wow 2600 is really good. Hope you get to your goal of 2200 NextLevel!
Well better to have a coach that gives specific instructions and talks a lot, instead of a coach that just feeds you multi-ball all day and not say much.
I used to have coaches who just feeds me multi-ball until the hour of lesson is over, then they collect the $. Then I watched videos of myself and I looked like shit. It was just multi-ball repeatedly with shit strokes. I was literally trained to do shit strokes. Even to this day, when I play games and the game gets tight, I notice those strokes relapse again unconsciously, even though I tried hard to remove them from muscle memory. Those coaches are really bad, and also they are really common. It's easy to just feed balls and call yourself a coach, unfortunately.
It's great that you have a good coach who actually cares enough to say stuff and do what she can to help!
You are 100% right. Moreover, it's usually difficult to work with coaches who don't speak your usual language and I suspect I would get more out of the lessons if I spoke Chinese. But on the other hand, I am advanced enough as a player to appreciate what she says even if I don't understand it.
Coaches that multiball you to death without having a technical and tactical vision for your game are pathetic. Unfortunately, most players don't realize this until it is too late - you need a caring coach or high level player to get you out of that trap.
It's just funny what she is trying to get me to do vs what my past coaches/philosophies have been:
1. She want me to serve fast pure sidespin both long and short to the opponent and sit on the return based on the sidespin I have served (pendulum, expect return to backhand, reverse/backhand, expect return to forehand). She wants me to loop the return off the bounce as much as possible.
If you know me, I serve backspin and no spin almost all the time, and I almost always serve short. So this is a radical change.
2. She wants me to almost never serve or push to the middle of the table, with all serves and pushes towards the corners or the sidelines.
Again, this is something I almost never do.
3. She tells me that I need to stop using forearm snap and wrist on my strokes and that forearm snap is mostly for driving the ball. She says that I should swing from shoulder on the forehand and use the elbow on the backhand. Wrist should mostly follow the shape of the stroke and so should any forearm snap.
My game is so wrist oriented that I am confused by this. But I am going to try.
4. She wants me to use only elbow when return serves, less shoulder and wrist.
Again, this is confusing. But I think some of it makes sense.
5. She wants me to use wall sits to work on my knees and that if my movement was better, I would likely be 2200 already.
Of course this is flattering, but I don't know whether my knees are fixable.
Now there are many other things but I can't note or remember them all. But I am advanced enough to get her logic even if I don't always understand it fully given language barrier or I can't always agree with it. But I am willing to try everything she recommends. There is nothing more annoying than a student who thinks he knows more than the teacher. She even wants to change my rubber and blade but well, let me see if I can avoid that one as going to something faster will make me miss my serve return much more...
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