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Streaks

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As you may recall (or not), these past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to develop a better killing shot.  That is, I’ve been trying to not spin the ball so much, so that I can smack it faster.  Well, it turns out that I’ve lost the ability to spin now.  That’s probably not exactly true, but I have noticed that my serves and pushes seem to be less spinny, and I’m not getting that great “bite” when I try for spinny shots.  For example, on pushes, I’m not getting enough topsheet grip, and therefore the ball either slips away with little spin, or pops up due to sponge.  With loops, when it’s really spinny, you feel like the ball sort of lags behind at first, and I’m not feeling it.

Anyway, it’s most likely not the fault of my equipment.  Nevertheless, I switched back to my old H3 (not neo), and I’m going to test it out tonight to see if anything changes.  If I can attack nearly as well, while improving my short game (and service), I think it’s worth the switch back.  Plus, this topsheet looks amazing.  I think I got a magical sheet that never gets dirty.  I still have a couple months before I’m going to play in a tournament, so I still have a little room to mess around with different equipment.  I wonder if the H3 will feel different from what I remember.  Now that I’m more used to the MJ, the vibrations will probably feel softer.  Perhaps the purpose of the neo was just to tame the blade!  Well whatever, we shall see.

Oh, so back to the original reason for the post (I bet you were wondering what the title meant).  Improvement seems to happen to me in streaks.  That is, I’ll have sudden bursts of “enlightenment,” so to speak.  Seemingly overnight, I’d improve drastically (probably 200-300 points or so), and then hit a plateau for a long time.  Normally, you would think that makes sense.  It takes time to practice new strokes, and then to incorporate them into your game.  Once that integration is complete, your skill level will jump drastically.  Well, I haven’t really learned to use any new strokes.  I’ve always just played the same way.  Pushing, looping, blocking.  I wonder what it’ll take to make me improve again.  My guess is service.  Right now, I serve only underspin.  It’s very hard for me to hide other spins well, so I just play it safe and only do spin/no spin variation (more like degree of spin, since I can’t really do dead ball well either).  Hopefully by the time the tournament rolls around, I’ll have developed a considerably heavier underspin, so that I can take more chances doing other things.  Or, the other possibility is that I get really good at stepping around.  Right now, I’m rather good at killing all long pushes to my forehand side, but if I have to step around, it gets hard to put a lot of forward motion into the stroke.  It ends up being all spin, and then if it gets blocked wide to my forehand, I’m scrambling for it.  So, I have to get good at killing every long push that comes back.  If that’s the case, I really can just stick to my mediocre underspin serve (but, of course, I’m still going to work on it — it’s a matter of which comes first).  I do miss the forehand pips, but I’m enjoying playing this style too.  Looping is fun, and my backhand is just weird crap (weird blocks, sometimes hits, often chops).  Anyway, more updates after I play tonight!

Thankful

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Since I’m home alone on Thanksgiving, I have nothing better to do, so I decided I’d write in the blog about different (table tennis related) stuff I’m thankful for!

First of all, I’m thankful for getting into table tennis in the first place.  It was quite a stroke of luck.  Until near the end of my 10th grade school year, I was like every other American, not realizing table tennis was such a big international sport.  A couple of friends of mine introduced me to our high school ping pong club (ironically, they went to chat with friends, instead of playing ping pong), and from there, I think I became addicted almost instantly.

Second on the list: although I’m pretty sure I didn’t get my money’s worth (my own fault for being a poor student), I’m really glad I ended up going to Berkeley.  Table tennis in California is a whole different sport compared to Oregon, where players are predominantly (relatively) old and unorthodox.  Over my four years down there, I improved drastically, both in my own gameplay and (more importantly) in my understanding of the game.  Looking back (though my memory sucks), I’m amazed how ignorant I was as an incoming freshman.  I met so many helpful people (and great players), really making college the best years of my life (as far as table tennis goes… let’s not talk about classes).

Next, as I’ve been almost completely self-taught (at least, no formal coaching at all), watching much better players (like pros) has always helped me improve, and served as inspiration for me.  Thus, I have youtube to thank, as well as my lucky trip to the Beijing Olympics.  Also, even though a very forehand dominant game coupled with amazing footwork is now being replaced by a more balanced and stability-based style, Ma Lin was my first table tennis “hero,” and still among my favorite players (I really like watching all sorts of players now, it’s impossible to pick a favorite).

Most importantly, my parents for funding and supporting me!  I think that’s all that needs to be said there.

That pretty much sums it up.  Just one last thing.  I’m VERY glad and lucky that I gave Chinese rubbers (H3) a second chance.  When I first began playing, I used a friend’s blade with Hurricane on it, and absolutely hated how hard it was.  So, for many years, I played with Sriver EL 2.1 FH and Sriver L 1.7 RPB.  After my blade got stolen (BTY Chinese Real, my first cs blade!), my cousin shipped me a BTY Taksim and H3 from Taiwan (lucky me!).  Definitely took a while to adjust, but after using hard sponge, I couldn’t go back.  Today, I still prefer my old H3 over the newer rubbers.

Well, I suppose I’ll leave it there for today.  This is probably the first year I haven’t spent Thanksgiving with family.  Guess I’ll make myself a corn dog!  I’m pretty thankful those were invented!

Around the net

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Pretty much pointless post.  Around the net shots are the best thing ever!  And I’ve been able to pull off a surprising number (when just practicing).  During games, nobody wants to get into sidespin loop rallies haha.  Sad.

P.S. Even though Suss gets owned all the time, I never get tired of watching it.