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Hi I'm Alois Rosario and I'm Jeff Plumb from PingSkills.com and today we are going to look
at the forehand push.
Why do we need the forehand push? It's a useful stroke especially on the return of serve and
to counter a heavy backspin ball when you are not in position to make an attacking stroke.
Let's look at the basic things you need to consider when making the forehand push. Firstly
like with all of our PingSKills strokes we talk about the legs. So you have your legs
fairly square to the table or you can be a little side on to the table for the forehand
push. The second thing is our start position. Making sure that you are starting with your
bat laid back a little bit so that you can brush underneath the ball and can counter
the backspin. The start position can be next to you or a little bit forward of that. The
third thing that we need to think about is to come forward, contact the ball and move
your hand and your wrist just forward towards the ball, towards the net. If it has less
backspin you can think about coming more down towards the table. So, your basics are your basic
stance starting with your bat laid back, beside you and pushing forward with your fingers,
your hand, your wrist and a little bit of your forearm to make the stroke.
WIth the forehand push you can vary the amount of backspin you get on the ball by opening
the angle of the bat and coming underneath it. So for less spin you have a more flat
bat and for more spin you come underneath in a more brushing action now getting more
backspin is useful because it makes it harder for your opponent to attack the backspin ball.
The forehand push is a very soft stroke it is mainly used to position the ball well to
make it difficult for the opponent at the other end. It is not used to try and hit a
winner. If you try and hit the ball too fast with your bat angled backwards it has to go
off the end of the table, so it is really important that with the push that you keep
the stroke soft.
If this lesson on the forehand push has helped you then go to PingSkills.com where you will
find a lot more information about the strokes of Table Tennis.