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[ejunkie]

How does one do it if he never get tested? Supposed all the players at my club that I play are defensive, or all-round at best, how do I work on my defensive?

[varghese]

Is your question, how can you find your weakness unless you play against some very attacking and offensive players - to find your weakness in defense and eliminate them?

[ejunkie]

Yes, we lack some offensive minded strong attackers locally recently for practice and so, first, my defense don't get tested, and, second, I lack the motivation to initiate attacks since others can't beat me with their attacks. So my defense is getting more sound but not really getting better; my offensive is not moving forward either.

I guess the question is really how to practice without good opponents. Some many of the Chinese players that moved away from mainland China must faced the same thing and their standing is just lowered after moving.

[729 fx]

For me, I would ask the circle of close friends to just initiate the attack only and put me on the defensive. For example I may put 2 versus 1 (me) and I will have to be defensive most of the time. Then we rotate, that is a friend and myself will be on the attacking side and the other friend will be defending in this training.

You can have some friendly match with other clubs who may have attack-oriented players to test you defensively.

(Note : I do not play competitively (example in tournament), only socially; therefore I may be at a lower level compared to you guys)

[varghese]

Oh, this is a good topic.

I agree to 729 FX. As he has said, a planning which is done earlier will help. But this can only happen between friends. I used to practice against some close friends that way - but it was some long time ago. I do the defense and the friend does the offense all the time. But this kind of thing is not happening anymore to me. The club has a 2 minute warm up policy now because a large number of players waiting to play.

Let's look into the hardcore of the problem. There is a wrong notion that goes around in some places. This wrong notion is that, don't loop against a chopper. I was in Dallas this weekend. I had some good time against some players there. They tried to loop my chops and they themselves figuring out a way to overcome my defense. That is not the case in my clubs. In the clubs that go regularly, there are some coaches has taught their students to play knuckle ball against my pips. There are some coaching to play push against me. Whatever it is there is a lot of wrong teaching out there. These wrong teachings stop many players to grow. I think ejunkie is facing that problem. Instead of players increasing their offense techniques against defenders like ejunkie, they try to keep their level the same.

Secondly, counter looping is not practiced in many clubs. It is a hard thing to do, and the players don't want to attempt it. There is one way to improve the offense is increasing rallies to test our spin and speed abilities - the counter looping is one way I have found that increase our ability of consistency.

In my opinion, the coaches or the culture at the local clubs has so much to blame for the improvement of the players game. There is so much wrong teaching out there from coaches - sad to say, but that is a fact.

This is why I use the term 'elevate the game'. We have to grow from the level we are today to a level tomorrow.

The solution to this problem is, the culture need to change and the wrong teachings should go. To get games against high rated players, it may be required to pay them. In my areas, I used to see high rated players charging $20 ~$30 for coaching. They may give game if they are paid. I don't agree with that kind of attitude, but that is happening everywhere. There is one way to save money and play against them. If you are living in an area where there are tournaments, you can join high rated events and play against myriad of players.