FH Forward (Chinese) Loop

Forehand foreward Loop (off of no spin or top spin) Guide (From the Chinese National Team)

This is a stroke that can't be seen on video to determine how to do. However, if you understand how to do the stroke, the video will make much more sense to you. The reason being that players are very quick and the video can't catch the right moment. If you get this stroke right, I gaurantee your looping lvl will go at least 2 notches higher.

Basics

-Be sure you are loose and relaxed. Not only your shoulder and wrist should be loose, but also your torso.

-Use your waist. This does not mean your shoulders. Many people use their upper body instead of their lower abdomins. Try and think of shifting your weight from one leg to the other while twisting your waist.

-When you do the stroke, wind back, this includes your waist and your forearm. Use your waist to bring your big arm back and bring back only your forearm, not your big arm.

-Accelerate to the ball while keeping loose. When you make contact with the ball, your muscles should be a little more tight. The moment after you hit the ball as your following through, you should be loose again.

-Make sure your body moves with the arm

Those were the basics, here are some things that I have learned from Top Chinese coaches.

-If you watch a player like Wang Liqin, you can see him using his whole arm when they forehand loop. Many coaches tell you that you should only snap your forearm. This was the old way of looping. If you tell them to loop with their whole arm, they will continue to say its wrong. However, this is the new technique and i ensure you it is not only more powerful, but more accurate.

-When using the whole arm, you still have to snap your forearm, but you also use your big arm.

-It is very important to hit the ball into the foam of the rubber. Not the rubber sheet nor so deep it reaches into the blade. When you make contact with the ball, your paddle should be 80-90 degrees (Perpendicular to the ground). If the ball goes off the table, DO NOT solve the problem by closing your paddle on contact. Instead keep it at 80-90 degrees and follow through more foreward or down, however you choose after hitting the ball. This is one quick motion and remember keep loose. If it goes into the net, follow through up more. REMEMBER JUST BECAUSE YOU SHOULD NOT CLOSE THE PADDLE ON CONTACT DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD NOT CLOSE IT AFTER YOU HIT IT. WHAT I MEAN BY THIS IS AS SOON AS THE BALL TOUCHES THE RUBBER, YOU CAN CLOSE THE PADDLE TO KEEP THE PADDLE QUICK BUT INTO THE FOAM OF THE RUBBER.

-Turn your wrist when the ball makes contact with the rubber as to keep it in the foam. You do not have to turn it a whole lot, but just to give the ball some "encouragement". The usage of wrist varries from situation to situation.

-Also remember: when you wind back to prepare for the stroke, the paddle should start at the ball's current height.

-When looping more away from the ball, your opposite foot of your paddle arm should be parralel to the back of the table. (if your right-handed it your left foot and visa versa)

-If it seems unaccurate, make sure you are making contact with the ball at 80-90 degrees and into the foam.

-Because you are using your whole arm to loop, you can follow through as much as you want. What i mean by this, is that lots of coaches in North America say you should follow through to your nose. This again, is the old style of looping with just snapping the forearm.

-Do not be afraid that the ball will go off the end of the table, you can accelerate as fast as you want as long as you direct the ball in the follow through while keeping it in the foam.

-Also remember, when you are looping closer to the table, you don't use your big arm as much, but you still do to add some power.

-When practicing, sometimes when you don't get it, rember that the paddle has to be perpindicular to the ground. Sometimes it may feel like your doing it, but your actually not. To resolve this, try slowing down and make sure you hit the ball into the foam.

-One of the principles is that when the ball is in the foam, you can control it as it "sticks" to your rubber as you turn your wrist. The longer it stays, the more control you have.

-When Looping this way, you use the whole arm. However, you don't always use it completely. When you are close to the table, you may use half effort of the big arm. As you are more away from the table you should now fully use the big arm. As you get more advanced, you can use more usage of the big arm when closer to the table. You can start by using a little bit of your big arm when looping. And as you get more "feeling" for the ball, you can start to put a little more big arm power in.

 

1. 
   
   assuming you wanted to post a video:
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ppw7NT9g1w
   thank

Looping with 80\90 degrees angle to the floor??? Well, in the slow motion of Wang Liqin video, I can clearly see that it is closed at least 70-60 degrees. Am I wrong?

Mannntas wrote: Looping with 80\90 degrees angle to the floor??? Well, in the slow motion of Wang Liqin video, I can clearly see that it is closed at least 70-60 degrees. Am I wrong?

Thank you!!!!!

Finally someone put an end to this nonsense!!!!  Every Chinese Player contacts the ball with CLOSED racket angle..........both topspin and underspin.  When they contact underspin the racket angle is somewhere in the 65-55 degree area whereas when they contact topspin the racket is more like 45 degrees.....sorry, but when the guide posted by the OP says hit it at 80-90 degees, it is just wrong.......hitting the ball with chinese rubber with an open bat (80-90 degrees) just doesn't happen.  THIS MUST BE A TRANSLATION THING.  Either that or a "tool" to try to get people to understand the feeling of the ball sinking in the sponge.

Not saying that everything in the guide is wrong, but this one aspect definitely is.  The guide is correct that you need to use the sponge and get the ball to sink in, and you need to use a "foward" stroke like others on this forum say..........that is if you are trying to do a "drive" kind of stroke.

However, you can also do a "spin" stroke with chinese rubber.  In this stroke, the blade is more open and you don't use the sponge AS MUCH.  This stroke is more upward and brushes the ball more.  It seems as though it is only used occasionally...... against heavy underspin (say against a chop from JSH) or to open up a third ball attack when players are not in position to do a full underspin drive.  This spinny loop is not used as much by the newer players (Ma Long and company) because the newer players are trying to attack all the time (also not to say that the newer players never use it, because they do......just not very often), but it was used slightly more often by players such as WLQ, and used even more by KLH.

Sorry for the long post, but people deserve the truth....once again not saying the guide is completely wrong....maybe the 80-90 degree thing is a training tool for players new to the technique.  Or maybe they are talking about the basic counter stroke.....because there the bat is more "flat" or open......or maybe the guide is referring to a counter drive, there also the bat is more flat......but not on a loop or a loop drive.

Here is a detail I haven't seen answered regarding the chinese loop against low-spin - how much should the racket close?  I know it depends on 'feeling' but whats an approximate range - from 80 degrees to 60 degrees?  80 to 70?  Very grateful for anyones input here.

Here is my evidence?  These are photos from World table tennis magazine from a while back.    If you look at the WLQ double fish video then you can clearly see that his blade is closed upon contact against underspin and for that matter you can see that it is closed against a topspin drive also.  I will present below two other scenarios.  If I am misunderstanding what stroke you mean, please illuminate.


WLQ forehand (basic forehand counter against a forehand counter):




WLQ foredrive (loop against block):




So clearly in these two scenarios and the other two mentioned above the bat is closed.....not fully closed but nowhere near 90 degrees....so what stroke are you talking about???

Looks like a fh vs topspin that those pictures.  also notice the height of the ball and the distance he is from the table.  Even my blade angle is like when i get those balls.

Rack wrote: Those doublefish videos are super super old still using the old techniques probably still on the 38mm ball.  It even shows LGL with his chicken wing stroke.  Your pic hes not even close to the table.  Stop looking at pics and actually go try it before you say its wrong. And Icon, you're right... part of learning the 80-90 degree technique is to teach you proper sponge control and how to "wrap" the ball with your wrist.  By hitting into the ball and wrapping around it, the tack/sponge will create the topspin.  It sounds like it makes no sense because thats what I thought in the beginning too when my coach was telling me this technique... how can hitting into a ball at 80-90 degrees forward create a loop?... but if you go try it... it works.  Then after when you put everything together from fingers/wrist/big arm/small arm/waist/legs, you can MASSIVE amount of spin and power with almost no effort.   Mostly the people who spent time training in China learn this stroke.  Its basically almost one universal stroke for everything now just with little minor differences depending on what type of balls coming at you.

So hence my question to you......what type of ball is this guide/stroke for???? when would you actually use it???  dead ball over the table???

One more thing.......show me a situation that you are talking about, you still haven't given any photo/video that shows your contention clearly.

Seriously, I'm not gonna go hunting down a slow motion video just to prove that it's correct to you.  I already know it's correct because my coach as well as the other people who have trained in the stroke use it and they've trained in China.  You either are open minded and you go try it or you don't.  It's that simple.  But I'll tell you now, the author of that guide is really correct when he says once you get it and it makes sense, your looping will instantly increase a few levels.

Even if I showed you a picture, it still wouldn't make sense to you.  Table Tennis is a game of feel.  You won't understand until you do it and your head puzzles everything together.  It's like if I gave you a picture of a WLQ kill shot you still won't be able to do it.  A picture is just a picture.  You need to actually feel and remember it in muscle memory performing the shot.

Rack wrote: Those doublefish videos are super super old still using the old techniques probably still on the 38mm ball.  It even shows LGL with his chicken wing stroke.  Your pic hes not even close to the table.  Stop looking at pics and actually go try it before you say its wrong. And Icon, you're right... part of learning the 80-90 degree technique is to teach you proper sponge control and how to "wrap" the ball with your wrist.  By hitting into the ball and wrapping around it, the tack/sponge will create the topspin.  It sounds like it makes no sense because thats what I thought in the beginning too when my coach was telling me this technique... how can hitting into a ball at 80-90 degrees forward create a loop?... but if you go try it... it works.  Then after when you put everything together from fingers/wrist/big arm/small arm/waist/legs, you can MASSIVE amount of spin and power with almost no effort.   Mostly the people who spent time training in China learn this stroke.  Its basically almost one universal stroke for everything now just with little minor differences depending on what type of balls coming at you.

I think you might be right about attacking close range with a open bat for a ball with no spin or under spin

keven702 wrote: Rack wrote: Those doublefish videos are super super old still using the old techniques probably still on the 38mm ball.  It even shows LGL with his chicken wing stroke.  Your pic hes not even close to the table.  Stop looking at pics and actually go try it before you say its wrong. And Icon, you're right... part of learning the 80-90 degree technique is to teach you proper sponge control and how to "wrap" the ball with your wrist.  By hitting into the ball and wrapping around it, the tack/sponge will create the topspin.  It sounds like it makes no sense because thats what I thought in the beginning too when my coach was telling me this technique... how can hitting into a ball at 80-90 degrees forward create a loop?... but if you go try it... it works.  Then after when you put everything together from fingers/wrist/big arm/small arm/waist/legs, you can MASSIVE amount of spin and power with almost no effort.   Mostly the people who spent time training in China learn this stroke.  Its basically almost one universal stroke for everything now just with little minor differences depending on what type of balls coming at you. I think you might be right about attacking close range with a open bat for a ball with no spin or under spin

What the a Guide for 3rd ball attack says about racket angle?  I don't see how one can loop a ball on the raise, over the table with an open racket face.  

I have this video on my hard drive. Can you give me the link you're referring to?

chu_bun wrote: What the a Guide for 3rd ball attack says about racket angle?  I don't see how one can loop a ball on the raise, over the table with an open racket face.

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yup this shot works.  you can do this shot on underspin ball too, OVER THE TABLE!