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Funny. Are you actually practicing with celluloid balls? Do you play with celluloid balls?


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"When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way."

Read my blog: "LordCope's Latest Learnings Log": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=24452

Playing - no, even amateur league and tournaments switched to plastic ball exclusively but I still order cheap celluloid balls from aliexpress for home practice and practicing outdoor since I really burn and loose a lot of balls in practice and still haven't found any affordable and somewhat durable p-balls.

Day 3:

Anoter 5 mins working on service toss. Wasn't as good today... couldn't pin down why, but I sense this is a very worthwhile practice to be doing.

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"When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way."

Read my blog: "LordCope's Latest Learnings Log": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=24452

Sorry, already managed to bust out of the challenge...

Had a busy working day, went straight to the pub after and, well, I didn't choose nick Barfly for nothing

Its amazing how even extremely modest daily practice and commitment can go out the window without proper planning and how bad humans are (at least me) at steering our behavior and making changes, sigh

Note for March challenge: don't leave home without a bat so I can do 5 min practice even at work or a pub

Been there. Still go there on occasion. The procrastination equation. https://alexvermeer.com/how-we-use-the- ... -equation/

Day 4:

More tossing practice. This time played under "match" conditions again, and found it made a difference to my concentration. It's getting better.

Later I did very high tossing practice to see if it was any better.... it's still all over the place, but I think there's improvement.

I'm keen to get thoughts from others about how to actually perform the toss.... ie pivot on elbow? wrist? shoulder? Use your legs to push up?

I think I'll watch the ttedge vids again, and also look at some youtube videos.

_________________
"When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way."

Read my blog: "LordCope's Latest Learnings Log": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=24452

Day 4 cont.:

Decided to do some "k1tchen serves" -- ie a cotton surface onto a k1tchen table to emulate a bed. My bed is very bumpy and soft, and made of linen and feathers, so the ball just dies on it.

Videod and edited some: Warning.... this is truly truly gruesome. I can't believe I'm putting this on the internet.

_________________
"When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way."

Read my blog: "LordCope's Latest Learnings Log": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=24452

Deleted my post. It may be after the 21:00 watershed but it won't be tomorrow morning. Lordcope, you still win the funniest post of the year award for one of your previous posts.

Now I want to know what it said! (Edit: I think if I assume a humph / Samantha deadpan voice and talk about tossing and it going all over the place it might help me guess)

My thoughts:

- earlier in the practice the timing of the backswing was better
- main problem is insufficient bat speed and too thick contact - result - not enough spin.
- I think I'm not "letting go" enough. This isn't a serve. This is supposed to be an attempt to spin the heck out of the ball no mAtter where it goes.
- I need to just try to get very fast bat speed and very fine contact. If that means missing the ball or getting an edge at lest that means I'm trying.


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"When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way."

Read my blog: "LordCope's Latest Learnings Log": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=24452

It's my dry northern sense of humour

I am surprised by the attempt to spin the heck out of the ball. I'm sure I've read quite a few times that good players don't aim to impart masses of spin - their opponents know how to cope with that. Instead they practice disguise and subtle variations of spin and placement. Personally, unless I'm playing a "pusher" where side and top are very useful, I'd much rather have control of direction and length of serve and some disguise.

I worked with a great server as a coach and he wanted me to impart masses of spin, albeit with a deceptive motion. Heavy spin causes even good players to make errors. I understand the role of variation and placement and these are very important as well, but all the best servers I know have massively and deceptively spinny serves that draw errors if you aren't sufficiently committed to the spin read. I draw errors of my backspin serve because it is much heavier than it appears and is heavy. I get experienced players to put it into the net a few times before they realize it's not your usual backspin.

After you establish the heavy spin, then taking it off and varying it can cause errors. My backspin no spin combination gets a lot of free points. But without establishing the heavy spin, the no spin loses its effectiveness.

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Lumberjack TT Exponent

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

Having tried to return Brett's serve I can say he puts so much spin on it that even when I guessed right the ball still ended up in the net. Didn't get a single one back.

Besides - the best players might know how to handle very heavy spin, but that's not who I play against..

Iskandar

GOOD to see this thread get the traction it deserves.

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You also have to keep an eye on how the ball is coming off your racket (it should be more in a straight line or downwards than upwards). Finally, and probably most importantly, the contact point you are supposed to practice aiming for as an extreme and ideal should be the front edge of the ball. You seem to be hitting the back or side of bottom of the ball on most of your attempts. Make a genuine attempt to let the ball fall onto the path of your motion when serving heavy backspin (ad opposed to swinging into the ball).

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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

Fair point.

Putting heavy spin on a ball at lower levels can cause problems for the server too if that serve comes back. Are people practising with the intention of getting a "feel" for the technique needed, or for the intention of serving an unreturnable serve? The former you can control the later you can't.