Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Gozo Zyreruna]

This weekend, I am going for my district level selection just for some LOL! They are looking for pure amateur or as Aruna says it; Hobby Players

 

[NextLevel]

So in addition to adopting the Mizutani elbow positioning in order to make my stroke more tightly tied to my body rotation, I am trying to do some physical work to improve my overall strength with a focus on glutes more than anything else. Will be interesting to see how well it works if at all.

 

[dingyibvs]

Had a session at the Alameda club yesterday, first time in over a month. Man it's hard to play there occasionally, those Stiga tables are soooooo bouncy, it takes an entire session to get used to it lol. Too bad I won't have a chance to play there for probably another month, gonna be rough the next time I go as well.

I also had a great practice session today. Taking some of the points Jan Valenta's video mentioned into account, I tried to be extra conscientious today during practice. From the videos I took of my FH practice at Alameda as well as last week's practice, I noticed that I'm still kicking up a bit too much with my legs, so that was my focus: legs. For the entire practice any time I did FH, my focus was on the right leg movement. Weight transfer from right to left, movement as much in the horizontal plane as possible, and in as much of a rotational movement as possible. I decided to forgo everything else for now: activation sequence, not overly rotating my body, arm angle, watch the ball. Forget all that, I just focused on my legs. The plan is to get that right, then start adding things one by one. I'm too anal to leave my current FH form alone, I want it to be close to perfect.

Another point I took from Valenta's video is that new processes are most vulnerable to disruption within the first 4-6 hours. As such it's tricky to play practice matches when learning a new technique, the focus needs to be on applying the new technique. With that in mind, I spent all my mental energy during practice matches on the new technique, only adding things when they're not in conflict with it. For service receives I tried to receive almost exclusively with my BH, really practicing my BH flicks, which let's say did not go that well lol. Then in rallies I just put my BH on autopilot while focusing on the FH, specifically maintaining a lean and doing the correct leg movement. The reason I had to add the lean is because too often I hit shots leaning back, which prevents the correct weight transfer so I needed to maintain the lean in order to execute my leg movement. It sounds so simple but it was so damn difficult to execute, but I did manage to improve by the end.

 

[Tyce]

It's off season so now is a good time to try some things.
Since I've decided to go back to Eurojap and have also selected Fastarc G1/C1 as the combo I want to play, I'm now left with the choice of main blade.
I know I like the Korbel Japan, but there's also the option to go carbon and give myself more room to make fluent strokes, rather than having to work hard for them using the allwood option.
I moved the rubbers of my backup Korbel (Rakza 7 and C1) to my Pro 01 today, after giving it a playtest last night to confirm if I still liked the blade in the first place. I hope to confirm next Monday if it is something I want to build on or not.
Meanwhile, fresh G1 and C1 is making its way to me so I can finish up the main Korbel. Can't wait to compare these setups and have some good targeted equipment test rather than uncontrollable EJ spasms.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

My BH works in pressure testing environment. Tested and Gozo approved.

Salient points:
1. Get down low and dirty, Bend the knees to get a low center of gravity.
2. Suck it in. Hold your core tight like you are trying to impress some hot lady you meet in the gym before you release your stroke.
3. Swing fully and 100% committed. No wishy-washy half arsed swing. Be a man, do the right thing.
4. Get down low. Yes I said it twice, coz it is the most important stuff to me.
5. Get it on video so that you can watch it like 100 times with joy & happiness a hundred times over and over again.

My hero

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Today played at a district closed selection game. If my wife asked me it went? I am gonna show her this clip:

I made passed the Group Stage and went as far as QF and met my demise. And my opponent is a local village champion who uses CPen twiddler with D05 + OX Long Pips. I lost 0-3. I hate pips...

 

[Tyce]

Today my rubbers arrived, so I finished the G1/C1 combo on the Korbel Japan. Took it to the club and oh my does it play well! The G1 is so easy to play, and the whole setup has insane levels of control while still retaining a great potential to attack.
It really encourages me to hit through the ball with confidence, which in turn results in good shots with serious spin.
I think we found a winner here...

 

[SleepyMaster]

Slowly trying to get in shape, avoiding overtraining and getting myself injured again. We did one and a half hour drills, and a bit of matches with accent on third/fifth ball attacks and keeping ball on the table with topspin’s. I hope I will be able to play some tourney in a near future.
Few moment of our training:

 

[Tyce]

Small reflection after the initial high wore off.

Yes, the control is insane. Yes, spinning is easy. Yes, touch and push is excellent for me. But there is a point of criticism and it's something I know I lack, but I would love to be supported in by my gear...
I play great when I can borrow speed from the opponent (first person I played with last night) but when they play soft, slow balls (second person I played) I tend to dump them in the net. Imagine the kind of ball you get from an older guy with an allround blade and pre-tensor rubber.
I seem to struggle with this type of player the most because I don't easily generate power on powerless balls. And I keep thinking, something like an inner fiber blade should be helpful here.

So, this morning I did some blade testing. The Koto outer fiber Pro 01 first, because it has a good balance. I found the direct play and lower dwell feeling a bit too different, not something I can adjust to quickly. I could probably get there if I went for it but I have been using the feeling of a soft, dwelly hit as feedback to improve lately. Taking it away will instantly make that harder.
Next up was the Waldner Legend Carbon, which I reduced the head size of to 157x150. Balance is great now, but it's still a very fast blade. The hinoki top does help a lot in making it more usable. Still on the fence about this one.
Last I decided to revisit Pro 05. Haven't given it a fair chance with euro rubbers before. It felt pretty good actually, closest experience to what I'm familiar with so I'm going to take it to the club and see how it fares in a real life scenario.

 

[Der_Echte]

Tyce, what would ultimately be helpful is step in timing.

 

[Novarac23]

I have a confession. About a month ago I switched to a slower blade. Sanwei Fextra 7, all wood , 7ply with two Rozenas. I’m playing the best table tennis of my life. i am finally using my weight transfer appropriately and strokes are looking a lot smoother and I’m following through on my strokes. I ordered one more of Aliexpress so I can have an exact backup.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Result: 11-9, 11-5, 11-1. 3-0

we have seen this often in our clubs. We understand, especially you spend a long time there.

 

[Tyce]

Tyce, what would ultimately be helpful is step in timing.

Good point, it's something I don't coordinate well. In general, the coordination between my arm movements and leg movements is a weak point for me.

 

[dingyibvs]

Had another solid practice Mon night. I'm now 2 weeks into my new FH training strategy, doing things by piecemeal. Last week's focus was on the legs, specifically weight transfer in a circular pattern, this week is on the body, specifically for it to move with the legs/hips instead of over-rotating. Reviewing some footage I'm pretty pleased with the progress.

Two issues that have apparently been plaguing me the longest is now finally being fixed. First is that I had no idea how little weight transfer I was doing with my regular loops. I do it fairly well with my full loop drives but apparently I hardly do it at all with my regular loops. I was overdoing it a bit as you don't need to transfer the full weight every shot, but I was trying to get a definitive feel of weight transfer every shot. This overcorrection method is something I learned from Seth Pech's videos and it's served me well.

Second issue is that apparently I've been compensating for the lack of weight transfer by over-rotating my torso. Now I'm trying to get my torso to be more of a transmitter of power from the legs than a generator of power. I noticed that with the pros, the actually hardly rotate their torso relative to their hip for a normal loop, so I'm working on implementing that as well. I got a lot better with this last practice, but I still had some more work to do.

With that in mind, that's exactly what I did today. I focused on synchronizing my body and legs, so that my weight transferring legs drive the shot while the body only transmits. I also tuned down the weight transfer to a more realistic level. I recorded myself, watched it, and my god was it beautiful! 😍I finally did it! It was so perfect I could cry 😭 I just need to relax my arm and wrist a bit and I'll look exactly like FZD looping!

Ma Long actually does use torso rotation a little bit, as he would rotate his torso actively to the right during backswing and then snap it a bit during the forward swing. I'm not sure if I'll be adding that, but so far it's looking amazing! I've been sacrificing my FH consistency for months now in search of a great looking form, I'm so relieved now that I've finally managed to do it! The new practice technique was the final piece of the puzzle, it allowed me to finally integrate all the various parts together.

I'm traveling a lot this month, but I've been shadow training even when traveling and will continue to do so. It's time to drill down this technique, adding footwork and transitions, apply it to backspins, and get the consistency up.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

I'm a hero in practice

Critères personnalisés

Un coach de ping-pong dans votre smartphone, alimenté par l’intelligence artificielle. Pour tous les joueurs de tennis de table à la recherche de progrès ou de fun.

pinghero.ai

 

[backspacer]

There are two tournaments happening this weekend, but they overlap on Saturday and I have to decide now which to play. One is for my district, but less players than last year and most are much higher rated than me, but I could advance to the next round simply by having so little participants. The other is a big tournament with more players I know, I could play doubles and probably have a better chance to get some wins. I absolutely hate it when tournaments overlap. Sure, they are held in different associations, but it's not like we have big tournaments happening every week so some coordination between organizers would be nice. The person responsible for the district tournament already complained about the little number of entries, but duh, you should have checked the calendar.

 

[backspacer]

I'm a hero in practice

Critères personnalisés

Un coach de ping-pong dans votre smartphone, alimenté par l’intelligence artificielle. Pour tous les joueurs de tennis de table à la recherche de progrès ou de fun.

pinghero.ai

G.C.'s look on his face when you hit those winners

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

G.C.'s look on his face when you hit those winners

tbh i can't believe myself i did some of these shots lol...like the BH at 0'23, its totally a reflex, and an unsual one. His BH is very spinny, the ball is curving a lot, and i need to use my wrist to put the ball in touching the ball on the side. it should have been a block but i put a bit of spin on the ball and the placement is perfect. you can see my bat angle looks strange.

ofc its a best-of... 27 minutes of footage in the original video, only 1minute of winners, the rest is crap !

 

[backspacer]

tbh i can't believe myself i did some of these shots lol...like the BH at 0'23, its totally a reflex, and an unsual one. His BH is very spinny, the ball is curving a lot, and i need to use my wrist to put the ball in touching the ball on the side. it should have been a block but i put a bit of spin on the ball and the placement is perfect. you can see my bat angle looks strange.

ofc its a best-of... 27 minutes of footage in the original video, only 1minute of winners, the rest is crap !

That's good enough for a hobby player!

 

[NextLevel]

I'm a hero in practice

Critères personnalisés

Un coach de ping-pong dans votre smartphone, alimenté par l’intelligence artificielle. Pour tous les joueurs de tennis de table à la recherche de progrès ou de fun.

pinghero.ai

Good stuff. I have one point against Jian Li where he sidespin loops thr ball.and I kill it with my slow rubbers and thr crowd gore oooh... still my best point ever against a high level player and you out did that a few times here lol.