My practice partner here is one of the top female middle school juniors in my city. She is using short pimples on her backhand side (red).

We're doing a set drill where one person serves underspin (just so happened that we always went straight down the line), the other person pushes it back into their backhand side, the server pivots and loops it back down the line, and the receiver returns it wide to their forehand. After that it's free.

Any advice or general comments appreciated!

Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. But if possible, please highlight one specific area which you think would be the best to work on first! I know everyone will have different opinions, but that's okay!

@balldance Did you always have less than 100 points? I feel like with the amount you've been helping me in my threads you'd have a lot more, haha. I feel like I see your name a lot in threads! As for your advice, that's one of the things I was thinking about, too. To stem from that, I have a question. Do you guys think I'm backing away from the table too much too early? I was thinking that maybe I should try to force myself to stay closer to the table, which will force me to try and take the ball earlier.

@NextLevel Thanks NL. Are there any instances in the video where you thought I had a good amount of shoulder rotation? And any which overly lacked the rotation? Is it more of a timing issue? I definitely feel like I need more rotation at the waist, though.

@fatt Thanks! What you said actually reminds me a lot of how some of the Japanese females hit their forehands when they have time. Something I've been thinking about, too. I feel like to get your legs to face one direction, then another direction after the stroke, you need both your feet to leave the ground during the shot. I'm not sure if that makes any sense. I remember seeing a match from Hirano Miu and Mima Ito that had a lot of that, but I don't have the video handy right now. Is that kind of how you're imagining it, too?

Now technique: I know you said to give one idea first, but I think both of these go hand-in-hand.

1. The lack of "tightness" while playing. What I mean is that your body is too loose, regardless of what stroke you play. I can see that you have weight transfer, but it's done too slowly, without enough acceleration. Same thing for turning your waist. What most amateurs don't realize is that the moment you serve, your entire core should be tight until the point is over. 

2. Forehand: Your arm is still too close to your body. Open up the angle between your forearm and upper arm. That's super super important, because you don't want to end up with a forehand that has no power. Also, your timing is too late, i.e. you hit the ball too late. You should always try to hit the ball when it's in front of you, not when it's at your side. This is another common error seen in hobby players. By hitting the ball too late, you are 1) not able to return the ball to your opponent's deep backhand (notice how your loop after the first backspin loop often ends up at your opponent's middle or middle backhand region, but rarely backhand region) and 2) not able to give the ball nearly as much power as you are capable, because you're not borrowing power from the opponent. 

I'm actually not sure why we were doing that drill. My partner wanted to do that drill and I said okay. I'm not sure if there's a hole in her game related to that particular pattern that she wanted to fix, or if it was purely made up on the spot. I do agree with you (now) though, and that it would probably be better for me to practice looping with my backhand, keeping me in position to continue the rally.

Regarding your 2 points:

1. Thanks, I never was very happy with my weight transfer as it always looked a little weak. I'll have to get used to accelerating more explosively. About tightening your core, it's something I never actually tried, but now that you mention it, I do remember Ishikawa Kasumi saying that she tightens her core while practicing. Specifically she was switching between forehand and backhand in the backhand side, and she said, "while doing this drill, I make sure to keep my core activated and to not lose my balance".

2. I'm glad everyone is noticing the same problems I'm been thinking about, too. It means I'm on the right track with what I'm thinking. I'll move this towards the top of my list, because in nearly every video I've recorded of myself recently, I've been disappointed with my forehand timing (specifically, taking the ball late, like you highlighted).

Thanks. I have practice tonight, but I think I'll be hitting with a middle school girl who has a tournament this weekend, so I'll probably be helping her with drills. I'll keep this stuff in mind, though!

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Okay, so a summary so far:

I need to take the ball earlier, further away from my body. This is going to take a lot of effort, but I'm confident I'll be able to get there.

I need more rotation and explosiveness when hitting the ball. I'm thinking I need to get a little lower, use the balls of my feet more so I can use the ground to help exert the power.

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If anyone has anything else to add, please feel free. I love hearing what everyone thinks. It really helps me get my thoughts together, too.

I had another practice session last week. This time I was focusing on these things.

1. Keeping a wider stance.

2. Hitting the ball on the rise and in front of my body.

3. Smaller backswing.

4. Rotating my shoulders.

It was really difficult, especially when thinking about so many things, so a lot of the times I went back to my old ways. I tried to tighten my core too, but I think for most of the shots I forgot.

I think I did well relatively well on shortening my swing, and thus taking the ball earlier, but I need to work on my shoulder rotation a little more. My legs are still a little too wobbly. So I'll need to think about how I can go about fixing that too. I probably need to rotate more at the waist and less at the legs.

I'll keep working on it when I have the time (about half an hour a week, sadly).

Thanks for all your help, and any more comments are always welcome!!

Here was what the practice was like. Sorry about the top of the video being cut off. I thought maybe it was a little close when I put the camera there, but it was already as far back as I could put it.

I think he'd be OK at that distance if he had better footwork.  However, I agree that he needs to slow down relative to his skill level (and with the rest of what you're saying).

I totally agree with MLfan, the exercise is somehow 'wrong' from a tactical view point. Firstly it should be a bh opener, secondly you should do the first should loop diagonally (particularly if you pivot). You're leaving yourself open to blocks on the wide fh anyway, and the fact that you're looping down the line opens an even wider angle for the subsequent block. Use the pivot when you're in a position to loop with authority, or put away the ball.

Onto the technique now, couple things to work on. You should watch the quality of your serve. I know it's a drill and you have to get the serve out of the way quickly, but still, it has to be of reasonable quality - spinny and short. The one thing that holds you back is lifting the racket at the same time as you're throwing the ball up. Racket hand should stay level, only the ball hand goes up.

Also I've noticed you are quite square on your feet when you do your opening loop (see pict). You should lean more and really push onto your left foot. If you don't do that, no amount of waist turning and shoulder pull will lift a heavy ball. Actually, let's leave the shoulder out for a moment as it's the least important link of the chain. There is a ratio between how much waist and how much pushing onto your leg. For lifting heavy backspin, you push more than you turn. For topspin drives, you turn more than you push. You alter this ratio according to what's coming to you.

Edit: after re-watching your drill, I have to say, all these points are made under the assumption you will tighten up your serve and the return comes low. As it stands, you get three different types of pushes from your junior. When he pushes long, your high serve makes it such that he's pushing from above the net and puts you in a position where you have to lift backspin on the rise. You have to go soft on that, otherwise it's in the net. When he pushes half long and the ball is NOT low, it's a topspin drive with fast waist turning in order to compensate for the backspin. Or better yet, an all out third-ball attack. Different balls, different approaches.

First I'll reply to Lestat and BRS, since it's talking about the original drill in the OP. Before this thread I actually never gave these things as much thought as I should of. The drill was suggested by my partner, and I just went along with it. Maybe she had a reason for it, but most likely she just made it up on the spot.

In terms of the serve, thanks!! I actually forgot about that. I had someone mention that to me about a year ago, but I never got around to trying to fix that problem (since there were so many other problems I had with the serve). I'm really not a fan of how my whole body rises the moment I throw the ball up. Your comment on the long and half-long returns has been helpful, too. Rewatching the video, I noticed that the long ones were a much bigger issue than the half-long ones. Thanks!

For lifting heavy backspin, you push more than you turn. For topspin drives, you turn more than you push. You alter this ratio according to what's coming to you.

When you say "push", do you mean pushing up with your feet? And with "turn", turning your waist/shoulders? I would love a little more clarity here!

In terms of pivoting and looping cross court, this is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently, but never actually do myself. I have a lot of people pivot and hit cross court, and it always gets me. The reason why it gets me is that their body is moving as if they're hitting the ball down the line, but their wrist is slightly bend back, brushing the side of the ball, hitting a ball that has side spin that fades away from the table. I never did it because it would mean using wrist extension (as shown below), and I am a believer that beginners should avoid flexion and extension of the wrist.

That said, if I change the direction I face, with my legs a lot more perpendicular to the table, I could probably hit cross court without having to bend my wrist like that. Thoughts about this?

Thank you! So the general consensus seems to be I'm trying to go for too much power too close to the table. When I did that drill, I was trying really hard to get the ball on the rise without backing away from the table, so that's probably why it turned out that way. I'll try to slow it down to make it more controllable next!