The more nuanced and useful video because it actually looks more closely at what they do even with their supposed neutral grips.
A nuanced video, but not telling you what happens even with a neutral grip.
I think that first video really gets at the issue in a pretty complete and useful way. The second video is good as well but they go much more in depth in the first video.
Truthfully, after the first video NL posted from PingSkillz, I don't know that anything else need to be said. But...in spite of that....here goes nothing......
So, here is actual information from me on my grip. If any of you have seen footage of me hitting a FH, you can immediately see that my wrist drops like crazy. Has it always? I don't know. But I suspect that that was not what I did when I was a kid or when I started trying to learn how to play when I was 44. And when I was trying to teach myself, before I could spin the ball, I somehow got the idea that having my wrist like that was part of what you did to spin the ball so I started doing that. My head got something wrong and I started doing an exaggeration of what should be done. And I have been doing it for quite a long time now.
I want to say I can't stop; It is ingrained in me now; It feels very natural. However, I know that those statements are almost true but are not actually true.
Now, a few years ago I played with changing my grip. I did it several times and played around with a few things. The first change which started all the others: a friend of mine who is a passionate maniac and has very strong opinions but often asserts things as though something that is useful in some way, is what EVERYONE has to do. For instance, after getting his butt kicked by Der_Echte (NextLevel, this is SmashFan, hehe), and then learning that Der_ uses a cheapo rubber on his BH, this guy said, "Oh, then all we need to do is get Der_ T05fx for BH. That will help."
Anyway, so this guy showed me his grip, told me it was the grip ZJK uses and that everyone should use it. This is an extreme BH grip. And the truth is, I still play around with it because it is amazing how easy it is to spin the hell out of the ball or over the table loop on BH when I do. But hitting a FH from that grip is totally odd until you are used to it. And with the extreme flexibility of my wrist and my tendency to drop and hook my wrist, it was sort of like a double hook. [emoji2]
An aside, I have watched this guy recently and noticed that he doesn't use the grip that he was telling me I should use back then. My guess, actually is, that he continually is making adjustments to his grip and doesn't even realize it. Someone comfortable with their grip and at a level that he is at, will likely be doing that.
Anyway, while fixing, breaking apart and rebuilding my FH, Edmund Suen convinced me that I was not ZJK and I should use a different grip. His suggestion was more "neutral". He also tried in vain to get me to stop dropping my wrist. Anyway, at first I ignored him and played with one version of a grip where I switched grips a decent amount for FH and BH. It was easy because the switch was very simple. But it was flawed because, when I switched to FH the grip was too unstable because of where on the handle my thumb dropped. Then I played with one neutral grip. At a certain point I decided to change to a different grip that was also neutral. Then eventually, talking to a friend who is a tennis player I tried something that gave me what I felt and feel is most sensible for me. It is my current grip: with this grip, as my hand and wrist change angles for FH or BH, my grip switched a bit, but the switch is natural and I am not trying to switch. This grip was the only one that instantly felt natural and there was almost no adjustment period where I worked to get used to the new grip. It was more like I was just grabbing the racket in a way that unconsciously felt like home.
At this point, I must confess that, I am not actually 100% sure what my current grip is because it changes shot by shot, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. I have my base BH grip and my base FH grip. When I am hitting BHs and lock into BH whether in training or a match, I will sometimes shift into that extreme BH grip. Now it is hard to switch to a FH grip from that, but it is almost the same grip as what I use for my big hook FH instead of my regular hook FH. Hahaha.
In all those grip changes, one thing I realized is that my self hitting drill was something that allowed me to change grips and get used to a new grip much faster.
One of the first things NL saw the first time we played is my tendency to drop and hook my wrist on FH. He is not alone. He spent about 30-45 seconds looking at the possibility of me getting my wrist to a more neutral position. We even have that on video. Hahaha. Others have tried as well.
Michael Landers has spent a decent amount of time talking to me about the value of having a grip that can make subtle and not so subtle shifts for different shots. One thing he emphasized to me is that I should work on having a down the line inside out shot (a fade). Matthew Khan actually made me work on this a bit as well. And then I started realizing how to undo my wrist hook.
So, a few times, recently, I have played with a friend's robot and have worked on being comfortable with hitting fade shots. I have noticed that in doing that it opened my comfort to shifting my grip in certain ways that I never was comfortable with before. I honestly never was comfortable contacting the inside of the ball. I am so used to contacting the outside of the ball with my FH that even contacting the back of the ball was hard to get used to. But using a robot and slowing things down made me comfortable playing with those contact points with my FH.
In playing around with it and looking at footage of what feels like my wrist being neutral and how dropped my wrist still is when it feels like the wrist is in a neutral position, I know I now can have my wrist neutral. But that feels bad to me. And it feels like my wrist is lifted.
I have noticed for a long time that my grip shifts from shot to shot. The basic shift from FH to BH or from BH to FH is something I usually don't notice. But once in a while, doing drills, I will feel myself switch grips in the middle of a transition. But most of it is pretty unconscious.
The basic deal is, when I hit a BH, I am holding with my index finger and thumb against the rubber and adjust my wrist and forearm angle so my racket is closed. The fingers on the handle are very relaxed and not even really holding. And I definitely can take them off and hit BHs with only the index finger and thumb holding like in a serve grip.
On my FH it feels like I turn my wrist open and back. From video footage, I know that I don't. But I am still shifting my wrist a lot and that forces my thumb to be on the the angled top of the handle instead of on the blade face. And as I do actually open my wrist to contact the inside of the ball for fade shots, my thumb shifts a little towards the side of that wedge shaped angle at the top of the handle.
I am still holding with the thumb and index finger but the role of the index finger on the blade face is much more vital in the touch of my FH strokes; the thumb presses some part of the top of the handle but not to the extent it does on BH. And on FH the fingers on the handle are still relaxed but they are holding some. So, with a BH I could hold with a serve grip and my fingers completely off the handle. But with FH I have a feeling that would not work so well.
I will see if I can make some photos of grips later on in the day.
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