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I've started going through your mytt thread.

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Thanks Brett. I look forward to seeing what you think about my style The thread is long, spanning a few years, so of course, feel free to skip anything! The first 4+ years I played without a coach, learning through self review and online help. Since the end of last year, I've been getting coaching once a week. You might have even met my coach's friend. Apparently awhile back he was in Australia and even helped coach some of the national juniors for awhile. I'm not sure how far back this was, though.

@wilkinru Is it too late to run? Haha.

Since I played and lost against this strong female player a few weeks ago (sorry about the camera angle, my tripod broke in the morning), I've been working on my backhand with the coaches. My main goal has been learning to add power, which seems to involve adding more forward momentum, brushing forward instead of upwards. I think with more practice I'll have it down better, but I noticed I've been switching between two different strokes; one which uses more wrist and one which uses more forearm. I think my regular technique is more forearm-oriented, but I've been working towards the more wrist-oriented style for close to the table play.

I suspect the answer isn't as straight forward as use one or the other, and probably depends on how much time you have, how close you are to the table, how high the ball is, and various other factors, but I was hoping to get some opinions on this. Should I be trying to move towards a more wrist-oriented stroke? Or keep working on adding wrist to my forehand-oriented stroke to add power? I think the reason why up until now my backhand has lacked so much power is because I've been too focused on radial and ulnar deviation of the wrist, which is great for adding spin. However, recently I've really been thinking that maybe the correct thing to do is to add more flexion and extension to get the extra power.

A smaller stroke with some flexion and extension on top of the radial and ulnar deviation seems to allow powerful and consistent close to the table play. Of course I'd still use my forearm, but not a full forearm stroke.

Here is a video demonstrating what I mean by wrist-oriented and forearm-oriented:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlTjiZqrAqA

The first rally has a combination of both my ideal wrist-oriented stroke and my regular forearm-oriented stroke. As the video goes on, it turns mostly into just my regular stroke, but with me trying to add power by going more forward.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to say that I'm red shirt in the video.

@mickd, if you are looking to add more power to your backhand, then watch parts 80 and 81 of the Learning Table Tennis Series. This is the most valuable information about the backhand EVER. The key to power is the body, not the wrist. I think you are already doing the body motion a bit, but you can increase the amplitude and add more momentum.

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Mick,

When I first joined Ttedge when William had videos and Brett wasn't on board yet, I was convinced there was a critical distinction between wristy and not so wristy technique by a video that William made. Nowadays I am not so sure.

I could answer the question in many ways. But I think it comes down to consistency and timing when you focus on the wrist being used more actively in a deliberate way. If you can time a more powerful and consistent stroke better, then you should use it. You can note your consistency and ball quality with both strokes. I would argue that both strokes are in my game and I probably select more elbow when I more control and more wrist when I feel confident about my read on the ball or need more spin/power on a sitting ball. It sounds funny to make it sound like the smaller joint is the more powerful stroke but it is really about the kinetic chain some any wrist stroke involves some elbow most of the time.

Far more important are the body mechanics in the core that you transmit to the hand and you will get a good shot if you prepare those well whether you get a wristy shot or not. If you swing with the core even over a short distance by bowing, torso twisting, squatting etc., that is more critical than what the wrist does. That is why your shots are good shots regardless of which technique you use with the hand.

So don't get me wrong, the wrist is important, especially when loose and well timed but it is at the end of a chain that begins with the core.

The other thing I learned over time is that what the wrist does is really a result of things that happen at the elbow and shoulder. People look at the wrist because it is close what hits the ball and indicates looseness. But no one really uses the wrist.

My technique for some things is just me messing around with stuff so don't take it as high level gospel. I also need to improve my backhand stroke and timing in some respects. Just practice strokes that put the ball on the table with good technique, learn to adjust to spin and the body will select the appropriate stroke unconsciously when necessary.

You can be more aggressive with your use of the core in your video but it is pretty good.

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<delurking>
mickd wrote:


I am not Brett, but is your coach's friend Tatsuya Hadaka? He was playing in my local comp and coaching at the club I was at. He did coach the national juniors for a year or so. It would be a year or two back that he was involved with them.

</delurking>

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@mickd,

I went through your mytt journey. It's really nice to see some serious improvement over a 4 year period. Improvement in table tennis is very slow and your progress demonstrates that improvement is completely possible for adult learners.

As NextLevel and fastmover said above, understanding what drives the backhand is a really important step. Videos LTT80, 81 & 113 and ETTS45 are the content I'd like you to watch to help you to define what you are really doing on your backhand. You already know how to use your arm and those videos will help you to understand what propels the arm on both hit and loop. Power doesn't come from the wrist even though the wrist snaps through the ball.

I'd like you to watch all videos from LTT79> including the hip backhand serve. Your arm was fighting your body on your backhand serve, especially in the early days before you started serving forehand more.

I have lots more to say, however, this will do for now.

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Thank you fastmover, NL and Brett. Sorry about the late reply. It's graduation season and I wanted to finish writing my farewell letters to the students

Firstly, I want to say the videos and comments are very, very helpful. I'll need a lot of time to think about, shadow stroke and practice it.

I had been slowly watching the videos backwards (latest first) but haven't gotten that far back yet, so as per your advice, I started watching from 79. I watched 79, 80, 81, 82 and ETTS45. I had previously already watched 113. I'll watch the hip backhand serve video soon!

I'm wondering for the backhand, does the hips have a feeling of a short thrust forward when doing it correctly? Bowing forward and straighten the back definitely forces the hips to move forward, but the power doesn't feel concentrated. Similarly, are core muscles tightened during the contact or throughout the stroke?

I remember watching a short table tennis promotional video in Japan years ago where a bunch of top players said one piece of advice each. The one that stuck to me was Ishikawa Kasumi saying that when she's practicing, she makes sure to tighten her core muscles (it was in Japanese, so maybe tighten is not the right word). But when I play, even when people comment I'm using my core well for some shots sometimes, I feel like I've never tightened my core muscles during a shot. For me, more accurately would probably be tightening of the leg muscles (though more often the arm ). Is this related to the missing link of adding proper power from the hips?

I think all of this is very difficult to see because for example, when I see my coach demonstrate something, it barely looks like he's using his body, yet the ball is very high quality. He's probably mastered it like you mentioned in the video and has a very subtle movement.

As for the the guy's name, he mentioned it when I first met him, but this was late last year, so I don't remember. I'll ask him again the next time I see him!

Is this your coach? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlTjiZqrAqA That guys has a perfectly coordinated LTT81 backhand.

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Thanks Brett. Yes, that's him! During the blocks he definitely showed perfect LTT81.

I think during the demonstration he must have had a very subtle amount it of because the amount of power on the ball was crazy. You can see him bend forward, but it never looks like he straightens back. It hardly even looks like he's swinging or applying any tightening of his fingers or anything like that, but the ball is super fast. The cracking sound was pretty intense.

Here is the video of the demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUWErTvTFPA

By the way, LTT81's YouTube Harimoto demonstration video is no longer viewable.

Hi mickd, he straightened his back some when he came out of the bow on the second one. Watch the video at .25 speed. Sometimes it's not about how far you move, but how quickly you do it.

Here's a more obvious example of LTT80 https://youtu.be/kyvzVosDvvY?t=187

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Thanks Brett. You're right! It's amazing to see how well top players can coordinate the movement to generate power like they're really doing nothing. But I guess for them after practicing it so many times that it feels like they're doing nothing in particular, but everything is just working in unison.

Thanks for the video with FZD and ML. It's definitely good to see more obvious cases like those too.

I had some pretty depressing games yesterday, but it happens to everyone and I'm sure it'll be better next time!

Imagine your opponent is serving some long very heavy topspin and you are trying to loop it. With the forehand you can fold your body to loop the ball down. How can you do this with the backhand?

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