OOAK Table Tennis Forum

He specifically pointed out that he was putting his left leg in front and under the table. Seems like a kind of an important point to me.
Do you ever put your leg that's on the same side that your playing hand (i.e. the left leg for Timo) in front of the other one when performing a topspin?

Find some players that you can beat easily. Then focus on playing right technique when playing matches with them. You will have more time to get into position and rotate. Then build up from there.

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In the meanwhile, I am going to rebuild my game around the reverse serve. I will use it 80% of the time in the matches in the next months and see what happens. So far looks promising. My regular pendulum is broken beyond repair.

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Wouldn't something simpler like a 'backspin/no spin' combo or just a BH serve be easier for game rebuild project? I find that most reverse serves I encounter at my level are not that reliable and successful. They are probably fun to practice though.

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I think I have a pretty good feeling for the serve. Short backspin has the highest chance of drawing a mistake. Also, return placement is more predictable than the pendulum. I just need to improve my long one to make it faster and more reliable.

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Learning to play correctly is a tougher path. I've actually got an upcoming video about it.

Go outside and throw a stone without moving your body at all. Please don't send me the doctor's bill to repair your dislocated shoulder. Every sport which has throwing or striking requires you to use your body correctly to propel the arm. Real coaches in any sport will understand this. It's the difference between the golf swing of Woods and my next door neighbor.

Your concerns about implementing proper technique into match play are real. I'm sort of facing the same problem. I didn't grow up using my body properly on the backhand and now I'm desperately trying to plug the hole. I can hit a 2 step backhand against multiball, but it doesn't happen naturally in a point.

They say that good technology is developed by a guy who desperately needs it himself. Here's what I've started doing. I'm using the Table Tennis Edge app in a way that can only be described as a hack. I'm going to Multiball>Forehand Push and I'm just letting it run. When the ball comes to my forehand, I'm twisting my body down and around. When the ball comes to my backhand, I'm dipping my torso (and phone) straight down in front of me. I'm trying to train this torso dip/bow thing for my backhand so it becomes an automatic reaction, as apposed to standing there like a stick.

I'm seriously thinking about developing a new app where you actually get a score for making the right body moves. I may be the only one silly enough to use it, but that's fine by me because I'm the one who needs the app. It looks pretty silly to someone watching you twist and bow with your phone. I just do really small moves and the rest is in my imagination.

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fastmover already has a good reverse serve. In his case, I think it's a good idea.

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Against a half-long serve, a right hander would ideally have their right leg under the table.

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LOL. I don't think that one would help much.

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Brett, thanks for the tip of using the apt to shadow swing using the correct body motion. I tried doing this and I think it really adds to the benefit of shadow swinging as it also adds anticipation and a random element into the mix. So now I got a another stage of training. Start with shadow swinging, shadow swing with the apt, multi ball with a training partner, random multi ball, etc.

I apologize if this question has already been answered, but I want to ask the following:

What are the best ways to fix the situation when I fail to implement or make too many mistakes performing a "vital" stroke during a tournament?
By "vital" I mean a stroke that I normally rely on in my game - for example, for me that could be a BH hit against a backspin. I've experienced that in tournaments, due to anxiety, tension, etc, my "vital" stroke suddenly starts to fail me, I lose a lot of points trying to do it, because of that I become even more nervous and frustrated so my game loses its quality even more...
How can I break this vicious circle? Should I keep trying to implement my stroke hoping that "quantity will transform into quality"? Should I forget about my "vital" stroke for a while and try to win by using other strokes?
Thanks!

Last night I got two more matches vs the Angry Chopper. I won the first 3-1, then lost 2-3. I now lead our lifetime series 18 sets to 17.

There are three ways I win points from him. My serve, bh SP hits or blocks into his fh, and fh fade loops off his bh side. The last were the most satisfying by far for me, but as a coach said last summer "a points a ####### point, innit?"

Most of the points I lost were looping long due to overestimating the backspin, and some in the net from underestimating.

I received almost every backspin serve with a SP push long right at the center line. Even if I had to step over to use my bh from the middle. Thinking about it now I should probably twiddle and push those with SP on my fh. Then when it comes back long nospin I'd be in better position to try a fh loopkill. Anyway what I was doing last night gave him no spin to his LP, so I had an easy open to push him back to chopping, and I could work for an attackable ball from there. And he is always turned to use the LP, so he couldn't get around for a fh on my receives. Vs most players long no-spin receives would = instant death. Is this a case of successful tactics? Or am I practicing a highly undesirable play becaude it happens to be effective vs another sucky player at my level? IDK, but since my main goal is to get into as many loop v chop rallies as possible I will stick with that receive until he finds a way to make me stop.

In the second match I fell behind 3-9 in the first set and ran off 8 in a row to 11-9. That adds nothing to this post, but I'm still so happy about it I just have to tell someone.

After that I got outplayed to lose 2-3. Without video it's hard to tell, but my impression is my success rate on the pivot fade fhs went way down. And I didn't attsck harder with the bh to compensate. I think that's where my opportunity lies. He plays a lot of safety shots down the line with his fh to my bh. If I can land hard SP bhs those points are over. That will be my focus if we play again.

Last night he still missed a lot of receives. But this time he said loudly to himself about my bh hit/block "That's all he's got. Stop feeding it!". Which made me laugh. Great, try feeding my fh instead, see how that works out. That is what gave me the idea to try for more outright winner off my bh. Probably sub-optimal tactical play, but def better from a development perspective. And these are practice matches so nobody cares if I win, least of all me.

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[quote="ziv"]I apologize if this question has already been answered, but I want to ask the following:

What are the best ways to fix the situation when I fail to implement or make too many mistakes performing a "vital" stroke during a tournament?
By "vital" I mean a stroke that I normally rely on in my game - for example, for me that could be a BH hit against a backspin. I've experienced that in tournaments, due to anxiety, tension, etc, my "vital" stroke suddenly starts to fail me, I lose a lot of points trying to do it, because of that I become even more nervous and frustrated so my game loses its quality even more...
How can I break this vicious circle? Should I keep trying to implement my stroke hoping that "quantity will transform into quality"? Should I forget about my "vital" stroke for a while and try to win by using other strokes?
Thanks![/quote]

You have to just keep using it no matter how many you miss. You can try for more spin, or a higher arc, or go a tiny bit softer. You could even for a few point try playing a push & block game and hope your opponent will miss. But if you truly have only one winning shot you can't go away from it for long.

For years and still now, basically all I have is my fh loop. Nobody at my level or above is worried about anything else I can do. So if I play a set and miss 8 fh loops and lose 11-7, it doesn't matter. The next long ball I can get a fh on I will try to loop it.

For me to calm down and accept the situation it has helped to tell myself, you are a looper, if you are gonna lose, lose looping. Accepting that you will probably lose is your best chance to break out of the slump, 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

Brett, how important do you think it is to consistently place the ball deep? Deep to me being within six inches of a line?

I'd guess less than a quarter of my shots land that deep now. So I'm wondering how important that is to relative shot quality, compared to spin and speed. I seldom if ever notice an opponent landing all their shots deep. But that could be because I just don't notice, or the people I play are as bad at placing their shots as I am.

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

Yoko Ono