OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Looks pretty good!

On some of the balls which have low spin and/or pace, it looks like you are opening the paddle too much, and scooping up, in an effort to get the ball over the net which gives you pop ups.

Passive blocking: Loosen the grip to absorb the incoming pace. The problem with this (and counter to inverted blocking) is that if you loosen your grip, you will add dwell, and thus will allow for more spin reaction. So the more you loosen your grip the more you may have to close the bat. This is best consistency, but not for extreme reversal. When you do these it looks like you are doing a good job of keeping the trajectory low by closing the bat more, but sometimes you do not. You still have to close to compensate for spin too....especially with the grippy 755.

Chop blocks: It's all about timing. Keeping a fairly open face, chop down right off the bounce to take off pace. This has the added benefit of having more reversal (aided by the chop motion) but makes it less consistent as you add yet another movement variable. You are opening the blade face too much sometimes when you attempt this.

Watch Mr. Variatio, who on video has one of the nicest chop blocks I've seen.

That all being said, I admire your drive to be a student of the game and all styles!!

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

Hi Guys
I'm not just ball machine!!
Just letting everyone know that we have posted the first video in the new Drilling Table Tennis Series
It's just an intro but there's lots of content coming your way
Stay Tuned!

Welcome to the forum. Looking forward to the new series.

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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 know that this thread is for discussing members' videos, but I think that the one below is quite relevant to Whip forehand. Just look at Petr's wrist at the end, I thought that only penholders could do it.

[Facebookvid]http://www.facebook.com/MHTableTennisBlog/videos/1510365522316611/[/Facebookvid]

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Tactics Enthusiast

Lots of players do that. Even I do in my better moments. You probabay do too, you just don't think of yourself as doing it or don't relax consistently enough to do it. The first time I saw it on my loop too, I was surprised, but we discussed the topic on mytt a few years back when I first met Brett.

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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

A forum member reminded me that this match existed. It's probably the only thing you can find if you google my full name for table tennis since I don't put my real name anywhere on my youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAo9_NTSQRE

This is 2012 or so. Shows you how far I have come in 5 years and that I wasn't a looper all my TT life.

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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

Quite a contrast, you really are owed congratulations on your improvement and dedication . What would your level have been back then?

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

1300-1500 If memory serves me right. I broke 1700 working with my new coach about 3 to 4 months later I think.

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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

So here is the thing that gives me troubles:


On most of the shots I pull my elbow way behind my back. Previously it was way worse, but still the problem persists. This time I tried to be as relaxed as possible and to put my racket low, instead of brining it back. It helped, but not solved the issue completely. Partially it is due to positioning issues as I sayed before, but maybe something else. Interestingly, if I turn off the shoulder I lose the ability to lift very heavy chops. For example, I knew that the last shot in the third rally was very heavy, but I still put it into the net. I guess I have to bend my knees way more. Interestingly, everytime I practice like this I feel like I bend them enough, but then on the video it is quite the opposite.

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Tactics Enthusiast

@ fastmover

First of all; Love your videos. I'm sure you'll learn fast by doing this but also other forum members will benefit.

About the last shot in the third rally that goes into the net: the root cause is your bat not having enough head/racket speed due to lack of acceleration in the forward swing.

First of all your backswing ended a little bit earlier compared to your other shots, resulting in a shorter path from start of forward swing to ball contact, meaning leass acceleration.

Second: Your arm is too much bend at the end of the backswing, meaning you have too much tension in the arm. This prevents a powerfull elbow snap during the forward swing, resulting in less acceleration. Let the arm go during the backswing and you'll notice a much more powerfull snap during the forward swing.

Third and prabably even more important: You al ready mentioned that you deliberately "turned off" the shoulder. Whereas in your "succesfull" shots the required acceleration is reached by using shoulder muscles, you notice with this particular shot that the absence of "power from the shoulder" leads to inadequate acceleration. Ideally this "power from the shoulder" should now be replaced with "power from the hip" (the Chinese talk about "power from the ground"). But in the video footage I can see that for this particular shot you did not rotate your hip enough to create this power (you can see this from the left shoulder that should rotate more clockwise if you would have fold your hip more clockwise as well). More hip rotation will lead to the required acceleration.

Fourth and al ready discussed/adviced before. Your forward swing is still too vertical, which requires excessive shoulder power, thus resulting in insufficient acceleration. Bend over a bit with the upperbody, turn from the hip and let the arm swing freely forward in a more horizontal path will automatically lead to a higher acceleration.

Just play around a little more with above suggestions and everything will fall in place. You're almost there ! (at least; that's what I keep telling myself al ready for years...... )

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All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
sun tzu

A notice: I tried to turn off the shoulder not only on the shots I missed, but on all of them. And I'd say that according to my feelings my shoulder did not contribute a lot to the shots I put on the table. Or the shoulder contributed way less than before, that is for sure.

Many people told me about hip rotation, but it remains mystery to me how to excavate power from it. When I do shadowplay I feel fatigue in legs after a while and there is some rotation in my knees on the video, but I don't know if that is the right thing. Moreover, some pages ago Brett said that legs should not be the point of focus and he did not emphasize hip rotation in his videos (or I missed something). So "power from the ground" is puzzling me a bit. Anyway, I will keep thinking about it and how to improve this aspect. Thanks for the suggestions, glad you liked the videos, I will keep posting them.

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Tactics Enthusiast

I do see quite a bit of hip rotation in your video, though.

Iskandar

I think that Karakasevic used to have a similar swing with arm behind back (here at 1:26):



In his recent matches his forehand looks more orthodox though.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Agree with iskandar, you are using your waist plenty so you don't need to think about it any more. In the video on every shot your weight shifts from right foot to left, even pulls you off the ground a little. These balls all look good, so I'm not sure why you should have any worries about them.

What happens when you play a match and get long underspin, if this what you do?

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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

Yes, this is exactly what I do. Except that against regular pushes I don't jump upwards. When playing someone around my level I open up against backspin with my forehand most of the time and shot is quite consistent. The main concern is that sometimes I feel irritation in my shoulder after a practice, so I reduced the amount of training I do. I will also see a physiotherapist on Monday. Another thing is that in matches I often lack power, so I succumb to blockers in tournaments, but it should improve over time, it is already better than a few months ago.

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Tactics Enthusiast