OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Seconded

Which verxion(s) of Baxter is/are you using.
tOD

Which version(s) of Baxter is/are you using.
tOD

Great job Kees!

Good timing too as I recently switched my backhand from inverted to short pips. I'm guessing the short and medium pips are lumped in the same pool right?

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rokfish2 Yes; at least the medium pips that play like short pips, as concerns tactics - that's the fast and rather grippy ones. The distinction seems to be arbitrary at times, with some classifying for instance Friendship 799 and 105 as medium, and others the same as short pips. Judging by what they can do, they are short pips; judging by how they behave technically, they are medium pips. The chinese way to classify them makes more sense, in a way, distinguishing between "cooked" and "un-cooked" (or "raw") pips to indicate both how they are made and the difference in character, and making no distinction whatever concerning the length of the pip. Raw pips (like Friendship Legend 105) are soft and if you use them for making topspin the ball needs to be in the rubber more, whereas cooked pips are hard and friction is strictly on the top (surface) of the rubber. Technically there are differences, but for tactics it is all pretty much the same. Song Ah Sim, for instance, uses medium pips on her forehand, short pips on her backhand, but if you don't know that you might as well think it is the other way around. It is slightly visible in her forehand technique, where she has her bat more open than usual with SP, but it is a small difference really.

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You guys remind me how good Johnny was. I remember when he give me some coaching in the 90s Great memories with him ! Wow it's been that long

Share anything you care to share of what JH taught/told you (please)

Not sure! I can't remember. Sorry.

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+ 1... pretty please... I have seen him coaching, completely focused on the player, like there was nobody else in the world, really very fine, great class.

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one thing I still remember is, follow the arc of the ball when its on you side on the table and have your FH "fill" in the arc, this way you are always have a forward movement , Not sure did I said it correctly , I had a chance to spend a few months with him during the early 90s, I went from not knowing(never play before) the game to 2100, DZ also had a lot to do with teaching me how to play this game that I love nowadays

Interesting way of putting it. I think he meant that, first, you can't move before the ball is over the net, because you need to know where the ball is going to, so you have to move in, roughly, the time between the ball passing the net and the ball touching down; second, when the ball touches down on your half, you have to be in position and start your stroke (for you have to stand, being balanced, when performing the stroke); third, after touching down, the trajecty of the ball is an arc, going up, through its highest point, and down again; fourth, while the ball is moving along the first half of this arc towards its highest point, your hand (bat) should move towards it along the second half of the arc, to meet the ball in the highest point of it.
This way, towards a low bouncing ball your stroke will stay low, towards a high bouncing ball it will be high, and you will always get the motion, the timing and the point of contact exactly right, provided your stroke starts at table level. If I understand it correctly, this certainly is a nice and effective way to visualize what you should do to make the correct stroke with pips.
Of course, this only applies to incoming topspin, not to incoming backspin.

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If your stroke mirrors the arc of the ball after contact on your side meeting it at peak square to the ball this resembles the 'one inch punch' Chinese coaches describe

Yes. It is a martial arts technique, originally (wasn't it Tsang Tse Tung, would be now written as Zhang Zedong, who in the 1960's began incorporating martial art's techiques into table tennis systematically - a very novel thing back then?). It means that "all" of your body-weight moving forward should be directed/concentrated in a punch with the fist travelling a very short distance; for this, you have to line up shoulder and hip behind the elbow of your arm, and move them forward with your whole body (actually by rotating it, left side pulling backwards and right side pushing forwards, the opposite movements reinforcing one another), thus bringing all or most of the motion into the hand with the bat. I believe there are or were some vids of martial arts masters who could lift someone clear off his feet and hurtling him back for three meters, using this punch, avoiding the breaking of ribs by holding a telephone book that dispersed the impact - or something like that. It is a powerful punch, but the problem in table tennis is that you can only perform it when your feet are in the right position; you have to stand balanced correctly behind the ball, so your footwork has to be outstanding, at least as fast as your hands have to be... Then again, a martial arts master would point out that you let or lure your opponent move into a position so you can hit him; in table tennis, it means your placement has to be such, that your opponent has to return the ball favoroubly for you. Theoretically it is simple and neat; in practice, it is very hard to do. But a thing of beauty when it works.

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It's works!! Another is turn you body on every FH so you will never get jam

Certainly it works!

Another thing which came to mind: it is a 1 inch punch, because the forward movement of the hand (distance from start of stroke to contact with ball) should not exceed the forward movement of hip and shoulder (distance travelling forward by rotating the body). If it does exceed that distance, it will lose power, because the hand will travel the excess on its own, that is without the punch of the body. But if it travels less than the distance of the shoulder and hip, but still conveys all of the energy, it will increase in power, as it will pack all of the power in a shorter motion, which will therefore have greater momentum - it makes the hand more the body, so to speak.
This is exactly opposite to strokes with inverted, that is, loops, which are swings, where increasing the distance the hand/bat travels will increase the velocity and so the momentum.
So if you come from playing with inverted, the "stroke" (actually punch) with pips will feel totally counter-intuitive and awkward, and it generally takes quite some time to get past that. One of the things, perhaps the most essential one, you have to lose is the idea that you need a certain distance to accelerate, a "run-up", for your stroke. A one inch punch really doesn't need that. Would you need a run-up if you started to push an object forward? You don't; you put your hands or shoulder against it and just push away at once with all your might. A one inch punch is quite like that, and that is why it works so amazingly well. You can push a heavy closet away; try the same taking a swing at it...

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Without opponent, no match.