Now mind you it does depend on where the serve is going. In this case the newgy was scattering balls around his forehand side. (we had to play with the robot settings to get it to do this b/c of where we had located the robot). His first step is actually a very subtle "hop" the purpose of which he says is actually to facilitate movement in the next direction. What???? I have no idea. When you weigh as much as I do, you don't waste movement. His next step is to get him in position for the stroke. The third step is to step in simultaneously as he is looping the ball. This is one of the reasons why his loop is so fluid. He steps in on every shot. He says that if you don't, your body gets twisted and your arm goes up and you become off balance. By stepping in, the energy transfer goes into the ball and you stay in balance. And so there he was, looking like a chipmunk on crack, taking 3 quick steps to complete each stroke. Doing this over and over to a fairly good speed on the robot. After each shot he barely had enough time to get back into service position before the next ball shot out, and then it was 3 more steps to dispose of that one. He easily completed 15 minutes in this fashion. 15 doesn't sound like a lot but I certainly wouldn't want to do it. But I guess I have to if I ever want to improve.
After this put the robot back in the middle of the table, reversed the spin on the head, and did the same drill with the head spraying balls all over.
He finished the evening by putting the robot on as much speed as it could go and shooting topspin balls over the net. He had the oscillator on and turned up the frequency and he was counterlooping all of the shots. The robot actually makes very good speed and spin and it was great to watch him moving around counterlooping all these balls to everywhere. But I wanted to see just how fast can he go. So I turned up the frequency on the oscillator. No sooner did one ball leave his paddle then another shot out from the head. It was great fun to watch, and very impressive too.
Tomorrow we go back to ASU (more adjustment). Since the ASU club plays there friday nights, he will play his first matches there tomorrow. I think he's ready.
marco
Next: The Paris Worlds
Return to Training With A Ping-Pong Professional - Overview
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