Hours Spent in Table Tennis
How many hours have you spent on table tennis? Some say it takes 10,000 hours to really develop a skill. Have you done your 10,000? I got to thinking how many hours I’ve spent on this sport. It turns out an insane number – apparently enough to perfect my table tennis skills, oh, about ten times over. So . . . how many hours? Let’s find out. There’s going to be a lot of rounding and estimates, but I think the figures at the end are pretty accurate. (Feel free to skip ahead to other segments if you find this boring.) 

I started in 1976, so I’m in my 42nd year. I practiced a huge number of hours my first few years. Here are estimates:

• 1976-1981: About four hours per day, six days/week, so 24 hours/week, 50 weeks/year, for 6 years.
• 1981-1992: About two hours/day, six days/week, so 12 hours/week, 50 weeks/year, for 12 years.
• 1992-2007: About 1.5 hour/day, six days week, so nine hours/week, 50 weeks/year, for 16 years.
• 2008-2017: Not so much – just coaching. Perhaps 1000 hours, most of it in the early part.

Now comes the single...

Upcoming USATT Coaching Courses and Seminars
[I sent the following in as a USATT news item, which should go up soon.  (It's up.) I spent much of yesterday putting together a 19-page presentation I’ll be playing on a projector for my “How to Set Up a Successful Junior Program” seminar, which will be held in a classroom. I also have a one-page outline for my “Intermediate and Advanced Serving” seminar, which will be at the playing hall, but I can pretty much do that one in my sleep. I’ll put both documents online after the Nationals.]

USATT is taking a two-pronged approach to educating our coaches – and players too! Take your pick of an ITTF Coaching Course or a USATT University Seminar at the USA Nationals.

ITTF COACHING COURSES
These are for current and prospective coaches who wish to improve their coaching skills as well as get certified as a USATT and ITTF coach. (Note that when you are certified at ITTF Levels 1, 2, or 3, you are automatically...

"What I was trained to do long ago..."
During a coaching session last night I blocked a ball rather wide to my student’s forehand. The student moved wide and made a very nice forehand loop that went extremely wide to my forehand, well outside the corner and moving away from me very rapidly. Several things happened very quickly, all the result of training from long ago, training which coaches now try to give to their students.

First, I did exactly what I was trained to do long ago, and after my block went to the student’s wide forehand, I reflexively moved to cover the potential wide angle return to my forehand. I’m pretty sure most club players would have at most moved marginally over, leaving the wide angle open.  

Second, I did exactly what I was trained to do long ago, and stepped to the ball, instead of leaning or reaching. The ball caught me off guard with the great angle, and I’m pretty sure the great majority of club players, when they saw how wide the ball was going, would have reflexively leaned and lunged at it. As an experiment, stand up for a moment, and lean to your right. Now try moving to...

Living a Life of Pong
Sometimes I get so busy from all my table tennis work that I barely can find time to do anything else. I somehow make time for my other interests – science fiction reading & writing, movies, and a few other things, but those are like smoke in a hurricane of table tennis activities. When things get so busy that there’s barely time to breathe, us table tennis people have to remind ourselves that this is the business we have chosen. After all, if we weren’t doing table tennis, what would we be doing? Not table tennis!!! (Horrors!!!)

<Start non-Table Tennis Paragraph.> In my case, I’d likely be a math professor in that other lifetime that never happened. Instead, recently, in my SF writing sideline, I’ve begun writing stories that feature Mad Molly, an 80-year-old autistic black retired math professor who regularly saves the day with math, though she usually does in humorous fashion as she has her own separate motives – such as, in one story, her determination to get an ice cream pie sent to her...