Raising your game

I am surprised no one mentioned videoing yourself while you practice or play.  It is good for you to see what you are doing wrong after the fact and what you need to work on as well, or your coach or just a friend that can offer multiple perspectives for you.  And I agree with the concensus on here that more people just want to play games and not do drills.  Getting a good balance of both is important and while you play games not to focus on winning but experiementation and focus on what you are doing wrong which was mentioned earlier.  The biggest part of improvement i believe is determination though, if you don't have the mindset to improve then you won't. 

ive played someone way above my league, and u learn a couple of things, like how did he get so much power, deception form serve, good pushing game and so on. its motivation for u to improve, i played my coach and man is he wicked. lui guoliang!!!

In_this_pace wrote: Well I once was talking to my coach about my perspectives and he said - those who start too late like you still can rapidly gain the skills but after few years you`ll reach your potential and stop to progress. There`s a level system in post-soviet countries: 3rd level 2nd level 1st level candidate master of sports honoured master of sports world class master of sports For those who started playing after 16, 1st level is a top. To earn a master, you should start at least around 11-12, to be a world class player - around 6-8. For example, Fedor Kuzmin first took the blade in his hands at the age of 5, earned master at 14 and world class master at 18

On the serve returns make sure you learn to always be able to either attack them, or if you can't attack,  learn to return with enough backspin to prevent a third ball.  Instead of just getting the serve back over the net.

The tap is more of a drop shot and is ussually a means to stop the ball from spinning completely. It goes as close to the net as possible, usually on the line, more of a placement thing i think.

I think that if  a 10yo and me (a 19yo) started playing table tennis for the first time and got the same training for the same amount of time, that the 10yo would have no advantage because of his age.

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falkenberg is a drill where u do one fh to ur fh side, then a bh to ur bh side, then move around the bh to do a fh, then repeat, all hitting in the same corner.

Falkenburg.  Fav. drill.  Great practice with footwork.  And great excercise.