Forehand / Backhand technique advice

Firstly, your robot frequency is set too high.
Slow it down!

As above, lower your stance, and make sure all your shots you are on your toe and and not your heal.
FH shot, when you finish the shot, make sure your centre of the body faces the direction you are hiting (you are facing the camera all the time)
Other than that, best to also take video from behind too. And do you have a coach?

Hawsegawa said:

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far, I will try and upload some match play when I can get some recorded. I have a lot to work on already, though! : D

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Don't worry and stress over it. Everybody starts from zero. And table tennis is a lifetime sport. Unless you are planning to break into the England national team soon you have plenty of time to improve . All the best in your pursuit of excellence !!!

Hawsegawa said:

Yes, we have a coach who runs some training sessions at the local club. He likes to focus on movement and consistency of shots, but it appears I need to focus more on my stance and weight transferring, strokes etc.. Back to the basics! From looking at the video again it looks as if i'm transferring my weight to the side, perhaps thats how I am generating all the sidespin? It feels really strange not using my wrist when playing a forehand, probably because i am so used to it. It's really effective for me, especially when i am looping but if i play a player who can return it, it comes back at such an awkward angle for me because of the sidespin.

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yes , then you will have problems in building your game up, because it will get restricted to a max of one or two consecutive sidespin loops.

By the way, the robot speed thing. I am not sure I agree 100% with the idea that you "need" to slow the robot down. The idea that you can hit pretty consistently at that speed is good. It means your reset is fast. It is worth working at many different speeds. If you can use a speed that fast and hit consistently, it means that when the pace gets quicker in real rallies, you are more likely going to be ready and used to that pace.

But, perhaps it is a hard pace at which to change fundamentals. So slower is ALSO good. Use many different ball frequency settings. If you can do the faster ones, you have to be doing something well. But you need to be able to work at speeds where you can consciously change fundamentals. I personally think you are doing pretty well.

UpSideDownCarl said:

By the way, the robot speed thing. I am not sure I agree 100% with the idea that you "need" to slow the robot down. The idea that you can hit pretty consistently at that speed is good. It means your reset is fast. It is worth working at many different speeds. If you can use a speed that fast and hit consistently, it means that when the pace gets quicker in real rallies, you are more likely going to be ready and used to that pace.

But, perhaps it is a hard pace at which to change fundamentals. So slower is ALSO good. Use many different ball frequency settings. If you can do the faster ones, you have to be doing something well. But you need to be able to work at speeds where you can consciously change fundamentals. I personally think you are doing pretty well.

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I agree with what you say about fast and slow speed

But from OP's video, he has fundemental flaws in his stroke, and the main reason I see for that is because the robot is too quick.
I see this with some other coaches, and I also told them to slow it down a little bit and allow the student to do a proper full stroke - even if it is european style.

But no, they choose to do it fast, and it trains the kid to just hit the ball by using arm movement (like wacking a fly).
Nothing from feet, waist etc. no time for that.
A very good training to back the bad habit worse

Simplest way for you to improve further is to atch Timo Boll's body positioning and technique and use it as a template to develop your game.
I feel you chose the wrong videos in your first post, Tony is right , the ball machine is too fast for your current speed , you are executing your strokes better in game than in that practice video.There is nothing wrong with your basics and except may be footwork , to improve which you would need multiball. You just need to work on your body positioning and movement. Try to learn from timo , how to use weight transfer to generate more spin , starting from service to any other shots he executes, how he stays low, how he does a "skip step" right at the moment he gets ready for the serve , these things will help you improve further and see if you can get somebody to run you to death by feeding multiball that should take care of your footwork issues.