OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Sadly this seems to be how it is. I've had a bit of a rough period lately in general. But I've still been trying to practice as much as possible. Btw, thanks for that FH vid Brett. I'm still working on it.. in matches I tend to lift the ball out often using the new technique. My arm still thinks it's better and wants to get involved. Though it does feel a lot better when I use my body, my arm doesn't get as tired etc.

I need to get into the habit of recording my matches again, I haven't been bothered to set up the camera for practice matches, especially when we sometimes just play 1 set or best of 3. Something is going very wrong right now as I'm losing pretty much every set, to mostly everyone, pretty badly. One reason might be that I'm exhausted after the practices which is when I usually play matches. I tend to have little energy, my receiving is awful and I feel like I'm making all the mistakes, some matches I just have no chance. I'm in need of a break.

My practices on the other hand have gone pretty well, I feel more consistent and can hit the ball harder than ever on both bh and fh. Still lots of improvements that can be made using my body though, I'm never bowing or folding as deep as I think I am.

A shame that 20+ hours of training does not instantly make one a much better player. I don't think I got worse, at least.

I've done a few practice matches lately and these are the things that changed directly from the training.

1. Forehands are stronger, especially against easier balls. I'm doing a little more of a pivot (more side on) before the forehands when given time. I'm going long on some balls too but they all tend to have considerably better quality.

2. After all of the drilling balls, attacking against backspin is stronger and more consistent. The backhand still has a lot of work to go but the forehand feels automatic. Bit related to the above topic.

3. Backhand quality has gone up. Consistency has not. Still learning the angles with the new "thumb up" backhand grip. Less capped here.

4. My view of serves being short and long has changed quite a bit. I was already headed in this direction but now I'm even more focused on it. I also notice that I rarely get an actual short ball that should be pushed short, however I have a few times and won a couple of points by pushing back short.
In fact I'm starting to think there are 3 classes of serves:

a. Serves that are short. Gotta get the knee in and tap it back short.
b. Serves that are not that short but may bounce twice on the table. These are troublesome for me. Flick? Push long? These are very difficult to push short for me.
c. Serves that are long and must be attacked aggressively.

5. The moment a lob comes my way I am instantly in thinking mode, trying to do it correctly. I nailed one really solidly into the net today.

Changing technique makes you worse. Good coaching makes you worse. Great coaching is crippling!

If a player has been doing something for 5+ years, asking them to consciously do something else is going to end badly. It's the conscious part of changing that is the problem, not the technique itself.

You can run micro experiments on yourself to understand my point. For example, if you drive a manual car, try consciously changing the gears for a day. Actually, don't do it or you'll potentially run into the back of a bus. Better yet, try changing your walking technique for a day and let me know how that impacts your life. See what fun that is!

Changing technique is hard. Do lots of shadow swings and visualizing. Understand that it's going to take lots of time and be okay with that. Don't always mistake normal downswings with technical changes. Try to play the game for the fun of trying to win. Remember that you are a relatively good players and you've come a long way. Take some easy wins against lesser opponents whilst making changes.

I'm making a little compilation video similar to Fastmovers that I'll post soon.. it's giving me some motivation. It's such a shame I couldn't make it to the camp, it's exactly what I'd need right now.

Imagine that someone has never played table tennis and they go and downloaded great technique...Matrix style. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YhJxJZOWBw

What would be the outcome? How strong would the player be? The answer is, their rating would probably be lower than USATT 400. Depending on the player's sporting background, the player may not even be able to hit the ball. If someone was 50 years of age and had never tried a ball sport, there's a strong chance they'd miss every single ball on day 1, even though they have "perfect technique".

Perfect Technique - Experience = 0

The above equation sucks because it's expensive. It means that you need to invest in experiences over a long period of time. I personally have 36 years of experience and that's a lot of my life.

Experience - Perfect Technique = Capped (aka Limited Potential)

The above equation sucks because you need proper coaching, which is hard to find. I personally didn't receive the coaching I needed at the age of 10-15.

Russ (wilkinru) is an extremely interesting table table player. He has really good technique, which he has learned from ttEDGE. He has done an excellent job at following instructions and most of his technique is nearing flawless. He is one of the few players I know that doesn't need a lot more "coaching", especially on his forehand topspin.

The thing with Russ is, he's still has a really long road ahead if he is to ever break 2000. In my experience, there are almost no players with Russ' technical understanding that don't play at a very high level. Russ is alone. Russ "knows" more about technique than the average 2500 level player, based on my experience at dealing with players at all levels. Russ can also demonstrate the techniques in training and matches.

Experience is king. A player's experience is everything from how much "catch" he/she played as a kid to how many tt matches he/she has played. Experience is how many forehands you've hit against a range of opponents. Experience is how much sport one played in their youth. Experience is 90% of one's level. Experience can't be taught or bought.

In Florida, I randomly told Russ that he should go to China to train. I was really just talking for the sake of talking, but there was some logic in my madness. If you already know the shots, you need to poor on the practice/experience. Training with a robot or hitting balls with the guys from work probably isn't going to propel you to the next level, regardless of how good your technique is. China sucks for coaching, but it's great for training.

Perfect Technique - Experience = 0
Experience - Perfect Technique = Capped (aka Limited Potential)

I had a very interesting session today. I'll post more about it when I have time to go through the video and talk about it.

Anyway, for the last 3 months or so, I had to cut my table tennis down from like 4-5 days a week to like 1-2 days a week. So it was nice to see that I had a mini revelation during practice. Something I feel that once I can incorporate into my game, I would have gone up 1-2 levels.

This is unrelated to the above, but during free play I had a really nice point. I just wanted to share it There were a lot of nice shots, but this one just felt special since I've finally started to get a more aggressive backhand into my game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cTvMmabcfo

Don't forget to add some badass music!

After the first day of proper training and realizing I didn't get much instruction made me realize all of this. I probably spent an hour in the middle of the night, every night in FL thinking about this stuff.

Getting better, for me, boils down to hard work. Lots of it. Proper TT technique requires a lot of effort. When I saw Brett pivot for a loop my brain went off as that's something I'm not doing. It's even more physical than I was doing previously! I probably do an hour of leg stretching and self massage for every 2 hours of TT played right now. It's painful. I'm not in great shape for this 2500 level stuff. I'd probably play more and be better right now if I didn't play like I do.

I've talked to my best friend about it. I told him my options were to quit and peruse new things to learn (this is my true addiction) or just accept the player I am and enjoy it or step it up a little bit and do more TT but still do other goals in life or lastly go hardcore "Evan" style and train much harder. After talking to Evan maybe not that hardcore! (I love you dude!)

Last night I saw a kid (from Germany) who had a proper 2 step backhand and used all of his body for a proper forehand. I'm not going to say his technique was flawless but he sure had a lot of things correct. Literally the only other player in the club who I could say that about(of the people there). I would rate him around 900. The speed of the game, returning serve, serving, attacking more aggressively just isn't there for him. So perhaps I am not alone.

One nice thing about me and German kid is that we both don't need to break 2000 tomorrow or ever. We can get exercise and play solid table tennis for years and years. I'm happy to have learned solid technique much sooner than others at my level. It doesn't mean I'm better than them...but now it just comes down to what I put into it.

For so many players (it's hard to put enough emphasis on how many) they get stuck at a certain level and have no way to get out of it.

Kenta Micksudaira.

More seriously that was a great LTT116.

My own punishment from the camp is that I don't want to play matches anymore. I have now become a TJ who is looking for a multiball feeder. I might start a multiball club at my club. Lol.

I agree, matches do not seem nearly as fun as before. The good thing is that the outcome of a match as a victory or defeat also seems to have become less important (I wonder if this feeling will survive throughout a tournament).

Have you got enough leftover balls from the camp? lol

I agree, matches do not seem nearly as fun as before. The good thing is that the outcome of a match as a victory or defeat also seems to have become less important (I wonder if this feeling will survive throughout a tournament).

I had a very interesting session today. I'll post more about it when I have time to go through the video and talk about it.

Anyway, for the last 3 months or so, I had to cut my table tennis down from like 4-5 days a week to like 1-2 days a week. So it was nice to see that I had a mini revelation during practice. Something I feel that once I can incorporate into my game, I would have gone up 1-2 levels.

This is unrelated to the above, but during free play I had a really nice point. I just wanted to share it There were a lot of nice shots, but this one just felt special since I've finally started to get a more aggressive backhand into my game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cTvMmabcfo

Perfect mickd!