Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[blahness]

Had a short practice session yesterday. The focus was on loading my right leg more and tightening grip at contact. Both improved, and overall consistency improved including in 2-pt drills. Next up is FH loop from BH corner. I noticed that the pros only have their left foot a little bit forward during that drill, but I have it waaaay forward, so will work on correcting that.

After that will be BH/FH drills, so in preparation I also started doing some BH training. Last time I worked with a coach he told me to relax my shoulder and keep my elbow closer to the body. I've gotten better at relaxing the shoulder, so now I'm working on keeping the elbow a bit closer to the body. This actually made power generation much, much easier.

I figured out later that it's because if you jut your elbow out and try to rotate your shoulder, the natural movement is very much a down-to-up one, and the racket moves like a windshield wiper. But when the elbow is closer to the body the movement becomes much more back-to-forward. Crazy that it took me this long to figure it out, even after the coach told me to change it! The timing and hitbox will be a bit different, but the new motion feels so natural that it took no time at all to adjust. I just need to drill enough to make it my default stroke.

I'm not sure if you're changing too much stuff - your BH looks very good already from last time we seen it. The only thing I would add is the finger usage and better/faster positioning and linkage to FH, and focus a bit more on 3rd ball attack drills and service return.

 

[NextLevel]

Actually I feel like I simply can't bend my arm into my body anymore without forcefully contracting my biceps, which I don't really think should be happening at the end of the backswing anyway. When I have my elbow lower, however, I can rotate my shoulder to get the racket closer to my body. For example, if I'm lying down and hold my elbow out at where I would hold it for a BH stroke and just let my forearm and wrist/hand dangle, the tip of my fingers would be about 1 inch away from my lower chest. If I do the same with my elbow lower then my whole hand would be resting comfortably on my upper belly.

Okay, I think the biceps should contract slightly but not massively.. I am basically saying that your backswing is more like Tom here and it should be more like Liam when you go for power. Even if your juat point your racket towards you at thr end of the backswing that should get you most of the way there even without Liam's super timing and whip. But if it causes inordinate tightness that is understandable. There are quite a few decent ways to play backhands but it is hard to generate easy power without using the arm a bit better than you currently do.

 

[dingyibvs]

Okay, I think the biceps should contract slightly but not massively.. I am basically saying that your backswing is more like Tom here and it should be more like Liam when you go for power. Even if your juat point your racket towards you at thr end of the backswing that should get you most of the way there even without Liam's super timing and whip. But if it causes inordinate tightness that is understandable. There are quite a few decent ways to play backhands but it is hard to generate easy power without using the arm a bit better than you currently do.

Maybe it's a situational thing, but you see how when Liam uses power he actually brings his elbow closer to the body? That's a shot I don't have right now.

I'm not sure if you're changing too much stuff - your BH looks very good already from last time we seen it. The only thing I would add is the finger usage and better/faster positioning and linkage to FH, and focus a bit more on 3rd ball attack drills and service return.

I think overall it should be a fairly small change. I was debating whether to incorporate it, but I think the coach is pretty good so if I'm gonna keep using him then I should go all in on his advice. And it did feel really, really good when I tried it out yesterday. When I first tried it out I was trying to incorporate everything all at once and couldn't figure it out, but now that it's the only thing I'm trying to do it felt so easy. I felt it was especially useful against backspins when I have a bit more time to really swing. I'll have to try it out to see if it's useful in a quicker topspin rally as well.

 

[blahness]

I think overall it should be a fairly small change. I was debating whether to incorporate it, but I think the coach is pretty good so if I'm gonna keep using him then I should go all in on his advice. And it did feel really, really good when I tried it out yesterday. When I first tried it out I was trying to incorporate everything all at once and couldn't figure it out, but now that it's the only thing I'm trying to do it felt so easy. I felt it was especially useful against backspins when I have a bit more time to really swing. I'll have to try it out to see if it's useful in a quicker topspin rally as well.

I generally also have the elbow closer to the body too, it makes it easier to explode with power from the body. Also makes it a bit easier to connect with the FH. But I will have my elbow further away from body if the ball is more towards my right side if I need the reach, but that is not an ideal situation for me for power production.

 

[NextLevel]

Maybe it's a situational thing, but you see how when Liam uses power he actually brings his elbow closer to the body? That's a shot I don't have right now.


I think overall it should be a fairly small change. I was debating whether to incorporate it, but I think the coach is pretty good so if I'm gonna keep using him then I should go all in on his advice. And it did feel really, really good when I tried it out yesterday. When I first tried it out I was trying to incorporate everything all at once and couldn't figure it out, but now that it's the only thing I'm trying to do it felt so easy. I felt it was especially useful against backspins when I have a bit more time to really swing. I'll have to try it out to see if it's useful in a quicker topspin rally as well.

My point is that the main source of the power is a backswing that enables you to pull the racket into the ball. When the elbow is leading the stroke when you want more power so it is not so much to the side as in front of you. In fact as the racket comes forward the elbow tends to go backward and on really powerful strokes, the racket may end up backwards as well (look at full Zhang Jike backhands).

In any case you have a solution from a good coach, feel free to post a video when it is complete. Maybe I will get what you are aiming for better then.

 

[dingyibvs]

My point is that the main source of the power is a backswing that enables you to pull the racket into the ball. When the elbow is leading the stroke when you want more power so it is not so much to the side as in front of you. In fact as the racket comes forward the elbow tends to go backward and on really powerful strokes, the racket may end up backwards as well (look at full Zhang Jike backhands).

In any case you have a solution from a good coach, feel free to post a video when it is complete. Maybe I will get what you are aiming for better then.

Yeah I think we're probably referring to the same thing. When the elbow is closer to my body it's much easier for it to lead the racket. When I have it jutting out I can't bend my elbow enough to have the racket behind the elbow. Also, like @blahness says it's easier to use body power that way. With the elbow out, if I use body rotation then the ball will head way too much to the right. With the elbow a bit closer to the body, meaning it would be more to the left of where it used to be, the racket will also be more to the left, thus allowing me to use body rotation more. That's not very visible except when I get to load up against slower shots though, so it seems to make the biggest difference against backspins.

I feel like both shots have their places. With the elbow out it's a smaller motion, good in quick counters close to the table, and with the elbow in it's more useful when you're a bit farther away from the table e.g. in a rally or against slower balls when you can load up.

After some more practice today, and watching that Liam video, I do feel that I also need to improve my activation sequence on the BH side. He really keeps the wrist loose until contact and then whip it forward, I need to do a better job of doing that as well.

On a side note, my left foot still isn't completely healed. When I tried to speed up my multi-position drills I found it hurting when I have to move quickly to my left, as I would need to land hard on my left foot in order to quickly move left and shift the weight to my right leg to get ready for the loop. I guess I need to take it a bit easy still in that regard.

 

[backspacer]

WTT and ITTF World YouTube channels have been hacked. They are promoting bitcoin stuff now during streams.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

 

[dingyibvs]

So I practiced the new form against the robot today, then went to the club for the first time in a month today. Man it's different playing against different people lol. I practiced my new form some against a lower level player, played some doubles, then played against a higher level player.

Obviously the new form is nowhere near ready yet after just one day, and unsurprisingly I had the biggest issue with changing pace. Somewhat curiously I had more issue with less energy balls, on both sides actually, probably because this past month I've only been practicing against the robot and my training partner. I had my robot set on fairly high speed/spin, and one thing with my partner that we're trying to correct is that he always blocks actively, which is not ideal when we're trying to build reps first. So tonight I did some work against the return board, which gives pretty low energy blocks. My BH tends to change form easier than my FH, so hopefully I'll be competent with it in practice in a week or two, and incorporate it in games within a month.

 

[Synapse]

So I practiced the new form against the robot today, then went to the club for the first time in a month today. Man it's different playing against different people lol. I practiced my new form some against a lower level player, played some doubles, then played against a higher level player.

Obviously the new form is nowhere near ready yet after just one day, and unsurprisingly I had the biggest issue with changing pace. Somewhat curiously I had more issue with less energy balls, on both sides actually, probably because this past month I've only been practicing against the robot and my training partner. I had my robot set on fairly high speed/spin, and one thing with my partner that we're trying to correct is that he always blocks actively, which is not ideal when we're trying to build reps first. So tonight I did some work against the return board, which gives pretty low energy blocks. My BH tends to change form easier than my FH, so hopefully I'll be competent with it in practice in a week or two, and incorporate it in games within a month.

I would recommend buying cheapest $30 robot, it gives different pace low enegry balls all the time, you should always correct your stance and switch pace, it's actually hard to land a GOOD shot because of low energy ball , you have to work more on adding more spin/speed.

 

[dingyibvs]

I would recommend buying cheapest $30 robot, it gives different pace low enegry balls all the time, you should always correct your stance and switch pace, it's actually hard to land a GOOD shot because of low energy ball , you have to work more on adding more spin/speed.

That's very true, and it's the same against backspin. I actually had more issues against low spin ones, again probably because I usually practice against higher spin ones. I had some practice specifically against low spin balls near the end of my club session today.

With my recent injury and a lot of traveling I've had very little time to play in the club. I know the limitations of robot training pretty well, so knowing my schedule I mostly focused on form adjustments lately. Still got some more travel coming up, but I should have more time for club play next month, at which time I'll focus on working on things that'll more directly contribute to winning points.

 

[Der_Echte]

One of these days @dingyibvs I will bring moar out of town trouble makers better than me to your area and we can see how have you show the great progress and get some realization into some other stuff.

We gotta blow up Pleasanton TTC in doubles again with our BHs.

 

[dingyibvs]

Had a better day on Sunday at the Alameda club after a fairly rough first day back at the club on Saturday. Played some of my best matches against a pretty high level player. I carried that energy over today for a great practice. On the FH side I'm trying to combine the new passive body rotation with the new active leg kick/weight transfer. Made some good progress there, but still need some more work. On the BH side I think I managed to work out all the kinks in the new BH form, just need to get better consistency now. In practice matches I thought with my improvements I'd be able to easily defeat my practice partner, but he got better too, especially with his opening loops, and actually managed to give me much tougher games than last week. I think the opening loop practices we did last week with him really helped. What made probably the biggest difference is my defense and short game, and I worked on that more today.

Overall, a lot of improvements, and I'm focusing more on consistency on both sides while defense and short game are finally starting to make a difference. I feel like I can level up my game quite a bit in the next few months as consistency, keeping the ball on the table, and the short game are what players at my level really need.

 

[dingyibvs]

After a brief review of yesterday's training footage, I had an interesting observation. On the BH side, despite how vastly different the new technique feels, it actually looks almost identical. It feels like I'm bringing the elbow in a lot, and I'm definitely using my shoulder rotation a LOT more as it gets tired sooooo much quicker, on video it actually looks quite similar. I think what happens is that the shoulder rotation, rather than adding to the right to left swing, actually primarily helps to supinate my forearm rather than doing the supination all at the elbow joint. This effect is amplified by a force to draw the elbow in, which really just serves to keep the elbow in place and doesn't actually mvoe it in. That was rather interesting.

On the FH side I still need to combine the leg rotational shift of weight a bit better with the new upper body movement. Seems like I lost a bit of the rotation and went back to a more straight line right to left weight transfer when I tried to combine the two. More practice is gonna be needed there.

 

[Der_Echte]

@dingyibvs some future moment, I will show you a simple down and up way to generate energy to transfer. Hopefully, I can attract trouble makers to leave Sacramento.

 

[Tyce]

Last night was good. Went to the club for the first time in 1,5 week and it was just busy enough with players to get some nice balls in.

First was someone who plays 2 leagues up from me, but we always play pretty nice games. I keep him on his toes even if he consistently wins. His game is very inviting for me to take attacking risks and the fact that he usually has my first ball back keeps me really sharp.

After that I played two older, but really steady guys. No matches there, just playing around a bit. Practiced a lot of attacking, slower, faster, placement... Especially the second one of these just completely puts me out of position. He's so quick on the ball right on the bounce that I just can't react well enough to get a proper loop in but when I do, he struggles.

Last singles, I played a father and son, the son has a pretty high level game but it's also very conventional and predictable. Managed to take a set off him but he put his foot down and crushed me after that. Still, I managed to surprise him in doubles later...
The father is too smart to get past. I could have taken something had I been less aggressive but that wasn't on the menu. He makes very spinny slow loops that aren't necessarily hard to block, but he places them well so you have to stretch for it which really screws up the block.

Last we did a bit of doubles with father/son and the first guy, switched partners after best of 3. The son made errors on maybe 80% of my disguised topspin pendulum serves, just looping them out. Even when we talked about it and I explicitly served him the same one again he had trouble with it. That makes me proud of myself. Funny bit is he also fell for my disguised BH topspin serve... I think I earned a bit of respect there.

Before I knew it, it was almost 3h later... Oof.

 

[Lazer]

... The son made errors on maybe 80% of my disguised topspin pendulum serves, just looping them out...

Exactly my serve receive problem...

Every serve i can't read I assume underspin... I think this is wrong, So I will try to change this to instead assume top spin. Can't wait to see how this goes,,,

Cheers
L-zr

 

[dingyibvs]

This video just popped up in my feed and the 2nd part (Fang Yingchi's part) is exactly what I described in my previous post!

I keep falling back to the motion of kicking directly from right to left, instead of doing so in a rotational manner. But now that I've got the rest of my form nailed down pretty well, I can focus just on this part and it should be easier to correct.

One caveat about his teaching is that he keeps saying rotating the waist, which might make one think about torso rotation, but it's actually driven by the lower body (quads and glutes). I had previously mistakenly tried to add a lot of torso rotation driven by my back/abs/obliques which I've had to unlearn.

 

[dingyibvs]

Had a coaching session yesterday, finally able to fit one in. On the FH side I had some minor tweaks, raising my arm up a bit more, keeping the racket angle more stable, don't backswing my arm past my body, and strike with more consistent timing.

On the BH side there was a much more extensive change. First I needed to do more of the keeping elbow lower, but I needed to not drop by racket when I drop the elbow. I also needed to cock my wrist back more, but I shouldn't snap it forward too much during regular counters as if I'm doing a banana flick. These changes also necessitated a significant change in timing.

After that we worked on BH/FH, need to improve footwork and really, really shorten my swing for near table shots. The coach actually had me try doing no backswing at all, which felt really weird to me but both he and a higher level player observing said it actually looked like that was the correct stroke

All in all, a TON of stuff learned, gonna need some time to build it into my game. I plan on going to another session next week, after that the schedule doesn't work for a couple weeks so I'll just be doing practices on my own for at least a couple weeks.

 

[JackJohnson]

Anyone that is outside Germany are you able to watch TTBL Final on Youtube? They showed the previous matches live on Youtube but not the final?