Forhand footwork

[offensiveplayer]

When playing forhand should my legs be diagonally or parallel i used to stay parallel. Thanks.

 

[Jslick89]

are you right handed? ideally, your left foot is a little more foreward (close to the table) than your right foot. In a match? Might not always be possible.

 

[jk1980]

For loops and drive you want to have the leg of you hitting hand slightly back, so that a shift of weight from the right to the left leg gives you forward momentum.
If you are parallel the weight shift is pointless because the momentum of the hip movement would be sideways.

 

[Fnub]

Leg position isn't that important. It's important how do you transfer the body weight. Always forward. For right handed usually left leg is in front to transfer the weight better. But you can see Ma Long, Fan Zhendong warming up and their right leg is a bit in front bc their weight transfer is perfect

 

[Lazer]

I'm of the old school, I'm right handed and I strive for the natural position to have my left leg in a forward position.
Always when I'm playing at a distance, but when playing close it is difficult. If Your legs are parallel it becomes harder to hit it to Your opponents backhand with topspin, or at least more awkward.

Cheers
L-zr

 

[jk1980]

Leg position isn't that important. It's important how do you transfer the body weight. Always forward. For right handed usually left leg is in front to transfer the weight better. But you can see Ma Long, Fan Zhendong warming up and their right leg is a bit in front bc their weight transfer is perfect

If FZD and Ma Long warm up they play diagonally which than makes the right leg be behind the left leg if you consider the diagonal direction their body is facing. The path of the ball being played is orthogonal to the core/base of the player, while the right leg will be set back more far away from the target.

 

[JeffM]

If you are right handed, having the left leg slightly forward would help you in weight transfer in forehand loop. But if you do it too much, you will find it hard to transition to backhand.

 

[latej]

Rule nr. 1: Stand wider.
Rule nr. 2: If you think, you stand wide enough, go back to rule nr. 1.
Rule nr. 3: Ignore the nay-sayers. They will come to you, mascquerading under logic, and tell you that following those rules, you will either stand infinitely wide, which is not possible, or achieve a middle-split, and that it is not good to play TT in the middle-split. Ignore them, their "standing" is not wide enough.
Rule nr. 42. Under-stand that standing is under-standing.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

For right hander, left leg a little bit forward is okay.
if too parallel, it is near impossible to use your entire waste rotation to hit the ball with a FH shot.

So when left is forward, right is back, your action of weight transfer goes from right foot, to right waist, to left waist, to left foot

if you are parallel, your transfer of weight will be stuck in the center and difficult to direct the ball in different angles.
think of your whole body is hitting the ball by going forward into it, than oppose to just your arm swinging around

hope that helps

 

[latej]

Ma Long, 1 of mil. videos.

I am posting this because I disagreed with necessity of "forward" transfer. I can't quite describe it in words, but I do disagree. And in this video we can see that ML's right foot is not behind the left foot. Cheers.

 

[JJ Ng]

Ma Long, 1 of mil. videos.

I am posting this because I disagreed with necessity of "forward" transfer. I can't quite describe it in words, but I do disagree. And in this video we can see that ML's right foot is not behind the left foot. Cheers.

I agree with latej. I also with his two rules below:

Rule nr. 1: Stand wider.
Rule nr. 2: If you think, you stand wide enough, go back to rule nr. 1.

I might add: Rule nr. 3: if you think you are squatting low enough, you need to squat even lower.

I was taught growing up to always, as a right hander, to have the left foot forward and right foot backward. And I still agree and play that way. But for someone who is backhand dominant as modern players are, I think parallel is fine.

In addition, I agree with latej. Even if you are standing parallel to the table, you can transfer your weight from the right side to the left side by turning your waist and it is still a good powerful loop. I think squatting down more and have a low center of gravity is the most important thing. And that is especially important when you try to loop a heavy backspin. So squat wider and squat lower.

Also I find myself when I am further away from the table, I am usually in trouble. that's when I lob and try to salvage the point at that point in time. Then I am naturally much more parallel in my stand because I am trying desperately to move side ways to lob the ball back.

 

[jk1980]

Ma Long, 1 of mil. videos.

I am posting this because I disagreed with necessity of "forward" transfer. I can't quite describe it in words, but I do disagree. And in this video we can see that ML's right foot is not behind the left foot. Cheers.

It actually is ... If only slightly. You take the table as reference and think just because the right foot of ma long is similar closerl to the table like his left foot, but that is not of importance. The direction of shot is what matters.
He plays forehand to the wide forehand side of the opponent. If you measure the distance of his feet you will see that the right foot has a greater distance towards where he is playing to.

 

[latej]

It actually is ... If only slightly. You take the table as reference and think just because the right foot of ma long is similar closerl to the table like his left foot, but that is not of importance. The direction of shot is what matters.
He plays forehand to the wide forehand side of the opponent. If you measure the distance of his feet you will see that the right foot has a greater distance towards where he is playing to.

I read the thread again and thought about what made me feel uncomfy.

The direction of the weight transfer is almost perpendicular (90 degrees) to the direction of the ball, which we call "forward". So saying that you need to transfer the weight "forward" is misleading. It makes the reader almost form this mental idea, that it is your going forward (as hoping forward), which makes the ball go forward. Which is not the case.

For me the FH stroke is first and foremost a rotational movement, caused by the side-ways weight transfer from right foot to the left foot, where, totally as a by-product, the arm happens to hit the ball in the direction it travels (forward).

I think it is obvious and we all know it. I don't want to sound too polemizing, we have enough of it elsewhere. Cheers.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

When playing forhand should my legs be diagonally or parallel i used to stay parallel. Thanks.

If you are parallel, how do you get the space / bio-mechanics to generate awesome beautiful magnificent FH drive / loops?

 

[latej]

If you are parallel, how do you get the space / bio-mechanics to generate awesome beautiful magnificent FH drive / loops?

Standing parallel doesn't prevent you from rotating your body around the center of the rotation - let's say the spine (for simplicity if we stand straight).

When I feel my stroke is not driven by that rotation enough, then I know it is wrong. And often I know it could and should be powered more by that rotation. I like to call it pre-rotation, because I think it is right to feel that you have rotated the body before the forward swing actively is done. It is this pre-rotation that is supposed to accelerate the playing arm. And the more you want to accelerate, the more you need to pre-rotate. For me a good witness that this pre-rotation actually happened is the movement of the non-playing hand. The non-playing arm is not moved totally in sync with the playing arm. It happens before. (It's like the playing arm starts with some delay, and then it wants to make up for this delay, and so it needs to accelerate. But that is only a mental thing. Trying different angle of expression ;-) )