Tip of the Week
Never Decide If You Have to Move.

Table Tennis Timeliness and Weekend Coaching
I was three minutes late for a group session yesterday. Yes, three minutes - and it's only the third time I've been late in the thirty years since we opened MDTTC in 1992. I estimate I've done about 25,000 sessions in that time. So, what happened?

I was sitting in my lounge chair at home reading and about to have lunch, when I suddenly realized the clock on my wall that claimed it was about noon wasn't moving. I glanced at my watch . . . and it was 12:48 PM! And I had a session at 1PM, and I was about a 12-minute drive away! I leaped to my feet, threw things together, and raced for my car. I didn't have time for lunch. At a stop light I texted that I'd be a few minutes late. I walked ran sprinted into the club at 1:03 PM. Since Coach Wang was already leading them in stretching, hardly anybody noticed I was late. But it felt funny rushing into the club and right into a session. I normally arrive 15 minutes early, both so I'm not rushed, so I'm never late, and to set up things as needed (balls, ball nets, changing shoes, etc.).

The two other times I was late? Once I simply had my times off by an hour, and arrived an hour late. The other time there was a car accident, and I was stuck in one spot, with cars ahead, behind, and on both sides, for almost an hour before I was able to get out.

Timeliness is important for coaches. I know of two table tennis coaches who lost their coaching positions because they were late so often.

Tips of the Week
While I was in Austria, two Tips went up, plus this week's Tip. Here they are!

• April 25: How to Stop a Simple Third-Ball Forehand Attack
• May 2: Don't "Go For a Shot" or "Play Safe" - Just Do the Right Shot
• May 9: Playing the Middle Doubles the Opponent's Difficulties

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WTT Youth Contender and ITTF Hopes Camp in Linz, Austria
I've divided this into four parts:

Next Blog Will Be Monday, May 9
However, the Tips of the Week will still go up each Monday. I'm going out of town for two weeks, coaching at the ITTF Youth Contender and Hopes Camp in Linz, Austria - see segment below.

Tip of the Week
Keep the Ball to the Extreme Angles in Practice.

Tip of the Week
Do You Receive to Set Up Your Game?

Table Tennis . . . Blackspins?
There have been various attempts to create the equivalent of "belts" in table tennis. A decade or more ago Diego Schaaf created table tennis pins, with different types signifying various levels reached in rating. It was a great idea, but it never took off. Perhaps it was too complicated - at a glance, it was tricky to really know what each one signified. (I just spent fifteen minutes trying to find mine - I thought it was in my playing bag, but I can't find it there.)

Here's a thought. The belts in martial arts are very simple - just a belt, with the color signifying level. What if we created simple ball-shaped pins, where the colors signify highest level reached, using the same colors from martial arts? For example:

Tip of the Week
If You Get Caught Out of Position, Either You Made a Mistake or Your Opponent Did Something Great.

World Table Tennis Day
It's this Wednesday, April 6! Here's the ITTF Info Page and the ITTF video (64 sec)

MDTTC Open and Weekend Coaching
I spent Saturday coaching at the MDTTC Open. Here are complete results care of Omnipong. As usual, it was a wild ride - sometimes the kids play great, sometimes they don't. Lots of tactical decisions.

Tip of the Week
Pavlovian Response and Table Tennis.

Weekend Coaching
Another busy weekend, with lots of multiball and blocking. I coached in four junior group sessions. In one of them I was a practice partner where I mostly blocked, but did one (exhausting) footwork drill where I served backspin, partner pushes to my backhand, I step around and forehand loop, partner blocks to my wide forehand, I move over and forehand loop, and then we continue, with partner blocking side to side as I alternate forehand and backhand. The problem is, once I get into a rhythm, I'm pretty consistent, and so we had a lot of LONG rallies. I also did a lot of serve coaching, especially on how to serve low and short, with serve still driving out so there's a low, quick bounce on the far side, with second bounce near the endline. I also had a one-hour session with Navin Kumar, who I'm preparing for the Parkinson's events at the US Nationals in July and the World Parkinson's in Pula, Croatia, Sept. 30-Oct. 3. Focus was on loop & smash, serving, and the usual stroking drills.

Tip of the Week
A Table Tennis Player's Guide to Toweling.

Cary Cup
I spent the weekend coaching at the Cary Cup Open in North Carolina. We had eleven kids from MDTTC there and three coaches (myself, Wang Qingliang, and Jeffrey Zeng Xun). I ended up coaching eight of them in over 30 matches. Our players were Stanley Hsu (13, 2402), Mu Du (13, 2283), Ryan Lin (12, 2216), William Wu (16, 2140), Christian Funderberg (16, 2112), Winston Wu (12, 2079), Lance Wei, Todd Klinger, Kurtus Hsu, Aaron Zhang, and Liam Draper. AJ Carney did a great job running the tournament (as always). Here are complete results, care of Omnipong.

Tip of the Week
How to Learn by Watching the Top Players.

Exhaustedly Tired and Weekend Coaching
It's been an exhausting week. I had all sorts of things I was going to get done this week. But on Wednesday, I came down with what was likely 24-hour stomach flu. But the "24-hour" part isn't that accurate. It's true that I was only really sick on Wednesday - REALLY sick, 102.2 fever - but I spent the next two days (Thu & Fri) mostly in bed exhausted. I did my usual coaching on the weekend, mostly group sessions where I did a lot of multiball training. But one session on Sunday we had an odd number of players, so I was recruited to be a practice partner. It started off fine, but toward the end I was getting pretty tired. But it didn't affect my play much. Then we played up-down tables for an hour, where we'd have improvised games starting at 5-5. For example, in one set of games, the receiver had to push long to the wide forehand, the server had to loop the first ball consistently to the backhand, the then play out point. Or the same, except the receiver had to push long to the wide backhand. Again, I started out fine, and despite 20 players ranging up to about 1950 level, I quickly reached the first table.

Tip of the Week
Be Both a Machine and an Artist.

Princeton Pong Tournament
I went up to Princeton, NJ on Friday (three-hour drive from Maryland) with five of our kids and their parents, and coached at the Princeton Pong tournament on Saturday. Here are complete results, care of Omnipong. A great thanks goes out to tournament staff Ben Rosenberg (director), Claudia Dunlevy, and referee Chris Lehman, and to the other volunteers who helped out with the tournament.

This time around it was a group of our younger kids, all rated under 1300, ages 10 to 13, most of them playing in three round robin rating events. Four of the five had never played a tournament outside Maryland. They had a great time - I wonder if I was that excited to play in tournaments back when I first traveled to tournaments back in 1976? (Answer: yes.)

Tip of the Week
Be a Machine But Not Mechanical.

Weekend Coaching, an Exhausting Session, . . . and USATT or Local TT
It was another busy week at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. I had four group sessions, plus a private session with Navin Kumar. (As noted previously, I'm retired from private coaching, but made an exception for Navin, a Paralympic player. I'll likely be coaching him at the World Parkinson's Championships at the 2022 ITTF Parkinson's World Table Tennis Championships, Sept. 30 - Oct. 3, 2022, in Pula, Croatia.) Head junior coach Wang Qingliang ran most of these sessions, with Coach Lidney Castro running one of them. (I used to run many or most of these sessions, but now that I'm "semi-retired," I've taken a back seat and let others be in charge while I assist.)