Video Footage Safe Thread

Richie · Feb 22, 2022

People seem to watch too many highlight videos of top players. Maybe everyone should record themselves playing more, it'll humble you. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Experience is king in table tennis. Yesterday my team and I went to practice at this other venue with some really good players, several of them were older like 50-60 years old but were top 5 or something for their age when they were younger. The best player in my team is like top 70-80ish in England and has beaten players that are top 20-30. He has a super good forehand and is very fast, probably faster than many pro players.. but he has some glaring weaknesses.

Against some players he'd look like a god, against one of those older guys yesterday he'd look so bad because that guy would just read and respond perfectly to everything he did, even though the older guy is much slower. If you didn't know anything about table tennis you'd think he's quite bad.

In Sweden we have lots of older guys from the Waldner era who are very experienced, with very good feeling for the ball. And there are so many examples of juniors who loop against block like they're FZD in the warm-up only to get utterly destroyed in serve-return or as soon as they face any kind of strange irregular ball. It happens to me a lot too.

I've seen a guy who had 4 match points against Michael Maze in the danish league (he ended up losing, but still) and has beaten top semi-pro french juniors. I've seen the same guy lose a best of 3 in practice against a player rated a fair bit lower than me. These things don't happen often, but it happens (granted training and proper matches are different).

When we're talking about rating there's always a range which varies over time, there are a lot of factors involved. But experience is king. Lots of experience in different and high level training environments plus a good technical foundation (which you'd probably get in a high level training environment) is what puts you at odds of becoming pro. Lots of experience and an unorthodox playing style that suits you may beat a technically skilled opponent that isn't experienced enough in adapting their technique to those styles.

The unorthodox player will probably hit a wall where they won't be able to beat more typically technically sound players who are experienced and adapted to those otherwise strange balls. If the technically skilled player aren't able to adapt their technique to certain balls they'll also hit a wall.

None of it is surprising or strange.

Gozo Aruna · Feb 23, 2022

Well said Richie. I am those typical player who can loop nice FH during stroke but crumble it down to dust when playing game especially when the opponent start giving funny spinny service, some short, some long.

Also I am poor at reading spin. Granted many of my mates said you need to read the spin, see the hand gesture, contact point bla bla bla. But I just can't. If I could read spin, I would have already after playing for eight years. I just can't. Nobody I met has been able to teach me effectively how to read spin.

Sigh,,, why did I choose such a difficult sport?

UpSideDownCarl · Feb 23, 2022

Gozo said:
Well said Richie. I am those typical player who can loop nice FH during stroke but crumble it down to dust when playing game especially when the opponent start giving funny spinny service, some short, some long.

Also I am poor at reading spin. Granted many of my mates said you need to read the spin, see the hand gesture, contact point bla bla bla. But I just can't. If I could read spin, I would have already after playing for eight years. I just can't. Nobody I met has been able to teach me effectively how to read spin.

Sigh,,, why did I choose such a difficult sport?

You can learn to read spin. You just have not been given good information.

Just as important as the angle of the racket on contact (and you can be tricked by this), is to watch the pattern of arc on the ball and the way the ball bounces after hitting the table. Topspin balls have more curve to their trajectory. Backspin has a flatter trajectory.

You should watch a lot more video footage of yourself. I think if you really look closely, even at your strokes, you may find ways of improving things. But in game play, watch what you do. Worth watching footage of yourself playing people who are better than you as well. People who make you take awkward shots.

Zwill · Feb 23, 2022

Gozo said:
Well said Richie. I am those typical player who can loop nice FH during stroke but crumble it down to dust when playing game especially when the opponent start giving funny spinny service, some short, some long.

Also I am poor at reading spin. Granted many of my mates said you need to read the spin, see the hand gesture, contact point bla bla bla. But I just can't. If I could read spin, I would have already after playing for eight years. I just can't. Nobody I met has been able to teach me effectively how to read spin.

Sigh,,, why did I choose such a difficult sport?

You could get some of those bi-colored DHS balls. Or hell you can just use a black marker to make visible signs on a white ball. It can help people who have trouble reading spin from the opponents movement. Sooner or later your brain will figure out the relations and even without the marks can make a pretty decent estimate of the direction and quantity of spin.

Richie · Feb 23, 2022

Gozo said:
Well said Richie. I am those typical player who can loop nice FH during stroke but crumble it down to dust when playing game especially when the opponent start giving funny spinny service, some short, some long.

Also I am poor at reading spin. Granted many of my mates said you need to read the spin, see the hand gesture, contact point bla bla bla. But I just can't. If I could read spin, I would have already after playing for eight years. I just can't. Nobody I met has been able to teach me effectively how to read spin.

Sigh,,, why did I choose such a difficult sport?

It isn't easy. But that's also the beauty of it. My advice to you would be to try the serves you're having difficulty with, if you can generate similar spin yourself you might be less surprised when you face them. It's difficult to teach someone how to read spin, it's kind of learnt from experience and exposure and testing out different approaches. Decent technique helps as that increases your racket speed so that you don't always have to have a perfect read on the spin. Your process may look very different from others depending on when you started learning, training environment etc. It's difficult to give specific advice here.

I'd encourage you to experiment with different receives and as difficult as it is, to try to forget about the results for now. If you're always going with the spin, trying push against it, Experiment with taking the ball earlier or later. I think it's best to first do this against serves where you know the spin. Also keep in mind people may serve differently during practice compared to matches.

If some of your mates played players a few levels higher than them they'd struggle with reading their spin and no amount of telling them to see the hand gesture, contact points etc would help. Though it is good to channel your focus on the contact point and the flight of the ball as those are useful cues. Too much focus on this however, I worry makes us "forget" what to do and lock up.

I might as well be giving this advice to myself btw and I am trying to implement it, it's tough.

Lula · Feb 23, 2022

Reading spin on serves i think is alot about playing against a lot of different players. And a lot of trial and error!

Gozo Aruna · Feb 24, 2022

Yesterday I had the good fortune of training for about one & half hour against a chopper ( LP on BH + Chinese Tacky on FH ). My max strokes able to loop back against his super underspin is 3. And boy! It is darn tiring to loop against chopper. I was a bloody darn good workout too, even my undies are totally soaked.

After that we went for supper together, sat down and had some conversation about TT. He said, he also train in a neighbouring state against some junior ( U15 ) players. He said, even state players ( equivalent to Provincial ) also have trouble looping against underspin like his ( chopper ). He says it is due to the training and coaching. He continued, there are so few choppers in the league that many coaches tend not to focus on these players. He further add, most Jr state level player are like cookie-cutter, they will concentrate on close to table counter-hitting / looping ( 2 wings ). They are trained massively on this style. The game play is now moving into this trend as he sees it.

I too think likewise because my coach seems to be also teaching me the same style ( 2 wing fast counter-hitting / looping ). My private coach is one of my state's level coach. It appears that the syllabus is similar across states ( province ).

So, there you go... it is probably the current trend towards fast 2 wing counter-hitting / looping and this makes many new players weak against unorthodox players like anti / LP / SP. However, these unorthodox players tend to be concentrated in the veteran category, so for these Jr players, it is not an issue coz they will most likely not be facing these unorthodox players anyway.

cytivrat · Feb 25, 2022

Backstory: A coach who taught me basic technique long-long ago wasn't good at backhand loop. So I mostly was discovering it by myself, trying to mimic those who can do it well (and who I could see just once a year on a competition). It ended up in a good opening loop against backspin and almost zero consistency against any kind of block or opponents loop. That wasn't that critical those days, since I tried to cover most of the table with my forehand after opening loop from my bh. A little bit more than 1 year ago I've got a coach who knows something about it and finally I'm getting more consistent and satisfied with BH loop.
But now I have a problem, After something like 1 minute of looping against block, I start feeling that my deltoid medial part (probably) is tightened too much or maybe it is to of lateral head of triceps brachii muscle or both. It affects speed of my upper arm. Therefore it gets into proper position much slower, out of sync with other parts and I'm starting making mistakes due to this. But I cannot relax it at all at that moment. This doesn't happen when I'm looping against backspin (probably due to having more time to prepare to shots therefore to relax a little bit or maybe due to different starting position) or if I play drill like two BH-two FH.
Is this simply due to my muscle being not used to this kind of work (and in this case will go away over time by itself)?
Or I'm making some mistake(s) in my upper arm position or movement? Then how should I change it?
Or it is normal?
Is there something I can do at home to reduce this effect?

Der_Echte · Feb 25, 2022

Maybe you could do better getting the ball a little more into your left before impact. You look like your impact point is just a little too inside. It looks like you are moving your elbow and upper arm a little during impact. When you are tightening up and do a violent movement a little off natural whip, you can strain stuff. It might also be that you are tightening up too early. You should firm up only right at impact.

This shot you are doing should have the upper arm and elbow pretty much stable by impact and during impact.

It is possible that on some of these BH shots in your vid that you were a little too inside the ball on position and moved your upper arm/elbow to the side to get the bat in line. When you do that explosively tightening up too early, it may strain you some.

Gozo Aruna · Feb 26, 2022

cytivrat said:

You have a very nice BH drive. I would kill to have something like yours. So silky smooth and lots of spin too. I am envious!

UpSideDownCarl · Feb 26, 2022

cytivrat said:
Backstory: A coach who taught me basic technique long-long ago wasn't good at backhand loop. So I mostly was discovering it by myself, trying to mimic those who can do it well (and who I could see just once a year on a competition). It ended up in a good opening loop against backspin and almost zero consistency against any kind of block or opponents loop. That wasn't that critical those days, since I tried to cover most of the table with my forehand after opening loop from my bh. A little bit more than 1 year ago I've got a coach who knows something about it and finally I'm getting more consistent and satisfied with BH loop.
But now I have a problem, After something like 1 minute of looping against block, I start feeling that my deltoid medial part (probably) is tightened too much or maybe it is to of lateral head of triceps brachii muscle or both. It affects speed of my upper arm. Therefore it gets into proper position much slower, out of sync with other parts and I'm starting making mistakes due to this. But I cannot relax it at all at that moment. This doesn't happen when I'm looping against backspin (probably due to having more time to prepare to shots therefore to relax a little bit or maybe due to different starting position) or if I play drill like two BH-two FH.
Is this simply due to my muscle being not used to this kind of work (and in this case will go away over time by itself)?
Or I'm making some mistake(s) in my upper arm position or movement? Then how should I change it?
Or it is normal?
Is there something I can do at home to reduce this effect?

From the standpoint of biomechanics, your BH stroke is functional. So, the stroke will not be the cause of a shoulder injury. Said differently, the mechanics of your stroke are safe. The motion itself is hard on the shoulder. It is very likely you are feeling your external rotator muscles and maybe the deltoids and triceps are trying to help them. But, that you are using and likely feeling your external rotator muscles in your shoulder, is a sign the mechanics of your stroke are pretty decent. However, the rotator cuff muscles (external rotator muscles in your shoulder) are small muscles and that is hard work for them.

Over time, they will get stronger. But, you could look up "Rotator Cuff Strengthening Exercises" on YouTube and do them on your free time. Don't do them with heavy weights. Light weights only.

But, yeah, as you said, over time, those muscles will get strong enough on their own. But doing those rotator cuff strengthening exercises will make it happen a little faster.

Lula · Feb 26, 2022

cytivrat said:
Backstory: A coach who taught me basic technique long-long ago wasn't good at backhand loop. So I mostly was discovering it by myself, trying to mimic those who can do it well (and who I could see just once a year on a competition). It ended up in a good opening loop against backspin and almost zero consistency against any kind of block or opponents loop. That wasn't that critical those days, since I tried to cover most of the table with my forehand after opening loop from my bh. A little bit more than 1 year ago I've got a coach who knows something about it and finally I'm getting more consistent and satisfied with BH loop.
But now I have a problem, After something like 1 minute of looping against block, I start feeling that my deltoid medial part (probably) is tightened too much or maybe it is to of lateral head of triceps brachii muscle or both. It affects speed of my upper arm. Therefore it gets into proper position much slower, out of sync with other parts and I'm starting making mistakes due to this. But I cannot relax it at all at that moment. This doesn't happen when I'm looping against backspin (probably due to having more time to prepare to shots therefore to relax a little bit or maybe due to different starting position) or if I play drill like two BH-two FH.
Is this simply due to my muscle being not used to this kind of work (and in this case will go away over time by itself)?
Or I'm making some mistake(s) in my upper arm position or movement? Then how should I change it?
Or it is normal?
Is there something I can do at home to reduce this effect?

Nice backhand!

- Maybe you can try to relax the arm more on the way back? to tense all the time will be hard on the muscles.

- I think you can try progressive relaxing to be able to learn more how to relax, so basically tense muscles and relax so you feel how they feel when they are relaxed.

- Maybe not do so many rep of the same stroke if you have shoulder problem? And it is pretty cool that regarding motor learning you learn faster and better if you practice random and not in block, so better to loop against bh for a while, then against the fh and then maybe connect bh and fh. The evidence suggest that is better for motor learning than just blocktraining like bh loop towards one spot.

I have some shoulder trouble as well so are thinking about this:
- try to do more strenght training and stretch after
- periodization: so practice different things at different days. I did a lot of footwork drills every training and that was not good for my body. Also good if we can get in other type of training. Not good for the body to just play tabletennis. And REST.

And a question: i am thinking about getting a carbon blade and maybe a light one(balsa?!) and see how that affects the shoulder. EDIT: forgot the question haha. What do you think about it?

cytivrat · Feb 26, 2022

Der_Echte, UpSideDownCarl, Lula thanks you all for your advices, looks like I have to take them all:
1) moving starting point like 2-3 cm to the left seems to be better, also leaning forward a little bit more might also help. Well, I checked it without table and without ball, with less repeat number, so maybe those assumptions won't work in real life, or will result some other problems, but I guess I have to try. And work on my footwork when getting into position for backhand shots.

2) "Rotator Cuff Strengthening Exercises" is really a must-have for me, I didn't realized, but probably you are right and that's the one causing all those problems. at least big part of it.

3) learn more how to relax is a nice idea too, like making movement (without ball and table, but with either racket or some small weight in my hand) and then force relaxation of those muscles, since it seems that I don't relax them at all when moving hand backwards into more neutral position. So this might also work.

I already do some stretching so probably I won't add anything here, however, maybe I need to review my warm-up routine to add more exercises for that area. I also don't think that I'm repeating the same stroke too many times (well, it is just 2 minutes, it rarely more, and then we switch to different combinations of FH and BH).
Also I already play with carbon blade (ALC) also I just tried to make a movement with my child racket which is around 25-30 grams lighter than mine, and it seems to me that weight is not a problem. Well, maybe I'll be able to play for 2.5 minutes instead of 2 minutes I currently can, but it won't solve this problem for me in general.

Thanks again for all your tips

Richie · Feb 26, 2022

cytivrat said:
Backstory: A coach who taught me basic technique long-long ago wasn't good at backhand loop. So I mostly was discovering it by myself, trying to mimic those who can do it well (and who I could see just once a year on a competition). It ended up in a good opening loop against backspin and almost zero consistency against any kind of block or opponents loop. That wasn't that critical those days, since I tried to cover most of the table with my forehand after opening loop from my bh. A little bit more than 1 year ago I've got a coach who knows something about it and finally I'm getting more consistent and satisfied with BH loop.
But now I have a problem, After something like 1 minute of looping against block, I start feeling that my deltoid medial part (probably) is tightened too much or maybe it is to of lateral head of triceps brachii muscle or both. It affects speed of my upper arm. Therefore it gets into proper position much slower, out of sync with other parts and I'm starting making mistakes due to this. But I cannot relax it at all at that moment. This doesn't happen when I'm looping against backspin (probably due to having more time to prepare to shots therefore to relax a little bit or maybe due to different starting position) or if I play drill like two BH-two FH.
Is this simply due to my muscle being not used to this kind of work (and in this case will go away over time by itself)?
Or I'm making some mistake(s) in my upper arm position or movement? Then how should I change it?
Or it is normal?
Is there something I can do at home to reduce this effect?

I think you could try experimenting with adjusting your arm structure slightly. To me, it looks like your elbow/arm is too close to your body so you don't have much space to swing. With the older type backhand technique this is ok since that technique relied more on body rotation and that body rotation gave space for the swing even if the elbow/arm was close to the body.

For the more modern backhand which has a more up and down movement I think you need this space more - so try to let the elbow come out more. As you backswing push with your legs so that the swing isn't entirely arm driven. But it looks like you may already be doing that.

Check the the picture of the guy behind you to see kind of what I mean of the elbow position and how far out it is. It doesn't have to be extreme, but experiment with it to see if that gives you more swing space.

cytivrat · Feb 26, 2022

Richie said:
I think you could try experimenting with adjusting your arm structure slightly. To me, it looks like your elbow/arm is too close to your body so you don't have much space to swing. With the older type backhand technique this is ok since that technique relied more on body rotation and that body rotation gave space for the swing even if the elbow/arm was close to the body.

For the more modern backhand which has a more up and down movement I think you need this space more - so try to let the elbow come out more. As you backswing push with your legs so that the swing isn't entirely arm driven. But it looks like you may already be doing that.

Check the the picture of the guy behind you to see kind of what I mean of the elbow position and how far out it is. It doesn't have to be extreme, but experiment with it to see if that gives you more swing space.

Actually, I'm trying that and been pointed to that picture multiple times by my coach. So you are right. However the problem is that on first shots it is not that bad (still not enough as you noticed) but the longer I do, the slower my upper arm moves (due to too much tension in it) and after like a minute of play I cannot move it fast enough to get to appropriate position (and that's the main reason of my original post)

Richie · Feb 26, 2022

cytivrat said:
Actually, I'm trying that and been pointed to that picture multiple times by my coach. So you are right. However the problem is that on first shots it is not that bad (still not enough as you noticed) but the longer I do, the slower my upper arm moves (due to too much tension in it) and after like a minute of play I cannot move it fast enough to get to appropriate position (and that's the main reason of my original post)

Hmm I see. Check this video out:

You can see he has his arm quite well out in front and just does a short whip motion with his wrist, since you're hitting backhands close to the table I think this is what you should aim for. The turning of the upperarm and a push with the legs is what drives the swing. The further you are from the table the more you can turn your upper arm back for a bigger swing. Your upper arm/elbow should be stable and not move much, it's the turning of it that is the backhand swing imo.

I hope it helps.. it takes time to change these things.

Gozo Aruna · Feb 26, 2022

FH technique with new rubber: Donic Bluefire M1 Turbo

FH loop against underspin

Gozo Aruna · Feb 26, 2022

My BH technique

Gozo Aruna · Feb 26, 2022

My BH technique

Bloopers below:

Here you can see and contrast my BH with Cytivrat's. I just can't get that kind of wonderful spin that he makes with his BH.

maurice101 · Feb 27, 2022

Cytivrat, Check out how Harimotos elbow comes out as the bat goes back for the backswing. Body comes up and forward as the bat goes back allows a more effortless faster swing and should reduce your tension issues. Its hard to see on the video unless you use slow motion. You are just rotating your arm around your elbow which takes more muscular effort. Adding a more dynamic body up motion like Harimoto's would also would allow a more relaxed swing. So I suggest to work on your body mechanics and timing of the backswing to gain more relaxation. Delay the backswing as long as possible. Saying someone to relax more does not work if the stroke structure is not great. Good body mechanics allows you to relax your arm that allows a faster racket speed.

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