OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I probably wasn't that person but I also could be that person. Many people who move have bad strokes and blame their bad footwork for their misses caused by bad strokes. As my former coach said, you can move all you want but if you don't know how to hit the ball, it won't matter.

Some people move excessively as well but that is another problem.

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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

It will be LTT72 - Chopping and Pushing Heavy.

Every Sunday (EST), we are trying to release one LTT and either a DTT or ETT. So LTT72 is a few weeks away.

So next week is Banana Flick, followed by 3 Joint Forehand and then Heavy Chops and Pushes. 3 Joint forehand is a discussion about the theoretical relevance of the shoulder, wrist and elbow when playing topspin against different balls.

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I personally teach players to stand still and learn the strokes first. I do, however, think that footwork is very important as your level will be seriously capped if you can't move properly. This is all pretty obvious. Believing that footwork doesn't matter is a low level of understanding.

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Please be sure to discuss pushing dead as I lack the skill to push flat and I wish I could do both to be more deceptive. It is funny but I thought chopping down on the ball to flat block was wrong since a counterhit produces light topspin even when relatively flat. Where did I go wrong?

I try to minimize upward motion in my blocks but I have been chop blocking more in practice to diversify my game as I have admitted to myself I cannot play as fast as 2300 looping juniors and need to build more tricks into my game if I want to slow them down.

If you block with the front edge of your paddle, how do you trap heavy topspin with that motion?

This is how I think I block now. What is wrong with it.

https://youtu.be/q-gQutk9tgo

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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

Cool, looking forward to it. Push is a very underrated shot, I think - saw once ~2700 guy beating one of our 2100 players pretty much solely by pushing. Makes you think...

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Did those 2100 level guy's serves bounce too high, allowing for a sharp & fast push?

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Tactics Enthusiast

Not really - most of 2100+ folks serve reasonably tight. It was mostly a choice on the part of higher level player what to do in the rallies - he more or less did not bother to attack hard.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

LTT 57 would help me the most, if I would actually do it. I've watched the video plenty of times, but I lack the mental strength, or discipline, whatever you want to call it, to use a positive between-point routine under match pressure. I bought that damn Dora Kurimay book years before LTT 57 came out, which is basically 100 pages of her repeating over and over " You need a positive routine," and didn't do it then either. Frustrating. If I had a paddle in my hand right now thinking about all this, I'd throw that thing a mile.

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You need to purchase a punching bag immediately!

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I actually laughed out loud when I clicked on the video and Alois was there talking at me. He's a very good friend of mine, as is Jeff, and there's no way I'm commenting on that video. I don't normally watch their videos, but I did watch that, just to see where you are at.

To be clear, I'm not recommending chop blocks in any way. I'm recommending the backspin drill to get the topspin/lift out of club player's block to stop them from lifting the ball 2 feet off the end of the table every time they face a loop. I'd say over 80% of players rated below 1800 or so are off track.

The content of LTT69 is fairly self explanatory. If you find something that totally works for you, go with it. NL, you seem to block reasonably safely in a match, so perhaps your block is already within an acceptable range. I personally believe that Marcos' 4 blocks at 0.20 are the center of the range. https://youtu.be/DNg6i4wQIa0?t=20 . He has great elbow position and he isn't reaching out for the ball. The rest of the video isn't the best for teaching learning adults to block imo. Lucky they got Marcos in early!

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ttEDGE.com Professional online coaching

I will film my block tomorrow and provide some video. I was thinking mostly of Jeff. But I will film a couple of things. Watching your video, I almost get the impression that I am ruining my student's block as I try to get him to follow through over the ball while extending his forearm. But I really want to be like Prassidha - his blocking consistency is infuriating.

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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

what a great and timely flat hitting video. nls been on my case about this for a while and I can c why.
thanks keep up the good work.

What is exactly wrong with blocking with a bit of topspin, except that it may drive nuts your training partner(s) during the drills?

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Tactics Enthusiast

I remember brett answering this before and what I got from that was that when in a match especially a close one when adrenaline is pumping in your body that topspin wierd block is going to put the ball out of the table because u have less control on it. The flat hit block gives u a bigger margin of error and is often times faster than topspin block.
Note I'm talking about topspin block and not counter loop that's a whole different conversation.