OOAK Table Tennis Forum

It's not hard to see what the underlying problem is with recreational TT. Most people are largely interested in acquiring some gear which supposedly improves their ability, and persisting interest in this suggests they believe it's working. The same problem exists on the only slightly less insidious training side where "technique/strategy junkies" barter with same zeal as their EJ brethren to marginally better effect.

So this problem clearly has more to do with understanding the learning process than any particular lesson itself. I fail to see how it's hard to assess the spin on your own shot when you're using it to effect on a regular basis. If this is truly problematic, then surely the immediate reaction should be OMG I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO ASSESS SPIN IN A SPORT WHERE SPIN IS CRITICAL, and prioritize that first.

You might recall that I insisted on the importance of developing fundamentals in some thread at MyTT and was dogpiled by "experienced coaches" (yourself included) who're rather win the match instead. Honestly I don't see much hope for that mentality because it's not something which can be corrected with a tip here and there.

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Also btw, make sure the toss is identical every time, so the fast but precise stroke can be identical every time. I have no idea why service instructions don't emphasize this enough. Unfortunately doing it right after doing it wrong will lead to missing a LOT at first, and therefore not conducive to immediate reward.

There's no "trick" to mechanically serving well. The potential to generate substantial spin naturally leads to deception through giving less of it for contrast.

Hi agenthex, I have made an entire video on ball toss in my 9 part series, though it isn't publicly available on forums. Thanks for the tip anyway. My video on this thread was placed on youtube as a promotional piece and it was posted here by haggisv. It only goes for a few minutes and it covers very little.

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Ok, but you can see how it might be kind of confusing when presented in isolation, esp when someone asks for tips after figuring out actions like service spin have observable results.

Here is part 3 of the series:

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Excellent!

I see that you keep the handle on the top side of the forearm. I personally adjust the grip to slide it underneath since that way feel less contorted esp the elbow rotation. Your frisby exercise should valid this. (I also use the same grip sometimes to get right-hand side/axial-spin from standard pendulum).

What's odd is that you seem to demonstrate the motion with the handle below but don't actually serve that way.

Just to be clear, I will continue to post all videos from the member's journey (should be 5 or so videos) on youtube and you can all watch them in this thread if you like them.

The new video just posted by haggisv above is part 3 of a 9 part series which is in progress on a our website.

So there are 2 series running concurrently and one series is free on youtube and OOAK. I will try to provide good information in it for you guys.

Thanks to haggisv

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Hi Brett,
welcome to this forum.

I am still amazed with your "snake serve", I have watched it million times but until now I still cannot clearly see the motion to produce that serve. I noted and understand that it is actually a pendulum serve.

Could you please make a clearer video and a close-up super slow motion for your amazing snake serve ?

thanks
Tobhik

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Ah.. Why didn't I think of visiting the website in the first place!

http://ttedge.com/

Iskandar

It's a compound motion serve sort of like what ZJK does except the "snake" bends around to reverse sooner. It's done by doing a wristy regular pendulum while starting a reverse with the shoulder right after (or for this particular one maybe even before, but in any case before the first pendulum finishes), so the racket starts the reverse deception just after contact as the second motion carries through. In principle you should be able to only change the toss for a different spin.

A video honestly doesn't help since to pull something like that off without being too obvious you have to be proficient at both already and understand how to overlap them together. IOW it's not something you can copy just by watching without a few prerequisites.

As far as deception goes, I find what gives people (at my level, anyway) a lot of trouble is topspin+sidespin serves that LOOK like backspin+sidespin. I first encountered this at the first tournament I ever entered - can't remember why, but I had to play someone rated 1700 (I was probably 1000 at the time). He was doing these serves that LOOKED, to a beginner, like backspin (because he was contacting the bottom of the ball), but had a strong topspin component. After the game (I don't think I even got one serve back) a friend explained to me what was going on, and since then I've been doing the same, except that instead of the huge arm movements people used back then I flick my wrist like people say to do these days. I mix the side-top with side-backspin and players around my level find it hard to tell the difference, so I win a disproportionate number of points from returns that go in the net or returns that sail past the end of the table. Better players can better see what I'm doing (varying the contact point but using the same swing), but even then I'll get the occasional return sailing over the end of the table, and the better the opponent the more satisfying it is when it happens! The better players attack the topspin serves when they can see them, so that makes me limit its use against better players.

I can do this easily with the regular pendulum, it feels quite natural, but I haven't tried it with the reverse pendulum,mainly because it feels so awkward. I'll try practicing it and see if I can make use of it. Once I learn it with backspin I'd like to be able to put topspin on the ball as well using the same motion.

Iskandar

Tobhik, thanks for your welcome and watching my snake serve a million times. I can't make a super slow motion video right now, but I will take some footage of it in December when I go to Australia and I'll send it to you. I just don't have the camera where I am today. The snake serve is a bit of fun, but I wouldn't get to into it. I've seen people get very determined to do the snake serve and spend silly amounts of time on it, without results.

I've failed to successfully teach Olympic players the serve (bad coach perhaps). There are better things to practice such as straight backspin/no spin, reverse, regular pendulum and so on. Cheers, Brett

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I like this. Variation with small wrist movements is what it is all about.

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Thanks for the really useful and informative videos, and as a fan of old Hong Kong martial arts movies I much enjoyed the humor too. I'm afraid I've been prone to slip into the Lizard serve but now that you've pointed out the differences I'm looking to send the Gecko back to the jungle.

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fleetwood999, I actually laughed out loud when I read your post. Any reference to lizard, in relation to serve, makes me laugh immediately. Please let us know how you go with that gecko eviction! So funny...thanks

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