33 free videos on technique, drills and tips, each tagged by level
Reviewer About as thorough as a ready position lesson gets — stance, table position, and how both should shift during play.
Moderator Entire video, start to finish, is the ready position — stance width, knee bend, table positioning, distance from the table, and how to adjust based on serve origin and rally state. Nothing else competing for time.
Reviewer Explains both what to do and why it works, plus what comes next.
Moderator Detailed, structured breakdown of the actual ready position: front-leg weight shift, hip bend with soft knees, light heels, racket in front, and how it transitions into backhand or forehand. Squarely and thoroughly the named skill.
Reviewer The 'widen until uncomfortable, then back off' trick is genuinely good teaching - better than most.
Moderator Textbook basic ready stance from the ground up - stands you up straight, walks you to shoulder width, has you lean forward, bend knees, raise arms, stagger the back foot. Every single point is the ready stance and nothing else.
Reviewer Sharp, specific coaching that fixes a real, common problem.
Moderator This is exactly about the ready position between shots -- stance distance from the table, weight on the balls of the feet versus a flat planted foot, and leaning the upper body forward to stay ready.
Reviewer Explains the actual mechanics (center of gravity, loading) instead of just showing a pose.
Moderator Builds the ready stance from first principles -- exactly, comprehensively the named skill.
Reviewer Explains the WHY behind the stance, not just the shape - good depth for tightening up bad habits.
Moderator Covers all three pillars of the ready stance - leg lowering, weight on the balls of the feet, forward lean from the hips - and never drifts off into anything else. Squarely the sub-skill.
Reviewer Best-structured lesson in the whole set -- clear principles, real examples, actionable homework.
Moderator A dedicated ITTF training-series episode entirely about the ready position -- its importance, the three functional elements (visibility of the opponent, leg power for reaction, weight forward on the toes), analyzed through real elite match footage, plus an animated breakdown of forehand-open/neutral/backhand-open stance variants. Nothing here strays from the topic.
Reviewer Simple, clear, and genuinely useful — a great one for nailing your basic stance.
Moderator Dead center on target — this is entirely about the basic ready stance: feet width, knee bend, where to stand relative to the table and how far away. Exactly what this sub-skill is about.
Reviewer Sharp, specific coaching that names the exact mistake and the exact fix -- excellent.
Moderator This is directly about what 'ready position' should mean during a rally -- recovery timing, arm/leg reset, contrasting the common (wrong) idea of returning to a fixed neutral spot. Squarely, deeply on-skill.
Reviewer Corrects a real, common misconception with a clear, credible explanation - useful reframe.
Moderator Entirely about the ready position - when it actually applies (serve receive) versus the common myth of returning to it after every single shot mid-rally. This is squarely, explicitly the sub-skill.
Reviewer Straightforward and correct — solid foundation for your stance.
Moderator Squarely on topic — feet apart for stability, knees bent for forward/backward balance, crouched compact stance. Textbook ready-position instruction from a credible coach.
Reviewer Detailed, correct, and easy to apply -- strong stance coaching.
Moderator This is squarely about the ready stance itself -- foot stagger distance, stance width relative to the shoulders, and the braking action of the back foot.
Reviewer Solid checklist for the stance — width, knees, distance, hand position, all covered clearly.
Moderator Squarely and only about the ready stance — foot width, knee bend, weight on the balls of the feet, hand placement, distance from the table, and lateral positioning by handedness.
Reviewer Real, specific fix, though it leans on the visual demo to fully click.
Moderator Squarely about ready-position racket angle: identifies the common beginner error of holding the racket straight and explains why it limits spin generation, with the fix. On-topic and specific.
Reviewer Solid checklist coaching - one or two cues are worded awkwardly but the substance holds up.
Moderator Squarely about the ready stance, structured as exactly 7 named checkpoints - feet width, knee bend, forward lean, weight distribution, arm height, paddle neutrality, table positioning, eyes on ball. Nothing here strays into other strokes; this is the sub-skill, full stop.
Reviewer Sharp correction to the usual 'always return to ready position' advice, with a good self-check built in.
Moderator This is squarely about the ready/recovery position, just arguing against the conventional version of it — instead of resetting to a fixed spot between shots, track the ball and let your racket head straight to where it's going next. Still core sub-skill territory, just the in-rally recovery side of it rather than the pre-point stance.
Reviewer Short and sharp - the armband-to-table-edge cue alone is worth the watch.
Moderator This is the receive-specific flavor of ready position - distance from the table (touch the edge with your armband), adjusting deeper against long servers, staying low and compact. It's a narrower slice of 'ready position' (serve receive only) rather than the general stance, so not a full +2, but squarely on-topic.
Reviewer Correct and covers both hands, but it's a list of points rather than a demonstration.
Moderator All about the match-ready stance — table-side positioning by handedness, spacing off the table, staggered feet, knee bend, weight forward, neutral bat position. On-topic throughout, right/left-hand versions both covered.
Reviewer Solid. Explains the why, then hands you actual drills to groove it. A coach would teach it exactly this way.
Moderator This is squarely about ready position, just anchored to the awkward moment right after the pendulum serve. He covers where to recover to depending on whether you're forehand- or backhand-dominant, and ties it to not crowding the table so you can cover both short and deep balls. It's not a generic 'ready position' lecture in isolation, it's contextualized to serve recovery specifically, but that context IS a core scenario for this sub-skill, not a tangent.
Reviewer Great concept, but light on the actual technical detail.
Moderator Squarely about table tennis ready position: the goalkeeper-ready analogy directly conveys why you need a multidirectional-ready stance since you don't know shot direction until your opponent plays it.
Reviewer Good insight, track the ball instead of resetting to a spot, but it's over before it really digs in.
Moderator Short clip but it goes straight at the exact concept of ready/recovery position and challenges the standard teaching of it. That's about as squarely on-topic as it gets for this sub-skill, it's literally arguing about what the ready position should be.
Moderator This is a genuinely good ready-position lesson — instead of just telling you the stance, it has you experiment with foot width, distance from table, and lateral position through a 'no-move' rally game to find your own correct ready position. It does drift into footwork and rally games later, but the core is squarely about stance.
Reviewer A fun, practical way to dial in your stance — more useful than just being told what to do.
Reviewer Correct facts, including the distance zones, but no explanation of why any of it matters.
Moderator Short, but entirely on-topic — feet placement, knee bend, weight, bat height, and the three standard distance zones from the table. No filler.
Reviewer One decent cue (bat under your nose) but very thin beyond that.
Moderator Short first-lesson clip, entirely about the triangle stance — feet width, knee bend, bat centered below the nose. On-topic, if brief.
Reviewer Reframes stance as anticipation, not just posture — worth a watch if you already have the basics down.
Moderator Also squarely about the ready position — framed around why it matters for balance, timing and reacting rather than just standing still.
Reviewer Solid starting point for getting your stance right.
Moderator This is exactly about finding your stance — the ready position itself. Nothing else competing for attention here.
Reviewer Detailed live coaching with real value on recovery position.
Moderator Recovery and a neutral ready-position racket angle after the serve are explicitly coached here ('use a neutral racket angle for your ready position'), though it's one thread inside a broader third-ball-attack session.
Reviewer The point is real, but it's buried in live drill chatter rather than clearly explained.
Moderator Live coaching feedback during a variable-tempo rally drill, telling the player to stay 'open'/in position so they can accelerate the ball regardless of pace or height. Genuinely about maintaining a ready, reactive position, on-topic even though it's drill commentary rather than a clean explainer.
Reviewer The one relevant tip is solid, but brief and buried among unrelated ones.
Moderator Covers three separate beginner mistakes; only one (stance: foot width, knee bend, forward lean) is actually about ready position, the other two (finger placement on the grip, racket angle) are different sub-skills. Partially on-topic.
Reviewer Intellectually interesting framework, but abstract and hard to action without watching the footage closely.
Moderator The ready/recovery position is one of three named actions in this footwork framework (split step, ball approach, ready/recovery after hit) and gets real analytical attention as part of the rally breakdown - but it's one component of a broader footwork-composition analysis, not the throughline. Covers the sub-skill among other things.
Reviewer A good concept stated once, but no real breakdown of how to actually do it faster.
Moderator The stated goal of the drill is literally 'get ready, get in position very fast' after the first shot - that's the ready-position/recovery skill in a specific, demanding scenario (recovering balance after looping a backspin ball, which takes more energy and is harder to recover from). On topic, but it's presented as a demo lead-in more than a lesson, and most of the actual content is the shot itself rather than the recovery.
Reviewer Solid, specific advice on ready-position height for blocking.
Moderator Racket height at the ready position is explicitly one of the three rules here ('your ready position is too low'), but the video's real focus is forehand blocking technique as a whole.
Reviewer There's a decent tactical idea buried in here, but it's a bit of a rambling watch to get to it.
Moderator This is legitimately about ready position — specifically why players often set up slightly toward their backhand side, and how that affects what they can return with forehand vs backhand. That's on-topic for stance and readiness, even if the delivery rambles.