UpSideDownCarl Looping In NYC's Chinatown

[ttmonster]

Thank you Shuki, I have gone deep purple here . But you are spot on people do like to drill with me

Your stroke looks just like another club member's stroke here. Do people consider you to be an awesome practice partner? I know his strokes are very pure and consistent so most people love playing or doing drills with him even though they may be a higher level.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

So sometimes, when you write as if doing certain things is no big deal, it helps to know what you actually play like. Because if you play really well, your attitude becomes more understandable and it can then be tied back to your comments and your comments will be taken more reasonably as being founded in a lack of coaching experience or maybe just a personality defect. But as it stands now, some of the things you say sometimes just sound like someone who thinks that all human beings are clones of himself.

I didn't want to quote the whole post because it is too long. But, this is a great post. Well thought out and expressed really well.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Swinging shallow is more common in bent arm looping techniques, but the main reason....

Something jogged my memory. When Edmund was working with me to fix my FH, the common consensus from a lot of people was that my stroke was too big. Part of what Damien was getting Edmund to do with me was focus on making my stroke shorter and more compact with more forearm snap and less shoulder and enough from my hips to provide the leverage for the power in the shot.

In looking at the footage with the ball, when I am farther back most of my followthroughs are higher. When I am closer to the table and taking the ball on the rise my stroke is much more compact and not finishing as high. Personally, I think that is okay. Part of what Damien was talking about back then was having the stroke complete from the forearm so recovery would be faster. Because part of my problem back then was recovery time. Probably I could still be a lot faster at recovery. But I can change why I am doing the shadow drills to anything else I want at this point.

But the truth of the matter is, I have not practiced those in a few months because of the other stuff I am dealing with that has been forcing me to play so much less TT than I used to. But this morning I had intended to do them and have someone record that stuff for the footwork cross training thread. And then I saw the comments about me not doing real footwork and walking to the ball which is silly stuff. So I figured those videos would fit in here as well. Also, it should be noted that I just had a friend who was at the gym after I taught my first class, film while I went from one thing to another. I asked her to just make short clips about 12-15 seconds long as if they were for emailing. I just kept going and she just filmed and stopped and filmed and stopped and caught whatever she caught. You can sort of tell that from the ladder drills and the lateral sprints I posted in the footwork cross training thread too.

 

[ttmonster]

The stuff here is brilliant ! The best breakdown of forehand technique I have personally read !!

Swinging shallow is more common in bent arm looping techniques, but the main reason why you want to avoid it as part of your core technique is that it in addition to providing less leverage and reducing proper topspin lift/arc on your strokes, it often takes the swing off the line of sight with the ball too early in the swing path unless you train regularly, making you more susceptible to missing tricky balls. Larger swing paths to the forehead or straight forward are akin to lines and while the human body is biologically circular, most TT strokes are supposed to be lines (with a few exceptions). Those strokes make quick recovery relatively harder because the elbow is further from the body.

In any case, a shallow stroke deviates form line of sight with the ball early. That said, people like Timo Boll and Mizutani can get away with it because of their forearm and wrist action and everyone does it in a pinch on easy balls they cannot move to so I would be the last person to make the rule sacrosanct, moreso given my level (that said, I got the advice from high level coaches, with one of them giving me the logic). I just try to avoid putting it into my base strokes or shadow strokes and recommend that people avoid it too as that was the biggest technical fix I made to my forehand that improved my confidence using it.

 

[NextLevel]

Something jogged my memory. When Edmund was working with me to fix my FH, the common consensus from a lot of people was that my stroke was too big. Part of what Damien was getting Edmund to do with me was focus on making my stroke shorter and more compact with more forearm snap and less shoulder and enough from my hips to provide the leverage for the power in the shot.

In looking at the footage with the ball, when I am farther back most of my followthroughs are higher. When I am closer to the table and taking the ball on the rise my stroke is much more compact and not finishing as high. Personally, I think that is okay. Part of what Damien was talking about back then was having the stroke complete from the forearm so recovery would be faster. Because part of my problem back then was recovery time. Probably I could still be a lot faster at recovery. But I can change why I am doing the shadow drills to anything else I want at this point.

I can see that. When I first started, my stroke was mostly like yours and it was the biggest thing that Brett wanted me to change. When I stepped back, it was cleaner and towards the forehead like yours, but when I came closer to the table, I came across the body, again like you. Brett kinda put his foot down in his ever so gentle manner and said that it had to go towards the forehead every time. He understands the tradeoffs, but if I understand him, believes that bent arms just have a problem generating real power vs. really slow and easy balls. But in any case, finishing across the body on anything but easy balls hurts consistency because of the line of sight issue and offering the ball as much exposure to the bat. But again, this is something where people can reasonably disagree. You have a much lower stance than I do and can likely get away with things that I cannot.

 

[NextLevel]

The stuff here is brilliant ! The best breakdown of forehand technique I have personally read !!

Thank Brett - I am just a shameless plagiarist.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

But when the ball is there, I don't see myself crossing my body. And most of them finish up even though some finish low and forward. Isn't that right. So what I am doing in the shadow strokes is not actually what I do when the ball is there. Although the body movement is related. It is also still a bit different. And my stance is actually more open in the shadow drills than in the footage with the actual ball.

 

[NextLevel]

But when the ball is there, I don't see myself crossing my body. And most of them finish up even though some finish low and forward. Isn't that right. So what I am doing in the shadow strokes is not actually what I do when the ball is there. Although the body movement is related. It is also still a bit different. And my stance is actually more open in the shadow drills than in the footage with the actual ball.

Then just shadow what you do with the actual ball. It will make it even better. Pros shadow the correct stroke after misses for a reason. Shadowing something other than what I think is the ideal form is not something I would recommend in good faith to anyone without a really good reason and I don't have one in your case.

 

[NextLevel]

What usually happens is that most people are afraid of hitting the ball long. That is what drives the shallow swing. But with practice reading and adapting to the ball, it goes away. You have to start your strokes higher vs topspin and slightly lower vs backspin. IT's when most people play the first loop vs a backspin ball and then play a loop vs a topspin ball/block that they swing shallow because they start from too low a height. But if you practice it enough, you stop doing it and the height adjustments become automatic. This is where a twiddler can be extremely helpful or a multiball feed.

 

[Archosaurus]

@ttmonster

Your stroke looks alright to me, and it seems the person next to you is also playing with a similar stroke, so I assume you have got it drilled in by a coach. It's not exactly beautiful IMO but the execution looks good, if you know what I mean.

@NextLevel

Woah, calm down, Dickens.

I read it, and I suppose I understand the point being presented. I guess I should find/force someone to just do serve -> loop drills with me and get it on camera. It didn't suddenly become easy when I said that, though, so it might take some time.

I'd comment on your post, but there's quite a lot to talk about. Do tell me more about that "CNT fanboy" coach, though, because I certainly have my own "CNT bias". Perhaps I am making some of the same mistakes he has.

 

[ttmonster]

I don't care about your sense of beauty because like they say Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder ..

The person next to me is around USATT 600 who had just started training at that point , my level was around USATT 1700 in California south bay , which is closer to 2000 in some other states in the United States

The guy who is holding the camera is the US Men's team national coach , who was in the German national team for years, came up in the same generation as Timo Boll and played Bundesliga first division, played in the same team as Ma Wenge , etc. The guy who is blocking the ball is 6 times world champion and coached the US Men's National team to its first international gold in the World Team cup. ... and I consider myself very fortunate and proud of what they have taught me in whatever time I was able to train with them , because its practically tough to afford such good coaches over longer periods of time and also probably does not make sense for an adult who is going to be an enthusiast at best for the rest of his life. But pretty much all of them were very satisfied with my stroke and form and complimented on the amount of spin I could generate , which used to surprise a lot of higher rated player.

This was to practically illustrate what Shuki had told you earlier , what NextLevel has been telling you and what has gets under Carl's skin .... now that pretty much all of us showed you a video of us playing, given you some background information and told you references of who has coached us , corrected our mistakes etc.
Why don't you post one video and illustrate the points you have been making so far ...

@ttmonster

Your stroke looks alright to me, and it seems the person next to you is also playing with a similar stroke, so I assume you have got it drilled in by a coach. It's not exactly beautiful IMO but the execution looks good, if you know what I mean.

@NextLevel

Woah, calm down, Dickens.

I read it, and I suppose I understand the point being presented. I guess I should find/force someone to just do serve -> loop drills with me and get it on camera. It didn't suddenly become easy when I said that, though, so it might take some time.

I'd comment on your post, but there's quite a lot to talk about. Do tell me more about that "CNT fanboy" coach, though, because I certainly have my own "CNT bias". Perhaps I am making some of the same mistakes he has.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I am going to break this down to show where you are going wrong Archo:

@ttmonster

Your stroke looks alright to me, and it seems the person next to you is also playing with a similar stroke, so I assume you have got it drilled in by a coach. It's not exactly beautiful IMO but the execution looks good, if you know what I mean.

If you can't see the difference in level between the guy next to ttmonster and ttmonster, something is seriously wrong. The other guy takes half strokes has a different stroke each time, sometimes he punches into the ball instead of pulling through the ball. And if you watch his connecting FH to BH, he simply can't do it and on the switch he ends up doing a BH punch because he has turned way too late. To compare the two as the same shows you are missing some key issues in your analysis.

You were talking about details of the feet with my stroke. You were talking about the depth of my stroke. Do you not see anything in his stroke? Oh yeah, that is right, you only actually have noticed stuff after other people pointed things out, then you jumped on what they said and added things that often didn't make much sense.

And as far as "it's not exactly beautiful" comment, here is where you really go wrong so consistently. You need to learn how to NOT insult people. Especially when the insult means nothing and is completely besides the point of the technique he is using.

@NextLevel

Woah, calm down, Dickens.

You still don't get how many times you have been rude about stupid things that made you look like you didn't know what you were talking about. In light of how many people have told you you need to post video of yourself and how many offhand insults about other people's technique you have made, I don't think it is NextLevel who should calm down. You should open your eyes and realize how you sound and what your behavior indicates. "Woah, calm down, Dickens." "It's not exactly beautiful IMO...." People could interpret these responses as trolling based on other comments.

I read it, and I suppose I understand the point being presented. I guess I should find/force someone to just do serve -> loop drills with me and get it on camera. It didn't suddenly become easy when I said that, though, so it might take some time.

Here is how a mature human being would have answered after the first or second time you were asked to post video and the reasons WERE EXPLAINED: "Oh, okay, I get it. Thanks. It may be hard for me to find a way to get video footage. But I will do my best to work that out and post as soon as I can." Which is very different than how you just said what you said and it is only after say, 15 times that people explained in detail why YOU SHOULD PRESENT VIDEO.

I'd comment on your post, but there's quite a lot to talk about.

A backhanded insult with no content. Even if that is not how you meant it, that is how it comes across based on your stubbornness on the subject.

Do tell me more about that "CNT fanboy" coach, though, because I certainly have my own "CNT bias". Perhaps I am making some of the same mistakes he has.

Perhaps there is an admission of some mistakes that have been made hidden in here. But NextLevel was clear that in all the critiques by the coach you are calling a "CNT fanboy", he includes video footage of what he is talking about so his meaning is clear.

Sorry dude, I know you feel you are being put on the line. But you don't realize how easily you insult people as though it was okay. "It's not exactly beautiful" after, "Your stroke looks alright to me," I think you need to find a copy of this book:

How to Win Friends and Influence People
by Dale Carnegie

And see if you can figure out where you are going wrong with how you communicate with people in this written format. It will actually have real information on many places where you are going wrong over and over again. It sounds dumb. But it is actually a great book and it could actually help you in ways you would never even realize.

"Your stroke looks alright to me": you couldn't think of anything good to say so you said something vanilla "it looks alright."

"It's not exactly beautiful": but you really felt you needed to have something bad to say even if the something bad doesn't actually mean anything based on the context of the comment.

You didn't notice anything about his feet? His moving in and out? His connecting from FH to BH. The spin and arc on the ball. The snap on his forearm? His balance while moving? How relaxed he is? How about the depth of his stroke?

"Your stroke looks alright....It's not exactly beautiful". Wow. You really do have pretty perceptive skills of observation going on here. You have demonstrated them so well. Thanks.

 

[Archosaurus]

Carl, I'm not going to read your post. I stopped at the point where you failed to differentiate "similar stroke" and "stroke of same quality and consistency".

What I meant is that it is very likely that the two players have been influenced by the same people (Perhaps the far lower rated player had taken some pointers from ttmonster) and maybe even trained by the same coach.

There's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge difference in the actual stroke quality and ttmonster has his shot obviously down well compared to the other fellow, who looks like a very new player.

Of course, now you're just going to say that "Aha! You only know that now when I said so!" and we're going to get nowhere.

 

[ttmonster]

Carl, I'm not going to read your post. I stopped at the point where you failed to differentiate "similar stroke" and "stroke of same quality and consistency".

This is exactly the problem with your thinking, looking at somebody playing and suggesting improvement points is not just about comparing the form of stroke with Ma Long's forehand, there is a lot more to it , the key word being empathy.
And I am not saying this because Carl and Shuki said some good things about me, I will be the first one to acknowledge any deficiencies in my game and I mostly make friends with people who can critique my game and give me pointers to improve instead of who give me flowery complements, about how I look like a 2100 player in practice doing my fancy loop drives off somebody who is passively blocking it. I would rather have somebody tell me , you are going too much forward with your backhand and consistently putting it down the line making it predictable, or you should slow down your serve so that you can get in position better and implement your stroke form better during game play.

You should carefully read what Carl has said, you should carefully read what Next Level and Shuki has said, get your ego out of the way and then tell us what you think we can improve, if after getting your ego out of the way you still have anything left to contribute.

Don't say that that your shot is not "beautiful" because that at best is a purely personal feeling , a lot of people find Nadal's forehand more beautiful than Federer's , does not mean they are wrong, neither are the people who think otherwise . And I might think that the place you inhabit in your mind is not a beautiful one and I would abhor living in similar conditions , but then that is just "me" saying ... does not help me .. definitely does not help you

 

[Archosaurus]

Jesus. I just have a preference for longer, more open strokes, and find very few more closed and bent arm strokes aesthetically pleasing. It doesn't make them any worse inherently, just because they don't suit my particular aesthetic.


I don't understand the fuss.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Jesus. I just have a preference for longer, more open strokes, and find very few more closed and bent arm strokes aesthetically pleasing. It doesn't make them any worse inherently, just because they don't suit my particular aesthetic.


I don't understand the fuss.

See, here is the actual problem in nutshell.

Your comment "It isn't exactly beautiful" from a functional and technical standpoint means nothing. It does not explain anything useful to ttmonster. But IT IS AN INSULT!!!

And you can't see what all the fuss is when it has actually been explained over and over what the fuss is. And your response continues to be a psychological state of denial.

And yet, when it is explained for the umpteenth time, your response was: "Woah, calm down, Dickens."

If you got it the first 15-20 times there wouldn't a long detailed explanation. In fact there wouldn't be so many long, detailed explanations.

But given the nature of your insulting comments "I don't understand all the fuss" is really just more trolling.

See if you can have a look at your comments and see what all the fuss actually is.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[NextLevel]

@NextLevel

Woah, calm down, Dickens.

I read it, and I suppose I understand the point being presented. I guess I should find/force someone to just do serve -> loop drills with me and get it on camera. It didn't suddenly become easy when I said that, though, so it might take some time.

I'd comment on your post, but there's quite a lot to talk about. Do tell me more about that "CNT fanboy" coach, though, because I certainly have my own "CNT bias". Perhaps I am making some of the same mistakes he has.

I actually prefer to be called Paul, as in St Paul, rather than Dickens, but it's okay. Epistles are not common these days. But I am writing a lot in an attempt to get through to you, to be honest. I like to write, but I can see when someone has personality traits that I am familiar with partly as a result of having some of them and I am just trying to say a few things that I hope might be corroborated by later experience if your mind has been opened to it.

I never called anyone a "CNT fanboy" , but your posting terminology does show that you have long been a lurker reading TT websites, so you have probably read his posts. He is a fairly popular poster but I tend not to name posters when speaking about them personally unless they have sufficiently connected their personal lives to their posts. I'm still sometimes a little surprised when someone calls me by my real nickname on the internet though I am getting used to it on ooakforum.

I don't think anyone is making "mistakes". Moreover, my view is influenced by the coaches I have worked with and is biased towards amateur play, especially adult amateur play, not professional play. I might very well have come to different conclusions if I had healthy knees, had no RA or had managed it better etc. I might also have come to a different view had I stayed with my first coach, who was a higher rated player with some unconventional effective serves/strokes and a modern defensive style, but had no clue how to quickly and competently develop an intermediate to high level attacking player. Left to my own resources, trying to figure out the elements of good play by watching video, I might easily have become someone like you or my CNT friend.

But I have played enough tournaments and worked hard enough on my game to at least say something reasonable about it. And my bias shines through my advice and some people sometimes see and note my biases just by knowing how my game evolved or how I play. I tell adults trying to get better to either work with a coach who got better as an adult or who has experience improving adults for these reasons. ttmonster will have his biases having worked with the WCTTA, Carl will have his biases based on his coaches, Der_Echte having played in the Korean system for a while etc. So it is important to be a little upfront about who we are so we aren't speaking past each other.

TT can be an extremely physical sport. But when you get coached by a player who was notorious for not bending his knees or not moving around unless forced and who was rumored to have been play at a USATT 2250 level outside of tournaments for a while, you learn a lot of things that make you rethink the amateur sport. My coach always says that people who emphasize footwork for beginners are wasting their time. His own focus was on having weapons for hitting the ball properly and winning points. To paraphrase him, you can move to the ball as fast or as balanced as you can, but if you don't have the right stroke, it won't matter. I can see where his view might be questionable if you are trying to develop a truly elite player. And *might* is the key word. But I also know that focusing on strokes and set plays in the first 5 strokes of a point/rally took me much further than many adults who worked diligently with coaches who gave them generic games. My game was built largely to play points, not to develop perfect technique, though technique was obviously a part of it. My technical education came later partly after working with Brett. You could think of my main coach, Gerald Reid, as largely JIT coaching suffused with lots of technical correction and strategic thinking. The way I liked to put it was that he took whatever you had and tried to make it better, and was okay with it as long as it checked certain boxes that he had in mind.

The problem with trying to look at things like CNT videos is that you get no serious idea of how the player evolved. All you are seeing are largely finished products, full of corrections and modifications that you may not always be able to distinguish from the core technique. Also, many of these players are top athletes and have built their bodies to play that way. They are also the end products of a highly competitive selection process which puts you through hours of daily training and tosses you out if you get broken by the process. You may not be able to do some of the things they do without the same kind of physical training and gifts and it is not always clear what you can and cannot do. This is where coaching is helpful as a coach can benchmark where you are relative to where he thinks you should be and thereby manage the growth process. But I have seen people spend years trying to copy a specific technical forehand when they would easily be great players with a generic forehand. No one can seriously tell me whether Ma Long would be a better or worse player if forced to use Timo Boll's technique over the same period of time with more training. You can have an answer, but it would be likely unconvincing because we don't know the athletic or equipment component of these issues. Just as you study the Ma Longs, Zhang Jikes and Wang Liqins, take some time to study the Niwas, Crisans, Kreangas, Karakasevics and Platonovs. There are lessons in all these players about what it takes to play TT at a high level that give you a fuller picture.

In any case, TT is fun to play and fun to discuss. Even if I didn't play tournaments anymore, I would still go to the club and work on my forehand and my backhand and my serves. I just like doing it now. But I hope I have given you an insight into why bias matters in TT. It doesn't mean you are wrong. It doesn't mean that objectivity is not possible in TT. It just means that the matters can be so practically complicated that knowing your background matters.

 

[Archosaurus]

@NextLevel

I understand.

Well, you can at least feel content knowing that I don't think I'm some kind of professional, elite athlete, nor do I expect anyone else to be. The subjective experience for said elite athletes must be so different from our subjective experiences that it's really not worth trying to imitate the performance, at least without the same quality and quantity of training. Some talent helps too, I guess.

I did not begin playing at an age where learning new concepts and bodily movements would be difficult compared to how a younger person would learn them, so I do have to admit that I do not know how hard it is to get to, say, 2000 USATT as an adult who started playing later in their life. Probably, the effort is commendable.

Personally, I'm not exactly trying to imitate top athletes because I understand I will injure myself playing like that, and I have.

I do believe that I can get some credit for doing the proper daily physical training and adjusting my strokes to the point where I do not get injured anymore, and I do not strain to produce racket speed with the right timing.

The experience of performing said strokes is so drastically different from the experience I had long ago when I was imitating top level strokes under the impression I had of them, that I believe I've more so developed a working stroke for myself, not a bad imitation of a technique that is not well understood.

I would love to work with a competent coach to hear what they have to say and to see things I don't see right now. However, I have developed a working system with my strokes that I can perform accordingly to my level and I'm fairly happy about that achievement.

 

[NextLevel]

@NextLevel

I understand.

Well, you can at least feel content knowing that I don't think I'm some kind of professional, elite athlete, nor do I expect anyone else to be. The subjective experience for said elite athletes must be so different from our subjective experiences that it's really not worth trying to imitate the performance, at least without the same quality and quantity of training. Some talent helps too, I guess.

I did not begin playing at an age where learning new concepts and bodily movements would be difficult compared to how a younger person would learn them, so I do have to admit that I do not know how hard it is to get to, say, 2000 USATT as an adult who started playing later in their life. Probably, the effort is commendable.

Personally, I'm not exactly trying to imitate top athletes because I understand I will injure myself playing like that, and I have.

I do believe that I can get some credit for doing the proper daily physical training and adjusting my strokes to the point where I do not get injured anymore, and I do not strain to produce racket speed with the right timing.

The experience of performing said strokes is so drastically different from the experience I had long ago when I was imitating top level strokes under the impression I had of them, that I believe I've more so developed a working stroke for myself, not a bad imitation of a technique that is not well understood.

I would love to work with a competent coach to hear what they have to say and to see things I don't see right now. However, I have developed a working system with my strokes that I can perform accordingly to my level and I'm fairly happy about that achievement.

Read this thread. It's a great example of how someone's self-awareness gets awakened by criticism and online coaching. In my time giving online advice and helping people improve their games, I have seen many of these. And very often, there is often a disconnect between what the person thinks he is doing and what they are actually doing. It shows up in my personal coaching a lot too.

http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=74409&KW=&PID=921279&title=backhand-loop-feedback

So the problem is not so much whether you are right or wrong, but that you are asking us to take your own self-awareness as sufficient despite all the experience people who have trained at this sport have with failing to do what they think they are doing. Hmm... maybe this guy is just too low rated but I could find you many examples of such issues in higher rated players who have at least discussed them. In the end, there is nothing like video. I could discuss mine where I started noticing that my arm was swinging by itself with almost zero core rotation even when I thought I still had some... these are things that only constant video review will continue to show.

I improved more rapidly than many juniors, but I can't say the first time I saw a ball was when I was 34 - I hit balls when I was much younger - I just lacked formal training in anything like spinning etc. Ultimately, the only way to genuinely get good at helping people is to do the hard work of understanding them. It can be a natural gift for empathy, or an evolved one, but there has to be one. Otherwise, it will largely come across as recommendations that show little understanding or acceptance for where the person is before figuring out where the person needs to go to

 

[Archosaurus]

I understand the point you're trying to make.

I consider my shot quite solid for my level, because it's at least sound in it's execution and consistent in how I perform with it, barring some ball reading and timing issues when dealing with difficult shots, that I am working on. Still, my body is not doing exactly what I envision it doing, and I am working on that.

We're not talking about being completely blind to some aspects, but more so not being completely aware of the rapidness and order of muscle activation, order of axis rotation, coordinating the entire body etc.

The movement is not as fluid as I would like, and I am not 100% aware of what every part of my body is doing: sometimes I move the arm a bit too soon, sometimes the hips too soon, sometimes I lean a degree or two too little or too much etc. and to me it is all unfavourable because the movement is not what I am always intending.

I am sure it will go away with time if I keep working on it and constantly analyzing and sensing what my body is doing, but I do understand that I'm not the only one with quite large faults.