Rebulding Fundamental strokes for my game play

[Siva Schopenhauer]

After a lot of inputs from the previous thread, where I uploaded a doubles game coupled along with new tacky 729 rubbers created a lot of self doubt in my game technique. It was indeed foolish to not work on my own strokes and fancy around CNT fantasies like a clear patzer. So I made a resolve to build them back in the way it should be in a very short run. All the feedbacks and suggestions from mates around here provided some insights for me to work on for today's self practice sessions. With my 5 balls, I went straight for 5 hours practice session on a single glass of water. At the end of the session, I got the rolling shot done to get my mind away from pain. I believe this time, progress is sure to be seen and nothing to shy away from.

I have added my first recording session where I worked on backhand strokes by incorporating swivelling motion of elbow. It felt awesome to get those powerful ones out. It would be great if you could see what's going on this new video.

I have only added the strokes hitting the table to avoid the annoyance of viewers and added slow motion footage for diagonal backhands on both sides. I value your opinon lot, love you all, cheers

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

The new rubber works like charm after getting used to it a little bit and after messing around for 5 hours, I literally didnt get any shoulder pain and was able to do 50 half pushups for conditioning

 

[Tornado2016]

In my eyes you waste a lot of energy because you are using your upper arm too much. Playing a backhand topspin your forearm should rotate around your ellbow. That is a very short movement then. In your case the whole arm rotates around the shoulder. I'm not sure if you know what I mean. Check the first slowmotion and you will see how much your upper arm is moving. It almost makes a circular movement. Thus, you accelerate much more out of your shoulder than out of your forearm or wrist. That is not ideal because, firstly, a lot of energy is going sideward instead of foreward and secondly, it is very stressful for your shoulder.

Of course you can use bigger moves if you have enough time. But that shouldn't be your basic technique.

 

[Tornado2016]

This shoulder movement, by the way, is also the reason why your whole movement is way too long. Sometimes, your racket almost stops behind your back or under the table. It will take some time to get it back in the right position. In Germany we have this memory hook that your racket should stop where you would held a hand mirror. So, imagine your forehand rubber is a hand mirror and stop the backhand topspin movement in a position where you can still "look into the mirror"

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

In my eyes you waste a lot of energy because you are using your upper arm too much. Playing a backhand topspin your forearm should rotate around your ellbow. That is a very short movement then. In your case the whole arm rotates around the shoulder. I'm not sure if you know what I mean. Check the first slowmotion and you will see how much your upper arm is moving. It almost makes a circular movement. Thus, you accelerate much more out of your shoulder than out of your forearm or wrist. That is not ideal because, firstly, a lot of energy is going sideward instead of foreward and secondly, it is very stressful for your shoulder.

Of course you can use bigger moves if you have enough time. But that shouldn't be your basic technique.

Actually guys in the last thread pointed it out, I made some efforts on this video to incorporate movement from the elbow. In my eyes I couldnt see too much upper arm movement maybe im novice or used to watching mu own movement. does it still move too much?

 

[Tornado2016]

Sorry, I missed the last thread. Probably, you improved your technique in some points. My advice was more general ;-) Maybe, you incorporated your ellbow more. As I said I do not know the other videos. However, the problem is not only that you have to use more ellbow but also less upper arm.

Did you watch this backhand movement video? Your upper arm should only rotate on its own axis so that the ellbow is a fixed point. Your forearm then rotates around your ellbow to create spin and speed. However, your upper arm and ellbow is still moving a lot. Stop the video at 0:07 just before you start to accelerate and then stop at 0:08 and look where your ellbow and upper arm are then after you hit the ball. This is at least a difference of 15 or more centimeters.

I think you want too much. Start with very slow topspins but with the short and correct technique. Later you can go on and try to get a faster stroke. Even if it is a better feeling to play crazy balls, it makes no sense to start playing topspin as fast as you can when your technique is not stable.

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

Sorry, I missed the last thread. Probably, you improved your technique in some points. My advice was more general ;-) Maybe, you incorporated your ellbow more. As I said I do not know the other videos. However, the problem is not only that you have to use more ellbow but also less upper arm.

Did you watch this backhand movement video? Your upper arm should only rotate on its own axis so that the ellbow is a fixed point. Your forearm then rotates around your ellbow to create spin and speed. However, your upper arm and ellbow is still moving a lot. Stop the video at 0:07 just before you start to accelerate and then stop at 0:08 and look where your ellbow and upper arm are then after you hit the ball. This is at least a difference of 15 or more centimeters.

I think you want too much. Start with very slow topspins but with the short and correct technique. Later you can go on and try to get a faster stroke. Even if it is a better feeling to play crazy balls, it makes no sense to start playing topspin as fast as you can when your technique is not stable.

Yeah you were exactly right. That was a lot of movement about half a feet, but I thought that it is almost in the beginning of the followthrough that it didnt make a difference. I misnamed the title. On backhand, I was working actually on those full strokes, much like lifting the backspin below the net height, I misnamed it as basic stroke, sorry.

Ok, In next session I ll go slow on them to see the movement. It was a valuable feedback could make a lot of difference in progess, I thank u and appreciate your efforts.

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

Forehand training video from yesterday based on some basic ideas to keep the upper arm movement less and pivot around elbow. Feels like some progress has been made. But, all is left to the members to judge honestly.

1:30 to 3:00 slow motion, net level balls FH drive.
3:10 to end, basic FH movement practice at rapid pace

 

[NextLevel]

Shoulder/core rotation is good, use of the arms can be improved. You are trying to drive the ball rather than learn to spin it slowly first. It's like trying to drive a car at 160kmph before you learn how to steer the wheel.

Start with the loop that Sean O Neill demonstrated. Learn to use the arm to spin the ball first. Then you can move on to this kind of stroke. I will find the video for you.

You asked questions couple of questions about shots that you missed in your doubles match. Part of the reason you missed those shots was that you were making drive contact not spin contact. Let's get your spin contact on the right footing first. You are a talented server so if you work at this and use the arm properly you will get great results in no time. You just have to be willing to go through the steps.

 

[Boogar]

Just as NL said you are hitting the ball too much and too flat.

1. On your backhands you still use your shoulder too much. Tornado alrdy elaborated on that ( Good tip with the mirror!)
Plus the shoulder movement lets your shots fade, this way you lose power and can't put alot of topspin onto the ball.

Look at this video of William Henzel playing the backhand topspin and look at his movement. What part of his arm is moving, where does his stroke start and where does it end? Where is his elbow, does it move?
How is his stance? etc..

2. For the forehand, try to play more relaxed. Stay low, this might be a bit akwards when playing with self thrown balls ( you could try to let them bounce twice to give you more time).
Also watch your finish position.It should be just above your eyes with the forehandside of the bat pointing to your left. The forehand should always end at the same spot, just like the backhandtopspin and only the starting position varies depending on the spin and angle of the incomming ball.

A good trick to learn spin is to take the ball under the table and brush it, so you have to use spin to get it on the table. You can do this by letting the ball bounce on the ground once first.

Edit: Try to keep the eblow in the golden point. Thats roughly 20 cm sideways to your body and 20cms infront.

 

[Archosaurus]

Siva, imagine your body is a clockface and 12:00 is in front of you, 6:00 is behind you.

Rotate your body 45 degrees, to 1:30. Keep your elbow close to you and raise the bat to your side at 3:00. Now rotate to 12:00 without moving your arm.

Your bat should be pointing to roughly 1:30, or 45 degrees if you didn't move your arm. The core does over half of the work and the arm just drives into the ball to transfer the energy. Notice how little movement there is in the end for the bat to move to pointing in front of you.

Of course this is not a rule and you see all kinds of FH drives, but I think they all have this same basic idea to them. It's not a wild arm swinging motion from all the way back to all the way forward.

If you practice swinging like this, and keep the elbow close to you without moving it anywhere, you will better understand the elbow movement you want. Right now, your elbow is moving back and forth, which means you're using the shoulder.

 

[izra]

i don't understand. the topic title says "fundamentals" but it seems like you are bouncing the ball to yourself and then loop driving it.

i was expecting to see you perform the basic counter and push technique with a practice partner at a slow pace.

 

[Archosaurus]

i don't understand. the topic title says "fundamentals" but it seems like you are bouncing the ball to yourself and then loop driving it.

i was expecting to see you perform the basic counter and push technique with a practice partner at a slow pace.

Exactly. There is no shame at all in going to the absolute step 1. You will look a lot better in some time and it will feel better too. Start with one part of the body at a time like the kids do.

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

i don't understand. the topic title says "fundamentals" but it seems like you are bouncing the ball to yourself and then loop driving it.

i was expecting to see you perform the basic counter and push technique with a practice partner at a slow pace.

If you read the title again, you could see that it mentions rebuilding fundamental strokes for gameplay. So, my focus was centered around the strokes that could directly benefit me in match situations.

Nonetheless, it should be completely rewarding to start from scratch.

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

Siva, imagine your body is a clockface and 12:00 is in front of you, 6:00 is behind you.

Rotate your body 45 degrees, to 1:30. Keep your elbow close to you and raise the bat to your side at 3:00. Now rotate to 12:00 without moving your arm.

Your bat should be pointing to roughly 1:30, or 45 degrees if you didn't move your arm. The core does over half of the work and the arm just drives into the ball to transfer the energy. Notice how little movement there is in the end for the bat to move to pointing in front of you.

Of course this is not a rule and you see all kinds of FH drives, but I think they all have this same basic idea to them. It's not a wild arm swinging motion from all the way back to all the way forward.

If you practice swinging like this, and keep the elbow close to you without moving it anywhere, you will better understand the elbow movement you want. Right now, your elbow is moving back and forth, which means you're using the shoulder.

It looks really complex to get what that means with clock system. Regardless of that, I understood what you mean in the third para. It necessarily means using entire body as contraption of pivot and twist the arm at the end of stroke to achieve max output. Is that it?

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

Just as NL said you are hitting the ball too much and too flat.

1. On your backhands you still use your shoulder too much. Tornado alrdy elaborated on that ( Good tip with the mirror!)
Plus the shoulder movement lets your shots fade, this way you lose power and can't put alot of topspin onto the ball.

Look at this video of William Henzel playing the backhand topspin and look at his movement. What part of his arm is moving, where does his stroke start and where does it end? Where is his elbow, does it move?
How is his stance? etc..

2. For the forehand, try to play more relaxed. Stay low, this might be a bit akwards when playing with self thrown balls ( you could try to let them bounce twice to give you more time).
Also watch your finish position.It should be just above your eyes with the forehandside of the bat pointing to your left. The forehand should always end at the same spot, just like the backhandtopspin and only the starting position varies depending on the spin and angle of the incomming ball.

A good trick to learn spin is to take the ball under the table and brush it, so you have to use spin to get it on the table. You can do this by letting the ball bounce on the ground once first.

Edit: Try to keep the eblow in the golden point. Thats roughly 20 cm sideways to your body and 20cms infront.

Lot of great tips and observations there. I ll try to bring them into fruition as a part on next iteration. Thanks Boogar, I appreciate it

 

[izra]

If you read the title again, you could see that it mentions rebuilding fundamental strokes for gameplay. So, my focus was centered around the strokes that could directly benefit me in match situations.

Nonetheless, it should be completely rewarding to start from scratch.

i see, but what is shown here are not fundamentals. here you are performing an advanced stroke in a situation that is unrealistically simple. in match play you will never have a ball that bounces straight up with no spin deep on your side.

if you really want to rebuild your technique start from the actual fundamentals. if you want to improve train those fundamentally basic strokes in tougher scenarios (more complex footwork, faster tempo...). only after you get proficient at this, should you start adding more spin into play, and after that comes the combination of spin and speed (loop driving).

 

[Archosaurus]

It looks really complex to get what that means with clock system. Regardless of that, I understood what you mean in the third para. It necessarily means using entire body as contraption of pivot and twist the arm at the end of stroke to achieve max output. Is that it?

Twist the BODY into the ball, and the arm follows along to accelerate into the ball and into the follow through.

You don't leave the arm out, but you don't focus on it either. For a warmup stroke like this it shouldn't move a lot. I think Sean O' Neill shows it perfectly.

EDIT: I think Izra is right. Mechanics first, then quality. Of course, it's a lot of work, but it's less work than trying to "figure it out".

 

[NextLevel]

Okay. I will leave Siva to his own devices. He seems to know best what he wants to do and who to listen to.

 

[Siva Schopenhauer]

Okay. I will leave Siva to his own devices. He seems to know best what he wants to do and who to listen to.

Not really Next level, I needed some time to reply because I am slowly assimilating the response into my thoght process. I'll come back to your post with some queries. Don't take it badly, I respect you a lot