OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I've looked and haven't found anything quite on this topic, but if I've missed something and it exists, please merge or move the thread as appropriate. Thanks!

I'm new to TT. I'd played what you could call "ping pong" all my life, but in the last three years, not more than about 20 hours combined. I'm reasonably athletic and coordinated. I'm also a golf instructor and I train other golf instructors, too, so I appreciate and understand the value of good instruction. I feel I would be a good student; I can do drills, etc.

I have a home table tennis top that sits on top of my 9' Olhausen pool table (I won't be replacing the pool table any time soon, sorry!), but will mostly play downtown at my indoor golf academy (http://thegolfevolution.com/metro/) where we've had a table for the past few years (a Stiga fold-up - it can fold up one side for solo practice).

I'd like to get better. A friend helped me choose my "beginner paddle" (in my signature). We have a TT club here (http://eriettc.com/) but, when I asked about instruction, I was told by the president:


I'm not entirely sure what that means (I'd want actual coaching, not just "playing lessons"). I'll visit with her sometime soon and try to find out, though.

In the meantime, and if she is not a good fit as a coach/instructor, I'm curious if there are any online plans I can follow, books, coaching, videos, etc. There seem to be a decent number of choices. What's good, though? What's worth the money? What will help me achieve things fastest given that I do my part?

That's my basic question. I'm already going to assume that "play a lot agains people better than me" is advice I'd get, so no need to give that.

_________________
Erik J. Barzeski
Newb in Erie, PA

Tibhar TEXO All | 1.8 999 Juic Elite x 2
Ross Leidy ALL Blades (x2) | 1.8BH/2.0FH Juic 999 Elite
Butterfly Amicus Pro

Erie TTC • Erie TTC Facebook
TST • GE • 5SK • LSW

I am no coach by any means, but here is my 2 cents...

1. Learn the right grip from the start
2. Learn basic stance with slightly bended knees.

They are the easy part, but if you get your grip wrong from the start, everything else is gonna be more difficult.

3. Learn first the Fh to FH and BH to BH drive rally. As long rallies you can. You can find lot of driving videos. The goal is to keep the ball in the play with correct tecnique.

4. Then you can practice the FH to FH push and BH to BH push.

I think the drive and the push are the 2 basic shot you must do at the lower levels and with those you can advance to the middle competition level.

5. Practice serves. Pendulum serve and BH serve. Try to get as much spin as possible after you can keep the ball on the table.

Repeat and repeat the drive, push and serve. Try to keeps Eye on the ball all the time and do very relaxed strokes.

For short, to-the-point videos, the Danish "Bordtennisexperterne" is a good place to start. The visual part of the instruction is helpful on its own, but you need to know Danish (or one of the other Scandinavian languages) to extract the spoken/written info. I translated a few of them in this thread (click link).
Lots of other links to videos can be found in that section of the forum.

Also videos for any level in ttEDGE, with William Henzell as the main instructor.

There used to be a few other good spots but I can't find them right now. Brain drain...
I will post back when they occur to me .

_________________
My blog of failures, etc., also containing equipment list at "resurrection" (referred to in a few of my early posts), and my current lineup
Rating in the middle/low range in the region.
Moderating the LP Attacking subforum in the Technique section.

I made a thread special for players like you.
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=17947

Good luck

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If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same

You mentioned in another thread that you're a golf instructor, so ostensibly you already have some idea of what it's like to learn a sport.

This is my own brief impressions as a self-developed player:

1. To be good it's necessary to have a certain set of skills.
2. Pedagogical aids can help prevent circuitous path to acquiring them.
3. Most books/vids available can help with basic terminology (what X looks like), but don't/can't really show what it's like to play
4. Coaching can definitely help esp for those who aren't autodidactic, but quality varies. Some aren't better than watching instructionals, a few are probably really good. Look to see how fast their adult student are progressing on fundamentals.
5. Just like golf, it's key to start off with a feel for the points & technique. Basically how the ball travels, how to intersect its path, how the movements up to the contact feels. Observe & be conscientious.
6. In TT it's also pretty important to be efficient in all aspects. The whole thing's too demanding to focus on the plethera of foundational stuff while figuring out how to win.
7. In short, for 5&6 with respect to skills you're looking to develop good instincts of what to do, and intuition of what's going on. If you can distinguish early on between missing because you tried to perform the wrong thing, or just misexecuting, you'll be well ahead of the game.
8. It really helps here to understand how the game "works", like how a point is won and intentional working forwards towards that goal. Honestly I wish there were existing resources here because I've certainly looked yet had to figure this out on my own.
9. I haven't seen this stuff taught in traditional TT curriculum, but I seem to be progressing much quicker than most for hours put in so I've been doing something right.

I was in the process of writing a somewhat ambitious topic "How to be good at TT", but wasn't very motivated recently. Hopefully that'll get squeezed out sometime soon.

Dr. Tang's videos are very good, but they are in Chinese. You can watch his strokes though. He teaches both shakehand and penhold. His videos are for beginners to intermediates. He even has videos giving tips for players preparing for tournaments.

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=26610

Thanks for the posts so far. I'll respond more in depth later but for now…

• My plan is to check this local instructor woman out, but if she's a bust for some reason I have to find a way to learn on my own, which means reading and watching.
• I'm not too keen on trying to watch videos in other languages, unfortunately. There's a lot to be learned by what's being said. They may show an example of what not to do, or a small mistake, and I could think it's something I should do.
• It doesn't seem as though there's really any real source of "spend $200, do this, and follow it for a year and you'll be off to a great start." That's disappointing. Seriously, no video series, or "one year to great TT" series of online videos/articles/etc.?
• I need to prioritize, and tackle things in the right fashion. I also imagine that, like golf again, I could spend a lot of time going down the wrong paths.

Thanks again. If there are any others with opinions, please let me have 'em!

_________________
Erik J. Barzeski
Newb in Erie, PA

Tibhar TEXO All | 1.8 999 Juic Elite x 2
Ross Leidy ALL Blades (x2) | 1.8BH/2.0FH Juic 999 Elite
Butterfly Amicus Pro

Erie TTC • Erie TTC Facebook
TST • GE • 5SK • LSW

I already mentioned ttEDGE. While I don't see a specific offer for a "one year to great TT" course, they have a wide range of videos for all levels, and paid membership will let you "ask the coach". Pingskills with Alois Rosario and Jeff Plumb is another site providing similar material and services.

_________________
My blog of failures, etc., also containing equipment list at "resurrection" (referred to in a few of my early posts), and my current lineup
Rating in the middle/low range in the region.
Moderating the LP Attacking subforum in the Technique section.

There's a difference to golf because instead of mostly one setpiece swing TT has rather more dynamic variation against another opponent also trying to win. The orthodox way of learning each element piecemeal and somehow thread them together can take a long time. Those who we might say have "the gift" do it a different way and it's IMO worth trying to replicate/reproduce what parts of that talent you can.

I play golf, I'm not a golf instructor. I do have trouble with my motor skills so I'm a bit more aware of things that can be difficult to learn.

_________________
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same

I suspect that agenthex was addressing iacas, the OP.

I found that videoing my stokes and comparing them to good strokes was very informative and a bit depressing as I looked so bad. There is free software online that you can put two videos side by side and do slow motion. I understand golf uses this method a lot.

It does. For example, I hear this software is pretty good for that… http://analyzrgolf.com/

_________________
Erik J. Barzeski
Newb in Erie, PA

Tibhar TEXO All | 1.8 999 Juic Elite x 2
Ross Leidy ALL Blades (x2) | 1.8BH/2.0FH Juic 999 Elite
Butterfly Amicus Pro

Erie TTC • Erie TTC Facebook
TST • GE • 5SK • LSW

iacas,

TTEdge (Brett Clarke) is doing a series on all the basic strokes and they have started with the forehand counterhit, focusing on common mistakes and errors to try to avoid beginners and adult learners from having capped technique. You should look into it if you haven't already.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
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"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus