Day Four of MDTTC Camp - the Backhand Loop and Doubles Tactics

On Thursday morning we focused on the backhand attack against backspin, mostly the backhand loop but also the backhand drive against backspin, especially against a short ball. Nathan Hsu (15, rated 2356) was my partner for the demo. I demonstrated my favorite loop versus backspin drill: I serve backspin, partner pushes to my backhand, I backhand loop, partner blocks, I backhand chop, partner pushes, and I backhand loop, and the cycle continues.

Later I gave a short lecture on doubles tactics. (Short version - Serves: serve low and short, mostly toward the middle of the table. Receive: be ready to loop any ball that goes long. Rallies: hit to the opposite side of the player hitting to you from his partner, so they get in each other's way. And lots more.)  Then we played doubles for an hour. We also divided the camp into two groups, and I took the "new" players off to the side and gave a lecture on equipment, which ended with everyone trying out playing against and with anti and long pips. (I also talked about short pips and hardbat.)

There are 34 players in the camp this week. We were a bit worried that we'd get a smaller turnout since we're running camps every week all summer - eleven consecutive weeks - but that doesn't seem to be a problem.

U.S. Nationwide Table Tennis League

Here's a new 30-second ad for the upcoming USNTTL league, which starts in September. Here's their home page.

Reminder - Sports Psychology Night at MDTTC

Tonight, Table Tennis Sports Psychologist Dora Kurimay will run a 40-minute sports psychology workshop at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. She runs the table tennis sports psychology page dorakurimay.com, and is the co-author of the book "Get Your Game Face On!" (Here's my review of the book on the USATT website.) The schedule for the night will be: 6:30-7:00PM - book signing; 7:00-7:40PM: Sports Psychology Seminar ($20, which includes a free copy of the book); after 7:40PM: Personalized Sport Psychology Consultation. Here is the flyer for the event. Come join us! (Dora's also coming in early to join in our afternoon session at the MDTTC training camp.)

Moyer Foundation's Celebrity Ping-Pong Tournament

Baseball pitching star Jamie Moyer will host this celebrity charity event this Saturday, 5:30-9:00 PM, in Philadelphia, with proceeds "will help children in distress – including The Moyer Foundation’s Camp Erin and Camp Mariposa programs." Here's the info page, and here's The Moyer Foundation, founded by MLB World Series-winning All-Star pitcher Jamie Moyer and his wife, Karen. Celebrities attending include  the following - and note Delaware Governor Jack Markell - I've coached him! Here's a picture of him playing from the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis Page.

• Philadelphia Union’s Brian Caroll, Gabe Farfan, Chase Harrison, Amobi Okugo, Chandler Hoffman, and Chris Konopka
• 97.5 The Fanatic’s Mike Missanelli
• NBC 10’s John Clark
• University of Pennsylvania Coach, Jerome Allen
• Former Governor Edward Rendell (PA)
• St. Joe’s Coach, Phil Martelli
• Governor Jack Markell (DE)
• the Phillie Phanatic and St. Joe’s Hawk
• and others!

ICC Table Tennis in NY Times

Here's an article in yesterday's New York Times on the India Community Center Table Tennis in Milpitas, CA.

"Beer Pong Saved My Life"

That's the title of this 2010 movie, which bombed both critically and at the box office. "Two best friends, Dustin and Erik, are tired of their stagnant and miserable lives. When Dustin hears about a beer pong tournament at a nearby college, Erik is on board right away. Reluctantly, Dustin agrees to play in the tournament and suddenly they are the coolest and best players there. But when the sudden praise goes to their heads, it's all downhill from there!"

In honor of this movie (and despite the fact that I'm a non-drinker), here are some great Beer Pong videos:

• Amazing Beer Pong Shots Part 1 (1:29)
• Amazing Beer Pong Shots Part 2 (1:04)
• Spectacular Beer Pong Shots. (5:04)
• More spectacular Beer Pong Shots, to the tune of Rocky music. (2:45)
• Still more spectacular Beer Pong Shots. (3:04)
• And even more spectacular Beer Pong Shots. (2:36)
• Epic Beer Pong Shots. (3:42)
• Eight-year-old beerless beer pong (0:59)

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Day Three of MDTTC Camp - the Forehand Loop

Yesterday's focus was forehand looping. In my lecture I used 11-year-old Derek Nie (rated 2146) as my demo partner, and we had some nice rallies, including looping against backspin, against block, and counterlooping. It was new to a few players, and I took these players off to the side to teach the fundamentals while the other coaches fed multiball to the others.

Halfway through the morning session I gave a 20-minute lecture on return of serve, and then we went out on the table to practice serve and receive. (I gave a 30-minute lecture on serving yesterday.) It's great watching their serves improve. Earlier that morning before the camp started I'd done an impromptu challenge where I served and campers tried to return my serve. About fifteen formed a line, and if they missed my serve, they went to the end of the line. (The stronger players in the camp watched with amusement.) I think a couple managed to get two back, but the great majority missed the first one. I think this raised the interest level in the receive lecture, and even more in learning these serves. Some are still trying to figure out how I get topspin on my serve when I stroke downward with an open racket and hit the bottom of the ball. (The racket tip is moving down, but just before contact I flip the bottom of the racket sideways and up, and then continue down after contact. But it's probably something you have to see in person.)

Yesterday's "Big Game" at the end of the morning session was Around the World. I feed multiball while the kids hit one shot, and then circle the table. When they miss five, they are out. When they are down to two players, I put a target on the table (usually a box, but today I used my towel) and they take turns trying to hit it. When one hits it and the other misses, the one who hit it is the champion, and we start over. Later I fed more multiball and they had to knock cups off the table (28 of them in a pyramid), with the warning that the galaxy would explode if they didn't knock them all off in five minutes. They knocked the last one off with three seconds to spare, just barely saving the galaxy!

Later that day Coach Jeffrey Zeng Xun (a 2600 player) was drilling with a 2200 pips-out penholder. One of the players in the camp, Minh Nguyen, is an aspiring two-winged looper like Jeffrey, so I called him over and we watched Jeffrey as he completely dominated rallies with his backhand loop, which he could put anywhere on the table with power, control, and consistency, with textbook technique. Players can improve quite a bit just by watching the way he rotates his body and shoulders and then snaps his arm and wrist into the shot. (It's like throwing a Frisbee toward the ceiling.)

That night I did a one-hour private session with a father and son. The son had learned to forehand loop and was working on backhand looping some, though he prefers hitting on both sides. Looping was new to the father, so we spent much of the session on his forehand loop. It's always striking watching the difference in how people of different ages learn. Younger players learn the technique quickly, but can't control it. Older players have trouble with the technique, but have ball control.

Reminder - Sports Psychology Night at MDTTC

Tomorrow, on Friday, June 22, Table Tennis Sports Psychologist Dora Kurimay will run a 40-minute sports psychology workshop at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. She runs the table tennis sports psychology page dorakurimay.com, and is the co-author of the book "Get Your Game Face On!" (Here's my review of the book on the USATT website.) The schedule for the night will be: 6:30-7:00PM - book signing; 7:00-7:40PM: Sports Psychology Seminar ($20, which includes a free copy of the book); after 7:40PM: Personalized Sport Psychology Consultation. Here is the flyer for the event. Come join us!

100^th ITTF Certified Coach in the U.S.

Here's the story from the ITTF. I ran one of the ITTF coaching seminars in the U.S. last April, and certified fourteen of them. I'm running another in August at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. Here's the flyer. If interested, email me. Come join us!

Historical Mistake on the Origins of Table Tennis

Yesterday I linked to a web page that supposedly gave a historical account about the origins of table tennis. Unfortunately I found out that afternoon that the info there was dated. (I've since deleted the link.) I should have known better since I'd read the book "Ping Pong Fever" by Steve Grant, which gave the newest info on the sports origin. (I plead training camp madness - we just started eleven weeks of training camps at MDTTC, so I was a little rushed in putting together the blog.) Here is the account from the ITTF Museum, which was updated to reflect Grant's discoveries, and Grant's own press release on the subject.

New USA International Umpires

Who are they? Here's the story!

Seniors Embrace Table Tennis

Here's the story from the Evanston Review/Sun Times.

Proper Table Tennis Training with Scott Gordon

In honor of the many summer training camps now being run around the country, here is the greatest table tennis training video ever made (2:31).

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Day Two at the MDTTC Camp - the Backhand

There are just over 30 players in the camp, ranging from beginner to 2400, from age 7 to 24. Today's focus was on the backhand, though of course that varied from player to player. I did a backhand demo with Tong Tong Gong where he and I went at it backhand to backhand. I am happy to say I smacked about three dozen consecutive backhands at full speed, an incredible display of advanced backhand prowess. I am unhappy to say that Tong Tong did three dozen plus one. Yeah, I finally missed.

So how's your backhand? Do you tend to keep the racket tip down? (This is for shakehanders.) This gives you extra power and can turn your backhand into almost a second forehand. However, it may cost you control and quickness, and make you weaker in the middle. Do you tend to keep the racket tip more up? That'll give you extra quickness and control, and make it easier to cover the middle. To use two classic examples, Jan-Ove Waldner tended to keep his tip up a bit while Jorgen Persson kept his down. (If you don't know these two Swedish world champions, google them.) Jim Butler is another player who keeps his racket tip down, giving him a great backhand smash. Dave Sakai is an example of a player who keeps his racket tip more up, giving him a great backhand counter-hitting and blocking game.

These days, at the world-class level, most players loop almost everything on both backhand and forehand, and so they tend to keep the racket tip down.

I pointed out to the campers that we've run over 150 five-day camps, which comes out to over two years of camps. Yes, I've spent two years of my life running these things. They were suitably impressed.

USA's Kanak Jha wins ITTF Hopes Challenge

Here's the ITTF article!

Challenge the brain with table tennis

Here's an table tennis graphic with Spanish captions. Here is the English translation from an online translator - see #6! ("Apparently"?)

Six Steps to Exercise the Brain

1. Play an instrument, play, not only listen, strengthens the neural pathways.

2. Learn another language. Pay attention to hear another language sharpens the brain functions.

3. Juggle.

4. Dance. Memorize the dance steps improved the memory balance and posture.

5. Put together puzzles. Improve your concentration.

6. Table Tennis. Apparently this sport requires very fine movements that challenge the brain.

London Olympics/Coca-Cola Commercial

And it features table tennis! It's a mixture of music video and coke commercial (4:28). The table tennis player is Darius Knight of the English table tennis team.

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Day One of MDTTC Summer Camps

Yesterday was the first day of eleven weeks of non-stop camps, Mon-Fri every week. Since I also coach on weekends, I expect to be coaching every day for over 80 consecutive days. (This includes a "break" where I go to the U.S. Open to coach.) I'm actually feeling rested now at the start; check back with me halfway through. I'll feel like a ping-pong ball after a Zhang Jike-Ma Long counter-looping rally.

I worked mostly with beginners yesterday. Lots of basics work, mostly forehand and backhand. Plenty of games as well, including the ever-popular cup game, where the kids build huge pyramids out of paper cups and then I feed them multiball while they knock them down. There were about 30 players in the camps, mostly juniors, including Nathan Hsu, Tong Tong Gong, Derek Nie, and Crystal Wang. Coaches were myself, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Jeffrey Zeng Xun, and our new coaches/practice partners Wang Qing Liang and Chen Bo Wen.

Why you need to be aggressive against long serves.

I've been harping with our juniors over being more aggressive against serves that go slightly long. It's so easy to push those balls, but that's exactly what the server wants. If you loop it, the server has to serve shorter, meaning the receiver can rush him, get better angles, and is closer to their target, and so have more control. Even more important, most players lose spin and deception on their serves when forced to serve shorter. The hard part about looping these serves is the ability to quickly recognize they are going slightly long, and the only way to learn that is by practicing, i.e. constantly trying to loop the slightly deep ones, occasionally getting it wrong, until you develop that skill. You can loop serves that go slightly short as well, where the second bounce would be near the edge, by going over the table, especially against sidespin and topspin serves. Players should learn to do that as well, especially on the backhand side where it's easier to go over the table and loop mostly with the wrist.  

Spoiled by a Professional Club

Hi everyone, my name is Larry Hodges, and I'm a spoiled table tennis player.

[Hi Larry!]

How am I spoiled? Let me count the ways.

I am spoiled because I coach and play at a full-time professional table tennis club, MDTTC.

I am spoiled because there are so many tables in my club (16-18) that I never have to wait for a table.

I am spoiled because I always play in perfect conditions - great lighting, red specialize table tennis flooring, high ceilings, lots of room in all directions.

I am spoiled because there are balls scattered all over the club so I never have to bring in my own.

I am spoiled because I am constantly surrounded by top table tennis players and coaches. Olympians? National Champions? National Team Members? Ho-hum.

I am spoiled because I live in an age where we have sponges that practically loop or counter-hit the ball for us.

(Now for the downside: I can barely play except in perfect conditions. I've learned this the hard way.)

Table Tennis Banned on the set of Big Bang Theory

Table Tennis Nation brings you the story of why ping-pong was banned from the set of the TV show Big Bang Theory - it was causing too many injuries!

On a related note, the reverse has happened with the Baltimore Orioles. They had asked me to come in and coach some of their players, who have been playing table tennis in the clubhouse. They were going to turn it into a TV production for a pre-game show. However, some of the players involved have come down with various non-table tennis related injuries, including one with a wrist problem, and so they have temporarily stopped playing table tennis. They said that they still plan to do this when the players are healthy again.

Four Homemade Table Tennis Robots

Here are videos of home-made table tennis robots.

• Robot One (1:45)
• Robot Two (2:56)
• Robot Three (1:05)
• Robot Four (3:45)

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Tip of the Week

Playing in Different Time Zones.

Friday Exhaustion

I've spent much of the last week learning to do page layouts for Print on Demand and for Kindle ebooks, and have been up sometimes almost around the clock doing the layouts for some of my books. I first did "Pings and Pongs," my collection of science fiction & fantasy stories as a practice run as it would be easier than the others, since there are few graphics. Since then I've been doing both my new book, "Table Tennis Tactics: A Thinker's Guide" and "A Professional Table Tennis Coach's Handbook." Later I'll do my other three table tennis books.

Unfortunately, I'm paying the price. On Friday I showed up as a practice partner for our Elite Junior Session, and could barely stay awake. Just trying to play gave me a headache, stomachache, and I started getting dizzy. Finally, after about 45 minutes, I had to stop and go home to get some sleep.

Despite a good night's sleep, I was still exhausted on Saturday. I had a relatively full schedule (five hours), and there were times when my legs were in open rebellion, but I got through it. I had another good night's sleep, but Sunday I was still pretty tired. However, there are signs I'm getting better. Unfortunately, with eleven consecutive weeks of training camps starting this morning, I have a feeling I'd better get used to being exhausted.

I do have a few things I'm doing to combat this. The rest of the summer I'm going to regularly go to bed at 11PM, though I will, as always, read for a while before actually going to sleep. (I'll be getting up by 7AM each morning to do my blog before leaving for the club.) I'm also going to focus on eating well. I generally do, but I'll make it higher priority this summer. Also, on the advice of a doctor at the club, I've been taking "B Complex" vitamins (as well as the regular multivitamins I already take) as a supplement. I have no idea if it'll help, but he says it'll help an active person regain energy. We'll see.

One side effect is that I'm probably going to go from doing page layouts at warp drive to a mere sub-light speed. But I still hope to have all the books in POD and ebook format by the end of the summer.

Summer Camp Side Effects

• Side Effect One: I'll have lots and lots to blog about.
• Side Effect Two: I'll have less and less time to blog.

President Obama and the ICC Table Tennis Shirt

Here's President Obama holding up an ICC Table Tennis shirt that he accepted from three table tennis Olympians (Timothy Wang, Ariel Hsing, Lily Zhang). He also got a paddle signed by the three, held by Anil Godhwani (standing next to Obama). At first I thought it must be photoshopped, but after investigation, it's for real.

Here are some pictures of Obama playing table tennis, from CelebritiesPlayingTableTennis.com (a site I maintain).

photo1 photo2 photo3 (Photos 2 and 3 are from a picture on the wall at the White House, contributed by Timmy La)

Here are pictures of Obama playing table tennis with David Cameron, the prime minister of England:
Obama and David Cameron, Prime Minister of England:
photo1 photo2 photo3 photo4 photo5 photo6 photo7 photo8 photo9

And while we're at it, here are two pictures of First Lady Michelle Obama playing table tennis:

photo1 photo2

Best Table Tennis Shots of 2011

I don't think I've linked to this video (3:48). Lots of great shots!

Twisted Table

Now this would be tough to play on. (I already had a picture of this table in the "Fun and Games" section, but this is a better and closer one.)

Non-Table Tennis -SF & Fantasy Sales

Recently I've been on a splurge in my science fiction and fantasy writing sales. On Saturday I sold my sixth short story in six weeks, "Running with the Dead" (7400 words) to Buzzy Magazine, a pro-paying market, along with two of the other sales. (A "pro" paying market is one that pays at least 5 cents/word.) This is the story of a dead kid who wants to attend high school and run as a miler on the track team. He faces not only public pressure to quit - the country is mostly against letting dead people attend school - but also the captain of the track team and leader of the "Mile Mafia," the very person who murdered him one year before.

The six sales add up to $1080 in income. Pretty soon this'll eclipse my coaching income!!! Here's my science fiction & fantasy page.

I've also been on a couple of covers recently, for Flagship Magazine and Penumbra Magazine. Below are all thirteen covers - click on the image to see the full-sized one. 

Thirteen  Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazines with my name on the cover. Click to see full-sized versions!

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Between Games Personalities

I've been coaching for over three decades, and have coached many hundreds of players between games. It's always interesting to see the different way players act at this time. Here's a rundown of how 16 different players (half adults, half juniors, mostly top players) were like between games when I coached them. (I'm mixing in both current players and players from farther back, so don't assume these are current players. I'm using past tense for all, including current players.) I'd rather not give out their names, not even via private email, especially for the ones who were not particularly good between games.

Adult A: Very enthusiastic and determined. He always had something important to ask between games, such as whether I thought he should use this serve more, or this receive, or this type of placement. He liked to focus on finding ways to lock down the opponent by taking away his strengths with serve & receive.

Adult B: A very quiet player, he'd listen carefully to whatever I said, and then expand on it with a few brief points. If he thought there was something important I hadn't mentioned, he'd bring it up. He was very good at adjusting to changing circumstances. I probably talked more in depth tactically with this player than any others, as he was able to remember everything I said. With him, I'd often suggest several things on serve, receive, and rallying tactics, and he had no trouble absorbing it all. I coached him as a junior as well, and he was the same then. 

Adult C: This player listened to every word I said, often with eyes wide like every word was a revelation. He then went out to the table and always did exactly what I said. If circumstances changed, he'd continue to do it. He was "great" at following instructions, but tended to take them literally and wasn't able to think for himself at the table.

Adult D: This player would come to the side and immediately tell me exactly what he was doing, often in great detail, and what he needed to do differently. He mostly used me as a sounding board. After he was through talking, I'd comment briefly, mostly on the things he thought he needed to do differently.

Adult E: This player was downright argumentative, often arguing against almost anything I'd suggest. One time I finally said, "If you don't think these tactics will work, what do you suggest?" He thought for a moment, then said that my tactics would be the best possible, but still didn't think he could win. Ironically, the more negative he was, the more he seemed to win. The few times he was confident, he'd play poorly.

Adult F: This player was a nervous wreck, and really unable to handle anything but simple tactics. I made a rule to suggest one thing on serve, one thing on receive, and one thing on rallies, and keep it at that. The rest of the time we'd talk about ways to relax, such as the idea of putting all your nervousness into a ball and giving it to me to hold on to.

Adult G: This player truly liked to discuss tactics between games. The umpire often had to call "Time!" to get us back to the table. He was almost bubbly over the various tactics we'd discuss.

Adult H: I could rarely get a word in edgewise. He'd come to the sideline and literally go into a rant about what he was doing. He was actually good tactically, and I'd just listen, knowing that this was his way of re-enforcing what he needed to do. At the end, I'd make a few suggestions, he'd quiet down and clear his mind for the next game, and then go play.

Junior A: An impatient player, I sometimes felt I had to lasso him to get him to stay as he was always impatient to start the next game. If I paused between sentences he'd start to walk back to the table, and I'd have to say "I'm not done!" He was very good tactically in rallies, with great shot selection and placement, but tended to do the same simple serve and passive receives over and over. I constantly had to remind him to vary the serve and be aggressive on serve return, especially against long serves.

Junior B: He always had a game plan, and was extremely focused on finding ways to win. If he detected a weakness in his opponent, he wanted to go after it relentlessly. He was rather creative tactically, especially with his serve. Since he always knew what he was doing, I let him tell me his thoughts first, and then I'd expand on them. Some other coaches had declared him "uncoachable" because he didn't seem to listen to them, but that was because they tried telling him what to do without first hearing his own game plan, and he'd tended to shut them out of his mind because of that.

Junior C: A very nervous and often negative player in tournaments. Whether he won or lost the last game, he'd come over and start talking about how bad he was playing, how he didn't think he could win, etc. Coaching him was mostly getting him to relax and let his training take over. Tactically, he was difficult to coach since his mind tended to blank out at the table. No matter what you told him to do between game, he'd forget it at the table. For example, I'd suggest he use a particular serve, and he'd almost always forget. After the match I'd point it out and he'd look surprised and say "Oh yeah!" Then he'd get negative about how he might have won if he'd played smarter.

Junior D: A very nervous player, he often had a "deer in the headlights" look during a match, and rarely played as well in tournaments as practice. He was good tactically, but under pressure couldn't execute well. Often he'd play great tactics and dominate, and then at the end miss a series of easy balls and lose.

Junior E: This player would never say a word, but followed instructions well. She'd never have anything to say, but she'd remember exactly what serves to use, what receives, etc. Originally she was a poor tacticians, but as she got older she became smarter and smarter, though she still never said much between games.

Junior F: This kid was hilarious. He was always smiling, but was very nervous on the inside. So between games we'd briefly discuss tactics, and then I'd tell him to just close his eyes and blank out his mind. This worked for him. (I actually use this with a number of other players as a way to clear their minds before play, but with this player it became a ritual, with eyes closed, etc.)

Junior G: This player looked like he was in a constant panic attack. Between games I kept it incredibly simple, normally only suggesting perhaps a specific serve (he wouldn't remember much else anyway), and then spent the rest of the time talking about the latest movie. He knew I was just trying to get him to relax, and he'd play along, and it worked for him.

Junior H: It was usually kind of pointless coaching this kid. He was very good, but played mindlessly, and never really learned to make adjustments at the table. With him I had to limit myself to perhaps suggesting a specific serve to use, and sometimes that would get through to him. Usually he'd forget and I'd bring it up again after the next game. Ironically, he won a major title once by calling a time-out near the end of the last game in a match, walked over, and said, "Larry, what was that serve you wanted me to use?" I reminded him, and he went out and used it to win the match.

ITTF World Hopes Week - Coaches

Here's a video (3:56) from the ITTF World Hopes Week in Falkenberg, Sweden, where Slovenia coach Dr. Miran Kondric lectures coaches on proper movement. The exercise he puts the coaches through is rather funny. Perhaps the best part is near the end when you realize the Hopes kids (all about 11-12 years old) are all watching the coaches going through these antics.

PingSkills Footwork Video

Here's the latest coaching video from PingSkills: Footwork Basics (4:04)

Designer's Table Tennis Obsession

Table Tennis Nation brings you the latest news on designer Stuart Weitzman and his table tennis. (Make sure to click on the "ping pong apartment" link.)

The Emerald City Table

Apparently they are playing table tennis in the Wonderful World of Oz.

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Table Tennis Tactics: A Thinker's Guide (and other books)

Here's an update. The text is done, and I'm currently doing the page layouts. The final version will be about 240 pages, with around 70 photos or graphics. It's about 97,000 words, over twice as many words as in my "Table Tennis: Steps to Success" book, but with fewer graphics.  It'll be published both as POD (Print On Demand) and as an ebook, and sold online at amazon.com and other locations. Other than the cover, I expect to have it done within days. (I'm playing around with covers, and have three possible ones. Soon I'll decide on the basic idea, and then I'll likely hire a designer to fancify it.)

I'm about to go bigtime into selling my books online. I just bought the domain www.LarryHodgesBooks.com. Within months I hope to be selling the following as both POD and ebooks:

• Table Tennis Tactics: A Thinker's Guide
• Table Tennis Steps to Success
• Table Tennis Tales & Techniques
• Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook (updated and expanded)
• Instructor's Guide to Table Tennis (updated)
• Pings and Pongs: The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of Larry Hodges. (I should sell enough stories to have its sequel out in 2013, "More Pings and Pongs." I'm already 2/3 there. I only use stories I've already sold elsewhere, which is what gives the story the stamp of approval as being worthy of publication.)

All of the books will be 9"x6", with color covers but black & white on the inside. Right now I only know how to create ebooks for Amazon's kindle, but I expect soon to learn to publish in EPUB format, which along with the kindle version is the most popular ebook formats. And then I have to learn how to sell them in that format, since I wouldn't be able to use Amazon's platform for that. (Life was so much easier when all I did was teach people how to hit forehands.)

As a trial run, I spent the last few days preparing "Pings and Pongs" for POD and as an ebook, and this morning it went online as an ebook for $6.99. (I already downloaded my copy!) It should be ready for POD within days. The POD version would be ready now but all POD books at amazon.com have to be reviewed by staff before publication. While it's a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories, there is one story that features table tennis, "Ping-Pong Ambition," where a table tennis player is imprisoned inside a ping-pong ball by a genie for 10,000 years, where he practices table tennis and studies to be a genie himself - only to discover a surprising truth. Table tennis also comes up here and there in other stories, such as "Defeating Death, which is online at Weird Tales Magazine. Here's an excerpt:

Zargo walked to the basement door. It had been boarded up ever since an incident involving a rather unfortunate former assistant and a rather unfortunate game of ping-pong that had gotten out of hand. ("Magic and ping-pong," Zargo had solemnly said, "don't mix.")

I've also done most of the POD page layouts for "Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook" (about 50 pages) and am debating whether to get that ready for POD and ebook publication (about one day's work) or whether to put that off until "Table Tennis Tactics" is ready.

And then I start the layouts for "Steps to Success," "Tales & Techniques," and "Instructor's Guide" for both POD and ebooks. These days, when I'm not coaching or writing, I'm pretty much Larry the Layout Laborer.

I'm sort of in a rush to get as much of this stuff done as possible over the next four days. On Monday we start eleven straight weeks of training camps at the Maryland Table Tennis Center (Mon-Fri each week, 10AM-6PM), and I won't have much time or energy to spend on this during that time. We're also getting players ready for the U.S. Open in Grand Rapids, which I'll attend, primarily as a coach, as I'm only entered in one event, Hardbat Doubles with Ty Hoff (I've won the event twelve times, eight times with Ty), plus I'm in a few meetings. I leave for that on June 29, returning July 4.

Wanna Be a Champion or Just a Wannabe?

It's been a while since I posted a link to the "How to Be a Champion" series of eleven articles by top coaches. This is required reading for all table tennis players.

Cape Fear Open

The first Cape Fear Open in Fayettesville, NC, made it into the Fay Observer!

Paralympics

With both the Olympics and Paralympics coming up this summer, here's a promotional video for Paralympics (7:44).

Google Table Tennis logo

Way back in 2004, in honor of the Olympics, Google created this great table tennis google logo.

Non-Table Tennis - another cover story, ho hum

On Monday I wrote about my science fiction story "The Oysters of Pinctada" that had just gone up in the new issue of Flagship Magazine, with my name on the cover. This morning the cover for the upcoming July issue of Penumbra (a high-paying "Pro" magazine) went online, and again my name is on the cover, this time for my story "The Dragon of the Apocalypse." (It's SF even though there's an apparent dragon in the story.) Here's my Science Fiction & Fantasy page.

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Tactics Case Study

I recently had an interesting practice match with a top player. I'm not going to name the player, so I'll call him "Bob" (not his real name). Bob has a very good backhand, both looping against backspin and hitting against once in the rally. He also has a rather quick off-the-bounce forehand loop, so it can be dangerous going there. His serves are mostly short backspin or no-spin, with deep, spinny serves thrown in as a variation. When he flips short balls with his forehand, they almost always go crosscourt - a weakness I was about to ram an entire match through. He was playing well, and had just defeated two very strong players, while I was not playing very well. But tactics, not playing level, decided this match. Here's what happened.

Early on I could tell when his serve was going long, but I wasn't sure why - there was something different about the way he set up. So whenever he served long, I was ready to loop. (Near the end of the second game I realized it was because he set up for his long serve with his racket farther back and more closed. I pointed this out to him after the match.) Because I was looping his deep serves so well, he had to serve short over and over. This allowed me to drop them almost all short, often faking to the backhand and then dropping it short to his forehand. He mostly pushed these or predictably flipped them crosscourt to my forehand. In both cases, I took the attack. So throughout the match I was the aggressor on his serve.

On my serve, I gave him a steady diet of varying serves short to his forehand, occasionally to the middle. I used forehand pendulum and reverse pendulum serves from the backhand side (and occasionally, to mess him up, from the forehand side), and tomahawk serves from the middle and forehand side. This allowed me to throw both types of sidespin at him, mixed with varying backspin and topspin, as well as "heavy no-spin" serves, where I fake spin but serve a dead ball. Since his returns were either passive, or aggressive right into my forehand, I was able to attack.

When I attacked, I almost always went after his wide forehand and middle. Sometimes I'd aim at his forehand and at the last second go to his wide backhand. With his forehand he'd usually try to counterloop, but since I was getting the first attack over and over it wore him down. I could tell by the way he set up if he was ready for the longer, more aggressive loop since he'd be a step farther off the table, so when he did that I'd try to loop very short and spinny, which completely threw him off. If he stayed too close to the table, then my loops were aggressive and deep, and again his counterloop would be erratic. Any loops that landed in between he'd counter-loop away off the bounce, so depth control was key. If he did make the counterloop, he was usually vulnerable to a quick block at wide angles or to his middle. Since I knew he was going to mostly counterloop, I didn't even attempt to follow my first loop to his forehand with another; I'd set up to quick-block, which often set me up for another attack.

Another key was that when he attacked my forehand, he'd set up to counterloop my expected loop to his forehand. So often I'd get free points by looping down the line to his open backhand side.

I won the match three straight. The keys to the match? His backhand loop against backspin is very good, but he got exactly zero chances to backhand loop against backspin. Not even one. His backhand counter-hitting is very strong, and we had exactly three backhand exchanges during the match. Other than a few points on his serve where I decided to very things by chopping (yes, I do that!) he had exactly zero chances to serve and loop against a deep push. Over and over I played into that little weakness where he was unable to forehand flip down the line. I fought the temptation to vary things in a way that would allow him to get his strengths into play.

Obviously players with different styles and levels have to use tactics that are relevant to their style and level. For example I wouldn't coach a beginning-intermediate player in an important match to vary the depth of his loop - he doesn't have the depth control yet, and trying to vary the depth would just lead to his own misses. But the key is to find ways to use your strengths against the opponent's weaknesses. In the above, I focused on Bob's telegraphing of his long serve, his inability to flip down the line effectively, and his sometimes erratic forehand counterloop against varying incoming loops. I used my own strengths - ability to loop balls when I can anticipate chances to do so (against the deep serves and crosscourt flips to my forehand), varying the depth on my loop, short push control when I can anticipate a short serve (and so didn't have to guard against a deep serve), my varying short serves to his forehand, and the ability to quick-block when I know early on the opponent is going to counterloop.

ITTF Hopes Training Camp

The ITTF Hopes program is a worldwide program where the best kids age 12 and under get together to train under top coaches. This morning USA's Kanak Jha is featured on the ITTF web page. There is also a video (4:35) of a training session, featuring coach and former Swedish star Erik Lindh.

Team Tryouts for 2013 USA Maccabiah Table Tennis Team

The Tryouts will be held Aug. 26 at the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center. Here's info on the USATT web page.

Table Tennis Screensaver

Want a table tennis screensaver for your computer? Here it is!

"As One" star featured in GQ Magazine

Bae Doona, who stars as North Korea's Li Bun Hui in the new table tennis movie "As One," is featured in the June GQ Magazine. The issue isn't online yet, but here are pictures from Korean Lovers Photoblog.

Strange Looking Tables

If you are shopping for the strangest, weirdest looking tables you can find, look no further. Here are eight of the strangest, ranging from a martini table to a Spider-man table. 

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Backhand Breakthrough

Yesterday a kid I was coaching had a major breakthrough. His forehand has been coming along really well, but his backhand . . . well . . . the stroke was awkward, the contact more like a jab then a stroke, often coming out dead or even with backspin. We've spent the last few weeks focusing on this. Usually it takes him about five minutes of hitting before he can start hitting it decently at even a slow pace, quite a contrast with his nice forehand, which he impatiently steps around to smash every chance since he too was getting sick of his problematic backhand.

And then, yesterday, we hit backhand to backhand, and lo and behold, it all come together. The stroke was textbook, the contact just right. We went backhand to backhand longer than usual as I wanted to really ingrain this. He'd been thinking about backhands a lot, and the visualizing seems to have worked. Let's just way I was pleasantly surprised. So was he.

He had additional incentive. I'd promised he could start working on backhand looping only after I declared his backhand "solid," and yesterday I did just that. I cautioned him that I wanted him to still focus on ingraining the regular backhand before we spend too much time on backhand loop, but next session he's going to finally get to backhand loop against backspin (multiball).

Adventures with Print on Demand and Ebooks, and No More Volunteering

I'm now an "expert" on POD and ebooks after several hours of research. Actually, I now know pretty much what I need to create and sell them. Now I have to do the page layouts, including covers. I think I will reach my goal of having all my books on sale in both formats by the end of the year - though secretly I'm toying with getting it done by the end of August. It depends on how much energy I have at night after coaching in our MDTTC training camps, which start on Monday for eleven weeks.

One side effect is that I positively, absolutely, conclusively CANNOT TAKE ON ANY MORE VOLUNTEER PROJECTS. Right now I'm trying to be a full-time table tennis coach, a tournament director (starting this fall) and organizer; a table tennis writer and blogger; and a science fiction & fantasy writer. It seems every day I get emails asking for volunteer help on something. I just don't have time or energy for everything.

I'm on USATT's Coaching, Club, and Editorial Advisory Committees, and on the U.S. Nationwide Table Tennis League Advisory Board, but the key phrase here is "Advisory." When I was asked if I'd be willing to serve on these committees I made it clear that I would be willing to as long as it was advisory as I simply wouldn't have time to take initiative on these committees.

Olympic Coach Magazine

The new issue of Olympic Coach Magazine is out, and here's your link to that issue and past ones.

Table Tennis Gifs

Here are some great table tennis gifs. (Gifs are animated pictures.) Why are there so many cats?

• China's Wang Hao doing multiball
• Behind the back counterloop
• Forrest Gump
• Bruce Lee playing nunchucku table tennis
• Larry Hodges flipping a winner (hey, that's me!)
• Two geckos playing table tennis
• Two cats playing table tennis
• Two more cats playing table tennis
• Two kittens playing table tennis
• Cat at the net
• Cartoon looper
• Circling table tennis player
• Lady in bed playing table tennis with her feet
• Animated kids playing table tennis
• Animated Chinese kids playing table tennis
• Anime table tennis
• Five animated table tennis gifs
• Five more animated table tennis gifs
• Eight animated table tennis gifs
• Nine animated table tennis gifs
• Two pages of animated table tennis gifs (and some non-animated)
• 22 animated table tennis gifs (click on "next" to see first one)

$45,000 Ping-Pong Table

Here's the story! What makes it so expensive? The table is made of black rubber to make it extra bouncy. Here's a better picture of it. And here's a video advertisement for the table (1:46).

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Tip of the Week

Dealing with Cheaters and Poor Sportsmanship.

Bad coaches

Since this week's Tip of the Week is on Cheaters and Poor Sportsmanship, let's continue the trend and look at the dark side of coaching. There are lots of great coaches out there. And I've often blogged about good coaching habits. However, let's talk about the other side of the coin: bad coaches. Here is a list of seven types of bad coaches. (I'm sure I missed some.) There is a lot of overlap between these categories, and the differences between some of them are subtle. There are probably bad coaches who combine the worst of multiple categories!

1. Self-taught coaches who either don't really understand high-level table tennis that well. Often they were mid-level players who really think they know the game, but don't have the experience to realize they don't. The stereotypical example is the player who has had little or no experience in watching top players develop, but believe they know how it is done by watching the end product, i.e. top players (usually on video) after they have already become top players. Highly perceptive people can sometimes learn to be good tacticians this way, but to learn what a top coach does in the practice hall you have to be in the practice hall to learn.
2. Highly-opinionated coaches who can only teach one way, and often are mistaken in what they do teach. They usually were not top players, and teach techniques that they themselves have little experience at and which they don't really understand. These types of coaches are legendary, but players usually see through them once they start observing what top players actually do, and see that there are sometimes multiple ways of doing something, depending on the player's style and technique.
3. Those who can only coach their own playing style. Often they are former top players. I've seen coaches take well-developed and successful styles and practically destroy them by trying to make them play the way they did. A good coach understands the game in general, not just from his own game's point of view. Some top players are masters of knowledge regarding their own game and how it relates to playing other styles, but only know little beyond their own game.
4. Those who live in the past, who essentially say, "This is how I did it, this is how my coach did it, and this is how my coach's coach did it, so that's how you will do it." I call these types of coaches "Parrot Coaches." These types of coaches are unable to change with the times as new techniques are developed.
5. Those who do not personalize, and instead teach everyone the same. This comes out of pure laziness.
6. Those only out for money, and are impatient or unenthusiastic. They often teach sound fundamentals, but getting them to take the extra effort to really develop someone as a player is like pulling teeth.
7. Bad attitudes. Some of the "best" coaches are not very good coaches because of bad attitudes. One of my best students ever early in my coaching career reached #1 in both Under 14 and Under 16. He idealized a particular world-class player whose style he had copied, watching huge numbers of tapes of this player. Then, one day, lo and behold, the player came to the U.S., and was going to play in a major local tournament! Better still, he advertised that he would be coaching the night before at the tournament site, at a very high rate. My excited student signed up for a 30-minute lesson. They were speaking Chinese during the session, so I didn't know what they were saying as I watched, but gradually my student seemed more and more unhappy, and he left the session crying. According to him and to several onlookers who understood Chinese, the "coach" had spent the entire session berating him, insulting his game, and ended the session by telling the kid he had no potential as a top player. If I'd known what was going on, I'd have pulled him from the session immediately. Instead, completely disheartened at this treatment from his "hero," the kid barely tried that weekend, losing to nearly everyone as I watched helplessly from the sidelines, and never really overcame it. After years of training six days a week, he stopped trying in training sessions, stopped trying in school, and six months later, his parents pulled him from table tennis. (I later found out that this top player was notorious for this type of thing.)

Interview with Stellan Bengtsson on Sports Psychology

Table tennis sports psychologist Dora Kurimay interviews Coach Stellan Bengtsson (1971 World Men's Singles Champion) on the most important aspects of sports psychology.

Spin City Sports Table Tennis

Here's an article from the Tampa Bay Times on the Spin City Sports full-time table tennis club in Largo, Florida.

Great Point, Great Shot

Here's a video of a great 34-shot rally in the final of the Japan Open this past weekend, with Japan's Jun Mizutani (the lefty on the far side) fishing or lobbing back 13 shots in a row against Korea's Oh Sang Eun, ending with one of the best point-winning lobs you'll ever see. (Mizutani wins the final, 9,9,.-11,-4,12,5.)

Ping-Pong Death Match

Since we have an interview with Bengtsson on sports psychology, it's only appropriate that we end with a video of a Ping-Pong Death Match (5:28). Ever play ping-pong with a guy who takes the game way too seriously?

Non-Table Tennis - New SF Story Published

My science fiction story "The Oysters of Pinctada" went up today in the new issue of Flagship Magazine. My name's on the cover! Alas, you'll have to buy the issue to read the story. (Here's my Science Fiction & Fantasy page.)

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