OOAK Table Tennis Forum

There is a perfect LTT81 backhand movement in the point at 10:44. It's the second backhand that I'm talking about. There was a well timed lean forward and spring movement.

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BRS, I felt like in the match most of your backhand shots went either to your opponent's forehand, or to the middle of the table, allowing him to play forehands most of the time. Was it your plan or it just happened?

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Playing to the fh with the pips is a strong tendency, especially on receive, and I need to vary it more. But I have noticed that people are okay playing a weak ball back to me from their backhand side, and that's harder for me to deal with. When I play pips into their fh or middle they feel like they just have to loop it, but the odd sp ball is hard for them.

I actually play down the lines most of the time on both sides, and even on pivot fhs. I have no idea why as I don't warmup or practice that way much. It just feels natural to me.

Brett, thanks for watching and spotting that one correct bh. Where there is one there can be many.

The pips are extremely unforgiving of reaching out. To succeed with them I need to do the right LTT 81 timing almost always.

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I'm starting to think one-point videos are the way to go. Here is a :05 point immediately before the good backhand point Brett called out. This is a bad fh receive miss. I think it shows why my FH swing is too long. Please watch this as slowly as your time and technology allows.

https://youtu.be/1d9aM-niVu8

Here is what I see:

I began the pivot movement 9 frames *before* his serve contact (@ 60 fps)
My feet were set 3 frames before the ball bounced on my side
My backswing ended 8 frames after the ball bounced on my side
My fh contact was 12 frames after the top of the bounce, with the ball below table height

This is not an unusual result for me. So the need for a shorter fh swing has little to do with recovery in my mind. I was on this serve quicker than flies on s***. He should have been walking to the back wall beating himself up for a loose long serve on a critical point. Instead the set was over and he won.

IMO I need to shorten my backswing, and/or accelerate my forward swing, enough to make contact at or before the top of the bounce. If this is what you mean by form follows function then I couldn't agree more.

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Yoko Ono

BRS, I think in the point above you did everything right, just missed the contact with the ball somehow.

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Some recent training footage

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Looking at your forehand footwork. I have been working on this over the last weeks. What I have worked out for my own game might be of interest but I am an adult learner. I first need good hip rotation by use of the legs and knees then to load up on the right leg and push off to drive the right hip forward fast. I do not see you really doing this push off and you seem a bit too much on your heals. What this does for me is to allow my feet to swivel and also by the weight transfer and knees to straighten a little to go up a bit and then down and load up ready to move for the next stroke. This allows a more flowing and faster footwork to occur after the stroke. On your backhand I think the timing of coming out of the bend forward is a bit late so not fully supporting the back whip pattern fully. Maybe Brett could comment on both these areas to see if I am correct?

I think you're overthinking it. What I see is you not compensating for the spin of the reverse pendulum serve. On a RPS, the ball wants to go to your left and if you're trying to return wide left, the ball will go off the table if you don't adjust the angle of your paddle. If you had used your BH to return it like you did for the vast majority of your service returns of your opponent's RPS or tried to return the serve more to your opponent's center or right instead of wide left, or if the serve was more to your right, you would've been fine.

So you don't think letting the ball drop below table height when I was positioned to take it at the top of the bounce makes any difference? And instead of making an aggressive fh attack on the right timing it would have been just as good to step out of position for a SP bh from mid-table?

You may be under-thinking it.

I'll get back to work on shortening my swing, because I lost .35 of a second between my read and ball contact, and ended up .2 seconds late. If you don't think .2 seconds matter in TT, you and I disagree on that

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Yoko Ono

Okay, I've watched this shot more than 50 times now over 2 days. I've watched it at .25 speed and normal speed. Here's a few thoughts:

- I think it's fine to just post one shot, as long as it's your regular mistake and not something unusual. I think this is probably a standard shot for you, so that's all good.
- This is a low and difficult half-long serve. It also had some speed on it which makes it more tricky. The top of the bounce appears to be well over the table, making it near impossible to loop this ball at the top of the bounce. All low and fast half-long serves leave with you few options for timing. If they are low enough, you'll often need to loop from around table height.
- This exact type of serve is extremely difficult to play against and even elite players will struggle to time it.
- You were anxious on this shot because of the pressure of the match, length of serve and type of serve.
- Your body misfired, if that makes sense? Your backswing and forward swing were slightly disjointed and your body didn't quite match up either. Your stomach and back muscles didn't propel your arm up in the right way. Your arm was working by itself.
- I mentioned somewhere above (for fastmover) that half-long serves often require a shorter swing response and more LTT83 than LTT79 because you can't just rotated forward into the table. If this serve was slower and higher, you could use a big swing, but that certainly doesn't apply here.

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Please show me what you've been working on Maurice. Your words are spot on and now I need to see what it looks like.

In relation to fastmover, I think the timing of his body move is actually fine on the backhand. I'd like to see him getting his elbow out in front more as it would make more space, and you might see more whip at the end of the backswing.

Your comments about his forehand are very interesting. In LTT79 at exactly 3:05, I talk about pushing off the floor to send your hip forward. This type of foot push is probably very complex. The right foot probably rolls and does other subtle things to help send the hip forward. Then, once you have made one loop, your body is in perpetual motion and the foot push will become more subtle for the second shot and so on. You also won't need to load up your right leg as much for the second ball as a result of existing motion. The second shot may take less effort.

Maurice, please feel free to spend the rest of today considering the above.

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Yes I see what you mean when I shadow this. The push off is much more complicated than I thought. You can move the right hip forward by rolling without a strong leg push. This allows you to stay low too.

Is one of the biggest difference of most low level club players forehand compared to the pros is that the club players use much more waist rotation compared to the fast hip rotation of the pros (and little waist rotation???)

Okay, thanks Brett. So I mis-read the depth. Didn't consider that.

Receive is horrible. So many ways to get it wrong.

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Yoko Ono

Your feet stay planted during each fh, then your re-set is a slight backwards hop or step. This makes me wonder if your weight is back during the stroke. It's mild if you are doing it at all.

I would be really curious to see a similar one minute vid of fh loop to block with you doing an incredibly tiny 1" or 2" forward step into each stroke. I do that sometimes in multiball and my shot quality improves a ton.

Here is a TB video you have probably seen before. Just look at his left foot once he gets going and you can see the size of step I mean. It's tiny. To me this should accomplish the same objective and seems easier to think about and monitor than what your hip is doing relative to your shoulders or whatever. Just take a tiny step forward with your dominant-side foot. We do it all the time.

https://youtu.be/j19XOYZsli8

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

Yoko Ono

I was told quite a few times that I keep my weight a bit too much on my heels. I think there is some truth to it. In terms of jumping forward... In the video I posted, I make a loop with bare minimum effort so that I can make a series of several shots. I am pretty sure that once I try to loop with more power, I will roll my feet and knees more forward. I will try to make a vid tomorrow.

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