OOAK Table Tennis Forum

G'day all

During the past year since starting table tennis again, I have been focussing in particular on developing my serves (which is the most fun part of the game for me). For the first few months my serves were very ineffective, crude and inconsistent in form. Only recently have they started getting a semblance of actual table tennis serves. They are still changing all the time, but I thought I had developed enough where watching a video of myself serving might be useful self-training tool. So I recorded this last weekend, and would be grateful for any helpful comments/advice from the many players here with more experience and expertise than myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS-j6vNM ... ture=email

Thanks in advance!

PK

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

G'day Speed

Thanks for the feedback.
Yeah, I had a choice of camera placements. If I had placed it at the end of the table you would have been able to see the ball action and placement, but I wanted to focus more on the contact this time. Next time I might do a bit of both.

1. yeah, I agree about point of contact...though as I understand it it depends on the length of the serve. Short serves tend to have higher point of contact. Once again the missing ingredient here is you can't see from the camera angle whether the serves are long or short.

2. yeah, I do a lot of post-contact snap as disguise. I intend to go further down this path and start doing wild arm movements after contact...stay tuned! Love deception! )

3. Yeah, I agree I have to be more aware of where on the rubber the ball strikes, and how to use this for greater deception.

Thanks again speed!

Cheers
PK

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

Firstly thanks very much for having the guts to put up a vid for review,
I had a quick look at work and a couple of first up comments come to mind most along the same lines as speedplay.

As I assume as these are works in progress I would suggest you try to include the use you legs and weight transfer as part of you aim to lower your contact point with the ball, as speedplay suggested.

I have found that lowering the ball's trajectory over the net ensures that the ball's first contact with the table is shallow & glancing and as a result you lose far less of your spin through the ball transferring its energy into the table surface rather it remaining on the ball (as spin). It also produces some skid which is another element the opponent then needs to anticipate.

I was pleased to see that you included some variation of serve with your FH tomahawk serve at the very end of your clip. I use this serve a lot as a change up and it wins me points outright or produces many pop ups the reason being I have a huge deliberately exaggerated forward body moment/thrust and it helps produce lots of spin but is also telegraphs a clear message to my opponents to expect a very fast & heavy top/sidespin serve and it can be but I can also produce no or light underspin with the same violent movement through varying the contact point on the ball, leading or back edge of the rubber and also the amount of wrist snapping and follow through. These are lots of things for an opponent to try and keep track of and misreads are common.

I know that you are at an early stage with some of these serves but if you can develop some higher toss variation it is amazing how much skid you can achieve and it almost like doubling the amount of serves you have at your disposal. When I say high, even head high can begin to produce noticeable results.

Depending on your game style I would strongly suggest that you develop some BH serves for variation, they can be much easier to keep tight and short in tight situation and a change of angle & spin direction can make opponents hesitate or misread.

Keep working on your serves because it has obvious big payoffs, I depend on my serves a lot and variation and control are what I strive for so much so that if my life depended on it I truly believe I could easily use 5-8 equally developed serves in any game and then multiple that with being able to serve them from either BH/FH corners and straight down the middle to shut down great attackers with short or angle serves.

Stick to it you look like you have a great foundation for some very useful serves.

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Blade Stiga Hybrid Wood FH Butterfly Dignics 05 BH Butterfly Tenergy 05 FX

G'day Mars

Thanks very much for your useful and insightful comments.
With table tennis I've found it is helpful to have a lot of humility...which is the reason why I don't mind putting up my videos for review... Also, I sometimes get quite good feedback from the oneofakind crew.

Yeah, these are DEFINITELY works in progress. My serves still go through pretty significant upheavals every month or so... I still hope that one day I can stabilise my range and start getting good at them. But every time I see a new serve, or read about one, I want to try it! It's so much fun!

Anyway, I've got a check list for the next time I practice serves

1) weight transfer
2) low contact point
3) vary the contact on the rubber (from speed)

By the way, Mars. Sounds like you are a very accomplished tomahawk server. I had a question. Apparently you can do a backspin version of the tomahawk with almost the same motion as the topspin version just by hitting the ball on the downstroke (i.e. the latter part of the swing). I've tried this and either 1) miss the ball, or 2) even if I get the ball in it doesn't seem to have backspin. Any pointers? If you know how to do this serve, I'd appreciate perhaps a video.

Actually, I'd be really appreciative of anyone else here better at serving than me who could post some pointers and demonstrations on how to serve.

P.S. I do have a number of BH serves, and they are usually my most effective serves. My Ovtcharov style BH serve in particular can often be relied on to get a pop up....and is a lot of fun. ;o)

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

Hi Poor-knight,
Since you asked, I will join in. You are doing well with your serves. I will give you one more thing to think about and a new way to disguise serves.

Think about "where" to aim the first bounce on your side. Especially on your fast, topspin serves. Yours were mostly hitting 12 to 18 inches in. By aiming the first bounce near your end of the table, you can make a much faster serve. Flatter, longer trajectory allows more speed. Second bounce should be near the other end.

Two ways to make a chop, double bounce or half long;
1) First bounce near your end, second as close to the net as possible.
2) First bounce closer to the net, second about middle on the other side. This serve is inherantly slower than the first. If let go, should be a double bounce or will get looped. If too high, will get flipped. I tell my students never serve to the middle of the table, (length wise) unless you can keep it very low.

New serve, (atleast one I did not see you do)
The key is to have your stroke go down and then up.
1) Forhand pendulum.
Start a normal pendulum but "near" where you would contact the ball, bring the bat up sharply. The key is contacting the ball before the change of direction, (down to up) or just after. First is chop and side, second, top and side. You will not get as much spin as you would with a normal pendulum but if they read it wrong, they miss. The sharper the change of direction, the better. I exagerate the up motion.
2) Backhand;
Same thing, I start the stroke near my (I am left handed) so reverse the following. I start near my right shoulder, come down and "near" the contact point, right in front of me, reverse the direction coming up near my left shoulder. I exagerate the up direction. The change of direction should be a sharp "U" shape. You have the choice of contact just before change of direction or just after. By slanting your stroke down and forwards and the upstroke up and back, I can make double bounce topspin serves.


These serves work! Even at high levels. The key is making the change of direction sharp and fast. It is very hard for someone to see if you hit before or after. If you do not use the wrist and hit right at the bottom with a little push motion, you get a no spin. Still maintain the change of direction. These serves are not meant to overpower someone with Max spin, they are meant to cause a wrong reading.

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Shakehand, left handed.
Blade, Yinhe, W-1
Forhand, H-3 National
Backhand, Sriver FX Max

Hi poor knight,
I will try and put together some hints & maybe clips from other player for you to look at. Have you looked up the previous tomahawk serve topic in this forum, I and others posted some different clips in that thread.

Your checklist looks like a great start, I would add 100% intent or as Dan Seemiller says in his books or DVD's use of a violent action. Are you sweating after your service practice if not maybe you need more intent.
I try to concentrate and contact the ball on my serves with the full commitment of any full blooded loop drive, that is not the power but the footwork, weight transfer, on occasions even stomach muscles, head down & watch the ball etc.

Can I ask when you practice your serves do you use a returnboard or collection net because I found this to be an invaluable and no BS way of me evaluating exactly the degree and nature of spin each serve produces. I study the kick off the board or net and use this as feedback tool for when I am practicing or trying to tweak a serves.

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Blade Stiga Hybrid Wood FH Butterfly Dignics 05 BH Butterfly Tenergy 05 FX

Hi Hookshot

thanks for providing your input as well.

My fast serves DEFINITELY require a lot of work. I agree I have to concentrate on getting it to hit the first bounce closer to my end, and probably lower as well (net high). Thanks for the confirmation.

About the bounce...from my understanding if you want to have a short ball (bounce as close to the opponent's side of the net as possible) you need to actually bounce closer to the net on your side (which isn't intuitive).

I agree there is a lot of fertile potential in your description of the new way to add deception to the serve (the quick change in direction of the racquet). I've played some people who did this style. It's something for me to work on. I actually have a forehand weird serve which does this (not really a pendulum...I copied someone else) but even though it LOOKS like it could be backspin or topspin, for some reason I can only hit it with topspin. I forgot to include it in the video.

I also completely agree that spin variation is more important than just trying to get as much spin as possible on the ball. You CAN bulldoze players with heavy spin but once they get used to it (just a matter of changing the racquet angle) there's nothing more to it. If, however, they can't pick up the variation, they get REALLY frustrated....and for a server, a frustrated receiver = happiness and joy!

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

Mars

thanks for the follow-up post.

I look forward to your hints and clips. I don't know if I read the previous tomahawk topic thread but will look it up.

I find tomahawk = easy to create heavy spin, but hard to do spin deception...but it sounds like you've figured it out.

I actually think I do pretty well with intent, or "violent action". I was actually sweating pretty heavily after doing about 30-40min of serving. Of course, this MIGHT have more to do with my lack of fitness - but that's a separate topic!

But I like the idea of having the same explosiveness in the serve as in a full blooded loop drive. I'll think about that next time. You really have no excuse for not being focussed when you serve because that's the one time you control everything.

I find a key with serve is the ability to be able to visualise EXACTLY what the serve will look like...how you will serve, where the ball will go, how it will spin...BEFORE you serve.

I just practice serve on a table with no return board.
Speed and placement is easy to pick up, and I try to judge spin by:
1) the curve of the ball's flight path
2) and whether the balls are still spinning on the floor when I go to pick them up.

I do like the idea of return boards though...but have never seen one or seen one used.

Cheers
PK

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

Just had a chance to watch it. Just a few random thoughts.

-I'm going to echo previous posters and say that your contact is too high. Try contacting around 15 to 20cm above table height, if you're serving downwards (ball bounces downwards after contact) or lower if you're serving upwards (ball bounces upwards after contact)

-You look a bit tense on your serve. Loosen up and your hand speed will get faster.

-I also think you're jamming yourself a bit on the backhand by tossing the ball slightly backwards.

-Interesting variation at 2:00.

-A few of your forehands you're slightly covering with your arm. It's not much and you are serving a good 20cm below your arm, but people could whinge (unlikely). It's better to pivot your arm outwards to point towards them. You can also use this to get trunk twist and potentially more spin off pendulum serves (or if you're dodgy like me, use trunk twist to partially hide the serve)

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Chasse Patate

Saw the vid is no longer avialable. I hope it was because we forum members were watching it so much youtube took it off for bandwidth reasons. Hopefully not because some Arschloch made rude comments. I gotta echo the general comments - deep serves you hit lower and close to endline. Real short bottomspin serves, hit a little higher. Short (2nd bounce 10 cm from endline) Serve just above net height bounce middle of table. Hope to see your vid and sorry I didn't get to see it yet.

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Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

I sometimes get that when I watch youtube videos from work.
For some reason some videos show up as 'not available', but when I try from home there is no problem.

It should still be there hopefully.

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

Hi Poor knight
have you checked out this previous link on using return boards I linked a couple of clips showing their use in practicing serves, forget how good or bad the serves are but look at the obvious ball reaction off the board that is what I am talking about being able to immediately evaluate what your serves are doing as you change different aspects of how you perform them. The board does not have to be a professional setup some people just lean a door or sheet of plywood at the end of the table to see much of the same effect.
As I said I have a collection net and simply look at how the ball jags into the net and whether it shots up, down sideways etc.
http://forum.oneofakindtrading.com.au/v ... sc&start=0

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Blade Stiga Hybrid Wood FH Butterfly Dignics 05 BH Butterfly Tenergy 05 FX

Hey Poor knight,
have you seen this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFucuQcIXJ8&
that Silver posted a while back except he did so because he was looking at the Asian pimps??? player but the other player from Romanian caught my attention because he had some very nice variation on his semi-upright FH tomahawk services, lots of real & fake follow throughs with the blade & wrist. It is also worth looking at the different contact points on the ball & blade he uses.

cheers

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Blade Stiga Hybrid Wood FH Butterfly Dignics 05 BH Butterfly Tenergy 05 FX

G'day Mars
thanks for the link...that was fascinating.
Never seen tomahawks with quite that delivery before. Kind of a Pendulum with a Tomahawk twist. Would be a good weapon to have, especially because it has the exact same starting position as a pendulum so the opponent has less time to adjust. I'm gonna have to study this video a bit!

Thanks again!
PK

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm

Thanks for the words of wisdom Silver

Yeah, the stuff about contact being too high has been a universal message and one I will have to work on. Maybe I should just keep the whole body a bit lower.

Interesting about the tense bit... any suggestions on how to relax? Or what warning signs to look out for? I don't remember being consciously tense.

Re: the backhand, I tend to adjust the toss depending on the serve. For the short control serves I tend to throw straight up. But if I want to maximise spin I tend to toss towards my body so increase the speed of contact with the rubber. Of course, according to the rules, you are supposed to toss straight up, but watching the professionals there is clearly a leeway for a slight angle.

Yeah, re: the variation at 2:00...that was the first time I tried it. I'd never seen anyone do it before so don't know whether I was doing it correctly or not. I just read someone mention that people at his club serve with their backhand rubber of a pendulum serve. My version is limited in that I seem to only be able to do fast/long serves off it. If I could figure out how to do shorter spinny serves as well, that would be a viable weapon to use in a proper match.

Re: arm covering the ball, I do move my arm outward but maybe I should do it faster. So far haven't heard any complaints but don't want to get stuck with a bad habit.

PK

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Blade: TSP Black Balsa 7.0 flared; FH Rubber - Donic Acuda S3 max sponge; BH Rubber - Speed Spectol 1.8mm