Stamping on serve
Serving
raphaeldominicvalenzuela Valenzuela Asked 7 years ago
Hi,i want to know why is people stamping when performing a serve?and why is people shouting after they got a point?
Alois Rosario Answered 7 years ago
Hi,
The foot stamp is a bit of a combination of the follow through of their serve and sometimes as a way of distracting the opponent. I give the players the benefit of the doubt an d say it is the follow through. Wen you come down hard with your foot you can then jump quickly into position for the next shot.
The yelling is a release... often over the top but I think adds to the atmosphere of the match.
Thoughts on this question
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p groot Posted 7 years ago
When I started with table tennis, I was really annoyed by people stamping their feet. But years later I found out that I am doing it too... unconsciously... I don't do it to distract, it is just something that happens when you put a lot of effort in your serve, in my case following through from a pendulum serve or a backhand serve. It can also be influenced by the shoes you're wearing. Once I played a season on a pair of indoor soccer shoes, and every time I landed my foot it gave a lot of noise, not only when I served. Those shoes were very flat and combined with my flat feet it was even annoying for me. When I changed to real table tennis shoes this changed dramatically.
I find it interesting to see that the higher the level is, the harder the shouting becomes and the more people act as if it is their god given right to shout and curse during a game. You will notice that there is also a big difference between clubs. Every club has its own culture; in some it is quiet and people even apologize for swearing, in others it seems there is no limit on how loud and offensive people can be.
Sometimes I feel people are overdoing it and it starts to negatively influence rallies on the other tables and bring down the good atmosphere; if you let that continue, you will soon find that people on other tables also start to curse and shout loudly. Because of that, at my home club, I simply confront the shouter early on and tell him (yes, it's mostly men) to act normal or go home; most often they are flabbergasted, but then dim down because it is unconscious behaviour and they understand that it can be annoying to other people. Some players are just like children that don't quiet down unless an adult corrects them. :)