Shuki Development and Questions

[UpSideDownCarl]

Now Fang Bo used to serve with his right foot forward sometimes. I am not sure how he did it. Or why it worked. But it did. ttmonster mentioned Yan An doing something like this. I don't remember seeing that. But I suspect both of them had some way of getting their hips to pop into the contact.


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[ttmonster]

Watch the serve around 3:55 secs and thereafter in this match ... He did not do it too often , but what he was doing was that he was almost in the ready position after the serve and then doing the serve, probably trying to steal time away from Wang Hao and initiate his quick over the table attack as fast as possible

Now Fang Bo used to serve with his right foot forward sometimes. I am not sure how he did it. Or why it worked. But it did. ttmonster mentioned Yan An doing something like this. I don't remember seeing that. But I suspect both of them had some way of getting their hips to pop into the contact.


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[UpSideDownCarl]

Watch the serve around 3:55 secs and thereafter in this match ... He did not do it too often , but what he was doing was that he was almost in the ready position after the serve and then doing the serve, probably trying to steal time away from Wang Hao and initiate his quick over the table attack as fast as possible

Cool. That is the serve Fang Bo used to do when he was still a junior. I don't know. Maybe he still does it.

Watch it slowly, frame by frame though. Notice, his right foot starts forward but he still rotates his waist back before contact and uses a very short but powerful hip rotation into the ball on contact. His hips are in the serve. Shuki's hips are finished right about when contact happens.

Yan An is definitely using it to get set faster. I think Shuki is also doing it to get set faster. The difference is the timing and the power of the pop from the hips. YA has a very short but fast and powerful pop from the hips. Shuki has a long slow movement from the hips that takes the whole entire time of his leg lifting to his foot touching down. Nowhere is there a real acceleration from the hips into the serve. If the hips are moving when he contacts it is as they are coming to a stop. Shuki's right foot starts behind and ends forward on contact.

Now does it really matter? Not here. Shuki is using that serve to get a weak attack so he can take control of the rally. But to improve his serves he would need an entirely different motion. And Shuki's serve is less similar to YA's than it may appear on the surface. YA's feet stay grounded which is why, with his feet in that odd position he can still pop into the ball with his hips.

 

[Shuki]

I start with my right leg behind me and move it in front. fang bo starts with his right foot in front and then leans back and moves forward with it again. this service problem I have I never knew was a problem btw. I don't have trouble producing more spinny balls for higher level play but I also may do my motion differently without really knowing. More to record I suppose. Nice eyes carl.

 

[Boogar]

Doesn't Wang Liqin use a similar serve.
It seems to my that serves like this are a good way to get into the ready position faster. Or mayhaps to lead the opponent to attack your backhand side, as you end up standing more towards the center.

Edit: I just checked and he is not. However he stomps with a backwards step and so it looks like it.

 

[Shuki]

Doesn't Wang Liqin use a similar serve.
It seems to my that serves like this are a good way to get into the ready position faster. Or mayhaps to lead the opponent to attack your backhand side, as you end up standing more towards the center.

I designed my serve to help me get into position but the timing where I make contact and my stomp with it show that the moment I make contact I kind of slow down then go through the ball then proceed with the rest of my motion to the stomp. So I'm not getting the momentum from my body helping


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[Shuki]

Now that I think more about it. I think stopping my forward movement before making contact might be better. Less moving parts means less parts to cause error right?


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[Boogar]

Now that I think more about it. I think stopping my forward movement before making contact might be better. Less moving parts means less parts to cause error right?

Well yes... but also less potential.

 

[Shuki]

Lastly, I didn't even know I stomped on my forehand serves. I knew it on my backhand because I do it on purpose as well as some strokes I've incorporated a stomp to help learn the right transfer of motion.

Our top players at our club don't use any body transfer on their serves and their serves are pretty damn basic tbh. They just have superior mixing of their serves compared to others.


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[Shuki]

I understand wanting body transfer on most strokes. Making all off them easier to get power. But I'm not trying to power through my opponent on a serve.

And as a player who has spent maybe 20 minutes of his life practicing serves. (No table of my own and not wanting to walk over and pick up my 6 balls over and over). I don't think this should actually be en emphasis on what I should work on.

All my serves I've learned from just trying them out in a game and varying them in games.

I recognize that I may limit my potential on spin and speed with my motion but I also think it would be better to work on the other bad qualities of my game more than working on my serves.


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[ttmonster]

You are stomping the wrong foot in your backhand serve. In either serve you are not using your body as much as you should.
I don't think its as simple as "stopping your forward motion" , since you have a coach, you should work with her to fix your serving motion.

 

[Boogar]

Little offtopic again: How much do you usually pay for a 60min trainings lesson? You odnt have to answer, i am just curious.

Because at my place 60 min would be 90 CHf wich are about 100 dollar
The coach however would be a former china open quarter final participant. Or his wife

 

[ttmonster]

Shuki, lets not make assumptions. Using the body is not about overpowering the opponent , its about having more consistency in shot making , quicker recovery and easy power. It holds true for every part of table tennis . It is actually possible to greatly disguise the spin in the serve when you use weight transfer combined with the right touch on the ball ...

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I'd also like to see your serve and receive game against someone as much higher level than you as you are higher level than the guy you are playing.

Don't get me wrong. You look great in the footage. You look like you may have gone up in level a fair amount since we hit.

But that is the same long dead ball serve you were asking me to push in the 3rd ball attack drill that I said I would never push in a match because it was too long and too dead. In fact, for that drill, if you were one of my regular training partners and you kept on giving me that serve I would have told you that either you serve short backspin that has decent spin or we should do a different drill.

It would be interesting to see what you would try against an all out attacker who is a solid 2000-2100. Because I have a feeling that might be where you would need to rethink serving, unless you can really serve short and heavy without the hips. It is possible. And if you can do that and mix between heavy and dead where it is hard to read, then I could be very wrong.

Many of my serves don't have the hips in them. But I know it. And I have been told in no uncertain terms that I need to get the hips in. [emoji2]

But I guess I will give one more detail. If the first 3 balls are the 3 most important and improving the first 3 balls is a short, quick, surefire way of improving, then intelligent practice of serves is one of the fastest ways to improve.

Unless your serves are much better than I realize, the ones I faced and the ones in this video won't work on the guys I know who are 2000+.


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[NextLevel]

Alright. I will just say it. These are all good observations.

Shuki starts and it looks normal on the serve. The left foot starts forward. When he goes into his motion, his right foot steps forward for the stomp which rotates his hip. In the motion Shuki's hip goes from facing away from the table to facing towards the table. Now this would be good if the hip rotation coincided with the ball contact in some way. In any real way. But the stomp coincides with the END OF THE HIP ROTATION, and the stomp also coincides with the ball contact. So Shuki is making contact for his serve as his hips arrive in the followthrough position.

If he is getting any transfer from the hips into the ball it is very weak from the very end of the hip movement.

For the long dead ball serve he is giving which does not have much speed it doesn't really present an issue (quite risky against a good player to serve slow, long and dead but against this player, not a problem). But, if that is the motion he would use to try to do better serves, he is going to be stuck with serves whose limit is capped by the motion that causes his hips to have finished their movement right about when contact happens. To have a motion that allows a short, fast pop from the hips into the ball right on contact would lead to higher level serves fast. To have the hip almost at the beginning of the motion on contact would also be preferable.

It is almost like imagining hitting the ball after the racket has stopped at the end of the followthrough in a stroke.

It does not present a problem here. But ultimately, if this is a habit engrained in his body, I have a feeling it could limit the potential of his serves.


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I wouldn't expect most people to serve any differently unless they have been taught how to serve by a good server. And since he cut the video to only include serves that were not missed, I can't tell whether he served some real backspin serves or not. IT might amaze you but I have seen better players serve poorly.

 

[Shuki]

Little offtopic again: How much do you usually pay for a 60min trainings lesson? You odnt have to answer, i am just curious.

Because at my place 60 min would be 90 CHf wich are about 100 dollar
The coach however would be a former china open quarter final participant. Or his wife

Students that come back consistently it's 20$ per session, sometimes free. I get about 2-3 hours per session.

She does it for the love of the game and not for money. But she'll charge newcomers 20$ per session and the session will be shorter without her showing much real interest in you. She wants to make sure the student is dedicated before detonating her own time into them


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[Shuki]

@ Carl
My service is quite a bit better than when we hit. I can serve short backspin relatively easy now but it's still not what I'd consider heavy so you're right that is struggle to do that.

We have two players I can think of at my club that are super aggressive attackers at the around the 2000 level. One of them is what is consider a super forehand player. Backhand is so weak that I only serve there. And depending how he's standing I'll actually serve long to him more often than short because I seem to find his pocket pretty well for my level.

Packing my camera onto my car now so I can remember to record a game against someone way better than me tomorrow night


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[Shuki]

@monster why is stomping the right foot on a backhand serve wrong. The left sounds wrong to me. For a backhand chop the transfer should be from left to right. ( coach told me that tonight)


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[UpSideDownCarl]

She wants to make sure the student is dedicated before detonating her own time into them.

Gotta love the spell check functions on computers and cell phones: "detonating her own time".

 

[ttmonster]

Ask you coach again, something might have gotten missed in translation , the weight transfer is from right to left