OOAK Table Tennis Forum :: Learning to play: as a modern defender

I have just now stumbled on this thread and already subscribed to your YouTube. Look forward to seeing some fresh footage of you.
I skimmed through some of the first 5 or so pages and watched the progress along with your more recent vids. The progress is nice!

You have given me some inspiration

now I look forward even more to playing tonight, Friday and Saturday

Thanks dude, that's incredibly kind

I was never happy with how my game looked until fairly recently. Need to keep working though, so much to improve upon.

If you have any questions or anything, just shoot. I'll do my best to get some more recent footage when I'm next allowed out

I also sometimes find myself a bit clueless with a really loaded top/side short/mid long serve very low over the net (reverse pendulum).
If i chop it I sometimes catch my rubber. If I do a short stabby shot they kill that ball. I can punch it but its not consistent.

Practising tonight...

This is a nice video to watch!

dunc wrote:

This is a nice video to watch!

Oh wow that was quite the gem!

What blade and pips does he use if anyone knows?

Author:	dunc [ 12 Feb 2018, 08:35 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
Our local league annual tournament yesterday. I didn't enter this season due to not playing so much, but I took photos and recorded the final. That's Graeme - the guy I was talking about in my last post.

Author:	Ndragon [ 15 Feb 2018, 03:58 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
I have just now stumbled on this thread and already subscribed to your YouTube. Look forward to seeing some fresh footage of you. I skimmed through some of the first 5 or so pages and watched the progress along with your more recent vids. The progress is nice! You have given me some inspiration now I look forward even more to playing tonight, Friday and Saturday

Author:	dunc [ 15 Feb 2018, 05:35 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
Ndragon wrote: I have just now stumbled on this thread and already subscribed to your YouTube. Look forward to seeing some fresh footage of you. I skimmed through some of the first 5 or so pages and watched the progress along with your more recent vids. The progress is nice! You have given me some inspiration now I look forward even more to playing tonight, Friday and Saturday Thanks dude, that's incredibly kind I was never happy with how my game looked until fairly recently. Need to keep working though, so much to improve upon. If you have any questions or anything, just shoot. I'll do my best to get some more recent footage when I'm next allowed out

Author:	Ndragon [ 15 Feb 2018, 18:59 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
dunc wrote: Thanks dude, that's incredibly kind I was never happy with how my game looked until fairly recently. Need to keep working though, so much to improve upon. If you have any questions or anything, just shoot. I'll do my best to get some more recent footage when I'm next allowed out Actually there is one thing. I still struggle to consistently put a hard enough chop/back spin when someone gives me a short dead ball (double bounce) or fast and long dead ball to create enough pressure to stop a really strong return. I would say my consistency is around 50% which is bad lol How did you overcome this?

Author:	dunc [ 15 Feb 2018, 19:08 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
The short dead ball is a killer. Not much you can do with that one other than practice returning it long and fast into opponents' bodies or wide (anything you can to stop them from immediately loop-driving the ball past you). I don't face a lot of those balls, thankfully, but the last time I did my opponent went through me like a dose of salt - think I lost 3, 3, 4. The long serve is easier. You just need to take a step back and really rip it with the pimps. You'll not get as much backspin on those shots as I do with FL3 but it should still be good enough to stop them from slapping the ball past you. The key is to really engage the sponge, make sure you're maximising dwell time on the ball. If you try a short, stabby contact, you'll probably put it off the end of the table or, best case scenario, pop it up a bit which is lethal as the ball will have no real spin on it. Again, make sure you're getting it long - but this time aim for the white line so your opponents can't loop at angles. Nothing's easy with LPs, you can't just grab the initiative by playing a solid attack. It's very hard to take the initiative so you're often trying just to balance it out - make sure they can't put the ball past you on their 3rd ball attack. If you can return the 3rd ball reasonably well, you're in the rally, and that's what we love.

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Learning to play: as a modern defender https://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=22254	Page 39 of 47

Author:	Ndragon [ 15 Feb 2018, 19:45 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
I also sometimes find myself a bit clueless with a really loaded top/side short/mid long serve very low over the net (reverse pendulum). If i chop it I sometimes catch my rubber. If I do a short stabby shot they kill that ball. I can punch it but its not consistent.

Author:	dunc [ 15 Feb 2018, 19:56 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
Serve return is just experience. I used to have exactly the same problems, and I still do against really good players' serves (as opponents get better, their serves get simultaneously more spinny, more deceptive and shorter). You'll find though that if you keep playing against good serves, your returns will naturally improve and fairly soon you won't even be thinking about how to return them - you'll just do it. If you're trying to play a defensive chopping game away from the table, my recommendation would be that you primarily focus on pushing/chopping all serves (with your LPs I mean, as opposed to bumping/rolling). A chopblock motion can sometimes work for short topspin serves but realistically if it's got enough topspin on it there's no such thing as a "short" serve anyway - it'll kick enough that you can take a step back from the table and chop it. It's key to a defender's game though, and one of the reasons I'm not a good defender If you can return 90% of serves long to the middle of the table (or, alternatively, attack them with an initiative-grabbing/point-winning attack), you're golden. I still lose too many direct points on serves and fail to return well an even greater percentage. At the level I play, I get away with this because players aren't dynamic in playing positive third ball attacks. When I come up against someone who is however, different story.

Author:	dunc [ 16 Feb 2018, 22:56 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
Practising tonight...

Author:	Lorre [ 17 Feb 2018, 21:53 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
Ndragon wrote: I also sometimes find myself a bit clueless with a really loaded top/side short/mid long serve very low over the net (reverse pendulum). If i chop it I sometimes catch my rubber. If I do a short stabby shot they kill that ball. I can punch it but its not consistent. I've also had this issue a long time. The clue is to read the ball (duh!!!), have your paddle above table height (very important - that's why you catch your rubber sometimes) and chop the damn thing like you'd chop a loop from behind. dunc wrote: Practising tonight... Nice!!!

Author:	dunc [ 21 Feb 2018, 00:23 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
I'm taking a break from TT this week because my various lower body appendages (left heel, right knee, left lower back) are giving me a frustrating amount of pain. I managed a ~1h30m knock with the P4 on the night it arrived though. Here's a quick comparison between it and the FLIII. Setup Same as I have been using - Butterfly Innershield blade with 1.9mm 80FX forehand rubber. I was using 1.3-1.7mm FLIII, and I simply swapped this out for the P4 in the same sponge thickness. Appearance The P4 is definitely darker than the FLIII, and it's more of a "plasticky" feel - not quite as soft and rubbery as the FLIII. Pips are still long, but possibly a touch (fraction of a mm) smaller than the pips on FLIII. Definitely more spacing between the pips on the P4 as opposed to FLIII, possibly by around 33%. Playing characteristics I have to be honest... it's incredibly similar to FLIII. At first, when I started playing with it, I was like.. "err.. have I glued the FLIII back on by accident?!". There are some differences though: The P4 is slower, it definitely absorbs more energy than the FLIII. To me, this makes it better for chopping and blocking but worse for the offensive game and possibly, for me at least, a touch more difficult to push with The P4 is more difficult to loop with, it took me a little while to actually be able to do this as it requires a somewhat different stroke than the FLIII. I had to brush up on the back of the ball significantly more with P4 than the FLIII, leading me to think the P4 is less grippy than the FLIII. The spin generated with the P4 loop is still noticeable, but I didn't catch opponents out with it as much as I do with the FLIII - so again, probably less topspin This may have been a fluke because this characteristic doesn't really match up with the others but I found the P4 to be more sensitive to backspin than the FLIII. It seemed to really fall off my bat against heavy pushes and backspin serves Not true of topspin though, I found it easier to control heavy incoming spin when chopping with the P4, fewer balls thrown off the end of the table Spin-wise on a chop, neither me or my partner noticed any real difference P4 vs. FLIII. He didn't net more chops than he usually would, but he wasn't hitting off the end either - I'd say the spin on chops was therefore pretty similar Summary In summary... really similar to the FLIII It's definitely a little less inverted-esque than the FLIII, and a bit more standard LP-like. Not by much though! I would say it's half-way between FLIII and P1-R... but it isn't. It's much more similar to FLIII than P1-R. I'd say it's maybe 1/4 way to P1-R from FLIII. I'm going to keep playing with it for a while though to see if I can get a feel for the backspin on chops and pushes, see if it suits my game more than FLIII. A part of me thinks I just need to go back to P1-R though and focus on twiddling to push more often.

Author:	peterpong [ 21 Feb 2018, 02:12 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
Dunc would you risk playing a new set up during a league match or would you use your old faithful setup. Do you have a second set up for different opponents who are awkward or do you always use the same bat?

Author:	dunc [ 21 Feb 2018, 05:25 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
Nah I learnt that lesson the hard way - I won't play with a new setup in a match until I've had a minimum of 12 hours (4 sessions) practising with it. Usually longer, like an off-season. As for different setups... no. Mostly because of the above. It would make me less consistent, and that's already a major problem in my game! However, if I thought I was as good as I was ever going to get, I might consider it. I could certainly tell you which setups I'd use against which players in the league, etc.

Author:	dunc [ 24 Feb 2018, 00:29 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
This is a nice video to watch!

Author:	Ndragon [ 25 Feb 2018, 08:59 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
dunc wrote: This is a nice video to watch! Oh wow that was quite the gem! What blade and pips does he use if anyone knows?

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Author:	pgpg [ 25 Feb 2018, 10:09 ]
Post subject:	Re: Learning to play: as a modern defender
Ndragon wrote: dunc wrote: This is a nice video to watch! Oh wow that was quite the gem! What blade and pips does he use if anyone knows? He (Jian Li) has dedicated thread here: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=29912 Pips are Cloud & Fog III (OX). Blade seems to change.