Which Fundamentals to prioritize?

[schrodingerskoalabear]

Hello everyone!

First off, it's been great being of the community; I am continuing to learn new things despite my advancing years.

I came back to table tennis a few months ago after a 10+ year hiatus. I used to be one of those "basement champions" so clearly, I am having to re-learn a lot of the basics. For example, during the last 3 months, I have been training (games + drilling occasionally) purely on FH loop shots based on the kind of spin/length + associated footwork.

I am tracking progress through video + feedback sheet (see below). I can do a lot of them pretty at an okay level but I know really getting good at 60% of these even will probably take 5 years.

I have some questions for everyone here based on what I have mapped in advance:

1. Based on the sheet I have below (removed my notes), am I missing any fundamentals/main parts, that y'all think are really important?
   
   
2. What would you prioritize in terms of skill? Which broad categories which would drill after FH (my own plan is to over-index serve/receive next)?

Looking forward to feedback!

 

[turbozed]

Here are some things I didn't imagine needed dedicated training but that I figured out I was poor at and needed to improve:

1. Footwork preparation for serve receive. From BH side, small lean step to FH side, then step in for short push or slight hop back for long serves.
2. High lob smashes. These aren't easy if you don't train them often.
3. Rhythm breakers. Specifically when the pace of a rally is broken by a slower floaty ball. Requires a step in and adjusting timing as to not hit too early (in which case it'll go into the net).

#3 was so noticeably a weakness that I've started to use it as a tactic to win points in rallies. Works against people that like to play fast.

 

[schrodingerskoalabear]

Here are some things I didn't imagine needed dedicated training but that I figured out I was poor at and needed to improve:

1. Footwork preparation for serve receive. From BH side, small lean step to FH side, then step in for short push or slight hop back for long serves.
2. High lob smashes. These aren't easy if you don't train them often.
3. Rhythm breakers. Specifically when the pace of a rally is broken by a slower floaty ball. Requires a step in and adjusting timing as to not hit too early (in which case it'll go into the net).

#3 was so noticeably a weakness that I've started to use it as a tactic to win points in rallies. Works against people that like to play fast.

This is great. Thank you.

Serve/serve receive related, I was just reviewing my footage from my last play session and I saw the difference that a "serve recovery step" made for me in terms of finishing off third ball attacks. I need to note this (as well as the one you made) in terms of adding to drills/shadow practice/game practice.

 

[z0uLess]

I have been playing for three years and I would say that having the right footwork is pretty important, but be mindful of how getting the details right never will compensate for the ability to be flexible in terms of what your opponent is doing and being impulsive in the moment. Its a good ability to be methodical, but be careful of not getting trapped in the spreadsheets -- you have to be able to switch that mindset off when its time to perform on matchday.

I would say that this dichotomy between detail oriented drilling and in-the-moment-reactions is the core of how to improve in table tennis. In a way, this is the most fundamental thing I can think of, albeit a bit abstract. You have to keep balancing these two aspects of the game -- doing wrong, but winning; and doing right, but losing.

What I am saying is that you can focus on the footwork (the chronology of the movement of your feet relative to the movement of the ball) for a long period, years or months, but then you have to not focus on it for a while to make it automatic muscle memory. Then you can focus on, lets say, hitting thinly and building up kinetic energy with your body which is transferred into the ball. Every now and then, you can focus on your grip depending on if you are backhand or forehand dominant and the small adjustments of the grip during matchplay, or your ability to have a loose grip and pressure with the right fingers while hitting the ball.

That being said (edit), I asked a professional tennis player what he saw in my game as my main fundamental to improve upon and his reply was that my main weakness was understanding the position of the ball in space. As I have not played any racket sports before, I have a solid grasp of the fundamentals in table tennis (swing, footwork, grip etc.), but I still have a large weakness in being able to predict the ball movement in the air ... which is something players coming from other ball sports have a big advantage in. Do you guys know a "hack" to improve your ball feeling faster (preferrably something that will not tire out your legs so you can do it more on the side of regular training)? I recently taught myself juggling to see if this will help. I also do speed rubiks cube to maintain flexibility in fingers.

Another fundamental that I dont think most players think about is something I would like to call "eyework". In the same way as footwork, you have to consciously decide to switch your focal point during gameplay with your pupils (the expanding and contracting opening in the iris of the eye). The higher frequency of switching focal point in your perception, the higher level you will be, is my contention.

 

[Zezima]

My question would be how would we correctly asses how good we are now so we can compare lets say 3 Months from now on if we got any better or not? Is there a good way? I think only multiball would make it count from the same player and counting the mistakes out of 10 balls lets say or is there a better way? Because if players are involved then their quality of ball and form would affect my mistakes in some ways aswell. Really hard to measure it.

 

[Yuomay]

My question would be how would we correctly asses how good we are now so we can compare lets say 3 Months from now on if we got any better or not? Is there a good way? I think only multiball would make it count from the same player and counting the mistakes out of 10 balls lets say or is there a better way? Because if players are involved then their quality of ball and form would affect my mistakes in some ways aswell. Really hard to measure it.

Most of these would be testable with an advanced robot.

Serving with placement and height restrictions.

For exemple you do 50 balls and for every missed ball you substract 1 point from a total.


As for your priorities, I would recommend you to film a few matches, preferably rated close matches, and analyse which techniques (2 maybe 3 at most) make you win most points. I would focus on these techniques first and most (like every time you're in the training hall).

Second would be techniques that make you lose points, either work them or find alternative solutions.

 

[z0uLess]

There should be only one way to measure your level and thats your ability to beat other players. If you feel that there are areas of your game that made you lose games, you just have to trust the process and work on those areas. Dont measure them separately, I say. If you are motivated to beat players that have beaten you before, this should be plenty of motivation to keep doing multiball work and customized drills for your perceived weakness.

 

[schrodingerskoalabear]

I have been playing for three years and I would say that having the right footwork is pretty important, but be mindful of how getting the details right never will compensate for the ability to be flexible in terms of what your opponent is doing and being impulsive in the moment. Its a good ability to be methodical, but be careful of not getting trapped in the spreadsheets -- you have to be able to switch that mindset off when its time to perform on matchday.

I would say that this dichotomy between detail oriented drilling and in-the-moment-reactions is the core of how to improve in table tennis. In a way, this is the most fundamental thing I can think of, albeit a bit abstract. You have to keep balancing these two aspects of the game -- doing wrong, but winning; and doing right, but losing.

What I am saying is that you can focus on the footwork (the chronology of the movement of your feet relative to the movement of the ball) for a long period, years or months, but then you have to not focus on it for a while to make it automatic muscle memory. Then you can focus on, lets say, hitting thinly and building up kinetic energy with your body which is transferred into the ball. Every now and then, you can focus on your grip depending on if you are backhand or forehand dominant and the small adjustments of the grip during matchplay, or your ability to have a loose grip and pressure with the right fingers while hitting the ball.

That being said (edit), I asked a professional tennis player what he saw in my game as my main fundamental to improve upon and his reply was that my main weakness was understanding the position of the ball in space. As I have not played any racket sports before, I have a solid grasp of the fundamentals in table tennis (swing, footwork, grip etc.), but I still have a large weakness in being able to predict the ball movement in the air ... which is something players coming from other ball sports have a big advantage in. Do you guys know a "hack" to improve your ball feeling faster (preferrably something that will not tire out your legs so you can do it more on the side of regular training)? I recently taught myself juggling to see if this will help. I also do speed rubiks cube to maintain flexibility in fingers.

Another fundamental that I dont think most players think about is something I would like to call "eyework". In the same way as footwork, you have to consciously decide to switch your focal point during gameplay with your pupils (the expanding and contracting opening in the iris of the eye). The higher frequency of switching focal point in your perception, the higher level you will be, is my contention.

100% with most of your comment. Thanks for taking the time to type it out.

I agree, balance is key and something I aspire to. I am very cognizant that there is a distance between this spreadsheet/breakdown of skills and the in-game experience and are essentially two different realms. For me, the spreadsheet helps me isolate recognizable mechanical skills and improve upon them. When the game starts, I keep it simple and hope that the muscle memory will kick in. This is where video-taping really helps give me feedback on what I am doing (and help others give me feedback too). This feedback-based learning process has been very good for my Forehand in the last couple of months. I have seriously felt my shot and form get better (and easier) against all kinds of balls I used to have trouble against.

Regarding eye work btw, I don't know if this even works yet but for the last couple of weeks, when warming up, I have been rolling my eyes and moving them up/down/laterally a few times. Just anecdotally, when I do this, I find myself more diligently (a) tracking the ball onto my racket and (b) instantly watching opponent/their racket instead of ball watching. I always did wonder why Harimoto's head moved so fast when he hit his FH; it all makes sense now!

 

[schrodingerskoalabear]

There should be only one way to measure your level and thats your ability to beat other players. If you feel that there are areas of your game that made you lose games, you just have to trust the process and work on those areas. Dont measure them separately, I say. If you are motivated to beat players that have beaten you before, this should be plenty of motivation to keep doing multiball work and customized drills for your perceived weakness.

Exactly. The current assessment number is a very subjective, for-me number. The way I know my FH has become better due to drills/shadow practice/games is:
(a) consistency in FH opening up on backspin has increased greatly
(b) consistency in FH hitting high backspin balls has increased as well
(c) FH shot recovery in matches is up and finally most importantly for me
(d) hitting FH against different topspin/backspin length feels so much more effortless than say 2 months ago

 

[Zezima]

I can only talk for myself when I say this:
Measuring by x Balls/misses for a certain stroke is useless and not worth wasting energy on. Training should be here to hit hard to hit slow and just overall experimenting and getting a feel for the ball. Adding extra pressure with these X Balls/misses is not plausible to me for making progress.

As someone above said League games beating the same player you lost too.. Well thats one way but for example I play the same player 2x a year and only maybe (depending on how you set up yourself since its 4vs4) so it takes a long while.

What I do for now is I look at my ranking points graph and see if its going up (or is a line) or if its just going down...
Progress is not linear up so keep that in mind. I was RC-Rated 1200 for almost 2 years and now recently made a sudden peak to almost 1500. This means I am atleast making some kind of progress.

For short term it´s about understanding why the ball went out or into the net. Eventually you will correct your stroke do it for atleast 10more minutes and go for the next Drill rinse and repeat. All I need is that in the training I teach my subconsious that I can do that particular stroke on that particular ball. So in Games I can be like dude you know how its done so just be confident and do it even after some misses. And if in Games the confidence goes down real quick that just means that I didn´t build enough confidence in training for that stroke so I will keep training it if thats something I want to use more often in games.

I wonder if I am the only one thinking like this? What are your thoughts?

 

[latej]

It can also be you start playing in a higher league, and the ranking won't go up, or slow down, or go down, for a while, even though you are still improving. Like you are biting, but not getting over the threshold, for the whole season...

Regarding motivation, yes, beating players is good, but it's not enough. I mean if this was the only source of motivation, I'd not be playing by now... I need to hit the ball, feel the body and everything, with time feel the improvement... On the other hand, just that is also not enough, the match season is badly needed too... Reality check.

 

[Zezima]

It can also be you start playing in a higher league, and the ranking won't go up, or slow down, or go down, for a while, even though you are still improving. Like you are biting, but not getting over the threshold, for the whole season...

Regarding motivation, yes, beating players is good, but it's not enough. I mean if this was the only source of motivation, I'd not be playing by now... I need to hit the ball, feel the body and everything, with time feel the improvement... On the other hand, just that is also not enough, the match season is badly needed too... Reality check.

Exactly what happened to me. Went from 2nd League to First (50% winrate in this) and then went one more up to best county League and could only win 20% of the games so my Rating was kind of the same for the entire season. Now back to the 1st League and currently going 10-2 so much much higher than the 50% I had back then.

Regarding motivation I also agree with you. That feeling when you hit a good Topspin stroke is like a dopamine hit you keep chasing. I had many games that I lost but enjoyed a lot because there were some really good rallys. I didn´t mind the score. Remember one of you have to "lose" but as long as you had fun and learned something you both technically won.

 

[Jan_]

Find and join a club. There you'll progress as you play. You can't master anything in any way by "focusing" on it, the sport doesn't work that way. You learn the techniques as you progress and you practice them in exercises. Eventually you'll be able to put them to use in match play.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

1. Footwork
2. FH & BH drive
3. FH & BH open-up
4. FH & BH pushes
5. FH & BH block.
That's all to it folks.

 

[_ak]

doesn't make sense to have that many serves in the list. In the end many of them produce similar balls, your job is to recognise it

 

[PhilT]

@schrodingerskoalabear: Where are the strawberry flick, chop block, fishing, and under-table snake shot? 🙂

I agree with @_ak that your list is a bit too long and could benefit from being organized by importance to make tracking progress easier.

I followed a structured skill progression list and improved from a beginner to an advanced level (around USATT 1800) in less than two years. You can check it out here if you think it might help:

https://laddera.com/help-improve#skills_progression

In my experience, many beginner and intermediate players don’t spend enough time on their push technique. It’s crucial in match play—try counting how often you use a push versus a power loop during a game. The push may seem simple, but achieving a quality push requires significant practice.

Totally agree with @z0uLess on the importance of footwork.

 

[blahness]

My question would be how would we correctly asses how good we are now so we can compare lets say 3 Months from now on if we got any better or not? Is there a good way? I think only multiball would make it count from the same player and counting the mistakes out of 10 balls lets say or is there a better way? Because if players are involved then their quality of ball and form would affect my mistakes in some ways aswell. Really hard to measure it.

I would say you can check your technique against the 7 different spin types (pendulum sideunder, sidetop, reverse pendulum sideunder, sidetop, heavy backspin, no spin, topspin). If you are not up to 70-80% success rates if you know the incoming spin, you havent really mastered it.

Each stroke has an adjustment for all the 7 types of spin (for eg chiquita, push, loop, sideswipe, flick).

 

[pingpongpaddy]

Re eyework, there are 2 things to focus on: the ball and yr opponent. At some points in the rally they are close together
but at other times they are far apart. My first coach told me:- when the ball is going towards yr opponent look at him but be conscious of the ball with peripheral, then when ball is coming back to you, focus on the ball but be aware also of your opponent and his balance.
I think processing this info is vital for success