OOAK Table Tennis Forum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7LF7JC9554
aerial 0-3 trevor
trevor played smarter than me--for what it's worth i played relatively bad too.. just endured 2 hours of nyc traffic to drive to the westchester league


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArDWzJPnnIA
aerial 3-0 alec
alec had difficulty with my push so that was a clear strategy i was able to use against him


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS1eqEyBaBM
as 3-2 ta
the doubles match was nice to win, especially since i lost to trevor earlier in singles and my partner lost both his matches

off to san diego!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjjyQZO6I8o
aerial 1-3 bennam
bennan
this guy's forehand sidespin fishing really messed me up... he also has a strong backhand punch


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb4m5wvHpdQ
aerial james 3-0 bennam joe & aerial james 2-3 benam joe
paired up with a LP player for doubles--I wanna say maybe our team had better synergy which caused the easy 3-0 the first match, seems like they came back with a vengeance defeating us 2-3 the next match haha


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyK-vgkjhM0
aerial 0-3 rodel
the last time i was able to make it to the san diego club i played rodel and he lobbed/fished me to death--(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlSR05pkoAk)--it was a fun time. it seems like he played more serious against me this time but i still could not take a game off of him. he had a lot of kind words for my game saying that the individual pieces are already there, it's just i need to put them all together


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sriCN3cZNa8
aerial 0-3 rodel
his solution--or i guess method for doing this was to just play service receive and play the rally out. not going to lie it did feel like it was benefitting my game and for lack of a better description it seemed the individual parts were starting to get "glued together" we played another match after with the same result of 0-3, but there was definitely a difference in quality of play from my side despite the same result. still though, there was a noticable difference of my game when keeping score and my game when not keeping score... the pressures of keeping score are real i guess. at the end when chatting with rodel, he also mentioned my opening backhand is bad, but in the rally it's good. he had kind words for my serve but not so kind for the follow up after the serve haha


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqENyGGKqus
aerial 3-0 lady
(forgot to ask her name), but i was mainly relying on my serves and my push against her, she can hit winners if i place them in easy spots

back to syracuse...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD0NDw9a94U[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD0NDw9a94U
aerial 3-0 amer
amer gave me a decent amount of trouble a couple years ago when i first started regularly going to the syracuse club (where i live and work). the main problem was i was going for too much off his serve which is usually long. i usually try to spin it with placement now and beat him in the rally. he also has trouble against backspin serves and pushes in general too.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hiko5s30NO4
aerial 3-0 doug
doug's a new guy at the club--he can't return my serve well so i can basically rely on that. he does pretty well against lobs


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVv3oTTTENM
aerial -- uwe
we didn't keep score and did the same thing as i did with rodel--whoever gets the ball serves. a humbling experience but i think it's probably the best thing to do for my game. plus it's a rarity for me to be on the receiving end of a 2400's serve


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLxCt-YTiLs
aerial 3-1 steve
i still push back long balls when i should loop them... alas...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJIiGfetS2k
aerial 3-0 jacky
relied mainly on my serve and deep spinny push to his forehand

_________________
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 for that video NL--I've watched it several times but i keep reverting to my old dumping-forehand-self when I play in matches.... bad habits die hard.

so today I totally psyched myself out at club... i scouted the crowd and thought to myself--or rather, gave myself a goal, to beat everybody here... (it was a light showing and in theory i should have beaten everyone there)

but I lost to soft-touch-player-extraordinaire, Mike. or rather, I let Mike win... too many over-aggressive shots aka unforced errors.

i should learn how to take losses and improve my game instead of always trying to win

on a lighter note, I played a left handed match today too--it was fun to goof around. I guess in the end it is all about having fun right... (inner self: that's loser talk! you gotta break 2000 by December or else you didn't reach your goal!)

meh...

Rebuilding a stroke is the equivalent of breaking a habit. You have to go through a saturation process for a long period where all you do is practice the right stroke and probably play few to no matches. Use it in drills etc. It can take 3 weeks to get the base stroke in and then a year to get really set into it. On the other hand, it uncaps your potential.

_________________
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

would you argue I should mostly drill and seldom play matches these days to really emphasize fixing my forehand-dumping problem?

Yes, with a focus on using the stroke properly. In matches, there will always be regression but you can reduce it if you spend an extended period training the proper stroke in multiple situations.

_________________
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

No. Ideally you should play practice matches without caring if you win, and use your new "practice" stroke.

In reality it is very hard not to care if you win. So if you care too much to use the new stroke in matches, then what NL said, don't play matches.

But if you go on like that for too long you will end up with two games, your practice game and your match game.

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

Yoko Ono

I agree, BRS, but that depends on the kind of practice he is doing. When I Say practice, what I usually mean is fixing the stroke in many match like drills (3rd ball, counterlooping, attacking high balls, looping balls below table height, transitioning from BH to FH and vice versa, defending the middle etc). He will need to record himself and review the drills or get a partner to give him feedback while doing the drills.

If he is just looping vs predictable blocks, then of course, he will do the stroke well in practice, but do another stroke during matches. It's not easy to adapt a stroke to a situation you have not trained it in.

Even after practicing like I prescribe above, the old stroke will rear its head once in a while, but that is life. The more and more the new stroke gets selected and leads to consistent results, it will become the stroke of choice.

_________________
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

Watched some of your videos recently and have two thoughts.

1. I see the serve as being one you could really aid yourself if you were to improve it. Could easily have more spin and variety.

2. I think you've actually backed off on your aggressive style that I saw previously (a year?). You aren't making big cuts at half long balls and generally seem more passive in not looping or running around shots. I suspect you have been beating more players - but if you want over 2000, you are going to need to get out of that comfort zone. Your earlier videos show a raw but aggressive style that I was impressed with.

Your serve.
Most of your serves land in the center third on the other side. (center lengthwise) Generally the worst place. It will go off the end of the table giving your opponent an opening loop. Serves should (usually) land in the first third and double bounce or land long near the end of the table.

Try making a serve that hits near your end, (3 inches), stays low over the net and lands near the opponents end, (3 inches). You will be amazed how fast the serve will be that meets the 3 requirements. You will need someone else to watch where the ball is actually hitting.

You come down at a 45 degree on your chop serve. You need to get under the ball for max spin. Work on getting double bounce serves while still keeping it LOW. You will need someone to watch just how much it clears the net. You might think it was low but actually was 3 inches over the net. A 2000 player would rip it back. Short serves MUST be kept low.

Read your thread title again.
You must change how you think. I assume you want to be a double winged attacker. Think like one. A double winged inverted player usually wins by pressuring the opponent with speed, power and angles.
You usually take a defensive stance or go back on your heels after a shot, even after your serves. Don't give up the table, block at the table, not way back. Stay on your toes, be ready to attack every ball. Never push when back from the table. Loop it or brush loop it. If you have to push a short ball, don't push it back where it came from, use the angles.

Watch the attackers play. See what they do with different balls. You want the other guy to think there is no safe place to put the ball.

This might help:

http://www.samsondubina.com/coaching/13-stages

As for the comments, I think that aerial's technique needs work. His athleticism is fine, but his technique lets him down under pressure. He doesn't have good spin up the ball technique - I tried to teach him that but he probably needs to hang around better players a bit more to see what is possible. IT's hard to absorb TT over the internet.

_________________
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 watch this video all of the time. It's a wonderful reminder of what's possible.

For me, if the physical part of table tennis was open to me, I would probably be doing something even more physical like tennis. It's the strategies that better players use to beat worse players or the ball manipulation tricks that inspire me. Many of those things are done by Ma Long and Zhang Jike and Waldner etc., but when I see something like this, I wonder what is going on and try to understand 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

thanks everyone for your comments

I will side with BRS in terms of having a different match game and different drill game if I only do drills--I remember during my early stages of development wondering what happened to my stroke during a match when I was able to hit so many in a row during practice... I need to learn to make drills as similar to a match as I can

wilkinru--I agree with what you're saying. I did lose some of the aggressiveness from my earlier days, partly due to wanting to practice pushing more and partly due to a lower back injury. I agree with the serve too... too often do I not really test the waters with my serve, I have a very predictable serve and no matter how good a serve is if it's predictable then that's not good.

hookshot--yeah, I was totally infatuated with learning how to do a ghost serve after watching that "Ma Lin ghost serve" video but after only inconsistently being able to do it after practicing i was dis-heartened and gave up. this is definitely i should re-visit and once i am able to consistently keep the ball with backspin low, on the table, i'd finally be able to confidently say my serve is spinny. yes i need to be more aggressive, just like how wilkinru said.

NL, thanks for all the good links-- what do you mean by your statement "spin up the ball technique"

wilkinru--that video is mesmorizing, definitely gonna watch it on repeat every now and then

NL, that video of Dewitt and McPherson kind of reminds me of my matches with Mike... it seems like McPherson had a rough time handling Dewitt's no-spin serves and no-spin blocks. I hate losing to soft-touch players but I must say Dewitt's touch looks very, very good...so just curious, when you look at this video, what would you say is going on and what are you trying to understand?

In wilkinru's slo-mo video the very first shot is what NL means by spin up the ball. The ball is hit with heavy topspin and little pace. ML absolutely destroys that ball. Your opponents are not ML and will not handle it so well until you get far beyond 2000, if the topspin is truly heavy.

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

Yoko Ono