OOAK Table Tennis Forum

More of a diary of TT things today...

Been working with Brett a good bit on my forehand and backhand loops. Looks like in practice I'm on my way. I'm still needing to work a lot on drilling it in and getting it ready for match situations. Bad habits creep in so easily. I go from bad to good at random with my technique.

I also have been working on my forehand over the table 'flick'. To be honest not a lot of flick in it yet - still much to work on. Unlike uncapping my forehand and backhand loop, this poor-man's forehand flick is earning points right away! Talk about quick results. I've gone from losing points to hitting winners. I am for sure going to continue my efforts with that.

Now on Sunday I went to a club I've not been to for a year and to my surprise - it had a few of the best players in town. Just 4-6 people all over 1800, some over 2200. What's strange is just how friendly they were. One thing that's obvious is I'm pretty far behind a 1900 player still - but I can still win some points and even get the occasional game. Brett noted I was rushing my backhand a little and I really felt that against these guys. I actually have more time - even against these quality players.


Lastly my new weapon, which I love everything about, except maybe the Tenergy 80 on the backhand side. It came with the paddle (got a wonderful deal!) so I'll go with it for now. Often a week of practice is enough to adjust.

Videos...

Forehand loop practice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--gudrmE7Ns

Serving practice - with lots of errors. That's how I roll! It sucks I cannot even tell what my OWN spin is. At least in general they were much lower.
Also my first attempt at cutting out wasted time in videos...damn program crashed 5 times trying to do it.

https://youtu.be/HTJiGmztCqE

Had a good session today. Played a lady who schooled me a year ago and it was dead even (split the 2 matches) this time. That was pretty satisfying.

The forehand above was used even and it won me some points. Heck I feel like I even used correct form more than not!

Lastly I bought myself a new ball machine. Butterfly owns my a$$. Ball machine, blade, rubbers and even shoes. All butterfly now. I better improve just to justify it all

Went 6-0 in my league matches last night. Had some solid upsets and crushed my rival.

Slow spinny balls still are giving me trouble. Backspin and top spin, if they're slow and spinny I tend to miss time them. Hopefully the new ball machine will fix this issue.

Well, its why I teach people to play that way. I struggle with them as well. It is usually the visual illusion that messes people up. If the balls arc high on topspin, raise your paddle higher before blocking. For backspin, begin by just trying to add to the rotation. That is usually sufficient to get the ball over and over time, you will be able to cream the easier ones. Heavy chop is hard to loop so when it is really heavy and slow, you really gotta put in the effort.

_________________
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

It's why I've been doing re-looping practice. Backspin balls which are chopped sure are challenging, especially at the end of a session. My last match I ended up pushing the tougher spin balls. I was actually pretty frustrated how I played near the end - I need to be able to be more consistent there. I think that comes with practice by making all of this to be a little less effort.

I did have a couple of backhand flicks that were awesome. That always makes matches easier. Channel my inner FZD.

I have footage of part of one match - most likely the best player I've ever beat. I've yet to see just how good it is. I'll chop it up and put it on here when I can.

Please do that if you have time. I've seen you hitting with the robot or serving a lot, but don't think i've seen you play much, if ever. Gets boring watching nl all the time, nice to see someone else.

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

Yoko Ono

Ditto, BRS, Ditto. Only that I am referring to watching you .

_________________
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

https://youtu.be/bBcoOZs-W8U

Not going to sugar coat - I look like crap out there. I'm slow to react to things and my serve kinda bails me out. These are pretty choppy points too. He's got a no-spin and backspin serve, you can see a few times I'm late to react to the no spin and make an odd looking return. My forehand doesn't come into play much at all.

Pretty obvious I'm going to need to learn to move my feet a lot more out there in order to improve. I even proved it with the ball machine today. Entirely realistic situation which occurred last night: a high backspin ball (a good amount of spin) to my forehand, I need to move to my forehand side and loop the ball down the line for the point. With the ball machine I was successfully able to make this shot about 20% of the time - I was giving myself 5 seconds or more between tries. Higher odds cross court, but it just shows the issue of moving and hitting. I was also totally gasping for air after about 20 attempts. One could push short to my backhand and then push deep to my forehand and I'd lose not only the point but my energy!

Basic footwork drills are required and I'll have people feed me balls to where I have to move a little (start small).

I've been doing leg lifts and core exercises quite a bit lately and after the matches tonight my body was exhausted, legs especially.

This is a bit of a blow to my ego on a match that I won and was pretty proud of.

Keep your serves shorter against an opponent like that. If you're going to send one longer for variation, send it to his BH or down the middle. Your BH looks good when you get the right shot, just needs to up the consistency and play it from more places. What level was the opponent? Looked maybe 1600-1700??

Edit: Nice looking new weapon btw!

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

You are just suffering from not watching yourself play often. TT exhausts us intellectually and physically so we assume we are moving a lot more than we actually are in terms of physical space. We are moving though and this is underestimated. It is not uncommon to move less but more efficiently as one gets better because anticipation reduces the false starts and stops.

In any case, it will be interesting to see whether you move more to your satisfaction as you get better. I just accept the way I look and take pride in winning when I can.

_________________
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

Totally agree! Hate watching myself play, and never looks as good as it felt (but winning sure feels good).

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Everyone hates how they look on video. But if you don't have a coach how else are you going to know what you really did?

I thought you moved fine, although we could all stay lower and move better. You started to recognize his serves to your BH as the video went on, and turn more to topspin than pushing them. I think with your BH technique you could loop those serves strong enough to force him to either serve a lot lower and shorter, or start serving at your FH more. It's fine that your FH wasn't involved much because your BH is better than his. If I were him and losing to you I would have switched to testing your FH and try to get FH-FH exchanges, because his FH loop looked pretty strong.

Post some more with different opponents. The more you do it the less it hurts.

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

Yoko Ono

Thanks guys. My ego feels a little better this morning. Have to keep things in perspective. I really think I look better out there than I do. I'm sure this video will keep me on track to lose at least 5 pounds

The other guy is around 1500-1600 I'm guessing. 2 months ago I could beat most U1400s and I was losing to this guy in the same time frame. We have around 10 Chinese players at this club who are unwilling play in any sanctioned tourney, so he has no real rating.
In reference to the long push serve - last week he pushed it back to me over and over and I looped on him with my forehand. I told him to not do that anymore last Saturday - look what helping gets you - it gets you a strong loop off your serve. He's kind of becoming my unofficial practice partner on Saturdays so I have an interest in him improving too.

I'd love to just kill all of his serves but he's tricky with the no spin and backspin combo. I was reading them better later in the match - even in parts which did not make it in the video.

In regards to getting more video - it's quite a challenge. I think the best I can do is just parts like here. That was literally all of the footage I could get thanks to my friend recording me when he didn't have a match. Better than nothing. You can't see it, but the wall where the camera is has people lined up, it's difficult to even find a seat sometimes. Some expensive blades have gone missing there too, so I can't just leave a camera going either. The other gym might be easier...maybe the guy who works there would keep tabs on the camera.

Ditto, BRS. I thought he moved pretty well. He just hasn't fixed that disconnect between mental image and reality yet. A lot of my game is built on short and quick movement at the table or no movement at all do I don't see how I am moving much more than he is. As a junior girl once said, if you want to run around, play tennis.

_________________
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