How I can practice ping pong alone

Table Tennis Training and Drills

Last updated 8 years ago

Marko Unknown

Marko Unknown Asked 16 years ago

Hi coach!

I watch your videos and I think it is fantastic. I am begginer in ping pong and I do not have anywhere to practice it. My friends do not know how to play ping pong so I ask you how I can practice alone? I have a table in my basement and I really do not know how to practice.

I think you are the best!!!!


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario Answered 16 years ago

Hi Marko,

Learning to play without a partner is a difficult one, but you have the main ingredient to getting better and that is you are very keen.

Try:

  • Hitting the ball against the wall consistently. Use your table and put it up against a wall then hit the ball against the wall as many times as you can.
  • Bouncing the ball on your bat as many times as you can
  • Bouncing the ball on your bat using both sides alternately

For all of these activities You can use the PingSkills Consistency Chart.

  • Learn to spin the ball by hitting it on the floor and seeing if it comes back to you or if you can make it curve on a piece of carpet.

Alternatively, try to find a local club.  If you are having difficulties finding one let us know and we will try to help. 

I hope you can use these tips. Maybe one of our Ping Skills friends can make a suggestion for you as well.

Let me know if you have any other ideas. Put them here on Ping Skills and see if we can help Marko.

 


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Thoughts on this question

Jeff Plumb

Jeff Plumb from PingSkills Posted 16 years ago

Hi Marko,

When practicing alone, you can always work on your serve. Take a look at our video lesson "How To Serve". Once you have mastered the basic serve, you can work on some more advanced serves. Stay tuned for a video on this topic. 


René van Sark Unknown

René van Sark Unknown Posted 15 years ago

Use a returnboard to practice on your own,i do it and it works.

loveleen Unknown

loveleen Unknown Posted 15 years ago

u can do a lot of shadow practice in all combinations ,it will improve ur strokes and stamina to play strokes at a strech.

Abish Thimothy

Abish Thimothy Posted 15 years ago

IF this guy called Loveleen can drive upto 30 miles to play good table tennis then I beleive even you can becuz ...just think of something called " WHEN YOU"RE PASSIONATE ,YOU GET COMMITED" 


Tim Unknown

Tim Unknown Posted 15 years ago

Where can you get a return board in the U.S.?

Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 15 years ago

Thanks Thimothy, We need to remember that everyone has different levels of time available and priorities as well.

Tim Norman Unknown

Tim Norman Unknown Posted 14 years ago

you could also use a robot. these are very good to practise with, however, are expensive.

 

beggining at about £300 Uk pounds i think.

 

tim


Dustin Unknown

Dustin Unknown Posted 14 years ago

What I have recently started doing (it might not be the best) is I lean over the table and sort of bounce the ball backwards towards me and I like to practice my forehand topspin ball. Im not sure though because Its not completely realistic speed or spin, but I think it helps to just get down the motion.

na`duva Unknown

na`duva Unknown Posted 14 years ago

Hi, Marko

I'm from maldives. when I start playing TT I don't  have  even a table and any No friends who knows how to play.. You know how I did it?? I used to hit the wall of my room. I keep on trying to hit more and more. at first I tried with forhand then later Backhand. after tht I mixed it up and tried. it helps me lot on foot work, body movement plus my speed and accuracy.

after all, when you face with table you will have more confident on your self. with proper shedule start training a close friend. even I did it. Now I have a group of 8 memebers who regularly comes to practice. we all joined club and they found us great. 

with all effort, I'm really happy that we got a silver medal on netional level competition.  so bro...possible is everything. just keep on mooving forward... BEST OF LUCK 


Jackson Warren Unknown

Jackson Warren Unknown Posted 14 years ago

Hi Marko try just by laying the table out flat like it normally is then buy a whole heap of table tennis balls then just practice serving or normal shots by letting it bounce first then hit it


Steve Reilly Unknown

Steve Reilly Unknown Posted 14 years ago

FLEMING's Loop BLOCKER is the Answer to training without a partner.

I recently made a DVD of its use and will be creating a coaches guide for using the FLB as an assistant coach.

I designed and built the FLB's as a tribute to my former coach in Scotland and have been giving them away to prospective coaches as a training aid.

It worked really well (whilst i was coaching in Micronesia) for me to domonstrate techniques on my own, with accuracy and consitancy being the goal. Normally a coach requires another player of reasonable skill level to facilitate good domontration quality techniques........ but what do you do when an assistant coach is not available and the skill level of the students is too poor/inconsistant to be of constructive value??

My students now play full matches against FLB's with the only differing criteria from ITTF rules being that the ball must return (like squash) a certain number of times from each blocker before winning a point legally. One of my students has become "addicted" to this way of training and has been observed/heard practicing on her own from 9pm until after midnight..... only stopping becase the neighbours were complaining about the noise coming from the carport!!!

As soon as I learn how to post short DVD clips on my web-site I will post it immediately.


Emre Unknown

Emre Unknown Posted 14 years ago

hi i heve been playing tabel tennis for 2 years now and i am 12 but i never have been abel to do a very good top spin serve can you help.

Piers Grey

Piers Grey Posted 14 years ago

well, to improve your topspin you will need to first be thinking am I hitting straight through the ball or am I brushing my bat over the top of the ball?. If your just hitting the center of the ball and not brushing on contact you won't produce much topspin on the ball, so the contact that you make needs to be a brushing action, so start to brush the ball on contact and you will produce lots more topspin, trust me on this it does work!

lou Unknown

lou Unknown Posted 14 years ago

www.returnboard.com click on the english flag on the right top of the site in order to translate the site in english. Is to bad they don't make these available in the states. Check it out

Andrew T

Andrew T Posted 14 years ago

I made my own returnboard w/ my father this past summer.  Works great and was infinitely cheaper that product.

Jonathan Huynh

Jonathan Huynh Posted 11 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S27hOi0Tww&feature=relmfu

Can i use these exericses to practice strokes? I have tried the loop and loop drive ones and their sort of good.


Jeff Plumb

Jeff Plumb from PingSkills Posted 11 years ago

Hi Jonathan,

I had a quick look at the video. Anything you can do to help improve your strokes and coordination is good. It is always better to have a training partner though. If you can get someone to feed multi-ball it is much better as the ball comes through more like it would in a match and hence you are practicing strokes against balls you will get when you play a real game. With the exercises in that video the ball never has any forward momentum and so you'll never actually hit a ball like this in a game.


Jonathan Huynh

Jonathan Huynh Posted 11 years ago

oh. but is it okay to practise them before i get the robot though?


Jeff Plumb

Jeff Plumb from PingSkills Posted 11 years ago

Sure Jonathan, as I said anything you can do that helps you build some coordination will be helpful.


Jonathan Huynh

Jonathan Huynh Posted 11 years ago

Thanks Jeff! :)


Alvin Samson

Alvin Samson Posted 11 years ago

I practice serves alone,its really good to improve them,try different spins etc.


joshhua espiritu

joshhua espiritu Posted 11 years ago

if you want to practice forehand topspin put your table tennis table 2 and 1/2 inches in front of a wall and try to do forehand topspin, the wall will bring the ball back to you. it really works i did it and it develop my forehand topspin.                

 

but if your practice did not work there is some problem in the wall or in what size you put the table in front of the wall.


Mohammad Hassan

Mohammad Hassan Posted 10 years ago

Get a ball shooter I recommend( I pong ) I got one for a present


Rupsa Basu

Rupsa Basu Posted 9 years ago

shadow practice is the best option.


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 9 years ago

We also have a lesson on this in our Training Secrets Lessons on Practicing Alone.


Tom Dean

Tom Dean Posted 9 years ago

If you  have table that one side folds up the n fold it up and play like that


D K

D K Posted 9 years ago

Playing with a table in front of a the wall? :DD

It's like playing pimple blocker


Steve Billmire

Steve Billmire Posted 9 years ago

Alois,

 

Your first comment is perfect as always. As a side note to Marko I would like to add, go to "Training Secrets" then scroll down to the bottom and you will find "Practicing Alone". This is the video where Alois explains the best way to practicing alone and you will see how Alois does this. This is one of my favorite video's. Because a lot of the time I don't have someone else to practice my drills and or multi ball. Just bouncing the ball up and down on your bat/ paddle, racket will make a big difference. Ones you are able to bounce the ball on one side of your paddle start turning the paddle over and bounce the ball on both sides of the paddle. After that go for the, bouncing the ball on the edge of the paddle. As Alois say's while you are bouncing the ball you can start trying to put some spin on the ball and recovering it. Just remember, keep practicing after a while you will get better.

 

Also as others have said, if you have a fold up table. Fold up one side and start playing with it that way. I know it is going to be really hard at first but again practice!!!


Steve Billmire

Steve Billmire Posted 9 years ago

Update on my last post:

If you have the money get yourself a ball collection net that connects to the other side of the table. That way you can do your own type of multi ball practicing and be able to practice your serves. Along with that (if you have the money) is to go buy a IPONG robot from www.megaspin.net. they are very reasonable cost wise and start at $32us. I am looking to buy the IPONG pro with a collection net.

Hope this helps.


reynaldo difuntorum

reynaldo difuntorum Posted 8 years ago

Marko 

when I was young  ( teenager )back in 80s I was watching some good players in my town and I could not join them I have 00 knowledge about ping pong and I don't tell to  my mom I want to play ping pong !then I day I took off our kitchen door and play ping pong by that time my parents come back from work I put it back ! Playing by my   Self it's not a problem just explore I use the wall and when I'm practicing serve I took our kitchen drower at least 2 drower and put on the table spread them and aim them and bounce back and use my fore hand to smash and switch around use my back hand.. Now you can watch ping skill to learn more... 


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 8 years ago

Good ideas Reynaldo.  I am glad you were able to get the doors back on before your parents missed them!



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