Tip of the Week
Serving Long. I've done similar articles on specific long serves, but this is a more general article. Next week: Serving Short.

Solution to the Mexican Wall Problem
Let's have a little table tennis fun this morning. The U.S.-Mexico border is 1954 miles long. That's 10,317,120 feet. A table tennis net is six feet long, so it would take 1,719,520 nets to cover it. I did some online checking and the absolute cheapest net I could find was $7.46. But that's retail; we could probably buy them directly from China for $2/net. (That's $1.60 plus a 25% tariff.) So it would cost $3,439,040, or about $3.5 million, to put up a U.S.-Mexico ping-pong net.

We'll make China pay for it. If they don't, we'll threaten to boycott any tournament with a Chinese player. That'll show 'em; they'll back down and pay the $3.5 million.

We'd get umpires and referees to put them up. They are volunteers, right? So we don...

Next Blog
I'll be out of town July 13-28, so the next blog will be Monday, July 29 Tuesday, July 30. I'm on vacation!!! Early on Saturday morning (July 13) I drive up to Boston (seven hours) for the last 1.5 days of Readercon, a big science fiction convention. Then I spend Mon-Thur (July 15-18) touring Boston - Freedom Trail, USS Constitution and Bunker Hill, New England Aquarium, Franklin Park Zoo, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Science, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, and perhaps a stop at Revere Beach. (I was thinking of visiting the local TT clubs, but there are too many and I don't want to insult the ones I don't visit.) Then, from July 19-27, I'm in "The Never-Ending Odyssey," my annual nine-day science fiction writing workshop in Manchester, NH, an hour from Boston - I've been going regularly since 2006. See you all in a few weeks!

Tip of the Week
Take the Shot.

USA Nationals
Let's start with the results -...

Tip of the Week
Six-Step Training Progression. (This is an old article that I never used as a Tip, so I did some updating.)

Weekend Coaching
In our Thursday Beginning Class, we introduced the players to forehand looping - or, for most of them, rolling the ball with topspin. For some of the more advanced ones we had them both looping and following it up with a smash. (Key issue: drop shoulder some for loop, keep up for smash.) We also did some service practice.

On Saturday I fed multiball for two hours to John Olsen and Kevin Walton, getting them ready for the table tennis events at the World Senior Games in Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 19-21. We've been doing this most Saturdays for the last two months. We finish each session with me serving to them so they can work on receive, about 7 minutes each.

In the Sunday Beginning Class we introduced them to random drills. The main drill was putting the ball randomly to the forehand or backhand, and they had to correctly react, not...

Tip of the Week
What to Think About Between Points . . . and What NOT to Think About.

Why Many Top Players and Up-and-Coming Players are NOT Innovative
Here's a strange thing I've noticed. I sometimes let up-and-coming players (especially juniors) practice against my serves, which are notoriously rather tricky. Especially the first time out, they miss, over and over. What I've noticed is that it is the weaker players who immediately try to copy my serves!

I think I know the reason. Suppose you have two players starting out. One copies the best players like Ma Long, and keeps working to develop perfect shots like them. This player hones those shots and improves rapidly until he too is a top player. Now imagine the second one, who is more innovative. Because of this, he experiments more than the first player, and keeps trying new ways of doing his shots. Result? He never quite perfects his shots like the first player. The moral here is that when it comes to fundamentals, you really want to copy the top players and...