Great Video, and one of the videos I was desperately expecting - Thank you! I would like to clarify and "re phrase" one aspect of your video, please feel free to correct me. The need to clarify is needed because the anchor principle has huge impact on your footwork drills and movement patterns: you need to adapt and change, do not look at most of footwork patterns videos here at YT. The new/ additional phrase goes somehow like this: "At the end of your positioning period, footwork, you are ready to hit the ball, which implies 1) that elbow and knee are planted at the same time AND 2) you already have the weight on the correct foot to do the weight transfer during hit". Example: after being anchored for FH you have weight on right foot, skipped the transfer from left to right because you did it while landing. By footwork I mean any of: side-step or side-jump or one-step movement. Let's look at the consequences of this phrase for FH- and BH- Topspin and the different footwork patterns and moving directions: I.A. FH-Topspin, Need to go right - Side-Step to the right: first move left foot to right, then right foot to the right AND plant your weight together with hip movement and elbow on the right foot - One-Step to the right: move right foot to the right, left foot will be retighten during the movement, AND apply weight to the right foot (during planting) All this footwork patterns are "in line" with most of the training videos here at YT. I.B. FH Topspin, Need to go left Here is where it becomes not natural, like you mentioned in your video. If you do classic European side step to the left, meaning first right foot to left, then left foot to left, you end up having done no weight transfer and need to add this extra step or you have weight on left foot and try to hit, which is bad. Obviously you have to pivot starting with the left foot and ending with the right foot "weighted", there exist at least two different patterns for this, all come "naturally" with weight on the right foot after movement. As a consequence: do not apply side-step or one-step pattern to go left for playing FH, apply pivot instead. Let's look at BH, which will become more interesting: the footwork patterns are depending on your BH weight transfer during hit. There are two BH weight transfer techniques 1) from left to right, like FZD playing his power drive/ topspin and 2) from right to forward, like Ma Long with his renewed BH style since 2020 and obviously Mima Ito's BH punch. The consequences for each footwork pattern and corresponding directions playing BH can be derived from the above explanations. Just one example: European side-step to the left is good for left-to-right, but not optimal for right-to-forward weight transfer, and so on. Thx, Frank
yes, and yes! this channel is for people that are willing to use their brain. I can not be sure if you got it correctly in every detail, but based on your description I see that you see it the way it was intended. We were trying to simulate and adapt FZD mindset. Lot of people are trying to undermine those findings, but just because they are not used to it. World no.1 is proving them wrong. Not us. This video is summarizing your description of all details into one simple advice. [anchor your playing foot before every stroke, and let your feet fulfill this task naturally]. Just be aware of it and your footwork will adjust naturally. (more about movement in the next video). STROKE SPAN, ANCHORING and POSITONING is HOLLY TRINITY of table tennis. Yes, you still need some prerequisities as mentioned in previous videos, but those can be trained very rapidly. As you mentioned, transition between FH and BH is unnatural in the sense that conventional footwork breaks the anchor. Stability of the stroke is broken if elbow and knee are not in sync. Chinese players are willing to sacrifice one step for anchor and rather jump into the stroke from larger distance, because it is more stable and it saves more time (from both sides!). Actually, if they are about to lose their anchor, they extensively use their non playing hand to form pseudo anchor (study cross step footwork for example, or BH out of position). All FZD, LJK, LSD, LGY are doing it for great success. Good work Frank, keep studying this beautiful game :)
Thank you for the time and effort and uncovered little details that make a massive difference in my game, I would like to partly agree with previous comments slow motion video can deliver the information easier and quicker, if you can please keep that in mind. Thank you so much
After watching few times ,what I understood is plant your foot first and jump to reach if the ball doesn't comes according to our expectation.Side to side shuffle is old technique now.is it correct?
Mayank, If you do fast transition from FH to BH, then yes. You jump because you do not want to lose your anchor (imaginary "I" connection of your elbow to your knee) and you want to save time. You do not want to play BH with your arm stretched, right? Stretched arm means LOST ANCHOR. anchor is stroke stability. Shuffle is still most used footwork, but there is problem with it during fast transitions. It is symetrical. Whey you play the stroke imagine folded letter Y, starting from your knee. the upper "V" part is your effective hitting area, right? lower part "I" that is your Anchor. You always want to play shots from the same leg. lets mark it with (). so shufle right L(R)-hit. shuffle left RL it does not end at R so you need to add one more (R) against direction of your transition!. that is not optimal. it is slow and energy consuming. so you rather use first (R) in the RL shuffle. or to cover larger distance you do the same LR shuffle but in the oposite direction. if you look at pros, the L often lands after the BH hit. Actually there is one beautiful opening pattern that we discovered. we called it Diamond pattern. It will be discussed in later episode. it uses the same principle as described above. Hope it helps, have a nice day.
@@DESANGGG .Thank you very much for reply. I can understand that right to left movement in shuffle step will not be effective for forehand as I need weight on right leg and shuffle step ends with weight on left but do you recommend the weight on right leg while hitting backhand. This is not clear as this is not what I am taught at my place. I will grateful if you can explain this.
@@mayankchaturvedi570 please look at Fan ZD or LIang JK how they are performing BH warmup. Focus on the anchor and it will be much obvious to you. actually right to left movement is not effective for BH if you land on the left foot. This detail you got wrong.
@@DESANGGG wow .you are correct. I just saw Zhiang Jk backhand. Thanks a lot. I will try today's backhand swing with right leg as anchor. I can already feel it is going to be good.
@@mayankchaturvedi570 yes, that is the reason why footwork needs slight modificaition also. You will notice stability of your stroke will be much better. just keep the line of elbow and knee connected all the time. You are welcome. I wish you fast progress :)
Great Video, and one of the videos I was desperately expecting - Thank you!
I would like to clarify and "re phrase" one aspect of your video, please feel free to correct me. The need to clarify is needed because the anchor principle has huge impact on your footwork drills and movement patterns: you need to adapt and change, do not look at most of footwork patterns videos here at YT.
The new/ additional phrase goes somehow like this: "At the end of your positioning period, footwork, you are ready to hit the ball, which implies 1) that elbow and knee are planted at the same time AND 2) you already have the weight on the correct foot to do the weight transfer during hit". Example: after being anchored for FH you have weight on right foot, skipped the transfer from left to right because you did it while landing.
By footwork I mean any of: side-step or side-jump or one-step movement. Let's look at the consequences of this phrase for FH- and BH- Topspin and the different footwork patterns and moving directions:
I.A. FH-Topspin, Need to go right
- Side-Step to the right: first move left foot to right, then right foot to the right AND plant your weight together with hip movement and elbow on the right foot
- One-Step to the right: move right foot to the right, left foot will be retighten during the movement, AND apply weight to the right foot (during planting)
All this footwork patterns are "in line" with most of the training videos here at YT.
I.B. FH Topspin, Need to go left
Here is where it becomes not natural, like you mentioned in your video. If you do classic European side step to the left, meaning first right foot to left, then left foot to left, you end up having done no weight transfer and need to add this extra step or you have weight on left foot and try to hit, which is bad.
Obviously you have to pivot starting with the left foot and ending with the right foot "weighted", there exist at least two different patterns for this, all come "naturally" with weight on the right foot after movement.
As a consequence: do not apply side-step or one-step pattern to go left for playing FH, apply pivot instead.
Let's look at BH, which will become more interesting: the footwork patterns are depending on your BH weight transfer during hit. There are two BH weight transfer techniques 1) from left to right, like FZD playing his power drive/ topspin and 2) from right to forward, like Ma Long with his renewed BH style since 2020 and obviously Mima Ito's BH punch.
The consequences for each footwork pattern and corresponding directions playing BH can be derived from the above explanations. Just one example: European side-step to the left is good for left-to-right, but not optimal for right-to-forward weight transfer, and so on.
Thx,
Frank
yes, and yes! this channel is for people that are willing to use their brain. I can not be sure if you got it correctly in every detail, but based on your description I see that you see it the way it was intended. We were trying to simulate and adapt FZD mindset. Lot of people are trying to undermine those findings, but just because they are not used to it. World no.1 is proving them wrong. Not us.
This video is summarizing your description of all details into one simple advice. [anchor your playing foot before every stroke, and let your feet fulfill this task naturally]. Just be aware of it and your footwork will adjust naturally. (more about movement in the next video). STROKE SPAN, ANCHORING and POSITONING is HOLLY TRINITY of table tennis. Yes, you still need some prerequisities as mentioned in previous videos, but those can be trained very rapidly.
As you mentioned, transition between FH and BH is unnatural in the sense that conventional footwork breaks the anchor. Stability of the stroke is broken if elbow and knee are not in sync. Chinese players are willing to sacrifice one step for anchor and rather jump into the stroke from larger distance, because it is more stable and it saves more time (from both sides!). Actually, if they are about to lose their anchor, they extensively use their non playing hand to form pseudo anchor (study cross step footwork for example, or BH out of position). All FZD, LJK, LSD, LGY are doing it for great success.
Good work Frank, keep studying this beautiful game :)
It looks like video is giving important information which i am unable to grasp. I have already watched 2 times and will try one more time tomorrow.
Thank you for the time and effort and uncovered little details that make a massive difference in my game, I would like to partly agree with previous comments slow motion video can deliver the information easier and quicker, if you can please keep that in mind.
Thank you so much
Hey, I didn't get what you meant by planting our foot near the baseline of our stroke span. May you please elaborate?
At the end of the video there is a reference to older video explaining it in more detail. Hope it helps.
After watching few times ,what I understood is plant your foot first and jump to reach if the ball doesn't comes according to our expectation.Side to side shuffle is old technique now.is it correct?
Mayank, If you do fast transition from FH to BH, then yes. You jump because you do not want to lose your anchor (imaginary "I" connection of your elbow to your knee) and you want to save time. You do not want to play BH with your arm stretched, right? Stretched arm means LOST ANCHOR. anchor is stroke stability.
Shuffle is still most used footwork, but there is problem with it during fast transitions. It is symetrical.
Whey you play the stroke imagine folded letter Y, starting from your knee. the upper "V" part is your effective hitting area, right? lower part "I" that is your Anchor. You always want to play shots from the same leg. lets mark it with (). so shufle right L(R)-hit. shuffle left RL it does not end at R so you need to add one more (R) against direction of your transition!. that is not optimal. it is slow and energy consuming. so you rather use first (R) in the RL shuffle. or to cover larger distance you do the same LR shuffle but in the oposite direction. if you look at pros, the L often lands after the BH hit.
Actually there is one beautiful opening pattern that we discovered. we called it Diamond pattern. It will be discussed in later episode. it uses the same principle as described above.
Hope it helps,
have a nice day.
@@DESANGGG .Thank you very much for reply. I can understand that right to left movement in shuffle step will not be effective for forehand as I need weight on right leg and shuffle step ends with weight on left but do you recommend the weight on right leg while hitting backhand. This is not clear as this is not what I am taught at my place. I will grateful if you can explain this.
@@mayankchaturvedi570 please look at Fan ZD or LIang JK how they are performing BH warmup. Focus on the anchor and it will be much obvious to you.
actually right to left movement is not effective for BH if you land on the left foot. This detail you got wrong.
@@DESANGGG wow .you are correct. I just saw Zhiang Jk backhand. Thanks a lot. I will try today's backhand swing with right leg as anchor. I can already feel it is going to be good.
@@mayankchaturvedi570 yes, that is the reason why footwork needs slight modificaition also. You will notice stability of your stroke will be much better. just keep the line of elbow and knee connected all the time. You are welcome. I wish you fast progress :)
pls less text and more clear explanation video.