kagin wrote:
I know next to nothing about boxing so please correct me if i'm wrong. From what i can tell a jab is quick but weak, harder to avoid but does less damage. It's not a big power shot.
In combat you're hitting a target that not only moves, but will react to your movement/swings. In table tennis you don't have to worry about that because once your opponent hits the ball its flight path is pretty much set, so if you're fast enough and proficient enough you can take big roundhouse swings at every single ball. You don't have to worry about the ball seeing your stroke coming and trying to dodge it.
In table tennis, assuming you have adequate footwork and speed, a jab should be a useless shot. However it's used by most penholders as well as most seemiller players on the backhand because of the weaknesses of those grips (penhold is too open, seemiller is too closed). A proper backhand loop with penhold is mechanically much more difficult and requires a lot more time to set up compared to shakehand, so those players have to use the quick punch.
A shakehander doesn't need to develop a jab; it's even an inferior/damaging thing for some players to learn. They can and should be taking swings on all backhand attacks. Penholders (and boxers) develop jabs out of necessity.. That's my theory on-the-fly.
Actually your knowledge of boxing isn't as weak as you think it is. I do think though that there are equivalents to the jab in table tennis though. Here's why, and apologies in advance to non-boxing fans (or just skip down past the next four paragraphs):
The primary use of a jab by a skilled offensive boxer is to set up his (or her) power shots. There are a number of fighters who do "everything off the jab" and will use it to set up combinations, like a one-two (jab-straight right) or one-two-three (jab-straight right-left hook). For offensive fighters, the jab disrupts the opponents balance, making them stop, obscures their vision when it is at the face, and tips the opponents head back so that the following punches have maximum effect.
Mike Tyson was not known for his jab, but he was far more effective when he used it as it helped him disrupt his, invariably taller, opponents movement and get inside. When he stopped, after breaking with his trainer Kevin Rooney, he became a one punch fighter, which wasn't good enough to beat more complete fighters like Douglas, Holyfield and Lewis.
For a defensive fighter, the jab can be the cornerstone of their defense, keeping the opponent at bay and off balance as they can't effectively throw a punch when someone is hitting you and you can move out of range. Also a jab exposes you less than any other punch to a counter punch, which is how many fights are won (Holyfield knocked out Douglas to take the championship after Douglas missed a wild uppercut for example).
Larry Holmes' entire style was based on the jab, Lewis, Douglas and Ali all had the jab as their primary weapon and the second coming of George Foreman after his ten year retirement and unlikely comeback that won him the heavyweight championship, was based on a jab that could knock you down (along with some of the hardest punches in history). All four fighters also had a good right hand that could follow up on the jab, so people couldn't just walk through them. Fighters like the early George Foreman and Earnie Shavers had the two most devastating right hands in history, but as neither had a good jab, they lost to more complete fighters like Ali and Holmes respectively (too bad Holmes and Foreman never fought).
To bring it back to table tennis, the "jab" for a table tennis player is a safe shot that sets up your next shot. You can't take a home run swing on every ball as often they are not in the right position (too low or wide or close to you) or you may not be able to read the spin completely. So you take a safe shot, placed so the opponent doesn't have an easy attack and wait for the next ball. Against a player with good defense, top players vary spin, speed and placement so it's hard for their shots to be times. If every ball has the same spin or speed it's much easier to adjust. Boxers will do the same thing by hitting lighter and quicker sometimes and harder others as it's much harder for your opponent to counter when you vary the timing and also the punch that knocks you out is the one you don't expect, not the one you can prepare yourself for.
The only two times I was ever dropped in boxing (to one knee, and both in the same round) was when I didn't see the punch coming. That it was thrown by a professional middleweight who outweighed me by 20-25 pounds and had just gotten back from sparring with Evander Holyfield (when Holyfield had just turned pro and was still in his weight class) was only incidental to that, as I sparred with him many other times and stunned him a few times as well, though he was too big and tough to drop. But the only times I hurt him was when I did something he didn't expect (by throwing a southpaw one-two-three for example, even though my right hook that hurt him was never as hard as my left).
In table tennis if you set up right, then you get the opportunity to either attack, due to an opening (poorly placed ball possibly with weak speed or spin) created by your previous shot, or by counterattacking against an attack. My fencing coach (my other current hobby) points out that when someone is attacking, they can't think about defending at the same time, so it is much easier to counter them when they are thinking about winning the point. This is why a good block or quick counterloop over the table can be devastating as it blows by your opponent while they are still following through, often off balance and not thinking about the next ball.
I think traditional penholders, Seemiller players and defensive players counter more often, but offensive shakehanders do as well. They can't take full power shots everytime, so the "jab" may be a short push, a low roll, a slow loop, or any well-placed, but not powerful shot that isn't meant to win the point, but simply gives you the opportunity to do so later by not either missing or exposing holes in your defense. Even players like Kreanga will have to go on the defensive at times by stepping back form the table to give themselves more time to respond, as he did so well against He Zhi Wen in 2003 when He seemed to have his number.
I'm pretty sure that you've heard Sean O'Neill talk about "extending the point" at the About.com forum when he talks to his student, top international class paralympic (and also top able-bodied U.S. player) rather than playing "New York style" table tennis which is going for the big shot on every point. Too many errors doing this, even for the top players.
Players who go for the big shot on every point, as I used to as a Japanese/Korean style penolder who played 95% forehand, are vulnerable to being beaten by those who can play safe shots and make us miss, or block/counter even our strong attacks when we're off balance after a big swing.
Back to boxing, see Foreman's 1974 fight against Ali in the great documentary "When We Were Kings" for a textbook example of this. The first Foreman had possibly the most devastating attack in boxing history, but Ali weathered it through the "rope-a-dope and one of the greatest chins in boxing history and knocked Foreman out when he got tired.
Interestingly, "Big George" Foreman now says that he was a better fighter after his 10 year layoff and comeback than he was as "The Executioner" in the early 70's when he destroyed Joe Frazier twice and was the most feared fighter since Sonny Liston in the 60's and until Mike Tyson in the 80's. Sean O'Neill thinks he in many ways is a better player now than when he was national champion. The late Waldner may have been able to beat the young Waldner, though I wouldn't bet on the outcome.
Hope this overly long message helps clarify things. Biggest adjustment I had to make switching from boxing (where I was more talented and which you can probably tell still fascinates me) to table tennis (which is far better for me and ultimately more fun) is that a point is not a match.
In boxing if you hit someone right, you can end the match right there. I did this every time I fought in my short amateur career, three of four times with a single punch in the first round. My first fight lasted only 11 seconds, including an eight count after I dropped my opponent the fourth punch I threw and second one I connected with. He tried to get up and fell down again. Too bad I didn't keep the clipping for USA Today that reported it. Tyson has me beat with an 8 second fight as an amateur but there was no eight count there.
In table tennis, no matter how hard you hit the ball, your opponent goes and gets it (or gets a new ball) and play continues until one wins 11 (or more) points and 3 of 5 or 7 of 9 matches. So it's a series of sprints, not an all-or-nothing all out effort, just like a professional match is a series of rounds, which (barring a knockout) you have to win the majority of to win. Even the greatest knockout artists, like the early Foreman (at 88-89% knockout ratio) and the great Carlos Zarate (at 90-95%) went the distance a few times, generally losing those efforts to more complete fighters with better endurance and they also got knocked out in some of their biggest fights when they exposed their defenses to greater fighters.
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