says http://N-Box.co.cc [IMG] My Best Player after Ma Long...
says http://N-Box.co.cc [IMG] My Best Player after Ma Long...
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Thx for share, I hate bending down all the time picking up balls!
 
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It kind of makes me sad how important multi-balling is to being good at the sport. It's not like in tennis where there's more room for pure genius and talent, and will power I guess. Not to say there's not genius, talent and etc. in TT, just hard core practice and muscle memory seems to make a larger statement in TT than in other sports.
 
says Spin and more spin.
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Multiball is important. But not for the reasons you might think. It is for muscle memory and for the fact that you are actually doing things at a faster pace than would happen in a game. The downside of multiball is that, since it is a drill where there is a pattern, you know where the next ball is going, so your reactions are based on a format. That never happens in a real game. The ball can go anywhere.

No matter what you do, every point starts with the serve, so you are either serving or receiving the serve. And if you watch enough game play, most points are over after the 3rd ball. So serve and receive drills are very important. Once you have the basic strokes and your footwork is starting to be adequate (everyone needs to work on footwork and make their footwork better, it is very important), if you spend 60-75% of your practice time on serve and attack drills your level will improve, your footwork will improve, all the skills you need for table tennis will improve. You need to do all the other drills too: practicing all the strokes, practicing footwork drills with multiball, there are many of them that are worth practicing, this one in the video and falkenberg are probably the most important for someone who has basic footwork skills. The reason the one in the video is so valuable is you develop the ability to field everything with the forehand and to move deep to the backhand quickly with the forehand.

But multiball drills are simply for developing muscle memory and because they make you go faster than you would need in a game situation. Shadow strokes and shadow footwork drills are valuable too for the same reason. The the reason not to overemphasize these kinds of drills is that they are patterns and you know where the next ball is going, so the anticipation is very different than if you needed to watch your opponent's racket and contact and react to where they hit the ball. These kinds of drills also do not teach you how to think, problem solve and play intelligently. There are players who do all these drills really well and have great strokes but do not work on serve and receive skills (game skills) and then they play some guy who looks like he sucks, cannot do those drills, does not have good strokes or good footwork, and they get killed because he serves and attacks really well. :) I have seen 2000 level players (USATT rating), very good players, loose to little old men who could not move and looked like they had terrible strokes, but man they were good at serving and putting the ball away on you. On the pro level you can look at He Zhi Wen. As far as footwork is concerned, at 50 (or how ever old he is now) that guy is sort of like a statue, stuck in one place, at least in comparison to most of the pros, but he is nothing short of amazing. :)
 
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Multiball is important. But not for the reasons you might think. It is for muscle memory and for the fact that you are actually doing things at a faster pace than would happen in a game. The downside of multiball is that, since it is a drill where there is a pattern, you know where the next ball is going, so your reactions are based on a format. That never happens in a real game. The ball can go anywhere.

No matter what you do, every point starts with the serve, so you are either serving or receiving the serve. And if you watch enough game play, most points are over after the 3rd ball. So serve and receive drills are very important. Once you have the basic strokes and your footwork is starting to be adequate (everyone needs to work on footwork and make their footwork better, it is very important), if you spend 60-75% of your practice time on serve and attack drills your level will improve, your footwork will improve, all the skills you need for table tennis will improve. You need to do all the other drills too: practicing all the strokes, practicing footwork drills with multiball, there are many of them that are worth practicing, this one in the video and falkenberg are probably the most important for someone who has basic footwork skills. The reason the one in the video is so valuable is you develop the ability to field everything with the forehand and to move deep to the backhand quickly with the forehand.

But multiball drills are simply for developing muscle memory and because they make you go faster than you would need in a game situation. Shadow strokes and shadow footwork drills are valuable too for the same reason. The the reason not to overemphasize these kinds of drills is that they are patterns and you know where the next ball is going, so the anticipation is very different than if you needed to watch your opponent's racket and contact and react to where they hit the ball. These kinds of drills also do not teach you how to think, problem solve and play intelligently. There are players who do all these drills really well and have great strokes but do not work on serve and receive skills (game skills) and then they play some guy who looks like he sucks, cannot do those drills, does not have good strokes or good footwork, and they get killed because he serves and attacks really well. :) I have seen 2000 level players (USATT rating), very good players, loose to little old men who could not move and looked like they had terrible strokes, but man they were good at serving and putting the ball away on you. On the pro level you can look at He Zhi Wen. As far as footwork is concerned, at 50 (or how ever old he is now) that guy is sort of like a statue, stuck in one place, at least in comparison to most of the pros, but he is nothing short of amazing. :)

I agree with you on some parts. I do multi ball aswell and the first ball is short but all the others are placed everywhere on the table, so I dont really know where the ball is coming so I have to react which is better than knowing where the ball is coming. So the downside you said can easily be helped. But you are right about xu xin practicing speed and muscle memory.

And you are right about He Zhi Wen, he is like a statue, but you have to look at other people with the same style they dont really move that much. Look at the woman li jiao or the headcoach of the chinese team. They move of course but not as much as other players it seems.
 
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Part of it is for muscle memory, but ideally it shouldn't be completely set as to where the ball goes, a lot of the multiball drills they do for the national team and probably any team is to have random balls, to test your footwork, reaction speed. While in a match the ball can theoretically go anyway, usually thats not the case. Based off the spin that you gave the ball, what position your opponent is in, you can roughly usually guess what area the ball will go to. Of course sometimes the opponent will do something thats harder to do, and thats unexpected. The multi ball because the person feeding you the ball can go to random sides very quickly and as much as he wants can actually be way more random than in an actual point during a game. So if you can react quick enough and still return the ball with decent quality during the drill, you will fare much better in the actual game, than if you didn't do such drills during training
 
says Spin and more spin.
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The first time I saw him play I thought that Xu Xin was one of the fastest players I have ever seen. But that is freakin' fast. I am sorry. I have been filmed doing things I thought were fast and then I saw them on video and realized they were not as fast as I thought. I would be very surprised if anyone on this forum can get filmed footage of them doing that drill even close to as fast as that. Even without hitting the balls I doubt anyone here can do it that fast. I would actually be surprised if anyone else on the Chinese national team can go that fast. They can all do this drill. But that is fast.
 
says Spin and more spin.
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scylla24 and kaikaz, you are making some good points. And you can do multiball and add the element of randomness. And in a game you can have a good idea where the ball is going to go and even set yourself up. Even in the drill that Xu Xin is doing in this video, the ball does not go to the exact same spot so he is having to adjust to the ball. And it is worth working on all the skills of playing.

And of course this statement is very true and well said: "The multi ball because the person feeding you the ball can go to random sides very quickly and as much as he wants can actually be way more random than in an actual point during a game. So if you can react quick enough and still return the ball with decent quality during the drill, you will fare much better in the actual game, than if you didn't do such drills during training."
 
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It is a balls will hit the table and my technique will be horrible as well
 
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