OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Rule #1 in pingponging is to have fun! Even if I don't improve from where I am at, it's okay by me.

Exactly!



Really? I know people who have played for over 20 years who are still 1200 USATT. So I would say you have done pretty well. You are dealing with a 2000 mentor/coach and an ex-Olympian online coach who are trying to help you while you use a robot and get match play once or twice a week at most.

It's just that you are now learning things to break old habits and that is always hard, no matter what anyone tells you. But like I said, you are making massive progress. The problem is that you want the progress yesterday, and things don't work that way. There is usually an accumulation of things to a critical mass and something clicks. Even new technique takes 6 months to build in and it needs to be continually refined.

So don't be frustrated - just enjoy the ride. In the end, you got to 1600. You are better than many of the loudest posters on MyTT.

_________________
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

BRS, i can definitely feel your pain about not getting any better. Take a look at my ratings history sometime and check when I first broke 1700. But you know what? Over the past few years I feel like I've been accumulating a ton of knowledge, even though my rating hasn't gone up. The thing about table tennis is that sometimes you have to correct ALL of your problems before you see tangible results. So let's say you have 5 problems in your basic serve backspin and attack drill, and you slowly correct 3 of them over time. Welp, you still have 2 major problems and you're probably still going to miss.

Today I played six games against the only local 2000 level player, and split with him 3-3. Two of those games I lost were at 9. I feel like I am approaching one of those "critical mass" moments that NL is talking about. Today was the first day in a long time that I've felt like all the hours I've spent playing this stupid game might be worth it, even though most days I feel like im wasting my time.

So what I'm saying is don't get too frustrated, because the knowledge you are accumulating MATTERS and you are getting better. Your strokes are outstanding and you will be a monster if you can stay patient.

I was just referring to serves, i should have been clearer. Everything else seems to respond to practice.

Anyway thanks for all the encouragement. Training alone is about 90% of my TT time right now and it gets dull. I need to find a new training partner for one day a week, and make the effort to drive to a bigger town for quality matches.

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

Yoko Ono

What is the longest single amount of time you have spent serving continuously?

_________________
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

One hour with just breaks to pick up balls. I haven't done that very often. I used to serve all the balls i picked up from the floor between every robot drill. That was an hour total on a lot of days, but a few minutes at a time.

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

Yoko Ono

Some day, at your choice, for your chosen serve, consider dedicating something like 5 hours to getting it right and trying to take it apart piece by piece. You can take breaaks of course but you want to just put in a long amount of time trying to get the serve right. Do like 100 serves to different points on the table with different patterns and two spin choices. Then take a break, rinse and repeat. Don't rush the serves. Take your time to do them. Set some target or quality goals that you keep trying to make during each ser of 100 serves. You can buy "Table Tennis: Steps to Success" by Richard McAfee and try some of the exercises there (I always fail so don't beat up yourself if you do as I just want to give you things you can do for the 5 hours).

Don't use your robot to catch the balls. You need feedback from watching the full ball flight path. My spins tend to cluster in points of the floor after my serve and they give me a better idea of how consistently I am serving.

Serving can be like that - you need a period of intense immersion to get things to click. And they may not even click on that day. But some things will click soon after.

_________________
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

Wow, five hours is a long time. That's my initial reaction to the idea. But I am willing to try new ideas. To make it productive and not go insane, I would have to set up a good system to get immediate feedback on video for serves that were especially good or bad. That way I could try to make adjustments with some basis, not so random.

It may be a while, but I will find a day to do that. Not for five hours, but two or three.

Here are some serves I did today from close to ready position square to the table. Before anyone feels the need to point it out, I know the reverse corkscrew ones are crap. But consider that I can't hit a reverse serve at all from the normal side-on position. I will probably use some of these at the small club here on Thursday night. I need to muster the confidence to swing fast or the results are bad.

https://youtu.be/okz6KsDBNjs


And here is part 2 of the fh drill vs random spin -3,-2,-1,+2. I was trying to keep my shoulders level and just let my hand drop from the elbow. But the habit of dropping my right shoulder will take some time to break. Towards the end I tried to get some sidespin to carry the ball sharply off the sideline, but still with mostly spin and less pace. I didn't feel like I really got the hang of it, so I will work more on that tomorrow.

https://youtu.be/CSo7poGpeC8

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

Yoko Ono

Ben,

If you have an android device, there is an app called "Video Coach - Delay Mirror". It would allow you to make a serve and then immediately turn to the camera and watch the serve you just did. Around Christmas time, I plan on setting up a TV on a reticulating wall mount near my table, and then use Chromecast to display my serves on the TV. Instant replay!

For the serves, you are making contact too high and therefore your serves are slow through the table. It's a common error and I am probably guilty as well. Some players can get away with it even at fairly high levels, but against a good attacker, it is the kiss of the death as the serve becomes too slow and the bounce gives away so much information that they eliminate it with precision. IF your serves are more line drive, they look more similar. So try to make contact much closer to net height and have the serves go through the table.

For the looping drill, you start your backswing robotically too early as if the ball is always going to be backspin and then get startled by the topspin ball. Think about finding a backswing path that allows you to get to a backspin position but still enables you to stop in the middle and come forward on the topspin ball - this might stop you from dropping your shoulder if done properly. I don't want you to be swinging from below table height on topspin balls - it is a dangerous habit and I also don't want you to think you can't spin a topspin ball with calm stroke. You probably should have a separate topspin drill as well later. Just topspin +2 balls initially, then balls between +1 and +4 later and your goal is to spin the ball, not smack or drive the ball.

_________________
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

BRS I watched your serves and they all seem good with a down spin and sidespin action
my question is what happens next?,
what do you want them to do?
what do you want your opponent to do？
whats the plan?

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Thanks Ringer! I will have to try the app, it's exactly what I need.

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

Yoko Ono

Good questions. Ideally I would like my opponent to pop the ball up short and high, to my FH if possible. But I don't really have a serve for that. So second choice is a soft deep push to either side. In theory I will have a very consistent opening spin loop which they will either block off the table or give me a high ball. I'm working on that now with the robot. If that pattern actually starts to happen I will have to learn how to smash high balls. I haven't gotten to that part of the program yet.

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

Yoko Ono

I did some more work on the goofy serves today, trying to stay low and "line drive" them more. Some of the results were okay and some were bad. I still feel better about them than the normal serves, maybe just the fun of trying something different for a change.

Responding to NL's comments about my early backswing and dropping right shoulder, I changed up the brush loop random spin drill a bit. This one is all eight balls, four to each side, played randomly. I also increased the pace to three seconds per ball from four. The robot has a deflector that shows which side it will come to, and you can see me change the grip between balls. These swings don't really look any different from before on NL's comments, maybe a bit worse as it's more complex, but it's a fair first attempt. When I add random location it will get more interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBvujf1jegs

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

Yoko Ono

What Ma Long is actually doing here is pushing low to make his serve go forward and through the table. It feeds his recovery but it is not really about that. When I said BRS's serves were high, it was mainly the reverse and he should mostly push through and contact the ball lower - the main serve from the forehand side is mostly fine.


BRS,

I think it will be interesting to see whether the looping drills will have an impact on your match play today. The looping was improved from the last time in just about every way. You may not have felt that way, but it is all relative and I can see 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