In table tennis, when blocking on the backhand side, your goal is the reverse – you want to get hit. More specifically, you want to catch the ball with the center of your torso. Except, of course, you hold a racket out and block the ball so it never hits you, and instead rebounds back to the opponent’s side.

That, in essence, is a backhand block. Many players make the mistake of reaching for the ball, contorting their arm and body into various positions while trying to have a repeatable block. Instead, as the ball comes at you, you should focus on stepping in its way, blocking its path with your body. If you think of it this way, the footwork becomes more natural. And then, with the ball in front of you, you simply stick your racket out and block, this time using a repeatable stroke that doesn’t involve reaching except as an absolute last resort.

A similar way to look at it is to imagine you are a soccer goalie who has to block the ball with his body. However you imagine it, the key is to get the body into position so you can block the ball in front of the body with minimal reaching.

And now that you’ve learned all this on the backhand side, guess what? It’s the same on the forehand block, except that now you are basically “blocking” the ball with your right side, or rather the area just to the right of your right side, where you want to hold your racket for the perfect forehand block (assuming you’re a righty). Then apply the same principles above and you’ll learn to step to the ball rather than reach on the forehand block as well.