Hi I'm Alois Rosario from PingSkills.
Today we're going to talk to you about our basic ready position.
In table tennis to start off with it really important to get your body into the right
position.
Your basic position is crucial to start off with we can't stand there with our feet together
we haven't got any balance.
If I lean over a little bit this way I'm going to fall over and the same that way.
Similarly if I'm going to lean forward I'm going to fall over.
So how do we combat that.
Firstly let's get our feet much, much wider So that now we have some stability going side
ways.
If we bend our knees we also develop a little bit of stability forwards and backwards and
more stability side ways.
So now we're starting to look like we can play table tennis.
Knees bent, feet nice and wide apart and your body compact.
The next thing is to think about where we position ourselves at the table.
A lot of beginners make the mistake of positioning themselves right in the middle of the table,
but if we do that we can reach all the way over there with our forehand but haven't got
very good coverage on our backhand side.
So we need to move ourselves across a little bit to the backhand corner.
As a guide just put your bat on the middle line, that will get you into a good position
across the table.
Once we're in a good lateral position we need to think about how close to the table we need
to be.
If your to close to the table, if they serve the ball deep you're going to be in trouble.
If your to far away from the table if they serve the ball short again you are going to
struggle to get in to position.
So as a guide we've got our bat just able to touch the table when we are in our basic
ready position.
Once we are in our basic ready position, we can cover the whole table with one step.
If the ball short to our forehand corner just one step and we can reach it.
Wide to the forehand, wide to the backhand, short to the backhand.
The whole table now is reachable with just one step.
When receiving serve we also need to consider where my opponent is serving from.
If their serving from the middle of the table your middle basic ready position is ideal,
however if they are now serving from over now wide in there backhand corner, we need
to adjust.
So from that backhand corner they can get the ball wide out to my backhand but it's
difficult for them to go wide out to my forehand.
So I can just move a faction across to my backhand corner from here I can cover the
wide backhand and I can cover the ball down the line as far wide as they can serve it.
If the right hander serves from wide out on their forehand corner or if the left hander
is doing their Pendulum serve from over in their backhand corner we need to think about
moving a little bit more to my forehand area.
From that corner now they can serve the ball wide to my forehand but find it difficult
to serve it wide to my backhand.
So rather than being in our central basic position we're going to move a little bit
over to the forehand area to cut off the wider forehand serve, and then still be able to
reach the backhand down the line.
In the rally we need to then start to think about where we position ourselves.
If the ball has gone way out over in that direction it's no use being in our middle
central position because they've got a better angle out to my backhand of course it's even
sillier to get way over into your forehand corner.
So we need to think about cutting off the angle of the ball.
So if the ball is over there we need to position ourselves in the middle of that area ready
to cut off the angle they can get.
Similarly the ball has gone over to the other side of the table again it's no use being
in the centre in your middle position because now the can angle the ball out wide to your
forehand corner.
So let's think about cutting off that angle and being in the centre of where they can
play
the ball.