Curing the Flat Backhand and the Modern Topspin Backhand

There's an 11-year-old I've been coaching for a while who hits his backhand extremely flat. It's become the biggest problem in his game - it often comes out almost as backspin, often spraying off the end since there's no topspin to pull it down. I've tried for months to get him to put a little topspin on the ball by starting with the racket a bit lower and slightly closed, but to no avail. His sponge was medium fast, but not a modern looping sponge, more of a hitting sponge, which seemed appropriate since he was primarily a hitter on the backhand. (He does have a backhand loop against backspin.)

The sponge was going somewhat dead, so I lent him a sheet of a used looping sponge. His first few shots went off the end. Then he adjusted by closing his racket more, meaning he hit more on top of the ball - instant topspin!!! It was a simple as that. Later, when I fed him multiball, his backhand loop was also vastly improved.

You can put topspin on the ball with a hitting sponge, but the looping sponge made him do so, leading to a much better backhand. While he doesn't need the most high-end (i.e. most expensive) looping sponges, it's becoming more and more important for players to use modern looping sponges even if you aren't using it primarily to loop. They are just bouncier, and make it easier to rally at high speeds.

The "New Modern Backhand" at the higher levels isn't much like the normal backhand of the past. Just watch, say, Ariel Hsing and Lily Zhang, the USA Women's Singles Finalists the last three years, and see how they backhand topspin the ball right off the bounce even when warming up. It's basically an off-the-bounce loop, and it's not a shot they "go for" - it's their standard backhand. The same is true of developing players all over the world if they have modern coaches. At our club, we tend to teach juniors to topspin the backhand like this starting when they are around 1500 or so.

Here's a video of Ariel and Lily playing the Women's Singles Final in 2011. They begin hitting backhand to backhand at 1:48 - watch closely how they both are topspinning off the bounce. Go to 2:04 and you see a closeup of Ariel's backhand - see that incredibly fast movement as she topspins the ball? I think you get an even better view starting at 2:19.

You'll note that I keep referring to these sponges as "looping sponges." I don't like to get into naming specific sponges, but every major manufacturer has their modern looping sponges. Just ask the dealer or another player, and they'll identify them. Or just look at the prices - the most expensive are the best looping sponges! (In general, if you have natural power, go for a harder sponge; if you have trouble generating great racket speed, go for a softer sponge. I use a softer sponge.)

Resignation from USATT Committees

I've served on the USATT Coaching, Club, and Editorial Committees for a while. (Back in the 90s I chaired the Coaching and Club committees.) However, the letter below (sent to the USATT Board of Directors, Staff, and those three committee chairs) explains my resignation from all three.

Dear USATT,

After much contemplation, I've finally decided that I'm just too busy to really contribute as a member of a USATT Advisory Committee. I'm currently trying to coach full-time, run training camps, promote and organize table tennis at MDTTC, run tournaments, write a daily blog and weekly feature articles, write books on table tennis, update numerous TT web pages, as well as recurring projects such as the page layouts and photo work on Tim Boggan's TT history books and many other items. I'm also working on a science fiction & fantasy writing career. And sometimes I like to find time to eat and sleep, a rare luxury these days. When I agreed to join the USATT Editorial, Coaching, and Club Committees, I told the chairs that I wouldn't be able to put in the hours I used to due to these other commitments, but the amount of time I have free for these activities has now gone negative. With two of these committee chairs leaving due to term limits (a bad idea, in my opinion, since greatness often comes from the hard work of uniquely qualified individuals - though of course there are good arguments for term limits as well) this seems a good time for me to turn in my resignation from all three committees. The incoming chairs should generally be able to choose their own committee personnel. I think all three chairs have done excellent jobs, and I wish them and their successors well.

Sincerely,

-Larry Hodges

Choosing the Right Equipment to Match Your Style

Here's an article by Yahao Zhang on choosing equipment. He's the reigning U.S. Under 21 Champion as well as the Southern Open Doubles Champion with Nathan Hsu - I coached them during those matches.

Expert Table Tennis

Here's a new coaching site, Expert Table Tennis, with lots of tips from Ben Larcombe, an English table tennis coach. Four of the lead articles right now are:

• Using Mental Preparation to Win More Table Tennis Matches
• The Falkenberg Drill and Why You Should Be Doing It
• How to Serve Like Kenta Matsudaira
• The Most Common Table Tennis Injuries and How To Avoid Them

The Index Finger on the Pendulum Serve

Here's a video from PingSkills (1:51) on where to put the index finger on the forehand pendulum serve to maximize spin.

Sean O'Neill Coaching Video

Here's a one-hour video of five-time U.S. Men's Singles Champion and two-time Olympian Sean O'Neill as he gives a clinic at Univ. of Virginia. No flashy graphics, just content.

First Playback Table?

Here's an old video (1:59, circa 1950s?) showing the game of "Smash," where players hit off an adjusted backboard. Two-time World Men's Singles Champion Johnny Leach and two-time World Women's Doubles Champion Diane Rowe are featured in the video.

Catching Ping-Pong Balls with Chopsticks

Here's a video of some sort of Chinese TV show (5:46) that features Ma Long. It's in Chinese so I don't know much about what's going on, but starting at 0:36 there's a man catching ping-pong balls with a chopsticks that are shot at him from a table tennis robot! (He starts slow, but gets better.) Later you see Ma Long trying to pick up balls with chop sticks - not too successfully. The two play regular table tennis at the end - the chopstick man turns out to be a real player. (Anyone know who he is?)

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Tip of the Week

Learning to Counterloop.

USA Nationals and Open Entries

The return to Las Vegas for last year's Nationals in December led to a 48% increase in entries, from a modern low of 502 in 2011 in Virginia Beach to 743 in 2012, the most since 2006's 837. (The data used here only includes those who played in USATT rated events, and does not include players who only competed in doubles, hardbat, or sandpaper events.) The online ratings database gives the number of entries for every year back to 1994, with the event held in Las Vegas every year except 2011.

Here's a graph of the Entries at the USA Nationals, 1994-2012. Here's one for the U.S. Open. And here's a chart showing the location of every USA Nationals and U.S. Open ever. (While others watch Honey Boo Boo in their free time, I coach and compile lists.) 

From 1994 to 2002, USA Nationals entries were somewhat stagnant, ranging from 592 to 686. Then began a slow increase from 2002-2006, with 678, 707, 755, 829, and 837. Then it dropped to 730, then 604 and 597. After a jump back to 686 in 2010, there was the huge decline in Virginia Beach to 502, followed by the 743 in Las Vegas in December.

What do these numbers tell us? The obvious answer is that you get more entries at the Nationals if you run it in an obvious "vacation" place, such as Las Vegas. USATT had similar experiences with the U.S. Open, getting relatively large numbers when it's run in Ft. Lauderdale (785 in 1997, the most since 1994) or Las Vegas (769 in 2007, second most), with considerable drops when it was run in Charlotte in 2006 (only 455, a modern low) and somewhat surprisingly, only 524 in 1998 when they ran it in Houston. Of course, how they promote the tournaments make a big difference. There were over 1000 entries at the 1974 and 1975 U.S. Opens in Oklahoma City and Houston, with master promoter Ron Shirley in charge. Similarly, they did a pretty good job of promoting the Open in 2010 in Grand Rapids, leading to a decent 645 entries, probably a hundred more than would be expected in a city not known as a vacation destination.

I had mixed feelings about the Nationals in Virginia Beach. It was nicely run, and it's only three hours from my club. With the reduced traveling time and playing in the same time zone, our players did much better than they often do in Las Vegas, 3000 miles away, where they usually fly in the night before. However, it's hard to argue with 743 entries to 502.

We're still waiting to see where the 2013 U.S. Open will be, but I've been told it's either Las Vegas or Ft. Lauderdale - announcement coming soon - and so either way it'll be a vacationland. (If it's in Ft. Lauderdale, I'm going to arrange a mass trip to Disneyworld - anyone can join us. I've been there once, way back in 1987.)

Marty Reisman Burial and Memorial

Marty Reisman was buried yesterday (Sunday) at Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island. There will be a memorial tribute to him this Friday (Jan. 18) at SPIN New York at 7:30 PM. Info is here.

FASTT Table Tennis

Here's a release from FASTT (Federal Association of Sandpaper Table Tennis) on the sandpaper events at the recent USA Nationals.

How to Handle Drop Shots

Here's a video from PingSkills (1:49) on how to handle drop shots off lobs from under the table by giving a "wobbly" return.

The Beauty of Table Tennis

Here's a new highlights video (8:04) that just came out from ThePerfectionisTT.

Venus & Serena Williams

Table Tennis Nation brings us pictures of the Williams sisters playing table tennis at the Australian Open. As noted in last Thursday's blog, the two were also recently featured playing table tennis in an iPhone 5 commercial.

Table Tennis for the Masses

Is this Quadruples or Octuples?

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Suggested Service Rule

As I've blogged a number of times, many players hide their serve illegally, and many or most umpires allow it. It's frustrating to me as kids see opponents and top players hide their serves illegally and not get called, so why shouldn't they? It's almost reminiscent of the situation baseball players faced in the steroids era.

The current rule requires that the ball be visible throughout the serve to the opponent. The problem is that it's difficult for an umpire, sitting off to the side, to tell if the ball was hidden from the receiver, since often he himself cannot even see the ball, and must estimate where it is, and judge if it is hidden or not from the server's shoulders. Since I've coached and played table tennis nearly every day  for many years, I can see if the serve is hidden or not, but many umpires only see this type of thing on an occasional basis, and so have great difficulty judging it.

Technically, it shouldn't be a problem. The rules state that "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." That's pretty clear - it means if the umpire isn't sure the serve is visible, i.e. legal, then the umpire is NOT satisfied that the serve complies, and so the player should be warned (the first time) or faulted. But most umpires do not do this, and so at the higher levels many players get away with illegal hidden serves.

There are other serving problems. Many players abuse the "near vertical" toss rule, and few umpires enforce it. But the advantage of throwing the ball backwards (instead of near vertical) is minor compared to the advantage of hiding the serve. The same is true of other common transgressions.

But there's a solution to the problem, if we can convince ITTF (and/or USATT) to adopt it. The proposed rule would be that throughout the serve the ball must be visible to both umpires, or to where the umpires would sit if there is no umpire. Problem solved.

The specific rule change would be as follows, rewording rule 2.6.5 as follows:

Current: 2.6.5 As soon as the ball has been projected, the server’s free arm and hand shall be removed from the space between the ball and the net.

Proposed: 2.6.5 As soon as the ball has been projected, no part of the server, his or her doubles partner, or anything they wear or carry may be in the triangular area between the ball and the positions of the two umpires.

Kagin Lee has put together a web page detailing this proposal.

The key thing here is that even if a player tries to abuse the rule and goes into that gray area where it's not clear if the umpires (or where they would sit) can see the ball, it wouldn't matter, as if it's close, then obviously the opponent can see the ball - and that's the whole point of the proposed rule. It's sort of like the six-inch toss rule. For many years, the rule was the ball must be contacted on the drop, but many players would abuse this as it was hard to tell if they were hitting the ball on the drop or not as they practically served out of their hand. A three-inch toss would have been enough to solve the problem, but then there'd be those who'd abuse it by tossing below that, and it would be hard to tell. By making it six inches, the server can abuse the rule all he wants and if it's anywhere close to six inches, the opponent will clearly see the toss, which was the point of the rule.

I'm told that some are opposed to such a new rule because it would mean players would have to change their service motion. Well, duh!!! That's the whole point. But it's not a huge change; anyone change their forehand pendulum serve motion to make it legal; I know, because I can, and I teach this type of thing professionally. You can do so with either a more open position or by holding the ball farther from the body, or some combination of both. And it solves the hidden serve problem. Give players a year to get ready, and there'd be no reason to change the serve rule again . . . ever!!!

Dear Evil Time-Stealing Temporal-Taking Slobber Monkeys

Over the next couple of weeks I absolutely have to do the final editing and proofing (that's two complete reads) of my new book, "Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers." (I also have to finalize the covers.) Every time I get ready to do this, various Evil Time-Stealing Temporal-Taking Slobber Monkeys come to me with requests for me to do things that are not editing or proofing the book. Things that are not editing or proofing my book do not decrease the time between now and when the book comes out, and things that do not decrease this time are the spawn of  the Devil and his minions, i.e. Evil Time-Stealing Temporal-Taking Slobber Monkeys. So if you are an Evil Time-Stealing Temporal-Taking Slobber Monkey, please hold off for a bit. I'll gladly sell my soul and do your work after the book comes out.

I am working under a rather tight deadline. On Monday, Feb. 4, USATT Historian Tim Boggan will be moving in with me for two weeks as I do the page layouts and photo work (with Mal Anderson's help on the latter) on Tim's History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 13. This one, which will once again run over 500 pages, will feature 1984, and if you've read that book, you have a vague idea of what will happen to me (and you) if I don't get my own book finalized before Tim's arrival. So let me have some peace and quiet for a while so I can finish my book. Big Brother is watching.

I've got 240 pages to edit and proof, I've got a full bottle of Deerpark Water*, half a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, it's light, and I'm not wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
    *And Mountain Dew for emergencies

Review of the New Plastic Ball

Part 3 just went up of the Plastic Ball Review from OOAK Reviews. All three parts are linked from their home page. The three parts are:

1. Why the change and a comparison of their physical appearance (16:16)
2. High Speed Filming of tests to compare relative rebound speed, bounce and spin (14:35)
3. Playing Characteristics and Summary (26:40)

1273 Signatures

That's how many we got on the petition to the White House to recognize Table Tennis as a school sport. Not bad, but not good. We were 23,727 short of the needed 25,000. Think of it as a trial run; perhaps next time we can get the major distributors (with their huge mailing lists), celebrities, and others behind it.

The Power of Backhand

Here's a video (8:01) highlighting great backhand shots. The very first rally is pretty wild!

Five-Hour Energy Commercial

With table tennis! (31 seconds)

Be Different

Here's a humorous video (3:21) of some nerdy-looking guy as he takes on the "King Kong of Ping Pong"!

Ping-Pong Ball Spinning in Nitrogen

Here's 89 seconds of a ping-pong ball getting cooled and spinning in liquid nitrogen.

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Beginner's Forehand & Backhand Loop

One week ago, on Jan. 3, I wrote about a "Beginner's Topspinny Backhand and Forehand Looping." This was about an 11-year-old who was learning to forehand loop, and was developing a rather topspinny backhand. I worked with him again yesterday. Jackpot!!!

When I say "Jackpot," I'm referring to how fast he picked up the forehand loop against topspin, which I taught him for the first time yesterday using multiball. We worked on it for 30 minutes, and he was able to do it pretty nicely. He still has a tendency to jam the table and rush the shot (leading to too much arm, not enough body rotation), so I kept reminding him to step off the table to give himself time to use a full body shot - but when I remind him, he has no trouble backing off and doing the shot properly without rushing. (Backing off against an incoming topspin and giving yourself time is key to learning the loop properly, since it's a longer stroke than a regular drive, and the timing is different. When you are proficient at the shot you can start taking it closer to the table.)

He also has a tendency to use too much arm in general, but we're working on that, and when he backs off to give himself time he's better at that. Overall, a very nice first day on looping against topspin. Next session I may let him try it "live" against my block - but only if he's doing it very nicely in multiball.

He's also got a nice backhand loop now against backspin in drills (though he doesn't use it effectively in game situations yet), and really does topspin the ball quite a bit in regular rallies. Yesterday I figured out why, and it's sort of funny. I coach him every week at the same time, and at that same time every week, on the table next to us, Nathan Hsu (16), currently the top-rated junior in Maryland at 2351, has a training session. Nathan always plays on the same side of the table I'm on, so my 11-year-old student has a clear view of Nathan while he's practicing. Nathan's known for his ferocious backhand loop, which he often does close to the table. Guess what? The two have matching strokes!!! The kid I've been coaching, whether consciously or not, has been copying Nathan's backhand.

USATT Coaches of the Year

The results are out! (The page includes shot bios of the winners.) The winners are:

• Paralympic Coach of the Year – Daniel Rutenberg 
• Volunteer Coach of the Year – Joel Mitchell
• Developmental Coach of the Year – Stefan Feth
• National Coach of the Year – Xin Zhou

Ma Long's Forehand Loop

Here's 23 seconds of 2012 World Cup Winner and former #1 Ma Long's forehand loop.

Schlager's Backhand Block

Here's 53 seconds of 2003 World Champion Werner Schlager backhand blocking against teammate Karl Jindrak.

Ruth Aarons' and Sandor Glancz's Exhibition

Here's 58 seconds of 1936 & 1937 World Women's Singles Champion Ruth Aarons (USA's only world singles champion) and 1933 World Men's Doubles Champion and 3-time World Team Champion Sandor Glancz doing an exhibition, circa late 1930s.

Justin Bieber's Ping-Pong

Here's 41 seconds of Pencils of Promise star Justin Bieber's ping-pong. I think he's famous for other stuff too. 

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Regionalization

As I've blogged about numerous times, they key to huge USATT membership figures is leagues, along with coaching development. But the U.S. is too big to try to set up leagues all at once. The key is to break the country into numerous regions. Even England, about the size of Alabama, has nine regions. (The English TTA has over 500,000 members, with a population of 53 million, about 1/6 of the U.S., which has 9000 members.)

USATT has tried regionalization a few times. I did so in the early 1990s with the Club Catalyst & Creation Program, which had pretty good results. I explained this program at the 2009 Strategic Meeting and at other times to board members. Here are excerpts from an email where I explained this to a board member yesterday.

We actually started regionalization in the early 1990s. I created the program, called the Club Catalyst & Creation Program. (That was my sense of humor at work - the acronym was CCCP. Google it if you don't recognize it, and note that the CCCP fell right about this time.) Dan Seemiller was president at the time, and strongly supported the program.

I was chair of the Coaching Committee, and started the process by appointing (if I remember my numbers correctly) 43 state coaching directions. Then I switched to chairing the Club Committee, and appointed 47 state club directors. (All of these appointments were made with consultation of locals.) The next stop was to appoint state league directors, which we were about to do before disaster struck in 1995 (see below).

The purpose of all these directors was to set up a club in every city with a population over 50,000 (I created a list), then a coach and league for each club. Once we had the state league directors set up, I was going to get a group of them together to plan out the actual creation of a nationwide network of regional leagues.

With all this infrastructure set up, the next step would be to set up the actual regional organizations, which I thought would be difficult to do effectively without a few years creating the needed infrastructure. (It would also allow those interested in developing their region to get active, and we'd be able to identify these people and encourage their work.) The various aspects of the program would play off each other, catalyzing an increase in the number of clubs, coaches, and leagues, and the leagues would lead to major membership increases. Once the regional organizations were set up, they would have open elections for their own officers. Those officers would then select future league, club, and coaching directors.

During the four years of this program (1991-1995, though we started work on it in 1990 when Dan was elected president) we increased the number of clubs from 223 to 301, greatly increased the number of coaches, and USATT membership went from about 5500 to 7500 - the only major membership increase we've had in modern memory. But those are still very small numbers in comparison to the potential of leagues. Superficially, this program started with clubs, but that was short-term and was for the explicit purpose of setting the structure for leagues and coaching programs. As I wrote before, they all go together.

Unfortunately, this program ended when Terry Timmins defeated Dan Seemiller in the 1995 election. When he came in, he brought in his own people and ideas, and all the regional stuff I'd been working on came to an end. (Ironically, he wanted to set up regional elections, but that didn't work out.) A lot of work went to waste, and a lot of state directors were left pretty angry.

We wrote back and forth a few times on this and related issues. I believe that the key is that we can't just set up regional organizations and hope things work out. USATT or some other organization needs to set up league and coaching programs so the regional people can implement them. They do this very well in table tennis overseas, and in other sports in the U.S. such as tennis.

Number of Daily Readers

We've had at least 500 readers for 25 consecutive blogs now, going back to Nov. 19 last year. I've been doing the blog for over two years now; this is the 477th blog. (I've also done 101 Tips of the Week - here's the Archives, with links to them all.) It started slow, and I spent a long time averaging 300 or so, but now we're averaging over 600. The topics vary quite a bit. I tend to jump around a bit. While it's usually coaching-centered, I also write a lot about related topics. Any suggestions on what type of stuff you'd like to see blogged? Here are the daily reader totals:

1. Jan. 8: 539
2. Jan. 7: 692
3. Jan. 4: 924
4. Jan. 3: 577
5. Jan. 2: 584
6. Dec. 17: 2884
7. Dec. 14: 900
8. Dec. 13: 615
9. Dec. 12: 597
10. Dec. 11: 658
11. Dec. 10: 815
12. Dec. 7: 1073
13. Dec. 6: 599
14. Dec. 5: 644
15. Dec. 4: 528
16. Dec. 3: 506
17. Nov. 30: 732
18. Nov. 29: 577
19. Nov. 28:  573
20. Nov. 27: 557
21. Nov. 26: 825
22. Nov. 22: 1060
23. Nov. 21: 564
24. Nov. 20: 660
25. Nov. 19: 471

USATT Committee Openings

Want to serve on a USATT Committee? Here's a call for volunteers! Here's a link to the USATT Committee listing which the notice inadvertently leaves out. (I emailed about this, and presumably it'll be added soon.)

USATT Committee Reports

Here's a link to the 2012 USATT Committee Reports. (Minutes for USATT Board meetings are here.)

Top Ten Table Tennis Points of 2012

Here they are! (7:27) They replay each of the points in slow motion, which is why the video is over seven minutes.

1940 U.S. Open

Here's vintage footage (1:31) of the 1940 U.S. Open and the final where Lou Pagliaro defeats Sol Schiff.

Liquid Nitrogen vs. 1500 Ping-Pong Balls

Here's the video (1:08). The explosion takes place 22 seconds in, and is then replayed from different angles and in slow motion.

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The Schools Petition

Hopefully by now you're one of the 951 people who have signed the petition to "Include and recognize the sport of Table Tennis Aka 'Ping Pong' as part of a school's athletic curriculum of choice." I first blogged about this back on Dec. 13 the day after it was created by the enterprising Joel Mitchell (and I was the fifth person to sign), and I blogged about it again on Jan. 4 (Friday). It's now featured on the USATT home page. I think it's great that we're working together on this. 

Unfortunately, to get a response from the White House we need at least 25,000 signatures by Jan. 11, which is this Friday. We're only 24,049 away!!! (And in the time it took me to write this blog, we got two more signatures - we're up to 953!)

So let's be honest; unless someone famous (hi Susan Sarandon) gets this on some extremely watched TV show, we're not going to get those 24,000+ signatures in the next three days. But suppose we did? Are schools really the answer?

Schools are Not the Answer (Not Yet)

I would argue that schools may be Step Two in developing our sport, but not Step One. And we're a long way from even getting started on Step One, which is to develop the sport ourselves so the schools will be interested in taking us to the next level. Sure, someone might put together a school league or club, but the key is that one of us - a table tennis person - has to do it, not the school itself. They are quite willing to make use of the few people we have who can do this. But until we show them table tennis is a growing sport that everyone else is doing, they won't jump on the bandwagon. In other words, schools are not the way to go until we are a larger sport. The way to grow junior table tennis in the country is through club programs, as is done all over Europe. Here are the problems with going through the schools, in no particular order:

1. School systems are not interested in adopting a small sport and making it big. That's our job. When we are a bigger sport, then they will be interested.

2. School systems are not interested in adopting a relatively expensive sport like table tennis (tables, nets, rackets, balls, constantly breaking and needing replacement, lots of storage space needed for tables) unless the sport is already popular. They can toss the kids a soccer ball, basketball, etc., and it's easier and cheaper, and they already have facilities for these and other large sports.

3. No sport in the U.S. has ever gotten big through schools, although a number of big sports got bigger because of schools. (Lacrosse got big through colleges, but they are the exception, and we're talking about high school, middle school, and elementary school here.)

4. Table tennis has not gotten big through schools in any country in the world, except for communist countries like China where the leaders (like Chairman Mao in China) ordained it the national sport. (And Obama doesn't have that authority.) Worldwide, and especially in Europe, players start out in junior programs at local clubs, according to Stellan Bengtsson, Jorgen Persson, and dozens of others I've spoken with over the years. Every player and coach from Europe I've spoken to says the same thing. In the countries in Europe where table tennis has gotten big, there are school teams, but they are relatively unimportant there, since most of the players train at local clubs, where there's a professional coach and players from local schools, instead of just one school. Stellan said he didn't think a single member of the Swedish team started out at a school or ever trained seriously at one, unless it was part of a table tennis club separate from the school.

5. The best we can do with schools is set up some ping-pong clubs, but few are going to fund a real coach. So while the kids play ping-pong, it's just a game like Parcheesi to them. They don't take it seriously and they rarely if ever join USATT.

USATT has a long history of sending coaches to train teachers at large Physical Education Symposiums, but little ever comes of it. The teachers simply don't go back to their schools determined to set up serious junior programs. They go back and sometimes set up tables for a few sessions in PE, where the kids just play games.

At first thought, schools seem like a great way to grow the sport, and it looks good to the membership (so those who are big on going to the schools get elected), and so generation after generation of USATT board members have made schools a priority. The return on investment is incredibly small. (The old argument is often made, "It's better than nothing." If we are thinking small and want to stay small, then this is the way to go.)

This is one of those frustrating things through the years as we so often try to get someone else to fix our problems, i.e. hoping the schools will make us big, or Bill Gates or some other big sponsor will fund us, etc. We have to build our sport from inside before schools and large sponsors will be interested.

The key to junior development - both elite and grassroots (i.e. large numbers) - is to recruit and train coaches to set up and run junior programs, something that is done in successful table tennis countries all over the world.

Keep in mind that the goal is junior development. Schools and club programs are merely a means to this end. Too often people get attached to the means to the end rather than the end itself, and so we never reach the goal. Developing junior programs at clubs will raise us to the next level, and then we can approach school systems, and they will take us seriously. Then they can take us to an even higher level. But we have to do the groundwork first, like every other sport that got successful.

USATT Board Election Status & Update

Here's a notice from USATT on changes on the USATT Board.

The USATT Athletes Advisory Council recently held an election and as a result Han Xiao was elected to serve on the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Athlete Advisory Council replacing Ashu Jain and Para athlete Edward Levy was elected to serve as the second Athlete Rep on the USATT Board of Directors.  The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association recently informed USATT that Kagin Lee will serve as their representative on the USATT Board of Directors.  Kagin replaces David Del Vecchio in this capacity.  The Nominating and Governance Committee met in late 2012 and as a result voted that Anne Cribbs and Peter Scudner should continue to serve as Independent Directors on the USATT Board of Directors.  The one remaining Board seat to be filled is currently in a membership wide election that will conclude on Jan 21, 2013.  The announcement of that election result and the posting of the complete composition of the Board of Directors for the next two year term will be made on February 4, 2013.

At this time we would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Ashu Jain and David Del Vecchio for their outstanding contributions to the governance process of USATT through their service as Board Members for the last two terms.  Thank you, Ashu and thank you, David!

Xu Xin New #1

Here are the new ITTF world rankings. Zhang Jike and Ma Long have been trading back and forth for a while as the #1 man in the world, but now there's a new gun in town. Yes, they are all Chinese, as is #4 Wang Hao, #6 Ma Lin, #7 "sort of Chinese" Chuang Chih-Yuan of Taiwan, and #9 Wang Liqin. But Germany's up there, with #5 Timo Boll and #8 Dimitrij Ovtcharov. On the women's side, the top four are also Chinese, with Ding Ning #1 for the 15th consecutive month.

USA doesn't have anyone in the top 100 in Men's rankings, but has three players in the top 100 in the women's - #76 Gao Jun, #88 Arial Hsing, and #96 Lily Zhang. USA is ranked #47 and #16 in Men's and Women's Team World Rankings.

USA is pretty strong in girls' top 100 rankings. In Under 21 Women, USA has #19 Ariel Hsing and #23 Lily Zhang. In Under 18 Girls, USA has a strong showing: #5 Ariel Hsing, #6 Lily Zhang, and #61 Prachi Jha. In Under 15 Girls, USA has #48 Diane Jiang, #54 Tina Lin, #69 Angela Guan, #75 Joy Lin, and #77 Crystal Wang. (Crystal is only 10, and is from my club, MDTTC.) In the Under 18 Girls' Team Rankings, USA is #4 after China, Japan, and Romania. (CORRECTION: As pointed out by Aaron Avery, USA is actually in a three-way tie for 2nd with Japan and Romania, but with the head-to-head tie-breaking system used by ITTF, they are #2. See the 2 in the left column - not sure why they have them listed fourth.)

We're not quite as strong on the boys' side. In Under 21 Men, USA has one ranked player - Wang Qing Liang, the chopper/looper from my club who made the semifinals of Men's Singles at last year's U.S. Open. In Under 18 Boys, he is also our only ranked player, at #37. We're a lot better in Under 15 Boys, with eight players: #33 Li Hangyu, #39 Kunal Chodri, #41 Kanak Jha, #55 Chen Bo Wen (from my club!), #63 Allen Wang, #68 Jonathan Ou, #75 Li Fengguang, and #99 Krishnateja ("Krish") Avvari. In Under 18 Boys' Team Rankings, USA is #35.

1400 Articles

I recently discovered I now have over 1400 published articles! Total is 1405 in 138 different publications, including 1263 on table tennis. This does not include blog entries. (If I did, it would put me over 1900!) It does include the weekly Tip of the Week, which is published not only here but also as a news item in the Paddle Palace Blog.

Yesterday's Todo List

Remember all that stuff I had on my todo list yesterday? (See second item.) I got it all done except for finalizing the entry form for our upcoming MDTTC tournaments. (I'm redoing the scheduling.) I expect to do that this morning.

USA Paralympic Team

Here's info on the 2013 USA Paralympic Team Procedures.

First USA ITTF Level 2 Coach

Congrats to Jef Savage of The Table Tennis Centre of Mercersburg, PA, who this past week became the first USA coach to be certified as an ITTF Level 2 coach. (Here's a news item on it.) I've worked with him a bit, and did his five hours of "supervised" coaching. The irony is that although I'm a USATT Certified National Coach, I'm only an ITTF Level 1 Coach. I may go for Level 2 certification later this year. (I was one of the first two ITTF coaches in the U.S., along with Donn Olsen.)

Woman of the Year

Ariel Hsing was named Table Tennis Woman of the Year by Table Tennis Nation. Read about her great year!

From Hardball to Hardbat

Here's an article on Adoni Maropis and his rise from TV villain (the evil Abu Fayed from season six of "24") to table tennis prominence in the hardbat and sandpaper world.

Zhang Jike vs Wang Liqin

Here's a nice match (7:07) between the current world champion Zhang and the past 3-time champ (and still #9) Wang in the Chinese Super League. (Wang is on the near side at the start.) Time between points has been taken out, so it's non-stop action! What can you learn from this match?

2012 Through Our Paddles

Here's a look at the past year - through ping-pong paddle images!

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Tip of the Week

Six Great Rallying Tactics.

Can a "2200 Player" Have the Experience to Coach at a High Level?

The question of whether a lower-rated player has the experience to be a top-level coach often comes up. The answer is yes, but rarely. I've seen numerous lower-rated players - some as low as 1100 - who were excellent coaches, even for high-level players. (I've also seen many former world-class players who couldn't coach at all.)

Some believe they can gain the needed experience to coach at the higher levels simply by watching the top players, usually on video. You can learn a lot that way, but if you think you can gain the experience to be a high-level coach just by watching the top players, you are kidding yourself. You not only have to watch them now, but you have to watch them on a regular basis as they develop. The key is not only knowing what they do now, but how they go there.

It also takes a certain type of mindset. If you watch top players play and gain strong opinions on how to coach players to reach that level, you are on the wrong course. You absolutely have to see what they do as they develop, in the playing hall while training and working with their coaches, and learn from this observing. There is no substitute for this. If you want to be a good coach, then find excuses to come watch these practice sessions. Do this for a few dozen sessions and you'll become knowledgeable. Do this for a few years and you have a chance to become a really good coach.

Some think you don't need to see top players developing if they are only going to coach lower-rated players. There's some truth to this - but often coaches who consider themselves good "beginner coaches" are only good for the first few months. For example, more and more players at the higher levels really topspin their backhands, and so if you want to develop a player with a bright future, you have to work toward that goal. Simply teaching them a basic backhand isn't enough. Other "beginner coaches" keep focusing on the basic counter-driving strokes so long that the player never learns higher-level techniques, such as looping over and over from both wings, counterlooping (the basic rallying shot at the higher levels), or advanced serve & receive. The biggest difference between a good "beginner's coach" and a truly great one takes place after the player can hit 100 forehands and 100 backhands. Does the coach keep working only on better and better forehands and backhand drives, or does he move on to more advanced stuff? You still need to focus on the fundamentals - here's my article Develop the Fundamentals - but the fundamentals of high-level play are a bit different than the fundamentals at the lower levels.

So to gain the experience needed to be a high-level coach, you either have to have been a high-level player, or to have spent extensive time with high-level players and coaches, both in training and tournament situations. I'm one of the lucky "2200 players" in that I have spent many years with top players and coaches. Here's my personal background:

• My regular practice partners my first few years when I started out (at age 16) included future stars Sean O'Neill (5-time USA Men's Singles Champion) and Brian Masters (Pan Am Men's Singles Gold Medalist);
• I spent four years as manager/director/assistant coach at the Resident Training Program for Table Tennis at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, working with coaches such as Li Zhen Shi, Zhang Li, Hennan Li Ai, and Liguo Ai, where I watched future stars develop such as Sean O'Neill, Jim Butler, Todd Sweeris, Eric Owens, Dhiren Narotam, Brian Pace, Chi-Sun Chui, Diana & Lisa Gee, and many more;
• I spent two summers as an assistant coach to five-time U.S. Champion and long-time USA Men's Coach Dan Seemiller;
• I've attended numerous coaching seminars by "elite" coaches - too many to list;
• I've spent the last 20+ years at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, where I've learned by watching (and coaching) top players and coaches, including Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Xu Huazhang, Gao Jun, Amy Feng, Todd Sweeris, John Onifade, Sean O'Neill, Peter Li, Han Xiao, Sean Lonergan, Jeffrey Zeng Xun, Sunny Li, Brian Pace, and many more. That's five members of the Chinese National Team, ten members of the USA National Team, and a Nigerian National Team Member. Along the way I got to watch and work with many of the top juniors in the U.S. - and personally coached over 200 players to winning gold medals at the Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals.

So yes, it is possible for a "lower-level player" to gain the experience needed to coach at the higher levels - but it is rare that a player at that level gets the opportunity. You can't do it by just watching players at tournaments or on video; you have to watch their training on a regular basis, and learn from it. I've been lucky to have spent decades doing so. 

Today's Todo List

The never-ending list never ceases with its efforts to cease my work on finalizing my new book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers. All I have left are the covers and a final proofing, which I hoped to do this week, but the todo list grabbed me by the collar and shook me until it got my attention. I have no coaching scheduled today, so this is my "day off," right? Here's my list for today.

• Tip of the Week
• Blog
• Junior Class accounting
• New MDTTC tournament dates
• Redo and finalize MDTTC tournament entry form
• Update and print copies of the new Adult Beginning Class flyer
• Email updates to junior class parents
• Check on renewals for sponsorship contracts
• Take Sheeba (my dog) to Vet at 3PM
• Laundry
• Bank
• Arrange car checkup
• Find out why Super Shuttle is billing me $38.94 for a trip I cancelled well in advance
• Read and critique Codex stories (something from my SF writing sideline)
• Not on todo list, but there's an ongoing discussion about leagues with USATT officials which is also somewhat time-consuming, though I'm sort of pulling back from it because of time constraints.

World Championship of Ping Pong

USA's Ilija Lupulesku made the semifinals of the $100,000 World Championship of Ping Pong - a sandpaper events - held this past weekend in London. "Lupi" pocketed $5000 for his efforts. Winning the event for the second year in a row was Maxim Shmyrev of Russia ($20,000), who defeated Sule Olaleye of Nigeria ($10,000) in the final, apparently 11-9 in the fifth, though the scores seem to show him winning 11-9 in the fourth. (Anyone know the real scores?) Also playing from USA was Ty Hoff and Adoni Maropis. 

USATT Player Bio Questionnaire

Why not take a couple minutes to fill out the USATT Player Bio Questionnaire? It's so USATT's "...web streaming commentators will have additional information in case you are featured on center court!" You never know. And it's fun listing your best titles, ratings, etc.!

How Kids Benefit from Table Tennis

Here's an article by Samson Dubina on the benefits of table tennis for kids.

Ambassador Wally Green

Former "bad boy" now table tennis ambassador Wally Green's been getting a lot of press coverage recently. Here he is on the Steve Harvey Show (3:25), using a blackberry as a racket. His partner is Kazuyuki Yokoyama. When asked how he got into ping-pong, Wally said, "It started, I was in a lot of trouble, a guy saw I was in trouble, I was either going to be in jail or just have a terrible life, and this guy said 'Look, I'm going to help you learn ping-pong, so he paid for me to go to Germany for four months to learn ping-pong.'"

Here he is again at the 4th Annual Ping Pong for Poverty Celebrity Event in Virginia Beach (4:20). Here he says, "I used to be in a gang, doing some bad stuff. The worst thing that happened to me is I got shot twice, got stabbed a couple of times, not to the point of death. There were a lot of fights. I was a bad kid, let's say."

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How to Deal with Beginners at a Club

This is a semi-regular topic at table tennis forums, so I thought I'd address it.

Believe it or not, I actually did a skit on this for the USA Table Tennis Board of Directors about 10-12 years ago. It was probably the only skit ever done during one of their live meetings - and you wonder why I can never convince them to do anything!!!

They were discussing how to increase membership, a perennial topic for discussion, but rarely one for action. The problem was that none of the people in the discussion had any serious experience at the club level, which of course is where you get new players. (I've been doing this for decades.) The question of increasing USATT membership and how to deal with beginners at a club really are the same thing. In both cases we are trying to convert non-serious players into serious players - which mostly means converting one of the 15 million or so recreational players into one of  9000 USATT members. (That's roughly a 1700-1 ratio; we aren't converting very well.)

There are three types of beginners. (I'll get to them in a minute.) I'd explained this to the board numerous times, but generally to deaf ears, often to people with strong opinions that are not based on hands-on experience. I needed to find a way to get their attention and show them what really happens at the club level, and how we can convert these three types of new players into USATT members. It was while sitting in that board meeting, listening to discussions on how to increase membership by people who didn't know how to, that I hit on the idea of a skit to get their attention.

So I raised my hand and asked if I could give a short presentation on the subject. Since, for once, they weren't in a rushed schedule - they'd put aside something like an hour for the discussion - they agreed. So I told them I was going to act out the three most common types of interactions with new players - and note that this was exactly the same in table tennis and tennis, except that in tennis (and other successful sports) they had learned to address the needs of these three types of new players.

The skit was in three parts. For each part I actually walked out the door, and then came in. I played the part of both the new player and the club officer.

Part 1: I came in and said, "Hi, I'm a new player and I'd like play somebody." Playing the part of the club officer, and knowing that new player usually means beginner, and knowing that if I put a beginner up against an advanced player he'd get killed and we'd likely never see him again, I told him about our leagues, where he'd play players his own level. He played in the league against players his level, met new players, made friends, and became a regular at the club and a USATT member.

Part 2: I came in and said, "Hi, I'm a beginner, and I'd like to learn how to play better." Playing the part of the club officer, I told him about our coaching programs for beginners, both group sessions and private coaching. He signed up, learned about the sport, met new players, made friends, and became a regular at the club and a USATT member.

Part 3: I came in, and using a woman's voice, said, "Hi, my two kids would like to play table tennis." Playing the part of the club officer, I told them about our junior program. They signed up, made friends, and became regulars at the club and USATT members. And one of them went on to become National Champion.

I then explained that if a club doesn't have programs for these three types, then we lose them. (I also explained there's also a fourth type - a very small minority - which is the crazy guy who comes in, loses badly to everyone, but sticks around and becomes a serious player. They are rare, and are the ones we currently rely on for our membership (along with players from overseas).Hence the 1700-1 ratio.

How do we address these needs? For the player looking to play (Part 1), the answer is leagues. Until we have a nationwide network of leagues for players of all levels, we will keep losing these players. For the player who wants to learn more and for kids, we need more coaches. In both cases, either USATT or someone else has to take the lead in setting up these leagues, and in recruiting and training coaches.

Table tennis has done this in countries all over the world, and other sports have done so in the U.S. and all over the world. As I've blogged in the past, in Europe, nearly every country has more members in their table tennis association than their tennis association - because they address the needs of the new player. In the U.S., USTA has over 700,000 members to our 9000 - about an 80-1 ratio. If table tennis addressed the needs of new players as tennis does, and as table tennis does elsewhere, then we'd also have 700,000 members or more. But it's not going to happen by talking about it. It'll happen when someone does something about it.

I may actually take the lead in the coaching aspect, i.e. recruiting and training coaches. I've been toying with it for a while, but I'm too busy right now. USATT doesn't seem to have interest in acting on these issues, at least right now.

Petition for Table Tennis in School Curriculums

Last month I posted about this petition. Here it is again! (I'm the fifth signee; they need 25,000 by Jan. 11, 2013.) The petition is to do the following:

Include and recognize the sport of Table Tennis Aka "Ping Pong" as part of a school's athletic curriculum of choice.
Table Tennis should be included as part of a school's athletic curriculum of choice to participate and play. The sport isn't only a recreational past time but also an Olympic sport. The sport is considered and recognized relevant by other cultures. The sport is cost effective, fights the obesity problem among young Americans, and is non discriminatory. The sport can be easily incorporated in a schools current athletic curriculum, and easily be taught. Tables should be put on all middle schools to encourage start up programs. There are plenty of qualified coaches in the United States that would love the opportunity to teach and coach this fast growing sport. Starting in middle schools will also identify talented kids and Olympic hopefuls. This is the way It's done in China and Europe.

Review of the New Plastic Ball

Part 2 (14:35) just went up of the Plastic Ball Review from OOAK Reviews, "High speed filming of tests to compare relative rebound speed, bounce and spin." (On Wednesday I linked to Part 1, "Why the change and a comparison of their physical appearance.") Here's their home page, which links to both videos. I'll post here when Part 3 goes up, "Players from our Premier Division who have different styles of play and use different types of equipment try out the three balls and give their opinions on them."

World Championship of Ping Pong

It's being held this weekend, in London - but this isn't the World Table Tennis Championships; this is a sandpaper event, with $100,000 in prize money!!! (That includes $20,000 to the winner.) Here's the home page. Good luck to USA players Ty Hoff, Adoni Maropis, and Ilija Lupulesku!

Corkscrew Spin and Google

So you want to know what corkscrew spin is? This is where the ball spins so that the axis of rotation points away from you. Here's an example of clockwise corkscrew spin: just cut & paste "Do a barrel roll" into a Google engine - for most of us, it's the default search engine so you can just put this in your regular search box, or you can go to Google directly - and there it is!

Wang Liqin vs. Ma Long

Here's a great match (12:05, with time between points removed) between these two in a 2012 China Super League match

Best Table Tennis Clips of the Year

Table Tennis Nation chose the three best table tennis clips of the year, and the grand champion from those three. Two of them are paralympic players!

Amazing Shots While Rolling Around on Ground

Here's the video (1:12).

Modern Age Meets the Stone Age

Here's an iPong robot on a cement table. There's something really wrong about this. It's like a caveman with a machine gun.

Table Tennis Fun with Kids and a Panda

Kids and a Panda show how fun table tennis is in this video from PingSkills (2:23).

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Beginner's Topspinny Backhand and Forehand Looping

I'm coaching an 11-year-old who is developing well on the forehand, but has sort of a topspinny backhand. Instead of snapping the shot off in fast rallies he mostly rolls it softly, and so can't rally too fast yet. I've been working on this with him, but now I'm thinking perhaps I should just forget backhand counter-hitting and teach him to backhand loop almost from the start. We might have a close-to-table backhand looper in the making.

I've already taught him to loop against backspin, both forehand and backhand. Now he really wants to get into looping in rallies, though mostly on the forehand. (Despite his rolling backhand, I don't think he realizes yet that you can backhand loop over and over just as on the forehand.) He's already experimenting with looping against blocks when he hits around with others, so it's better if I start him off properly.

In our next session I'm going to explain Chinese versus European philosophy on this. (This is a generalization, of course.) In Chinese philosophy, you teach the basic forehand and backhand until they are so strong the player can do them in their sleep - and only then do you teach them to loop, which they consider an extension of the regular forehand and backhand. In European philosophy, you get to looping as early as possible, since that's eventually going to be their primary shot, so why not focus on it from the start? I'm sort of in between these philosophies, as I want the player to get the basics down first, but also want to get to looping as soon as possible. In this case, I think the kid is pretty much setting the course with his rolling backhand and determination to loop in rallies with the forehand.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Weight down to 170 lbs by April 1 (no April Fools joke!), and stay under 175 all year. (Current weight is 184.)
2. Rating over 2200, and overall level to 2250.
3. Write a new novel or other book, and at least 12 new short stories.
4. Read five classic novels - tentatively Hamlet, Dante's Inferno, Don Quixote, Paradise Lost, and Catch 22. If I find one of these boring, I may replace it with The Count of Monte Cristo.
5. Get all six of my books ready for sale in both ebook and print on demand formats by June 1 at larryhodgesbooks.com.

A few notes on these resolutions. Regarding #2, I'm basically retired from tournaments, but have decided to get in shape ONE MORE TIME and then play some tournaments. For one thing, I long for the days when I dominated against the local cadet players; now I feel like a punching bag half the time when I play them. (Thank god for serve and receive, where I still dominate, but that can only take you so far.)

However, I also feel somewhat cheated by my current rating, as it came about from two fluky events. First, at the 2012 U.S. Open, when I was rated 2193 (which is about right for me, since I'm almost 53, out of shape, and don't practice anymore - coaching isn't the same practicing), I played the sandpaper event. After playing with sandpaper all day, I finished my last match only to find my opponent and an umpire waiting for me for a long-delayed sponge match. I had two minutes to warm up, and that wasn't nearly enough, and there went 40 points. Then, last year, I did get into shape, was playing really well - close to 2300 level - so I decided to play a tournament. Unfortunately, I'm used to great playing conditions at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, and the tournament I went to had slippery orange-ish floors, and so I couldn't move or see the orange ball. I dropped out of the tournament halfway through, but not before dropping another 16 points, to 2137. At the recent Teams, the only other tournament I've played since 2007, I gained a few to get to 2145, but even there I felt cheated, as I lost a pair of close five-gamers to players rated 2314 and 2178, and to a 2266 player 0-3 at 9,9,10. (The online ratings have me losing to the 2178 player at 7,7,7, but it was actually 11-9 in the fifth. How'd that happen?) I felt that if I were in better shape I could have won all three of these. So . . . I need to get in better shape. So I'll be losing weight, doing weight training (again), and practicing. And then I'll be looking for tournaments with good playing conditions - especially the floors. (I did 40 minutes of weight training last night, as well as a 10-minute run.)

Regarding reading classics, I've read a few over the years. (I mostly read SF & Fantasy, plus some history and science.) The final list was made with help from Tim Boggan, who taught the classics for years as an English professor. Here are "classics" I've already read: Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Siddhartha, Moby Dick, The Old Man and the Sea, The Catcher in the Rye, King Lear, Robinson Crusoe, Frankenstein, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Metamorphosis, The Stranger, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Charlotte's Web, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, and A Christmas Carol.

The six books of mine I hope to have online by June 1 are Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers; Table Tennis Success (former Table Tennis Steps to Success); Table Tennis Tales & Techniques; Instructor's Guide to Table Tennis; Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook; and Pings & Pongs: The Best SF & Fantasy of Larry Hodges.

You'll note there is nothing in my resolutions about my students - that's because that's for THEIR resolutions. Of course, I'll do whatever I can to help them reach those!

Coaching Insects Dream

I do have the strangest table tennis dreams - perhaps it's because I not only coach and write table tennis full-time, but I'm also a SF writer. This is just a snippet - I'm sure there was more, but I don't remember it. I dreamed I was coaching insects (!) on little tables on the floor that instead of the normal 9'x5' were 9"x5" (still a bit large for an insect). I was coaching a tiny beetle against this much larger one when the larger one suddenly grabbed my protégé in its jaws and ran through a crack in the wall, where it presumably ate my student. I called out in horror and slammed my fists on the wall, but there was nothing I could do. I woke up feeling very sad.

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers

Other than the covers and proofing, the page layouts are done. (Final version is 242 pages.) I hope to have them ready for sale online by February.

USA Nationals Video Recap

Here it is (1:57), care of JOOLA USA!

Mike Dempsey Memorial Championships

Here's an article My Experience at the Mike Dempsey Memorial Championships by Igor Botkin.

Forehand Counterhit Accuracy

Here's a coaching video on forehand counterhitting accuracy from PingSkills (2:30). Two methods are given for increasing accuracy.

Slow Motion Table Tennis

Here's some slow motion TT set to piano music (1:37) by PingSkills.

Best Table Tennis Shots of 2012

Care of  Table Tennis Daily (3:14).

The Best Table Tennis Commercials of 2012

Table Tennis Nation chose the top seven commercials that featured table tennis from 2012, ranking them in order, as well as six other finalists. The top seven, in order: McDonalds, Miller64, DirecTV, Maybelline, Snapples, JC Penney, and Bounty. (The Williams sisters commercial - see below - came out after they did their listing.)

Venus & Serena Williams Table Tennis Commercial

Here's an ad for the Apple iPhone 5 (31 sec) featuring the Williams sisters.

Table Tennis Action Shot of the Year

Look . . . up in the sky . . . it's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's just Super Cat leaping for the ball.

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Tip of the Week

Balance Throughout the Stroke.

Two Weeks

The last two weeks have been exhausting. I can divide them into four parts: the USA Nationals (Dec. 18-22: Christmas with Family (Dec. 22-25); MDTTC Christmas Camp (Dec. 26-31); and Reading in Bed (Dec. 31 - Jan. 1).

USA Nationals

I've been to every Nationals since the early 1980s, and this is the first one where I didn't play any events, just coached. Much of the tournament is now a blur, but much of it comes back when I look over the extensive notes I took on opponents. (I have to type them up soon for my ongoing coaching notes.)

Derek Nie, 11, played great. I coached him in all his matches as he made the National Mini-Cadet Team (under 13), finishing second (with the top four making the team). His matches from the quarterfinals on were spectacular, and gave meaning to the idea that tactics aren't very helpful if you can't executive. Well, he executed!!! Going in, he was seeded eighth at 2139, but in more recent ratings he was 2221, which would have put him third. He knocked off the second seed (rated 2314) at 7,4,7 in perhaps the best-played match of his life. His two-winged full-court looping game, and especially his counterlooping from all over the court, is especially impressive when you remember he's 4'5" and 65 lbs! (As noted previously, he's the best player in the U.S., pound for pound.) He has another year left in the Mini-Cadets, as well as four years in the Cadets. He trains regularly with Cheng Yinghua and the other MDTTC coaches, including me, although I mostly play practice matches with him so he can work on serve & receive - he's too fast for me in drills. 

Here's a picture of me coaching Derek and Seyed Hesam Hamrahian in doubles in the Junior Team competition. And yes, that's me, getting chased around the table by Derek as we loosen up before a practice session. It started as some easy jogging around the table, then it became a chase, and Bruce Liu (unfortunately) caught the last nine seconds of it.

Here's a nice quote I keep reminding Derek of during the tournament when he was passive in receiving long serves: "At the higher levels, looping a long serve is not a tactic, it's what you do. Not looping the serve is a tactic." Ironically, in one of his key matches, the opponent mixed in long topspin and backspin serves, and in that match the tactic was to push the backspin serve back, since the opponent would either push or loop soft, giving Derek the chance to loop or counterloop.

I didn't get to see much of the main matches in men's or women's singles as I was too busy coaching. I did manage to attend the annual Hall of Fame Banquet on Thursday night. For the fourth year in a row I did the program booklet for them; here's the 2012 program, in high (1.7MB) or low (174KB) resolution.

Some of you might remember Mike Lardon, a junior star from the 1970s, and now a sports psychologist. He was at the Nationals, playing in the over 50 events. I introduced him to Derek, and he gave him (and signed) a copy of his sports psychology book, Finding Your Zone: Ten Core Lessons for Achieving Peak Performance in Sports and Life. (I reviewed this in my Nov. 8, 2011 blog.) Derek read half the book that night. I've been told that most match coaches don't spend much time on sports psychology, which I believe is a huge mistake. It's often the most important aspect.

It's almost a joke how much strength and depth we now have in the juniors, especially up to about age 14. It's getting ridiculous - players who seven years ago would be battling for national titles are now struggling to reach the QF. The matches in the round of 16 are stronger than finals from ten years ago. They are routinely doing shots that were only rarely done back then. I still cringe every time an opponent power loop to Derek's FH, and Derek (and other players) routinely go for the counterloop, probably not realizing how difficult this is "supposed" to be!

Christmas

I spent Christmas with family in Santa Barbara, Dec. 22-25. No table tennis - sorry! Gave away lots of stuff, received lots of stuff (sorry, no table tennis stuff!). Highlights included my making my annual batch of Larry's Chili (my own secret recipe) for Dec. 23 dinner (and lunches thereafter); seeing The Hobbit on Christmas Day; and catching the annual red-eye flight on Christmas night so I can get back the morning of Dec. 26 for the MDTTC training camp.

We've run over 150 training camps at MDTTC since we opened in 1992, and this was our 21st Christmas Camp - I've coached at all of them. During the camp I gave lectures on ready position, grip, forehand, backhand, forehand loop, backhand loop, flipping, pushing, footwork, serve, receive, playing different surfaces, and doubles.

MDTTC Christmas Camp

The camp was held Dec. 26-31, starting with an afternoon session on Dec. 26, and ending with the morning session on Dec. 31. We had over 40 players. Because we have so many coaches at MDTTC (6), I was only needed in the morning sessions, where I gave short lectures before breaking out into multiball sessions. My highlight was getting a bunch of the kids on break to call out the names of the three great gods of table tennis until they got the secret meaning: Owa, Tegu, Siam. Say them over and over until you get the secret meaning. (If you are lost, email me, but really, you should get it if you keep saying it!) The kids' highlight was probably the candy game on Dec. 30, where I put hoards of candy on the table and fed multiball while the players rotated, two shots each, where they got to keep whatever they knocked off the table.

Reading in Bed

What is your "dream" vacation? For some it's the beach, or out sailing, or hiking in the mountains, or travel, or perhaps watching TV all day. For me it's spending all day in bed reading. I read two fantasy novels, "Hush" and "Witchbreaker," both by James Maxey. They were the second and third books in his Dragon Apocalypse series. (I read book one while in Santa Barbara for Christmas.) While I'm on the subject of writing, I'm sad to announce that I read fewer books in 2012 than any year since early elementary school - and I'm not happy about this. (However, I also read the Washington Post and about a dozen magazines.) But I still managed to read 24 books. Here's a listing:

FICTION (15)
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Firebird by Jack McDevitt
Moonfall by Jack McDevitt
Voyagers by Ben Bova
Ringworld by Larry Niven
The Religion War by Scott Adams
Specter Spectacular edited by Eileen Wiedbrauk
Into the Out Of by Alan Dean Foster
Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster
Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
Barry's Tale by Lawrence Schoen
Burn Baby Burn: A Supervillain Novel by James Maxey
Greatshadow by James Maxey
Hush by James Maxey
Witchbreaker by James Maxey

NON-FICTION (4)
Building Your Book for Kindle
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Earth by The Daily Show (it's sort of non-fiction!)
How to Improve Your Speculative Fiction Openings by Robert Qualkinbush

TABLE TENNIS (5)
Table Tennis: Tips from a World Champion, by Werner Schlager & Berndt-Ulrich Gross
Breaking 2000 by Alex Polyakov (See my review.)
Ping Pong Fever by Steve Grant (See my review.)
Get Your Game Face On! by Dora Kurimay and Kathy Toon (See my review.)
The Adventures of the Ping-Pong Diplomats, Volume, 1 by Fred Danner (See my review.)

2013 USA National Team Trials

Here is info on the 2013 USA Men's and Women's Team Trials, to be held Feb. 7-10 in San Jose at the Topspin Table Tennis Club. Here is the Prospectus and Entry Form, both in PDF format.

Whitney Ping on USOC Board of Directors

Whitney Ping, a member of the 2004 USA Olympic Table Tennis Team, a former player rep on the USATT Board of Directors, and an Athlete Service Coordinator for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team, is now one of the 15 members of the USOC Board of Directors. Here's the article.

National Club Championships

Here are the results, with Chinese CC Flushing NY defeating Maryland Table Tennis Center in the final (in Las Vegas), 3-1. In the semifinals, they defeated Newport Beach TTC (CA) 3-0, while MDTTC defeated Los Angeles TTA, 3-1.

Zhang Jike

Here's a feature on the Chinese star and the great year he's had. He's only the second player ever to hold both the World and Olympic Men's Singles Titles. (The other was Chinese Men's Coach - and Zhang's coach - Liu Guoliang in 1996.)

Table Tennis Jump Smash

Here's a coaching video on the Jump Smash against lob from PingSkills (2:25). He recommends against it, and I generally agree. However, some players, such as Dan Seemiller, have perfected this shot, using a scissors-kick method with a running start. The example shown here shows the player jumping from a stationary position with less leg kick than Dan uses. I use this technique in exhibitions, and sometimes in matches.

The New Plastic Ball

Here's a video (16:16) where the new plastic ball is compared to current celluloid balls as well as the old 38mm ones. This is Part 1: Physical Differences.

Beyond Imagination Part 6

Here's Beyond Imagination Part 6 (7:02), a highlights reel of the best rallies from 2012. (Links to the first five appear on the right.)

Pongcast TV Episode 22 - Best of 2012

Here's the video (17:41).

Adam Bobrow in Asia

Here's the video (2:11) of his exhibitions in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Korea (I think South!)

Aloha 2013!

Here's Hawaiian Table Tennis wishing you a Happy 2013 with a table tennis cartoon! (Is that Rudolf the Red-nosed Moose?)

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