Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Der_Echte]

On the same thought... I have geared down to Persson Power Play OFF- wood blade and have bought DOZENS of these from TT11 in Estonia...

... and recently I slapped on the familiar Reg Aurus and Aurus Soft combo on the V2 Persson Power Play (all the PPP blades i bought before were V1 blades or regular ST versions)...

... and WOW, I do the same thing to the ball and my ball is maybe more dynamic.

I could pull a V1 or V2 out of the bag and go to town with it - given if the same Aurus / Aurus Soft rubbers are on it.

I also went to town today with a Nittaku blade that was new last year, some inner blade... the handle shape and balance are good and with Aurus on FH, it did not take me long to get into it and make it happen on offense.

 

[Novarac23]

So I played at work a bit today, but didn’t have my blade. I asked one of the guys if I can borrow his blade. I didn’t really pay attention to what it was I just started warming up. Then i did a few amazing flicks and loops and was like woah i love this what is it? I found out it was dignics 09 on some kind of dhs blade

 

[dingyibvs]

I just had an exhausting few days of sports. For one, I'm on day 13 of a 17 straight day stretch of work with a night shift mixed in, so haven't really been able to sleep as much as I'd like. For two, due to scheduling issues, I had my most exhausting sports days of the week, soccer and weekly training session with my training partner, on back-to-back days on Thurs/Fri. That felt OK by itself, but I should've rested on Sat. Instead, I did more training in my garage, and slept later than I should have. So today when I played in RR after work, I felt absolutely drained. But it's the only day I could play matches this week, so I went anyway.

I thought it would go terribly, but it actually went pretty well. I didn't end up beating or losing to anyone I didn't before, but in terms of scores I actually did consistently better than when I went 2 weeks ago. My feet were like lead and my whole body was sore, so I got to apply none of the footwork training I've been doing lately. However, the dramatically improved BH and FH/BH transitions more than made up for it. My opening loop from the BH side felt natural and it was deadly, even over the table.

I think once my legs recover (I'm gonna for sure take a break tomorrow lol), I will work on 2 issues on the BH side. One is that the vast majority of pushes I face are not super spinny, and I can see that and adjust to it when they're slow. When they're fast, however, my instinct is to loop them as if they're very fast and heavy. That's really the only BH opening loops I missed all day that are not on services. The second is a BH kill shot. I play too far from the table to use what @Der_Echte does with the punch unless it's a floaty one. I can't catch the ball early enough, so I need to work on a BH drive against opportunity balls. I still need to step in on those, but I should be able to catch them at the early falling stage.

A more general thing for both FH and BH side is how to re-loop against an active block from a penholder. Those blocks "sink" a bit. They've got less spin but good pace, and I loop them into the net a lot on both sides. I can't really replicate them in practice so this will be difficult to work on. A minor thing is that I noticed that somewhat oddly, the only time I'm not ready to attack with my BH is after my own service. After I serve I still retain the FH only 3rd ball attack mentality for whatever reason, even though I'm in a fairly neutral stance. That should be relatively easy to correct as I can prep my mindset before the service.

 

[blahness]

Hah, yeah, I spend usually the last 1/3 of my training with my training partner on very specific stuff. I do quite a bit of it on my own as well. For example, just a few weeks ago I was playing this LP Cpen guy, and I had a ton of trouble with his semi-long/half-long dead serves to my BH side. I was puzzled by that so I tried it out at home with the robot, and in my first 3(!!!) attempts at looping them with my BH I completely whiffed the ball! Turns out for whatever reason I was fine with receiving regular long dead serves to my BH, but couldn't do it when the pace changed, so I practiced specifically that.

The next practice session with my training partner I tried the same with him. Just the laziest serve ever, a completely undisguised dead serve half long, and he missed an obscene number of attempts to attack it. He was shocked. Most recently for our general practice, instead of starting a loop vs block rally with a topspin, we started it with a backspin of variable length, speed, and spin. That added a rather incredible dimension to the training, both for the looper and the blocker, and also showed us a common failure point in games--that first loop or block, and then the transition to a rather different second loop or block.

These specific trainings IMO are really what's needed to upgrade one's game play.

I have been doing a lot of pure underspin / dead serves lately and the variation is actually a lot more complex if you know how to vary it. And also the 3rd balls generated are super easy to attack.

For me there are 3 spin variations (all can be controlled via how the fingers are used during the serve) and all 3 require adjustments in receive technique.

1) heavy underspin
2) mild underspin
3) mild topspin (this is the nastiest variant)

2 and 3 are technically 'dead balls' but they behave differently - and guessing wrong can lead to a lot of receive mistakes.

Worse is speed variations which also necessitate adjustments from the receiver like you mentioned.

 

[Der_Echte]

I just had an exhausting few days of sports. For one, I'm on day 13 of a 17 straight day stretch of work with a night shift mixed in, so haven't really been able to sleep as much as I'd like. For two, due to scheduling issues, I had my most exhausting sports days of the week, soccer and weekly training session with my training partner, on back-to-back days on Thurs/Fri. That felt OK by itself, but I should've rested on Sat. Instead, I did more training in my garage, and slept later than I should have. So today when I played in RR after work, I felt absolutely drained. But it's the only day I could play matches this week, so I went anyway.

I thought it would go terribly, but it actually went pretty well. I didn't end up beating or losing to anyone I didn't before, but in terms of scores I actually did consistently better than when I went 2 weeks ago. My feet were like lead and my whole body was sore, so I got to apply none of the footwork training I've been doing lately. However, the dramatically improved BH and FH/BH transitions more than made up for it. My opening loop from the BH side felt natural and it was deadly, even over the table.

I think once my legs recover (I'm gonna for sure take a break tomorrow lol), I will work on 2 issues on the BH side. One is that the vast majority of pushes I face are not super spinny, and I can see that and adjust to it when they're slow. When they're fast, however, my instinct is to loop them as if they're very fast and heavy. That's really the only BH opening loops I missed all day that are not on services. The second is a BH kill shot. I play too far from the table to use what @Der_Echte does with the punch unless it's a floaty one. I can't catch the ball early enough, so I need to work on a BH drive against opportunity balls. I still need to step in on those, but I should be able to catch them at the early falling stage.

A more general thing for both FH and BH side is how to re-loop against an active block from a penholder. Those blocks "sink" a bit. They've got less spin but good pace, and I loop them into the net a lot on both sides. I can't really replicate them in practice so this will be difficult to work on. A minor thing is that I noticed that somewhat oddly, the only time I'm not ready to attack with my BH is after my own service. After I serve I still retain the FH only 3rd ball attack mentality for whatever reason, even though I'm in a fairly neutral stance. That should be relatively easy to correct as I can prep my mindset before the service.

Hi @dingyibvs ,

IF... and I say IF you are a meter away from the table AND... I say AND and IF... a low energy ball comes to your BH zone and is at net or above...

Given that situation, you can still play pretty much the same shot I do... except you use a tiny more wrist, and hit through it some to make more spin... pretty easy to do.

The problem is that you do not get these low energy balls reaching your hitting zone... they are usually falling and are below table height before they reach your strike zone.

The better thing to do is to step forward and cruch that puppy while it is still over net height.
Unfortunately, even you and even Der_Echte do not see or react well in time all the time... so we deal with it as it comes.

To handle the low energy ball that is at or lower than table and falling is to GET HIPS DOWN (and bow some) and use a catch and throw BH topspin. You can still hit decently fast, but this is an entirely different shot. You get down enough, get enough leverage, and time it right with right impact... that ball will move fast enough and bend the laws of physics and amaze you.

 

[NextLevel]

Being competitive is tough on the body. Hitting close to a high level but the problem is that when something works, I keep trying to stack something on it and then go back to square one because my body is falling apart. Trying to cut back to 3 days a week but I have an event on Saturday and another next Saturday. After those two I might just retire again lol. With the job search and stuff still going on, can't wait for August to come to an end...

 

[blahness]

I just had an exhausting few days of sports. For one, I'm on day 13 of a 17 straight day stretch of work with a night shift mixed in, so haven't really been able to sleep as much as I'd like. For two, due to scheduling issues, I had my most exhausting sports days of the week, soccer and weekly training session with my training partner, on back-to-back days on Thurs/Fri. That felt OK by itself, but I should've rested on Sat. Instead, I did more training in my garage, and slept later than I should have. So today when I played in RR after work, I felt absolutely drained. But it's the only day I could play matches this week, so I went anyway.

I thought it would go terribly, but it actually went pretty well. I didn't end up beating or losing to anyone I didn't before, but in terms of scores I actually did consistently better than when I went 2 weeks ago. My feet were like lead and my whole body was sore, so I got to apply none of the footwork training I've been doing lately. However, the dramatically improved BH and FH/BH transitions more than made up for it. My opening loop from the BH side felt natural and it was deadly, even over the table.

I think once my legs recover (I'm gonna for sure take a break tomorrow lol), I will work on 2 issues on the BH side. One is that the vast majority of pushes I face are not super spinny, and I can see that and adjust to it when they're slow. When they're fast, however, my instinct is to loop them as if they're very fast and heavy. That's really the only BH opening loops I missed all day that are not on services. The second is a BH kill shot. I play too far from the table to use what @Der_Echte does with the punch unless it's a floaty one. I can't catch the ball early enough, so I need to work on a BH drive against opportunity balls. I still need to step in on those, but I should be able to catch them at the early falling stage.

A more general thing for both FH and BH side is how to re-loop against an active block from a penholder. Those blocks "sink" a bit. They've got less spin but good pace, and I loop them into the net a lot on both sides. I can't really replicate them in practice so this will be difficult to work on. A minor thing is that I noticed that somewhat oddly, the only time I'm not ready to attack with my BH is after my own service. After I serve I still retain the FH only 3rd ball attack mentality for whatever reason, even though I'm in a fairly neutral stance. That should be relatively easy to correct as I can prep my mindset before the service.

for BH against opportunity balls, for me it is easiest / most forgiving to kill it with the chiquita movement with added hip/body rotation to power it. The hard part is getting into a good position, if you don't get into position you cannot use body power which really impacts shot quality.

And after the shot you need to step back super quickly via left foot and then bring right foot back, otherwise there is almost no chance of continuing to attack if the opponent returns this topspin.

I hate looping to penholder tpb too, they can give anything from dead sinking blocks to topspin blocks to sidespin blocks (both sidespin directions are really easy for them) to chopblocks. Usually the best way is to continue looping higher with more spin to overwhelm their defences but once they start moving you around it is a nightmare to keep up.

The easiest way to win the point is to loop with heavy spin into their deep FH corner They're usually quite weak in defending that deep FH corner. Once they move to defend the wide FH, their deep BH then becomes an open area.

 

[dingyibvs]

for BH against opportunity balls, for me it is easiest / most forgiving to kill it with the chiquita movement with added hip/body rotation to power it. The hard part is getting into a good position, if you don't get into position you cannot use body power which really impacts shot quality.

And after the shot you need to step back super quickly via left foot and then bring right foot back, otherwise there is almost no chance of continuing to attack if the opponent returns this topspin.

I hate looping to penholder tpb too, they can give anything from dead sinking blocks to topspin blocks to sidespin blocks (both sidespin directions are really easy for them) to chopblocks. Usually the best way is to continue looping higher with more spin to overwhelm their defences but once they start moving you around it is a nightmare to keep up.

The easiest way to win the point is to loop with heavy spin into their deep FH corner They're usually quite weak in defending that deep FH corner. Once they move to defend the wide FH, their deep BH then becomes an open area.

Hmm, I'm gonna try that, treating it like a banana flick. My BH flick against topspin is pretty solid now, with the caveat that somewhat ironically I have trouble flicking reverse spins to the opponent's FH. I think maybe it's because I don't get to the right side of the ball enough? Not sure. I'm also exploring alternative solution which is opening my racket a bit more and close down quickly with the help of my thumb on contact. I see FZD primarily playing BHs with counters but also often use this type of stroke to thunder a BH shot over.

But yes, everything you said about looping to TPB is what I experience. The varying spins are OK for my FH, but they're deadly for my BH as I can't adjust to them quickly in game speed just yet. Once they start moving me around it becomes even more difficult.

I do also find it quite effective to loop to their deep FH corner, but the issue is that I'm not great at doing that yet with my BH. That's actually one of my focus points right now, BH loops from everywhere to the FH corner. Every BH drill right now includes a portion going down the line. But I think I need to practice them even more. As an all out attacker, you can't beat someone who's good at close to the table blocking/countering without being able to hit the 2 corners, IMO.

 

[dingyibvs]

Hi @dingyibvs ,

IF... and I say IF you are a meter away from the table AND... I say AND and IF... a low energy ball comes to your BH zone and is at net or above...

Given that situation, you can still play pretty much the same shot I do... except you use a tiny more wrist, and hit through it some to make more spin... pretty easy to do.

The problem is that you do not get these low energy balls reaching your hitting zone... they are usually falling and are below table height before they reach your strike zone.

The better thing to do is to step forward and cruch that puppy while it is still over net height.
Unfortunately, even you and even Der_Echte do not see or react well in time all the time... so we deal with it as it comes.

To handle the low energy ball that is at or lower than table and falling is to GET HIPS DOWN (and bow some) and use a catch and throw BH topspin. You can still hit decently fast, but this is an entirely different shot. You get down enough, get enough leverage, and time it right with right impact... that ball will move fast enough and bend the laws of physics and amaze you.

Yes, this is the alternative shot I'm gonna explore compared to what @blahness mentioned. Both would require me to move forward quicker, but his would be more spin based, perhaps more suited for balls that are a bit shorter and I need more of an arc to land, but yours perhaps can be done against longer balls.

 

[dingyibvs]

Being competitive is tough on the body. Hitting close to a high level but the problem is that when something works, I keep trying to stack something on it and then go back to square one because my body is falling apart. Trying to cut back to 3 days a week but I have an event on Saturday and another next Saturday. After those two I might just retire again lol. With the job search and stuff still going on, can't wait for August to come to an end...

Yeah, I need to be mindful of recovery, can't suffer setbacks while trying to improve too quickly. There are so many things I feel like I need to practice, it's endless, but my body just can't handle the amount that I'd like to do and have time to do. I'm forcing myself to take a break today. I should probably take a break on Wednesday as well between practice and soccer, but all this talk about the BH kill shot is making me itching to practice some....

 

[blahness]

Hmm, I'm gonna try that, treating it like a banana flick. My BH flick against topspin is pretty solid now, with the caveat that somewhat ironically I have trouble flicking reverse spins to the opponent's FH. I think maybe it's because I don't get to the right side of the ball enough? Not sure. I'm also exploring alternative solution which is opening my racket a bit more and close down quickly with the help of my thumb on contact. I see FZD primarily playing BHs with counters but also often use this type of stroke to thunder a BH shot over.

But yes, everything you said about looping to TPB is what I experience. The varying spins are OK for my FH, but they're deadly for my BH as I can't adjust to them quickly in game speed just yet. Once they start moving me around it becomes even more difficult.

I do also find it quite effective to loop to their deep FH corner, but the issue is that I'm not great at doing that yet with my BH. That's actually one of my focus points right now, BH loops from everywhere to the FH corner. Every BH drill right now includes a portion going down the line. But I think I need to practice them even more. As an all out attacker, you can't beat someone who's good at close to the table blocking/countering without being able to hit the 2 corners, IMO.

The BH down the line is a huge killer shot (especially against penholders) that will earn you lots of points. Well worth its weight in gold in terms of practising time.

With chiquita against reverse spin yes you're right that there are 2 ways. One is with the standard sidespin and the other is with fade sidespin (this is the one you described where you contact a bit to the right and fade the ball while using the thumb to close the angle). The fade sidespin version to their wide FH is often a direct point winner. There is a ZJK video out there where he demonstrates both variants very clearly.

 

[SleepyMaster]

Some of my yesterday training matches highlights

Today was working on dealing with pips - exercises and matches, plus some inverted exercises/matches. Fifty/fifty i would say.
My H3 is in the box mostly - rarely using it just for fun and pure interest how it behave in comp to D09c/K3

 

[Jslick89]

As @Der_Echte says, I caused some serious trouble at the clubs the last two days. Beating players that are 150-200 points higher than me. Every week, i'm getting more and more consistent with my serve return. I am able to drop many serves short, and i'm looping or flicking serves that go long or too high. Its amazing how doing the small step right before my opponent serves has drastically improved my serve return.

backhand is becoming more and more consistent. It's not a weapon, but it's also not a glaring weakness that my opponents can relentlessly target. There was a Fang Bo training video where he explained that if you're late on your backhand, it will be a bad shot, but if you're "late" on your forehand, you have more time to adjust and still get off a quality forehand. for that reason, you should play with 70% anticipation for backhand since 30% forehand anticipation still gives you plenty of time to get a good shot. Not sure if i'm explaining this concept well enough but its in his training videos. I think its called "why many players struggle in transition" on the teaching table tennis youtube channel.

 

[SleepyMaster]

As @Der_Echte says, I caused some serious trouble at the clubs the last two days. Beating players that are 150-200 points higher than me. Every week, i'm getting more and more consistent with my serve return. I am able to drop many serves short, and i'm looping or flicking serves that go long or too high. Its amazing how doing the small step right before my opponent serves has drastically improved my serve return.

backhand is becoming more and more consistent. It's not a weapon, but it's also not a glaring weakness that my opponents can relentlessly target. There was a Fang Bo training video where he explained that if you're late on your backhand, it will be a bad shot, but if you're "late" on your forehand, you have more time to adjust and still get off a quality forehand. for that reason, you should play with 70% anticipation for backhand since 30% forehand anticipation still gives you plenty of time to get a good shot. Not sure if i'm explaining this concept well enough but its in his training videos. I think its called "why many players struggle in transition" on the teaching table tennis youtube channel.

Interesting concept about how backhand should be treated. Yeah - forehand give us much more room to breathe and time also. Bigger range of motion. I need to work on my backhand too - for it became more powerful and consistent of a tool.

Btw what is your current rating in usatt?

 

[NextLevel]

Some of my yesterday training matches highlights

Today was working on dealing with pips - exercises and matches, plus some inverted exercises/matches. Fifty/fifty i would say.
My H3 is in the box mostly - rarely using it just for fun and pure interest how it behave in comp to D09c/K3

How did the H3 testing go?

 

[NextLevel]

As @Der_Echte says, I caused some serious trouble at the clubs the last two days. Beating players that are 150-200 points higher than me. Every week, i'm getting more and more consistent with my serve return. I am able to drop many serves short, and i'm looping or flicking serves that go long or too high. Its amazing how doing the small step right before my opponent serves has drastically improved my serve return.

backhand is becoming more and more consistent. It's not a weapon, but it's also not a glaring weakness that my opponents can relentlessly target. There was a Fang Bo training video where he explained that if you're late on your backhand, it will be a bad shot, but if you're "late" on your forehand, you have more time to adjust and still get off a quality forehand. for that reason, you should play with 70% anticipation for backhand since 30% forehand anticipation still gives you plenty of time to get a good shot. Not sure if i'm explaining this concept well enough but its in his training videos. I think its called "why many players struggle in transition" on the teaching table tennis youtube channel.

Yes, the forehand is largely triggered a hip movement, not really an arm movement, so you can always activate the forehand on the backswing/footwork and adjust the timing. The backhand not so much, only in rare cases do you have the room to swing besides you to create a large strike zone. So you have to prioritize the backhand timing since the window is narrow and use the forehand flexibly. Obviously, this isn't an absolute as Noshad Alamiyan exists, but most players who want to reduce their footwork demands on forehand early in the point, especially against equal level opposition, will play the way Fang Bo described.

 

[SleepyMaster]

How did the H3 testing go?

Mostly holding it in my racket case. Im using it time to time - but all i find for now - D09c or a new K3 is better suited to me. But again - im enjoying the process of testing it

 

[dingyibvs]

The BH down the line is a huge killer shot (especially against penholders) that will earn you lots of points. Well worth its weight in gold in terms of practising time.

With chiquita against reverse spin yes you're right that there are 2 ways. One is with the standard sidespin and the other is with fade sidespin (this is the one you described where you contact a bit to the right and fade the ball while using the thumb to close the angle). The fade sidespin version to their wide FH is often a direct point winner. There is a ZJK video out there where he demonstrates both variants very clearly.

My issue with the down the line shot has been mostly a timing issue. I need to wait just a tad bit more or get my body a tad bit more forward to increase consistency and power.

 

[Jslick89]

Some of my yesterday training matches highlights

Today was working on dealing with pips - exercises and matches, plus some inverted exercises/matches. Fifty/fifty i would say.
My H3 is in the box mostly - rarely using it just for fun and pure interest how it behave in comp to D09c/K3

Looking solid bro! Seems like you're giving your coach a good run for his money now...or maybe its just the highlight reel lol. What rubber are you using for your backhand? Your backhand looks really good to me!

Interesting concept about how backhand should be treated. Yeah - forehand give us much more room to breathe and time also. Bigger range of motion. I need to work on my backhand too - for it became more powerful and consistent of a tool.

Btw what is your current rating in usatt?

Exactly like how nextlevel says.... you can really swing the hip back and still catch a good forehand. you cant do that as easily with the backhand.

so my offical USATT rating is really close to 1600...but ever since i really started saving for a house, i haven't been playing in many sanction tournaments (only the local ones). now i own my house so i'm not playing many tournaments either since houses are insanely expensive in california lol.

BUT...my club rating is 1650 at one club...and after last night 1800 at the other club. The club where I am 1650....i haven't been able to advance quickly because I have 3 rivals who are very close in skill to me, and we are all progressing at a similar level (no where near our limit), so since we always play each other, our ratings stay lower even though we are all getting a lot better. whenever we get a chance to play the higher rated players, we often get wins. At the club where I am 1800, the ratings are inflated...maybe by 100 points. So long story short, my true rating is probably closer to 1700 or 1675 currently,

Funny thing about rating...you could split it into different aspects of your game lol. Like my forehand plays 2000. but my backhand is probably 1500. my serves are 1650 and my returns are 1550....which if you take the average its 1675! lol.

 

[SleepyMaster]

Looking solid bro! Seems like you're giving your coach a good run for his money now...or maybe its just the highlight reel lol. What rubber are you using for your backhand? Your backhand looks really good to me!

Exactly like how nextlevel says.... you can really swing the hip back and still catch a good forehand. you cant do that as easily with the backhand.

so my offical USATT rating is really close to 1600...but ever since i really started saving for a house, i haven't been playing in many sanction tournaments (only the local ones). now i own my house so i'm not playing many tournaments either since houses are insanely expensive in california lol.

BUT...my club rating is 1650 at one club...and after last night 1800 at the other club. The club where I am 1650....i haven't been able to advance quickly because I have 3 rivals who are very close in skill to me, and we are all progressing at a similar level (no where near our limit), so since we always play each other, our ratings stay lower even though we are all getting a lot better. whenever we get a chance to play the higher rated players, we often get wins. At the club where I am 1800, the ratings are inflated...maybe by 100 points. So long story short, my true rating is probably closer to 1700 or 1675 currently,

Funny thing about rating...you could split it into different aspects of your game lol. Like my forehand plays 2000. but my backhand is probably 1500. my serves are 1650 and my returns are 1550....which if you take the average its 1675! lol.

Rating is always kinda subjective and wood be fluctuate in different environment lol

It is logical about different rating in different technical aspects - we all amateurs smashing more forehands than doing serve receives - because it is more fun 😁 and then all serve/receive game building on actual amount of games - so there is constant need to play matches with different opponents a lot.

I myself did serve receive training only in first year of training. Now I rarely do it. But I do third ball attacking drills mostly 🏓

As for games with coach - yeah sometimes it’s very close games - but he is better with serve returns and has a lot of variations and also very good at receives. Sometimes my opponents just giving me free service points (I even could say often) - but he almost never. But for training it is even better. I can take some sets against him but overall I’m much weaker player for now. I’m some kind of good in attacking and my defensive skill also not as good as of my coach. He used to block a lot - so he is really good at it. And I’m not the best of his students, just one them. He occasionally plays with about 2300-2400 players and sometimes even winning them. So our level is enough to him for teaching us and also maintaining some kind of playing level.

Thanks for the backhand - I think I have weak backhand mentality from my first years when I have developed forehand but my backhand was meh - and in matches I find myself in the middle of “backhand or forehand step around?” And while I’m thinking - im losing the point. But now, most of the time I’m trying on using backhand in such scenarios rarely doing step around forehands. I’m using MK Hybrid for a few months already and will keep using it.