Two keys to the forehand, What's the first key? I talked about it yesterday, All top-level players, All the world's famous table tennis players, All the star players, Not one of them has exactly the same forehand stroke, Can we all agree on that? Their backhand strokes aren't identical either, No two are exactly alike, This clearly shows that the exact forehand motion, And the exact backhand motion aren't what matters most, But in the forehand and backhand stroke, What really matters? What matters is whether you can generate power, Whether you can recover, Whether your body works together, Whether you can stay relaxed, And whether you can play continuously, Do you agree with that? I'll say it again, In my own name, Tell you this very responsibly, There is no single standard form, For the forehand or backhand, There is no one standardized stroke, Please trust me on this, But what are the key points in the stroke? Can you generate power? Can you relax? Can your body coordinate? Can you play continuously? Can you make everything work, Can you stay in control, And can you move efficiently? Remember, efficiency matters, Efficiency is the most important thing on both wings, What is absolutely essential? Your waist and core, I also talked yesterday, About turning the hips and driving the legs, Some of you may not, Have felt that very clearly yet, and that's okay, Start by feeling your waist and core, Feel how your waist works, You must learn to feel your waist, How Fan Zhengdogn turns his hips, And how he uses his legs, Don't rush it, At his current stage of forehand development, And with the way the modern forehand is played, At this stage, There isn't time to deliberately drive the hips and legs, Once you face a top player, so what do you do? Your waist has to lead the motion, Once the waist leads, you'll see, The main point, Where does it come from? The waist makes your forehand more stable and powerful, It gives you stability, power, and continuity, But everything here, Ultimately revolves around stability, Even if I can generate power, I still need to play continuously, I want to loop ten forehands without missing, And still hit hard enough to finish the point, How do I do it? I can't win by looping the ball long, And I can't win by looping into the net, The ball has to land on the table, And it still needs quality, That comes from the waist, Using only your arm will never be stable, You could train forever and still lack stability, understand? But don't make the waist rotation too large, Use your waist to lead the arm into the loop, Step two, lower through the legs, I'm sure you've often heard, That you should lower your center of gravity, So what is the center of gravity? It's here, right here, The upper body and legs may look separate, But they actually work together, Because the hand is here, The hand stays in the middle, Waist here, legs here, and the hand strikes here, Do you understand, everyone? This larger motion, This forehand, Its underlying principle is correct, The principle is fairly standard, So when we pursue, The correct underlying principle, It is simply the waist and legs leading the arm, Table tennis really isn't that difficult, Sometimes we make it too complicated, First, rotate the waist, Then lower through the legs, That's the forehand, those are the first two steps, Okay, what's step three? Don't reach too far forward with the arm, And don't straighten it completely, Let me show you from the side, Don't straighten it, instead, Bring the forearm in a little, Bring the forearm in, Why do you need to bring it in? Because when the waist and arm loop together, the power releases, So how do you control the arm? The forearm provides control, And the fingers and wrist provide control, But you can't control it from out here, look, You can't control it here, right? This kind of motion, Doesn't even follow the basic principle, Strike while bringing in the forearm, Why use the forearm? Because the forearm can generate tremendous power, The forearm can generate tremendous power, Give you a quick demonstration, Coach Liu, Everyone, watch this, Watch the forearm power, let's go, Feed to my forehand, keep it there, Yes good Watch, I won't move my waist or legs, I'll move only my arm, There's already some power, right? Now when I add the waist and legs, Even slightly poor control sends the ball long, That's when the power comes out, So the arm has to, It has to do what? How exactly should it strike? Do you understand now? My dear friends, The forearm must provide control, On my first ball, I barely, Controlled the stroke at all, and then, The ball flew long, Even after reaching China's first national team, I can still loop it out What does that tell you? If you don't train for a long time, Your hand loses its feel, You're not in your best form, Second, my technique just wasn't executed perfectly, I have to admit that, We can't mislead our students, So if you don't bring the arm in enough, If the arm doesn't close enough, The ball easily goes long, You can't control it, If you add even more power, How will you control it? Use the forearm, Once the waist and legs rotate properly, The power immediately explodes, After releasing the power, It's like throwing a basketball, Once you throw it out like this, Once that burst of power is released, The arm still has to stop and close, Because the table is only this long, If the table were another twenty or thirty meters longer, You wouldn't need to bring the arm in at all, Hit it straight up into the air, After all, the table is only this long, So we have to follow the underlying principles, All right, now, When we're training the forehand, Don't chase, A stroke that merely looks good, Or looks beautiful, Or looks a certain way, Absolutely don't do that, It fills your head with too many, Misconceptions and too many, Unnecessary complications, You don't need to think about those things, What should you focus on instead? Did I rotate my waist? Did I drive through my legs? Did I stay low through the legs? At the moment I finish the stroke, Did I bring in my forearm? Those are the only simple things you need, Do you understand? That's the forehand, At the instant we bring in the forearm, Now someone may ask, Coach Zhang, we've learned the waist and legs, So what's the next step? The next step is to grip the racket firmly, Grip the racket firmly, Don't let the grip go loose or slack, This is what I advocate, If I treat all of you as my students, If I treat you all as my students, When you're learning table tennis, Being a little stiff, Is still better than being loose and slack, Even being a little stiff, Is much better than being loose and slack, If I were coaching you, I would never support that approach, Relax, relax, and relax more, it doesn't work, It's okay to be a little stiff, Being a little stiff is okay, Look at this, Every table tennis player, At the final instant of the stroke, Has the whole body braced, Everything is compact, You know, for example, Zhang Jike holds the racket loosely, Jike has talked with me about it, His grip is very loose, But he's Zhang Jike, He's Zhang Jike, Right? And at the final instant, When his arm closes, His hand is also firm and compact, His grip is only looser beforehand, At contact, it still has to tighten, If his grip stayed loose at that instant, And his hand remained loose at the finish, The racket would fall out of his hand, Your hand can't stay loose, Right everyone? If your hand stayed completely loose, The bare blade would fly out of your hand, Everyone understands that principle, So you must grip it firmly, What else does a firm grip do? It makes the shot compact, And gives it a clear direction, If I create an arc, And make the upward motion compact, The ball follows an arc, If I make the forward motion compact, It follows a different arc, So grip the racket firmly, Understand? You must grip the racket firmly, Even if that makes you a little tense, Just look at other players, Look at Fan Zhendong, Look at today's, Top players, Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin, Fan Zhendong, Liang Jingkun, and Lin Shidong, Which one of them is completely relaxed? Let's be honest, Which one is completely relaxed? Right everyone? With the modern game, Today's playing style, No one can produce these shots in a totally relaxed state, Let's talk about the, Very best players today, The absolute top, The strongest players in today's game, What do they all do? They keep the stroke compact, It has to be compact, For example, Coach Zhang, can I stay tense the entire time? No, that won't work either, You need an appropriate amount of relaxation, Even if you're only twenty percent relaxed, About ten to twenty percent relaxed, And eighty to ninety percent firm, Keep about eighty percent firm, If you're too tense, You won't have any feel for the ball, You'll understand after doing it for a while, So now, for example, If you can't find the feeling yet, that's okay, It's okay to be slightly stiff, You can start stiff and relax later, Start stiff, then learn to relax, Being a little stiff, At the very least, what happens to the shot? At least keeps the body compact, And properly braced, After staying compact for a while, After enough time training this way, What begins to happen? What effect does it create? Everyone's body gradually, At the very least develops, A feel for the ball, You begin to find that feeling, If the hand is too loose, you can't feel the ball, Some people are so loose that they lose all feeling, You do need some relaxation, But you can't be completely loose, You need a little relaxation, But never total looseness, Many people today are far too loose, They loop forehand after forehand, And gradually lose all feel for the ball, Let's repeat step one today, First, Let the waist lead a little, Second, lower through the legs, When the waist and legs work together, As the hand follows the waist rotation, No matter what your stroke looks like, No matter what it feels like, Add your waist and legs to the motion, And your forehand can't be bad, The hand alone can't do it, Then the next step is the hand, At the moment the stroke comes through, Once the hand reaches here, tighten the grip, You can stay looser back here, But once you reach this point, You must tighten the grip, You can be a little looser here, then tighten, If you understand, type one, When we take the racket back, This side is more relaxed, Just slightly relaxed, But don't get too loose, Still keep some firmness in the grip, When you reach this side, everything must be firm, It must be completely firm, Do you bring in the forearm before contact, Or after contact? At the same time, it happens at contact, Not before or after, but at the same instant, That's when the power comes out, Okay, one more thing, When we reach into the stroke, When we extend the arm, Should we use the wrist and fingers? Everyone, Let me ask you, What do the wrist and fingers do? What do the wrist and fingers do? What do they create for you? First, they create feel, Second, The instant you strike the ball, They can add another twenty to thirty percent power, Watch, Watch, Right now I'm not moving anything else, I'm standing straight, I'm moving only my wrist, And I can still produce some power, Let me show you, Watch, I can still generate power, I'm not moving anything else, I'm moving only my wrist, Watch, Let me do it again, watch, I'm moving only my wrist, Can I still generate power? Yes, I can still produce some power, But not much, right? So at the instant of the forehand, Right at contact, Why should we use a little wrist? But there's an important condition, What is it, everyone? At the instant you use the wrist, You may find, That you lose some control, That's why, when your forehand, Fundamentals are still weak, I don't recommend using the wrist, Why do people say the wrist and fingers add so much power? That advice is for national-team players, I don't really recommend that beginners, Use the wrist, Once you lose control of that feeling, Your technique will get worse and worse, Do you understand? It will get worse and worse, I would rather you first train your legs, Waist and arm, then add the wrist later, The wrist and fingers naturally contain some power, But your forearm, Legs and waist already provide enough power, Then what does adding the fingers and wrist do? What is their purpose? Suppose I pivot around my backhand corner, And want to loop to the opponent's forehand, My racket angle looks like this, But after adding the fingers and wrist, I can brush outward, And loop to the opponent's backhand instead, See that? At the instant I contact the ball, I may keep the wrist moving for another 0.3 or 0.5 seconds, Just that tiny extra motion, Let's repeat it once more, First, when we loop the ball, Rotate the waist, Lower through the legs and bring the hand through, Keep this area braced, Keep the forearm braced, And keep the wrist firm, that's step one, As for the fingers and wrist, I suggest waiting until your forehand works reliably in matches, Build it through countless matches, Only matches prove whether your forehand is good, Training alone doesn't prove it, In training you can swing however you like, And make the stroke look as flashy as you like, That means nothing, matches are what count, If there's someone I could never beat, And today I beat him with my forehand, That's real proof, But beating him once still isn't enough, Do it three or five times, Then everyone You can start adding a little wrist to the forehand, By then you've trained your footwork, You've trained your waist, And you've trained your legs, If I still couldn't beat him before, But I've now trained my forehand, And brought it to a certain level, Then it's fine to add the wrist, But you need to be mentally prepared, When you add the wrist, There will be an adjustment period, Of one to two months, You may not adapt right away, Keep going, You may not feel comfortable at first, Keep going, Keep going, Those one or two months are part of making the change, They're a necessary cost, In any case, you have to go through it, understand?