What sort of restrictive stuff?

And actually there are plenty of supportive stuff for your legs, arms etc.

Tie your upper arm to your body at the elbow. You will have no choice but to move and use your body. My coach has threatened me many times with it. 

You should try to out these exercises:

1. When warming up your partner plays 2 topspins, he counters the next ball and you step back and  play 2 topspins (that way you need do move back then attack and move back in to block, helps with he general feeling for moving in and out)

2. You play 1 forehand from forehand close to the table, then take a step back and play another one, next forehand from the middle (still away from the table) and then move into the table to play a forehand from the middle. That way you form a square (close fhand off table forehand from forehand and then off table from middle and close table fh from middle)

The main thing is to loop with the body on both forehand and backhand (twist for forehand, bow for backhand) and develop an "arm structure" which is the base for the ready position and all your strokes.  So when you want to play a stroke, it is about getting that arm structure the ball and not reaching for it.  If you don't have this structure, you tend to reach for the ball before you move.  Requires significant drilling.

Agree, Ryu is probably the best example for that. When trying to pivot, this technique is crucial and allows you to play a lot more ball from the backhand side with your forehand.

I think you can just place your right leg to the front, and you'll be able to get into position easily. A lot of FH shorter opportunity balls are looped with the right leg well in front of the left leg (for a righty that is). My understanding is that the right foot placement follows the depth of the ball. So if you have a fast deep ball, your right leg needs to go backwards, if it's short then your right leg needs to go forward. 

That seems super useful! I found something similar to block well (jumping into the backswing), so it does seem like it should be the same for attacking shots.

Tt Gold wrote: mickd wrote: A big problem I also have is forwards and backwards movement. I feel like I'm leaping forward to hit the ball more than I should. It nearly always results in a low quality ball or miss. I need to reprogram myself to move forward then hit the ball. Not really an answer to the question since I don't really have one except consciously thinking about it until it's fixed haha. You should try to out these exercises: 1. When warming up your partner plays 2 topspins, he counters the next ball and you step back and  play 2 topspins (that way you need do move back then attack and move back in to block, helps with he general feeling for moving in and out) 2. You play 1 forehand from forehand close to the table, then take a step back and play another one, next forehand from the middle (still away from the table) and then move into the table to play a forehand from the middle. That way you form a square (close fhand off table forehand from forehand and then off table from middle and close table fh from middle)

I think I understand what you're talking about now.

Personally I found it very hard to loop FH short opportunity ball (those which are high but will definitely bounce twice or more if untouched), and the consistency is really bad. I no longer try to loop those anymore, but to use the FH flick. I've made some huge progress with my FH flick in recent weeks, and the basic gist is that it is very similar to the FH loop that you need the support of the whole body, so you absolutely need to power it using weight transfer and upper body rotation, it's not just an arm only movement (which doesn't work against high spin balls unless you have Waldner touch). So I'm thinking rotate the body into the ball when I do the flick and it's worked wonders for my consistency. 

I think it's also very helpful to not try to kill the ball outright with these short balls because they're really tricky and you definitely need the consistency. A better mindset would be to vary the placement and spin (you have the normal diagonal version and the fade version) based on your opponent's body positioning, so that you can get them out of position and be in a good position to kill the next ball. Sometimes if the opponent fears the flick and retreats prematurely, doing a sudden dropshot of these opportunity balls is a killer as they'll have to reverse their backwards momentum to come forward significantly. 

Alternatively just be fast on the feet enough to use the BH chiquita which is super good against any kind of short opportunity balls (and even non-opportunity balls, as long as they are not low with heavy underspin)