OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Yes, it is, Ringer, and you are right. As you may have guessed, I am usually wary when people point to what they can see high level players doing when lower level players can often get similar results to what other lower level players are seeking without doing quite those things. I have always stressed that if one wants to stay low and wide, one has to exercise their legs and core and do lots of shadow work. If not, one should be careful. Maybe I am biased because of my bad knees.

What do you think of my opponent's pendulum serve in these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hKm-mmsrRc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9IqCWh_8cs

(Hint: overly negative comments will be met with surprising revelations)

Here is a high level kid serving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ85rWYXDRU

My point is that the common thread here is that one of two things - either the server serves properly and then gets into position and is ready to use a crossover step to the wide forehand or the serves themselves and rolls into a position that gets them ready for the return. I don't know what match you watched for my serve but when I am serving with energy, I often get lower just for the serve especially when I am trying to serve deceptive side topspin because pressing downwards with the body while serving the topspin makes the trajectory lower and more similar to backspin.

But in all the examples, control of the serve is paramount. BRS is putting the cart before the horse. But if he wants to serve a half long serve, that is okay too. But what is not okay is trying to improve a serve while trying to improve recovery. He needs to serve a serve that he is comfortable with and recover with it. Here are my pendulum serving idols:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ks404eDKNc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAzP0tE2zxI

BRS should just find a player whose serve recovery he likes and copy 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

I think most of the body position can be resolved to really being focused on getting in a good neutral position by playing lots of matches.

Perhaps take a different route and just serve low and dead and then get ready for "anything". Do this a bunch in your practice matches and you'll end up making a habit of getting ready.

Low and dead is an awesome serve if it kinda looks like backspin too!

An idea for you: I noticed in the game vs NL against Wang, J - the junior does a little hop/bounce right after the serve to get himself into position. Worth a try.

I noticed that too and added that to show that people do this differently. Liu Guoliang had his way too. BRS does not have to reinvent the wheel.

_________________
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

Thanks everybody who posted.

wilkinru, I don't think just playing lots of matches will fix my problem, unless lots is more than 2,000 or so. If I could play regularly with people who take advantage of poor serving and positioning then it might work. But that's not easy in this area. This weekend I'm driving to a club about 80 miles away where there are some 1700s and one ~2000, and a lot of 1200 - 1400s. So I will get some video of me trying to set up properly in matches.

There is also a tournament on Sunday 125 miles away. But I have not enjoyed the last few tournaments at all, because I got so frustrated playing like crap. So I'll probably skip it.

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

Yoko Ono

In my mind it's the toss that causes the high position. Or really it's my following the toss with my body. So I've tried to toss lower, per Brett Clarke. At first I tried to just stay low and wait for the toss to come down, but I was incapable of doing it. Whatever the cause, you are right. And varying heights at contact causes some of the randomness in my first bounce location that NL finds so disturbing.

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

Yoko Ono

Wait wait wait. What happened to missing in practice is okay? What happened to just do your stroke and let the ball do what it does?

I don't miss 75% of my serves in matches because I serve the way I am used to. Changing the toss and weight distribution is messing with my serves, mainly because I can't concentrate on two things at once. That's a personal problem I just have to live with. Do you suggest I use half-speed serves while practicing the proper position? Then what do I use when I play a club match?

Maybe by saying weight transfer I threw this off course. I'm not interested in using weight transfer or body rotation to get more spin or power or whatever. In every example serve from your post, using wildly different stances and motions, nobody has their weight on the back foot at contact. Nobody. That's all I want to change. I just want to finish balanced or on the front foot so I can lift my back foot off the floor.

The recovery I am trying to model is Brett's two step (mirror-imaged cause he is a lefty) from the ttedge learning serves series. That's for no reason other than I watched Brett's video and it seems clean and simple.

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

Yoko Ono

Okay, thanks again for all the input. I really appreciate the thought and time that goes into your posts. Now it's time for more video. Note to NL: you may put tape on the tables at your club, but I'm not putting any on my joola. I used towels. If you really think having a target is better than just blocking off areas then I will find a non-marking way to do it.

A couple things to note in the short time before your eyeballs start bleeding from the awfulness of it all. I started to alter my swing in a bad way to hit the gap between towels, and that felt horrible, particularly on side under serves. Probably I should change the contact height or something else instead.

Also you will see several where the ball just falls off the bat. That's when I hit off my thumb. I do that amazingly often if I don't 100% concentrate on hitting closer to the end, which of course I'm not doing here because I'm concentrating on my stupid feet. I assume on many "good" serves I am making contact maybe 1" above my thumb without knowing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM235HaX714


As if that wasn't exciting enough, I also have a video of attempted slow BH loops against a random-spin, random-location feed. This is an NL drill, except I took out the +2 on the Bh side because it was pissing me off and balls were about to start getting stomped. I had FH video too, but the finish was out of frame so you will have to wait for that one.

BTW these BHs felt awful. I set it to 3 seconds per ball instead of four, but it still felt like I was waiting forever. In general they were jerky and stiff and had no follow-through. They were crap, in other words. Maybe this is where the whole missing is good, just let the ball do what it does thing applies. I was trying to swing fast to get spin, but the ball didn't have the lovely dipping trajectory I want, at best it would go straight and low but clear the net. Anyway, you will see so there's no point in explaining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz6d1Qwit2Y

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

Yoko Ono

Use a small sheet of paper if tape concerns you that much.

_________________
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

You are allowed to miss when you have good technique or when you are developing it. That's always the caveat. You can't pretend to throw hail Mary's at the serving problem and then work on the footwork problem. Accept the serve you have while working on the footwork problem because working on both at the same time will result in tension doing both. You may not have heard me say this, but I also strongly believe that a player should not try to do more than his technique can sustain.

Finally, you may not be interested in something, but do realize that your lack of interest in it might be driving your problem. I used to tell my coach that I wasn't interested in spinning but I wanted to hit the ball harder. And he told me that if I didn't learn to spin, I would not be able to hit the ball harder consistently. You're at that stage I was when I said that with your serves in general.

When you practice your serve, you are not transferring your weight into your front foot so why should it be there - sometimes, you have to use something properly to get the benefits out of it - if you don't appreciate the full effects of the weight transfer, you won't use it. You also aren't rotating your upper body. Brett rotates his upper body( watch the shoulders) so that his momentum is going into the table. That's a key and crucial point that you are now incorporating but not consciously and not consistently. Generally, I tend to try to move my upper arm/elbow in tandem with my upper body as much as possible. I think it is a good general rule for getting power behind your strokes/serves without hurting your shoulder and rarely leaves you doing anything with just your arm. Of course, with my limited mobility, I break this rule all the time.


You probably should shadow the serve weight transfer and the footwork and practice your serves with the weight transfer before doing this. It should be 5 minutes of shadowing, 5 minutes of serve with weight transfer, and 5 minutes of serve with weight transfer and recovery. But let me look at the videos first....

_________________
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 think some of us need to take a step back and applaud BRS for putting so much video on his blog! I have huge respect for you exposing your game fully to the internet and getting all of the feedback. It's awesome.

BRS you've basically shamed me into doing video also - even if NL tears into me too!

Anyway on your backhand practice you were bending your wrist way too early for the shot - you lacked the Brett whip and forward follow-through. I know you can do better, because I've seen it

It's all good - you are putting in the effort and it'll pay off - we all revert back to previous habits (or partial habits) from time to time.

Btw are you going to Nationals this year?

The serve drill was better. I still suggest your practice rotating your shoulders very slightly when serving so your momentum carries you towards the table. But if what you have is good for you, okay.

On the BH, the goal is to find a slow/medium and consistent spin stroke that works across the range of balls with a similar contact point. Driving the ball defeats the agenda. Like I said, it is likely going to be a hook or a fade stroke. Keeping the ball low is not the agenda, keeping the ball short enough to break a sideline is. The ball and contact at 1:12 seems to suit the agenda. I did like the fact that you did manage to find at least one stroke that worked for each spin. But what you want is a similar looking stroke that provides a safe ball across all the spin intensities. You can do each spin one by one to see what is happening first. Don't do them all at the same time yet.

I know the drill challenged your timing and for the first effort at this pace and variation, it was great work, but even in your serve practice, your rushing to put in quantity over quality was an issue. But I have the same problem and only started getting better at it so I should not throw stones.

Finally, use the +2 ball to cool down if it is not in the drill. You don't want to build a stroke that is tuned to heavily to looping backspin balls and fails to adjust to the forward demands of looping topspin. When looping topspin you have to backswing horizontally and play over the ball. This +2 ball forces you to make that adjustment and you will make it over time and not get locked into dropping the paddle every time on the backhand side.

_________________
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

You should do video even if you don't post it. It brings a reality check which is needed. And NL doesn't tear into adult learners, he is just coaching. I enjoy the criticism and am grateful for the help.

I won't be going to Nationals. It's too far. Also I am too fragile to play on concrete,

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

Yoko Ono

As usual you are making sense here. I was trying to keep the serve the same and just add the shift to the front foot. But it figures that I can't isolate my arm from how the rest of my body is moving. Interested or not interested is beside the point. I want to consistently be ready to play a decent third ball, that's the point of all this. I'm not a third ball killer, that's not what I mean. But if someone pops up a weak push to my backhand I want to be be able to topspin it, not push it back.

I'll follow the shadow/serve/serve & recover pattern and see where it goes.

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

Yoko Ono

Okay, I wasn't 100% clear on the goal. I should make a point of clarifying the goal when I start any new drill. That would be helpful to have one stroke that works for a variety of underspin balls, with my weakness at reading serves.

The 1:12 ball has a decent coordination of backswing and stroke. But I stood up after, which Brett would flag as a problem for sure. The four-seconds per ball is a long time to stay down, but I need to either set the robot for short bursts, increase the feed pace, or be strong enough to stay in position. Standing up between shots is already a bad habit, no good embedding it even stronger.

About drive and low, that's what I am getting, not what I am trying for. This video shows the kind of trajectory I would love to have. (It's Timo, and against block not underspin, but just watch the flight path please)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9v-LfwyukE


Maybe that is unrealistic. But the way his ball clears the net by many inches and then dives is the margin of safety I would ideally like to have on opening loops on both sides. If this is a stupid idea tell me, I won't be offended.

A question for you, do I need to move the bat fast to get this spin? Or just a relaxed easy stroke with good contact point and timing? The tense, stiff, trying-too-hard-for-spin stroke I used almost all of this first BH video is crap.

Okay, so I have some new procedures for this drill as well. I'll try to get to 80%+ decent on each spin individually before I combine them again. That way I can put the +2 back in the rotation as well.

Next video will be match play from tomorrow, then after that maybe the same -3,-2,-1,+2 drill on the FH. Am I supposed to drive-loop that one?

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

Yoko Ono

No, it's not an unrealistic idea - quite the contrary and Timo Boll is an advanced master so he might be too far about our pay grade. I am not Timo Boll but the drills I am trying to give you are my own version of that exercise. Maybe I am wrong headed, but this is what I do. And it might be an inferior way of getting the same result but for a few reasons, I don't think so.

The goal of the slow spin drill, broadly speaking, is to have a consistent open up shot that is spinny - over time, increase the touch and the level of spin from your stroke. The spin is what keeps the ball safe from attack against overambitious opponents - higher level opponents will counterspin or punch the ball but that is okay. You can move the ball around and you can over time learn to counterspin back. You can even sometimes loop the opening ball harder harder if you are in position and on time. You can also start out safe and loop harder once your experience with the slow spin consistency gives you a better idea of what is on the ball. Many options.

The ball you produce may even look very high initially against some of the lighter spins, but by keeping the ball short, you will increase your consistency even if the ball is sometimes high and you will get better at keeping the ball low with practice. The height should come from the travel arc and the ball being short. In a real match, tension and being rushed will sometimes make the ball longer so trying to get the ball short helps.

What is happening is that you are missing a lot of open ups and in my view, though I may be wrong, it is because you don't have a safe open up spin shot. Again, this shot will not work as well against the higher level counterlooping monsters, but if well placed, it will at least give you a chance to get into the rally, and that is all you are looking for when someone wrong foots you or the ball is tricky off the opponent's receive.

4 seconds is a long time to stay down, but think of it as after the shot, you can act as if the point ended, then get ready to play a new point. Your ready position should also not be a position of nervous tension, so that might be something you need to work on - it should be a position of alertness, but not much tension. Then from that alert position, you spring into action when the ball starts coming towards you.

In the video below, I start out looping -4 level backspin for a while. Then I go to -2 and -1 then +2. Then I change to a different paddle with MX-P and step down from +2 to -1, -2 and -4. I come up after the shot for reasons you are very well familiar with. But even though the pace of a shot every 3 seconds is slow, I still think that if you learn to handle your timing issues and get good acceleration at the time the ball is in your strike zone, as opposed to just looping repeatedly without having time to do anything but react, it will improve your game immeasurably. While I win a lot of shots with power, I also win (and lose) a lot of points because of the timing of my shots (and those of my opponents who realize that slow spin is the way to go).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhP2VMp2zvE

The first key to thestroke is the contact point. I can't contact the back of the ball because the differences in the spin on each ball will be most magnified on the major spin axis. In general, I avoid contacting the back of the ball these days. Timo Boll isn't doing so either.

The second key (and the key to generating heavy spin with inverted) is that you need to increase the dwell time or expose the ball to larger surface area of your paddle. I do this buy wrapping the ball slightly with my wrist during the contact (in other words, my wrist opens up into the ball or whips into the ball along the middle side all the way to the top). So it is not my arm doing the heavy lifting for spin generation but my wrist.

Sometimes, the risk of doing so for certain shots is that you make the spin impact of the ball greater, but in this case, you are trying to use spin avoidance and arc to generate safety. I try to land the ball as short as possible so that I hit a wide angle. But it's a goal, and I don't have to achieve it all the time, but it is good feedback when I do..

So to answer your question, it is a relaxed stroke that relies upon the proper use and acceleration of the wrist to make the delicate touch and spin. It is the same on the forehand side. Don't let Timo Boll's level of wrist acceleration and touch drive you crazy. Just respect it. He is also using his core much more actively than you are and that you can emulate a little. While my core doesn't look as active as his, do note that I do try to lock my upper arm largely to my upper body so most of my effort is coming from my core. It is more obvious on the heavier levels of backspin.

Ultimately, you have to read the spin to improve the quality of any shot. But once you make the fundamental read, using side-topspin to give yourself a larger travel arc but still pretty safe is the way to go if you want to improve your consistency on the ball at the expense of certain kinds of power.

Later, after doing each type of spin for a couple of minutes, then you can try them all together or even skip that if you don't want to. The all in one is tough vs a robot, but it helps to intuitively make you read the ball as long as you comfortable with the error rate.

_________________
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