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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/26/2023 at 5:56am
My right hand would hold near the weighted end, left hand hold the other end. Then I swing it and have the weighted end travel the same path as a racket would for a loop. You really realize how much your quad, glute, and oblique is used to generate power. 

It's probably a little difficult for most players. I'm a lot more muscular than most TT players and I'm using the lightest possible weight and it's still pretty taxing. I tried using a 5lb weight and it was too hard to do too many reps. I'd suggest taping a bottle or two to the end of a stick for a DIY solution. You can vary the weight by varying the amount of water in the bottles and it can be lighter than a barbell. 
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/26/2023 at 7:00am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

My right hand would hold near the weighted end, left hand hold the other end. Then I swing it and have the weighted end travel the same path as a racket would for a loop. You really realize how much your quad, glute, and oblique is used to generate power. 

It's probably a little difficult for most players. I'm a lot more muscular than most TT players and I'm using the lightest possible weight and it's still pretty taxing. I tried using a 5lb weight and it was too hard to do too many reps. I'd suggest taping a bottle or two to the end of a stick for a DIY solution. You can vary the weight by varying the amount of water in the bottles and it can be lighter than a barbell. 

Very interesting! I think this is actually much harder than the medicine balls in my gym - but I can see how this could work! 

At home I try to do it using a small dumbbell and it works pretty well in general 
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/01/2023 at 6:57am
Played with my old partner the rally guy. This time I didn't play disgusting passive table tennis but played full on aggressive even in the rallies (even though it is his game and he thrives on topspin rallies). Wow this has to be one of the most exciting matches I've played so far with so many exciting mid distance loop to loop battles on both wings. 

What usually happens is he serves, I chiquita/loop and it goes into a topspin rally. When I serve he pretty much does the same thing. Guy has an amazing chiquita now able to deal with the nastiest of serves I had. He's just amazing at serve receive and doesn't miss much serves at all (hook, pendulum, tomahawk, nospin+heavy underspin, etc...). 

I think I won like 60-70% of the games this time, and I would credit it to the latest improvements in my loop structure (especially body usage).  
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote lgxb Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/01/2023 at 8:56am
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Played with my old partner the rally guy. This time I didn't play disgusting passive table tennis but played full on aggressive even in the rallies (even though it is his game and he thrives on topspin rallies). Wow this has to be one of the most exciting matches I've played so far with so many exciting mid distance loop to loop battles on both wings. 

What usually happens is he serves, I chiquita/loop and it goes into a topspin rally. When I serve he pretty much does the same thing. Guy has an amazing chiquita now able to deal with the nastiest of serves I had. He's just amazing at serve receive and doesn't miss much serves at all (hook, pendulum, tomahawk, nospin+heavy underspin, etc...). 

I think I won like 60-70% of the games this time, and I would credit it to the latest improvements in my loop structure (especially body usage).  

I'd like to see some video
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/01/2023 at 4:40pm
Originally posted by lgxb lgxb wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Played with my old partner the rally guy. This time I didn't play disgusting passive table tennis but played full on aggressive even in the rallies (even though it is his game and he thrives on topspin rallies). Wow this has to be one of the most exciting matches I've played so far with so many exciting mid distance loop to loop battles on both wings. 

What usually happens is he serves, I chiquita/loop and it goes into a topspin rally. When I serve he pretty much does the same thing. Guy has an amazing chiquita now able to deal with the nastiest of serves I had. He's just amazing at serve receive and doesn't miss much serves at all (hook, pendulum, tomahawk, nospin+heavy underspin, etc...). 

I think I won like 60-70% of the games this time, and I would credit it to the latest improvements in my loop structure (especially body usage).  

I'd like to see some video

Maybe someday in the future! It's nowhere as nice when I play with other ppl because it kinda becomes a serve/receive cat and mouse game which would look absolutely terrible...
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 4:10am
Practiced a shit ton of serve and 3rd ball opening. I can now open with BH confidently after my new heaviest spin serves (which I haven't really started using in matches) but not FH apparently even after all the angle adjustments - I simply couldn't get it to work for some reason - which meant that my FH technique just didn't work at such spin levels. My penholder opponent somehow had a way of borrowing my serve spin and adding to it - the receive was so heavy that even normal pushes just went straight to the base of the net, you literally had to lift it up to get it over the net. My first attempts with getting real low with the knees was successful - but it was ultimately unsustainable, bending knees in a split squat the first 20 times is cool but in a training session of hundreds of balls, yeah I won't be able to do it anymore Big smile. Then I discovered that the real easy way to get real low is to bend from the hips, not from the knees entirely - and voila it became much easier on the body - coz you can even touch the racket on the floor on the backswing without too much stress.
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 4:34am
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Practiced a shit ton of serve and 3rd ball opening. I can now open with BH confidently after my new heaviest spin serves (which I haven't really started using in matches) but not FH apparently even after all the angle adjustments - I simply couldn't get it to work for some reason - which meant that my FH technique just didn't work at such spin levels. My penholder opponent somehow had a way of borrowing my serve spin and adding to it - the receive was so heavy that even normal pushes just went straight to the base of the net, you literally had to lift it up to get it over the net. My first attempts with getting real low with the knees was successful - but it was ultimately unsustainable, bending knees in a split squat the first 20 times is cool but in a training session of hundreds of balls, yeah I won't be able to do it anymore Big smile. Then I discovered that the real easy way to get real low is to bend from the hips, not from the knees entirely - and voila it became much easier on the body - coz you can even touch the racket on the floor on the backswing without too much stress.

Yup!  If you're driving the ball, you don't even need to lift using the legs that much, lift from the hip is sufficient, particularly because the natural rotation of the waist is forward/across and up or down, so you're getting the forward movement you need for a loop drive as well.  With that said, if you're brush looping, then you need a combination of legs and waist to lift a heavy backspin ball if you want the maximum spin and lowest trajectory.  You see pros even jump into the air sometimes against extreme backspin. 
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 4:50am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Practiced a shit ton of serve and 3rd ball opening. I can now open with BH confidently after my new heaviest spin serves (which I haven't really started using in matches) but not FH apparently even after all the angle adjustments - I simply couldn't get it to work for some reason - which meant that my FH technique just didn't work at such spin levels. My penholder opponent somehow had a way of borrowing my serve spin and adding to it - the receive was so heavy that even normal pushes just went straight to the base of the net, you literally had to lift it up to get it over the net. My first attempts with getting real low with the knees was successful - but it was ultimately unsustainable, bending knees in a split squat the first 20 times is cool but in a training session of hundreds of balls, yeah I won't be able to do it anymore Big smile. Then I discovered that the real easy way to get real low is to bend from the hips, not from the knees entirely - and voila it became much easier on the body - coz you can even touch the racket on the floor on the backswing without too much stress.

Yup!  If you're driving the ball, you don't even need to lift using the legs that much, lift from the hip is sufficient, particularly because the natural rotation of the waist is forward/across and up or down, so you're getting the forward movement you need for a loop drive as well.  With that said, if you're brush looping, then you need a combination of legs and waist to lift a heavy backspin ball if you want the maximum spin and lowest trajectory.  You see pros even jump into the air sometimes against extreme backspin. 

You're right the rotation itself already provides more than sufficient forward momentum. It's actually quite funny - somehow I have always been bending on my hips for my BH but not really on the FH, i was going into quite extreme stances with sub 90 deg knee bends on my FH which is tiring af. I guess it's also terminology, when ppl say get low the automatic thinking is to bend the knees and squat. I didn't even realise that the hip can play a lifting role too on the FH, and it's a lot more effortless compared to bending at the knees. 


Edited by blahness - 03/02/2023 at 4:51am
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 5:53am
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Practiced a shit ton of serve and 3rd ball opening. I can now open with BH confidently after my new heaviest spin serves (which I haven't really started using in matches) but not FH apparently even after all the angle adjustments - I simply couldn't get it to work for some reason - which meant that my FH technique just didn't work at such spin levels. My penholder opponent somehow had a way of borrowing my serve spin and adding to it - the receive was so heavy that even normal pushes just went straight to the base of the net, you literally had to lift it up to get it over the net. My first attempts with getting real low with the knees was successful - but it was ultimately unsustainable, bending knees in a split squat the first 20 times is cool but in a training session of hundreds of balls, yeah I won't be able to do it anymore Big smile. Then I discovered that the real easy way to get real low is to bend from the hips, not from the knees entirely - and voila it became much easier on the body - coz you can even touch the racket on the floor on the backswing without too much stress.

Yup!  If you're driving the ball, you don't even need to lift using the legs that much, lift from the hip is sufficient, particularly because the natural rotation of the waist is forward/across and up or down, so you're getting the forward movement you need for a loop drive as well.  With that said, if you're brush looping, then you need a combination of legs and waist to lift a heavy backspin ball if you want the maximum spin and lowest trajectory.  You see pros even jump into the air sometimes against extreme backspin. 

You're right the rotation itself already provides more than sufficient forward momentum. It's actually quite funny - somehow I have always been bending on my hips for my BH but not really on the FH, i was going into quite extreme stances with sub 90 deg knee bends on my FH which is tiring af. I guess it's also terminology, when ppl say get low the automatic thinking is to bend the knees and squat. I didn't even realise that the hip can play a lifting role too on the FH, and it's a lot more effortless compared to bending at the knees. 

After doing a deep dive into FH technique the past couple of months, I feel that I have a new understanding re: leg use.  I think it serves 3 primary roles, with direct power generation being the least important.

1) Placing the body.  This is fairly obvious, but it's often neglected on the amateur level.  Moving your body in position left and right prevents leaning and reaching to hit a shot.  Moving your body forward can allow you to drive an unexpectedly short ball that you'd normally fish or push, while moving your body backwards ironically allows you to hit a shot forward rather than upward.  Taking a step back and then immediately pushing all your momentum forward can be very taxing on your legs.

2) Stabilizing the body.  While your hip and waist generate power through their rotation, your right leg kicks to counteract their energy, kind of like the tail rotor of a helicopter--it doesn't directly contribute to lift, but keeps the helicopter's frame from rotating in the opposite direction of the main rotors.  As your upper body rotates from right to left, weight is transferred from right to left and your left leg supports your body to keep it from going out of balance.

3) Direct power generation.  The first 2 roles are crucial to power generation, but they don't directly generate power.  However, in a forward going loop, which is usually used as a kill shot or against a ball that's unexpectedly short, the leg kicks directly in the direction of the loop to add additional power.  The legs also directly generate power in brush looping a heavy backspin ball, where you need to completely counteract the opponent's backspin.
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 6:17am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Practiced a shit ton of serve and 3rd ball opening. I can now open with BH confidently after my new heaviest spin serves (which I haven't really started using in matches) but not FH apparently even after all the angle adjustments - I simply couldn't get it to work for some reason - which meant that my FH technique just didn't work at such spin levels. My penholder opponent somehow had a way of borrowing my serve spin and adding to it - the receive was so heavy that even normal pushes just went straight to the base of the net, you literally had to lift it up to get it over the net. My first attempts with getting real low with the knees was successful - but it was ultimately unsustainable, bending knees in a split squat the first 20 times is cool but in a training session of hundreds of balls, yeah I won't be able to do it anymore Big smile. Then I discovered that the real easy way to get real low is to bend from the hips, not from the knees entirely - and voila it became much easier on the body - coz you can even touch the racket on the floor on the backswing without too much stress.

Yup!  If you're driving the ball, you don't even need to lift using the legs that much, lift from the hip is sufficient, particularly because the natural rotation of the waist is forward/across and up or down, so you're getting the forward movement you need for a loop drive as well.  With that said, if you're brush looping, then you need a combination of legs and waist to lift a heavy backspin ball if you want the maximum spin and lowest trajectory.  You see pros even jump into the air sometimes against extreme backspin. 

You're right the rotation itself already provides more than sufficient forward momentum. It's actually quite funny - somehow I have always been bending on my hips for my BH but not really on the FH, i was going into quite extreme stances with sub 90 deg knee bends on my FH which is tiring af. I guess it's also terminology, when ppl say get low the automatic thinking is to bend the knees and squat. I didn't even realise that the hip can play a lifting role too on the FH, and it's a lot more effortless compared to bending at the knees. 

After doing a deep dive into FH technique the past couple of months, I feel that I have a new understanding re: leg use.  I think it serves 3 primary roles, with direct power generation being the least important.

1) Placing the body.  This is fairly obvious, but it's often neglected on the amateur level.  Moving your body in position left and right prevents leaning and reaching to hit a shot.  Moving your body forward can allow you to drive an unexpectedly short ball that you'd normally fish or push, while moving your body backwards ironically allows you to hit a shot forward rather than upward.  Taking a step back and then immediately pushing all your momentum forward can be very taxing on your legs.

2) Stabilizing the body.  While your hip and waist generate power through their rotation, your right leg kicks to counteract their energy, kind of like the tail rotor of a helicopter--it doesn't directly contribute to lift, but keeps the helicopter's frame from rotating in the opposite direction of the main rotors.  As your upper body rotates from right to left, weight is transferred from right to left and your left leg supports your body to keep it from going out of balance.

3) Direct power generation.  The first 2 roles are crucial to power generation, but they don't directly generate power.  However, in a forward going loop, which is usually used as a kill shot or against a ball that's unexpectedly short, the leg kicks directly in the direction of the loop to add additional power.  The legs also directly generate power in brush looping a heavy backspin ball, where you need to completely counteract the opponent's backspin.

Agreed with all that. Tbh with the hip bend, I feel like it's actually the left leg will be subject to more stress than the right leg - the reason is that the right leg only holds weight during the preparation phase when the speed is relatively low, while left leg receives all that weight which is accompanied by an incredible acceleration and is tasked to stop all that. 
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 7:54pm
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Practiced a shit ton of serve and 3rd ball opening. I can now open with BH confidently after my new heaviest spin serves (which I haven't really started using in matches) but not FH apparently even after all the angle adjustments - I simply couldn't get it to work for some reason - which meant that my FH technique just didn't work at such spin levels. My penholder opponent somehow had a way of borrowing my serve spin and adding to it - the receive was so heavy that even normal pushes just went straight to the base of the net, you literally had to lift it up to get it over the net. My first attempts with getting real low with the knees was successful - but it was ultimately unsustainable, bending knees in a split squat the first 20 times is cool but in a training session of hundreds of balls, yeah I won't be able to do it anymore Big smile. Then I discovered that the real easy way to get real low is to bend from the hips, not from the knees entirely - and voila it became much easier on the body - coz you can even touch the racket on the floor on the backswing without too much stress.

Yup!  If you're driving the ball, you don't even need to lift using the legs that much, lift from the hip is sufficient, particularly because the natural rotation of the waist is forward/across and up or down, so you're getting the forward movement you need for a loop drive as well.  With that said, if you're brush looping, then you need a combination of legs and waist to lift a heavy backspin ball if you want the maximum spin and lowest trajectory.  You see pros even jump into the air sometimes against extreme backspin. 

It's also really annoying because nobody ever mentioned it in tutorials, they all say oh get low, bend your knees, etc.... no one actually mentioned bending from the hips wtf! A lot of table tennis tutorials really suck... 
Bending knees/squatting is almost the biggest lie in table tennis especially for ppl who are not that tall. It uses up way too much energy, causes instability in the centre of gravity and is hard to recover from. 

Now when I see for eg Ma Long, yeah he bends from the hips all the time lol, no wonder he makes it look so easy looping backspin.


Edited by blahness - 03/02/2023 at 7:56pm
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 8:09pm

Against this heavy backspin, Ma Long's knee bend never goes to 90 deg or beyond , him getting low is a lot driven by the forward lean via bending at the hips 
-------
Viscaria
FH: Hurricane 8-80
BH: D05

Back to normal shape bats :(
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 8:36pm
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Practiced a shit ton of serve and 3rd ball opening. I can now open with BH confidently after my new heaviest spin serves (which I haven't really started using in matches) but not FH apparently even after all the angle adjustments - I simply couldn't get it to work for some reason - which meant that my FH technique just didn't work at such spin levels. My penholder opponent somehow had a way of borrowing my serve spin and adding to it - the receive was so heavy that even normal pushes just went straight to the base of the net, you literally had to lift it up to get it over the net. My first attempts with getting real low with the knees was successful - but it was ultimately unsustainable, bending knees in a split squat the first 20 times is cool but in a training session of hundreds of balls, yeah I won't be able to do it anymore Big smile. Then I discovered that the real easy way to get real low is to bend from the hips, not from the knees entirely - and voila it became much easier on the body - coz you can even touch the racket on the floor on the backswing without too much stress.

Yup!  If you're driving the ball, you don't even need to lift using the legs that much, lift from the hip is sufficient, particularly because the natural rotation of the waist is forward/across and up or down, so you're getting the forward movement you need for a loop drive as well.  With that said, if you're brush looping, then you need a combination of legs and waist to lift a heavy backspin ball if you want the maximum spin and lowest trajectory.  You see pros even jump into the air sometimes against extreme backspin. 

It's also really annoying because nobody ever mentioned it in tutorials, they all say oh get low, bend your knees, etc.... no one actually mentioned bending from the hips wtf! A lot of table tennis tutorials really suck... 
Bending knees/squatting is almost the biggest lie in table tennis especially for ppl who are not that tall. It uses up way too much energy, causes instability in the centre of gravity and is hard to recover from. 

Now when I see for eg Ma Long, yeah he bends from the hips all the time lol, no wonder he makes it look so easy looping backspin.

Yup, there are quite a few of these types of big lies in TT. When I studied ML's form frame by frame, I noticed that his waist line didn't move up/down and his feet didn't move either (stationary exercise). This meant that the legs didn't move, and that's when I realized that the legs played a supportive role in power generation, not a primary one. 

Another big lie is brushing when looping. Except against specific balls, it'd always easier to loop a heavy spin ball, both backspin and topspin, by adding more hitting whenever possible. I used to always counter loop long, so I thought that the way to counter loop is to really depress the bat angle, so I can brush just over the ball. And you hear even top level coaches talk about increasing brushing when counter looping. 
 
Then I saw this video by Fang Bo, he starts talking about it at around the 1 min mark: http://b23.tv/yxXqo2s

The way to do it is actually start with a hit. Just hit the ball over, and then start adding spin from that start point. Immediately I could counter loop in a practice setting. I went from not ever able to do a counter loop practice to almost never missing during such practice. 
Blade: Hurricane Long 5 (968) FL
FH: D09C max
BH: D09C max
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/02/2023 at 9:05pm
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

Practiced a shit ton of serve and 3rd ball opening. I can now open with BH confidently after my new heaviest spin serves (which I haven't really started using in matches) but not FH apparently even after all the angle adjustments - I simply couldn't get it to work for some reason - which meant that my FH technique just didn't work at such spin levels. My penholder opponent somehow had a way of borrowing my serve spin and adding to it - the receive was so heavy that even normal pushes just went straight to the base of the net, you literally had to lift it up to get it over the net. My first attempts with getting real low with the knees was successful - but it was ultimately unsustainable, bending knees in a split squat the first 20 times is cool but in a training session of hundreds of balls, yeah I won't be able to do it anymore Big smile. Then I discovered that the real easy way to get real low is to bend from the hips, not from the knees entirely - and voila it became much easier on the body - coz you can even touch the racket on the floor on the backswing without too much stress.

Yup!  If you're driving the ball, you don't even need to lift using the legs that much, lift from the hip is sufficient, particularly because the natural rotation of the waist is forward/across and up or down, so you're getting the forward movement you need for a loop drive as well.  With that said, if you're brush looping, then you need a combination of legs and waist to lift a heavy backspin ball if you want the maximum spin and lowest trajectory.  You see pros even jump into the air sometimes against extreme backspin. 

It's also really annoying because nobody ever mentioned it in tutorials, they all say oh get low, bend your knees, etc.... no one actually mentioned bending from the hips wtf! A lot of table tennis tutorials really suck... 
Bending knees/squatting is almost the biggest lie in table tennis especially for ppl who are not that tall. It uses up way too much energy, causes instability in the centre of gravity and is hard to recover from. 

Now when I see for eg Ma Long, yeah he bends from the hips all the time lol, no wonder he makes it look so easy looping backspin.

Yup, there are quite a few of these types of big lies in TT. When I studied ML's form frame by frame, I noticed that his waist line didn't move up/down and his feet didn't move either (stationary exercise). This meant that the legs didn't move, and that's when I realized that the legs played a supportive role in power generation, not a primary one. 

Another big lie is brushing when looping. Except against specific balls, it'd always easier to loop a heavy spin ball, both backspin and topspin, by adding more hitting whenever possible. I used to always counter loop long, so I thought that the way to counter loop is to really depress the bat angle, so I can brush just over the ball. And you hear even top level coaches talk about increasing brushing when counter looping. 
 
Then I saw this video by Fang Bo, he starts talking about it at around the 1 min mark: http://b23.tv/yxXqo2s

The way to do it is actually start with a hit. Just hit the ball over, and then start adding spin from that start point. Immediately I could counter loop in a practice setting. I went from not ever able to do a counter loop practice to almost never missing during such practice. 

Lol yes, there's a lot of shitty lies all around in the TT world which piss me off haha. I also saw this tutorial about counterlooping too which is gold. You almost never want thin brush strokes these days in general because it's too risky and easy to miss. Even with serves - thin brush is a lie, you produce spin the exact same way you would for a loop, by having the ball sink into sponge which enables max spin production. You control the serve short by sideways momentum transfer (force directed sideways and even backwards sometimes). 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 12:28am
Tested this bending at the hips method for going low in the FH loop. The contact points are all different as compared to when you're more upright (less leaning), but with this method I can serve my highest spin serves and still loop the return very reliably. I think I have even more spin than when I used the squatting method to loop them. 

There's a few really good things about this - less squatting which means my legs were much fresher in terms of running for the next shot, and it's way less tiring. The other thing I found out is that there's more room for adjustment for shots that are in slightly different places than what you expected, and the eyes are closer to the ball during the loop this way so it makes the stroke a lot more accurate. 

Played a lot of practice matches with this against a guy with decent serves who has a good BH punch and FH loop, and is really quick on his feet and reactions. I think the hip bending already works a lot better than my old method especially in looping long and half long serves, and opening up for the 3rd ball. The only problem is that I was frequently overlifting against topspin but nothing more practice will fix. I won most of the practice matches this way. I lost a shit ton of points by his sidespin fade BH punch against my opening loops though - I feel like that is his speciality. It's a really ridiculous shot to face after doing a high quality opening loop though. But if I count the win %, my opening loops still had a very high win % because of the sheer spin in it, it's hard to be consistent with punching very high spin loops.

Now I'm aggressively looping and chiquitaing most balls - makes for a much more fun match this way.

I also learnt how to incorporate a heavy underspin/no spin serve into my current serve action (mostly very heavy FH hook and pendulum serves) , tbh it is very good as a variation because the 3rd ball is much easier to attack. 

I'm also forcing myself to contact the ball much closer to the body on the BH push and to use more body power for the push to eliminate unnecessary hand movements.


Edited by blahness - 03/05/2023 at 4:58am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 1:15am
When looping topspins, focus on rotating the waist from right to left and less down to up, similar to what you're probably already doing with your arm. The key for body movement is to be in sync with arm movement, it should take your racket in the same arc even without moving the arm at all. Dyssynchrony will lead to wasted energy and inconsistency.

BTW I have a question re: BH topspin against backspin (applies to topspin too, I think). I've been trying two methods of supination and I'm torn between which one to use. First is a concave stroke, basically a brush loop with more hitting by supinating at the point of contact. You'd finish the stroke with thr FH rubber facing up. Second is a convex stroke, which allows for much more supination, and you'd start with the FH rubber facing upward and almost forward, and end with the FH rubber facing left.

I think I use both strokes on the FH side, with the concave stroke for brush loops, looping balls at or below table height, or off the bounce loops/counters. The convex stroke would add a lot more power and is used for higher balls. I wonder if that's the same for the BH as well? What are your thoughts? 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 2:05am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

When looping topspins, focus on rotating the waist from right to left and less down to up, similar to what you're probably already doing with your arm. The key for body movement is to be in sync with arm movement, it should take your racket in the same arc even without moving the arm at all. Dyssynchrony will lead to wasted energy and inconsistency.

BTW I have a question re: BH topspin against backspin (applies to topspin too, I think). I've been trying two methods of supination and I'm torn between which one to use. First is a concave stroke, basically a brush loop with more hitting by supinating at the point of contact. You'd finish the stroke with thr FH rubber facing up. Second is a convex stroke, which allows for much more supination, and you'd start with the FH rubber facing upward and almost forward, and end with the FH rubber facing left.

I think I use both strokes on the FH side, with the concave stroke for brush loops, looping balls at or below table height, or off the bounce loops/counters. The convex stroke would add a lot more power and is used for higher balls. I wonder if that's the same for the BH as well? What are your thoughts? 

Yep, that hip hinge provides a lot of lift to the stroke which I'm not really controlling well at the moment (as I'm not used to it yet) . You're right I should use a lot less of it against topspin. That adjustment is something that I still need to work into muscle memory. 

Based on your description, I exclusively use "concave" strokes because they're simply spinniest and offer much more room for error (including high balls). 

Imo spin and consistency is much more important than sheer power. So yes - my BH finishes with the BH face down (FH rubber facing up) for the most part. Against extremely heavy backspin my BH backswing has the BH face up, and then finishes with the BH face forward (FH rubber facing myself). Power is easy to add with the legs and back - spin can sometimes be a bit more tricky so I value it a lot more.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 3:13am
Heh I love to hit hard and I'm inspired by LSD's crazy backhand, so I wanna see what's the hardest drive I can do with my BH. I've already got it fairly figured out on the FH side. My blade really lets me know if I'm activating it properly, and it's friggin hard to activate it. I find that when doing a concave stroke it's difficult to hit into it, but I can consistently do it when I use thr convex shot. Right now the consistency in terms of landing the shot seems about the same, which was already surprising since I had never tried the convex shot before, so I'm thinking about exploring it a bit further to see how it feels.

You know I like to dig into the details and try to understand the why of things. I think it's possible that this form can be even more consistent than the concave shot. My theory is that because this is a more direct shot and the action of the racket is less parallel to the trajectory of thr ball, you can get more consistent contact with the ball judging by my the feedback from my blade. This is a bit like the hit then brush with FH counter loops.

I tried it out briefly yesterday and it did seem to work fairly well, so I'm gonna give it another try tomorrow as well. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 3:40am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Heh I love to hit hard and I'm inspired by LSD's crazy backhand, so I wanna see what's the hardest drive I can do with my BH. I've already got it fairly figured out on the FH side. My blade really lets me know if I'm activating it properly, and it's friggin hard to activate it. I find that when doing a concave stroke it's difficult to hit into it, but I can consistently do it when I use thr convex shot. Right now the consistency in terms of landing the shot seems about the same, which was already surprising since I had never tried the convex shot before, so I'm thinking about exploring it a bit further to see how it feels.

You know I like to dig into the details and try to understand the why of things. I think it's possible that this form can be even more consistent than the concave shot. My theory is that because this is a more direct shot and the action of the racket is less parallel to the trajectory of thr ball, you can get more consistent contact with the ball judging by my the feedback from my blade. This is a bit like the hit then brush with FH counter loops.

I tried it out briefly yesterday and it did seem to work fairly well, so I'm gonna give it another try tomorrow as well. 

You can do the hit and then brush method with "concave" loops too - you pretty much time the supination (for BH) and pronation (for FH) at ball contact, you still go directly through the ball, not around it. 

But there's a lot of ways to use the wrist especially for BH... I used to be in the 9th circle of hell for wrist action lol - but I've pretty much settled on one. 

The issue is that, for eg during critical situations like 9-9, deuce, etc... and you had to choose one, it's best to have only one type of contact so that you don't get confused.

Imo your current FH technique is pretty good and it is a concave stroke. You could easily do the same thing with BH. 

In terms of consistency, it's hard to judge based on robot training, but with real opponents who give you the hardest placement and spin and speed - that is the ultimate test which I judge all my strokes on.




Edited by blahness - 03/05/2023 at 4:17am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 5:32am
Just adding, I think the fundamental reason why you feel like the one where the blade faces to the side during the followthrough, is more powerful, it's because that means you rotated more - either with the mini hip rotation or by pulling your elbow (using the lats) - both of these are primary movers. It doesn't conflict with the supination - when I rotate more on BH loopkills the BH face also faces down and towards the right. 

Similar to FH loopkills - the more power you put in the more the blade will point to the left during the followthrough (even rotating all the way facing back towards you on really extreme ones)


Edited by blahness - 03/05/2023 at 5:55am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 5:58am
In theory I should be able to get a solid contact with the concave stroke too, and I do in fact get that sometimes, but I get it consistently with the convex stroke. It's just extremely hard to balance hitting and brushing with the concave stroke, though I do find it easier if I finish the stroke with my arm pointing toward where I'm aiming rather than all the way to the side. You're absolutely right that the lack of power comes from the body and elbow action, I think I instinctively hold back in order to ensure control when doing the concave stroke. 

I must've practiced the full powered concave loop drive for over 1000 reps, yet I still can't even do it in the most basic single location practice. I hit maybe 1 in 3 at best. Now I can brush loop at a very high rate in practice and a solid rate in games, it's the loop drive that I'm having trouble with.

As for using two different techniques, I find the transition pretty natural on the FH side, so I anticipate it'll be fine for the BH as well. I do have to note that since switching from the regular HL5 to the 968, the convex stroke has been a lot less useful on the FH side. With the amount of power generated on the FH the shot is just too flat to land consistently most of the time. I'll have to try it a bit more to see if that's the case for the BH as well. LSD seems to be able to do it with a mostly concave stroke on the FH side and mostly convex stroke on the BH side, so it might be possible. 


Edited by dingyibvs - 03/05/2023 at 6:16am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 6:28am
I haven't watched enough Lin Shidong to really understand his stroke structure tbh. I think the women's game have a more drastic comparison between Wang Manyu and Sun Yingsha. Sun Yingsha probably has the most "convex" looking BH while Wang Manyu probably has one of the most "concave" looking BH.  

It is however quite clear who gets more spin and stability in the BH out of those 2. But it is possible to get quite good results with the "convex" looking BH.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote longrange Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 6:48am
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:


Against this heavy backspin, Ma Long's knee bend never goes to 90 deg or beyond , him getting low is a lot driven by the forward lean via bending at the hips 

I think this question was debated few years ago and the conclusion was that such bending does no good to your lower back.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 6:56am
Originally posted by longrange longrange wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:


Against this heavy backspin, Ma Long's knee bend never goes to 90 deg or beyond , him getting low is a lot driven by the forward lean via bending at the hips 

I think this question was debated few years ago and the conclusion was that such bending does no good to your lower back.

I know - I created that thread. But there's a difference between bending at the hips (ok since it's a joint) and bending at the waist which is usually just bad in general.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 8:02am
Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

I haven't watched enough Lin Shidong to really understand his stroke structure tbh. I think the women's game have a more drastic comparison between Wang Manyu and Sun Yingsha. Sun Yingsha probably has the most "convex" looking BH while Wang Manyu probably has one of the most "concave" looking BH.  

It is however quite clear who gets more spin and stability in the BH out of those 2. But it is possible to get quite good results with the "convex" looking BH.

LJK also uses the convex BH form primarily, FZD does it a lot too. Also, IDK if you kept up with the Chinese Wttc trials but SYS's BH has really taken a step forward. She's now finishing points with her BH with the same ferocity she finishes with her FH. 


Edited by dingyibvs - 03/05/2023 at 8:02am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 3:32pm
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

Originally posted by blahness blahness wrote:

I haven't watched enough Lin Shidong to really understand his stroke structure tbh. I think the women's game have a more drastic comparison between Wang Manyu and Sun Yingsha. Sun Yingsha probably has the most "convex" looking BH while Wang Manyu probably has one of the most "concave" looking BH.  

It is however quite clear who gets more spin and stability in the BH out of those 2. But it is possible to get quite good results with the "convex" looking BH.

LJK also uses the convex BH form primarily, FZD does it a lot too. Also, IDK if you kept up with the Chinese Wttc trials but SYS's BH has really taken a step forward. She's now finishing points with her BH with the same ferocity she finishes with her FH. 

I rewatched some Lin Shidong - he actually closes his racket angle hard after contact - it's more of a "concave" stroke than a "convex" one. 



I think both FZD and LJK do both, sometimes they close the racket angle hard after contact (thus making it concave), sometimes they leave it much more open (making it look convex). I sometimes do the exact same thing to keep ppl guessing how much spin there is on the stroke - when ppl are feeding off your spin sometimes it's beneficial to give them a stroke with less spin to throw them off their rhythm (kinda evil but you gotta do what you gotta do to win lol 😂)

No I haven't watched a lot of Sun Yingsha lately, I always thought she had quite a flat-ish BH compared to the much loopier Wang Manyu. But it is still a very good BH. 


Edited by blahness - 03/05/2023 at 3:56pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/05/2023 at 4:21pm
On the hip bend - I analysed this and there's basically 3 main ways of getting lower and everyone uses a different combination. 

1) bending at the hips - Ma Long, Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan all use it a lot

2) squatting (bending at the knees) - Fan Zhendong, Timo Boll, arguably ZJK too - I saw a lot of 90 deg knee bends from these guys. 

3) widening stance width - Wang Chuqin, Ma Long



 


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dingyibvs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/06/2023 at 5:33am
I just tried out the more convex shot quite a bit more.  I think it's more an extension of the concave shot rather than a completely different form.  It really just involves making your racket a bit more "flat" during the backswing, so that the head is pointing toward you or even a bit up, rather than pointing toward you and down. Basically if you see a situation where it's useful, then just supinate a bit more during the backswing.  It's definitely very useful against backspin, launches a powerful shot with very good consistency, but against topspins it only works with pretty high balls, at least for now.

The convex shot really allows me to put my body into the shot and I really don't know why. That kinda bothers me, as I want to know why.

I think I'll keep developing it and see where it leads me, but for now it's not gonna be in my arsenal.  I'm focused on improving my FH right now, and I'll mainly do BH practices when I'm tired from FH practices in order to improve BH consistency.  Until I figure out why it works, and whether I can somehow implement the reason behind it to my concave shot or whether it's unique to the convex shot, I'll hold off on implementing it.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/06/2023 at 6:08am
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

I just tried out the more convex shot quite a bit more.  I think it's more an extension of the concave shot rather than a completely different form.  It really just involves making your racket a bit more "flat" during the backswing, so that the head is pointing toward you or even a bit up, rather than pointing toward you and down. Basically if you see a situation where it's useful, then just supinate a bit more during the backswing.  It's definitely very useful against backspin, launches a powerful shot with very good consistency, but against topspins it only works with pretty high balls, at least for now.

The convex shot really allows me to put my body into the shot and I really don't know why. That kinda bothers me, as I want to know why.

I think I'll keep developing it and see where it leads me, but for now it's not gonna be in my arsenal.  I'm focused on improving my FH right now, and I'll mainly do BH practices when I'm tired from FH practices in order to improve BH consistency.  Until I figure out why it works, and whether I can somehow implement the reason behind it to my concave shot or whether it's unique to the convex shot, I'll hold off on implementing it.

BH movement is actually really complicated. I think with BH everyone has a different movement (even among the pros!). Even among the CNT pros, Fang Bo, Fang Yinchi, Sun Haohong, Yin Hang, they all have their own philosophy and method which they use. 

I too have quite a unique BH movement which I'm proud of (it doesn't look anything like what the pros have), but I'm very happy with it because it ties into my game very well and is quite effective. There's a lot of thought I put in to "design" it definitely and I think everyone should go through a similar process. Even Ma Long completely revamped his BH to something a bit alien to him in 2015. It also depends on the game that you have and how it ties into your game. 

For me, one of my main considerations is that it can't be too different to my chiquita otherwise I'll always get caught trying to adjust between the two. So the stroke mechanism is very similar to my chiquita. The other thing I "designed" is the compatibility with the fade topspin - I didn't want ppl to be able to react to my BH fade topspin down the line. The third thing I put in is an open angle during the backswing because I faced a lot of sudden deep long pushes which I don't want to have to brute force lift.




Edited by blahness - 03/06/2023 at 6:18am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03/07/2023 at 10:14pm
Originally posted by dingyibvs dingyibvs wrote:

I just tried out the more convex shot quite a bit more.  I think it's more an extension of the concave shot rather than a completely different form.  It really just involves making your racket a bit more "flat" during the backswing, so that the head is pointing toward you or even a bit up, rather than pointing toward you and down. Basically if you see a situation where it's useful, then just supinate a bit more during the backswing.  It's definitely very useful against backspin, launches a powerful shot with very good consistency, but against topspins it only works with pretty high balls, at least for now.

The convex shot really allows me to put my body into the shot and I really don't know why. That kinda bothers me, as I want to know why.

I think I'll keep developing it and see where it leads me, but for now it's not gonna be in my arsenal.  I'm focused on improving my FH right now, and I'll mainly do BH practices when I'm tired from FH practices in order to improve BH consistency.  Until I figure out why it works, and whether I can somehow implement the reason behind it to my concave shot or whether it's unique to the convex shot, I'll hold off on implementing it.

I believe the convex movement is an illusion caused by body movement during the backswing.... 
 
I've tried to record my own movement without any arm movement (all from the body)- you can play it in slowmo. What this shows is that I can hit the ball with an open angle (90 deg), and still have the backswing bat angle look very closed which creates the "convex" illusion. The bat angle change is due to the body use and nothing due to arm movement (including supination/pronation). However, after contact with the ball I'm always going to supinate with thumb pressure (which acts to close the bat angle). 

Also it's good practice to not use the arm at all for the backswing in general and rely solely on the body.






Edited by blahness - 03/07/2023 at 10:53pm
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