OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Coaching options in my area seem to be rather limited. I'm open to suggestions. There is always room in the budget for more TT.

Even if they are limited, they are probably better than your use of "limited" gives them credit for. It also helps to be exposed to other ideas for training TT. Regardless, hitting with a 2000+ player on a regular basis (and I know those exist in Nevada, I know a Nigerian doctor who is there) helps and they may not even take your money if they know you are willing to pay.

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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

Wouldn't robot be at least good enough for footwork drills?

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Yes and BRS made the point that they are good for TT exercise. They are also decent for learning to manipulate specific spins. But what they lack in terms of cues for reading opponents are not trivial in table tennis matchrs.

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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 used the robot five or six days a week, working mostly on loops vs heavy backspin, footwork and fh-bh transition. I hit 2,000 or more balls a day. That got me very aerobically fit, a mild overuse injury to my shoulder, and completely incapable of reading balls off a paddle or making fine adjustments to my swing timing. Then I unlearned most of what I did with the robot before moving forward again.

The way you are using it sounds way more intelligent than me. It might still be better to sell the robot, give your wife the money, and ask her to feed you multiball for a few minutes a day. But YWMD.

Sorry to use you as the example on my question. I did mean it to be generic, since Brett said he sees the same thing all the time. It's not clear whether he was specifically talking about people using robots, or just adult learners in general.

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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

Consider going to a good training camp if you can allocate time.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Russ is next to California too where some of the best coaches and clubs are. Cali is a big state but one TH vacation should be possible. Come on, Russ!

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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

This is where the right coast and the left coast differ....there is LOTS of land with nothing that must be traveled. However it's something I could try in the LA area from time to time.
Also I need to reach out to coaches who regularly come to Vegas for the open/nats. I reached out to some but had no success in getting any in July

So yes I could do more. Also yes there is a better club in town which I have not been to very often. I've been pretty proud of myself adding 3 hours of dedicated practice every week for the last few months...but you guys just demand more

Here is my current backspin serve:

https://youtu.be/N-aR-ERiSoE

Really appreciate any advice on improving it, also have footage of my pendulum and reverse pendulum serve which I will upload tomorrow.

Bring your elbow out more. https://ttedge.com/video-sections/pendulum-serve review the triangle part of it.

I'd recommend working with a little higher toss to aid your backswing. You make good spin sometimes as can be seen in the video.

thats a very good serve. the one at 1.10 was the best one. if u watch that one closely the racket head actually moves forward a little before u do the backswing. watch nl do this like a boss at 8.01 in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbdJmktTsXo

Ben, don't you think that it's possible that your robot helped you to secure a solid foundation? Did it help you to learn a proper looping technique? It's very difficult to change technique by training with someone who can't block. I get that you've mostly improved by committing to travelling to get better training etc, but I think that your early robot training is still a small factor.

If you can't do something in training, it's unlikely you'll be able to do it in a match. If you can't do something against the robot, it's unlikely that you'll be able to do it against a human. If you can't shadow swing it, it's unlikely you'll be able to do it against a robot. You have to start somewhere.

I highly recommend that players get private coaching or pay a training partner. I coach at a club where there are lots of good private coaches, so I get to see the results. The flip side is that private coaching is expensive and some coaches don't understand TT technique. These coaches are just training partners and sometimes they have similar issues to the robot discussion. They accurately hit perfects balls and enable the player, but this doesn't translate to match improvement. A good coach will enable the play to learn the shots and then randomize towards match scenarios.

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ttEDGE.com Professional online coaching

Thanks for posting goodtechnique. If you continue along the path you are on, you'll keep improve.

When I watched this video, I realized that I mostly looked at the left knee. When the hips are turn correctly, the left knee behaves in a certain way.

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I have good news...and bad news. The good news is that that's fantastic technical serve. The bad news is I can't make it much better.

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Get your 3 wishes here today!
ttEDGE.com Professional online coaching

I sometimes chase the ball on the way down and open by bat so it looks like a pendululum but this is supposed to be a pure backspin serve so I keep my elbow on my hip on purpose to keep the shoulder out and swing my forearm in a straight line, great observation on the ball toss, thanks.



Thanks! I am aware and trying to incorporate the advanced swing pattern in all my serving and hopefully it will become the norm instead of a accidental fluke with training, but still struggle a bit with timing and thin contact on all my serves so that's a priority and takes most of my focus.



Now this is very good news indeed, especially as I have lost my way with backspin serve for a while (tried too hard and forced it too much and lost good basics like forward motion with thin contact at the bottom, relaxation and short whippy backswing) so this is really encouraging, thank you very much!