Chinese forehand Vs. Euro forehand?

AnthonyTT wrote: I noticed that the Europeans tend to have more of a bent elbow while the Chinese a more full swing without the elbow bent what so ever. My question to the people of the forums is whats your style? I notice more tend to play the European style or at least in my area. It seems the Chinese stroke tends to have more spin, speed, and power while the European stroke tends to be easier placement and consistency. Thoughts, opinions, which way you use and WHY. Appreciate it guys, thanks.

If you take the time to read this whole monster thread, you'll get everything you are looking for :)

nicefrog wrote: I agree with APW46, if you took two kids and gave one of them two sheets of original 729 and the other Sriver. Left un coached and told to learn how to loop they would both end up with respective Chinese and European styles no matter what race or height the kids were.

Firstly, if they were left alone to play in a basement with no contact to proper table tennis then I'd suspect they'd develop neither.

If in a club then they'd be strongly influenced by those around them.

Therefore, the only thing we could do is look at the game now. If we started from scratch, would be end up with the two? Probably, but rules might have some influence.

But what about Kreanga's style? That's not Euro or Chinese. Hungarian or something? I've forgotten.

The following article may be interesting to read

http://people.math.gatech.edu/~yingjie/loop.html

sorry i can t access your link

AVarun wrote:  One fellow says contact the ball at the tip of the racket, while another points to the middle or near bottom of the blade as the correct contact area. The first one says more spin is generated at the tip of the blade, while the second claims that as long as you brush and finish the stroke in the right way, you'll obtain sufficient spin.

for years ive tried european rubbers from stiga, butterfly tibhar and i had a world of trouble with my forehand....my friends who are over 2400 american rating, kept telling me to use the european like rubbers...but never got where i wanted to be...recently ive changed to a  chinese rubber..what a difference has made so far....your form must be very accurate to play with a chinese rubber especially when attacking...ive gone from 1800, to a 2100...big improvement...u have to find your style which i believe is alot of ppls problem....find a style, see what suits you and then practice it...im all about form so the chinese rubbers are perfect especially for close to the table play.....and remember table tennis is all about timing....if u find your timing u found your rubber...

Guy Fleegman wrote: Firstly, if they were left alone to play in a basement with no contact to proper table tennis then I'd suspect they'd develop neither.

Actually I did it by applying the upper-hook move from boxing. It appears natural to me. And that looks alike the Chinese style of topspin. 

pnachtwey wrote: Hitting the ball closer to the tip of the paddle may generate speed but it could also lose speed because the ball is not hit with the sweet spot. The hitting near the bottom of the paddle advice is pure nonsense.  I have heard that before.  I can see no basis for it from a physics stand point.  I am not am not good enough to determine exactly where on the paddle the ball will hit so I try to hit the ball in the center.  The difference between the center of the paddle and closer to the edge is perhaps a couple of inches which is only 5% of the total distance from my shoulder to the tip of the paddle.  At most one would get %5 more speed or spin.  There have been other threads that show how the COR changes along the length of the paddle.  If the COR drops by %5 there is nothing to be gained. I am more concerned with the attitude of the paddle and the angle and speed of the swing.

I think dingyus is talking about the old chinese stroke. Like Kong Linghui stroke. Modern strokes barely change the angle of the racket. 

racquetsforsale wrote: I for one would be grateful if you can find some high speed slow motion footage illustrating the rapid change in blade angle prior to or during contact (from open to closed) of the Chinese player's looping stroke. I don't believe this actually happens, at least based on the few high speed footage I've seen.

Mercurr,

Too bad you can't find the video again. Is it just one instance of the stroke or a series of strokes. If it's just one shot, it could very well be the player is actually making a correction because the incoming shot has bounced higher or has more topspin than expected.

Dingyibvs,

The apparent change in blade angle is a result of the way most Chinese players execute the backswing or transition from the followthrough of the previous stroke into the backswing of the next stroke. They don't take the paddle straight back and down but along a downward curved path, similar to tracing the Nike swoosh logo, starting from the thin end. This curved path actually takes the paddle down and then up again before the forward swing. This is one reason why the Chinese forehand looks so fluid.

The important thing to note from those picture is, the paddle angle is established once the forward swing begins and the player does not change it proactively. Only after contact and the ball is long gone does the relaxation phase of the stroke take over and whatever the paddle angle is at that point is not important anymore.

Similarily, on the BH loop, some players turn their paddles perpendicular to the table at the end of the followthrough. There is a high speed slow motion clip of Kreanga executing one of his trademark BH loops that illustrates this. Note how the paddle does not begin to rotate towards the perpendicular until after contact.




Edited by racquetsforsale - 05/15/2011 at 3:00am

racquetsforsale wrote: Mercurr, Too bad you can't find the video again. Is it just one instance of the stroke or a series of strokes. If it's just one shot, it could very well be the player is actually making a correction because the incoming shot has bounced higher or has more topspin than expected. Dingyibvs, The apparent change in blade angle is a result of the way most Chinese players execute the backswing or transition from the followthrough of the previous stroke into the backswing of the next stroke. They don't take the paddle straight back and down but along a downward curved path, similar to tracing the Nike swoosh logo, starting from the thin end. This curved path actually takes the paddle down and then up again before the forward swing. This is one reason why the Chinese forehand looks so fluid. The important thing to note from those picture is, the paddle angle is established once the forward swing begins and the player does not change it proactively. Only after contact and the ball is long gone does the relaxation phase of the stroke take over and whatever the paddle angle is at that point is not important anymore. Similarily, on the BH loop, some players turn their paddles perpendicular to the table at the end of the followthrough. There is a high speed slow motion clip of Kreanga executing one of his trademark BH loops that illustrates this. Note how the paddle does not begin to rotate towards the perpendicular until after contact.

At 23.10 for instance. The shot I meant was indeed a controlling shot where the player catched the ball in the sponge and all he did was wrap the blade. Offcourse this adapts the bladeangle for the trajectory but part of the control also comes from the way how spin and speed are fine tuned this way at the last moment. It adjusts the dwelltime to the rubbers time needed to katapult in a certain situation. Not always aiming to maximize dwell time but to get the right dwell adapted to the ball, rubber and blade.

The incoming spin also stretches the topsheet and as the blade was flipped (for the shot I meant) by the time the ball released to a closedangle part of that spinenergy transfers to speed andother part as counterspin and the bladerotation added some spin also.


The sudden change in bladeangle as for this stroke was an exaggerated example. But the principle of how the ball builds tension into the hand and to the arm by torque is essential for chinese loop . A player like wang liqin also has the blade more lengthwise to his underarm then upward and the wrist bend downward. That way even if he would contact the ball at the bladecenter it is not in line with the underarm. That puts torcque to his underarm and upperarm also and influence the bladeangle. The reason this is not uncontrolled (unstable blade) is due to the controlled tension from his side by his muscles and tendons, and an important role for the indexfinger.

For instance with a loop where the blade starts at 45 degrees let the ball in, the blade rotates to 40 or maybe even 35 degrees then build up tension (torque back) the angle rotates back to 45 degrees and the index finger now puts pressure to the ball. Same angle at the start and same at the end....No one sees it or it has to be in slow motion. Including the opponent who only has the trajetory of the ball to make uo what the spin speed ratio is. If the ballcontact would not rotate the blade counterwise first it's also impossible to use such fingerpressure for looping.

Hitting out of center (or use a tenaly blade) is not even necessary but sometimes focussing on it helps to get the feeling for the ball "hanging into the blade" and get a better torcque.

The long arm loop could have to do with this; The arm muscles can be more relaxed then on contact (only a slight tension to catch the ball in with control) and the torque from impact of the ball (due to the balls energy and the players forward energy) wll change the bladeangle more and sorta rotate the bladebackwards due to it and build up tension in the arm (torcque or twist). Not just the sponge catching the ball in, also the players relaxation catches the ball as a reversed accelleration within a forward stroke immediately followed by an increase of the accelleration when the tension builds up.

Difficult to explain but applying pressure to the fh side of a blade ( holding it as for a loop) with the other hand only little pressure is needed to press the blade backwards rotating it (including the hand) to the elbow and shoulder. From this twist of the arm the player can choose to counter it, torcqe back before the ball leaves the rubber this means added forward energy from indexfinger-pressure. Or not.

In the first case there won,t be a visible change of bladeangle as the angle changes only shortly and then goes back to the same angle.

The second case the bladeangle stays more closed over the ball. A player can vary in between these two extremes to determin the trajektory.

With a salut loop or using arm muscles too much the arm becomes less "torcqueflexible" I guess and this works to a much lesser extend then (but Bolls fh grip  allows bladetorcque and fingerpressure to counter it also).



Edited by mercuur - 05/15/2011 at 4:53pm

dingyibvs wrote: In fact, the caption in picture 5 specifically states that you need to start closing the paddle and add spin to the shot.

Dingyibys,

I think it's more accurate to interpret the caption to say, "The blade angle is closed in order to address the incoming topspin." This is different from saying,  "Start closing the blade," which is not mentioned at all in the rest of the article. Look at the photos again, the blade angle has already been established in Photo 4.

Incidentally, the rest of the article describes exactly the curved path of the backswing I was talking about---how the forward swing does not actually start from the lowest point of the backswing.

racquetsforsale wrote: Mercurr, I can't find a slow mo replay @ 23min 10 seconds. Can you make sure that's the right spot? Thanks.

The slow motion follows afterwards

Another thing to me for chinese loop (looping with chinese rubber) is the need to accellerate during contact. With japanese rubber I feel I can accellerate before contact and have the bat do the work then.

If I do that with chinese rubber the ballcontact is too short and because these rubbers have a slow katapult the result is a weak stroke (ball is slow) and seemingly no katapult because the bal disconnects too soon. But when I accellerate the blade during the contact I keep in contact longer and the throw from the topsheet gets higher. To be able to accellerate at contact I sorta need to hold in first as if bringing in a delay (compared with japanese rubbers). This delay comes from relaxation. ; keeping a supple relaxed arm and get energy from hips more then arm muscles to contact. A relaxed arm is initially softer (to the ball) at contact. Then accelleration needs to be explosive and the blade keeps contacting the ball while both accellerate instead of only the ball and the ball leaving the rubber premature as a result.
In a way the muscles first instance do the same as a sponge underneath a topsheet. That,s also minimal thing but 1,8 mm sponge or 2,0 does make a lot of difference.
An example for the feeling of delay is with old fashioned swing mills at fair,s. It had cars attached to  a rotating frame with a bearing. Being in a car you could pull it backward to the direction of rotation with a rope closer to the rotating frame. That,s the tension in the shoulder of the arm held back. When the rope was let lose the cars flew outward and accellerated to a much higher speed then the disk or when they would have been rigidly attached to it. That,s a different type of accelleration then the positive use of shouldermuscles or biceps to accellerate forward. A good loop I suppose combines both types of accelleration in one fluent action with a complex use of different muscles.

For the wrist and underarm the impact of the ball initially does the same as when the rope is pulled with the swing mill ; it shortly hits the blade back (it increases forward speed) this tensions the armmuscles and from that tension these muscles become active in an almost immediate reaction but as reaction to the ball not before contact. 

It,s also a way of how to look at "muscles". Are muscles for applying force only or is force just one aspect of muscles. I think the latter. Any muscle (and it,s opposite) has a basic tension that is not zero. Any impact increases this and then if the muscle is activated it adds to the tension and the result is energytranfer. But if the tension is build up allready before the contact (premature) the energytransfer only becomes less effective. For accellerating the blade the blade is constantly in the hand. That happens before contact offcourse but part of the accelleration needs to be during contact. The basic tension is always adapted to the ball. For instance if a tabletennisball would suddenly be 50 grams that would be a weird experience because the muscle tension is adapted to the normal weight for a ball. Or a tennisball that suddenly would be as heavy as a pingpong ball. In both cases the energy transfer is minimal due to the wrong muscle (body) tension to start with.
A tabletenisball is extremely light so it needs a lot of relaxation to have an optimal energytranfer.

offcourse there are lots of examples where ballcontact is very short and any active use of the muscles seems impossible. For acellerating a heavy blade. But the ball accellerates the blade ; even if it is little, it vibrates and the hand as well. this increases the tension in the arm just as well as a brainsignal would do. More or less similar as the elasticity of a rubber or blade.










Edited by mercuur - 05/16/2011 at 4:48am