Chopping, etc.

It has been about a month since I decided to try out chopping, and I must say, I’m making some progress.  However, I’ve also realized that playing a chopping style competitively is much harder than I had imagined.  I’ll share some observations I’ve made about both equipment and technique.

As far as equipment goes, I’ve tried several different combinations (by the way, my spell check is telling me “combinations” is not a real word — interesting), but most of them only for very short periods at a time.  Here’s the list: YEO (AN) + Memo 2 (max) + Feint Long 2 (1.3); BTY Matsushita Pro + Mark V GPS (1.8) + Stiga Destroyer (0.5); HK + H3 + Feint Long 3 (1.3).  I’ve also had a Dawei long pip for a very short period on the HK, and that was with a 0.6 sponge.  And here are my impressions:

- Strangely enough, there is little difference in speed between the Matsushita (definitely a DEF blade) and the HK (I would put it as OFF-, even if DHS says it’s OFF++).  Comparing them side by side, I was able to adjust to chopping very easily between the two (on the FH side, at least).  However, it is nearly impossible to attack with the 1.8 FH rubber on the Matsushita, while it was still possible to attack with the HK.

- As of now, I definitely prefer a relatively thick sponge (like 1.3) over the thin ones (like 0.5).  It’s very surprising how much difference the sponge makes between pips!  Mainly, even though long distance chopping is easier with the thin sponge, I just can’t seem to predict the behavior of short balls.

- Along those lines, the Feint Long 3 is the coolest long pip I’ve tried so far.  I’m actually able to produce quite a bit of spin with it off dead balls (of course, nowhere near smooth), and I’m able to control my pushes against underspin much more easily.  In general, it makes my short game predictable (for me), which is great.  On the other hand, it has very little deception for a long pip, so I guess that’s the weakness.  However, at my level, a deceptive long pip tricks me just as much as my opponents, so I would rather go with something I can control.  In fact, I can even attack with the FL3 fairly easily… it reminds me of a very slow short pip!

- As much as I love H3, I find myself eating my own spin, especially after my opponents push back a forehand chop.  I feel more comfortable with tacky Chinese rubbers, but I’m starting to wonder if I should move to something softer and grippier on the forehand.  Or maybe just something less sensitive to spin.  In the end, I don’t think it’ll be that big of a deal, but it is certainly hard to actively push back heavy underspin with H3.  It’s also hard to run up really fast and loop it.

Ok, now for technique.  Basically, it is very difficult.  The forehand chop comes fairly naturally to me, but I’ve been struggling a lot with the backhand chop, especially when I’m not as far out as I would like.  With looping, my stroke can be pretty much vertical, but I still have faith that my loops will land (perhaps this is just due to years of experience), but with chopping, I’m very scared to chop with that kind of angle.  I want to open my blade more than I should (psychological?), which sometimes causes the chop to go way high and long, but at other times, seems to cause the ball to die much earlier than I would expect.  Chopping is very tricky business, and for now, it definitely seems that there is a much smaller window for error compared to looping.  Even when I am very confident in my chops, they will often fly long without that topspin to drop it back on.  In any case, I think I’ve made some great progress with the backhand chop lately, mostly just breaking that mental barrier.  Unfortunately, I still have one huge weakness, and that is stamina.  I don’t know if it’s because I have to run back and forth so much, or if it’s because I have to constantly be thinking about adjusting my stroke for the incoming balls, but I get tired VERY EASILY when I chop.  Basically, I can only play one match, and then I’m spent.  It’s not necessarily that my body is tired, but I end up mentally fatigued.  I’ve noticed that I can only play one match while being focused, and my next match is always a mental disaster.  This is bad news for tournaments, although I’m not planning on playing chopping competitively in the near future.

Oh, last thing.  Using a slow combo has improved my game in one aspect: service!  Since I started chopping, I’ve been very careful about keeping my short serves short, because I definitely need time to scoot back far enough to be comfortable chopping.  That is probably the single hardest thing so far: buying time to move back to chop.  Anyway, out of necessity, I’ve been working on my short serves, and now I actually get many more direct points from my serves than I used to get.  Pretty nice!

There’s a tournament (unrated) coming up in a week and a half here.  It’s a giant round robin.  I might enter just to see how well I do chopping.  Hope I don’t collapse from exhaustion!

Biggest Entry Ever

Ok, this might not be my longest entry ever, but it has been a LONG time since I last posted anything, so this will be packed with material.  I’m going to try to make it concise.

First things first — Nationals!  In a word: awesome.  I can’t say I played that well, but it was definitely a unique experience, and probably the coolest tournament I’ve ever played.  I think there were 91 tables, and they were all brand new BTY tables with REALLY blue tops.  I don’t know if it was just me or what, but they were blindingly blue.  In fact, I had a very hard time seeing the ball at first, because all I could see was the table.  Actually, I had problems with my backhand timing the entire time.  Maybe the bright tables messed with my depth perception, but I always felt the ball was closer than it really was, so my BH always came out early, resulting in me looking like an idiot reaching for a ball which was really far in front of me.  Strangely, my forehand didn’t really encounter this problem, so I can’t explain what happened there.  I got to play against many interesting styles, and I met lots of cool people, so even if I didn’t do that well, it was a great experience.  I mean, ping pong from 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM every day for 4 days is just too awesome.  Additionally, spending the whole time with friends, good food, slots (I won $10, which I think is pretty good), and tea station?  Can’t beat that.  When I first got back, I was going to write a very detailed entry on it, but there was just way too much to write about, so I got intimidated (and lazy).  Let’s just say I definitely want to go back this year, if I can.  The only downside is that it’s VERY exhausting.  Six or seven hours of sleep every night is not nearly enough for me, especially when I’m being active all day.  By the end, I was lucky to not have collapsed.  But, again, totally worth it!

Next topic: chopping.  After nationals, I felt like I needed a change of scenery, so to speak.  Oh, I did take off the T05 and replace it with the Thor’s, which is feeling better and better the more I use it.  The throw angle is much more predictable now, and and only real problem I have with it is the occasional slip, usually against really high, arcing topspin balls.  Trying to spin the ball back gently usually results in slipping, but I guess I can remedy that by just driving the ball more.  Anyway, I’m not really sure it offers anything more than, say, H3, but it seems to work just fine, and feels a little softer.  In any case, I thought I would try to pick up chopping.  Long story short, I now have H3 and Feint Long 3 (1.3 mm) on my HK, and it’s pretty awesome.  Before that, I was using the Tuttle Beijing 3 and Dawei long pips (the name escapes me, but it’s something like 388D-1), but the Beijing 3 was just… useless, and the Dawei pips seemed more for blocking than chopping (they were pretty stiff).  The H3 is better in all aspects (although I guess the Beijing 3 is very user-friendly), and my forehand chops are pretty ridiculously spinny, I think.  The players around here seem to have a very hard time attacking them.  By backhand chop needs a lot of work, but it’s getting there, and the FL3 is pretty much the coolest long pip I’ve ever tried.  However, it seems that playing a chopping style competitively is pretty much impossible.  It’s just ridiculously hard to earn points.  Maybe I’m just impatient, but I have to chop so many times before I can force an error, and as of now, I make just as many mistakes as the attacker!  Of course, I just started chopping, so I’m not expecting to suddenly be great at it.  It just seems like a highly inefficient style.  It’s fun to practice, but I can imagine how frustrating it can be in competition.  I don’t think I’m planning to participate in any tournaments in the near future, so I’m hoping to stick with it and get to a decent level soonish.  I think it’ll help me understand the game better when I can play from another perspective.

Speaking of perspectives, I’m being forced to use my left hand (almost exclusively).  My dad says my back is dangerously uneven (I have to agree that it seems weird), so until I get it cleared by a doctor (or chiropractor?), I can’t play with my right hand.  That sucks!  So, I used my left hand for over an hour of continuous play today, and I think I’m making good progress.  My BH and FH strokes (just warming up hitting) are both decent, and I can loop with the forehand (not at all with the backhand).  I also seem to have very little problem pushing with my forehand, but a huge problem with the backhand, which is the exact opposite of what happened when I first learned with my right hand.  Very strange!  But the hard part is not getting the strokes down.  For some reason, my reaction time goes way up when I change hands, so I’m pretty much just staring at the ball when it comes over, but my body won’t move at all.  Also,  I need to constantly remind myself that my legs need to do the opposite of what they’re used to doing — much easier said than done.  This is quite an experience, but as with the long pips, I think this will pay off somehow in the future.  Who knows, maybe I’ll learn “cleaner” technique with my left hand, and it’ll end up being my better hand!  But I also realized that the MJ feels very fast when I use it left-handed, so I just put together a new blade!  Violin + TG3 Neo + Sriver.  This should be perfect!  I’ll test it out tomorrow.

Wow, that was quite a bit of information.  Actually, there’s a lot more that I would have liked to post, but I just can’t afford to spend all day and night typing away.  Happy 2011!  I hope I’ll update this more frequently, since I’ll be doing lots of experimenting in the upcoming months.

HPB, among other things

I think all my work with investigating equipment is paying off!  Not only do I know my own taste very well, I just constructed a setup for a friend and he loves it.  Awesome.  But that’s not important.  I think I’ve mentioned that paying full price for Tenergy is just way too much now, so I’m trying to switch back to Chinese rubbers.  After a week, I moved from H3 Neo to TG3 Neo (my old sheets are still in great condition!), and I think I’ve finally started to make the transition.  Tenergy is far superior against topspin, no doubt about that, but yesterday, I was fairly successful counterlooping with the TG3.  Right now, my problem is that although I have a great opening loop (people around here can’t seem to block it), if it comes back, I’m not so great against the incoming topspin.  Chinese rubbers require greater precision, I think, because spinning with it causes it to be fairly high throw (as you’d expect), while hitting with it (especially the TG3) drastically lowers the throw angle.  Often, when I’m mid distance and fishing, the ball will just go straight into the net because it’s somehow immune to incoming spin.  In either case, it’s a very strange phenomenon, and becomes a problem when I try to hit very hard.  I have to be very careful about balancing the spinning and hitting during a loop drive (or kill), otherwise the ball just flies out unpredictably.  Tenergy has essentially the same throw regardless of the stroke, and is much more forgiving for the hard shots.  Oh well, regardless of how much I miss the T05, I’m going to stick with this for a while and hopefully never have to pay over$60 (that’s INSANE) for a sheet of rubber.  What I do like about the TG3 is the short game control.  Pushing and flipping feel very natural!

But you know what else feels very natural?  Hammond Pro Beta!  I really liked the Pryde 40 on my BH, but the topsheet started looking bad very quickly (less than a month), and I was worried about the durability.  It played fine, despite the looks, but it just seemed like it wouldn’t last much longer.  Definitely not half a year or more.  Also, I felt that it was giving me a lot of free power, and I want to improve my power by improving technique, so I was looking for a more “classic” rubber for my BH.  I finally settled on Hammond Pro Alpha, because although I’ve never had my own sheet in the past, I’ve been very impressed by its performance every time I tried it.  So, why did I end up getting Beta over Alpha?  It’s supposed have to have a softer sponge (lighter, hopefully), and someone at club has a sheet, and after 3 or 4 months, it literally looks brand new.  There isn’t a single sign of wear on the sheet.  It was only a few dollars more, anyway, so why not give it a shot?  Well, I’m certainly glad I gave it a shot, because it’s amazing.  You know how some rubbers have that “no-miss” feeling (T05)?  This is even better.  Instead of just feeling like you can’t miss… you literally can’t miss.  For some reason, when I block with this, the ball just goes in.  The incoming spin just doesn’t seem to matter at all.  It’s definitely slower than the Pryde 40, and feels harder (it actually has a very classic feel), but my BH loop is still quite good, and is as consistent as ever (maybe even more).  I’ve only used it for a week, so I can’t comment on the durability, but it still looks brand new, and it feels like it should be a very durable rubber.  Mine is 1.9, and I think if I get good enough, I can move up to 2.1, but that probably won’t be for another year or so.  My only complaint so far is that, coming from the Pryde 40, HPB has no glue sound.  But whatever, it’s still awesome, and I think that louder sounds often equate to lower durability, so it’s just as well!

Oh, I think the backhand loop (or backhand in general) is finally becoming a natural part of my game.  After switching from my pips, I always had to think about my stroke, and tell myself to use my backhand to loop long balls to my backhand.  Well, while I was playing last night, I noticed that I naturally looped the long balls to my backhand, without even thinking!  This is great news.  Speaking of great news, I think I get to go to Nationals this year.  My first time!  I hope I play well.  It seems unlikely for me to play in a tournament until then (looks like I’ll be working during my events at Pac Rim), so I really want to take this time to get adjusted to the TG3 and HPB (though the latter hardly needs adjustment).  Lastly, my friend just bought a Killerspin blade, and I’ve never really seen one before, much less played with one, so I’m fairly excited to see how it performs.  My hopes aren’t high, but I do want to write about it.  That should be coming up within a week.

Loosen Up

Long time no update!  My apologies, for I have been playing too much SC2 during my free time.  But really, there hasn’t been that much going on TT-wise.  As far as equipment goes, I haven’t gotten a chance to really try anything new.  Well, actually, I did buy a sheet of LKT Black Power and Gambler Six Shooter Pretune, and put them both on my Primo Vitesse.  I’ve read positive reviews on both rubbers (especially the black power), but I have to say that I was thoroughly disappointed in both.  It could just be that it was a bad fit with the blade, but the Primo has been great with Sriver, H3, IQUL, and just about everything I’ve put on it (aside from pips), so I’m going to blame the rubber.  Basically, both rubbers were so slow they were unplayable.  I had to hit the ball really hard just to make it over the net.  The Black Power probably takes a very long time to break in (longer than H3, I’m assuming), because it wasn’t able to generate all that much spin, either.  The Six Shooter just didn’t grip the ball, so when I tried looping, the ball just fell straight down.  When I get more time to mess around, maybe I’ll try it again, but I haven’t been so unimpressed with a rubber for a long time.

The past weekend, I went down to Berkeley to play in the Berkeley Open.  My goal was just to win a single match (because I’ve been on a long losing streak), and I definitely accomplished that!  Overall, it was a surprisingly good tournament for me, which basically just means I beat the people I was expected to (based on ratings), and lost to the ones who were expected to beat me (for the most part).  Although I did play very good games with the higher rated people, I’m happy with the results, even if I lost those matches.  I’ve never been so sleep-deprived and sore (from sleeping on the ground several days leading to the tournament), so this tournament has been my worst in terms of physical shape.  During the first day, I thought I would just collapse before my matches even started.  However, my mental game was better than usual (at least, I wasn’t as nervous).  This is probably due to me being way too tired to get nervous, but whatever works.  Overall, I’m pretty happy with the results.

At the tournament, I wasn’t confident with my backhand at all.  It was feeling ok, but not good enough to use actively in a match.  However, I think I may have had an epiphany which will give me confidence in future tournaments!  Today, I hit a barrier while attempting a forehand loop.  Hitting a cardboard barrier, no big deal, right?  Well, since you need a lot of acceleration to pull off a decent loop, I really accelerated into that barrier, and it feels like I broke some bones in my wrist.  Of course I’m exaggerating, but it hurt, and it still hurts when I move my hand.  Anyway, that led to me holding my paddle very loosely, and putting very little force into my strokes, which is apparently exactly what the BH calls for.  Just by keeping my paddle closed and swinging naturally with no effort, my shots were not only much more consistent, but also much more powerful!  I don’t know how this happened, but I feel like my BH just went up 300 points (still far, far behind my FH, unfortunately).  I’m going to let my wrist heal for a couple days, but I can’t wait to try this again the next time I get to practice.  The amazing thing is that it works equally well against underspin (for opening), and against topspin (I was actually able to counter loops).  My previous problem, I believe, is that I was trying too hard to force the ball to do what I want.  Now, as long as I get the timing down, everything else just magically works out.  Needless to say, I am pretty excited about this new discovery!

On the Brink!

I feel like I’m very close to a breakthrough. Well, not really, but I’m finally getting used to inverted techniques on the BH side. During practice, my backhand loop is quite good, but in real matches, I have trouble with timing. It’s very hard to change from a very short pip stroke to a longer smooth stroke. Also, it requires quite a bit of footwork for me, because the window to pull off a good loop is VERY small for me at this point (I can’t seem to adjust at all). I’m also starting to play a little more aggressively over the table with the backhand (I try to think of ZJK when I play), and although it’s getting better, I still have a very long way to go. Basically, my backhand has become pure spin, and it’s hard for me to get good pace on the ball while keeping it on the table. The next step in my plan is to get more practice with serves. I seem to have a mental block (especially in doubles) when it comes to serving. Against an empty table, I can keep my serves short 95% of the time without a problem, but once I see an opponent on the other end, the percentage quickly drops to 50 or lower. It’s stupid, really, so I just have to get over it. Lastly, and very importantly, I have a problem with stroke recovery. Well, not exactly, but I can’t seem to prevent my grip from changing after a backhand stroke. I end up using a KLH grip, and my forehand gets all screwed up for the next shot.

Anyway, I think I’m currently in that slump that precedes a (hopefully) drastic improvement. Once everything clicks, I should be playing at a noticeably higher level than before. We shall see in the coming few months.

The Madness!

Lately, I’ve been really trying to work on my backhand loop.  Although I’m getting more comfortable with it, it’s just not that powerful.  However, I’ve recently tried a more reckless approach, and it seems to be working.    I pretty much just close the blade and swing wildly (think Kreanga).  Surprisingly, it’s actually quite consistent, and is very powerful.  The only problem is that it just feels unnatural.  In my mind, I’m just generating a lot of sidespin, and combining that with hitting hard seems like a recipe for disaster.  How can it ever hit the table?  Well, it does.  Of course, there is some anticipation necessary for this stroke, and I can’t do it unless I’m fairly far back.

Anyway, I think my game is improving a little bit.  I rarely make unforced errors with touch shots on my backhand, and my loops go in more often than I expect.  Today, I played a fairly close game (3-2, and it was 8 or something in the last game) with a pretty good player.  Definitely better fundamentals than mine, and he had a very good backhand loop (reminds me of Oh Sang Eun, but of course not THAT good).  It was effortless, and he looped many balls I thought were way too short or low (over the table).  I still have much to learn!  He’s just a very stable player.  Almost no unforced errors, which is where I’m hoping I’ll be soon.  Actually, although I’ve been making lots of “miracle” shots, I’ve also made lots of stupid mistakes with blocking and stuff.  Blocking is such an essential skill, and really one of my preferred shots, so I can’t afford to make mistakes there!

Lastly, I have to note that I tried my friend’s Photino + T05 + T64 today.  You might know that I’m not a fan of the Photino (always thought it was too stiff and fast), but it actually wasn’t bad at all!  Definitely my best Photino experience to date.  It WAS very fast, but not uncontrollable (although I didn’t test the short game, where I think it would suffer most), and it was LIGHTER than my MJ + T05 + Pryde 40.  I can’t believe my blade is heavier than a double tenergy blade.  I guess the Photino is really light or something.

70%

This was a great week for me.  I didn’t have to teach, so I was actually able to play on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday!  I really want to get my backhand developed, so I’ve been trying to use it more, although now my forehand isn’t as consistent as it was before.  It’s hard to believe, but I think my timing is still off due to the weight.  Either that or something else has been (and still is) off, because I hit so many edges.  In any case, I feel about 70% confident on my backhand now.  By that, I mean that in my mind, I hit 70% of the shots in.  Is that actually true?  Probably not.  But I definitely see improvement, and yesterday, my practice partner told me that my backhand was pretty spinny, which is great because I’ve been trying to learn to add more spin.  There’s still much more potential in there, though, so I still need to work on it.  What’s interesting is that I found that my left hand naturally does the Ma Long “swimming” motion, albeit not to that extent.  I do feel myself sticking my left arm out to help prevent my body from twisting too much.  Need to start with small strokes to build consistency!  Then I can try adding power.  By far, the hardest thing is the timing and footwork (very related for backhand).  There’s such a small window to hit, because not only do you have to take it right in the middle of your body (whereas forehand has quite a bit of range for you to extend/contract your arm), it’s also nearly impossible to hit the ball once it goes high enough.  I mean, with the forehand, you have MUCH more room for adjustment, both vertically and horizontally.  I’m not able to slow the ball down as much as I was with pips, so it’s usually very bad for me if I don’t move perfectly into position and try to pull off a good shot (chopping and dead blocking are both harder to execute, and less effective).  Sometimes, I’m able to pull off miraculously good shots, and that always feels good, but of course, the success rate of those shots is far below 50%.  Right now, I feel like I have two very glaring weaknesses.  First is the movement/timing issues.  Second is my transition!  I can’t seem to prevent my grip from shifting when I use my BH (the momentum from the swing just twists my blade or something), so after a BH, my forehand grip is all messed up (think KLH).  This causes my next shot to really suck, so I need to figure out some way to transition my fingers faster.  Anyway, I’ll get to play again TOMORROW (man, this week is awesome), so I’ll keep working on that.  I hope I can find someone patient enough to just practice with me instead of wanting to play games (which is the case with most people on Saturday).

Long Serves

Lately, I’ve been testing out some long serves.  My usual serves are pretty much the worst possible length.  Long enough to be looped, but not so long that people need to back up.  Actually, I can usually get it so it barely goes long, and most people miss anyway (don’t want to bash their paddle into the table — I can understand the fear there).  That said, it’s been pretty good at preventing people from attacking hard (unless my opponent is much better than I am, in which case, I’m dead anyway).  Until now, my “long” serves haven’t been THAT long.  Usually serves that bait an attack (to a predictable place), so I can either counter (FH) or hopefully block with weird spin (BH).

The other day, I was showing a friend how to do a typical fast serve cross court, and I found that my fast serve is actually pretty good!  It’s not blazing fast, but I think the strength of the fast serve isn’t necessarily in its speed, but in the weird bounce.  The combination of high speed and low spin gives it a strange floating bounce, so that if the second bounce is deep enough (should be very close to opponent’s end of the table), it often seems like it won’t actually land.  Then it suddenly does.  I’ve been tricked by these kinds of serves before, where I think “oh, that’s totally not going to make it.”  Anyway, mine isn’t very fast, but it’s fairly fast, and I can get it pretty close to the end line consistently.  Really surprised myself with my awesome skills.  Additionally, I think I can make it either slight top (basically no spin), or actually a little underspin.  The underspin version has worked very well, because most people tend to want to punch it right away (so it goes into the net), or loop it (either down into the net or past the table).  Because it’s so fast, I think it’s necessary to actually slow the ball down if you want to loop it, and make sure you’re not trying to loop kill it, because then it eats the spin really quickly (fast incoming ball + fast stroke = very short contact time) and drops into the net.  Well, I still need to experiment more with this, because I haven’t used it against anyone with a very strong backhand loop (I can only serve fast cross court, so it’s always going into the backhand corner), or anyone fast enough to step around and use the forehand.  Also, because of the natural right handed sidespin, the ball always comes back to my backhand (darn!), so I need to be able to respond with a good attack.

Unfortunately, like I said, I can’t seem to be able to do a good fast down the line serve (the cheap serve).  It’s such a great serve to have, especially when facing people who just love stepping around.  I can do it decently, but only if I make it very obvious (at least to me, it seems way too obvious to ever work).  Also, I want a fast side/top serve that goes at a very severe angle off the backhand side, to force people to reach for it with their backhand.  I can get a pretty good angle right now, but the serve is slow, so although it’s good at forcing the return to come to my backhand side (pretty much happens 100% of the time, at least that I can remember), the return isn’t so weak that I can just kill it.

Oh, and it seems all this serving long business has made my short serve weak.  Rather, it has made my short serve… not short.  I had so much trouble keeping a basic short underspin on the table (double bounce)!  This is very bad news for doubles, which I hope to play at the next tournament, which should be sometime in June.  Today, I played a few doubles matches with my partner (hopefully honing our technique, and trying to synchronize a bit), and really, movement is a huge problem for us.  If it goes into a topspin rally, we always end up having to use backhand (end up on the forehand side), and that’s just death.  Now, if I can’t even keep my serves short, we’re really screwed!  Then again, today was a really bad day for us because of the humidity (my partner plays the same rubbers), so that threw us off.  Maybe that’s responsible for my serves going long, too.  We shall see tomorrow!

彈?

Today, instead of going to the club to play (rec center was closed due to gymnastics event — lame), I went to a friend’s garage.  Because my friends play double smooth, I decided to start off using that as well (to get a feel for it so I could be better at “coaching”), and I found this great technique.  Basically, it’s the SH version of a PH traditional backhand punch block.  However, because it’s with SH, I also am able to put my wrist into it.  So, to get a mental image, when a loop (the slower, spin type loops) comes over, I basically hit straight forward with a fairly open face and virtually no follow through.  Turns out, I was able to hit “through” the spin by keeping my contact time very short, and the ball would go back extremely fast (and amazingly consistently… I’m talking over 80% success, and these balls are never coming back), and very dead… maybe even with some underspin!  I don’t know if I was just having a magical day or what, but this shot is insane!  Aside from backing up and lobbing/fishing/chopping it back (impossible in a garage), I don’t see any other way (for a player around my level) to return this shot!  Sure, I have almost no control of the direction, but who needs control when you have a killer shot like this?  Well, ok, obviously this probably is (or at least should be) a low percentage shot, but at the rate I was going, I might have been able to get my success rate (or at least confidence rate) to over 90%, which is all you can ask for someone my level.  I’m guessing this is some extreme version of a 彈 (I believe that’s what it’s called when you pretty much hit a topspin right off the bounce).  It’s not a off-the-bounce loop like KLH, and it’s really more of a hitting the ball forward and downward instead of countering and utilizing the topspin for control.  The strangest thing was, I was able to do this very effectively using my BH on a FH shot (chicken wing style).  Maybe my paddle was magical.  Primo Vitesse with IQUL (great blade and great rubber… will have to write a review one of these days).

Oh yeah, so of course, after doing that for a while, I was determined to try this shot with my short pips.  Sadly, I found that, as with almost all other shots, the margin of error for the pips was much smaller than with smooth.  Using the same kind of stroke produced too much float, so the ball would hardly ever land.  Also, sometimes it would sink straight down, or float way up, depending on the incoming spin and the exact angle of the blade.  It’s all very technical with the pips.  In the end, I found that using more wrist (by turning the blade more horizontal) yielded a higher success rate.  I still feel more comfortable with the pips, but wow, that shot really makes me itch for some smooth backhand.

So, remember how I ordered that new stuff that I was going to review?  I have no idea if it has been shipped yet.  This is kind of frustrating, and I’m just hoping it’s on the way to me.  The merchant hasn’t responded to my emails, but I really want to test that stuff out, so I guess I’ll just have to sit and wait for it.  Unfortunately, that means that the reviews are going to come in this coming weekend at the earliest.  Cross your fingers for me!

Using the Body

Skip to the last half or so.

LGL has the most amazing serves I’ve ever seen — even with shakehand!  Clearly, the ball is really spinny, but it just loses its forward momentum after the second bounce!  I’ve never seen anything else like it.

Strangely enough, just two days ago, I was talking to someone who said that a coach told him that the way to make serves stay short and low like that is to use your body more.  LGL is famous for using ridiculous body rotation in his serves, but that must be the trick.  Unfortunately, I can’t seem to really use my body without creating an almost purely sidespin (corkscrew type) serve.  But that’s something to work on.