In you current form - I would recommend following the ball in with your racquet, this will help your timing and make the stroke look smoother. Also, start the stroke from where you want to finish, so if want to finish with straight arm - start there and follow the ball in for the next shot. 

I believe once you make contact with the ball, everything else has no effect on the shot. So I focus on making clean contact and the get to ready position for the next shot. 

Also, I believe there are quite a few internet coaches Brett Clarke, Samson Dubina and PingSkills all offer online coaching - might be an option to consider. Good Luck

Don't want to hijack the thread - but we'll agree to disagree on this point. 

Your stroke could be smoother.  Are you doing a spin or flat hit oriented FH?

http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=27371&sid=a4da5250bf09957bc277e9afaa9b5621" rel="nofollow - http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=27371&sid=a4da5250bf09957bc277e9afaa9b5621

Here was the biggest thing I needed to fix for my technique:

http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=27371&start=75#p292375" rel="nofollow - http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=27371&start=75#p292375

That said, I have been playing US tournaments for almost 4 years and have a few things built in like body turn etc.    You also have to learn how the stroke feels when the right contact is made with the ball and try to reproduce it.

Here is a video from PingSkills that discusses the issue but IMO doesn't get to the heart of it (you cannot finish the way they describe if you do not move your elbow out), but it might still help you as it has helped others:

How long is your stroke from the back swing to the point of contact?  For a loop, to smooth it out , that distance I would say should be at least 16 inches and a follow thru to at least eye level would help.  You could change it once your stroke is smooth, consistent, and have some pace.

initiate the arm with the hips and body, body turns first then arm strokes. 

something you do really good is your eyes are always on the ball until it leaves your racket. this is because your neck is really still thats good, dont turn your neck. lol 

a larger stroke can be produce with more knee bend and body rotation. this is not always necessary specially in counter looping rallys.  short strokes are important too 

reason your arm is so close to your body is because you use too much arm to begin with, i bet your arm is closer to body becasue you feel like you can snap it more and produce more spin right? 

the neck, body and torso should turn as a unit, but the neck should not be forced to turn before body rotation, right?

If he wants he can try to carry the ball a bit higher and longer on the table but that is about it. Another way is to train against underspin a bit more. Less tension on the arm would always help. 

yes what im saying

1- wait for the ball to be in the descent phase, after top of bounce, before making contact, this will give you a much better feel for spinning the ball. Let the ball drop to a point near table height before make contact with the ball.

2- Your left arm is flailing around. Keep it closer to your CG and don't let it flop. This is turning into one of the main problems with people developing there strokes and it's over looked because it's assumed that you can do whatever you want with it and it does not matter. It matters a lot so use it to help your stroke. 

Reading this may help.

https://thoughtsontabletennis.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/proper-use-of-the-non-playing-arm/" rel="nofollow - https://thoughtsontabletennis.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/proper-use-of-the-non-playing-arm/

The elbow is still way too close to the body. You need to get it out more so you have room to finish on the same side of your body with a larger stroke.

Remember, don't try to get the ball on the table in the beginning with a bad stroke.  Get the proper stroke first and then try to use it to control the ball.  Feel free to miss a lot - it is part of the learning process as the brain will use it to calibrate the proper stroke.

The main thing is to try to reduce the forward velocity of the ball you hit while increasing the spin. Slow the ball down while increasing the spin. This is why i suggest letting the ball fall even more because the more the ball falls the more you have to swing in an upward stroke plane/angle and the more you trade speed for spin. You should be able to heavy spin the ball without swinging very fast as you try to "lift" the ball. Then you can gradually increase the speed over time. 

Diedona,

Somewhere in after 2:30 till the end shows your best contact.  The contact is great.  What you now need to do is to straighten the arm for more power.  

You can keep this stroke and it will work okay though you will struggle to get power out of it unless you try to get the elbow out more.  This stroke will actually do okay at the lower club levels.

You don't need to completely straighten the arm - just not keep it at 90 degrees when you start looping - something like 130 to 150 degrees is fine.  It allows your elbow to help you generate more spin and speed when you go from 150 degrees to the 90 degree position that you should finish at.  You will also need to free up the wrist a little and stop holding it in a fixed position.  You don't fix your wrist when you throw a ball - there is no need to fix it while looping.

Initially, the extra power from the elbow will make you miss, but it is very easy to control - relaxing the wrist is trickier, but if you do it enough, it is also possible to control.  Continue to brush the ball.

I personally (and this is just me) would like you to use the elbow a little more by straightening your arm more on the backswing and finishing the same way you do now - the elbow is a powerful lever.  If there were no elbows, I would have no forehand at all because I have no knees.  Relax the wrist a little.  When you straighten the elbow a little, you will have to close the paddle even more. The arm is supposed to feel like a whip if it is perfect, but it doesn't have to be perfect on day one or day two.  It is all a process.

However, you need to bend your legs a little more and, potentially, put your feet a little wider apart (not much).

You should feel the right quadriceps working on every loop as you push off of the right leg.  Right now, your feet are largely in the same place when the ball is consistent.  When the ball goes a little wide or a little into the body, you tend to lean either forward or backwards, which is not a good idea.  When you do move your feet, you use them to get into position for the stroke, but you do not launch your stroke off of the right leg nearly enough.

The basic problem with selecting the correct stroke is that it is a little different for everyone.  However, you have a good enough basic stroke where at this point in the game, if you want to get better, you have to focus on your footwork and on making sure your wrist and arm are relaxed.  Your stroke will naturally evolve as your foot and body position start dictating the trajectory of the racket a little.

In the beginning, it is best you overexaggerate the weight transfer somewhat to get it grooved in.  After that, it will become natural.

ILya

ILya

 

This is not the time for footwork - you are working on your stroke.  Forget footwork - after you learn a good stroke, you can work on your footwork.  Footwork is one of the most overrated things in table tennis. The level at which footwork holds you back is far higher than your current stroke.  I can show you many players with bad footwork who will beat you in table tennis if they hit the ball once.  I beat players with far better footwork than myself all the time because I have better strokes on at least my forehand or my backhand (usually my backhand but sometimes both sides).

 

Fix the elbow issue - try straightening it a little on the backswing and break it when hitting the ball.  It should feel as if you are using your arm like a whip - should be relaxed.   The elbow is one of the most powerful and stable joints in the body if used correctly and it is hard to misuse it on the forehand (on the backhand, one needs to be more careful). 

 

Weight transfer is important, but leave that alone for now.  What you are doing is good enough.

 

If you want to be able to loop fairly powerfully without bending your knees or doing all kinds of crazy things that your body may not be suited for, you need to get the elbow and wrist usage correct.  People who don't know how to straighten their elbows don't know how to punish weak balls without using all their power.  Fix this first!

This last vid seems to use the legs and hips to start the power some more (and also uses better shoulder rotation) and you can hear the wood on the ball, so obviously better than previous vid, but still way too much use of hitting shoulder joint as a pivot point. SOME should be used, but OP hinges on it and barely uses any arm snap or wrist snap.

On a slower ball over the table (like in this drill) try getting into a position looking over the ball and use more forward stroke more open bat and use the elbow as a hinge... NOT the shoulder joint like you are. This is a more effective way to handle these balls over the table.

If you are gunna take it after it leaves the table, then using more lower body, shoulder rotation, and arm/wrist snap is sensible and controllable.

I agree with Next Level in saying it isn't time yet to go to the complicated multi-position intense moving footwork drill combos just yet. I still believe that developing efficient footwork that is simple, like a small one step, a shuffle step, two step makes sense right now. All that step around FH followed by a desperate crossover step should be way later down the line.

If the OP can learn to do a quick shuffle, a one step to the ball, a quick two step to each side and maybe a hop/slide step... that would be much more useful and applicable at his level.

I would say emphasizing STANCE, Balance, Movement to the ball, recovery, and some simple footwork is a much wiser investment at this time.

NL is right, it isn't time to go turbo on the difficult footwork stuff yet... getting to the ball on time on balance ready to execute an efficient stroke and be ready to move back and take on the next shot will do him a lot better than working on some of the sexier stuff. It looks like he doesn't have the room to do that stuff anyway.

I'll put in an example in the  paragraph below of the key point Next Level made about the development of footwork at his level... and Next Level achieved the "desired" 2000 level. He says his footwork is very limited due to arthritis in joints and defeats others his level who have WAY better footwork.

I believe that. I have dropped 3 levels in the last 1.5+ yrs and Next level has gained 1.5. Even in my sorry state of TT deterioration, I can still move pretty damned well, I just lost touch, timing and consistency. If I played Next Level right now AND he played to attack first (and landed most) he would defeat me... like 3-1 consistently and I move 10x more/better than him.

dude significant improvement. if you look at your first vid the range of your paddle hasn't increase from this vid. but because of the body usage your shot now has more weight in them, this is a combination of spin and power that comes from your body, as appose to before it was just your arm. you were able to produce a topspin before but it wasn't heavy which means its up to your opponent to control that ball, as you can see now your mom has a harder time blocking because your shots got heavier.

you said you have more precision and can perform slower strokes now this is because before you were using arm now ur using body, the arm has alot of Range, in other words its very free and its hard to produce the same consistent strokes because since you arm can move in any direction, while you body has less range of motion, so in other words you can repeat a movement over and over very consistently

congrats man! 

Right after ball impact, you are squeezing your hand a little.  That forces a somewhat abbreviated follow through.  Focus on having a relaxed grip on the handle.

Aside from that, this is a significant improvement.

ILya

Another major improvement (in the beginning of the video).  The arm is now straighter and the elbow is further away from your body.

dieodona,

The way to think about the elbow is this - what you are trying to do is make your racket move as fast as possible so you can spin the ball with confidence.  So you see, you are turning your body and going over your head (which is in principle good form) to get more power.  But with some practice, you can get that same power by putting some more distance between you and the ball, and when you use a straighter arm to contact the ball, snap the elbow to get power for the shot.  Yes, with the straighter arm, you lose some control, but it is not a shot you will use all the time.  Remember that if you start by focusing on control, you will never develop a good stroke.  You build the stroke first and then let your body figure out how to control it.  This stroke with the elbow can loop all by itself without using the body. Try it if you don't believe me.  Straigthen your arm then bend the elbow and end at 90 degrees.  Use this motion without moving your body to topspin the ball.  That exercise may help you.  If you learn this stroke, you will be able to loop with both a straight and a bent arm at your choice. Both are important.

Think of your basic topspin as your practice stroke which captures most of the possibilities you want to incorporate in your game and there will be some shorter or longer versions that you will use in other situations but which are just parts of that practice stroke.  But if you have the long arm version, it helps.  If you were competing with other players on a regular basis, you would see what other people were doing to get powerful loops and you would see them snapping elbows and you would realize that to get a better forehand, you would likely need to do it too.

Think of it like starting with a straight arm to give someone an uppercut punch.  Some people use the analogy of throwing a discus.  Just relax and loosen the arm.  Don't be afraid to miss in the beginning.  I tell people all the time - if you are afraid to miss, you will never develop good technique.  Missing with good technique helps you learn faster. 

What you have done is impressive so don't let this detail destroy your enjoyment.  If you can't do it, don't lose sleep.  But I would strongly recommend it.  It will give your stroke a new dimension and when you can't spend all day training, good technique with the arm is very helpful.

There are small details like weight balance and body rotation that you can work on over time (I suspect that you are putting too much weight on your right foot), and there are other camera angles that would be helpful (seeing your stroke from the right side and the back.  But again, you have done a good job.  It all depends on how perfect you want your technique to be at this point.  Your finishing position and basic loop is good.