Table Tennis - Forehand and Backhand

Matt Burch teaches the basics of playing table tennis with forehand and backhand techniques.

Hey, welcome back, Matt Burch again teaching how to play table tennis. In this segment, we're going to be talking more about forehands and backhands, and also giving you some demonstrations of a drill or two to use, to help you in your forehands and your backhands. We've learned about spin, we've learned about both the topspin and backspin and you're going to use each of those with both your forehand and your backhand. But your forehand and your backhand it all starts with a good stance which we've already talked about in the previous lessons. Being on the top of your feet, and then when you want to rotate with your hips -- so if it's a forehand you're going to want when the ball comes to your forehand side, you're going to want to rotate with your hips and move your arm at your elbow so that you're really using your hips and your elbow to swing in around and you're going to be real stable when you do that. And the same with the backhand, you're going to turn at your waist but then you're going to be using your elbow and your arm to come forward. So that's your basic forehand and backhand. And what I am going to demonstrate with my partner here is how to switch from a forehand to a backhand. When you hit a forehand, you want to always start in your ready position which just means your feet are plane and you on top of your feet, your knees are bent slightly. Then when you go to a forehand, you're going to turn at the waist and then you're also going to come, bend your arm at your elbow, come through the ball, and then you're going to come back to what I call a ready stance, which basically just means you're in that relaxed position, square towards your opponent, and your pedal is actually going to be facing your opponent so that you're actually in what again I call a ready stance. So, whether they hit it to forehand or backhand, you're going to be able to rotate very quickly to return the ball. So for this segment, we're going to actually demonstrate the forehand and the backhand and going back and forth so that you can practice at home with your partner and asking them to hit back and forth. And you'll notice when I am hitting, it's going to be a rotation with your hips to your forehand, then you're going to rotate to your backhand but my feet aren't moving too much. Now if my partner was hitting in angles, then I wouldn't move my feet and still but I'd even still want to be stable whenever I was there. So if they're moving me around, I can still be stable and use the same good form that I use as if I was in the middle of the table, and so those are some ways that you and your partner can really work on your forehands and your backhands, and again with both your forehands your backhands, keep working on both the topspin and the backspin because you can use those with both forehands and backhands. Another drill you can use if I could get the ball is hitting against a wall using the same thing as if you have a partner because what that's going to do is it turn me both back and forth hitting against the wall. So I am not against a wall now, but at home, you can practice a door, a wall, when I was at home I used to practice just against the wall, so that you can use both forehands and backhands, both back and forth and that's going to really strengthen your game. So now that you've got a few drills to use with forehands and backhands, for the last segment, we're going to be teaching about serves.