Hi guys,
today i will post a few videos which i will remove again after i got the feedback in here.
Since i have had my fair share of training with a proper trainer i think i do have a pretty good understanding of all the things i can work on and the list has more than 10 items definitely. What i am trying to get thoughts on are the low hanging fruits and a better prioritization of things to progress more easily.
Just imagine i would only have the ability to actively think of one or two things to improve on in a training match. Which would these be ?
This is really what is the most difficult for me, because if i try to remember everything inside a match i will probably not really focus on anything.
What i am currently mostly focussed on is actually using my backhand for anything other than pushing. Since i developed my strokes one by one, the backhand push is of course intuitively the thing i would resort to under pressure this this was the first thing i learned.
Please tell me what you think would be the fastest to get ingrained into my intuitive game, so i can progress past it to focuss on other things.
A short list of things to work on:
- footwork : when i get drawn into a push battle i step into the table with my right leg to get closer to the ball, but if the next ball is short as well (which it will most likely be), i will just plant my right foot forward and never return to the regular "ready" position. This will disable me from moving to the right properly and also make backhand strokes more likely, because i can't forehand loop like this.
- footwork : wide stance - i do think the wide stance i sometimes have is OK because i see high level player have a wide stance and just jump with two feed to the sides to get into position. senior players of some clubs will tell me "table tennis is the sport of the many little steps. get your feed closer together". These player do play with a narrower stance but they will also have a more straight/upward body, while i try to stay low to make it more natural to forehand loop half long balls.
- backhand loop against backspin - while i am able to loop underspin with the proper stroke inside multiball or robot training, when i am under pressure and inside the match i always resort to a more short and more sideswipe style motion. This makes consistency an issue because there is just a pretty small part of the stroke where i need to hit the ball to get a good shot out of it. In training i can do a good backhand loop of underspin while having a forward motion, but in the match it is always this clockwise round motion rotating my underarm clockwise around the elbow joint.
- smashes : simply put, i dont do them. Never learned them and i think it is pointless to learn it at this stage. The occasian where a very high ball get's played is not that often, so i would not benefit hugely from being able to smash high balls. Most of the time i let the ball fall until it is around the level of my shoulders and simply try to drive loop them. This works at 70% of the cases, but of course is not always the finisher. What i intuitively sometimes do is instead of attacking such odd balls, i do a tomahawk chop which often enough leads the opponent to missjudge the ball and hit the corner of the bat while trying to smash it or smash it wide, since the spin they expect on the ball is not present.
- backhand flick - did not train it enough, so i dont use it
- forhand flick - i only really do forehand flick serves that i know very well. So if i know the opponent has a short serve with not much underspin to my forhand, i will flick it.
- backhand push - i have the ability to play 3 types of backhand push. My default one is risky but quite successful at the low level i play. By default i try to impart more backspin with a hard chop motion. If i do this with a flat trajectory the power i put into the chop can make the ball go wide/over the table easily, so i chop them with a higher arc that baits the opponent into smashing them. 80% of the people i play against that try this end up with the ball being smashed into the net, because the expected a high push with no backspin. I can do the "little" backspin push/touch, but i don't see much value in it currently, since these are way easier to flip or attack. I know that if i get better opponents, i will have to adjust this, but right now it serves me well.
- serves - i know we talked about the topic of illegal serves and since i can not force people that do wrong serves for 50 years already to do proper ones, the only illegal thing i can counter with is throwing the ball a little to myself before hitting it. This does generate more spin and it's ok for me and my opponents (at least nobody ever complained).
- ball contact point - when i play a singles match i try to focuss mainly on staying low and hitting the ball high, but that really is not very intuitively to me. I would rather let the ball fall a bit and play with more spin than hitting it high and with more power. That is just what i am used to.
- blocks - i don't do them. Very rarely i trained to block, so these are not a part of my general game. If they happen intuitively, that is ok, if not then i don't worry too much yet.
- forehand loops : they are ok. There is improvement potential by using less upper arm/shoulder and more lower arm and wrist, but how i do it currently is sufficient to me.
- after-serve positioning : if i do a long serve i shall jump back a little, to be able to go into the ball when i loop it. This is not intuitive to me so i don't do it very often. In singles i do try to serve light backspin long into the opponents backhand to receive a long return that i can attack.
- grip : if i actively think about using a more "two finger" grip while looping, i do have a better consistency and spin while looping with fore hand, but i don't do it often. On the backhand i have way better consistency if i change my grip to have my thumb more in the middle of the blade face, but again this is not ingrained yet.
- ball positioning: while i do use positioning from time to time while pushing, when it comes to looping i just loop where it seems most convenient or intuitive to me, which is mostly diagonally. The only case where i loop down the line is when somebody serves long to my wide forehand.
This was a training session with a local club that plays in the first and second city league which is a league originally created out of company teams, so you had to be part of the company to play in it. This changed quite a while back so you can simply join the team of company XYZ even though you don't work for it. This is pretty much the lowest level of competition you can get into around here. The level is around the lowest two or three leagues in germany.
I am the one with the most hair on his head, black/dark green shirt and light blue butterfly shoes.
These are the matches i am showing you:
Matches are in 4K, but some of them will take some more processing time for youtube to offer them in 4k
Match against H: He has been playing table tennis in his youth and just came back to it. His age, knees and weight have been keeping him back, but he is slowly recovering and getting into form. He has decent (old) technique and is a quite consistent blocker.
Match against player W. He was playing in the first city league at spot 4 (of 4) in the past season and now has changed to playing in the second city league team at spot 1 (of 4). He is a very seasoned player and does mostly counter/drive and not loop (at least he does not loop underspin, but rather shovel the ball over). His serves to not have much spin which i do have more problems with than if they had greater spin (since i am used to receive more spinny serves). I am happy with him beating me 3:2. The most important to me is using the right strokes and try to attack. If i was going for the win i would definitely push more, but that would not really make me a better player, so i try stuff instead of doing the "secure" thing.
Doubles match with W against O and F:
W (tall, grey hair, black/blue cloth) is receiving serves in doubles with his forehand, but is adamant that he wants to step aside to the left and wants his partner to stand behind him on the right, which means as right hander i would start the ball on the far forhand. This i don't agree with, because i'd rather start in my backhand corner, than in my wide forehand corner.
O (white t-shirt) is playing at the first spot of his team in the first city league. He has huge reach and pretty good talent. He can play short and pretty much flip everything over the table. He is playing Rasanter R37 and even though you expect these to be pretty bounce, he has no problem putting the ball 10 cm behind the net with a touch. He has no trouble with any spin, but sometimes tries too fancy shots which will cost him more points than necessary.
F (light blue t-shirt) is more of a guy that tries to keep the ball inside the game countering/fishing the ball back onto the table and smashing from time to time. He plays at the 4th spot in the second city league team.
I don't play in any of the teams, since i don't want to get into the mode that i will play safe and ugly shots to win points instead of doing the right stroke at the right time.
Because you might have forgotten by the time you viewed the videos and read this post:
My question is what do you think i should focuss first on and what is the lowest hanging fruit that i can tackle (let's say in one or two month)? Bare in mind that i think i can think actively about improving one aspect of the game in matches, so what should i focuss on to get a "quick" win that will be learned fastest.
Feel free to comment on other things you noticed, perhaps there is something i did not notice yet and that would be put onto my list of things to improve
