Serving and Pushing

search for the training videos from this site...

r u pen holder or shake?

wen u want to hav a spinny serve u must remember to use a lot of wrist action. the more the ball slide along the rubber the better.

If he serves heavy backspin, you must very carefully tap it back using a VERY horizontal angle.  If it is very heavy backspin, be careful on how much you push, bceause even if you push just a little, the backspin may send it off the table.  So just a small small push.

ur blade should be more horizontal than that,angle it  slightly the more parallel to the table the more spin you will produce

if you use a loose wrist and a gentle lift and push it will get it back low and short,but don't put your blade to verticle or horizontal

the more you try to spin a push the less control you have on where it goes

What video did you watch? Post a link and I can tell you if that is what a push is.

that guy seems like a decent player he may just make it someday

Tan, can't you get your friends to show you how and work with you?  If not they're not very good friends.  Plus they're not smart, since it's in their best interests to have as much good competition around as possible.

Where in Australia are you situated? I know Macquarie University do a TT course.

I will tell you how I was taught to push.

The main thing is to keep the whole movement relaxed and graceful. Usually beginners have stiff and robotic movements than ruin control and spin.

A lot of people I know 'push' their bat out to contact the ball, using their wrist, elbow AND anterior deltoid (front shoulder muscle) to make the bat travel straight out from their body.

My motion uses the tricep and a bit of wrist only. Make sure you keep the elbow close to the body, don't raise it and point it forward. The bat travels from just under the collar bone downwards to contact the ball. It takes a while to develop the motor skills to do this properly and gain control. It's similar to the way Kong Linghui pushes, except I start from the collar bone.

The bat contacts the bottom-back of the ball. You basically brush the ball finely to create good spin without sending the ball over the edge. If the ball flies over the edge, it's because you have too much forward motion and not enough downward. This causes the ball to contact the bat heavily rather than brush.

Now here's the important thing. If they chop the ball with more spin, you chop it back with more spin. You don't adjust the angle of the bat to compensate for spin. You only adjust the angle of the bat to compensate for a ball which is low or close to the net. When I learned this, my chopping improved 1000%. When you do adjust the angle of the bat, you should be bending your knees to get under the ball.

Another thing, when someone gives you a short ball, step in with your forehand foot to chop the ball, not the backhand foot.

No. They're interchangeable terms.

Some people consider chopping to be outside of the table with spin, and pushing to be over the table without any thought of spin.

Well it will naturally have some spin.

The only time I 'push' the ball over without thought of spin is when it's very short.

Otherwise I push (chop) it with varying amounts of spin.

Donar has it right, push and chop are fairly similar terms. However pushes usually have a smaller stroke whereas chopping is normally a mid to full stroke downward to generate  under-spin. Youtube does have good training videos so you're on the right path. But the best  thing to do is to get some 1 on 1 training with a local trainer/coach. Where are you from? Maybe I can help you find a good quality coach. And what kind of rubber/blade setup are you using?

I see, that's an interesting start up setup. But yes there should be plenty of coaches in Australia. Keep in mind H3 rubbers (commerical) are great for close/mid distance loops and pushes. It's weakness is in drives which makes it less effective in mid/long distance rallies. The solution to that would be the provincial or national version of H3 or H2. Anyways, I personally use provincial H3 and they're great rubbers. But H3's in general are much more tackier than your regular european/japanese rubber. So learn wisely.