Your short FH game is just about ok, given that you play with a brick. Before I watched the video, and based on your equipment, I thought you might be a penholder, or at least a wicked-serve-and-third-ball-kill kind of player. But you're not: you're a softish looper with a good BH. A 96g Clipper Wood doesn't seem like the right blade for you, and that seems very apparent in your short FH serve returns - you don't seem to have much touch there. A lighter 5-ply may also help you to read the amount of spin on pushes better, and increase your blade speed (you'd need to have a Wang Liqin physique to bring a 96g blade through with enough force to kill the point over and over again.)

That's it for now! (And, as everyone else has been putting caveats, I am better than you, but that doesn't mean I'm a good coach!)

Okay, that is an interesting exercise - I am a little weaker than you, in my club (Eastern US) I think you would be around 1800-1900. I wonder how you like your: (a) ready position, (b) footwork, and (c) focus level when attacking? I don't know, it is easy to become critical, but that's what we wanna do here, right? Cheers.

Side question:

I often see those wooden racks on the wall in many European TT videos held in gyms.  What are those for?

Ha - yeah, that's funny - I've never thought about those not being around here in the US. Anyway, I grew up in Europe and they were in pretty much any gym (school gyms, that is) that I can recall. They called "ribs" and are used for various exercises during gym classes.

Sorry if I added to the side-tracking to your thread, Seguso. I watched your video, and enjoyed it (I generally like watching other members here play, because then you get an idea of who you're "talking to" here). I'm bad at guessing ratings kind of stuff, but what others have said about a US rating in the 1800-1900 range is probably likely.

If you don't mind, I'll add your video to the "Videos of MYTT members" thread. 

You are a better player than myself, so I have little to say.  I would place you at 2000+, with the potential to be higher if you have more diversity to your game than you've shown here and the potential to be lower if your opponent can exploit aspects of your game not shown. 

The one thing that was not shown was your within the table game.  Your opponent never forced you to use it. 

Later on, kids can do more or less advanced gymnastics drills. Climbing the bars upside-down and so on. So it can be a gateway for rock climbing or advanced gymnastics. 

     Maybe a tiny bit more strategy when serving as you just tend to walk up and serve almost in the one movement, I think you should be thinking about third ball attacks as a rule rather than doing a med loop as this will be dominated at the next levels up,

 What I mean is If you know what you have done in your serve and you get your predicted return then that's the ones to attack, so practice a variety of serves that look the same , you will find some light top spin or no spin forehand serves to create pop ups and go all out,  I'm saying these service suggestions in contrast to say serving backspin and they backspin back and you doing a med loop

 

 also watch some of the strategies of your top player to add to your game,and have some practice games focusing on third ball attack and don't look at the score

 but you are not bad for only 3 years of table tennis 

 

This summarizes exactly what I was thinking.

I'm very curious about the short game of both you and your opponent.  I didn't see many short pushes, so the rallies started very quickly.  Everything seemed to go off the table so the other guy could loop.  Without knowing more, this could be a weakness that just wasn't exploited or a strength that you and your opponent were avoiding.

It seemed odd to me that neither you or your opponent wanted to keep the ball short - almost like you were both content with the other guy opening.

 

* you "jerk" your pushes, they work right now but you'll get even better action on the ball if you stop that.

 

* you arm a lot of the shots (not sure if it's due to exhaustion?) especially off the forehand, you need to start working those waist muscles especially for more action on the ball on your forehand  or else you'll continue to get tired fast becasue you build a lot of tension in your forearm just by "arming" the strokes.

 

*you tend to hit the majority of your balls facing the table with your belly button, this causes a loss in power to your strokes and you'll then start using your wrists too much to direct the ball again leading to tired forearms.

 

* all of the above can be improved once you start really working your footwork.

 

*you can return the favour when i post mine*

JimT wrote: Pondus wrote: Video of member  http://segusomytabletennis.net/forum/member_profile.asp?PF=21730 - Seguso  playing (wearing the all black outfit): Good game. Four quick comments for seguso a) work on your BH swing when you attack - it has to begin lower, from racket being dipped b) maintain better balance - you need to recover your body equilibrium faster c) work on executing your FH attack with some more power - you are relying a lot on good placement but often (against better opponents) you need more "oomph" so to speak. Good touch, consistency, and very nice tenacity! FTW!

Thanks for posting the video.

2 - Why is your left leg in front of your right so many times when playing FHs? Maybe you should try having your right leg back instead, coz it doesn't affect your BH much but it will increase your FH quality immensely. I personally can't imagine myself doing FH with right leg in front, except when moving forward to loop-kill short balls. Also to relax your grip, drop your wrist a bit more, your bat and your arm should form a straight line. 

3 - I wouldn't say you should turn your waist more, it may result in destroying your compact stroke (it's good btw). The key here is not movement but force. If you moved your waist 180 degrees but didn't exert any meaningful force to the ball it would still be useless. You should almost completely rely on waist rotation + your right leg pushing forward for your FH stroke. I don't care about the magnitude of the motion, but you should increase the force exerted. I like how you have minimal arm backswing which is really good. 

4 - BH is good on quick strokes, not so good on power strokes. The reason is that your stroke has too much arm and not enough waist rotation + uncurling of the back (use your abs!). It's good that you have good feeling on the BH now, you just need to minimize arm motion even more (figure out the bare minimum) and use your body to give the ball a nudge forward when you hit the ball.