OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I have lots of footage on my phone that I use when coaching live. I've made my own library of similar videos to this one, but with bigger, more obvious movements and editing to show students what is really going on. I can't post them because I don't own the footage.

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You are an inspiration Maurice! You'll have it all perfected by the age of 70.

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Thank you for all the feedback guys, really appreciate it!

And I love LTT99, great cues.

Hopefully some better footage:

FH topspin vs block:

https://youtu.be/ksz9TgjXVa0

FH topspin vs backspin:

https://youtu.be/7VWE46-dCYg

Match play:

https://youtu.be/57rLZTVUprk

I liked the fh stroke a lot. I think if someone could give you a consistent block you will be to loop 15 to 20 in a row with no issues. One thing I noticed is that when the ball goes away from you, you don’t move your feet toward the ball. You do turn your waist but you also have to learn to move while core rotation.
I didn’t like the underspin drill because most of the serves were long so people in matches wouldn’t push them. So just try to get that short so in a match you would get the return you are practicing against.
From experience I can tell you that getting a loop when expecting a push is not a good feeling
Keep up the good work

You forehand looks nice and solid. A question for Brett. When the Chinese loop they use hip rotation and the bat ends up near their hip during backswing. Against block they raise the bat before the forward swing. Most adult learners I have observed the bat ends up away from the body during the back swing and never near the hip.
Is the bat near the hip technique allowing a similar start position (apart from more right leg bend and forward lean) for topspin against block and against backspin? Does this lead to more consistency? Or are there some other reasons why the pros do this?

Should we try to copy this?

I think you've done a great job!

You're backhand topspin isn't always perfect although, went you make it, he always blocks out because of the back, stomach and core muscles propelling your arm. I really think your forehand is looking great. Think about LTT99 and it's just going to get better. Get your neck facing the roof on the backswing.

My biggest concern is your lack of body work on your serve in matches. I've somewhat unfairly added you to LTT100 but now I'm glad I did, based on your match footage. Using your body on the serve is good for 2 reasons. 1. It propels the arm. 2. It puts you in better positions to play the 3rd ball.

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I want you to watch the video of Xu Xin below. Let agree that Xu Xin has one of the best forehands ever, because he has a relatively bad backhand and he's near the top in the world.

How many times does Xin play with a bent arm on the forehand? How many times does he swing back towards his hip? Or does he just use a straight swinging arm on every single forehand? This is match-play and not a training session. You'll find the same answers for most top Chinese players. There is a difference between swinging at the ball using your shoulder as a hinge joint, and pushing and pulling your arm around with shoulder and upper arm muscles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG-QGQ9Aw38&t=

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Xu Xin has such a nice forehand. But I do see on his takeback the bat passes his hip or leg quite close? If I look at my video of my forehand there is a much larger distance between bat and the hip on takeback.

Practice receiving (like multiball receiving) 50% of your practice time. Pay good players to serve at you if necessary. We spend lots of time practicing scenarios where we have control of the point, loop v push, loop v block. Then in a match we can't create those situations. Maybe spend half of the remaining half of your practice time on aggressive blocking, and transition from defense to attack, like push long, block once, then counterloop.

Like Brett gave his uber-simple diagnosis of his and William's games, mine is if they can return my serves well and I can't return theirs equally well, I'm dead. The guys one level above me 2000 - 2100, read and receive better. If I can get into the rally even they are in trouble.

I guess Brettt would class receiving under technique, in which case I totally agree with his position of just working on technique and playing better. But working on technique for the open rally is not best use of limited training time for me.

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If you swing back closer to your body, you save time on the backswing and maybe you even get less air resistance. I'm reluctantly going to make a video about it.

I can see a massive problem with this this upcoming lesson. One of the biggest problems that players have is hitting the ball too close to their body with a bent arm. LTT102 (or so) is going be a bit confusing, but it will be the truth. I'll attempt to make it as simple as possible.

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Cause and effect? If the ball is too close to me because I anticipated poorly or didn't move or both, I'm going to execute some crap swing. My brain tells my body to touch the rubber to the ball and my body makes it happen by any means necessary. The problem isn't the swing, it's that my body was in the wrong place relative to the ball. You can't fix the effect, only the cause.

Although one thing I am trying to learn is not to try for a high-quality ball when I'm not in decent position. Good-not-great players are smart enough to just play a safe ball back with placement, stay alive in the rally, and try to recover their position to be more active with the next ball.

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Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

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Cheers for all the feedback guys, really happy to hear my FH is on the right track and focused training is paying off.

Looking forward to LTT 100 and beyond, feel like this could be an awesome TT year

+100 on this. Going through the same struggle right now - losing too many points while going for the hero shot when it is not warranted.

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I have to say that I don't like Harimoto's forehand

1) He swings with a bent arm
2) I might be wrong, but it seems that he uses his shoulder quite a lot
3) IMHO he rotates his waist way too much. If Li Sun is right that the excessive rotation of the waist leads to the lower back injury in the future, then the kid is going to have troubles in the future

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I think a nice way to train is to try to play like 30 or even 50 shots in a row. I never liked doing it, but now I see value in it. If you try to do this, for sure there will be awkward balls in the sequence and you will have to adjust to stay in the rally to get to the count.

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