First official post on this forum.

Topspin balls are feeded by a robot, half table.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfl_T7tSD8M

Thank you for this detailed information!

Ringer84: Could you elaborate on this? Isn't it sufficient to rotate the body so the elbow is still visible to the opposing player? That's what our regional coaches preach when training young ones.

Also, you are hitting every shot cross-court. Good players aren't those who hit the hardest but those who are able to place their shots the best. When doing these robot drills work on placement to all parts of the table. 

Once you are getting better rotation on the ball I would work on incorporating some of the other improvements the forum members are suggesting. Good luck!

I'm happy that worked out fine!

I would like to thank all of you for the insightful comments and suggestions!

I will practice extending my arm before contact and post a new video when I think I grasped the concept.

One step at a time I suppose.

No, the whole body does not rotate equally... the upper body rotates more - in fact there is waist movement - you then snap back and this added waist movement heavily increases spin, control and allows more power with less force generated by the arm... so you can stay relaxed more... yes the lower body rotates too, but less than the upper body.... that is why there is hip rotation and waist movement

I'm not saying you're wrong, but the idea that upper body rotation (shoulder rotation) should exceed lower body rotation (hip rotation) is something that's debatable and not always clear. They were discussing the exact same thing in this http://thesandtrap.com/t/8176/hip-turn-vs-shoulder-turn" rel="nofollow - golf thread  here.  I think there's alot of advantages in making a full turn with the hips over the extra bit of torque created by over-rotating the shoulders, so I'm going to keep doing it  that way...

 So you are 29 years old, 

how do you go in competitions?

can you add more loop? or do you more loop in game situation?

what level are you in a leauge?

The main solution is to lower the paddle on the take back such that the paddle starts from a much lower point relative to the point of ball contact. 

Your grip is more similar to Timo Boll's grip so it should look more similar to his stroke mechanic in general. 

In the vid the main take away is where his paddle is at the end of the take back. Note that his paddle take back goes to a position beside and just behind his knee even while blocking topspin. For the under spin loop it goes even lower. 

 

This is all assuming the goal is more spin. 

Do you have a particular quality to the ball that you are trying to achieve?

My results are shown in the link below:

http://competitie.vttl.be/index.php?season=15&result=1&sel=4929

I transferred to my old club trying to get promotion to a higher league. That worked out after two years and now I'll be playing the same level I did for about 10 years (not including season 2012-2013).

In Belgium you have a "super" division followed by first and second league nationwide. I played second league for 10 years and first league for 1 year.

I can impart more spin on the ball, but only when there is sufficient time for a shot (say after a push).

When things go faster I tend to neglect spin (unintentionally) and play a faster, flatter stroke. This I would like to adress since I feel there is insufficient acceleration or spin. The stroke feels more like a reaction to what the opponent is doing rather than a stroke giving pressure to my opponent.

What I would like to achieve is more spin under pressure.

If someone plays fast I have a lot of difficulties producing a spinny loop. When there is more time to prepare for the shot (e.g. when opp pushes long or serve drifts long) it's easier.

No, if you rotate the whole body (upper and lower) equally...that is wrong... you are simply hopping from position A (frontal) to B 90 degree (for example - it could be 75 degree or whatever).... like this you are missing the point of the rotation....

a stroke is done by:

1) positioning (get there with your feet 1st)

2) once in position - Rotation back ( a bit of lower body , but MORE upper body - roughly a ration of 1:1.5 - therefore if you rotate legs at 45% (ideal), you rotate upper body at 60%) 

3) rotation forward (mostly upper body and a little lower body to get back into a neutral postion) to impart SPIN and controlled POWER 

4) arm movement (which would have started at stage two (preparation) but culminates here - with the actual stroke to hit the ball...

the reason for having higher upper body rotation than lower is that the lower is your PIVOT, the upper is your elastic power... you coil your body then release... if you are rotating the whole body equally you are just hopping from one position to another - SPIN and CONTROL suffer as you do not have this elastic kinetic energy

Since it is hard to tell, would you say that the shots you were hitting in the vid with the robot fed ball were spiny? Because if you are then I would say it's not your stroke mechanic but your positioning. You could be too close to the table, not transitioning fast enough after your serve etc.... Would probably need to see match play vid that highlighted your issues. 

Again, this is your opinion and by no means an established fact.  The science behind rotational power and momentum is very complicated and that's why even the most highly respected golf coaches in the world cannot seem to come to any definite conclusion.  Bubba Watson, who was the longest hitter on the 2014 PGA golf tour at about 320 yards a drive, and he would not subscribe to your theory of restricted hip turn to generate power:

Most of this is all over my head and I don't want to keep debating this with you because I already feel bad about hijacking the guys thread.  This topic pales in comparison to more important things like timing, a relaxed arm, proper arm movement, etc. anyways.
 

the video posted doesn't really address the problems I feel when spinning with FH.

I will try filiming a practice game against a better player to show what I mean

Things learnt:

-> relax arm more (it's possible I kinda froze because of the camera but certainly not to a large extent)

-> get elbow a bit further away from body

-> stretch arm more prior to hitting the ball

-> don't hop when playing the shot

When I think about it this last thing could be my main problem. Bodyweight goes up (and back) instead of forward. This is why when spinning in combination with "fast" (relative of course) movement my right leg is "burning" while my left isn't.

Anyway: thank you very much for this detailed information! 

It's nice to talk with other people about table tennis in such depth.

@Ringer84: You didn't hijack this thread . All you did was discuss one of the suggestions already stated.

Oh, I just noticed I posted this in the wrong subsection of the forum. Can a mod move the thread please?

Seriously? You look younger than 29 

Are you defining what it means to win a point? Or do you really think that is what table tennis is, who can hit the most shots in a row? Maybe true at the OPs level but at the higher levels if that is your mindset you won't be hitting more shots in a row than too many players. 

And that is how you stay at 1800 forever or whatever the OPs level is. That fh is 1850 tops. I sense the OP wants to improve and become as good as he can get. If you think he can reach his maximum potential with that fh you are surely mistaken. 

You need to always be looking to make adjustments, always tinkering with your shots to make them better. I don't care if you are number one in the world. I guarantee Ma Long isn't going to training everyday thinking "hmm my fh is good enough, I'll just keep it the same and not make any changes".  

I don't mean to be bashing other peoples advice. I think a lot of good thoughts have out on this thread and many people have given the OP solid advice for improving his fh. However, I don't want bad advice to outweigh the good. The quote highlighted in this post and my last post goes against everything I have learned as a player.

 

Are you the same guy who told Bruce Lee to shorten his punch to half inch .

No I read it. He suggested him adding other shots to his game and keeping that shot in the video the same just with different variations. I'm not criticizing anyone. Am I not allowed to point out things I disagree with?

Umm why not. It stuck out to me and I wanted the poster to elaborate on what he meant by it.

Thanks for the clarification. I agree improvements should be a step by step process. It is definitely something to build off of as a foundation.

And Nextlevel I like what you said about being a "good kind coach", it certainly opens up future discussion. Maybe that is not my style. In my experience the good coaches that actually care about you just focus on what you do poorly. They are not patting you on the back or complimenting you. Of course when you are able to make the adjustments they are suggesting, they say good to let you know that you have done so successfully. The other day a German coach at the academy I train at told me my reverse serve and my fast serve down the line are ok. I took that as a huge compliment. Of course I am sure even for these coaches it depends on the player. If you are the type that needs gratification to keep you going maybe they do so.

Sure but there is plenty of elaboration in the rest of his post.  His view is that speed is more important than spin and that if you can hit a shot that your opponent cannot return, that is more important than hitting a spinny consistent shot given the distance from which the shot is being taken and the nature of the incoming ball.  Therefore, he is not saying "rally to keep the ball on the table" - he is saying "hit a good shot so that it is unlikely to be returned".  He also said that if the OP is playing further off the table, then he would like to see more spin.

Well that wasn't made clear to me by his post. But speed is not more important than spin. Spin, placement, and variation all outweigh speed. There are so many 2300-2550 players that can rip that crap out of the ball. That doesn't make them elite or even competitive at the world level.

I don't agree with that. I am a private person. I have no interests in putting videos out on the web. I don't think I was not being kind. I was hoping to help the individual and add to the forum. However, if you or anyone else really wants to see a video of my technique, you can send me a PM and I will gladly send you back an unlisted youtube video of myself training (given that you will keep the video and information private). I'm a decent player in the US my rating is just over 2300 and my highest rating is right under 2350, although I feel I am playing at a higher level now after my training. My goal is to be a top player in the US so I have a long ways to go in terms of improvement. 

I don't think you should have to post your name or video for you to be taken seriously. You should be evaluated by the content of your posts. Given we know who you are do you think you are in a position to be acting the way you do? A serious question because from my limited time on this forum it does seem like you think you are the resident expert. And btw the aggressive manner in which you have acted towards me makes me not want to contribute to this forum. 

I post a lot and play a lot in North America, and yes, the fact that people know who I am places checks and constraints on what I do - they know my level so they can ignore me when I am saying nonsense.

At the very least, thanks for sharing your level so that people can evaluate your comments in that context because it helps.  If you know the level and background of the poster, it helps you put comments in the right context.  There is nothing wrong with being private other than that it places a bigger burden on you to treat other posters carefully since no one can call your bluff on anything you write and your criticism cannot be placed in proper context unless you provide accurate information about yourself otherwise.

The main reason I post is that many of the people who post here tend to be people who picked up the game as adults and never had formal training as children.  So many of them want to understand how they can improve their games despite not having had formal training, or despite having damaged knees etc.  That's where I contribute my experiences having worked at this game as an adult and not having played any serious table tennis as a child.  It's very different coming into this game as an adult vs. having had lots of training as a child.  Very often, unless a high-level player has trained a competent adult, he tends to minimize the challenges that adults face in getting better.

I personally do not find my aggression level any different from yours and if you want to criticize people who are making comments, go ahead.  It just helps to have an idea of where you are coming from.  My apologies for any discomfort caused.  BTW, some people here would love to have an 1850 forehand.  Just saying.

Who do you think I criticized? I disagreed with a section of advice that two people gave and then explained why. Do you see that as criticism? People can have their own opinion. The point of these forums is to encourage debate and discussion in a respectful manner. I  may have been opinionated but I don't think I have been disrespectful to anyone. And when I said he had an 1850 fh tops, it wasn't meant as criticism, or as a compliment. I said that because that's what I think.

I think if you have dealt with 1300-level engineers who like to pretend that their supposed understanding of physics qualifies them to speak intelligently about TT technique they do not possess, you will understand where I am coming from.  You are not one of them but it helps to be sure.  But I am done playing Voltron.  Baal will respond if he so chooses.  Cheers.

The second post I didn't take out of context either. He told the OP to not change anything with his fh and keep it as his "home base" and to instead and different variations which is something I completely disagree with. The OP should change a lot of things with his fh. He then posted again and said that he meant to say that the OP should make improvements step by step. That makes sense to me.

Played for 30 mins with a sparring partner practicing my loop from wide FH and middle table. Special attention was paid to more stretch of the elbow before contact.

Now my shoulder and triceps are pretty sore.

I guess I never really used them before in table tennis.

One step at a time... First tournament in 2 weeks.

Your analogy of giving medical advice to posting on a critique thread of an online table tennis forum is "patently ridiculous". Sorry, I didn't know you have to post your table tennis rating before being allowed to state your opinion on this thread.  But now I have, so hopefully all is forgiven.

Timing: Try to contact the ball a bit earlier and more in front of your body, especially against topspin. You can think of your racket being angled forward when you hit the ball (although it doesn't actually happen!). 

Wrist: You need to drop your wrist further in order to relax it more. This will allow you to generate more spin. Also, less slap hitting and a lot more brushing would also do wonders for your power. Loops loaded with spin are extremely difficult to deal with. 

Elbow snap: Basically relax and let your elbow straighten, then snap forward when you hit the ball. This will make your stroke more fluid and powerful. 

Use of your shoulder: This is a huge source of power, but albeit may lead to shoulder injuries without strength training. I learnt it from Zhang Jike who really abuses this source of power to the max (which is probably why he has this shoulder cuff injury now!). Basically during your backswing, you move your shoulder blade backwards (your elbow will be tucked near your right middle back, kinda like doing dumbbell rows) and let it explode forward during your swing. With this you can generate huge amounts of additional power without affecting your recovery time much. 

I think it is fairly solid and he sounds like a competent player and likely a better player than I am.

A couple of general purpose advices I can give are not really mine, but came from Stellan Bengtsson who I have taken a few lessons from and gone to a few clinics of his.  Whenever I tun into Stellan and his wife Angie, I try to get both some specific and some general advice from them and they have yet to steer me wrong.  At the end of one of the clinics, they were willing to sit with us for a bit and just answer questions, which I videotaped and still go back to.

I digress, but a couple of things of what I got out of Stellan that I think are applicable to the OP are as follows:

1) Do not bob up and down.  If you videotape yourself playing or practicing there watch how your head is.  It should not be bobbing up and down a whole lot (there are some obvious exceptions to this, but overall it is a good strategy to follow).

2) Keep loose. Nothing good comes from stiffening up your arms and body.  It is especially important to make your grip on the paddle a little loose.

3) Contact the ball in front of you, not to the side.  You mostly do this already, but not always.  As you track the ball with your eyes, try to make sure you are roughly facing the contact point when you hit the ball.  That will force you to rotate your hips on the back swing and during the stroke and your weight transfer will become a little more natural.

ILya

Thank you for your contribution!

Comments on your points below:

1) This is certainly true and this has improved over the years. 10 years ago my feet were in the air when I hit the ball (that's what badminton does to you I suppose ). When I realized I just didn't recover in time things started to improve to the level you witnessed in the vid. Obviously there is still a lot of work in this department.

2) I have this problem in FH but not in BH. Say I want to loop FH cross which bounces short (dropping the wrist), it's nearly impossible. The opposite (raising the wrist just before contact) is easy and very effective.

3) Contacting the ball to the side is when I'm late, normally it's not the case.

Baal, you coach, don't you?  You also wrote this:

Baal wrote: Looks pretty damned good to me.

So how did you infer that it was pretty damn good?

Everyone has a model for what a stroke should look like and this is supposed to be OP's basic forehand topspin, even if against a robot.  So you look at the stroke, compare it against your model and form your own conclusions, right or wrong.  Of course, it might be an effective stroke during a match, and it might change, but we have been presented with OP's basic FH topspin and asked to say what he can do to improve it.  If you work out of the position that the forehand is largely one stroke with subtle changes to attack other balls, then you try to see what in this stroke as a basic stroke could be an issue, and let the OP decide based on what he has heard or seen.

I agree with this.  Since I tend to comment a lot on Pro Tour videos myself, I will say that a lot of it is an attempt to make sense of what happened and it can be confirmed or disconfirmed by other people's insights. TT is a simple looking sport so it is hard to understand the gap between your level and those of better players.  You just don't know what you don't know.  For some people, it is when they see how far what they now know is from what they thought they knew that humility is first learned.  For me at least that was the case.  My coach likes to say very often that I had a funny look on my face when he told me that you can actually spin the ball slowly to someone - as opposed to trying to hit the ball hard away from them - and he will miss it (I was 1400-1500 at the time and had absolutely no loop to speak of).   Now, it's such an important part of my game that I can't pretend that such insights can't exist at even higher levels.

Our disagreements are minor in the bigger scheme of practical things and a famous coach once told me that coaches disagree all the time.  Yes, I agree been overly detailed when describing or prescribing a full stroke is anti-zen, but sometimes, the little things mean a lot, especially when someone is trying to get his forehand better and is no longer a beginner.  You may need to try many ways to get the point across to fix something seemingly little and that could be considered anti-zen as well by some people.  It's the biggest reason why I encourage students to miss the ball but do their shadow stroke, vs. making the ball with an inferior stroke.

http://youtu.be/mgntBcTe-1o?t=232" rel="nofollow - https://youtu.be/mgntBcTe-1o?t=232

I linked to a youtube video where Alois Rosario of Pingskills makes the same point I am making.  The secgment starts at around the end of the 4th minute/beginning of the 5th minute.

Definitely appropriate.

1) No further comment.  Keep working on it.

2) Relaxing the grip does not necessarily mean that the racket will drop.  It does not mean your hand is loose like a noodle.  It does not take much to support the racket in your grip and you can cock the wrist back a little without gripping it too hard.  Watch Samsonov's FH some time.  If you slow-motion it you will see that despite a rather relaxed grip he cocks the wrist back slightly on nearly every FH.

3) No further comment.  As you correctly pointed out, it is a timing issue which should not be happening a whole lot.

ILya

Yes, if I didn't watch the wrong video.  You had great touch and mobility in that game but you fished with your right foot in front of the left most of the time, kind of like Mizutani playing as a defender with a badminton stance, which was frankly impeding both your wings.

Isn't that clearly a risk vs. reward decision?  One doesn't have to get the answer right to try.

Changing a stroke with saturation training is quite possible - you just need the resources to do it.

Be careful of using it though, it's a recipe for shoulder injury unless your shoulders are very strong. Do lots of strength training for your shoulders like military presses, pull ups and seated rows so that you always remain strong and healthy. 

For the record, I have nothing close to Brett's form or Zhang Jike's athleticism.  

Some interesting discussion questions cmets. I don't really know the answer however. I would think to understand the game at the elite level would be very difficult if not impossible if you haven't been at that level yourself. As many of you know, playing at a 1800 level is almost a completely different game than playing at a 1000 level. The same can be said for playing at a 2300 level versus playing at a 2600+ level. I think it depends what you mean by a good coach. I think lower level players can certainly give solid advice and critique to higher level players. Now, whether or not they are capable of building that higher level player into an even higher level player is another question.