Hi, I'm Alois Rosario and today we're going to talk to you about improving your reflexes.
I took some players to do some reflex testing. It was interesting, the player that plays
close to the table and is really fast and I thought was going to kill the test, finished
dead last.
So how is it that he can play so well with the slowest reflexes?
Well the essence is that it's not just about your reflexes. There's a lot more involved
in how quickly you can react to the ball.
The first and the most important one is how well you track the ball. The better that you
track the ball the earlier you are going to get the information of where the ball is coming.
So if I'm tracking the ball all the way there and all the way back I'm seeing a little bit
earlier the direction of the ball coming back to me, the type of spin on the ball, the speed
of the ball and I'm getting that information just that little bit faster than that guy
that's got those really quick reflexes.
So in training you need to start to think about this. You need to start to think about
tracking the ball better. Spend some time forgetting about your actual strokes and techniques,
just think about how well you're watching the ball during that training session. Watch
the ball out and in, out and in, so all your shots, the only thing that you're really focussed
on is watching that table tennis ball and tracking it as best as you possibly can.
Now we need to consider our balance. If you're not balanced it doesn't matter if you anticipate
the ball really well or if you've got fantastic reflexes you're not going to be able to make
a good stroke so balance is the key here.
How do we get our balance? Firstly, making sure that your feet are nice and wide apart,
your knees bent, and you're down in the good basic stance position. That will help you
with your balance.
Then we need to think about this. We need to think about our chest facing the ball wherever
it is. So if the ball is coming from here, that's where my chest is facing. So here the
ball comes straight to me, I play my backhand. Now the ball is coming from there, I'm following
the ball with my chest but now it comes over here and I'm playing a forehand. So again
my chest is facing towards the ball and I'm able to play a forehand with good balance.
If the ball comes here I'm facing the ball and I'm able to play a good backhand. So having
your chest facing the ball wherever it is, is vitally important to making a good stroke
with good balance.
What happens if your chest isn't facing the ball? Well I'll tell you what happens, the
wiggle happens. What's the wiggle? Now you will all have felt this. So the ball is coming
here, your chest is facing there and suddenly you need to adjust quickly and make better
position and line your chest up with the ball. So you end up doing that and you get that
wiggly feeling. So we really want to try and eliminate the wiggle by making sure that our
chest is facing the ball wherever it is. Why do we wiggle? Because we anticipate that the
ball is coming to where it actually isn't. So the ball is over here, suddenly we turn
over here because we think the ball is coming to our forehand but the ball is still here
and we need to make that quick adjustment back so that we can play the backhand. So
eliminate the wiggle by facing your chest to the ball at all times.