Ma Long's Forehand

[Rajah*]

Question about Chinese FH

I've notice that Ma and a bunch of other Chinese players keep their
elbow and arm tight to their body on the backswing then adjust to the
proper bat angle on the swing itself.

Anyone know of the benefits of keeping the elbow tight to the body
on the backswing? I've tried both away and close with my natural
pref to have the elbow away from the body.

Recoil / recovery after an explosive spin is faster. By doing so it help us in maintaining balance aswell bcoz chinese style use more of footwork, lower body strengths is not just use for stability when we try to hit the ball but also we use lower body to bring up or pull the weight transfer after hitting the ball.

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[Rajah*]

Recoil / recovery after an explosive spin is faster. By doing so it help us in maintaining balance aswell bcoz chinese style use more of footwork, lower body strengths is not just use for stability when we try to hit the ball but also we use lower body to bring up or pull the weight transfer after hitting the ball. The secret is as you move towards the ball never extend your arm with paddle like in a hitting position, make that lateral mvnt towards the ball..make a small "pause" reposition yourself then graze the ball.

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[CroneOne]

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Just wondering. Where did you send this from?


Anyway, there is nothing wrong with experimenting and trying out what the
pros do. They have worked out techniques over 1000's of hours and
with multiple coaches. If you can improve your game by breaking it down and mimicking a
technique - even if it's not as strong as the pros - why not? I trained myself
the banana flick by watching the pros in slow motion then repeating it.
Is it a FZD flick? No. But it's a shot I never had that works well sometimes.

 

[ttmonster]

There is nothing wrong, as long as our goals remain to be recreational player. If somebody is seriously wanting to make progress and is serious about it there is a potential pitfall to this approach. The player starts getting partial to one shot and then neglects or is never forced to develop other areas of his game. I also learned the banana flip by looking at videos , but it haunts me sometimes when I choose to banana flip a long ball which I should rather do a straight BH loop or even run around loop with forehand , instead of being lazy and not moving to do so. There are pros and cons to everything and in this case the Cons outweigh the pros.

Just wondering. Where did you send this from?


Anyway, there is nothing wrong with experimenting and trying out what the
pros do. They have worked out techniques over 1000's of hours and
with multiple coaches. If you can improve your game by breaking it down and mimicking a
technique - even if it's not as strong as the pros - why not? I trained myself
the banana flick by watching the pros in slow motion then repeating it.
Is it a FZD flick? No. But it's a shot I never had that works well sometimes.

 

[CroneOne]

I'd say the pro is that now you have yet another way to return a serve. Another weapon in your arsenal.
Now you just need to work on your shot selection and reading long balls quicker. Once that is done, the
pros outweigh the cons...

There is nothing wrong, as long as our goals remain to be recreational player. If somebody is seriously wanting to make progress and is serious about it there is a potential pitfall to this approach. The player starts getting partial to one shot and then neglects or is never forced to develop other areas of his game. I also learned the banana flip by looking at videos , but it haunts me sometimes when I choose to banana flip a long ball which I should rather do a straight BH loop or even run around loop with forehand , instead of being lazy and not moving to do so. There are pros and cons to everything and in this case the Cons outweigh the pros.

 

[NextLevel]

I'd say the pro is that now you have yet another way to return a serve. Another weapon in your arsenal.
Now you just need to work on your shot selection and reading long balls quicker. Once that is done, the
pros outweigh the cons...

I guess it is a matter of context. Most people who ask these questions train in environments where it is hard to access the right kind of information to do it properly. If you can, by all means, go ahead. After all, something like this is what people were doing before information on proper TT technique began to proliferate on YouTube. That said, the players who were doing it were usually high level technicians.

The main point is that you won't get a forehand like Ma Long' by copying video of Ma Long. And if you do, it would take you twice or thrice the time it would take to get a good forehand with sound technique just by learning a good stroke from a professional coach. And unless you were an athletic freak of nature, it would be half a good as what building from sound principles would give you.

 

[Baal]

Nothing wrong with using pros to model shots you need to make. Trick is to pick the right ones!

Personally I think a lot of amateur male players would be better off studying top women more than top men. They should also be looking at guys like Appelgren and Persson and Samsonov.

 

[NextLevel]

Nothing wrong with using pros to model shots you need to make. Trick is to pick the right ones!

Personally I think a lot of amateur male players would be better off studying top women more than top men. They should also be looking at guys like Appelgren and Persson and Samsonov.

Or Karakasevic, who you often list as well. But the problem in part also is that people want to be like the current #1. And it is more exciting to loop like Ma Long or backhand loop like Kreanga than it is to loop like Perrson or backhand loop like Waldner. And Waldner is outdated mostly.

Okay, not quite - but you get my point.

I don't fully agree with studying top women unless you want to be a blocker. But it depends on how you play. The women's game is just different.

 

[ttmonster]

Perfectly put ! The best way is to get a trusted coach to train you, there is no real alternative to that. Now the next best option is to video yourself , once you have got the fundamentals down and start correcting bits and pieces based on your video reviews. There is a reason why buildings are built from the ground up, starting from the foundation, and not from top down . Lets suppose I see somebody's building has a nice arch and I copy the arch and then try to build the rest of the building the chances of everything falling apart is larger than everything coming together . This is the point I was trying to make. Everything is possible , but you have to choose the most optimal path to your goal .

Or Karakasevic, who you often list as well. But the problem in part also is that people want to be like the current #1. And it is more exciting to loop like Ma Long or backhand loop like Kreanga than it is to loop like Perrson or backhand loop like Waldner. And Waldner is outdated mostly.

Okay, not quite - but you get my point.

I don't fully agree with studying top women unless you want to be a blocker. But it depends on how you play. The women's game is just different.

 

[CroneOne]

I like this analogy. It's true. You first have to understand the foundations of being able to get into a FH position with good footwork, get the timing and contact down, transfer the weight and recover before you can attempt different FH techniques or understand why the pros do what they do.
I think footwork is key because if you aren't in position before the ball gets to you, you'll never get a normal FH off properly never mind a Ma Long FH.

Conversely I do see a lot of people getting decent FH's off with terrible technique which means you can build an ugly building that will have an arch that sticks together fine - you just won't take photos of it on your holiday

Lets suppose I see somebody's building has a nice arch and I copy the arch and then try to build the rest of the building the chances of everything falling apart is larger than everything coming together . This is the point I was trying to make. Everything is possible , but you have to choose the most optimal path to your goal .

 

[ttmonster]

Lol !

conversely i do see a lot of people getting decent fh's off with terrible technique which means you can build an ugly building that will have an arch that sticks together fine - you just won't take photos of it on your holiday

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Conversely I do see a lot of people getting decent FH's off with terrible technique which means you can build an ugly building that will have an arch that sticks together fine - you just won't take photos of it on your holiday

This is literally true -- many players HATE watching videos of themselves.

 

[NextLevel]

I like this analogy. It's true. You first have to understand the foundations of being able to get into a FH position with good footwork, get the timing and contact down, transfer the weight and recover before you can attempt different FH techniques or understand why the pros do what they do.
I think footwork is key because if you aren't in position before the ball gets to you, you'll never get a normal FH off properly never mind a Ma Long FH.

Conversely I do see a lot of people getting decent FH's off with terrible technique which means you can build an ugly building that will have an arch that sticks together fine - you just won't take photos of it on your holiday

As my favorite TT video once said, do you win style points like in figure skating?

There are some people who call Timo Boll or Mizutani or even Michael Maze's technique ugly and a chicken-wing forehand.

So for me, style is in the eye of the beholder - give me points!

 

[CroneOne]

.

So for me, style is in the eye of the beholder - give me points!

Very true. I was reading somewhere that the Chinese coaches found Wang Liqin's FH ugly. I think it's graceful and amazing.

 

[NextLevel]

Despite what I said earlier, she is worth learning from:

 

[matzreenzi]

Some people who think exactly what Nextlevel said is definitely me being one of them...IMHO chicken-wing forehand is very ugly...even when ML counter from close to the table his forehand didn't look like chicken-wing at all from my observation...

 

[Rajah*]

Bcoz the head of the blade is pointing up at 12 o clock

Chickenwing is both ugly in form, strains the wrist so much with out producing more power out of it.

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[UpSideDownCarl]

Timo Boll, Jun Mizutani and Michael Maze have good forehands. It is a completely different technique than Ma Long's forehand but they are all good forehands even if they are not as powerful as Ma Long's. If it wasn't good technique how could each of them have gotten to be in the top 10 in the world.

I wouldn't copy any of them including Ma Long but you can learn elements of a good forehand from all of them. All of them have the forearm moving very fast for acceleration on contact. Ma Long's upper arm moves much more than the other three. Ma Long takes the ball farther away from his body. Ma Long has a bigger swing that takes more speed and strength to recover from and puts more pressure on his shoulder joint. To perform a forehand that is similar to Ma Long's would take a lot of training, A LOT OF TRAINING, even just to keep the shoulder joint healthy and strong enough for the repetitive stress of that stroke and the speed he needs to recover to the ready position.

From a biomechanical standpoint the forehands of the other three are not as powerful but much more efficient and much easier on the shoulder joint which means they will probably be able to play that way for longer. Michael Maze has had other injuries that shortened his career but that was not the result of his shoulder joint having that repetitive stress. This also may be why the great players from China seem to age in the sport earlier than players from other countries. Many European players stay in the top rankings in the world far longer than the top players from China.

And, in the end, as has already been said, NextLevel's point about working with a good coach, in person, to improve your forehand is the best and fastest way to improve technique. If you combine that with filming yourself and observing the footage of your technique, then you can really improve much faster. If it is about improving technique, you kind of need to do both and doing both is worth the time you put in to that endeavor.

 

[Baal]

Despite what I said earlier, she is worth learning from:

She is possibly my favorite player of all time, man or woman. She was flawless.

 

[NextLevel]

Here is another guy that a coach I like proposed as a model. This is going to be how I want my strokes to look like going forward (accounting for my bad knees and less physicality, of course). The level of relaxation is just oozing from his body: