Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Archosaurus]

The left leg placement is interesting in the second video. I'm assuming that he's treating it as if the ball is coming long, but I've been taught to use the right leg as a guide to cutoff the ball and it's pretty adjustable for the half-long and long balls as well as different heights.

A lot of 1500+ USATT players at my club and in the state can push/chopblock on short topspin, which will in all likelihood have more sidespin than top, so getting the push on the side of the ball helps a lot for control. The typical response is to go for the wide short forehand or long backhand with it. I just opt to flick or drive it with a more closed angle if I recognize it and it's high enough. Recognizing the low, slow topspins is tricky.

Half-high, not half-long.

 

[NextLevel]

Sure, it's a fair point about it making all of your receives better in general.

But I would argue that at any club level nobody can push short reliably, against anything. I've counted and it happens about 5% of the time. Even our National level players do not reliably do it against eachother. Most of the time people are pushing barely half-long but the other guy feels insecure about it and pushes it to make sure; which I suppose produced the same effect as a short push!

If you can find video of let's say a 1800 rated match where both players are reliably pushing short, then I'll eat my shorts.

So this statement is misleading. @ThePongCommenter explained why it is misleading and unfotunately you are still displaying a rationalistic attitude to this. The fact that people cannot serve shirt doesn't mean that you uave the skills to attwck what they send half long. In fact, i have beaten people by *trying* to push short and having them make mostakes because they kept waiting for the obviously long and mistimed the half long that wasn't rushing onto thier rwcket with momentum. In other words, quality can be level relative. Just because i tell you a ball is not short doesn't mean you can read and attack it as not being short.

So it all goes back to that there is little need to overly debate these things orline. You either find a use for them in your game or you don't. Generally, all the playees giving you advice have largely given you enough context for you to either find relevance or ignore it. In the end, the best form, unless you really don't want the advice at all or the person is just being so rude to you you feel the need to retaliate, is to just acknowlege and move on. Not everything someone tells you will help your game, especially if you are not training or competing. But it is all good stuff to start with as an idea if you do train.

I can tell you that as @blahness pointed out, if you compete, there are players you will almost always want to start out of the backspin game if you have the ability to do so and you also want you give yourself time so going long really fast is not what you want. So yoj go chopping or pushing topspin over the table even if the ball is not 2200 level tight. You know they might open but you find their opening easier to handle than attacking and feeding them topspin to counter. All these things are *level* relative. But they all go back to *your* style. Just because you can't execute a skill at a super competent level doesn't mean that the skill won't be decent at your level.

In fact one of my weaknesses when i wws 1200 was that I pushed literally every serve. And as crazy as it sounds, it worked against many uncoachrd players even up to 1400 because i had a really heavy push. I was trying to keep the ball on the table so i was trying to push *shortish* and make the ball heavy. Obsessing over what people fo at this or that level is not as important as lookijg for skills that fit into how you want to play. Someone gave you an idea, acknowledge it, decide if it fits your game then move on.

 

[Archosaurus]

So this statement is misleading. @ThePongCommenter explained why it is misleading and unfotunately you are still displaying a rationalistic attitude to this. The fact that people cannot serve shirt doesn't mean that you uave the skills to attwck what they send half long. In fact, i have beaten people by *trying* to push short and having them make mostakes because they kept waiting for the obviously long and mistimed the half long that wasn't rushing onto thier rwcket with momentum. In other words, quality can be level relative. Just because i tell you a ball is not short doesn't mean you can read and attack it as not being short.

So it all goes back to that there is little need to overly debate these things orline. You either find a use for them in your game or you don't. Generally, all the playees giving you advice have largely given you enough context for you to either find relevance or ignore it. In the end, the best form, unless you really don't want the advice at all or the person is just being so rude to you you feel the need to retaliate, is to just acknowlege and move on. Not everything someone tells you will help your game, especially if you are not training or competing. But it is all good stuff to start with as an idea if you do train.

I can tell you that as @blahness pointed out, if you compete, there are players you will almost always want to start out of the backspin game if you have the ability to do so and you also want you give yourself time so going long really fast is not what you want. So yoj go chopping or pushing topspin over the table even if the ball is not 2200 level tight. You know they might open but you find their opening easier to handle than attacking and feeding them topspin to counter. All these things are *level* relative. But they all go back to *your* style. Just because you can't execute a skill at a super competent level doesn't mean that the skill won't be decent at your level.

In fact one of my weaknesses when i wws 1200 was that I pushed literally every serve. And as crazy as it sounds, it worked against many uncoachrd players even up to 1400 because i had a really heavy push. I was trying to keep the ball on the table so i was trying to push *shortish* and make the ball heavy. Obsessing over what people fo at this or that level is not as important as lookijg for skills that fit into how you want to play. Someone gave you an idea, acknowledge it, decide if it fits your game then move on.

Fair. I feel like at my level especially, a tight half-long push with heavy spin is more effective than a little bit too high, not so heavy short push.

EDIT: Reason being most players who are not in the higher divisions will just loop it into the side of the table or off the table, or push it too late thinking it was going to be short and pop it up for a comfortable attack for me.