Bounce with the Ball / Split-Step

[turbozed]

I think I'll give the heel off the ground cue a try. I've also heard this cue mentioned from a few coaches and, while I agree with @blahness that it's probably impossible or undesirable to *actually* always have your heel off the ground, I think most players up to a certain level would definitely benefit from having their weight more forward (especially the case in backhand rallies).

I also notice that focusing on having your heels off the ground oftentimes doesn't actually result in the heel coming off the ground but instead just moves the weight balance further forward on the foot.

So this might be one of those cases, similar to trying to 'cover the ball' during contact during in a FH drive, where the cue actually isn't totally accurate but it gets you the right results.

 

[blahness]

Watch one of my favorite pros below.

What percentage of time is her heal raised?
What percentage of the time is her heal raised in fast backhand rallies? 100%?

What percentage of time is your heal raised in your own game?

I'm not suggesting to have it always raised 100% but it is a great teaching aid to get the weight on the balls of your feet.

Try it on the robot. Super fast backhand with an interval between shots of 0.6 seconds.

Copy the pros.

A footwork exercise, Heal off ground. He instructed his student to stand on tiptoes.

Do you move like this?

I think it's not for everyone. I don't play like Mima Ito or even the kid anyways.

I think Fan Zhendong and Ma Long both spend quite a lot of time on their heels, and of course pushing off them often too - it's very dynamic rather than just saying that heels off all or even 90% of the time.

 

[Richie]

Yeah I kind of agree with blahness.

These days I understand the advice to stay on the toes and balls of the feet. But a long time ago I'd take that advice pretty literally and since all strokes require more or less pushing from the entire foot or and often from the heel, it made it impossible to play properly lol.

Don't really know if it helps me to think about staying on the front of the feet. Feels more like it needs to be balanced. In terms of moving, maybe it's better to have the weight a little more on the balls of the feet. But for actually executing many of the strokes, need to push off more with the whole foot.

 

[Jslick89]

Yeah I kind of agree with blahness.

These days I understand the advice to stay on the toes and balls of the feet. But a long time ago I'd take that advice pretty literally and since all strokes require more or less pushing from the entire foot or and often from the heel, it made it impossible to play properly lol.

Don't really know if it helps me to think about staying on the front of the feet. Feels more like it needs to be balanced. In terms of moving, maybe it's better to have the weight a little more on the balls of the feet. But for actually executing many of the strokes, need to push off more with the whole foot.

I think the advice is to "generally" stay on your toes because it will naturally put your body in a more forward leaning position, which is optimal for blocking/driving/looping in most cases.

That is not to say there are not some cases where you aren't going to be on your toes at the point of contact.

Here is me (in slow-motion) serving and pivoting into a shot a kill shot down the line. Right foot is generating power from the heel, but you can see my left foot is on the toe:

My own critique of this is that i didn't prepare for the return shot. even though it was a winner, i should have hop stepped back over to the right a bit in preparation of a cross table return.

On this one...my first shot is a backhand...i'm a little bit on my toes. then another forehand with a similar motion as the first clip. I make a hop step back...but really i should have hop stepped more to the right...you can see i got caught out of position which resulted in my reaching and doing a really weak half assed forehand push (if you could even call it that, lol). i guess it is good that i hop stepped but still stayed forward on my toes. i just need to hop step into a better place but the actual mechanics were good one this one.

Anyways, i think the point is that you can stay on your toes,..especially with the hop step, to stay forward and ready to attack.

 

[maurice101]

What % of the time is harimotos heal raised in his backhand topspin punch in the first video.?

Look at the second video. I see 80% of the time the heal is raised.

I see a few strokes where his heal does not touch the ground at all in the first video.
He brings his right hip back a bit as he squats so the heal can touch for a short time before the exploding forward body movement.

I'm not sure why people find this idea difficult. For fast movement you need to be on the balls of your feet. Try the coach video footwork exercise with the heal touching....

Of course there are times where you do use your whole foot.

Pros heals can be touching but with full weight on the balls of the feet too.

Having a mental idea of raising your heal most of the time works amazing for most of us with the weight too far back.

It can transform your stance to be more forward. A lower more forward stance can improve your game 20%

One coach told me that good footwork is 70% of table tennis

As I mentioned, I have never seen a person I coach transform his footwork and thus the quality of his strokes in one session ever.

It also means you can do mini split steps after the stroke etc

It looks to me that harimotos heal is raised 70% to 80% of the time.

 

[NextLevel]

I think the advice is to "generally" stay on your toes because it will naturally put your body in a more forward leaning position, which is optimal for blocking/driving/looping in most cases.

That is not to say there are not some cases where you aren't going to be on your toes at the point of contact.

Here is me (in slow-motion) serving and pivoting into a shot a kill shot down the line. Right foot is generating power from the heel, but you can see my left foot is on the toe:

My own critique of this is that i didn't prepare for the return shot. even though it was a winner, i should have hop stepped back over to the right a bit in preparation of a cross table return.

On this one...my first shot is a backhand...i'm a little bit on my toes. then another forehand with a similar motion as the first clip. I make a hop step back...but really i should have hop stepped more to the right...you can see i got caught out of position which resulted in my reaching and doing a really weak half assed forehand push (if you could even call it that, lol). i guess it is good that i hop stepped but still stayed forward on my toes. i just need to hop step into a better place but the actual mechanics were good one this one.

Anyways, i think the point is that you can stay on your toes,..especially with the hop step, to stay forward and ready to attack.

I think "on the toes" is not quite the same as "on the balls of your feet". I do much more of the latter than the former, but it might just be language.

 

[blahness]

My cue to maintain a forward lean is not about the toes but just stick my butt out 😂 it's not easy to maintain the posture though... I also don't do it when shadowing footwork because I'm lazy af , I will only do it when I'm on the table.

 

[Richie]

My cue to maintain a forward lean is not about the toes but just stick my butt out 😂 it's not easy to maintain the posture though... I also don't do it when shadowing footwork because I'm lazy af , I will only do it when I'm on the table.

That's the conclusion I've come to as well. If you bend at the hip/stick your butt out you will be forced to lean forward, no matter where your weight is on your feet. Though it's more comfortable to have it more balanced, but maybe slightly more towards the front of the foot. That's where it feels natural to me.

Maybe I'm blind, but a few seconds watching one of those Harimoto videos of him hitting backhands he has his weight on the whole foot and the reason the heels even can raise and go towards the toe/ball of the foot is precisely because he pushed off, mostly from the heels. It's hard to say exactly. But he didn't start off, when he executes the shot "on his toes".

At least, it doesn't look like he started off from being "on his toes" and raised his heel using his toes.

 

[maurice101]

I feel you need to recover from your serve much faster. Maybe more weight transfer from the back leg to the front leg in the serve would help. Coming down more in the serve keeps the ball low. If you end up low its easier to jump back in a low stance. Serve then jump into a position with the heals raised stance. Watch how the pros do it. Then 2 split jump steps to get around for the pivot. Ma long does this move. I think doing 2 makes it easier to adjust to the ball. Doing one huge step is much harder. You need to be on the balls of the feet to do this footwork pattern. So much to train in table tennis.

 

[maurice101]

I made this for a person I coach. My stroke examples could be improved but I think you will get the idea.
Comments welcome.

 

[Jslick89]

I feel you need to recover from your serve much faster. Maybe more weight transfer from the back leg to the front leg in the serve would help. Coming down more in the serve keeps the ball low. If you end up low its easier to jump back in a low stance. Serve then jump into a position with the heals raised stance. Watch how the pros do it. Then 2 split jump steps to get around for the pivot. Ma long does this move. I think doing 2 makes it easier to adjust to the ball. Doing one huge step is much harder. You need to be on the balls of the feet to do this footwork pattern. So much to train in table tennis.

Thanks for the feedback. Definitely working on my recovery after serve. I am trying to practice it after every serve…makes serve practice a lot more tiring lol

 

[blahness]

That's the conclusion I've come to as well. If you bend at the hip/stick your butt out you will be forced to lean forward, no matter where your weight is on your feet. Though it's more comfortable to have it more balanced, but maybe slightly more towards the front of the foot. That's where it feels natural to me.

Maybe I'm blind, but a few seconds watching one of those Harimoto videos of him hitting backhands he has his weight on the whole foot and the reason the heels even can raise and go towards the toe/ball of the foot is precisely because he pushed off, mostly from the heels. It's hard to say exactly. But he didn't start off, when he executes the shot "on his toes".

At least, it doesn't look like he started off from being "on his toes" and raised his heel using his toes.

Fully agree with your observations.

I feel it's also a bit not so straightforward in terms of foot mechanics. I recently discovered that the feet can also pronate (ie rotate around its own axis) very strongly similar to the forearm - we literally pronate a little when we're walking or running.

And in table tennis, a lot of the top player's feet pronate even more strongly when doing a powerful loop as part of the weight transfer.

During the pronation, what is considered to be "on toes" and "on heel"? It is not very well defined.

 

[blahness]

There's also other types of recovery resets I am working on which is to get back to reset position after a stroke.

If a player serves super wide then you intercept with your left foot, place weight on left foot, during the loop stroke you transfer your weight rightwards to your right foot and use this momentum to bounce you back into ready position from the wide BH position.


For chiquita you lean into the right foot during the stroke, and then rebound from the right foot to the left back foot and then bounce back simultaneously with both feet so that you can reach a farther distance. There's no intermediate step because the next ball cannot be short if you made a quality chiquita.

There is a rotation component too when going back with the chiquita because you'll be rotating your body clockwise you can borrow that momentum of the rotation to go backwards.

Same thing with FH flicks and sideswipes, the fastest is to just bounce back with both feet back, no intermediate step required because the next ball cannot be short.

With even long pushes, sometimes good opponents can take it early and drop it back short if they're willing to sacrifice on height due to the backspin (but it can be really short if they're feeling nasty!). So with any sort of pushes it's better to take the intermediate step because there's a chance the next ball is short, also even long underspin balls usually slow down and provides more opportunities to loop even if you're stuck closer to the table.

My 2 cents to further this topic.

 

[blahness]

When looping balls that are wide to the FH with the crossover step, you have to land with your left foot and then bounce back to middle with both feet.

Same with FH pivoting, after the weight transfer you have to rebound with both feet immediately so that your right leg is about halfway between the left and middle line. Otherwise you would need some ultra big crossover step after that.

 

[turbozed]

Same with FH pivoting, after the weight transfer you have to rebound with both feet immediately so that your right leg is about halfway between the left and middle line. Otherwise you would need some ultra big crossover step after that.

Is what you're describing the skip-step that this coach describes here?

Thanks btw for continuing to add more nuance to this thread. I think it's pretty apparent that different moves have optimal recovery resets that may differ from the standard bounce depending on what comes next. This is all cool stuff and it's great learning about them, even if it hasn't found its way consistently in actual gameplay.

 

[blahness]

Is what you're describing the skip-step that this coach describes here?

Thanks btw for continuing to add more nuance to this thread. I think it's pretty apparent that different moves have optimal recovery resets that may differ from the standard bounce depending on what comes next. This is all cool stuff and it's great learning about them, even if it hasn't found its way consistently in actual gameplay.

yes it is the skip step that she refers to.

I still need to ingrain all of them into my muscle memory which will take some time!

 

[blahness]

This is a pretty comprehensive video, the recovery reset step being discussed here is present almost all the time.

 

[Mikey_TT]

i recently learned about the split step and i noticed that i do it naturally.
do you think the pros learnt this separately or it came to them naturally?

here is a video of me flat hitting against mid high balls (didn’t know about the split step when this was filmed)

 

[blahness]

i recently learned about the split step and i noticed that i do it naturally.
do you think the pros learnt this separately or it came to them naturally?

here is a video of me flat hitting against mid high balls (didn’t know about the split step when this was filmed)

Yes this is the split step.... It is definitely drilled in for the pros imo. I also drilled mine into my subconscious and it has been a huge help to my game.

But the split steps can look very different for different shots as I've explained in this thread. It all depends on the preceding shot and what sort of shot is more likely to come after that and how you want to prepare for it.

 

[turbozed]

Very in depth video describing the split step, recovery step, cross step, preparation step, etc. in easy to understand conceptual terms. It's generalized to all sports but table tennis is featured briefly. The concepts seem like it can be applied to a lot of table tennis footwork. Also really jives with a lot of biomechanical concepts I implicitly understood when training combat sports and weightlifting, but it's never been explained as clear as in this video.

To make things less confusing I'll just refer to all these steps as an "x step" (the video calls it the "batsuju step", borrowing from Japanese swordsmasnship lingo).

Turn on subtitles of course if you don't understand Japanese.

Few things that apply to this thread (though there are many more).

1. The x step is a falling to ready position. There's no need to jump up. It's just a loosening of your body so that gravity drops you into a ready position.
2. The x step activates muscle contraction and takes advantage of gravity, both of which increase acceleration by borrowing momentum. It would seem like adding an additional movement prior to moving to the ball would increase time to the ball. But the additional x step makes up for it by allowing you to go quicker by priming your muscles and directing weight towards the intended location.
3. The x step doesn't always have to be balanced towards a neutral stance, it can favor taking a first step with the side opposite of the direction of travel. Example of this was showing FZD taking an x step backwards to align his body for quicker forwards travel. But for most circumstances, a neutral stance x step allows for best position for traversing laterally with the table (so the split step is taught as an ideal position after serving, for example).

Anyway, the whole video is worth a watch (or multiple views in my opinion).