OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Random guy in Dr. Pivot's video's forehand analysis and ego crusher?

Right side starting at 2:26 or so. I think in this case the video does better than the stills.

The ball is about shirt high and blends in with the white (uh oh!). It's dead with no spin.


I don't like this back swing. I feel like he should be going back and not down. It still kind of looks ok - but I don't think it has any spin.


He is going to just crush this ball. Look at the side on and all of the whip that's about to happen.


This doesn't look right...


Finishes like this. Interesting.


So random guy here went side on, took a big back swing and then pretty much used very little whip to hit the ball down the line while almost doing a 360.

I think he should have come back more and not down. I would like him to relax his shoulder more so he can get some whip into the ball and finish a little higher.

This is a example of having a solid and safe tennis stroke. Heming should watch this.

I reread this multiple times. The only thing I understand is that my recovery position could be more FH-oriented. I also should have stayed low obviously. Everything else makes no sense to me. For example, I don't understand what is wrong with my position right before the forehand. I think I moved right on time to the right place. I also don't think there was "0 rotation": just compare my torso position at the second frame with the fourth. At first my left shoulder is facing the window, then it faces the electrical panel at the corner. How is it possible without a torso rotation?

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Tactics Enthusiast

Thank you, Brett. The moment I read your comment, I just felt like grabbing a bucket of balls and doing serve practice. But since I'm at work and can't, I've been randomly shadowing the timing at my desk ha.

I love the discussions people have here. Even if it does get heated, I think every post has value and experience behind it. Every post has a meaning and purpose. I'm always willing to put my videos out there, no matter how harsh it gets (I've been posting videos since the beginning). Sometimes the things people say are quite a put down, but after some time you calm down, look at it again without the emotion and have some great advice to take away from it. And there is a lot of that here; great advice!

The torso rotation is limited. The right hip.gives you away and on your backswing, you never lean over it so you compensate with a forward swing that has nowhere to really go. The thing is that you can't recover to center if you never turned away from center in the first place so you have to go past. The fact that your right foot is where it is limits the amount of torso rotation you can get and the fact that you never fold over the knee leaves you unable to return to center. So you are stuck trying to come up because you don't have the assistance of the torso to come over the ball.

Recovering lower may fix it if you realize you need to spin the hip and fold torso more and not just come up behind the ball. But I suspect this kind of fix is easier to coach in person.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

That's where I'm at. I agree with everything you said and it makes sense to me. In fact you add an important point about folding down more being one of the issues. Yeah the right leg gives it all away - the twisting is quite limited.

So I just went on the robot and hit some forehands against backspin after reading it, trying to make sense of it all. I didn't come up with many conclusions except I keep thinking about an old ETTS.

Found it - ETTS06.

So you are saying that in this picture my torso is not folded over my knee, correct?

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Tactics Enthusiast

Yes. Where the foot is pointing makes it hard to use the hip to rotate the body so you can only go up.

Do this exercise.

1. Point the right foot sideways. Try to lean over it. Try to push or spin the hip from that lean back to ready position.

2. Point the right foot forwards. Try to lean over it. Try to push or spin the hip from that lean back to ready position.

If both work exactly the same for you, what you are doing is probably fine.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

We are probably looking at different pictures. I see my body leaning over my right knee at an angle.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Special for @NextLevel

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Tactics Enthusiast

The pictures show you don't understand what I am trying to tell you and that is fine. You can't lean over with your torso properly and spin the hip with your feet in their current positions. So your stroke becomes powered by the upper body. You can watch LTT93 again. The drill I gave you hopefully illuminated my main point but like I said, it might be something where if you think it makes no difference, keep doing what you are doing.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

I think I know what happened now. You watched the first half of LTT93 and not the second part so you think that anyone who talks about what is discussed in the second half is a moron, while ignoring the issues about recovery and speed touched upon in the first part.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

The biggest thing I took away from camp for my forehand other than multiball was to spin the right hip as violently as reasonable on most forehand strokes. You might not see it happening in slow motion but it is what I try to do. In the shadow shots I usually do the shoulder turn and/or torso gold with it but I am looking for that right hip action because that is where the racket is. I watched ETTS 06 and I can see why it came to mind watching Zhang Jike's first topspin.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

The reason why my stroke looks the way it looks is because I was trying to generate as much spin as I can to make my opponent block off the table. So I programmed my mind to spin everything upwards. I did a little too much. If I tell my brain to spin a little more forward, the stroke will look very different. I experimented with it a long time ago and it all fixes itself automatically. Unfortunately, I did not internalize the better shot. I think I will have a video tomorrow.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Okay. Since we have discussed the issues with trying to play shots without recovery,, especially shots that you don't put past the opponent, we don't have to go through that conversation all over again.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

What I took away from camp for my fh was if i pivot to get my whole body turned sideways. Us passing on brett's coaching tidbits is like the six blind men and the elephant.

Anyway, in Portugal David and his father told me not to turn my right foot sideways like that on fhs bc it makes me fall away backwards. And that's exsctly what happened to you. So I agree with NL. I don't know why it's that way, and I don't need or want to know why. That won't help a damn thing. Just if you turn your foot sideways like that you are going to lose position for the rest of the point.

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