OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Can someone please help me with this issue?

My forehand rubber is DHS H3 Neo. Since this is a hard rubber, I have learnt the technique to brush the ball on looping and on beginning an attack, by looping a backspin ball, I use my entire body for the stroke and maintain a brushing contact which generates a lot of spin but no speed. My waist moves from right to left but there is no forward movement of the torso, and to get speed, I was told to move my upper body forward.
However, on doing this, I started to get some speed, but was not able to maintain a brushing contact. Initially there is a brushing contact on the ball, but as soon as my body moves forward the follow thru makes me push the ball forward and this reduces the spin, thereby a flatter hit. I’m not sure how to perfect this technique to maintain a brushing contact so the ball is spiny and move forward to generate more speed.

Thank you
Rahul

You'll have to increase your racket head speed. Here's the theory. The reason why you're brushing the ball is to increase topspin. The reason you want enough topspin is that that is what causes the ball to dip and hit the table rather than miss the end of the table. THE MORE TOPSPIN YOU PUT ON THE BALL THE MORE SPEED YOU CAN PUT ON IT BEFORE IT MISSES THE END OF THE TABLE. But if you're already putting the ball near the end of the table, the only way to hit faster is to increase the speed AND spin.

It's actually OK to open up the racket head and let the ball dig into the rubber. Watch Ma Long - a lot of the time he actually takes the ball quite flat. If you're already getting decent spin on the ball and your shots are ending up in the middle of the table you can add more speed without adding more spin. The result will be a flatter trajectory.

Iskandar

Thanks for the explanation.

Also is it better to close the racket angle a bit, this way I can maintain brush and also move forward.?

Yes, I imagine if you want to hit the ball with a faster racket speed you'd need to adjust the angle and bat trajectory to suit.

How to get more racket head speed?



Iskandar

I love Bretts videos and his explanation of being loose during the swing. His "golden triangle" idea for elbow placement has helped a lot. I have tried the method he suggests above (with the rattle drum delayed action) and it is effective. It just kills my shoulder though to turn the body hard and have the shoulder drag back while turning against it, so I opt for more elbow/forearm snap or movement to create the brush. Not perfect, but my shoulder feels ok.

I had problems with shoulder pain when I started playing again, I was using an ice pack on the shoulder after playing and that helped. But I've stopped looping so much and that's helped to the point where I don't have the problem any more. Just playing differently.. more blocks and pushes, and closer-to-the-table topspin drives. A lot of us here are geezers, we can't play as though we were teenagers any more.

I noticed that the Japanese women use ice packs on the shoulder immediately after matches (I was wondering what the food wrap was for at first). They keep it on for about 5-10 minutes and then remove it. You don't see this on YouTube but you definitely notice it when you watch them play live.

Iskandar

Forehand loops actually have a lot more flexibility about how you wish to play the technique. Ryu Seuyung Min has a PD Korean channel where he explains things in Korean with subtitles in some of them.

Learn to play early with stiff wrist and snappy forearm or play late with whippy wrist forearm shoulder... Or Chinese style full body swing etc etc... Many coaches have videos explaining the dynamics.

No one way is best or right. It is up to you to get your "own" technique drilled in.

Usually an evolutionary approach works wonders

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Is it only me or others also face issues on obtaining the whip effect ?.

I feel the whip effect is very hard to obtian, especially when looping a backspin ball. So this is what happens to me : When a backspin push or chop is coming towards me, I first take time to get in position and once in position - my first goal is to ensure a brushing contact - which is mainly done by my arm and second goal is to get power which is done by my legs and waist.
Due to this my arm tends to move towards the ball, before any movement from my waist and just after my arm begins to move, I use my waist to get additional power. I'm trying to reverse this i.e making my body move before my hand - however I fail to time and brush the ball perfectly because of this.

Has anyone faced this issue, if so what do you suggest ?

Hi rahul, there will be different opinions, but my former coach always stressed "unison" over "whip", the only thing that matters is how fast your blade moves at the moment of contact and trying to get your whole body moving at the same time gets faster racket speeds than "shoulder leading then whip arm/wrist". Uniform movement also helps with consistency and correct angles.

People in another forum suggested tightening the core muscles just before impact, adds some "snap". Snap is good, whip is bad.

That being said, brushing isn't the be all end all. I'm putting more practice into my "drives" vs backspin with just enough topspin to help clear the net. Much faster, good alternative to the "slow spinny loop".

I looked at Ma Longs looping style and he does not have a whipping effect its more of everything at the same time. I remember a Chinese coach stressing that no matter what in the first few years of Table tennis, every loop and counter loop should be brushing stroke, hence that's my top priority. I feel it has increased my consistency by a huge margin.

I feel this is the difference between Chinese and European style. Chinese stress more on spin, therefore more of a brushing stroke and European style prefers speed, therefore the hit is more flatter.

Hiya, focusing on core technique is good, nothing wrong with that. But you'll need more than one stroke for a complete game. If a ball is high enough, flatter is better because it will always be faster. A "modern topspin" game isn't just about looping everything.

Cheers and good game!

Agreed, but during learning stages and stroke perfection, its ideal to feel the ball and perfect brushing techniques . I have always noticed in my club, the players who tend to hit flat struggle a lot with heavy backspin balls as they have not developed any muscle memory to have an upward motion stroke and they always have a tendency to hit through the ball

Maybe with the new poly ball, hitting flat has become more popular, but the Chinese have still stuck with their old techniques.

If you follow what Brett says in the video, don't get your ARM into position before the ball arrives. If you do you'll be stuck with no energy. You have to time the backswing correctly. No point in getting a brush contact if your racket speed is too slow.

I'd say, watch some of those chop vs. loop rallies on YouTube. You'll see there's more than one way to loop against underspin. Some people wait for the ball to drop, some (particularly some Chinese players actually take the ball on the rise. Sometimes they brush the ball, sometimes they open up the racket and lift the ball, using less racket speed. The latter is a lot less punishing and, I think, easier to use against a good chopper because you have to loop 5 or 6 times in a row or more.



The new up-and-coming players all seem to be adopting the Harimoto-style close-to-the-table off-the-bounce fast loops. Actually, if you watch this video:



you will see that Ma Long 1) takes the ball off the bounce, 2) doesn't use a brush contact, and 3) does all the stuff Brett talks about in the video (not pausing at the end of the backswing, using the tension stored up on the backswing in his body rather than using his arm muscles to get racket speed, etc.).

The other ingredient - he PRACTICES. I think the real secret here is a good ball feeder and hours and hours of practice.

Iskandar

If you look at Ma long, he does the entire motion in sync with his arm and body, and its definitely not whip, moreover it feels like he is trying to get his arm as low as possible (body follows) and then hes going for the loop kill in one motion (arm+body together)

I agree, there isn't much brushing because the backspin on the ball is marginal, however don't you think if the backspin was huge and it was a net ball, he would have to brush more than this.If you look at rallies between Ma Long and Joo See Hyuk, you can observe that Ma long goes for the loop kill mostly when the ball is quite high and for the low balls , he goes for brush loop.

Regards,
Rahul

You are absolutely right regarding his stroke. Also, notice his hips and his legs- at the beginning of the swing all or most of his weight is on his right foot with his hips turned to the right. At the end of his stroke his weight, knees, hips and shoulder is all to the right. Thats a huge athletic move! Realistically, I might be able to do that once, but I dont know if I could recover fast enough to hit another shot, esp. that close to the table. I think its good to look at Pro technique, but it may me too much for this mere mortal.