OOAK Table Tennis Forum

In my head, I was thinking that by having the robot shoot at a faster frequency I would be forced to take a more compact swing. I can see now that was faulty thinking because, as you say, I am taking advantage of the robot's accuracy in shooting the ball to the same location. The good news is that I do not normally train at that tempo. This is a little more representative of the pace I use when I'm just trying to focus on my stroke and getting good spin/dwell time.





Sometimes I confuse the terms "leading with the elbow" and getting the elbow out farther in front of the body. What I meant was that in my video with Austin, my elbow is not as far in front of my body as I thought on the backswing. You are correct that I did indeed pull my elbow into that shot. And I think it was the correct timing of that pull that made the shot more powerful than most of my loops.

I'll be putting into practice some of the BH exercises you mentioned soon.

Hope you guys can get it afloat! Keep me updated.

Good stuff. When doing that, mark targets for the elbow and the wide shot. Practice hitting those as well as the middle of the table.

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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

I'm actually working on a harder backhand counter-hit for the faster balls that I endlessly make errors trying to loop. This happens a lot on my serve. I serve, ball comes back fairly strong and I am late. I'm on top of the table and most likely the ball goes into the net.

I've realized my bh loop works best when I have a little more time - further back on the table or a weaker return. Maybe I'll be able to loop everything some day, but closer to the table I feel like a strong counter-hit is great for opening up the court. I'm also focused on hitting it to the middle or down the line.

So yeah be careful for what you wish for here. How are you going to use it? What gap does it fill in your game?

I will say it looks pretty good on the videos. Better than mine and I'm constantly complimented on my backhand loop...mostly from the pips players

Wilkinru, I feel your pain. This shot is starting to look a little better on camera now, but I'm still miles away from being able to apply this shot consistently in a real match against a wide variety of spins. My counter/blocking game needs a lot of work too, but I enjoy spinning the ball so I'm going to stick with this until I get it.

A quick note:

I think one of the reasons my stroke is so large is because I am not recovering into a BH ready positon. If I recover into a slight BH ready position, my elbow has less distance to travel in order to reach it's most forward position, and I can make a shorter, tighter , more compact snap at the elbow.

The thing is that with backspin, you almost always lead with the elbow because your racket tends to start lower than the ball. With topspin, it is a little trickier, but the lead is where the spin comes from.

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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

When I say the stroke is large, what I mean is that recovery is not a focus and that you are trying to do a full loop. More of your strokes when the ball was sped up should have been fast kick counters or mini loops with an attempt to find the balance between power, spin and rapid recovery. Or an attempt to spin the ball slowly to aid your ability to recover. This is where playing with an opponent is helpful as rallying with an opponent lets you see if you can recover from what you are putting out. You can watch the kick blocking video on TTEdge for a reference.

What I was complaining about was that for the speed of the ball in the first drill, you were executing a shot that was mindless. Against blocking/countering/looping, you will often have the time to and need to adjust to the ball. Therefore, a quick short stroke with a focus on placement or spin or speed (since you are not counterhitting, this is unlikely to be the main goal) is the key unless you have the time to power up. It will feel like your loop motion but it won't have the same full effect because you may not have the time to fully lead with the elbow. On the other hand, if you borrow the incoming speed/spin and then use the right motion to add to it, then you will have an awesome shot. The main difference between this and a counterhit is that you still want to spin the ball, so you need to add topspin to the ball, the heavier the better, but the outgoing shot is unlikely to be very fast.

https://youtu.be/Fx3ov5N6pMY?list=PL1xHYZmEaJtTaqtT1MmzftYl6AdT0qbYb&t=2443

These are not intense rallies, but what my practice partner is doing are the kinds of shots that one would typically see. You need to borrow the incoming pace more and play shots adjusted to the incoming ball. As much as we hate to do short strokes, it is hard to play a stroke the size you are playing close to the table when you have to adjust to the speed and spin of the ball. Maybe when you are the aggressor but not often. Even Zhang Jike or Gardos are playing short strokes at that position. Watching Gardos since he is a master of what you are looking for is especially instructive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC_MD2T-Qkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kXasv9jUs8

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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

Thanks NL. Everything you are saying makes sense and from watching Gardos I can really appreciate that compact stroke. But I think watching Henzell take some of those huge strokes at the ball in his video verusus block is having a negative influence on me. Like at around 2:20 for example. He seems to be taking such a large stroke at the ball and still seems to be able to recover for the next shot with ease.

I'm also having trouble understanding how far FORWARD my elbow should be versus different types of ball and for different types of shots. I know you said that I can still whip/pull into the ball even if my elbow is not forward, but everyone (even Brett) is telling me my elbow needs to be more forward. But when I watch the very beginning of Henzell's video, his elbow does not look very forward to me... especially on the view from the side. It looks like for his basic warm up shot his elbow never comes in front of his wrist.

For reference, I am talking about the 30 second mark of henzells video versus block. The view from the side. It looks to me like henzells elbow is BEHIND his wrist.

I can play quicker, shorter strokes like this if my elbow is behind my wrist. But everytime I try to do this, people start telling me that I need to get my elbow out.

Your elbow is a lever of sorts. It needs to be bent so it an be pulled into the ball. When you are looping backspin, the height differential creates a natural lead. When looping topspin, you nerd to come into the ball, so you lead with the elbow so coming into the ball automatically generates spin. The less lead, the less power and spin, all other things being equal. Some people rotate slightly go the left on the backswing to force that lead. Standing in a FH stance to take the ball in front of you also affects how the lead looks. But it clearly is not an absolute. It is all dependent on time and how you want to approach the incoming shot.

Remember that William in that video is looping against the blocks from his practice partner and in general, I find that table distance is deceptive in videos. But yes, those kinds of loops are possible if the opponent is not going to do anything aggressive and that is what William's level of spin can do to people. But if he had to face a real counterloop, kick block, punch block or counterhit, things would get interesting fast and his cycle time would come under pressure. That's one of the reasons I try to get people into the habit of being ready to counter spin as early as possible.

I wish you could play Diwakar or hit with him. People who have never done so don't appreciate how good my timing is until they do. His FH kick block is actually nastier.

The kick block video is on TTEdge. There is also a defeating kick blocking video on TTEdge. I think it takes whiffing or missing a few kick blocks or short pips blocks to appreciate what I am trying to get across so just continue to work on your loop. You will have lots of time to figure out how to make it rally appropriate if necessary. Afterall, my video shows me taking full loops with my practice partner.

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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

Leading means get your elbow out and to the side first and foremost. Always remember to grab the sword at the appropriate time. Where the sword is can change, but if you don't grab it (do the tick), you won't pronate the elbow and the quality of your loop will fall. So my guess is that they see you are not grabbing the sword and I guess you think you can only grab the sword if it is on your waist.

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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

My overwhelming tendency is to grab the sword too early. The problem is so bad I will often grab the sword the very moment my opponent contacts the ball, even against incoming slow balls. I always reach the end of my backswing too early against slow, spinny serves as well. I think that loop I posted that Austin blocked off the end felt so good primarily because I waited so long before trying to grab it.

The big problem I'm having right now is the timing of the grab against incoming topspin. Topspin obviously kicks forward at you (unlike backspin) and I have trouble getting everything in sync.

Whether or not you are grabbing the sword at your waist or at your left hip would seem to make a difference in your timing, I would think. If you grab the sword at your hip, that is a longer distance for the hand to travel and you would therefore need to start the grabbing earlier.

Wow, this convo must sound strange to outsiders...

One that that I would mention is that you can see the "grabbing of the sword" in Henzells stroke much easier in Brett Clarke's tick whip video than you can in Henzells BH topspin video. Therevs a brief section towards the end of the video where they show Henzells stroke.

Hey, that's why I tell people that you need to practice at slower paces before and after speeding things up. If your robot can produce balls of different spins or different time spacings, that works as well. Anything to make sure that your timing is not on autopilot.

No, it's not about where you grab the sword per se. It's about you timing your backswing properly so that you have enough tension left in it when the ball approaches. IT's about getting to max acceleration at the right point in your swing trajectory. If you grab the sword too early, there are ways to compensate but they are not optimal. Taking the ball in front of you is largely to make it easier to track and time the ball at the table. When you have more time, larger cuts are possible and some people will definitely swing from the hip.

On the sword, I agree. But remember, Brett is a coach/teacher and William is not per se. The latter is demonstrating what is mostly intuitive and advanced, while the former makes it his job for you to get it.

_________________
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