January 12, 2012

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Proper use of free arm

A lot of problems arise when players don't use their free arm properly. I've been emphasizing this with students a lot recently - some are getting lazy with this. Here are two common problems.

First, many players let their free arm just sort of hang down instead of holding it up as a counterbalance to the playing arm. Every time they stroke the ball there is no counterbalancing arm to act as a counterweight, and so they are thrown slightly off balance with each shot. Worse, they become so used to this they don't even realize it is happening. The cure - hold the free arm up for balance at all time, and let it naturally counterbalance your playing arm. Note that this is true on backhands as well as forehands. On the forehand, the counterbalancing is more obvious. On the backhand, as you extend your playing arm out, the free hand needs to counterbalance this by naturally pulling back.

Second, when hitting forehands, players don't use their non-playing side. Instead, pull with the non-playing arm as you rotate around on the forehand. The non-playing side (the left side for righties) is just as important as the playing side when you hit a forehand. Your body can't rotate unless both sides rotate.

Here's a video of probably the two best players in the world right now, Ma Long and Zhang Jike of China (15:29), playing the final of the Austrian Open in September. Watch the way they use their free arm on each shot. (Of course, you can learn a lot from this video besides just the use of the free arm!)

An expanded version of this may end up being a Tip of the Week.

USATT Coach of the Year Awards

And the winners are. . . .

How to do the Ma Lin serve

And you can learn it in just 2:14! (I may have posted this link once before, but it's worth watching twice.)

McDonald's table tennis commercial

How to lose your McNuggets to a "little old lady" in 32 seconds. This isn't the only time McDonald's has used table tennis - here's a video (1:40) where they had customers play video ping-pong on a huge screen in Stockholm.

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