zhang jike FH multiball

Thanks.

 yes I believe a important aspect

 

Sure no prob.  I would say you don't really have to jump (can become a bad habit)... but pushing off with the legs to initiate the stroke is very important.  It's kinda why alot of the great TT players have huge legs/thighs.... even the women.

 

But yeah, main goal for the new players is for them to understand that its not all about how hard they swing the arms... has to be a whole body harmony transferring the energy through the body and into the ball while still being able to have enough muscle control to stay loose.

 

In terms of being rooted, it's most likely because you're ball watching after you've completed your shot to see what happens instead of readying for the next shot.  It's a very common problem.

 

One suggestion is to force yourself to always move right after you hit your shot.  The majority of the time, you will need to force yourself to instinctively do a half to full hop backwards to set yourself for the next shot.  For example if you step in for a short push, you have to hop back to recover to ready.  Or if you play an attacking topspin, you always hop back in case its blocked to be ready to reattack if necesary.  If you force yourself to move like this... you should always be on your toes and thus more mobile (can't really hop back on your heels).  If you're still having trouble recovering, you'll need to mix slower shots instead of playing fast drives too much thus giving you more time to recover.

 

As for staying low, one of the best advices given to me to fix this is make it a "self drill" to always try to match the height of the ball to your eye level as soon as the opponent hits a shot.  Try not to do this by just bending your back though (can cause back injuries)... you want to lower and raise yourself via your legs (just like a squat) and just match the balls arc as its coming at you.  This one takes some time to get use to because you get quite a workout from it but once it becomes ingrained in your muscle memory, your level should rise since it forces you to move to the trajectory of the ball and match it's height increasing the buffer you have to decide what shot you want to play as well as helping your timing when hitting.

 

Here's a great example (with Slow Mo) of what I mean by trying to follow the balls height... again by ZJK.  Watch how he lowers himself via his legs near eye level as the ball is coming.

 

 

I don't know how to fix this, one way is to avoid "fixed placement" exercises, even when you're doing fixed placement exercises hop once when the ball is hit towards you to jump towards the correct position. So even when I'm practising against the robot, I always hop at least once to get into position, then hop again to neutral position after I hit the ball (even with simple pushing exercises). The key is to be in control of your centre of gravity and use your centre of gravity to guide your legs. 

Also you can do a lot of small hopping exercises when not at the table to train up your legs, I find that it helps a lot (it is not easy when you do it in high frequency)

It's not easy to fix if you don't have a robot or multiball partner....

Zhang Jike has one of the shortest backswings for the FH in the game. Look at how close his elbow is to his waist during the backswing, that shows that there is almost no arm backswing relative to the waist. The backswing should be initiated by the waist, not by the arm. This increases the speed (which determines how fast you initiate your stroke) and also shortens recovery time. Furthermore you can control your stroke fully using your waist (effortless and stable) instead of your arm (tiring and unstable).