OOAK Table Tennis Forum

This is the first time I've ever watched a video of myself. I taped a training session I had with my coach. It's a 90 minute session, but due to youtube, I had to edit it down to 10 minutes. The video is pretty representative of all the drills that we do. First drill is just warm up forehand counterdrives, followed by topspin forehand, then forehand topspin from 3 positions on the table to my coach's forehand, then forehand topspin from 3 positions to my coach's backhand. After that, it's backhand blocks, then me using rpb to his backhand. Then we move on to falkenberg (coach calls it a-b-c), then we move on to me using rpb to open followed by alternating forehand/backhand. After that it's more game like scenarios (short serve, then random push and random blocks).



Anyway, after watching it, I didn't realize some big mistakes I make repeatedly.

A few things jump to mind immediately:

1. My elbow goes behind my body too much (especially noticeable when I'm doing forehand counterdrives and topspin forehands). This is a huge problem especially since I use chinese rubber as my swing becomes too small and my bicep tends to tighten up when I'm under pressure. I really need to concentrate on making an effort to put my elbow further in front of my body.

2. I don't use enough waist and hip twist. My coach always asks me to use the waist/hips more, but I didn't realize how little I use my waist and hips until after watching the video. I was just practicing against a robot today, and I really concentrated on doing number 1 and number 2. Interestingly, I found that I could loop very well almost without using my arm at all. All I had to do was make sure my elbow was well in front of my body in the ready position, and then twist using my hips without even moving my arm. Of course I'm going to eventually work on using my arm, elbow, wrist, but first I really want to get the body rotation right.

3. I tend to drop my racket too much. I don't adjust the height of the starting position of my racket. As a result, when I get a higher ball than normal, I have a tendency to put more spin and a higher arc than needed. If I were to start with a higher position, I could just go forward more easily with significantly more speed.

4. My legs are not strong enough. This is noticeable in the falkenberg drill. By the time I go for the second wide forehand, I have a really hard time recovering back to my backhand.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to more comments. The more critical the comments, the better.

Well Chris you are lucky to have such a great coach, I can see his great block and top spin abilities at the end

I can't see too much with your game but the only two things IMO is you may be a fraction in in front (square) or a fraction slow a getting to your wide forehand (maybe watch how Ma Lin some how does it) and when you do get to the wide one give yourself a target (just to get more balls on ) becuase sometimes you do (what we all do) is watch our shot rather than moving to the middle quickly, this will help in getting back to the left.

The thing you said about your elbow and any corrections you make will quicken your forehand and increase power as well.

The last thing is when the ball is too high you must just hit them rather trying to loop one thats too high
The last last other thing is a bit of cross training to improve fitness (I can't talk lol)

but Im realy stratching for anything to say as you will only get better with that sort of training ,good on you and keep it up

Thanks rodderz.

I totally agree about me being slow in getting to my wide forehand. I can feel my timing is wrong and I'm hitting the ball when it's almost behind my body. I still don't understand how the top players can make the falkenberg drill look so easy. So far, from what I can tell (when I'm having a good day vs a bad day), the difference seems to be that I have to really concentrate on my recovery movements after the step around forehand. I never had a coach until a year ago so I developed a lot of very bad habits. One of them is the tendency to relax into my recovery rather than actively recovering. I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of taking the small step back to the backhand before taking the cross-over to the wide forehand, but once I get tired, I start reverting back to my old habits. Also, I noticed when my coach does falkenberg, he seems extremely organized. It's tough to explain it unless you've seen really good players do it in person rather than in a video. It's almost as if he doesn't make a single unnecessary movement whereas I tend to start flailing about after the first repetition.

My placement as you pointed out also needs work. Sometimes when I'm doing these drills, I'm so winded that the last thing I care about is placing the ball on the line. All I can think about is getting that ball back on the table. I need to concentrate on this or else during a game, I'm going to end up placing the ball in a convenient place for my opponent.

I did some cross training a couple of months ago, and I really noticed a big jump in my game. However, it really isn't that much fun. Also, I found that when I had to play a tournament, I'd be too tired to play well. I'll wait until the tournament season is over, and then I'll start another cross training program.

By the way, I see that you live in Auckland. I'm going to Auckland in a week or so. Where's a good place to play? I'm not sure if my wife will tolerate me playing during a family vacation, but you never know!

the biggest place is Gillies Ave in New market, Otherwise there are places out South ,west and North Auckland, where are you from? im free to show you on some half days or mornings

I'm from vancouver, canada.

I just went to the Auckland Table Tennis Association website, and saw that it seems they have quite a few weekly events going on. Is the Wednesday evening social club a good event to attend or are the Wednesday/Thursday day clubs better?

Thanks in advance.

Wednesday is like progressive tables (up and down tables) there are 4 -5 allright players and the rest average. I was going on a few Weds but cant at the moment (Wed also had the Auckland training squad practicing recently so as a overseas player you might be able to have a hit there)

Thursday day is just a mixed standard but I guess a few oldies