You should be able to smash or loop at near full power without going off balance. Top players can play great shots in rapid succession because they are always balanced, which leads to a rapid recover for the next shot. When you go off balance, even slightly, you cannot recover quickly for the next shot. There are two times when players tend to go off balance: either when moving to the ball or when following through.

When moving to the ball, if you keep your weight somewhere between your feet, you can stay balanced. If you instead lean or reach toward the ball, you go off balance as your weight goes over just one foot or even beyond. To see this, stand in a ready position. Lean to your right (or left). Now try to move to your right (or left) - see how difficult it is? Your first move needs to be a step, not a lean.

The second place where players often go off balance is when they follow through too much to the side, especially with the forehand. If a righty has a big follow through to his left, he'll be off balance and unable to recover for the next shot. Instead, imagine a pole going through your head, and try to rotate in a circle around the pole. You don't have to do so exactly, but if you focus on rotating around this circle more and less off to the side, with your weight between your feet (or at most over the front foot), you'll be ready for the next shot. Even with a complete weight transfer from the back leg to the front leg you don't need your weight to go outside the feet, which puts you off balance. Note that a wider stance makes it easer to generate power without going off balance.

Here's a test on whether you go off balance in your follow through. Shadow practice doing your most powerful forehand shot, whether it's a loop or a smash. Freeze at the end of your follow through. Is your weight over your left foot (for a righty), or has it gone even slightly beyond that, leaving you off balance, requiring precious time to recover? Have someone give you a light shove and see if you are truly balanced. You should finish the shot balanced and instantly ready to return to ready position to follow with another shot. The best way to practice this is with multiball, where a coach feeds you shots in rapid succession, and you are forced to recover quickly for the next shot over and over. 

How close should you stand to the table? Much of this depends on your playing style. Most new players tend to stand too close to the table. This leads to all sorts of problems if not fixed early on. A player who develops his game while standing too close is often jammed, which leads to short, jerky strokes that are rushed. Players like this may learn to block well, but the shorter, rushed strokes lead to a loss of both power and (when trying to hit harder) control. They also tend to stand in a backhand position, leading to a weak forehand. They also have trouble covering the wide forehand as they are unable to use the full forehand "pocket" since they are jammed at the table - instead, they can only hit the ball in the front of the hitting zone, rather than turn sideways and hit the ball at the top of the bounce with a more comfortable shot that uses the full forehand hitting zone.

As players become more advanced, the opposite tendency comes up - players who back off the table if the opponent so much as looks at them funny. There are times when you should back up, primarily when the opponent is attacking strongly or if you have a defensive style (backspin or topspin), but the backing up should be in reaction to this attack, not as a habitual way to keep the ball in play in moderately fast rallies. With good technique and practice, you should be able to rally pretty fast without backing off too much. If you back off too easily, you give your opponent more time to react to your shot and get his best shot into play; you have no angles to play against your opponent; and you have far more ground to cover, both side to side and in and out.  

There is also the phenomenon I call "The Zigzag," of which I'm often guilty. This is where a player takes a step back to cover the forehand, then another step back to cover the backhand, then another step back to cover the forehand, and next thing you know they are lobbing from the vender booths. Instead, learn to play these shots relatively close to the table, but not so close that you are jammed.

So just how far should you stand? A good guideline is to start the rally about arm's length from the table. From that distance you can handle most shots - stepping in for short ones, holding your ground in most rallies, and stepping back when forced to by the opponent's attack.  If you are a fast reaction player with good blocking and other close-to-table shots, then try to stay within that arm's length of the table until absolutely forced back. If you are a looper, you'll want to start at arm's length, but as soon as you get into a rally you can take a step back to give yourself more time to loop. (If the rally really gets fast, you'll back up even more, as top players often do when they counterloop.) Some players like to play a consistent off-table topspin game, in which case you'll back more quickly than most players - but try to back up only as far as you really have to as you happily topspin away, and fish and lob only when the opponent forces you to. (In other words, make them go for risky attack shots, where you'll get some free points, before you fish and lob.)

Of course, if you are a chopper, then you'll be backing up as soon as the opponent attacks - though even there, you don't want to back up more than necessary or you'll give the opponent extra time and extreme angles to go for.

Lastly, let me urge all players to at least experiment outside their comfort zone. If you are a blocker, try backing off sometimes - either on defense or looping. If you are an off-table player, try playing at the table as a variation, blocking or even looping quick off the bounce. You may find a new dimension for your game, and at the very least, you'll better understand how other players play, making it that much easier tactically when you play that type of style. 

Daniel from West Virginia emailed me the following question:

One of the things that I am struggling to understand is the relationship between rotation versus right-to-left leg weight transfer when looping.  I saw in one of your earlier blog entries that you compare forehand looping with "rotating around a pole" that runs from the ceiling down to the floor.  I've watched this video of Wang Liqin over and over and he seems to be generating most of his power with rotation rather than right-to-left leg weight transfer.  Both of his feet stay pretty much rooted in the ground at all times during the stroke:

But whenever I watch counterlooping rallies between pros in an actual match, they do seem to be transferring their weight forward towards their opponent quite a bit, no?

In this video of Zhang Jike looping against underspin, I can see a large weight transfer onto the right foot, as evidenced by the fact that his left heel is off the ground when he initiates the stroke. This stroke seems to be slightly less about rotation and more about leg drive:

Does this mean there is a bigger transfer of weight onto the right leg when looping underspin than when looping topspin?

I'm not sure if any of this makes any sense, but if you could ever do a blog entry on the relationship of using rotation versus using forward momentum in generating power on the FH side, it would be really great.  My stroke is really suffering as I'm just not confident in how to generate the racket speed right now.

This is an excellent question. The question basically is how much power should a player generate from these three aspects: rotational energy, driving forward with the back leg, and driving upward with the back leg.

When looping against topspin or a block (i.e. any ball without backspin), you'll mostly use rotational energy and pushing forward with the back leg; there's little upward motion. From the Wang Liqin video Daniel links to above, you can see that Wang (3-time World Men's Singles Champion) uses a lot of rotational energy, but his head doesn't move a whole lot - he tends to keep the right-to-left body movement to a relative minimum as his body mostly rotates in a circle. The advantage of this is that it means his head and body ends only a short distance from where it started before the stroke, meaning he is almost immediately ready for the next shot. If your head and body move more from right to left (for a righty), you may gain some power, but you'll be slower recovering for the next shot. You need to find the right balance. If you have as much natural power as a Wang Liqin, then you don't need much right-to-left movement. But if you have more time, then the extra body movement will add to your power.

Here's a video of Ma Long vs. Wang Liqin. Watch Ma Long (far side, currently #2 in the world, former #1) in the first point as he loops five in a row. (It's replayed in slow motion.) Like Wang Liqin, he mostly uses rotational energy, but he also moves right-to-left for extra power, especially in the very first of his loops. Now jump to the point starting 50 seconds in, and watch Wang Liqin's first two loops. (It's also replayed in slow motion.) He gets great power, yet it's almost all rotational energy - watch how little his head moves during the stroke. Now jump back to the point starting 23 seconds in (also replayed in slow motion), and you'll see a series of Wang Liqin loops where he has far more right-to-left movement - now his head does move during the stroke. Why is this? It's more a matter of not being in perfect position against these angled shots into his backhand, forcing him to go way around to loop the forehand.

So while you do want that right-to-left movement (for a righty) when looping for extra power, you want to focus on rotational energy, with the center of gravity kept well between the legs, and the head moving only a little bit. The main exception is when looping from way around the backhand side, where you often aren't as far around as you might want, in which case you compensate with more right-to-left movement. (Which means a slower recovery, so you have to have fast footwork if you do this, or simply end the point with the first shot.) The other exception is when going for extra power, but as shown by Wang Liqin and Ma Long, that's not always necessary.

Now look at the video Daniel linked to of Ma Long vs. the chopper (Joo Se Hyuk). Here Ma has to overcome the heavy backspin, and so much of his power is upward as he pushes up with his back leg. He's not going for a lot of speed in most of these loops, and so there's only minimal forward motion as he topspins away, mostly stroking upward and rotating in a circle, with his head starting and ending in almost the same place. (In some of the early loops, he is almost falling backward as he focuses almost totally on upward motion.) In the first point, he loops ten balls before missing the eleventh. The first eight are all basically steady loops (by world-class standards), where most of his power is going upward. Now look at the ninth loop, where he loops with much greater power into Joo's backhand. Now there's a sudden increase in right-to-left motion, with his head ending more to the left. This gives extra power. (And since he's playing a chopper, there's plenty of time to recover for the next shot.)

What does this mean for you? The most important thing is to stay balanced, especially when looping against a fast incoming ball. Focus on rotational energy, and add as much right-to-left movement (for righties) as needed. Many players find it a lot easier to end the point this way, and if the ball rarely comes back, then there's no problem. At the higher levels, even these powerful loops often come back, and so recovery becomes an important issue - but at that level, players are so fast they can often get away with more sideways movement, relying on their footwork to recover for the next shot. But as shown by Wang Liqin and Ma Long, it is the rotational energy that is most important, and the rest is the extra spice often used for a little extra power or to compensate when forehand looping from way around on the backhand side. 

In a game dominated by forehand looping, many players forget there's another side and other point-winning shots. One of the best is the backhand loop followed by a backhand hit - a devastatingly effective one-two punch. It doesn't even have to be a backhand smash - quick, well-placed aggressive drive will usually win the point or set up an easy follow.

On the forehand side, many players loop over and over. It's usually easier on that side than on the backhand because you have a bigger hitting zone. On the backhand side, the body is somewhat in the way when backhand looping, and so you have a smaller hitting zone - mostly in front of the body. While many top players learn to backhand loop over and over, many players - including many top players - instead open against backspin on the backhand side with a backhand loop, and (if it's blocked back to the backhand, as most often happens) follow it with a backhand hit against the normal blocked return.

There are several advantages to this. First, as noted, it takes out the problem of the body being in the way, which is primarily a problem against a fast incoming ball (i.e. a block or topspin). Second, a hit takes less time than a loop, so even if your opening loop is quick-blocked back at you, you aren't rushed. Third, it means the opponent has to adjust to both your spinny topspin backhand loop and your not-so-spinny backhand hit. And fourth, it's easier to make last-second changes in your placement with a backhand hit, allowing you to move the ball around the table more easily (to wide angles or to opponent's elbow, the midpoint between forehand and backhand).

You should vary the placement of your opening backhand loop. (And loops to an opponent's forehand are often more effective, since most players block better on the backhand.)  However, most players tend to block crosscourt against an incoming crosscourt loop. So if you have a good backhand follow-up, it's often an advantage to open crosscourt, where you both have more table (across the diagonal, corner to corner), and can expect a return to the backhand. This allows you to dominate with that backhand loop & hit one-two. Or open to the middle, which most players will cover with their backhand (when blocking), and usually also block back where the ball came from.

The key to developing a good backhand loop and hit - besides getting some coaching - is to really commit to the two shots. Decide you will backhand loop any deep ball with backspin, and that you will backhand hit any blocked or topspinned return. This tends to simplify things for you while complicating it for the opponent, who has to adjust to both. (You can actually backhand loop against a short ball with backspin with a wristy shot, but that's another topic.) When going for the backhand hit, some players think of it more as a punch-block, where they essentially hit a hard block, right off the bounce.

So take down your opponents with your new dynamic duo, or force them to feed you easy forehand balls to avoid it. 

Want to twist your opponent into a pretzel? You can do so with one of the most common serving combos in table tennis: short serves to the forehand and long, breaking serves to the backhand.

Short serves to the forehand are usually more awkward to handle than short ones to the backhand. This is because the wrist is freer on the backhand side to adjust the racket angle, and also because contact is made in front of you, right in front of your eyes, instead of to the side with a forehand receive. Long serves to the backhand are usually trickier to handle than long ones to the forehand. This is because most players loop better on the forehand side, and because you have a bigger hitting zone on that side than on the backhand side, where a breaking serve can be awkward to handle.

Serving short to the forehand or long to the backhand also maximizes the amount of table the receiver has to cover. Suppose you serve very short and wide to the forehand, so the receiver has to contact the ball one foot from the net near the sideline. Suppose you serve long to the backhand, so the receiver contacts the ball about a foot past the end-line behind the backhand corner. Then the distance between these two contact points is about 6.7 feet. (The same is true, of course, if you serve short to the backhand or long to the forehand.) If you instead serve short and long to the forehand (or to the backhand), then the distance is about five feet. That's over 20 inches of extra movement for the receiver. It's even more if you serve wide to the backhand, and perhaps break it even wider with sidespin, so the receiver has to take the ball from outside the backhand corner. The contact points between a short serve to the forehand and a deep breaking serve to the wide backhand can be seven feet apart.

So why not combine these two into a deadly duo?

You can do this with forehand or backhand serves. (It's usually a bit more effective with a forehand pendulum serve, which allows you to break the deep serve to the backhand away from the receiver. However, a backhand serve type sidespin allows you to actually break the short serve a bit away from the receiver, though not as much since has less travel time.) Make sure to start out the same, with the same motion until just before contact. Then either serve very low and short to the forehand, or a long, breaking serve into the backhand.

Short serves are often best where the second bounce on the far side of the table, if allowed, would be near the end-line. However, in this case, it's better to serve very short to maximize how much distance the receiver has to reach to get to the serve. Make him cover the full seven feet.

The receiver also has to prepare for the deep serve into the backhand. By making it break, it makes the receiver reach even more. (This is especially true if you can break it away from the receiver, such as a forehand pendulum serve if both players are righties.) It's often effective to focus on deep spin serves, but not too fast. A fast serve to the backhand can often be more easily backhand countered, using your own speed against you.

So the receiver has to be ready both for the quick step in to reach the short serve to the forehand, while also covering that deep, breaking serve into the backhand. This is not an easy task, and leads to many mistakes. On top of that, it also makes it almost impossible for a receiver to forehand loop the serve from the backhand side.

So twist your opponent into a pretzel as he tries to cover these two diagonally opposed serves that the human body was never designed for. Make him cover the full seven feet as you turn him into a cooked pretzel . . . and break him.