Tip of the Week: Playing Lefties

What are three keys to playing lefties?

MDTTC Training Camp

Today we're starting the last of our MDTTC summer camps, a two-week session, Aug. 8-12, 15-19 (Mon-Fri both weeks). By the end of these two weeks there will be many enlightened, improving players, and my back will feel like what happens when a supernova wrestles a quasar. (After the camp I plan on taking 4-6 weeks off, where I have local top players or juniors do my hitting while I coach so my back can get better.)

Have you ever been to a table tennis camp? Well, what are you waiting for - sign up for one! They are great fun and you'll learn a lot.  You'll have sore muscles, but it's a "good pain." (Note - MDTTC camps are primarily for juniors, though a few adults sometimes participate. But there are plenty of camps for all ages.) Here's a listing of some training camps. It might be too late for most summer camps, but now's the time to start thinking about Christmas camps in December! 

No more celluloid balls?

There have been rumors flying about regarding the apparent ban on celluloid ping-pong balls. I emailed ITTF President Adham Sharara, and here's his response:

There are no new rules, but there will be new balls after the Olympic Games [2012] which will be made from composite material. The celluloid ban is not from the ITTF but from governments. It is currently already banned in most countries, not the use of the finished material, but the production of the celluloid sheets. It is for health reasons. Same as asbestos, there was no problem as long as Korea and China were accepting to have celluloid production factories. But now both governments and others want to stop the production and handling of celluloid due to the negative effects it has on lungs (lung cancer, fibrosis, etc.).

So the ITTF will adapt a new type of ball made of composite materials other than celluloid. We take this opportunity to make it seamless, even hardness, and non-flammable. The rules remain the same, but the Technical leaflet (document given to manufacturers) will change.

Adham

Anticipation in sports

Here are two articles on anticipation in sports - must reads for any serious coach or player

• Wayne Gretzky-Style 'Field Sense' May Be Teachable
• It's All About Anticipation

Coaching seminar in Denver

Here's the ITTF article on the USATT Coaching Chair Richard McAfee just finished an ITTF coaching seminar at the Topspin TT Club in Denver, CO, with 14 coaches.

Transcending Table Tennis

Part 3 of "Transcending Table Tennis" is now out! (I've previously given links to the first two parts when they came out.) These are videos that showcase the best of our sport, set to music in slow motion, and great for both inspiration and to study technique. Here are all three parts.

• Part 1 (5:50)
• Part 2 (4:37)
• Part 3 (9:15)

Sprint 3-D phone TT Commercial

This 30-second video features table tennis, and gives me a chance to mention how much I hate Sprint. You see, my first cell phone was from Sprint, circa late 1990s. It broke down every two minutes. The battery died every other day. The only reception came on the roof of the Empire State building. And the customer service number was a hotline to Al Qaeda. Finally, in absolute disgust (and I'm not making this up), I took the phone over to the warehouse for North American Table Tennis, where they stored huge numbers of equipment, and had a forklift that weighed more than Godzilla. Its front wheel was like the type on a steamroller. We ran the forklift over the Sprint cell phone. It wasn't pretty, but it was fun. (I switched to Verizon, which has worked out great.)

The hottest chick in table tennis?

Judge for yourself.

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Special Section on Ping-Pong Balls

Three-stars and two-stars and one-stars, oh my!

A couple of decades ago you could pretty much tell the star level of a ball with a couple of shots, or by simply examining it. Manufacturing simply wasn't that precise. Your typical one-star or training ball was shaped like an egg with seams the size of a Godzilla wedding ring. But times have changed. These days even training balls are pretty round and consistent, and usable for training even at the higher levels. The main advantage of a three-star ball is that they have been carefully checked, and so you know (well, usually) they are good. Training balls are usually good - but that's not a whole lot different than three-star balls. As to two-star balls, I don't think I've seen one in years - does anyone use them? Also, since training balls and one-star balls are often the same thing, the huge majority of balls used are either one-star/training balls or three-stars.

Here's a challenge. Randomly select five or so three-star balls. Then get the same number of one-star/training balls of the same brand and color. Mix them up, and hit with them. Can you really tell the difference? Only an elite player can really tell the difference in most cases. But I don't think there's that much difference anymore, at least in the ones I've used - Butterfly, Nittaku, Stiga, and JOOLA balls.

I know some players are rather finicky about the ball. Do you agree with the above?

Celluloid ping-pong balls banned?

I'm told that celluloid balls will be banned after the 2012 Olympics, replaced by seamless balls made of some other sort of plastic. The reason given is the high flammability of celluloid - apparently there have been a few accidents. I can't find info on this on the ITTF home page, so I've emailed them asking about this. If anyone can find something official on this, let me know. (I found some new rules posted on a forum, but no link to where they came from.) One other note - the new balls will be slightly wider. The current rule is 40mm, plus or minus .5 (so between 39.5 and 40.5mm). The new rule would be between 40 and 40.6mm. So after going from 38mm to 40mm a few years ago, now we'll be at about 40.3mm on average. I'm not sure of the reason for this.

Serve With the Red Side With an Orange Ball

[Note - this is a Tip of the Month I wrote years ago for USA Table Tennis.]

It’s a game of inches, and you have to use every fair and legal advantage you can get. It’s easier to see an orange ball against a black background than against a red background, so if you serve with the red side, your opponent may not see contact as well. In fact, if you push a lot with your backhand, you should consider using red on your backhand for that reason. (Unfortunately, I rarely follow this tip for serving, since I have black on my forehand, and I serve almost exclusively forehand serves. I don't flip - the advantage simply isn't large enough.)

What one can do with a ping-pong ball

Here's what Adam Bobrow does with a ping-pong ball when someone made fun of our sport. Video is 76 seconds; wait'll you see what he does with the ball 40 seconds in!

How to make a ping-pong ball

Here's a nice article (with pictures) of the manufacturing process of a ping-pong ball.

Physics of a bouncing ping-pong ball

Yes, now you can learn why a bouncing ping-pong ball ... bounces! And you don't have any technical knowledge to follow this

Flashing ping-pong ball

And now that you've learned how and why they bounce, you can start trying to figure out why these ones flash! (25 sec. video)

Videos featuring ping-pong balls

There are more in the Humorous Table Tennis Videos section.

• Ping-Pong ball stop-action manipulation. (4:02)
• Illusionist Brock Gill performs magic with ping-pong balls. (6:13)
• Ball-juggling table tennis robot (1:37) - go to 1:05 when the second ball is added!
• Ping-Pong Power Puma Girl shows her power of hundreds of ping-pong balls! (0:48)

Ping-pong ball pictures

• Buried in ping-pong balls
• Ping-pong ball eyes
• Watch the ball!
• Ping-pong ball light shade
• An apartment made with 25,000 ping-pong balls
• Ping-pong ball covered car
• Ping-pong ball interior decorating

Ping-pong ball guns

Here are nine videos that show how to make and use a ping-pong gun. Stick 'em up!

• How to build a ping-pong gun. (1:42)
• How to make a ping-pong gun. (2:29)
• How to make a monster ping-pong gun. (0.51)
• The making and shooting of a ping-pong ball cannon. (2:18)
• Ping-pong ball cannon. (0.16)
• Lethal ping-pong gun. (0.22)
• Table tennis ball gun. (0:44)
• Failed ping-pong gun. (0.59)
• Ping-pong gun demo. (2:59)

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Grip and Stance

I had a student last night who played his forehand in a nearly backhand position, facing the table. He also held the racket with his index finger almost down the middle, resulting in a floppy, wristy forehand. When I tried to get him to change his grip, his forehand looked like a jellyfish trying to do the wave. When I tried getting him to rotate his shoulders back on the forehand so he could use the whole forehand hitting zone, let's just say that too didn't work. It wasn't until I told him to change the grip and rotate his shoulders back that a little light bulb went off over his head, and suddenly his forehand came alive. We did about 30 minutes of multiball on his forehand, and now he's swinging like a pro. Well, at least in practice. It'll take time to incorporate it into a game.

Feature coaching videos from PingSkills

PingSkills has a number of free coaching videos on just about every subject, conveniently divided into beginner (Bronze), intermediate (Silver) and advanced (Gold) sections. Browse around a bit!

Fred Danner's Ping-Pong Diplomacy book

U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Famer Fred Danner is writing a book about Ping-Pong Diplomacy. With permission from Tim Boggan and master photographer Mal Anderson (both also Hall of Famers), I've been supplying photos from Tim's eleven books (so far!) on U.S. Table Tennis History, including his own book on Ping-Pong Diplomacy. (I've been doing the layouts and photo work on Tim's books - and I'm also a Hall of Famer! Yeah, they'll put anyone in there.) I'll give updates when the books ready to come out.

Back problems

You know you have serious back issues when it wakes you up at 4AM by jabbing a heated fire prong into itself. I know, I know, I need to rest it . . . but I really can't, not until Aug. 20. I've got a two-week training camp starting on Monday, and gee, it's my job! So I'll just grit my teeth and learn to love those loving, fiery jabs. Even now, it's literally killing me. I wonder what a bowl of Ibuprofen in milk, with sugar sprinkled on, for breakfast would be like?

Full-time professional table tennis clubs

Here is a listing of full-time professional table tennis clubs in the U.S., also pasted below. I'm sure I'm missing some - if you know of any, please email me. I'll periodically add updates. The current count is 48.

To me, a full-time professional club (roughly speaking) has a website, at least five or more tables, is open at least six days a week, has professional coaches (preferably at least one full-time), a junior program, and a league. If it's missing one of these but has the others, it might make the cut. For example, if a club is only open five days a week, but has fifty tables and ten professional coaches, leagues, junior programs, etc., that's a full-time professional club in my mind. So for now, there is some subjectivity in the listing.

There are also other models. For example, in Minneapolis/St. Paul, there are a number of playing clubs that, combined, add up to full-time table tennis - but there's no full-time center, so they don't make this particular list. Until a few years ago, this was also the situation in the San Francisco bay area. Now full-time clubs are popping up all over the place there.

There are some clubs that might be on this list but they don't have a website. For example, I'm told that the Spin Garden and Korea Town clubs in Los Angeles would make the list, and another in Chinatown area of Las Vegas - but they don't have websites. In this day and age, a professional table tennis center that does not have a website is a cry to stay hidden. If they don't want to be advertised, so be it. However, if an officer from one of those clubs emails me and asks to be listed, and gives me something I can link to - hopefully a website, otherwise an email address - I'll add them to the list.

Can someone tell me what's the deal with all the full-time clubs (4) in Flushing, NY??? (Population: 176,000.)

I've put a permanent link to the page in the Articles section, under Coaching Resources. And now . . . here's The List!

Table Tennis & More, Phoenix, AZ

Alameda Table Tennis Club, Alameda, CA
Gao Jun Table Tennis Center, El Monte, CA
Gilbert Table Tennis Center, Los Angeles, CA
Grace Lin Table Tennis Center, El Monte, CA
ICC Table Tennis, Milpitas, CA
Los Angeles Table Tennis Association, El Monte, CA
Ping-Pong Dojo, Milpitas, CA
Power Pong, Huntington Beach, CA
San Diego Table Tennis Association, San Diego, CA
Sung Hwan Bae Table Tennis Club, Santa Ana, CA
Topspin Table Tennis/World Champions Table Tennis Academy, San Jose, CA
USA Valley Table Tennis Club, Reseda, CA
Westminster Table Tennis Club, Westminster, CA

Orlando Stars Table Tennis Academy, Orlando, FL
Broward Table Tennis Club, Dania Beach, FL

Yang's Table Tennis Club, Duluth, GA

Chicago Slam Table Tennis Club, Chicago, IL
Table Tennis Chicago, Chicago, IL

Club JOOLA, Rockville, MD
Maryland Table Tennis Center, Gaithersburg, MD

Boston Table Tennis Center, Medford, MA

Las Vegas Table Tennis Club, Las Vegas, NV

Lily Yip Table Tennis Center, Dunellen, NJ
New Jersey Table Tennis Club, Westfield, NJ

Chinese Community Center of Flushing, Flushing, NY
Dynamo Table Tennis Club, Brooklyn, NY
New York International Table Tennis Center, Flushing, NY
New York Table Tennis, Flushing, NY
New York Table Tennis Club, Flushing, NY
New York Table Tennis Federation, New York, NY
Port Washington Table Tennis Club, Port Washington, NY
Spin New York, New York, NY
Wang Chen Table Tennis Club, New York, NY
Westchester Table Tennis Center, Pleasantville, NY

Columbus Table Tennis Club, Columbus, OH

Blitz Pong, Portland, OR
Portland Table Tennis Club, Portland, OR
Willamette Table Tennis Club, Salem, OR

The Table Tennis Centre, Mercersburg, PA
Trolley Car Table Tennis Club, Philadelphia, PA

Rhode Island Table Tennis Club, Manville, RI

Austin Table Tennis Association, Austin, TX
Dallas Table Tennis Club, Dallas, TX
Houston Table Tennis Association, Houston, TX

Northern Virginia Table Tennis Center, Chantilly, VA

Seattle Pacific Table Tennis Club, Bellevue, WA
Washington Table Tennis Center, Bellevue, WA

Spin Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
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Perfecting your serve

Samson Dubina (2009 USA Nationals Men's Singles Finalist and full-time coach) explains how to perfect your serve, breaking it down point by point. I've always said serve and receive are the most under-developed parts of the game for most players. And serves are the easiest part to develop since you can practice them alone. To quote Nike, just do it!

Here are some articles I've written on serving:

• Serves to Help You Win
• Ten-Point Plan to Serving Success
• Deception on Serves: Using Semi-Circular Motion
• Maximize Your Service Play
• Serving Short
• Serving Long
• The Fifteen Fast and Deep Serves
• The High Toss Serve
• The No-Spin Serve
• Contact the Ball as Low as You Can When Serving
• Holding Back on Serves
• Hardbat Serving Tips
• Strengths and Weaknesses of the Four Major Serves

Here are some videos on serving:

• How to Serve in Table Tennis. Set to music. Some pretty good serves demonstrated by unknown player. (3:56)
• Pro Table Tennis Serves: A clip from the Pro Table Tennis Serves DVD by Alpha Table Tennis Productions. (1:19)
• Ten Serves (slow motion). (1:58)
• Timo Boll Serves. (1:57)
• Learning the Ma Lin serve, step by step. (5:12)
• Wang Hao practicing serves with Coach Liu Guoliang. (0:59)
• Magic Serves (3:51)

Drop shot against a lob

Here's a Pingskills coaching video on how to drop shot a lob (2:23). I'm a little hesitant about drop-shotting lobs that land short as those are the very ones you can smother kill at wide angles, but if you don't have great power, and you are up against a good lobber who's in position and just gave a ferociously topspinny lob that goes short, this is often the best option.

Trolley Car Table Tennis Club

Back on April 8, Philadelphia joined the ever-growing number of big cities with full-time table tennis centers with the Trolley Car Table Tennis Club. They are now they are running a coaching clinic (Aug. 6-7 with coaches Razvan Cretu and Choor Oh) as well as their third tournament (Aug. 13-14, with others scheduled every two months). The club has four coaches (Razvan Cretu, Gerald Reid, Enoch Green, and Choor Oh), eight tables, has a league on Tuesday nights, and is open seven days a week. Here's video (0:24) of their Grand Opening, which includes Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter playing.

Full-time table tennis centers

I'm thinking of putting together a listing of full-time table tennis centers in the U.S. I know of most of them, but if you know of any "obscure" ones, or want to put together a listing yourself, please send it to me! I know of a number in Maryland, the San Francisco bay area, Los Angeles, New York City, and a few here and there. I may have certain requirements - a room with a table isn't a full-time table tennis center. To me, a full-time center (roughly speaking) has a website, at least five or more tables, is open seven days a week (six is acceptable), has professional coaches (preferably at least one full-time), a junior program, and a league. If it's missing one of these but has most of the others, it might make the cut. (This will probably be in tomorrow's blog.)

Back problems - update

As noted in a number of blog posts, I've been having major upper back problems the last few months, which has dramatically affected my coaching and playing. (I already saw an orthopedist sports medicine doctor, and am doing various back exercises.) This past weekend I coached only one hour on Saturday, all multiball, and my back was pretty much okay. On Sunday, I coached two and a half hours - some multiball, most live - and my back was starting to go. Then Coach Cheng Yinghua talked me into joining the two-hour junior session, saying I'd only play beginners. (I had been doing this regularly until my back problems started.) Somehow I agreed, and two hours later my back had gone from bad to massive catastrophe. I was in agonizing pain the next two days. Here's an experiment for you: get a spear, heat up the tip over a fire, and then stick it in your upper back. Welcome to my world.

I've got a two-week camp at Maryland Table Tennis Center starting next week (Aug. 8-12, 15-19, plus regular coaching on the weekend in between), and since that's my job, I'm stocking up with Ibuprofen. Afterwards I may bring in one of our top junior players to do my hitting for me when I coach for 4-6 weeks so the back can heal.

Director Spike Jonze playing with a what?

No day is complete without a picture of Director Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation," "Where the Wild Things Are," many more) playing table tennis with his shoe. (And I just learned from his online bio that he lives in Rockville, Maryland, just a few miles from me!)***

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Celebrities Playing Table Tennis

Yes, it's that time of month again - the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis site gets updated around the first of each month. There are now 1234 pictures of 720 different celebrities playing table tennis - and any short listing of the Who's Who of Celebrities Playing Table Tennis just wouldn't do it justice! There are sections on Politicians/Leaders; Actors and Actresses; Athletes; Musicians; Talk Show Hosts; Writers; Cartoon Characters; and many more!

New celebrities playing table tennis pictures this month include actors Tom Hanks, Haley Joel Osment, Justin Timberlake, Sam Rockwell, Claudette Colbert, Esther Williams, Broderick Crawford; Prince Akihito of Japan (now Emperor); Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco; John Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister of England; Ed Nixon, brother of Richard M. Nixon; golfer Tiger Woods; tennis players Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs; Chinese Olympic Gold Medalist Hurdler Liu Xiang; pool star Mika Immoren; talk show host Regis Philbin; singers Lil Jon and Anne-Marie Godart; English socialite Lady Norah Docker; and cartoon character Donald Duck.

Short sidespin serve to the forehand

Can you serve a short sidespin serve to the forehand that breaks away from a right-hander? A LOT of players have great difficulty with this serve, and many can't return it except crosscourt, i.e. into a right-handed server's forehand. If you play one of these players and can't do this, you are handicapping yourself. Shouldn't you be ready to throw this serve at these people? Three common ways of doing this serve: the forehand tomahawk serve (i.e. racket tip up); reverse forehand pendulum serve; and the regular backhand serve. (This may be expanded into a Tip of the Week.)

New USATT logo

In case you haven't noticed, USATT recently got a new logo. They went from this to this. (The new one is now up on the USATT home page.) One USATT board member told me at the U.S. Open last month that this symbolizes the "new" USATT, and that things were now different.

To quote the oft-used phrase from the fantasy novel "A Dance with Dragons," words are just wind. (Not always, of course, but words that aren't backed up by action are.) To expand on this, logos are just pixels. Things will be different when USATT addresses the real problems of expanding the sport in this country - and that means accepting that our 8000 or so members is (as noted at the infamous Strategic Meeting in 2009) a round-off error, and that we need to find ways to expand on this - like countries like Germany and England have done through leagues (700,000 and 500,000 members respectively), or how they and other countries like Sweden and France developed top players and large junior membership through club-based junior programs. (I'm using the European examples because their situation is more similar to the U.S.'s, as opposed to, say, China, where table tennis became popular because it was decreed to be the national sport by Chairman Mao.)

New Players, Tennis versus Table Tennis

When a new player walks into a typical tennis club in the U.S., he can sign up for a league with players at his level, for private or group coaching, and kids can sign up for junior training programs. When a new player walks into a typical table tennis club in the U.S., they tell him to call winners on a table, where he gets killed by experienced players, and since there are few leagues where he can compete against players his level, little group or private coaching, and few junior programs for kids, they rarely return. The solution, of course, is a new USATT logo. :) At some point, I'll expand more on this novel concept of table tennis clubs actually addressing the needs of new players as a way of getting new players.

Tennis has been my "side sport" for many years, and I spent years going to a training program twice a week where 3-5 of us would work with a coach, who ran us to death. I also competed in USTA tennis leagues (I'm up to about 4.0 level now), and discussed the tennis situation with tennis coaches extensively. We could learn a lot from tennis if we were only willing to listen.

Ping-Pong for Poverty

If you are anywhere in the vicinity of Virginia Beach Sept. 30 - Oct. 1, why not play in the Ping-Pong for Poverty charity tournament?

The Traveling Ping-Pong Parlor

Yes, a truck that brings table tennis to the masses! Who'd have thunk it. (1:52)

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Tip of the Week: Jerky Strokes and Jerkyitis

Yes, you can cure that terrible disease that plagues table tennis - Jerkyitis. Here's how.

Comments on this Blog

While there are a lot of readers on this blog - we're averaging well over 300 per day - there are few comments. Feel free to express yourself! It doesn't have to be Q&A, where readers grill me over what I wrote. Feel free to comment with your own experiences, suggestions, dumb puns or jokes, etc.

Funny table tennis terms

Table tennis has some funny terms. Here are three examples:

• Heavy no-spin - a serve where you use an exaggerated motion to make it look like there's spin but instead serve no-spin.
• Fishing - if you don't know what this is, it's explained here.
• Inside-out off-the-bounce sidespin forehand counterloop - say that fast five times.

What are your own favorite table tennis terms, either real or made up?

Americans in China

A lot of USA juniors are training in China this summer, and it's getting lonely at the club without the pitter-patter of their feet as they race around ripping winners past me. Six top juniors from the Maryland Table Tennis Center (my club) are in China training this summer - Tong Gong, Linan Liu, Pamela Song, George & Derek Nie, and Crystal Wang. Others, like John & Nathan Hsu, stayed home, and are training daily with Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Jeffrey Zeng Xun, Sun Ting, and others.

Table tennis movie

The movie "Korea" is coming out next year. It is based on the true story of the South Korean and North Korean women’s table tennis teams combining forces at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan, where they upset the dominating Chinese team. (At the time, China had won women's teams at every worlds since 1973, when South Korea had won. China would go back to winning afterwards, winning every time until the Singapore team upset them in 2010, with a team made of mostly former Chinese players.)

Problems with the "Winner Stay On" club format

Scott Gordon explains why this isn't such a good format; I concur. Scott also gives his own club's solution to the problem.

Zhang Yining plays the Milwaukee Brewers

Find out how Corey Hart, John Axford and Zack Greinke fare against one of the greatest women players of all time (2:28). (Here's info on Zhang Yining.)

2011 US Open Sandpaper Finals  

In case you missed it - and let's face it, these rallies are great! Alas, there are few such rallies in sponge table tennis.

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Sometimes play into an opponent's strength

Something that needs re-emphasis - if something your opponent does give you trouble (other than serves), play into it until you are comfortable with it. Then, just when the opponent has gotten comfortable doing this thing, avoid it like the plague. He'll still probably get to use it, but now you'll be comfortable against it, and he'll have to adjust his whole game in mid-match to find ways to use it. How many times have you come off a table with a loss still feeling uncomfortable against whatever it was your opponent was doing and feeling like you have no answer for it? That should never happen in any match that is remotely competitive.

A classic example is playing someone with short pips on the backhand. If you have trouble with the short pips, play into it until you are comfortable.

Why you choke

Here's an interesting and informative video by former English Table Tennis Champion Matthew Syed on Why Players Choke (5:03). If you are interested in sports psychology, I recommend Dora Kurimay's Table Tennis Sports Psychology page, as well as other articles on sports psychology and my own article on Confidence - then Consistency. I also recommend three books: With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham, The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey, and Winning Ugly by Brad Gilbert. (They use other sports as examples, but all apply to table tennis as well.)

Sponge hardness

Here's an informative article - or rather, series of short tidbits - on sponge hardness, by top coaches and players Stellan Bengtsson, Samson Dubina, Massimo Constantini, Tahl Leibovitz, Sara Fu, and Scott Lurty.

Paul Drinkhall versus the World (or rather China)

Here's an interesting article on England's #1 Paul Drinkhall hoping to break the Chinese domination of table tennis. My first thought is, "Good luck with that!" My second thought is, "Good luck with that," but without the italics on "that." After all, I'm sure people thought the same thing of the Swedes, Hungarians, and Koreans when they attempted to overtake the Chinese, and at various times they all did so.

Back rehab update

As I've blogged previously, I've been having upper back problems which have affected my coaching and playing. I saw an orthopedist sports medicine doctor last Wednesday, nine days ago. He referred me to the Center for Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation (which he was affiliated with) for rehab. I called them over and over last Thursday, but no answer, the phone just rang and rang. I tried again on Friday, still no answer, and again on Saturday. I tried again on Monday morning, still no answer. So I called the doctor's office that morning, and they apologized, and said they'd set things up for me and get back to me that day. Nobody called back. On Tuesday I called one more time, no answer. So yesterday I did a web search for "upper back rehabilitation exercises" and found some excellent websites - in particular this and this. I'm now doing my own routine, about 10-15 minutes a day.

Pings and Pongs

What - you mean you haven't yet bought a copy of Pings and Pongs, an anthology of my thirty best published short science fiction & fantasy stories??? Well, what are you waiting for!!! It's only $14.95! It even includes a fantasy table tennis story ("Ping-Pong Ambition")! (Outside table tennis, I'm a science fiction and fantasy writer.) And while you're at it, get a copy of my books Table Tennis Tales & Techniques and Table Tennis: Steps to Success!

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Fixing the backhand

I had an interesting coaching experience yesterday with a new ten-year-old student. He'd picked up the forehand pretty well, but was struggling on the backhand. Over and over he'd stick his elbow way out to the side and drop the racket tip during the forward swing, contacting the ball with an awkward downward backspin swat, and follow through with his arm extended completely forward, as if he were lunging for something. Over and over I went through the stroke with him, but nothing worked. I told him to keep the racket tip up, keep the elbow in, hit the ball with a slight upward swing with topspin, and not to follow-through with his arm lunging forward. The problem was that all these were symptoms of the one actual problem. I suddenly realized he was contacting the ball too far out in front. When I told him to take the ball closer to his body, in one swoop all the problems disappeared - instant good technique as frustration on both sides of the net changed to sheer glee. Within minutes we were smacking backhands back and forth like pros.

A National Table Tennis League?

Countries like Germany (700,000 members), England (500,000 members), and just about every other country in Europe gets its huge memberships through team leagues. The same is true of most major participation sports in the U.S. and throughout the world. I've tried for years to convince USATT to study how the European leagues were created and spread, including at the 2009 Strategic Meeting, but I don't seem to be very persuasive, even on the most obvious things. My basic recommendation is that they set up a fact-finding committee to meet with German, English, and other league officials at the World Championships, get the facts, and then get the major league directors in the U.S. together, and lock them in a room and tell them they can't come out until they create a model for a U.S. league. Once this is created, then whenever someone wants to create a regional league, they don't have to reinvent the wheel; we supply them with this model. That's how table tennis and most other sports did it in the U.S. and throughout the world, and that's how we should do it.

Alas, I've been unable to convince USATT of this idea - I couldn't even get them to meet with the people who set up these huge leagues to get the facts - and so while they spend a lot of time talking about doing such things, little actually gets done. Fortunately, some local groups have been taking action on their own, creating their own regional leagues that hopefully can spread, such as ones in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York City. If the sport gets big in the U.S., it'll be through such independent efforts - though it sure would help if USATT would choose to be a catalyst for this type of thing instead of sitting on the sidelines hoping others will do so.

I once tried setting up a USATT League, with the idea of starting with a singles league to bring in players (easier to set up initially), and then move to teams, but USATT not only wouldn't support it (except as cheerleaders), they took the $15,000 brought in by the league (memberships and sponsors) and used it for other things. Without a penny of support, and with all income from the league taken out, I found myself trying to set up and run a nationwide league pretty much single-handed (with programming help from Robert Mayer) in my free time (I was also editor of USATT Magazine at the time, plus coaching at my club), and finally pretty much gave up on it.

And yet the USATT League is still running in many clubs, with nearly as many processed matches each month as USATT tournament matches. Since the league began in 2003, there have been 263,433 processed league matches by 13,381 players in 318 leagues. So far this year there have been 33,255 processed matches, an average of 5772 per month through June. For perspective, there were 6264 processed USATT tournament matches in June, and there have been many months where there were more league matches than USATT tournament matches. The league is pretty much self-run by the software.

The Yorkshire Table Tennis League

Here's actual footage of the Yorkshire Table Tennis League, where they play by their own rules - no net, no paddles, and an oversized ball! The 39-shot rally shown in this 31-second video shows that the sport is going to the dogs - but at least one of these players is using his head, or more specifically his nose. This is table tennis at its highest and purest, a model for table tennis everywhere.

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Your "Go To" serves?

What are your "go to" serves, the serves you use whenever possible both to build up a lead and to win key points? These could be set-up serves that set you up to attack or to get into your favorite type of rally, or they could be trick serves designed to win the point outright or set up an easy winner. I have zillions of serve variations, but here are some of my major "go to" serves. Most of my serves are forehand pendulum serves, but I use different motions to fool opponents.

Set-up Serves

• Forehand pendulum short sidespin or side-top to the middle and backhand. While players often misread this serve as backspin and pop it up (easy winner!), it's designed to force a relatively soft but deep return that sets up an aggressive loop.
• Forehand pendulum short, heavy backspin to the middle. This is usually pushed back long but heavy, setting up a very spinny forehand loop. I do it mostly to the middle so there are no extreme angles - I don't want to have to react to both heavy spin and angle. Key is to keep it very low so opponent won't attack it.
• Forehand pendulum short no-spin. I do this to all parts of the table. It's usually pushed back with light backspin, often popped up slightly, and sets up an aggressive forehand loop. Key is to use a lot of motion so it looks like heavy backspin ("heavy no-spin"), and to keep it very low. (To serve "heavy no-spin," use a normal spin motion, but instead of contacting near the tip of the racket, contact near the handle.)
• Forehand pendulum fast sidespin to the backhand. The key is to break it into the opponent's wide backhand, so they have to reach for it awkwardly. Since it's rarely returned down the line, I can step around and use my forehand from the backhand side.
• Reverse forehand pendulum short sidespin to the forehand. Most players flip this to my wide forehand. Since I'm expecting it, it sets up an aggressive forehand loop or smash.

Trick Serves

• Forehand pendulum fast down the line. This is against aggressive forehand loopers who are looking to step around, and is often an ace. Even if they don't step around, it still often catches them off-guard, forcing a miss. Plus I put sidespin on the serve, forcing more mistakes.
• Forehand pendulum fast and dead to the middle. This goes into the net over and over. Aim right for the opponent's elbow. It's not too effective against a forehand looper, who just loops it.
• Tomahawk serve to the forehand, short or long. Because it jumps away from the opponent, they often reach for it at the last second, and so miss, usually hitting it long.

Table tennis - Sport for the Unathletic?

They list ten: croquet, curling, bowling, chess, pool, golf, archery, shooting, table tennis, and dressage (a form of horseback riding). We're not only in the listing (at #9, though I don't think there's any order to it), but we're the cover sport as well! Anyone with any knowledge of these sports would know that top table tennis players are among the most physical athletes in the world. Should we storm CNBC with a barrage of ping-pong balls?

Coaches fundraising?

I keep getting these notes in the mail (yes, regular mail) from ESPN Magazine on Coaches Fundraising by having students sell ESPN Magazine. Here's info. Don't know if this is a worthy fundraising method (perhaps to fund a junior team to a major tournament) or just another commercial venture.

The Amazing Michael Maze

Here are highlight reels of him when he was younger (4:38).

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Table tennis equipment reviews

I have a new student who is interested in table tennis robots. While I'm familiar with them and have hit with most of the major brands, I'm no expert. I told the student I'd investigate them and see what the best values were - he was hoping for one under $1000, and I was hoping for one that could alternate hitting the ball in at least two places (i.e. one to forehand, one to backhand) so he could do a side-to-side footwork drill on it. And lo and behold, I was referred to Denis' Table Tennis World, which reviews just about all table tennis equipment, including robots. Very useful! If you are interested in equipment reviews, then stop by this site and browse away.

I've browsed the robot reviews, and later today plan to go over them more carefully so I can make a recommendation to the student. (They don't seem to have a review yet for the ipong, the newest but coolest looking low-end model.) No, I'm not going to make my recommendation public; I don't have enough first-hand knowledge of the robots to do that. All I can do is go by what others say.

Two Months Notice to USATT

In exactly two months, it'll be two years since USATT finished its "Strategic Meeting" at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs on Sept. 25-26, 2009. The focus of the meeting was how to increase membership. Everyone agreed our membership (in the 8-9000 range) was a "round-off error." Many slogans were created (*sigh*), and three strategic priorities: Juniors, Grow Membership Through Added Value, and Communications. (I consider the Communications priority pointless unless one of the first two gives USATT something to communicate about.) Three task forces were created for these three priorities.

This was the fourth such "Strategic Meeting" I've attended with USATT. All four times I've argued that to be successful, specific goals needed to be created, and specific plans to reach those goals. However, each time others disagreed, and so we were left with just generic priorities. I also argued that the Junior priority should be about recruiting and training coaches to create club-based junior programs, as has been done so successfully in table tennis and other sports worldwide, and that the "Grow Membership" priority should instead be Leagues, as that's how other countries have grown their membership in table tennis and other sports worldwide. However, I was unable to persuade the majority of this view. 

And so on Sept. 26 this year, two years after the meeting, I will ask USATT what they have accomplished since that time. Have we taken our game "to the next level"? I absolutely won't want to hear of things they plan to do; the time for that is well past. I'm going to ask them what they have done. I hope they have an answer. If they don't, perhaps it is time they revisit the way table tennis and other sports have successfully grown worldwide and try to emulate it, rather than constantly and poorly trying to reinvent the wheel?

Back problems and the Search for the Physical Therapists

As I blogged last week, I saw a orthopedist sports medicine doctor on Wednesday last week about upper back problems that are interfering with my table tennis playing and coaching. He referred me to the Center for Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation, which was conveniently located near me. (I even stopped by to see the place, and it's pretty nice.) So I called on Thursday morning to schedule my twice-weekly meetings. No answer, and no answering service; it just rang and rang. I called numerous times that day, no answer. I tried again all day on Friday, still no answer. I tried again Monday morning, still no answer. So that morning I called back the doctor's office and told them what was happening. They said they'd never had a problem calling them, and that they'd contact them and get them to call me. No one called back. Now it's Tuesday, five days since I first started calling the place. *Sigh*.

Politicians are playing ping-pong with our economy

So why not take a look at the Politicians and Leaders section of the "Celebrities Playing Table Tennis" page? Here's an alphabetical listing - see how many you recognize! (I've bolded some of the more interesting ones, with apologies to those unbolded.)

Prince Akihito, Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Yasser Arafat, Princess Beatrix, Enrico Berlinguer, Tony Blair, Camilla Parker Bowles, Charles Wayland Brooks, Gordon Brown, Andy Burnham, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Felipe Calderon, Dave Cameron, Juan Carlos, Fidel Castro, Prince Charles, Chiang Kai-shek, Chou En-lai, Jean Chrétien, Bill & Hillary Clinton, Norm Coleman, Irvin Cotler, Bao Dai, Jean-Louis Debre, Alexandra Dinges, Ian Duncan-Smith, Dr. Katharina Focke, Tipper Gore, Stephen Harper, Michael Howard, Mike Huckabee, Princess Irene, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, Boris Johnson, John Kerry, Henry Kissinger, Horst Koehler, Alexandre Kwasniewski, Richard Lagos, Martin Lee, Li Lanqing, Li Zhaoxin, Ma Ying-Jeou, Princess Marta Louise, Chairman Mao, Jack Markell, George McGovern, Mette-Marit, Walter Mondale, Fabio Mussi, Benjamin Netanyahu, Richard Nixon, Kwame Nkrumah, Michael Nutter, Barack Obama, Martin O'Malley, Geun-Hae Park, Pope John Paul II, Göran Persson, Vladimir Putin, Liu Qi, Ronald Reagan, Jacques Rogge, Lenore Romney, Juan Antonio Samaranch, Nicolas Sarkozy, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Eunice Shriver, Sargent Shriver, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, Queen Silvia, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza, Silvan Shalom, Maria Shriver, Goh Chok Tong, Walter Veltroni, Princess Victoria, Prince of Wales, Lech Walesa, Wen Jiabao, Prince William, Anthony Williams, Yang Jiechi, Lee Kuan Yew.

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