Fred's Been Practicing

Wow! He got some real power! His forehand could probably use more of a body turn, but heck, He's doing awesome!

And who exactly is that kid?

Been following these vids since the first ones. Fred is doing great. It would be nice if he ends up really liking the sport and you are right not to push too much. I think a trophy or two might do the trick.

@Dauntless.

nice fh!
he also can push against underspin serves!
when will he start playing tourneys?

that forehand is quite powerful, i can see the confidence and commitment on that side. Wish i had a forehand XD

Very nice, and letting him do both sports isn't a bad thing, he's young, he'll improve at both at astounding rates regardless. Just keep doing what you're doing with him and I'm sure he'll turn out to be quite the player. Also, not to be intrusive in any way to your training with him or anything, but I think a good next step would be to get him used to recovering after unloading that forehand? He misses the return of that forehand a lot in that video. Not to be critical, he's doing great at his age, I just think it's more of a mental thing that is a good habit to be in and can be taught with simple reminders. Took me forever to get out of the habit of camping heavily on one side of the table and expecting shots to be returned to places or not be returned instead of always being ready :P. After that, he can start using that forehand successively, and I'm sure he'd get a thrill out of that.

he is going to need competition to fall in love with the game

very nice! do you do any backspin practice?

Don't worry man. It's natural that your boy will love football more than tt. You live in Englan right? Football is much more popular there, I'm very sure so there's nothing wrong with that ( I used to live there when I was small in London :D ). Now if you want to make him love table tennis, it's all up to you. Try to vary all the exercises ( I'm sure you are good at that ), sometimes teach him some cool things, do some '' magic '' and above all let him watch the pros, he'll get addicted to it just like us :)) But anyway, don't push him too hard right now, let him feel that training is also for fun, not just only to practice skills.

Good luck !

You mean as well as Farmville.

The backhand will get plenty of work in time, but I'm confident that he will eventually develop a great stroke on that side as it seems to be improving automatically on its own as he grows. Currently I still think it is quite difficult for him to get fully over the top of the ball on that side particularly when the ball bounces higher.

That is what it is all about unfortunately, and generally, the more boring, the greater the improvement to your game.

Juan King Carlo wrote: The backhand will get plenty of work in time, but I'm confident that he will eventually develop a great stroke on that side as it seems to be improving automatically on its own as he grows. Currently I still think it is quite difficult for him to get fully over the top of the ball on that side particularly when the ball bounces higher.

What you could do to speed up his backhand learning would be to have some type of platform for him to stand on so he's at a more comfortable height. As long as it's a good surface area and stable, he should be fine, and it doesn't seem like it needs to be too much in height anyhow. Then you could just multi-ball so he doesn't have to worry about moving around on it while you work on his backhand. I remember when my parents played with me around his age, I had to stand on something my dad made out of wood so I could fully get over the table :P.

I like the idea of having him practicing his backhand on a platform, or on a smaller table for developing the correct stroke, but he will be starting to compete more soon in local leagues and small tournaments, so he needs to have a backhand which he can use on a full size table.