Help with shortening movements / being more compact

[doppelmoral]

Hi Community,
intermediate looper here. For a few months I recorded myself when playing and one big thing I noticed is that I have a huge backswing, mainly swinging with my arm.
I did alot of drills to reduce the swing and work more with my body, and it works okay during practise and I noticed a huge improvement. But at the same time, I am completely back to old habits during matchplay.

Are there maybe any tips that you have for me how to remind yourself to stay more compact, to make smaller swings? Sometimes there is a mental cue that helps ppl to remind themselves. Also, any exercises you suggest to stop backswinging with the arm ? I always notice how much power I lose if I use this massive backswing with my arm only, but I struggle to get rid of it because of muscle memory.

Cheers

 

[Fnub]

I have long BH follow through which is really annoying so I can't get any power and consistency. Interested if there are some tips or drills that could help or I just have to always think about it?

 

[NextLevel]

Hi Community,
intermediate looper here. For a few months I recorded myself when playing and one big thing I noticed is that I have a huge backswing, mainly swinging with my arm.
I did alot of drills to reduce the swing and work more with my body, and it works okay during practise and I noticed a huge improvement. But at the same time, I am completely back to old habits during matchplay.

Are there maybe any tips that you have for me how to remind yourself to stay more compact, to make smaller swings? Sometimes there is a mental cue that helps ppl to remind themselves. Also, any exercises you suggest to stop backswinging with the arm ? I always notice how much power I lose if I use this massive backswing with my arm only, but I struggle to get rid of it because of muscle memory.

Cheers

The body will always select the best shot to make under pressure. You have to drill a bit under pressure if you really want to fix it. In reality, it is really hard to change technique that is somewhat effective. At a certain point, unless you can tie the new technique to anticipation that helps you produce it on demand, you will be stuck using the old technique because you deploy it when you are rushed.

So the answer is match like surprise drills where you have to make the shot when pulled to random positions but forcing yourself to use the preferred technique even if you will miss the shot but keep at it until you make it enough for your body to prefer it.

I also have somewhat huge upper arm swings despite drilling significantly to reduce them. But they do somewhat work for me, I have come to accept them, we are all ants from the perspective of Ma Long. So keep working at it but don't beat up yourself, I suspect you are doing better than you think you are but it is harsh to look at match play very often nothing looks right in matchplay against an opponent challenging you at your game speed, even for world class players.

 

[S-Pin]

Are there maybe any tips that you have for me how to remind yourself to stay more compact, to make smaller swings?

Tell yourself there is a wall right behind you, and if you won't stay compact you will hit it.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Hi Community,
intermediate looper here. For a few months I recorded myself when playing and one big thing I noticed is that I have a huge backswing, mainly swinging with my arm.
I did alot of drills to reduce the swing and work more with my body, and it works okay during practise and I noticed a huge improvement. But at the same time, I am completely back to old habits during matchplay.

Are there maybe any tips that you have for me how to remind yourself to stay more compact, to make smaller swings? Sometimes there is a mental cue that helps ppl to remind themselves. Also, any exercises you suggest to stop backswinging with the arm ? I always notice how much power I lose if I use this massive backswing with my arm only, but I struggle to get rid of it because of muscle memory.

Cheers

Having large swing, having short swing, both are legit way of playing.

If you are naturally a large swinger and after doing many changes, you still cannot kick the habit of large swing, then just embrace it.

If you will stick with large swing, one thing it works better is to move your body more to create the space to allow for your large swing.

 

[NextLevel]

I have long BH follow through which is really annoying so I can't get any power and consistency. Interested if there are some tips or drills that could help or I just have to always think about it?

Usually large follow throughs are a function of suboptimal use of the body and backswing to generate power in the hitting zone. This makes you overuse the upper arm to power the stroke. So the question is whether you are backswinging in a reasonable way and using the body to power the shot effectively in the hitting zone and recover without too much of an upper arm swing so that your elbow is still well positioned after the swing. Backswing are part of the stroke, they reduce inertia when well timed and allow for continuous acceleration throughout the stroke. So if you swing in a check mark or figure 8 pattern with your backhand, as opposed to starting from a fixed position, you can use the backward swing to gain pace on the forward movement and it will give the appearance of a shorter stroke even if your racket has covered a reasonable distance.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

shadow TT with a mirror. you can check your form

(lots of ) multiball. at a fast pitch so you don't have anyway time to make a big swing

film yourself. watch tutorials.

stay close to the table. you have less time, so you will NEED to develop shorter strokes.

use good fast rubbers (dignics, Tenergy Rozena, Fastarc, K3 etc...) at 1.9m or max. it will help give you extra speed or spin, no need for big swing

 

[NextLevel]

Hi Community,
intermediate looper here. For a few months I recorded myself when playing and one big thing I noticed is that I have a huge backswing, mainly swinging with my arm.
I did alot of drills to reduce the swing and work more with my body, and it works okay during practise and I noticed a huge improvement. But at the same time, I am completely back to old habits during matchplay.

Are there maybe any tips that you have for me how to remind yourself to stay more compact, to make smaller swings? Sometimes there is a mental cue that helps ppl to remind themselves. Also, any exercises you suggest to stop backswinging with the arm ? I always notice how much power I lose if I use this massive backswing with my arm only, but I struggle to get rid of it because of muscle memory.

Cheers

Building on what @Takkyu_wa_inochi posted, it is difficult to have a smaller stroke when using something like Hurricane without a lot of heavy training in movement and strength and heavy dose of improved anticipation. At the very least, try one of the ESN hybrids, though ultimately, it might just be better to use something like Tenergy 05 Hard.

 

[Aizen]

For FH you may wrap your elbow to your body with some resistance band,
or put a grooming stick to your back hold with elbows to block your range of motion to not make excessive backswing. (My coach was teaching with this method)
(I’ve seen a video but couldn’t find now)