Re: May 31, 2016 - How to Cover a Short Ball to the Forehand
Larry,
I would kind of disagree with you on the stepping in as far as you can. In order to step in the farthest (with your foot) you actually need to lean your upper body back to keep your balance. The foot goes well under the table, but your shoulder (and thus your racket) does not move forward that much. I think what you want to do is step as far under the table as you can while still maintaining (or even increasing) the forward lean in you upper body.
I read this "step under as far as you can" idea and tried to follow it. I could never figure out why I had such trouble reaching the short balls until I saw some video of myself. I stepped well under the table, but my head never got over the table. Now I try to lean forward and then step under as far as I can. My foot does not go as far under the table, but now my head is over the table and I have very good reach to get to the short ball.
It is kind of a semantics problem. I am sure if a coach had been watching me he would have corrected what I was doing and I would have quickly gone to "stepping in as far as I could while maintaining the right posture". However having only read "step in as far as possible" I was over-stepping and actually keeping myself from reaching the ball because the upper body leaned back.
I could be well off base, but this is my impression of what happened in my case.
Mark