Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[dingyibvs]

I had an excellent day at the weekly league today. For the first time I played the all my matches with my new techniques in mind, and I actually came in second in the top group! Just last week I self-imposed a 4 point rule where if I was down by 4 points or more that I'd revert back to my old style, and I did that quite a few times so as not to lose too many ratings points and stay in group 1.

I still have some issues with the first shot. When a long push comes to my BH side my instinct is still to push. Only if a second one also comes to my BH side do I remember to loop. Similarly for topspins. When an opponent gets ready to topspin I back up a bit to kind of the border between near to mid distance, which is fine, but my first instinct is to block, which doesn't jive well with backing off the table when most of the loops I face are regular loops and not loop drives as on higher levels. By the second shot though I'm ready to counter. This goes for both BH and FH.

When I do counter, I actually had a surprisingly good success rate. Again, the issue here is mentality, as in I'm constantly surprised that I actually landed the shot. The good thing is that so are my opponents, so it didn't really cost me, but I'll need to get better at this. I need to expect to land them as I would with FH loops against backspins or blocks.

I did such a better job with timing on the BH side that I'm just shocked. It was actually a net positive for the first time in league play. On the FH side I also learned that from the near/mid distance I don't really have time for a full armed backswing, so I employed what @blahness was saying and do the backswing with my body with my arm close to my body. That worked shockingly well in real game play. A big disadvantage of the robot is that it simply can't replicate the speed of human shots, so I don't really feel the need to do it while training with the robot, but good thing I trained for it anyway and it came in real handy against real opponents.

The biggest disadvantage for me was actually my new service. It's better than my old pendulum serve, but I still can't quite get the acceleration and brush right. Also, playing with an identical motion the entire game is a bit of a disadvantage at my level, it doesn't sow enough confusion for my opponents. Usually they have a lot of trouble against my BH service, but I was able to get away with not using it at all today because of the improvements in my rally play.

Another issue is my service receive on the BH side. Because they're double bounce and most balls have sidespin, the timing is a bit off compared to my regular BH loops. I end up reaching forward for the ball too much, or not hitting the ball at all. I need to be a bit more patient with receives and time things a bit later.

 

[blahness]

I had an excellent day at the weekly league today. For the first time I played the all my matches with my new techniques in mind, and I actually came in second in the top group! Just last week I self-imposed a 4 point rule where if I was down by 4 points or more that I'd revert back to my old style, and I did that quite a few times so as not to lose too many ratings points and stay in group 1.

I still have some issues with the first shot. When a long push comes to my BH side my instinct is still to push. Only if a second one also comes to my BH side do I remember to loop. Similarly for topspins. When an opponent gets ready to topspin I back up a bit to kind of the border between near to mid distance, which is fine, but my first instinct is to block, which doesn't jive well with backing off the table when most of the loops I face are regular loops and not loop drives as on higher levels. By the second shot though I'm ready to counter. This goes for both BH and FH.

When I do counter, I actually had a surprisingly good success rate. Again, the issue here is mentality, as in I'm constantly surprised that I actually landed the shot. The good thing is that so are my opponents, so it didn't really cost me, but I'll need to get better at this. I need to expect to land them as I would with FH loops against backspins or blocks.

I did such a better job with timing on the BH side that I'm just shocked. It was actually a net positive for the first time in league play. On the FH side I also learned that from the near/mid distance I don't really have time for a full armed backswing, so I employed what @blahness was saying and do the backswing with my body with my arm close to my body. That worked shockingly well in real game play. A big disadvantage of the robot is that it simply can't replicate the speed of human shots, so I don't really feel the need to do it while training with the robot, but good thing I trained for it anyway and it came in real handy against real opponents.

The biggest disadvantage for me was actually my new service. It's better than my old pendulum serve, but I still can't quite get the acceleration and brush right. Also, playing with an identical motion the entire game is a bit of a disadvantage at my level, it doesn't sow enough confusion for my opponents. Usually they have a lot of trouble against my BH service, but I was able to get away with not using it at all today because of the improvements in my rally play.

Another issue is my service receive on the BH side. Because they're double bounce and most balls have sidespin, the timing is a bit off compared to my regular BH loops. I end up reaching forward for the ball too much, or not hitting the ball at all. I need to be a bit more patient with receives and time things a bit later.

Yep, real balls are unpredictable and can be slow/fast and placed awkwardly, so in general less is more in terms of arm movement and the faster you can get to your backswing position the more time you have to observe the ball and your opponent. It actually applies to all strokes (BH,FH, loops/counters/pushes/serves) - to minimise time to reach backswing position and to use the body for the backswing.

I'm actually working on the recovery aspect of the FH loop now because I've been caught a few too many times where my powerloop got blocked unexpectedly. Turns out recovery is also a lot faster if you power it using the body/weight shifts rather than the arm. So after a loop the body weight will be on the left leg, and then using body rotation return it back to the centre as fast as possible, dragging the elbow back to neutral.

 

[NextLevel]

I played again yesterday night. Can't wait for the semester to end so I can pick up a saner academic schedule and then focus on family, work and TT.

I played a guy who is around 2100 but has a really powerful and precise game. Such players usually make me look bad as I am often stuck blocking. He beat me really bad)y (about 12 games straight) when we first played about a month and a half ago. That was when I decided to switch blade and rubber because it was clear to me that I lacked the tools to compete. I lost 2‐3 yesterday which is closer to where I should be I think. I still have a lot of work to do on my serves but I think I have figured out what was missing on those after some practice yesterday and I now know what to practice to improve them. Basically I haven't folded my torso when doing forehand serves and this has kept me too high relative to the table and made it harder to keep my serves low and similar looking. Not a bad thing if you want go make backspin look like topspin but a bad thing if you want to make all your serves look like backspin, which is my preferred game style. I think if I practice this , I should be able to get closer to my old level as being able to get errors on serve return was a strong part of my game.

I lost one other match against another guy with am extremely powerful forehand (and to some degree backhand 1‐3). It was funny playing him because he recognized me from YouTube and seemed very aware of my game and practice sessions when I was improving and testing rubbers in the 2010s. Speaking to him was very encouraging to me because he was familiar with many of the wins I had against tough players, some of whom much stronger players couldn't beat. He felt that with time I could get back to my prior level.

Yesterday I got a lot of my strokes back including looping over the table. If I get.a chance i will make a video on this for the amateur group. This is a bit dangerous at the higher levels because you expose yourself to a good block or counter, but at the lower levels, the pressure of having a supposedly short serve attacked can be devastating up to a point. The need to calculate the use of wrist and fingers is critical. I know some people find such things unimportant but I feel they are very much misunderstood and underemployed in the amateur game. There is a lot of important knowledge for decent TT to be gained by learning to use the arm efficiently

 

[latej]

The season is over now.

Today I played my last match while ML and FZD started to play their final... At least in something we do overlap...

I made some progress but the team goes down one level. Hmm. The future - uncertain. I need a medicine.

 

[Der_Echte]

@NextLevel are there and RAMBO LOOPERs over there ???

 

[NextLevel]

@NextLevel are there and RAMBO LOOPERs over there ???

You should come over to Dallas some time - the club I go to on Saturdays is in the heart of a Korean mall and I am sure there is Korean BBQ all round.

 

[JeffM]

I think I injured myself

I was doing bench press. Since my friend was there, I tried to push my personal record. I was able to do 40kg x 10, so I thought I would go 45kg. I did that 3 reps, then the 4th rep, I felt a sharp pain, next to my right chest, next to the nipple region. I waited for 2 min and tried to do it, but can't even lift up the bar after due to pain. The pain was fine that time, so I just did other exercises.
When I get home, the pain is really bad. It would hurt really bad if I sneeze, cough, or even lift something up with my left hand. But I can still squeeze my pecs and there would be no pain. If I try to turn in my bed, that would hurt if I was tensing my chest. I wonder if I have strained my intercostal muscle.

Just worried that it will take weeks to recover which means no tt for me and no gym.

 

[NextLevel]

Yep, real balls are unpredictable and can be slow/fast and placed awkwardly, so in general less is more in terms of arm movement and the faster you can get to your backswing position the more time you have to observe the ball and your opponent. It actually applies to all strokes (BH,FH, loops/counters/pushes/serves) - to minimise time to reach backswing position and to use the body for the backswing.

I'm actually working on the recovery aspect of the FH loop now because I've been caught a few too many times where my powerloop got blocked unexpectedly. Turns out recovery is also a lot faster if you power it using the body/weight shifts rather than the arm. So after a loop the body weight will be on the left leg, and then using body rotation return it back to the centre as fast as possible, dragging the elbow back to neutral.

Here is a slightly different take.

 

[NextLevel]

I think I injured myself

I was doing bench press. Since my friend was there, I tried to push my personal record. I was able to do 40kg x 10, so I thought I would go 45kg. I did that 3 reps, then the 4th rep, I felt a sharp pain, next to my right chest, next to the nipple region. I waited for 2 min and tried to do it, but can't even lift up the bar after due to pain. The pain was fine that time, so I just did other exercises.
When I get home, the pain is really bad. It would hurt really bad if I sneeze, cough, or even lift something up with my left hand. But I can still squeeze my pecs and there would be no pain. If I try to turn in my bed, that would hurt if I was tensing my chest. I wonder if I have strained my intercostal muscle.

Just worried that it will take weeks to recover which means no tt for me and no gym.

This is not a serious problem, as long as your body is recovering you will largely get stronger. Just work on the body parts that are not injured.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

I took my elementary level lil'kid to meet my coach and have him start his TT journey with him over the weekend. I let him use my old Nittaku Acoustic five ply all wood. So my coach asked me over to show a U10 kid how to loop-drive proper and since I did not take my usual equipment, I used my old Acoustic.

Now I hate it, I have to use so much strength to drive over. Totally need to engage every part of my body to get the ball over in a nice trajectory. I have a fellow club-mate over there whose kids is also a student. He is using BTY Innerforce ALC with ESN rubber. Again I felt that I have to use a lot of my own power to get the ball over.

Yup, I have become a f3ck1ng l4zy b4st3rd with my ultra super-duper bouncy high tension set-up that my body now is too lazy to generate its own power. Do I like my current set-up? Absolutely! Why? Because I am too lazy to generate my own power and need a crutch i.e., super ultra trampolinish set-up to augment my stroke. Without my set-up I totally feel like a Spartan without his Mjolnir going into battle.

Hinoki one-ply: Once you go there, there is no turning back. I am doomed!

p/s No wonder my coach who is also a Hinoki One-Ply user ( BTY Kim Taek Soo ) has been using the same set up for over 30 years.

 

[blahness]

I took my elementary level lil'kid to meet my coach and have him start his TT journey with him over the weekend. I let him use my old Nittaku Acoustic five ply all wood. So my coach asked me over to show a U10 kid how to loop-drive proper and since I did not take my usual equipment, I used my old Acoustic.

Now I hate it, I have to use so much strength to drive over. Totally need to engage every part of my body to get the ball over in a nice trajectory. I have a fellow club-mate over there whose kids is also a student. He is using BTY Innerforce ALC with ESN rubber. Again I felt that I have to use a lot of my own power to get the ball over.

Yup, I have become a f3ck1ng l4zy b4st3rd with my ultra super-duper bouncy high tension set-up that my body now is too lazy to generate its own power. Do I like my current set-up? Absolutely! Why? Because I am too lazy to generate my own power and need a crutch i.e., super ultra trampolinish set-up to augment my stroke. Without my set-up I totally feel like a Spartan without his Mjolnir going into battle.

Hinoki one-ply: Once you go there, there is no turning back. I am doomed!

p/s No wonder my coach who is also a Hinoki One-Ply user ( BTY Kim Taek Soo ) has been using the same set up for over 30 years.

Dude wait till you try all wood blades with Hurricanes xD.... everything will die into the net

 

[blahness]

I think I injured myself

I was doing bench press. Since my friend was there, I tried to push my personal record. I was able to do 40kg x 10, so I thought I would go 45kg. I did that 3 reps, then the 4th rep, I felt a sharp pain, next to my right chest, next to the nipple region. I waited for 2 min and tried to do it, but can't even lift up the bar after due to pain. The pain was fine that time, so I just did other exercises.
When I get home, the pain is really bad. It would hurt really bad if I sneeze, cough, or even lift something up with my left hand. But I can still squeeze my pecs and there would be no pain. If I try to turn in my bed, that would hurt if I was tensing my chest. I wonder if I have strained my intercostal muscle.

Just worried that it will take weeks to recover which means no tt for me and no gym.

Definitely take the time to recover and see a physio if possible, aggressive overuse after injury will only make it worse.

On a side note, I personally hate bench presses because you have to be quite careful on elbow positioning to avoid shoulder injuries, and without a spotter I always had the fear of getting crushed alive on challenging weights....

I pretty much go for weighted pushups these days which I found does the same thing and is a lot more comfortable.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

Dude wait till you try all wood blades with Hurricanes xD.... everything will die into the net

Once upon a time, I used to use Stiga All-Round Classic with DHS neoH2 mid hard both side. I did not know how I could get the ball over. Now I have grown fat & lazy... totally a bum.

 

[JeffM]

This is not a serious problem, as long as your body is recovering you will largely get stronger. Just work on the body parts that are not injured.

I think that injury will take me out for most of my exercises for the upper body..
Only leaving the lower limbs to work around

 

[JeffM]

Definitely take the time to recover and see a physio if possible, aggressive overuse after injury will only make it worse.

On a side note, I personally hate bench presses because you have to be quite careful on elbow positioning to avoid shoulder injuries, and without a spotter I always had the fear of getting crushed alive on challenging weights....

I pretty much go for weighted pushups these days which I found does the same thing and is a lot more comfortable.

Yeah I am going to see a physio this afternoon..

I did have a spotter yesterday hence I tried to increase the weight but then it happened.. What do you mean by weighted pushups? Like a weight on the back while doing a push up? How do you get the weigh off your back after?

 

[blahness]

Yeah I am going to see a physio this afternoon..

I did have a spotter yesterday hence I tried to increase the weight but then it happened.. What do you mean by weighted pushups? Like a weight on the back while doing a push up? How do you get the weigh off your back after?

Easiest is to ask your partner to use their hands to put their hands on your upper back and slowly increase the resistance until you find it difficult.

The other way is just using a backpack with weight plates on it, or a weighted vest.

Another way to increase push up difficulty is simply to lean onto one side to increase the weight and hence resistance on that side, then do the same for the other side.

 

[dingyibvs]

I think I injured myself

I was doing bench press. Since my friend was there, I tried to push my personal record. I was able to do 40kg x 10, so I thought I would go 45kg. I did that 3 reps, then the 4th rep, I felt a sharp pain, next to my right chest, next to the nipple region. I waited for 2 min and tried to do it, but can't even lift up the bar after due to pain. The pain was fine that time, so I just did other exercises.
When I get home, the pain is really bad. It would hurt really bad if I sneeze, cough, or even lift something up with my left hand. But I can still squeeze my pecs and there would be no pain. If I try to turn in my bed, that would hurt if I was tensing my chest. I wonder if I have strained my intercostal muscle.

Just worried that it will take weeks to recover which means no tt for me and no gym.

That sucks, give it a couple days to recover, and start exercising again. Do just enough to be on the edge of it hurting, then again, then again. At the end of the work out, ice it, maybe take an ibuprofen. Don't overdo it, i.e. it shouldn't hurt a lot, stop when you just feel a bit of pain.

It's important to not just rest it indefinitely, it will take forever to heal if you do that. If you just rest it, it'll feel better in a few days but then it'll continue to linger for a very long time. If you start light exercises after a few days of rest, then in the day or so afterwards it'll feel worse, but over the next couple of weeks you'll recover much, much quicker.

 

[JeffM]

Thanks guys. I saw a physio and he said it is mostly serratia anterior strain, but could also be intercostal muscle strain. He said to rest for 4 days then start exercise again with gradual load increase.

 

[NextLevel]

Once upon a time, I used to use Stiga All-Round Classic with DHS neoH2 mid hard both side. I did not know how I could get the ball over. Now I have grown fat & lazy... totally a bum.

At least you know the problem is with your technique, not with the equipment. I guess the question is whether with your obvious technical deficiencies, you have any interest in improving or whether you are largely happy with the level you have achieved. IT's one thing if you were attacking backspin and playing an effective game with a fast racket like your coach likely does, but when you are using it and there are still holes in your game, the narrative is very different and starts to center around whether the equipment is hurting your development.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

At least you know the problem is with your technique, not with the equipment. I guess the question is whether with your obvious technical deficiencies, you have any interest in improving or whether you are largely happy with the level you have achieved. IT's one thing if you were attacking backspin and playing an effective game with a fast racket like your coach likely does, but when you are using it and there are still holes in your game, the narrative is very different and starts to center around whether the equipment is hurting your development.

Thanks for your advise. In the mean time I shall be working my arse off on improving my FH like how I previously did with my BH together with my coach. Video show & tell again to you and others in six weeks' time at my next little tourney.