Transferring skills of running

Nathan Wu Asked 5 days ago

Hi Pingskills,

I can run decently fast but my footwork in table tennis slow. I end up always getting stuck on my right leg which I'm assuming is wrong. How do I transfer my speed from running to footwork?

What is the best drills to improve footwork and reactions?

Alois Rosario Answered 2 days ago

Hi Nathan,

Running and moving fast in Table Tennis are very different skills.  I am a very slow runner!

Think more about how well you can move laterally with a jumping motion.

Take a look at our tutorial on Footwork Basics to understand the mechanics of the movement.  Then it is a matter of improving this with faster motion.

You can do this with a robot by getting the robot to feed the balls to you side to side to start to get the movement correct.  Then you can get it to feed the ball to different positions and see if you can adapt your movements to tracking the ball and then making a decision as to where to move to and then play your stroke.