The first question that needs to be asked is, “how do you practice effectively?”
To practice effectively you need to have the ball coming to you in a manner that will allow you to practice what you want to.

Group Training

To this end, if you are in a group environment where there are a few players of the same standard and those players are all able to control the ball well enough for their partners to practice then we have an effective practice happening. This however, is very difficult in a lower level group session. The percentage of balls that a beginner can provide in the correct place for their partner is minimal. So their partner is getting minimal practice benefit. For example if the two players are practicing forehand counterhits, a beginner may be able to deliver 1 out of 10 balls in the right place for their partner to be able to practice their forehand counterhit. Therefore their practice is about 10% or even less (because when the ball does land in the right position they are not ready for it anyway).

Bounce Feeding

So what methods can we use to make this percentage higher?
The first thing is to get the players to bounce the ball to each other using their hands. So the feeder bounces the ball on both sides like a serve to the forehand and catches the return. This process is repeated. Now, the feeder can get perhaps 8 to 10 out of 10 in the right place and the player gets much more benefit out of their practice. I have used this effectively in many situations especially at the school level where players have not had much experience before. You can even make a game out of it. See how many the feeder can get onto a piece of paper and see how many the hitter can get back onto a target.

Multi Ball Feeding

The other method is multi-ball, where one player is feeding multi-ball to the other. This is a skill that can be learned by young players and therefore helps everyone to increase the benefit they receive from their practice. This method is used effectively by Mark Smythe, the leading coach in Victoria, with his groups.

So the key to effective practice is the quality of the ball you receive. This means getting abll that suits your practice and this does not mean the fastest and spiniest ball that you can get, but one that will enable you to practice the stroke or drill you are doing. If you are finding that your practice is not effective, think about teaching your partner how to feed multi-ball. You will be amazed at how effective it can be and how easily it can be learned. For those of you in remote areas this can be effective. You can even teach a non table tennis player to be able to feed multi-ball.

PingSkills will write a Blog and film a Lesson on the skills of Multi-Ball soon to give you some more skills. Watch out for it over the next few weeks.