Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[dingyibvs]

I don't have any specific service receive videos, but I have a recent BH opening loop practice video which probably demonstrates some of the same issues. I have a few questions and observations. Sry for all the bad serves, I was trying out a new grip so got a lot of bad contact.

First, at the start of the video I tried out two different BH forms. The first one is a more back to front stroke, more like SYS's, while the second is a bit bigger, more left back to front right, more like FZD's. I'm not sure which one I should make my default, do you guys have any idea? There's some refining to do with both strokes, but I need to stick to one to get that done. I'm thinking that since I'm trying to emulate women's game more that I should adopt a more SYS-like approach.

Second, onto the opening loops, I see that my stroke is too big, starting with too big of a backswing that goes too low. That's probably OK if the ball is slow and spinny, but when it's fast and/or less spinny I get into trouble. I think I do the same thing with service receives, and I wonder if that's a major contributor to my problems.

During that session my main goal was to go forward more with my stroke, including stepping up more and stepping back less. I think overall I made some improvements there, but perhaps I should add smaller backswing to my practice at least to start?

 

[jk1980]

While using hips to rotate and a slight left to right movement of the bat is surely not bad on itself, you have to make sure that this "left to right" movement of the bat is not during the range where you hit the ball.
Let's say the full range of your backswing to swingthrough is roughly a quarter circle. If the 10cm of range where you hit the ball (depending on your timing and position) does have too more "lateral rotation" the direction of your ball and hence your final placement will vary greatly. So let's say you hit it at the first cm of your striking range where your bat still faces "down the line" the ball will go down the line, while if you are a little later and hit it after 9cm of the beginning of your strike zone the bat will already have changed to facing more to the middle or even diagonal, so the shot will go down the middle.
If you deliberately use this to outposition your opponent by using different timings to hit the ball to different positions on the table while using the same motion, then thats great. How realistic is that in a match situation ? for me it is not, but for you it might be ok. In the end that stroke has to give you control over the placement in the match, so judging the stroke on an regular exercise might be a good indicator of which stroke types get the ball "over" and dont hit the net, but in terms of quality and how good you can position a robot spreading the balls to your backhand corner (let's say a 70cm wide band) from middle to wide backhand will show you if you can hit any position (down the line and cross court) reliably with that approach.

 

[blahness]

I don't have any specific service receive videos, but I have a recent BH opening loop practice video which probably demonstrates some of the same issues. I have a few questions and observations. Sry for all the bad serves, I was trying out a new grip so got a lot of bad contact.

First, at the start of the video I tried out two different BH forms. The first one is a more back to front stroke, more like SYS's, while the second is a bit bigger, more left back to front right, more like FZD's. I'm not sure which one I should make my default, do you guys have any idea? There's some refining to do with both strokes, but I need to stick to one to get that done. I'm thinking that since I'm trying to emulate women's game more that I should adopt a more SYS-like approach.

Second, onto the opening loops, I see that my stroke is too big, starting with too big of a backswing that goes too low. That's probably OK if the ball is slow and spinny, but when it's fast and/or less spinny I get into trouble. I think I do the same thing with service receives, and I wonder if that's a major contributor to my problems.

During that session my main goal was to go forward more with my stroke, including stepping up more and stepping back less. I think overall I made some improvements there, but perhaps I should add smaller backswing to my practice at least to start?

Imo it is situational, you need larger body rotation against slower balls and smaller against faster balls.

But imo even the 'small body rotation' opening stroke is quite full on which is not a bad thing at all, but maybe having an abbreviated swing would add more gears to your game and would prove very useful when ppl are trying to jam you.

With this my feeling is that the bat should still be basically quite close to the right hip even after the followthrough, and not way too much to the right (which is correct if you want power but can have slower recovery). It is a bit like FH loop, salute vs finishing to the left. With a smaller salute type finish you can recover faster, if you finish with bat to a lot more left of your left shoulder you get more power but recover slower. Imo basically, vs slow balls you would finish to the side and vs fast jamming balls you have to do the more abbreviated stroke.

But some people can do big stroke against fast jamming shots too but for me that is too hard for me. Even against slower shots sometimes i also do the abbreviated shot which is not so strong but is a bit more reliable and just focus more on placement.

i quite like Fang Yinchi's movements here.

Notice how his bat doesnt really go too much to the right.

But, in a demo where he wants power, you see he does finish way too the right. So it is quite situational

 

[Archosaurus]

Really great session today, no real comments other than it's the 2nd day in a row now and things are starting to fall in place. Maybe it will show in the practice videos.


Also, based on some analysis of the path of the ball after I make winning killshots, I think I can safely go down to a 40A sponge with no downside whatsoever. Even against players who are much better than I am, there's a quite large gap between the endline and the ball path. So any theoretical extra quality I'm getting from the 41A sponge is probably not useful. I'm sure on average the 40A would give me more quality and stability in most shots without sacrificing any scoring potential against the opponents I would ever play against.

So with that in mind once I've used my 41A sheets I will move down to 40A and go from there as a strategic choice. After some time I'll re-evaluate if I wanna even use H3 at all but for now I'm gonna use the same equipment for consistency sake.

 

[kindof99]

I don't have any specific service receive videos, but I have a recent BH opening loop practice video which probably demonstrates some of the same issues. I have a few questions and observations. Sry for all the bad serves, I was trying out a new grip so got a lot of bad contact.

First, at the start of the video I tried out two different BH forms. The first one is a more back to front stroke, more like SYS's, while the second is a bit bigger, more left back to front right, more like FZD's. I'm not sure which one I should make my default, do you guys have any idea? There's some refining to do with both strokes, but I need to stick to one to get that done. I'm thinking that since I'm trying to emulate women's game more that I should adopt a more SYS-like approach.

Second, onto the opening loops, I see that my stroke is too big, starting with too big of a backswing that goes too low. That's probably OK if the ball is slow and spinny, but when it's fast and/or less spinny I get into trouble. I think I do the same thing with service receives, and I wonder if that's a major contributor to my problems.

During that session my main goal was to go forward more with my stroke, including stepping up more and stepping back less. I think overall I made some improvements there, but perhaps I should add smaller backswing to my practice at least to start?

I think your serving errors were mainly due to turning your body too early before your finger griping the ball.

For more consistency on the backhand loop, you would like to bring your body to the ball and your finger/wrist grip (bite) the ball first before turning/extending your forearm for power.

 

[kindof99]

I don't have any specific service receive videos, but I have a recent BH opening loop practice video which probably demonstrates some of the same issues. I have a few questions and observations. Sry for all the bad serves, I was trying out a new grip so got a lot of bad contact.

First, at the start of the video I tried out two different BH forms. The first one is a more back to front stroke, more like SYS's, while the second is a bit bigger, more left back to front right, more like FZD's. I'm not sure which one I should make my default, do you guys have any idea? There's some refining to do with both strokes, but I need to stick to one to get that done. I'm thinking that since I'm trying to emulate women's game more that I should adopt a more SYS-like approach.

Second, onto the opening loops, I see that my stroke is too big, starting with too big of a backswing that goes too low. That's probably OK if the ball is slow and spinny, but when it's fast and/or less spinny I get into trouble. I think I do the same thing with service receives, and I wonder if that's a major contributor to my problems.

During that session my main goal was to go forward more with my stroke, including stepping up more and stepping back less. I think overall I made some improvements there, but perhaps I should add smaller backswing to my practice at least to start?

Also, it appears that your backhand opening was good for certain pace/height ball, but more error for low and high balls. I think adjusting backswing height/timing might help a little.

 

[jk1980]

It's one of these days: playing a youth player and a veteran which we brushed away in doubles 3-0, but then they cause unexpected trouble in singles against me. I even lose to the youth player in the fifth set, while i comfortably was "unchallenged" in the first set with him blocking every spinny opening of mine out of the table. He had not chance top spinning either because his success rate was like 20% (usually not passing the net on my backspin pushes). Suddenly he learns how to block me opening loops with sidespin and earns himself some net and edge balls outplacing me to me very wide forehand and then he turns into grandpa (realizing he cant beat me if he tries to attack) only pushing and pushing and pushing and not attacking at all. Me being the cocky cock looping too often or rather two predictable getting outblocked. It is really a smart decision by him and the only solace that i can find is that he's gonna stay worse at attacking if he turns to old grandpa pushing style to win.

The other guy is the best example of "this can only happen in the lowest league", basically every serve is illegal thrown about 10 cm and hit straight out of the hand hence causing some timing troubles because this way he can serve very short and very quick. Beat that guy 3-0 in the end, but it was harder than would have needed, because his illegal serves with seemingly drilled patterns when i returned the ball expectedly did cause some trouble. Again, opponent could not loop my pushes if his life depended on it, but hey. He will probably stay like that and never improve.

 

[NextLevel]

I don't have any specific service receive videos, but I have a recent BH opening loop practice video which probably demonstrates some of the same issues. I have a few questions and observations. Sry for all the bad serves, I was trying out a new grip so got a lot of bad contact.

First, at the start of the video I tried out two different BH forms. The first one is a more back to front stroke, more like SYS's, while the second is a bit bigger, more left back to front right, more like FZD's. I'm not sure which one I should make my default, do you guys have any idea? There's some refining to do with both strokes, but I need to stick to one to get that done. I'm thinking that since I'm trying to emulate women's game more that I should adopt a more SYS-like approach.

Second, onto the opening loops, I see that my stroke is too big, starting with too big of a backswing that goes too low. That's probably OK if the ball is slow and spinny, but when it's fast and/or less spinny I get into trouble. I think I do the same thing with service receives, and I wonder if that's a major contributor to my problems.

During that session my main goal was to go forward more with my stroke, including stepping up more and stepping back less. I think overall I made some improvements there, but perhaps I should add smaller backswing to my practice at least to start?

There is a lot of good stuff in there, I am not entirely sold on the drive shot selection but I suspect that if you work on producing any ball you want, you will ultimately be fine.

 

[NextLevel]

I think your serving errors were mainly due to turning your body too early before your finger griping the ball.

For more consistency on the backhand loop, you would like to bring your body to the ball and your finger/wrist grip (bite) the ball first before turning/extending your forearm for power.

I agree, I think he is trying too hard to combine the serve and the recovery, they should always feel distinct.

 

[Der_Echte]

After 2-3 minutes i saw enough.

The balls @dingyibvs hit long and out, he got the bat too low.

A lot of the balls he let drop to table height, that low bat worked very very well.

We can make an argument that this or that cause his bat to be low. There are a couple ways to get the bat low. One is to lower the lower arm too far below the ball while not lowering the body... and @dingyibvs likes that one when he hits it out. The other way is to lower the lower arm to a point, like table height, then lower the entire body dipping the hips and exploding upward and forward... when @dingyibvs did that, he generated and transferred a lot of power to the ball with spin and speed and it was like he couldn't miss. (and his friend blocked long and out every time)

The other argument to make that if @dingyibvs wants to hit the ball a little over the table and when it is a little higher, he needs to take a tiny step forward with right foot to get bat over table and the kinetic energy created with that small step is easily continued and transferred to the ball with a low error rate. Wanting to strike at that strike point and just lowering bat without moving the strike zone to a little over the table is like trying to take on the name of Jack Reacher.

 

[RPB Enthusiast]

Today was really humid in our facility, so I felt and saw my Zyre-03 slipping so much today, making my practice really crappy. On top of that, I was changing my technique so I use more wrist and accelerate more to get more spin out of the Zyre-03.

I think what I might do is maybe at the end of the year or sometime beginning of 2027, I'll either go switch to Dignics 09c/ Dignics 05, Tenergy 05 Hard/ Tenergy 05, or Skyline 2 Blue Sponge/ Zyre-03 for FH/BH. 09c for me I didn't like much because the throw angle is very high and that would require me to press down my thumb more as a penholder.

Just going to enjoy my Zyre-03/Helix Platinum 55° for now and just improve my technique more since I was practicing with a really good player today and just talking to him about my thought process as he was blocking for me.

 

[Tyce]

I am bummed. We took another loss, 5-0 this time, and it's starting to sink in that we are probably going to relegate back to 5th. We're 4 points away from the next team. It's not super bad in the individual matches, but actually closing one out just feels like too much. Amazing what the level gap can be between two of the lowest levels.
I also learned that my FZD ALC is most likely not the real thing. It plays pretty much like I would expect it to, and I'm usually quite sharp on the details, but I missed some (in hindsight) rather obvious stuff. Idk, stuff like that just throws me off, too.

 

[Archosaurus]

Knee feeling funny lately, I think I have a tight muscle or tendon or something. Have had very similar symptoms in other body parts. I'm not sure I have anything that's not tight as hell lol...

Not worried about it but I'll need to skip a session or two and do some work on it. It got a lot better later in the day so I think the 3rd video is slightly more normal. I played reasonably well vs stronger players later in the day, some time I'll convince them to allow me to put footage online.

Anyway, the sets vs my partner:

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Knee feeling funny lately, I think I have a tight muscle or tendon or something. Have had very similar symptoms in other body parts. I'm not sure I have anything that's not tight as hell lol...

Not worried about it but I'll need to skip a session or two and do some work on it. It got a lot better later in the day so I think the 3rd video is slightly more normal. I played reasonably well vs stronger players later in the day, some time I'll convince them to allow me to put footage online.

Anyway, the sets vs my partner:

All of your serves and receives are high, long, and slow. Are these the same serves that give the higher level players trouble or do you save those against this partner so that he can play? Why do the higher level players not allow you to post footage of yourself?

What is that large object sticking out of your pocket?

 

[Archosaurus]

All of your serves and receives are high, long, and slow. Are these the same serves that give the higher level players trouble or do you save those against this partner so that he can play? Why do the higher level players not allow you to post footage of yourself?

What is that large object sticking out of your pocket?

These are the dogshit serves I need to use vs lower level players. We played a bit "seriously" later and I think he had a 100% failure rate on receive. Score something like 11-2 just because of that.

I'm pushing his serves mostly because I find it very difficult to keep it low and short so it's a chance to practice. Should I be attacking all of them instead? It hasn't yet lead me to habitually push long serves in serious games, but I feel like it's not useful.

It's more that whenever I play with those people, there's 10 other people in frame. So I'd need to ask someone specifically if they would not mind filming with me a bit in the corner and to post it online.

That's my phone case.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

These are the dogshit serves I need to use vs lower level players. We played a bit "seriously" later and I think he had a 100% failure rate on receive. Score something like 11-2 just because of that.

I'm pushing his serves mostly because I find it very difficult to keep it low and short so it's a chance to practice. Should I be attacking all of them instead? It hasn't yet lead me to habitually push long serves in serious games, but I feel like it's not useful.

It's more that whenever I play with those people, there's 10 other people in frame. So I'd need to ask someone specifically if they would not mind filming with me a bit in the corner and to post it online.

That's my phone case.

Can you post video of the good serves and 100% failure rate? I keep hearing about it...

The serves are probably mostly topspin so yeah pushing it would make it hard to keep low and short. You'd probably be better served getting in the habit of making topspin openings on those serves he's giving you.

 

[Archosaurus]

Can you post video of the good serves and 100% failure rate? I keep hearing about it...

The serves are probably mostly topspin so yeah pushing it would make it hard to keep low and short. You'd probably be better served getting in the habit of making topspin openings on those serves he's giving you.

Sure, next time I'll film a few serious sets. It won't be very entertaining but fine.

My partner played A LOT better later in the day vs some higher level players who pushed him a bit so maybe he can handle some opening attacks as well. Those guys don't fuck around and will just attack all of these kind of serves.

 

[jonol]

I don't have any specific service receive videos, but I have a recent BH opening loop practice video which probably demonstrates some of the same issues. I have a few questions and observations. Sry for all the bad serves, I was trying out a new grip so got a lot of bad contact.

First, at the start of the video I tried out two different BH forms. The first one is a more back to front stroke, more like SYS's, while the second is a bit bigger, more left back to front right, more like FZD's. I'm not sure which one I should make my default, do you guys have any idea? There's some refining to do with both strokes, but I need to stick to one to get that done. I'm thinking that since I'm trying to emulate women's game more that I should adopt a more SYS-like approach.

Second, onto the opening loops, I see that my stroke is too big, starting with too big of a backswing that goes too low. That's probably OK if the ball is slow and spinny, but when it's fast and/or less spinny I get into trouble. I think I do the same thing with service receives, and I wonder if that's a major contributor to my problems.

During that session my main goal was to go forward more with my stroke, including stepping up more and stepping back less. I think overall I made some improvements there, but perhaps I should add smaller backswing to my practice at least to start?

A good way to change the exaggerated backswing is to have someone feed you multiball with random positioning.

The goal is to stay close to table (1-2 steps at most) hit every shot with a brush and take the ball early or at its peak. If you don't have time to get there, you can play the shot with just a compact brush with mostly forearm.

Hard to explain in words, but I found it forces me to focus on recovery and taught me that many shots you simply don't have time to load up a powerful loop. Even with the right foot forward, you can still use your forearm and hip rotation to play a good quality shot.

Over time you'll find that you start to find the sweet spot for identifying which balls you have time to load up and rip and which ones you don't. If you practice it with the intent that you are aiming to play with as much quality as you can while still taking the ball early and having time to recover, you might be surprised how quickly it translates to improvements in match rallying.

 

[blahness]

I don't have any specific service receive videos, but I have a recent BH opening loop practice video which probably demonstrates some of the same issues. I have a few questions and observations. Sry for all the bad serves, I was trying out a new grip so got a lot of bad contact.

First, at the start of the video I tried out two different BH forms. The first one is a more back to front stroke, more like SYS's, while the second is a bit bigger, more left back to front right, more like FZD's. I'm not sure which one I should make my default, do you guys have any idea? There's some refining to do with both strokes, but I need to stick to one to get that done. I'm thinking that since I'm trying to emulate women's game more that I should adopt a more SYS-like approach.

Second, onto the opening loops, I see that my stroke is too big, starting with too big of a backswing that goes too low. That's probably OK if the ball is slow and spinny, but when it's fast and/or less spinny I get into trouble. I think I do the same thing with service receives, and I wonder if that's a major contributor to my problems.

During that session my main goal was to go forward more with my stroke, including stepping up more and stepping back less. I think overall I made some improvements there, but perhaps I should add smaller backswing to my practice at least to start?

I rewatched this another time. One thing you might want to notice is that your partner's push is not that consistent in terms of spin and trajectory. A lot of those you looped out had very little underspin. But tbh real life service receives also have a lot of variety. If they dig into the ball esp with wrist action it is gonna have a lot of spin, if they bump it it is not gonna have a lot of spin. It also has something to do with how much spin and what spin you served.

Often these balls require some microadjustments mentally (for eg lifting more, or lifting less). It pays to be more precise, the more information you process the more precisely you know how to contact the ball and the better your landing rates

 

[dingyibvs]

A good way to change the exaggerated backswing is to have someone feed you miltiball multiball with random positioning.

The goal is to stay close to table (1-2 steps at most) hit every shot with a brush and take the ball early or at its peak. If you don't have time to get there, you can play the shot with just a compact brush with mostly forearm.

Hard to explain in words, but I found it forces me to focus on recovery and taught me that many shots you simply don't have time to load up a powerful loop. Even with the right foot forward, you can still use your forearm and hip rotation to play a good quality shot.

Over time you'll find that you start to find the sweet spot for identifying which balls you have time to load up and rip and which ones you don't. If you practice it with the intent that you are aiming to play with as much quality as you can while still taking the ball early and having time to recover, you might be surprised how quickly it translates to improvements in match rallying.

You know, I wonder if training like that was a part of my problem. So I had been seeking power, wanting to get a good crack on every loop. Once I managed to do that against single point backspins, I set my robot to random points, 3 different speed/length balls, and then tried to do the same. Basically I was trying to do the drill you suggested...except doing a big swing with every shot.

I was never able to accomplish that, and now I'm thinking I probably shouldn't have tried because it's simply not the right way to approach it.

I rewatched this another time. One thing you might want to notice is that your partner's push is not that consistent in terms of spin and trajectory. A lot of those you looped out had very little underspin. But tbh real life service receives also have a lot of variety. If they dig into the ball esp with wrist action it is gonna have a lot of spin, if they bump it it is not gonna have a lot of spin. It also has something to do with how much spin and what spin you served.

Often these balls require some microadjustments mentally (for eg lifting more, or lifting less). It pays to be more precise, the more information you process the more precisely you know how to contact the ball and the better your landing rates

Yes, that's part of the practice design. I asked him to vary the placement, pace, and spin. I think I was able to read them but not act appropriately, probably because when it's long and with little spin, it's hard to bring my hand up to loop without adding upward brushing if the hand's starting position is too low.