Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[UpSideDownCarl]

.What gets annoying is the technical know it all who will never post video of their play.

Hahaha. This made me laugh.



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[OldschoolPenholder]

OSP, getting a shorter more compact stroke when close to teh table has a lot of benefits for you.

To make it short, you learn how to more quickly and efficiently transfer a small movement of your body into energy at impact. You gotta start loose, use a leg, hip, shoulder turn, upper/lower arm forward, stop upper arm, lower arm snap and wrist snap to maximize the whip. Korean pro Kim Jung Hoon describes his source of power when close to table with a "Short" hip turn, very short, but a litle explosive, and being loose, it converts into energy along his path all the way to his bat.

Sometimes the source of energy is a step, when in position, often it is raising the legs and uncoiling the waist to start it out.

Stay loose and figure out how you can make your whip to engage more of your leg/waist. You can also whip like Next Level, who doesn't how much lower body joints functioning like normal. He uses the movement of the whole arm itself, sometimes with a little help from waist, he is well anchored, once his elbow is getting close to impact zone, he slows down upper arm movement and explodes his lower arm through the zone. You will need to use your abs to decelerate and recover.

What you describe is troublesome for many players. Even if I know how to be compact close to the table, I am often tempted to go for more power and a longer movement to explode. Just try to explode being loose with a shorter lower body movement, but be anchored in position for leverage.

Thank you Der!

42&BackPains has clued me in on the shorter compact loop stroke before. It is the same as your advice. But knowing is different than doing. So I have to empty my cup and to taste your tea and sadly my cup is still half-full. I will get it sooner or later, knowing me, it will be later LOL

Believe it or not, for my martial arts training, i sometimes isolate just the 'short hip turn' ... later on i add the fist or elbow combined with the hip turn. Many (if not all) sports needs the whole body functioning as a unit. The hip turn is crucial to sports like baseball, golf, etc.

I think my challenge is the timing and 'picking up' on the ball ... by that i mean, i have not gotten the timing on when to stroke the ball ... i've gotten the timing on my windup loop stroke back, after my 30 yrs vacation from the sport, i know when the ball reaches this level below the table in its arc, i start the loop.

For the shorter stroke, I have not consistently found the timing on when to contact the ball/where in the arc to contact the ball. I just know generally it should be above the table.

Another factor that may or many not affect me, i'm near-sighted and have astygmatism, but i feel more comfortable NOT wearing my glasses when i play.

And relaxation helps in all aspects of Life. IMO, one of the hardest aspects of Life is to learn to relax ... relaxation helps in all sports and physical activities.

Thank you again Der, i may not listen to 42&BackPains but I'm going to listen to you

 

[NextLevel]

Here is the earlier match. It is largely the first set of the later match replayed three times. He probably twiddled here as well, but maybe checking the paddle before the match keyed me in in a way that was missing in the second match.

 

[Sakumi]

Private again

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

NL,

Vid not appearing for me, may be set for private only?

 

[Sakumi]

NL,

Vid not appearing for me, may be set for private only?

Fixed now

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Fixed now

Confirmed.

 

[Ghostzen]

Most frustrating loss. Comments welcome.

Good video NL - Only had a quick look but The one thing I see is the misread of the float ball pretty well all the time putting it long. Almost like you were expecting a much heavier ball returned.

 

[ajtatosmano2]

When I misread a floating ball and miss the table my coach always says: contact at the top of the ball! Spin it, don't just hit!

 

[pgpg]

Good video NL - Only had a quick look but The one thing I see is the misread of the float ball pretty well all the time putting it long. Almost like you were expecting a much heavier ball returned.

What Ghostzen said - I watched the match and there is pretty much no twiddling involved on his part(may be couple of times he received with inverted on BH, but that's all).

However - you sent long ALL (8+) of his FH chops (with inverted), presumably because they did NOT have heavy backspin. I have the same kind of FH chop - it looks heavy (and I try very hard to make it heavy), but it is not . I basically do not know how to chop with heavy backspin on FH, but even these can be dangerous, as we saw here. He did not land a single FH chop in the first game (they looked more like bad blocks), but got better later on. I think it helps to listen to the contact - most of my FH chops are 'loud', so no brushing and thus no heavy backspin.

His BH chops were more loaded later too or he simply landed more of them - you netted quite a few.

Also, early in the second game his serve receive with LP gave you a lot of trouble, you were either netting them or sending long (mostly). From game 3 on you were visibly frustrated as well.

 

[Der_Echte]

He was doing it to you in game one too. His chop of your first spinny attack has very little underspin. Difficult to see from your side, but he is avoiding spin and giving you a little under and some side. You have to drive through those if you want a ttack, but if you bunt with a slightly closed bat, you get an easier ball back... it is that or attack much more shhallow with little spin and a little arc, then blow up the next ball.

 

[Der_Echte]

When you returned a ball really weak a little high and half long to hiz BH, he gave you a meatball to crush.

He had the Jedi mind trick going.

As good as I am vs defenders, I fell to a similar player of 2050 standard (whom I would beat even a 2150 player that style) at HCTTC in Jan. Dude kept giving me back no spin and it all looked like medium underspin. I bump it and it pops up for a kill, I attack spin and it goes just long, I failed to adapt that match.

 

[NextLevel]

Good video NL - Only had a quick look but The one thing I see is the misread of the float ball pretty well all the time putting it long. Almost like you were expecting a much heavier ball returned.

Thanks, Ghostzen. Always great to have a player of your level comment here. The thing is that I am not reading the ball properly. How to adapt or tell? Any signs rather other than to simply know after and get frustrated?

 

[NextLevel]

What Ghostzen said - I watched the match and there is pretty much no twiddling involved on his part(may be couple of times he received with inverted on BH, but that's all).

However - you sent long ALL (8+) of his FH chops (with inverted), presumably because they did NOT have heavy backspin. I have the same kind of FH chop - it looks heavy (and I try very hard to make it heavy), but it is not . I basically do not know how to chop with heavy backspin on FH, but even these can be dangerous, as we saw here. He did not land a single FH chop in the first game (they looked more like bad blocks), but got better later on. I think it helps to listen to the contact - most of my FH chops are 'loud', so no brushing and thus no heavy backspin.

His BH chops were more loaded later too or he simply landed more of them - you netted quite a few.

Also, early in the second game his serve receive with LP gave you a lot of trouble, you were either netting them or sending long (mostly). From game 3 on you were visibly frustrated as well.

Thanks, pgpg. I think the ease of the games just made me too eager to end the points in 2 shots. I could definitely have won them if I was okay playing 3 or 4 shots and moving him around.

 

[Ghostzen]

Taking your time and working the point with a bit more thought would have won the match I think as well. Also adjusting to the changes in spin from his backhand and forehand quickly would have put you on the front foot in most of the rallies. Sometimes playing a defender is more about game plan and variety and setting the winner than just trying to blast everything. Unless there is a big level difference.

As for the float ball.... The contact on his bat, the Sound and the flight of the ball to me show a ball with less spin. There some of the "tells" I look for.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Taking your time and working the point with a bit more thought would have won the match I think as well. Also adjusting to the changes in spin from his backhand and forehand quickly would have put you on the front foot in most of the rallies. Sometimes playing a defender is more about game plan and variety and setting the winner than just trying to blast everything. Unless there is a big level difference.

As for the float ball.... The contact on his bat, the Sound and the flight of the ball to me show a ball with less spin. There some of the "tells" I look for.

This is really a great comment.

I've had Michael Landers tell me he just can see the spin on the ball and tell if it's heavy or not. I think I have gotten better at this. But I still totally suck at it. Hahahahaha.

Our minds can play tricks on us when we think it is supposed to be one spin and it is a different spin. But every once in a while I can see a little. I am better at seeing when a ball is really heavy than seeing that it is dead. And in a match, I'm probably not going to read that well. Because, it is easier to see while watching than when you have to respond.

But, I think at higher levels of play you start seeing that stuff better and better. And that is why watching which side the pips player uses, seeing if he twiddles, and hearing how much contact is really important as Ghostzen said.

Trickiest part is, with the pips, if the player bends the pips, all of a sudden the amount of spin is way different.


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[pgpg]

Here is the earlier match. It is largely the first set of the later match replayed three times. He probably twiddled here as well, but maybe checking the paddle before the match keyed me in in a way that was missing in the second match.

Hmm, here his FH chops either missed or you pretty much crushed them - don't think you missed a single one in first two games I watched. Hard to say whether in the second match he suddenly started to send you floaters or your FH fell apart. Can't see well if chop landing depth and their height was any different between the matches - may be in the second one they were a bit lower...

 

[Shuki]

Played sick today. I was in one of my 3 day ruts. And I broke through it full force.

Played 11 matches lost 2 . 0-3 and 2-3
Best part of the loss was reflecting and looking back at those matches with confidence thinking I could beat them with adjustments that I've now thought through. Wish I thought of them at the time.

All wins were 3-0. There wasn't as much reflection here. The first game was usually closer until I adapted to each opponent.



Every time I'm in a rut I try different things to break through it. This time it was basically telling myself that I'm fkin good and everybody else was worse than me. (In my head of course)

Turns out this kind of confidence worked out pretty darn well.


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[DTopSpirit]

Some technical advice can be helpful because no one understands technique 100%. In the end I just take what I can and ignore what I can't just as we all do. What gets annoying is the technical know it all who will never post video of their play.

I check the bat and you can see the first game shows I know what I am doing. What is clearly happening is that if I don't consciously look for the twiddle, my subconscious gets confused.

Just had a look at the video, and here are some thoughts:

• First of all, looks like the red is the pips, and the black is the spinny side. Your opponent serves with the black, and carefully floats the fh chop back with the black. Notice the red side pops up now and again when he pushes - signs of an uncontrolled pip.
• Knowing that, his safest play is to chop with the pips on the bh against your loop, which will give him a nice heavy backspin, and to float the forehand with the black, which will be easiest to control your loop. Or twiddle to the forehand and use the pips to produce a heavy backspin ball. I didn't see many of him actually producing backspin chops off your loop with his black side, only when pushing up at the table.
• I notice also that he rarely attacks, perhaps 4 or 5 times in the entire match.

Assuming that I am correct about those points, we can probably make the following generalisations with a fair degree of confidence.

• Attacks to his forehand will come back floated most of the time, attacks to his backhand will come back medium to medium heavy backspin.
• You don't actually have to attack two balls in a row. He doesn't run in and attack your pushes, so there is no reason that you have to follow up your first attack with another attack if the ball is difficult.
• Similarly, he doesn't attack off your push return of serve or standard push when he is already up to the table very often, so there is no need to launch an attack off difficult balls. You can afford to wait for an easy one.
• Stop half looping topspins to his backhand with medium pace and medium spin. The risk/reward ratio is terrible. You have a high chance of missing the ball, and all it does is feed to his pips to give him a nice easy medium backspin to put you under pressure.
• Place your forehand attack. You are feeding it straight to his forehand wing every time. Put it at his right hip instead - make him have to choose a side and move out of the way to hit the ball.
• Use your brain. You kept missing the forehand float. By the third time you should know something is up and you need to change something or else the same thing will keep happening. Either assume the ball will be floated and play for that, or change to attacking to his backhand where you know you are getting back consistent backspin. Or push the follow up instead of attacking it again. Do something different though.
• Notice your hard backhand attack worked well all match. That was because you moved the placement around nicely, going wide to his backhand, right at him and a couple down the line.

This might sound a bit mean but I think you can take it - brain dead play will give you bad results against decent players. You tried to take on a reasonable level chopper with brute force and got your ass handed to you because he was at a good enough level to control your first attack. You helped him a lot by always putting the forehand in the same place, and by trying to launch attacks against difficult balls when you didn't need to.


Better tactics would see a better result for you, especially if he doesn't actually have the ability to control your attack with his fh chop while putting backspin on the ball (more difficult for him), or the ability to twiddle to the long pips on the forehand.

Cheers,
Greg

 

[NextLevel]

I think the brain dead play comment is unfair because it ignores the fact that the first game score was 11-3 and it probably ignores that I beat same opponent using largely the same tactics badly so what in part requires explanation is what changed. The part where I think it is fair is that I had a coach watching and dissecting most of my opponents for the first time in a long a while but unfortunately he was watching another match with another player while I was playing. Having won the first match and first game so easily, I didn't have an effective handle on what had changed. I could definitely have played much differently, but I don't know whether that would have taught me anything unless I get a better handle on what he changed. If he simply adapted by taking the ball later, that is fair. Or he just figured out how to chop topspins that he could not chop 3 mins earlier, and given how this happens with serves, that is possible too. In fact, if you ask the chopper what he changed, he will tell you he largely started making more noise to get into my head and apologized for it much later in the day unsolicited.