OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Thanks nextlevel.

I have realised how important the delay the backswing is. Brett was onto me about this in the last training session ages ago.

Without delaying the backswing u can't get Brett's body mechanics to work.

You delay the backswing, body comes forward as bat goes back to whip forward resulting in a relaxed fast racket head speed.

It also creates time. If u rush back to early u have less time to read the ball.

Many players lose timing on slower or pimp returns. I feel this is caused by not increasing the delay.

Robot training is bad if u do not go to the ready position between shots or delay for faster shots.

Even for robot balls at 0.6 interval I had to delay a little to crack the ball on my backhand.

Delay for serves, backhand topspin, backhand openup push, mini forehand loop and even block etc

The question is how to best improve this aspect in training?

When I really focussed on this in a practice game against a pimp player, my level went up 20%

This stuff is powerful.

Comments welcome

Not seen this talked about much. But I wear glasses since my early teens. Not a very high degree but astigmatism and now in my 50s being short sighted and needing some help for close up reading or working on laptop has made it somewhat worse. As such I wear progressive lens.

Since I started playing TT again a year and half back after being away for 30 years, I have made alot of progress. However I found that I "miss" alot of the shots esp those in the middle of my body or when the ball are on the lower side. I also sometime overhit to the left and right of the table without really knowing why. Then the progressive glasses could be part of the issue came up. So as progressive has really 3 portions of of viewing degrees in different part of the the len. It does start to make sense why I tend to miss more of those "easy" shots in the middle of my body and when the ball has dropped. I am probably looking downwards for those shots and viewing the ball at the intermediate or reading power of my lenses and in doing so, changing the "view?" of the ball due to the magnification of the glasses.

So I tried a single vision len but could not get used to it as correctly for full power correction but found it hard to focus on the ball during serves and also when the ball was coming towards me on my side of the table. IT was just plain tiring. Reducing the power to under correct my eyesight partially seem to help somewhat as you get the best and worse of near and far but generally only good vision at far and near distance. But It was also hard to get used to after wearing progressive for so much of the day.

Has anyone encountered this issue? I see that Brett wears glasses as well and was hoping that he has found a good solution? I actually still play better with a progressive lens but a older pair which probably has a slightly underpowered correction for my vision or astigmatism.

I also have astigmatism, and need different lenses for reading and distance. I normally wear variable focus glasses, but found an issue when playing table tennis. I tried fixed lenses, and contact lenses, the latter being the best for me as it preserved peripheral vision. In the long run, I couldn't get on with contacts, and now I just don't wear glasses when I play. My distance vision is such that a little concentration is required to see just one ball, but it still is the best option for me. That or surgery, and frankly, that would be overkill.

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Other setups:
SDC Custom Blade/DHS Hurricane 3 40 Degree/DHS Hurricane 3 37 Degree
Yinhe 980XX/Tibhar Evolution MX-D/Dawei 388D-1

This is an interesting video.

It talks about what Brett was telling me on one of my last lessons with him. Its a major key to a pro forehand that many coaches do not teach. (in Australia)

Its a bent arm take back and to straighten the arm somewhat before contact. Different Chinese players straighten more than others. The guy in the video does not straighten the arm a lot. This happens naturally if you are relaxed. Try this forehand, its much better than a straight arm tack-back.

If you are not relaxed it just does not work. Hard to learn if you never have been relaxed in your stroke production.

https://youtu.be/5idudsDNpx8

This is the forehand I'm working on too. I consider it the 'put the paddle in the pocket' forehand, because it kind of looks like you are putting the paddle away in a huge pocket by your hip and then twisting and extending. It saves time but requires huge body usage to make happen. The bigger straight arm shot still works better against backspin and other slower balls. Both are critical to have against long serves. It's going to take a long time for this paddle pocket forehand to feel natural for me as I always want a big swing.

Top Chinese men are hitting more and more backhands, which is why I think Ma Long isn't the top dog anymore. The speed of the game and progress on the backhand side at that level(top Chinese men) is dictating compact shots. I only say this because the Chinese men seem to have the pocket forehand. While none of that really matters to us - it does give us a chance to see this forehand on full display.

https://youtu.be/1DqSasLOXO0?t=52

Fan does it with so little rotation it's crazy and I wouldn't copy it as the rotation is too small for mortals. He might have shoulder issues one day or just be using his super muscles we cant see clearly but the ability to be that compact is clearly one reason he's #1 right now.

The WRM Japanese player does bigger rotation (probably too big) which is slower but us mortals will feel the old Brett whip.

Speaking of whip mechanics and such. IMHO one of the greatest ironies of table tennis is that hitting a winner against a slower junkier ball is much harder that against a "standard" medium pace shot. Playing a topspin against a "standard" ball you borrow its pace & spin and just add a bit of your own and you will send a bullet. But a junk ball has no speed to borrow, you have create it on your own, which creates a risk of muscle contractions ruining the accuracy.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Wilkinru, I see some pros use the same mechanism in a mini loop when they are out of time. You do not need a lot of body rotation for this arm mechanics. Timo also uses it on his forehand with less rotation. The forehand flick can use the same mechanics. Bent arm to approach the ball, and a straightening to hit the ball.

One thing I realized for slow balls is the timing issue. You really need to delay the backswing to time the ball correctly. Most training is done on faster balls so do not practice the delay. Robots teach bad habits as one tends to come back too soon. One coach told me I was blocking too fast. This makes it easy to hit the ball back. She wanted slow blocks so the hitter had to generate his own pace and not borrow mine.

I'm sort of a junk ball expert I guess.

I'm having to work on hitting the medium speed balls on the forehand. Years of playing against pushers does that to you I suppose.

In the same vein tho, I find having a backspin ball to flick a lot easier than a dead ball. Maybe not easier, but borrowing the spin lets me attack with a lot of power and spin. Dead ball? Garbage ball, I better put it in a good, no, great spot.

Well my stoke is still too big, but it's "smaller". Maybe I can work my way to a much smaller swing but I think it will take a lot of time to learn. I'll continue working on my pocket forehand as I call it

Really I hope to use it in the situation where I open up (loop backspin) and get blocked. A shortened stroke against a block that I can keep up the pressure. The old shot was just too big for the "5th" ball. I'm working on placing the ball to either corner. It's coming along but we'll see how it feels in 3 months.

The return board is great to work on it. Yep less robot more return board

Relaxation is the key to letting the arm go straighter after the bent arm backswing. It sounds simple but it is not. Its amazing how much extra racket head speed you can get using this method. Since you have got a higher level of arm speed you can crack the ball more and it still goes in just like the pros.

Its a much faster tack-back as the arm travels close to the body compared to other take-backs. You can get more power from a less full rotation.

Tennirobo robot does have a random speed, spin and interval setting making the robot much more realistic. I found with a return board I can to keep the same level of spin to get the ball to go back on the table.

Does anyone here use attention on their breath as a way to get out of your head (thoughts of wining and losing) and into the hear and now at serve return etc?
My current routine is 2 breaths focusing on my body, shake my hand to remind me to relax and then a full total focus on the ball.

Sounds like something that works for you. I need to try something next time I have a bad miss that throws me off. I still remember this one ball at 7-4 I missed. Instead of 8-4 it went to 7-5 and it affected the rest of the game.

At 9-9 in the 5th I'm entirely focused on serve or return, what to take away, where to put the return or where to serve. No time to think about anything else.

Doing it more and more with largely positive results. Those things don't necessarily affect my playing results, but they do affect how I feel about how I play, which is more important to me.

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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

Haha, good for you! I recently choked away semi-final at Cary Cup after leading 9-5 in the 5th, and then 10-8 because I started to think about prize money during that moment. As silly as it sounds.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Sounds just like me thinking about losing a point for the remainder of an entire game. Possibly even into the next game. Keeping focus is work.

At 9-5 I'm thinking about serves still. What serve works? What 2 serves should likely get me a free point or a 3rd ball I can handle? Just need 1 point on serve to get to 10-6, then return (might win it), and then at 10-8 just need 2 serves. Maybe this isn't the best way to think about keeping a lead. Maybe it is. It's why I really like getting a nice lead in the start of game 5. Get up 5-1, win it 11-8 just trying to lean on the knowledge of how the previous section of the match worked out. Obviously this doesn't work nearly as well in game 1 where you may not have a good feel for the situation at hand.

Has anyone focused on the correct use of the elbow in pro strokes? For example, the bend arm trackback in the Chinese forehand or hiromotos pulling the elbow back a bit in his backhand? This topic I think is very important in Pro stroke mechanics.