OOAK Table Tennis Forum

For those of you that have been coached properly, what is supposed to be optimum amount to bend you knees when receiving serves or during ralleys? Should taller players bend down more?

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I'm from the Dr. Neubauer school of standing pretty erect.

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My coach used to make me bend until the top of the net was level with the endline on the opposite end of the table from my perspective. This is quite low haha. Though you dont have to actually line it up to play well, it was more for building the habit of bending knees and slouching slightly with the shoulders. But even still this is realllyy low compared to how most naturally stand.
So in my experience it's to be low

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下去 over and over from my coach. It means down. He always wanted me to crouch lower especially to start a loop.
Also for recieve of serve and especially blocking.

My coach has an expression in Romanian that means "sit down on the ball".
It means to be in a crouched athletic position ready to absorb contact as you would in football or wrestling.
If you are upright you cannot generate any power from your legs and will just be knocked off balance.

I think much depends on your height, but ideally you must be bent enough to be able to move in any
direction plus keep your eyes near the level of the ball.

Leszek Kucharsky was about 6'4" or 5 and kept his legs bent at 80 degrees almost all the time
when I saw him in Chicago.
He obviously had very strong legs as you would expect from a professional athlete.
A couple of pictures of Kucharsky playing doubles with Grubba, you have to look close, but his feet are wide apart and he is crouched with
knees at almost 90 degrees when receiving serve. You also see Grubba, the little guy, isn't bending so much, he's lower to
the table by nature.

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I like watching Brian Berry he stands on his toes to do his forehand down the line gun slinger loop lol
I think it is easier for taller players to get there feet wide rather than crouching

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hay he never did anything but chop and wider out hits lol, I could see about 15 people I knew there

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Blade Ulmo Duality| FH Tibhar mx-p Black, Dawei 388D-1 red OX
NZ table tennis selector, ask a question
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I forgot to say my Interclub team-mate is 2meters tall and just stands in the middle and counters
he plays at a good high level too

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Blade Ulmo Duality| FH Tibhar mx-p Black, Dawei 388D-1 red OX
NZ table tennis selector, ask a question
My Blog here..How table tennis objects are made
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If you watch Samsonov, his stance is really wide AND he bends his knees a great deal. Every stroke he plays, be it a lob or a loop, he maintains the same bent-knee stance. I believe he's around 200cm in height, so I guess if you're that tall it's really important to get down. One of the top players at my club is of similar height (and greater girth!) and does the same thing.

Zhang Jike, who is significantly smaller, does the same thing. He uses his legs to power his forehand really well and I think he's probably the benchmark for orthodox technique.

Ma Long on the other hand bends his knees to receive serve but then actually stands up quite straight. However, he always has a wide stance.

I can't really bend my knees too effectively at the moment thanks to my old knee injury but I do my absolute best to maintain a wide stance for every stroke, and its something I work on regularly.

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My coach has been telling me recently that I need to bend at the knees for my FH but stand up a little taller on my BH since I have switched from LP chopping to inverted block or attack. Not sure how I can do both at the same time or go back and forth.

Thanks for all the feedback guys!

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For inverted backhand blocking, my coach wanted me to

1) Move in front of the ball. Dont reach. (anticipation)
2) Be low.

I normally bend my knees until my eyes is leveled with the net when receiving to be able to see the ball properly and make a better judgement on its spin.

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Enjoy the game. It is a never ending learning experience once you play and keep the ball on that 45 sq ft of space or should I say half of that space.

Look at this YouTube video called Ma Longs instructional embedded subtitles.

It at one point talks about how to bend more for fh and be higher and more stable for bh

Another way is to drill transitions aiming for power on fh and quickness on bh. You will realise that its actually very natural.

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