random TT diary of sorts

Lost a lot more matches to the rally player than usual but still won some. So the benefit of the tomahawk serve is that the spin is extremely potent and it's very difficult for the opponent to open even against the longer variants. I still find it a bit awkward to serve the sidetopspin variant but at least it does work - the opponent will pop the ball quite high if he misreads them, but I'm not getting enough topspin on the ball still. Will need to brush more forward than down I guess... Also I'm making a bit too many direct service mistakes now and my placement and height control is just crap with the new serve as compared to other serves. 

Out of the 4 methods of doing BH down the line, I think the fade topspin method (like how Harimoto does it) is the best way and the most advanced way to go down the line. I used it quite a lot in matches, and found out how to do it against non topspin balls now (it's the same concept, just contact more of the bottom of the ball to adjust). There's also an arc to make when doing that shot which is required to improve consistency. It's actually really the sister shot to learn to accompany the traditional BH sidespin loop, I was getting some incredible angles out of it. Looked super promising

I kinda like the new FH loop concept and it is a lot speedier as I'm driving the ball a lot more, and it's a bit more friendly to the shoulders imo. Will have to get used to it a lot more though, again I'm making a lot more mistakes compared to usual, but imo it has a lot more potential compared to my old stroke where the shoulder goes up a bit to emphasize spin, but really causes too many thin brush issues during games. 

So basically for the FH the trick is to finish high and not forward, once I forced myself to finish the opening loop with bat directly above the head, looping these very heavy backspin became much easier. For the BH the trick was to neutralise the spin with active supination with the thumb pressing on the right side of the blade to provide a very valuable turning effect which produces very heavy spin. I think the important factor was to try it out without perfect positioning because it forces you to learn how to neutralise and deal with the spin with just the upper body and hand movements. Then, after I added the leg/core movement then the shot quality can be increased significantly, but with the contact nailed. 

Also did some rally training with this guy who's quite good. I was counterlooping FH to FH against him and almost lost all of the points during practice ugh. I felt like I had much more power than him, but his boosted Hurricane 3 is just producing extremely deadly amounts of spin which made me miss the counter all too often. Now I'm tempted to switch back to Hurricane style rubbers on the FH. That additional spin generated is such an advantage during rallies. 

Also am trying to change my FH backswing such that the elbow is almost touching the waist at the end to decrease the backswing time required - still a work in progress!

However, it is way too big of a stroke with poorer recovery time to be used as a continuous FH loop against block or in topspin rallies - in those cases the normal compact loop is superior in terms of its utility.  

I noticed also that Ma Long does this very frequently when he attacks slower/weaker balls - the followthrough is very exaggerated (with the bat often pointing backwards at the end of the followthrough). I think this is part of the reason why he has a lot more control and makes less mistakes in his opening loop attacks too - it's simply a stroke that is easier to land.

It's very interesting how significant the rotation is, Ma Long also starts with his bat pointing backwards, and ends with the bat pointing backwards too, so it's a complete 360 deg rotation. 

It's also trivial to add a "hook" movement to this to create the deadly whirlwind sidespin FH for extra angle/variation, all from the exact same preparation point.

I did some training today to experiment a bit more with this, it feels a bit like elbowing in martial arts. It can be incredibly spinny and powerful when done right, but I found it a bit hard to control the stroke - will have to experiment a bit more...

Some screenshots from the analysis:

 

So I copied my BH philosophy against underspin, by simply lifting it from bottom to top, contacting the bottom of the ball solidly and just brushing it while lifting it - this method works brilliantly! Never before in my life have I looped underspin so effortlessly lol I was just using maybe 20% of my energy. As it was so effortless I could easily vary placement, power etc instead of literally struggling af to overcome the backspin. 

With this method I was able to get a lot of beautiful control loop vs chop battles against the chopper. Previously when I played choppers I was literally killing the ball or just get killed which made for some ugly table tennis haha.

This was a very nice accident indeed! Also made me rethink my FH structure a bit, to not brush so much, rather to make the core mechanics more of a hit - with the brushing coming next in priority. The way to adjust to different balls is simply to hit at different locations of the ball (bottom, top, back, side, etc...). This brings my FH mechanics a lot closer to my BH philosophy.

Anyway I tried it out and yes, the advantages of stepping forward with the right leg are significant for these wide angle BH short balls, you can use a lot more body power in the BH chiquita/loop. 

Also, learnt why my BH short push is not short enough - I needed to use less hand and more body - also need the paddle trajectory to go more to the left and less forward.

For pushing, a slight flexion or extension in the wrist allows for the use of pronation/supination for brushing the ball which is far more controllable and spinny compared to the ulnar deviation plane. 

That's what I thought in the beginning too which is why I have always stepped to the ball with my left. I think the old school of thought (Zhang Hui also said something similar in a Stiga instructional video) is that you step with your left leg on this short wide ball. But after watching Sun Hao Hong's video and demonstration, with the right foot forward, the chiquita/BH loop can be made a lot more powerful with more angle choices because you can rotate into the shot (also it is more powerful than the normal chiquita because the table is no longer in the way - you can take a big af swing). I tested it and it is indeed true. After the shot you just recover like how you would with any chiquita off a short ball. With this there is no difference / indecision point - simply step forward with the right foot for all short balls (including wide angle balls). However this doesn't apply to wide long serves - those can just be treated normally. 

Have you got the video so I can have a look?. Open to ideas. Is it viable for amateur players would be another question.

Stepping that far forward and around the physcial table with the right leg and body which will follow leaves a lot of ground and recovery. It also leaves a big issue with the pocket,hip,elbow area being exposed to attack when moving back one would think as well.

There isn't a public link to the videos you are referencing, even if they are untranslated?

Interested to know some of these arguments to the contrary before I train this particular footwork pattern into my mind.

Thats serious fast feet and I might say not totally viable for none elite players . If its an outright winner fair enough mind if it comes back I can see issues with getting from that extreme backhand ball and then covering the wide angle area. I would personally target this when returning someone in that position all day long as its not going to be of quality. 

Interesting to see how this goes and if you adopt it into your game or find a different solution.

The sketch is horrendous isn't it! 😊 

Thanks for the valuable video, this is exactly what I was talking about. The wide serve at 8:4 is fast and long whereas the first one is the slow, short wide serve. I think there has to be a distinction between the length of these super wide serve. 

How is it not a huge gaping hole if you step with your left foot to loop and it gets countered to the wide FH with pace? You still need two steps to get back to neutral and then a crossover step to get to the wide FH.