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Advice on Backhand into Forehand |
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mickd 
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 Topic: Advice on Backhand into ForehandPosted: 09/12/2016 at 10:22pm |
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Hi guys. About 3 months ago I made a thread on my forehand topspin. I received a lot of really good advice.
This is the thread: The number one advice given was to use more forehand snap, and less shoulder. Recently I've been working on fixing that, and also lowing my center of gravity (and keeping it low). I also noticed in my previous videos that I would bob my body up between shots, making it harder to get the next ball. You can see that clearly in the thread linked above. Here is a video of a session I had recently. My biggest concern at the moment is that I feel like the way I use my legs is completely wrong. I feel like both my legs are rotating (you can clearly see it in the video at about 1:10), whereas when I watch the pros, their legs hardly rotate. Usually just one leg rotates, and their playing arm leg kind of stays in position. How much of an issue is this? And do you have any advice on how I could go about fixing it? Also, I noticed that my finish position was always right in front of my head. Should I be aiming to take the ball even earlier so that I can finish with my arm at least 20 cms or more in front of my head? Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you notice anything else, please feel free to comment :)
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NextLevel
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Posted: 09/12/2016 at 10:52pm |
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Looks fantastic to me. You seem to be over thinking this. I can't explain in detail now but I will get to it sometime hopefully.
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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mickd
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Posted: 09/13/2016 at 12:14pm |
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Thanks NL. I'm always looking to improve. And considering I'm still the worst player in many of the clubs I play at, I have a long way to go. Every little bit helps :)
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NextLevel
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Posted: 09/13/2016 at 4:33pm |
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Improving (especially short term) results is almost never about the things that people like to work on (loops). Improving (especially short term) results is first and foremost about fixing how you lose points by practicing those scenarios and coming up with solutions. The next aspect is improving your ability to introduce your weapons earlier and earlier in the point so you can play the first topspin or put your opponent on the defensive first with a good shot. Improving rally strokes is probably the slowest way to improve your results. Improving footwork can be a good way to improve your results if that specific movement is preventing you from introducing your weapons with frequency and power. But by itself, it does little. Improving your ability to see spin and return serves aggressively is probably the fastest way to improve your short term results at lower levels. It's just hard to do, though it is possible if you commit to developing the strokes to do it. Edited by NextLevel - 09/13/2016 at 4:34pm |
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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smackman
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Posted: 09/13/2016 at 5:07pm |
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looks great , you are just doing drills , Im not sure why you would do like the 3rd backhand from the forehand side, maybe better is to go to forehand rather than be on the wrong side of the table
Maybe on your 3rd forehand is you go random and not hit back to the controller (real game simulation)
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mjamja
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Posted: 09/13/2016 at 6:43pm |
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Mickd, From the video you do look really good. Certainly a lot better form than I have. So I concur that you may be too concerned with the perfect form if that limits your improvement in other areas such as NL mentioned. That said, one thing you might try is widening your stance. The wider the stance the more you are forced to rotate from the waist rather than with the legs. From the video it does seem that you are having to bend your knees an excessive amount to get down low for the ball (something you are doing excellently). If you widen the stance you should be able to get just as low with less knee bend and perhaps get more rotation at the waist and less with the legs. One thing I notice in my play is a strong tendency to narrow my stance after I move for a couple of balls. So start with a nice wide stance and try to keep it just as wide after moving for a couple of shots. This wider stance might make no difference, but it is something pretty simple to try. If it gets you more into the form you want great and if not you should not have to waste much time seeing if it does make a difference. Mark
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NextLevel
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Posted: 09/13/2016 at 7:14pm |
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MickD, What you are really concerned about is the power of your shots. But that really involve the use of the core and the whipping of the arm in a way that no one can quite teach you over the internet - you have to experiment and get the correct feeling yourself. If you learn to stroke the ball using the kind of whipping motion that Brett here is demonstrating when he talks about the forehand topspin (or any of his strokes), you may be surprised at how much more acceleration you get going into the ball and how much stronger your loop becomes. Your whip pattern from the wrist is maybe 50% - 90 % there - can't tell without being there in person. But the whip pattern from the core and shoulder is not even close. Slow down the video and copy every single element of the pattern he is describing and see how it influences your racket head speed and the feeling of your stroke being like a whip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooOY8AqK60c Even on your backhand, you aren't using a whip pattern. You are just waving your elbow back and forth. Whip patterns are one of the secrets of table tennis. If there is a secret sauce to racket head speed, that is the secret sauce. Some people just copy it without knowing why. But some have to be made aware of it or they never produce or improve it. So if you can decode what I am saying, maybe you might find the secret sauce you are looking for. |
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Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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balldance
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Posted: 09/14/2016 at 1:06am |
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hey mickd, you improved a great deal since last time, I was surprised.
regarding your concern about your legs, it's because you rotate your whole body (upper body + legs). On normal situations, the pros only rotate their upper body, not their legs. Just try that. Doing shadow drill first would help. Your current stance are already low enough but your upper body is too straight or even leaning backward. Try leaning your upper body a little forward to give you more balance. I also agree with NL about the whipping motion. Edited by balldance - 09/14/2016 at 1:08am |
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808ponger
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Posted: 09/14/2016 at 9:14am |
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Along with everything else that's been said try to stay on balls of your feet, bend at waist and lean forward a bit more and have a slight weight shift from left foot to right (for your forehand)
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mickd
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Posted: 09/14/2016 at 8:21pm |
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Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I really do appreciate it.
The main things I'm going to work on are: 1. Widening my stance a little (and keeping it wide). 2. Leaning forward more (this is something I've been meaning to work on for awhile now). 3. Staying on the balls of my feet more. In regards to number 3, I notice for a lot of my forehand strokes, during my backswing, for a fraction of a second, I seem to be standing on the back half of my feet (instead of the balls). I really don't like this, and it's something I want to fix. If anyone has any comments on this, it would be much appreciated! In regards to my backhand, I actually didn't have a backhand at all a few weeks ago. I used to do this weird thing where my racket angle would gradually open during my stroke, and finish perpendicular to the table. I've been working hard to try and have more of a closed racket angle at the end of the stroke, too. I still do look very stiff with it, and I'm currently thinking about how to improve it. I think having more of the whip that Brett talks about would greatly improve my backhand. @smackman I was during backhand only drills for about half an hour before this, and when I transitioned to this drill, I still wanted to work on my backhand movement. Most the time I tried to do at least 2 backhands before transitioning to forehands. That's why :) That said, I should practice transitioning to forehand the moment I get the chance. @Mark Thanks! @balldance Thanks! I've had less time than ever for practice, but I feel like I'm gradually improving again. Earlier this year I felt like I had hit a wall. @808ponger Thanks! @NL Thanks for the posts. I decided this week I'm going to spend a little more time on my 3rd ball. I completely agree with you about improving in the short term, but in general I'm looking for long term results. I used to play a lot, but recently I've been helping young students (13-14 year olds) improve 3 days a week, which leaves me with only 2 or so days a week to train. I have a question about the video you linked. I notice that as part of the total relaxation approach Brett uses, he has a lot of extension in his wrist during his backswing. I know it's not something he does consciously, but is a result of having a fully relaxed hand. What a lot of people teach around me is to have a relaxed hand, but to avoid using extension and flexion during a stroke. I generally encourage the same thing when I teach students. I'm not sure of the reasoning from the others, but my reasoning is that it adds one extra level of complication when it comes to timing the shot. If your wrist is still bent backwards, it makes it a lot harder hit the ball where you want to hit it. Sometimes it'll accidentally go down the line, sometimes you'll accidentally brush some sidespin on the ball, causing it to fall into the net. Is this just the difference between advanced levels of play, and play for beginners? I assume even with all that bend in the wrist, a better player would be able to time it right regardless? What do you think about this? Thanks.
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NextLevel
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Posted: 09/14/2016 at 8:52pm |
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IMO, and this is my opinion, for what it is worth, The reason why people (like you and many others) ask questions like this is because you are too concerned with doing things that put the ball on the table, rather than building the ideal form and letting the brain adjust with repetition and practice. It's not about bending the wrist backwards, it is about creating a whip pattern with the forearm that nets you snap into the ball at high speeds. It is a precise feeling that when you have it, you know it is very different from consciously using the wrist. It's the same thing when I teach serving - I show people a motion and rather than replicate it and apply it to the ball until the ball starts landing on the table, they get discouraged after they miss the ball twice and go back to their old motion. IT takes a coach who has an idea of how learning is founded in trial and error to continue to encourage good mistakes where the form is right but the ball does not land on the table. Because of the infatuation with the ball landing properly on the table, I often have to force students to miss the ball repeatedly until they start getting the ball on the table by making them do the stroke with the right form. Racket edges, missing the ball etc. Over time, the brain adjusts to all those things if you let it. The real issue is what kind of stroke you are left with if you decide to lock the wrist vs if you decide to let it do what it does naturally. None of it should be done too consciously. IF you try to swing a hammer at a nail, do you note how your wrist behaves? Or throw a ball? Or crack a whip? Then why should you note it so much when playing TT strokes? IF the ball does not behave the way you want it to behave, think quickly about how you have to hit the ball to make it behave the way you want it to. THen just do it. It will happen. It may not happen immediately, but if you got the right idea, it will happen soon enough. I repeat: it's not about bending the wrist backwards, it is about creating a whip pattern with the forearm that nets you snap into the ball at high speeds. It is a precise feeling that when you have it, you know it is very different from consciously using the wrist.
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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mickd
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 12:33am |
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Thanks for the follow up, NL.
I think if anything, I'm guilty of thinking too much about the ideal form, and not necessarily trying to get the ball on the table. I can't speak for others as to why they ask these questions, but for myself, I find that thinking about these things really helps me improve my game. A lot of it in hindsight is actually pretty obvious, but without conscientiously thinking about it at first, I wouldn't be able to eventually get it right. I think for people who have coaches, especially high level ones, repetition and practice becomes much more important. The coach would be able to direct them towards the ideal form. But for many people asking these type of questions, they probably don't have coaches, so if they just use repetition and practice to allow the brain to adjust, they're not likely to get there with the ideal form. I do agree with the whip analogy. Sometimes when I hit the ball, everything just feels right, and I end up hitting a very high quality ball. I'm just wondering how much lenience there is when it comes to achieving this effect. Maybe I'll just need to experiment with it myself, and see what I can come up with. Maybe some of the questions I have are starting to get a little too specific. I don't even think I could easily explain some of the things I want to ask in writing. As for the hammering a nail analogy, it's true. I don't think about how my arm behaves when I do those things. But I think a big difference there is that I'm not trying to be an expert at hammering nails, or stretching the limits to how far and fast I can throw a ball. For table tennis I am, so I think these small details start to become a lot more important. Every time I'm understanding more and more about the game and its mechanics. The whip effect is something that I got, but never really got from a practical point of view even half a year ago, so bear with me :) I'll get there! If you have anything, please feel free to add. I'm sure many other people are benefiting from these discussions as well.
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mjamja
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 12:58am |
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mickd, I believe that "staying" on the balls of your feet is somewhat overrated. "Getting up" on the balls of your feet before your opponent hits their shot is very important. Often your movement or even just the rotation from a normal stroke will require you to plant the whole foot (or even roll back on one heel) in order to keep your balance. That is not that bad if you can very quickly get back up on the balls of your feet so that you can be ready to move for the next ball. There is a "Chinese Footwork" series of videos on youtube. In those you can clearly see that the players are not always up on the balls of the foot. This is especially true just after big moves or big swings. However what they do is very quickly "hop" back up onto the balls before their opponent hits the ball. Staying up on the toes is good but sometimes it is not possible to do and stay balanced. However, getting back up on the toes very quickly is really important in order to be able to make your next move. Unfortunately in my case I start flat footed, rock back onto my heels on the first shot, and stay that way as if stuck in cement. Wish I had even 30% of your footwork. Keep up your good work. And congrats on taking the time to help out other new players. Mark
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avi3230
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 2:34am |
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@mickd
Hi ,, I am no expert to give advice as I am a advance beginner. As I am a lefty too I can tell one thing (which is my mistake too) When we tend to hit with forehand needing more power in stroke our right foot goes ahead of left. It comes too much ahead and if suddenly ball comes to backhand we get caught, as body comes in between so we cant get hand on backhand side in enough time. It results in less power in backhand( I miss the ball completely). So I feel we should try to keep that right foot in line with left and try to generate power in this stance only. Thank you. Please correct me if I am wrong.
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NextLevel
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 7:38am |
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Thinking about the ideal form without having a coach is often a wasted exercise. I have seen many people try this and even the best products of such work misconceive many aspects of technique and stroke production terribly. It is very hard to look at TT players and see whip mechanics.
Ultimately, this is what you have to do. The whip effect isn't all or nothing. USually, the closer you are to a motion that would snap a whip efficiently, the closer you are to an optimal TT stroke. The problem of course is controlling and timing it, but that comes with practice. But it is better to move in that direction and increase control over the whip and the efficiency of the whip with time than to be stuck with strokes that just pat the ball on the table, or which in the long term will leave you unable to generate significant amounts of power.
Yes, but you, if you are like most people, do those things pretty efficiently. More efficiently than you hit a TT ball. My point is that you complicate the motion by trying to do the TT motion more efficiently and end up tensing up and doing it more inefficiently.
It is a journey with no end in sight. Good luck with it.
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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Baal
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 9:27am |
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This has nothing directly to do with your footwork, but it is still related to it. Make sure you keep breathing throughout the rally. There is a ball you missed around the 1:20 mark, and I can't quite figure out why, except it seemed like you sort of ran out of gas. But why? You are young and fit and were able to immediately get the ball and do the next rally. A lot of the time that happens because people are not breathing properly. Once their body gets a bit anoxic, they miss. When you see guys like Ovtcharov (for example) making a lot of grunting noise when they do a drill like this it is because it forces an adequate breathing pattern.
Also, people tend to forget to breath when they are trying to make something too perfect. It is anti-zen, but that's what people do. As for the rest, your stroke is fine, it's probably even better when the camera is not running (at least that's true for most people, who tend to try to make things even more perfect when being taped, and so look stiff). You will rarely need to ever hit the ball much harder than that. What you need is to be able to do it very steadily even when there is some randomness thrown in and also be sure to work on that from multiple distances away from the table. People forget that. You have to be able move front and back as well as side to side. And short game, as NL says. |
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TTHOUSTON
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 10:51am |
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Very nice training Mickd, You was thinking right if you increase your power by as you said "Also, I noticed that my finish position was always right in front of my head. Should I be aiming to take the ball even earlier so that I can finish with my arm at least 20 cms or more in front of my head" With IMO, you have 2 options to increase the power AFTER your first loop: 1- After first loop you need return back your READY POSITION faster to loop second one with the ball in front of you as you said. 2- Option 2 is after your first loop step back a little bit then the ball return will be in front of you without change your rhythm. With this option you will see more spin in the ball and you can change location when you loop. I think option 2 is better than option 1 because I didn't see spin in the ball yet. Spin better than Speed and Spin will increase speed after the ball touch the table.
Edited by TTHOUSTON - 09/15/2016 at 10:59am |
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zeio
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 4:55pm |
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You gotta let your cosmos burn. Burn it to release the explosive force within your body. Let it burn, baby!
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Viscaria FL - 91g
+ Neo H3 2.15 Blk - 44.5g(55.3g uncut bare) + Hexer HD 2.1 Red - 49.3g(68.5g 〃 〃) = 184.8g |
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blahness
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 6:42pm |
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 That actually looked really good and much better than the last videos that you have posted. If you continue practicing like this you would start to become really good at rallies. I think you should have other areas of your game more in need of improvement now, like serving, serve receive, pushes, flicks, loops against underspin, serves -> opening loop combinations, tactics, placement, etc... You should work on them a bit more while you're doing some good work on your BH-FH transitions. |
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Viscaria FH: Hurricane 8-80 BH: D05 Back to normal shape bats :( |
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mickd
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Posted: 09/15/2016 at 11:01pm |
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Thanks everyone for the replies. One thing I forgot to mention was that I'm using Hurricane 3 Neo on my forehand. I'm not too sure if it matters, but the reason why I'm mentioning this is that I had someone tell me that I needed to drastically close my racket angle (basically have it parallel to the table), and brush the top of the ball, which I found nearly impossible to do. Hurricane 3 in my opinion requires a very very fast swing to get the ball over the net hitting it like that, so I defaulted to having a more open racket angle, and brushing diagonally across the top back of the ball.
Okay, back to the comments :) Thanks Mark. I actually forgot all about those videos. It was nice to watch them again. Man, they have such fast footwork. At the moment, the only time I conscientiously think about staying on the balls of my feet is when receiving serve. The rolling back on my heels I discovered was from me not keeping my weight forward. As long as I'm leaning forward (which is hard, because I have this problem where my body straightens up during a rally), I generally stay on the balls of my feet. @avi3230 Thanks for the reminder! Yeah, sometimes during a point I get a little carried away, and try to finish the point close to the table by standing more side on, and using more weight transfer. The problem is I'm lacking the correct mechanics to hit a powerful ball, and the ball often comes back. The rule generally seems to be to have your right foot up to 1 foot's length in front of your left foot. The closer you are to the table, the more straight on you should stand, and the further away from the table, the more side on. @NL Thank you, I understand more of what you mean now. Thanks for the PMs, too. I think I'm going to have to pick a day where I can practice myself with a robot, and work on the whip effect. When it comes to having a relaxed arm, I know I'm only half way there at the moment. I believe the reason why the top players in the clubs I go to are able to hit the ball so much faster is largely because of this. I spend a lot of effort on movement, but in the end, if I'm not able to hit any finishers, I won't be able to win any games. @Baal That's a really good point. I've actually never considered breathing at all when playing. I'm not sure if I was breathing or not during that rally, but if I wasn't it definitely would explain why for the last 3 shots I stopped moving. I was actually thinking about this as well, and the reason I came up with was I didn't move to the ball on the last shot. It was actually a little shorter than the previous balls. Here were the ball placements for the last 4 shots (where I stopped adjusting my position before hitting the ball). The red one was the last one I missed.  @TTHOUSTON Thanks! It's a little hard to see in the video, but because of the rubber I'm using the ball is quite spinny and slow. I agree, and I'll work on number 2 and see how it goes. Option 1 does seem like the cooler of the two, though! @zeio I have no idea what that means, haha. More sudden weight transfer at contact? Okay!! @blahness Thanks man. I started to do some free play drills yesterday. I really need to do more of those. The first 10 minutes sucked. I couldn't get anything on the table, hehe. I have a short video below. Okay, so usually it'll take me at least a month or two working on something to notice any improvement. Yesterday during practice I tried using a wider stance to see what would happen. Basically, it felt good. There were quite a few problems I'll need to work on though. First, if I served the ball, I was too slow to get into position, causing me to miss the return more often than I would have liked. Second, because I had a wider stance, I felt like my body was more straight than I would have liked (need to lean over more). I probably wasn't bending my knees as much as well. What I liked about it is that I felt like I had better forward weight transfer, and my legs didn't wobble around as much when hitting the ball. I couldn't really get many good rallies (without forgetting to widen my stance), so here's just one example (8 seconds). And here's an example of free play. This wasn't a match, so we're practicing various things. My main serve is the reverse pendulum serve, but I didn't really use it much during the video. It's all a little awkward. Although I do drills with this guy a lot, we rarely practice from serve. So both of us aren't really used to our serves yet. I really need more match play practice. Phew, that was a long post!
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zeio
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Posted: 09/16/2016 at 12:54am |
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Never mind it. That was a joke in reference to Saint Seiya.
I see some nice progress here as far as coordination goes. Your stroke is starting to take shape(the elbow could be extended some more), and it gives off the sense of acceleration before contact. The next step is to get the trunk to initiate the rotation of the upper body as opposed to rotation of the entire torso between the legs(which is why you notice your legs rotating). Because of that, the arm feels kind of disconnected from the trunk during the stroke, as your body subconsciously tries to compensate for the under-rotation. A video of Guo Yunpeng on the issue of rotating legs(or feet to be exact). Fast-forward to 1:14, particularly 1:42. Edited by zeio - 09/16/2016 at 1:51pm |
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Viscaria FL - 91g
+ Neo H3 2.15 Blk - 44.5g(55.3g uncut bare) + Hexer HD 2.1 Red - 49.3g(68.5g 〃 〃) = 184.8g |
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blahness
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Posted: 09/16/2016 at 6:36am |
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First thoughts: Your pendulum FH serve is much better than your BH serve imo (try standing with feet parallel when BH serving)... and given that you're playing against righties, serving that to their short FH is usually a very good strategy. It is much more flexible than the BH serve if you can serve both reverse pendulum and pendulum from a similar starting motion.
It's time for you to post a match :) |
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Viscaria FH: Hurricane 8-80 BH: D05 Back to normal shape bats :( |
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NextLevel
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Joined: 12/15/2011 Location: Somewhere Good Status: Offline Points: 14845 |
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Posted: 09/16/2016 at 10:00am |
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Here is a video for introducing whip into your serves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDeVY83yRC4
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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blahness
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Joined: 10/18/2009 Location: Melbourne Status: Offline Points: 5443 |
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Posted: 09/16/2016 at 6:17pm |
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If you really want to train the whip effect, I would recommend doing drills focused on looping backspin (preferably heavy ones). That should teach you how to push off from the legs (instead of rotating your feet like you are now). If you don't have the push off your feet the ball will just go into the net most of the time and you'll be terribly inconsistent. Looping backspin would also force you to loop with more spin as you cannot just borrow spin from the incoming ball, so you would start learning how to generate more hand speed via the "whip effect".
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Viscaria FH: Hurricane 8-80 BH: D05 Back to normal shape bats :( |
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mickd
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Joined: 04/27/2014 Location: Japan Status: Offline Points: 1231 |
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Posted: 09/18/2016 at 4:00pm |
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Thanks everyone. Sorry for the delayed reply. I've been really tired and busy recently. Teachers' work hours are bloody long in Japan.
Thanks zeio. I'll put some extra work into that. I've actually been told about that a few times during the last 2 years, but I never fully believed, or understood what they meant. I finally get it, and I'll work on that as well. One of my practice partners actually mentioned the same thing when I told him I didn't like the way my legs were moving. Thanks blahness. In an actual match I use my reverse pendulum, pendulum and backhand serves a lot. My reverse pendulum and my backhand serves have a lot of side spin, and is quite effective against many people. My reverse and regular pendulum serves have a very similar starting position, but the execution is quite different at the moment, so that's something I need to work on. They still achieve the results I want, though. I'll get a match posted soon. I should have time on Monday or Tuesday for match play. I don't think there are any players worse than me on those days, so whoever I verse, it should be a good match (of me getting my ass kicked). Receive, third ball attacks, and loop against underspin are all things I'm really weak at. I know those are some of the most important things to win in a match, but I rarely have time to practice them. I probably only play a few matches at most a week. I teach students from 4-6pm 3 days a week (a part of my job in Japan), and from 8-10pm 3 days a week (I really want my students to win, they are really weak compared to other schools). That leaves me up to 3 days a week to play from 8-10pm (if I'm not too tired, since I get off at work at about 6:30 every day). Recently I've only been playing once or twice a week at most for myself. I'm just too tired. Thanks NL. There is one guy I know who every now and then mentions to me how I'm lacking whip mechanics on my serves. He demonstrates it, but I can never quite get it right. So few people actually use good whip mechanics on their serves. And of course, they're all very high level players. The timing is a huge issue for me at the moment, but I know if I keep practicing, I'll eventually get there. When I do try it, I only make like one in every 5 serves. The quality of the serve is much better, though. @blahness I'll get the robot out and practice that. I really want to practice more with a robot, but I don't have a practice area that I can access whenever I want. And all the places I play, well, there are real people to play with.
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NextLevel
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Posted: 09/18/2016 at 5:07pm |
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Would need to see the actual serve, but the real issue again is that many people look at the failure rate and then give up - at least in your case, you can see the difference in quality of the successes but you need to see the difference in quality of the failures as well and let the spin in the good failures encourage you - with hours of practice (and the hours add up over time), it gets better as the brain sorts out the timing kinks if you let it or take it through a step by step process instead of just giving up. Whip mechanics can be notoriously hard to time if you do not have a history of attempting them and (even if you have that history) it can be a pain to see yourself missing so many serves in practice when you think you have this great serve that works for getting into the rally. I for some reason thought that I had a heavy backspin serve a year or two ago. When I started working on putting better whip mechanics into my serves, step by step, the level of player who repeatedly pushed my backspin serves into the net (both pendulum and plain backspin) started getting higher and higher. It wasn't just that the spin was heavier (it may not even have been), but it was that the motion that created the spin was really small and people kept on refusing to believe that there was spin on the serve. I also managed to sometimes get the ball to drop below net height after the first bounce on the opponent's side and whenever that happened, I knew that if the opponent did not take it off the bounce that I had a free point. Learning whip mechanics on serves teaches you a lot about strokes in general. The number of times I hear Brett write or say something like "I spend a lot of my time just trying to teach people to do that [a whip pattern]" on backhands or serves would surprise you.
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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mickd
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Posted: 09/19/2016 at 11:17am |
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I spend about an hour a week fiddling around with my serves, and most of that time is to improve my whip effect. I definitely haven't given up yet! That said, since I'm still working on it, I don't use them in competitions. When I get a chance, I'll post a video of me doing serve practice.
Here are 2 sets from a match I had today (the 3rd set was cut because my camera overheated). I've played this guy before, but the last time I played him was at least a few months ago. I've never beaten him. While I didn't take any sets off him, today was the closest I've ever gotten at 10-12, 9-11, 11-13. I did quite well in the first set since I was down 2-7. That said, I had a lead in the second set, but couldn't close it out. He started to change his serves up a lot, using this no spin punch? serve. In both the second (from 1:45 in the second set he does it a lot) and third set, he did it twice in a row and I didn't return any of them. He also did it at the end of the last set. I think if I could return that serve, I would be in a good position to win. A lot of the problems I currently have, and are working on come back during match play, but the training I've been doing recently must be helping, since I usually only take like 6-7 points off him. I'll also post a match with a higher level person tomorrow if I end up going to practice. Any comments appreciated. Edited by mickd - 09/19/2016 at 11:30am |
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balldance
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Posted: 09/19/2016 at 3:04pm |
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He has 2 punch serves:
- 2:21 in the first set: fast topspin, you can see he hit the upper part of the ball. Just drive it to his backhand. - 4:17 in the first set: fast serve with no spin or a little underspin, he hit the backside (and a little bottom) of the ball from above. With this serve, you have 2 basic options at your current level: + push it long with a closed bat angle (you can experiment to find a good angle). The key is trying to add some underspin to the ball instead of hitting/pushing it forward. + drive with a little topspin and a little upward motion. You have to do it fast enough, no hesitation, otherwise the ball will "hit" your bat instead of you hitting the ball. At the same time, don't rush, wait for the ball to come to the optimal zone, then hit it fast. Regarding overall play, I think you need to be more aggressive. You let him open the rallies most of the time, and while you earn a lot of points doing that, you rely too much on your defend and counter attack skill. You need to develop your own tactics/mindset to open the play and win points, for example, serve short underspin and attack the 3rd ball with a very spinny FH topspin (he doesn't seem good at returning spinny loop) or serve fast topspin (or no spin) and get ready for fast drive exchange, you are also pretty good at this. When returning serve, you can choose a more safe/passive approach, return the serve with a safest way, then get ready to defend and counter attack. You definitely have enough skills to beat this guy. Edited by balldance - 09/19/2016 at 3:07pm |
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NextLevel
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Posted: 09/19/2016 at 3:19pm |
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I think you said everything I wanted to say. The biggest thing I wanted to emphasize is that mickd is too young to be passing up chances to play the first topsin. It is okay to miss the first topspin and lose matches. Over time, that will change as your stroke and timing and read of the return improve. But if you pass up the opportunity to make the first topspin on a long ball, there are opponents you will never be able to beat if you are not on their level and you will always expose yourself to being beaten by much worse players with better passive games than yours. Attacking table tennis is risk and reward mediated by practice. It is not about consistency per se. |
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I like putting heavy topspin on the ball...
Cybershape Carbon FH/BH: H3P 41D. Lumberjack TT, not for lovers of beautiful strokes. No time to train... |
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mickd
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Posted: 09/19/2016 at 9:09pm |
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Thanks balldance and NL.
The serve at 2:21: I used to have a lot of trouble with those serves, but recently I've been able to react fast enough to get it back on the table. The serve at 4:17 was the problem serve for me. He used it at least twice in the second set, I didn't return any. I tried to return it using my backhand first, it dropped into the net. The second time I tried to push it back, and it went really short. The same thing happened in the 3rd set, too. Exact same pattern. Same 2 serves, and I tried to return it the same way with the same results. I think I just lack experience with it. It looks very returnable now, but in a match it's slightly different. Hopefully next time I have less trouble with it. At the start of the first set, I found he was attacking my returns too easily, so towards the end, and whenever I remembered in the second set, I tried to return the ball short and low, if I wasn't attacking. I think it helped because it forced him to push it back more, or miss his attacks. He also kept going deep into my backhand at the start of the first set. I tried too hard to use my forehand. I adjusted a little better to that later in the set. I've definitely always been too defensive, and I've been trying to become more aggressive. It's a work in progress, and compared to a year ago I'm a lot more aggressive, but still a long way to go before I'm at the stage I'd like to be. Thanks for the advice and confidence in me being more aggressive, guys. A year ago it was only a dream for me to beat this guy (along with many other people I have beaten recently). I remember losing like 11-2, 11-3 ish against him back then. I'm glad at least now I had to force him to change his serves. He never had to do that against me before. I also played his daughter, and won 3-1. She's only 12 though, but she's probably been playing since she was like 5 or 6. She uses short pimples on her forehand, which forces me to be more aggressive, since the ball drops if I just passively block. By the way, there was a local tournament in my city yesterday, too. I went to have a look. One of my club mates was playing (well many of them). He made it to the top 16. Pretty cool match against a very strong, old guy. I'll post it in the videos thread. Check it out :)
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