Forehand swing/stroke

[Sanniejop]

Hi, i am trying to improve my forehand. Lately i watched a lot of video's about technic. But now i have made one from myself. Sorry for the casual scenery and my hair.

https://flic.kr/p/2swaugP

Apparently you have to open the link in a new browser window to let it work.
i like to hear from you all whats wrong or maybe good.

I was surpriced by the noise of the swing. Can it be a target to let it make as less as possible noise by translating the blade as much as possible in its own plane? If you understand what i mean 🤔.

Thanks in advance

 

[jk1980]

Assuming that your faster swing at the end would just be an accelerated version of what you do at the beginning in "slow motion" then this would not be a loop/topspin. You would hit the ball too flat and especially with the faster execution the ball would be catapulted out of the window and surely not land on the table.

The faster strokes' acceleration i like, but having seen the slower version of it i doubt that you would be precise enough to hit the ball where you would need to hit it and at the same time change to a proper brushing blade angle.

right now you would hit the ball somewhere mid-stroke like you would hit a regular tennis ball and it would fly past the table. What you actually want to do is use your bat like a scythe or knife with the aim to just slice a very thin piece of the ball off it. Like if you wanted to just slice of the skin of an orange without cutting into the flesh of the fruit.

 

[kindof99]

Hi, i am trying to improve my forehand. Lately i watched a lot of video's about technic. But now i have made one from myself. Sorry for the casual scenery and my hair.

https://flic.kr/p/2swaugP

Apparently you have to open the link in a new browser window to let it work.
i like to hear from you all whats wrong or maybe good.

I was surpriced by the noise of the swing. Can it be a target to let it make as less as possible noise by translating the blade as much as possible in its own plane? If you understand what i mean 🤔.

Thanks in advance

I was worried about your knees. Your stroke looks pretty good to me, but I feel you were trying a little too hard.

 

[J-fed]

I was worried about your knees. Your stroke looks pretty good to me, but I feel you were trying a little too hard.

I also though that the core torque is a bit too dominant and that if the right calf started the movement it would be require less of it. Then he'd be more on his toes too so would need to balance the psuh off by using the left foot forefoot to pivot and recover.
However, In a match situation you can't always engage the whole body as well as you'd like, so this type of power creation (in the video) is often necessary and very practical.
I try to keep both of these things in mind and train both the ideal and the realistic.

 

[J-fed]

Hi, i am trying to improve my forehand. Lately i watched a lot of video's about technic. But now i have made one from myself. Sorry for the casual scenery and my hair.

https://flic.kr/p/2swaugP

Apparently you have to open the link in a new browser window to let it work.
i like to hear from you all whats wrong or maybe good.

I was surpriced by the noise of the swing. Can it be a target to let it make as less as possible noise by translating the blade as much as possible in its own plane? If you understand what i mean 🤔.

Thanks in advance

Good on you for sharing. It takes bravery and an open mind. I made some comments above and hope they are helpful.
I might upload too, but it'll be heavily edited and the editing will be strongly ego based.

 

[Archosaurus]

You should film yourself hitting against an actual ball, even from a robot. Shadow practice is good and all but there's a lot of things you just can't correct just with shadows. You're not feeling the impact and seeing the result on the ball, so you're usually not doing what you think you are.

People tend to swing with a lot more muscle and racket speed when doing shadows until their form actually settles in to what they will actually be able to produce in the real world. I know this from experience LOL.

 

[Sanniejop]

Thank you all for your feedback.

In the beginning of the movie i tried to get the feeling of not only swinging with the arm.
So indeed, i am focussing on using the hips, retracting and back forward. But i understand that it is now maybe a bit too much hip... i almost fell over to the front. it is also quite tiring. Being more on my toes is also something i need to focus on, thanks for that tip.

Yes by peeling an orange i would need to close the bat a bit more i guess? Or swing more down to up? I play with bit tacky rubber so the arc is easier to get.

Indeed, i have the feeling i have never the time to play such a stroke in a match. I really have to work on reading my oponent and anticipate quickly on that. But i find it so difficult to practice, any tips on that?

 

[latej]

I think the plane of your arm movement is OK, this will be adjusted later when you play. You are trying to understand how to generate power, which is the right way forward. At the moment, you are not doing it correctly, because you arm rotates "in-sync" to your body (both arms do). That is not good, because your arm will only rotate/move as fast as the body rotates, but we need it to move faster. The best way to get the feeling of it is following: stand up straight, totally relaxed, close eyes, and rotate the body left and right around you vertical axis. Observe how the arms tend to move absolutely without muscles themselves. This is how the rotation of the body induces the movement of the arms, get a feel for it. Notice that the arms start to move only after the body have rotated a bit, it comes with "a delay". It means like the body "pre-rotates", and then with a delay, the arm moves, and makes up for the delay. Later on you'll add muscles to it, but the principle remains.

 

[Archosaurus]

Thank you all for your feedback.

In the beginning of the movie i tried to get the feeling of not only swinging with the arm.
So indeed, i am focussing on using the hips, retracting and back forward. But i understand that it is now maybe a bit too much hip... i almost fell over to the front. it is also quite tiring. Being more on my toes is also something i need to focus on, thanks for that tip.

Yes by peeling an orange i would need to close the bat a bit more i guess? Or swing more down to up? I play with bit tacky rubber so the arc is easier to get.

Indeed, i have the feeling i have never the time to play such a stroke in a match. I really have to work on reading my oponent and anticipate quickly on that. But i find it so difficult to practice, any tips on that?

How long have you been playing, and how often do you do simple drills, like forehand to forehand cross court, or forehand against block down the line?

It doesn't seem to me like you're very experienced, so you should really focus on fundamental stuff in an easy scenario. There's a lot that goes into a real point. Of course playing sets is important, but it's difficult to home in on small technical details when you're worrying about 50 other things and have not developed advanced muscle memory and automatic reactions. You will make many errors due to issues not directly related to the thing you're working on.

My forehand form is relatively advanced so I could offer you some tips, but I don't think I should, as I'm not a coach, and I play at a very bad level right now after a long break. There's too high of a risk that I will mislead you. However it's clear you're muscling it too much with the upper body.

 

[J-fed]

I think the plane of your arm movement is OK, this will be adjusted later when you play. You are trying to understand how to generate power, which is the right way forward. At the moment, you are not doing it correctly, because you arm rotates "in-sync" to your body (both arms do). That is not good, because your arm will only rotate/move as fast as the body rotates, but we need it to move faster. The best way to get the feeling of it is following: stand up straight, totally relaxed, close eyes, and rotate the body left and right around you vertical axis. Observe how the arms tend to move absolutely without muscles themselves. This is how the rotation of the body induces the movement of the arms, get a feel for it. Notice that the arms start to move only after the body have rotated a bit, it comes with "a delay". It means like the body "pre-rotates", and then with a delay, the arm moves, and makes up for the delay. Later on you'll add muscles to it, but the principle remains.

There is a a form of relaxation/ flexibility training that my wife is into called Yuru Yuru Taiso. The movement you are describing is one its central tenets and I have come to do that as a real fundamental way to remove tension.
I'm glad you know that. How did you become aware of that movement? Not many people practice it. One would be Conor McGregor. People think he is doing a billionaire strut but in fact he developed that cage walk from a kind of Yuru Yuru training.

 

[Archosaurus]

Instead of only thinking about speed, you should also think about incorporating mass into the shot. The unit for a moment is typically Nm, or force at a distance. It's clear that making the distance longer, or increasing the force, will increase the moment. So make as large of an arc that is reasonable, and swing faster with more parts moving at the same time in the right direction. You need to maximize radius, acceleration and mass.

Usually if you swing properly, you're going to be doing both, moving the racket faster by moving many axes simultaneously, but you will also be moving different parts of your body towards the ball. Those parts have mass, and it's complicated how much of each exactly gets transferred into where, but it definitely produces a load transfer if they move.

In my personal experience, one issue you can run into when trying to increase shot quality is focusing on using the legs, waist, core etc. to add only speed to the racket, but not remembering that you're supposed to have all of those parts moving towards the ball at the same time during contact so that the mass behind the shot is higher.

That's why I suggest hitting an actual ball because you will see the reaction in the ball, instead of just how fast the bat is moving.

How exactly you will achieve that isn't something I can advise because I'm not qualified to, but that's what I am personally striving for when improving my quality.

PS: Note how I place a lot of emphasis on rotating axes and not moving the bat linearly forward toward the ball.

 

[Tyce]

Hi, i am trying to improve my forehand. Lately i watched a lot of video's about technic. But now i have made one from myself. Sorry for the casual scenery and my hair.

https://flic.kr/p/2swaugP

Apparently you have to open the link in a new browser window to let it work.
i like to hear from you all whats wrong or maybe good.

I was surpriced by the noise of the swing. Can it be a target to let it make as less as possible noise by translating the blade as much as possible in its own plane? If you understand what i mean 🤔.

Thanks in advance

First off, actually shooting and uploading a video like this is not something many people do, it shows you are really open to improve! Congratulations on that mindset.
I'm going to be highly critical, as is our Dutch custom

1. your left arm is stuck and doing nothing (like a broken arm in a cast), and that's the primary reason you're losing balance.
In your warmup, the entire upper body is stuck and looking tense.
2. there's a lot of tension and forced movement in general. Try to make it look loose, like "you just don't care" and from that point start bringing back some slight tension to control your motions. (don't let your bat slip though!)
3. your backswing goes quite far backwards (your right shoulder turns so far that it's now your left shoulder, viewed from the "table")
4. your bat drops quite low. Unless you're looping vs a lot of backspin, there's no need for that (and it will make your recovery for the next shot harder).
5. your right knee "buckles" (klapt in elkaar) during the movement, so it's not a strong pillar to pivot your movement on. a lot of power gets lost there.
Losing power often leads to compensation with a harder, faster arm movement, but the result is less quality on your shot, more energy expended and a harder time to keep up with the next shots.


That being said, I'm now going to try and be helpful, which is not always a Dutch custom

1. start using the left arm for balance. There's a youtube video that I can't seem to find right now which teaches a trick: act like you're catching the ball with your left hand, then at the last moment loop it with the bat instead.
2. relax, relax, relax. Don't fall over like a pudding, but use your large muscle groups to balance yourself (core, glutes, and thighs) and the rest of your body should feel not tense, like you have free flow of blood, energy, nerve signals.
3. swing back only to the point where you can still see the ball in the corner of your eye. When you restrict your backswing with your body, don't make the mistake of still throwing your arm further back! Just do less of what you're already doing. Film and review yourself when in doubt, apparently that works for you so use it.
4. even against backspin, there's no need to hit the ball upwards in like a 45 degree angle if that was the goal, you wouldn't need a loop for it. Start just below table level for backspin, and above table level against no-spin or topspin balls. Your aim is to use the rubber's friction to propel the ball, not the strength of the wood.
5. I'm having a hard time with this one myself, and part of it is because I'm right-handed but left-footed. What helps, a little, for me is to focus on my left leg's movement.

I'll leave you with this highly educational video from Seth Pech about FH:

 

[jonol]

Sometimes I want to reply to threads like this, but find it impossible to write anything less than an essay.

My advice would be to get a coach, and to keep your focus on the most essential things that make a good, consistent forehand. Once brushing the ball and shifting your weight becomes habitual rather than deliberate, the feeling of not having enough time kind of just fades into the background because you no longer have to worry about small differences in angle, height, amount of backspin etc. because you'll still land 80-90% of your shots on the table anyway.

If you can produce a certain level of quality on your forehand and you actually practice with a coach at least 1-2 times a month, almost everything will land on the table regardless of what was incoming. Especially at intermediate level, simply being able to play repeated high quality loops covers up a multitude of smaller issues.

 

[latej]

There is a a form of relaxation/ flexibility training that my wife is into called Yuru Yuru Taiso. The movement you are describing is one its central tenets and I have come to do that as a real fundamental way to remove tension.
I'm glad you know that. How did you become aware of that movement? Not many people practice it.

I didn't, I hear Yuru Yuru Taiso for the 1st time ;-) When I was a boy, my karate master explained how the power is generated in gjaku-tsuki - I had no idea ofc, and he had good understanding... And it is the same principle... Also the same in tennis, golf... In table tennis I tried to explain it several times to different people, and I graduated to what I described... Also because it emphasizes relaxation, and people tend to be a bit stiff doing it, and finally when standing up straight and closed eyes you forget TT and try to feel it, which is the 1st step.

One would be Conor McGregor. People think he is doing a billionaire strut but in fact he developed that cage walk from a kind of Yuru Yuru training.

I gotta say I enjoyed a lot how Khabib handled him. Yes baby. Cheers...