OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hey, all. I'm relatively new to the forum, and I know all of you will be able to help me out with a question I have. First of all, I should let you know my level of play -- I'm not necessarily a beginner (I've played on and off for the past 5 years with a roommate / training partner), but I do not have any real competitive experience to speak of (apart from "tournaments" at a local bar). I do have pretty good fundamentals, a good forehand loop, passable backhand loops, and can defeat pretty much any recreational player I come up against. Anyway, I am soon moving to New York City and I hope to try out for their university team, as well as play as much as I can at local clubs. I guess I would say I'm in the intermediate range??

Anyway, I plan on training as hard as I possibly can before I move (early August). I've already started to attend club practices at the nearby University, but I've also recently purchased the iPong robot. It does do "heavy" topspin, topspin, and backspin (although I've heard the backspin is not that strong). It also does not oscillate, as far as I know.

That being said, what are some drills that I can start doing? I hope to train with the robot at least an hour a day. The things I hope to improve on:
- Reflexes
- Consistent and aggressive blocks
- Backhand loops / more consistent counterdrives
- Footwork

Thanks in advance!

Without seeing a video perhaps, it's hard to evaluate your level. But I would hesitate to call anyone intermediate who has had no real competitive experience. Training with your robot is fine (footwork drills especially), but real opponents have a bad habit of trying to hit the ball where you don't expect it.

I would say that as soon as possible you should enter an official USATT tournament (see their website for the tournament schedule) and enter the Under 1100 or Under 1400 class and see how you do. If your USATT rating is below that then you are not an intermediate. If you can win that class under tournament conditions, then perhaps you are already there. You could also get tournament-like experience by playing in a USATT-sanctioned league if one is available in your area. Only competition will give you a true evaluation of your level.

At our club we see players with similar experience to yours come through the doors every week. I'd say that 1 out of 10 acquire initial ratings in the 1100-1200 range but most of the rest are below 900. Even fewer of these visiting recreational players "stick" more than a month or two. Perhaps it's a blow to the ego to go from local recreational champ to losing most of your games every week.

I say all this from experience. I thought I was pretty good and could easily beat everyone at the table in our warehouse at work. Then I decided to join a club and after a few weeks of playing in a league my initial USATT rating was appx 450. I think I was something like 10-200 in matches over the first few months and most of the intermediate players didn't even want to play me. But I worked hard with weekly coaching, lost 50 pounds, played about 10 hrs/week, and practiced with a robot as well and now after about 18 months I'm up to appx 1375. I still consider myself an "Advanced Beginner" until I can stay consistently above that elusive 1400 level.

To get where you seem to want to go is going to take some old-fashioned determination and the willingness to work harder than you may have worked before. You really, really should find a coach and some regular sanctioned competition and just decide that you are going to "do it" and not worry about your level or how many games you lose at first. My comments are not intended to be negative, but merely realistic based on my own experience and watching other "newbies." Perhaps you are an exception...if so, great! Nevertheless, no matter what level you are, there is always a huge hill to climb. You can do it if you are willing to put in the necessary work.

Good luck and let us know how things progress.


 

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Giant Dragon Kris Special : RITC 802 w/Dawei 2.2 35d fh : : Donic Blue Fire M3 2.0 black bh
Member of Charlotte Table Tennis Club, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
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Yes, I suppose I will stay away from the "intermediate" label until I enter some tournaments and ascertain what my USATT level is. I actually went to the local university table tennis practice and was handily defeated. Even though I was defeated by all 4 people I played, I was not discouraged at all. Rather, it felt good to know that I am nowhere near as good as I thought and that I have SO much room to improve. Although I will be in school (Master's in Psychology), as well as working, I'm going to play as often as I can in New York.

Thanks for the tips! However, I'm still looking for just a couple ideas for any robot drills for beginners?

Every bot is different, but I'll use my RoboPong 1050 as an example.

To practice your basic strokes (refer to PingSkills or TTEdge to make sure your form is sound...you don't want to ingrain bad habits):

1 - Groove your forehand and backhand counterhits against topspin until you can hit the entire bucket without missing (or 100 balls) then increase the speed until you can hit one per second. For this drill, use a fixed setting. On either fh or bh return cross-court. At first just get the ball back as close as you can, but your goal is a 12x12 "box" in the corners. Make sure you practice making a full body turn (on forehands)...start as slow as necessary. CONSISTENCY is what you are training. You can increase speed only as long as you can maintain consistency (i.e., 100 IN A ROW).
2 - Repeat the above and practice hitting cross-court then down the line alternately.
3 - Repeat all of the above and ALTERNATE between forehand and backhand. Set the arc such that you don't need to move very much.
4 - Repeat all of the above and set the oscillation left and right to random. Set a small degree of arc for counterhits and only a slightly wider arc for fh/bh alternating shots. (The footwork drills come later.)
5 - Repeat all of the above and set the oscillation SPEED to be random.
6 - Combine #4 and #5.
7 - Set the head to do a LONG underspin serve (one bounce on server side, one bounce on receiver side). Practice looping it back. If you can do 100 of these in a row you are better than I am.
8 - Set the head to do a LONG underspin push (one bounce only on receiver side of table). Again, practice looping it back.
9 - Set the head to do a SHORT underspin serve (double bounce). Practice pushing long to each corner and the middle so that the ball lands within six inches of the end line. Always take the ball off the bounce as it is still rising. On pushing drills it's very important to practice recovering to your normal ready position after every push.
10 - Repeat #9 except return the ball SHORT such that it bounces twice (or more) on the other side.
11 - Repeat #9 and #10 by turning the robot head so that the serves have sidespin, both left and right.
12 - Set the bot on a fast topspin setting and practice blocking from both fh and bh. Practice this until you can block at the fastest speed and interval you can handle. This shot is often a totally reactive shot, so slowly add random left/right oscillation and changes in ball speed and interval.

Then for footwork:

1 - Using the #1 drill above (forehand only), have the first ball go to your fh corner, the second to the middle, the third to the bh corner and then repeat. ONLY HIT FOREHANDS. Keep your posture correct at all times with feet spread and knees bent. (Look up some videos for correct posture.) Don't worry too much about where the ball goes...this is a FOOTWORK drill.
2 - Set the arc very wide to each corner and then hit one fh and one bh alternately...keep your posture and don't cross your legs when moving left and right.
3 - Repeat #1 by hitting 2 forehands and then one backhand.

That should keep you busy!

_________________
Giant Dragon Kris Special : RITC 802 w/Dawei 2.2 35d fh : : Donic Blue Fire M3 2.0 black bh
Member of Charlotte Table Tennis Club, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Visit Charlotte Table Tennis Club on Facebook

Nice thread, but why is it in the video section ?

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Huh, that's weird. For me, it says its in "Table Tennis - Other topics >> Techniques, Strategies, Coaching."

cyber1call, thank you so much for the drill suggestions! I will definitely incorporate them into my training; although my machine doesn't oscillate or offer too much variation in terms of spin and speed, I'm excited to be able to train alone!

seems in the right section,
some drills to do will be to set the robot at half way between the middle line and the outside backhand side and get side on to the table (med length topspin )and do 3 topspin returns to different locations then drive one hard then 1 more topspin then quickly come and do a backhand block then backhand topspin then quickly pivot and drive on your forehand again. the theory is move to do the right shot and think of the robot as a person or coach
Or same location backhand open ,pivot forehand topspin then forehand drive and repeat

set the robot in same location with backspin and practice 30-40 pushes in different locations, then try mild looping the same ball to build your backhand confidence, you don't have to have the strongest backhand to win games its more about not loosing points on that side so you can move to take forehandswhenever possible, Im not saying neglete your backhand Im more saying do your best shot when you can

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Thanks for the tips!

Since I have been denied access to the local university's table tennis practices (I'm no longer a student; I recently graduated), I am going to be practicing serves and working with my robot until I move to a place with more clubs.

If I were to record myself doing these drills, would any of you guys mind looking over my form?

Posting a clip of yourself playing is a good idea. I would also consider getting some coaching. If you don't nail your technique early you could have a lot of unlearning to do further down the track. If you don't get coaching then check out the pingskills videos on youtube for some guidance - they cover all the strokes and are very good.

It might be hard to describe with just words, but let me describe the first drill my first coach made me do as a total beginner.

Put a box of balls near the center line. Stand with body and feet square with your belt almost touching the table on the forehand side. And bend your knees! Hold your bat (assuming a right-hander shakehand grip) properly with a good "bent-wrist" and neutral position. You may have to refer to a text book or video to make sure you have a good grip.

Then, rotate your body and touch the corner of the table with your LEFT hand, arm fully extended. Adjust your body position so you are not reaching and can maintain a good square, knees bent position. With your right arm relaxed, bring your bat up at a 45 degree angle using the FOREARM only. The center of the bat should be right at the corner of the table. Now you are in position to perform the drill.

Grab a ball and hold it appx 1 foot above the corner. Drop and hit with as little shoulder movement as possible. The motion of your forearm and blade should swing at a 45 degree angle and will just barely miss hitting the corner of the table. (You may want to have a training bat...I scratched up more than a few rubbers doing this.) Use nothing but your elbow and forearm. Don't try to hit it hard. Just drop and hit. At first, don't worry about where the ball goes. Maintain that 45 angle and forearm only. Drop the ball from 1 foot. Not higher or lower. Drop and hit. Drop and hit. Keep doing that until you can keep your form and hit the crosscourt corner consistently (say 8 or 9 out 10). Then drop and hit over and over. Keep your knees bent! Drop and hit!

Repeat about 10,000 times then do the same thing on the backhand and you'll be on your way to a good stroke. No robot necessary, but a catch net is nice!

 

_________________
Giant Dragon Kris Special : RITC 802 w/Dawei 2.2 35d fh : : Donic Blue Fire M3 2.0 black bh
Member of Charlotte Table Tennis Club, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Visit Charlotte Table Tennis Club on Facebook

I think there is a need for more instructional videos about how to best practice with a robot. Most of the simple table tennis exercises can be adjusted and tweaked so that you can use the robot but I see that it would be useful to actually demonstrate this.

Leave it with me and I'll see what we can do.

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ttEDGE.com
By William Henzell and Brett Clarke
Table Tennis Coaching | ttEDGE YouTube

yes you're right, there is a definite need for this!

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Did you get anywhere with this? It still sounds like a great series of videos that could drive people to subscribe to ttEdge.

I don't have anyone good against whom to train.

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