Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

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I ‘ve played a few training sessions recently, but tonight is the 1st night back for one of the clubs I play for, looking forward to seeing everyone again!!
I’ve also booked myself onto a level one coaches course!!! Roll on end of July for the 1st session, followed by 8 weeks coursework with the final day of training end September!! Time to put something back into the sport!!

Nice one IB66 – whereabout do you play?

 
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Hi, I've been working again on the basics recently, notably to try to fix my FH








I think it looks like you have improved! Good work! How are you working on your forehand? If i was your coach i think i would have you extend and relax you arm in front of you and only try to move the body. Then when you can that well you can ad the arm in the end of the stroke. If you look at your shoulders they do not turn very much which means that you are not using the body so much. If you can be able to use the body and the arm less you consistency and power will improve dramatically. I think your backhand looks better than your forehand, what do you think? Keep up the hard work.

 
I agree with Lula, at least after the first 2 sentences.
From the first video it seams that you have worked a lot on your footwork, which is good, but for some reason now you look more tensed than before.
As Lula said, it's better to be more relaxed and to widen the swing.
Following the footwork you try to pop up, which is good, but it doesn't look very natural and fluid, which is also because you are tensed.
And look on your shoulders - when you pop up, your shoulders move a bit backwards, instead of forwards.
 
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@Lula
thanks. I've posted a lot of videos in the past. There were many things in my FH I wasn't happy with.

I think i have a better (= lower) stance, with legs a bit more apart. my swing is more horizontal and less vertical, and the racket angle more closed than in the past.
regarding the use of the body, and power, i don't feel like i'm lacking power but more that i could add more spin if i used the wrist more. its a bit frustrating.

During the video, the coach tells me that i should try to keep my upper body low, and his way of teaching is that the left arm should be like a crosshair and i should try to keep it high and avoid that left shoulder to go down, because it would mean i kind of twist my body and i would lose balance and power. OTOH, i should try keep that crosshair fixed and the right arm should converge to the left arm at the end of the stroke. so the 2 shoulders shouldn't move together. That might be a reason why you say im not moving my body enough.

in the past, i had also a bad reflex with the racket suddenly changing angle at impact and im doing strange things with my elbow as well i.e. my arm wasn't stable. I still do it from time to time but much less I believe.

One thing which might make me tense is that in the waiting position, im making an extra effort to keep the racket higher; and also i'm waiting more for the ball. I try not to swing before the ball has crossed the net.

I agree with you my BH is much better quality than my FH. I still make a lot of mistakes but ball quality is better, i can feel i grip the ball and give it a lot of spin. I'm using better the power of my legs, and i'm quite quick with my BH swing and wrist.

Watching the video, I can see my upper body is going up much more than i'd like to. I think its because I'm lacking core muscles and use that extra movement to gain more power.
 
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Do not understand how only one shoulder can move if you rotate the torso and shift the weigth from right to left since the both shoulders are connected to the torso? I still think that if you can get more body in the stroke so the strokes starts with the body and it is the body that make the arm move, then you will get more power and consistency. I think you are limited in power and consistency now since you make stroke more with the arm and not the body.

Keep up the hard work.
 
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https://youtu.be/noHhgCMq-7E?t=547

coach is a bit caricaturing but is showing that its important to keep upper body low and that the free arm should not move away too much from the ball as we do the stroke. the body is rotating but its not moving like a solid. the right part of the body moves more. the left part should be kept more stable

 
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Thank you for the explanation! I think this is more for making you snap your elbow and get the weight and power forward. I can imagine he will teach you how to use the body more later or that you will learn it by doing this.

is it Japanese you guys speak? If I should try to learn some kind of chinese(mandarin?), Korean or Japanese. Which language do you think is easiest to learn for an Swede? 🙂

 
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yes we speak Japanese. I don't know about Korean. I would think Japanese is a bit easier than Chinese because:
- there are "imported" english words
- Japanese uses a limited number of Chinese characters (with 2000 you can already read a lot of stuff, in Chinese you'd need twice that or more)
- pronunciation is much easier in Japanese whereas in Mandarin you have 4 tones

However I think Chinese grammar is simpler than Japanese. But both languages grammar are much simpler than for European languages.

If you look at clip 3 (where the coach gives the explanation) where i do only FH, i think i'm making pretty good use of my hips

However when i do exercises where i need to move and do both FH + BH, yes i'm a bit pressured by time so i move less my hips and often I take the ball a bit later than i'd really wish to.
 
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-a youtube link-

coach is a bit caricaturing but is showing that its important to keep upper body low and that the free arm should not move away too much from the ball as we do the stroke. the body is rotating but its not moving like a solid. the right part of the body moves more. the left part should be kept more stable

I think that using the left leg as an anchor could make it easier to stabilize the free arm, which should help you to control the direction of your stroke better (more forward). To keep a lower stance, you can try to put a bit more space between you and the ball so your elbow fits better in between. You can also bend your elbow if the ball comes close to your body and you don't have time to move.

Another thing I noticed is that your left foot is always in the air when you contact the ball. That isn't really a mistake, but it makes you move during the stroke, which probably isn't what you want in such slow paced practice. (Remember that not moving during the stroke can also mean that the stroke isn't connected to the ground properly, that is, if the left leg isn't used to decelerate.)

 
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Thank you for the explanation! I think this is more for making you snap your elbow and get the weight and power forward. I can imagine he will teach you how to use the body more later or that you will learn it by doing this.is it Japanese you guys speak? If I should try to learn some kind of chinese(mandarin?), Korean or Japanese. Which language do you think is easiest to learn for an Swede? 🙂

Lula, I have friends who have learned each of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. I have firsthand learning with the Korean. Short answer is it will not be easy for any of those three.

I was burned out from learning Korean when I was assigned to Germany, never learned a word in my first two years, then my wife got on my azz about learning German so I could get discounts in open air markets... so I took the first 4 semesters of University Maryland German night classes... 4 month semester condensed into 10 weeks of 2x per week 2 hrs classes at night... I metup with some German friends 6 months later and they were like WTF !!!???!!! When did you learn German? I told them I started 6 months ago. At that point, I could function instinctively, with some imperfections. With Korean, at the 6 month mark of studying full time 8 hrs classroom per day and 4 hrs homework per night...

I couldn't order food in Korean resturant in Korean to avoid starving. If I tried to ask for a date, all I would get is my azz kicked in a firsthand lesson given to me in Taekwondo for making huge mistakes that were insults.

Chinese comparatively has easier grammar and easier to put tgether stuff... but that vocabulary learning curve is STEEP and it NEVER ENDS.

Japanese is upside-down for a Euro dude for sure. You got both grammar differences and vocab learning going on at the same time... which can be some serious brain over-load. Those who stay with it catch on soon enough. It is real tough, but not a 100 out of 100 mission impossible.

Korean learning, to a working professional level is esily the worst (morst difficult) of the three. Grammar is worse than upside-down, it is backwards, sideways, and there is a grammar pattern for EVERYTHING it seems... where in the Euro languages theer is just a word to learn to plug and play. The complexity of initial grammar... rediculous. Vocab initially is WORSE as there are honorific nouns that need to be used. Sure, there are many levels of honorific with just the verbs going on... all this at same time is WAY TOO MUCH. You are a crash and burn candidate. Many do not stay with it. However, once one can get through it all and not lose their mind, Korean learning and expressinve gets real instinctive and natural to think in and operate in.
 
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Yeah.
What I wrote should be closer to chinese.

The european languages can be difficult in different way.

For example in bulgarian the verb "to eat", as any other verb, has different forms like:

I - yam
You/singular/ - yadesh
He, she, it - yade
We - yadem
You/plural/ - yadete
They - yadat
 
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Korean verb for "to eat" has one commonly accepted verb use in normal situations, several for slang situations, and two different ones for honorific situations based on who is doing the eating.

That is just the different number of possible verbs you have to correctly choose, then there is the thing about having to choose the proper conjegation of the verb out of 16 possible ones being aware of honorific and type of verb ending bending and whether you are talking to friend or not.
 
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Haha this feels hard, but some kind of Chinese would be “easiest”?
 
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I have an international umpire friend with very short limited training in Chinese, but he can pronounce and use what tiny he learned just fine and get great compliments, but let's keep it real... there is about ZERO chance you would achieve a level of proficiency in the first 6 months trying that would even approach successfully and correctly asking a lady for a date and not getting assassinated for some huge mis-step and/or mis-use of word, that would likely result in a grave physical beating... unless you are a 2nd and 3rd degree black belt... that MIGHT give you a fighting chance.
 
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... but Lula... for real also... with women and also with men (10,000x better to get friends with men and ask them to introduce you to lady friends)... ...(TTD Chairman's FAVORITE - GRAFT is always a good thing with the guy friend crowd, usually in the form of free chicken and beers 2-12 times)

... if you SHOW EFFORT and show you are TRULY TRYING, then they will see it and 99% of people will resept that. Sincere effort of respecting where you are by tryng to learn against impossible odds as a foreigner is a big form of respect to the land and culture... and is always welcome anywhere. USUALLY.

Often, you get rewarded much more than your effort if you stay in one place long enogh and try hard enough and achieve at least a LITTLE progress.
 
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