(by Larry Hodges)
- Wear appropriate table tennis shoes. They are designed for table tennis movements.
- Wear relatively tight shoes. If they are loose, your feet will move about inside them as you move, slowing you down. Anyone who’s played me know that just before any match I retie my shoes as tight as I can.
- On slippery floors, wear new shoes, and step on a wet towel every few points. This will greatly help you with traction.
- Develop a good ready position, ready to move in any direction, with weight mostly on the outside balls of the feet, knees slightly bent, leaning slightly forward at the waist.
- Focus on recovering and positioning after each shot. You don’t need to be that quick if you recover and position yourself after each shot for the next one. For example, if you go wide to the opponent’s wide forehand, he has an angle into your forehand, and so you shift your positioning a bit in that direction. And so on.
- Focus on balance. If you are even slightly off balance, it will drastically slow you down from recovering and getting back into position for the next shot.
- Take a little hop just before your opponent hits his shot. This allows you to drop down into a relaxed crouch as he’s hitting, with your feet ready to spring you in either direction. Watch the top players and you’ll see how they do this. (Here’s a tip on this – You Can Be Light on Your Feet.)
- Think of yourself as a mean green moving machine. (Wearing green is optional.) Much of footwork is in the mind – if you think you’re greased lightning, you’ll tend to move more quickly.
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