Guy plays Table Tennis Everyday for 1 year!

TableTennisDaily · Feb 17, 2015

Hey everyone!

For those of you who followed Ben and Sam's epic challenge creating a table tennis expert in one year is now over. Their end of year video has gone totally viral around the internet! As of writing, the video is the most watched sports video on the internet right now gathering a staggering 100k views in just 1 hour!

The video is currently ranked number 1 on Reddit and Digg!

Watch the end of year tribute below, spread the love!

Michal_Z · Feb 17, 2015

Dont want to be rude, but.. howmuch did this cost?

roadrunner · Feb 17, 2015

Michal_Z said:
Dont want to be rude, but.. howmuch did this cost?

Perhaps quite a lot. Regardless, a great effort by the young man and his coaches.

garbol · Feb 17, 2015

not really, it could costs nothing, depends on circumstances
in home, maybe his roommate was a tabletenis player and played with him for fun
in clubs, in some u can play for free
u can always analizes ur strokes when u are filming them and u can coordinate it and compare with for eg. ma long strokes

anchorschmidt · Feb 17, 2015

I'm happy that this is getting more attention. It was a fun and exciting experiment. I was following the blog and by October, their morale wasn't that high and both of them were a little disappointed that Sam didn't reach the level that they had aimed for.

He still did improve a lot and I hope they feel more positive about the whole thing now that it has gotten more attention.

cakezxc280 · Feb 17, 2015

Great effort and initiative! Really decent result as well!

However, while I am glad that this guy improved at such a tremendous pace, its a shame that this guy probably haven't got the best coaches there are out there, as most of you can probably see that there are some fundamental flaws in his game even after a year of intensive training....and that is generally caused by the incompetence of the "starter coach", the first coach thats responsible for the basic stuffs such as stance, strokes and small stuffs such as timing and ball following.
*EDIT: I just watched the video again, and I saw where the problem was. In the early part of his development, he was already on a bad stance and his strokes wasn't perfect. And it wasn't corrected at all. So he just went with it and it's going to be painful for him to change now....

And this might become a huge problem as one day it is going to be the major bottleneck when this guy wants to play at a really high level. In chinese we call this the roof of one's potential. It's not saying thats the furthest one can go, but its saying how far he can go without making fundamental changes to his game.

Tbh, this is a pretty common problem with most of the amateur players that almost never got a chance to learn from the best, in the case that they even get proper training at all.
I was lucky enough to have a ex-singaporean womens team coach to take that starter coach role for me and most of my friends back in secondary school, and we had this one guy that gets on borderline national youth team level in 2 years while training with only Chinese provincial team coaches for 3 days a week....

Conclusion: for any Table tennis beginner, a good coach means everything!

mcaibyz2 · Feb 17, 2015

I think they made great effort and I feel regret that Sam didn't achieve what they are aiming for. The fundamental reason is not that they didn't try hard enough, but that Sam didn't have a professional coach. I am sure that if Liu Guoliang coaches Sam, he will be a lot better player.

cakezxc280 · Feb 17, 2015

mcaibyz2 said:
I think they made great effort and I feel regret that Sam didn't achieve what they are aiming for. The fundamental reason is not that they didn't try hard enough, but that Sam didn't have a professional coach. I am sure that if Liu Guoliang coaches Sam, he will be a lot better player.

Well the target of England Top 200 part was way too far of a stretch anyways.....I know this guy that played NJL 1, and had probably played for a decade or more, and he couldnt get ranked into top 150....

anchorschmidt · Feb 17, 2015

cakezxc280 said:
Great effort and initiative! Really decent result as well!

However, while I am glad that this guy improved at such a tremendous pace, its a shame that this guy probably haven't got the best coaches there are out there, as most of you can probably see that there are some fundamental flaws in his game even after a year of intensive training....and that is generally caused by the incompetence of the "starter coach", the first coach thats responsible for the basic stuffs such as stance, strokes and small stuffs such as timing and ball following.
*EDIT: I just watched the video again, and I saw where the problem was. In the early part of his development, he was already on a bad stance and his strokes wasn't perfect. And it wasn't corrected at all. So he just went with it and it's going to be painful for him to change now....

And this might become a huge problem as one day it is going to be the major bottleneck when this guy wants to play at a really high level. In chinese we call this the roof of one's potential. It's not saying thats the furthest one can go, but its saying how far he can go without making fundamental changes to his game.

Tbh, this is a pretty common problem with most of the amateur players that almost never got a chance to learn from the best, in the case that they even get proper training at all.
I was lucky enough to have a ex-singaporean womens team coach to take that starter coach role for me and most of my friends back in secondary school, and we had this one guy that gets on borderline national youth team level in 2 years while training with only Chinese provincial team coaches for 3 days a week....

Conclusion: for any Table tennis beginner, a good coach means everything!

What exactly was wrong with his stance? As a beginner/intermediate player this could help me a lot. I didn't see anything wrong with his stance.

Well, I felt that his coach was much better than what most of us have access to. Yes, it would be a dream to get pointers from national level players or Liu Guoliang but the best I have is a Bezirksliga player who sometimes stops by and that's still better than what most people have.

You are completely right about the importance of the coach. A higher level player sometimes stops by and gives me pointers for 5 minutes without really playing with me but his inputs are so valuable. Without him, I wouldn't be at the level that I am today.

cakezxc280 · Feb 17, 2015

Head is not forward enough, thus centre of gravity isnt to the front and therefore this might create some stability problem when making shots.

Knees are too stiff and not bent enough. Will cost reaction time when moving for a ball, as u see when he is diverting from backhand to forehand, he usually pounces at the ball, not getting there before it does and making a complete shot. Also these sort of pounce will make him lose his CoG, thus making him lean backwards and that is hard to recover to prepare for the next shot if that pounce shot does get on....

Yea I realise its not easy to get the best coaches there are around....but they are not hard to find in the UK tbh. England has pro/semi-pros scattered everywhere around clubs and most of them would do a session for 25-30 pounds where I live....well it is harder than Asia where I can easily get a provincial standard coach in singapore for 30 euros a hour with a single phonecall, but still, finding a decent coach here isnt hard at all....

izra · Feb 17, 2015

speaking as someone who recently got into coaching others, it's very easy to look at someone and point out a flaw in their game. but you don't know how many other flaws this person has already worked on, how hard they are actually working on that flaw and for how long, or maybe what other flaws would arise if they actually changed it.

even with the combination of an ideal coach, ideal student + intense practice, you need loads and loads of time to tweek everything in it's place.

anchorschmidt · Feb 17, 2015

cakezxc280 said:
Head is not forward enough, thus centre of gravity isnt to the front and therefore this might create some stability problem when making shots.

Knees are too stiff and not bent enough. Will cost reaction time when moving for a ball, as u see when he is diverting from backhand to forehand, he usually pounces at the ball, not getting there before it does and making a complete shot. Also these sort of pounce will make him lose his CoG, thus making him lean backwards and that is hard to recover to prepare for the next shot if that pounce shot does get on....

Yea I realise its not easy to get the best coaches there are around....but they are not hard to find in the UK tbh. England has pro/semi-pros scattered everywhere around clubs and most of them would do a session for 25-30 pounds where I live....well it is harder than Asia where I can easily get a provincial standard coach in singapore for 30 euros a hour with a single phonecall, but still, finding a decent coach here isnt hard at all....

Ahh, I see thanks

Der_Echte · Feb 17, 2015

Pimp it Up and POUND that like button.

mcaibyz2 · Feb 18, 2015

The single problem I can see in Sam's game is that he is not relaxed making the strokes. The power of all shots comes from relaxed body generating high speed before hitting the ball. His shots lack of the extra speed and spin to kill the points. As a very fit young man Sam should generate powerful shots that is not seen in the video. Having said that, great effort and progress, and I am sure Sam still has great potential.

Tony's Table Tennis · Feb 18, 2015

I know the coach, nothing wrong with the coach.

Taking an adult beginner and doing 1 hour a day for a year (+/- 300 hours of coaching), this is very good already.

Ben did say that 250 was just a random number, and I doubt his intention is to create a full on "text book style" player.
Agree with the statement of - you won't understand, unless you are a coach.
I coach adult beginners, and it is indeed so much more difficult to groom, than opposed to a teenager.

Anyways, too many people love to comment on technique. This is besides the point of this project and this thread - so hint, derail

Well done Ben, Well done Sam.
Not easy to finish this kind of huge project off.
Talk is easy, doing is difficult, finishing off is even more difficult!!

Happy Chinese New Year

M51 · Feb 18, 2015

Don't mean to be a prick, but this is a typical example of "too much too soon". In complete honesty, the guy in the video didn't even master the basics.

UpSideDownCarl · Feb 19, 2015

I think they did great work for a year.

I think the technique in TT is super hard to develop and is obviously much harder for an adult. There are so many little details that could be refined that would slowly, over time, lead to a higher level. Many of those have been mentioned. One I saw was the FH stroke coming too much from shoulder and not enough elbow joint: forearm snap. There is pretty much no change in the angle of his elbow joint in the FH stroke. Which means sooo much more effort with much less acceleration.

But darn, that is sooooo so hard to change. The guy would have had to do hours of exercises every day to change a detail like that. And to get the timing of the forearm snap with the contact of the ball so you get the acceleration at the right time.....

So, as far as I am concerned, they did great. But when I heard the goal of top 200 in UK I thought, either the level in UK is lower than I thought, or that is aiming high.

Great job guys. For one year, looking at where he started and where he ended up, I think you did amazing work even if there is SOOOO much more that would need to be done to get to top 200.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

UpSideDownCarl · Feb 19, 2015

By the way, approximately 2350+ (USATT Rating) is top 200 in USA. I would assume that in the UK it is not that different. And 2350: It is REALLY hard to get that good. REALLY Hard. I don't think an adult who starts as a basement player standing upright and without good strokes could get there in a year no matter what the training.

There are a lot of adult players who are 1800 (USATT) that you couldn't get to 2350 in one year with 3 hours a day, 6 days a week of training.

So, It is worth being realistic.

Great job guys. I think it is pretty amazing how much Sam improved over the year.

Guy plays Table Tennis Everyday for 1 year!

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