Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[blahness]

Blahness,

I understand thus, when looping backspin ball, getting low and spinning it upwards is the way to go. I have done it before and know it with direct personal experience. So I am already doing what Ryu Seung Min is advocating in regards to backspin ball.

My issue is with regards to incoming topspin type of ball. If I were to hit with strokes similar as those shown in GM's video, my ball usually goes long. That is why I compensated by closing my bat and having a low stance. In this way, I am able to get the ball inside the table.

What surprises me is GM has shown he is able to do it which makes me suspect it has to do with his tacky 09C rubber. If that is true, then different rubber characteristic do truly demand variation to one's FH stroke.

That's exactly my point. If you can direct the weight transfer upwards when looping heavy backspin, you can also also direct the weight transfer forwards and even downwards when looping against topspin.

So the weight transfer is like a mountain, there's a initial upwards component and a later downwards component. You push up with your right leg initially to lift the ball, then with your upper body you finish by leaning over your left leg. If you do that you can press down on the arc of the ball by pressing down on your left leg, which keeps the ball on the table instead of going out. This allows the use of open racket angles during contact.

 

[SleepyMaster]

Played with my new FZDALC for a third time in a row. First training was regular one two hours, plus one hour of match play. Second I was playing a tourney for three hours - and surprised my own exectation by the results - I expected it would be much worse since its a pretty fast of a racket, but I was able to get pretty many wins.

Today was third and a multiball training for two hours. Here was a feeling that my forehand is lacking some consistency, for the first 15 minutes or so, after I was able to adjust better. Backhand, I find more easily to execute, maybe bc of D09c on it. I find that I can easily flip short pushes with stability of about 70-75%, and with some continuous rally also. Good for counter looping blade.

After that getting destroyed by my coach 5-0 and went home with a question in my head "does Im really so bad, or a its a faster blade that I need to play? Or it will be beneficial for me, to master it, for the future progress? Or the opposite, its just bad for my progress?"
All those questions going in my mind, but I think the answer is only the one - I should practice more

 

[Wrighty67]

Played with my new FZDALC for a third time in a row. First training was regular one two hours, plus one hour of match play. Second I was playing a tourney for three hours - and surprised my own exectation by the results - I expected it would be much worse since its a pretty fast of a racket, but I was able to get pretty many wins.

Today was third and a multiball training for two hours. Here was a feeling that me forehand is lacking some consistency, for the first 15 minutes or so, after I was able to adjust better. Backhand, I find more easily to execute, maybe bc of D09c on it. I find that I can easily flip short pushes with stability of about 70-75%, and with some continuous rally also. Good for counter looping blade.

After that getting destroyed by my coach 5-0 and went home with a question in my head "does Im really so bad, or a its a faster blade that I need to play? Or it will be beneficial for me, to master it, for the future progress? Or the opposite, its just bad for my progress?"
All those questions going in my mind, but I think the answer is only the one - I should practice more

I have asked the same question many times...

I moved away from Viscaria/Lin G/ FZD Alc for that reason - when I am practicing or playing really well they were magic, but when I am not on form they are destructive to my confidence.

I have settled in the middle somehwere with generally slightly less offensive blades and stayed with faster rubbers (T05 mostly or MXP)

Good luck!

 

[NextLevel]

Blahness,

I understand thus, when looping backspin ball, getting low and spinning it upwards is the way to go. I have done it before and know it with direct personal experience. So I am already doing what Ryu Seung Min is advocating in regards to backspin ball.

My issue is with regards to incoming topspin type of ball. If I were to hit with strokes similar as those shown in GM's video, my ball usually goes long. That is why I compensated by closing my bat and having a low stance. In this way, I am able to get the ball inside the table.

What surprises me is GM has shown he is able to do it which makes me suspect it has to do with his tacky 09C rubber. If that is true, then different rubber characteristic do truly demand variation to one's FH stroke.

Timo Boll used to say the same thing about Chinese tacky rubbers. That's why they build D09c. Even with D09c, he still doesn't beat Ma Long and Fan Zhendong.

So how do you know it isn't your stiff blade? Or your relatively less spinny shots? Or your less precise timing? Or your blunt contact points? How do you know it is the D09c?

BTW, looking at the drill, all of GM's shots were forward and over the ball, yes, D09c makes them easier to execute, but they are just good technique with first contact to trap the spin and then play forward over the ball. If you are doing something different, record yourself and share it here.

 

[NextLevel]

I have asked the same question many times...

I moved away from Viscaria/Lin G/ FZD Alc for that reason - when I am practicing or playing really well they were magic, but when I am not on form they are destructive to my confidence.

I have settled in the middle somehwere with generally slightly less offensive blades and stayed with faster rubbers (T05 mostly or MXP)

Good luck!

This question is interesting. I am going through a version of it myself. I sadly haven't found time to upload my matches but I concluded in part that to use a faster blade, you need heavy training volume - if you *train* 4+ times a week, get a really fast blade and get good with it. I am. more of a relatively faster blade, sticky and spinnier rubbers guy. I just need that dwell time because I like to make huge cuts at the ball

 

[NextLevel]

Played with my new FZDALC for a third time in a row. First training was regular one two hours, plus one hour of match play. Second I was playing a tourney for three hours - and surprised my own exectation by the results - I expected it would be much worse since its a pretty fast of a racket, but I was able to get pretty many wins.

Today was third and a multiball training for two hours. Here was a feeling that me forehand is lacking some consistency, for the first 15 minutes or so, after I was able to adjust better. Backhand, I find more easily to execute, maybe bc of D09c on it. I find that I can easily flip short pushes with stability of about 70-75%, and with some continuous rally also. Good for counter looping blade.

After that getting destroyed by my coach 5-0 and went home with a question in my head "does Im really so bad, or a its a faster blade that I need to play? Or it will be beneficial for me, to master it, for the future progress? Or the opposite, its just bad for my progress?"
All those questions going in my mind, but I think the answer is only the one - I should practice more

Nah, for someone like you, it is going to take a lot more time for your brain to catch up to your body in terms of reading the play. But fast random drills that challenge your ability to read what is happening or defensive blocking drills that help you play quality shots against incoming offense are what is going to help you the most. And then maybe attacking shorter serves or keeping them short and things like that. The first 3/4 balls are what separate most good players, and your blade choice should be mostly dependent on how well it is letting you do in those first 3/4 balls, whether you can control the serve depth, you can play for the first attack, and you can play a good first attack/counterattack. Rally is fun, but table tennis is not about rallying for sure. To me, if I rally with a weaker player, it is a sign that I am being nice or I have nothing to play with. Because not being able to display advantage in the first 3/4 shots against weaker players means your game is not evolving to deal with better players.

 

[SleepyMaster]

This question is interesting. I am going through a version of it myself. I sadly haven't found time to upload my matches but I concluded in part that to use a faster blade, you need heavy training volume - if you *train* 4+ times a week, get a really fast blade and get good with it. I am. more of a relatively faster blade, sticky and spinnier rubbers guy. I just need that dwell time because I like to make huge cuts at the ball

The thing is, I actually train 4+ times a week + 3 or 4 serving practice at home.

And 90% of my training team using outer carbon blades ( they train a lot too) - Timo Ball alc, Viscaria, Mizutani zlc, Zhike alc/ super zlc, and they all using tenergy, that makes those setups even faster. But they also doing training for much more years than me, to be fair. And they making it pretty good. Actually only me, and one other dude using innerfiber type.

So I decided, to give it a try, plus I already have an experience with LGY, and it goes pretty okay - so I think, I can give it a try for a month or little bit more, and if it not working out - I can always go back to Harimoto/Apolonia style rackets 🤔

 

[SleepyMaster]

Nah, for someone like you, it is going to take a lot more time for your brain to catch up to your body in terms of reading the play. But fast random drills that challenge your ability to read what is happening or defensive blocking drills that help you play quality shots against incoming offense are what is going to help you the most. And then maybe attacking shorter serves or keeping them short and things like that. The first 3/4 balls are what separate most good players, and your blade choice should be mostly dependent on how well it is letting you do in those first 3/4 balls, whether you can control the serve depth, you can play for the first attack, and you can play a good first attack/counterattack. Rally is fun, but table tennis is not about rallying for sure. To me, if I rally with a weaker player, it is a sign that I am being nice or I have nothing to play with. Because not being able to display advantage in the first 3/4 shots against weaker players means your game is not evolving to deal with better players.

There is no such thing like obviously “weaker” player in our team, all matches is about - whos been more successful in playing by his strong sides, who’s doing first attacks successfully and who’s denied those strong sides of an opponent.
If I play vs weaker opp(most of the time is just some random dude from the club, or the student of other coach) usually it’s a serve and one/two shots winners.

I can block 3-4 good topspin with FZDALC, if my opponents is initiated an attack first. Actually, this how I get a lot of wins at Saturday tourney 😄 Plus some serving and counter looping points

 

[NextLevel]

There is no such thing like obviously “weaker” player in our team, all matches is about - whos been more successful in playing by his strong sides, who’s doing first attacks successfully and who’s denied those strong sides of an opponent.
If I play vs weaker opp(most of the time is just some random dude from the club, or the student of other coach) usually it’s a serve and one/two shots winners.

I can block 3-4 good topspin with FZDALC, if my opponents is initiated an attack first. Actually, this how I get a lot of wins at Saturday tourney 😄 Plus some serving and counter looping points

OK, I will just wait for the video of your matches then. But it is very hard to believe that one is losing 0-5 to coach and it is because the blade made a difference in how you read the game. Most of the guys I know who got good fast as athletes, they just learned to return most balls long and safely and then topspinned almost everything by stepping back. Then they developed their serve return to attack more balls but they always wanted to get into rally safely if the opponent was serving.

 

[SleepyMaster]

OK, I will just wait for the video of your matches then. But it is very hard to believe that one is losing 0-5 to coach and it is because the blade made a difference in how you read the game.

I will lose to him with any blade, I don’t blame the blade for losing. His just too good at TT. Man with 50+ years of experience, when he actively compete he was about 2300-2400 maybe even more, very good physical condition for his age, no extra weight, spending 8+ hours everyday on the table - it’s just too much for me 🥴

 

[NextLevel]

I will lose to him with any blade, I don’t blame the blade for losing. His just too good at TT. Man with 50+ years of experience, when he actively compete he was about 2300-2400 maybe even more, very good physical condition for his age, no extra weight, spending 8+ hours everyday on the table - it’s just too much for me 🥴

At least it wasn't his left hand...

 

[SleepyMaster]

At least it wasn't his left hand...

Ahah, so true😂 Last time I was beat his left 3:0, so, I guess, he decided to give me some humble pie 💊

 

[NextLevel]

Ahah, so true😂 Last time I was beat his left 3:0, so, I guess, he decided to give me some humble pie 💊

You have graduated.

 

[SleepyMaster]

You have graduated.

Meh, not really. The day before that it was 3:1 to his side. I have the lead in all the mathces, but then, somehow, I managed to lose it on deuce.
But again, he is playing 20+ years with the left, that is 20 times more that I do at all. As I told, his left is about 1900-2000, and we are about 50/50 when playing, so it’s not so bad of a result for me 😐

 

[SleepyMaster]

I have asked the same question many times...

I moved away from Viscaria/Lin G/ FZD Alc for that reason - when I am practicing or playing really well they were magic, but when I am not on form they are destructive to my confidence.

I have settled in the middle somehwere with generally slightly less offensive blades and stayed with faster rubbers (T05 mostly or MXP)

Good luck!

I took two rackets on a trainings always, one is slower innerforce setup that i more used to - another one, for now is FZDALC, if it would be very bad, I will change it to the slower one, no problemo 🏓

The reason why I’m doing this, that doing a lot of training, sometime became little bit boring, and I wanna feel some sort of a different sensation from my equipment - getting some more excitement and motivation to training more. It’s some sort of fixed idea, that coming to me, time to time, and if feeling that is too quick, I make a step back, if I feel that I can handle it - I will stick to the one setup that suits me more, for months, that is how it goes - it’s called EJing, am I right? 🙂

 

[Wrighty67]

I took two rackets on a trainings always, one is slower innerforce setup that i more used to - another one, for now is FZDALC, if it would be very bad, I will change it to the slower one, no problemo 🏓

The reason why I’m doing this, that doing a lot of training, sometime became little bit boring, and I wanna feel some sort of a different sensation from my equipment - getting some more excitement and motivation to training more. It’s some sort of fixed idea, that coming to me, time to time, and if feeling that is too quick, I make a step back, if I feel that I can handle it - I will stick to the one setup that suits me more, for months, that is how it goes - it’s called EJing, am I right? 🙂

I’m with you on that - I do the same thing and enjoy the fun of trying different setups!

 

[NextLevel]

That's exactly my point. If you can direct the weight transfer upwards when looping heavy backspin, you can also also direct the weight transfer forwards and even downwards when looping against topspin.

So the weight transfer is like a mountain, there's a initial upwards component and a later downwards component. You push up with your right leg initially to lift the ball, then with your upper body you finish by leaning over your left leg. If you do that you can press down on the arc of the ball by pressing down on your left leg, which keeps the ball on the table instead of going out. This allows the use of open racket angles during contact.

You need ball holding technique (or an approach to stopping spin) to do this correctly. Closing racket angles is one way to do this, but there are other ways. This is why Gozo is confused. The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

When I used to advocate this, it became a running joke at ooakforum (to solve everything, NL just says hit the side of the ball...). But since high level Japanese coach is talking about it too, I no longer coach only Sith acolytes with these ideas...

 

[blahness]

You need ball holding technique (or an approach to stopping spin) to do this correctly. Closing racket angles is one way to do this, but there are other ways. This is why Gozo is confused. The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

When I used to advocate this, it became a running joke at ooakforum (to solve everything, NL just says hit the side of the ball...). But since high level Japanese coach is talking about it too, I no longer coach only Sith acolytes with these ideas...

Haha, yes contacting the side of the ball slightly is extremely useful in reducing the amount of spin variation you need to deal with and to increase dwell time, and you can use it for pretty much everything from pushes to loops to flicks.

But if you go too much to the dark side (ie only rely on contacting the side) on loops, then you start sacrificing shot quality and stability imo because you're losing the Magnus effect of the topspin (sidespin does nothing to increase landing percentages)

Also you can use weight transfer arc control methods and contact the ball slightly on the side too - they're not mutually exclusive.

 

[blahness]

Update from me going full Gozo (Viscaria+ D05 both wings). This setup really makes me enjoy attacking table tennis finally, I won all my games against my regular training partners yesterday. My FH loops are now much harder to block and counterloops are also landing very nicely now, and the dwell time is really good, I no longer feel like I'm struggling to loop past good defensive walls. As expected the short pushes became terrible with D05 on my FH (it was frequently a disaster just resulting in pop ups especially against serves that aren't underspin whereas with tacky Hurricanes this was a lot easier to control). Long fast pushes are fine though and easy to control. But I noticed that my newly learnt FH flicks and aggressive sideswipes actually really came to life with D05 - because it's less spin sensitive than Hurricanes and needs less power input making it more flexible and easy to disguise.

Even with blocking D05 is deadly because even putting the racket in the way with even a small impulse from the fingers results in a really fast ball back which jams the attacker bad.

I guess the philosophy when using this setup is to simply avoid pushing short and just go for the attack straight away and go for the aggressive rallies - don't get bogged down in pushing.

 

[OvrChkn]

Nah, for someone like you, it is going to take a lot more time for your brain to catch up to your body in terms of reading the play. But fast random drills that challenge your ability to read what is happening or defensive blocking drills that help you play quality shots against incoming offense are what is going to help you the most. And then maybe attacking shorter serves or keeping them short and things like that. The first 3/4 balls are what separate most good players, and your blade choice should be mostly dependent on how well it is letting you do in those first 3/4 balls, whether you can control the serve depth, you can play for the first attack, and you can play a good first attack/counterattack. Rally is fun, but table tennis is not about rallying for sure. To me, if I rally with a weaker player, it is a sign that I am being nice or I have nothing to play with. Because not being able to display advantage in the first 3/4 shots against weaker players means your game is not evolving to deal with better players.

One of the better players in my club is forcing me out of the habit of trying to rally. He wants me to set up my serves to set the 3rd ball on my forehand, but I'm way too comfortable with trying to open with my BH lol.

I've been working on the 3rd ball attack. Some attacks are rather slow, some I can get the right angle on. Just gotta keep drilling.

Played someone older a few weeks ago that used Viscaria + Dignics 09c/Tenergy 05 and he was getting so much spin off of a small movement! One of my practice partners had Viscaria + D09c and he was just getting so much spin on his forehand loops and it would always find a way deep on the table.