Having trouble achieving fluidity in easy drills with friend

[Cantaloop]

Hey, I'm a relatively new player from Sweden, I play with chinese penhold grip and use RPB. I feel like I have improved a lot lately and can do most drills without missing many balls against more experienced players. But when I practice with my friend who's more or less on the same level as me it's really bad. The pace is irregular, I (and he) miss a lot of shots and it basically looks quite amateurish.

This has made it very unmotivating drilling with eachother since we both know we can do pretty good playing with other people, so we save drilling for the three times a week we go to the club and play sets casually instead. This is although we're both aware that simple drills would do far more in terms of developing our way of playing.

Do you have any tips for improving the flow in drills when playing with someone on your level? I can totally understand if it's just a grind to get better but was wondering if you guys had any specific advice that has helped you.

Cheers

 

[ttmonster]

What kind of drills do you do ? That / a short video might help you get better advice.

A couple come things to mind , immediately , they may or may not apply :

1. First warm up your blocks , with only one side looping and the other side blocking. When you are warming up try to feel the ball on your paddle whether you are hitting the sweet spot. I have personally found this really helps in increasing the consistency later on.
2. Remember, training drill blocks and actual blocks should be slightly different. During training take the ball at the top of the bounce ,but when you are practicing specifically your blocks you should be taking it off the bounce.

 

[NextLevel]

Go slower. Both of you probably.drill better against higher level players who can feed you a consistent ball repeatedly and don't realize how inconsistent you are. Over time, you will both get better buy you need to start slow.

Use multiball if you need to drill something that requires a multishot sequence or consistent repetition. This is usually the solution when you need multiple reps.

 

[ttmonster]

This is the first and most important thing to doing either drills or improving your game ...

Go slower. Both of you probably.drill better against higher level players who can feed you a consistent ball repeatedly and don't realize how inconsistent you are. Over time, you will both get better buy you need to start slow.

Use multiball if you need to drill something that requires a multishot sequence or consistent repetition. This is usually the solution when you need multiple reps.

 

[Cantaloop]

Go slower. Both of you probably.drill better against higher level players who can feed you a consistent ball repeatedly and don't realize how inconsistent you are. Over time, you will both get better buy you need to start slow.

Use multiball if you need to drill something that requires a multishot sequence or consistent repetition. This is usually the solution when you need multiple reps.

You probably hit the nail on the head here, we probably need to grind it out and start slow until we get consistent. But I find it fascinating how dependent it is on how good the better of the two players is. For example today I played this drill we call "Falkenbergare" in sweden. Like this video, but not using multiball and closer to the table:

I managed to consistently hit back the balls at a speed similar to the one in the video, with good placement. If I would try that with my friend we would barely get a full rep it feels like, it's wierd.

What kind of drills do you do ? That / a short video might help you get better advice.

I don't have any footage of myself playing, maybe I'll get some in the future. As for drills we do all kinds of, forehand forehand, backhand backhand. Forehand then backhand on the corner of the table, 2 - 2, 1 - 1 - 1 etc.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[NextLevel]

Cantaloop,

When I was starting out, I spent many hours hitting with my coach. Then I would go play matches and start hitting the ball as hard as I could. Then one day, a better player told me to work on my consistency. So I hit with a slightly higher rated player than myself and was determined to go as slow as reasonably possible. We probably hit about 50 balls to each other in each rally quite a few times. I think that my muscle memory and consistency went up 200 USATT points in that single evening. In about a month or two, I was able to block rally consistently enough for better players even 800 pts better than me to want to hit with me.

I tell people that if you focus initially on keeping the ball on the table during your practice and forget about hitting the ball hard, it will make your muscle memory and strokes consistent and you will become consistent enough for higher level players to want you to block for them. If you focus on hitting the ball hard, you will never develop the finer muscles to play at slower speeds and you will struggle to develop good touch until you do. And of course, better players will not practice with you because they can't get the reps they need. If a better player wants to practice with you, he will not value your power, he will value your consistency. If he values your power, he will value it as part of a consistent shot, not as part of a one-hit wonder.

So I stress to beginners two things - if you want to get reps with better players, learn to push and learn to block (not necessarily in that order). It is a formula that never fails. And with proper technique, a beginner can block a high level loop once the ball is placed where they will consistently meet it. It is when they have to move around that things fall apart, but most higher players will have an idea of what they are trying to do if they practice with you.

Such lessons are why I can still practice with beginners to this day. I just can't do the things I would do with my peers, but I can do other things. I mean, look at these guys - watch the point that begins at 5:09 in. I try to do that kind of stuff when hitting with beginners, even though I probably do something entirely different from what I think I am doing.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

The most important things have been said about trying to slow things down and work on more consistency. It would help if you both were on the same page on that. If you are trying to be consistent and your training partner is whacking the ball all over the place because that are easier balls to T-Off on, that will not be good.

But there is a detail that I think will help. You also need to make the drills more simple when you are training with someone where there is less control.

Like, if you wanted to do Faulkenberg, you would really need to be able to hit many balls in a row crosscourt. Not 20. Not 30. Ideally, a few hundred. I have a friend who is a control player like me. And several years ago, we were doing FH to FH crosscourt. We were doing it for a while we were warm and we had one where we went for 20 min without dropping the ball. 20 min. That was likely way more than 1000 hits each. Same night, we switched to BH and at a certain point we did 15 min.

Now you don't have to work on it to that extent. But my money says that if you are both going cross court you still have to move to each ball because the placement for each ball is a little different. So when you can manage 50 hits each on a somewhat consistent basis, say 50 hits each BH to BH, then you can try having one person turn BH-FH-BH-FH from the same spot like the turn in the Faulkenberg. And then you try the other person doing that.

And when you can go 50 hits each FH to FH on a somewhat consistent basis, then you try a 2 point FH drill. One person places the ball crosscourt then to the middle then back to the cross court position. And the other person takes both middle and FH with his FH.

When you can do both of those with consistency where the person moving can do 20+ on a regular basis, then you can try drills like Faulkenberg and 3-2-1-2-3 or 3-2-1 or 1-2-3. But if you are struggling with consistency with the smaller blocks of a Faulkenberg, it will likely be more of s struggle to do the more complicated drills.

So, when you are playing with someone where consistency is a challenge:

1) make it simple
2) slow it down
3) make the focus on increasing consistency.

Hope this adds some useful info to the good info already presented.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Be patient.

 

[Archosaurus]

Pay attention to when in the bounce trajectory you are taking the ball.

Most likely, some shots are rushed and early, some on the bounce as you would want, and some late.

Follow everyone's advice, but also pay attention to your contact timing. If it's terribly inconsistent, try to get it to a little late or right on the bounce. Go very slow.

 

[Cantaloop]

Thank you all for your advice, gonna keep going and maybe get back at ya with a piece of footage once it's all more presentable.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

But I find it fascinating how dependent it is on how good the better of the two players is. For example today I played this drill we call "Falkenbergare" in sweden. Like this video, but not using multiball and closer to the table:

I managed to consistently hit back the balls at a speed similar to the one in the video, with good placement.

Part of what is usually gong on in a scenario like this is:

1) The higher level player's shot is so much more consistent that your shots are a little more consistent. The higher level player's shots have a consistent amount of speed and spin in addition to the fact that they are placed where they should be.

2) Even though the balls you are giving back to the feeder are probably less consistent than you realize, he keeps giving you back consistent, well placed balls in spite of inconsistencies you may not be realizing. So, even though some of your balls have more spin, some have less spin, some are shorter, some are longer, some are more to the left, some are more to the right than they are supposed to be, the higher level player is better at reading and adjusting to each different ball and still continues to give you back a consistent and well placed ball.

So when your shots have those small inconsistencies and your opponent is your level and is thrown off by them and gives you back a ball that is less consistent, then the ball you give him back is less consistent too and the process creates a snowball effect whereby both players are having a harder and harder time putting the ball back to the right place with consistent spin by the 3rd or 4th ball.

But that is nothing to worry about. With someone your level, you just slow things down, simplify things and focus on more consistency. As the consistency from both sides increases, you add in complexity a little bit at a time.

 

[Baal]

On my first ever visit to my wife's home town in China, in 2007, I got to take a lesson from the second best coach in the area and by far the best player, a former National team guy that nobody outside of China would have ever heard of because he never actually played more than once or twice outside of China. After he had finished his playing career (at around age 24), he coached in Japan for awhile. At the point I met him, he owned a table tennis shop that sold equipment, and he made quite a bit of money playing with rich businessmen in the city and their friends who came to town.

In short, without no questions whatsoever, he was the best player I have ever hit a ball with, before or since.

He actually taught me some things but the amazing thing was when he was blocking or hitting or whatever he was trying to get me to do, he put the ball in exactly the same place every time, with the same pace and spin, no matter how erratic I was. It is hard to describe. I have played a lot with 2600-2700 players in the US. This was something different.

My wife, who plays reasonably well, says that I never looked so good in my life.

The next day, I was just me again.

A good coach can make you look and feel really good. But you need to repeat the experience a lot before it "sticks".

 

[NextLevel]

On my first ever visit to my wife's home town in China, in 2007, I got to take a lesson from the second best coach in the area and by far the best player, a former National team guy that nobody outside of China would have ever heard of because he never actually played more than once or twice outside of China. After he had finished his playing career (at around age 24), he coached in Japan for awhile. At the point I met him, he owned a table tennis shop that sold equipment, and he made quite a bit of money playing with rich businessmen in the city and their friends who came to town.

In short, without no questions whatsoever, he was the best player I have ever hit a ball with, before or since.

He actually taught me some things but the amazing thing was when he was blocking or hitting or whatever he was trying to get me to do, he put the ball in exactly the same place every time, with the same pace and spin, no matter how erratic I was. It is hard to describe. I have played a lot with 2600-2700 players in the US. This was something different.

My wife, who plays reasonably well, says that I never looked so good in my life.

The next day, I was just me again.

A good coach can make you look and feel really good. But you need to repeat the experience a lot before it "sticks".

We have a coach like that in my club. The problem IMO is that it is not as important to look good as to learn to adjust to the ball after a while. Spin reading as well as ball trajectory calculation is a critical skill in TT. I am okay though with coaches making their students look good in the beginning as long as they explain the inevitable growing pains of adapting to the ball. Those pains drive all kinds of erroneous conclusions about strokes from TT adults.

 

[ttmonster]

I have the exact same experience during my time with the coaches I have mentioned elsewhere. I think that it is important to have that skill as a coach when you are trying to correct somebody's form and build their confidence. But once, its done they should start varying the spin. I guess Baal hit with him only for a limited time and he was trying to teach him or correct his technique. If you had got the chance to hit with him more, he would have transitioned you slowly to different balls. After that, you could have seen your real improvement. I always played atleast 200 points above my level immediately after my coaching session , but for me to build it into my muscle memory I needed atleast two sessions of an hour each week, which gets too expensive to afford while paying rent in the South Bay area .

We have a coach like that in my club. The problem IMO is that it is not as important to look good as to learn to adjust to the ball after a while. Spin reading as well as ball trajectory calculation is a critical skill in TT. I am okay though with coaches making their students look good in the beginning as long as they explain the inevitable growing pains of adapting to the ball. Those pains drive all kinds of erroneous conclusions about strokes from TT adults.

 

[NextLevel]

I have the exact same experience during my time with the coaches I have mentioned elsewhere. I think that it is important to have that skill as a coach when you are trying to correct somebody's form and build their confidence. But once, its done they should start varying the spin. I guess Baal hit with him only for a limited time and he was trying to teach him or correct his technique. If you had got the chance to hit with him more, he would have transitioned you slowly to different balls. After that, you could have seen your real improvement. I always played atleast 200 points above my level immediately after my coaching session , but for me to build it into my muscle memory I needed atleast two sessions of an hour each week, which gets too expensive to afford while paying rent in the South Bay area .

Yes, but the problem in part is that the consistency of the coach deceives the student a little about what is really going on (our OP is a case in point). That you could take something from practice to matches so quickly is awesome. For me, the process can take up to 6 months or a year at times before it all gels properly unless I drilled/learned it in random situations.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Yep. Some great posts here.

Now I will post my favorite video on the skills of training:

That video is worth watching because it explains why training Vs random balls is very valuable. It doesn't explain how random and how to slowly increase the level because it is not about table tennis. So you need to connect some of the dots yourself.

One of my favorite training partners is this guy who is about my level but he has very little control. The result has been that I have to constantly adjust to balls that my training partner doesn't even know where they are going. Or, in other words, they often go to a spot that is a bit different than where he meant. The amazing thing to me is, he might be aiming crosscourt and hit the midline; but he doesn't miss the table. For me, this actually makes him a great training partner. The spin is always different too because he does a lot of odd things when he is adjusting to the ball. So sometimes his wrist goes in a funny direction; sometimes his elbow raises. Sometimes his contact is late. Sometimes it is early.

We often joke that if I did what he did well and he did what I did well, the combination would make us one decent player, instead of two players who do some things well and who have other things holding them back. Hahaha.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[Archosaurus]

"If I don't know where the ball's gonna go, neither can he!"

 

[ttmonster]

Definitely, also what helps is what you see in front of your eyes is perfect form and your brain starts mirroring it. Then you play with somebody who has figured things out their own way , typically a penhold guy who soft blocks all your loops down and your form falls apart

Yes, but the problem in part is that the consistency of the coach deceives the student a little about what is really going on (our OP is a case in point). That you could take something from practice to matches so quickly is awesome. For me, the process can take up to 6 months or a year at times before it all gels properly unless I drilled/learned it in random situations.

 

[ttmonster]

Yes, when somebody like that wants to hit with me , I reduce the spin in my loop and start fishing from not too far and practice my footwork and control

Yep. Some great posts here.

Now I will post my favorite video on the skills of training:

That video is worth watching because it explains why training Vs random balls is very valuable. It doesn't explain how random and how to slowly increase the level because it is not about table tennis. So you need to connect some of the dots yourself.

One of my favorite training partners is this guy who is about my level but he has very little control. The result has been that I have to constantly adjust to balls that my training partner doesn't even know where they are going. Or, in other words, they often go to a spot that is a bit different than where he meant. The amazing thing to me is, he might be aiming crosscourt and hit the midline; but he doesn't miss the table. For me, this actually makes him a great training partner. The spin is always different too because he does a lot of odd things when he is adjusting to the ball. So sometimes his wrist goes in a funny direction; sometimes his elbow raises. Sometimes his contact is late. Sometimes it is early.

We often joke that if I did what he did well and he did what I did well, the combination would make us one decent player, instead of two players who do some things well and who have other things holding them back. Hahaha.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus