August 25, 2011

Why you should have a slow, spinny loop

(This was originally from a forum posting, but I thought I'd put it here as well.) It's extremely helpful to have a slow, spinny loop, for four reasons. First, many players have difficulty with slow, spinny loops, and if you don't have one, then you are handicapped in the match. Second, it gives you more variation, which makes your other loops more effective. Third, against a very low, heavy push, it's much easier to go for a slow, spinny loop then to try to power it all the time. And fourth, if you are missing your faster loops, it's good to have a slower and steadier loop to fall back on. 

There is less slow looping at the highest levels, but that's because at that point they can pretty much rip anything they see. However, even there you'll see some slow loops as variations, depending on the circumstances. But anywhere below the world-class level a slow loop is one of the more underused shots.

How do you do a slow, spinny loop? One key is to let the ball drop more than usual, especially against backspin. A common mistake when slow looping is to slow the swing down. Instead, use normal power, but graze the ball so finely that most of the power converts to topspin. Then get ready for your follow-up - and note that the very slowness of your shot gives you time to prepare for the next shot. This is why when you step around your backhand corner to forehand loop many players either loop a winner or a slow loop. If you loop medium, then unless you have fast footwork you might not have time to react to the likely block to your wide forehand.

Training session on forehand

I had an interesting coaching session last night. The 10-year-old kid I was coaching was having trouble on his forehand. Normally when I tried to work on it, he'd quickly lose interest and want to work on something else. Because of my recent back problems I had John Hsu (2274-rated junior and recent ITTF certified coach) doing my hitting for me while I coached. John kept commenting on how the kid needed to work on the forehand, and that seemed to get the kid's attention. I think he knew me too well, and I'd been too "soft," changing focus to other things rather than insisting on fixing his forehand problems. This time we spent the entire hour on his forehand, and he looks much better now. I've assigned lots of shadow practice for the next week, and when we meet next Wednesday (with John again doing my hitting), I hope it will have paid off. 

Celluloid ping-pong ball ban

There's been a lot of talk about the upcoming ban on celluloid ping-pong balls. I blogged about this on Aug. 5, Aug. 8, and Aug. 10. If you are interested in more, here are links to ongoing discussions of it on the about.com, mytabletennis, and OOAK table tennis forums. If anyone knows where I can get any of these non-celluloid, seamless ping-pong balls to test, let me know and I'll test them and post a review.

High Level Training with Stefan Feth

Here are 18 videos by U.S. Men's Coach and former German National Team Member Stefan Feth, covering all the major aspects of the game. Lots of great stuff here! A must watch for serious players and coaches. (To save time, you can skip the first 30 second intro on each tape.)

What to do now?

We survived the Great East Coast Quake of 2011. The Debt Limit Crisis. The Iraqi, Afghanistan, and Libyan Wars. The Glue Ban and 40mm Balls. So what to do now? Captain Jean-luc Picard has the answer.

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