Getting a Grip: The Backhand is Back!!!

Yesterday in our ongoing summer camps I taught (blah blah blah), and then we worked on (blah blah blah), and the players were really excited when we did (blah blah blah). And after six hours of camp, I did another two hours of private coaching, where we (blah blah blah). Yeah, let's get through all the boring stuff, and get to the interesting part!

My game has slowly deteriorated over the last few years. Much of this is simply age – I'm 55 (yikes!). Both the muscles and knees won't let me move like I used to. But other parts of my game have also gone done, including my backhand. It used to be a wall when it came to blocking and counter-hitting, which made me a pretty good practice partner. But I've spent much of the last year or two often staring at my racket, wondering where the old magic was.

And then, yesterday, while hitting with a player in a private session, the backhand magic was back!!! Or more specifically, my old grip was back. Somehow, over the last few years, I'd changed my grip. I've always gripped it with my middle finger slightly off the handle, with the racket resting on the first knuckle. Somewhere along the way I'd lowered the middle finger down with the other two fingers. I'd sort of noticed this in the past, but didn't think it made much difference. Boy, was that wrong!!!

Yesterday I raised it back to where I'd done it before, as I'd done other times, and it didn't help. Then, fiddling with my grip, it fell into place, with the key (for me) being the racket rested on that middle finger knuckle when I hit backhands. Bingo – and suddenly the old backhand was back. I think my eyes went a bit wide when the old backhand returned after perhaps a two-year leave of absence. Suddenly I could do little wrong as I was counter-hitting and blocking with near 100% efficiency. It improved my forehand blocking as well, and probably much of the rest of my game.

Tuesday Coaching

Yesterday's focus for the new kids was the backhand. We started with forehand practice to re-enforce what they'd learned the day before. Then, after a short demo, I had them line up and shadow practice backhands. Then it was lots and lots of multiball. Some of the kids are too short for a standard backhand, and so have to move their contact point to the left side of their head or they wouldn't be able see the ball, with the racket in the way. 

I had one scare. Near the start of the morning session one kid I was feeding multiball to kept popping up his backhand. To show that they were too high, I smashed one very hard - and felt a twinge in my shoulder. I hadn't warmed up, since I was only feeding multiball. I was worried all day about it. I had a private coaching session after the camp where I hit live with a pretty strong player, and the shoulder was fine. (Note to self: be careful!!!)

As usual, we did a lot of serving practice. Older and more experienced players often find serving practice boring, but to younger kids, it's both a struggle and a challenge, and just as interesting as rallying. To make things even more interesting, I often put targets on the table, or bring out the net-height device that puts a bar over the net (height adjustable) and they have to serve under it. (John Olsen created this. Here's a picture with the bar set low, and set high.)

Tip of the Week

You Can Be Light on Your Feet. (Includes links to videos.)

Coaching and Other Activities

It's been a busy few days. Here's a quick rundown.

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY
I did little coaching these days, and instead spent nearly the entire time glued to my desk. I gave pretty much a grocery list of things I'm working on in my July 23 blog (before I left for my nine-day writing workshop "vacation"), and I basically jumped from one thing to another for two days. I also started work on rewrites of the three stories I had critiqued at the writing workshop. 

SUNDAY
It was a rather long day. It started with several hours of private coaching. We're doing some technical adjustments for one of my students, a rising junior, and so spent a lot of time on that. (Shorter, more forward stroke, and related issues.) Then came a junior class, where we did a lot of fundamental work, and then spent a lot of time on serves. Then came my Sunday night training session, where we had eight adults training together. It's pretty physical - lots of footwork and attacking drills. (But the attacking drills means that the other player is working on his defense and ball control, mostly blocking.) With Raghu Nadmichettu assisting as a practice partner and moving from player to player about every ten minutes, everyone got lots of good practice. We finished with serve practice, where I emphasized the smooth acceleration of the wrist and fine grazing motion, which leads to tremendous spin.

Yikes! I thought I was off this morning, but I just got called in to coach at our MDTTC camp. I'll be there all day, coaching from 10AM-6PM, plus some private coaching afterwards. So no blog this morning. The Tip of the Week will also go up tomorrow. (Normally, when I know I'll be coaching in the morning, I do most of the blog the night before.)

Capital Area Team League and Other Team Leagues

If you live in the Maryland/Virginia/DC area, it's time to sign up for the Capital Area Team League! Deadline is Sept. 7 (though the page currently still lists it as July 31). Season One had 73 players on 13 teams; why not join us for Season Two? There's nothing better than competing on a team, with your teammates screaming for you every point!  

As I've blogged before, I now chair the USATT League Committee. (I'm too busy during the summer to do much work on this, but will be getting very busy starting in September.) I'm working setting up a prototype team league, using my experience with the Capital Area Team League and learning from other team leagues (both USA and overseas, and table tennis and other sports) to create a league that can be set up in other regions throughout the U.S. I'm also taking over as webmaster for the Capital Area Team League – I'll be working on that much of today. (I'm on the Capital Area Team League committee, along with Stefano Ratti, John Olsen, and Richard Heo.)

Team Leagues are why countries in Europe measure their memberships often in the hundreds of thousands, with huge league numbers in countries like Germany and England. USA needs to follow in their footsteps, but it's going to take time to build it up. But it won't happen until we create such a prototype league that can spread to all regions.

But there will always be the naysayers who can't get imagine anything beyond the status quo.  

Top Ten Things if Donald Trump Were Running USATT…

A little fun with Photoshop this morning!

Tip of the Week

Get to the Root of the Problem. (Adapted from Monday, July 20 blog.)

Sometimes Small Things Are Big Things

I was coaching a player a couple days ago who tended to start his forehand loop drive with his upper body. This is a common problem, and leads to players "muscling" the ball, i.e. straining to create power with just their upper body. Large players often get away with this, as they can create sufficient power this way, but it means straining, which means they lose control as well as having only good power instead of great power. It also invariably leads to injuries.

But telling a player who strokes with just his upper body to use his lower body (legs, hips, waist) doesn't usually work. It's a big change, and incorporating all those lower body movements into a nice, smooth stroke throws the timing off, leading to all sorts of problems. What to do?

They key is to start small. Just have the player use a little lower body to get the upper body started. Once this is done, it all starts to fall into place – as it did here. After a few minutes the player was smoothly ripping shot after shot as I fed him multiball.

Non-Table Tennis: What I Did on My Vacation

Alas, I need one more day before I start blogging again. Stuff piled up while I was away and my todo list is currently holding me in a headlock and threatening to break my paddle if I don't attend to its needs. I'll start up again tomorrow - I put that on the todo list. Now, let's see what's next on the list . . . and then this . . . oh shoot, I think I forgot about this one . . . .

Last Blog Until Tuesday, August 4 Wednesday, August 5, and the Capital Area Team League

I'm going on vacation! When most people go on vacation, that means the beach, camping, an amusement park, or something like that. Me? I go to an annual science fiction & fantasy writing workshop in Manchester, NH – The Never-Ending Odyssey (TNEO). It's for graduates of the six-week Odyssey Writing Workshop – I went in 2006. This will be my sixth TNEO. I leave very early on Friday morning. (On a side note, I hurt my shoulder in a coaching session yesterday and had to have Coach Raghu substitute the rest of that session, and I'm taking today off as well, so maybe I need the rest.)

And if you live in the Capital area (Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia), don't miss the Capital Area Team League segment below – deadline to enter the Fall season is Sept 7.

Status Report

This seems like a good time to give a status report on all the things I promised to do when I was elected six months ago in January to a four-year term on the USATT Board of Directors – so I'm 1/8^th of the way through my term. (I'm one of nine members.) I ran on five big issues, and 12 smaller ones – see my Election Page, where I talk about each, including the goals of each, and a link to where I blogged extensively about each one. (Much of the below refers to what I wrote on the Election page.) Let's go through them, one by one, and check the status. (Note that this is all volunteer – I don't get paid a cent.) One complication is that I'm very busy in the summer as a coach, since kids are out of school, so I can't do as much from June-August. I'll be a lot busier starting in September.

FIVE BIG ISSUES

Ogi: The Life of Ichiro Ogimura by Mitsuru Jojima, translated to English by John Senior

I recently read the English translation of this book, which covers the life of perhaps the most influential person in table tennis history. Suffice to say it was a fascinating read. (It was also a great resource for my own table tennis fantasy novel, The Spirit of Pong, which features two chapters where the wannabe American trains with the spirit of Ogimura.)

Ichiro Ogimura of Japan was perhaps the most driven table tennis player in history, and then he became perhaps the most driven coach and then most driven ITTF official in history. He started late, at age 16, but was so single-minded in his training that by age 22 he won the first of his two Men's Singles titles at the Worlds (1954 and 1956). He also won Men's Doubles twice, Mixed Doubles three times, and led Japan to five straight World Men's Team titles. The book chronicles this and everything else about him in great detail, giving both the facts and the spice of his life.