started table tennis at 34 y.o this year and keep making same mistakes. have been watching this multiple times to remind me of the right way. thank you.
This guide is so so so good. I am 37, trying to learn the proper technique for 25 years, and only now there is a clear way for myself to feel the proper body transfer of weight and have a real forehead technique. Thank you so so so much
I have a problem when trying to learn the forehand drive. I often twist my wrist when hitting the ball which will end up in the net. I know this is wrong but still the same mistake repeats. Not every time but in one of ten strokes or so. It happens especially when I need to adjust my body position backwards. (when the ball comes more to the middle of the table). Do you have any tips to get away from this bad habit?
Great Video . My problem with forehand drive n counterplay is that the wrist comes to play n I end up hitting the ball of the table. My wrist is not locked while playing forehand. Please suggest some tips to overcome that
Thank you for sharing! I;ve been playing table tennis on and off for years now and i just learn today that i use my arm too much instead of my body. This is exactly what i need to work on, thank you coach.
Great video Daniel! It was easy to understand and follow along. Unlearning bad habits is hard but with your video, I can practice more and develop good habits.
very good lesson . I am a beginner and my main problem with forehand drive ( forehand loop much more ) is that I hit a ball off the table. My ball from forehand side are too long. Any sugestion how to correct this mistake / . I have no problem to hit 20 backhand drives in 1 row. Regards to you Daniel.
Hello, thanks for the video. It did help me a lot. I understand what I have to do but I don't know if am doing it right. Like some time when I hit the ball it does go over the net and I think is because my paddle is not in the right position. How can I be sure am doing it right?
Great Video, again. But the thing I yet have to understand is when the movement of the arm is kicking in. I've been playing fh topspin and drive without using my arm at all (just using the body) for quite some time. My usage of the body really improved by that. But now I want to make my strokes even faster and more compact, so I want to return using the arm as well. But somehow no matter at which point during the stroke I start using my arm, it always feels off. If I start using my arm at the same time as using my body it feels like I'm losing power by it but if I use it to late my arm swings to much to the side and to high up(because my arm is really relaxed)! At which point does the arm movement set in during fh Drive and Topspin?
That is a great question!!! I have some footage about this, I will try to edit and upload near future. In the meantime, it’s great that you are using body. The order is you use your body then arm so that your arm can become like a whip for max swing speed and energy transfer to the ball on the impact.
I really like your videos. I have a mistake when playing table tennis that can't be fixed forever: there is no side rotation and no foot force, so the ball hits less spin and the ball is light. Could you please help me to fix this error. thank you
You are correct that a fast ball without spin feels light. Spin with speed makes the receiver feel heavier. Don’t over think and fix one thing at a time. One, hip rotation and push(make sure your hip joints are bent), Two squeeze core (turning your shoulders 90degree sideways will do) and three arm swing speed(try to feel it like a whip and use each joint shoulder elbow and wrist at the contact to add swing speed forward). Try to do one and two first then lastly add three. Although using elbow joint can help. One simple solution to increase swing speed is to have bigger back swing. More space more power but less consistent.
Thanks Daniel. I notice that in the video of Ma Long you show, the movement of his forehand almost seems circular and that he is dropping his forehand down and then coming back up. Is this considered the proper way to do this?
Yes! Very good eyes. For many advanced players, we tend to drop the paddle just to gain more space to speed up the swing and also be able to adjust to the balls which is not good when your swing is not yet formed. So, if you observe, he drops but then he finds the ball height so his paddle comes back up then go forward. So his motion has 3 points : drop - bring it back behind the ball's height - then swing forward. You can ignore the 1 point which is to drop in the beginning just because when people start to drop, they think about dropping to much where they shouldn't. They need to focus more on finding just behind the ball then go forward. Remember, the efficiency is the key. Don't need to add extra steps to your swing. :)
@@roadtopro3038 Why he drops his hand down. I believe bc in this moment hand gets relaxed to apposite when we contact the ball. Ball hit - tension breath out, drop the hand - relaxation, breath in.
Hey coach, I know that this is a very old post but I think the question is valid. I can see that your suggested contact point is more parallel to the body and Ma Long's seems to be a little bit in front of him. Can you comment on this?
Once you get familiar with forehand technique with straight wrist, you can start to loosen up and use it like a whip. So in Ma Long’s case, his wrist is bent a little back naturally and contact a little in front of him. So he initiates the stroke with body rotation and uses the arm like a whip, so his contact point seems a little in front of him. This is totally fine as I say there is no absolute right thing. It’s all about what kind of ball are we trying to send and how consistent. You can see how different timo boll’s swing from Ma long but they both play so good. This guidance is for the people who don’t understand the contact point or only using the body or the wrist and so on therefore the shots are inefficient and inconsistent. Also ma long contacts the ball there because he stands far from the table that he is using more energy-using his body more like a whip.
Thanks coach! I find my self having a hard time with contact point, for driving its working better in front of me and looping Im achieving better results with parallel contact point and after the peak. 🤷🏾♂️ Such a complex game if you want to do it right.
Hi, my forehand drive lacks speed and most go out. Also I am too fixed on hitting a flat shot, rather than taking my arm up for topspin. Pl suggest how to improve
If it’s too flat and goes out sometimes, the angle may be too open to begin with. Try to close the angle a little and swing about 30degree upwards and forward.
Hi, Could you recommend a setup for learning FH drive for non-beginner. No need for brands, just principles. General opinion is to use no carbon blades and medium hardness rubbers. Not sure with plastic balls though. Currently I'm using Viscaria (you know, need for speed) blade with boosted DHS H3 FH and Tibhar MX-S for BH. I wouldn't say it's too fast, probably due to low FH efficiency. I have relatively good BH drive and topspin ( feeling that good clicking sound with sponge activation) but FH is total mess. Wondering if I should step back...Funny thing, at the beginning I couldn't use BH and now FH is serious weakness, unless opponent initiates; then I have better sync of body and good cracking " effortless" topspins. I suspect two problems: late contact, from "behind" (ball reaching shoulder plane) not in front (thus insufficient weight transfer) and speed from A to C (bad mechanics of arm, brute force/not smooth and no automation; cannot connect low-mid-upper body ). Really frustrated as I dive deeper and deeper in the rabbit hole. Best regards, Adi
Make it land between 3rd and 4th section of the table near the endline and have the top of the bounce between net's height x1.5 to x2 with very gentle top spin. Strong topspin forces your paddle to close thus not helping the angle of the paddle aligning with the swing direction. on the bounce it will naturally generate soft topspin. For more Q & A please join me on Patreon!
@@roadtopro3038 Thanks! It seems it's a matter of efficiency. A friend that I "train" with (longer warm-ups FH and BH, mainly static...) noticed in a back court loop to loop drill that I have a very closed paddle. I became really aware of this yesterday at a tournament when a few balls (unloaded, low speed-no spin) literally stopped in my paddle, me trying to topspin. Also I analyzed two trained 9 year olds, one of which being prone to nets; well he always had the paddle closed. All in all the "trick" is in hitting the ball with a more open angle but generating spin in a upward-forward movement, loading the ball both with spin and speed. This makes me dizzy :) I actually produced at the tournament like 8 true quality pieces, mid distance, finishing points, at 60-70% power. Conversion to forward and rotational motion occurred with high efficiency. Not sure how I did it. Another thanks for your videos and answers!
@@adi84g you are very right on the point!! Interestingly, there are so many players who close the paddle to start the swing and still don’t understand why the balls go to the net
@@roadtopro3038 KUDOS to you! Luckily my partner recorded a couple of my games during tournament. After corroborating this with my recollection of things, plus me changing FH rubber last week, the mystery slowly dissipates. Well I switched from a 40 degree hardness commercial H3 to a 39 degree less tacky provincial H3. There's a huge difference of perceived hardness between the two. Bottom line the softer sponge gave more dwell on the paddle and batter (easier) sponge activation. This two aspects made loops and topspins at lower power more accessible, thus a lesser need of paddle closing. Regarding my initial question, now I think that I'm not very wrong when I say that the biggest mistakes I've made in table tennis are equipment and not focusing sufficiently on basics. 1. Migrating quickly to faster, harder and stiffer blades that masked to a certain point poor efficiency; 2. Migrating quickly to harder rubbers. Again masking low efficiency. 3. "Developing" topspin on week drive foundation. All these lead to a somewhat batter BH (during high speed games) but disaster on FH. There's a big difference between knowing and "visceral " knowing. Also our feelings can mess up reality. Perhaps these long posts of my struggles will help a few out there.
i am weak when slow short ball comes at forehand side then i am not able to do topspin and no power comes when when try to drive the ball. how to improve forehand for short and slow ball received at forehand side. one more question, will improving forehand drive will also inhance the forehand top spin, basically i want to know why we learnt forehand drive why it is important when we directly not jumped in forehand top spin. what in connection between learning forehand drive and forehand top spin.
Whats the forehand drive for? is it to safely return the ball when the opponent smashes? or if the ball is too low to loop, or as an emergency when you only just reach the ball with foot work but not fast enough to execute an attack? I only see pple use forehand drive during practice it appears so I'm a bit confused on what the best use of it is.
My next video is about the concept of “driving” the ball. So basically, you don’t use the forehand drive in the game as you will most likely loop, smash, push, flick or block. On the other hand, you always need to use the concept of “driving” on most of the techniques for efficiency and consistency and the driving can be learned most easily from forehand drive. So you can just think it as a basic/fundamental technique that lead you to unlock all the other advanced techniques.
My apologies if this is a obvious question.... I struggle with the contact point and am trying to see the problem with your "practicing alone" example at baseline. Are you saying that this position has you practicing with the contact point too far behind?
@@roadtopro3038 sorry for the confusion. At 4:03 you have an "X" drawn through you in the 'practice alone' segment while you stand at the end of the table ? Still not sure why that is in regards to contact point practice . Hope that is clearer
@@mediumdun18 yes if you stay there then you would have to drop the ball on the floor and it won’t bounce back high enough and/or consistently so that you can practice. And if you drop it on the table then it’s too far.so to force the contact to be on the side, you can stand next to the sideline(right foot on the baseline/endline) then you can drop the ball on the table and play.
Sir, i am unable to do forehand drive, my forehand drive is always similar to forehand topspin, i am not able to differentiate between forehand drive and forehand topspin. my other collegue says that you r good in top spin but zero in forehand drive. please make some drive which i practice at home with wall/top to improve forehand drive.
Check out hit vs drive. I have made self practice drill for forehand drive which is to drop a ball on the table and play it when the ball is falling after bounce. Should figure out the angle and swing trajectory before adjusting speed to play the ball over the net.
I was very bad at forehand drive too. I learned forcing me to open my bat angle to 90º, totally vertical, and making the swing almost horizontal, so that the ball would go just a few centimeters over the net. Once I achieved that with consistency I closed the bat about 10-15º and made the swing a little upwards to slightly "lick" the ball, having more control. And that's it.
when i shift weight my upper body rotates and sways noticeably from side to side like this 3:12, and there 0:06 and ma long footage is seems it just rotates, so you need to shift weight very slightly without lifting your heels off the floor?
I will try to make a video about that! Choosing paddle in the beginning is not so easy as there are so many paddles and rubbers. If you are starting out, I recommend all wood blade plus some decent rubbers(over$40 for each). And it also depends on your style as well. Let me know your style, I will give you some recommendations!
started table tennis at 34 y.o this year and keep making same mistakes. have been watching this multiple times to remind me of the right way. thank you.
This technique is crucial for table tennis. By mastering it, we can learn other skills more easily.
This guide is so so so good. I am 37, trying to learn the proper technique for 25 years, and only now there is a clear way for myself to feel the proper body transfer of weight and have a real forehead technique. Thank you so so so much
This is the best and thorough step by step instruction on forehand drive. Highly recommended for all beginners.
The weight transition part is quite helpful.
Thank you because of you i got feel of body weight shifting
Perfect concise instruction for teaching my wife how to hit.Thank you
super rich information for a 7mins video. hope to see more of this. thanks.
sir our club, here in Philippines, female members are mostly short pips on backhand. can you please make a series of video about short pips BH. thanks
I have a problem when trying to learn the forehand drive. I often twist my wrist when hitting the ball which will end up in the net. I know this is wrong but still the same mistake repeats. Not every time but in one of ten strokes or so. It happens especially when I need to adjust my body position backwards. (when the ball comes more to the middle of the table). Do you have any tips to get away from this bad habit?
Thank you boss 😊
very useful tips for beginner , Thank You .
Thank you!!
Nice instruction! I like how this has the tips to practice alone and good explanation on using the body weight.
Thanks! More videos are to come!!
Very helpful directions....Thanx a lot.👍
Thank you for watching!
This is so great. It’s always helpful to refine the fundamentals!
Thank you! I can not stop emphasizing the fundamentals, they are the foundations of all.
Super lesson!!!
Great Video . My problem with forehand drive n counterplay is that the wrist comes to play n I end up hitting the ball of the table. My wrist is not locked while playing forehand.
Please suggest some tips to overcome that
Thank you for sharing! I;ve been playing table tennis on and off for years now and i just learn today that i use my arm too much instead of my body. This is exactly what i need to work on, thank you coach.
Thank you! I am glad that this video could help someone! :)
amazing!!! super to the point and enlightening~ looking forward to all of the upcoming contents! 수고하세요!
Thank you so much for your encouraging words!!!
Superb video
Thank you Daniel ,also helped me greatly also!!!
Thank YOU! I am glad that this could help.
Amazing video. Thank you.
Thank you!!
Great video Daniel! It was easy to understand and follow along. Unlearning bad habits is hard but with your video, I can practice more and develop good habits.
Thank you Chris! I will continue to explain smash and backhand drive and all the other techniques as easy as possible!
Great
Very useful instruction! Thanks a lot~
Thank you for watching it!
very good
very good lesson . I am a beginner and my main problem with forehand drive ( forehand loop much more ) is that I hit a ball off the table. My ball from forehand side are too long. Any sugestion how to correct this mistake / . I have no problem to hit 20 backhand drives in 1 row. Regards to you Daniel.
Great video and big thanks. Anu option to make similar video for fh loop (fh power) near the table?
Thank you. Will do!
Hello, thanks for the video. It did help me a lot. I understand what I have to do but I don't know if am doing it right. Like some time when I hit the ball it does go over the net and I think is because my paddle is not in the right position. How can I be sure am doing it right?
Place a target on the other side, and if you ball is long and low with very little topspin on it, you are probably doing ok!
Thanks!
Very good video. What is the name of the background music?
Great Video, again. But the thing I yet have to understand is when the movement of the arm is kicking in. I've been playing fh topspin and drive without using my arm at all (just using the body) for quite some time. My usage of the body really improved by that. But now I want to make my strokes even faster and more compact, so I want to return using the arm as well. But somehow no matter at which point during the stroke I start using my arm, it always feels off. If I start using my arm at the same time as using my body it feels like I'm losing power by it but if I use it to late my arm swings to much to the side and to high up(because my arm is really relaxed)! At which point does the arm movement set in during fh Drive and Topspin?
That is a great question!!! I have some footage about this, I will try to edit and upload near future. In the meantime, it’s great that you are using body. The order is you use your body then arm so that your arm can become like a whip for max swing speed and energy transfer to the ball on the impact.
I really like your videos. I have a mistake when playing table tennis that can't be fixed forever: there is no side rotation and no foot force, so the ball hits less spin and the ball is light. Could you please help me to fix this error. thank you
You are correct that a fast ball without spin feels light. Spin with speed makes the receiver feel heavier. Don’t over think and fix one thing at a time. One, hip rotation and push(make sure your hip joints are bent), Two squeeze core (turning your shoulders 90degree sideways will do) and three arm swing speed(try to feel it like a whip and use each joint shoulder elbow and wrist at the contact to add swing speed forward).
Try to do one and two first then lastly add three. Although using elbow joint can help.
One simple solution to increase swing speed is to have bigger back swing. More space more power but less consistent.
Thanks Daniel. I notice that in the video of Ma Long you show, the movement of his forehand almost seems circular and that he is dropping his forehand down and then coming back up. Is this considered the proper way to do this?
Yes! Very good eyes. For many advanced players, we tend to drop the paddle just to gain more space to speed up the swing and also be able to adjust to the balls which is not good when your swing is not yet formed. So, if you observe, he drops but then he finds the ball height so his paddle comes back up then go forward. So his motion has 3 points : drop - bring it back behind the ball's height - then swing forward. You can ignore the 1 point which is to drop in the beginning just because when people start to drop, they think about dropping to much where they shouldn't. They need to focus more on finding just behind the ball then go forward. Remember, the efficiency is the key. Don't need to add extra steps to your swing. :)
@@roadtopro3038 Why he drops his hand down. I believe bc in this moment hand gets relaxed to apposite when we contact the ball. Ball hit - tension breath out, drop the hand - relaxation, breath in.
do you have videos about backhand drive
Good
Thank you!!!
Hey coach, I know that this is a very old post but I think the question is valid. I can see that your suggested contact point is more parallel to the body and Ma Long's seems to be a little bit in front of him. Can you comment on this?
Once you get familiar with forehand technique with straight wrist, you can start to loosen up and use it like a whip. So in Ma Long’s case, his wrist is bent a little back naturally and contact a little in front of him. So he initiates the stroke with body rotation and uses the arm like a whip, so his contact point seems a little in front of him. This is totally fine as I say there is no absolute right thing. It’s all about what kind of ball are we trying to send and how consistent. You can see how different timo boll’s swing from Ma long but they both play so good. This guidance is for the people who don’t understand the contact point or only using the body or the wrist and so on therefore the shots are inefficient and inconsistent.
Also ma long contacts the ball there because he stands far from the table that he is using more energy-using his body more like a whip.
Thanks coach! I find my self having a hard time with contact point, for driving its working better in front of me and looping Im achieving better results with parallel contact point and after the peak. 🤷🏾♂️ Such a complex game if you want to do it right.
Hi, my forehand drive lacks speed and most go out. Also I am too fixed on hitting a flat shot, rather than taking my arm up for topspin. Pl suggest how to improve
If it’s too flat and goes out sometimes, the angle may be too open to begin with. Try to close the angle a little and swing about 30degree upwards and forward.
Usefull
Hi,
Could you recommend a setup for learning FH drive for non-beginner. No need for brands, just principles. General opinion is to use no carbon blades and medium hardness rubbers. Not sure with plastic balls though.
Currently I'm using Viscaria (you know, need for speed) blade with boosted DHS H3 FH and Tibhar MX-S for BH. I wouldn't say it's too fast, probably due to low FH efficiency. I have relatively good BH drive and topspin ( feeling that good clicking sound with sponge activation) but FH is total mess. Wondering if I should step back...Funny thing, at the beginning I couldn't use BH and now FH is serious weakness, unless opponent initiates; then I have better sync of body and good cracking " effortless" topspins.
I suspect two problems: late contact, from "behind" (ball reaching shoulder plane) not in front (thus insufficient weight transfer) and speed from A to C (bad mechanics of arm, brute force/not smooth and no automation; cannot connect low-mid-upper body ).
Really frustrated as I dive deeper and deeper in the rabbit hole.
Best regards,
Adi
Make it land between 3rd and 4th section of the table near the endline and have the top of the bounce between net's height x1.5 to x2 with very gentle top spin. Strong topspin forces your paddle to close thus not helping the angle of the paddle aligning with the swing direction. on the bounce it will naturally generate soft topspin.
For more Q & A please join me on Patreon!
@@roadtopro3038 Thanks! It seems it's a matter of efficiency. A friend that I "train" with (longer warm-ups FH and BH, mainly static...) noticed in a back court loop to loop drill that I have a very closed paddle. I became really aware of this yesterday at a tournament when a few balls (unloaded, low speed-no spin) literally stopped in my paddle, me trying to topspin. Also I analyzed two trained 9 year olds, one of which being prone to nets; well he always had the paddle closed.
All in all the "trick" is in hitting the ball with a more open angle but generating spin in a upward-forward movement, loading the ball both with spin and speed. This makes me dizzy :) I actually produced at the tournament like 8 true quality pieces, mid distance, finishing points, at 60-70% power. Conversion to forward and rotational motion occurred with high efficiency. Not sure how I did it.
Another thanks for your videos and answers!
@@adi84g you are very right on the point!! Interestingly, there are so many players who close the paddle to start the swing and still don’t understand why the balls go to the net
@@roadtopro3038 KUDOS to you!
Luckily my partner recorded a couple of my games during tournament. After corroborating this with my recollection of things, plus me changing FH rubber last week, the mystery slowly dissipates. Well I switched from a 40 degree hardness commercial H3 to a 39 degree less tacky provincial H3. There's a huge difference of perceived hardness between the two. Bottom line the softer sponge gave more dwell on the paddle and batter (easier) sponge activation. This two aspects made loops and topspins at lower power more accessible, thus a lesser need of paddle closing.
Regarding my initial question, now I think that I'm not very wrong when I say that the biggest mistakes I've made in table tennis are equipment and not focusing sufficiently on basics.
1. Migrating quickly to faster, harder and stiffer blades that masked to a certain point poor efficiency;
2. Migrating quickly to harder rubbers. Again masking low efficiency.
3. "Developing" topspin on week drive foundation.
All these lead to a somewhat batter BH (during high speed games) but disaster on FH.
There's a big difference between knowing and "visceral " knowing. Also our feelings can mess up reality.
Perhaps these long posts of my struggles will help a few out there.
i am weak when slow short ball comes at forehand side then i am not able to do topspin and no power comes when when try to drive the ball. how to improve forehand for short and slow ball received at forehand side. one more question, will improving forehand drive will also inhance the forehand top spin, basically i want to know why we learnt forehand drive why it is important when we directly not jumped in forehand top spin. what in connection between learning forehand drive and forehand top spin.
Whats the forehand drive for? is it to safely return the ball when the opponent smashes? or if the ball is too low to loop, or as an emergency when you only just reach the ball with foot work but not fast enough to execute an attack? I only see pple use forehand drive during practice it appears so I'm a bit confused on what the best use of it is.
My next video is about the concept of “driving” the ball. So basically, you don’t use the forehand drive in the game as you will most likely loop, smash, push, flick or block. On the other hand, you always need to use the concept of “driving” on most of the techniques for efficiency and consistency and the driving can be learned most easily from forehand drive. So you can just think it as a basic/fundamental technique that lead you to unlock all the other advanced techniques.
tq.....
My apologies if this is a obvious question.... I struggle with the contact point and am trying to see the problem with your "practicing alone" example at baseline. Are you saying that this position has you practicing with the contact point too far behind?
I welcome any kind of questions! I didn’t quite catch the question though. Can you explain it one more time?
@@roadtopro3038 sorry for the confusion. At 4:03 you have an "X" drawn through you in the 'practice alone' segment while you stand at the end of the table ? Still not sure why that is in regards to contact point practice . Hope that is clearer
@@mediumdun18 yes if you stay there then you would have to drop the ball on the floor and it won’t bounce back high enough and/or consistently so that you can practice. And if you drop it on the table then it’s too far.so to force the contact to be on the side, you can stand next to the sideline(right foot on the baseline/endline) then you can drop the ball on the table and play.
@@roadtopro3038 thx so much.....makes sense and may be at the root of my problem with forehand contact . Much appreciated
@@mediumdun18 good luck!!! Let me know if any progress is made!!!
Sir, i am unable to do forehand drive, my forehand drive is always similar to forehand topspin, i am not able to differentiate between forehand drive and forehand topspin. my other collegue says that you r good in top spin but zero in forehand drive. please make some drive which i practice at home with wall/top to improve forehand drive.
Check out hit vs drive. I have made self practice drill for forehand drive which is to drop a ball on the table and play it when the ball is falling after bounce. Should figure out the angle and swing trajectory before adjusting speed to play the ball over the net.
I was very bad at forehand drive too. I learned forcing me to open my bat angle to 90º, totally vertical, and making the swing almost horizontal, so that the ball would go just a few centimeters over the net. Once I achieved that with consistency I closed the bat about 10-15º and made the swing a little upwards to slightly "lick" the ball, having more control. And that's it.
🏓👍
👍👍👍💪
when i shift weight my upper body rotates and sways noticeably from side to side like this 3:12, and there 0:06 and ma long footage is seems it just rotates, so you need to shift weight very slightly without lifting your heels off the floor?
When you become used to the technique, there will be almost just rotations, keeping a good balance! So you are right.
Are you supposed to use any arm on the shot?
@@kabnis2022 what do you mean by any arm?
@@roadtopro3038 is the arm supposed to move at all or is it all from the body rotating back and forward?
@@kabnis2022 body rotation then push the elbow forward to make the swing more linear.
im trying to find out how to configurate the right paddle for me. Any help? please
I will try to make a video about that! Choosing paddle in the beginning is not so easy as there are so many paddles and rubbers. If you are starting out, I recommend all wood blade plus some decent rubbers(over$40 for each). And it also depends on your style as well. Let me know your style, I will give you some recommendations!
+