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Stop wasting your time and
get out of table-tennis already (Unless you join Loopaholics Unanimous) By
Srinivas Janardhanan - Updated November 22 2012 If you are a casual player who just plays for fun and/or
exercise this article does not apply to you. But if you are a player who plays in
tournaments and wants to improve your game and maximize
your potential and reach as high as your talent will
take you, then this article addresses issues regarding managing your
practices, equipment etc effectively without
focusing on wrong issues. My strong belief is that you should be doing some
other activity other than wasting time in table-tennis if you are not
focusing on the right issues to maximize your
potential. In table-tennis I
think USATT has a reasonably accurate computerized rating system and generally
most players have an initial goal of
getting to a rating of 2000 (and beyond) which puts them solidly at expert
level (1900 is considered an expert level but 2000 is goal of most players)
. This article may still apply to you even if you do not play in
tournaments but are interested in improving your skill level and maximize
your potential. Here are what I believe some of the most overlooked factors by
both players as well coaches. There may be other factors and I would love
hear comments from other players 1. Selection
of right grip to match your natural style This is actually more tricky than it actually
seems. Simplistically you may say that there is just the
shake-hand grip and pen-hold grip. But in reality there
are 1000’s of subtle variations. Selection (or de-selection) of a
grip by a player (or by a coach to a player) is dictated by many
factors. For example if a 70 year old
player has played all his life with a seemingly bizarre convoluted awkward
crazy grip, there really may not be any point in trying to change his/her
grip. But on the other hand, if a seven year old
wants to do the same thing that is a very tricky situation. How do you figure
out if (s)he will be better off with a standard penhold
or shakehand grip ? You have to have him / her a try for a while but if it does
not work then maybe (s)he is better off with the crazy grip. Recently I
noticed a 11 year old with a Hasegawa grip and tried to switch him to classic
shakehand but it did not work .
I also noticed his top-spins were powerful (like Hasegawa) and his blocking
was also good. So I let him stay with the
Hasegawa grip, but with long-pips on the other side. Generally
a 11 year old should not use long pips but this is a special case. In most cases grip problems
with children must be corrected as early as possible. Also it is highly recommended that players don’t
drastically change their grips while playing backhand and then switching to
backhand. Table-tennis is way way too
fast for this. True that penholders may adjust grip little more though that
should be minimized. 2. Selection
of right equipment (racket) to match your natural style This is usually highly overlooked by
both players and coaches. If you are just playing for fun , then racket is of no concern to
you. But if you want to maximize
your potential , you and your coach must select a
racket that matches your style as closely as possible. While
children should start only with regular inverted rubber (or known as smooth
rubber, unlike rubber with pips out) both sides (if shakehand)
and inverted one side only if any other one sided grip such as penhold, Seemiller, Hasegawa etc. , for adults it is
different. Children “generally’ should not start with
pips-out or anti as the strokes are so different ( Regular
inverted uses a more closed racket and pips and anti use
a more open racket angle for attacking strokes ) . For adults
this is more complicated. If you had played for 5 years and if you
have an excellent looping backhand and a forehand that you can only flat-hit
with but cannot loop , it is a stupid mistake for a
player (and his/her coach) to continue using inverted both sides, just
because using pips is socially considered uncool by some irrational
psychopaths , simply because they cannot play against such
styles. Another more common example :- You
have played for 10 years . You have a smoking looping forehand but your
backhand stinks to high heavens and can’t do a thing with it.. Players
simply direct the ball to your backhand and finish you off. Are you going to
play the next 10 years using the same inverted rubber on your backhand just because using anything other than
inverted both sides is considered socially by a few of those insensitive
haters , who may ridicule you if you tried say short pips or long pips or
anti . True , short pips and long
pips or anti were introduced to “enhance” certain styles of play (just as
inverted was to “enhance” looping) but it is definitely not unethical or
immoral to turn your weakness into a weapon by using
non-regular inverted on your pathetic backhand. Most players don’t
do this because of fear of social rejection by irrational psychos who are
clueless about the history of origination of long-pips or anti etc. and
suffer year after year, wondering why they suck in
table-tennis. Backhand attack usually is not meant
everybody. You may hit one spectacular backhand out of a thousand but in
general most players have a far weaker backhand than forehand. So if
you notice that you cannot loop at all with your backhand but can hit with
it, then your natural choice is a pips out rubber on your backhand
, keeping your inverted on your forehand. Of course if you are one of those minority with a looping
backhand but with inability to loop on your forehand, then by all means keep
your inverted on your backhand but switch to a short pips or medium-pips on
your forehand only if you have good hit on your forehand Yet another common example :- Some
players have an excellent looping forehand but cannot hit or loop or block
from backhand but can chop decent from backhand then guess what ………the
logical choice is long-pips on the backhand. (This is me………at my rating
level……….not at a much lower level…….When a 1700 player asks me why I
“bother” with long-pips because my forehand loop is strong …this is my
answer………my backhand sucks not at a 1700 level but at my rating level …..I
have a good backhand chop at my rating level….that is why I use long-pips
there and that is the original purpose of invention of long-pips.. )
. Again, sure you can chop with
regular inverted rubber but that is not the “intended purpose” of regular
inverted. There are some players out there who don’t switch to
long-pips, again because of fear of social rejection by uninformed
haters. I have no shame in admitting that my backhand sucks (at
may rating level) and I am not worried about narrow-minded idiots who cry
that I win “only’ because of long-pips. Yes I win because of long-pips but
only because I chose rubber that suits my playing style ,
which is chopping………..just as a looper wins “only” because of his inverted reglued rubber which suits his playing style. There
seems to be a sad myth in tabletennis that you
become a great player simply because you choose inverted rubber both sides
and nothing else. No rubber can make you great unless you choose rubber /
blade that matches your playing style. Even
more offensive and sexist is the macho stupidity that you
are not a man if you do not use inverted both sides (you play like a
girl……real men only attack) . Well if you are a
REAL man , then you should not play
ANY defense at all (no blocking, no pushing , no lobbing and God
forbid no chopping) ………try playing like that ……..Gatien
or Lindh may get away with it but if you are 2200 player and try that your
rating will be probably like 1200 !!!........keep in mind that even Waldner’s best
stroke is probably the block ……….a defensive stroke. …….I guess that
makes him a sissy. If I went up 300 points “just” because I switched to
log-pips, so be it. I chose equipment that maximizes my potential I have no
guilt whatsoever and do not worry about insensitive psychos who do not know
the history of the sport. Just because you chose a two winged looping style
does not make you a Kong LingHui or a Waldner in
itself (though maybe you can look impressive to your girlfriend who does not
understand TT ), if you are stuck at your
pathetic level with a chopping backhand but are afraid to switch from a Mark
V to long-pips because of social ridicule and rejection. One would think
table-tennis players would be more sensitive because I am sure tabletennis players run into people all the time who
think it makes them better athletes or better person , simply
because they chose to play say tennis over tabletennis,
but unfortunately it does not seem to be that way. There is
absolutely nothing shameful in turning your weakness into a weapon by
switching to a suitable rubber / blade. It is not your problem if your
opponent is too incompetent (or too psychotic) to play against certain
rubbers / styles. It is not your job to please your opponent by choosing the
equipment that (s)he is comfortable against ,so that (s)he can
beat you 0-11, 0-11, 0-11 but it is in fact your moral and ethical obligation
to yourself , your opponent and to the sport , to use the best
equipment that best suits your style (not your opponents’) and try
to beat your opponent 11-0,11-0,11-0…………….unless of course you want to play
casual ping-pong and not competitive table-tennis. Therefore
if you play your best say by looping on your forehand and chopping
on the backhand but are afraid to switch to long-pips on your backhand only
because you are afraid of social ridicule and suffer by using a 2 mm Mark V
on your backhand , then only you, your stupidity, ignorance and vanity are to
blame, if you are not playing your best , because you have not understood the
simple fact that long-pips were
originally invented for one simple reason, which is for chopping and not
intentionally for deception as many a hater would want you to believe. Selection
of a racket to match your style is of course very complicated. There
are infinite number of blades and rubbers and thicknesses and blade
grips. Tiny microscopic changes that you make to
your equipment will greatly effect your
performance at any given more or less equal skill / rating level (not by
comparing a world-class 2800 rating player to a sub-beginner 800 rating player, as many hatemongering idiots would
do) . But my point is that you and your coach must strive hard
to match your racket design to your playing style as closely as possible. Yes equipment costs money but
you might as well be doing something else that you enjoy more, if you are
wasting your time here and not maximizing your potential not because of your
lack of skill and talent but because you use a racket that is either a total
mismatch to your playing style and /
or the quality of your rubber / blade is well below your talent-level. (This
is sadly a major problem because when you switch equipment
, the adjustment period can vary from weeks to months depending both
on your talent and amount of change to equipment but I guarantee you it won't
happen even if you are a world champion ....see below on discussions of short
& long term gains )You don’t always have to buy new equipment to try. You
can try other players’ rackets in the club. Chances are that there is another
player in your club is using the racket that very closely matches your style
(and what is more funny, in
all probability does not match his / her style) . I know so many players
who use a one-sided style (Seemiller, Penhold etc) , who leave the other side of the racket with
no rubber, simply because of social ridicule. They could be using
an off-rubber such as long-pips or anti or short pips and many top players
such as Lu Guoliang (or Ma Lin ,
Xu Xin, Wang Hao etc) to diversify their
game. Three major pitfalls
that every newbie must avoid (a) Playing
every match in practice to win If you plan to play in tournaments, this is not a good
idea. You must think about long-term gains and not short term gains. If you know that you can beat
a player and have beaten him last 100 times in practice, then what is the
point. A better way to use this practice match is to go against
this opponent’s strengths that bother you, and then try to beat him / her at
that. Also there is no need to win the
match in practice just for winning. You can try to win a match in a specific
way, for example say not using your best serves or say attacking every time
using backhand only or play the whole match with just chopping or blocking
with no attack etc and see what happens. Of course you
want to mix this with matches that you would play as if in a tournament. I know this is kind of hard to do because it hurts your ego to
lose to a player you know can easily beat but as long as you are not
worried about your short term failures over long-term goals of improvement . This
is especially hard against players who do not play in tournaments but play
practice like tournaments but you have to keep your
final long-term goals & objectives in mind and not worry about short-term
results This is a major
problem for many newcomers especially. Given that table-tennis is an
individual sport the ego of many players cannot handle losing to a player
they have never lost to. I see many basement players with enormous potential
& talent showing up at the club with a garbage 99 cent Kmart Bluelight special racket (either a pips
no sponge hardbat or a smooth rubber like anti-spin
rubber) and getting lucky beating a few low level players at the club and
then start believing that they would have a prayer against better
players. Then when explained why they cannot beat better players ( garbage rackets they use) , they try superior equipment
for only a few matches and lose not only even worse to better players but
worse they lose to even the few low beginners they beat before. But these
newbies don't realize the reason they lost ( adjusting
to new rackets takes some time) and go back to crappy rackets and continue
losing and lose interest and give up. This is quite sad because most of these
players are very talented & athletic but they are not in itself
sufficient conditions to succeed in table-tennis. (Hardbat
clowns living in the past corrupt & poison the minds of many of these new
players and it has not helped the sport............asking a newbie to stick
to hardbat without advising of all options
constitutes deception and fraud and if it is a child .....that is child
abuse.........hardbat had its glory days and its
time has come and gone ...........so it is time to move on with
reality......while I have no issue with certain brainwashed American players
kissing up to their cult-leader and pursuing hardbat
, I have a hardtime understanding Olympic bodies
like USATT supporting such nonsense as hardbat and
now even sandpaper, while these monies could be used for better
training USATT talent ). Champions like Rozeanu-Adelstein,
Bergmann, Barna , Reisman , Miles, Pagliaro
were absolutely beyond amazing but players get faster, smarter. healthier and
therefore better in all sports....so it is time to move on instead of living
in the past. I personally enjoy hardbat
myself as it actually helps my game on one side and would even play in hardbat events but for the holier than thou attitude of
cult groupies of hardbat . So if you think you can become a decent player with crappy
rackets in table-tennis, keep in mind that it more like bringing a sword to
duel where your opponent has nuclear tipped missiles (illegal carcinogenic
glues) .......I say "illegal" because most
competitive players use some form of illegal glue undetectable in
testing.....they need to do it because if they don't they are at a
competitive disadvantage ....IOC "pretends" like they are doing "a lot" while they really don't
, due to political reasons) (b) My
biggest complaint :- Mindless
practice > Just “hitting” around
in practice Welcome to REAL
table-tennis > Stop "hitting" and start
“looping” (Conversely :- Unless you want to learn to
"brush" the ball instead of just mindlessly "hitting" it
, please kindly get the bloody hell out of table-tennis and stop
wasting your time by picking up another hobby........unless and until you
will learn to loop you are nothing more than a basement recreational
"ping-pong" hacker with fantasies of becoming a serious
"table-tennis" "athlete". ) Loop
Counter-Loop Loop Loop-Kill Power-Loop Side-Loop
Slow-loop Inside-out loop Loop
Loop Counter-Loop Loop Loop Inside-Out-Loop Loop Loop
Nothing-but-loop Loop Counter-Loop Loop Loop-kill
Loop Loop-Kill Power-Loop Side-Loop
Slow-loop Inside-out loop Loop
Counter-Loop Loop-Kill Loop Loop
Slow-loop Loop Loop
Nothing-but-loop Loop Inside-Out-Loop Loop ReLoop Counter-Loop Power-Loop Loop-some-more The
most frustrating thing for me is to watch is two serious players wasting
their time just “hitting” ball back and forth mindlessly both at the table
and at the robot. I have no idea what purpose this serves a player
who already knows (s)he
can just “hit” 25 , 50 or 100 in a row . If you
are a serious (tournament) player trying to break 2000, you
should eat , slip , drink, breathe one thing :- “The
loop”. It annoys me like hell to see players and coaches
mindlessly "hitting" the ball back and forth, thinking of that as
serious practice. This is an absolute waste of time. If
modern tabletennis can be described by one word it
is "loop". Though other things such as serves, return of serve etc are important . they are
secondary. A German research paper showed that the cause of most players
(children) leaving the sport is being unable to loop . (An
article about this research paper appeared in a USTTA magazine issue about 10
years ago) They found that players (children) spend their practices “hitting”
the ball and go to a tournament and get slaughtered by a player who has just
barely mastered the basic loops. The paper concludes that, at the very least
players(children) have “more” fun “spinning” the ball rather than “hitting” it , since “spin” is the “essence” of table-tennis. Even
if you are a short-pips player , you can still loop
effectively. So start looping today
………loop, side-loop, loop-kill, counter-loop, re-loop, counter-side-loop, lob-loop,dummy-loop (a no spin fake
loop) and most importantly slow-loop. To
“really” practice looping , start with slow-looping
against the robot set to feed backspin balls . Most players would start forehand
looping first. Think always about
violently “brushing” or “whiffing” or “grazing” the ball with an acute angle
of contact with a near vertical racket angle (against
back-spin) and lift the ball about two feet over the net. You should hear
hardly any sound at all when you slow loop. In the beginning you will miss 90
to 99% of your shots which is fine because you are trying to almost
miss the ball (by trying brush with a very acute contact angle) as
opposed to "hitting” which is the opposite.(Even the world’s best
players completely miss the ball in matches while looping and this is
perfectly normal …..it is just that they miss it 5% of the time unlike a
beginner who will miss 99% of the time) You want to maximize spin by
“brushing” the ball and snapping your wrist at contact At first you can start
without snapping your wrist at contact (all arm) , then you will add wrist
snap as well as arm motion to further maximize or vary the spin. Slow loop is
basic because of heavy spin and relatively harder to block against or even
chop unless opponent is using long-pips. Another key to creating excessive
top-spin is bending the knees as much as possible when you start your loop
and come up to brush the ball. At first you can start without dropping
your knees and no wrist snap and then once you get the hang of the loop, you
can create more spin by dropping the knees and also
wrist snap at contact. (See uploaded images called forehand-loop.jpg and backhand-loop.jpg for
excellent illustrations of slow loop from former England #1 Chester
Barnes’ book) Slow loop
check list :- 1. Minimal sound at
contact 2. Maximum brushing (tangential contact) and
minimal hitting (orthogonal contact) by near vertical upward racket
acceleration 3. Wrist snap at
contact 4. Maximal knee drop
and rise. You do
not have to be powerfully built to do this. Your spin
is maximized by coordinating all 4 factors perfectly. Best
examples are the backhand loops of Jasna Reed and tennis backhand loops of Justine Hardine-Henin and many such women players. Both
players are relatively very small in build, yet can generate enormous spin
because of their near perfect stroke-mechanics.
I suggest mastering the slow loop first because, if not anything else , it instills great confidence in a player if (s)he
can loop the ball with maximum spin under pressure situations and does the
opposite to the opponent. Also usually under 2000 level, players
would have a monumentally difficult time blocking against this slow loop properly,
because the ball comes so high and spins excessively and awkwardly (in
contrast to a loop-kill which can be
blocked easier) . Finally once you master the slow
loop you can start mixing it up with the no-spin slow loop which makes it
extremely effective against players below 2000. The important
point is that you are not trying to win a point right of the slow loop but
you will later kill the blocked ball against a slow loop (called a fifth ball
attack……compared to a third ball attack, which is serve and smash or serve
and loop-kill) . Third
ball attacks are not easy though world-class players mislead beginners
because world class players seem to loop-kill any long ball regardless of any
spin or speed on the ball so easily. The
backhand slow loop even more deadly than forehand slow loop because it takes
a good blocker to even keep the return on the table let alone pop up an easy
return for an easy kill. Most importantly, once you
master the slow-loop, other types loops will follow as a natural progression without
even trying. Many players start with the loop-kill and see their loop-kills
repeatedly blocked to the opposite corner before they finish the
follow-thorough. Therefore a new player must spend
90% of his / her time mastering the slow loop against back spin. You
can do this against the robot or as a multi-ball with the feeder feeding you
back spin balls with lite to medium back spin. As your percentage
improves you will move on to slow loop against heavy back spin. Then onto
side loop against backspin. Then on to counter loop and counter side loop and
loop-kills. The
next one is the re-loop ( A counter-loop but right
off the bounce against an opponent’s any loop but requires impeccable timing
and control which some world-class players like Lindh, Gatien
etc can do as second-nature) . The final
one is the hardest one , the inside-out-loop. Inside
out loop and reloop are not really
necessary in your arsenal until you are over say 2200 but one should
reasonably master other types of loops. (c) Avoiding
practice against long-pips or defensive or other unorthodox styles Many
players hate playing against unorthodox styles and go out of their way to
avoid playing against them in practice. These
players seem to believe that somehow they can magically
manage to play against such styles just in tournaments only and still
win. This is a psychotic delusion at best. Fact is that if you
have not played against unorthodox styles in practice, I can guarantee you
that you will never break 2000 . You will
be simply laughed out of the tournament in total humiliation. If
you are afraid of losing against such styles in practice ,
you have absolutely no chance against them in a tournament, because usually
most of these unorthodox players have their styles built on higher level of
control, touch and feel for the ball whereas a low level orthodox
player can be extremely erratic and nervous. Sure it
is much harder to play against unorthodox styles but if all of
us played exactly the same we would be nothing more than a bunch of robots
playing against each other. At the top level,
usually the best matches for spectators (both knowledgeable and uninformed)
always involve a defensive player playing against another defender (at the
top level all defenders can also attack very very well) or another attacker. While there are few
matches that are exciting when two
attackers, most of those matches result in very short rallies. Simply
because you have chosen an attacking style does not by itself make you a
superior table-tennis player and / or a superior athlete. An unorthodox
player had chosen equipment to match his skills, such as if (s)he is
defensive on the forehand and a blocker on the backhand ,
(s)he has every right to choose long-pips for her forehand and
anti for her backhand, just as an attacking player with a hitting forehand
and looping backhand has the right to choose short pips for their forehand
and spinny inverted for their backhand. Modern
table-tennis is a sport of infinite unique styles as the style of a player is
an extension of individuality both as a player and athlete as well as their personalities and this is possible
due to availability of choice of rubbers and blades, that allows a player (if
he is smart enough) to very closely match style to his / her racket. If
you cannot respect that and hate someone for their choice of styles , that is your narrow-minded problem and not
theirs. If you take a negative attitude and avoid such styles rather than
take a positive attitude and try to conquer as many styles as you can, it is
exceedingly unlikely that you will become a good tabletennis
player. That is the reality and get used to it or you can be stuck forever at
a low level and don’t even bother going to
tournaments wasting your valuable time and money……….you might just as well stay at your club just “hitting”
the ball back and forth mindlessly against other robot players like
yourselves. The
number of unorthodox and defensive players at a given club varies from club
to club. Some clubs like Charlotte TTC have only two or three such players
and these unorthodox and defensive players can be actually charging a fee for
the benefit of practicing against them if they want, because these two or
three players can always pick and choose among many robotic players (but are
not psychotic in their hatred against unorthodox styles) they want to play
against but if some robot players want to ridicule them for their style and
avoid them, then these two or three players cannot be blamed at all if they
charge a fee for their premium services. Interestingly these two
or three players are exceedingly nice and prostitute themselves freely for
the benefit of the club. It is simply a question of supply and demand and a
player is under no obligation to play anyone else for free especially if you
are going to be ridiculed for your choice of style of play and no club can
force a player to play against any given player, especially a player with
irrational psychotic beliefs and hatred.. Charging
a fee is nothing new or unusual because in old days most top players in
many US clubs won’t play you unless you play a money bet match with
them, spotting you a handicap. |