It's a tough question to answer precisely, so I thought I would try a practical experiment. As part of my preparation for the Australian Open Table Tennis Championships this year, I'm trying to master a new serve. Well, two new serves actually, since what I'm trying to do is learn how to perform a serve where my bat moves rapidly back and forth around the time of impact, making it harder for my opponent to determine what spin is on the ball, and to what location I'm serving. Basically I'm trying to merge the forehand pendulum serve with the reverse pendulum serve, so that I can use both serves at will depending on where in the service motion I make contact with the ball. If I can master this serve I'm hoping that it will give me a bit of an edge in competition.
I'm going to report in weekly about how my progress is going, and I'll provide videos of my improvement (or lack thereof!) as well.
Day 0 - Monday
I can vouch for the fact that I have never seriously attempted to learn this serve before, so I am pretty much starting with a clean slate as far as muscle memory is concerned. Although I can serve both a forehand pendulum serve and a reverse pendulum serve fairly reliably (I'm better at the forehand pendulum than the reverse), I'm back to a beginner level when attempting to put the two together with a quick back and forth motion.I've included a video showing my starting prowess at performing the serve. As you can see for yourself, I currently have no real control over where the ball is going, and very limited ability to put any sort of consistent spin on the serve. (Sigh!) Actually, it's quite difficult to even hit the darn ball at all! Things can only get better, I guess.
Deceptive Serve Video - Day 0 - 720x576 pixels version - 11.2MB; 640x480 pixels version - 5.9MB; 320x240 pixels version - 2.8MB
Day 1 - Tuesday
I've served about a hundred to a hundred and fifty serves today, with probably 80% being of the reverse pendulum variation. By that stage I was developing a blister on my middle finger due to the unfamiliar serving motion. I'll have to find a band-aid for tomorrow!I'm still lacking a lot of control, and missed the ball completely several times (and hit quite a few off the top edge of the bat!). But I do notice that after the first 20 or 30 balls, I was beginning to generate some decent spin on the reverse pendulum serve around half the time. Generally when I got some spin I served the ball to roughly the same location, bouncing shortish towards my opponent's backhand, with topspin and sidespin. When I failed to get good contact I tended to serve the ball straight down the line with virtually no spin. I'm not bothering to try to serve with sidespin and backspin (which is more difficult) - I'll start with topspin and sidespin and go from there.
So in summary, I've seen a little bit of improvement, but I'm still a long way away from being confident enough to use this in an important match. I'll keep practicing each day and report in again on Day 8. Stay tuned!
Weekly Report
It's been a week now, and time to report in again on how things are going with learning this new serve. Here's a summary of my progress over the last week.Day 2 - Wednesday
I served around 180 balls on Day 2 (after putting the band-aid on!). All in all, not much different to Day 1 really. Still lacking a lot of control, and I'm searching for the best technique to perform the serve with. Every so often I do a fairly good serve, and I'm trying to remember that feeling and repeat the motion again.My forearm is also feeling a little bit sore - I'm not used to serving so many of this type of serve in a row. But it's not anything serious yet, so hopefully it should wear off as I get used to the service action.
Day 3 - Thursday
Served about 240 balls today. I think I'm seeing a small improvement in my control, and I'm not missing as many balls completely as I was the first two days. The spin isn't anything to write home about, and I'm a long way away from controlling length on the serve, but the side to side placement is a little better.I'm continuing to stick mainly to the reverse pendulum variation of the serve for about 80% of the time, with the other 20% being the forehand pendulum serve variation. I'm still experimenting a little with different actions and timing, but I'm starting to get a bit more of a feel for the technique now.
Days 4-6
Friday (Day 4) I had a competition, so I skipped the practice to keep fresh. Saturday I was having a day off, and Sunday I was doing other training, bringing me to Monday.Day 7 - Monday
Served 250 serves today. Not really much different to Day 3. Managed to give myself a new blister though! I think at this point, after about 800 serves, I'm probably going to need around 10 000 or so serves to feel confident enough to use this in a match. Since there are 2 variations, that's about 20 000 serves in total. It will be interesting to look back later on and see if my guess is anywhere near correct.Day 8 - Tuesday
I've shot the weekly video today, since my normal Monday training at the center was delayed until today. I did a warm up of around 12 serves, then taped the videos below. I'll let you decide for yourselves about whether there has been any improvement!Anyway, I'm off now to do another 250 serves for Day 8. I'll do my best not to skip too many more days - I think it's important to keep practicing regularly when trying to learn a new skill.
Deceptive Serve Video - Day 8 - 720x576 pixels version - 10.3MB; 640x480 pixels version - 4.9MB; 320x240 pixels version - 1.9MB
