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Fh Swing Discovery |
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mjamja 
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Joined: 05/30/2009 Status: Offline Points: 2895 |
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 Topic: Fh Swing DiscoveryPosted: 01/12/2016 at 2:54pm |
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Through all my Fh counter shadowing and slow speed robot work I think I may have found a fundamental error in my swing. In comparing my video to instructional video, I noticed that I seemed to be turning my shoulders farther back than players in the instruction video even though the racket seemed to be in the same position. As I did a little experimentation I discovered that if I took my racket back a little bit with my arm as well as rotating with my hips I was in almost the exact same position as in the instructional videos. Also when I did this my forward swing also looked more like what I was seeing in the instructional videos. I noticed that I was a lot less stiff in my movement and that I started to get a little of that whip action that Brett Clarke talks about. As I experimented more, I noticed that when I tried to use just the hips to take the racket back, that the racket was lagging behind the elbow movement. This often resulted in my elbow moving more behind me and slightly upward than I really wanted. When I did use some arm movement there was not a lot of it. Of the approximately 90deg rotation backwards I would say 10-15 deg came from the arm movement and the rest from the hip rotation. It consisted of rotating the racket to the right while trying to keep the elbow basically motionless. I am thinking that I was so focused on using my hips for the entire swing that I was "locking up" my arm, shoulder, and upper body. This made me stiff and a little jerky. I also am starting to think that a hip only stroke lacks the adjustment and touch elements that you get with adding in a little of the finer motor movements of the arm. This results in hitting a string of good shots, but unexpectedly hitting a fairly bad shot when the ball depth, speed, or placement changes enough to require some stroke adjustment. I have been puzzled for a long time on why I can hit a fairly long string of counters and then miss one pretty badly for no apparent reason. Maybe this is part of the reason. I will be working to incorporate this slightl arm movement in my shadowing and robot practice for the next couple of sessions to see if my "discovery" is reality or illusion. Mark Edited by mjamja - 01/12/2016 at 4:46pm |
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Hopper
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Joined: 06/13/2012 Location: Netherlands Status: Offline Points: 55 |
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Posted: 01/13/2016 at 7:27am |
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Mjamja,
happy to hear, you're on the way to discover the unleashed force of Shadow Play. Beware you're still not there, since you talk about "found a fundamental error", where it should be "felt a fundamental error". From your videos, I agree about the "locking up" part of arm and shoulder. By means of the shadow play you'll gradually notice you will let go of these analysed and "thought thru" movements and execute the shot based on feeling, meaning a flow of force from feet, hiprotation and sling of the arm from the shoulder by means of a totally relaxed/flexible shoulder/upperarm. You are still talking about a deliberate arm movement but in time (by doing a lot of shadow play) you'll notice this upper arm movement will also become unconscious and unforced as a result of your body rotation. Just continue and you'll be surprised how much more subtle corrections you'll experience in the coming year(s). Have fun. Edited by Hopper - 01/13/2016 at 7:27am |
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Butterfly Timo Boll ALC
Donic Bluefire JP02 (2.0 - Forehand) Donic Bluefire JP02 (2.0 - Backhand) |
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jrscatman
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Posted: 01/13/2016 at 11:10am |
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Just make sure you remember all these things when a little bouncing white ball comes your way!
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Butterfly MPS
FH: Donic Acuda S1 BH: Palio CK531A OX |
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Hopper
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 4:04am |
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No worry, mjamja!
The enlightened ones know that the force will come upon them in the darkest moments of the match. |
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Butterfly Timo Boll ALC
Donic Bluefire JP02 (2.0 - Forehand) Donic Bluefire JP02 (2.0 - Backhand) |
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NextLevel
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Joined: 12/15/2011 Location: Somewhere Good Status: Offline Points: 14842 |
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 5:02am |
+1. Technical details make swings unnatural and ruin them. Given some of what Mark is doing, I am fairly unsurprised he ran into this problem in the first place. The whole swing has to become one natural motion. Too much time decoupling elements of the swing into details makes the swing unnatural. If you have a complete natural motion but you want to start fixing very specific elements of it, that works, but the result must be a new natural motion. Otherwise, it will breakdown and the body will revert to something that comes naturally. |
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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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vanjr
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Joined: 08/19/2004 Location: Corpus Christi Status: Offline Points: 1368 |
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 8:12am |
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I am much, much more a see the forest guy than see the trees than mjamja. Sometimes he seems almost to see the leaves type rather than see the tree. However when he sees something wrong with my stoke-and there is a lot wrong-he almost always has a single, simple thing to correct and it is almost always profoundly helpful. He has told me simple technics that I have never heard from any high level coach at any time in my life.
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heavyspin
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 8:20am |
Bingo!! Think of how much your arm moves relative to your hips. In your first week shadow strokes it was almost zero.
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Victor_the_cleaner
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 9:36am |
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mjamja,
i have to say i find your nonTT posts more interesting.
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NextLevel
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 9:39am |
Adult amateurs almost always have bad strokes so there is always something to correct. If he has corrected so many details, them maybe he never got to the heart of the problem. It's quite possible that all the problems have no relation other than being yours but that is unlikely. It's often better to learn a simple movement and start from scratch. |
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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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mjamja
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 1:40pm |
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I am an overly analytical person. I am often a victim of "analysis paralysis" in sporting activities. However, that is precisely the reason for doing the shadowing experiment. It should be a way to ingrain a swing technique to the point where I no longer have to think about any of the details. When I shadow I generally start out trying not to think of any details. When I stop and check the video and see something that I do not like, then I go back and shadow thinking about that detail. When doing this I try to only focus on correcting one item at a time. It is interesting that Hopper should mention starting to "feel" the stroke. Just in the last session, I actually felt something was not right and was able to change without having to go look at the video first. Hopefully, with continued shadowing the "thinking" part will start to diminish and the "feeling" part will just take over. Still, if past history is any indication, I will always be a person who needs to do lots of video review because my ability to "feel" is not that acute. Otherwise my strokes would not have reverted back to my old bad form as much as they did. Mark PS - Sorry that I am boring you Victor. I thought just watching my form in the videos would provide plenty of laughs. |
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Ringer84
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Joined: 04/12/2014 Location: West Virginia Status: Offline Points: 584 |
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 2:26pm |
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Whether or not to restrict the hip turn or turn the hips fully is a controversial topic in any sport that involves rotation. My current thinking is that there are ways to get a good whip effect even with a full hip turn. But heavyspin has a very powerful forehand topspin and he does not visualize it that way, so give the restricted hip turn a try and let us know how it goes Mark.
They've been debating this very issue in golf for probably 20 years now.
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USATT Rating: 1785
Timo Boll Spirit FH: Andro Rasant BH: Baracuda |
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mjamja
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 3:30pm |
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Ringer84, In my case it is much more about how the arm moves, than limiting hip rotation. The only reason I have a reduction in the hip rotation is that I am stopping the backswing when the racket arm is pointed straight out to the right. I could easily use the extra arm movement and the original amount of hip rotation and still hit a pretty standard counter. It would just be one with a little longer backswing. I am pretty sure than when I move on to the drive/loop strokes I will end up using both much more of a full hip turn and the small arm rotation movement. In the camp I took with Stellan Bengtsson, he made a point that the stroke length should increase as you moved away from the table. Based his other technical points, the only way to really lengthen the stroke is to do more hip rotation. So essentially he was saying that you use more hip rotation as you move away from the table. When I thought about this more I came to believe that there must be some benefits to generating more powerful shots with a longer swing, but close to the table the time pressure constraints override these benefits. My conclusion was that generating power with a longer swing allows for better adjustment to the balls speed and trajectory than using a short but very fast (explosive) swing to generate the same power. Getting back to the arm movement. The small rotation of the forearm outward actually brings the elbow very slightly in and forward. It helps lock the elbow into that Golden Point position that Brett talks about in one of the videos. What I found was that the early rotation of the forearm helped me keep from pulling the elbow backwards and upwards into a position that was distinctly different than I saw demonstrated in videos and resulted in excessive closure of the blade angle. I believe most people just naturally make this movement. However, because I tend to be such a "literal" thinker, I heard "hit the ball with the hips and not the arm" and immediately tried to eliminate all the arm movement from the swing. If I had given more attention to what was being done instead of what was being said I might not have had this problem in the first place. Mark |
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benfb
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 3:49pm |
Not precisely true. You can also lengthen the weight transfer, leading to the longer stroke. Also, even though hip rotation is used to power the stroke, you can allow more shoulder follow through at the end of the stroke, which will also lengthen the stroke. You would do these things in addition to using more hip rotation.
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mjamja
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 3:57pm |
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Benfb, What do you mean by "lengthen the weight transfer"? You are certainly correct on the shoulder movement and a longer follow through making for a longer overall stroke. What I was referring to and the way Stellan demonstrated to us was a longer stroke to the backswing stopping point and then longer back to contact, but with the same stopping point for the follow through. I should have been more specific in what I was describing. Mark
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Ringer84
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 4:05pm |
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mjamja,
You can take a pretty long backswing without rotating the hips at all. Lock your pelvis in place and rotate from the shoulders only. You will feel incredibly wound up like a coil and you should be able to get the racket all the way back behind you. Are you making any differentiation between hip rotation and shoulder rotation? Also, I highly doubt that heavyspin is asking you to consciously take your arm back farther by thinking about moving the arm only. It is difficult to consciously control the arm without tensing the arm - relaxation implies a loss of conscious control in my opinion. I believe he is asking you to lock your hips more in place and then use shoulder rotation to bring the racket back farther. Also, a longer backswing requires that you initiate your forward swing and begin the kinetic chain earlier. So I'm a little confused as to why you think a longer backswing makes adjusting to the trajectory of different balls easier.
Edited by Ringer84 - 01/14/2016 at 4:09pm |
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USATT Rating: 1785
Timo Boll Spirit FH: Andro Rasant BH: Baracuda |
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APW46
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 4:10pm |
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When analyzing and incorporating text book technique intricacies into your game, its important to consider your age because whatever the current technique cutting edge fashion may be, its almost certainly directed at the ability of youth to perfect it through repetition.
The amount of repetition you will need to gain a noticeable advantage will be more than you can reasonably attain if you are older without getting a repetitive strain type injury. I get more success result wise with older players by teaching other aspects of TT, as long as the players technique is consistent and fulfills the basic requirements. |
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The Older I get, The better I was.
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mjamja
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 5:00pm |
1. Shoulder vs Hip Rotation If I stand straight up, point my arms straight out in front of me, lock my pelvis and turn my shoulders my arms only rotate about 60deg. I can not even get the right arm to point 90 degree out to the right (backswing stop for a counter) much less get the racket behind me. I am rather famous for my lack of flexibility. When I assume the modern ready position with a significant forward lean other issues come up between shoulder rotation and hip rotation. With that forward lean the shoulder rotation is in a different plane than the hip rotation. Shoulder rotation moves the racket significantly upward and only a little backward. I think this is something I do not want. The hip rotation moves the racket outward (to the right) and back along a horizontal plan. I think this is the movement I want. So currently I am trying to use hip rotation only and no shoulder rotation. If I pull my arm back using just the upper arm I can get the racket well behind me. This is a one arm only movement. I was thinking of shoulder rotation as a movement that had to move both arms together. I try to avoid this because of what Stellan coached about keeping the elbow at a fixed location relative to your body. Maybe I have the wrong idea about what shoulder rotation really is. 2. The point about thinking was not directed to heavyspin. It was to jrscatman and nextlevel who both commented about problems with "thinking". 3. Adjusting with a longer swing First let me say that this is not a strongly held, fact based conclusion. More like an inference. a) I know that I can hit a ball just as hard with a short stroke as I do with a long stroke (within the range of speed that I normally use when hitting from off the table). b) Stellan's coaching and what I see of better players indicates that a longer stroke should be taken away from the table. c) Therefore there should be some advantage to using a longer stroke or else they would not change. If I can hit just as hard (as needed for a normal return) with a short stroke or a long stroke, generating ball speed is not the advantage. d) When I tried to think about other advantages the one that seemed most likely was adjusting to the ball. My thinking was that it is easier to make the adjustment changes in a smooth series of small changes while in motion than trying to make an adjustment, stop, make and adjustment, stop, make final swing. I am not even sure this is true, but it does fit in with some things I learned in tennis and baseball. e) I am perfectly open to any better explanation of why I want to use a longer swing when I move away from the table. Mark |
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benfb
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 5:02pm |
Weight transfer is starting with your weight more on your back foot, pushing off with that foot, and transferring your weight to your front foot. A longer weight transfer can be achieved by two mechanisms: you can spread your feet further apart, or you can start with more of your weight on your back foot and end with more of your weight on the front foot. Nobody does weight transfer by starting with all of their weight on the back foot or ending with all of their weight on the front foot; it wouldn't be practical. The weight transfer for most over 40 under 2200 amateurs is fairly small. They just put a little of their weight on the back foot and only move a little of it to the front foot. That makes it easier for them to maintain balance and recover more quickly. For off-the-table, just do more. You specifically said this was for the case where you move away from the table. So you have more time and need to generate more power. One of the lessons I use for our beginners is to have them imagine (or even try for real) heaving a heavy chair the length of the table. So if you now move back and you want to heave that chair twice the length of the table, you're going to need to load your back foot more and expel the chair with more follow through. I would have to ask Stellan, but I don't think he intended you to lengthen your stroke only by lengthening the backswing part of the stroke while stopping at the same forward end point. Wherever your swing ends, it had to decelerate to stop there. So if the end of your swing is the same for near-table and far-table strokes, you're going to have to cut off a lot of power on that far-table stroke. The point of a longer backswing is to building up more racket speed since you need more power far from the table. However, you still need to power the swing from your legs, so you don't want to swing behind your legs. And it's important to have a long follow through so that you don't brake your arm on the forward motion. In fact, I made a similar comment on your shadow counter-hit video. You stop your forward swing early, which means you really threw away most of your power before you even struck the ball.
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benfb
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 5:09pm |
It's true that a longer stroke will allow you to accomodate balls of varying speed and spin and I often employ a longer stroke for just that purpose. However, that's not why I do it for off-the-table counter-looping. I find something fundamentally wrong when you say that you can hit just as hard with short as long strokes. A longer stroke generally produces more power, as often used for more spin as for more speed. I'd infer from this that something is breaking down in your long strokes.
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mjamja
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 5:16pm |
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Benfb, Sounds like another case of where I completely have the theory wrong. Maybe I just am confused about what Stellan demonstrated. I am beginning to think that there is no point to this exercise. Everytime I think I understand something I find out I am wrong and half to start over. Mark
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benfb
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Posted: 01/14/2016 at 8:15pm |
A few points: 1) APW made a good point a few posts ago about working within your age. Generally speaking, you'll get more success if you work on the styles and techniques that suit you and your physical condition, instead of trying to conform to some ideal aimed at youths and professionals. I say as someone who does work all the time at pursuing that professional style of play. I know I would have more tournament success to work within my limitations (particularly my vision problems) but I have more fun with the professional style game, so that's what I do. 2) I made the point a long time ago that you really need to work with a professional coach. Get into another Stellan camp or find training with someone else (someone good, as in 2500+). Trying to figure it all out for yourself, even with help from your online friends, just isn't going to get you very far. 3) In one of your other threads, you mentioned that the game can get too fast for you. So look for ways to slow the game down. I have a couple of club mates who are good at blocking and use that to slow down the pace until they're ready to attack. And I have another friend who uses short pips of the forehand and long pips on the backhand, again with the purpose of slowing down the game. |
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jrscatman wrote: