Hot damn hit great over lunch today with my training partner all primarily over 2 key fundamentals.
So for some time now I was wondering if I, at 38, simply am getting too old to play with or beat my younger 30 year old training partner because it felt like I always lose the close to the table exchanges. It felt like he was quicker than me.
Then I thought of something you hear good players preach. "Shorten your stroke". So today I focused on ready position between hits (learning forward, paddle out in front of me) and keeping my stroke short on those close to the table quick exchanges... It worked so well. I would say today I was winning the fast majority of quick exchanges with solid, short counter-hits.
It opened my eyes to that I have an elongated stroke on my FH naturally. That's great for power or off the table play but I often miss too many shots close to the table sending them long.
If you're hitting with someone who has decent power, I found you don't need to put a whole of pop going back to them to give them a ball that's plenty fast. Just a good solid counter-hit.
Looking forward to trying to keep this practice going so it's not just a one time deal.