Your Coach(es) Best Tips

V-Griper wrote: "It's all timing" -Wang Zhen aka Eugene Wang.

I heard Eugene say that once too.  It is so true!  And he pretty much never mistimes a shot. 

So how to do it?  "Concentrate on making back-swing the same speed as ball is coming at you if you are having problems with timing.  Bring racket back fast if ball is fast, slow if ball is slow, it keeps you from rushing, which is more common a problem than being late."  I got this gem from Eric Owens.

Another good one from a coach in my wife's home town in China.  Most people think that they are in a perfectly neutral stance when it feels like they have equal weight on both legs.  Actually, most of the time when it feels like that, you actually have more weight on right leg (assuming you are right handed) because for most people the right leg is stronger.  Because of this you move slowly to the right on a strongly angled ball. It is almost impossible to move in that direction if the right side is supporting more of your weight, so first you have to transfer weight to left side and then move.  In worst case, you lose balance and end up with the right leg far in front of left at end of the shot.  Once that happens you are totally hosed for the rest of the point.  To avoid this catastrophic footwork error, (1) increase strength in left leg, and until that happens, (2) be aware that a truly neutral ready position is one in which it feels like there is a bit more weight on your left leg.    

Baal wrote: V-Griper wrote: "It's all timing" -Wang Zhen aka Eugene Wang. I heard Eugene say that once too.  It is so true!  And he pretty much never mistimes a shot.  So how to do it?  "Concentrate on making back-swing the same speed as ball is coming at you if you are having problems with timing.  Bring racket back fast if ball is fast, slow if ball is slow, it keeps you from rushing, which is more common a problem than being late."  I got this gem from Eric Owens.

My Chinese coach says " follow body"

"Son, buy a decent bat."

JonathanVN wrote: My coach at a local club gave me some good advice on making sure that the racket is parallel to the table on close to the table shots. Obviously, the loop and longer drives will have a different racket head angle, but for shorter ranged drives, it is best to make contact with the ball at the side and to hit it parallel. This advice moved me from a 1500 player to a 1700 player in about two months.

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Snivy, it is also hard for me as you saw a few weeks ago over the table all I do is punch block, but you need to use the arm like there is a hinge on a stationary elbow with arm hinging on elbow going forward like forearm is parallel to table, instead of trying to use a lot of all the body. There isn't a lot of time to do that and we are inconstant doing it like that. It is different as much as the strokes opening vs underspin and continuing attack vs block. 

Baal wrote: Another good one from a coach in my wife's home town in China.  Most people think that they are in a perfectly neutral stance when it feels like they have equal weight on both legs.  Actually, most of the time when it feels like that, you actually have more weight on right leg (assuming you are right handed) because for most people the right leg is stronger.  Because of this you move slowly to the right on a strongly angled ball. It is almost impossible to move in that direction if the right side is supporting more of your weight, so first you have to transfer weight to left side and then move.  In worst case, you lose balance and end up with the right leg far in front of left at end of the shot.  Once that happens you are totally hosed for the rest of the point.  To avoid this catastrophic footwork error, (1) increase strength in left leg, and until that happens, (2) be aware that a truly neutral ready position is one in which it feels like there is a bit more weight on your left leg.

+1 I have achieved that by narrowing my starting stance.

"Have you thought of trying another sport?"

There's a KFC at the bottom of the road.

TT newbie wrote: My coach once said: "The ball is very light, so why the hell you´re spending this amount of energy of arms, shoulder and legs? Focus on the contact of racket against the ball, this is important."

Figure out how to reduce your middle.  (Eric Owens).  So then we would do drills where we would rally at a moderate pace (at first) where the goal for each of us was to attack the middle. As time went on, we would speed up. He had no middle.  Mine was.........   larger.

jrscatman wrote: TT newbie wrote: My coach once said: "The ball is very light, so why the hell you´re spending this amount of energy of arms, shoulder and legs? Focus on the contact of racket against the ball, this is important." So just tap the ball back and forth?