Hi, I'm Alois Rosario from PingSkills. In this lesson we're going to talk to you about
the forehand block.
The forehand block is just a smaller version of the forehand counterhit. So the forehand
counterhit you're starting here and coming all the way up. With the block it's just a
smaller version of that same stroke with the bat following the same path.
With your feet make sure that you're nice and square to the table because when you're
blocking the ball's coming at you quite fast so you need to be prepared to play with either
the backhand or the forehand. If you're standing just for your forehand block and the ball
came to your backhand side you'd be in a lot of trouble. So square yourself up so that
you're ready for both sides.
Then it's a matter of executing the stroke with a nice small action. Why do we have a
small action? Because they're already generating enough speed for you to get that ball back
on the table. You don't need a big swing to get the ball on to their side of the table
and you don't need a big swing to get a lot of speed on the ball because again they've
generated the speed for you. The other thing is that you don't have enough time so you
haven't got time to play a big swing at it and a big backswing because the ball's coming
at you fast.
So think about a nice short swing and all it needs to be is just a small forehand counterhit
from here to there.
Once you have the basic stroke then you can start to think about the angle of your bat
and how much spin that they're generating with their topspin.
So if they're playing with a lot of topspin on the ball then you need to cover that ball
over. Turn your bat forward so that the ball goes on to the table. If you have a flat open
angle and they have a lot of topspin then the ball is going to go up really high and
it's either going to go off the end of the table or go up so high that they're going
to make a smash on the next ball.
If there's less spin then you can open the angle up but if there's more spin you need
to cover the angle over. The stroke still remains the same so a nice small forehand
counterhit just now your adjusting the angle depending on the amount of topspin on the ball