Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[blahness]

There is something strange: Your topspin stroke is so upwards and bat angle is so open and yet your ball land inside the table. If I do that my ball will overshoot the table. I have to literally close my bat almost parallel to the table to get the ball to land on the table.

There is something strange going on here.

Coz you're using the "full Gozo" setup 😂😂

 

[JJ Ng]

There is something strange: Your topspin stroke is so upwards and bat angle is so open and yet your ball land inside the table. If I do that my ball will overshoot the table. I have to literally close my bat almost parallel to the table to get the ball to land on the table.

There is something strange going on here.

No, it is true. He got the genuine Dignics and someone sold you a counterfeit Tenergy 05.

All kidding aside, if you look at his stroke, his starting stroke and angle are the same whether he is looping backspin or counter looping topspin. But when it is topsin, in the middle of his stroke, he changes his bat angle to a closed angle and cover the ball. That is they the ball did not shoot off the edge of the table.

that's all.

My suggestion for grandMast3r is (not like anyone is asking for my opinion) to keep the same stroke for looping backspin but once he is done looping backspin, keep the elbow and the bat high, and the angle of the racket closed because he is about to get into topspin to topspin rallies. There is no point dropping the hand anymore.

 

[blahness]

Played today and I was focusing on energy saving measures because my cardio is still terrible after cough recovery. One is the preparation bounces - i only need to start when the ball is thrown in the air, no need to start beforehand and waste energy. The other measure which I found works incredible for relaxing the forearm muscles, is to simply use the other hand to hold the bat when the ball is not in play. The forearm muscles can truly relax once the hand is no longer required to hold the bat. Pretty simple but actually makes quite a difference to stamina!

 

[Gozo]

Coz you're using the "full Gozo" setup 😂😂

Go Gozo(tm) or go home. YOLO ( You only live once )

Apparently I asked my coach yesterday, I said, " Coach, I see so many of my club-mates go the Dignics way, I want to join that club, I want to keep up with the Jones "

He replied, " Stick with this Donic of yours, it is compatible with your play style. "

Sigh, looks like I am stuck with Camry. No AMG or M5 for me.

 

[NextLevel]

There is something strange: Your topspin stroke is so upwards and bat angle is so open and yet your ball land inside the table. If I do that my ball will overshoot the table. I have to literally close my bat almost parallel to the table to get the ball to land on the table.

There is something strange going on here.

Hmmm.... partly Dignics 09c but even with that, If you think his blade is open, I think you probably misunderstand his technique, it is similar to what I am striving for now when I hit the ball though my goal is just to keep my stroke tucked into my body so my recovery close to the table is faster He is making solid contact off center and then saluting over the ball. You probably hit the ball square and hard on the back, experiment a bit more with different contact points.

Might also be the speed of what you use, but closing the blade creates risk of missing the ball, not the ideal way to develop a consistent topspin with modern rubbers.

 

[SleepyMaster]

There is something strange: Your topspin stroke is so upwards and bat angle is so open and yet your ball land inside the table. If I do that my ball will overshoot the table. I have to literally close my bat almost parallel to the table to get the ball to land on the table.

There is something strange going on here.

It’s called a topspin, when you get how to brush it - there is no need close that much, if it’s not counter loops close to the table.

But yeah, there is something strange going on - and this is the backhand of my coach 😆

 

[SleepyMaster]

No, it is true. He got the genuine Dignics and someone sold you a counterfeit Tenergy 05.

All kidding aside, if you look at his stroke, his starting stroke and angle are the same whether he is looping backspin or counter looping topspin. But when it is topsin, in the middle of his stroke, he changes his bat angle to a closed angle and cover the ball. That is they the ball did not shoot off the edge of the table.

that's all.

My suggestion for grandMast3r is (not like anyone is asking for my opinion) to keep the same stroke for looping backspin but once he is done looping backspin, keep the elbow and the bat high, and the angle of the racket closed because he is about to get into topspin to topspin rallies. There is no point dropping the hand anymore.

My coach is making it more simple: first I loop under spin (one type of a stroke and part of the ball that I hit), and after that i aim at the top of the ball when topspin rally starting, and that’s it. But he is hardly against “high elbow” if it’s not a finishing stroke. And I don’t think “high elbow” is super bad and “no-no”, there is just a place and a time to it. Far from the table is pretty safe, closer to the table, it should be finishing one - bc when the ball comes back fast, there is an option, that you wouldn’t be able to recover after such a stroke

In this rally I’ve tried to aim different parts of the table - forehand, backhand, middle - stability work more, not trying to outpowering with one topspin, which I can. But I need more consistency, than power in my game. I have more than enough power for TT

 

[Gozo]

Hmmm.... partly Dignics 09c but even with that, If you think his blade is open, I think you probably misunderstand his technique, it is similar to what I am striving for now when I hit the ball though my goal is just to keep my stroke tucked into my body so my recovery close to the table is faster He is making solid contact off center and then saluting over the ball. You probably hit the ball square and hard on the back, experiment a bit more with different contact points.

Might also be the speed of what you use, but closing the blade creates risk of missing the ball, not the ideal way to develop a consistent topspin with modern rubbers.

Now that you mention 09C, I'd recall my club mate has this Friendship Battle 2 on his Harimoto SZLC and his ball trajectory is also very loopy and archy and he has also a very brushy open angle hind of stroke not too dissimilar to GM's.

Awhile ago, I asked my coach why is his stroke and ball trajectory like this and just now I recalled my coach says it is because of his tacky rubber nature. It is just the nature of the beast.

NL, I would hazard a guess, due to the very trampolinish nature of my rubber and fast rebound bat; perhaps it favours a more direct fast drive / active block off the bounce ( position 1 ) with less spin focus.

My play style favour counter-hitting or counter driving rather than play loop-a-loop with opponent due to the nature of my equipment.

Why am I saying these?

I am like a little kid in a candy store discovering the various candies available. It keeps this big kid excited all the time discovering more new flavours all the time.

 

[NextLevel]

Now that you mention 09C, I'd recall my club mate has this Friendship Battle 2 on his Harimoto SZLC and his ball trajectory is also very loopy and archy and he has also a very brushy open angle hind of stroke not too dissimilar to GM's.

Awhile ago, I asked my coach why is his stroke and ball trajectory like this and just now I recalled my coach says it is because of his tacky rubber nature. It is just the nature of the beast.

NL, I would hazard a guess, due to the very trampolinish nature of my rubber and fast rebound bat; perhaps it favours a more direct fast drive / active block off the bounce ( position 1 ) with less spin focus.

My play style favour counter-hitting or counter driving rather than play loop-a-loop with opponent due to the nature of my equipment.

Why am I saying these?

I am like a little kid in a candy store discovering the various candies available. It keeps this kid excited all the time.

You are m right, but I don't think any blade that uses modern rubbers can favor hitting so much that looping and counterlooping is out of the question, it just mostly means the trajectories will be lower and the speed will be easier to get but the spin will require good technique. Definitely there is something to the idea that a tacky rubber encourages spinning strokes, but a lot of these things still come down to personal feeling.

 

[Richie]

if someone served short topspin to your forehand, would you still push it?

Oh I'd flick it, but it's more of this shove action. I have gotten better at it because one of my teammates often uses a short topspin punch serve. I have no choice but to flick. It's just that it's not very aggressive, I just place it back.

I think I have PTSD from Xu Hui's flick at 6.25:

That swagwalk after is forever imprinted in my mind.

 

[blahness]

Oh I'd flick it, but it's more of this shove action. I have gotten better at it because one of my teammates often uses a short topspin punch serve. I have no choice but to flick. It's just that it's not very aggressive, I just place it back.

I think I have PTSD from Xu Hui's flick at 6.25:

That swagwalk after is forever imprinted in my mind.

Omg Xu Hui like the CNT national player here?! How did you get to play him?!

 

[Richie]

Omg Xu Hui like the CNT national player here?! How did you get to play him?!

He played for eslöv in the pro league for many years. For some reason at one time he had to play in the lower division to be able to play in the top division. So, myself and my teammate got to play him in a competitive league match.. but he played at 1% of his ability. Standing straight and looping lol. This was like 4 years ago. If it was today I'd beat him!!

 

[blahness]

Now that you mention 09C, I'd recall my club mate has this Friendship Battle 2 on his Harimoto SZLC and his ball trajectory is also very loopy and archy and he has also a very brushy open angle hind of stroke not too dissimilar to GM's.

Awhile ago, I asked my coach why is his stroke and ball trajectory like this and just now I recalled my coach says it is because of his tacky rubber nature. It is just the nature of the beast.

NL, I would hazard a guess, due to the very trampolinish nature of my rubber and fast rebound bat; perhaps it favours a more direct fast drive / active block off the bounce ( position 1 ) with less spin focus.

My play style favour counter-hitting or counter driving rather than play loop-a-loop with opponent due to the nature of my equipment.

Why am I saying these?

I am like a little kid in a candy store discovering the various candies available. It keeps this big kid excited all the time discovering more new flavours all the time.

You're thinking a bit too much about racket angle imo. I use Dignics 05 (probably one of the fastest rubbers out there) and still I never contact the ball more than 45 deg closed even on counterloops. Open-ish racket angles are easier to ensure consistent solid contact with the ball which improves consistency. More importantly, is how and in what direction is the force of the body directed especially on the weight transfer - because this is where most of your mass is moving - it's literally the elephant in the room.

There was a video by Ryu Seung Min who answered this when someone asked him about racket angle.

 

[SleepyMaster]

He played for eslöv in the pro league for many years. For some reason at one time he had to play in the lower division to be able to play in the top division. So, myself and my teammate got to play him in a competitive league match.. but he played at 1% of his ability. Standing straight and looping lol. This was like 4 years ago. If it was today I'd beat him!!

My coach telling me, that there was few times when Kou Lei was forced to play at 2nd league by our, not the best operated federation. And the tourney taking place in our club. So Kou just chilled, loses two matches in a row, and went home with a poker face

 

[NextLevel]

You're thinking a bit too much about racket angle imo. I use Dignics 05 (probably one of the fastest rubbers out there) and still I never contact the ball more than 45 deg closed even on counterloops. Open-ish racket angles are easier to ensure consistent solid contact with the ball which improves consistency. More importantly, is how and in what direction is the force of the body directed especially on the weight transfer - because this is where most of your mass is moving - it's literally the elephant in the room.

There was a video by Ryu Seung Min who answered this when someone asked him about racket angle.

He isn't thinking too much, I suspect I know his problem, which is just that he is still learning what he does not know. Let me tell this story.

I was playing a match and went down 0-2. And my coach was watching me and said, "why are you contacting the ball so thickly, you can't swing fast with so much of your racket exposed to the ball. If you want to maintain that contact, just swing less hard." So I toned down my swing speed and came back to win 3‐2. He then explained to me that when contacting the ball head on and the ball has energy, the wind of your paddle blows the ball and the ball is gone before you have a chance to add spin. But if you contact a bit off center but still still somewhat closed, you can trap and swing hard with more open and safer angles as long as you finish the stroke correctly. This is a guy who never spoke about pronation, he just talked about starting and finishing the strokes and would describe what he wanted to see. Lots of wisdom that I never appreciated.

That was the only time he ever explained that wind theory and I don't think I ever truly bought into it. But when I started training by myself later, I began to appreciate his main point much more, that you have to choose your contact points wisely and by raising and reducing risk in practice. Good players also have similar superstitions and stories, if you doubt this, go watch Truls reviewing his Cybershape blade with Dan, note how he talks about using the points on the blade to decide whether his starting position is what he wants.

The thing is that racket angle is controlled by many things, one of Ryu Seung Min's hidden points in that video was that your body can close the racket even if it feels open to you. But this ties back to what I was saying about pedagogy vs reality. It is why whenever someone says that someone changing the racket angle during the swing by pronating the arm has bad technique, I just shake my head and wonder whether the person has ever hit a good forehand or watched pros attack semi-high balls.. in fact on many loops, if you start the racket and swing to a true salute. your racket angle is changing throughout the stroke as your body has circular joints.

So Gozo is still swinging at the ball the way he thinks is correct. There are many ways to swing at a ball, many of them look superficially similar. When you expand your mind and learn to use different approaches, you learn the limitations of your/one approach. And sometimes you need to learn the other approaches to build tools that help you appreciate the new approach. As long as you are working, no experience is wasted.

PS: by the way. What I was doing when I had most of my racket face going into the ball was trying to close the racket and swing faster to get more spin with a closed racket angle. This was before I realized that spin is not about closed racket angles as it is about the rotational effect of the stroke.

 

[blahness]

He isn't thinking too much, I suspect I know his problem, which is just that he is still learning what he does not know. Let me tell this story.

I was playing a match and went down 0-2. And my coach was watching me and said, "why are you contacting the ball so thickly, you can't swing fast with so much of your racket exposed to the ball. If you want to maintain that contact, just swing less hard." So I toned down my swing speed and came back to win 3‐2. He then explained to me that when contacting the ball head on and the ball has energy, the wind of your paddle blows the ball and the ball is gone before you have a chance to add spin. But if you contact a bit off center but still still somewhat closed, you can trap and swing hard with more open and safer angles as long as you finish the stroke correctly. This is a guy who never spoke about pronation, he just talked about starting and finishing the strokes and would describe what he wanted to see. Lots of wisdom that I never appreciated.

That was the only time he ever explained that wind theory and I don't think I ever truly bought into it. But when I started training by myself later, I began to appreciate his main point much more, that you have to choose your contact points wisely and by raising and reducing risk in practice. Good players also have similar superstitions and stories, if you doubt this, go watch Truls reviewing his Cybershape blade with Dan, note how he talks about using the points on the blade to decide whether his starting position is what he wants.

The thing is that racket angle is controlled by many things, one of Ryu Seung Min's hidden points in that video was that your body can close the racket even if it feels open to you. But this ties back to what I was saying about pedagogy vs reality. It is why whenever someone says that someone changing the racket angle during the swing by pronating the arm has bad technique, I just shake my head and wonder whether the person has ever hit a good forehand or watched pros attack semi-high balls.. in fact on many loops, if you start the racket and swing to a true salute. your racket angle is changing throughout the stroke as your body has circular joints.

So Gozo is still swinging at the ball the way he thinks is correct. There are many ways to swing at a ball, many of them look superficially similar. When you expand your mind and learn to use different approaches, you learn the limitations of your/one approach. And sometimes you need to learn the other approaches to build tools that help you appreciate the new approach. As long as you are working, no experience is wasted.

PS: by the way. What I was doing when I had most of my racket face going into the ball was trying to close the racket and swing faster to get more spin with a closed racket angle. This was before I realized that spin is not about closed racket angles as it is about the rotational effect of the stroke.

To further the point, there comes a point where just racket angles is insufficient to deal with the incoming spin just because it is simply of too high quality - you need to learn how to use the centre of gravity to control the spin. Also overly open or closed angles lead to more errors especially with hitting the edge of the blade.

I also managed to find the Ryu Seung Min video here.

 

[Gozo]

To further the point, there comes a point where just racket angles is insufficient to deal with the incoming spin just because it is simply of too high quality - you need to learn how to use the centre of gravity to control the spin. Also overly open or closed angles lead to more errors especially with hitting the edge of the blade.

I also managed to find the Ryu Seung Min video here.

Blahness,

I understand thus, when looping backspin ball, getting low and spinning it upwards is the way to go. I have done it before and know it with direct personal experience. So I am already doing what Ryu Seung Min is advocating in regards to backspin ball.

My issue is with regards to incoming topspin type of ball. If I were to hit with strokes similar as those shown in GM's video, my ball usually goes long. That is why I compensated by closing my bat and having a low stance. In this way, I am able to get the ball inside the table.

What surprises me is GM has shown he is able to do it which makes me suspect it has to do with his tacky 09C rubber. If that is true, then different rubber characteristic do truly demand variation to one's FH stroke.

 

[JJ Ng]

Blahness,

I understand thus, when looping backspin ball, getting low and spinning it upwards is the way to go. I have done it before and know it with direct personal experience. So I am already doing what Ryu Seung Min is advocating in regards to backspin ball.

My issue is with regards to incoming topspin type of ball. If I were to hit with strokes similar as those shown in GM's video, my ball usually goes long. That is why I compensated by closing my bat and having a low stance. In this way, I am able to get the ball inside the table.

What surprises me is GM has shown he is able to do it which makes me suspect it has to do with his tacky 09C rubber. If that is true, then different rubber characteristic do truly demand variation to one's FH stroke.

Gozo, it is time for you to try Hurricane 3 neo

 

[Gozo]

Gozo, it is time for you to try Hurricane 3 neo

Then my coach will not be able to call me 死 鬼 佬 anymore.

 

[jammmail]

Played a ranking tournament at the weekend - my first like that since I was a junior many moons ago (will be 40 this year!).
Finish 3rd in my band 5 wins 2 losses. Maybe could have got one more win on another day, but great fun and pleased with the outcome. Showing the training is finally starting to pay off.
Wow it was hot in there though!
Amazing to watch the top level close up!