Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

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Carl makes an excellent point here. Many players focus too much on regular drills, which are of course super important as they build muscle memory and solidify technique. However, even from a fairly early stage in TT development, a player should start to introduce irregular drills into their practice sessions, Carl is right in that regular drills simply do not replicate match play and therefore should not be the only way you practice.

As well as regular and irregular drills, you can also do combinations of these two, where the drill carries on, but elements of it are irregular. For example, a very basic combination drill is as follows:-

1) Play forehand topspin into forehand block repeatedly, as many as the blocker likes.
2) At ANY given time, the blocker can play the ball down the line, into the spinners backhand.
3) The spinner plays a backhand topspin into the blockers forehand
3) The blocker plays into the spinners forehand and the drill resets.

You can even add more variation and say after the third down the line block, the spinner can play anywhere and the point is played out like it would be in a match.

There are soooooo many variations of drills out there, and I would strongly encourage any player to do as many as possible. You can even create your own drills to work on a specific part of your game.

IMPORTANT - Remember to work on your weaknesses AND your strengths. It is impossible to master anything in TT and even <s>Ma Long </s>OldSchoolPenHolder works on his forehand topspin! :)
 
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Had a customer tell me he wanted me to Beast Mod a Kim Jung Hoon blade for him. I made it a midnight adventure to take it apart and Beast Mod it up on a work night. What the heck, I can worry about being tired tomorrow. Short of it is, after I took all that time to slowly heat it up and take off both handles, the handles and the throat were TOTALLY SOLID.

This guy is getting a rare solid beast from factory, don't see that too often.

View attachment 11677

How do you remove the handle without any damage?
 
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I am passing the new year in a middle sized town here in Japan, but i prepared well my trip and found a place with a coach with whom i spent 2 hours playing for the last time this year :)

Because that place has a high ceiling (contrarily to where i play in Tokyo with my regular coaches), and because i play with this new guy, i decided to go for something unusual and asked him to teach me fishing. I generally suck at fishing, especially on the FH side and i never use it as a tactic, and its very rare i would use it in a match. a while ago, i would quite step back and try to defend with chopping but i don't do it anymore in match, i just do it for fun sometimes when training.

Anyway, he gave me a few advices which i could try immediately and here it is:
- when fishing, play with only 40%-50% power we are using the speed of the incoming drive or smash

- fishing with FH, take the ball on your side, preferably not to far from the body. WAIT for the ball to come on the side, don't be impatient and try to hit the ball too much forward. This way there is more control. to lob the ball, lower the body take the ball lower and push on the legs a bit, open the wrist a bit. if a bit far from the ball and it is a bit forward, take it from below

- fishing with BH, i was doing it better. keep the bat angle quite open and stable. try to get the ball forward and be careful to have good balance with the left foot.

i spent one hour doing that and one more hour with more regular stuff. footwork, looping for the 1st attack etc...
a lot of fun and a nice way to finish the TT year.

:)
 
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I am passing the new year in a middle sized town here in Japan, but i prepared well my trip and found a place with a coach with whom i spent 2 hours playing for the last time this year :)

Because that place has a high ceiling (contrarily to where i play in Tokyo with my regular coaches), and because i play with this new guy, i decided to go for something unusual and asked him to teach me fishing. I generally suck at fishing, especially on the FH side and i never use it as a tactic, and its very rare i would use it in a match. a while ago, i would quite step back and try to defend with chopping but i don't do it anymore in match, i just do it for fun sometimes when training.

Anyway, he gave me a few advices which i could try immediately and here it is:
- when fishing, play with only 40%-50% power we are using the speed of the incoming drive or smash

- fishing with FH, take the ball on your side, preferably not to far from the body. WAIT for the ball to come on the side, don't be impatient and try to hit the ball too much forward. This way there is more control. to lob the ball, lower the body take the ball lower and push on the legs a bit, open the wrist a bit. if a bit far from the ball and it is a bit forward, take it from below

- fishing with BH, i was doing it better. keep the bat angle quite open and stable. try to get the ball forward and be careful to have good balance with the left foot.

i spent one hour doing that and one more hour with more regular stuff. footwork, looping for the 1st attack etc...
a lot of fun and a nice way to finish the TT year.

:)

Very Interesting to hear tactics regarding fishing! Not very often these come around.

All of those tips remind me of one person in particular, Michael Maze :)
 
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well i had never heard any good advice on fishing before that's why i was doing it the wrong way, i still need a lot of practice obviously but now at least i know a bit better what i should try to do

before i was trying too much to focus mainly on lobbing the ball as high as possible and i was putting too much power in the ball, and taking it too early, so that was causing too many misses; on the BH side i'm doing better and i am starting to get it quite well; of course then in a real game when fishing the guy will smash everywhere so recovering quickly and positioning for the next ball is important;

another important thing which is always true in TT is to keep the body low and the upper body low as well always bent a little forward, if I don't do that, the fishing would be too vertical and when playing far from the table that means the bounce would be on the wrong side of the table
 
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How do you remove the handle without any damage?
I used a heat gun, like the ones used to heat up floor tiles before removing. You could use a hair dyer. I took time and heated it up slowly, maybe 5 to 10 minutes. The glue softened up then you could stick a knife under the handle piece slowly.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk
 
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I agree! But watching that video makes me in awe of Bruce Lee. He is such an intelligent martial artist. I respect him with all my heart.

*ging lai* / *jing li* / *salute*

salute-2.jpg
 
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Sir,

Happy New Year!

IIRC, 'fishing' is also called 'lobbing'?

I am passing the new year in a middle sized town here in Japan, but i prepared well my trip and found a place with a coach with whom i spent 2 hours playing for the last time this year :)

Because that place has a high ceiling (contrarily to where i play in Tokyo with my regular coaches), and because i play with this new guy, i decided to go for something unusual and asked him to teach me fishing. I generally suck at fishing, especially on the FH side and i never use it as a tactic, and its very rare i would use it in a match. a while ago, i would quite step back and try to defend with chopping but i don't do it anymore in match, i just do it for fun sometimes when training.

Anyway, he gave me a few advices which i could try immediately and here it is:
- when fishing, play with only 40%-50% power we are using the speed of the incoming drive or smash

- fishing with FH, take the ball on your side, preferably not to far from the body. WAIT for the ball to come on the side, don't be impatient and try to hit the ball too much forward. This way there is more control. to lob the ball, lower the body take the ball lower and push on the legs a bit, open the wrist a bit. if a bit far from the ball and it is a bit forward, take it from below

- fishing with BH, i was doing it better. keep the bat angle quite open and stable. try to get the ball forward and be careful to have good balance with the left foot.

i spent one hour doing that and one more hour with more regular stuff. footwork, looping for the 1st attack etc...
a lot of fun and a nice way to finish the TT year.

:)
 
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DTT CCers,

I may or may not be able to check into TTD

So, will take this opportunity to wish everyone all the best in the coming new year ... May all the net and edge balls go your way in 2017!

Very truly yours in TT,

~osph
 
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IMPORTANT - Remember to work on your weaknesses AND your strengths. It is impossible to master anything in TT and even <s>Ma Long </s>OldSchoolPenHolder works on his forehand topspin! :)

WHOA!

U r da bestest Yecats!

LOL
 
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I played Weds night after a 2 or 3 wk break. My shoulder acted up a little. Probably should've rested another wk or 2. But I was missing TT and TT was my main form of exercise and i started feeling like i gained weight.

Today shoulder feels ok... just generally sore and achy.

To Shuki's point of playing well or even better than before after a break... i was not hitting well ... didn't play any matches... just hit for 1 hr 45 mins with various partners.

No video ... on my, in my mind, pure backspin serve with short pendulum motion, it still has some sidespin on it... forgot how to loop with the lower half of my body ... i blocked mostly for my partners

i am old, fat and out of shape... perspire easily... i am nearsighted with astygmatism (sp?) and tried wearing my glasses while playing ... it helped me see the ball a lot better, however, every 5 mins or so, i needed to wipe sweat off glasses. so i'm probably NOT going to wear my glasses while playing.

anyway, signing off for now, perhaps my last 2016 post to DTT CC thread... Happy New Year!

I remain very truly yours in TT,

~osph
 
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Im gonna be the best...3hr of table tennis + 3hrs of body workout and strenght...every day same routine...Remember my name
 
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So it's a nice way to end the year with a tournament. We had one at my club and I decided to play at it to see what is my level right at the end of the year. My personal best at this kind of tournaments was 7th place.

In the group stage I was 2nd, but the guy who was first refused to play further so I went to the first finals. I thought it was kind of cool that I was getting the chance to play 5 more very good players that I haven't beaten before at tournaments even once. So I told my coach that if I won at least a match in the finals that would be fantastic. Yet I managed to win 3 matches and finished 3rd overall. Yet shortly after the competition I wasn't very happy because I had a close fight for the 1st place which I lost. Of course that would've been the absolutely perfect ending for the year, but, even with the third place I have to be absolutely happy since it's a new personal best, and 3 new opponents that I managed to beat in tournament.

This week has been very good in terms of table tennis. I felt that I was playing really well, and I managed to make a roller during a score game, for the first time ever. All in all, a very nice way to end 2016.

I hope that 2017 will be a good year for table tennis. First of all I wish, for me and for everyone else on this forum, to keep playing and enjoying this fantastic sport. I hope I'll be able to improve my game, so that on the 31st of December 2017 I will be sure that I would beat today's Cornel. I also want to get a decent camera so I can finally try to film my own games and to analyze them. I think that is enough wishes for me for 2017.

I also want to wish you all a happy 2017. May your skills improve, your body stay injury-free. I hope your rubber will never allow the ball to slip on it(only for those that don't play antispin), and that you will have a good amount of lost matches. It may sound a bit strange but it's losses that are teaching us more(of course I don't mean getting upset, I think you got my point).

Happy New Year Table Tennis Daily Chit Chatters!
 
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I am a pretty new name on this site. I missed one day of play this week...and I hope that ratio extends through the New Year! I am an "older" player, but have just built a new table tennis room, and am eager to show those who would like to see it! My resolution for early 2017 is to share some video and let you all pick apart my game a bit. Progress is sometimes slow, but I am continually gratified that I can continue to progress.
 
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I finished up 2016 with a little bit of punch serve practice. This is my first time seriously practicing this serve in probably 6 months, and I still consider myself at beginner at this serve. I badly need to develop a reverse sidespin serve short to the FH for 2017, since I currently don't have one. Both my BH serves and reverse pendulum serves are terrible.

I need to work on getting more whip, as well as showing the red side of the rubber to the camera in the follow through. I have a tendency to finish with the racket angle too open, as can be seen on the first 2 serves. I was able to correct it some later in the video.


Happy New Year Everyone!
 
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Played last night, first time since before NL's christmas challenge. Of course I played great, since I took a break haha.

Anyway, a clubmate came back into town from college for the break. laistro you know him as sam. I was quite excited to play him, I've always considered him way higher level than me, with "perfect form" in my eyes. Near 2000 usatt rating.

He obliterated, me some deuce games but he just felt so much more stable than he had in the past. I used to be able to get in his head, winning matches when it mattered and when I truly wanted to (tournaments and whatnot). He seemed so focused, serious and almost like he didn't enjoy the game anymore. I told him he had much more power than the past and he seemed frustrated, saying he usually has much more and doesn't have enough right now.

I also noticed he only served long to me, as he always had and his father always had. I commented on this after the game and he said he serves short now, but just knew that long is better against me and it was the best option.

He played our best "looper" as well and made him feel terrible. great improvement was seen by all on this kid, and that's when he feels he's playing poorly.
 
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