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One of the traditional struggles in TT is pushing off the weaker leg I think this directly addresses that.
Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat
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so i was in another team tournament today, Tokyo League Division 5 (out of 7). The level is already pretty high.
We were in a group of 5 teams. I was the weakest player of my team and played only 2 matches. That's also because the team was winning fast, we won our 3 first matches 3-0. I had only time to play 1 doubles match, early in the morning, that we won 3-1, i played rather well, but it helps to play with a very good player.
Last match, we play the top team, going down from Division 3 having forfeited a few rounds because of Covid.
I am playing a singles match against the father of Taku Takakiwa, a former JNT member. He's not as strong as his sons, but i checked he is a very respectable Dan 3 player. Now well over 60, i guess he is well past his prime when he probably earned his dans, and cannot move as quick as he used to, but he's still very skilled and experienced. He is a traditional J-Penholder.
Nevertheless, i am playing without pressure and fear, and have a very good start. 7-7 in G1 but it almost looks i'm the better player at that stage. I don't make easy mistakes, serve and receive is actually good, here's a lot of rallies, i don't miss my opportunities to open with loop on both wings and keep on attacking. I'm not often playing that well.
Then at 7-7 i make the mistake to try again a serve which is not working so well. Normally my BH serve is effective, but this guy is twisting his wrist and manages to take the ball on the left side and kill the sidespin and give a deadball. i know I missed a BH opener because of that earlier on. I should have known that he'd do it again and that i should anticipate trying to get it with the FH but i pushed it too long instead.
I hated myself for that, and collapsed mentally, instead of staying positive. 7-11.
Game2 i still play well, and it's a 1-point game all along. he gets the game point first, but i save a couple, and with the help of the net twice in a row, im up 12-11. We then get into a rally, where he is retreating more than 3 meters away from the table as I am attacking, and he's trying lobbing. I don't take too much risk with the smash as i thought he couldn't be that good at this little game, and I'm rather good at smashing, but he retrieves 3 and I miss the 4th smash.
And again i collapse mentally, trying a fast long serve down the line on the next point which bounces 1 meter off the table ... and lose the next rally...12-14.
Game3 I disappeared and he won easily 11-6. I just cannot afford to miss the kind of opportunities I had against this upper rank players.
---
so once again, sometimes i have fantastic shots coming out of my racket, I can play at moments very well, but it rarely lasts one full game, lets not talk about lasting a whole match.
To give credit to my opponent, he quickly analyzed my game. my BH topspin was very effective today so he switched to serving and pushing to my FH most of the time from the middle of the game, and indeed i made more mistakes there.
still I can see improvements. my ball quality is up. my attacking shots are good enough relative to my level and the couple ones above. I am better at recovering behind my serves, trying to get ready for any ball at the 2nd bounce. I am more aware of what's coming after my serves and have some good tactics. I can now serve short with backspin with my BH etc...
still quite far from being able to win those matches, but i feel I've made a step or 2 in the right direction, finally
---
my teammates fought well but we lost to the top team 2-3, which means we finished 2nd out of 5 and won't go up one division for next time.
all in all i played only 2 matches, while our ace player played 8 matches (4 doubles + 4 singles).
that's how team tournaments work here. But i don't mind too much, i enjoy cheering almost as much as playing.
We were in a group of 5 teams. I was the weakest player of my team and played only 2 matches. That's also because the team was winning fast, we won our 3 first matches 3-0. I had only time to play 1 doubles match, early in the morning, that we won 3-1, i played rather well, but it helps to play with a very good player.
Last match, we play the top team, going down from Division 3 having forfeited a few rounds because of Covid.
I am playing a singles match against the father of Taku Takakiwa, a former JNT member. He's not as strong as his sons, but i checked he is a very respectable Dan 3 player. Now well over 60, i guess he is well past his prime when he probably earned his dans, and cannot move as quick as he used to, but he's still very skilled and experienced. He is a traditional J-Penholder.
Nevertheless, i am playing without pressure and fear, and have a very good start. 7-7 in G1 but it almost looks i'm the better player at that stage. I don't make easy mistakes, serve and receive is actually good, here's a lot of rallies, i don't miss my opportunities to open with loop on both wings and keep on attacking. I'm not often playing that well.
Then at 7-7 i make the mistake to try again a serve which is not working so well. Normally my BH serve is effective, but this guy is twisting his wrist and manages to take the ball on the left side and kill the sidespin and give a deadball. i know I missed a BH opener because of that earlier on. I should have known that he'd do it again and that i should anticipate trying to get it with the FH but i pushed it too long instead.
I hated myself for that, and collapsed mentally, instead of staying positive. 7-11.
Game2 i still play well, and it's a 1-point game all along. he gets the game point first, but i save a couple, and with the help of the net twice in a row, im up 12-11. We then get into a rally, where he is retreating more than 3 meters away from the table as I am attacking, and he's trying lobbing. I don't take too much risk with the smash as i thought he couldn't be that good at this little game, and I'm rather good at smashing, but he retrieves 3 and I miss the 4th smash.
And again i collapse mentally, trying a fast long serve down the line on the next point which bounces 1 meter off the table ... and lose the next rally...12-14.
Game3 I disappeared and he won easily 11-6. I just cannot afford to miss the kind of opportunities I had against this upper rank players.
---
so once again, sometimes i have fantastic shots coming out of my racket, I can play at moments very well, but it rarely lasts one full game, lets not talk about lasting a whole match.
To give credit to my opponent, he quickly analyzed my game. my BH topspin was very effective today so he switched to serving and pushing to my FH most of the time from the middle of the game, and indeed i made more mistakes there.
still I can see improvements. my ball quality is up. my attacking shots are good enough relative to my level and the couple ones above. I am better at recovering behind my serves, trying to get ready for any ball at the 2nd bounce. I am more aware of what's coming after my serves and have some good tactics. I can now serve short with backspin with my BH etc...
still quite far from being able to win those matches, but i feel I've made a step or 2 in the right direction, finally
---
my teammates fought well but we lost to the top team 2-3, which means we finished 2nd out of 5 and won't go up one division for next time.
all in all i played only 2 matches, while our ace player played 8 matches (4 doubles + 4 singles).
that's how team tournaments work here. But i don't mind too much, i enjoy cheering almost as much as playing.
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So I played with my older Viscaria today - it’s a 2011 series 90g and a little softer feeling. I put a newish sheet of Xiom Vega X on FH and Rozena on BH. The Vega X had been fairly unexceptional on my inner blade, but it totally came alive on the Viscaria - literally it was like a different rubber. Rozena is always steady, and on this blade offers a safer T05 experience. All in all I was, as often, very happy with the overall balance and feel of this setup. I’ll try it again in some matches next week and see how it goes….
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Rather a great half-match !
I played great around half of the time. Unfortunately that never included the last part of a game.
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Sounds like you improved! That's the most important thing imo, eventually it will start showing in the results. Missing easy pushes or smashes can be quite detrimental mentally, but tbh I've learnt recently to respect all shots - not to treat any shot as "easy" in the game including high balls (they can be incredibly difficult given the right placement and spin). Once I did that, I noticed that most of my misses were due to bad/slow recovery reset from the previous shot and/or spin/placement misreads. Then my focus in game would be to adjust and learn from those mistakes rather than beat myself over them.
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ESN 42 hardness is my magic number
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I had a chance to experience this exercise's benefit yesterday, my legs felt more catapulty. I was able to catapult fro BH corner to FH corner to rtn ball and catapult it back to the BH side. The explosiveness power is wonderful & amazing. My legs are like saying, " Gozo, I'm ready! You can count on me! Let's do it! "
Funny enough, the losse crickety feeling in my knees also miraculously disappear.
BTW, I won 4-3 against a very senior / veteran player who uses short pips with C-Pen. It is very difficult to win him because he hits with great accuracy to both sharp corner with his pips. He is a pips-hitter stylist.
My above catapulty explosiveness leg power helps with returning his wide angle balls.
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Collecting some evidence that I prefer Golden Tango when it is less sticky. Played decently with the Cybershape but there is still training to do for sure.
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Had a pretty good 3 hr training session today. I found my FH apparently. Second time in two months that I tear the topsheet of my Vega Europe.
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Probably the wrong person to give advice but for Vegas, all I can advise you to do is graduate! Especially since you are using it on the forehand.
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I'm not sure what to use yet. I just bought this sheet of Vega Europe and I'm so mad I have a tear in it lol.
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My usual advice is to get something like Rozena or Fastarc C1/G1 and use it until you think you know what you are doing. Because I know 2000 level players who have used them profitably, but if you decide you don't like them, you have developed your strokes using something that can support stronger technique even if it doesn't reward it like some higher performance stuff will.
But for damaging the rubber, it is part of table tennis, as you get better, it happens less.
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I'm back from the competition.
It went for 2 days.
I arrived 1 day prior so I don't have to start driving at 4am on day 1.
I joined 5 events: Graded Doubles, Graded A singles, Country Doubles, Country singles, Drawn doubles.
My aim was to not lose the first match of each event.
Graded doubles: against 2 young players, D + T. D is 14/15yo and is improving fast. T is improving but not a junior anymore. I had trouble receiving backhand serves as they curve around to my right side, so often I miss the contact point. I did eventually adapt but it was too late. My partner and I were initially expecting to go further in the event but sadly our run ended first match. That also failed my aim.
Grade A singles: my first match oponent was sick, so I moved to next stage and faced an oponent that is 100 points higher than I am. He uses anti-spin. To my surprise, I was doing quite well against him, I understand the basic mechanism of long pips and I treat anti the same way. I was ahead 2-1, but I ended up losing a very close battle 2-3. I really thought I had it but in the crucial points I couldn't capture. I like to serve to his bh as I know what spin is coming back, but somehow sometimes in the match, I forget about the anti and I would hit the ball as though the rubber is normal inverted which then I would regret lol. After the match, he praised me for being consistent, especially my backhand. (I will post the match later for advise).
Country Doubles: We first played a pair where one member P is from my own club! We didn't have much difficulty as we were quite more mobile than our opponent, so won 3-0. Next match, we played against a pair which consisted of D again. This time we were leading 2-1, but they caught up to 2-2. We were leading in 5th set, but in the crucial 2 points at 9-9, my backhand failed me. I knew he was going to put it to my bh, and I was preparing for it but first one hit my edge, 2nd one I didn't land. So we lost. Bit disappointing but it is what it is.
Country singles: I played against P who is from my club.. I won 3-0. Then I played against a player who is 100 points above me. I had trouble receiving his serve where it seemed like he put backspin on the serve but actually it is very very light spin, so whenever I push it, he would open up with his bh that the spin is so strong I can't control it or that if I control with a block, he would continue to blast me apart. I did have 2 close sets to him, but eventually I lost 3-1. At the end, I think I can read his serves better but it was too late. I am quite amazed at how spinny and forward leaping of his loop, particularly his bh. (I will post match later for advise).
Drawn doubles: The concept is the organisers will pair me up with another player at their choice, and it seems like they would try to even out the pairs so the sum of the pairs ranking is similar. I.e. a strong + weak or 2 x similar ranks. For me, they ranked me with a lady someone slightly less than 100 points above me. She would be 60+ yo and plays close to table. No loop but pushes and fast attack. We did quite well due to that setup where I like hitting mid zone and she is close to table to try set up the next shot for me or to finish off weak balls from my previous attack. In the first match, we beat a pair where the strong player is 200 points better than I am. Then second match, we had issue dealing with the spin of one of the opponent where whenever his loop lands, we have difficulty controlling it. So there woud be match ups depending on who is receiving that would favour us, as his partner isn't as strong, so then I would loop and they couldn't deal with it. Luckily we won 3-1. Then third match, it was against the same pair as I faced in the Country Doubles, includes the player D... This is the 3rd time I play against D in doubles in this competition. We had our chances, leading 2-1, but then they caught up and beat us 2-3. We did reach the semi-finals, so this is perhaps the best event that I performed in.
I don't think I performed the best I could, there were close matches that I could definitely have won and might actually got my team/ I much close to finishing 1st or not 1st if we got through, but it is what it is. I haven't played proper competition for ages, so I am happy that I got this opportunity to compete. There are matches that I performed better and then there are ones that I might have lost focus and didn't do as well. Good experience for me and I enjoyed it.
It went for 2 days.
I arrived 1 day prior so I don't have to start driving at 4am on day 1.
I joined 5 events: Graded Doubles, Graded A singles, Country Doubles, Country singles, Drawn doubles.
My aim was to not lose the first match of each event.
Graded doubles: against 2 young players, D + T. D is 14/15yo and is improving fast. T is improving but not a junior anymore. I had trouble receiving backhand serves as they curve around to my right side, so often I miss the contact point. I did eventually adapt but it was too late. My partner and I were initially expecting to go further in the event but sadly our run ended first match. That also failed my aim.
Grade A singles: my first match oponent was sick, so I moved to next stage and faced an oponent that is 100 points higher than I am. He uses anti-spin. To my surprise, I was doing quite well against him, I understand the basic mechanism of long pips and I treat anti the same way. I was ahead 2-1, but I ended up losing a very close battle 2-3. I really thought I had it but in the crucial points I couldn't capture. I like to serve to his bh as I know what spin is coming back, but somehow sometimes in the match, I forget about the anti and I would hit the ball as though the rubber is normal inverted which then I would regret lol. After the match, he praised me for being consistent, especially my backhand. (I will post the match later for advise).
Country Doubles: We first played a pair where one member P is from my own club! We didn't have much difficulty as we were quite more mobile than our opponent, so won 3-0. Next match, we played against a pair which consisted of D again. This time we were leading 2-1, but they caught up to 2-2. We were leading in 5th set, but in the crucial 2 points at 9-9, my backhand failed me. I knew he was going to put it to my bh, and I was preparing for it but first one hit my edge, 2nd one I didn't land. So we lost. Bit disappointing but it is what it is.
Country singles: I played against P who is from my club.. I won 3-0. Then I played against a player who is 100 points above me. I had trouble receiving his serve where it seemed like he put backspin on the serve but actually it is very very light spin, so whenever I push it, he would open up with his bh that the spin is so strong I can't control it or that if I control with a block, he would continue to blast me apart. I did have 2 close sets to him, but eventually I lost 3-1. At the end, I think I can read his serves better but it was too late. I am quite amazed at how spinny and forward leaping of his loop, particularly his bh. (I will post match later for advise).
Drawn doubles: The concept is the organisers will pair me up with another player at their choice, and it seems like they would try to even out the pairs so the sum of the pairs ranking is similar. I.e. a strong + weak or 2 x similar ranks. For me, they ranked me with a lady someone slightly less than 100 points above me. She would be 60+ yo and plays close to table. No loop but pushes and fast attack. We did quite well due to that setup where I like hitting mid zone and she is close to table to try set up the next shot for me or to finish off weak balls from my previous attack. In the first match, we beat a pair where the strong player is 200 points better than I am. Then second match, we had issue dealing with the spin of one of the opponent where whenever his loop lands, we have difficulty controlling it. So there woud be match ups depending on who is receiving that would favour us, as his partner isn't as strong, so then I would loop and they couldn't deal with it. Luckily we won 3-1. Then third match, it was against the same pair as I faced in the Country Doubles, includes the player D... This is the 3rd time I play against D in doubles in this competition. We had our chances, leading 2-1, but then they caught up and beat us 2-3. We did reach the semi-finals, so this is perhaps the best event that I performed in.
I don't think I performed the best I could, there were close matches that I could definitely have won and might actually got my team/ I much close to finishing 1st or not 1st if we got through, but it is what it is. I haven't played proper competition for ages, so I am happy that I got this opportunity to compete. There are matches that I performed better and then there are ones that I might have lost focus and didn't do as well. Good experience for me and I enjoyed it.
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I'll look at the C1 once this Europe fades. At the rate I'm playing, it'll probably be done in a month. I've definitely hit the Rakza 7 a lot more, so it's pretty durable.
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Rakza 7 is also good enough for sure, just use the same thing on both sides until your technique is mature. It makes it easier to transfer stroke knowledge across both sides and to learn to respond to balls with the same intuition faster. Then when you reach a level when you have defining strengths and weaknesses in your strokes, you can pick rubbers that enhance the strengths and reduce the weaknesses.
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Topspin. When you understand the way, you see it in all things.
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It is good to feel there is still room to improve. Definitely would like to see the videos, especially the no-spin server in singles.
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With all the recovery reset training, I realised something about my transition from FH back to BH. Basically, the end position of the full FH powerloop (with racket tip pointing towards left) is very close to the BH backswing position. Using this as an advantage, it is possible to make the transition faster than resetting elbow to middle. So for eg after a FH loop, there's no need to reset arm or weight to middle, you simply relax and look at the opponent's paddle and there's 2 scenarios:
1) ball goes to BH and then you simply flow from the FH followthrough to the BH backswing, while finding the ball with your left leg.
2) ball goes to FH and then you simply pull your elbow back using the entire body (not the arm), while finding the ball with your right leg. Because there's more time in FH as long as you use your body to power the backswing (from the followthrough) you should have ample time.
BH to FH is actually similar.
However, this is only applicable in faster balls from the opponent for eg in fast close table countering situations. If the ball is awkward or slow or high, recovery reset is important to ensure a good position is achieved to hit the ball. The other thing is that if you're pulled out of position it's important to reset back somewhat towards the middle for the next ball to avoid providing too much of an open table.
1) ball goes to BH and then you simply flow from the FH followthrough to the BH backswing, while finding the ball with your left leg.
2) ball goes to FH and then you simply pull your elbow back using the entire body (not the arm), while finding the ball with your right leg. Because there's more time in FH as long as you use your body to power the backswing (from the followthrough) you should have ample time.
BH to FH is actually similar.
However, this is only applicable in faster balls from the opponent for eg in fast close table countering situations. If the ball is awkward or slow or high, recovery reset is important to ensure a good position is achieved to hit the ball. The other thing is that if you're pulled out of position it's important to reset back somewhat towards the middle for the next ball to avoid providing too much of an open table.
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