Table tennis drills run the gamut from the simple to the advanced. For young or new players, bouncing with the ball on the racquet prepares them to play on the actual table. For those short on equipment, you can develop drills for multiple team practice on a single table. In any case, steady practice leads to better technique. For basic stroke practice, the website All About Table Tennis suggests you practice each drill for a minimum of 15 minutes and that "achieving consistency requires practice, practice, practice."
Coordination
Authors of the USA Table Tennis instructor's guide emphasize that younger children need simple drills to develop hand-eye coordination. This is why they suggest youngsters start out just bouncing the ball on their racquets. You can give the players a time challenge for keeping the ball bouncing or have them compete with one another for the most consecutive bounces. Either way, their skills will improve dramatically and you can then move them over to actual table play.
Multiball
Multiball is especially useful with new players. The coach or experienced player set up on the side opposite the training player. They are equipped with a bucket of balls and provide a continuous stream for the training player to hit. The coach can tailor the pattern of the balls to suit the skills being developed. For example, they can feed only backhands, forehands, lobs or they can mix them up. While this multiball is a less desirable option for two more advanced players, it helps new players get core hitting time and develop striking technique.
Basic Drills
Basic drills tend to emphasize types of stroke or correlating footwork. Such examples include forehand to forehand rallying, backhand to backhand, forehand-backhand and so on. Other drills include mutual pushing exercises -- a passive backhand stroke -- where the two players rally back and forth, keeping the ball as near to the net as they can throughout the exercise. Additionally, drills can focus on service or responding to spin. In the latter case, one player can offer consistent backspin to which the other can practice returning; then they switch. For basic service drilling, the two players can alternate serve, each catching the ball and serving it back, or, one player can serve an entire bucket of balls and then the other serves theirs.
Multiple Players
One exercise recommended by the USATT is to let the players play doubles. To make this more challenging, none of the four players can hit the ball two volleys in a row. This forces the players to alternate strike patterns and strokes, building coordination in directing cross-court or side line shots. If your club or organization doesn't have the luxury of having many practice tables, try what the USATT calls "Brazilian teams" practice. Split the class into teams of more than two players and have them form lines on each side of the table(s). The first players from each team play a point out then go to the end of the line as the next two players approach for the second point.
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