OOAK Table Tennis Forum

It is easier to read the spin on a long push than it is on a serve ( goes back to the difficulty of serve return). You are also practicing against long pushes not serves when using the robot right?

Such details should not be underestimated as the brain is far more specific than we think. When I try mess up lower rated players, I try to find point sequences that good players would trivially handle but which lower rated players have not been forced to train against. It is very different to
1) get a serve to the backhand and loop
2) get a serve to the forehand and then a push to the backhand and loop

It seems the loop is the same but the same player will actually do worse in one of those situations even If they have great strokes. And it will usually be the one they put less time into practicing.

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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

One more. All in all I feel like the best thing I can do to improve my pivot (besides doing a ton of DTT29, I am seriously going to give it a try) is actually improving my serve so that I can get more weak returns; especially limiting the angles into my wide backhand so that I won't need to run around as much.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Good post. Yeah the difficulty of returning serve is much harder than in a rally and seeing the backspin push. In my big 3-2 win yesterday I had to force myself to loop the incoming backspin serve that was always a little long. My brain was against it. Safety of putting the ball in play becomes a limitation of my return game. I see a serve and I know I could absolutely blast that ball with spin and spin but it never really comes out because I know there is a huge chance to mess it up despite my practice. "You can beat this guy if you just go for it". Famous last words...but I do like it when I face someone who makes me go for it. Go down swinging.

I just set the robot to give 2 deeper backspin balls to my backhand and turn on the random part so it isn't entirely static. I'm a monster against backspin balls on that robot set to a pretty heavy setting. I'd say about 2/3rds of that shows up in matches. Even a 2/3rds loop that gets on the table is a lot better than errors of the past. Of course I don't do this for more than a few minutes and move on to another exercise. (BRS trigger limiter)

One thing that makes the pivot very challenging is that if you look at the footwork in matches, the pattern differs greatly depending on how much time a player has. Which is in contrast with other techniques. For example, a loop against a slow ball is mechanically the same as the loop against a faster ball, just scaled up. With pivot it is not the case. If you have time, you can just walk around, no technique needed. If you have less time, you can somehow move the feet and make a decent shot. If there is no time you hardly move your feet at all, just lean to the side to get out of the ball's way, and it is still possible to make a decent shot! All three movement patterns are completely different, and all have utility in certain situations.

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I don't agree with the analogy at all. I don't see why or how the 3 movements are completely different. In fact walking around the corner is simply Brett's way of saying that you can use bad technique if the incoming ball gives you time, and this is true in many situations.

The second technique is standard and is the one you want to build into.muscle memory, whether you treat it as a mini hop or you begin it with a right leg movement to create the room while entering some kind of forehand stance. Anything when rushed is a compromise of sorts and it will often be a half-ass version of the second movement.

Once you practice the.movement then your body starts to get certain things. I suspect over time Xu Xin combined his high level anticipation and rapid two step into a different kind of pivot. As LGL once said, you don't see perfect technique in matches where people are being pushed to the maximum.

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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

Xu Xin's forehand in matches is almost identical to his shot in training in most of the situations.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Brett probably will not agree with this but my coach used to tell me whenever I looked at someone else's technique with too much admiration that the best forehand in the world for me was the one that put the ball on the table. If my forehand put the ball on the table if and when I wanted it to, it was my best forehand. Not Ma Long or Timo Boll. Mine.

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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

An addendum to the last post was what my coach would say: it would probably help you more to see the forehand that Ma Long was hitting when he was rated 1500 than the forehand he hits now.

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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

So when he was 6 years old? Haha.

This is just for pure entertainment: watch the point 1:19 in slow mo. It is a real life version of the scene from Matrix where Neo is dodging bullets.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Hahaha...

Well, we are often looking at an end product not how it was produced. Brett as a coach is more in tune with the process.

_________________
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 was just preparing my fingers to type some of this. Xu Xin sees the direction of the return extremely early. When he doesn't have time, he'll need to use the optimal footwork.

I teach this technique to elite players https://youtu.be/PKLYciMQIZU?t=23 It's like you bounce on both legs towards the backhand until you are sure and have position.

When you practice this shot as per DTT29, just do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SXbaz6aOqo Move your right leg first. Then when you have lots of time, you can do whatever you want.

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Your last point is especially true in boxing. Technique really diminishes in the final rounds.

In this video you don't see Ma Lin training garbage just because garbage may happen in a big match https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SXbaz6aOqo

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The top 10K players in the world all do very similar things on their forehand. I try to teach the right mechanics. When one looks at a player's forehand in admiration, they generally don't know what they are looking at. You can't see the engine because it's mostly hidden, so you focus on the by-products.

Most coaches can't teach players how to serve because they don't know where the engines are. They teach the by-products.

LTT108 will be available on the weekend. If anyone has a working time machine, please PM me and I'll give you the address to take it to. Set the time machine for 1982. In return for your services, I'll buy you a house.

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You don't have to hit your forehand like Ma Long...you need to use the same muscle groups as Ma Long. I can't squat 500LBS, but I want to use the same technique as the guy who can, even when I'm just capable of squatting the empty bar. I'm sure there are other techniques I can use to squat the bar, but they don't have a lot of potential and I may even get injured when I add weight.

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