MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was the backhand loop. Most of the players in the camp were ready for this, including two of the five beginners I was mostly working with. The harder part for most was doing a backhand loop against backspin and then and a backhand drive against topspin consecutively, fed multiball style. Inevitably, when they first try this, they'd either shorten the backswing on the backhand loop (and go into net), or swing up on the drive (and go off the end). Some of the more advanced players backhand looped against both backspin and topspin, but being more advanced, they had little trouble making the adjustment.

I gave a private lesson to a player roughly in his late 40s (not sure), where I introduced him to forehand looping. This was where the power of the subconscious became a problem. He quickly developed a pretty good forehand loop technique, except his racket was always too closed. And so when I fed him backspin with multiball, over and over he went into the net. Even when I told him to spin the ball way, way off the end, his subconscious took over as soon as he began his stroke, and the balls kept going into the net. This happens all the time when the loop is first introduced to older players. The key is you have to really, Really, REALLY convince yourself to aim to loop way off the end, so that your subconscious gets the message, and so it aims there - with the result that the ball probably hits the table. After doing that a few times, the subconscious has the feedback to aim better, and then it can loop off the end. Then you tell it to aim for the table, and kazzam, you can aim for the table and the ball hits the table.  

It was a long day at the club. Due to the camp, private coaching, meetings, and other TT issues, I was at the club continuously (except for a lunchtime walk over to 7-11 with a bunch of the kids) from 8:30 AM to 9PM.

Here's an interesting note I'll put out for you psychology majors. When the younger kids line up for various target practice games (where I'm feeding multiball), the boys all want to go first, and so I often have them do rock-paper-scissors to see who goes first. But the two girls in my group yesterday kept telling the other she could go first, and I finally had them do rock-paper-scissors just to see who could let the other one go first!

Junior Olympic Results

Here they are! They were held in Detroit this past Mon-Wed.

Zhang Jike vs Xu Xin

Here's the video that just went up (3:32, with time between points removed) of their recent match in the Chinese Super League. Zhang is the righty and the reigning World and Olympic Men's Singles Champion. Xu is world #2. (Ironically, despite his recently repeating as world champion, Zhang lost in other tournaments and dropped to #4 in the world in new rankings, with Ma Long #1, Wang Hao #3. Here are the world rankings.)

Desmond Douglas, age 58

He can still play - here's a video (1:12). I remember watching him in the semifinals of the 1976 U.S. Open in Philadelphia, where he lost deuce in the fifth to eventual winner Dragutin Surbek, in my first major tournament and third overall. "See the video below for a 130+ rally between Desmond Douglas, Former World Number 7, and Tim Yarnall former England number 4. Both show that they do not want to miss a shot with balance, technique and placement on every ball. Can you say the same about your game or players? How important is the mentality to not miss a ball in table tennis?"

Amazing Ping-Pong Ball in Cup Tricks

Here's the video (2:41). "Identical twin brothers Austin and Luke Morrel are two regular high schoolers who directed and filmed this extreme ping pong trick video." Note that this is actually their third such video - you can see others by them and other trick shot videos in the video listings to the right.

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MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was on forehand looping. We didn't have most of the beginners do this, though a couple of them badly wanted to and so I taught them the shot. Normally you give players at least a few weeks at least of regular forehand and backhand drives before introducing them to looping. The six-year-old I blogged about yesterday who had a pretty good backhand loop (at least in multiball) had an even better forehand loop! Very smooth and rather consistent. However, he's not ready to do this effectively in a game yet - he still loses head-to-head to other beginners who don't have his techniques, but are a couple years older and are more consistent.

One of the important points that came up several times yesterday is the importance of rotating mostly in a circle when forehand looping. Imagine a rod going through your head; you should rotate around it. The left side (for righties) should pull back and around as much as the right side goes forward. This doesn't mean you never move your head and upper body (i.e. follow through sideways), but that's usually done to create power when rushed, especially when stepping around the backhand corner. By rotating mostly in a circle you stay balanced and immediately ready for the next shot - which is how top players can pull off a series of powerful loops in quick succession, while intermediate players often struggle to do two in a row.

The younger kids in this week's camp absolutely have gone bonkers over Froggy. All they want to do is put it on the table so they can try hitting it while I feed multiball. I'm starting half the sessions by saying various versions of, "If you work hard for the first hour, I'll bring out Froggy and you can take turns hurting the poor amphibian." It's good target practice, as long as they use good form when hitting.

Over break I was challenged by a 2139 player to a clipboard match. We played best of three to 11. I won the first, 11-9. He won the second, 11-8. He was leading 6-4 in the third when we ran out of time and had to go off break. We plan to finish the match at break today. We're having great points - wish this were on video. (There are a couple videos of me playing clipboard matches on youtube, but neither are among my better-played matches.) Earlier that morning, before we started, another junior (about 1100) also challenged me to a match, so I played him with my cell phone, and won, 11-9.  He wants to play me again today - rematch!

(Note - I have to run over to the club an hour and a half earlier this morning for something, so this blog is shorter than normal - not as much time to scan the Internet for interesting articles and videos.)

The Art of Decisiveness

Here's the article from Table Tennis Master.

International Articles

Here's my periodic reminder that there are lots and lots of international articles at the ITTF and TableTennista sites!

Junior Olympic Results

I've been unable to find any online results from the Junior Olympic Games, which were held the last three days in Detroit, finishing yesterday. One of the parents there put together this listing of medalists from my club (MDTTC). I have a listing now of the results and if I can't find an online listing soon I'll probably format and post that. (They normally put the results online.) So . . . Congratulations to the following MDTTC'ers at the 2013 Junior Olympics!

GOLD
Girls U10 Singles - Lisa Lin
Girls U10 Doubles - Lisa Lin & Jessica Lin
Girls U10 Team - Lisa Lin, Jessica Lin & Helen Yao
Boys U12 Singles - Adam Yao
Girls U16 Doubles - Kaylee Zou & Shirley Hu
Boys U18 Doubles - Chen Bowen & Nathan Hsu
Division I - Sameer Shaikh
Division J - Jessica Lin
SILVER 
Girls U10 Singles - Jessica Lin
Boys U16 Singles - Chen Bowen
Girls U18 Singles - Lilly Lin
Boys U18 Team - Leon Bi, Chen Bowen, Nathan Hsu
Division H - Lisa Lin
BRONZE 
Girls U12 Singles - Helen Yao
Girls U14 Singles - Amy Lu
Girls U18 Doubles - Lilly Lin & Amy Lu
Girls U18 Team - Amy Lu, Kaylee Zou & Lilly Lin
Boys U16 Team - Jason Wei & Adam Yao

Table Tennis Balls - Never Leave Home Without 'Em!

Like this. (No, it's not my car!)

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MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was on the backhand, as it always is on Tuesdays during our camps. (Mon=FH, Tue=BH, Wed=FH Loop, Thu=BH Attack, Fri=Pushing and Player's Choice.) One local six-year-old kid badly wanted to demonstrate his backhand loop, and though I was skeptical at first, I let him - and it turned out to be very nice and fluid. So I let him do a bunch of that, along with other hitting drills. Not too many six-year-olds are already backhand looping! (If a kid wants to do something that you aren't sure he's ready for, it's better to teach it to him so he learns it properly than have him learn on his own, as he undoubtedly would.)

The kids I'm working with are improving rapidly. There are five beginners in the 6-8 age group that I'm mostly in charge of. None had even a semblance of forehand or backhand strokes when we started on Monday, but after two days all have the basic shots in multiball, and three of them can now rally live with me forehand to forehand and backhand to backhand. Two of them still struggle to serve, so we're going to focus on that a bit today. We did some service practice yesterday, and I even brought out the serving bar so they could practice serving low. (This is an adjustable bar that goes over the net. Here's a picture of it set high, and here's a picture of it set low.  John Olsen made this for the club and for a few others. It has about ten height settings.)  

Today I'm going to bring out the colored balls and teach pushing to the beginners. The soccer-colored balls (I have a bag of about 20 of them now) make it easier to see the backspin on the ball. (While the focus on pushing is on Friday, we start earlier for the beginners.) To start them off, I'll do a demo, then I'll have them push as I feed the ball multiball style. When they're ready, we'll push live, using the colored balls at first so they have instant feedback on whether they are getting backspin or not. I also use these balls so they can see if they are getting spin on their serves.

While I was working with the beginners, several of the advanced players focused today on relooping against an opponent's opening loop against backspin. I've always wondered why so many players practice straight counterlooping by serving topspin when the first loop they often have to counterloop comes at them against a backspin, and so has more topspin, has a different trajectory, and comes at you somewhat quicker (because of the extra spin and because it's done closer to the table).

Poor Froggy took a beating yesterday. We divided the players into two groups, one lined up on the forehand side, one on the backhand side, and they'd take turns trying to smack him as I fed multiball, with the first team to hit it ten times winning.

Busy

Here's my current schedule and todo list. Something has to give - I'm not kidding. Though things will slow down by mid-September.

1. Daily Blog and Weekly Tip of the Week
2. Coaching at MDTTC Camps, four more weeks, 10AM-6PM
3. Private and group coaching (nights and weekends).
4. MDTTC August Newsletter.
5. Promotions and possible translations of Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers.
6. ITTF Level 2 Coaching Course Sept. 2-7 in New Jersey (attending) - lots of study and preparation needed. 
7. ITTF Level 1 Coaching Course Oct. 2-6 in Indiana (teaching).
8. Small claims court against previous tenant in my townhouse. The guy left without paying rent, without cleaning the place, with lots of damaged items behind, and without a forwarding address. (I spent $2700 in cleanup and damages.) I've got piles of mail for him - much of it from lawyers and courts for various infractions. I'm not the only one going after this guy. One of the worst people I've ever met.
9. A new family has moved in downstairs, and there are all sorts of complications as they get situated.
10. Promotion, editorial, and cover work, new web page, numerous others things for my novel coming out Nov. 15 - "The Giant Face in the Sky."
11. Sequel to the novel.
12. Note to US Airways over flight this weekend - my flights were kept getting postponed or cancelled, and instead of arriving home at around 10PM Saturday I didn't get home until about 3PM Sunday. Free travel voucher?
13. The planned Maryland Junior League (probably on hold for now).
14. Dozens and dozens of emails each day, each needing a personalized response.

Former USATT President Mel Eisner Died

Here's the USATT article.

Dimitrij Ovtcharov vs. Wang Hao

Here's a video of their recent match in the Chinese Super League (6:54, with time between points removed).

NBA Star Chris Paul Playing Table Tennis

Here's a picture from a TopSpin Charity event held at The Palazzo in Las Vegas.

Jan-Ove Waldner Rolls Ball Around the Net

Here's the video (42 seconds) - it appears to be in an exhibition. Unlike most cases where a player does it while desperately reaching for a ball that drops off the side of the table, Waldner does it against an easier ball that he could have smashed, and instead intentionally lets the ball drop so he can do this shot.

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MDTTC Camp

Yesterday was Day One of Week Seven of our ten weeks of summer camps. This week we have our smallest turnout, only about 20 players. Originally I was going to work only the mornings, since the turnout is smaller and because I need more time for my writing (both table tennis and fiction), as well as to prepare for upcoming ITTF seminars (one I'm attending, one I'm teaching), and other TT organizing activities. However, there are four beginning younger kids, and I was asked if I could take charge of them. So I'm working with these four in the afternoons. But it means I'm facing a time crunch. I may write more about this later - I've got a todo list that's longer than a "Game of Thrones" novel. (Thing will ease up at the end of August when our camps end and the kids go back to school.) 

One thing that jumped out among these four is that three of them have a lot of head movement when they play forehands. I'm working on minimizing that. Two of them tend to hit forehands with backspin. One has trouble hitting the ball at all. Two can't serve yet. So we've got a busy week ahead of us.

Making things worse is our table tennis robot broke. It shoots balls out erratically all over the place. I've gone to the manufacturer's web page where it explains what might be the problem, but I'm not sure yet which it is, or how to fix it. I'm hoping to turn it over to one of the engineer parents at our club, including a couple of mechanical engineers. Normally when working with four kids I'd have one on the robot, I'd work with one, and the other two would do ball pickup. We'd rotate every few minutes. Now instead I work with one, one does ball pickup, and the other two hit together. They aren't able to do drills yet, so I let the two hitting together play games. Perhaps by the end of the week they might be able to do some forehand to forehand or backhand to backhand among themselves, but right now they can only do this with a coach who can keep the ball to one spot.

Pendulum Serve in Doubles

Here's a video (1:28) from Ping Skills on the forehand pendulum serve in doubles. (Sort of a basics article.)

New Ball and Mixed Doubles System at 2015 Worlds

Here's the article from Tabletennista. "A new ball and a new pairing system for the Mixed Doubles will be implemented in the 2015 World Championships to be held in Suzhou, China." They are replacing the current celluloid ball (which is apparently too flammable) with a new plastic ball. The new pairing system for Mixed Doubles "...will allow Chinese players to pair up with members from other associations."

Top 10 Shots from the First Half of 2013

Here's the video (6:05), which came out yesterday, from the ITTF Youtube Channel.

Hockey Players Play TT for Charity

Here’s an article and two videos (55 sec and 2:08) from Table Tennis Nation on Hockey players playing table tennis to raise funds for concussion and cancer research ("Smashfest"). "Stephane Veilleux of the Minnesota Wild was the eventual winner, but plenty of NHLers were in attendance: Dominic Moore (the event organizer), Logan Couture, Martin St. Louis, Phil Kessel, Joel Ward, and many more and raised over $100,000."

The New Yorker's Table Tennis Cover

Yesterday I linked to a picture of the cover of The New Yorker, which features table tennis. Here's the story behind the cover.

Non-Table Tennis - My Novel and Short Stories

It's official - my humorous fantasy novel "The Giant Face in the Sky" will be coming out Nov. 15 from Class Act Books. I'll blog more about this as the date approaches. Time to start planning the sequel! Here's a short blurb: "The Giant Face in the Sky" is a humorous fantasy retelling of the U.S.-Soviet race to the moon in the '60s, but with sorcerers instead of astronauts. It's Hitchhiker's Guide meets the Space Race." And while we're on the subject of my science fiction & fantasy writing, here's a review that just came out of the anthology "After Death," where the reviewer lists my story ("The Devil's Backbone") as one of the three best!

Ping Ping with Vicious Seeing Eye Dog Paddle and Big Glasses

Can someone tell me what's going on here? The title above is the best description I can come up with!

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Tip of the Week

Topspinny Backhands.

Last Week's Tip of the Week

I put up a Tip of the Week last Monday, but since I was out of town and not blogging, some of you may have missed it. If so, you get a special double-tip week! So here's the July 22 Tip of the Week: Pushing Change of Direction.

I'm Back!

It's been eleven days. I doubt if you missed me more than my dog, who went berserk at my return. (I had people taking care of her, but she tends not to eat much when I'm away.) As noted below, I was at a writers workshop in Manchester, NH, July 19-27. See segment on this below. And right after I finish this morning's blog I'm off to coach at the MDTTC camp. (We have ten consecutive camps this summer, each Mon-Fri; this is week seven. I should be at the rest of them - I missed two weeks, one for the writers workshop, one for the U.S. Open.)

Table Tennis Fitness

I just returned from nine days at a writers workshop (see below). While there was no table tennis there - other than my showing off my "blowing the ball in the air" trick, and one time showing off my ability to bounce a ping-pong ball up and down on a cell phone over and over - I did notice something related to table tennis.

The biggest difference between writers (as well as people I observed at the airport) and table tennis players, as well as people I observed at the airport, was the fitness level. There is a fitness epidemic in this country, and it's very noticeable at airports, and even more so at writers workshops. This isn't meant as an actual criticism of being overweight - to each his own - just an observation. But table tennis players in general are much more fit than the general population. Perhaps part of this is that there are so many Asian players, and they seem fitter than typical Americans. Or perhaps it's all those calories burned playing table tennis. Or perhaps it's fitness for the express purposes of improving their table tennis. Or perhaps it's because fitter people tend to seek out sports. Whichever it is, table tennis players, in general, and at all levels (at least beyond the beginning state) are far more fit than the average population.

At my worse, I once reached 196 pounds, and I currently am at 185. I'm now determined to get back to 175. Here's an article from Pongworld on training and fitness. Here's an article on table tennis and fitness by Australian star Greg Letts.

Non-Table Tennis - TNEO

TNEO is "The Never-Ending Odyssey," an annual gathering in Manchester, NH, of graduates of the six-week Odyssey Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Workshop. (I'm class of '06.) I just spent nine days there, July 19-27, where I was immersed with 27 others with story critiques, classes & lectures, readings, and lots of reading and writing. Three of my stories were critiqued; I've already rewritten them, and will be submitting them soon. Two other stories I have planned were plotted out, plus I wrote a brand new humorous story, "The Bat Nerd," which I read at the annual story reading at the local Barnes and Noble. Here's a Facebook picture (with comments) of the group in the workshop.

Flight Back from Manchester

The flights home were a disaster. Here's a short synopsis. I was scheduled for a 6:10PM flight Saturday night (July 27) on U.S. Air from Manchester to Philadelphia, with a connection to National Airport in Washington DC, arriving at 10:11PM. From there I'd take the subway to Shady Grove Metro Station where I had someone picking me up.

The 6:10PM flight was delayed to around 7:30PM due to both a crew problem (lack of a pilot) and weather. It became obvious I wouldn't be able to make my connection in Philadelphia, and there were no other non-full flights out of Philly that night. The earliest available flight the following morning was around 9AM. (Apparently U.S. Air wasn't able to get me on flights with other airlines.) They said they'd put me up in a hotel in Philly. However, a better option they said would be for me to spend the night in Manchester (again, they'd pay for the room), and catch a direct flight at 6AM the next morning. So I was sent back across the airport to the U.S. Air ticket office to get the hotel voucher and catch a shuttle to the hotel. However, after arriving there, they told me there were no available hotel rooms in Manchester! So they rushed me through security again so I could catch the delayed flight at 7:30PM. I reached Philly around 9PM. However, due to another glitch, they had trouble finding my checked-in bag, and it took them over 90 minutes before it was located. Then I took the shuttle to the hotel, arriving there around 11:15PM.

I now had a 7:55AM flight from Philly to DC. I got up a 5AM, was at the airport at 6:30AM, only to discover that due to another crew issue, the flight had been delayed to 9:40AM! Then it was delayed to 10:45AM. And then, at around 9:30 AM, it was cancelled! They put me on a different flight leaving at 11:30 AM. So I sat around the airport for about five hours before leaving. I arrived in DC at about 12:40 PM, took the subway to Shady Grove, arriving around 2:00 PM for my pickup. (The one who was going to pick me could no longer do so; Derek Nie's mom picked me up.)

Meanwhile, every step of the way as my flights changed I was calling the person who was to pick me up at Shady Grove. It got really frustrating as my schedule changed seemingly every ten minutes. On top of this, I had a 10AM coaching session scheduled for Sunday, which I had to miss. (It was a double - once a week on Sunday mornings I drive out to Virginia to coach, and they pay me double. So I'm out about $100 on top of everything else, plus a disappointed student.)

My Coaching Columns in USA Table Tennis Magazine

I've been submitting the best of my Tips of the Week to USATT Magazine, and they've been publishing them since January of 2012. Recently they've put together a page dedicated to them, with links to each article. If you've been reading my weekly Tips (every Monday morning) then you've read these.

Building Power and Weight Transfer

Here's a coaching article from Table Tennis Master.

Two Insane Pieces Of Luck Behind China’s Current Dominance

Here's an article from Table Tennis Master on how China's dominance in table tennis may have come about due to two great pieces of luck!

Kenta Matsudaira's Show

Here are video highlights of the Japanese star (4:08).

The New Yorker

Here's the table tennis cover of this week's The New Yorker, which is dated today, though it came out a few days ago. I saw a copy at the airport, and paging through it, couldn't find anything on table tennis on the inside. Apparently the table tennis cover is an independent cover and doesn't actually illustrate anything from the inside.

Stéphane Veilleux Wins Smashfest

Here's a picture of the Minnesota Wild Hockey player holding up the huge table tennis trophy he won. Click on the picture and you'll see other pictures from the event.

Phil Mickelson Plays Matt Lauer on the Today Show

Here's the video and article from Table Tennis Nation.

Dragon on a Ping-Pong Table

Here's the latest artwork from Mike Mezyan. The title I've given it sort of tells you what it is - sort of like the movie Snakes on a Plane!!!

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Last Blog until Monday, July 29 - Off to Writer's Workshop

When most people go on vacation, they go to beaches, Disneyworld, or Las Vegas. When table tennis players go on vacation, they center it around a major tournament. When I go on vacation, I go to a science fiction writer's workshop in Manchester, NH, July 19-28. After non-stop table tennis action since early June (when kids got out of school), I need the physical and mental break. (Actually, it's been pretty much non-stop table tennis for 37 years!!!)

Back in 2006 I attended the Odyssey Science Fiction & Fantasy Writer's Workshop, an intense six-week program for such writers. Every year a group of the graduates get together for nine days of intense workshopping, called "The Never-Ending Odyssey" or TNEO. I've got three stories getting critiqued, I critiqued dozens of others, plus we have a number of other programs, with two one-hour "master classes" each day, taught by various graduates.

It's a busy time right now. I'm juggling ten consecutive weeks of training camps (all Mon-Fri, 10AM-6PM, June 17 - Aug. 23); the U.S. Open (July 1-7); an ITTF Level 2 Coaching Seminar I'm attending (Sept. 2-7 in New Jersey); an ITTF Level 1 Coaching Seminar I'm teaching (Oct. 2-7 in South Bend, Indiana); the usual private and group coaching and general table tennis promotion (that's enough to fill my schedule alone); the daily blog and weekly tip; and the usual science fiction & fantasy writing that I do on the side. (I'm already gearing up to write the sequel to the novel I just sold - see my blog the last two days.) I'm also planning to do a rewrite of my book Table Tennis: Steps to Success (probably retitled "Table Tennis Fundamentals"), but for now that's on hold. Things will ease up dramatically by September, when the kids go back to school. 

Meanwhile, as if I didn't have enough already, two people solicited table tennis articles from me just yesterday. I had to say no to both, though both would have been paid. (I also had to turn down two requests for private coaching - I'm not taking on any new students until mid-September.) But I did find time tonight to (finally) update my coaching notes from the U.S. Open. Yep, I keep extensive notes on the matches I coach or watch, to help prepare for future matches I coach.

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was the forehand loop. I had Raghu Nadmichettu demo it. Against backspin, I fed multiball; against block, I blocked, and had fun trying to convince the kids that the Chinese national coaches often fly to the U.S. to study my never-missing forehand block. (Confession: while I was explaining this, Raghu finally managed to loop one past me. Alas.) I also gave a lecture on return of serve, and spent half an hour working with a group on their serve and receive.

During breaks a new fad has caught on - the Chinese game of Go. Cheng Yinghua has always been an expert at it, and Nathan Hsu is now very good. A girl, about age ten, brought in a fancy set - turns out she's very good, I think has had coaching and so on. All this week she's been playing Cheng and Nathan during breaks, and even coming in early before camp to play, and others have joined in. (Players gather around to watch as they play.) I think there's a strong correlation between table tennis players and those who like tactical games such as Go, Chess, and Checkers. They definitely get players into the habit of thinking tactical. Sure, table tennis is much, much faster, and so you don't have time to contemplate your next move as you do in these games, but that misses the point that much of table tennis tactics is preparation so that you reflexively play smart tactics - and that starts by thinking tactically about what habits you want to develop. (But one part of table tennis is almost exactly like these games - serving, where you can take your time choosing the best tactical serve.) A number of players at our camps this summer have also worn chess shirts - we have a lot of table tennis players who play competitive chess. Tong Tong Gong, one of our top juniors - on the USA National Cadet Team in 2011-1012 - was a competitive chess player, even traveling to Ohio in 2010 to compete in the national chess championships. Here's a picture of him in action.

Today's focus is the backhand attack. I'm also going to give a lecture and demo on pushing. After the camp ends, I've got two hours of private coaching, so I'll be coaching today from 10AM-8PM, other than a lunch break. Then, if I survive, I'm off for TNEO. (See above.)

USATT Ceo Blog

Here it is, covering the recent U.S. Open in Las Vegas. 

Six Mistakes You Probably Make When Practicing Third Ball Attack (Part 2)

Here's the article. And in case you missed it in my July 11 blog, here's Part 1. The two parts cover the following topics:

1. Pushing Serves You Really Shouldn’t
2. Not Practicing Different Placements
3. Not thinking about the fifth ball
4. Serving With More Than One Ball In Your Hand
5. Serving Differently Than You Would In A Match
6. Not Using Your Best Return

Being Creative in Training

Here's an essay on creative training techniques.

Feeling Overwhelmed When Learning

Here's a video on the topic from PingSkills (5:23). The primary idea is to focus on one thing at a time.

Best Points of Table Tennis

Here's a new table tennis video set to music (5:10).

Portland Pong

Pips & Bounce pop-up parties fuel Portland pingpong passion.

Table Tennis Dreamscape

Here's another of Mike Mezyan's table tennis artworks. (If you can't see it on Facebook, try this.) I see the person on the left as an up-and-coming player contemplating making the leap into the unknown future - should he give it 100% effort and train full-time, and go for glory? But that's the black hole of disappointment in the background, ready to gobble up those who fall by the wayside if he doesn't have the skills to carry the big paddle into his dreams.

Four-Armed Ai Fukuhara

Now that she's better armed, can she become world #1? (If you can't see it in Facebook, try this.)

Non-Table Tennis - Human Help Desk

My story "Human Help Desk" is now online at Abyss & Apex. When a computer's human is about to click on a link that'll load a virus that'll kill the computer, what can the computer do? Call the Human Help Desk, of course! A bittersweet tale of a computer's fight for survival. Since so many table tennis players are computer people, this might be of interest to many of them.

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MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was on the backhand. I gave a talk on it, explaining both the technique and the variations, such as how dropping the tip gives more power (sort of a second forehand) but you lose quickness and have more trouble in the middle, while holding the tip higher does the reverse - though you can still hit it pretty hard. I also explained how the backhand has evolved, from the flatter backhands of the past to the more topspinny ones of the modern day. I also talked about the revolutionary change in penhold play, from conventional backhands to reverse penhold backhands.

For some reason many coaches do not have their students do backhand footwork. I too am sometimes guilty of getting lazy on that, focusing on forehand footwork. Often players only do backhand footwork in conjunction with forehands, such as alternating forehand and backhand shots (either alternating from the corners or alternating both shots from the backhand corner). How about backhand-backhand footwork, where the coach puts a ball to the wide backhand, and then a ball to the middle backhand (or even more to the middle), and the player moves side to side hitting backhands? This type of footwork is even more important for players who use good topspin their backhands, whether looping or just having a topspinny backhand, since these players have longer strokes, and so positioning is even more important to get it right. (Players with more of a blocking stroke should also move for each ball, but can often get away with more reaching.)

Later I completed my serving lecture, going over deception and fast serves. Then we had service practice. As usual, we finished with games. Many Brazilian teams were victorious, many cups were knocked off tables, and poor Froggy also got smacked around a bit.

I had a little fun demonstrating long-distance serves, where I'd serve on a table from 50 feet away, usually from the side, using sidespin to curve the ball onto both sides of the table.

Speaking of serves, several of our top juniors are fiddling around with some seriously funky trick serves. One used one at the recent U.S. Open over and over, and kept winning points with it, often about twice a game. I'll never understand why players don't develop their serves more. It's not a matter of trying to rely on trick serves; it's a matter of not throwing away points by an inability to throw variations at an opponent, including a few trick serves for free points. If you don't, you are giving away points and playing level. (Trick serves are generally serves that will win a few free points, but once an opponent gets used to them, they are ineffective. Players should mostly rely on serves that set up their game - usually their attack - while mixing in a few trick serves now and then. There's an overlap between the two types of serves.)  

New Non-Celluloid Ball

Here's a discussion of the new non-celluloid ball proposed for 2014. They say it's confirmed. Anyone want to do some investigative work on this?

I'm Going to Haunt You

Here's a video (5:39) of table tennis to the music of Sharleen Spieri's "I'm going to haunt you," which sounds like country music to me. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

New Balance Shoe Commercial

Here's a commercial from New Balance (16 sec) that features table tennis as they advertise that they employ 1300 U.S. workers while their competitors employ zero. I have no idea how the table tennis is relevant to the commercial. But it's table tennis!!!

Non-Table Tennis - Novel Sale

Yesterday I blogged about selling my novel, "The Giant Face in the Sky." The novel is about 90,000 words and 451 pages double spaced. It's a humorous fantasy retelling of the U.S.-Soviet race to the moon in the '60s, but with sorcerers instead of astronauts - sort of Hitchhiker's Guide meets the Space Race. Here's the three-paragraph description in my cover letter when I submitted it. (Not mentioned here - at the start, all Neil wants to do is play ping-pong. He has to drop this "childish" desire to save the world.) 

It is 1969, at the height of tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The powerful sorcerer John F. Kennedy has just won his third term as president of the United States. Neil (alias Neil Armstrong, though his last name is never mentioned) is 13 years old, and badly wants to be someone, do something. It's his mantra. Instead, he's stuck as a sorcerer's apprentice for Gus, the "meanest sorcerer in the world," and who (along with just about everyone else) constantly berates and humiliates Neil. Gus creates a magical talisman to spy on the Soviets, but instead it spies on them and sends the text into space. A Giant Face in the Sky shows up, reading the text. It fixates on Neil, reacting wordlessly to whatever he and those around him say or do.

Realizing that anyone who gets to the Face can lob down spells and have the world at their mercy, the Race to the Face begins. The Soviets, led by General Death, invade the U.S. over and over in an attempt to kill Neil, who is prophesied to defeat them. When a meteor assassin named Buzz fails to kill Neil, the talking, floating meteor becomes Neil's protector and companion--with the rather unfortunate problem that in exactly one week, Buzz must kill Neil.

Kennedy, with advice from the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, and with trusty sidekick Dogface (alias Lee Harvey Oswald), puts together a motley crew to go to the Face: Neil, Gus, Buzz, and the sorcerers Jackie Kennedy (weapons expert), Conrad (a hippy dragon whose hobby is swallowing celebrities), Wernhera (a sorcerer living in Conrad's stomach), Apollo (the Greek God and son of famed children's author Dr. Zeus), and Jim (a 2-D sorcerer from another universe). Can they make it to the Face before General Death, and before Buzz kills Neil?

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MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus (Day One of Week Five of our ten weeks of summer training camps) was on the grip, stance, and forehand. I gave a short lecture on each. Later I gave a lecture on serving, focusing on creating spin and on serving technique. Today I'll talk about deception and fast serves. Tomorrow I'll talk about receive. (This is in addition to short lectures on rallying shots.)

This week's camp is a somewhat older group. Usually we have lots of kids in the 8-13 age group, but this one has a number of high school students. Since they are a bit older, I'm lecturing a bit longer. They are more into the intricacies of serving, for example. I even spent a bunch of time during break working with some of them on serves.

There were two players in my group yesterday morning that, well, let's just say they had hopeless strokes. There was no chance they would ever have a decent forehand stroke. I did my best, but what can a coach do with such hopeless strokes? But what the heck, I gave it the old college try. It took an hour, but they proved me wrong. (I think I lost five pounds in sweat in the process.) So my coaching skills were proved greater than my prognostication skills.

Non-Table Tennis - I Sold a Novel!!!

Holy Pingpongeroly! I just sold my humorous fantasy novel "The Giant Face in the Sky" to Class Act Books!!! I got the acceptance email last night. I'll probably write more on this later. I'm already planning out a sequel!!! (I've written two novels; the other one making the rounds is a political SF.) The novel, about 90,000 words, is a humorous retelling of the U.S.-Soviet race to the moon in the '60s, but with sorcerers instead of astronauts - sort of Hitchhiker's Guide meets the Space Race.

I already have published an anthology of the best short stories I've sold - "Pings and Pongs."

Hidden Serves

Last night there was some discussion on the about.com table tennis forum about hidden serves. Dan Seemiller posted about his frustration with umpires not calling these serves, and Jay Turberville pointed out that it is the responsibility of the player to serve so the umpire can see that he is serving legally. Here is my posting.

I completely agree with Dan Seemiller. I've been complaining about illegal serves for years, to no avail. The rules state, "It is the responsibility of the player to serve so that the umpire or the assistant umpire can be satisfied that he or she complies with the requirements of the Laws." Few umpires follow this rule. When an opponent hides his serve and I complain, over and over umpires will say they can't tell for sure if the serve was hidden. When I point out that they have just described an illegal serve, I usually get a blank look. Many don't seem to get the idea that if they can't tell if the serve is hidden or not, then the player has not served so the umpire can be satisfied that he has complied with the requirements of the law. The umpire should give a warning and then a fault; instead, they regularly allow these illegal serves.

A few years ago I was coaching a kid in the USA Cadet Trials. To make the Cadet Team (top four) he needed to finish in the top two in his group. When we went over the players, he told me not to worry about the top seed, saying he had no chance against him since he couldn't return the player's hidden serves, and the umpires wouldn't enforce it. (They had played previously.) Sure enough, when they played, my player looked like an amateur as he missed serve after serve, all of them hidden. I complained to the umpire, but as expected, he said he couldn't tell if the serve was hidden or not. When I later tried to show the umpire pictures of the serve taken from a video of the match showing they were hidden, he refused to look at them, saying that all that counted was what he saw from his perspective, and if he couldn't tell if the serve was hidden from the position where he umpires, then he couldn't call the serve.

As noted above, it is the responsibility of the player to serve so the umpire can see that the serve is legal, and since the umpire couldn't tell if the serves were hidden or not, they were illegal serves - but they were not called, and so my player was cheated out of a match. Worse, we knew in advance he would be cheated out of the match, and couldn't do anything about it. (Try explaining that to a kid, especially after he trains 20 hours/week for five years for this opportunity.) And so while my player won his other matches in the group and made the team (in the 3-4 position), the other player finished in the top two, and so the other player made several trips that my player might have made - all because he was allowed to cheat on his serve.

What all this means for coaches is that we have to decide whether to teach illegal hidden serves to our players. It's not just teaching it to them; they also have to be able to return them. And so you have to teach hidden serves to multiple players, so they can face these serves regularly as well as being able to do them. Most coaches, including myself, won't go this far, and so our players are at the mercy of players with coaches who will teach these serves, all because umpires will not enforce the rules as written. And there are, alas, coaches who teach these hidden serves to their junior players. The justification is that many or most of the top players are doing it, and to compete their players need to do so as well. There's a certain logic to this, but it's a very bad lesson to teach our juniors, and a horrible situation to put them and their coaches in. Remember what happened when the steroids rule wasn't enforced in baseball? Using steroids was cheating, but players justified it because they (probably correctly) felt they had to cheat to compete since the rules weren't being enforced.

Most coaches probably can't really do these serves effectively anyway - and if they did, it's such a waste of precious practice time teaching them to deal with such cheating. You can't just serve a few; it has to be a regular thing. Note that many players don't just hide their serve; they have mastered the art of letting the receiver see their racket just before and just after contact, while hiding the change of direction at contact. When I see juniors expertly hide their serve in this way, I can only shake my head at the many hours of practice they put into these illegal serves. (Fortunately, for the moment, there are fewer hidden serves among our top juniors then there were a few years ago, possibly because of complaints and peer pressure from others not to cheat, but it's pretty rampant among top players outside the junior ranks - and the top juniors cannot fail to see this.)

I could give a clinic for umpires on how to detect hidden serves. Putting aside that this shouldn't be necessary if umpires truly followed the rules as written, there are two main ways that players get away with hidden serves. One way is to keep the non-playing arm out as long as possible, and then pull it out vigorously at the last second. This attracts the attention of the umpire, and so he doesn't see the shoulder as it thrusts out for a split second, hiding the serve. This is the more common way. The other way is to toss the ball high in the air above and in front of the head. At the last second as the ball comes down, the player thrusts his head out so the ball falls behind the head, where the opponent can't see it. Contact is behind the head, and the receiver doesn't see the ball until afterwards, as the ball comes out under the chin. From the side, the umpires can't tell if contact was made behind the head or in front. This was done expertly by Sharath Kamal in winning Men's Singles at the 2010 U.S. Open. When I pointed this out to the referee, he shrugged his shoulders and said the umpires couldn't tell if the ball was hidden or not. This method is growing in popularity, and I'm told is pretty common in China.

Umpiring is not an easy task, and I fully realize the pressures umpires face in deciding whether to enforce the rules, or to go along with what most umpires do and not fault a serve unless it's so blatantly hidden that they have to call it. I'm also worried that umpires might take my complaints out on my players and fault them for minor or imagined violations, while letting opponents get away with hidden serves. (None of the players I coach hide their serves.) Once the rules are uniformly enforced, all players will be forced to serve so the umpire can see that they are serving legally, and the problem will go away.

-Larry Hodges

ITTF Promo Video: This is Table Tennis!

Here's a new promotional video from the ITTF (1:51).

ITTF Pongcast

Here's the June broadcast (13:07), which reviews the four ITTF events that took place that month.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians

Here's table tennis news from the Kardashians, care of Table Tennis Nation, including a link to a video (1:19) of the Kardashians playing.

Solving a Rubik's Cube While Hitting a Table Tennis Ball

Here's the video (1:34)!

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Tip of the Week

Adjusting to Weird Serves and Shots.

MDTTC Camp

On Friday we finished week four of our ten weeks of summer camps, all Mon-Fri. In the morning I gave lectures and demos on pushing - fast & quick; heavy backspin; sidespin; and short pushes). As usual, Friday was "player's choice," where the players chose what they wanted to work on in the morning multiball sessions. The beginners mostly worked on basics; the more advanced ones worked mostly on looping or serving.

I introduced the "Loop and Smash" drill to several players. It's very simple: I feed multiball, usually a backspin ball to the middle, then a topspin ball to the wide forehand. The player has to loop the first, and then either loop or smash the second. If they make both shots, they win the point. If they miss either, I win the point. (If they miss the first shot, the second one is practice.) Game is usually to 11. One kid (Victor) struggled with this, losing several times to his dismay. He came to the junior session on Sunday (yesterday), and we did it again. He lost the first two times. The second time I was leading 7-1, and he came back to tie it 10-all - only to lose 11-10. (We have sudden death rather than win by two.) We played one more time - and lo and behold, he made 22 straight shots to "beat" me, 11-0!!! That was a nice breakthrough.

During one session I demonstrated my "no look" multiball skills. When feeding multiball it's important to be able to watch the player you are feeding balls to, but most coaches look down as they are feeding the ball to make sure they do a good feed, as I usually do. But I don't really need to; I demonstrated doing it while looking backwards and chatting with players doing ball pickup.

During a break many of the kids were playing video games on small hand-held devices. I pointed out that "Video games are better than table tennis. All the kids hunch over video games, bringing them together. Table tennis pulls them apart, at least nine feet."

With so many players in the camp (both last week and this upcoming week, starting today, week #5), the turnout for the weekend junior program I run was rather small, so I got to do a lot of one-on-one work with several of the players.

Orioles and Table Tennis

Here are excerpts from the Saturday, July 13 issue of The Washington Post on baseball team Baltimore Orioles - here are the first three and the last paragraph of the article:

The noise is a mainstay of the Baltimore Orioles' Camden Yards clubhouse: the constant "pop" of a ping-pong ball bouncing off a table, a paddle and (sometimes) the table again, punctuated by roars of joy or eruptions of frustration from participants or onlookers.

The Orioles play table tennis pregame and postgame after both wins and losses, a display of Baltimore's rare chemistry and the casual certainty each player has in the efforts of his teammates.

In that tight-knit clubhouse where long-term confidence outweighs daily doubts, no one seems too concerned about the struggles of an Orioles starting rotation that has at times been more consistent on the ping-pong table than the mound, a departure from the late-season dominance that carried Baltimore to the American League Division Series in 2012.

"As a collective group — you can ask any of us — we definitely underachieved," Hammel said over ball bounces and shouts of a heated set between Manny Machado and Troy Patton on the ping-pong table a few yards away.

Todd Sweeris into Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame

Here's an article on Todd's induction. Todd, who is from Grand Rapids, Michigan, moved to Maryland right after graduating high school circa 1994, and (as noted in the article) thereupon made the 1996 and 2000 U.S. Olympic Teams while winning Men's Doubles at the USA Nationals in 1996, 1999, and 2000. (Not mentioned in article: he also made the final of Men's Singles at the 1998 USA Nationals, and before that he been USA National Collegiate Men's Singles, Doubles, and Team Champion. I was on his team - as a graduate student - twice when we won the national college team championships.)

Wisconsin Family's Table Tennis Trip to China

Here's the article.

Pingtime

Here's a visual table tennis video (1:12), full of special effects.

Table Tennis as it Should Be Played

Here's a vintage image of how the game should be played, with a classic backhand player on the near side versus a classic all-out forehand player on the far side, both using the same surface on both sides of their racket as they play in front of a local crowd. (If you can't see the Facebook image, try this.)

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MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was the backhand loop. This has evolved over the years; it used to be backhand attack against backspin, where I'd teach both the backhand drive and loop against backspin. But these days fewer and fewer players use backhand drives against backspin, and when teaching the backhand attack against backspin, most coaches now go straight to backhand looping, or at least a steady topspin roll (sort of a beginning loop). The backhand drive against backspin is just like a regular drive, except you stroke more up, with a bit more topspin. I did demonstrate this to the players, but explained that these days it's mostly used against short balls, with the loop the better shot against deep balls. (Of course, with the advent of the "banana flip," where you essentially backhand loop a short ball, that's changing as well.) Anyway, even beginners got a chance to loop or roll their backhands against backspin, and most were able to do so.

The funny part was where I ended each backhand loop against backspin session by having them hit regular backhands against regular topspin. (I'm feeding multiball.) Invariably the first few would go off the end as they lifted the ball off, since that's what they had been doing against backspin. It takes a bit of practice for newer players to learn to drive mostly forward against topspin, and more upward against backspin with a more topspinny contact. I did the same thing the day before when teaching the forehand loop against backspin, and also invariably the first few against topspin would go off the end. One of the ways to test if a player has mastered a shot is if they can do it in combination with other shots. Often I do a multiball game to 11 points where I feed a backspin ball and then a topspin ball. The player has to loop the first, and either smash or loop the second. If he makes both shots, he scores; if he misses either, I score. (If he misses the first, the second is a practice shot.)

After the mid-morning break, my group played a lot of "King of the Table." One player is the king. The rest line up on the other side and challenge, one by one. If the challenger loses the first point, he goes to the end of the line, and the next person comes up. (New person always serves.) If the challenger wins the point, then the king serves. If the challenger wins the second point, he becomes the king. (Or the queen. I told the kids to choose their own titles. One became the Shah of the Shambling Chokers of Chattanooga. We came up with creative titles.) Of great interest to me were that a number of players, when it wasn't their turn, were practicing their serves on the side table. Wanting to be king (or Shah?) brought out their best.

On break, we had a few impromptu "basketball" contests, where we'd stand about 15 feet from the basket we use to hold balls for multiball, and try to put the ball in the basket by hitting it with the paddle. From 15 feet, The scoring system is three points if it stays in the basket, two points if it goes in but bounces out, and one point if you hit the basket on the outside. I did eight in a row, with all eight staying in the basket. (My technique: a backhand chop, done high so it drops down into the basket, with the backspin keeping it from bouncing out.) The game sort of devolved when many of the kids put their paddles down and began shooting basketball style.

As noted yesterday, it was Free Slurpee Day at 7-11, and 18 of us walked over for them.

Dealing with a Short Return

Here's the video from PingSkills (2:51).

How to Overcome Lack of Response Time

Here's the video from PingSkills (3:48).

Ping-Pong, Sort Of

Want to go to Sushibar Ping Cocktails, or their neighbor Asian Pong Buffet? Or why not both for a little "Ping Pong"? Here's the picture.

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