Angular Momentum Conservation and the Forehand

Ever notice how when a figure skater is spinning, if she brings her arms in she spins faster? Here's an explanation of that; it's the law of angular momentum conservation. Here's an article that explains this.

The laws of angular momentum apply to both figure skating and table tennis. What this means is that you can rotate faster with your arms in. On the forward swing you have to extend the arm some to get power, especially if you use a Chinese-style straight arm forehand loop. But there's no need to extend the arm during the backswing, and it just slows you down. So in theory, table tennis players should bring their arms in during the backswing in fast rallies so the backswings are quicker. What does the videotapes tell us?

Here's a video of Zhang Jike (1:55) and his forehand loop during fast multiball. Compare how far his racket is extended at contact to where it is during the backswing, and sure enough, he brings his arm in during the backswing. Here's a video of Ma Long (32 sec) showing his forehand in slow motion, which makes it even clearer. Again, compare the racket's position at contact with where it is during the backswing.

But now we look at a video of Timo Boll (2:12), and see a discrepancy - he holds the racket out about as much during the backswing as the contact point. But there's a reason for this - Boll uses a European-style loop, with his arm more bent, and so never extends his racket that far from his body. Compare to Zhang Jike and Ma Long and see the difference.

How about hitters? Here's a video (51:06, but you only need to watch the first 7 sec) that shows two-time world champion pips-out penholder Jiang Jialiang hitting forehands. Note how he drops the racket tip down for the backswing, then extends it sideways during the forward swing? This quickens the backswing.

An extended version of this might become a Tip of the Week.

The Growing Significance of the Backhand Loop

Here's the article from Table Tennis Master. Somehow I missed this article when it came out a year ago.

U.S. Open Blog

Here's another blog entry from Dell & Connie Sweeris, co-chairs for the 2014 U.S. Open in Grand Rapids: "My Favorite U.S. Open Experiences"

Zhang Jike Wins Chinese Team Trials

Here's the article and video (36.43) of the final against Ma Long. He started with a loss to Liang Jingkun, then followed that with ten consecutive wins, including wins over his main rivals on the team, Ma Long, Xu Xin, and Fan Zhendong.

Westchester Joins North American Tour

The Westchester Table Tennis Club, which runs monthly 4-star tournaments - something no club has ever done - has joined the North American Tour. There'll be a press release at some point on this and other aspects of the Tour, but for now here is the current list of tournaments in the Tour (which includes links for other info on the Tour). Others will be listed as the paperwork is complete. Special thanks to Bruce Liu, who organizes the Tour.

Ping-Pong Ball Boys?

Here's the cartoon!

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15 Days a Slave

We're done!!! After 15 days of seemingly non-stop work, I finished the page layouts and photo work for Volume 14 of Tim Boggan's History of U.S. Table Tennis. (Mal Anderson does most of the photo scanning and supplies about half the photos. I do a lot of fixes on the photo.) It's 465 pages with 962 photos - a new record. I put it all in PDF format, and uploaded it to the printer yesterday afternoon. Now I'm exhausted - for weeks I've been running back and forth between this, coaching, and zillions of other stuff that constantly comes up (mostly involving table tennis or writing). At 11:30 PM last night Tim left for home in New York.

Yesterday we mostly were inputting corrections, doing pre-press work, creating the book flyer and ad, and updating the online page. I also did some coaching, and tutored two of our junior players in English and math at the club for an hour.

I celebrated last night by seeing the movie "I, Frankenstein." (I've already seen most of the good ones out there.) I think most would agree it was somewhat of a dumb movie with cheesy special effects, but it had its moments. Spoiler alert - since it took place in modern-day times, and much of the battling was over possession of Victor Frankenstein's notes, which kept changing hands as the two groups kept stealing it from the other, I wanted to scream at them, "Just make some photocopies and hide the backups!!!"

And now I get to attack the growing list of items on my todo list, which have accumulated like snow over the past two weeks.

Early Round Matches at Tournaments

Many players start slowly in tournaments, and start out with some bad early-round losses before getting their game together. Often they are playing these early matches against weaker players to not lose, rather than to win, and can't get loose enough to play well. So why not look at these matches as if they were a final, and convince yourself you've battled round by round to get there, and that this is the match you've been waiting to play all your life? Then go out there and be a gladiator! Once you learn to do that type of thinking, you can get your game going a lot earlier in tournaments.

Another thing that would help - instead of just warming up, play practice matches or play points with someone, and imagine those as the most important matches or points you've ever played. This will get yourself into tournament mode.

For me (back when I was still playing tournaments regularly), there was nothing better than playing a first-round match against some player who could push me, but couldn't beat me if I played my level - and so I would pretend he was the favorite, and go out there ready to do battle, and push myself to pull off an "upset." Not only would I consistently win those matches, but they would get my game going.

Pros and Cons of 3rd and 5th Ball Offensive Style

Here's the article from Table Tennis Master.

Jun Mizutani: "I can beat the Chinese"

Here's the article and video (4:30).

Wall Street Financiers Play Ping Pong for Charity

Here's the article, which includes a picture. "NEW YORK—Dozens of Wall Street financiers competed at the 6th Annual Tournament of the Champions Pong table tennis tournament in Grand Central Terminal Friday. The five-hour event drew hundreds of spectators throughout the day. The Ping-Pong matches, however, weren’t about winning. Each team paid $3,500 to participate. The money goes to the youth mentoring organization Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York, a nonprofit that serves children in need of adult role models."

Governor Chris Christie Wins Challenge With 13-Year-Old

Here's the article and video (3:05) as the New Jersey governor challenges a boy at a Boys and Girls Club. Other (living) governors who play include former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (here's a 17-sec video), former Arkansas Governors Mike Huckabee and Bill Clinton, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, and Delaware Governor Jack Markell, who I've coached a few times, and has a USATT rating of 1223.

The Schwarzenegger Closed

Here's the draw sheet, care of Table Tennis Nation, with 16 Schwarzenegger characters ranging from The Terminator and Kindergarten Cop, to Conan and The Governator. Which of these characters would win? (They put a lot of time into this!)

Percussion Pong

Here's a hilarious video (1:50) that features two comic musician table tennis players, and two superstars - Jean-Philippe Gatien (1993 World Men's Singles Champion, zillions of other titles as former world #1) and Patrick Chila (Bronze Medalist in Men's Doubles with Gatien at 2000 Olympics and four-time French Men's Singles Champion). Both Gatien and Chila are lefties; Gatien's on the left at the start. Not sure who the other two musician comic players are, though they seem to be able to play.

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Tip of the Week

Practicing Serves the Productive Way. (This is an article I did for USATT Magazine a few years ago. I'd like to get a few of these old ones up as Tips.)

Coaching Happenings

It's been an eventful weekend of coaching, as always. Here are highlights.

• An 11-year-old Islamic girl came to my junior table tennis class for the first time on Saturday morning. She was dressed in full Islamic garb, with nothing showing except her face and hands. I've coached Islamic kids before, including girls, so it was no big deal - I thought. Since she was new, I worked with her right at the start, and guided her through a correct forehand. Then her father came over, and politely asked if he could talk to me. We went to the sidelines, and he explained, "We are Muslim. No touching." I apologized, and from there on I only coached her by demonstrating and explaining.
• I watched one of our junior players play matches in the Friday night league, and saw some problems to work on. One is that he doesn't cover the wide backhand well in rallies, and when he does move that way, he often rotates his body to the left (and so faces left) rather than stepping there. (He's right-handed.) I've been doing multiball random drills with him where he does cover this, but realized we hadn't been doing many live random drills. So from now on (starting with a session on Sunday) we're going to be doing a lot of that. He also has a tendency to drop his non-playing arm during rallies, which costs him balance and stability, as well as making it easier to spin the body to the left to cover his backhand rather than step there as he should. (It's like an ice skater spinning - when the skater pulls her arms in, she rotates faster; puts the arms out, she rotates slower.) He also tends to stand too much to his right in rallies, leaving the backhand open. It's generally better to crowd the backhand corner, where you generally take the ball quicker and in front of the body and so are more rushed. You have a bigger forehand hitting zone, and can generally take it later and still be effective, so you can leave the forehand side more open and still have to move to cover it.
• In the Sunday afternoon junior session I had five girls in my group. All started in the last two months. Amazingly, all have pretty nice and consistent forehand and backhand strokes now. (Well, one has some problems with the backhand, but we're working on that.) I introduced them all to the 2-1 drill, which is a three-shot sequence: a backhand from the backhand side; a forehand from the backhand side; a forehand from the forehand side; then repeat. It's one of the best drills, as you do the three most common moves in table tennis: cover the wide backhand, step around forehand from backhand side, and cover the wide forehand. They all found this drill to be rather exciting. (Who knew?)
• I watched one of our top juniors in a big league match, and gave him some analysis afterwards. He's playing really well, but his placement isn't so good, going to the wide corners way too often. At nearly all levels the default place to attack is the middle, which is almost always the hardest place to defend. (The middle is the roughly the playing elbow, the transition point between forehand and backhand. For backhand oriented players, it's a bit more toward the forehand side, and vice versa.) By going to the middle, you get free points, weak returns, and/or draw the opponent out of position, thereby opening up those corners.
• Two 12-year-old students of mine made the switch to Tenergy 05 FX on the forehand this weekend, which is what I use. Both are reaching the state where they can essentially loop everything on the forehand. Both tried out regular Tenergy 05 as well as Tenergy 64, but preferred the 05 FX. (They're both pushing 1500 level.)
• Recently I've run a number of table tennis birthday parties at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, including two this weekend, one on Saturday, one on Sunday. Each was from 2-4 PM, with 14-21 kids in the 6-10 age group. The format I've adopted is pretty simple. The first half hour they are on their own as the kids hit around. Then I call them together and do a demo, usually with a top player or junior I recruit. Then the kids line up, and I have them shadow-stroke forehands. Then I take them two at a time and teach the forehand, spending about one minute with each pair. (Nothing extensive here.) Then we do the same with the backhand. Then we do it one more time with serves. Then we go to games, usually starting with the cup game, where the kids build pyramids of paper cups on one side of the table, and then take turns trying to knock them down as I feed multiball (3 shots per turn). After that we play the bottle game, where I convince them that the bottle of Gatorade on the table is full of squeezed worm juice, and the bottle of water on the table is dog saliva. I put the next to each other, and they again line up, 3 shots per turn, and try to hit it - and if they do, I have to drink it. I mock them as they hit each shot, so when one of them does hit one of the bottles they erupt in cheers, and I do mock protests before I finally drink it.
• We've had freezing cold weather here in Maryland for the last two weeks. On Thursday the heating at MDTTC went down, and for three days we played with temperatures in the high fifties. You got used to it once you started playing, but I there were times where I complained I was in the final stages of hypothermia.

Tim Boggan's History of U.S. Table Tennis, Vol. 14

We should finish it today. I'm crossing my fingers. We've actually finished all the pages but one, but that page has complications. The main job today is inputting corrections, and Tim has a lot, ranging from fixing or changing captions to fixing up photos to anything else he finds. The book is 465 pages with 962 photos, a new record for him. Here's info on all of these books, which will soon be updated when Volume 14 becomes available in a couple weeks. It's been an exhausting two weeks - we started on Monday, Jan. 13, and have been putting in looooong hours. This past weekend I kept driving back and forth between home and the club as I alternated coaching and working with Tim.

USA's Ariel Hsing Featured at ITTF Page

Here's the article.

Review of "Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World" by Nicholas Griffin

Here's the review in the Washington Post on Sunday. Here's a video (51:40) of the author talking about the book.

Guo Yue Dismissed from Chinese National Team

Here's the article. Guo, 25, was the 2007 World Women's Singles Champion and was ranked #1 in the world in 2008. She's also two-time World Mixed Doubles Champion with Wang Liqin. Her current ranking is #11 in the world.

Will Shortz on Table Tennis and How the US Can Become a Power

Here's the video (2:04) from Business Insider.

Coach Willy - an ITTF Documentary

Here's the video (3:42).

Cape Fear Open XI Highlights

Here's the video (7:33).

Angle Table Tennis

Here's the video (7:42) - this is what happens when you slant one side of the table sideways! A little over two minutes in they angle the other side as well for some really crazy ping-pong.

Panda Pong

Here's a picture of little Asian kids dressed as pandas playing table tennis with a picture of a penholder panda bear. I don't know what's going on, and perhaps it's best we just don't. (While we're on the subject of pandas, here's a panda ping-pong shirt!)

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USATT Election and the Petition Rule

Recently USATT had a special election to fill a vacant At-Large seat on the USATT Board of Directors. USATT has a Nominating and Governance Committee (NGC). One of their duties is to evaluate candidates for office and nominate them for the election ballot. If you wish to run for the USATT board, and they don't choose you, you have no recourse. Right away alarm bells should be going off in your head. (The only exception is if you run for an Athlete Director position, but only elite athletes are eligible for that.)

For the At Large positions, here is the pertinent bylaw (from Section 7.6. Election/Selection, b-3 in the USATT bylaws.): "The Nominating and Governance Committee shall evaluate all candidates for At Large Director and nominate at least two (2) individuals per seat to the USATT General Membership for election."

In the special election, I was told six people applied to run. The NGC had to select two or more for the ballot, and could in fact have put all six on the ballot. Now I agree that, given the flawed rules to start with, the NGC had to make a decision, and not all six candidates were greatly qualified. But they could have put more than two on the ballot, and let the voters decide. Instead, they kept four of the six off the ballot, and allowed voters to choose only among the final two.

The NGC chose USATT Hall of Famer Jim McQueen (who went on to win the election, and who I voted for) and Ross Brown. (Here's the announcement.) Nothing wrong with this, though I might have chosen different candidates. For example, Jim Butler applied, but was turned down. His main qualification is as an elite athlete (3-time U.S. Men's Champion, Olympian), but he also has a lot of energy and ideas. Mauricio Vergara, who runs the New York Table Tennis League, also applied and was turned down. (Leagues and junior programs are how table tennis all over the world has grown, as well as most other sports all over the U.S. - but USATT has never recognized these obvious facts, and so puts little value in this sort of thing, which is why membership has stagnated so long. I find this mind-boggling - if we can't figure out the easy stuff, how can we do the hard stuff?)

I could write long arguments for these candidates, but one other candidate was amazingly left off the ballot, the candidate that should have been the first one put on the ballot. Who was that? Rajul Sheth, who set up and runs the ICC Table Tennis Club in the Bay Area, applied, and even he was turned down! I find this mind-boggling. Let's look at some of his credentials, which he sent to the NGC (and which I cut & pasted):

• Rajul established one of the biggest full time table tennis centers in the country-ICC Table Tennis Center with over 300 members and 150 kids in junior training program.
• Qualifying athletes in national teams. The most relevant, qualifying 3 athletes Ariel Hsing, Timothy Wang & Lily Zhang at the Olympics, all three forged and prepared in the same club, no other worldwide clubs did the same.
• Recognition by USATT as Centre of Excellence, and by ITTF as one of the 22 ITTF Hot Spot in the World for talent development.
• Succeeded in raising funds to sponsor most of the top juniors in bay area for their training and equipment cost including current US National Men’s and Women’s singles champion Timothy Wang and Lily Zhang.
• Employed the largest professional coaching staff (8 full time and 10 part times) in the country to take our juniors to next level.
• Rajul won 2008 and 2009 USATT/USOC development Coach of the Year Award. ICC coaches Massimo Costantini and Zhou Xin also won 2011 & 2012 National coach of the year award by USATT/USOC.
• Hosting three of the top ten USATT sanctioned tournament each year in terms of number of players.
• Largest USATT singles league in the country with over 120 players compete each week.
• Introduces our sport to at least 1000-1200 new kids each year in 14 weeks of summer and winter camps. To run these camps he invites at least 15 coaches from India, China and Europe each year.

So the guy is successful in starting up a large-scale full-time table tennis center; in developing elite athletes; in creating large-scale leagues; in creating large-scale junior programs; and in raising hordes of money (many hundreds of thousands of dollars to date). All of these are things that USATT badly needs to be able to do. And yet, voters were blocked from even having the opportunity of voting for him.

The rule used to be that anyone left off the ballot by the NGC could get on the ballot by petition of 150 signatures from USATT members. It used to be an annual rite at the U.S./North American Teams for candidates to get the signatures needed. (I did this when I was left off the ballot in 1991, and I subsequently got on by petition, and won in a landslide over the candidates chosen by the committee. Someday I'll blog about my experiences on the USATT board, though they are not much different than my experience in torturing myself by attending well over fifty USATT board meetings over the years.)

Some might argue that we don't want people like Rajul because of the conflict of interest. Putting aside that the conflict here is that he may favor his home club over others, and that I'm from a rival club (MDTTC) and don't consider it a major conflict, let's look at the logic.

We want USATT to succeed. For it to do so, we need people who are successful in table tennis - people who have set up and run clubs, leagues, junior programs, coaching programs, tournaments, done fundraising, etc. If we immediately exclude anyone who has been successful in these areas that grow the sport, what are we left with? Just the unsuccessful ones to run our sport? No, it is exactly the people who have set up and run such successful programs that we need on the USATT board.

To use a simple example, Jim McQueen has been successful in running table tennis programs in the Raleigh, NC region for decades, and that's a reason for putting him on the ballot. Does anyone consider that a conflict of interest? The irony is that a primary reason some might say Rajul has a conflict of interest is because he has been TOO successful! And so, because his club and organizing efforts are too successful, he has a conflict of interest, and can't run. So we have to find others who weren't as successful.  

One explanation for the above: there are only four members of the NGC, and amazingly, only two of them are table tennis people. So lacking table tennis experience, two of the four have no real way of really evaluating the candidates, and so we're down to two people choosing who will be on the ballot, and who will not. They are welcome to explain the reasoning for the decision to leave Rajul (or others) off the ballot, and assuming it's polite, it'll run without comment that day in my blog. (Here's the listing of USATT committees, including the NGC.)

There's a simple solution to this problem: CHANGE THE BYLAWS.  Bring back the 150 signature rule, i.e. let candidates who are not chosen by the NGC get on by petition. (Actually, 150 always seemed too many; 100 should suffice.) It didn't cause a problem before, and there's no reason to not have it again, unless the goal is to focus all power in a small group, and exclude voters from voting for certain candidates who have been hugely successful. Changing the USATT bylaws isn't that big a deal. Here are the simple rules:

ARTICLE XXII AMENDMENTS OF BYLAWS
Section 22.1. Amendments
Upon at least thirty (30) days advance notice of the proposed changes, the Bylaws may be amended, repealed, altered in whole or in part, and the new Bylaws may be adopted by a two-third (2/3) affirmative vote of the Full Board at any meeting duly

I'd love to see which USATT board member will step up and make the proposal - and which board members would actually oppose this. (There are nine board members, so it would take six to pass this, or four to block it at a meeting of all nine members.) Alas, USATT has a long history of status quo, and I suspect it will continue its status quo of status quo.

I'd also like to see the NGC committee, which is responsible for choosing which table tennis people can run for these table tennis positions, be made up of all table tennis people. That seems a no-brainer.

My personal "agenda" is simple - I want candidates who will pro-actively try to develop our sport, i.e. think of themselves as executives and legislators, not just as judges who sit in judgment of whatever comes before them. We need ones who will bring things before the board and make things happen. I didn't read that from the campaign statements of the two candidates chosen. I hope to be pleasantly surprised in this.

Perhaps I sound like someone who should have run for the board. Guess what? I strongly considered running, but when I heard Rajul was running for the one open spot, I decided not to run. If I'd known he would be excluded (the idea of which never entered my mind, though I knew the bylaws), I might have applied to run - but under the current rules, would I have been allowed to?

Serve Practice

Have you practiced your serves this week? No??? Okay . . . let me know when you are serious about your game again, and we'll talk! To the rest of you, good job.

Infinite Looper

Infinite Looper is a great resource for studying the game. It allows you to choose a table tennis video, and play back one segment over and over. For example, here's a 3-second segment showing Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov's backhand loop kill, which you can watch over and Over and OVER! (The word "looper" in the title has to do with being able to loop the same segment over and over, not a heavy topspin shot!) 

Kreanga vs. Angles

Here's video (58 sec) of an incredible rally between Greece's Kalinikos Kreanga and France's Enzo Angles.

Ping-Pong with Nunchucks

Here's a video (2:10) where "Twins battle in a Ping Pong match using Nunchucks and Martial Arts Skills." This is reminiscent of the infamous Bruce Lee Nunchuck video (2:37) that seemed to show Lee playing table tennis with nunchucks. (It was actually from a Nokia cell phone ad, and the actor was a Bruce Lee look-alike.)

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Emergency Room for Timmy

Things got exciting last night. As I've written about the last ten days, Tim Boggan is at my house so I can do the page layouts and photo work for his History of U.S. Table Tennis, Vol. 14. (Here's info on those books.) We've been doing this for each volume, and it takes about two weeks each, usually one volume per year. He arrived on Monday, Jan. 13. (Tim, 83, is in the U.S. Hall of Fame; here's his bio.)

On Tuesday, I came down with the flu and was pretty much out of it for three days. Then he came down with a bad cough, and we initially thought he'd caught the flu from me. On Friday I took him to see a doctor, who said it wasn't the flu (probably a cold), and gave him some medication (along with a lot of others he takes, mostly because he had a "minor" heart attack 25 years ago).

Tim had some sort of allergic reaction to the medicine, and his skin turned red all over. (I began calling him a Washington Redskin.) I took him to see the doctor two more times, but things didn't seem to get better. Last night, at 10:30 PM, the reaction got worse - his face was beet red, and it was itching all over. So I took him to the emergency room at Shady Grove hospital. (This wasn't the first time; about five years ago he had some sort of chest pains and thought he might be having a heart attack, and so I rushed him to the hospital then as well, but it was a false alarm.) 

All went well. The doctor there thought it was a problem with dosage, and changed the prescription, and prescribed something else. (I didn't get all the details - Tim was keeping careful track.) So this morning, as I write this, Tim is about to go to the pharmacy (again) for the new medicine. His face is still bright red.

Desk Work Affects Play; So Does Better Equipment

I've been sitting at my desk with Tim seemingly around the clock the last eleven days, except of course when I was in bed with the flu. How has this affected my table tennis? When I coached last night, I sometimes felt like I could barely play. Surprisingly, it's my normally super-steady backhand that's most affected; in drills, it had all the consistency of Sheeba's forehand counterlooping. It got a bit better as the sessions went on, but not a whole lot. I'm always a bit stiff, but right now I'm neutronium stiff.

On the other hand, I introduced one of my students last night to the wonders of tensor sponges. He tried out my racket, with Tenergy 05 FX on the forehand, and was amazed at it. He'll likely be making the switch sometime soon. Sponges like these allow players to develop higher-level looping earlier in their development, which hastens the development itself. This is contrary to thinking in the past, back when hitting dominated the game and it was thought best for players to use slower, thinner sponge their first few years to develop their hitting control. That was likely true for a hitting game, but with the modern looping game, players who get good coaching and train regularly should go to high-level sponges relatively early in their development, or the weaker equipment will hinder their development. Bouncy and spinny tensor sponges lead to players looping and counterlooping at much higher levels than with other sponges, and players who use these surfaces develop these shots much earlier than past generations who did not.

Mastering the Counterloop

Here's an article from Table Tennis Master on learning to counterloop. At the higher levels this is the basic rallying shot, so you can't read too much about this shot!

ITTF Media Scholarships

The ITTF is offering three scholarships for media undergraduates and graduates are offered to attend the ZEN-NOH 2014 World Team Championships to be staged in Tokyo, Japan from Monday 28th April to Monday 5th May. 

Fan Zhendong Needs More Time

Here's the article from TableTennista

Aurora Cup

For some reason the last three articles by Barbara Wei on the Aurora Cup went up a couple days late. (I linked to the other articles in my Jan. 20 blog.) Here they are:

January 19: Yue Wu Crowned Women’s Champion at 2014 Aurora Cup

January 20: Women’s, Over-40, Under 14 and 6 Other Champions Crowned on Final Day of 2014 Aurora Cup

January 22: After Successful Aurora Cup, Chicago Poised to Host More 4-Star Tournaments

Seeing Double: Waldner Lobbing to Appelgren

Here's a video (29 sec) of Waldner lobbing and Appelgren smashing - but with two balls at once.

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Do As I Say, Not As I Do

One of the headaches I face as a coach is that I don't have perfect technique. I can demo pretty good technique for most shots, but in live play it's not always perfect - and if I'm not careful, that's what beginners begin to copy.

For example, I have an effective 2200 level forehand loop. If you analyze it piece by piece, the technique isn't bad; it's a bit short, which isn't necessarily a problem. But it's somewhat jerky. No one would mistake it for the smooth loops of your average world-class player. If I'm not careful, students will subconsciously begin to copy the jerkiness of the stroke when that's the one thing about it they shouldn't copy. So I always make a point of mentioning this to students, and often point out the smoother technique of our top players.

I also have a rather flat backhand, when these days most top players use far more topspin. I can demo this, but not that well. So again I often point out the more topspinny backhands of the top players in our club. But when I practice with students, they see my normal flat backhand, and so I have to keep reminding them to go for more topspin and not hit it as flat as I do.

Even my receive has a few things I wouldn't want them to copy. I was an early proponent of the backhand banana flip - except it would be more accurate to call what I used to do a backhand banana mini-flip, since I didn't go for quite as much topspin as top players do these days. I can topspin just about any short and low serve, no matter how much backspin is on the ball, but it's only in recent years that I've focused putting more and more topspin on it, as they do with the modern banana flip. And so in games, sometimes I do true banana flips; other times I only put a little topspin on the ball, and I'd rather students go for more. One thing students should pick up on is the ability and willingness to flip, push short, or push long, and to vary these, based on the opponent. I do this, and always stress this. (In the modern game, the move is for more and more flipping, in particular backhand banana flipping, but if you go overboard on this it becomes predictable.)

On the other hand, if I could get students to adopt my serving habits, I'd be happy. There I have pretty good technique. And my forehand smash technique against low balls is excellent - except nobody does that anymore, not since they came up with that loop thing. Alas.

MDTTC Camp - Day Two

We had about eight inches of snow yesterday here in Germantown, MD (USA), and the temperature as I write this is a blazing 3.6 degrees. (That's Fahrenheit, or -15.78 Celsius.) School is cancelled today, so I don't have to do my usual 2:30PM pickups for our afterschool program.

But the mini-camp went on! The government was closed, schools were closed, and even the Gates of Heaven were temporarily shut while St. Peter shoveled the parking area. But MDTTC opened as usual for the second day of our two-day mini-camp. (Schools were closed already on Mon and Tue for MLK day and teacher's meetings.) So what was the turnout? We had seven coaches and seven brave players. I suggested a big basketball game, but we went for table tennis instead. Since we didn't need all the coaches, I volunteered to go home, and so went back to work on Tim Boggan's history books. (We're through 19 chapters of 30 chapters.) All in all, I'd rather have joined Derek and George Nie in building their snow fort.

Developing and Training a Full Stroke Range

Here's an article from Table Tennis Master on developing a full range of strokes.

New Poly Balls on Sale

Here's a note on their going on sale at Palio and Nittaku.

Ma Long a Favorable Candidate

Here's an article from Table Tennista, "Ma Long Is A Favourable Candidate Of Liu Guoliang For The Rio Olympics."

Supersonic Ping-Pong Ball Going Through Paddle

Here's a video (33 sec, but first two seconds is the main event) of a ball traveling at supersonic speeds as it goes right through a ping-pong paddle.

Double Turtleneck Ping-Pong

Here's a video (3:14) of Jimmy Fallon and Jessica Alba together in a huge turtleneck sweater, playing table tennis "doubles" against two others (Fallon sidekicks?) also in huge turtleneck sweaters.

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MDTTC Mini-Camp

Yesterday we had day one of our two-day mini-camp, with local schools closed for Martin Luther King Day and teachers meetings. Unlike our regular five-day camps, there is no lecturing in these camps, just get the players on the table and start training, with lots of multiball in the morning.

Over and over idea keeps slapping me in the face, one I've said for years: Most of coaching isn't telling players what to do; it's getting rid of unnecessary stuff. For every time I have a player actually do something new, there are probably three times where I tell them to stop doing something they are doing, usually some sort of hitch in a stroke. For example, one beginning kid in the camp was hitting his forehand by dropping his racket but with the racket tip aimed upwards, tilting his wrist back, then doing this round-about stroke where his racket angle started open and ended up closed, with the tip always up. His elbow did all sorts of gymnastics during the stroke, and he used enough wrist to solve the national energy crisis. He couldn't smash to save his life, and his shots sprayed all over the place, often with crazy sidespins. By the end of the day, he had a pretty clean forehand (in drills), and he could smash over and over.

My group did a lot of serve practice in the camp, and I had a lot of fun demonstrating the various dances you can make the ball do with good spin - back into the net, big breaks to the side, etc.

No-spin and Backspin Serving Tactics

I worked with a student recently on serve and attack tactics. For example, I pointed out that when an advanced player serves short no-spin to the middle, he's probably going to look to follow up with his forehand, since he's hoping the opponent misreads it as backspin - so you either attack the serve or push mostly to the wide forehand while chopping down on the ball. Intermediate players will push this ball to the backhand over and over, with less backspin than most pushes (since they don't have any incoming backspin to rebound back as backspin), and often slightly high, and so an easy meatball for a good forehand attacker. A simple push to the wide forehand often wins the point.

On the other hand, a backspin serve to the short forehand gives the receiver the threat of a wide-angled return to the wide forehand, and since the server has to cover that, he can't look to play as aggressively with the forehand. But it's harder to attack a short backspin serve than a no-spin serve, so most returns are pushes, so an advanced player is usually looking to loop against backspin, either forehand or backhand. Off this serve a receiver can just push down the line to the server's backhand - and the server is more likely to look to serve and attack with the backhand, or perhaps just serve and push. I had the student experiment with these, following up the no-spin serve to the middle with his forehand when possible, and following up his short backspin serve to my forehand from both wings. He'd also serve backspin to my backhand, and be ready to either follow from both wings, or do sudden step arounds to attack with his forehand, since there's no angle into his forehand off that serve to cover for.

You should vary your serves all over the place, but understand the advantages and disadvantages of each type of serve and play the tactics accordingly. (I think I could write a book on just serving short tactics!) 

Increasing Reaction Speed (Tips and Exercises)

Here's an article from Table Tennis Master on improving your table tennis reaction time.

Aurora Cup Results

You can see the complete results for every round of every event at the Aurora Cup on their Omnipong page.  

Training a Cat to Play Ping-Pong

Here's the video (27 sec)!

The Secret of Bay Area Table Tennis Training

Here's the video (21 sec), with Kanak Jha demonstrating.

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Tip of the Week

Playing the Seemiller or American Grip. (This is an excerpt from "Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers.")

MDTTC Mini-Camp

Local schools are closed today and tomorrow for Martin Luther King birthday and a teacher's meeting. And so we're running a two-day mini-camp at MDTTC, 10AM-6PM. Normally I'd be there all day both days, but because I'm working on Tim Boggan's History of U.S. Table Tennis (Vol. 14), with Tim at my side ("No, stupid, that photo there!"), I'm only doing the morning sessions. What does this really mean for me? It means I'm up all last night working on this blog, the Tip of the Week, and all the other stuff I have to take care of each day; it means I'm at my desk with Tim at 5AM to get two chapters done before I leave at 9:30AM; it means I'm coaching at the club from 10AM-1PM (and likely taking a large group of kids to the 7-11 down the street afterwards); it means I rush home to an impatient Tim and do several more chapters that afternoon and night; and it means starting all over again that night with the following day's blog so I can get started early with Tim the following morning. Somewhere in there I sleep.

Tim's Book, and Tim's Trials and Tribulations

Due to our various illnesses and my coaching, we're behind schedule on History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 14. However, we're catching up fast. Yesterday we got three more chapters done, so we've done eleven chapters, plus the covers and early intro pages. We just went through the 1985 U.S. Open, and once again Cheng Yinghua wins over Taiwan's Wen Chia-Wu, who had upset world #1 Jiang Jialiang in the semifinals! Cheng also won Men's Doubles with Jiang. And now he's my fellow coach at MDTTC.

Sports Psychology

One of my students (age 12) gets way too nervous in matches. So our top focus now is sports psychology. (This really should be everyone's top priority, since you get more for your time put into it than just about anything else.) I started today's session by having him simply tie his shoes. No problem. Then I had him do the same thing where he had to consciously tell himself what to do each step of the way. He laboriously went through the process, but the contrast with trying to consciously do it and letting your subconscious do what it's been trained to do (i.e. muscle memory) made the point about how you want to play table tennis. (For the record, I made up this exercise myself.)

Then we moved on to ping-pong ball shooting. I set up a box on the table, and we stood about fifteen feet away and simply shot baskets. The catch - you couldn't think about aiming. You just looked at the target, visualized the trajectory of the ball from hand to box, and then let it happen. At first the student had some problems - he kept trying to consciously aim the ball, or reacted to misses and swishes, when the conscious mind needs to get out of the way and let the subconscious do the job. After a few minutes of this, he was able to let go, and his shooting increased tremendously. (I had a streak where I made over 50 in a row without a conscious thought.

Then I held up a ping-pong ball, and said, "This is your conscious mind." Then I waved my hand about and said, "Your house is your subconscious. That's their relative sizes." Then I compared the conscious mind to some bad boss who flits about an office of well-trained employees and interferes with their work. For the well-trained employees (the subconscious) to get their work done they need the boss (the conscious mind) to get out of the way. Nervousness comes from the conscious mind; the subconscious is as cool as ice. Get out of the way and let it do its job. (Of course, there's the separate issue of training the subconscious - but that's what you are doing every time you practice, as you develop muscle memory. Most players have far better muscle memory than they realize, if they'd only stop being a bad boss and get out of the way.)

We didn't get to the table for the first half hour. (It was a 90-minute session.) Then he had a very good session. Much of the session we focused on reaction drills, where the key was to just let go and react, with muscle memory doing the natural reaction. He has a tendency to anticipate forehands and so loses a lot of points when the ball goes to his wide backhand, so we did drills where he had to just react to the ball, forehand or backhand.

We also went over routines. For example, anyone who's played me knows that when I serve, I start by loosening my right sleeve with my left arm; then I let my playing arm drop back and forth once like a pendulum; and then I serve. When I receive, I hold up my left hand as I approach the table; shuffle my feet a few times; and then lower my arm. Little routines like these become habit to the point that by doing them, they put you in the proper frame of mind for the point. Everyone should develop these little routines, with at least one thing you always do just before each point.  (This could become a Tip of the Week at some point.)

Aurora Cup

Now here's how you do publicity for a major tournament - with daily articles all week in advance! Below are the daily articles by Barbara Wei for the Butterfly Aurora Cup. (I believe there might be at least one more coming, covering Sunday's results, which I'll put up tomorrow.) And here are the results.

• Jan. 19: High-Level Action in Open Event on First Day of 2014 Aurora Cup
• Jan. 18: Champions Named on First Day of Aurora Cup
• Jan. 18: Atlanta Table Tennis Player-Coaches poised to Take Crown at 2014 Aurora Cup
• Jan. 17: 2014 Aurora Cup a Family Affair for Top Seeded Junior Nathan Hsu
• Jan. 16: Jim Butler Hoping to Cause Upsets at 2014 Butterfly Aurora Cup
• Jan. 15: Lindenwood University Brings Powerhouse Team to 2014 Butterfly Aurora Cup
• Jan. 14: Impressive in Numbers and Quality for 2014 Butterfly Aurora Cup in Aurora, IL

U.S. National Team Programs

Here's a listing of upcoming programs for the U.S. National Team.

Crystal Wang in Baltimore Sun

Here's an article and video (1:32) in the Baltimore Sun on 11-year-old Crystal Wang, who recently became the youngest player ever to win Under 22 Women at the USA Nationals. (She's from my club!) Here are more photos.

Disguise Topspin as Backspin with the Maharu Yoshimura Serve (Photo and Video Analysis)

Here's an article and video (3:49) from Table Tennis Master on how the Japanese star disguises his serves.

Gossip Pong

A few days ago I watched as two girls at my club played table tennis - or sort of played. They were chatting non-stop, with the table tennis just along for the ride. I realized we don't have a name for this, and so I have christened this new sport: "Gossip Pong." I'm copyrighting it. For now on, every time you use this name, you owe me $1. If you talk to your opponent when you play table tennis, you owe me $1. If you so much as call out the score, you owe me $1.

Ping-Pong with the Fishes

Here's the picture!

Schwarzenegger Super Bowl Commercial

Here's a video preview (17 sec) of an upcoming Super Bowl ad that shows Arnold trying to make it as a table tennis player. (Look at those strokes! Look at that hair!)  

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Flu and Coaching

I'm mostly recovered from the flu, but still pretty exhausted by it. What have I learned from this experience? 1) Flu bad; 2) Get Flu shot; 3) Flu very bad; 4) Flu very very bad; 5) Flu VERY very very bad.

On Wednesday I could barely eat anything. I managed to eat a blueberry muffin for breakfast, but almost threw it up. For lunch I tried a bowl of chicken rice soup, but gave up after two spoonfuls. I then realized there were only two things I could imagine eating at that time - fruit and vanilla pudding. I'm not kidding. So I sent Tim Boggan to the supermarket. And so for dinner I had a bowl of fruit and two cups of vanilla pudding.

After a height of 103 on Tuesday night, my fever hovered around 102 all day on Wednesday, dropping to about 101 a few times. I have an electronic thermometer, and having nothing better to do, I compulsively took my temperature about every two minutes or so. (Well, it seemed that often.) Late on Wednesday night the temperature dropped to about 100. Thursday morning it was down to 99, compared to my norm of about 97, which is where it's at now.

Besides nonstop agony, there was the extreme boredom. My head was on fire, and reading or watching TV made it worse. I tried a crossword puzzle, and my head almost exploded. I couldn't get out of bed without nearly collapsing in exhaustion after five steps. When I did get out of bed, I'd need ten minutes in bed to catch my breath. When I heard I'd won one of the Coach of the Year awards, did I go, "YAY!"? No, I went, 'yay,' and crawled back into bed, groaning.

Did I mention anywhere that the flu isn't fun?

So here's my public service announcement to all humankind: Get Your Flu Shots!!!

And to John Olsen and Kevin Walton, who were surprised several months ago that I hadn't had a flu shot, and who I told I hadn't bothered because I hadn't had the flu in decades, well, let's keep that a secret between us, okay?

I do have to make a decision this morning on my coaching tonight. I'd already cancelled all my Wed and Thur sessions; I've got 1.5 hours scheduled Friday night, but can I do it? The flu is basically gone, but I don't know yet how much energy I'll have, plus I could still be infectious; I don't know. The same goes for the weekend. There is the argument that when coaching, you spend much of your time ten feet from your player, but not always. Maybe I should wear one of these paper masks you sometimes see people wearing on the streets; I think it's more common in China than the U.S. (Who is that masked man? It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's just Coach Larry; move along, nothing to see.)

Now that I'm getting over the flu, hopefully my blog can go back to featuring coaching again, instead of adventures in fluland. It's the daily coaching that gives the fuel for the blog. I was planning on blogging this morning about "Do as I say, not as I do," but I'll do that one in a later blog, when I have more energy and my mind is clearer. (This is regarding coaching, i.e. a good coach knows what to say, but can't always do it himself the way he wants you do so. I'm jealous of many top coaches who were former top players with near perfect technique; they can usually teach it as "Do as I do." For example, my forehand loop may get the job done at a 2200 level, but is rather ragged because of muscle stiffness, and I'd never want a student to copy that.)

Tim Boggan

Now the bad news. Tim (83) began coughing yesterday afternoon, and it got worse during the night. I'm taking him to see a doctor this morning. He had his flu shots.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 14

We missed all of Wednesday since I was sick in bed (did I mention flu is bad?), so we're way behind. However, I got up on my own at 5AM Thursday, and we somehow did four chapters yesterday. So we've done the covers, the preliminary stuff (foreword, acknowledgements, etc.), and the first nine chapters out of the 30. The bad news is we were scheduled to at least twelve done by now. So we're almost a day behind. (Because of my coaching hours, we don't expect to get much done on weekends.) We were planning on finishing by next Friday, but that's doubtful, since we need at least a day or two to input corrections and do pre-press work.

The latest chapter is fascinating as it covers some of the behind-the-scenes squabbling that took place at the 1985 World Championships, which culminated in the USA team leader taking two players and two officials to the USTTA disciplinary committee, and that official getting taken there as well by one of the officials he'd taken there. Lots of "he said, she said" stuff, but the disciplinary committee dismissed everything, and everyone lived happily ever after. Well, not really; some of these people have great animosity toward each other to this day. (For the record, I wasn't involved in any of this, but I knew all the people involved rather well.) The Team Leader accused players of not trying, of bad language, and other unsportsmanlike conduct; he in turn was accused of various transgressions, the most interesting was opening rooting for an opposing player (a friend of the USA team leader) against a U.S. team member who the team leader didn't get along with.

Sound interesting? Volume 14 should be available in a few weeks! (No, I don't get any commission.) Here's where you can find more info on Tim Boggan's History of U.S. Table Tennis books. (I maintain the page for him.)

Ping-Pong Diplomacy Video

Here's a video (6 min) on Five Things You Should Know about Ping-Pong Diplomacy." I watched it with Tim Boggan, who said there was only one inaccuracy. According to the video, Zhuang Zedong waved Glenn Cowan onto the bus. However, Tim said that Glenn didn't recognize the one who waved him on (a seminal moment in table tennis history, added Tim), and he would have recognized Zhuang, and that whoever actually did so is an historical mystery.

2014 Aurora Open

Here are two more of Barbara Wei's article featuring the Aurora Open this weekend. Here's one on the powerhouse Lindenwood team, and here's one that features 3-time U.S. Men's Champion Jim Butler, who hopes to cause a few upsets. Wish I could be there! (There should be another going up later this morning, but too late for the blog, alas - though I might add it later. And here it is: 2014 Aurora Cup a Family Affair for Top Seeded Junior Nathan Hsu. Nathan's from my club! I sometimes coach him at tournaments.)

RIP Warren Wetzler

Here's the article. Many know him from tournaments, or via his son, John.

David's Story - an ITTF Documentary

Here's the video (4 min) of a Papua New Guinean table tennis player and his quest for gold.

Swing Ping?

Here's the picture!

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Flu

Another short blog due to the flu. I'm mostly over it, with my temperature back to normal, but even standing up is exhausting. Here's your chance to say, "Larry, you fool, why didn't you get your flu shot?" (And if I weren't so tired, I'd google a video of people throwing tomatoes at someone, presumably me.) Next time I will. But it had been decades (I think) since I last had the flu, as opposed to way too many colds.

Coaches of the Year

Yesterday, USATT announced their Coaches of the Year - and I won the Doc Counsilman Coaching Award! Other awards were Coach of the Year to Lily Yip, Developmental Coach of the Year to Stefan Feth, and Paralympic Coach of the Year to Angie Bengtsson.

I was a bit surprised the announcement didn't explain what each of the four awards are for, or why the coach won it, or any bio info on the coaches. I've already received a lot of notes that basically say, "Congrats, Larry, but what the heck is the Doc Counsilman Award?" So here it is:

The “Doc” Counsilman Award is for a coach that utilizes scientific techniques/equipment as an integral part of his/her coaching methods, or has created innovative ways to use sport science.  The “use of science in sport” includes, but is not limited to, biomechanics, nutrition, psychology, technology, strength and conditioning, exercise physiology, etc.

I believe I won it primarily for TableTennisCoaching.com, though I've also used other new technology, such as Print on Demand to publish my coaching books. This is the second time I've been a Coach of the Year - I was Developmental Coach of the Year in 2002. I was also runner-up three different times, according to a selection committee member a few years ago.

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