Advice to improve my game.

[bobpuls]

Stick with good people who understand you want to advance and keep doing the same for them.

 

[NextLevel]

Thanks, @Tony's Table Tennis and @NextLevel, for the comments!
I play at my club 4 times a week, 2-3 hours each. I have access to a basic ball machine at another location where I work on technique the other 2-3 days. I like to find a practice partner but most people at my club only play match. I live in South Jersey so Lily Yip is too far away.
When playing, I thought my technique is ok, but when watching from video, it looks "different" from other "trained" players. I just don't know how to correct it. Probably a coach is the only option to help. There is a nice coach at my club which I plan to have some trainning sessions with.
I should probably try to practice with a mirror as @pingpongpaddy suggested to see if it helps.
Thank you!

South Jersey means you are close to Philly so Trolley is an option. So is Princeton. Going to Lily Yip (or even Princeton) regularly is definitely too far away. But if you really want yo improve, you need to find a way to get to play away from the home club somewhere like Lily Yip at least once a month and sometimes more frequently. Adjusting to different environments, seeing different players and seeing what is possible can expand your game quite a bit.

Your arm usage is reasonable but your forehand is not correct because you are not using the legs properly and not giving yourself a proper backswing partly because of that. Your backhand is a bit similar but the body usage there should be different. You could probably be more spin focused but that is mostly practice time with proper coaching. The fact that your forehand isn't done using the legs is the biggest reason why you don't look the way you want to look. Learning to use the legs and core to move and backswing is what will make your athleticism really shine. Try to focus on doing that even if slowly. It takes a long time for speed to be the biggest reason you are losing games as a learner. Because speed is not the focus, trying to get good spin and form should be and once you get that, you improve your quality and speed with timing. But if your focus on quality without the form, you will still get better, but the habits you develop that might keep you from getting better will be more dangerous and hard to fix. It is hard to get Easy power and placement using strokes that don't use the legs and body correctly.

Good luck.

 

[NextLevel]

One more thing that is obvious - you serve, then you jump into position after the serve is over. This is too slow - the serve has to be while moving into ready position, or be done in ready position or else you will struggle to handle fast returns or returns that require you to move after jumping. It's the kind of thing that you can fix with the right kind of coaching, though it is often more important as you play faster players.

 

[pingpongpaddy]

Thanks, @Tony's Table Tennis and @NextLevel, for the comments!
I play at my club 4 times a week, 2-3 hours each. I have access to a basic ball machine at another location where I work on technique the other 2-3 days. I like to find a practice partner but most people at my club only play match. I live in South Jersey so Lily Yip is too far away.
When playing, I thought my technique is ok, but when watching from video, it looks "different" from other "trained" players. I just don't know how to correct it. Probably a coach is the only option to help. There is a nice coach at my club which I plan to have some trainning sessions with.
I should probably try to practice with a mirror as @pingpongpaddy suggested to see if it helps.
Thank you!

hi phil
you are looking more purposeful and show great reflexes and touch in your play.
However you need to go through a 'slow motion' phase of learning to topspin correctly both forehand and backhand.
To achieve this you need to be doing practice drills at a slower pace and concentrating on developing more topspin on your forehand especially, On yr backhand work on getting behind every backhand stroke - you should be always playing yr bh from a square stance at this stage.
I am not sure but have the impression that you hold the racket too tight. I think this because your wrist seems very stiff and inflexible. Its important not to press with thumb and forefinger at the same time :
fh: relax thumb press with forefinger
bh: relax finger press with thumb
try to develop a bh punch rotating yr forearm to add topspin

There is an Australian site called Ping Skills which would be well worth a look as the demos of technique are very well done and well discussed.
Bear in mind that if you get on well with your practice partners even if they are not serious you can persuade them to block the ball of 5 or 10 minutes The more you can control the nature of your practice sessions the better

good luck

good luck

 

[blahness]

Thanks, @Tony's Table Tennis and @NextLevel, for the comments!
I play at my club 4 times a week, 2-3 hours each. I have access to a basic ball machine at another location where I work on technique the other 2-3 days. I like to find a practice partner but most people at my club only play match. I live in South Jersey so Lily Yip is too far away.
When playing, I thought my technique is ok, but when watching from video, it looks "different" from other "trained" players. I just don't know how to correct it. Probably a coach is the only option to help. There is a nice coach at my club which I plan to have some trainning sessions with.
I should probably try to practice with a mirror as @pingpongpaddy suggested to see if it helps.
Thank you!

Your technique is still quite arm based and not coming from the legs + weight transfer. That said you have good touch and you're getting a lot of balls back on the table, and your ball feeling on the topspin looks OK.

If you know Chinese I would highly suggest watching some tutorial videos by Sun Hao Hong who really focuses on body usage. Otherwise, Ti Long on YouTube is also excellent.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I agree few sessions with a coach would be very productive and beneficial for you.

some times, continuing bad habits, will just require a lot longer time to rectify (and thus costly in time and money).
I would highly recommend NL's 1 a month, as a bare minimum.
Once you have a few sessions and understand the logic and fundamentals, then maybe the online videos can be of some help.

 

[PalioT]

Thank everyone for many helpful feedback!
Regarding the forehand and weight transfer, do my forehands at @ 1:43 and @ 2:27 in the video look ok? Should I do more of those?

@NextLevel : I went to Trolley Car last weekend and plan to go to Princeton soon. Many people at my club gonthere too but i was lazy because of the long drive.
@pingpongpaddy : You are correct. My grip is too tight and I often forget about it until my fingers get tired and painful. Your suggestion not to press index finger and thumb at the same time is very interesting. I will definetely try that. But I probably use a decent amount of wrist when looping, at least during practice. Many players, even at higher level, are impressed with the amount of spin in my loop and are surprised when they see my 5-dollar chinese rubber. However, my push is not spinny nor well-placed so better players often exploit that.
@blahness : I am learning Chinese so watching Sun Hao Hong's videos serves two purposes.
@Tony's Table Tennis : I just booked one coaching session this weekend. Hope it will help!

Thank you!!!

 

[NextLevel]

Thank everyone for many helpful feedback!
Regarding the forehand and weight transfer, do my forehands at @ 1:43 and @ 2:27 in the video look ok? Should I do more of those?

@NextLevel : I went to Trolley Car last weekend and plan to go to Princeton soon. Many people at my club gonthere too but i was lazy because of the long drive.
@pingpongpaddy : You are correct. My grip is too tight and I often forget about it until my fingers get tired and painful. Your suggestion not to press index finger and thumb at the same time is very interesting. I will definetely try that. But I probably use a decent amount of wrist when looping, at least during practice. Many players, even at higher level, are impressed with the amount of spin in my loop and are surprised when they see my 5-dollar chinese rubber. However, my push is not spinny nor well-placed so better players often exploit that.
@blahness : I am learning Chinese so watching Sun Hao Hong's videos serves two purposes.
@Tony's Table Tennis : I just booked one coaching session this weekend. Hope it will help!

Thank you!!!

Those are decent forehands for what they are but they are not quite what an advanced coach would teach you to swing like for a forehand topspin. There are many different reasonable approaches and they focus more on generating spin or power but power in consistent spin and speed, not so much speed. Here is an example video from a high level player: if like me you don't speak Vietnamese, use the subtitles and closed captions and translate them.

 

[NextLevel]

Those are decent forehands for what they are but they are not quite what an advanced coach would teach you to swing like for a forehand topspin. There are many different reasonable approaches and they focus more on generating spin or power but power in consistent spin and speed, not so much speed. Here is an example video from a high level player: if like me you don't speak Vietnamese, use the subtitles and closed captions and translate them.

Some coaches would argue that the above technique has too much upper arm. Some would prefer a more bent elbow, some would prefer a lower and more forward finish. There are many reasonable ways to play a forehand topspin. But there are many wrong ways as well. You need to find one of the more standard ways with the help of a coach and master it. Focus on spin. Start slowly. Good luck.

 

[pingpongpaddy]

Thank everyone for many helpful feedback!
Regarding the forehand and weight transfer, do my forehands at @ 1:43 and @ 2:27 in the video look ok? Should I do more of those?

@NextLevel : I went to Trolley Car last weekend and plan to go to Princeton soon. Many people at my club gonthere too but i was lazy because of the long drive.
@pingpongpaddy : You are correct. My grip is too tight and I often forget about it until my fingers get tired and painful. Your suggestion not to press index finger and thumb at the same time is very interesting. I will definetely try that. But I probably use a decent amount of wrist when looping, at least during practice. Many players, even at higher level, are impressed with the amount of spin in my loop and are surprised when they see my 5-dollar chinese rubber. However, my push is not spinny nor well-placed so better players often exploit that.
@blahness : I am learning Chinese so watching Sun Hao Hong's videos serves two purposes.
@Tony's Table Tennis : I just booked one coaching session this weekend. Hope it will help!

Thank you!!!

hi phil
its good you are going to be coached.
one thing to study, is how the coach gives multiball - both topspin feed and backspin feed. The reason is that when in yr local club you can exchange multiball feed with practice partners. I know yr friends want to play matches, but just ask for 10 minutes where you get consistent same topspin ball to yr forehand in one place and try for 20 shot rally
regarding grip here is something to try for a couple of minutes:-
hold the racket with ALL FINGERS ON THE BACKHAND RUBBER AND TRY TO EXECUTE FH TOPSPIN -you will find that your touch and relaxation will be very good. What this proves is that the fingers around the handle should give very little pressure -after all you are not holding a flag but a tt racquet!. Learning to relax with soft grip is really fundamental.
I hope your next vid will show you practicing on one line for a few minutes. btw it's good for 2 players to practice FH to FH from bh corner to bh corner. This is because. you can concentrate on fh better

re yr basic ball machine it may not be very good but if it has a net, switch it off and use the balls for multiball with a partner

good luck

 

[PalioT]

Hi Everyone,

I had my first formal coaching section with a coach (USATT certified, 2100s player) last weekend. He played with me a few times before and he liked my technique overall. He mentioned a few things I need to improve, such as using more legs and body rotation (as pointed out by many here), shortening my forehand stroke. He also said I brush the ball too much on my forehand so I miss the ball often as the consequence. He suggested my swing be more forward and less upward to catch the ball more easily and add power (in trade of spin). I am not sure I could because I really like to focus on the spin as suggested by @pingpongpaddy

Below is my forehand/backhand practice with a robot. One thing I notice is I probably should bend my back down and foreward a bit more, shouldn't I. My consistency is about 70-80% with oscillation and 90% without.

May everyone please take a look and share some feedback?

Thank you very much!

@NextLevel I really like the video and just watched almost all in his channel. They are very short, straight to the point and helpful.

 

[ben1229]

Body is too straight to hitting ball, lower your body to hit the ball. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Metaxa]

Hi Everyone,

I had my first formal coaching section with a coach (USATT certified, 2100s player) last weekend. He played with me a few times before and he liked my technique overall. He mentioned a few things I need to improve, such as using more legs and body rotation (as pointed out by many here), shortening my forehand stroke. He also said I brush the ball too much on my forehand so I miss the ball often as the consequence. He suggested my swing be more forward and less upward to catch the ball more easily and add power (in trade of spin). I am not sure I could because I really like to focus on the spin as suggested by @pingpongpaddy

Below is my forehand/backhand practice with a robot. One thing I notice is I probably should bend my back down and foreward a bit more, shouldn't I. My consistency is about 70-80% with oscillation and 90% without.

May everyone please take a look and share some feedback?

Thank you very much!

@NextLevel I really like the video and just watched almost all in his channel. They are very short, straight to the point and helpful.

Nice, but do you have glue on your feet?
Bend your body forward more on your FH and also BH. Make yourself smaller. I like your back hand.

 

[PalioT]

@Metaxa @ben1229 Thanks a lot for the suggestion. I didn't realize my body is that straight up till watching the video, will work on that next time.

 

[NextLevel]

Hi Everyone,

I had my first formal coaching section with a coach (USATT certified, 2100s player) last weekend. He played with me a few times before and he liked my technique overall. He mentioned a few things I need to improve, such as using more legs and body rotation (as pointed out by many here), shortening my forehand stroke. He also said I brush the ball too much on my forehand so I miss the ball often as the consequence. He suggested my swing be more forward and less upward to catch the ball more easily and add power (in trade of spin). I am not sure I could because I really like to focus on the spin as suggested by @pingpongpaddy

Below is my forehand/backhand practice with a robot. One thing I notice is I probably should bend my back down and foreward a bit more, shouldn't I. My consistency is about 70-80% with oscillation and 90% without.

May everyone please take a look and share some feedback?

Thank you very much!

@NextLevel I really like the video and just watched almost all in his channel. They are very short, straight to the point and helpful.

You can swing *forwards* and *upwards* and get good spin, don't think of it as an either-or proposition, though if you practice controlling the quality of the ball, you should be able to create a variety of swings that you can use to give the ball different effects in response to incoming balls and which might work against different opponents. That's how I currently play and what I recommend to learning adults, it might not work for you but it might.

The practice looks good, there are always a lot of ways to play better and small things you can change (I would line up the forehand a bit differently with the ball), but you are on a good path, I don't see the point criticizing anything as there are good players who swing like you even if it isn't exact textbook. Vary the speed of the incoming ball and your swing speed so that you learn to swing at different timings (people who have to swing hard all the time fall victim to tension and pressure, so 25% of your swings should be 50% or below in power, most of them should be at the 70% power range, and a few of them should be at the 80-100% power range) so that you don't feel you need to tense up to hit the ball.

I am very impressed by the fact you are changing direction in practice already though maybe you should have a deeper backswing to go down the line more easily on the forehand (turn the shoulders more). Also feel free to put practice targets on the table so you can practice aiming for specific spots on the table - being able to hit precise locations is often more important than being able to hit powerful shots.

 

[pingpongpaddy]

Hi Everyone,

I had my first formal coaching section with a coach (USATT certified, 2100s player) last weekend. He played with me a few times before and he liked my technique overall. He mentioned a few things I need to improve, such as using more legs and body rotation (as pointed out by many here), shortening my forehand stroke. He also said I brush the ball too much on my forehand so I miss the ball often as the consequence. He suggested my swing be more forward and less upward to catch the ball more easily and add power (in trade of spin). I am not sure I could because I really like to focus on the spin as suggested by @pingpongpaddy

Below is my forehand/backhand practice with a robot. One thing I notice is I probably should bend my back down and foreward a bit more, shouldn't I. My consistency is about 70-80% with oscillation and 90% without.

May everyone please take a look and share some feedback?

Thank you very much!

@NextLevel I really like the video and just watched almost all in his channel. They are very short, straight to the point and helpful.

HI Phil
glad to see you doing a drill at last.
Yr FH has a good rhythm to it and you are not hitting crazy hard - common mistake by learners.
However at the moment your swing is across the line of the shot even during the contact phase, and this should be corrected. At this stage I think you would be better to get the robot to feed just one line to one corner and train your fh and bh separately at least some of the time.
Here is a link which illustrates what is missing from your practice "Road to PRO by Daniel Kim" Basic movement and weight distribution for fh from 2 positions
note:
for 2 positions the robot feed should be not more than 18 inches apart. It should be easy pace until you master the points that Kim mentions.
Try to make a much more compact swing. Instead of swinging yr arm across yr body. your body should move your racket forward and upward through contact.
it would be good to do say 20 shots off the bounce and 20 shots at peak bounce, concentrating on moving weight through the ball.Pingskills FH counterhit If you can adapt this to 2 positions it will help a lot. in this example with a good rhythm it looks like he could do this forever! This is the basic forehand that every player should be able to do in their sleep.

Notice how both vids the player turns slightly to put his shoulder and playing knee behind the line of the incoming ball and drops his body weight onto his right foot. This is the essential setup prep to allow you to transfer your weight effectively. At the development phase you don't need to make a BIG weight transfer, but you should be aware of moving yr weight towards your target for the split second of contact. Your stance should be slightly open and the contact point should be opposite your left shoulder. Try to not swing past your nose, and and brush upwards towards yr forehead. Yr racket face should be facing where the ball is going rather than across as in your vid. Immediately after the ball is gone you should be pulling the racket back into the ready position.
Note these videos just demonstrates basic fh counter drive, power drive and kill. is for later!
Good luck

 

[blahness]

Tbh OP doesn't need to bend so low (only very tall players need to bend knees a lot). Only a slight knee bend, and maybe a little more forward bend (so that you're leaning a bit forwards) is sufficient.

I would suggest OP to copy a bit of Koki Niwa for eg below:

I like OP's compact strokes and OP is definitely fast (look at the speed of the ball feed!) I need to do similar speed training too

One comment on the stroke trajectory- it is a bit too sideways at the moment, it needs to be a little more upward to create more topspin for safety. The best reference point is your elbow. Compare where your elbow is compared with where Koki Niwa's elbow is on the follow through, you can see that it is a lot higher than yours (his elbow is pretty much at shoulder height at the followthrough)



BH needs a lot more work. Right now it's just an arm only stroke. Even on the BH it needs to be completely driven by the body - not the arm. You can try by using a bit of body rotation and left-right weight transfer (similar to your FH but much smaller in magnitude - but nevertheless it needs to be present) - the body has to be driving the arm movement not vice versa. I spent a lot of time reworking my BH because I didn't know this at the time. Nothing in TT is driven by arms alone - it needs to be body powered (even all over the table strokes like pushes or flicks or even serves!).

 

[JJ Ng]

Hi Everyone,

I had my first formal coaching section with a coach (USATT certified, 2100s player) last weekend. He played with me a few times before and he liked my technique overall. He mentioned a few things I need to improve, such as using more legs and body rotation (as pointed out by many here), shortening my forehand stroke. He also said I brush the ball too much on my forehand so I miss the ball often as the consequence. He suggested my swing be more forward and less upward to catch the ball more easily and add power (in trade of spin). I am not sure I could because I really like to focus on the spin as suggested by @pingpongpaddy

Below is my forehand/backhand practice with a robot. One thing I notice is I probably should bend my back down and foreward a bit more, shouldn't I. My consistency is about 70-80% with oscillation and 90% without.

May everyone please take a look and share some feedback?

Thank you very much!

@NextLevel I really like the video and just watched almost all in his channel. They are very short, straight to the point and helpful.

I agree with @NextLevel

There is not much to say. It looks good to me. Everyone plays table tennis a bit differently. There is nothing wrong with your strokes in terms of any big issues. For example, it is not like your wrist is all over the place. Your elbow is NOT sticking up while you perform your forehand strokes.

Not everyone has to play forehand like Ma Long. I said it before. Timo Boll's forehand is very different from Ma Long's forehand. Both are very effective and both are "correct" so to speak.

It looks like from the video that your forehand is pretty compact so maybe the coach changed that for you already. You brush through the ball so that looks good too.

Your focus should be on timing and footwork, and stroke recovery.

Your strokes look fine. Don't mess with it.

I will be interested in you providing us with a video on how you loop backspins against the machine.

Finally, there are two ways to generate top spin. One way is to lightly brush the ball using a Chinese rubber like 729 or Hurricane. You use the top sheet to generate the spin. You are using Mercury 2 which has a very tacky topsheet.

The second way is to hit through the ball and up, so you will generate spin by engaging the sponge which works very well with ESN and Butterfly rubbers.

There are places and times when you want to use the top sheet only and other places and times where you want to engage the sponge.

I would encourage most players to learn how to do both.

It sounds like you were using the tacky topsheet to generate topspin and your coach now wants you to engage the sponge.

I will be frank. I grew up with a Chinese coach and he taught me to use the top sheet only to generate spin. Then after I was proficient with that, that's when he taught me to engage the sponge.

So your progession is just fine.

 

[pingpongpaddy]

HI Phil
More on Counterhit and backhand:
Pingskills again:Lefty Forehand to Righty Backhand Counter

This Bh. counter lesson shows how a correct Bh counter punch shot differs from your current bh.
the opening sequence shows Lefthander Alois playing Fh counter to Jeffs bh punchcounter, and its a very good example of typical high quality counterhit practice, taking the ball early almost "smothering it" with both players using a compact stroke and using the legs. to ensure that the body weight is rocking forward into the ball at each impact and recovering immediately to ready position.
If you learn to imitate Jeffs technique "throwing the back of the hand" towards the target you'll find it much easier to control direction and also vary depth and power of your shot. If your forearm and wrist are relaxed you will be able execute everything from Soft blocks (don't punch through) to snake strike winners eventually.
Learning a correct BH counter is going to help you in practicing with other improving players as well
good luck

 

[PalioT]

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