TT Myth Busters

[Persistence TT]

I guess for some people it is ok to have retard philosophy as long as they believe they are "correct" or purely differ from the rest of us mortals who dont know crap about equipment !!

 

[Jay Turberville]

No, I use the correct terms always. To do otherwise only spreads the ignorance or makes TT players look ignorant. It would be like mixing up further and farther or screwing up English in some other way in a crowd that knows the difference. If you want TT to look like real sport then the players shouldn't sound like a bunch of ignorant high school kids. ( Sorry high school kids hopefully you will grow out of it ).

I think you have this backwards. The standard in most pro sports is to NOT talk in precise technical terms. Non-technical speech is the norm.

 

[Giangt]

I have a blade that is really crisp. It has a lot of pop.

Okay, wait, a blade that is fried till it is crisp? Pop as in soda or pop like a fire cracker?

Darn, Carl has a blade that is nice and crispy, it is crunchy, not chewy, but it was over cooked and the blade has too much carbonation and sugar. Also, it seems to keep exploding.

Oh, that is not what you meant by crisp with a lot of pop?

Carl, just for info it is carbonado and sugar! I think it is about time to show
you how to do a "banana flick".

 

[Jay Turberville]

The second point is that TT players mislead new players with their erroneous terminology. Paddles and rubbers don't generate power or energy unless you burn them.

Except that players aren't generally mislead by this particular kind of erroneous terminology. They understand that "fast" rubbers and rackets are simply rubbers and rackets that make it easier to hit the ball faster. Where they may be more typically mislead is in about how important such things actually are or are not.

A third point is that I don't care how good a player is. People aren't calibrated machines. Experience players have their opinions and preferences but they are not fact. Here is an example where an organization doesn't trust the pros.
http://machinedesign.com/fea-and-simulation/replacing-testing-sports-gear-fea
In industry I know there is no substitute for fully instrumenting a machine and recording the data at the fastest rate possible..

OK. But this is a table tennis players forum, not a meeting of industry engineers or university science students.

If the pros had the definitive answer there would be no debate. However, on another forum the debate about dwell time went on and on and on. No one would do the simplest math that would prove that the dwell time is really very short. ...

If that's the thread I was later involved with, I think there were two or three sources in relatively short time that gave decent ballpark estimates of dwell being on the order of 1 millisecond (One of those sources was myself using a still image flash photograph.)This is far too short for human beans to be able to react to before the ball leaves the racket.
So the notion that players can adjust mid-stroke to the way the ball feels on their racket is certainly a myth. But as others have pointed out, a good portion of your myths aren't really myths as much as they are quibbles over word usage.

 

[Der_Echte]

I was showing someone how to serve short heavy underspin, and how to keep it low.

The player thought he REALLY needed to impact the ball below net height to maximize the low bounce.

I showed him I could hit the ball 15-20 cm above net height and still keep it short and tight.

I told him it is all about how/where you place your first bounce and your "touch"

 

[NextLevel]

I was showing someone how to serve short heavy underspin, and how to keep it low.

The player thought he REALLY needed to impact the ball below net height to maximize the low bounce.

I showed him I could hit the ball 15-20 cm above net height and still keep it short and tight.

I told him it is all about how/where you place your first bounce and your "touch"

Would like to see video of this - it's generally considered by most serve teachers I know to be bad serving practice to contact the ball that high as the bounce tends to give away the spin.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Carl, just for info it is carbonado and sugar! I think it is about time to show
you how to do a "banana flick".

Oh man, you should have seen when Der_Echte did a banana flick with a Chiquita brand banana. He flicked that thing like it was shot out of a cannon. Then his opponent slipped on the peel.


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[Killerspintt]

Oh man, you should have seen when Der_Echte did a banana flick with a Chiquita brand banana. He flicked that thing like it was shot out of a cannon. Then his opponent slipped on the peel.

No wonder Der_Echte is so good at Mario Kart, always throwing bananas with his backhand's godlike accuracy & power.

 

[Persistence TT]

Would like to see video of this - it's generally considered by most serve teachers I know to be bad serving practice to contact the ball that high as the bounce tends to give away the spin.

15-20 cm above net height is really high yes and the serve will be definitely a high serve, unless we are talking about an underspin serve that bounces exactly beside the net.

Contacting the ball around net height (definitely not higher) is the best way to learn and when you are familiar you can even try contacting a little below net height.

A heavy sidetop serve for example can be contacted 1-2 cm below net height and still pass over the net and be extremely low. Same thing goes for heave underspin serves but u cannot add too much tempo cause its gonna hit the net

 

[Pnachtwey]

The 'wobble balls' are nu illusion. If the ball has little to no spin at all it wil wobble through the air. Just like a wobble ball in football.

There are a few different "regimes" of air flow as the ball goes from 0 to very fast in still air. In 4 out of 5 there is no chance of a wobble ball unless there are outside air currents. There is one regime" of turbulent flow where the turbulent flow may be uneven. The material I have read doesn't make it clear if the flow is uneven long enough to move the ball in a visible way. Also, even this uneven flow is equalizes over a short period of time. The key is whether or not the turbulent flow is uneven for any length of time.

This unequal turbulent flow occurs when you hear the wind blow across wires and makes them vibrate. This usually happens at very high speeds. Not the speeds that a LP player returns balls at.

What I do know is that this uneven does equalize out over time according to the documentation I have read. The question is:
1; At what speed does this occur with a TT ball.
2. At what frequency does this occur.

I never said the COR is a constant. It usually drops as a function of impact speed with TT equipment because it isn't linear. This is documented in the Tieffenbacher document. The question is does the COR drop for the blade or the ball. If I read the Tieffenbacher document correctly the COR between a TT ball and a hard surface will drop as speed increases. This is because the ball dimples at higher speeds.

On another forum I said that if we want true specifications for rubbers we would need to have the tangential and normal COR as a function of impact velocity. The more consistent the COR is over different impact velocities the more "gears" the rubber has. Note, I hate the term gears because rubbers don't have gears. I would prefer the term more linear.

BTW, I thank the person that told the other forums what I thought of them. It is too bad your post got deleted so quickly.

 

[Pnachtwey]

The funniest thing about this is that if you asked Brett what the primary model for his forehand stroke is, he would tell you Chinese technique and would also tell you that when doing forehand looping, the golden elbow rule is less applicable.

In the end, it's easy to pretend that you know more than you do.

I know what my coach teaches me. Before I had a stroke that was too big that didn't play well close to the table and my timing was often wrong. It is much better now. Moving the elbow is OK when more power is required for a kill shot or when away from the table when there will be more time to react to the ball. Keeping the elbow still is not a hard and fast rule. It just keeps motion economical when close to the table.

So what do you know?
I just saw a video where Richard DeWitt hit a lot of balls to your FH but they were at your pocket so you missed. You could have just leaned to your left and used a FH stroke using your elbow but you screwed up too many FHs. DeWitt has a devious back hand that can hit balls anywhere at angles. You had to keep the balls deep and use more top spin at times. It was the only chance you had.
Even another forum member was critical of your play. However, to give you a break I do think Richard DeWitt's BH and ability to block with his FH at his pocket makes him like a stone wall. Also, you may know what to do but be unable to execute what you know due to your knees. There is a difference between what you know and ability to execute it.

 

[Pnachtwey]

@wturber, we have agreed on almost every topic in the past. However, we disagree here. Other sports don't have this made up and misleading terminology. OK, I am sure you can find one or two obscure sport kind of like TT.
When I pestered another forum about the definition of throw angle there was no consensus. People talk about high throw, long throw, short throw. etc. They should just talk about speed to spin ratio or normal to tangential COR. On yes, and that will vary depending on impact speed.

 

[Pnachtwey]

i have to disagree with OP.
so for example
in the most simple scientific way i can think.
power of a blade is a combination of energy lost as flex(hooke's law),

Hooke's law has nothing to do with energy loss. Look up mass spring and damper. It is the damper that lose energy. If the damping is linear the energy loss is proportional to the velocity.

I didn't read the rest.

 

[Pnachtwey]

the simple fact is unless you're a research scientist or a qualified phd in physical aerospace or aeronautical engineering i refuse to take your scientific statements as fact without appropriate proof, methodology sample size and statistics.

You make me laugh, so you would trust others that provide myths or opinions?
Who have you been listening to since you have been on any TT forum? Did you qualify them to make sure they had PhDs in physics, math, aerospace or something similar or do you just doubt me. Did you even try to find out my qualifications?

If you want facts start with the speed after impact formula that someone posted above.
The formula is correct. The COR does change based on impact speed because most things are not linear but they can be modeled.
Then look for the Tieffenbacher document on COR.
Then look for research that Rodney Cross did on spin.
Look of mass spring damper.
do a search on my name. Add control theory, motion or simulation.
No I am not going to waste my time googling it for you.

We, my company, do some research but mostly testing and production. I have done consulting for the FAA and Sandia. They have PhDs but they call me for doing the controls or simulations. I often have to tell them their design is not good and how to do it right.

 

[mahomedy13]

I know what my coach teaches me. Before I had a stroke that was too big that didn't play well close to the table and my timing was often wrong. It is much better now. Moving the elbow is OK when more power is required for a kill shot or when away from the table when there will be more time to react to the ball. Keeping the elbow still is not a hard and fast rule. It just keeps motion economical when close to the table.

So what do you know?
I just saw a video where Richard DeWitt hit a lot of balls to your FH but they were at your pocket so you missed. You could have just leaned to your left and used a FH stroke using your elbow but you screwed up too many FHs. DeWitt has a devious back hand that can hit balls anywhere at angles. You had to keep the balls deep and use more top spin at times. It was the only chance you had.
Even another forum member was critical of your play. However, to give you a break I do think Richard DeWitt's BH and ability to block with his FH at his pocket makes him like a stone wall. Also, you may know what to do but be unable to execute what you know due to your knees. There is a difference between what you know and ability to execute it.

Kill shot? So who dies?

 

[NextLevel]

I know what my coach teaches me. Before I had a stroke that was too big that didn't play well close to the table and my timing was often wrong. It is much better now. Moving the elbow is OK when more power is required for a kill shot or when away from the table when there will be more time to react to the ball. Keeping the elbow still is not a hard and fast rule. It just keeps motion economical when close to the table.

So what do you know?
I just saw a video where Richard DeWitt hit a lot of balls to your FH but they were at your pocket so you missed. You could have just leaned to your left and used a FH stroke using your elbow but you screwed up too many FHs. DeWitt has a devious back hand that can hit balls anywhere at angles. You had to keep the balls deep and use more top spin at times. It was the only chance you had.
Even another forum member was critical of your play. However, to give you a break I do think Richard DeWitt's BH and ability to block with his FH at his pocket makes him like a stone wall. Also, you may know what to do but be unable to execute what you know due to your knees. There is a difference between what you know and ability to execute it.

Richard Dewitt is a 2200+ player who has beaten a 2500+ player before. He has been playing serious table tennis since he was a child (he was once a part of a world record setting team for the longest rally).

I'm a 2000+ player who has been playing tournament table tennis for less than 4 years. I also coach semi-professionally and am one of the few adults that has made substantial improvement in my play in my area.

Hopefully, that puts into context the ridiculous point you are trying to make. Dewitt also does things with his equipment that make his game trickier but I won't get into that.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Rich Dewitt went to Sweden to train for a year in the early 1990s, around the time when Dave Fernandez went to Sweden to train. He may be out of shape but I think he has been as high as 2400.


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[Jay Turberville]

@wturber, we have agreed on almost every topic in the past. However, we disagree here. Other sports don't have this made up and misleading terminology. OK, I am sure you can find one or two obscure sport kind of like TT.
When I pestered another forum about the definition of throw angle there was no consensus. People talk about high throw, long throw, short throw. etc. They should just talk about speed to spin ratio or normal to tangential COR. On yes, and that will vary depending on impact speed.

<sarcasm> Yeah - and they should take a short course on physics and terminology before taking their first table tennis lesson as well. </sarcasm>

Other sports don't have the diversity in equipment used and effects from the equipment that table tennis has. That's really the main difference. But all of the sports I observe seem happy to embrace various forms of silliness on a regular basis. Table tennis is right at home other sports in their use/abuse of terms.


I frequently listen to sports radio on my drive to and from work. I hear a lot of nonsense there. I also watch a lot of tennis on TV and hear a lot of nonsense there as well - much of it surprising like some of the things you were complaining about. You don't have to look hard to find comments about strings giving spin or control or a racket adding power. If there was more variety in strings and rackets, there'd be even more nonsense. Courts are said to be "fast" or "slow" when they are in fact stationary. I don't need to look for obscure. I just listen to and watch ESPN. Terminology much like what you "myths" 1-5 are common in Tennis.

Corking a bat is illegal in baseball. But is there any proof that it provides an advantage? The tests on TV's Mythbusters show concluded that there is no advantage. And don't even get me started on the topic of sports "momentum" a term that is abused in pretty much all sports.


And how many pros have you seen wearing holographic bracelets to help their performance or using things like Kinesio tape - something that seems likely to be more placebo than anything. There is plenty of non-scientific baloney in all of the major sports I watch.

 

[Killerspintt]

Where is your evidence?
A 95gm viscaria will be faster than a 80 gm one due to the difference in mass. Obviously a soft paddle will be different from a hard one. That is taken in account by the COR.



Again where is your evidence? How does the mass affect the COR? If I keep increasing the mass how does it increase the COR? There is a limit to how high the COR will go. I would like to see your explanation.

The Teiffenbacher tests show COR does vary as a function of impact speed.
http://www.ittf.com/ittf_science/SSCenter/docs/199408014 - Tiefenbacher - Impact.pdf
I think most of the drop in the COR as a function of impact speed is caused by the different amounts of deformation of the TT ball.

I missed that, my evidence is experimentation of course, COR is an experimental value, not something you can "caluculate", just like the young module or friction coeficient, there is correlation between wood density and it's COR. I used to have up to 10 YEO, I made a static measure for various impact speeds ( ball thown at 1m, then 2m, you can evalute the impact speed with 1/2gt² to find t and then calculate gt to have the approximative speed ), the denser the wood (since all blades had same composition, same tickness and shape), the higher the COR.

But I know, 10 is not enough and is not a statistical valulable sample, but its better than nothing.

To be done correctly (the evidence you are asking for), yeah it requires far more sample, enough to approximate COR as a random variable :

- take about 1000 of YEO of given weight (for example 84-85gr), do expérimentations, then we have to use the law of large numbers and normal distribution to evaluate the standard deviation of the COR and the average COR, we call the average COR, CORa.

- Then we have to do it again for an other given weight, for example we take again 1000 YEO of 92-93gr), redo the experimentations, evaluate the average COR and standard deviation again, we call the average COR, CORb.

- and only then, and if there is more than 3% differences between average CORa and CORb, we can consider that wood density as impact on the COR, and only for only one given blade : the YEO.

Do you understand why asking for "evidence" here makes no sense ? Because here is the path to provide the evidence, and I won't do that for anyone and certainly not for someone assuming the COR remains unchaged with wood density.


But, anyways, assuming that the COR is unchanged while the wood density changes, your entire point............makes no sense at all, and if you have made some scientifics studies, you should know it. But if COR remains unchanged, man, you deserve Nobel of physics.

 

[NextLevel]

<sarcasm> Yeah - and they should take a short course on physics and terminology before taking their first table tennis lesson as well. </sarcasm>

Other sports don't have the diversity in equipment used and effects from the equipment that table tennis has. That's really the main difference. But all of the sports I observe seem happy to embrace various forms of silliness on a regular basis. Table tennis is right at home other sports in their use/abuse of terms.


I frequently listen to sports radio on my drive to and from work. I hear a lot of nonsense there. I also watch a lot of tennis on TV and hear a lot of nonsense there as well - much of it surprising like some of the things you were complaining about. You don't have to look hard to find comments about strings giving spin or control or a racket adding power. If there was more variety in strings and rackets, there'd be even more nonsense. Courts are said to be "fast" or "slow" when they are in fact stationary. I don't need to look for obscure. I just listen to and watch ESPN. Terminology much like what you "myths" 1-5 are common in Tennis.

Corking a bat is illegal in baseball. But is there any proof that it provides an advantage? The tests on TV's Mythbusters show concluded that there is no advantage. And don't even get me started on the topic of sports "momentum" a term that is abused in pretty much all sports.


And how many pros have you seen wearing holographic bracelets to help their performance or using things like Kinesio tape - something that seems likely to be more placebo than anything. There is plenty of non-scientific baloney in all of the major sports I watch.

Stan Wawrinka hits a more "powerful" and "heavier" ball than Novak Djokovic... (Tennis)

Luxilon strings give you more spin... (Tennis)

Tristan Thompson has a good "motor"... (basketball)

He doesn't play with enough "heart" (all sports)


Tom Brady preferred to play with slightly deflated balls, even though we all know now that he can play almost just as well without them. (NFL)

FIFA has resisted instant replay and almost had to have their hands twisted to implement simple goal-line technology. (Soccer)

We play a very technical sport that attracts many smart and intelligent people. Unfortunately, intelligent people can be asinine as well when they choose to be.