OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I think some lift out of the lower position is relevant. I think some LTT93 is also relevant, even against a block. I wouldn't get too caught up on these two points, unless you are way too straight or too high. It will mostly happen naturally for a lot of players. Just do LTT98 as a general guide.

I've been having some of these conversations with fastmover. I think fastmover needs to add a little LTT93 and lots more LTT98 knee movement.

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So is your first turn your shoulders advice modified to first turn your knees?

How does this work if you are moving into the shot? Do you turn your knees as you move?

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I am so happy the master has returned.

My looping of backspin is heaps better on the forehand after LTT93. It's mostly just a matter of making sure I close the paddle enough to keep the ball on the table. So much bat speed gets created that I can easily go long and only the most spiny balls become an issue of opening the paddle angle and going for more brush.

I wish all balls were backspin balls sometimes

BRS check out how ma long uses his knees in the video.
I am not sure it answers your question though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiARkUO6aEE

I feel like one can make knee/hip turn on the forehand only if they are well prepared for the shot, well-balanced and have enough time.

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It is actually impossible to turn your shoulders without turning other parts of your body. There is no shoulder joint that rotates the torso. The advice "turn your shoulders" implies something else must move, making it inferior advice. To turn your shoulders is to rotate your torso and hopefully to spin your knees. I still tell players to turn their shoulders from time to time, especially when they are close to the table. Maybe I need to think about that too. I'm continuously trying to refine my ways of teaching stuff.

Why didn't Apple just make the iPhone X first? 10 years ago, they sold me an inferior phone with no internet. It didn't even have a video camera and the specs sucked!

In relation to moving into the shot, you just need to do the best you can to make it happen. Watch the knees https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiARkUO6aEE

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TT is always easier if you are you are stable and ball is coming to where you want it. If you want to get better though, you have to push the boundaries in all situations.

This all became blatantly obvious when I was playing tennis a few months ago. I could get reasonable body rotation on anything that was in close to me and then it all feel apart when I had to move quickly for the ball. I guess I needed to train it more. No torso rotation in tennis results in tennis elbow and a broken wrist.

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If you turn your hips and knees, the shoulders are forced to go along for the ride no matter what. It IS possible to turn your shoulders without turning your lower body, however. I can't really see any reason to ever think about the shoulders when FH looping. But that's just me. Perhaps since we can see our shoulders when FH looping, some people find that visual feedback more useful.

P.S. I have an inner demon telling me to slap some OX rubber on my racket. But unlike most people I would use it on my forehand, not backhand.

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I could never play with 0x. I've hit occasionally with hardbat and LP 0x, it's impossible.

Funny ZJK picture. I inagine the thousand screaming girls are just out of frame. But I don't regard the switch to SP as quitting. Continuing to play 1900 level TT forever and being satisfied with that would have been quitting, to me. That would be easy. Changing is quite difficult.

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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

It seems that no matter what material you choose to play with, the two step process will haunt you anyway. So why change?

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I think I understood a very important thing about the pivot. The key problem with this shot is that unless you move into position in advance, it is difficult to get away from the ball. So doing just a step with your feet is not enough, you have to lunge to the side. The trick is if the ball is too close to you, it makes sense to hold back the swing to take the ball later in the flight. Why? Because if you take the ball late, you have more time to create the vital space and produce a quality shot. If you take it too early, you will play a crooked forehand with no quality.

I realized it after watching my videos many times. I noticed that often I play ugly and weird shots when trying to pivot in a match. I used to pivot without thinking about the quality of my shot, just to play a forehand in some form and hope to win. Nowadays when I train 3rd ball attacks, when a service return goes to my BH, I try to assess if I can pivot against this ball with quality, or it is better to use my BH. To do so I have to feel if I will be able to create enough space for the swing, which is quite tricky.

Somehow after doing this drill I can play better forehands even if get jammed, at least in training. I developed a gut feeling that sometimes tells me to wait for the ball more while lunging to the side because I am too close to it. I think a good illustration of what should be ideally happening if you get jammed but decided to pivot anyway is the point starting at 1:10 in the video below. Although the push went almost to HKK's BH, he could get away from it, and to do so, he had to use all the time possible, taking the ball extremely late.



Hopefully one day it will translate into competition.

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Fair point, I've probably reached my ceiling based on lack of touch and little athletic ability. That being the case, why not change?

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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

I think 1900 is a pretty high-level for an amateur athlete in this sport, it takes a lot of training and experience to get there. And for exactly this reason it is hard for anyone to improve afterwards. I think the the only ones who can bounce off it with steady progress are the kids who practice 6 hours per day with some 2700-level ex-pros. And even they face setbacks, I am pretty sure. If you change to a different style, it may be even more difficult since you have to rebuild a lot of things almost from scratch.

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My competitive level may be worse, but if I am learning new things and improving my SP play, training will feel happier and more productive. And training is what I mostly do, and enjoy more. I only play tournaments to mentally justify all the practice time.

About your pivot post -- if you can't win the point on the pivot fh then you put yourself in a bad position. So if you have to wait so late to take the ball because it jammed you, wouldn't you have been better off to play a bh?

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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