OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Over the last few months I've returned to the TT club & have been able to play against actual opponents again. Doing so has made me realize just how important pushing is for choppers. When I first came back, my pushes were pretty atrocious (well, everything was I suppose).

Since then my pushes with inverted have gotten a lot more consistent, but I'm still struggling with pushing with long pips. There's a few threads here which have touched on the subject (this one I thought was especially helpful: viewtopic.php?f=71&t=32598). When I'm in the right position and really cut through the ball with sufficient speed, my inverted-style push with long pips DOES work. I'm sure with more practice, it'll actually be consistent. The thing is... there's no backspin.

Making spin isn't really long pips' wheelhouse, and even amongst them my current setup (Gambler GXL (very stiff pips, medium/low grip) on the 0.6mm white sponge) isn't going to be making much spin. How big of an issue is not having backspin on your long pip pushes? I should be keeping my pushes long & low regardless of what rubber I use, but does the extra backspin from pushing with a grippier pip make a significant difference? Or is it fine as long as the ball is low? I'd like to know others' opinions!

I've decided to treat the lower spin on my long pips pushes as a feature, not a bug. It can be a useful contrast to your inverted pushes and give you some pop ups from time to time.

Timing, depth/height, and placement seem to be far more important than marginal increases in spin.

Once your opponent becomes acclimated to the lower spin pip pushes, you can start to twiddle and introduce some inverted heavy pushes from the BH.

This can win you a lot of points at the lower / intermediate levels.

Sideswipes, scoops, and pushblocks are also options that will add variety. And you can use the underspin to flick / attack as well.

I still make a lot of mistakes with my pips at the table, so I'm by no means an expert. But this is where my thinking is lately!

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Thank you for your insight! When I do mix in twiddling inverted pushes, that's when I also start seeing a lot of pushing errors from my opponents (in the net, pop ups, etc.). I was mostly worried that when I DO push with the pips, that it's not "effective" enough.

I went to the club today with the goal of really analyzing my LP push, and sure enough, the times that my opponent's really got to kill the ball was when my push was too high. I think that no-spin ball is certainly a lot easier for my opponent to loop than a backspin one, but as long as I kept it low their loops didn't have the murderous amounts of speed behind them. My LP push is still too inconsistent for my liking, but at least I know how to fix that... more practice!