1 year garage player. Just Wanted to share My Breakthroughs.

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Out of all the players that started a year ago in this garage, I was the one that wanted to learn the right way. Took me the longest to be competitive in games , and my play had a lot of ups and downs , since I was retooling my strokes, how I planted my feet, how I held the racket, getting new rackets etc. Even when I started winning consistently, if it was through ugly junky techniques or cause of garage dynamics , I wouldnt accept it.

The straw that broke the camels back was when I was going to leagues, and I lost to a guy that hasnt won in years, I beat everyone in the group comfortably , cause they were traditional attackers. This guy got dominated by everyone else , I went 5 games with him and lost,( he reported that he lost tho , probably not expecting the win lol). All the other leagues were pretty similar, Id lose to awkward, junkball players, My Forehand push , flick , smash /hit was too random and unreliable. It also never felt natural in a lot of spots.

My dream has always been to consistently beat the myriad of junk ball at the garage I was playing in with Fundamental and Zen like table tennis. Losing to most the awkward players everytime in league discouraged me for a few months . You realize your one of them. I'll just post a second part of how I got my groove back with the garage gang , so the first post wont be super long.
 
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So its been about a month and Ive been playing again in the garage, and it feels great to have ping pong back. I cant seem to win games or sets anymore against the boys. Theyve all improved and refined their junk even more.

I was coming in with the mindset of going back to the basics. I broke my racket that had modern spinny rubbers, So I went with a 90 gram N11 with 2 daweii 2008 Rubbers, this boy was heavy. My plan was to learn to hit forward with it for my forehand .Instead of that upward stroke I was getting away with on my old racket. Working Like a charm so far . It also improved my backhand and pushes since I had to improve the quality of my footwork and weight transfer to get quality similar to my old racket.

Forehand was still an enigma for me, some days it would all click, but most days it was MIA.

I saw a video on here about how for forehand , think of the pelvis instead of the thighs when swinging back and forward, it will make the rotation snappier and not as long. The same guy also did a video of how you shouldnt plant down with your back foot on forehand, but the motion should be upward or forwards.( This was an eye opener for me , I've been relating the weight transfer to something similar for my backhand. Now my movement is a lot more fluid and I get aot less fatigued.)

Forehand still wasn't as clear as backhand for me even with these improvements. Then I decided to do forehand counterhit/drive weight transfer for 2 hours trying to emulate the people that had that hip sway and easy looking swing. Everything that I just recently learned with not planting, forward motion, the pelvis /waist rotation came together. Where My backswing and elbow was slotted for the forehand was natural and made sense now. My forward swing can now accelerate with the forehand and wrist .My body is now involved reliably. The whole kinetic chain was fluid and worked together. Now I feel and see what a quality forehand entails. In my head all the forehand shots are more similar now, where you stand and what angle to take became a lot more clear. Instead of me trying to work backwards why a shot felt good and was of quality.

TLDR: I finally got a handle on my forehand by going back to the very basics and finally feeling what a correct weight transfer was.
 
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Is it enough grip with your current rubbers? Without it you Will develop wrong strokes.

If you want help with the technique post a video. Not a match, But just the different strokes.

If you join a club and get a coach you Will proably get good strokes.
 
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Yang yangs great. Shes probably the best player out of all the youtube coaches. I remember some of my highschool coaches would say, I think too much, the Wall of text I wrote proves that.Table tennis is great cause one of the ways to improve is to not over think, be loose and have things feel natural. I could use that to improve personally haha.
 
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I think it is better to have a real coach.

Youtube coaches are better than nothing. But i Do not think it matters how good player they are. A good coach and a good player is two different things.

I think it can be good to think in tabletennis, just on the correct things.
 
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Yea maybe a low price euro style rubber like illumina , ak 47, or zeropong rubbers? Or 2 G1 Fast arcs.

I kinda like how this racket makes me have to be on my toes more ,make sure my forward momentum is of better quality/timing and that acceleration of the stroke is there or else it sails/ goes to the net. Punishes you hard for having a foot of the ground thats not transferring momentum.

The top ply of the paddle is kinda like koto where passive blocks just die in the net. But counterhit type strokes dont get rewarded like with koto. So Ive been forced to open rallys up or long push without my backhand counterhit, something I relied on in games way to much. Id put myself in bad spots just to set up that counterhit.
 
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Yang yangs great. Shes probably the best player out of all the youtube coaches. I remember some of my highschool coaches would say, I think too much, the Wall of text I wrote proves that.Table tennis is great cause one of the ways to improve is to not over think, be loose and have things feel natural. I could use that to improve personally haha.

I don't think she's the best player of YouTube coaches, there are professional male players coaching on YouTube.
 
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