OOAK Table Tennis Forum

With my luck in the last 6 months I don't think we'll ever know if it bothers my shoulder! (I never feel shoulder pain or soreness btw)

I do have pain in my elbow/tricep area lately and I finally identified it being me trying to add a little muscle at the end of the shot. Using an elbow compression wrap seems to remind myself to relax to get power there too.

With that said, I was either sick with a flu or had a UTI for nearly 4 months starting in Nov. Just yesterday I rolled my ankle practicing and will likely need to wait a week or two to really get back to training which is annoying since the virus situation has pretty much allowed me to play TT like I'm in a training camp.

So with the ankle the way it is for a little bit - any instruction on how to work on my pushing? I think pushing might be a great thing to work on for a bit

I have a lot of thoughts about moving up to a higher rank / beating 'better' players but I know by far my #1 barrier is returning heavy deep side spin balls. I work on them every chance I get and it has improved but not nearly as much as I'd like. This is also a ball I cannot reproduce with the robot.

Heavy sidespin balls require you to trap the sidespin. Usually this means looping towards the middle of the table or towards the corner the ball came from if you are receiving backhand sidespin with the. backhand or forehand sidespin with the forehand. When you get the opposite sidespin ( backhand sidespin to the forehand or forehand sidespin to the backhand), the approach I teach is to try to Fade the ball towards the middle of the table (make contact while taking your wrist back and with the racket mostly upwards). There are other approaches but this is the simplest one in my opinion given how the ball wants to behave.

For the pushing, I try to teach people to get the elbow in place and push towards the ball. Avoid hacking across the ball or just reaching and stabbing. Get behind the ball, bend over and push toward where you want the ball go with the stroke being largely driven by the direction your elbow is going toward. TTEdge has good videos but you will find it on any video with standard technique. You are currently doing this hacking or stabbing thing that doesn't impart confidence and won't let you put the ball where the opponent doesn't like it.

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"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

ttEDGE 2020 03 - Backhand "Shove" Topspin is now available on ttEDGE.com

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This is my attempt at the BH Shove Topspin from 1.5 weeks ago (i.e. before watching the official video). I tried to copy the stroke from Brett's short video he previously posted in this thread (he also provided comments on shadowswings I had sent to him directly). Some questions:

(1) Brett, does the shadow swing look ok?

What I find interesting and frustrating is that my actual stroke is different (imo I need to bow forward more and shove directly forward) than the shadowswing -- this happens to me quite a lot. I look at the recording after returning home because I don't want to keep my practice partner waiting.

(2) Any advice on how to minimize the difference between shadowswing and actual stroke? Do you recommend practicing the shadowswing more often?

https://youtu.be/nNcHxXv3K_4

Let's clear up a couple of things.

First of all, this isn't a bad shot. I think the technique is above average for a club player and it's not extremely different from the base used by thousand of guys ranked outside the top 50 in the world. Clearly there is a huge difference in execution, but I'm only talking about simple mechanics.

Secondly, if you want to keep this backhand and polish it, it's not the end of the world. I personally think that your method is not the Holy Grail, but maybe that's just where I'm at.

You attempted the backhand shove without ever seeing video 2020 03. You've also never sent me a "correct" shadow swing. So now when you match up your backhand against the instructional video, tell me what do you see? Better yet, what's the difference between your backhand and this one https://youtu.be/PQlG2qPbhj8?t=76 ?

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It's not perfect though it is the best you've done so far. Watch the video and send again.

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I want to get to the BH shove. imo, I am extending my wrist and not shoving forward.

Use your phone's camera a lot in training.

I don't play table tennis anymore and I have problems learning these shots too. As NextLevel always says to me...Those who can't do, teach.

To make a video with "good" or the latest technique, I have had to learn some stuff. The shove is an example. It's not my natural backhand and I seriously had to learn it. There is still no way that I've done an hour's worth of shoving on the table so far, but it's probably the only backhand I can naturally play now.

I've just spent so much time looking at it and thinking about it (visualizing) that I don't know what else to do now. When I filmed ttEDGE 2020, it was really the first time I've ever done it outside of my imagination.

My advice is to watch the technique every day and walk around like a crazy guy straightening your arm with a bent wrist. Then when you do it on the table, look at phone video replay every 30 seconds till you know how it feels.

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Bingo!!!

The wrist work on the shove is totally different. The wrist will flex back and forward, but it will never extend flat / parallel to the floor. It is not a traditional frisbee throw. It's more like a boxing jab with your racket on an angle. The correct body movement is almost everything.

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When are you going to write a book about TT? Or, better yet, I will make a section on ttEDGE.com if you want to make some instructional videos? We can call it "NextLevel Technique".

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I think it's getting closer to what you demonstrate in the video. Your comment that it's more like a boxing jab and not a frisbee throw was helpful for me.

https://youtu.be/I02lkr9QWsk

You arent coming up enough. Look at Brett's finish position again.

My backhand is a mix of all kinds of things - shove, twist, arm usage, and none of them done 100%... what the heck...

https://youtu.be/0jAftP-e0xA?t=264

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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

Married life has a way of dampening dreams... but we will see...

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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

Thanks, wilkinru! I was so focused on not extending the wrist that I didn't pay attention to the finishing position. This is not a dealbreaker imo and easily fixed (at least for the shadowswing). I know by now that it will take a while until the actual stroke resembles the shadowswing.