month. Less multi ball, and when we do it its slower and focused on the basic FH/BF strokes.My game has improved and I am certainly winning more matches in practice.I feel like my footwork has improved (long way to go still) and my movement is better - I am still concerned around the finish on my BH - it's an old habit and I am too high and lifting upwards but it's a work in progress.As always, any feedback or observations welcome :)

So what you are doing looks and feels like a footwork exercise but is it really?

To be honest, learning technique as an adult is a complicated thing, especially because there is no 100% technically correct and approved way to learn table tennis. There are just some guidelines that quite a few people use to judge things, and you can always find at least one really good player, sometimes world class, who violates some of them. The only things no one violates at the top level are two things almost tautologically - they produce a quality of shot good enough to trouble the opponent, and they produce a quality of return and have the ability to bring balls back above average as well, making it hard to overwhelm them just with offense and putting you on pressure on defense.

But back to footwork - what is footwork really? Footwork is to me about the transition between a variety of shots with the goal of making it easier to prepare to hit certain shots after hitting others without losing much time under pressure. In fact, the only way you really know your footwork is working for you is when under pressure ( you don't know where the ball is going, your opponent has a few possibilities) and you can respond reasonably well to the pressure that your footwork is working for you.

One of the things that you learn in advanced training is that to develop advanced footwork, everything is facilitated by the LEGS and the CORE. Some coaches who claim silly Chinese secrets call this "power from the ground" without being able to explain what they really mean. What is largely meant is that the quickest way to get into position to play a reasonable stroke requires you to use the legs and the core as the primary driver as you transitions, and not the upper arm as most amateurs do. But the key is to get the legs and core set up to play the next stroke as early as possible based on your anticipation, and usually the arm will fall into place. And while there are better and worse ways to do this, I would say that an adult has to be actively involved in understanding the logic of footwork and then develop his own path, because many of the things a coach may ask you to do depending on how they learned may or may not fit your play style.

So let us look at what you are doing in the drill above, playing one forehand and one backhand. At best, it might be a decent blocking drill. And it is very likely a level appropriate drill. But your legs are not really preparing to make shots and your core is doing a bit more but not great either. So an advanced player looking at it might wonder what the footwork is. But another advanced player might say that you are preparing shots and it is level appropriate. I would agree with both of them and disagree with both of them in the sense that I don't think you are backswinging appropriately in the drill on the forehand side and I think that may not help your game long term. But what I am noticing may have more to do with your base forehand shot, it may not be the drill. And if that is your base forehand shot, then this is your footwork drill for now and it is level appropriate.

The issue with your backhand is not really an issue, it is more about the willingness to take risks to get better - to fix any habit in TT, you have to treat it like a completely new movement and train it with and without a ball until your body realizes it is a better shot, which can take months to years. Most adults can't do that so they ultimately never change a stroke (and this is true for many top professionals as well).

It takes a lot of time and possible starting with more time away from the table to have time to develop the muscles and the core to play real forehand and backhand topspin strokes. When you get a better feel for those, then some of your complaints will make more sense. But right now, for what you are doing, it is very hard to change without getting frustrated about missing a lot because you would need to revise your whole backhand technique. I suspect in some ways, my backhand close to the table is still a lot like yours after years of training. But that is another story....

You are doing a great job. If a lot of the above doesn't make sense, don't worry about it. The most important thing is always to have fun while playing and training. Improvement isn't always about effort.

 
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Hi, Loertig. As funny as it sounds, the problem with your forehand swing is first and foremost your left foot. The left foot turning inwards is the hinge that activates the power on all good forehand strokes as it allows the body rotation. There are a few exceptions for over the table strokes, but even then, the rotation is felt internally, it is just not visible to anyone watching. You backswing with your upper arm or not at all, and because your left foot doesn't rotate, your chest doesn't move backwards and give you room to play the ball besides you. So you block more on your forehand and really only loop when you have more time to turn side on.

If you are healthy, I would work on getting more power into your lunges. Your opponent has power co-ordination issues but what he does well on his forehand is that he always lunges to prepare. If you can get used to jumping into your lunge when moving as well as lunging a little when playing your basic forehand, it would transform your game. Most of the movements and preparations in table tennis are done most quickly with the core and the lower body, not the upper arm. On your backhand, which is pretty solid, there is some room to also prepare there better with the core, though your approach there is not as compromised as your forehand.

It would be good to see your forehand topspin basic practice/warmup to get a better idea of what your base stroke looks like. I can see the issue in the matches, but if your base topspin is proper, then the issue might just be transition footwork, where you are not practicing moving into a position where you can play a forehand and are just face on to the table because you aren't practicing the transitions properly. But it is clear that you are not moving into position with your left foot properly set.

Hello NextLevel, thank you for your help. I am not quite sure what exactly I am doing wrong with my left foot, and what you mean by "left foot turning inwards" (which axis?). Do I have to rotate the heel more outwards while keeping the toes on the ground? I don't have a video of my topspin against backspin right now, but I have the warmup of the match I linked:

 
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Hello NextLevel, thank you for your help. I am not quite sure what exactly I am doing wrong with my left foot, and what you mean by "left foot turning inwards" (which axis?). Do I have to rotate the heel more outwards while keeping the toes on the ground? I don't have a video of my topspin against backspin right now, but I have the warmup of the match I linked:

When playing matches, your stance is almost always a backhand stance, in that you are set up to play a backhand. When you need to play a forehand, your legs core doesn't do any of the necessary preparation to play a forehand. If you look at how you stand at the table in the warm up, that is not how you stand at the table when the ball comes to your forehand during a match. You need to figure out how to get the two to come closer to each other under pressure in a match. That is the broad problem.

At 2:06 in the video above, after playing a few backhands, the ball comes to your forehand/middle and you turn to play it and I know it is a warmup, but the only way to get power into that shot is to be able to get a deeper lunge and right turn with the legs and the core. You just twist slightly, and I suspect in a match under pressure, the shot is not there because you aren't seriously preparing it by getting deep (twist and lunge) preparation when the ball comes to your forehand in practice.

The details I gave you about left foot etc. are details that may or may not make sense as approaches to the broad problem. There are things you may need to change about your forehand to make the broad problem easier to manage. But the broad problem is that you do not play forehand strokes in matches in the position you hit them in practice.

Throughout the video, when a ball surprises you to the forehand or the middle, you aren't getting a deep enough lunge/twist to play a real forehand. You may also need to lean over the ball a little. But basically, the movements are not powered by good body preparation for the shot.

 
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So what you are doing looks and feels like a footwork exercise but is it really?

To be honest, learning technique as an adult is a complicated thing, especially because there is no 100% technically correct and approved way to learn table tennis. There are just some guidelines that quite a few people use to judge things, and you can always find at least one really good player, sometimes world class, who violates some of them. The only things no one violates at the top level are two things almost tautologically - they produce a quality of shot good enough to trouble the opponent, and they produce a quality of return and have the ability to bring balls back above average as well, making it hard to overwhelm them just with offense and putting you on pressure on defense.

But back to footwork - what is footwork really? Footwork is to me about the transition between a variety of shots with the goal of making it easier to prepare to hit certain shots after hitting others without losing much time under pressure. In fact, the only way you really know your footwork is working for you is when under pressure ( you don't know where the ball is going, your opponent has a few possibilities) and you can respond reasonably well to the pressure that your footwork is working for you.

One of the things that you learn in advanced training is that to develop advanced footwork, everything is facilitated by the LEGS and the CORE. Some coaches who claim silly Chinese secrets call this "power from the ground" without being able to explain what they really mean. What is largely meant is that the quickest way to get into position to play a reasonable stroke requires you to use the legs and the core as the primary driver as you transitions, and not the upper arm as most amateurs do. But the key is to get the legs and core set up to play the next stroke as early as possible based on your anticipation, and usually the arm will fall into place. And while there are better and worse ways to do this, I would say that an adult has to be actively involved in understanding the logic of footwork and then develop his own path, because many of the things a coach may ask you to do depending on how they learned may or may not fit your play style.

So let us look at what you are doing in the drill above, playing one forehand and one backhand. At best, it might be a decent blocking drill. And it is very likely a level appropriate drill. But your legs are not really preparing to make shots and your core is doing a bit more but not great either. So an advanced player looking at it might wonder what the footwork is. But another advanced player might say that you are preparing shots and it is level appropriate. I would agree with both of them and disagree with both of them in the sense that I don't think you are backswinging appropriately in the drill on the forehand side and I think that may not help your game long term. But what I am noticing may have more to do with your base forehand shot, it may not be the drill. And if that is your base forehand shot, then this is your footwork drill for now and it is level appropriate.

The issue with your backhand is not really an issue, it is more about the willingness to take risks to get better - to fix any habit in TT, you have to treat it like a completely new movement and train it with and without a ball until your body realizes it is a better shot, which can take months to years. Most adults can't do that so they ultimately never change a stroke (and this is true for many top professionals as well).

It takes a lot of time and possible starting with more time away from the table to have time to develop the muscles and the core to play real forehand and backhand topspin strokes. When you get a better feel for those, then some of your complaints will make more sense. But right now, for what you are doing, it is very hard to change without getting frustrated about missing a lot because you would need to revise your whole backhand technique. I suspect in some ways, my backhand close to the table is still a lot like yours after years of training. But that is another story....

You are doing a great job. If a lot of the above doesn't make sense, don't worry about it. The most important thing is always to have fun while playing and training. Improvement isn't always about effort.

Hi NE

Thanks for the comprehensive response - I appreciate it.

To be clearer, these drills are really aimed at my base stroke improvement and it is my own focus and observation that as I improve my shots and match play, that it’s my footwork that is lagging. I have an old injury that resulted from a sequestration disc that saw the left side of my calf on my right leg disappear and so I can’t stand on my toes on that side - I’m pretty mobile but this doesn’t help.

I’ve started to skip and try to better understand where my feet should be as I navigate from stroke to stroke.

I’m keen to unpick the FH observation a bit more - can you offer more guidance? Longer backswing required?

My BH I am committed to improving and so need to find a groove that sees me in more of a circular motion from strike to follow through.

I’m enjoying it very much and keen to get to a decent level so this is very helpful.

P

 
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When playing matches, your stance is almost always a backhand stance, in that you are set up to play a backhand. When you need to play a forehand, your legs core doesn't do any of the necessary preparation to play a forehand. If you look at how you stand at the table in the warm up, that is not how you stand at the table when the ball comes to your forehand during a match. You need to figure out how to get the two to come closer to each other under pressure in a match. That is the broad problem.

At 2:06 in the video above, after playing a few backhands, the ball comes to your forehand/middle and you turn to play it and I know it is a warmup, but the only way to get power into that shot is to be able to get a deeper lunge and right turn with the legs and the core. You just twist slightly, and I suspect in a match under pressure, the shot is not there because you aren't seriously preparing it by getting deep (twist and lunge) preparation when the ball comes to your forehand in practice.

The details I gave you about left foot etc. are details that may or may not make sense as approaches to the broad problem. There are things you may need to change about your forehand to make the broad problem easier to manage. But the broad problem is that you do not play forehand strokes in matches in the position you hit them in practice.

Throughout the video, when a ball surprises you to the forehand or the middle, you aren't getting a deep enough lunge/twist to play a real forehand. You may also need to lean over the ball a little. But basically, the movements are not powered by good body preparation for the shot.

Thanks for the explanation. I now get what I'm lacking. I am probably not executing the lunge correctly because of slight pain in my right knee (sort of under the patella to the right). (Jumper's knee condition maybe?). When I do e.g. squats I can feel the pain.

 
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Hi NE

Thanks for the comprehensive response - I appreciate it.

To be clearer, these drills are really aimed at my base stroke improvement and it is my own focus and observation that as I improve my shots and match play, that it’s my footwork that is lagging. I have an old injury that resulted from a sequestration disc that saw the left side of my calf on my right leg disappear and so I can’t stand on my toes on that side - I’m pretty mobile but this doesn’t help.

I’ve started to skip and try to better understand where my feet should be as I navigate from stroke to stroke.

I’m keen to unpick the FH observation a bit more - can you offer more guidance? Longer backswing required?

My BH I am committed to improving and so need to find a groove that sees me in more of a circular motion from strike to follow through.

I’m enjoying it very much and keen to get to a decent level so this is very helpful.

P

Yeah, as we get older, those pesky disks ruin all kinds of things. It is one of the reasons why I am reluctant to comment on video sometimes. So always caveat these pieces of advice as limited perspectives.

Basically, part of the reason your forehand stroke comes across your body when you finish is that you are taking it too far in front of you with insufficient torso twist or abdominal fold or left knee lunge to get the upper body side on so you can come into the shot with more power. Your right leg should be a bit more side on to the table when you get into the backswing. Again, none of this is a big deal relative to how you want to play. I managed to get to the USATT 2000 level with a forehand that technically wasn't much better than yours - may have been more powerful on some days, but technically, it was just like as yours in many ways. You should consistently finish your strike at eye level or in front of your body but not past the center line when hitting a powerful topspin with a few exceptions for compromised movement. Coming across the body with the racket finishing at shoulder height usually means you didn't line up with the ball for a long time and you engaged too much upper arm either on the backswing or follow through. If I had good skills editing images, I would show it to you. You do it a good and proper topspin sometimes, but you deviate a bit at other times.

There are some German and French coaches who would argue that what I am saying above doesn't matter too much as long as you use the body correctly and I understand that somewhat, though I would argue that there are timing issues introduced with the approach you are taking, especially against backspin. In any case, it is just food for though. some of it is tied to use of the lower body, but if you have lower body limitations of any kind, just ignore this. It can be annoying and painful to continue to seek improvement while dealing with injuries. I learned this the hard way.

The key to table tennis improvement is almost always the backswing and the preparation to get to the backswing. It is almost never in the forward swing. On the backhand, you don't backswing close to far back enough. There is a letter C shape that your arm and elbow need to take to play a modern backhand loop. Your arm never gets close to it so you are basically only able to hit the ball with an open racket. I think Richie posted a video of Liam Pitchford teaching the technique somewhere earlier on this thread.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/showthread.php?26467-Video-Footage-Safe-Thread&p=363753&viewfull=1#post363753

It has something in common with a frisbee tossing motion, and it can be compact or it can be large. But it is the element of the frisbee tossing motion that shapes the arm that you need to imitate what your coach is trying to show you.

 
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@loerting

Tabletennis is a technical sport, but too much focus on it i believe will hurt your game. As long as you get good ball quality and it is functional for your style of play then it is good. I have also noticed as a part time coach for many years that earlier in my coaching career i was so eager to help someone so i gave them many tips but that just made them worse, since it was to much to focus on. I think it is good to try to focus on less things, get better at those and so on. And the longer you play you will also notice that there not so many correct ways of playing tabletennis; do not matter how you win the point and you will see pro players with a lot of different technique, and it is changing!
When i was you bh grip was a big no, aswell as changing grip, and i coached Truls Moregard for a while when he was a kid, he holds the racket like he is frying egg with a pan, and almost all chinese have backhand grip today. Backand from the forehand corner was also a big no, and the banana flip did not really exist.

Regarding the backswing you could just wait for the ball a little more. I believe you also can notice that you miss alot of balls in the warm up beacuse you swing to early. And maybe also beacuse it seems like you are swinging a bit upward when going back - like a C that is upsidedown if we are looking from the right side of your body.

When you practice try counting how many loops you can do in a row so you get some consistency. Then let the opponent block soft and harder blocks. I think multiball would be great for this too. You will notice that with to much backswing you will time the ball wrong if you read a little wrong. Maybe multiball with a higher tempo will help you get the swing shorter aswell.

For consistency it is also good too:
- brush the ball to create spin
- move the feet

Good luck. You seem to have a great interest, as long as you keep it up you will progress.
 
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Thanks for the explanation. I now get what I'm lacking. I am probably not executing the lunge correctly because of slight pain in my right knee (sort of under the patella to the right). (Jumper's knee condition maybe?). When I do e.g. squats I can feel the pain.

That makes perfect sense. I trained with damaged knees for most of my game and it isn't worth it - I learned what I was missing, but I also learned that if something is painful, you won't do it under pressure in a match. You can work around it with a few tactical fixes and working on your forehand block a bit more (you block okay but since you know you can't lunge, you can focus on blocking and placing better and more aggressively). Blocking is not as lovely looking as counterlooping but it can win a lot of points too.

 
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Brs

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User IB66 recommended me to post this here. (Old thread: https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...ow-to-break-the-habit-of-a-too-long-backswing )
I think my forehand stroke is too long and that I rotate my upper body too much on the backswing (my blade can be seen on the opposite side). I also open the angle between upper arm and forearm too much (backswing). Especially on counter topspin I can see the problem

Check out this match of me playing (I'm blue guy): 1:38
What are your thoughts on this, do you notice any other technical problems? Are there any tricks that can help me get the correct execution in my subconsciousness, or do I just have to train it very often?

Hi loerting,

Your forehand was pretty effective in this match and you hit some nice ones. The one at 4:05 when you swung more forward was particularly good. To my mind the swing isn't too long. It's too long for counter-topspin close to the table, because you really need to take those on the rise. But you usually step back when you get into a topspin rally so the stroke length is fine from away. Your swing may also be too long for some balls because you are very backhand dominant. You are constantly sitting on backhand ready, and even played some pretty backhand counters from far, like Liam Pitchford style. And your backhand is really good, I can see why you would build your game up from it, but be aware you may be sacrificing your forehand quality to some extent when you do that.

If you had posted the video and only said "What do you guys think?" I would have replied that you have problems with backspin. Not just on the forehand, but a lot of trouble on backhand receiving long backspin serves also. I wonder if you have practiced very much versus block, and not too many exercises that start from a push and then transition into the topspin rally, more game-like. The same about your counter-topspin close to the table, the timing just isn't quite there, which comes from lack of practice. So rather than saying your forehand is too long, it just may not have the adaptability to meet the range of common openings to a point. If it were me I would try to broaden that range of balls your forehand is prepared for, not seek one better/perfect technique that you could apply to every ball.

 

Brs

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Hi allI thought I would share some updates and a new video after the discussion a month or so back.My coaching is going well - we had a full reset and back to basics focus and have been working in that way for the last month. Less multi ball, and when we do it its slower and focused on the basic FH/BF strokes.My game has improved and I am certainly winning more matches in practice.I feel like my footwork has improved (long way to go still) and my movement is better - I am still concerned around the finish on my BH - it's an old habit and I am too high and lifting upwards but it's a work in progress.As always, any feedback or observations welcome :)

Nice to see you and your coach looking happy in training! Having fun in training contributes a lot to success. Related to that, your reactions when you miss are not helping you. Even after twenty good balls in a row you miss one and visibly judge yourself. That instant judgment kind of shuts off your observational brain and prevents you from sensing what actually happened to cause the miss. This may sound new-agey or whatever, but please try it and see what you think. Try to train without judgement or emotion, just feel and hear and see. And when you miss work out why. If you can't work it out ask the coach. Were you too early or too late? Did you mis-judge the spin or location? Was your body in the wrong posture? How tense was your arm? Did you hit the ball as thickly or thinly as you intended? Was the stroke plane what you intended? It's hard to let that judgement go. We all want to do well and put pressure on ourselves. But I believe you will gain a lot more from lessons if you put down those burdens and allow your body to sense exactly what is happening.

I don't want to question the exercises because I don't know your coach's plan. To me it does not look like footwork. He is just working on your transition between forehand and backhand, along with basic technique. And that's level-appropriate as NL called it. A player can only focus on one or two things at one time. If you add larger movements to this before you master it that will only slow down your progress. There are a lot of semi-random variations you could add before you even get to footwork, like 1 or 2 fh - 1 or 2 bh, and middle - either side - middle - either side. It's good that you are taking some small steps even here, to get into better position for the ball when you could probably reach over. Because really everything has footwork, even blocking from one place. Probably the coach will get to more visible footwork as you continue to get better.

About your forehand stroke and using the feet/legs/core to drive the swing (aka power from the ground) - okay, I agree with all NL says. You appear to still have a lot of tension in your forearm. It looks like the tip of the bat turns slightly upwards from it. In these exercises you are hitting so it doesn't matter that much. But when you start looping again it will be much easier the less tension you carry. Also your body can't swing your arm unless you rotate, your trunk with your arm pretty relaxed. If you had Ariel Hsing's forehand fixing machine (at 1:46 in the video) it would stop you from moving your upper arm so much. Or you could say stop you moving your elbow position, same thing. Then you would be forehand hitting with only small foot/knee/waist rotation and ideally a relaxed arm. From there you could scale the stroke size down for a block and up for a loop. The swing you are hitting with now works okay for hitting. But I don't know that you could size it up or down. So you might end up learning three different kinds of stroke for hit/block/loop instead of only one that adjusts in size and speed to the incoming ball. And three things is a lot harder to learn than one. If that makes any sense.

 
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Hi loerting,

Your forehand was pretty effective in this match and you hit some nice ones. The one at 4:05 when you swung more forward was particularly good. To my mind the swing isn't too long. It's too long for counter-topspin close to the table, because you really need to take those on the rise. But you usually step back when you get into a topspin rally so the stroke length is fine from away. Your swing may also be too long for some balls because you are very backhand dominant. You are constantly sitting on backhand ready, and even played some pretty backhand counters from far, like Liam Pitchford style. And your backhand is really good, I can see why you would build your game up from it, but be aware you may be sacrificing your forehand quality to some extent when you do that.

If you had posted the video and only said "What do you guys think?" I would have replied that you have problems with backspin. Not just on the forehand, but a lot of trouble on backhand receiving long backspin serves also. I wonder if you have practiced very much versus block, and not too many exercises that start from a push and then transition into the topspin rally, more game-like. The same about your counter-topspin close to the table, the timing just isn't quite there, which comes from lack of practice. So rather than saying your forehand is too long, it just may not have the adaptability to meet the range of common openings to a point. If it were me I would try to broaden that range of balls your forehand is prepared for, not seek one better/perfect technique that you could apply to every ball.

Hello Brs and thank you for your reply. You are right, I had problems with the underspin my opponent gave me, especially on the serves, but normally I don't really have a problem with backspin, as I love to play spin variations myself. It's just that he had more than average backspin in his serves / pushes and it took me some time to adapt to it. With the counter topspin close to the table, you are absolutely right, I'll have to train that more, as I am used to playing further back from the table. Thank you for the good advice.

 
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Mr. Lörting,

Some people early on like playing a little further back to give themselves a little more time to see the ball. It is a risk decision with trade-offs short and long term. You give up more angles and quickness for a little more security. That might make sense on a play in a certain match, but as a habit will cost you more in development and habits of striking the ball while it is higher to improve percentages/quality.

A lot of mis-its, hitting out of zone, and striking off time are often simply not precisely soon enough seeing what is on the ball, where it is going, and what it is gunna do... a lot of these mistakes come from that and the corresponding lack of position/zone/timing. That will improve as you anticipate and see the ball better.

A lot of very good players/coaches have given you several gold mines of info already.
 
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