And stick to a couple of motions that you feel work best for your game.

Now, Im not saying you need to be an expert on ALL serve motions, just good enough that you can use them in a  game situation if you need some variety. Knowing how to execute those motions will help you with returning serves as well since you potentially know what spin they are imparting on that ball.

Practicing serve receive with a good player of course would be the  ideal.

As for deceptive serves, there's only a few that I know of. This is the golden nugget that is very hard to find information on.

Most books wont address this ( I have bought more than a dozen in the hopes of finding info on this very subject without any luck!). As far as I know only Larry Hodges has written about how to perform these. Like I said, it is information that many keep to themselves. 

FdT

There's also aftermotions 

I really have NO way to practice serves.  The clubs I go to people just want matches and every table is full from the time we set them up until we take them down.  It's terrible.  

Sure, but I always thought that those were part of the things that one doesn't bother to learn because, whilst probably being quite effective on intermediate players, they really won't do much to confuse a decent player.

 

How can this possibly help anything?  

You can't see the serve's height, angle, speed, length, spin or anything else.  Placement is one of the most important things to consider with a serve.  You're just spinning a ball onto a random surface.  

Now this does look interesting. 

Brett Clarke, the multimillionaire app designer, recommends doing the same thing but just onto the floor of a hallway and then onto your bed. I tried it a few times but found that nothing could quite compete with actually standing at a table and a basket full with balls to hand.

I apologize if I was rude.  My mind is open, I just need to know why this would help.  Because I can't understand it.  If you could explain, I'd appreciate it.  

And I appreciate the time you took to respond.

Swiff: In your case, the best thing you can do is to practice serves in games, when you have a sizeable/comfortable lead. You can copy some opponents' serves and try them out yourself. See how it is returned back to you, then will have a better idea what return is uncomfortable for a particular serve.

Having great serves/setups are so important. It's the one part of the game that you can have full control over. Also, half of the entire game is your and opponents' serves! 

in TT you learn by doing. Only way to get any kind of muscle memory.

So either get your own table or sneak into that club at night and practice. Reading books or youtube clips can only take you so far.

FdT

The reason this simple exercise helps is that you will start to develop the technique and feel required to generate heavy spin and also control the trajectory of the ball.  You'll progress in stages.  First get the ball to roll back to you, using underspin.  Then work on getting it to roll back to you at a faster pace, which will require you to learn how to generate more underspin.  Then work on hitting the ball to different distances and have the ball back to you faster and faster.

When you can hit the ball so that it lands about a few inches in front of you and then kicks violently back past you, you'll have the touch to serve a heavy short underspin

I do have one piece of really bad news for you though.  You will never be able to learn how to serve unless you practice on a table and a net.  You may need to get creative on how to duplicate it, but you will need a table of some kind and something that resembles a regulation net.  And hours of practice.  

Situation is not that easy. lol I'd love to come early or stay late to work on serves.  

The 2 clubs that are available, we arrive and setup the tables, then leave and take down the tables.  The gym is only available during a certain time, so players show up at the start and leave at the end.  Not much I can do.

I don't think I need to practice serving heavy spin.  Heavy spin is good, I guess, but it's too easy to read.  I'd rather keep my serves subtle and deceptive with good placement.  

As for short heavy backspin serve, that's a serve I already have in my skill set.  I'd consider myself good at serving low and spinny.  My placement isn't good and usually my serves aren't short, and high level players can open the point on these serves.

I need to become more advanced in my serve game.  I need to work on placement mostly and trajectory.  (all while developing completely new serves)  

I definitely need to do this on a table, though.  I may just have to bite the bullet and buy a cheap table for the basement.

ie something like a down spin and a less  or top spin

(this is when you go to the clubs)

And now that I can't play D very well anymore, and don't have a lot of a life other than singing and playing old time lonesome country music with my good buddies Ron Riggs and Rick Garcia, I'm just about prepared to spent the rest of my day practicing underspin/sidespin ghost serves that'll bounce back over the net and into my generously comfortable Starter shorts.

I'm even willing, and I never thought I'd be writing this, to try out, now that my cash flow has been ebbed, some of that there Grandson of Tenergy on my bh and Hurricane Neo Rank Amateur on my fh.  Plus a liberal soaking of whatever booster the pros are using these days.

Legality.  Who cares about legality?  Nobody but me in southwest Tucson knows anything about tt serve legality.  

I may have to wait till Gordy and the USATT decide to have an O-85 event, but if singing, playing my digital electronic keyboard and service practice don't kill me with my new illegal boosted unreturnable serve (don't know of any 85 year olds with a decent banana flick) I should be ready to not only be the O-85 National Champ but also take home the gold at the 2027 World Vets' in Novosibirsk.

Please understand.  This cannot happen.  I'll try to explain in more detail.

I'm 1800.  The people at my club tell me my rating should be closer to 1900-1950, but I don't perform well in tournaments.  

This is good advice.  I should practice serves in games.  

I don't have any videos of myself playing, unfortunately.  I could give more details about my play style.   

I'd classify myself as a pretty straight forward hitter.  I'm a right handed player and shakehand.  Fast and spinny rubber on both sides.  My stroke is pretty textbook (I've been told) and my footwork is average, I guess.  I often step around to my forehand for looping, although I loop from both sides.  I play somewhat aggressively and attacking early.  I can generally loop backspin to get into the point and continue hitting to finish it.  My club mates recently told me that instead of developing my serve, I've focused on perfecting my 3rd ball to the serves I already have.  They seemed optimistic about it.

That's still not enough.  I should be able to practice my serve while laying in bed watching TV without a paddle or ball just swinging my hand.  

Not arguing with this.  

I have to second the suggestion to try using a single serve for an entire match or even for an entire night of play.  It is especially useful if you find yourself playing mostly weaker players.  After 2 games of seeing exactly the same serve even a 1400 opponent can start returning like he is 2000+.  

The real test comes in the 5th game when you are down 9-10 to someone who has never beaten you before.  Do you have the confidence and fortitude to serve that same serve you have been giving him all the match and face the strong return with your best 3rd ball effort?   Once you can do it without a second thought you will know you own that serve.

 I half to admit that I do not always stick to the high road in those situations.  But even when I don't it is an interesting test of my serving ability to suddenly pull off a completely different serve than I have been hitting all night.

Good luck with your practice.

Mark

Well come visit my club some time and watch the 1300 and 1400 plays tie me in knots with alternating deep pushes to the wide Fh, short drops that I can hardly reach, and flips which just seem to freeze me.

Mark

Yes! You need a training buddy... "

And when you do find one, treat him/her better than a wife.....wives come and go but a Table Tennis sparring partner is one in a million!!!!

FdT

I feel like I need to come to Swiff's defense.  The situation in a lot of small clubs in the US is nothing like what exists in much of the world.  The club has to beg for a few hours in some one else facilities.  They often do not have enough members to financial compete with other groups for the space.  Such limited playing time combined with a majority attitude of lets go have a little fun instead of lets work hard to get better means it is really hard to find practice partners.  Put that together with the small membership in lots of clubs and it is even more difficult to find a reliable training partner.

Currently there is only one player at my club that really wants to practice with me.  Because of his schedule and club practices on table time and player rotation I get about 20 min with him once a week.  Hard to do much serious training within those limits.  I get some other players to drill with me in exchange for coaching them.  But even then there is little real training time.

Mark -A small time coach at a small time club

or 

copy the good servers and paste them with your new one's

I'm not sure if it counts as defending, but it's very useful to point out to some of advice givers that they   have no idea what they are talking about: "get a key to the club", "find a practice partner", "get a table for yourself" does not work in most situations in the middle of TT desert areas, that is most of US. 

I suspect mjamja understands OP's situation much better than our esteemed TT gurus from Germany and elsewhere.

Practicing serves at my club, for reasons mentioned above, just won't happen.  That's just the way it works where I live.  Even if I could find someone to practice with, the club owner and other members expect us to play a match when we get on the table.  Just practicing serves would be frowned upon.

I do agree with the general attitude "wherever there's a will, there's a way".  Determination is everything.  Maybe practicing at my club won't work.  But I will buy a cheap table for the basement and just practice there.  I'm not so poor I can't buy a cheap-o table.

maybe there's a bar or rec center or somewhere like that you can practice.

Tips in terms of both in-game (actual stroke) and out of game (exercises).