Transforming PingSkills Advice

Cihan Unknown Asked 16 years ago

Hello,

I have been watching PingSkills videos and trying to adjust my game to the advice you guys, Jeff and Alois, give.

However, I find that sometimes while I try to adjust to you guys' advice, my rhythm is overthrown and my shots actually worse than before. To give an example:

I am a slightly tall player - 6 foot 2 or 1.92m - with long arms (think Wang Liqin :-) )and partly due to that, I find that my forehand topspin strokes end slightly above my shoulder.

Jeff's strokes, in his forehand videos, end at face level. So my stroke ends slightly to the right and lower.

When I try to replicate his moves in the video, I feel like I am losing my consistency; more of my balls go out. I have difficulty in adjusting my racket angle.

But I feel that if I end stroke at the face level - if I can pull it off succesfully -, my balls have more spin and I can sort of feel the ball "snapping" then sliding away.

(1) Should I try to break off my habits and re-adjust to you guys' advice? Or would it be better if I struck a balance between your advice and my play?

(2)What do you think of the variance between good players' moves and strokes in table tennis? It seems as if variation is higher than in field tennis.

Thanks for all your videos,

Cihan

Alois Rosario Answered 16 years ago

Hi Cihan,

Firstly your height does not make a difference as to where you should finish with your stroke. If you atke a look at even the tall players like Wang Liqin and Samsonov they still finish abouve eye level with their forehands. So try to make this change. All you need to do istilt your bat slightly forward is the ball is going too long.

There are a lot of variances in styles but some things are constant amongst most players and one of these is the finish position of their rackets for this type of forehand.

What you are also seeing is that when they are playing a fast forehand topspin they will go more forwards than up with their bat, but this is something that you can add in later. Get the consistency with the correct technique first.

Glad you are enjoying the videos.

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Cihan Unknown Posted 16 years ago

Thanks for the response.

In addition, can you talk a bit more about margins of flexibility in specifically forehand topsin and other shots in general? What motions (or postures) are essential to forehand topsin and for which parts of the motions can we take more liberties with?

For instance, sometimes I also (try to) employ my wrist in forehand topspin so that I generate more spin. This usually leads to a loss of control but a substantial increase in spin if I can pull it off.

Again thanks.