Advice to improve my game.

[NextLevel]

Thank everyone for great comments and feedback! They are really helpful not only for my progress but for my understanding of the game too.

@pingpongpaddy @blahness I think I see the different in my strokes and theirs. I will put it into practice to see how it goes. Thank you for the great instruction videos!

"(people who have to swing hard all the time fall victim to tension and pressure," -> I am one of the victims of swinging hard all the times here, especially when looping agains backspin. It works to some extent against lower level players but my arm gets tired very quickly. Against higher level players, they just block my opening and the ball comes back too fast that I cannot attack and give up all of the initiatives.

This is a video of me practicing loops against backspin today. I tried to loop with different powers. I thought if I am able to hit hard and fast then it should be easy to hit soft and slow. But my error rate seems to be the same or even higher when using 50% of power and slower swing speed. Swinging slow needs different timing, control and needs a lot of practice too, I guess.

I don't know why it feels awkard for me bending my upper body forward during looping. I feel comfortable with body straight up like in the video, sometimes even backward a bit. It is also easier to move back after looping to wait for the opponent's block or counter.

"The second way is to hit through the ball and up, so you will generate spin by engaging the sponge" -> I tried to hit through the ball more in the last 15 seconds (loop kill ) but I felt the margin of error is too small since the ball doesn't have much clearance over the net. Is it because of my wrong technique or those balls are too low for that kind of shot?

Thank you

Hey, Phil, have you ever cracked a whip before? Or hammered a nail?

 

[blahness]

Thank everyone for great comments and feedback! They are really helpful not only for my progress but for my understanding of the game too.

@pingpongpaddy @blahness I think I see the different in my strokes and theirs. I will put it into practice to see how it goes. Thank you for the great instruction videos!

"(people who have to swing hard all the time fall victim to tension and pressure," -> I am one of the victims of swinging hard all the times here, especially when looping agains backspin. It works to some extent against lower level players but my arm gets tired very quickly. Against higher level players, they just block my opening and the ball comes back too fast that I cannot attack and give up all of the initiatives.

This is a video of me practicing loops against backspin today. I tried to loop with different powers. I thought if I am able to hit hard and fast then it should be easy to hit soft and slow. But my error rate seems to be the same or even higher when using 50% of power and slower swing speed. Swinging slow needs different timing, control and needs a lot of practice too, I guess.

I don't know why it feels awkard for me bending my upper body forward during looping. I feel comfortable with body straight up like in the video, sometimes even backward a bit. It is also easier to move back after looping to wait for the opponent's block or counter.

"The second way is to hit through the ball and up, so you will generate spin by engaging the sponge" -> I tried to hit through the ball more in the last 15 seconds (loop kill ) but I felt the margin of error is too small since the ball doesn't have much clearance over the net. Is it because of my wrong technique or those balls are too low for that kind of shot?

Thank you

I would advise you to watch 2 of Ti Long's videos below to learn how to overcome backspin easily. You seem to be struggling because you haven't figured out how to convert incoming backspin to your own topspin.

 

[PhilT]

Hey, Phil, have you ever cracked a whip before? Or hammered a nail?

Hi @NextLevel , I think I have.

 

[NextLevel]

Hi @NextLevel , I think I have.

Something like that is how your elbow and wrist should feel when you are swinging at the ball on your forehand and your backhand. That let's you get good and fast racket head speed which you can work on controlling with timing and practice. It's easier to use this whippy technique to loop backspin balls as well. It also helps with serving. Just food for thought. Your arm and wrist looks like it is moving as one unit when it should be whipping into the ball.

 

[PhilT]

Something like that is how your elbow and wrist should feel when you are swinging at the ball on your forehand and your backhand. That let's you get good and fast racket head speed which you can work on controlling with timing and practice. It's easier to use this whippy technique to loop backspin balls as well. It also helps with serving. Just food for thought. Your arm and wrist looks like it is moving as one unit when it should be whipping into the ball.

I see. I felt like I used a decent amount of wrist but maybe I actually didn't use enough? Let me try to focus on that next time.
And it seems I didn't use enough forearm and elbow rotation either?
Thank you!

 

[ben1229]

Really good to see you improving, relax your wrist before hitting the ball,

 

[JJ Ng]

Something like that is how your elbow and wrist should feel when you are swinging at the ball on your forehand and your backhand. That let's you get good and fast racket head speed which you can work on controlling with timing and practice. It's easier to use this whippy technique to loop backspin balls as well. It also helps with serving. Just food for thought. Your arm and wrist looks like it is moving as one unit when it should be whipping into the ball.

I like to use the analogy of throwing a frisbee.

As for forehand loop and backhand loop against back spin, it is like relax and then snap your body. Then relax and then snap your body. I don't know whatelse to say about it. The more relax you are, the faster you can accelerate when the ball comes up.

It is like when the ball hits your side of the table, you have to tell yourself to relax. You have to physically relax all parts of your body. Then as the ball starts it ascent, you start your body's rotation to meet the ball at the top of its bounce. That's when you snap. When the ball leaves, you are back to relaxed position.

That's why top ping pong players make it look so easy. They are completely relaxed in between strokes.

I always like to use NBA as an analogy. It is like you relax to freeze the defender, and then you explode past the defender. You should not be tight all the time. The best NBA players are not always the fastest.

 

[NextLevel]

I see. I felt like I used a decent amount of wrist but maybe I actually didn't use enough? Let me try to focus on that next time.
And it seems I didn't use enough forearm and elbow rotation either?
Thank you!

Seth Pech has a great new video on YouTube on the 14 mistakes of the forehand topspin. He also has some great advice about improving and correcting technique. Sometimes you have to exaggerate what you are trying to do to get your body to accept it.

I tell people that you have to get the right swing first. Then accept missing the ball and the table with the swing but focus on the form first. With practice, the body will adjust to calibrate the new swing to the ball. What holds many learners back is focusing too much on putting the ball on the table. This makes it hard to correct or improve a swing. Missing is not a bad thing at all as long as you use it to understand your stroke better

 

[blahness]

I would argue against everyone here. No matter what sort of "whip" or acceleration or how hard or fast he swings, if he doesn't understand how to overcome the backspin and produce topspin in a relaxed way, he's never gonna develop a good stroke because the fundamental understanding of the way of contacting/brushing is wrong. The reason why he's standing upright and even backwards is because of this lack of understanding which forces him to overcompensate with his body, which is also reflected in him saying that he feels the need to "swing hard all the time".

I know a lot of these types of players, and they always fail when I give them some serious spinny af backspin pushes because they're always brute force brushing the ball rather than actually working/dancing with the incoming spin.

 

[JJ Ng]

I would argue against everyone here. No matter what sort of "whip" or acceleration or how hard or fast he swings, if he doesn't understand how to overcome the backspin and produce topspin in a relaxed way, he's never gonna develop a good stroke because the fundamental understanding of the way of contacting/brushing is wrong. The reason why he's standing upright and even backwards is because of this lack of understanding which forces him to overcompensate with his body, which is also reflected in him saying that he feels the need to "swing hard all the time".

I know a lot of these types of players, and they always fail when I give them some serious spinny af backspin pushes because they're always brute force brushing the ball rather than actually working/dancing with the incoming spin.

So my argument is therefore, the key to a good topspin against backspin is NOT how hard you hit but it is how fast you can accelerate. So he needs to accelerate even if the ball goes into the net. Once he learns how to accelerate and "by chance" hit the ball at the right timing, then he will understand how to loop backspins well. It is like an ah-ha moment that can only be experienced and not taught.

 

[blahness]

So my argument is therefore, the key to a good topspin against backspin is NOT how hard you hit but it is how fast you can accelerate. So he needs to accelerate even if the ball goes into the net. Once he learns how to accelerate and "by chance" hit the ball at the right timing, then he will understand how to loop backspins well. It is like an ah-ha moment that can only be experienced and not taught.

Even if he accelerates like crazy, without the proper spin neutralising contact, he's gonna fail against any kind of serious backspin (maybe not at his level but later on). With the correct technique, looping backspin is extremely easy just like looping topspin. No brute force or super acceleration required. You control the amount of quality/acceleration as needed. It's the key to actually having many gears of power. Power/acceleration can come later on once he starts getting more comfortable. Then it gives you a lot of flexibility. For eg even when you're caught close to the table after a short push, and the opponent surprises you with a fast, deep spinny af long push, you can still do a quality opening loop with this spin neutralising contact with almost 0 backswing. There's a lot of other kinds of spin neutralising techniques against various incoming spins.

Also, having the confidence to do it in an "easy" way without compromising on form (for eg going backwards with the body which is a big no no) promotes relaxation, which lays down good fundamentals when deciding to add more explosiveness later on.

 

[blahness]

@PhilT two other supplementary exercises for you to learn how to spin the ball on both forehand and backhand. These are very important basics.

 

[NextLevel]

@PhilT two other supplementary exercises for you to learn how to spin the ball on both forehand and backhand. These are very important basics.

Try cracking a whip or hammering a nail some time. It is very similar to these videos.

 

[NextLevel]

I would argue against everyone here. No matter what sort of "whip" or acceleration or how hard or fast he swings, if he doesn't understand how to overcome the backspin and produce topspin in a relaxed way, he's never gonna develop a good stroke because the fundamental understanding of the way of contacting/brushing is wrong. The reason why he's standing upright and even backwards is because of this lack of understanding which forces him to overcompensate with his body, which is also reflected in him saying that he feels the need to "swing hard all the time".

I know a lot of these types of players, and they always fail when I give them some serious spinny af backspin pushes because they're always brute force brushing the ball rather than actually working/dancing with the incoming spin.

That's because they aren't using whip mechanics, and whip mechanics, as I use the phrase, are more about being able to make the arm a Kinetic chain that takes the energy the body transmits as opposed to being the focus of effort. There are many ways to describe good table tennis and teach good strokes. Some may work for one person based on their technical foundation at the time. Another may work for someone else. The most important thing in teaching/coaching is to look for effective ways to convey concepts - what one person finds useful may go over the head of another.

A certain humility comes if you have put in the work to develop a decent level player. Or if you have talked to various players who got where they were using a route completely different from yours for one reason or another. You could post 20 videos of perfect technique and they still might not resonate with who you are teaching. It is usually best to continue to just see what works while refining instruction rather than pretending there is one single answer if you are developing a player.

All that said, the videos you have provided show important concepts that hopefully will help Phil depending on where he is in his journey.

 

[blahness]

That's because they aren't using whip mechanics, and whip mechanics, as I use the phrase, are more about being able to make the arm a Kinetic chain that takes the energy the body transmits as opposed to being the focus of effort. There are many ways to describe good table tennis and teach good strokes. Some may work for one person based on their technical foundation at the time. Another may work for someone else. The most important thing in teaching/coaching is to look for effective ways to convey concepts - what one person finds useful may go over the head of another.

A certain humility comes if you have put in the work to develop a decent level player. Or if you have talked to various players who got where they were using a route completely different from yours for one reason or another. You could post 20 videos of perfect technique and they still might not resonate with who you are teaching. It is usually best to continue to just see what works while refining instruction rather than pretending there is one single answer if you are developing a player.

All that said, the videos you have provided show important concepts that hopefully will help Phil depending on where he is in his journey.

This is not about perfect technique at all.

I have taught probably dozens of newbies to loop underspin with this exact method by Ti Long and imo it is the easiest way and most of them are able to do it just within 1 session (i taught one guy exactly this during my last session and he got it within like 10-20 balls and was easily getting 80% success rates from something near 0%).

Whip mechanics can come a lot later when he knows the method, it's the icing on the cake.

 

[pingpongpaddy]

HI PHIL
Here is a link for Tom Lodziak lesson. He is an excellent coach
MOVING OTHERS AND BEING MOVED, CONSISTENCY BEFORE POWER
It brings us back to producing a consistent stroke while moving and being moved. Imo this is the theme you should concentrate on for the next few months if you want to develop your game quickly. If you look for super power or super spin too soon you may lose your way. Don't worry practicing the basic plain vanilla fh with slight spin will provide the proper foundation for developing the super stuff later. And of course being able to rally consistently means that in a match you have got the means to wait for the best opportunities to put the ball away. The player that just practices big shots will find that while he can do it in practice, too often the rally breaks down for the lack of the basic means to keep things going. The stuff in this thread should provide you with enough to work on for a while
good luck

 

[PhilT]

Hi,

I've watched all videos suggested and reviewed the feedback by everyone and here are a few points I got:
1. There are 3 main factors to lift backspin balls:
+ Racket angle (open)
+ Swing path (upward)
+ Swing speed/acceleration
They compensate each other. Ex. If swing speed is low then racket angle needs to be more open and/or swing path is more upward
2. Acceleration at contact point
3. Relax
4. Use legs, hip, body, upper arm, fore arm, wrist, fingers in sync to get the most power, like throwing a frisbee or whipping a rope.
5. Over-exaggerate in practice to feel and fix.

And this is my product ^^. I tried to relax much more and use more forearm on forehand. Does it look better?

@pingpongpaddy : Thanks a lot for great suggestion. I started to focus more on consistency, placement, footwork and recovery as suggested by many others in this thread too.

Thank you!

 

[NextLevel]

Hi,

I've watched all videos suggested and reviewed the feedback by everyone and here are a few points I got:
1. There are 3 main factors to lift backspin balls:
+ Racket angle (open)
+ Swing path (upward)
+ Swing speed/acceleration
They compensate each other. Ex. If swing speed is low then racket angle needs to be more open and/or swing path is more upward
2. Acceleration at contact point
3. Relax
4. Use legs, hip, body, upper arm, fore arm, wrist, fingers in sync to get the most power, like throwing a frisbee or whipping a rope.
5. Over-exaggerate in practice to feel and fix.

And this is my product ^^. I tried to relax much more and use more forearm on forehand. Does it look better?

@pingpongpaddy : Thanks a lot for great suggestion. I started to focus more on consistency, placement, footwork and recovery as suggested by many others in this thread too.

Thank you!

There are some mild things here and there on the forehand, but everything is looking $1mm times better.

Usually, it is not common to practice against multiple backspin balls in a row unless one is playing a chopper. Usually, you serve backspin, get a backspin push, loop the backspin push, get a topspin block, loop the topspin block. So if you can find a way to practice one backspin, one topspin, so you learn to reset your arm/paddle appropriately between strokes, that is optimal and will get you the best results in real matches.

Good luck and again, everything looks better. Other than how much of your paddle you sometimes expose on your forehand topspin and where your elbow ends up, I really can't tell your playing level from the stroke, which is a good thing. The backhand is really awesome, and you look as if you have a better whip in your strokes now which will help you much improve more as you improve your timing and practice much more.

 

[pingpongpaddy]

Hi,

I've watched all videos suggested and reviewed the feedback by everyone and here are a few points I got:
1. There are 3 main factors to lift backspin balls:
+ Racket angle (open)
+ Swing path (upward)
+ Swing speed/acceleration
They compensate each other. Ex. If swing speed is low then racket angle needs to be more open and/or swing path is more upward
2. Acceleration at contact point
3. Relax
4. Use legs, hip, body, upper arm, fore arm, wrist, fingers in sync to get the most power, like throwing a frisbee or whipping a rope.
5. Over-exaggerate in practice to feel and fix.

And this is my product ^^. I tried to relax much more and use more forearm on forehand. Does it look better?

@pingpongpaddy : Thanks a lot for great suggestion. I started to focus more on consistency, placement, footwork and recovery as suggested by many others in this thread too.

Thank you!

HI Phil
Your idea of the spin loop is improving a lot, but you seem rather upright and stuck I one place.
You also seem to want to play barefoot against the robot which cannot encourage footwork.
The static practice style is a bit counter productive. A more dynamic movement into each stroke will help you to develop in a more realistic way.
The whole purpose of multiball is to promote footwork so you should incorporate moving from another part of the table into the exercise Doing this kind of static practice should be only be about 15% of your workout. The other 95% should be practicing in a more dynamic way, always
moving to the ball as below:-


against that lightly chopped ball I would suggest executing more of a drive at peak bounce both bh and Fh.
Here is the basic drill we have our improvers do whether vs multiball or robot.
Usually we might have a queue of half dozen playing one after the other:but just one still works fine

Fh Player stands in low readiness crouch in Bh corner Not too close.
multiball feed long light chop to fh corner.
player moves to execute fh drive to opposite fh corner and immediately recovers to readiness at backhand corner
Repeat 50 or 100 balls
key points:
USE SMALL STEPS TO GET INTO POSITION
for each shot get knee and shoulder in correct relationship with the ball make sure to drop the weight onto right knee with head close to ball each time.
You'll need to experiment with the right frequency of the balls. but once you get it right the moving from bh corner will unstick your feet and make everything more realistic
Using the same feed (to one spot) you can execute alternate BH and FH
you can adapt this one line feed to different parts of the table but always design in the moving into the shot.
or 2 position feed
ball feeder
1: short backspin to fh
2: deep backspin to middle
50 to 100 balls repeat
worker waits in readiness then
1 fh push
2 fh drive
repeat

PRACTICE SMALL STEPS WITH YOUR PARTNER:

Two players face each other in readiness crouch a bit like boxers
take turns to start.
Players can quick step shuffle either forward, backward or sideways left or sideways right.
First player a starts and carries on changing direction trying to surprise his partner with sudden changes of direction. Player B tries to maintain position in front of partner and to react instantly to every change. after 5 to 10 mins change roles. Maintaining the low readiness crouch as you shuffle is quite hard on the legs and noobies will find it quite challenging to maintain the low balanced readiness

 

[blahness]

Hi,

I've watched all videos suggested and reviewed the feedback by everyone and here are a few points I got:
1. There are 3 main factors to lift backspin balls:
+ Racket angle (open)
+ Swing path (upward)
+ Swing speed/acceleration
They compensate each other. Ex. If swing speed is low then racket angle needs to be more open and/or swing path is more upward
2. Acceleration at contact point
3. Relax
4. Use legs, hip, body, upper arm, fore arm, wrist, fingers in sync to get the most power, like throwing a frisbee or whipping a rope.
5. Over-exaggerate in practice to feel and fix.

And this is my product ^^. I tried to relax much more and use more forearm on forehand. Does it look better?

@pingpongpaddy : Thanks a lot for great suggestion. I started to focus more on consistency, placement, footwork and recovery as suggested by many others in this thread too.

Thank you!

Wow we've got another boss of a fast learner here! This is excellent, keep it up!