It is since long time ago that I wanted to find a timeslot to write this entry. Finally it seems that I managed to find this time 😉
In this difficult period where Covidˋs pandemics is hitting everywhere is, perhaps, surprising that someone can put its mind on reflecting about technique in sports and, more concretely, on table tennis. However, I think that live goes on – as Queen says and Freddy Mercury demonstrated with his way of living – and therefore it is important that we think ahead and leave the past behind (even if the pandemics is, at the time to write, still very present). It is probably this the internal impulse that pushed me to make the point next.
When the confinement period started, I was worried about the kids getting stuck in front of the computer’s screen or TV. Please, do not get me wrong, I love computers as a very powerful tool to develop ideas but not to convert people on passive individuals, which is often the case for our young ones when they meet these devices. As a result of this concern, I decided to do something about it and push my kids to spend some time playing in the garage. Luckily we have a little place to setup a table to play there, and this became one of the activities to stimulate the physical condition of the family. My wife help me to make these sessions become an almost daily habitude for an hour or so.
It can be shocking but this period , suddenly, became the first in my life where I have been practicing our beloved sport on an almost daily basis. Prior to that I trained table tennis, at best, once a week on average even if, at least, I tried to do such practice over all the weeks of the year. In addition, performing this activity with kids of different ages (and therefore different skill levels) is in itself an school to realize aspects of the table tennis technique where I never reflected before. This happens for 2 different reasons:
1) Kids are in a continuous learning process and therefore they have an inherent difficulty to execute the strokes following the correct technique. As a result, the trainer needs to be very precise and execute almost perfect strokes to produce balls with the right pace, height, spin, angle and location.
2) Whatever technical explanation you give to a kid – especially for the smallest ones (3 to 8 years) – it can be totally useless. But the great advantage, it is that, at this age, kids have a lot of mirror neurons that enable our young beloved ones to easily imitate our movements. In essence adults become a living pattern for them.
By doing this, day after day, I realized something I never thought of before. Let me explain it, as I think this might be helpful for others. One of the first lessons every table table tennis trainer gives to its new pupils, it is about the usage of the arm (right or left as it applies). I use to say, setting an analogy with cars, that the arm in table tennis is not at all the engine of the car but rather its transmission. The arm makes possible to transmit the force generated by our body from the ground up, starting by the weightˋs transfer of our feet in the execution of every stroke. The better and more coordinated movements we will perform with our arm, the less effort will be required to produce a powerful stroke and achieve a quicker execution. Hence the importance to adequately teach what to do with the 3 groups of joints that exist in our arm:
a) The shoulder: This block is made of 3 bones: clavicule, scapula and humerus. The less number of pieces the less complexity in the mechanics (at least in principle). The shoulder helps to separate the arm from the body a bit (between 30 to 40 degrees) and moves just a bit in the beginning of the stroke to help accomodating the forearm and, after the strokeˋs execution, as a result of the natural inertia generated by the initial movement. Nothing more, he does not have to be the main actor either on our forehand or backhand stroke.
b) The elbow: This is our main actor either on the forehand or backhand. It generates the movement of the forearm which is essential to transmit the power generated by our body in the weightˋs transfer. The elbow is composed of 3 different joints internally: the humerus-radial, the humerus-cubital and the radius-cubital. Important and with few pieces, I always stress the importance to totally master it before progressing to more advanced techniques that might involve the usage of our wrist.
c) The wrist: The wrist is a very complex joint made of 8 different pieces in 2 lines. It is an extraordinary component of our body capable of endless movements as a combination of its mobility in different axis. Here, I use to say to people starting, please, do not use it until you master your elbow (the main actor with our feet) and the shoulder (the secondary actor with little movement). Just ensure that the wrist is bent down to make the hand become an extension of your arm. For all the rest forget that you have a wrist (I use to ˋthreatenˋ pupils, with the possibility to tie a rope with a piece of wood to prevent their wrist to move 😉
It is on this last point where I learnt something important during this confinement period. What I used to say about the wrist is not enough. It is true that we have to keep our wrist as static as possible before reaching the point where we master our elbow. It is also true that we need to bend down the wrist to make our hand become an extension of our arm. But, all this, it is not enough. There is a third thing that we have to do, and many of us do unconsciously, we have also to open a bit our wrist – especially evident when we perform a forehand flat or tospin stroke – before striking the ball to maximize the transfer of energy to the ball. Think about slapping someone with your hand and you will see that is pretty much the same idea.
Hope this piece of advice might be useful for some of you either as trainers or as players looking for learning the right technique and get full joy of our beautiful sport.
Wish you and your families all the best in these difficult times, stay all safe!
Wise Table Tennis 