New ITTF Coaching Rule and Board Discussion on Saturday
This Saturday at 9:30AM the USATT Board will have a teleconference on whether to adopt the new ITTF Coaching Rule that allows coaching between points. I think it’s a horrible rule, and yet we’d be handicapping ourselves if we don’t adopt it, so it’s not an easy decision, and I’m still undecided – though I’m leaning slightly toward adopting it, with a note in the minutes that we should take this up again at the December Board meeting so we can evaluate it. This is your chance to chime in.

Here’s what Samson Dubina wrote me about it:

It is a terrible rule and should never have been passed by ITTF.  However, as you mentioned in the blog, we need to follow the ruling if we want to have any chance to have success at the international level.  USATT really needs to have a conference call about this asap.  Myself, as well as the other US Coaches, need to be developing a system of communication with our players and have a few months to adjust and perfect the system.

Here’s my letter...

I’m pretty tired right now, and I need a vacation. Plus I’ve got a todo list that goes from here to Beijing – even now Ma Long and Ding Ning are examining the lower parts of it and cowering in fear. (I think the item “Make America so great at table tennis the Chinese quit and take up shuffleboard” is the part that scared them.) Plus today is Adam West’s 88th birthday – the original Batman from the 1960s TV show and mayor of Quahog in Family guy – a national holiday if there ever was one. So no blog today – back tomorrow. 

Years of Training Have Destroyed My Reactions
Okay, this may seem misleading. During my development years I did the usual intensive drills that conditioned me to react properly to nearly any given shot. Let me emphasize one word here: nearly. Now opponents may play at speeds that I might not be able to react to, or catch me off guard with placement and spin, but even there I’d usually react properly, just not always quickly enough or with just the right racket angle.

Some of my students have picked up on a certain flaw here, which I think affects me more than most. When someone throws something at me that I’m not used to, all that conditioning falls apart. It means I basically have two choices – I can go for a “regular” shot, and likely miss, or I can change to a safe shot, usually just fishing or weakly blocking it back.

For example, one of my students (a righty) has been developing this inside-out backhand loop that goes down the line, breaking away from a righty opponent. Now against a regular down-the-line shot, whether it’s a block or a loop, I’d react almost instantly with either a...

Revelations of a Table Tennis Champion by Dan Seemiller
It’s out! Revelations of a Table Tennis Champion is the autobiography of five-time U.S. Men’s Singles Champion Dan Seemiller (who along the way also won Men’s Doubles 12 times, Mixed Doubles seven times, and was the U.S. Men’s Coach at the Worlds and Olympics for many years). The book is 218 pages with 96 pictures. I did the editing, photo work, and page layouts. Dan turned out to be an excellent proof reader, finding many typos that I missed. Maybe it’s that perfectionism that made him such a strong player?

At the very end of the book is a “Who is Dan Seemiller?” section which I wrote. Here it is – and after reading this, go out and buy yourself a copy! (Right now there’s only a print version. Later this week I’ll put together an ebook version.)

I first met Dan Seemiller at one of his Pittsburgh...