Quinten wrote:
Good stuff. I noticed that also. I think it's left over from working a lot on looping backspin last week. Question? If I was receiving an underspin ball (Which I am not) in a similar scenario to this, would my arm angle be upright such as this? I went and hit balls yesterday with the same scenario in the video and I made sure my paddle was splitting my eyebrows. Thanks |
I think you have a problem similar to one of mine. Basically your elbow is staying too low and this limits the upward and forward motion of the stroke. Yours is a more old school driving technique. But because you are trying to spin the ball like a loop you lose the forward motion of the forearm that that older technique utilized.
If you go to the pingskills.com video on looping against block they describe finishing with the elbow up near shoulder height and slightly in front of the body. The forearm finishes angled around 45deg relative to the floor and the racket finishes slightly past the face. In your case the elbow finishes just above the waist (about where it started in ready position). Your forearm finishes at almost a 90deg angle to the floor and the racket is well to the right of your head.
One of the first fixes to try is to relax your arm more as you swing. If the arm is relaxed the momentum produced by the hip turn will naturally cause the elbow and hand to continue to a higher and more forward finish. If like me you are just naturally stiff you may need to (at least until it becomes habit) think about pushing the elbow up and forward at ball contact so you do not interfere with the natural movement. Some people focus more on the forearm rather than the elbow. In that case they think about moving the hand up and forward like they were going to slap the face of a person standing in front of them. That motion will pull the elbow up and forward into the desired finish position and carry the racket slightly past your face.
So why is the finish important since the ball has already left the racket? It is important because it gives an indication of what was happening at impact. Your finish indicates that near impact there is a dramatic change between forward and vertical motion of the racket. Also the forward motion is limited in length. These two things mean your timing must be very precise to replicate your shot. Having the forward and upward motion both being more consistent through a longer range of motion allows your timing to be a little off and still hit with both the forward and upward motion you intended thus producing the ball trajectory you wanted. In your case being a little early with the swing means contacting with less forward impact resulting in balls going into the net. If your timing is late, you get full forward impact but very little upward motion to generate spin. Thus the balls tend to fly long.
I am a big fan of the pingskills videos especially for lower level players. I think they try to present a simplified stroke that may not employ world class technique, but is very sound and can be accomplished by players who are not training everyday with strong coaching.
Sorry for being so long winded.
Warning: I am not a high level player or coach so if you get contradictory info from one of either please ignore me.
Mark
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