Thanks NL.
But when I play a real match, 99 percent of my loops are soft, slow, sissy loops with a very vertical swing path. They are "rainbow-style loops" without going agressively forwards and through the ball. I almost never hit a loop in a match like the ones you saw in my last multiball video, even when my opponent gives me a high, weak ball where the situation calls for it. So when you see me launching 100mph power loops in training, it's just my concentrated effort to make myself go agressively forward and through the ball. The problem is when I play in a real match, I go back to the purely vertical swing path that I've done for years.
Sometimes it's difficult for me know how much of my problem is psychological and being afraid to miss versus still not having overcome my tendency to lift the ball and take every shot on the descent. It's probably a combination of both.
Have you ever tried to swing at a ball in a way that you have never swung at it before under pressure?
Have you ever tried to greet your girlfriend in a way that you have never greeted her before?
We are creatures of habits. Changing habits is hard. You go up 2-0 in a game playing a certain way and you don't have a coach to tell you what changed and the opponent changes something and comes back to beat you.
You CAN loop the ball slowly and still come forward and over the ball - I do that for a living.
In serious matches, the most important thing is to set up the point to get the patterns you are looking for or that you have drilled in practice. In technical practice, the most important thing is to get your technique as flexible and adaptable as possible.
The problem in part is that most of your training is not simulating match play and you aren't getting the ball variety that makes you understand how to loop - everything is too cookie cutter. Have Stouffer dink a ball low off the side off the table to your forehand and let you loop it. People who can loop balls that barely come off the edge of the table or that come off the side know how to loop, you have to shape the ball, so to speak, not play some upward stroke, so your stroke has to be almost always somewhat tangential to how the ball comes to you. I was trying to point out to a TTEdge member the difference between my loops and his - he seems to just play upwards with little wrist, and has to take the ball late. I try to play along the contour of the ball over it and forward in some way, so it doesn't matter where I take the ball, I am mentally trying to do the same thing, so I can take it off the bounce over table if it is high or has the right spin, or take it when it is falling below the table. Those clean top of the bounce loops look good, but they don't adapt well when you are a learning adult and have to do a cognitive read to get into position. They work well when you have that cognitive read down, but you aren't going to feel confident playing them until you have shots that let you do something good when you are late to the ball.
Most of your training I see doesn't replicate the kind of difficult movements and timings that occur when you are late to the ball. Of course, it might be in part a space issue, but you have pointed out that you don't play off the bounce in matches, so that can't be it. You have to learn to loop and take the ball early, loop and take the ball late, loop and take the ball when it is dropping, loop when the ball is just coming off the table etc. When you do all that, with mostly the same stroke/mindset as I do, then you know how to spin, the rest is learning the movements to get into position and connect the shots while staying in balance.
The first step is to commit to something like finishing all your loops with your upper arm in front of your body. 90 degrees or less in the elbow, racket angle more closed for topspin, more open for backspin. But play every shot that way in practice with slow spin and have Stouffer feed you wide variety of shots, silly ones, crazy ones, impossible ones, high balls etc. and you have to loop all of the (90 -45 degree angle on the forehand at the forehead or in front of the body at the end of the stroke, no matter how low or high the ball is). When you can do that, then you are on your way.
This was the rally that made me start realizing that I really could loop any ball. OF all the rallies I have played, it is still my favorite one:
youtu.be/vE677g9AcN8?t=381
Stop thinking about what you have to do in terms of strokes. Think of strokes as just ways of making the ball do certain things and try to make it do those things by changing how and where you hit the ball. It's liberating, as opposed to being stuck swinging at the ball in a rigid pattern all the time and leaves you unable to adapt when the ball comes at you differently.
