Had half an hour the other day where I was the only person about so having found a table tennis ball (in the table tennis table) I decided to play against the wall, far more difficult than using a feather (speed of rebound) and with the ball curving in the air I wonder if anyone else has/does use this as a means of reaction training.
I read once that Peter Gade used to do this for hours on end as a child, and that he thinks that this more than anything else helped train his reactions. I tried it once myself and its indeed very tricky and can imagine that it would be a good way to train your reactions EDIT: Here is the link taken from http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19295&highlight=peter+gade+ping+pong
would doing this wear down strings/racket anymore than a bird would? this sounds like a great idea to practise reflexes but if for any odd reason it could cause damage i wouldn't want to do it. p.s sorry for bringing back an old thread.
I'm glad you brought it back... it seems like a fantastic idea. I doubt it could cause damage... those balls are so light.
Ooo, I've recently started messing around with this because of the abundent racket ball courts around. It's great fun especially if u force urself to take the ball early, aka drives. It is also semi efficent for practice drops if u limit it to net line tumbles from close to the tape.
its good practice but the balls dont last very long they arent' mean to be hammered directly against a wall...
if u actually play good table tennis is a very good way to practice your hand-eye reaction lol , because i play many racket sports i have advantages such as fast reaction from table tennis, good endurance from tennis, quick footwork from badminton etc,
Like martin said, it's a great way to practice hand-eye reaction (or coordination =P). I used to play for the Ontario Table Tennis Team and I remember the first thing I ever learned was to hit the ball against the wall, as well as bounce the ball repeatedly on your racket. If you're absolutely obsessed with trying this, you can try to find places that sell TT balls in large bags (~300), and hopefully find Cooper ones (that have no stars on it) which are really cheap. Probably easier to find in HK though... or you could get the 3-star Stiga or Butterfly ones used for tournaments which have lots of powder on it, and end up changing your black strings to white and a lot of spots on the wall
yea, definately wont use expensive balls, just thoes packs of 6 for a dollar at the dollar store ^^ thanks for the input everyone
yah it smells bad allright, like methane or something i donno, probably was a 2 part ball and its the glue
yah i find myself wipping my rubber after every ralley to get ride of that stupid white powder, lol bad idea i know but better then that powder affecting my spin.
Do you have that foamy stuff you use to clean ur racket? I remember I used to get so amused by it...cold foam...muaha...!!! And then ur racket's amazingly clean and can do super spinny shots!!! =D
Hmm, I'm going to hav to go check, but I'm fairly sure that the TT balls that I've been using don't give off a smell.
This ones come back up after a long time dormant. Nah no problem with the strings, a TT ball weighs less than 3 grams a shuttle approximately 5 grams so the energy going through the strings is far less. Oh and you do break the odd ball but there less than twenty pence each so its not going to bankrupt you.
