Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Der_Echte]

The concept is with the decent proper fitted inserts, you tear less fiber on your injury site during the day, then overnight it heals a little more than you tore up... after a week you feel so much better and near 100% after 2 weeks.

Such an insert may have a 70% chance of fitting you decently enough.

 

[Der_Echte]

Rolling down to Orange County, CA with USA's premier expert of boosting and utilizing H3 rubber - Sergey the Tsos.

I will have an hours long chance to discuss the secret craft as we drive to OCTTA for the Seniors TT Tourney.

We have entered a gazillion doubles events Sat and several Singles events Sun.

Prolly gunna stay at some flee-bitten shotgun shack as hard times have struck. I was in a profession for 3 decades where I had to sleep on the ground or in not so perfect places, so we will get by. We could always drive a few miles north to downtown LA for better streetside accommodations.

 

[NextLevel]

Rolling down to Orange County, CA with USA's premier expert of boosting and utilizing H3 rubber - Sergey the Tsos.

I will have an hours long chance to discuss the secret craft as we drive to OCTTA for the Seniors TT Tourney.

We have entered a gazillion doubles events Sat and several Singles events Sun.

Prolly gunna stay at some flee-bitten shotgun shack as hard times have struck. I was in a profession for 3 decades where I had to sleep on the ground or in not so perfect places, so we will get by. We could always drive a few miles north to downtown LA for better streetside accommodations.

Coming to Teams this year?

 

[Jslick89]

Rolling down to Orange County, CA with USA's premier expert of boosting and utilizing H3 rubber - Sergey the Tsos.

I will have an hours long chance to discuss the secret craft as we drive to OCTTA for the Seniors TT Tourney.

We have entered a gazillion doubles events Sat and several Singles events Sun.

Prolly gunna stay at some flee-bitten shotgun shack as hard times have struck. I was in a profession for 3 decades where I had to sleep on the ground or in not so perfect places, so we will get by. We could always drive a few miles north to downtown LA for better streetside accommodations.

dont you mean three days??

 

[blahness]

This is why i play with Vivo Barefoot shoes! (took a year of training my feet and legs before i felt confident and knew i had the strength to play in barefoot shoes without injuring myself though). my feet and legs have never felt stronger.

Modern shoes literally deform your feet. You know how when you break your wrist and they put you in a cast for a month or so? And how weak your arm feels when you get out of the cast? that's essentially what modern footwear is doing to your feet.

EDIT: Also, I remember i used to wear Brooks running to the gym. I used to run about 10 or so miles a week. nothing crazy but definitely a lot of sprinting involved in those ten miles. i developed horrible shin splints. i didn't know why i had these when i was wearing $100+ high end running shoes. turns out the supreme cushion in these shoes were disguising the injuries i was developing from an improper running form.

I also spent quite some time moving and running with barefoot shoes. It really developed the musculature in my feet, up to the point I have dinosaur feet which is all veiny and muscly lol.... I feel it really helps with TT (although I still wear TT shoes when playing TT)

 

[Jslick89]

I also spent quite some time moving and running with barefoot shoes. It really developed the musculature in my feet, up to the point I have dinosaur feet which is all veiny and muscly lol.... I feel it really helps with TT (although I still wear TT shoes when playing TT)

Strong feet let’s go! What kind of barefoot shoes do you use? You should check out some vivo FG soles. They have a little cushion but complete barefoot feel.

 

[blahness]

Strong feet let’s go! What kind of barefoot shoes do you use? You should check out some vivo FG soles. They have a little cushion but complete barefoot feel.

I went the extreme lol I have 2 pairs of Vibrams. The cushioning is close to nil on those shoes!

 

[blahness]

Had another nice session although I was dead tired, so what really worked well was my new concept BH chiquita/loop which felt very punishing against anything that landed on the left half of the table. This is after I have learnt how to best adjust for all 6 main types of serve spin. Previously I always did my opening chiquita/loops conservatively and going for higher arc spinny openings. Now I adjusted it to go mainly forward and not so much upwards. Turns out that I could maintain similar landing rates and it became much more difficult for the other player to defend against this low arc fast chiquita especially when I aimed it quite freely around the table.

I did a lot of long and short pushing exercises with my training partner and tbh, even after executing a decent short push I feel like it is worse than just a chiquita which often just gains me the advantage straight away. I'm taking a lot more risk for a lot less benefit.

We played some matches and I tried a few short pushes and they all popped and got me killed haha. I am now rethinking of whether or not it is that worth it to get really good at short pushing.

Later on I trained a bit of my BH fade which imo is also worse than a chiquita, because the fade will simply get attacked. However, after a lot of multiball training I found the key. So after the BH fade to the opponent's wide FH, I just needed to retreat a bit from the table and do a solid well controlled block to their wide BH, and usually after that I can take control of the point. Maybe I will try this strategy a bit more as an alternative to my chiquita/BH loop strategy.

 

[NextLevel]

Played for the first time since last week Sunday today. Finally got coaching from the Swedish guy here:

It is funny watching that video, the way that guy is smashing his loops is crazy, those are 2600 level spin loops, definitely not the kinds of things mere mortals can smash but that guy makes it look easy, will try it next time lol.

More seriously, we warmed up, did some drills, two point drills, then 3 point drills with balls to the middle. Then we looked at some serve return ideas. Finally we played a game to 11 (I think I managed 2 or 3 points, not sure). One of the takeaways was that even for sticky rubber, I am probably preparing my backswing too early (in terms of size) for my playing distance. But it is likely because I am used to putting away balls from people who don't generate as opposed to countering people who do. Will think about opening my racket more and reducing the size of my elbow straightening close to the table.

Very early in the lesson I aggravated my shoulder and carried that with me throughout the day. Definitely going to need to do shoulder hangs more consistently.

I played some matches. I beat two usual suspects, but against the guy I beat twice last week, he won 3-2. My lefty training partner showed up and I managed to get him 3-2 in the 5th to guarantee that everyone went home with at least one loss lol.

Gotta train but my body has gotta hold up. Next week, will work more on serve return and defending the middle again. Next week, will be sure to take my camera so I can be more self-aware.

 

[disaster3]

Yesterday, got green light for training from my orthopedist due to my "plantar fasciitis" issue. I did during the week all those exercises, bought FootWave inserts, etc and he told me that what I've done so far was good but add additional exercise to stretch my calf muscle which has significant impact on this. has to do this 8x daily for 2 minutes each leg.

 

[Mikey_TT]

@z0uLess mental

 

[JeffM]

Played for the first time since last week Sunday today. Finally got coaching from the Swedish guy here:

It is funny watching that video, the way that guy is smashing his loops is crazy, those are 2600 level spin loops, definitely not the kinds of things mere mortals can smash but that guy makes it look easy, will try it next time lol.

More seriously, we warmed up, did some drills, two point drills, then 3 point drills with balls to the middle. Then we looked at some serve return ideas. Finally we played a game to 11 (I think I managed 2 or 3 points, not sure). One of the takeaways was that even for sticky rubber, I am probably preparing my backswing too early (in terms of size) for my playing distance. But it is likely because I am used to putting away balls from people who don't generate as opposed to countering people who do. Will think about opening my racket more and reducing the size of my elbow straightening close to the table.

Very early in the lesson I aggravated my shoulder and carried that with me throughout the day. Definitely going to need to do shoulder hangs more consistently.

I played some matches. I beat two usual suspects, but against the guy I beat twice last week, he won 3-2. My lefty training partner showed up and I managed to get him 3-2 in the 5th to guarantee that everyone went home with at least one loss lol.

Gotta train but my body has gotta hold up. Next week, will work more on serve return and defending the middle again. Next week, will be sure to take my camera so I can be more self-aware.

Thanks for linking that video.

I am really amazed by his smashes too. What a nice way to shut down the loops.
I was struggling to deal with spinny loops in the last tournament which costed me my losses, and this guy is just putting them with ease and accuracy and consistency!

To smash like him, I would have to change the way I approach the ball. I have been trying to 'block' the loops, and it works for some but not the ones that are super spinny. I wonder if I should try a few smashes off the spinny ones that are difficult for me, as I will lose the point by blocking already, I won't lose anything by trying the smashes.

 

[NextLevel]

Thanks for linking that video.

I am really amazed by his smashes too. What a nice way to shut down the loops.
I was struggling to deal with spinny loops in the last tournament which costed me my losses, and this guy is just putting them with ease and accuracy and consistency!

To smash like him, I would have to change the way I approach the ball. I have been trying to 'block' the loops, and it works for some but not the ones that are super spinny. I wonder if I should try a few smashes off the spinny ones that are difficult for me, as I will lose the point by blocking already, I won't lose anything by trying the smashes.

Just practice counterlooping with short movement. People like you and me, we play with large strokes and sometimes, this causes upward movement that is excessive for the incoming topspin. Just figure out how to shorten your backswing in response to topspin balls and most of the problem will go away - smashing is possible but is probably a bit riskier, but it also requires the shorter backswing so it isn't about stroke but the preparation and following through with the body.

 

[dingyibvs]

Thanks for linking that video.

I am really amazed by his smashes too. What a nice way to shut down the loops.
I was struggling to deal with spinny loops in the last tournament which costed me my losses, and this guy is just putting them with ease and accuracy and consistency!

To smash like him, I would have to change the way I approach the ball. I have been trying to 'block' the loops, and it works for some but not the ones that are super spinny. I wonder if I should try a few smashes off the spinny ones that are difficult for me, as I will lose the point by blocking already, I won't lose anything by trying the smashes.

Hard to say, those are select points so you can't really judge consistency with that video. With that said, in all the hitting videos I've watched the high slow loops seem to be the prime targets for hitting. @Der_Echte showed me how he does it too!

 

[JeffM]

Hard to say, those are select points so you can't really judge consistency with that video. With that said, in all the hitting videos I've watched the high slow loops seem to be the prime targets for hitting. @Der_Echte showed me how he does it too!

Yeah they are just the highlights, but at his high level, the fact that he is choosing to do that than to say, counter loop, means that it works well for him.

I don't get to practice against high slow loops much but when I do and I try to 'counter loop' them, i often miss the ball completely as I am trying to close the bat and maintain contact while the ball can bounce wildly due to the high bounce and the spin on it.

 

[blahness]

Yeah they are just the highlights, but at his high level, the fact that he is choosing to do that than to say, counter loop, means that it works well for him.

I don't get to practice against high slow loops much but when I do and I try to 'counter loop' them, i often miss the ball completely as I am trying to close the bat and maintain contact while the ball can bounce wildly due to the high bounce and the spin on it.

Some ppl are kinda gifted at that. Harimoto also does a lot of it in his younger days and it is a really deadly shot. But it requires some really accurate reads of the ball spin and trajectory, and if the looper is actively varying placements and spin and rhythm, it's really not as easy as it looks.

For me I was never gifted at that lol, which is why I use more of the sidespin (both fade and hook) counter techniques, which imo is more friendly in terms of it being easier to control.

 

[Der_Echte]

dont you mean three days??

I didn't do any of the Friday events, so it was a two day tourney for me...

I registered for THREE doubles events for Saturday... did not have a partner for 2 of them... could not get assigned one... the other doubles, the assigned partner never told control desk he wanted to default to save energy for another event.

So I ended up competing zero on Sat.

NL, I do not plan on doing DC teams this year, but likely I roll down to So-Cal for US Open with a pile of friends and do a convoy driving down there.

 

[blahness]

I finally figured out how to do a fade version of the chiquita (with the opposite sidespin)... woohoo!

 

[JeffM]

I got a little surprise from coach today.

I only knew I was going to play with coach, then when I got there, I heard there were sounds of balls bouncing on the table.. I thought, that is odd, coach doesn't normally play / practice by himself.

As I entered the shed, I saw coach with another man! He is someone whom I played against in July in another comp where coach was his doubles partner.

Coach said he played alot ytd, so he asked this man who happened to have driven down to our town 2 days ago to come and play. The man always like playing so he agreed.

This guy is probably around 75 years young. He has a better forehand than coach. He is a hitter/smasher on the fh.

We did some drills with the coach on the sideline. I didn't really get much tips from the coach even though he was watching, but it was still great to play with someone who plays regularly and can block some balls back.

After the drills, coach said why not play a game to finish the session off. So we played. He won the first, I won 2nd, he won 3rd, and then coach said play one more, and in the 4th, I was trailing again, but I managed to come back and won it... It wasn't easy which was what I thought it could be.. the guy abused my short forehand side, putting a ball there and i would often use my fh and place it to his mid/fh but he would then punish me with his fh. So in the final set, I tried adjusting with doing a big step and using my bh to flick it and that shut him down. I still didn't play too well, letting too many loose balls go without attacking (like when a push drifts long, I ended up pushing instead of attacking), my form isn't great as I haven't played for past 2.5 weeks and I didn't get a good warm up either. The shed isn't super spacious either so I am often being bit more cautious as to not damage my bat or back up too much etc. One thing I noticed I am having trouble is to put more backspin into my bh serve. My forehand serves are quite spinny with the backspin, that he and others would be putting them into the net. But I can't do a spinny backspin with my bh serve, even if I try to flatten my bat near horizontal. If anyone has any suggestion, that would be great.

A good session anyway, and I am very thankful to coach and the other man for playing with me. This session is crucial to let me maintain some form as I wouldn't be able to have a hit until I go back to city and the comp will be 3 days after I arrive in city, so not much time really.

 

[z0uLess]

@z0uLess mental

Which backhand rubber do you think suits a 2-year adult beginner with Avalox P500 best? I like rubbers that are light weight with low throw angle and it has to be medium in hardness, as little catapult effect as possible.

Here is my top 10 list:
1. Yasaka Mark V HPS
2. Nittaku fastarc C-1
3. Donic Bluefire M2
4. Andro Rasanter R42
5. Yaska Rakza 7
6. Xiom Vega Asia
7. Gewo Nexxus el pro 43
8. Stiga Mantra M
9. Nittaku fastarc G-1
10. Xiom Vega Pro

What about DHS backhand rubbers? 8-80, probably need boosting.