OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Do you agree with them?

I think so many things in TT fuse together so unless you were there you never really know. But I suspect they are partly right.

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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

Thanks. The most recent video I have is from mid-February. Prior to joining ttEDGE I mostly relied on my arm for this shot. Since then, Brett has stressed the importance of turning the left knee in (and pushing it back to the front with the right leg) to create the right hip/torso movement. His comments about this particular video were:

"I think it's basically correct and looking better [than the previous videos]. Eventually, you'll be able to make a more precise pattern with your legs and be stronger in the twisting motion. At the moment, you are just trying to find your way and that's a good thing."

I was concerned that my arm is bent during the backswing, but Brett didn't comment on that during our email exchanges. In ttEDGE 2020 02, he mentions that it's preferable, but not critical and that some European players use a fairly bent arm throughout the shot.

https://youtu.be/k3nWFu5jNps

You are doing good stuff. Rome wasn't built in a day and I suspect that this stroke will have jumped a couple of levels given the work you have done vs backspin. Brett and I had a conversation recently about technical improvement and ultimately, it is always relative to what you did before for your game (not for example vs. what Timo Boll does with his game). I would be happy to to play with the quality of structure in your strokes regardless of the arm being bent or close to the body etc.. It's just that everything can be better and that is what we strive for. The process of your improving your finishing position vs backspin will be interesting - hope we can see the finished product someday. I think I probably still have poor finishing positions in matches on many of my strokes.

Will also be interesting to see what happens to the stroke when you start playing it for speed and power. Cheers!

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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

It will be very interesting to see how much chopblock's training will eventually impact his gameplay. He has found a better way to play most of his shot although it won't be what he doesn't naturally for a while. I have a match of his, so I'll get to make comparisons in a few month's time. Chopblock could play a game to a certain extent however I would say that I didn't fully agree with any of his shots.

I have personally continued my LTT106 experiment. I'm doing about 30 mins per day with some ttEDGE 2020 02/03 and some dives, just for kicks. I use the dive when I anticipate the virtual ball very early. I'll make a video on the dive when I one day get the chance.

The minimum time I'll be in isolation will be 28 days and I think it will end up being 50 days or so...could be a lot more. By the time I finally get to a table, I know that I'll struggle to play for the first hour. It will then be fascinating to see how my LTT106 training has impacted my brain. Will ttEDGE 2020 02/03 and some dives be my only options and my old game will be just a distant memory, or will old habits just prevail? Let's say that I've played (hit the ball) for almost 40 years. Can I make permanent changes in a month or two by shadow swinging against a screen in my lounge room? I'm going to find out because I have no other form of exercise. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to run this type of experiment on myself.

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Great the see the ttEDGE app back on the Apple App Store. Couldn't get hold of it some time back after it disappeared from my iPad.

Some of us are stuck to using robots so I was curious if anyone had any favorite drills for the robot?

I just went and mapped out what my robot has as the moment. I've got some open spaces for programming. My robot is the Amicus middle edition (advanced?). It does not allow for delay between shots, so for some I just have the robot dump the ball into the net as a way to reset the drill.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I sucked at using the robot but the only things I ever did with the robot that I think had long lasting benefit were crossover and pivot footwork on one ball feed and looping one backspin, one no spin and one topspin ball in various sequences so that I could learn to adapt my backswing to the ball. Multiple balls just came our too inaccurately and looping too many balls hard with bad form probably hurt my tendons a lot.

_________________
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

That sums up what I do also in a lot of ways. It's also great for warm up. Also excellent for experimenting. Like my drill "Side top spin deep". It is a odd looking ball that comes out of the robot but if you attack it incorrectly the ball will just go long. I have a habit of doing this on returning heavy top/side serves all of the time. This is mostly a "brush the top back of the ball and impart your own spin" drill. I've gained some real value with that one.

The crazy thing is this device came preprogrammed with drills by some former coach/pro and they just shot balls hard into each corner. I don't think anyone would ever have value from those drills. I wonder if people actually using those drills...I can imagine some 1000 rated player running around like crazy trying to put those balls on the table. Butterfly should hire me to help typical 1000-2000 players get actual value from this robot.

Incoming BRS posts...

I'm the proud new owner of a tennirobo as of April 1. Today I set up three drills.

A normal feed with semi-random location to bh-mid-fh-mid-repeat. Pure footwork drill.

A low short backspin serve, two bounces and it stops on the table. I push or flick and get back out to starting position. Two-step footwork drill.

A long flat serve to my bh, then two hard loops, one to fh and one to bh, repeat. I return the serve flat (obvs with SP) and then block both loops down the line. The locations are semi-random again, and it's mostly a footwork drill to get back to the bh block without collapsing my elbow position.

I will probably add one more footwork like a falkenberg, and a goofing off drill like a sideback serve and strawberry flick or some dumb stuff like that.

Like all robot practice it's useless as training for games. But at least I can retain a little fitness even if the clubs are closed for months and months.

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

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I often get annoyed when I hear my opponent making noises while looping. That said, I hear Timo Boll making noises during practice. Should I emulate this to improve my timing and possibly annoy a few opponents who annoy me as well?

_________________
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

Apparently lots of people do it in practice.

I was just watching this.



Turn on the English (auto-generated) subtitles.. you won't be sorry. Oh oh oh.... [applause]

I don't see why it would HURT, try it for a bit and see. After all, it's free to try (not like buying a new rubber).

Iskandar

I've been playing the ttedge app a lot. The serves I tend to be good enough to roll through until it's advanced but I partly think it's because I just get used to the animations. One big exception is seeing no spin vs backspin. I couldn't do that 2 years ago. I think this is just because my understanding of serving has improved.

I was entirely hopeless 2 years ago on the multiball section. I've been playing against Brett at level 2 a bunch and I can actually read the forehand most of the time. What is interesting is that I still make mistakes as my brain just cant memorize the animation. William is considerably harder to read but I've improved against him also.

I hope I can continue to improve and this will help my game. One very interesting point is generally speaking I don't really see these much in matches at my level. I can almost always default to the forehand side.

I tend to grunt when I'm working hard. Lots of muscles being used.

I've seen that video. They have a bunch of them If it wasn't obvious, they get 2 pros to switch rackets and play around. They comment on the difference in feel, but most of it is just a fun experiment. Nothing too serious. If anyone really wants a translation for a specific part of a Japanese table tennis video, feel free to PM me anytime. I can probably help.

I don't make much noises during matches, but during practice when looping hard, I make some grunts. Nothing too loud though.

I wish I could try the new ttedge app. Still waiting for it to come back to android