OOAK Table Tennis Forum

You are obviously in a better position to evaluate what might be going on there, but it would give me some basis for concern, even if contract eventually comes through: perhaps there is quite a bit of politics involved (duh!) and there will be several landmines for you to navigate in your new job... Just a thought from an outsider.

For something completely different : there was a pretty active discussion on one of the Russian TT forums I read about coaches development strategy for their players. One very controversial scenario is for a coach to start a few young players with LP on their backhand - which is considered to be almost cheating, since other players in the similar age group have no experience in playing against this style (which really does not look like modern defense at this point, more like push-blocking). Typical outcome is that players with LP tend to win early, but then get surpassed by conventional two-wing attackers. For a while, however, LP youngster can win a lot and thus gets more trips to competitions, funding, glory for the coach etc.

Opponents of that approach would point out that it basically exploits existing system for short term gain, while jeopardizing long term results, given that attackers still prevail at very top. Counter argument is that "unorthodox styles can get you quite far (Manika Batra, Amelie Solja, some Iranian dude)", and "if you measure coaches by short term results, well, that's what you get". IIRC Canada prohibits pips in U12 competition, which might be their answer to this issue. Curious what Brett's thoughts are - PM is fine, if it is too off-topic here.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Hahaha... don't think anything is off topic here from most core posters. Brett just posts a new TTEdge video and then we get back on topic.

Would like to hear Brett's thoughts as well.

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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

You aren't the only one. I def prefer a limba outer ply. It's not like you could blind test me and hand me a blade and I'd feel the difference and tell you the composition. I just end up liking limba-outer blades better, if that makes sense.

And ditto on fastarc g-1. I tried a bunch of stuff to replace tenergy and hated all of it, until the g-1. It's a lucky break not having to try 05 hard and dignics and whatever else they come up with. Fastarc does not play like T05, but it feels really good.

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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

And I prefer red wine to white, but blindfold me and ask me to identify which is which and I'll fail, just like all the "experts" fail. 99% of our convictions are little more than prejudices. I think it's fine to have preferences but stupid to think we're being particularly scientific in our decision making.

Well here it is, regret in trying to learn the reverse pen serve. I'm wasting my time...well, eh. Right now it's creating an interesting slow and low side spin serve which is nice...This is a tough nut to crack.

I'm using my body a little better this time and the stance is improved BUT I realized after about 60 balls in that I was making contact on the top left side of the paddle, as you can see at 55 seconds. What a horrible place to be making contact. I may as well hit it with my thumb.

After I watched the ttedge video "Swing and Contact" and realize that my shoulder just does not want to bend back like Brett effortlessly in the example and that's resulting in poor contact and the inability to hit under the ball most of the time.

I'll need to work on stretching my shoulder and doing shadow swings.

Hopefully the videos will be better after this one. Editing sucks on the phone btw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFAK_aANNSA

Some very good things in that serve. I like the bowing motion a lot. But you aren't getting your wrist far back enough to get deceptively heavy backspin in the version of the serve you are copying and you have said so already. You will get good sidespin with that version but backspin not really.

While it is usually the hardest spin to serve, I usually recommend starting with the backspin version of any serve, especially pure backspin. If you can serve pure backspin with your serve, the sidespin versions are easy to build on. And it is not all or nothing. Even if you never get to pure backspin and always have a hint of sidespin, your variations will still be of much higher quality.

If you can point your arm downwards and point the racket 180 degrees towards you as you do on a backhand loop then you have it. I doubt it is a flexibility issue but I could be wrong. It is not all shoulder - some of it is in the elbow as well...

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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

I think the word "naive" is more appropriate than "stupid". Judgement has been validated almost as much as it has been skeptically challenged. The errors tend to make the headlines but the successes tend not to.

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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

I don't need a job. I work if/when I want to work, which is the ultimate trump card in every situation.

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It's called a "roll".

If someone has a ridiculous heavy chop on the backhand, a roll can feel like it's jumping over your head. The difference between the heavy chop and the roll is the key factor here. The heavy chop causes short term brain change / adaptation making the roll very powerful. Rolling by itself wouldn't work too well.

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NextLevel replied with some solid advice. I especially like the idea of trying to get backspin early on.

I like the serve you are doing. I think it will continue to improve if you keep going. I'd like to see some better footage from different angles.

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Yeah I have a new stand and a chair I can move around now.

I'm TRYING to do back spin. Ugh.

I wouldn't go down the path of putting funny rubber on junior rackets. That said, if a kid really wanted to use anti, LP or SP, I'd be fine with it. It's good for the nation if a few people chop or play with different rubbers.

There are nations who have traditionally played relatively poorly against choppers. Eastern Europeans countries come to mind. I'm clearly generalizing here but there's some truth in what I'm saying. The reason why Eastern Europeans have traditionally played poorly against choppers is, there isn't a strong tradition of chopping in many of those countries. The players don't get enough exposure to choppers, especially at a young age.

In real communistic times in China, province teams would make sure they had at least one LP chopper in the training environment. This ensured that everyone was good against chop.

Funny rubber is clearly much more common in women's table tennis. It make sense because women like to play a fast, close to the table style. If you are using LP, it can really mess someone up. SP is very good for playing fast and flat.

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The grip advice Dubina gave here helped me more than it hurt me which is the only reason I share it even though I don't use it. You have to be able to hit under the ball not behind the ball. But you may not have the wrist speed and the stability of angle to brush underneath. Even with your current grip you can get backspin by orienting yourself differently and brushing beneath the ball by trying to get your racket flat.

https://youtu.be/vwsuaRg79T4

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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

I'm not sure, so I'll be no help on this one.

I just know when a blade is too hard because I loop everything into the net. If the blade is too soft, the ball just doesn't move forward enough.

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One challenge is the handle. It just goes into my forearm. I try to get the handle to go above my forearm, like he shows in the video. For some reason this is difficult for me. Maybe I'm supposed to smash into my forearm and create golf ball sized bumps to do the serve properly.