OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I was at Chantilly Chinese club tonite... No. VA TTC you gotta go to the back of the warehouse building counter clockwise, and pass all the sweeper trucks... club is right next to that place. That club is open to 10:30 PM. I do Smash TTC league Tues/Fri. Just did Giant Round Robin there Sat.

let me know how you are gunna roll.

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Just got in and hotel.is telling me that there is no room available so they have to put me up elsewheren. It's pretty silly for this to happen with no last second notification.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Laj! I will be at WDCTT from 4 to 6! Are you going to be there? I would love a chance to get crushed by you in a match...

It's too bad I didn't see this yesterday, I was sending out emails to everyone asking if they wanted to play and got no responses.

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

And if you also end up going on Friday, I'll try to get permission from the wife to meet, but again it'd have to be early when the club opens... 330 or 4ish.

_________________
Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

4-6 is pretty early. More realistic for tomorrow than today as my conference runs till 6 pm today. I will probably get to the club between 6 and 7.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

So you can meet tomorrow early?

I'll PM you...

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

So my trip to DC was productive. Unfortunately, I forgot my Camera so most of my lessons will be in my head. I had hotel issues the first night, but that was partly my fault for coming in late. On Thursday, I went to the DC club, which happens to be close to my post office when I lived in DC 10 years ago (if only this club was open then). I served and did a little multiball. The guy who I played the notorious match where I missed all my attacks and pushes was where and he had a friend who I played at my second Teams tournament (in 2012). I was lower rated than the friend back then and lost to him 1-3 I believe. The friend asked for a match so I played him. While playing him, Der_Echte came in.

I have slowly accepted that while it is important to be able to handle tricky balls with my forehand, my backhand loop is ultimately the more annoying shot for choppers to deal with because they aren't used to that kind of thing. My loops are both on the same power level when properly done, with my forehand being less deceptive because other people do that kind of thing with their forehands on a regular basis. So I am used to looping with my backhand once to a chopper and having the ball just flat out not come back. Unless they regularly practicing chopping backhand loops, they just look lost. I beat the chopper in 6 straight games - he probably should have won the last one, but my misread of his serve touched the table at 10-9 and I won at deuce.

Der_Echte and I practiced a little and it was clear that even as my game has improved, so has his. Reflecting on it, I don't think the issue was so much my return of serve as that his third ball game was more consistently strong. I said as much the last time that I played him in Jan that I didn't feel that I was returning his serve that well - it was more that he just wasn't making his shots. I didn't return his serves that much better so I still need to work on that.

I got the club early on Friday and played and hit with Japsican. Japsican has a really solid game and his backhand and tomahawk showed me he has the touch to play the game. IF he can, I would recommend he come to Philly and take a couple of lessons in chopping from Enoch Green. That might help him understand better how to control spinny loops and keep the chops low.

I then got to hit with the club coach, a lady who wins virtually all the senior age categories. We went into 2 serves per player drills and went through 3 or 4 buckets of balls. While she serves long, I can't ready her serve. This is where not having the camera was frustrating as I would have loved to review her technique. She has ridiculous touch and a great inverted spin-hitting game and she took me off balance multiple times. Her push was very heavy with great touch (she likes to joke that that is a 50 years of practice push). In a competitive match, I might have pushed to her more often as I think my push is heavy enough to handle her but this was training so I wanted to try to topspin as much as possible. I think I might have gained 50 points just from hitting with her as my knee pain magically disappeared after the routine and my balance was just better.

I then played and beat a couple of club regulars, playing worse as the matches went on, but seeing what I need to work on. A good trip and I hope I will go back soon - will definitely make sure I have my camera the next time.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

This is why I play in an attacker's club - I could imagine being lobbed down on a larger court in this kind of point. But what made me play so fast is beyond my comprehension right now - which I could do this more often.

https://youtu.be/FBls1g27Sao?t=283

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

WDCTTC owner Charlene is a tough cookie, yeah her serves are long, but you are not exactly confident in reading where it is going long, so you back off and play it safe. You could also go full MACHO MAN on her, but she can read where you are attacking and just stick her bat on the ball and bring it back. You have to setup your shot and go for massive spin or really fool her where you are going to an open corner. Possible, but getting a ball to give you a high percentage chance to do that is another matter. Your best chance is to fool her on your serve and go full Crazy Cat Lady on 3rd ball, IF she gets it back. Charlene told me as much that my serves were darned difficult for her.

So NL, as well as you serve, I do not blame you for not succeeding to expectations on 3rd ball vs her. As well as you can open up BH to anything going long, I am sure she challenged your confidence there as well. I DID see you have your way vs Herr Norman and i am sure you got to say hello to him again on favorable terms. To be fair to him, he wasn't punching his BH OX vs dead or underspin very aggressive vs you. I Super League a few weeks ago, he was all over that shot landing it deep near endline with enough pace to rush you and make you play a safe shot. To be fair to you, it is highly likely your ability to BH open vs his longer serves rattled him a bit, as he expected you to fold like a paper napkin, instead of taking the fight to him.

Charlene's husband is also a C-Pen one sided bad-azz as well, his long serves can be looped, but you will also make your errors as he sells his misdirection well. I went up on him 2-0 before he adjusted to my serving. I won pretty handily up to that point, but that was all she wrote. I didn't play vs Charlene, I only practiced receiving her serve and rallying out and serving to her with the same rally out, maybe a couple hundred serves each. This was 3-4 weeks ago when Bogeyhunter was passing through town. He unfortunately was laying off his sore feet.

NL is not being a self-promoter in describing the type and degree of his recent and cumulative improvement, his is telling it like it is and no more. That is actually being humble, just keeping it real and not embellishing anything or holding it over anyone.

NL has certainly improved measurably in a number of important areas. I discussed that in detail at TTD in a thread comically titled "NL is an internet Fraud" making fun of his great progress that his vids do or do not show (if you were not watching for the right things) This was real evident in our practice at WDCTTC. NL served a few hundred serves and I had damned low landing pecentages pushing deep, pushing short, or flipping/looping until the 15 minute mark, and then I MIGHT have been 60% hard to tell with out a vid. His sanctioned tourney results are hard to argue agianst, that pretty much says it all.

In my favor, when I was the one serving, I got him on a lot of my underspin serves that look light and are medium heavy or heavy, he struggled to have any success vs those, or my topspin serves, he did soft flip wide some of my no-spin serves to short FH, but i got him to knock most of those long and wide enough to get him to moan. In a quicky best 2 of 3 that NL won at 14-12 or whatever, I had a lot more success landing strong attacks from my serves, my landing percentage was pretty high and the attacks were either fast or slow and loaded. NL got back some of my fast ones to both wings and shocked me on those, NO ONE gets those back at his level when I get to rip, not more than one or two anyway.

I have improved a LOT since getting back into regular TT, both in late spring 2015 when I was a few months in Boston, (which got back most or all of my former Korean level back) and the months here playing regularly here with comps, I a easily a much better player than I was coming out of Korea for sure, but the rating will likely not show a lot of that with this crowd here until I become a true 205-2100 player... and that is a ways off.

Without knowing NL's official rating, I said he could hold down RIGHT NOW a 2025-2050 rating with room to move up. Then I learn that is the range of his current rating haha. NL has a lot of 2100 elements to his game. I have improved prolly to the same degree NL has simply by becoming more consistent on 3rd ball spin and power attacks (as NL mentioned) and just seeing the ball better. I care about the rating as it says to people you dont know where you are, but to the crowd that frequently plays vs you, but I don't obsess about it, they know my playing level and I know it. NL is easily a half to one level better player than I am, and always has. it is just that every time one of us improved, the other has improved about the same amount. I'll take that deal any day of the week.

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

I fooled her on serves when I tried. The thing is that my knee was acting up and I generally don't do Rambo looping like you do when that happens. But the few times I did, the ball did not come back - I could also backhand topspin her off the table, but the problem was getting into position. Per the first line of the next paragraph, it wasn't a match so I wasn't so much into trying to win the points with third ball as I was trying to beat her in a rally and on her serve. I could have pushed more, for example, but didn't. She wasn't going to blow the ball by me so it really was about what I was trying to do. She just revealed how much my balance and footwork needs training.



The thing is that I play a guy like this (max rating 2395 in the 90s) and sometimes backhand loop to him (he likes to consider my looping a test of his technique)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfGgEpzNHd0

so Norman's game was too plain vanilla. I could see that changing if his third ball was more aggressive but it seems that he just expected me to miss the pip ball without doing anything extra. He probably didn't know that Philly is junk city.



Never saw him, would definitely be fun to play - painful lessons are still lessons.



I think you have convinced me generally to take a more gestalt view to serve return. I know Brett says to focus on the contact but I am now convinced that focusing on just the contact is not enough. Things happen too fast sometimes and you need a big picture perspective to make sense.

OBviously the key for both of us is serve return.

The thing is that Der Echte is disguising the backspin with his follow through better now so I think the follow through keeps on making me underestimate the amount of backspin. Der Echte also puts the ball to my forehand which is where I don't see spin as well. Der Echte's short topspin serve technique is impressive and I am going to develop a version of it. Free points against the U2000 crowd in early stages of a tournament are a good thing. I even messed around serving it to Japsican and he missed it repeatedly too.

Bogey once mocked me for saying you had good serves. Does he still hold that opinion?

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

I am not sure about Bogeyhunter teasing you, I must not have been around for that. Bogeyhunter DOES often highlight the importance of good serves and uses me as an example sometimes vs the O2000 crowd.

I learned a lot from TT forums as some of the real longstanding members of forums like Hookshot and Haggisv and Silver and a lot of others have seen. I had in the 2007 taken a cross country trip to Belvoir for a few weeks course and metup with him 3 times that trip. The last time, he talked to me for 10-15 minutes about serves and TRIED very unsuccessfully to get me to execute even a single short serve. I was all over the place and you needed eye protection it was so bad. Maybe you would have had to tape your ribs you woulda laughed so hard.

However, what he said in those 15 minutes stuck with me and I was able to practice on a cheepo table in an Iraq camp only a few minutes a day before everyone on the phones would give me the stare. That was still enough for me to discover contact points, the grip, the touch and timing required to do short, then later topspin short, then dead short, then follow throughs, then heavy spin, then better dead serves.

Through the years, I have always credited Bogeyhunter with my serve improvement and "Getting it" in terms of its importance.

I think in particular, I gave you trouble that day with a really heavy one to your BH and middle, and sometimes short FH. I just generate a lot of spin with a loose grip and good timing on the whip with a really short stroke. A simple serve, but just more efficient whip and dwell impact timing and follow through.

The other serve (medium underspin low to short FH or wide BH short near net and endline) that you are talking about was one that took a while to get it all right, but is effective. I use a very slow and smooth short swing with a very easily seen slow lower arm movement. (with elbow pretty much stable in position once it gets there.) the kicker is I have a very minute wrist snap at dwell moment. The movement of the wrist isn't a lot, but I do a slow-blink quick-slow motion with that too. I do not generate a ton of spin on that serve, but it is way more than it looks like. Many players read it as very weak underspin and think it is an easy bump back short to get back a long and high push... but they often net it, then look at rubber right away.

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

i'm sure all I taught you was what not to do.

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Chasse Patate

My forehand broke down in a recent tournament so I reviewed this video.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Cute serve return of the day.

https://youtu.be/pZR3RdQKPTA?t=631

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Haven't blogged in a while as practice is much harder these days. But I Can see that it is practice or lack there of that affects my level. I hadn't practiced serves for a while so my serves had gone down a couple of levels. Right now, my main goal is to build whip consistently into my technique for all my shots.

I played league yesterday and was really happy with my backhand, especially in this match:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx3CFyMEP-A

Like all delusional people, I thought my backhand had magically reappeared, then I looked back and some of my training in the past few days and found this, especially the last 10 mins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtBV7IEIsjg

No train, no gain.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus