Tip of the Week

Good Receive is What Works.

Equipment Edventures
(Did I just coin a new word, or simply force a word to start with “E”?)

Three of my students had equipment adventures this weekend, all involving Tenergy, which they all use on both sides. All are in the 1550-1700 range.

Sameer, 13, has been having trouble against slightly high balls, especially when I go back and fish. Over and over in practice games or drills if I step off the table and just get the ball back, he’d start missing. Part of this is the trajectory as when a player backs up to return with topspin, the ball will bounce out more, and so the attacker also has to take perhaps a half step back or he’ll get jammed. But Sameer was complaining that his sponge was old and that was the problem. He was right that the Tenergy was old as he hadn’t switched in a long time. So he finally bought new Tenergy this weekend. We had a session on Saturday before the change, and he was still struggling against my fishing. After changing, we had a session on Sunday and suddenly he was ripping them. So yes, Virginia, there is such thing as sponge that’s too old.

Daniel, 10, also was having trouble as he too hadn’t changed sponge in way too long. I’d told him he needed new sponge, but he put it off until Friday – with a tournament at MDTTC on Saturday. (See link to results below.) After months of using old sponge, the switch to new sponge cost him control, and he wasn’t able to make the adjustment immediately – and so had a bad loss in his first match at the tournament. But then he adjusted, had a pair of nice wins, and made it to the semifinals of Under 1700. (Much of adjusting to newer sponge is mental, as you not only have to adjust to the sponge, but you have to have confidence you have adjusted or you’ll miss your shots.)

Preparing for the U.S. Open and Other Competitions

Many of you will be competing in the U.S. Open a month from now, or perhaps someday in your future will have some other major competition one month away. It's time to prepare!!! Here are some things you should be doing or thinking about right now. 

Miscellaneous Table Tennis Stuff

Lots of table tennis stuff happening recently. Here’s a rundown.

Top Ten Surprising USATT News Items

Here are some new USATT issues you might not be aware of.

1. Chinese table tennis has been outlawed.
2. Jim Butler, who recently won the USA Nationals, North American Cup, and Meiklejohn Seniors, has been banned from table tennis to allow younger players to have a chance.
3. Plastic is flammable, so we are switching to tin balls. (This is what happens when you mix hot metal balls with regular ones. Which side would you prefer to be on?)
4. Only legal surface is speed-glued sandpaper.
5. The modern TV audience doesn’t have the patience for 11-point games (not to mention those interminable 21-point games from before), so henceforth all matches will be best of one game to one point. (With the new scoring system, the U.S. Open will now be held on July 6 between 1:00 and 2:00 PM.)
6. Because USATT is devoted to improving your table tennis games, they will be adding 100 rating points to all USATT members. Additional points are on sale at $1/point.
7. Topspin is illegal.
8. Players with long pips are required to wear a picture of a yellow ping-pong ball with six “long pips” sticking out from it.
9. The U.S. Open and USA Nationals now have first place prize money of $1,000,000 (pending receipt of $1,000,000 sponsorship).
10. My book, “The Spirit of Pong,” is now the official bible of USA Table Tennis. All members will be required to put their hands on it as they swear eternal allegiance to USATT. Table Tennis is God, and Andy “Shoes” Blue is his prophet.

Upcoming ITTF Coaching Courses in the U.S.

One-Sided Coaching

Had an interesting coaching session with 10-year-old Daniel yesterday. He’s about 1700 level, but tends to play way too passive in matches, and so we spend nearly all our time working on his attack – especially his opening loops, forehand or backhand.

When we were warming up for our session yesterday he was looping to my block, and kept going into the net. It was rather noticeable that the ball was sliding off his forehand sponge. I checked it, and sure enough, the surface was rather slick – it was worn out. The rubber on the other side was fine. He had a backup – his dad’s – but it had a slow sponge on one side. So with either racket he had one side that wasn’t really usable. (He’s getting new sponge today.)

What to do? We spent most of the 90-minute session doing one-sided drills, where he’d play all forehand or all backhand. We skipped ones where he’d have to do both forehand and backhands. For example, in multiball, I had him do a lot of side-to-side forehand looping off both backspin and topspin. Then I’d feed backspin to his backhand, then a quick topspin to his forehand, and he had to loop them all with his forehand. We did similar backhand drills.

Result? Perhaps because he was so focused on just one side at a time he had perhaps his best shot-making session ever. If he could bring into match play the shots he was doing yesterday, things might get scary!!!

NBC News

I’m off this morning to the club for a taping with NBC News and Navin Kumar, he of the Parkinson’s and mechanical heart. More on this tomorrow. (I had to get up at 6AM to do this blog…)

Thoughts on the Plastic Ball

Here’s the new coaching article by Han Xiao, where he analyzes how it has changed the game.

How to Serve Faster

Tip of the Week

What to Think About in a Match.

MDTTC Featured in Montgomery County Magazine

This is the Olympic Sport of . . . Table Tennis came out over the weekend, featuring my club, the Maryland Table Tennis Center. The player pictured - and one of the main ones featured - is Ryan Dabbs, 11, who I’ll be coaching at the U.S. Open. To get that picture of him smashing a winner I lobbed up about 50 balls, one at a time, with him smashing and cameraman taking pictures until he got the perfect shot.

Weekend Coaching Sessions

It was another busy coaching weekend. In the junior class on Sunday, we did a LOT of side-to-side footwork, just forehand to backhand, with the focus on grip. Why? Because I’d noticed a number of the kids changing their grips for forehand and backhand. They needed to find a grip where they could hit both forehands and backhands with little grip change. (Some minor grip changes are okay, but not a lot.)

In the adult training session we did a lot of down-the-line practice. A number of players were trying to hit their forehands down the line with contorted upper body and arm movements, so we spent time working on that – hitting down the line is no problem if you position yourself properly (right foot more back, more shoulder rotation) and time the ball right (a little later, by the back leg). We finished the session with a lot of service practice.

Vision and Growing the Sport

Success at developing table tennis, and anything else, involves three things: Vision, Planning, and Implementation. If you want to be a successful leader, be a VIP – Vision, and Implementation after Planning. (Should I trademark that? I just made it up!) If you don’t know where you are trying to go, you won’t get there. If you don’t plan on how to get there, you won’t get there. If you don’t implement your plan, it won’t happen and you won’t get there. Two out of three doesn’t cut it.

Someone can be successful without all three if they are in partnership with someone who complements them so that, together, they have all three. Or one can do perhaps two of these three things, be successful on a small scale, and claim victory while others are pulling out their hair in frustration.

In my 39 years in table tennis, nothing has been more frustrating than to watch leaders unable to understand this simple concept, or to watch those few who did understand it meet up with this opposition. I’m sort of flabbergasted that after all these years, I got fed up and ran for the board – and lo and behold, our new CEO Gordon Kaye, does understand this concept. Here’s an example.

Bernie Bukiet in USATT Insider

The profile on Bernie Bukiet by Tim Boggan was in yesterday’s issue of USATT Insider, which is emailed to USATT members and to those who sign up for free subscriptions. Many “old timers” who knew Bernie well still miss him – I’m told he was one of the great sportsmen of his time. Take some time to read about this past great, and others in the USATT Hall of Fame. (Here’s a nice picture of Bernie.)

Dave Sakai, a great friend of Bernie’s, called me yesterday to talk to Tim Boggan about it, since Tim is staying with me while we work on the next volume in his History of U.S. Table Tennis series. (Dave had introduced me to Bernie many years ago the one time I met Bernie before his death, alas, in 1995.) Tim says that Dave, like Tim in the past, was nearly in tears about it, since Bernie was so loved by all who knew him.

Help! I’m Being Held Prisoner!!!

For the past nine days I’ve been held prisoner in my house by the 84-year-old man pictured here, a ruthless slave-driver and sadist. Each day he holds a racket to my head in a threatening manner and forces me to sit at my desk from 5AM to 2:30PM, coercing me into changing historical photos and designing the pages for some 1988-89 historical book that’s mostly a constant repetition of the words Boggan, Seemiller, Butler, O’Neill, Onifade, Teekaveeraki, Gee, and Bhushan. It must be some kind of code; I have no idea what these words mean. He assures me we’ll finish this weekend, but I don’t trust him.

At 2:30, he takes custody of my computer, with links to all my accounts, and threatens to use his extensive computer knowledge to delete all my books at Amazon. And then I am forced to go to a local table tennis club and play ping-pong with the cohorts of this man, hour after hour, day after day, with no respite. They keep calling me “coach,” but I think that’s code for “You are our prisoner and will do as you are told.”

Strangely, many of his henchman appear to be children, many of them Chinese, and they are all armed with ping-pong paddles. They seem to know how to use them; I am very afraid. I believe that they became this person’s partner in crime when he visited China back in 1971 – he is so arrogant that he even wrote about his experiences there, in a book and in Time Magazine, practically daring the U.S. State Department to come after him – but after meeting him, they too are afraid of him

Top Ten Craziest Shots I’ve Ever Done

Some of the kids I coach were talking about the craziest shots they’ve ever done. So I’ve compiled my Top Ten list. How about you?