Hi, I'm Alois from Pingskills. If you're starting out in Table Tennis and you haven't got
a practice partner or a Table Tennis table, we're going to show you some skills that you can practice by
yourself
A really important skill when you're starting out
is to be able to control the Table Tennis ball with your bat.
Let's start by bouncing the ball on one side.
This develops your control and your feel
for the bat on the ball.
As you progress, you can start to make that skill a little bit more difficult.
You could start
by doing "pancakes"
turning the bat over
from side to side.
As you progress you could start to make things a little bit more difficult
by getting the ball on the edge of your bat.
With all these exercises, you can use PingSkills consistency chart to keep a track
of how you're going.
You can step it up a level by starting to put some spin on the bounces.
This will teach you
how to control some spin as well. What about trying to bounce the ball underneath your leg?
So, let's have a go.
So then you could instead of having 3 bounces before you
put it under the leg
you just have one, two, one, two, one, two
or just one
Let's try the other leg.
Then you could try bouncing it
and
catching it
Or what about rolling it
from one side
over to the other?
You can start to invent some skills of your own
that you can challenge yourself with
and really, try to improve your control over the Table Tennis ball.
You can also practice by hitting the ball up against a wall.
If you listen to the ball
it starts to make a very rhythmic sound.
The easiest way to start with is by hit the ball up against the wall
and letting it bounce before you hit it.
You can start to switch sides,
hitting one with the forehand
and one with the backhand.
Start to make it a little bit faster.
Another simple thing that you can do
is just using any table
push it up against a wall
and start to do a little bit of hitting against the wall.
It's important to just learn the feel of hitting the ball softly.
Similarly to hitting against the wall on the floor
you can start to alternate sides.
You can then turn the table around
and start to hit the ball a bit further.
At PingSkills, we talk about
generating spin.
This is something that you can practice
at home
on your own.
The basic principles of generating spin
are brushing the ball
and then brushing it fast.
You can easily practice that
just with a piece of floor.
You can see what effect the spin that you're generating has on the ball.
You can try and get some backspin and get the ball to come back towards you.
Or some sidespin
and try to make the ball curve.
Or you can make the ball curve around the other way.
These are all skills that can easily be practiced alone or without a Table Tennis table.