need some help on my play

hahaha, I know exactly how you feel. Old guys, especially with raquets/rubbers as old as them are a force to be reckoned with.

No advice from me though.

In your 8 mths at the club have you ever gone to any training sessions?

there is not a a coach at my club so i dont have access to one there are some very good players and i get tips when ever i can but progress is slow

reederc wrote: I get tips when ever i can but progress is slow

Don't worry. This is normal. You will need at least 3 years (at least 2 nights a week training) until you can rightly call yourself a TT player.
This is a very complicated game with many different but equally effective styles, techniques and strategies. After 3 years you can start to go to tournaments and slowly improve your skills in real competition.

If these 70-yr old players are keeping you out of position, you're probably not making them move. Aim for the corners, make them run. If they're 70, it shouldn't be all that hard. If you're aiming for the middle, they have much more control to make you run around in circles.

Old people are generally so much more skilled than beginners it isn't even funny. Sure, they are slow, but they still have the skills from when they were young ... often they were much better players than you will ever be.
The only way to beat them is to put them under pressure, but beginners simply don't have the necessary tools to do that. And if they have the tools they have to be good enough to actually use them in a real game to impose their game on the old man. This tends to be very difficult once the old man gets the impression that he might actually lose to such a bad player like you (he still knows how good he was 50 years ago). At this point the old man usually gets much better and he has tons of mean tricks up his sleeve ...

I happen to know several old men at 70+ who are notorious gatekeepers. All up and coming youth players in their clubs try to beat them but it takes years until they manage to do so. And if they do there are other gate keepers - even more feared ones.

Don't worry, but this is normal. TT is a difficult and very complex sport and fast legs and great technique isn't enough to win against a really skilled experienced old player. You can actually learn very much from playing these people. If you show them respect and ask them for help they'll usually have plenty of good advice for you.

thanks guys keep it coming

the funny things is that the old guys all play with very funky styles not your normal tops spin player but they manage to get the ball on the table all the time

YATTP wrote: reederc wrote: I get tips when ever i can but progress is slow Don't worry. This is normal. You will need at least 3 years (at least 2 nights a week training) until you can rightly call yourself a TT player. This is a very complicated game with many different but equally effective styles, techniques and strategies. After 3 years you can start to go to tournaments and slowly improve your skills in real competition.

 

i must disagree with this, i have been playing about one year, about two-three nights a week, and i am now a 1475 player.

cmetsbeltran15 wrote: YATTP wrote: reederc wrote: I get tips when ever i can but progress is slow Don't worry. This is normal. You will need at least 3 years (at least 2 nights a week training) until you can rightly call yourself a TT player. This is a very complicated game with many different but equally effective styles, techniques and strategies. After 3 years you can start to go to tournaments and slowly improve your skills in real competition. i must disagree with this, i have been playing about one year, about two-three nights a week, and i am now a 1475 player.

I have been training children for quite some time so I have some experience in this field. I am not familiar with US TT and I don't know how good a rating of 1475 is. However, children learn much faster than adults. I have seen only very few children who were able to beat good experienced adult players from the lowest German TT leagues after 3 years of training. If they are very talented they can do that after 3 years and less but certainly not after 1 year - simply no way. After 1 year of intensive training - and I mean systematic training with licensed coaches - the very best will have a forehand topspin against backspin that is good enough to enable them to open up the game a few times and get into fast game (and their fast game is pretty good), but all of them (even the good ones) have serious trouble to open up against a heavy push. After one year their backhand topspin against backspin is still so weak that they can hardly open up with their backhand against medium heavy pushes. Their level of consistency especially on the backhand is so bad that the adult can simply push and block them to death over their backhands. After 2 years the talented children may be able to open up more consistendly with their forehand, but their backhands are still very weak and the outcome is pretty much the same. They are pushed and blocked to death over their weak backhands. These children have no problem to open up against other children with 2 years of TT experience because their pushes are of much inferior quality than adult pushes and much less deceptive.

yeah they do hit the table alot

YATTP wrote: Topspin became widely used in the 1970ies. Most old players started playing TT in the 1940ies with cork or sandpaper on their blades instead of todays rubbers

Normally I completely agree with YATTP but:
Actually though some youth club players might have been using cork or sandpaper in the fifties, Most serious tournament players from late twenties onwards used short pimpled rubber with a cloth backing (like the Reisman bats). There was nothing very scientific about it, indeed the same pimpled rubber was used for cricket wicket keepers gloves and soccer goalies gloves as well. Plain wood was allowed untill the eighties. As far as i know no world championships were won with cork, sandpaper or plain wood
And no I wasnt playing in the forties but my dad was