Tip of the Week
How to Never Miss an Easy Smash.

LATE ADDITION (Tues) - USATT Did a News Item on My Book, "Still More Table Tennis Tips"!
Here's the news item! C'mon, you know you want to buy my books!!! :) (It includes links to some of my other ones.) 

They Let Us Play Table Tennis Again!
Remember my When Will They Let Us Play Table Tennis Again cartoon? The answer, for me, was this past Saturday! It had been 83 days - one day short of twelve weeks - since the last time I'd played. Navin Kumar contacted me about taking private coaching again - MDTTC reopened last week for limited private coaching, with various limits on how many can be there at a time, taking everyone's temperature as they enter club, rules on masks (not required at the table, but required off the table), social distancing (the tables are well spaced out, making this easier), sanitizing (I had to sanitize the table afterwards), and so on. I retired from private coaching two years ago - I only do group sessions now - but he talked me into doing some private coaching. After twelve weeks of lying around my house, I needed the exercise, so I agreed. And so we did the one-hour session at 5:30PM on Saturday. There was no one else in the club at the time, though I'd been told there had been others earlier.

Navin put up three videos of the session:

• Video 1 (98 sec) - forehands
• Video 2 (60 sec) - forehands and footwork (multiball)
• Video 3 (37 sec) - backhand long-pips block, backhand hit (multiball)

Table Tennis Abuse Horror Stories
In the segment below on USATT SafeSport Meeting for Parents and Coaches, there was a lot of discussion of SafeSport and abuse from coaches and parents. Sean O'Neill asked me about my experiences - and frankly, I could fill up a few hours with such stories!!! Here are a few examples. (In the meeting, I mentioned #1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 below.) 

1. It seems every junior program has at least one parent that constantly yells at his/her kids. Some can get really abusive, even physically. But most of it is just yelling, which isn't a good way to motivate someone in table tennis.
2. One of the worst case of abuse by a parent I know of took place at a US Open. I was coaching the final of Under 14 Boys. The other kid was up double-match point, but my kid came back to win the title. A few minutes later, several of our kids came running up, saying, "Larry, Larry, Mr. [kid's dad] is throwing [kid's name] against a wall! I ran outside just in time to see the father walking away, with the 13-year-old kid sitting against a brick wall crying. The kids said the father had thrown him against the brick wall over and over for losing the match. We reported it to the referee, and I was told action was taken - the kid moved out from living with his dad. (I think the parents were divorced.)
3. For a few years in the 1990s, there was an opposing coach who made it his thing, when his students were playing mine, to come over and "trash talk" with my kids. He thought it was funny, but it made my kids very nervous, and at least one was almost terrorized by it. I talked to the coach, but he just reacted sarcastically. So I had to spend several years watching for him when our players played, and I would literally have to walk over and cut him off, blocking his path each time. The first time I did this he got angry, but after a few times he finally stopped doing it.
4. I was coaching a kid against a higher-rated one, both among the best of their age in the country. The other kid won the first game easily - but in the last point, he popped a ball up, and my kid creamed it to the other kid's forehand. The kid made a miracle forehand block to win the point and game. Things did not look good for my player. But between games, the opposing coach started screaming at his player, demanding to know why he'd blocked that last ball instead of doing what he was trained to do, which was to always counterloop on the forehand. By the time they went back to the table, the opposing kid was crying, while I'd told my kid exactly how to play someone whose coach is yelling at him. My player came back and won! At the very end of the last game, when my kid went up match point, the other coach walked off - but later I saw him yelling at the kid. Afterwards, the kid dropped him as his coach for a short time, but soon they were back together. About six months later, the kid quit, and has never played since.
5. I've been tempted to write an article on how to play someone whose coach is yelling at them - there are specific things you can do - but I feel it's already so unfair what such a player has to go through, it feels wrong to write an article taking advantage of it. And yet . . . when it happens, I generally tell my player how to deal with it. But only then.
6. There was a kid I coached who reached #1 for his age in the country. There was a top player who had become his idol, since they both played a similar, unique style. When that top player was in town, the kid's parents arranged a coaching session with him. The kid was really excited. But during the session - which I only saw from a distance - he spent much of it yelling at the kid. Then, after the session, he told the kid, "You'll never be any good." (About ten people witnessed this.) The kid left, crying, and he never seemed enthusiastic about playing after that, and he quit a year later. (I later checked, and discovered this player was notorious for this type of thing. Thankfully, I'm told he no longer coaches.)
7. I coached a kid who pulled off a great win. Both players were athletic, inverted players, which is what my player was used to. In his next match, he played an old guy (rated about the same), with long pips, who dead-blocked everything - and my kid lost. But his father, after seeing how well his kid played against the stronger player, couldn't seem to understand why his kid struggled and looked so bad against the long-pips player, and so kept yelling at him, insisting he hadn't tried, and threatened to pull him from the tournament. The kid was crying, and kept trying to explain to his dad how hard it is to play long pips, but the dad wouldn't listen. I finally pulled the dad aside and explained what long pips was and why younger kids often have trouble with it, and he sort of backed off - but the kid had great difficulty playing the rest of the day after that.   
8. You can often tell which kids will turn it into a lifetime sport. At the end of a training session, if he wants to stay and goof off with the other kids, and is allowed to, he'll have fun, will love the sport, and will likely play forever. When I say goof off, that means they lob, chop, play with hardbat or clipboard, opposite hand or opposite grip, big ball, move tables together so they can play on two or more tables, or whatever else they feel like. I've been told that the great Swedes Waldner, Persson, Appelgren, and others always did this not only when they were developing, but even when they were the best players in the world. On the other hand, if they can't wait to leave, or if their parents always drag them out immediately so they can't have some fun with their friends, they tend to drop out eventually.

Why Table Tennis? 10 Aspects of the Sport That Will Change Your Life
The new table tennis book is out! The link takes you to Amazon, or you can get it directly from Samson Dubina Table Tennis. The book is by Samson Dubina, Sarah Jalli, and Jacob Boyd (the latter two are two of Samson's top junior students), and edited by Larry Hodges (hey, that's me!). It's 50 pages. Here are testimonials by Richard McAfee, Dora Kurimay, and Christian Lillieroos. Here's the Amazon description: "The Olympic sport of table tennis is well-respected worldwide for the dexterity of the athletes, the speed of the rallies, and the excitement of watching players of all ages and nationalities compete for world titles. Here in the US, very little is known about table tennis … Until Now! Why Table Tennis takes you on a one-hour journey where you will explore the vastness of the sport, understand how it is healthy for the mind and body, how it has impacted world history, and why it can impact your life too!!! Buckle up for this one-hour journey… The Olympic Sport of Table Tennis!"

USATT Board Meeting, Monday, June 1
It took place on UberConference. I listened in on the online meeting, though it was a relatively short meeting for most of us - they covered the first eight items on the agenda in 25 minutes, and then reached the last item, Executive Session, and that's when I and most others had to get off. Here's the notice and agenda for the meeting. (As you'll see in my notes below, they had some problems with getting the agenda online, and so we didn't get to see it until after the meeting Board Chair Richard Char sent out a note afterwards, apologizing for the problem, which came about because of technical problem.) The minutes for the meeting are not up yet, but they should soon in the USATT minutes page. You can also browse the USATT Agenda and Notices page. I believe they'll have another meeting in July, and I'll try to put it in the blog when it goes up.)

Agenda:

1. Approval of Minutes (for May 4, 2020)
2. CEO Report
3. Audit Committee Report
4. Appointment of Board
5. Re-election of Board Chair
6. Re-election of Audit and Compensation Committees
7. Club Committee
8. Update Umpire and Referee Committee Update
9. Executive Session

The meeting started at 8PM, with about 30 in attendance. CEO Virginia Sung gave opening remarks. Alas, I missed much of what she said because I was in the chat box asking where the agenda was. I was told by two USATT people it was on the USATT site at the Agenda and Notices page, but as I kept pointing out, all that was there was the notice of the meeting, no agenda. We were then told the agenda would be posted after the meeting, which was disappointing. Meanwhile, one person (who has a long history of . . . how shall I put this gently? . . . making stuff up, and has already said he's running for the USATT board) falsely insisted that USATT had taken down the Agenda and Notices page, which was obviously not true since at the time he was arguing this I was on that page, and a link had been provided to him even before he made the claim. And so, while I was dealing with that irritating distraction, I missed most of what was said at the start. (At one point, someone gave me the link to the USATT Minutes page. I found that funny, since I'm the one who created that page back when I was USATT co-webmaster!!!)

Next up was discussion of the upcoming USATT election. Because of the pandemic they had to postpone it, since some candidates may need to get signatures to qualify, which is difficult to do when clubs and tournaments are closed, and you have to keep six feet distance, and most of us don't have Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-like arms. We were told the rules for the election would be posted as soon as they were approved by the USOPC.

Next up were committee approvals. They approved various members of the Audit, Compensation, Club, and Umpires & Referees Committees. At some point they also approved the Technology and Innovation Committee - I'm guessing they must have ended the meeting by coming out of executive session so they could make this motion. (I don't believe they can make such a motion in executive session.)

At 8:25PM, they went into executive session to discuss personnel or legal matters, and so I had to get off. It was fun while it lasted!

USATT SafeSport Meeting for Parents and Coaches
This online meeting took place on Zoom, on Tuesday, June 2. The participants varied from 33-37, and it lasted about 75 minutes. Here's the notice of the meeting. Here are some notes I took from the meeting.  

• Welcome Statement – Virginia Sung, Chief Executive Officer - The Importance of the Physical and Mental Health of our Athletes. She spoke about how in China, the parents and coaches can be stricter and become abusive.
• SafeSport Compliance – Mark Thompson, Athlete Protection Officer. What is SafeSport and Who Must Be Compliant
• Tara Profitt, USATT Board Member – Athlete Advisory Council. Info on SafeSport and the USATT Athletes Advisory Council
• The National Team and Athlete Safety – Sean O'Neill. Maintaining Proper Parental Involvement for Young Elite Athletes

During his presentation, Sean put up links to five articles. #4 is probably the most extreme! (The Iraqi torture of soccer players who lost. The others are problem more relevant to what happens in the US and most of the world.)

• Opinion: Lengthy suspension of Laurie Hernandez's former coach sends powerful message
• Heavy Burden on Athletes Takes Joy Away From China's Olympic Success
• 'She's just six': Chinese girl's intense training sessions leave netizens furious
• Footballers who paid the penalty for failure
• You're Out! When Bullying Hits the Playing Field

All these USATT Meetings
USATT will have another "Happy Hour" meeting on Zoom this Thursday at 7PM Eastern Time. It's where USATT members, staff, volunteers, and anyone else get together to talk about . . . anything. We actually had one this past Friday, but due to a technical problem, few people were able to join us, and so we ended up with only nine people, while the previous week we had 33. (When you clicked on the link, it didn't work - you had to copy and paste it. It's been fixed.)

Here's the bigger question - Why do I attend these USATT online meetings?

1. I am interested in what happens in USATT.
2. I report on them in my blog.
3. People often ask me what happens in them.
4. I honestly have nothing better to do. :)

Maryland Table Tennis Center Junior Program Featured in Chinese World Journal
Here's the article - alas, it's in Chinese, though it has some nice pictures. I used Google translate to read it, and got a somewhat broken version. (It translates "Maryland" into "Massachusetts," though I'm assured the Chinese version has it right.) The article came about when I sent out press releases to various media, and they contacted me. (The press release also became basis for the news item I did for USATT, Juniors at the Maryland Table Tennis Center Training Online with Zoom.)

The Best Ping-Pong Paddles, According to Experts
Here's the article from New York Magazine, featuring Sean O'Neill, Judy Hoarfrost, Will Shortz, and John Hsu. (The author initially contacted me, and since I'm not really an equipment junky, and I forwarded him to the others, though I think he had already contacted Will Shortz.)

MH Table Tennis: 30 Coaching Tutorials in 30 Days
Here's the video page. Matt Hetherington of MH Table Tennis is making one every day! (If you find his videos of value, here's his GoFundMe page.) Below are the recent ones (also see the playlists at the bottom of the page).

• Table Tennis Drills: Pivot Forehand Footwork Basics
• Physical Training in Table Tennis: Speed and Agility
• Table Tennis Techniques: Basic Blocking Skills
• Table Tennis Interviews: Petr Korbel
• Table Tennis Drills: Recovery and Anticipation
• Pressure Management: Breaks in a Table Tennis Match
• Table Tennis Techniques - Simple Tips for the Close-Table Forehand Counter

Hooks and Fades (Elevate Your Loop Game)
Here's the article from Expert Table Tennis.

New from Samson Dubina

• NEW Book! "Why Table Tennis? 10 Aspects of the Sport That Will Change Your Life." (See segment above.)
• Improving Your Serves - Through Visualization and Deliberate Practice
• Instagram Live - Interviews

Jimmy Butler and Huijing Wang
Here's video of their practice match (2:53), with Jimmy's commentary below on fixing a forehand looping problem. They're both Olympians!

"Fun" Physical Training on Four Tables
Here's the video (2 min)!

30+ Table Tennis Players Humiliated by Xu Xin
Here's the video (9:11).

New from USATT

• This week's 'Ask the Champion' - Jean-Michel Saive - June 10th, 2020 at 3:00 PM EST
• Ask a Champion Series - Zoran Primorac (62 min)
• USATT And Stupa Analytics Partnership Will Bring Artificial Intelligence to Table Tennis
• Elizabeta Samara vs Wu Yue | 2019 ITTF Women's World Cup Highlights (6:50)
• Weekly Contest: Can you beat Jennifer Wu? (14 sec) - bouncing ball off side of table!
• Coach. Connect. Contribute-Yue Wu (article and video - 48 sec)
• Statement from USATT (on George Floyd situation)
• Five Appointed as Permanent Members of USATT Board
• USATT Board Selects Members for Technology and Innovation Committee
• Club Feature of the Week (17) - Princeton Pong
• Club Feature of the Week (18) - Salt Lake City Table Tennis
• USATT Announces Junior MVPs of the Week - Ved Sheth and Sarah Jalli. It really would be helpful if they could give some brief bio info and why they won the award.

New from Steve Hopkins

• WAB Featured Club: Boston Table Tennis Center
• Open Doors: A Cautionary Korean Tale
• PongNow: Dell Sweeris, Connie Sweeris, David Sakai, Donna Sakai (and Steve Hopkins)
• OPEN DOORS: Rhode Island Table Tennis Reopens
• Have You Missed the Interviews? Catch Up Here.
• Unveiled Smashfest: NHL's Brad Marchand and Mitchell Marner Design Pong Tables
• Open Doors: USATT to Allow Sanctioned Tournaments in July

Time, Space, Ping Pong, Church, and Logistics
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

New from ITTF
Here's their home page and news page.

Adam vs. Girls High School Table Tennis Team
Here's the video (10:11) featuring Adam Bobrow. "I was invited to come and challenge one of the Top 3 Girls High School teams in Taiwan. It was a ton of fun."

The Most Insulting Hilarious Drop Shot Ever
Here's the video (16 sec) - watch how Lily Yip immediately puts her paddle down and goes for her phone - and don't miss Matt Hetherington's reaction! (Turn sound on.)

Scott Preiss Behind-the-Back Counter-Smash
Here's the video (10 sec)! (I always hate these shots - because of stiff shoulders, it's the only shot in table tennis I never can do!)

Great Fishing and Lobbing Point, Vráblík vs. Prokopcov
Here's the video (77 sec)!

Shot-Making Compilation
Here's the video (4:51) from Table Tennis TV!

New from Kevin Table Tennis

• Domino Cup Pong (10 sec). (See links on right for other trick-shot videos.)
• Q&A with Kevin Nguyen (3:15).
• Non-Table Tennis - My Daily Life (1:35) - with apologies to his mom!

Target Practice
Here's the video (14 sec) of Nandan Naresh picking on cups and tape dispensers. If you think it is easy, give it a try!

Ping Pong on a Non-Existent Table
Here's the video (34 sec) from AR Ping Pong! It "uses Virtual and augmented reality together."

Pool Pong Lobbing and a Diving Counter-Smash
Here's the video (31 sec)!

High Pong
Here's the picture! (Here's the non-Facebook version.) Next time you have 104 bricks handy, you know what to do!

Happy Ping-Pong Balls
Here they are! Is 2020 getting you down? Getting sick of pandemics, economic collapse, nationwide protests, and marauding carnivorous dinosaurs (oh wait, that's later this month)? Then put these balls on your screen and just stare at them for a bit. And I promise you that 2021 will be here soon, in just 211 days. (Think of 2020 as just a really, long deuce game, with lots of nets and edges, but it'll be over eventually.)

Non-Table Tennis - My Posting on Attending a Black Lives Matters Protest
Here's my Facebook posting about the rally I attended last Wednesday night. It is completely non-political other than some analysis at the end.

***
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Tip of the Week
Do You Have a Quadruple Threat Receive?

Franchise-Based Professional US Table Tennis League
If you want to be a world-class player in the US, then the first thing you have to do after high school (after years of training!) is to get out of the US. It's almost impossible to reach a world-class level unless, at that stage, you spend a few years training and competing against the best in the world, and that means going overseas to play on a team. Most top US players who do this do so in the German leagues, where they both compete regularly against other top players (and gain experience against different styles), and train daily, usually two sessions per day, with the members of their team, along with extensive physical training and serve practice. Most top US players, from past champions Dan Seemiller, Eric Boggan, Sean O'Neill, and Jim Butler, to current US #1 Kanak Jha and other current US players (including Lily Zhang, Nicholas Tio, Wue Yue, and Kai Zarehbin, who were all overseas in leagues when the pandemic began), all developed extensively in European leagues. (The complication, of course, is that this is also the time that many stop training seriously and go to college. But some continue their training and go to college later, after their professional career is over.)

But wouldn't it be great if, someday, top players didn't have to do this because of a Professional US League? Yeah, easier said than done. Where do you get the money? Without money, there's no "professional," and you end up with just top recreational players while the pros go overseas.

Years ago I put together a draft of how to do this. This past weekend I updated it a little, though I still list it as "VERY ROUGH DRAFT." Here's it is:

The Creation of a Franchise-Based Professional US Table Tennis League

The basic idea is to sell franchises, perhaps $10,000 each along with an annual fee, starting in one region with perhaps eight teams. The incentive for the owners is that, who knows, these franchises might be worth millions someday! (Plus they get to be Major League Table Tennis Team Owners!) But it has to start somewhere. The proposal roughly explains how it would be set up, with a commissioner running things (almost as a dictator the first two years to get things going), and players getting paid. At the start they wouldn't make much, but the incentive for players is that those who join in and support it from the start get favored status later on, as the league grows. Owners make money based on ticket & refreshment sales, and sponsorships. Umpires also get paid.

Just imagine it - suppose it were in the Northeast and feel free to come up with names from your own region!

• The Long Island Lobbers!
• The Brooklyn Bashers!
• The Baltimore Blockers!
• The Boston Backhands
• The Philadelphia Flippers!
• The Pittsburgh Pushers!
• The Rhode Island Receivers!
• The Providence Pippers!
• The Chesapeake Choppers!  
• The Rochester Rackets!
• The Staten Island Sponge!
• The Connecticut Counterloopers!
• The Westchester Waldner Wannabes!
• The Maryland Ma Long Masters!

If there's anyone wants to become the next Rob Manfred (MLB), Roger Goodell (NFL), or Adam Silver (NBA), feel free to use this!

=>BEGIN SECTION ON USA TABLE TENNIS

USA Table Tennis to Lift Suspension on Sanctioned Tournament Play
Here's the news item - yes, Our Long National Nightmare is Over!!! Get Ready for This!!!

USATT Happy Hour
It was held this past Friday from 7-8PM Eastern Time - here's the USATT news item on it, which was linked to from my blog last week. USATT hosted "the first in what will be a weekly series of 'Happy Hours' for USATT Members." So presumably there'll be another one this Friday! About 30 people attended, with the number peaking at 33. Here's a picture of my screen during the meeting. This one became primarily a discussion about table tennis leagues - especially professional, regional, and junior leagues. I spoke up about my ideas for a franchise-based Professional US Table Tennis League - see segment on this above.

New from USA Table Tennis
There's a LOT of new and important news items this week - read them over carefully!!! See especially . . . well . . . all of them!

• USA Table Tennis to Lift Suspension on Sanctioned Tournament Play - effective June 30, 2020. (Repeated from above for emphasis.)
• USA Table Tennis to Host Discussion for Parents and Coaches on Young Athlete Development and Safety - on Tuesday, June 2, at 7PM Eastern time.
• USA Table Tennis Weekly Virtual Town Hall Meeting With Club Administrators to be Held in One Week - on Wednesday, June 3, at 7PM Eastern time.
• USA Table Tennis to Host Rectangular Round Table ‘Happy Hour’ for Members This Friday Thursday - It's been changed to Thursdays as a weekly thing, so see you this Thursday, June 4, at 7PM Eastern time! See segment above on the first "Happy Hour."
• USATT Launches 'Ask a Champion' Program. "The program is aimed at giving our national players and young athletes and others in the table tennis community, a chance to ask questions to some of the top-ranked players in the world.  The program is headed up by USA Table Tennis Captains Olympians Yue Wu (Women’s Team) and Yijun Feng (Men’s Team)."
• Ask a Champion Series - Nikhil Kumar (41:14), hosted by Yijun "Tom" Feng
• USATT Launches Online Club Umpire Certification Course
• Coach. Connect. Contribute-Liu Juan (44 sec, in Chinese, with English subtitles)
• Weekly Contest: Can you beat Liu Juan? (1:19)
• Club Feature of the Week (15) - Sunrise Table Tennis Club
• Club Feature of the Week (16) - Charlotte Table Tennis Club

USATT Board Meeting Tonight
The online meeting starts at 8PM Eastern Time on Monday, June 1, and is open to any USATT member to listen in. (You may ask the chair for permission to speak.) No agenda is listed yet. I will likely attend. Here's the USATT listing of  Agendas and Notices and of Minutes and Actions - both of these link to each other at the top. The latter is part of the drop-down menu under USATT at the USATT home page.

USATT Online Meetings
In the two segments above I've listed a number of USATT online meetings. To make things easier for you, here's a complete compilation. All meetings take place on Zoom except for the USATT board meeting, which is on Uber Conference. All meeting notices include a link that automatically takes you to the meeting. All times listed are Eastern Standard Time.

• Monday, June 1, 8PM - USATT Board Meeting
• Tuesday, June 2, 7PM - USA Table Tennis to Host Discussion for Parents and Coaches on Young Athlete Development and Safety
• Wednesday, June 3, 7PM - USA Table Tennis Weekly Virtual Town Hall Meeting With Club Administrators to be Held in One Week
• Thursday, June 4, 7PM - USA Table Tennis to Host Rectangular Round Table ‘Happy Hour’ for Members This Friday Thursday (They just changed it to every Thursday)

=>END SECTION ON USA TABLE TENNIS

Backhand Looping with Coach Ojo
Here's the video (1:57).

MH Table Tennis: 30 Coaching Tutorials in 30 Days
Here's the video page. Matt Hetherington of MH Table Tennis is making one every day! (If you find his videos of value, here's his GoFundMe page.) Below are the recent ones (also see the playlists at the bottom of the page), along with the interview with Dan Ives from Table Tennis Daily. (The other twelve videos were linked from my blog last week.)

• Table Tennis Techniques - 4 Easy Tips for the Long Push (12:47)
• Table Tennis Drills - Middle/Body Ball (11:09)
• Simple Tips for the Half-Long Serve in Table Tennis (8:51)
• Table Tennis Drills - Basic Tips for In and Out Footwork (8:52)
• Table Tennis Training - Topspin Forehand Footwork (10:58)
• Physical Training in Table Tennis: Basic Leg Workout (16:45)
• Table Tennis Interviews - Dan Ives (TableTennisDaily) (59:55)

New from Samson Dubina

• The Cheater - Learn How to Beat This Opponent!
• 11 Ways to Improve With Robot Training!
• Success - Quiz Yourself on the 12 Aspects of Mental Success!
• Distractions - Learn to Control Your Thoughts
• Serve or Receive? - If you win the toss, which do you choose?  Serve or Receive? VOTE NOW

New from Steve Rowe and Aerobic Table Tennis

• Aerobic TT at Home (Elder Workout, 12:18)
• Aerobic TT at Home (Workout #11, 8:06) - Workouts 1-10 were linked from last week's blog.

Kevin Table Tennis, Parts 1 and 2
Here are the new Ping Pong for Beginners videos by Kevin Nguyen of Portland, OR. He's 12 and already rated 2062. He also does trickshot videos, which you can find on his YouTube home page. He also has a table tennis home page.

• Lesson 1: How to Hold the Paddle and Basic Serve for Beginners (2:41)
• Lesson 2: Forehand and Backhand Drive (8:27)

The Limitations of Defensive Table Tennis
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Kanak Jha & Bruna Takahashi | Ask A Pro Anything at home
Here's the video (48:04). US #1 Kanak is word #27; Brazil's #1 Bruna is world #47.

New from Steve Hopkins

• Butterfly Buzz: A Tour of the PingPod Facility
• It’s Time to Restock: We’ll See You at the Tables in June
• WAB Featured Club: World Champions Table Tennis Academy
• Open Doors: Texas Table Tennis Center (Houston)
• Seemiller – The American: 2020 Trials Feature
• PongNow: Ernesto Jon Ebuen (37:08)

New from ITTF
Here's their home page and news page.

ITTF High Performance & Development Webinars
A new series featuring ITTF's High-performance Department covering a whole range of topics. (The first was from three weeks ago, the most recent three days ago.) These and other YouTube videos can be at the ITTF Official Channel.

• Timo Boll (68 min)
• Gender Equality in Table Tennis 72 ,om)
• Performance Analysis (58 min)
• Performance Keys for Players (65 min)
• Umpire Performance Assessment (70 min)
• Planning for Training & Competition (64 min)
• Table Tennis in the Time of COVID 19 (72 min)

Ping Pong, Vol 1 is a Terrific, Grounded Sports Manga, for Better or Worse
Here's the review.

Table Tennis Never Seen Before
Here's the video (5:12) from PingSunday/EmRatThich. "Table tennis with a new view angle. Most of the public just seen table tennis with the ITTF camera angle. Some of the shots can be seen better with another camera. If not filmed, you won't believe it."

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Table Tennis Fishing
Here's the video (7:25)!

Insane Table Tennis Dive Shots | Who Did It BEST?
Here's the video (1:59)!

Ping-Pong Trick Shots
Here's the video (3:01)!

Next Level Trickshot
Here's the video (18 sec) - with a behind-the-head forehand!

Jedi Ping Pong Cartoon on the Death Star
Here's the video (35 sec) from Steve Worthington! It's Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker!

Flying Ping Pong
Here's the video (4:05) from Pongfinity!

Non-Table Tennis - "Journey to Perfection"
I just sold this short story to the anthology "Unidentified Funny Objects," the highest paying science fiction & fantasy humor market. (To give you a taste of the finances in the science fiction world, I was paid 10 cents/word, or $370 for 3700 words.) A wealthy, snooty "doctor" buys the newest car model, and with a few misunderstandings, they're off to see and meet some rather strange places and people!!! It's the 112th short science fiction and fantasy story I've sold. (Out of a total of 1968 published articles in 167 different publications - not including over 1800 blog entries - including 1736 on table tennis, and 17 books.)

***
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Tip of the Week
Three Types of Anticipation.

Cartoon of the Week:
Help Wanted: Table Tennis Coronavirus Smacker. I had some free time.

Still More Table Tennis Tips
As noted in my blog last week, my book "Still More Table Tennis Tips" came out last Monday! It's in both print and kindle. It's 150 Tips from 2017 to the present, organized in logical order and progression, with much of the wording updated and cleaned up. It's the third in the series, after Table Tennis Tips and More Table Tennis Tips. I've dropped the price on all three - they cost $12 each, or $7 for kindle. It's 187 pages with seven chapters:

1. Serve and Receive (15 tips)
2. Strokes (23 tips)
3. Footwork (10 tips)
4. Tactics (45 tips)
5. Improving (37 tips)
6. Sports Psychology (17 tips)
7. Doubles (3 tips)

Why not buy the complete set of three? You've got lots of free time to read now, right? A special thanks to Mark Dekeyser, John Olsen, and Dennis Taylor, who (as they did for the first two books), gave the book a thorough proofing. (Here are all 17 of my books. If you buy one, I'll be able to afford dinner tonight!)

Juniors at the Maryland Table Tennis Center Training Online with Zoom
Here's the USATT article I wrote, which features MDTTC junior team caption Stephanie Zhang, along with brother James, and coaches Wang Qingliang and John Hsu.

USATT Virtual Town Hall Meeting for Athletes, Coaches, and Parents
It was held on Zoom last Thursday, May 21, and lasted just under an hour. Attendees varied from 39 to 42, including many US National Team members and coaches, along with USATT CEO Virginia Sung, COO Mark Thompson, High Performance Director Sean O'Neill, Director of Para Programs Jasna Rather, National Team Coach/Manager Teodor "Doru" Gheorghe, High Performance Committee Chair Bruce Liu, US Men's Team Captain Yijun Feng, US Women's Team Captain Wu Yue, and board members Richard Char (chair), Niraj Oak (athlete rep) and Tara Profitt (athlete rep).

The items of most interest to me were the ones by Yijun Feng and Doru Gheorghe, where they are setting up weekly meetings and online training for juniors. See the USATT news item soon on the "Ask the Champs" program. The Weekly Junior and Cadet Online Training Program is open to any USATT member age 18 and under - for information, email Doru Gheorghe.

Here was the agenda:

1. Virginia Sung – Welcome Message
2. Tara Profitt – Reminder on Athlete Safety
3. Mark Thompson – Return to Play and Code of Conduct Forms
4. Bruce Liu – Update on National Team Selection Procedures
5. Jasna Rather – ITTF Updates (Olympics, Worlds, Pan Ams, Hopes)
6. Yijun Feng – "Ask the Champs" - weekly meetings to help the young players.
7. Doru Gheorghe – Weekly Junior and Cadet On-line Training Program (physical & mental) – Each week the coaches will choose MVP
8. Sean O'Neill – Summarize the completion Sports Psychology and Off Table Training. Online Collaboration (Google Docs/Microsoft Teams). STUPA. Mention Coaches meeting on Friday, will open the floor for Q&A, depending on the time.

MH Table Tennis: 30 Coaching Tutorials in 30 Days
Here's the video page. Matt Hetherington of MH Table Tennis is making one every day! (If you find his videos of value, here's his GoFundMe page.) Here are the recent ones (also see the playlists at the bottom of the page), along with the two-part interview at the end with Zoran Primorac (Chair of the ITTF Athletes Commission, former world #2, two-time Men's World Cup Champion, semifinalist at the Worlds in Men's Singles, Silver Medalist in Men's Doubles at the Olympics).  

• Physical Training in Table Tennis: Basic Core Workout (12:39)
• Introduction to Table Tennis 101: Topspin Transition Basics (8:44)
• The Most Effective Serve in Table Tennis (12:39)
• Table Tennis Techniques: 4 Easy Tips for the Short Push (9:43)
• Table Tennis Techniques: Increasing Forehand Power / 3rd Ball Attack (14:07)
• Mastering the Basic Short Serve in Table Tennis (13:18)
• Table Tennis Techniques: Basics of Opening vs. The Half Long Ball (9:36)
• Incremental Service Placement in Table Tennis (8:39)
• Improve Your Table Tennis Service Practice Habits11:42)
• Table Tennis Techniques: Forehand Flick Basics (7:42)
• Table Tennis Interviews: Zoran Primorac Part 1 (58:28)
• Table Tennis Interviews: Zoran Primorac Part 2 (12:30)

New from Samson Dubina

• 11 Ways to Improve With Robot Training! (with links to video)
• Distractions - Learn to Control Your Thoughts
• New Training Videos
• Scouting Yourself (17:08)
• Devastate the Long Pips Blocker

New from eBaTT

• Forehand Topspin Made Simple Part 2 | eBaTT Tutorial #40 (9:18)
• Table Tennis Backhand for Beginners & Children | eBaTT - Challenge #18 (3:14)

New from Ping Sunday/EmRatThich

• New Xu Xin of Europe (22:29, link goes to 8:25)
• Rarest Playing Style (26:20)

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

=>BEGIN COVID-19/CORONAVIRUS SECTION

ITTF COVID-19 Guidelines

• Detailed Guide
• One-page instructions

Handsfree Infrared Thermometer for Table Tennis Clubs
Here's the video (60 sec) from Mossa Barandao, founder of PongMobile, which has pivoted to help address the current crisis. "Prevention will be the key as many businesses begin to reopen their doors. Be a step ahead of COVID-19 and consider including the accurate, simple, quick, and precise Handsfree Infrared Thermometer." (Video is from the Washington DC TTC.)

Broward Table Tennis Club - Rules for the Covid-19 Period
Here are their new rules - see the first six, which might be a model for other clubs reopening. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

JOOLA Medical
Here's the page for JoolaMedical. JOOLA Table Tennis has pivoted into making medical masks, as previously reported. Here are videos from NBC News (1:44) and MoCoCouncilMD (3:20).

New from Steve Rowe
Four more of his Aerobic TT at Home videos came out this week (#7-10). Here are all ten so far. Here's his video Ping-Pong Literacy and Aerobic Table Tennis (45 sec) and the home page for Aerobic Table Tennis. (Why is this in the Covid-19 section? So you can exercise at home while we wait for table tennis clubs to reopen! Some have reopened - it's a gradual process, and mostly based on region.)

• Workout #10
• Workout #9
• Workout #8
• Workout #7
• Workout #6
• Workout #5
• Workout #4
• Workout #3
• Workout #2
• Workout #1

=>END COVID-19/CORONAVIRUS SECTION

USATT PongPositive Interviews
Here's the page. This week they interviewed Dell & Connie Sweeris, and Jessica Yu.

New from USATT

• Nick Tio [USA] vs Ding Ning [CHINA] 2019 (4:30)
• Club Feature of the Week (13) - San Antonio Table Tennis Club
• Club Feature of the Week (14) - BumperNets

New from Steve Hopkins

• ITTF Releases COVID-19 Recommendations
• Kanak's Voice
• Seemiller – The American: North Korea
• WAB Featured Club: Canadian Elite Table Tennis Centre
• Open Doors: San Antonio Table Tennis Club
• Butterfly Favorites – The Beauty of the Butterfly Blade (article and video 1:22)
• PongNow: Two-Time US Open Champion Thomas Keinath (10:56)

Who Loves College Table Tennis? Join NCTTA Directors!

• 2020 NCTTA Board of Directors Election
• Best of the Best--NCTTA 2020

The Top Three…The Table Tennis Survey Results
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Sports Without Fans - Time for Boring Sports
Here's the article by Shashin Shodhan.

New from ITTF
Here's their home page and news page.

ITTF High Performance Development Webinar - Planning for Training & Competition
Here's the ITTF video (64 min).

TTBL Top 10: Kanak Jha Video Shots
Here's the video (4:20).

Jimmy Butler (4-time US Men's Singles Champ - 1990, 1992, 1993, 2014!) and 2021 Olympian Huijing Wang - Training Session and Match
Here's the video (5:53). Jimmy: "Didn't end well for me."

Sweden VS China at the 1989 World Team Table Tennis Championships: When the Looping Game Ended the Reign of the Pips-Out Quick Hitter/Blocker
Here's the video (3:14) showing highlights. This was really the moment when the superiority of the European looping game over the Chinese pips-out hitting game became apparent. China stuck with that style for a few more years, until getting clobbered in 1993, after which they almost completely transitioned to loopers (with the notable exception of Liu Guoliang) - and now they are the dominant masters of that style.

Kanak Jha on The Voice
Here's the video. Normally it's a show about singing, but they highlighted Olympic sports in this episode (table tennis, curling, and artistic swimming), as explained at 41:40. They jump back and forth between the sports. US Olympian Kanak Jha (also US Men's Singles Champion the last four years in a row) tries to teach table tennis to Nick Jonas, and shows up at 42:34, 43:00, 43:57, 44;33, and 41:59.

Will Shortz on To Tell the Truth
Here's the video - go to 18:35 (he's in the middle). Besides being the NY Times Crossword Puzzle Editor, Will Shortz is the owner of the Westchester TTC and has been rated over 1900. At 30:33, see where one of the contestants says to him, "And you live to play ping-pong"! One thing - near the end, when they are trying to figure out which of #2 and #3 is the NY Times Crossword Puzzle Editor, #3 says he's used "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" in a NY Times crossword - which should immediately have told everyone that he was NOT the NY Times Crossword Editor, since you can't fit a 45-letter word on one of their crosswords! Also, he badly mispronounces the word, which I'm pretty sure Will could roll off his tongue like it was nothing. (When I was in elementary school I learned of this word, and nerdy me learned to both say it and spell it. It's a lung disease!)

Wally Green - Celebrity Table Tennis Player
Here's the podcast (34:56).

Table Tennis Caricatures
Here's the ITTF page! (Here's the non-Facebook version, though you'll have to go to the Facebook version if you want to verify, via the comments, who each of the nine characters/top players are.) Here's what appears to be the original source, in Chinese, with 33 caricatures.

Ping-Pong in Small Apartments?
Here's the cartoon! (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

New from Adam Bobrow
See his many other past videos on his YouTube Channel!

• This is a Viral Table Tennis Video (10:03)
• Jaw-Dropping Table Tennis (6:03)

Weird Ping Pong
Here's the video (3:35) from Pongfinity!

Non-Table Tennis - Philosopher Rex
I just sold "Philosopher Rex" to Zooscape Magazine. It's about a philosophizing T-Rex that meets our earliest ancestors - lemur-like creatures - during the final days of the dinosaurs, and how their attitudes toward each other change after this pivotal meeting. (No talking animals, but we get the T-Rex's thoughts.) It's my 111th science fiction & fantasy short story sale.

Non-Table Tennis - "Going My Way" Made Me Famous!
I'm famous! While watching the movie "Going My Way" on Monday (Best Picture 1945), I noticed a mistake. So I sent it in to the IMDB "Goofs" panel. I received an immediate email that it would go through their fact-checking  team first. Later I checked on it, and it was up!!! Now the huge numbers of people in world who watch "Going My Way" every day and click on "Goofs" will see my immortal words (without my name on it since all "Goofs" are anonymous):

"After seeing the bishop, Father Fitzgibbon calls Father O'Malley into his office where they have a long talk. There's a clock in the background, often seen over O'Malley's shoulder. From the first and last time you see it about three minutes goes by, but the clock always says 5:35."

Watching "Going My Way" was part of my goal of seeing all 92 Academy Award Best Picture winners. I've now seen 81 them, including all of them from 1944 to the present. Of the fifteen from 1928 to 1943 I've seen four (Gone with the Wind, Mutiny on the Bounty, It Happened One Night, and All Quiet on the Western Front), so eleven to go. Next up, probably tonight: 1942's Mrs. Miniver (the winner in 1943).

***
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Happy Memorial Day! Like many others, I'm taking today off, and so this week's blog will go up tomorrow (Tuesday). However, the Tip of the Week is up: Three Types of Anticipation. To help tide you over, here's Weird Ping Pong (3:35) from Pongfinity! Plus, since I had some free time, here's a cartoon I created: Help Wanted: Table Tennis Coronavirus Smacker. (Here's the non-Facebook version.) Enjoy, and see you tomorrow!

How am I spending my day, you ask? I've spent part of this past weekend as a panelist at the online Balticon Science Fiction Convention, but my panels are done, so I may attend a few panels as a spectator. But I plan to spend most of today moving toward a new goal of mine - to see all 92 movies that have won best Best Picture at the Academy Awards, from "Wings" in 1928 to the present. I've seen 79 of them, including every one from 1947 to the present, so 13 to go! From the link above, from 1928 to 1946 the ones I have seen are Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Mutiny on the Bounty, It Happened One Night, and All Quiet on the Western Front. (Note that the year listed is the year they won, but it's actually for movies that came out the year before.) I'm going in reverse order, so next up is The Lost Weekend.

If I get tired of watching, I may take a break and write up some future Tips of the Week - I have several outlined. I plan to write up a bunch of them this week. Don't forget to buy your copy of Still More Table Tennis Tips!!! (You have, of course, already gotten your copies of Table Tennis Tips and More Table Tennis Tips, of course. In three years, we'll have "And Still More Table Tennis Tips"!)

Tip of the Week
Mind Games: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Still More Table Tennis Tips
My book "Still More Table Tennis Tips" is now on sale at Amazon! It's in both print and kindle. It's 150 Tips from 2017 to the present, organized in logical order and progression, with much of the wording updated and cleaned up. It's the third in the series, after Table Tennis Tips and More Table Tennis Tips. I've dropped the price on all three - they cost $12 each, or $7 for kindle. It's 187 pages with seven chapters:

1. Serve and Receive (15 tips)
2. Strokes (23 tips)
3. Footwork (10 tips)
4. Tactics (45 tips)
5. Improving (37 tips)
6. Sports Psychology (17 tips)
7. Doubles (3 tips)

Why not buy the complete set of three? You've got lots of free time to read now, right?

A special thanks to Mark Dekeyser, John Olsen, and Dennis Taylor, who (as they did for the first two books), gave the book a thorough proofing. The book was originally going to come out on June 1, but they got back to me quickly, and these days it doesn't take long to publish.  (Here are all 17 of my books. If you buy one, I'll be able to afford dinner tonight!)

When Will They Let Us Play Table Tennis Again?
Here's the cartoon! (I had some free time.)

Numerical Musings on Table Tennis and the Coronavirus and Other Issues
I finally found a use for my math degree! (Skip ahead if your eyes start to glaze over.)

• You can fit about 3.05 x 10^26 coronaviruses inside a ping-pong ball. That's 305,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 305 septillion.
• If you completely covered a ping-pong table with coronaviruses, you could fit about 2.7 x 10^20 viruses, or 270 quintillion.
• A coronavirus has a diameter of about 0.125 nanometers. That means 8 billion coronaviruses in a line would be about one meter long, and 8 million of them would be a millimeter long. If your rubber and sponge covering is 4mm wide, then it would take 32 million of these viruses standing on top of each other to reach that height. It would take about 1.2 billion to reach the height of a net.
• If you were to arrange coronaviruses into a 40,000 x 40,000 square (that's 1.6 billion viruses), and had very good eyesight, you could just barely see it as a tiny, almost invisible speck. The same would be true if you arranged them into a 40,000 x 40,000 x 40,000 cube, which would be 64 trillion viruses.
• This Friday I will be 22,000 days old, according to the online Days Old Calculator.
• Since the lockdown began, I've had at least five times where I went five days without talking to anyone (excluding giving orders at restaurant drive-throughs and an occasional "Hi!" to the people who rent from me downstairs). The record was nine days, which ended with the Ping Pong Playa interview below last Thursday - I wasn't sure if I still remembered how to speak! (But I'm getting a lot of reading and writing done, and am active online.)

Ping Pong Playa
I wrote about the movie Ping Pong Playa in my blog last week. Coincidentally or not, USATT arranged an online interview last Thursday with the director (Jessica Yu) and star (Jimmy Tsai), and invited many to attend. The interview, mostly conducted by USATT COO Mark Thompson, lasted 75 minutes, with about 35 people attending, including almost the entire USA National men’s and women’s team and coaches, along with all sorts of other prominent people – the entire USATT staff, Dell & Connie Sweeris, Adam Bobrow, Diego Schaaf and Wei Wang, and many more. I was able to ask three questions near the end, about how they prepared for the table tennis scenes; plans and ideas for a sequel (which had already been brought up); and about the ball that was put in by computer.

=>BREAKING NEWS - Here's the video (51 min) - it went up late on Tuesday afternoon. I was told that the screen went bad for the last part, including when I asked questions, so that's not included - it apparently lost to posterity.

30 Table Tennis Coaching Tutorials in 30 Days from MH Table Tennis
Here's the MH Table Tennis video page - from Matt Hetherington. It has a plethora of new coaching tutorials, plus new interviews with Adrian Crisan and Liam Pitchford.

But the coronavirus has affected lots of coaches, including Matt, who (like many of us) can't coach right now. But he's decided to stay busy, and work for your support. If you like his videos and interviews, perhaps see his GoFundMe page. Here's an excerpt from it:

"As some of you know I left my job with USATT a couple of months ago, and my next plans fell through because of COVID-19. I'm also no longer able to coach at the club. Due to my ongoing health issues I have relatively expensive health insurance and medical costs that are constant and have had 0 income for the past 2.5 months. I'm currently in a position where I am throwing as much effort as I can into a number of projects to try and keep myself afloat."

He also writes on his home page, "You can also reach me at mhtabletennis@gmail.com for Zoom/Skype coaching, video analysis or other online coaching options."

Connect. Coach. Contribute.
Here's the new USATT initiative to help member clubs provide remote coaching services to their members with US Olympians.

Backhand Tutorial with Dimitrij Ovtcharov
Here's the video (4:11) - you don't want to miss this! (It's in English.) The German is #11 in the world, but was #2 just a year ago (April 2019). He's known for his backhand.

New from Samson Dubina

• Dynamic Table Tennis Warmup (3:27)
• Details of Flipping Serves
• Match Analysis

New from eBaTT

• Forehand Topspin Made Simple | eBaTT Tutorial #39
• Forehand Topspin Made Simple Part 2 | eBaTT Tutorial #40
• Table Tennis Backhand for Beginners & Children | eBaTT - Challenge #18
• Target Practice, eBaTT Challenge #18

How to Stay in Shape and Improve with Shadow Practice
Here's the video (15 sec) - if you can't go to the club, you can at least do this! Can you identify the five-stroke sequence she's repeating?

Smartest Serves In Table Tennis History
Here's the video (4:13)!

A Life Without Table Tennis (sort of)
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak.

Touchless Table Tennis
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

New from EmRatThich/PingSunday

• Best Table Tennis Robots
• Most Intelligent Table Tennis Robot (32:43)
• Xu Xin Insane Lob Skills (4:40)
• At the home of the Olympic Vice Champion (4:01), featuring 1993 Men's Singles World Champion Jean-Philippe Gatien

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

USATT PongPositive Interviews
Here they are - 23 as of this posting. The latest are of Samson Dubina, Si and Patty Martinez, and Roman Tinyszin.

New from USATT

• Connect. Coach. Contribute. A new USATT initiative to help member clubs provide remote coaching services to their members with US Olympians.
• 2019 Seamaster US Open TT Championships - Women's Singles Final - L. Zhang vs M. Taira
• USATT Insider - Edition 276
• USA Table Tennis Announce Team Captains
• Club Feature of the Week (12) - Gainesville Table Tennis Community

New from Steve Hopkins

• Open Doors: Central Florida Table Tennis Club
• PongNow: Boo’s Brothers Jim McQueen, Pete May, Derek May
• WAB CLUB FEATURE: Pong Planet
• Seemiller – The American: Grand Rapids

National Collegiate Table Tennis Elections
Here's the news item.

Jorgen Persson Named Head Coach of the Swedish National Team
Here's the video announcement (26 sec) from Jorgen himself. See also the ITTF news item.

New from the ITTF

• Jörgen Persson appointed Sweden's men's team head coach
• Igor Levitin's open letter to the Table Tennis Family
• Instagram Live Takeover: Omar Assar (EGY) calls Quadri Aruna (NGR) (42:10)
• Hugo Calderano (BRA) & Simon Gauzy (FRA) | Ask A Pro Anything at home (42:12) with Adam Bobrow
• Player Watch: Will Bayley’s rainbow face masks
• Sofia Polcanova leaves hospital, rehabilitation begins
• Must be in the genes! When table tennis runs in the family…
• ITTF united in battle against COVID-19
• Croatian National Team train for Olympics with Paintball!
• China Open: top five finals
• China Open: five upsets to remember
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 18th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 17th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 16th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 15th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 14th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 13th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 12th May

Bettor Wins an Astounding $25K on Wild Table Tennis Parlay
Here's the article from USA Today.

Creative Pong
Here's the video (1:48) - "We set our players a challenge of who could hit the ball into a tub in the most creative way."

The Fifty-Foot Serve
Here's the video (15 sec) of Scott Preiss demonstrating the serve - it's my favorite exhibition serve as well! At breaks at our camps in the past I've taught the serve to the more advanced kids, where they compete to see how many they can do and from how far. It's also great in my beginning classes, where they line up and try to return it. The serve can be done both the way shown in the video (tomahawk style) and forehand pendulum style, but I think you get more distance tomahawk style.

Dude Sets Guinness World Record for Hitting Ping Pong Balls with Nunchucks
Here's the article and video (40 sec). This looks legit - he's just hitting the balls off a robot, not rallying, unlike the infamous fake Bruce Lee Nunchuck Table Tennis video.

Jamie Oliver Channel 4 Ping Pong Table Tennis Commercial Advert Funny
Here's the video (58 sec) - it's from 2011, but I don't think I've seen it.

Cartoon Adam Bobrow's Excessive Ping Pong Celebration After Future Match
Here's the video (1:26) from Steve Worthington!

Table Tennis Trump Announces World Championships
Here's the video (5:15) from Larry Bavly! Warning - some Republicans might not like this! But you have to love the hat.

General Grievous Ping Pong
Here's the video (4:16) - and here's the original General Grievous!

Non-Table Tennis - Balticon
This weekend I'll be a panelist at the virtual Baltimore Science Fiction Convention. It's all online this year, as you can guess. I'm on two panels: "Write What You Know! Wait, What Do I Know?" (Friday 8PM) and " Dealing with Literary Rejection" (Saturday 5PM).

***
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Tip of the Week
Five Ways to Take Away an Opponent's Big Shot.

This is the 450th Tip of the Week I've posted since I started putting them up every Monday starting Jan. 11, 2011, except for a few times when I was out of town. (This is in addition to 177 I did for USA Table Tennis before that, which were published as part of Table Tennis Tales & Techniques.) The first 150 went into my book Table Tennis Tips; the next 150 went into More Table Tennis Tips; these last 150 (ending with today's) make up Still More Table Tennis Tips, which comes out on June 1. The advantage of getting them in book form? I put them in logical progression, by topic, rather than in a random fashion as a weekly tip, plus you get them all right in front of you, making it easy to browse, refer to, and even make notes in the margins. Or you can download them onto a kindle, and also have instant access in logical progression . . . though no margins to scribble in!

Ping Pong Playa
On Saturday night I finally watched Ping Pong Playa (96 min), the table tennis movie that came out in 2008 - somehow I missed it that year. Here's info on it from imdb.

The central character, Chris "C-Dub" Wang, is basically a self-centered airhead, perhaps 18-20 years old. He thought he was a basketball hotshot because he dominated in games against younger, smaller kids on a shortened basket that allowed him to dunk, though he wasn't so good against older, better players on a regular basket. His parents run a table tennis store, with his mom and older brother teaching a table tennis class. The brother was a table tennis champion, and by winning the local tournament each year, it brought them students. But he and his mom injure their wrists in a car accident and (for reasons that don't make sense) can't teach the class, and (also for unknown reasons - too busy at the store?), the father can't teach the class - so the self-centered basketball-playing brother takes over. He's a mess - he doesn't really teach, choosing instead to hustle the kids for money, who worship him as a hero. But he finally turns things around, and ends up training himself, where he has to win the local tournament to save their class. The players are actors with awkward strokes, with the ball put in by computer, as it was done in Forrest Gump.

I thought it was funny, though I'd have liked to have seen the table tennis training a bit more serious, and the trash-talking central character was a bit too much of an airhead for me, even after he supposedly turned things around. I was hoping the father, who was coaching Chris, would give some real tactical advice, like, "He has a good forehand, so serve short and low to his forehand to bring him over the table, and then attack his backhand." This would make sense even to non-table tennis players.

The Indian kid who can't play but reads about and analyzes everything? That was me at that age . . . and probably still is. Okay, I can play some.

A number of prominent table tennis players show up in the tournament scenes toward the end, including former US Team member Barney J. Reed (the lefty who, at one point, rallies with a racket in his pants), Diego Schaaf (often hitting with Barney), Adam Bobrow (now the Voice of the ITTF), Wei Wang (1990 US Women's Champion), Biba (the tournament committee woman on far left), and Ichiro Hashimoto (sitting in the stands).

Ping Pong Playa and Balls of Fury are the two top table tennis comedies - since we're stuck at home, why not watch both? Here are some other table tennis movies. Here's an article I wrote that was published in Fantasy Magazine back in 2009, The Table Tennis Fantasy Tour, which also talks about table tennis in movies and TV.

New from Samson Dubina

• Match Analysis
• Playing in High Altitudes
• NEW Robot Videos!
• NEW Book!

New from EmRatThich/PingSunday

• Top Five Table Tennis Serves
• Xu Xin King of Entertainment
• Authentic vs Fake Butterfly Products (Part 1)

Multiball and Shadow-Practice Training
Here's the video (29 sec). 

Living Room Multiball
Here's the video (28 sec) - why don't you create this set-up? It only takes a box of balls and a blanket or sheet hung from the wall or ceiling! (Plus someone to feed the balls!)

Top 10 Serves
Here's the video (2:23) of Mishel Levinski. Here's his Youtube channel where you can see videos of many of his matches.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

USATT News

• USA Table Tennis Notice to Member Club Owners, Operators and Administrators
• USA Table Tennis Board of Directors Seeks Applications and Nominations for Technology and Innovation Committee
• Club Feature of the Week (10) - The Houston International Table Tennis Academy
• Club Feature of the Week (11) - The Ishaka Table Tennis Club

USATT Pong Positive Interviews
Here they are - 20 as of this posting. The latest are of Donna Sakai, Tahl Leibovitz, Nick Tio, Kai Zhang, Elna Garcia, and Jishan Liang.

USATT Minutes of the May 4, 2020 Board Meeting
Here they are, though there's no news on whether the Force was with them on that date. Here are all USATT minutes.

New from Steve Hopkins

• WAB Club Feature: Atlanta International Table Tennis Academy
• Opening a Club: Our Test Run
• Seemiller – The American: The Strike
• PongNOW: Adoni Maropis (22:30)
• PongNOW: Dean Johnson (25:42)

JOOLA Medical
Here's the video (3:20). A Montgomery County Maryland company is turning the tables on their business plan to help citizens and hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Almost Essential Table Tennis Workers
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Instagram Live Takeover | Kanak Jha & Hugo Calderano
Here's the video (48:31) as the two chat on Instagram on various table tennis-related topics, including how coronavirus is affecting them.

ITTF News

• What's the best ever performance in Hong Kong Open history?
• Socially Awesome: the best of ITTF World this week!
• Regulations followed, training sessions resume in Greece
• Return to the table
• ITTF Foundation Annual Report: spreading solidarity through table tennis
• Chinese national team to perform in online concert
• Grand Smashes – everything you need to know!
• Tokyo journey, Ibrahima Diaw reflects
• On this day: Jan-Ove Waldner in the mood
• On this day: Ma Long crowned World champion for first time
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 5th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 6th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 7th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 8th May
• Instagram Live Takeover - Manika Batra (IND) calls - Bernadette Szocs (ROU) (44:08)

New Record for Bouncing Ball on Paddle
Here's the video (5:21:30)! Dan bounces the ball for 5hrs 21 min 8 sec, breaking the old record of 5hrs 2min 37 sec. Here's where he misses!

Man Plays NBA Theme Song Using a Pingpong Ball, Pots, Pans and Determination
Here's the video (38 sec)!

Table Tennis's 10 Funniest Moments
Here's the video (7:21)!

Timo Boll - Top 3 Best Points - Lego Table Tennis Animation
Here's the video (2:02), with Adam Bobrow doing the play-by-play in the first and third points!

Shaun The Sheep Table Tennis
One of the best animated table tennis videos ever is the "Shaun the Sheep - Championsheeps" (see below). That came out in 2014. I just found out they did another one in 2018 - "Ping Pong Poacher"!

• Shaun the Sheep - Championsheeps (1:18)
• Shaun The Sheep - Ping Pong Poacher (6 min)

Pongfinity Game Battle
Here's the video (5:05) from Pongfinity!

Beetle Bailey - "I Won the Tournament!"
Here's the Beetle Bailey cartoon for May 9, 2020 (Saturday)! Here are all 27 Beetle Bailey cartoons that I know of that feature table tennis.

***
Send us your own coaching news!

NOTE - For technical reasons, the second half of the blog was cut off for most of Monday, May 4. The problem is now fixed. But if you were here earlier, you only saw about half of today's links. 

Tip of the Week
Don't Practice Hesitation.

USATT Coaches Excellence Program and Zoom
On Sunday, we had a USATT Coaches Meeting on Zoom from 4:00-5:15PM. Attending were Virginia Sung (USATT CEO), Sean O'Neill (USATT High Performance Director), Christian Lillieroos (USATT Coach Education Director), and the USATT Coaching Committee: Pieke Franssen (chair), Gao Jun, Dave Fullen, and myself (Larry Hodges). Stellan Bengtsson is also on the committee but was unable to attend.

The purpose was to go over the new USATT Coaches Excellence Program, which is being created by Christian, Sean, and Dave. There will be three tracks:

• Club Levels 1 and 2
• High Performance Levels 1 and 2
• Para Levels 1 and 2

A key part will be continuing education. I'll be going over the program over the next few days to give my input. USATT will be going public with this soon. Much of the program will center on online training. It looks pretty promising!

I know that some of my key input will be:

• Importance for those in the "High Performance" track to observe high-level training sessions, with top coaches, where they see all levels of development. You don't need to be a great player to be a great coach, but a primary advantage a great player has is that he's spent years in high-level training sessions, while a non-great player rarely has that opportunity. (So this is less of an issue with former top players who are becoming High Performance Coaches.) If you want to be a high-level coach, you have to find opportunities to do so, even if it means traveling somewhere to spend a week or so watching such sessions at a high-level center. If you want to learn how to develop an elite player, you can't just watch an elite player on video; you need to see how that player developed at each step, from beginning, intermediate, and advanced junior, and then elite player. (In theory, someone could video hundreds and hundreds of hours of such training and require coaches to watch it all, but I don't think that's really feasible or as effective - seeing it in person is a bit different, plus you can ask questions.)
• Importance of training coaches how to recruit and retain players, and setting up a training program. There's no point in having great coaching knowledge if you don't have anyone to work with. This could be an optional thing, but it needs to be available. (I used to point out that it's better to have ten 1100 players coaching than one glorified National coach who is not.)

MDTTC Juniors and Zoom
So, what do table tennis kids do when they're stuck at home due to the pandemic? If you're MDTTC junior star and team captain Stephanie Zhang, you instigate Zoom training at home with the other MDTTC juniors and coaches! The players and coaches jumped on the idea, and they now do it twice a week. Most of the kids have tables at their houses, and can train with siblings or parents. (Stephanie, for example, practice with brother James, while brothers Stanley and Kurtus Hsu were together, and so on.) Others shadow-practice. I observed their session this past Saturday. There were 35-40 players on 29 screens, with each player having a video camera on them (presumably smart phones) so the coaches could watch and comment. Coaches Wang Qingliang and John Hsu oversaw it. John called out the drills - ones for those with tables and practice partners, and ones for those shadow-practicing. Wang and John would regularly call out instructions, encouragement, and admonishments, which they could all hear. It was kind of interesting having all those screens open on my monitor! At any time you can zoom in on one to see more closely what they are doing. (I may join in more actively later on.) 

Three Table Tennis Books Coming Out

• Circa May 15: "Why Table Tennis? 10 Aspects of the Sport that Will Change Your Life. This book, by Samson Dubina and two of his Ohio junior stars, Jacob Boyd and Sarah Jalli, will come out in about a month or so. I'm the editor for it.
• June 1: Still More Table Tennis Tips, by Larry Hodges. (Hey, that's me!) This is the third book in the series, following Table Tennis Tips and More Table Tennis Tips. It's 189 pages with 150 Tips from the last three years, organized in logical fashion, with seven chapters - Serve and Receive, Strokes, Footwork, Tactics, Improving, Sports Psychology, and Doubles. It'll be published on Monday, June 1. It'll be my 17th book, and my 9th on table tennis.
• Circa July: Winning Table Tennis, by Dan Seemiller. This is a reprinting of Dan's instructional book from 1997. I've been working with another member of the writing community (the science fiction one, not the table tennis one!) to recreate the pages, since the original files were lost, other than the text.
• Or read about Larry's Adventures in Europe and Egypt: Seven Weeks Following Tour Guides with Little Flags and Funny Hats, and the Quest for the Elusive Dr Pepper!

RIP Donglong "Derek" Hao
Just heard the bad news - Coach Hao died a few days ago. He was a coach and top player (rated 2531) from the Swan Warriors TTC in the Bay Area in California. He was only 28. No reason has been given for his death yet. A chopper/attacker, he played recently at the US Olympic Trials, where he was in the Final 16, and almost advanced to the Final Eight - he was to play Sharon Alguetti, with the winner advancing, but had to default due to a leg injury. Here's a Facebook note on it with three pictures. (Here are the non-Facebook versions - picture1, picture2, picture3.)

Open Against Half Long With FH
Here's the USATT article by Wang Qingliang.

Do You Want to Serve Like a Pro?
Here's the video (4:35) with Thomas Keinath.

How to Do Reverse Pendulum Serve Table Tennis
Here's the video (13:38) by Louis Levene.

BTY Training Tips featuring Shigang Yang: Forehand Flip With Multi-ball Training
Here's the video (1:20).

The Chop Block (The Most Neglected Shot in Table Tennis)
Here's the article and video (6:41) from Tom Lodziak, with Craig Bryant.

New from Emratthich/PingSunday

• 5 Killer Serves in Table Tennis (14:11)
• Miu Hirano "Hook Serve" Analysis (2:30)
• Top Five Reasons China Is So Good at Table Tennis
• Cutest 5-year-old Champion (7:07) - featuring a young Mima Itoh, now world #2 from Japan

New from eBaTT (Eli Baraty)

• How To Hit The Perfect Table Tennis Forehand & Backhand, 3 Tips - eBaTT Tutorial #38 (7:29)
• DEVELOP YOUR BACKHAND TECHNIQUE with the eBaTT - Challenge #17 (3:03)
• Eli Baraty Interviewed by Olympic Table Tennis Coach, Afonso Vilela (57:33)

New from Samson Dubina

• Marcos Madrid Interview (24:02). Madrid is the Mexican #1 and an Olympian, and world #75 (previously #66).
• Tournament Day Reminders: 8 simple things to think about...

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here! (Note - for some technical reason, whenever I link directly to these videos, when I post my blog, everything from that entry on disappears! I have no idea. I've looked to see if there are any underlying characters that might cause this but can't find anything.)

Questions Answered at PingSkills
Here's their Q&A page. Post your own questions!

Professor Helps Olympic Table Tennis Team During COVID-19
Here's the article.

Player Watch: Jha on the move, an engagement and Pitchford's connection with the force?
Here's the ITTF article featuring USA's Kanak Jha.

New from Steve Hopkins

• Jha Joins Calderano in Germany
• WAB Club Feature: New York Table Tennis
• PongNOW: Sean O’Neill (24:26)
• Seemiller – The American: Coach Seemiller

Heart to Heart with Anna: The Bionic Man of Table Tennis
Here's the podcast (34:17) featuring Navin Kumar.

Club Feature of the Week (9)- Sky High Table Tennis Club
Here's the USATT article.

Fifth Time's a Charm as Jorge Vanegas Successfully Becomes International Umpire
Here's the USATT article.

It Was Purely Physical?
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

China's Help in the Growth of Table Tennis
Here's the article and video (7:42).

New from the ITTF

• Sharath Kamal Achanta in | Ask A Pro Anything at home (30:05). He's the #1 player from India, world #31.
• Player Watch: Jha on the move, an engagement and Pitchford's connection with the force? (Also listed separately above.)
• Relive the best moments from the Hong Kong Open!
• Table tennis, a path to education
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 4th May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 3rd May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 2nd May
• LIVE! World Championships Rewind: 1st May
• On this day: Ma Long crowned World champion for first time
• Top marks for Liu Jia but not the winning that counts
• ITTF Executive Committee: May update on COVID-19
• Saturday night action, Austrian Challenge televised live
• Tokyo journey, Ibrahima Diaw reflects
• World Championships Rewind: every day in May!
• Wang Nan, champion of firsts
• On this day: in Pyongyang, Magyar magic
• Adapting to a new style: Marcos Madrid
• Who will be the host cities of World Table Tennis?
• Hungary set to resume training sessions
• Return to Budapest: Ma Long makes history
• New Webinar Series by ITTF High Performance & Development
• Return to Budapest: Comeback Queens

King of Attack vs. King of Defense
Here's the video (15:39) - Ma Long vs. Joo Se Hyuk!

Story About Swedish Table Tennis from mid-1980's
Here's the video (12:50).

6 Weird Facts About Ping Pong
Here's the video (4:14) from Pongfinity.

Can You Make a Ping-Pong Table Disappear?
Here's the video (55 sec) from table tennis magician Leon Thomson!

Balloon Pong with Grandma
Here's the video (20 sec)!

Double-Hand Pong
Here's the video (21 sec)!

Top 10 Ping Pong Commercials
Here's the video (6:16)! I consider the Energizer one the best ever!

Legos Pong!
Here are two hilarious videos as the "Legos" version of the stars battle it out, with play-by-play by ITTF commentator Adam Bobrow!!!

• Timo Boll VS Ma Long • Lego Table Tennis Animation (2:36)
• Ma Long VS Fan Zhendong • Lego Table Tennis Animation (2:52)

May the 4th Be With You
Here is some Star Wars Pong!

• Star Wars Ping Pong (1:26). Things start to get interesting about 20 sec in, the blasters show up a few seconds later, and the light sabers come out 34 sec in! And then, 65 sec, the Dark Side arrives!
• Star Wars Ping Pong (4:09)
• Darth Vader vs. Yoda (57 sec)
• Storm Trooper Plays Table Tennis (repeating gif image) - he plays like they shoot!
• Party Pals LED Ping Pong - Star Wars Theme - Light Saber Paddles (42 sec)
• Darth Paddle (2:31) - How to Make a Star Wars Lightsaber Ping Pong Paddle
• When Rocky Meets Star Wars in a Ping-Pong Match-up (62 sec)
• Star Wars Table, Rackets, and Balls
• Darth Vader vs. a Martian
• Storm Trooper Smashes Against Darth Vader – with great Force!
• Star Wars Doubles
• Ping-Pong Breaks – Even the Dark Side Needs Them
• Darth Vader Playing Ping-Pong
• Yoda, the Emperor, and Pals Play Pong
• BB-8s Plays Pong
• Light Paddle Duel
• Light Saber Paddle
• Mos Eisley Cantina Ping Pong Paddles
• Yoda Ping-Pong Paddle
• Greedo Ping-Pong Paddle
• AT-AT Ping-Pong Table
• Lego Storm Trooper Ping-Pong Player
• Lego Storm Trooper Ping-Pong Player Diving for Ball
• Star Wars Lego Action Figures Playing Ping-Pong
• Chewbacca Pong
• Star Wars Action Figures on a Table
• Star Wars Sports Set (includes table tennis)
• The Death Star Made from a Ping-Pong Ball

Non-Table Tennis - Tooth Theology
My science fiction story, "Tooth Theology," just came out in the new issue of Galaxy's Edge. What if, in the distant future, most religions have died out, while worship of the Tooth Fairy - through her priestly Dentists - dominate the world?

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Don’t Warm Up Your Opponent During a Match.

Developing Your Game at Different Ages
Suppose an 8-year-old, a 30-year-old, and a 60-year-old walk into your club, all beginners, and sign up for lessons. You'd likely start them off similarly, teaching the fundamentals. But something happens after a time - how you teach them begins to change quite a bit.

For the 8-year-old, you'd be teaching him "modern" table tennis - like, say, Ma Long. Once he has the fundamentals down pretty well, he'll likely be taught to stay pretty close to the table, loop from both sides, with feet mostly parallel to the table, even for forehands (except when forced off the table). He'll become a great counter-looper. He'll mostly serve seemingly simple short backspin/no-spin serves - third-ball attack serves - and follow them with loops. (He'll learn other variations, but they will be "surprise" serves, not his core serves that set up his third-ball attack.) He'll learn to attack short serves with backhand banana flips. And he'll be well on his way toward being an elite player, maybe a contender for the National Team or more!!!

Many coaches would teach the 30-year-old the same way, but that's probably a mistake. If he's a truly top-notch athlete, then perhaps you would teach him the same way. But in essentially every case, he's not ever going to be in contention to be a National Team Member. His goals are probably to be as good as he can be - perhaps someday a 2000-level player. For this player, you would likely teach him a bit different - more "old-school." He'll learn to loop the backhand against backspin, but in rallies, he's probably better off hitting and blocking aggressively. He probably should move the right foot (for righties) back some for forehands, and not try to jam the table when looping. He'll learn to counter-loop, but he'll pick and choose when to do so rather than trying to do it almost every time. He should learn to flip serves, but should probably focus more on pushing them back effectively. And while he should develop short backspin/no-spin serves, he'll develop a wider variety of serves, especially deep ones - serves that don't work as well at the higher levels, but can be completely dominant against 2000 players. 

Of course, you should check with the 30-year-old to see what his goals are. He may want to play like Ma Long, in which case you'd coach him the same as that 8-year-old. How about a 20-year-old? He's in between, and depending on his goals and fitness level, you might teach him like that 8-year-old.

How about the 60-year-old? Unless he's a super-athlete for his age, he's not going to learn to run around all over the place looping. To reach his potential, it might be better to develop a great blocking game, and perhaps a good smash. He should learn to forehand loop against backspin, but in rallies he should probably mostly hit the forehand. He'll develop the trickiest deep serves he can, though he should also learn to serve short. He might learn to backhand loop against backspin, but often he'll be better learning to push and hit. In fact, if his goal is to be as good as he can be, then (and some will gag at this!), very often he should go to long pips on the backhand, even early on. That's the dominant style at the older age groups, and there's a reason for it - the long pips is basically an "equalizer," allowing them to block an opponent's athletic loops and turn all of that topspin into backspin.

Of course, you should also check with the 60-year-old to see what his goals are. He may want to play like Ma Long - but unless he's in great shape, I wouldn't recommend that as he'd probably hurt himself! (Yeah, that type of game is pretty physical.) But he might want to play with "regular" rubber, rather than face the stigma some long-pips players get, or he might want to play more of a topspin game.

In the end, players have to decided what their goals are. I've considered using long pips on my backhand a few times, but I just prefer sticking with inverted, so I win or lose using roughly the same equipment as the large majority of my opponents - plus, as a coach, I'm a better practice partner this way, both in drills and games. (I'll proably rewrite the above as a Tip of the Week later on.) 

New Table Tennis Books

• Why Table Tennis? 10 Aspects of the Sport that Will Change Your Life. This book, by Samson Dubina and two of his Ohio junior stars, Jacob Boyd and Sarah Jalli, will come out in about a month or so. I'm the editor for it, and was up late last night on it, which is why this week's blog went up a bit later than usual. I should finish editing it today or tomorrow, though they still have a lot of layout work to do.
• Still More Table Tennis Tips - I finished the pages for this book yesterday, and sent it off to Mark Dekeyser, John Olsen, and Dennis Taylor for final proofing, as they did for the first two books in the series, Table Tennis Tips and More Table Tennis Tips. It's 189 pages with 150 Tips from the last three years, organized in logical fashion, with seven chapters - Serve and Receive, Strokes, Footwork, Tactics, Improving, Sports Psychology, and Doubles. It'll be published on Monday, June 1.

A Table Tennis Coach Wants to Go to Georgia, Looking for a Barber Before His Hair Becomes Unreal...
It's probably a mistake that they are opening up this early in the pandemic . . . but I am sure tempted to drive down and get a haircut, see a movie, play some table tennis (since they are allowing gyms to open, TT clubs should be open), and then drive back to Maryland! It's only 660 miles to Atlanta, I can make it in ten hours! (Okay, I'm joking, but I am probably going to have to cut my hair with scissors this week, and I have no idea how it's going to come out.)

Let's Play Some Table Tennis Music While We're Stuck Inside!

• Ping-Pong Music on a Piano (3:40)
• Virtuosi with a Ping Pong Racket (1:22)
• Concerto for Table Tennis (2:56) – yes, that's Ariel Hsing and Michael Landers doing the table tennis.
• Magic Ball (3:09), the theme song of the 1989 World Championships
• Stiga St. Louis Junior Table Tennis Team Dance (3:56, though it doesn't really start until 53 sec in)
• He's the One (4:01) - music video starring Derek Nie
• A Game Nobody Knows! (3:48), music video starring Wally Green

Free Service Masterclass!
Here are the videos - ten of them on serving from Matt Hetherington. (See links on right.) 

New from Samson Dubina

• NEW Book! - Pre-Order NOW Available!
• Table Tennis Dives _____>----0 (9:01)
• Skype Lessons
• Improve With No Practice? (28:55) - Is it possible?

New from eBaTT (Eli Baraty)

• The BEST Table Tennis FOOTWORK, Exercises - eBaTT | Tutorial #37 (7:15)
• Home FOOTWORK, Table Tennis Exercise & Challenge - eBaTT Challenge #16 (3:42)
• Table Tennis Camp by United TTcT in Morpeth TTC London England (3:28)
• Table Tennis Camp in Lagos Portugal with the United Tennis Coaching Team (60 sec)

New from EmRatThich

• Top 5 Table Tennis Secrets in China (16:14)
• Luchare Ping Pong (5:31) - music video

Table Tennis Tips: Practicing Finishing Shots
Here's the video (6:11) from Steve Emmons.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here! 

Robot that Feeds with Real Racket
Here's the video (15 sec). I hope we get these in the US soon! Convention robots are great in many ways, but the one thing you don't get when you train with them is the practice of reacting to a ball coming off a table tennis racket.

The World’s Smallest Table Tennis Club
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Alumni Spotlight: Michael Wang
Here's the article from the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association.

Ping Pong, Walks and Mind Exercises: Brain-boosting habits of a renowned brain doctor during self-quarantine
Here's the article from CNBC.

New from USATT

• USA Table Tennis Weekly Virtual Town Hall Meeting With Club Owners and Administrators to be Held this Wednesday
• And the winner of World Table Tennis At Home Contest is...
• 2018 US National - Mens Singles Final - Kanak Jha vs Yijun Feng
• USATT Insider - Edition 273
• Club Feature of the Week (8)- Arkansas Table Tennis Academy
• Club Feature of the Week (7)- Austin Table Tennis Club

USATT PongPositive Interviews
Here's the page. This week they interviewed Jishan Liang, Judy Hoarfrost, Zhou Xin, and Frank Caliendo (yes, the comedian, who is also a USATT member).

New from the ITTF
They've put up a lot this week! Much of it is their "Return to Budapest" articles reminiscing about the 2019 Worlds.

• Remembering Annabel Pennefather
• Player Watch: Ukulele song and Diaw's World Championships story
• Socially Awesome: The best of ITTF World this week!
• Dr Andras Fejes, para table tennis pioneer, passes away
• What's the best ever performance in Japan Open history?
• This medal is for you: Pan American athletes standing side-by-side with front line heroes
• Meet your Dream Men’s Team of the 21st Century!
• Jörgen Persson - a day never to forget
• On this day: Timo Boll wins all-German showdown in Incheon
• On this day: An Jaehyun's Budapest journey begins
• Return to Budapest: gold for Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen
• Return to Budapest: Liu Shiwen at third attempt
• Return to Budapest: Swedish dreams come true
• Return to Budapest: thorough preparation
• Return to Budapest: yet again Ovidiu Ionescu and Alvaro Robles stun
• Return to Budapest: bronze for Patrick Franziska and Petrissa Solja
• Return to Budapest: anticipation fills the air
• Return to Budapest: champions depart
• Return to Budapest: Tomislav Pucar overcomes Dimitrij Ovtcharov
• Return to Budapest: Simon Gauzy wins match of the tournament
• Return to Budapest: upsets and classic contests ignite proceedings
• Return to Budapest: Miyu Kato shining light on indifferent day for Japan

New from Steve Hopkins

• Is it Time to Talk about Reopening?
• WAB CLUB FEATURE: San Antonio Table Tennis Club
• Seemiller – The American: Cai Controversy
• Seemiller – The American: Everyone Needs a Rival
• Seemiller – The American: The 1977 Rise to Division 1

How to Make a Table Tennis Ball Collector
Here's the video (2:08). Or you can just buy ones from Butterfly, JOOLA, or Paddle Palace.

Status of Table Tennis Clubs After the Epidemic is Over
Here's the cartoon! (Here's the non-Facebook version.) I'm guessing it's going to be even worse at barber shops.

Lily Smacks Ball Off Kanak's Head
Here's the video (9 sec)! Shall we call her Lily "William Tell" Zhang? Lily and the brave Kanak Jha are USA's top-ranked players, both ranked the same at #27 in the world in Women's and Men's.

Table Tennis - CLUB CHALLENGE - Hotshots vs HITT
Here's the video (7:39). "Hotshot Table Tennis (Jersey City, New Jersey) and HITT (Hoboken, New Jersey) duke it out in our "pass the ball challenge". Which club can pass the ball more? We challenge your club to beat either of our tallies! Forward on and keep our table tennis communities connected and thriving."

Serve Practice with Toddler Ball Recycler
Here's the video (25 sec)!

Meet the Spin Pros
Here's the video (58 sec)!

Trick Serve and Shot
Here's the video (17 sec)! I've done this trick before, but I do it with a forehand pendulum serve, so the ball curves the other way, and then I smack it with a forehand. Now I'm going to have to learn the opposite way so I can match this!

Table Tennis Trickshots - Solo Edition
Here's the video (1:27)!

River Pong
Here's the video (13 sec). Why spend money on a net when you can just stick a river there?

Crazy Diving Returns
Here's the video (21 sec)!

Over-the-Shoulder Counter-kill
Here's the video (33 sec) of this incredible shot!

Under-the-Legs Underhanded Sidespin Counter-Smash
Here's the video (15 sec) as Matt Hetherington against Lily Yip!

Backyard Improvised Chop Doubles and Exhibition
Here's the video (50 sec)! The lefty is 1993 World Men's Singles Champion Jean-Philippe Gatien. (Anyone know who the other player is? They also did the Relaxing Hammock Pong (32 sec) from two weeks ago.

Extended Ping-Pong
Here's the video (5:34) from Pongfinity!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Sometimes Challenge an Opponent's Strength.

Quarantine Shadow Practice
Anyone who reads my blog and tips knows that I'm a big advocate of shadow practice - where you practice your strokes and footwork without a ball or table. And here we all are, stuck inside, unable to play real table tennis with a ball or table! This is the perfect time to get your racket out and practice your game.

Before we go further, here are five Tips of the Week where shadow practice is discussed:

• Shadow Practice for Strokes and Footwork
• Shadow Practice Your Shots
• Shadow Practice When You Miss
• Changing Bad Technique
• Saturation Training

For me personally, I've been shadow-stroking for two reasons. First, I do it about five minutes per day for exercise. (And so should you - but more than five minutes!) Second, and this is perhaps the more interesting one, I'm developing my backhand loop . . . finally. I've always had a very forehand-oriented game. My backhand was just for rallying - I could keep the ball going forever, but I didn't attack well with it. I can backhand loop decently in a drill, but in a match, I have two problems developing it.

Because I'm forehand oriented, anytime I see a ball I can attack, my natural, long-trained instinct is to use my forehand. So if someone pushes to my backhand, before the ball's barely left their racket I'm already stepping around, even now, at age 60. (How did that happen?) It's pretty much reflex - and I'm still pretty quick for that first step to my left. (These days, alas, I get punished on the next shot, to my wide forehand, which I no longer can move to cover like I used to.)

But there's another reason. I hit my regular backhand almost directly in front of me, right in front of my eyes. This gives me great consistency, but isn't so great for looping, where it's better to take it a little from the side. (Backhand looping directly in front also puts strain on the shoulder, and whenever I try backhand looping too much, I hurt my shoulder.) So guess what I'm doing? I'm shadow practicing my backhand loop, over and over, with the contact point almost a foot to the left of my normal contact point. By the time we're allowed to go back to clubs, it might be a habit - and finally, at this late age, maybe I'll be a two-winged looper!!!

You can shadow practice with any racket. However, I like to do it with this weighted paddle I bought at the 2001 Worlds in Osaka, Japan. You should both practice your strokes and your footwork. You can play entire games this way!

Table Tennis Books
The Tips above, and related issues, are mostly from three of my books: Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers; Table Tennis Tips; and More Table Tennis Tips. (See links at Books by Larry Hodges.) The tactics book has been the #1 selling table tennis book in the world for much of the last few years (for English). But you might want to read the two Tips books now - the third in the series, Still More Table Tennis Tips, comes out in late May! Here's the draft of the cover.

USATT Interviews Me and Others
Here's the video (15:51). Alas, the audio isn't great. I think the microphone on the headphones I was using didn't work, and so the audio is from the computer's regular microphone - but I didn't realize this until later. USATT has been doing a series of these "Pong Positive" interviews - others include Frank Caliendo, Will Shortz, Liu Juan, Kanak Jha, Tom Feng, Sharon Alguetti, Lily Zhang, Han Xiao, Eve Yen, Huijing Wang, and Jennifer Wu.

Tim and Sally Update
Tim Boggan (USATT Hall of Famer and 2006 USATT Lifetime Award Recipient) has been keeping me up to date on his wife, Sally. They've been married for 60 years. She had a stroke last August, and is totally paralyzed on one side, and unable to speak, and needs a feeding tube. Tim wrote, "For 7 and 1/2 months she's shown remarkable courage, and has functioned well enough to think, write, and give a thumbs-up or down response to questions. But now...more bad news. Almost 87, she's become a victim of the coronavirus sweeping Long Island, and on Apr. 14 was transferred from her nursing home to a local hospital." Tim also adds that he and Sally very much appreciate the support the TT community has shown them for almost eight months. Here's the USATT article on their GoFundMe page.

History of US Table Tennis
Tim Boggan's long-time labor of love has been his History of US Table Tennis series, now with 23 volumes. However, at this point he plans to soon stop distributing them personally, and rely on Amazon and possibly regular table tennis distributors to sell them. However, he has a number of volumes left which he wishes to sell first. Normal price is $40/volume, but he's selling the remaining copies for $30/volume. He has the following copies left. If interested, email Tim Boggan directly.

• One left: Volumes 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20
• Two left: Volumes 6, 8, 13, 14, 18
• Three left: Volumes 4, 9
• Four left: Volume 22

USATT Weekly Town Hall Meetings - Next One This Tuesday April 21, 7PM Eastern Time
***THAT'S TOMORROW***
USA Table Tennis to Host Weekly Virtual Town Hall Meeting With Club Owners and Administrators this Tuesday. That's pretty self-explanatory. I attended the first one last Monday and took some notes. The meeting, UberConference lasted about 50 minutes. (They are switching to Zoom for the one linked above.) The attendee counter fluctuated as people got on and off, with about 50 attendees most of the meeting, with a maximum of 52. (Afterwards, there was an official log that said there had been 74, so presumably that meant 74 total, but not at the same time.) Attendees were listed by state, and came from exactly 20: AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, MA, MD, NC, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OK, PA, RI, TN, TX, WI.

• USATT CEO Virginia Sun opened with a message about the coronavirus and USATT efforts to deal with it.
• USATT COO Mark Thompson introduced staff and board member Tara Profitt, who was on the call.
• USATT HPD spoke about training at home, and what USATT team members are doing to train during this time. He gave out the TTTeamUSA link, which has numerous home training exercises.
• Questions that came up included ones on insurance financial help and whether events could be run at the end of May if local health officials agree. The consensus seemed to be that following local guidelines should be okay in running events. There was also a question on unemployment benefits, and it was explained that while this is a federal program, it is administered by the states, so you should contact your state government on this.

The Longest Table Tennis Serve
Here's the video (1:47). I do this serve all the time in exhibitions and to entertain the kids in our beginning class, where they line up and try to return it. (It's got loads of sidespin and backspin, so they mostly miss.) Here's a video of me doing it in an exhibition, but my distance is limited by the wall where I'm serving from. I think you can get more distance overhead, with a tomahawk serve, as I do in the video, though I can do it both ways. (Scott Preiss also does this regularly in his table tennis exhibitions.) It's really a matter of arm strength and technique - with some practice, any top player can do this serve. I'm pretty sure I can match the one in this video, or at least come close, but I'm betting some of the top table tennis athletes in the world can do it from even farther, especially if he's big and strong. Who do you think could do this from the farthest away?

New from USATT

• Vote on the Winning Video for the World Table Tennis at Home Day Contest
• Learning Tree Table Tennis Club
• Broward Table Tennis Club

New from the ITTF

• Ready to re-live the best of Japan, Hong Kong and China Opens?
• Hana Goda Exclusive Interview | Egypt's Rising Table Tennis Star! (3:15)
• Hana Goda, rewriting the annals of Africa
• Five classic rivalries we'll never forget!
• Too close to call - Five intense rivalries!
• Techniques of Sport Psychology
• Meet your Dream Women’s Team of the 21st Century!
• Socially Awesome: The best of ITTF World this week!
• Vladi evergreen, another milestone
• ITTF Events Update
• Rise and Fall: Biggest movers and shakers in April rankings!
• REVEALED: ITTF World Rankings for April 2020!
• ITTF Executive Committee: April meeting on COVID-19
• Yoo Namkyu, first Olympic champion
• On this day: Miu Hirano Asian champion
• On this day: Manika Batra leads India to Commonwealth glory
• On this day: John Hilton, European champion
• Player Watch: Assar heads to France, players unite and Ekholm retires

New from Samson Dubina

• Skype Lessons - Improve your game at HOME!
• NEW Book! - Pre-Order NOW Available!
• Training at Home! - What Tools and Resources at Available for YOU???
• NEW Fitness Videos for You!
• Ten Tactical Timeout Tips
• Bad Strokes? - Discover the REAL Problem
• DEXTERITY - Learn how to improve your game 500 points this year!

New from eBaTT (Eli Baraty)

• FOREHAND & BACKHAND HOME TRAINING (BAT ANGLES) - eBaTT | Tutorial #36 (7:22)
• Visual Training at Home for your BACKHAND & FOREHAND | eBATT Challenge #15 (4:22)
• INCREASE SPIN on your SERVE by using a PENCIL at Home - eBaTT | Tutorial #35 9:33)
• HARDEST Bat & Ball Skill in the WORLD | eBaTT - Challenge #14 (2:58)

New from Table Tennis Academy

• The Hardest Part Of Table Tennis?
• Video Page (lots of new videos, but they aren't dated so I can't tell which are new)
• Coaches Corner (where they answer questions).

Training Tips: Jorg Bitzigeio Footwork Drills Video
Here's the article and video (2:09).

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

New from Steve Hopkins

• Seemiller – The American: 1983 Nationals
• Seemiller – The American: 1978 US Open Final
• Seemiller – The American: 1977 Doubles Upset
• WAB Club Feature: Allen & Sons Table Tennis Club
• April Rankings: Fan On Top Again
• Seidenfeld Awarded Gold

The Sticky Stuff
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

National Collegiate Table Tennis April Newsletter
​Here it is.

From Near-Extinction to the National Championships: How U.Va. Club Table Tennis Rebuilt Their Team
Here's the article.

Table Tennis World Ranking Men
Here's a video (3:43) from EmRatThich that graphically shows the top 13 men in the world as the rankings changed from January, 2018 to present.

Pongfinity Match Highlights 6
Here's the video (4:20)!

T-Rex Playing Table Tennis Filter Mask
Here it is!

Coronavirus Pong: Trump vs. Xi Jinping
Here's the cartoon. (Here's the non-Facebook version.) I don't think USA is going to beat China at this game.

Epic Rap Battle Table Tennis - Ma Long vs Tomokazu Harimoto
Here's the video (5 min) from EmRatThich!

Super Skill! Double-Opposite Bounce
Here's the video (31 sec) of Eli Baraty!

Card Pong
Here's the video (4 sec)!

Quarantine Solo Pong
Here's the video (12 sec) of Khaleel Asgarali - but (sorry Khaleel) the one-piece suit might make them forget about the Obama tan suit!

Mom and Son Sink Incredible Ping Pong Ball Trick Shot
Here's the video (61 sec)!

The Great Gronk is a Beast with a Paddle...or Two!
Here's the video (11 sec)!

Kulpong Ball on the Road Around the World
Here's the video (3:20) - lots of quarantine pong!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
The Grinding Mentality - How to Play It and Against It.

Larry's Adventures in Europe and Egypt
My book on this is out!!! Some of you may remember I did a seven-week tour of Europe and Egypt last Fall, Aug. 13 - Sept. 28. It wasn't a table tennis tour, though table tennis came up a number of times. I visited ITTF Headquarters in Switzerland (there's a picture of me there), wore my "T-Rex Playing Table Tennis" hat everywhere, found some TT places in Berlin, and was recognized by a table tennis player at Stonehenge. 

The full title is, "Larry's Adventures in Europe and Egypt: Seven Weeks Following Tour Guides with Little Flags and Funny Hats, and the Quest for the Elusive Dr Pepper." There's a lot of humor, including my often futile search for Dr Pepper in Europe. The book is 180 pages, with 253 pictures, in full color.

I saw Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace, Normandy Beaches, the Louvre and the Mona Lisa, Catacombs of Paris, Palace of Versailles, Eiffel Tower, the Alps, Venice, Florence, Siena, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Ancient Rome and Greece, the Sistine Chapel, Pompeii, Checkpoint Charlie, Auschwitz, Great Pyramids, Great Sphinx, and countless other sites, including a plethora of ancient castles, cathedrals, and more museums than I knew existed.

I visited Portugal, Ireland, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Vatican City (yeah, that’s a country), Germany, Poland, Hungary, Greece, and Egypt.

I toured Lisbon, Dublin, London, Paris, Lausanne, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Rome, Vatican City, Pompeii, Naples, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Athens, and Cairo.

I walked the beaches of Normandy, Lake Geneva, and the Mediterranean, the banks of the rivers Liffey, Thames, Seine, Arno, Tiber, Spree, and Nile, and the Grand Canal in Venice.

And took a camel ride around the Great Pyramid! So why not come and share my adventures?

The downside is that full color is expensive. I created the book with KDP, a subsidiary of Amazon, and according to the automatic rules at Amazon, the cheapest price I could sell it for was $21.42. So I went with $21.50. Until now, all my books have been color on the covers, but black and white on the inside. I toyed with doing a black and white version, but the pictures are so much of this that, without the color, you don't get the real picture. So I decided to stick with all color. There's also no kindle version - just way too time-consuming to create one with this many pictures.

NOTE - Yeah, this makes three books in two weeks - two weeks ago I announced publication of two others books, Still More Pings and Pongs and Trump Tales: A Taunting. In late May I will have still another, my 17th book, and this time it's pure table tennis: Still More Table Tennis Tips. I've been busy.

USA Table Tennis High Performance Committee
At last week's USATT board meeting (see below), they created the High Performance Committee (HPC), which is in charge of general policy toward developing players in the US. (They work with the High Performance Director and top coaches from around the US.) The new members are: Bruce Liu (chair), Khoa Nguyen, Jim Butler, Amy Feng, Angela Guan. This is an illustrious group. (And note that this is all volunteer - they do not get paid.)

However, when I saw it, I did a doubletake. Individually, they are all highly qualified. Khoa, Jim, and Amy are Olympians, and they and Angela were all members of the USA World Team. Jim won Men's Singles at the Nationals four times. Bruce has been instrumental in the development of table tennis in the Bay Area in California. So why the doubletake?

None of them are USATT certified coaches. While all have undoubtedly done some coaching, I think Amy Feng is the only one that might be considered a professional coach - I believe she coaches at the EC Sports club in Marietta, Georgia, which is a joint table tennis-fencing club.

My general thoughts on putting together a High Performance Committee is that it should be made up first of high-level coaches and elite players. The purpose of an HPC is to develop elite players, and isn't that what high-level coaches are experts at?

Again, these members are individually highly qualified. It's just that the committee is lopsided. It's like putting together a baseball team where you bring in 25 great sluggers, and then realize you didn't bring in any pitchers. (It's also quite possible that some high-level coaches were asked, but turned it down. But there must be others.)

I think Bruce, the chair, will work hard to do a good job - I know him well and we've worked together many times, including at the recent USA Olympic Trials, where I wrote the articles and he took pictures. But one potential problem - as some might have noticed, over the last few years, USATT was sort of split between two groups. Roughly speaking, one group supported former High Performance Director Joerg Bitzigeio (who resigned last September) and his policies, and generally supported USA Teams with a balance between Trials and Selections (using selections to make sure we sent our best players, not just who played best at the Trials, plus taking doubles into consideration). The other group did not support Joerg (or more specifically, his policies), and wanted to minimize Selections, since they can be subjective and sometimes unfair. Bruce was one of the leaders of the latter group, and as I jokingly told someone, making him chair will make a few heads explode!

But hopefully he and the rest of the HPC will do a great job for USA Table Tennis, working with the new HPD Sean O'Neill (a staff position). Sean is a USATT Certified National Coach (highest level) as well as an Olympian and five-time US National Men's Champion. They have over a year to prepare USA for the now-2021 Olympics, so if we don't win gold, they are all out, right? :)

But I really hope they will consider expanding the HPC to seven and adding a couple of high-level coaches who can bring a wealth of coaching experience and expertise. (No, I'm not volunteering.) (Side note - I was told the HPC may also have sub-committees.)

USATT Board Meeting
Here are the minutes of the USA Table Tennis Board meeting held on April 6, last Monday night. It was a virtual meeting, which anyone could attend either online or by phone via Uberconference. Only board members and staff could speak, though you could request to speak on something, and if the board chair allowed it, you were given voice. I did this one time. There were exactly 20 people attending. Some highlights from my notes:

• USA Nationals postponed - surprise! - see segment below under USATT News.
• There's a new USATT coaching certification program being developed. 
• The upcoming USATT election is postponed "until it is safe," due to coronavirus, since some candidates have to get signatures to be eligible. This is where I spoke up, suggesting they waive the signature requirement this year, since most years only a few apply. Unless you get a large number, just this one time, under extraordinary circumstances, they could waive the signature requirement and see how many apply. If too many, then postpone the election. 
• The approved the chairs and members of three committees: High Performance, Nominating and Governance, and Ethics and Grievance. 

• The meeting finished with a closed session, where they discuss personnel or legal matters.

The Critical Difference Between a Table Tennis Player and a Table Tennis Athlete
Here's the article from Matt Hetherington.

New from Samson Dubina

• Advanced Table Tennis Serves - Check out the NEW Coaching Video! (25:18)
• Daily Practice - Are you practicing all areas of your game?
• Fitness Friday - Join us on YOUTUBE
• FREE ONLINE Sessions! - Motivational Mondays and Fitness Fridays

Coping with Covid-19 from a Psychotherapist's Perspective
Here's the article by Tahl Leibovitz.

New from EmRatThich

• How to Cut Table Tennis Rubber Perfectly (5:51)
• Table Tennis Ranking March 2020 (11:26)
• Best Penhold vs Best Shakehand. Who win? (6:44)
• Top 10 Most Important Skills in Table Tennis (37:20)
• Fair Play with "let serve" in table tennis? (2:53)

New from eBaTT

• HARDEST Bat & Ball Skill in the WORLD | eBaTT - Challenge #14 (2:58)
• Table Tennis SERVE STANCE & POSITIONING - eBaTT | Tutorial #34 (10:24)
• eBaTT @Home TT Training (3:00)
• Home Table Tennis BALANCE & CORE Training - eBaTT (48:04)
• Home Table Tennis Training - SPIN, TIMING & SERVE - eBaTT #33 (10:59)

The Backhand Punch
Here's the video (1:35) from Rory Scott.

Table Tennis at Home
Here's the article and videos (six of them) from Tom Lodziak.

Table Tennis Footwork Exercises You Can Do at Home Right Now!
Here's the video (8:11) from Louis Levene.

Aerobic TT at Home with Steve Rowe
(Numbers 1-4 were in last week's blog.)

• Workout #5
• Workout #6

Table Tennis Daily Academy
Here's an excellent site, both for informative articles and videos as well as for their online courses.

Where Medicine Stops
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

New from Steve Hopkins

• Table Tennis is Art (my photoshop cartoon, "The First Pong," is in it!)
• WAB Club Feature: Spartans Table Tennis Club
• Pong, Flicks, Chill, Repeat: 10 Times Pong was on TV

New from USATT

• USA Table Tennis to Host Virtual Town Hall Meeting With Club Owners and Administrators. It's today (Monday, April 13) at 4PM Eastern Time. I plan to attend.
• USA Table Tennis Announces The Appointment Of Committee Members. Note the new High Performance Committee.
• USA Table Tennis Announces Postponement of 2020 US National Table Tennis Championship
• USA Table Tennis Announces Automatic Two-Month Extension For Active Individual, Family and Club Memberships
• US Table Tennis Hall of Fame Update
• Coach Samson Dubina Keeps at Creatively Promoting Table Tennis and His Academy Midst Pandemic

Pong Positive Interview Series
Here's the page, with new video interviews going up every day or so, all about 9-18 minutes. Current ones include Kanak Jha, Tom Feng, Sharon Alguetti, Lily Zhang, Han Xiao, Eve Yen, Huijing Wang, and Jennifer Wu. They also taped one with me that should go up soon.

Rockville Man’s Ping Pong Company Making Masks for Health Care Workers
Here's the video (1:44) from NBC News, featuring Richard Lee and JOOLA USA, which has revamped its local office into a mask-making facility. Here's JoolaMedical, where you can buy them - it's a new branch of JOOLA.

Mouse Traps and Ping Pong Balls to Show Powerful Message: 'Social Distancing Works'
Here's the video (30 sec). "The Ohio Department of Health has a powerful message for the public: Social distancing works. The agency tweeted a video illustrating a demonstration of chain reactions using ping pong balls and mouse traps to get its point across as people nationwide are urged to practice social distancing in an effort to battle the spread of COVID-19."

A Message from the ITTF CEO
Here's the letter. See item #3 especially, where there's a proposal to do away with individual (singles and doubles) events at the World Championships (make them Teams only), and instead have 3 to 4 "Grand Smashes" per year. I don't think this is a good idea - a huge part of any sport is its history, and this would be like football doing away with the Superbowl or baseball the World Series.

New from the ITTF

• Stay at home. Train your serve!
• Matilda Ekholm bids farewell: #BehindTheTable
• Celebrating International Siblings Day!
• Zoran Primorac, proud to be Croatian
• WADA: play safe on play true day 2020
• Player Watch: Assar heads to France, players unite and Ekholm retires
• Socially Awesome: The best of ITTF World this week!
• On this day: Ping Pong Diplomacy born
• Rwanda renaissance
• Smile! Japanese duo's inspirational journey
• A Takashashi duet: tale of Brazil's rising superstars
• New dates for 2020 World Table Tennis Championships
• On this day: Zhu Yuling makes it three in a row at Asian Cup
• New dates for 2020 World Veteran Championships
• Five years absence, six world titles follow

High-Level Looping Dining Room Pong
Here's the video (35 sec)!

Target Practice - Cup and Rolling Tape
Here's the video (12 sec)!

Make a Table at Home
Here's the video (24 sec)!

Multi-Layered, Multi-Tables, Multi-Dimensional Pong
Here's the video (42 sec)!

Zhang Jike Free Style 2020
Here's the video (3:52) from Zhang Jike, the 2011 and 2013 World Men's Singles Champion. Now 32, I've heard rumors of a comeback!

Relaxing Hammock Pong
Here's the video (32 sec)! The lefty in the hammock is Jean-Philippe Gatien, 1993 World Men's Singles Champion.

Ten Seconds of Weird Table Tennis
Here's the video (link should take you to 2:06 of this long and strange animated movie)!

Multi-Level and Floor Ping Pong
Here's the video (4:04) from Pongfinity!

***
Send us your own coaching news!