Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Der_Echte]

Given our different athletic abilities, DerEchte and I sometimes disagree on technical details but we also agree that there is a lot of crap people tell you to do that is only necessary if you want to play marginally better. People focus on such crap and miss the really important stuff.

Our athletic abilities are not much different. We are both old dudes who are not jack flash quick or fast and are around 100 kg.

I totally agree that one really could benefit form a good bullshyt filter, but on the forums and in life.

I totally agree people get wrapped up in inefficient things.

I am so totally tired from TT nearly every day the last few months and the bike ride back home earlier in the week arriving at 0100 to home base.

 

[Boogar]

Haha the addiction to play is strong.
Ok I will try. Although with penhold, i think I need the middle finger to hold too, which doesn't really help with the relaxing the wrist.
Sometimes I wish I am a shakehander because so many educational videos are done in shakehand nowadays.

Penholder have a loser wrist from the get go. Your grip is perfect for serves, thats one of the strenghts of penhold!

And yes thre isnt alot, my trainingspartner is penholder as well and he always tries out everything i might have seen in matches etc

 

[baumschule]

Had to reglue my backhand rubber a couple of days ago and have been overhitting lots of backhand loops ever since. It's starting to get really frustrating and I'm beginning to doubt my whole technique

On an unrelated note srew you France I hope Ronaldo scores a hattrick

 

[JeffM]

My friend came back from China, and he bought these from manufacturer
My first reaction:

 

[NextLevel]

This was an interesting weekend. Had a training session on Friday with a Chopper who was my former coach when I started out. I tested my new keep the elbow down whipped grip looping technique for a while. Then I hit with a guy who I agreed to hit with for a hour. Went home to catch the US National men and women singles final. Actually missed the last part of the amazing comeback by Kanak Jha. Congrats to the kid and I hope he really loves table tennis and goes pro. Money isn't everything in life and he is good enough to make some from TT.

On Saturday, I got a text from Boogar's and later, he confirmed he was coming to Princeton so I met him at the train station and took him to the club. We hit for a while and played alternate every two serves without scoring. One of the things you obviously cannot see on the video is Boogar's touch. I guess when you watch him play the medium pips player, you get a better sense of it.

I got him to play Steve a lefty who plays with heavy sidespin and Bruce, a sport pips FH, LP backhand player with a crazy array of tricks and strokes. Wanted him to see some things that he may not see as easily if he plays mostly topspin players. He also played a few other matches and I played some as well, trying to figure out what my new grip could or could not do.

I then realized that I didn't have batteries charged up for my camera so I charged on during all this. Then I recorded our match and our practice. I had to take a break in the middle to play a guy who I beat in the league earlier in the week. He won the revenge match then I resumed training with Boogar. I was basically trying to show him aspects of my new grip and how to be more aggressive on third ball.

Boogar had planned to leave after this then I told him the club had a league that night so he decided to stay and get a league rating. Playing Boogar in person, his level is closer to 1500 and could rapidly improve with the right practice and instruction. Very good forehand and an unconventional backhand that might damage the right opponent but is unstable as it comes across the ball too much without generating real topspin. He can be a really strong thirdball attacker if he puts in the hours.

Played a couple of matches with my buddy Big Dipper who I was mentoring a year ago and is now pretty much even with me in matches today. Rapid progress. Played a couple of other players who wanted to know what it felt like to play a significantly better player and then dropped Boogar at the train station and called it a day.

A good weekend despite the annoying arthritis issues. Taking today off to watch Wimbledon and the European finals. I played all the matches with Big D and the challengers with Clipper and T05. It weighed a ridiculous 205g. But curiously enough my hitting partner on Friday said that my 198g Eternity plus T05 seemed to be helping my game. I think the blades with their handle balance allow me to get good whip with shorter strokes. And I am sure T05 doesn't hurt either since Hexer is a rubber that favors larger strokes.

 

[Archosaurus]

@NextLevel

I saw the Boogar video as recommendation. He did well and he's improved a bit. If he learned to rotate the body better he'd be killing everyone with third balls.

@Boogar

 

[Gene Tuttle]

Spent the week Monday-Saturday in Vegas at the National Championships playing and watching. They had about 750 competitors playing on about 150 tables at the Las Vegas convention center. I played one event per day ranging from under 2200 R.R. to the under 1400 R.R. Generally I got my ass handed to me but had some good games (got a couple of 2k players to duece) and got to the semi finals in the Under 1500 R.R. where I just completely lost my ability to kill a high spinny lob/loop and lost. On Friday I went to watch the open finals where I had a great seat to watch both the men and women try to come back from deficits.
One of the best parts of going to the multi day tournament was that between matches you can sit and watch all the events except the final open championships for free and watch the top players practicing every day.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

....where I just completely lost my ability to kill a high spinny lob/loop and lost.

It sounds like those are excellent results.

And crushing those high balls is not as easy as it sounds. It takes practice. The ball has more time for the spin to affect the trajectory and because the ball is not moving as fast horizontally but can have a lot of spin, the spin can really affect the bounce and mess you up.

But getting to the U1500 finals means you are on track and did pretty darn well.

For a moment, stop and think about it: you were in the finals of an event at NATIONALS. How cool is that.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[NextLevel]

@NextLevel

I saw the Boogar video as recommendation. He did well and he's improved a bit. If he learned to rotate the body better he'd be killing everyone with third balls.

@Boogar

This is true but in my experience, coaches focus on everything except how to transmit power to the arm. So I focus on that and let people figure out what other coaches ficus on in their spare time. If you watch the video he transmits power into the arm well on many shots usinf his body when I show him how to do it without telling him to do it.

 

[Archosaurus]

This is true but in my experience, coaches focus on everything except how to transmit power to the arm. So I focus on that and let people figure out what other coaches ficus on in their spare time. If you watch the video he transmits power into the arm well on many shots usinf his body when I show him how to do it without telling him to do it.

I think I have an idea of what you mean, but do continue. What exactly do you mean with transmitting power to the arm?

 

[NextLevel]

I think I have an idea of what you mean, but do continue. What exactly do you mean with transmitting power to the arm?

When you use your arm as a whip, it is not the same as using your arm as a hammer. When people say that you should use the wrist, it's not so much that you should actually use the wrist but they are asking for whip mechanics. The sooner you bite the bullet and consistently use well timed whip mechanics to do your strokes, the faster and more consistently they will be at a higher level. Over time, you can throw the arm whip with a larger motion from the body or a smaller motion from the body and get good power. Do it mostly with the lower arm as the shoulder joint can have issues. Keeping the elbow down also helps protect the shoulder as does consistently body rotation. But if you don't have a live wire arm, you will not be efficiently transmitting power into your arm. Watch the Teddy bear video from Brett or any of the top pros looping. Most 2000+ loopers have at least some aspect of it down.

 

[Archosaurus]

When you use your arm as a whip, it is not the same as using your arm as a hammer. When people say that you should use the wrist, it's not so much that you should actually use the wrist but they are asking for whip mechanics. The sooner you bite the bullet and consistently use well timed whip mechanics to do your strokes, the faster and more consistently they will be at a higher level. Over time, you can throw the arm whip with a larger motion from the body or a smaller motion from the body and get good power. Do it mostly with the lower arm as the shoulder joint can have issues. Keeping the elbow down also helps protect the shoulder as does consistently body rotation. But if you don't have a live wire arm, you will not be efficiently transmitting power into your arm. Watch the Teddy bear video from Brett or any of the top pros looping. Most 2000+ loopers have at least some aspect of it down.

So his mechanics are good enough that he isn't losing all the power he is generating with just mostly his arm? It flows into the ball well enough? Perhaps a good example of that would be your own loop that is mostly arm yet powerful?

 

[NextLevel]

So his mechanics are good enough that he isn't losing all the power he is generating with just mostly his arm? It flows into the ball well enough? Perhaps a good example of that would be your own loop that is mostly arm yet powerful?

When my loop is powerful, it is unlikely to be mostly arm. You just don't know what to look for because you keep thinking that pros are doing what they are not doing (some pro coaches do as well so this is okay). If you actually played matches to win or hung out with more high level TT players, you would see more stuff that would help you put more of this into perspective. IF most people loop with their body, most blocks at the under 2000 level close to the table would be useless.

 

[Archosaurus]

So what point are you trying to make? That a seemingly "arm loop" has a lot of legs and other components in it that affect the quality?

If you haven't noticed, none of my posts where I ask questions like this reflect my knowledge at all. I'm not trying to claim anything: I'm asking to see what you say. I don't have access to high level players nor to competition, so I'm not exactly taking the piss here.

 

[NextLevel]

So what point are you trying to make? That a seemingly "arm loop" has a lot of legs and other components in it that affect the quality?

If you haven't noticed, none of my posts where I ask questions like this reflect my knowledge at all. I'm not trying to claim anything: I'm asking to see what you say. I don't have access to high level players nor to competition, so I'm not exactly taking the piss here.

Of course. The power might not be timed or transmitted 100% efficiently but it obviously does. Most of the power in TT comes from core rotation, not the arm. What bending the knees does is let you rotate the core over a wider and more stable base giving you more stability for a larger stroke and a better margin for timing error. But if you hit the ball while your body is rotating, it almost doesn't matter - you will get a quality ball. Whether you recover from it or not is another story.

So what you are really seeing when you consider my loop (all arm) is my inabiilty to rotate over a wider based because I struggle to bend my knees. But if you think my core is not working on those loops, you just don't see what you should be seeing and it is okay. I am not saying my loop doesn't have issues, and I think reviewing Boogar's video yesterday in my 3rd practice recording with him, what stood out to me was how much better his loops were when he got into position and used core rotation to aid them. Obviously, with any such change, you start missing a lot so the balance between practice and play has to be found until the stroke gets stuck in your memory. In order to make yourself a little wiser, it would probably help you to study TT players with notoriously bad technique or who just seem to play lazy TT (Pavel Platonov, Thomas Keinath, Adrian Crisan, Alexander Karakasevic, Georgina Pota) and forget about their touch/spin reading skills and see what they can get away with. I Would add Waldner and Samsonov but I would probably get eaten alive by people who missed the point.

This is a thread for daily TT Chit chat. Have any TT to chat about from your daily practice?

 

[Archosaurus]

There it is. That's what I was looking for, and that's a damn good post.

I've understood technique a bit more after watching lower level people, but I will take a good look at the people you specifically mentioned to see what exactly you mean. Crisan I already know, and surprisingly I didn't think he was complete rubbish when I first saw him. Even he looks like he has the important things in place.

Thanks, and sorry, I have nothing interesting to talk about regarding my own day. I was just here to start this discussion.

 

[Der_Echte]

... What exactly do you mean with transmitting power to the arm?

Once a player "Gets it" in understanding how to do this and actually starts doing it... then it is like a huge liberation.

Power transfer and timing are almost everything, well they count for a lot anywayz.

I can explain to someone that you make a kinetic energy and through all the independent movements of this and that and stopping/slowing down that and making the big acceleration there... and that is how you transfer the kinetic energy to the ball.

Getting that and applying that are real crucial to easy power and easy heavy spin.

 

[Boogar]

Nice discussion. I just want to add that using the body and rotation is not the same as the whip mechanic. You can get good power with one, but together with the right timing the spin you can put on the ball is ridiculous. Thats propably what seperates a top player from a good player.
I think the key for thr whip is proper technique, relaxation and timing.

 

[JeffM]

These few days have just been unreal for me. First ping skills membership, then my friend brought me 10 boxes of 3 stars DHS balls with discount, then my collection net came 5 days earlier than the estimated delivery day, and now tonight, I am going to a new club!

Here is the my set up now, with targets for serving practice Practicing long serves are now a lot more attractive than before



Edit: I just got back from this new club. Very amazed with the facilities: blue flooring (not wooden ones anymore), proper tables (nearly all stiga ittf approved), very spacious, even has audience seats on the side (probably for basketball games), and of course, my favourite barriers.
I finally got to play against a person that knows how to use long pimples for chopping, a very distinct experience for me. I won first 2 sets 11-9; 3rd set, I had a terrible start, losing 0-8, then came back and won 12-10. Long day, probably time for me to rest up.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

This weekend was good for me. I did not think I was going to be able to play at all but I ended up getting some training in Saturday morning. Then yesterday, (Sunday) I got to go out to College point and bang the ball around at NYISC with my friend the lefty tennis player: mid-distance looping extravaganza, launching bombs from all angles.

We talked about getting some footage where you can see both of us and get some perspective on the shots and rallies.

At some point we will get someone to film with a real camera rather than an iPhone.

Anyway, it felt great to get to hit the ball around after 3 weeks of not hitting. But the reality is, the home front, right now, is more important. So I am not sure when I will get to play again.

All that and the goon squad launching another assault that Der_Echte helped me handle, well, all in all, it was a good weekend and I am glad Der_ was able to help me jugaad a solution for dealing with a drama queen. [emoji2]


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