You’re a ping pong beginner who needs to practice more? This problem makes you have butterflies in your stomach when you can’t find any suitable methods for yourself? If you’re reading this article, the problem is solved!
We’ll reveal to you five most accessible and most effective ways for you to practice ping pong alone. Here is what you need, so let’s get started!
1. Serve
One of the essential techniques of playing table tennis is the serve. Obviously, this’s a basic technique that you shouldn’t ignore, or in other words, you need to master if your desire is playing ping pong skillfully.
Serving is the moment in which you’re able to totally control the direction, the speed, and the height of the ball. And of course, you can put your opponent at a disadvantage by doing so
The goal of beginners is to score many points during the competition. However, a good serve can help you score in the first few seconds!
You can serve the ball in your way, but all manipulation must be under “ITTF standards and regulations”, which will be explained as below.
Pre-Serve
The first rule before serving is keeping the ball in the palm of your hand above the table, a position where everyone can observe them.
Precise manipulation of the hand before starting your serve is that you have to fully extend your palm, close your fingers, the thumb extending 90 degrees compared to the other fingers. Particularly, remember to place the ball in the center of the flat palm.
Also, if it’s your turn to serve the ball, you will need to pause for a few seconds to stabilize it in your hand as well as get your posture right. It is illegal to pick up the ball and hit it immediately.
Practice To Serve
First, there’s no requirement of distance from the table to the hand holding the ball, but the ball must be thrown at the height of at least 6 inches before the player serves.
Also, try to throw the ball in a vertical direction, pitching with a deviation may not be accepted in competitions.
Next is hitting the ball. It would be correct if the ball bounces on your side first before bouncing to the opponent’s side. This technique requires force control as well as the direction of grip. So it would help if you practiced a lot to get the most accurate serve.
Tips
You should observe the ball before serving to make sure that you can control the ball direction.
Besides, try to relax your shoulders, wrists, etc. and choose the posture that makes you feel most comfortable and easy to move.
Last but not least, don’t attempt to have nice shots for the first time. Instead, put your mind and concentration on familiarizing yourself with the techniques and improve them by practicing more and more.
2. Playback Position
Practice alone with Playback position
This is a relatively simple method that helps you in controlling the force and the direction of the ball.
You need to split the ping pong table into two pieces. Then, fold up one of them and place it next to the other. The newly erected table piece works as a barrier so the ball can spin back to you.
In addition to using half of the table, it’s great if you already have a return board at home. The return board will also cause the ball to bounce back towards you. However, when deciding to practice with a return board, you should test your skills on a full-size table.
Tips
Don’t forget to apply the right attack force because too little power won’t be able to make the ball bounce back towards you.
Although the return board will allow you to play on the full-sized table, it’s still excellent and money-saving when playing with half of the ping pong table. Because beginners will not be able to concentrate force on their hands, the short distance can assist them in practicing more easily.
3. Practice With A Mirror
This is a training method without using the ball. However, to be able to apply this method, you need to prepare yourself a mirror.
There are no requirements for the mirror’s size or shape. However, remember to choose a mirror that is large enough to be able to observe every single change of the posture in the best way and avoid obscuring the view.
This method is extremely to apply, you just need to follow this guide:
First, get your paddle, and you can start by placing the mirror in front of you. Then, move the mirror to the left or right, so you can check your posture and technique from many sides to ensure that you’re doing well.
But if you don’t have any mirrors, use your camera, phone, or tablet to record your practice process so that you can watch them later, so you can find out improving points to enhance.
Tips: If you have more than one mirror, you can place them on multiple sides to check all your movements without having to move them.
4. Watching Video
You found it’s too difficult to read guidelines and practice yourself? One of the easiest ways is watching the video.
Watching the recorded performance of the table tennis stars are just as excellent a learning strategy as attending a real course. You can copy a few tricks of theirs and put them to your own game. Besides, watching video also allows you to rewind several times to understand and get the main points.
Where Can You Find Ping Pong Videos?
You will be able to find a significant number of videos by typing the keywords in the google search bar such as “how to practice ping pong by yourself”, “how to practice ping pong alone”, “practice table tennis”, etc.
Besides posting guiding articles, ping pong websites or forums are loaded with valuable videos so that beginners can practice more efficiently.
Notably, the most popular platform we all know is Youtube. On this website, you can conveniently find instruction videos for any techniques or moves you desire!
In addition to choosing the right keywords, finding the right video to watch is also crucial because nowadays, anyone can upload their videos to the Internet. So what you need to do to choose quality videos with the right technique by choosing those with high views or those produced by verified Youtubers.
How Can You Practice With Video?
Prepare yourself a mirror so that you can easily adjust your postures and techniques. And the practice process is similar to the Shadow Play method.
The next step is selecting a video and observing it. You can adjust the playback speed to 0.75x for easier observing. After understanding the manipulation and the rules, try posing in the correct posture then practice.
Tips
Besides watching the video, you should also take a look at the necessary information to understand the technical rules clearly.
What’s more, you can select to watch many different videos to watch the postures from other sides or tutorial videos of only one is too hard to catch up with.
5. Practice With Ping Pong Robot
The four methods above are so straightforward that all of us can apply. However, they still carry certain disadvantages, and the most obvious is the interaction between you and opponents.
Therefore, a more efficient and optimal way to practice table tennis alone is to play with a ping pong robot.
Why Should You Purchase A Robot?
You’re curious to know more about the benefits that ping pong robots bring? Let’s explore them right away!
First, practicing with a ping pong robot will make you more flexible. Unlike when the ball bounces back toward you in the Playback Position method, robots will serve you from different directions and with different speeds that you will have difficulty in controlling the arrival of the ball.
Therefore, you need to practice more, change a lot of positions as well as try to become more alert and agile.
Next, you can try and experience problematic manipulations and techniques with a table tennis ball machines. Because you can increase the difficulty of your training session by setting speed and serve modes, variable directions and speeds will “give you a hand” to practice more complicated techniques from low to high.
Also, a ping pong robot helps you to correct your postures and moves. And you will be able to recognize which grip is the most comfortable, which standing positions are easier to move, etc. after a period you practice with robots.
How Can You Choose A Robot?
To be able to practice, the first thing you have to do is to purchase yourself a suitable robot.
Nowadays, while some robots only have basic features like serve, others are programmed to remember your speed and playing style. After that, they will set up the exercise program that’s best for you.
Thus, you can consider choosing a robot based on many factors, such as features, price, size, etc. Or you can refer to the best ping pong robots for practicing for more useful information.
Start With Strokes
As a beginner, you should set up a ping pong robot to practice basic operations such as forehand strokes and backhand strokes first.
For practicing basic strokes, set the robots to serve at one position at about 20 to 25 balls per minute speed since this is the proper one for amateurs to get used to receiving the ball. It’s alright if you want to increase or decrease the rate as long as you feel comfortable.
Moreover, you can set a goal of 40 balls per minute speed which is equivalent to the speed of the real matches.
Keep in mind that you shouldn’t be too hasty in increasing the speed or worry about the accuracy in the first few practice sessions; just stay calm and practice slowly.
If you have mastered basic strokes, you can move to some more challenging techniques such as flick, loop, and chop, as well as increase the difficulty by adding some variations like heavy spin, left or right sidespin, punch block, chop block, and so on.
Control Your Moves
If strokes can’t challenge you anymore, let’s start with moving. Similar to practicing stroke, you should adjust the speed at about 20 balls per minute and choose multiple directions to adapt first.
Then, slowly get used to moving to receive the incoming ball, begin with small steps first to the left and right, front and back, and be more alerted when you adjust the speed.
Don’t forget that the cross-court and the table center are the two positions that you can easily score from. So, when practicing, try to focus on these two.
Combine Movements With Strokes
Now, combine the techniques you learned together. Train yourself step-by-step with increasing difficulty
Step 1: Do the basic strokes with slow movement. This will help you adapt to combining other techniques. You have to carefully practice this one before moving on to the next step, otherwise, beating your opponent will not be possible.
Step 2: Upgrade yourself by trying basic strokes with fast-moving or advanced strokes with slow-moving. The choice is up to you, and you can choose which one you find easier to carry out first.
Step 3: You’re able to do the advanced strokes with fast-moving! Apply the advanced strokes that you trained in step 2 then try to play with faster speed and movements.
Anyway, try hard every day to be a professional player!
Set Up Random Practising Mode
Until now, you may have mastered playing table tennis with a robot. It’s time to challenge yourself with randomization mode! You won’t know the direction of the ball, the speed, etc. And that will give you the feeling of training with real players!
Notice
One thing that you should pay attention to when choosing this method is purchasing a robot. The price of a ping pong robot isn’t low, so don’t forget to deliberate about it carefully.
Conclusion,
We hope that you can easily apply our recommendations and guidelines to practice as well as enhance your table tennis skills.
Overall, Compared to the rest of the methods, practicing with a ping pong robot is the best option to improve your techniques. Although you have to spend an amount of money on a robot, you’ll get what you pay for!
Try hard to reach your goals!