It is urgent, can you help?

[jorge.urrutia]

Hi! there my name Is jorge and I`m a chilean psychology student. I enter this forum for a reason, I hope that you can help me. I need to do a homework for sports psychology, it is about the decisions involved in the service`s receptions.

All I need to know is the followinginformation.

- how do you receive? specifically the stimuli that you put your focus on, what do you seek in the oponent to receive. (no the technical aspects)

- the stimules that you put your focus on and why.

Sorry for my english. Thanks !!

 

[Bear1960]

Hi Jorge, (third try)

I'm just an argentine with german passport living in Turin (I) and your question is quite complicated to answer. I will try my best to give you one possible answer (I'm sure there are more answers to give and also more aspects to consider). Here my answer(s), I don't want to talk about spin because th answer will be moooore longer:
a) the recepcion of the service is a combination of what you understood by seeing the opponent (which kind of service was done added to the attitude of your opponent), what you want/need to do (strategy and stroke you will set by possibility, a.e.: the opponent should not start to attack) and what you will play or not play after the stroke (the answer of the opponent to your stroke)
b) the logical focus is merged with your capacity to manage the strokes, but also the instant feeling can give the input to change your mind in 0-time because you have seen at the last instant a possibility to subdue the opposite with some other answer as forseen, obviously in order to reach a possible advantage
c) the stimulation or trigger of all is given from: the touching of the ball of the opposite (understanding what was done), the bounce oof the ball on your side (taking the ball earlier or later) and by your experience mixed with a cold blood decision to do your mind. The first and second points are sequentially, the third works parallel to this sequence.

Hope, that this answer(s) can be usefully for you.
Jorge

 

[Bishop Rasta 27]

hello there jorge! hope this will answer your query...

in my point of view, receiving service starts as the opponent hit the ball with his racket...stimuli comes from the stroke of the server...focus on the stroke and how the ball bounce on his table then to your table... decision-making (response) is just a matter of milliseconds, whether to defend or attack...

psychologically, if you wanted to seek something from the opponent which will make you confirm your decided move is just an assumption that will deceive you...you might be having the wrong perception that the opponent might be doing a no spin or heavy back spins or is he putting the ball to your left, mid or right...

i rely on the strokes and ball bounce as stimulus to the preparation of my counter (response) to the approaching ball...

hope it would help!Good Luck!!!

 

[Iczy]

In theory, table tennis is a stimulus-response sports. You glean as much information as possible from your opponent and then make appropriate decision based upon that info. The decision process is quite complicated and I believe most of us let subliminal decision to take control.
Since table tennis is quite a fast spots, you don't have enough time to think "this serve is a backspin serve, I must open my bat angle like this". Most of us learn how to receive by trial and error until we can receive serves without thinking.That's why we have some difficulty when we encounter new kind/motion/position of serves.

 

[jorge.urrutia]

Ohh I just want to point out something,


I don´t seek for the *right* answer I just want to know what kind of stimulus you put your focus on and why.

Thanks for the answers

 

[braithey]

Hi Jorge
Like many players my approach is to watch the following

1. My opponent's stance and body shape - I am looking for anything different that they do repetitively on different serves
2. The direction of my opponent's bat on contact with the ball - Tells me the general direction the ball will take
3. The sound created by my opponent's serve - difficult to explain!!!!
4 How short or long (compared against my opponent's base line) the first bounce of their serve - This is a good indicator for how long the ball will travel on my side
5 What the ball does after the first bounce - Does it kick, slide, hold up, all of which tell me the type of spin on the ball


What I also do is mentally imagine a direct line travelling from my right hip straight to the contact point of ball against the opponent's bat. Being a right handed player my auto response (through practise) is anything to the right of the line I play with my forehand and anything to the left with my backhand.

As some else mentioned all of this information must be processed very quickly so it must become an auto - response to stimuli