During tournaments, I hear many players commenting about various strokes…
“He has good strokes!”
“His strokes are wrong!”
“How does he have a 2000-rating with strokes like that?”
“His loop is very smooth!”
“He won the tournament, but he doesn’t have the best strokes.”
“His strokes are old-school!”
“Wow, his strokes flow nicely together!”
 

 
 
 
 
Wang:  Hey Bob, how are you doing this tournament?
 
Bob:  This is the worst I have ever played!  I haven’t touched a racket for two weeks then on my first match that long-pips guys messed up my stroke and now I don’t know what to do.
 
Wang:  Well, let’s practice.
 
After the practice…
 
Wang:  Yeah, you aren’t on top of your game.
 
Bob:  My strokes are terrible, I’m just not looping the ball like I used to.
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Balance, Positioning, and Timing
By Samson Dubina
www.SamsonDubina.com
 
“My arms are long, I can reach for 95% of the balls.
Do I really have to move my feet?”
 
“Yes Bob, you do have to move!  Just because you can reach the ball,
doesn’t mean that you can hit with the proper amount of

 
 
 
 
 
 
I have written 2 controversial articles about upsetting higher rated players in table tennis.  What is the correct mindset?  Going for broke or playing normal?  In the blog, I have included both articles and a summary of how to harmonize them together to have the best possible result.
 
 
Article #1
Taking the Risk

 
 
 
Did you know that you can improve your forehand while sleeping?
 
Most table tennis players are very one-sided.  From the constant body rotation with their forehand loops, most players have very flexible cores when rotating to the right (for right handed players).  However, these same players are not very flexible when rotating to the left.  This is one of the reasons that many elite table tennis athletes have to constantly battle against lower back pain.
 

Most club players can’t train 40 hours per week due to family commitments, school, job, etc…  However, most players can dedicate around 10 hours per week to improve.  For my personal students, I ask them to work hard to produce the best possible 10 hours that they can do.  I ask them to do 4 hours of matches, 1 hour of serving practice, 1 hour of physical training, 1 hour of video analysis, and 3 hours of training with the Newgy Robo-Pong 2050 robot.