OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I am still more than a little curious how your backhand now looks - wondering if you stole this guys technique:



When people see backhands like this, they think this guy is doing something special that I am not doing. The only difference is the degree of wrist activity and range of motion the backswing and forward swing. Mine is less to allow for more control on certain kinds of balls, but I could definitely make it larger as well.

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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

We agree! However I’m just going to be a bit nitpicky here as this kind of crosses into an area of interest for me.. The baby crawling vs. walking analogy isn’t quite accurate, as crawling is an entirely different skillset than walking, requiring different neuropathways than walking. (as does standing or jumping.)

As babies we often use one skill as stepping stones to the next, but they are mostly independent from each other neurologically. It’s common that babies never learn how to crawl, but learn to walk first, and then learn crawling at a later time. In medicine, I often work with stroke and TBI patients who have suffered brain damage and have to re-learn things that they used to know how to do, which are often regarded as lower level functional skillsets, while at the same time retaining the ability to do things that are “higher level.” The reason for this is that the neuropathways are physically located in different parts of the brain. For example, I had a patient that had the ability to grasp utensils, manipulate them to with fine motor skills to wrap spaghetti around his fork, yet lacked the ability to bring the fork to his mouth from the plate. He was completely intact cognitively, and was baffled by the entire thing.

For this discussion, a more accurate analogy would be if one person learned to ride a bike that was built in such a way that turning handle bars to the right actually made the bike go left, and vice versa. And you rode this way for years.
Then, imagine someone one day says, your bike is built incorrectly, you need to start riding this other more appropriate bike that actually turns right when you move the handlebars to the right, and vice versa. To “Unlearn” engrained habits is very difficult especially when the neuropathways do not exist in the brain.

This example has been done, and I think you’ll find this video interesting:
http://viewpure.com/MFzDaBzBlL0?ref=bkmk

Thanks for indulging me.

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Hey NL, my technique still looks like this:



The only difference now is I am trying to focus more on brushing the ball and creating spin, rather than going for maximum ball speed. Agreed that Thrasher's technique is not that different from your own - just a larger motion with an incredible amount of wrist flexibility. He is clearly taking the ball at the top of the bounce or even slightly on the descent in some cases, so he has a little more time for such shenanigans.

I need to post a video of my loop versus backspin, and perhaps a video of a transition between backspin and topspin.

Thanks japsican. Very insightful.

The video with the bike is excellent, but here is the takeaway for me:

The adult was able to learn to ride the backwards bike in a reasonable amount of time. In the end, he did it.

According to the video, he spent 5 minutes a day for 8 months learning to ride the backwards bike. That's a total of 1,200 minutes, or 20 hours. Now I guess some people will look at that figure and go "Wow, 20 whole hours! That's forever!" . But I don't see it that way. I look at that figure and say, "Wow, only 20 hours to make a radical change to a motor process that has been deeply engrained over a course of an entire lifetime." I do believe that children have a higher level of neural plasticity than adults, but the question is how much? Although the child was able to learn to ride the backwards bike much faster than his father, he had only known how to ride a bide the "normal" way for 3 months.

I run into people all the time who tell me that they could NEVER learn a foreign language, because they believe they are beyond the point that real acquisition is possible. Then we I ask them the question, "How much time per day do you spend studying/ in the environment of the language you are learning?"

"Oh, at least 30 minutes a day!"

30 minutes a day? Are you kidding me? By the time a child reaches age 3 or 4, it wouldn't surprise me if he/she hasn't been exposed to as much as 10,000 hours of the target language or more.

Many people created response videos to that bike and learned to ride similar bikes in shorter time frames (they were young adults though). Just pointing that out. Ringer is right about the 20hrs being more critical than the 8 months.

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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

Ringer, be careful about keeping such an extreme grip all through your backhand practice. I do that and when I try to loop one backhand one forehand it really hurts me. If you take requests I'd love to see a video of you alternating loops from each side.

On the looping underspin video I would say the key is not to think about it being backspin. Brett had me thinking three things: relaxed arm, elbow out, finish wider. The exact same for any backhand loop. When I start thinking about the incoming ball I lose the nice stroke. My favorite saying for table tennis is a Pete Rose quote "see the ball, hit the ball." It should be that simple.

I have your balance issues too. Have you ever tried to do a multiball standing only on your left foot? Or at least with only you right toes touching ballerina-style so you can't put much weight there? Most of my issue comes from what William showed in the heavy left foot video.

These are all aspirational for me, btw, not fixed by any stretch.

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Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

I don't see the grip as an issue - I think the recovery is the problem.

All the other things you pointed out are things I am stuck in hell on too...

_________________
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

Glad to have you on board, BRS! Interesting conversation about the grip. Since my BH loop against block is a relatively new shot, I have not yet integrated it into my FH/BH transition drills or any other type of footwork drill. I still mostly just play counters on the BH side on footwork drills, although interestingly I am trying to unleash the BH loop every now and then in match play. Hah!

It will be interesting to see if I can transiton between a BH loop and a FH loop without issue. ALthough maybe my BH loop is not at a level where I should even be trying to integrate it while in motion? I'm not sure. I'll give it a try in practice today.

As always, start slow.

_________________
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 don't think of that as a footwork drill. It's hard enough just to change sides standing in the same place. It's not so much the grip as there's a kind of hitch between recovery and the next stroke where you turn the bat flat to the floor almost. I don't know if you will have time to do that in play, so it's dangerous to practice it too much. That's why I wanted to see alternating fh-bh. But don't sidestep with it, that's adding too much at once, IMO.

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Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

You have to have time to do it during play. That's why you need to recover to a position that allows you to switch more quickly to the more difficult grip or position. For me I try to finish in a position that favors the forehand because I pull the trigger faster on my backhand. Some people do it differently and learn to play forehands with their backhand grips. Ultimately, it has to be practiced. And turning your bat over is always necessary but should be easier from neutral if you recover after your stroke.

_________________
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

In my humble opinion I think you need to have your elbow out a little bit more.

Brett clarke once told me the same thing, so I would say that your humble opinion is probably an accurate one.

Daniel, Smash TTC is gunna hols an OPen tourney soon, look at it and see if you can make it. I am gunna enter ONLY the U200 and be available to coach my forum and real life friends. I got 2 friends already coming, let's make it a forum party.

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Can't see any reason I won't be able to make that tourney! Looks like it's the last day of October. With you and the owner both playing under 2000, is there any hope for the rest of us?