OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Sure, send it through via email Mick.

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LC, watch ttEDGE 2020 02. It has everything I think about forehand topspin and I'd like you to focus on the leg part of it.. Feel free to email me the results and I'm happy to work on this with you.

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Ridiculously funny

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I have a lot of thoughts about coaching Mick and I'll share some with you.

Today I'm going to watch the Indian national boxing team train. My purpose is to steal as much knowledge as possible about sports training. I figure if I learn one new thing, I'm a huge winner. But am I really a huge winner? Improving at coaching is highly subjective and a double-edge sword. Let me explain.

Say I learn a bunch of stuff today about something. Then I run a national camp tt next week and implement the learning. The players and other coaches can then turn around and say "hang on, are you admitting that you were wrong for the last year of camps." Then other coaches can call you incompetent because you are "always changing your methods". You must be a bad coach right? How can you be right if you admit you were wrong before? You are a beginner coach because you are still learning.

On the other hand, if you are a player and you go from average to 2800, you are superman. Everyone will want to know you and ask how you got so damn good at this game. Autographs will be signed and you'll have fans and followers. No one will say, "hey man, you used to suck and that's a problem. I have video of it and you definitely sucked!"

So getting better at coaching has positives, and just as many negatives. I'm personally trying to get better and develop a thicker skin towards negativity. There are degrees of being right too. Just because you got better, it doesn't mean that you were completely wrong before...just like the guy who improved his backhand. If his backhand got 10% better, does that mean he was wrong before?

In my opinion, a lot of coaches don't learn because of all of the above. I don't think they consciously decide to stay in the 80s or 90s. I'm saying they just don't actively try to improve which has a similar outcome. They stay consistent and it's backed by 30 years of "experience". They limit all short term pain, until they one day suddenly become irrelevant.

And, btw, this whole post doesn't even matter because tt is about playing and it's not a game of coaching. I think I'll start playing.

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I think the World needs more TT comedy.

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Thank you! I sent them over


Thank you Brett. I agree a lot with this from my super duper amateur perspective. I think I'm only finally understanding mechanics a little better recently (because of TTEdge) but I still lack the confidence to speak up. The fear of saying the wrong thing. But I think this is something that I can and must overcome over time. The other thing is that there are other coaches too, and so I don't want to say conflicting things. Sometimes what they say is different to what I think, so it makes me doubt myself. That's why I generally do less coaching and moreso just act as a blocking partner and multiball feeder, with the occasional advice. I'm working on it though! And I hope to one day get to the 1200 coaching level you mentioned a page or two back Or was it 1500??

Sorry LC, my posting to big d can be classed as a prejudicial statement, rather than something published. However, in my circles, a number of people of my vintage (70+) have changed to LP, esp. on the BH, as they claim this helps them to control their game better. Such players then aim to receive just about every serve on the BH, if possible. I find it interesting to play against such opponents, but don't have any guaranteed tactics/approach, hence my appreciation of the reply by big d. Equally, other people I play with are spooked by playing against LP/anti; they basically have lost the match before they get on the table.

I appreciate also that there are players (e.g., you and BRS) who have adopted pips-out rubber at a younger age, presumably because they have decided that this suits their game better, rather than because their ability has deteriorated in older age.

Having other coaches around adds an extra layer of complexity, especially if they are teaching in a very different way. It's super hard if they are more "senior" or have more "experience" than you and this is amplified in Asia, as you would well know.

I guess I'm almost fortunate that I've always been the Head Coach in my environments for the last 20 years. The downside to this is, you don't have many opportunities to learn from others and I was always keen to do that.

My best advice is to just teach what you think is right and live with the consequences thereafter. It's perfectly okay if you aren't 100% accurate with absolutely everything. Hopefully we'll both be better in 5 years and be sometimes judged for breaking tradition.

I'm going through the videos that Mick sent me. He's feeding very good multiball and his student is doing fine. Definitely not a 1200 coach bases on the quality of multiball alone.

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I agree - you see a lot of LP play on the veterans circuit, and certainly a lot of this is to compensate for loss of mobility and power. I think this is a good thing - one of the joys of table tennis is that people can continue to play at a good level into 70s and 80s. And adapting to and using pimples effectively in this way takes considerable skill. In terms of tactics, I can tell you what I do against such players (I have to face a lot of them!), and what I don't like to face.

There's a difference between players who use their LP in order to generate an opportunity to attack, and players who use them just to defend, or to spoil, and cause mistakes.

Against the former sort of player, you typically need to not let them attack. Their FH attack is probably quite good, but as a double inverted player, you have an advantage in getting the first attack in, and being able to attack either wing, and switch between them with ease. So your tactics are to attack in various ways, and see what their weakness is in defence. Maybe they don't like slow, heavy spin, maybe they don't like fast, flat shots, maybe they're vulnerable to their crossover. Try to avoid pushing and blocking - a player like this (myself included) is looking for a ball to open up against, or directly attack. If you keep spinning at them, and force them to contain you, you've taken out half of their game. As big d says, depending on the level, you can also try switching to a wide fh attack, because below 2000 they probably don't have a reliable fh counter, and their fh block against heavy spin is unlikely to be very reliable. You can try it and see. I'm going to guess you don't meet many of these genuine modern defender types in the circle you describe.

Against the latter, you're pretty much completely in control, unless your opponent has LP attacking skills, in which case you'll need to work out which balls they're comfortable attacking. Easy and obvious tactics against these sort of players are to serve into their FH (they'll often use their BH), then play into the FH again, even wider, and then switch to BH. They'll likely struggle to get back into position, or if they do, won't be able to offer a quality shot. Take advantage of the fact you're controlling the spin - see how they cope with a heavy backspin ball. Depending on the level, they might push it back and you can loop drive or hit a third ball winner. At a better level, they'll return a difficult ball to backspin serves, so you can try serving top spin - you're going to get a backspin ball back, which you can heavy/slow loop deep. What are they like blocking heavy spin, close to the table. If they cope with this, you can try a no spin serve, and invite them to do something. If they don't have an aggresive reaction to this, it's bread and butter for you to attack at will. Above all against these players you just need to accept that they going to get some nasty points, and you're going to make mistakes. But back yourself, invest some points probing for weaknesses, and once you've point it, go at it like a dentist's drill.

Hope that's useful perspective on playing a pimples player from a pimples player!

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Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

You asked about LL Beary and I can tell you that his behavior has been outrageous over the last 6 months. He's even been officially banned from Air India for the below actions! This is a true story, although it may sound like I'm making it up! I can assure you it's real! I was fined 1 million rupees because of that bear.

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He is social distancing. He will be fine.

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One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
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"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Done! And sent you 30 secs by email.

I liked the idea of thinking about my left knee - I'd never thought of that as a cue for getting rotation and weight shift - I felt like I was able to notice and feel it in my practice too.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

That is very sad Hopefully he will recover his enthusiasm for table tennis oneday -- I am pretty sure his videos helped many players to improve!

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Tactics Enthusiast

I have replied

The information is only partially new and I don't think I was "wrong" in previous years. It just took me a few goes to get an explanation that is easy to understand and instantly usable. The result is exactly what I've been preaching for years.

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I didn't read this post carefully, so I made a video about how to hit a forehand topspin vs block only, which I have been practicing the most since joining ttEDGE. Anyway, for your enjoyment.

https://youtu.be/-U80SWYTE6c