USATT Supercamp - Day Eight
By Larry Hodges

[Here's the USATT Day Eight page, with video and photos by Matt Hetherington, and this article.]

The physical training this morning was the most grueling yet, though this was partly because of the heat - already into the 80s at 9:30AM. After a quarter mile warm-up run and a number of warm-up exercises, the wind springs began. We started with 100-yard sprints, six players at a time, with the next group starting as soon as the previous one finished. Then they did it again, going back. They did about 6-8 at this distance, then continued with 50-yard sprints, and then 40 yards. We kept pushing them to accelerate as they reach the end, since many would slow down instead. We also had to keep pushing them to pump their arms as they ran.

At first it was almost fun, as they raced each other, but gradually they got more and more tired, and many began to struggle - “It’s just as I suspected,” said coach Dan Seemiller about our lack of fitness. Two players were so exhausted they had to stop. One hard-working one hurt his leg, but it was minor, and he was back in action that afternoon. We finished with another quarter-mile jog, and then we were done with the physical.

New players joining us were three local New Jersey juniors; Tina Lin (17, 2354), Stephen Chu (16, 2108), and Sam Rockwell (16, 1854). This gave us 28 juniors for the day, including five over 2500 and ten over 2300 - and an impressive number of up-and-comers ages 10 to 12 with ratings from 1900 to nearly 2300, plus a pair of nine-year-olds over 1800.

Next came the best part of the day (for me) as Dan Seemiller and Sean O’Neill gave a 50-minute talk on a number issues, mostly on ball placement and other tactics, and stroke mechanics. Dan led the discussion, with Sean joining in with comments. Here’s a sampling.

• Dan gave the example of a past top U.S. player, who he thought had the potential to be top twenty in the world. But Coach Li Zhenshi said no, it was too late, the player too old to learn proper ball placement. Good ball placement needs to be learned early or it’s nearly impossible to get right. You may know off the table where the ball should be placed, but to reflexively do so at the table in a fast rally, and to accurately hit the target? That’s hard to teach or to learn unless you start early.
• Dan and Sean both spoke extensively about the importance of attacking the middle, i.e. the opponent’s playing elbow. This was ironic as I’d been pushing this same thing to a number of players here who didn’t seem to get its importance, and continued to attack the corners, which at the higher levels is often like banging one’s head on a wall. Dan said, “The middle opens up everything.” It forces the opponent to decide between forehand and backhand; into often awkward footwork; often a weak return; usually makes him play the shot later than usual so he can’t rush you; gives him no angle; and puts him out of position, which opens up the corners. This is one of those simple concepts that so many just don’t understand or take seriously. I’ve thrown up my hands at time with the number of kids I’ve coached that simply do not have this ingrained in them. As Dan said, “Became a master at finding the middle.”
• Regarding placement mistakes, Dan said, “These are not mistakes you can make if you want to be great.” He added, “If I make the right choice and miss, that’s okay. It’s when I make the wrong choice that I get mad and want to break my paddle.” He said that few players can hit their targets half the time. If you hit it 80%, that’s good, but 90% is needed.
• Sean said, “Players think the biggest difference between a weaker player and a top player is the top player rips everything. This cannot be farther from the truth. They place the ball better.” They both spoke about how Americans often try to just rip the ball instead of being willing to rally longer and get a better ball to rip, as most top players do. This doesn’t mean they don’t rip the ball; it means they rip the right ones, whether it’s the first or seventh shot in the rally.
• Dan talked about finding the center of your swing. This means making sure your backswing and forward swing are about the same length, and the contact point on your forward swing midway through the forward swing. “This makes timing and adjustments easier,” said Dan. “Center your stroke around your contact point.”
• Dan also spoke about being able to both hook and fade your loops, i.e. sidespin either direction.
• Next they talked about balance at the end of the stroke. If you are off balance at the end of a shot, you cannot recover for the next shot. This also means using your free arm for balance, as well as pulling with it for greater power on forehand shots. It means staying on your toes.
• Dan and Sean both harped on making your technique great. Sean spoke about how his coach sent him to Dan Seemiller camps to help develop his technique and get a different perspective. Sean’s coach was more of a hitter, while Sean more of a looper, so by going to the Seemiller camps he learned from Dan, who is also a looper.
• Dan spoke about mastering the things you can control, citing three: fitness, dynamic serves, and mental.
• On the mental game, Dan said, “Believe in yourself or you can’t be mentally strong.” “Everyone has a different route to being mentally strong. Find yours.”
• Both harped on excelling in as many things as possible - the more weapons you have the better. “You have to understand your game,” Dan said, and keep developing it. He said that even at 62 years old he believe he can improve by learning new things. Examples of things you might excel at include serve, ball placement, power, consistency, footwork, receive, deception, fundamentals, strategy, shot selection, rally ability, blocking, looping, and reading of spin - and that’s just the beginning!
• They spoke more about the free arm and its importance for both balance and adding power to forehand shots by pulling with it. They cited a Chinese coach who said that the racket speed of most American players was too slow, and considered the poor usage of the free arm and the rest of the body a reason for this. Said Sean, “If you don’t use your whole body you cannot get good power.” He then explained that by having such power means you don’t have to force the power, i.e. you can more easily go at any speed with less strain.
• Dan spoke about how players can learn by gathering ideas and skills like “nuggets,” such as playing the middle, centering your stroke, or using the free arm properly. As you gather these nuggets you improve. He said, “Be more than what you are now. If you’re a blocker, then developing the rest of your game, or your good blocking will become a trap, keeping you from developing the rest of your game. You’ll always have your blocking skills, so add to them.”
• Sean spoke of how losses are an opportunity. “They give you a report card on your game.” Sean told the story losing in the final of Men’s Singles at the USA Nationals in 1986 against Chartchai “Hank” Teekaveerakit, who was a live-in practice partner for him at the time. Going into the Nationals Sean was the defending champion, and had beaten Hank in practice over and over. In the final Sean was up 2-0 in games and at deuce in the third. He lost his focus, lost two careless points, and next thing he knew he lost the match in five. He had to spend the next year seeing the Men’s Singles trophy in Hank’s room, and it gave him determination never to give away free points again, whether in practice or tournaments - and a year later he won the title back. He said that if you adopt the attitude in practice of no free points, it’ll carry over into tournaments. “Never let up in a point. If you want to make the World Team, no free points.”
• They spoke of making tactical adjustments. Going into one Nationals Sean had never beaten Eric Boggan. He’s always tried to attack through him, since that’s Sean’s game, but Eric’s blocking was too good. When they met in the Men’s Final, Sean decided to just push and block, which threw Eric off, and Sean won the first two games. When Eric adjusted, Sean went back to attacking, which again threw Eric off his game - and by going back and forth, he won the match and the championship.

The kids then got a ten-minute break (and pigged out on watermelon, blueberries, and bananas), and then we started the afternoon 12-2 session. I wasn’t needed as a practice partner this session, and so roved between the two groups, with the upper group upstairs, the lower group downstairs. (Usually it’s the reverse.) This meant I missed about half of what happened in each group, alas.

Sean and Richard McAfee (his last session) ran the lower group, with 16 players. They started by challenging the players to his as many forehands as possible, and then backhands. The “winners” were Aziz Zarehbin (age 10, rated 1998) from the Alameda TTC in California, with 321 in a row, and Lisa Lin (age 12, rated 1986) from MDTTC in Maryland (my club), with 376. Sean then issued a challenge to them to go home and hit 1000 in a row - and promised some sort of prize to whoever did it first. He cited how his coach made him do this when he was nine years old, and how Dan Seemiller also had stroking consistency battles at his camps - with former start Jimmy Lane once getting over 5000 in a row. (At the 1978 Seemiller Camp, when I was 18, I hit 2755 backhands in a row to win the camp contest! My partner was lefty Ben Nisbet, who was hitting forehands and I think missed only three times along the way.)

Sean called and explained the drills, and pointed out that both players are doing each drill, that if one player is blocking, his feet should constantly be moving. “Blocking drills should be tiring - they are footwork drills,” he said. Throughout the session he harped on players to move their feet and to use their non-playing arm. (One player kept forgetting this, and each time he did, Sean would call out, “Lefty!”) He said, “Heels on ground - game over.” He also talked about one of his favorite terms: “Brain dead shots,” which come in many varieties. Examples he cited here were when feet stop moving but arms continue to move, and swinging wildly.

Two drills called by Sean while I was there stressed pushing short - though I’m guessing they did a lot of other drills while I was with the other group. They were:

• Serve short, receiver push short, play out point. Sean stressed the importance of moving in and out.
• Serve short, push 4-5 balls short, and then server pushes long, receiver attacks, play out point. The drills were similar, but subtlety different.

In the upper group, run by Dan (who called the drills) and Cory (with Lily Yip roving around both), some of the drills called included:

• Serve topspin, and play only backhand, blocking or looping, to the opponent’s middle, who had to return to the server’s backhand. The purpose of the drill was to learn to accurately go after the middle, which is a rather small, moving target.
• Same drill, except now server plays only forehand.
• Game drill: server serves until he loses two in a row, then the receiver becomes the server.

Then it was lunch - spaghetti, chicken, and various side dishes. Then we were off until 5PM.

I spent the 5-8PM session with the upper group. At first I was going to take notes and be a roving coach, but something opened up - and I spent most of the session practicing with Sid Naresh, 12, rated 2191. We had a great session. I was a bit leery at first as back home I spent so much time practicing with players under 1800 I wasn’t sure I could still handle 2200-level shots - but guess what? As I objectively (but not subjectively) knew, stronger players have more consistent shots, and so you get into a groove with them. With Sid, I got into a groove, as did he, and we had some really memorable rallies. He did a number of drills into my forehand and backhand block, and the rallies were fast and yet neither of us could miss (much). Dan worked with him several times on extending his backswing on his backhand loop for more power, and he practiced this for about 20 minutes into my backhand block.

We also did a forehand drill where one loops five in a row (forehand to forehand), and then free play - and all heck broke loose as the rallies were ferocious. When it was my turn, he had a lot of trouble at first with my forehand, which is hard to read - I can make it look like I’m going crosscourt, and then go down the line at the last second, and vice versa - but he gradually adjusted. Meanwhile, my forehand looping felt like it was 1990 again! Again, a lot of this was because of Sid’s consistency.

Toward the end of the session I practice with Matthew Lu (12, 2241), and once again we had some nice rallies. Like the lower group, they were focusing a lot on short push today, and so we did a drill where one served either backspin or no-spin, and the other mostly pushed short - but if they saw the no-spin, they attacked. Then we got to each choose our own drill. I went with serve backspin, Matt pushes long anywhere, and I forehand loop - an “easy” drill for me in 1990, but now that I’m 56 . . . but I held my own, even as I coached Mart to make things difficult by often aiming one way, going the other, and pushing aggressively to the corners. For his drill, he did a similar serve and attack drill, where he served short, I mostly pushed and sometimes flipped, and he attacked.

Then we played up-down tables, but with Dan’s variation. Everyone played until one player on any table won a game to 11. Then the winner would yell “Stop!”, and whoever led at that point won. If it was tied, they played one point to see who would move up. I did pretty well in these games, beating five players rated from 2180 to about 2250, and losing a tie-breaker with Gal Alguetti. Finally the 5-8PM session came to an end, I hobbled out, exhausted but happy with my play - and with my opponents’!

Next was dinner - sesame chicken, barbecued ribs, fried and white rice, spaghetti, broccoli, and various fruits. And then we were done! Well, sort of; about ten of the kids wanted to stay and play penhold and other matches. And so the night at the club didn’t end until past 9PM. On the way back I treated some of the kids to drinks and snacks at the local convenience store. And then a strange thing happened. With the sprints in the morning, and a rather vigorous day of training, the kids went to bed without argument!

Two Mysteries
This is a good spot to talk about the two camp mysteries.

• The Mystery of the Broken Front Door. Earlier in the camp the front door to the house many of us are staying at jammed, and wouldn’t open. It wasn’t an emergency since we had a back door. Barry Dattel came over that night to try and fix it, but needed more tools. He promised to come back the following morning. When he left, he’d taken the lower door knob off the door. The following morning we went to physical training as usual. When we returned, the door had been repaired, with the know replaced and everything. I thanked Barry - but he was confused, saying he hadn’t fixed it yet. We asked everyone, and we still haven’t figured out who fixed the door. I believe it was the Broken Door Fairy.
• The Mystery of the Ice Cream Sandwiches. This morning we discovered two boxes of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. Some of the older kids (who were staying at another house) came over and took most of them, which made the younger kids at the house rather unhappy. But then the question arose - whose ice cream sandwiches were they? I’d assumed Judy Hugh, who has been buying groceries for us (cereal milk, snacks, etc.) had bought them, but she said no - which made sense as she always buys large quantities of various foods, not just one item. We’ve asked around, but we can’t figure out where the ice cream sandwiches came from. I believe it was the Ice Cream Sandwich Fairy. 

NOTE - during my stay at the USATT Supercamp (July 11-22), I'll be blogging about it daily, but probably not including the other segments I normally include in the blog. I'm just too busy here coaching, managing, and chaperoning!

USATT Supercamp - Day Seven
By Larry Hodges

[Here's the USATT Day Seven page, with video and photos by Matt Hetherington, and this article.]

We’ve had sad farewells for the Week One coaches leaving us - Samson Dubina, Han Xiao, and Wang Qing “Leon” Liang, with Richard McAfee leaving on Monday night. But this morning we welcomed Sean O’Neill, with Dan Seemiller coming in tonight. Sean and Dan have each won five USA Men’s Singles titles - or as I put it to the kids, “Dan, Sean, and I have combined for ten Men’s Singles titles.” Lily Yip is also joining us, but she’s been here all along doing her own coaching here at the Lily Yip TTC. Sean and Lily give us two Olympians - and since about half the kids have put making the Olympics their primary goal, perhaps they’ll get some Olympic stories. They join Cory Eider and I for the second week.

Today was an “off” day, with no table tennis training as they rested from a week of training and the tournament on Saturday. Instead, an even 30 of us made the trip to Lancaster, PA, 2.5 hours away, where Peter Scudner (chair of the USATT Board of Directors) and his son Evan Scudner, and the staff at the Triode Media Group, Ltd., gave the 23 kids a day of media practice. They did this for free - what would normally have cost many thousands of dollars. So a great thanks to them! These kids are elite up-and-coming players who may be looking for sponsors and get interviewed by the media - and now they are a lot more ready than before.

We had two vans, a 15-passenger one we rented for the day (driven by Sean), and an eight-passenger one (driven by Cory), plus Arcot Naresh and I driving our cars. We left around 11:15 AM, with the various vehicles arriving between 1:30 and 2:00PM. There were many adventures along the way, in both directions, but we’ll stick to table tennis!

The kids were divided into three groups - roughly the 13 and over boys, the 12 and under boys, and the girls. They each spent up to an hour at each of three stations, which I will call the Sponsorship Talk, the Interview Room, and the Table Tennis Studio.

The Sponsorship Talk was given by Sean O’Neill, who, besides coaching at the camp this week, is the USATT Director of Communications and Webmaster. He kept much of it interactive, asking questions to bring the kids into the discussion. Some of the main points - and it’s impossible to really condense an hour-long talk/discussion here, but I’ll try:

• The four major media groups are TV, radio, newspaper, and social media. The kids guessed the first three, didn’t get the fourth.
• Why do companies sponsor players? Many players, including most of the kids here, thought it was to reward performance. As Sean pointed out, players are sponsored to help the company sell their product. It has to be a two-way thing - something for the player and something for the company. The best player often doesn’t get the best sponsorships; winning and losing isn’t as important as some think as companies would rather sponsor a player with a good attitude who is more saleable and willing to help promote their products while proudly wearing their uniforms and using their equipment. So players who wish to be sponsored need visibility and salability in order to be marketable.
• Do you have a story your sponsor can sell? For example, Sean gave the example of Dan Seemiller, who was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a baseball player - but chose table tennis instead. That’s a story! Everyone has a story; it’s just a matter of finding it. A good story sells products.
• You have to sell yourself if you want to get sponsored. Sean told the story of how he contacted the makers of Power Bars about his training and dreams of being an Olympian. They sent him thousands of bars!!! Since it was too many for him, he gave them out at a tournament. When the Power Bar company heard this, they sent him even more, with the idea being they’d hook all these people on Power Bars and sell more of them.
• When you lose a match, you can’t act like a turkey. It gets back to the sponsor. To reiterate, they want the guy with the great attitude, the one who, when he loses, does so graciously, complimenting his opponent for his play, not the one who whines and makes excuses.

The second station was the Interview Room. The players stood in front of a white background with a microphone, and practiced introducing themselves on camera. A woman from Triode Media did the camera work while Peter Scudner coached the kids on their responses. The typical introduction was in this format: “I’m [NAME], I play at the [NAME OF CLUB], I’ve played [YEARS PLAYED], and my goal is to [GOAL - normally make Olympic Team, or USA or World Men’s Singles Champion.

The third station was the Table Tennis Studio. They’d set up a table tennis court with great lighting, and huge cameras. Each player went up and would introduce themselves, explain a technique they were about to demonstrate, then demonstrate it (with USATT High Performance Director and 2013 USA Men’s Singles Finalist Cory Eider as playing partner and coach), and then look into the camera and say, “To learn more, go to USATT.org.” (I got to help out some in choosing some of the techniques to be covered and how to introduce them. We had to come up with 23 topics! All will go online sometime soon.) The kids had fun watching each other do their routines, and there will probably be a “bloopers” reel coming out along with the professional version. The kids explained and demoed essentially every major stroke and serve.

Afterwards we all went to the Dragon Hibachi for dinner, and then came the 2.5 hour return trip. And then it was off to bed to rest of for another week of training!

NOTE - during my stay at the USATT Supercamp (July 11-22), I'll be blogging about it daily, but probably not including the other segments I normally include in the blog. I'm just too busy here coaching, managing, and chaperoning!

USATT Supercamp - Day Six
By Larry Hodges

[Here's the USATT Day Six page, with video and photos by Matt Hetherington, and this article.]

I thought I’d start this with something we can all use - the “Think Circle.” On Thursday I wrote about Coach Samson Dubina’s lecture and game drills on tactics. He emailed me the following as an elaboration, which he spoke about in the lecture.

The Think Circle
Between pitches in baseball, the batter steps out of the batter’s box to re-focus. The same thing is true in table tennis; the pros often call this the “Think Circle.”

Between points, step back about 4-6 feet away from the table and draw an imaginary circle around yourself and collect your thoughts in your think circle.  Every pro athlete has a different method of processing the points, relaxing, and gearing up for the next point, but I’m going to give you the method that I personally use.

1. Ask yourself the question, “What just happened?”
   While the point is fresh in your mind, you should replay the details of each hit.  If you can’t remember how you messed up, you will likely make the same mistake again.  If you can’t remember how you scored, then you won’t likely be able to capitalize on your opponent’s weak points.
2. Remind yourself of your primary tactics.
   From the first few points of the match, you should be forming some specific tactics based on your strengths and the opponent’s weaknesses.  Point by point, you should be willing to adjust your primary tactics, especially if you are losing.
3. Breathe deeply.
   Deep breathing has a calming effect allowing you to forget about that missed smash, calm your anger, and come back focused for the next point. 
4. Ask yourself the question, “What’s next?”
   If you are serving, first determine exactly what you plan to serve and what the possible returns will be.  If you are receiving, then ask yourself how you plan to deal with fast serve, how you plan to deal with short backspin serves, how you plan to deal with no-spin serves.  Remember, you must stay fairly neutral when receiving and be ready for anything, while at the same time having general tactics against various serves.

This method that I briefly explained is the method that I use to analyze the point, remind myself of the plan, calm myself down, and get to the specifics.  I would encourage you to develop your own method and be consistent at using it during drills, club play, leagues, and tournaments.  As with any skill, it takes time to develop, but it is definitely worth the effort!

So (and this is Larry asking) . . . do you do anything like this?

Today was tournament day, with nearly all the kids competing in the New Jersey Chinese Festival Olympic Cup, held at the Lily Yip TTC - the same place we’ve been training at. The tournament was primarily run by Barry Dattel, with assistance from Lily Yip and Judy Hugh. Camp players won all the junior events: Michael Tran won Under 18 Boys; Klaus Wood won Under 15 Boys over Michael Tran; Jaden Zhou won Under 12 Boys over Aziz Zarehbin; Amy Wang won Under 18 Girls, and also won Under 15 Girls over Lisa Lin. Meanwhile, Avery Chan (12) made the final of Under 2000. (Here are complete results.)

Richard McAfee, Wang Qing Liang, Cory Eider, and I spent the day watching and coaching the players. (I ended up taking more notes than coaching matches - many of the matches I watched were between players in the camp, and so we couldn’t coach those.) Here are a few observations, with names not mentioned.

• One player almost lost to a lower player because over and over his first attack would be to the opponent’s middle forehand or backhand, giving the player an easy counter-attack. The opening shot should almost always go to the opponent’s middle (elbow) or wide angles. On the other hand, the player showed great variety and tactical skills with his serves.
• Another player went flat-flip crazy, smacking shots all over the place (rarely on the table), and almost lost the match because of it. Near the end he got a bit more consistent, flipping with topspin, especially backhand banana flips, and it was the primary reason he pulled out the match. Topspin gives control in two ways. First, of course, the topspin pulls it down. Second, when you flip flat, it’s very hard to make last second adjustments. With a topspin flip, where you stroke at least slightly up, you can more easily adjust how much you swing upwards, giving you control over the flip.
• In this match, the lower-rated player showed great variety and tactics with his serves, while the other mostly used the same simple serve over and over - and the result was almost an upset. Then, near the end, the higher-rated player pulled out some serves and won a close one. But if he’d used his better serves earlier, it wouldn’t have been so close.
• One player showed great anticipation and so was usually in position, but when players were deceptive with last-second changes of direction, especially to the wide forehand, he had trouble - his footwork wasn’t quite strong enough, and his forehand stroke a bit too long. He needs to work on both. But he had nice serves and variation, and a nice attack from both sides, though the backhand attack almost always was crosscourt.
• One player has a very nice forehand tomahawk serve - but imagine how good he’d be if he added a reverse forehand tomahawk serve! The serve gave opponents trouble, but they got used to it.
• One player showed great attacking skills, especially on his serve, and rallied very well. But he kept pushing serves back long, rarely attacking them or pushing them short. He even pushed long serves back, which is usually a no-no at higher levels. The passive pushing cost him. In a later match, he got more aggressive and pulled off a nice win.
• One player had only one good serve, and used it way too much. The only other serve used was what looked like the beginnings of a reverse pendulum serve, but it needed work - it had little spin. This cost the player as the receiver kept getting the initiative. Also, the player looked tentative looping against backspin, despite making these shots with ease in practice. Conclusion - table tennis is a very mental game. You have to be able to do in matches what you do in practice, and just let the shot go rather than try to guide it.
• In general, too many players relied on forehand pendulum serves without reverse pendulum or some other effective backup serve variation; players played way too much crosscourt, not enough down the line; and opening attacks were too often crosscourt to the opponent’s middle forehand or backhand, rather than at elbow or to wide angles. There were exceptions to all of these, of course.

After the tournament was done, I called a meeting to go over tomorrow’s schedule and events. We’re going to Lancaster, PA, a 2.5 hour drive - about 30 of us in all. It’s for a media training program - I’ll write about this tomorrow. Sean O’Neill is joining us in the morning, and will be driving a 15-passenger van; Cory Eider has an eight-passenger van; plus we have two cars going.

Then twelve of us walked five minutes to the ice cream shop! Some didn’t have money, so I treated six kids, while getting two scoops of Rocky Road for myself. I paid for it with another of my “trillion dollar bills,” but when they couldn’t make change, I grudgingly paid for it with smaller bills. (But I tipped the girl at the cash register the entire trillion.) I did this twice - at the ice cream shop and at a convenience store. Video coming tomorrow!

NOTE - during my stay at the USATT Supercamp (July 11-22), I'll be blogging about it daily, but probably not including the other segments I normally include in the blog. I'm just too busy here coaching, managing, and chaperoning!

USATT Supercamp - Day Five
By Larry Hodges

[Here's the USATT Day Five page, with video and photos by Matt Hetherington, and this article.]

Today was rather a fun day. First, because the kids are all playing in a tournament tomorrow, they only had one three-hour session instead of the usual 6.5 hours in three sessions. They also got to sleep late, since the session didn’t begin until 11AM. There were some very happy kids, especially since I relaxed curfew, allowing them to have some late-night powwows. But we’re back on curfew on Friday.

We started the three-hour session with a 35-minute lecture and demo by Han Xiao on serving and then receiving, with Wang Qing “Leon” Liang assisting. (This was for the entire camp, both upper and lower groups.) Here are some of the major points he went over:

1. When serving you use body, arm, and wrist, in that order. There is also a weight transfer, at least for forehand pendulum serves.
2. The importance of a proper serving grip.
3. The service swing starts by building up momentum with the bigger muscles, accelerating just before contact.
4. Controlling the first bounce (on your side of the table) is key. It allows depth control of short and long serves.
5. The various ways to create deception - semi-circular motions, spin/no-spin by varying the contact point or the grazing/non-grazing contact, and fast, varying follow-throughs to mislead the receiver.

Here are some of the major points on receive he went over:

1. Know the target areas of the far side of the table, and make sure to serve into them.
2. Develop a receive that fits your game.
3. Develop the three main receives against short serves: a flip, followed by continuous attack; a short push, where you usually look to attack the next ball; and the long push, if you have a strong block or counterloop.
4. Against deep serves, you attack - the main question is forehand or backhand, how hard, and placement.

Here’s where I’m disgusted with myself. I had three items I wanted to elaborate on, but when Han finished, I hesitated - and they went out to the tables before I spoke up. Perhaps next week . . . I was going to go over 1) Trick Serves and Third-Ball Serves (and why you need both, but should favor third-ball serves); 2) Some examples of semi-circular and other “trick” serves; and 3) Serving Low (in particular, how to make the ball bounce low on the far side, #4 in the link - the “Waldner” part).

Next up was physical training, led by Samson Dubina. The following is from the lesson plan he created in advance, which I believe we roughly followed.

5 min Dynamic Stretching
5 min jog
15 min core strength, flexibility, speed

• 30 seconds hands and feet extension
• 30 seconds leg flutters
• 30 sec Russian twists
• 30 sec forward plank
• 30 sec R plank
• 30 sec L plank
• 30 sec back plank
• Rest about 10 seconds between each exercise
• Do 2 rounds

5 min break
15 min core strength, flexibility, speed

• Same routine as seen above

5 min static stretching

We finished with table drills. My group focused on a number of drills that started with serves - we wanted to isolate match-type rallies, since they have a tournament the next day. Here are some - in the first three, we played actual games, but with the score starting at 8-all.

• Short serve, short push return, Play Out Point (POP)
• Short serve, short push or flip return, POP
• Serve anything to backhand, POP
• Best of five match, with every game starting at deuce!

We finished with a discussion of service tactics for the following day’s tournament. And then we were through for the day - or were we?

Nope - we all wanted a Strike!!! As in - we took the kids bowling! The entire camp and coaches went, over 30 of us. We bowled for two hours, and the kids had a great time, and are now relaxed and ready for the tournament. For the record, Matt Hetherington was the best among the adults (with a 173 game); Michael Tran was the best of the players - and he’s only 13; and Matthew Luo (12) was the best of the non-teenagers. As to me, after shooting in the triple digits (110!), I’ve made the tough, life-changing decision to give up my professional table tennis career and become a professional bowler. (For the record, the last time I went bowling was when my grandparents used to take me bowling when I was a kid - during the Nixon Administration.) I had no legal strikes, but I had a pair of “Larry strikes” - a gutter ball followed by a strike (i.e. a spare, alas).

Dinner was served back at the club, once again cooked by Lily and volunteers. It was great - a huge pot of orange chicken (gone in seconds - the kids really are piranhas) and two other types of chicken dishes; that great fried rice with onions, eggs, and some sort of spices; spaghetti; and various vegetables and fruit. I had all three chicken dishes, fried rice, and a bowl of watermelon and strawberries. And on the way home, I had a Mountain Dew. What a great day!

We’re back at the house now, with the kids split between video games on various devices, and Pokémon Go, which is all the kids (and some of the coaches) seem to talk about - it’s an obsession that’s swept the camp, leading to constant, “Larry, can we go outside? We need to catch a [unintelligible name of some Pokémon creature].” If they spent as much time on their table tennis as they did on this, they’d - oh wait, they do!!! That’s why they’re here. Meanwhile, I’ve already made the rounds, making sure they all know tomorrow’s tournament schedule, what time each has to ready to play, tonight’s curfew, etc. Fortunately, the playing site is only a five-minute walk away. The  players will go over in groups, with each group walking to the club 70 minutes before their first match so they have an hour to warm up and prepare. (I have a list and I’m checking it twice over and over and over.)

Today also marks a transition. Samson Dubina, Han Xiao, and Wang Qing Liang are all leaving tonight or tomorrow, with Richard McAfee staying until Monday night. Coming in this Sunday will be three new coaches for the rest of the camp - Dan Seemiller and Sean O’Neill, and Lily Yip - who is already here, of course, since this is the Lily Yip TTC! Cory Eider will stay to the end of the camp (July 24), while I have to leave two days early.

NOTE - during my stay at the USATT Supercamp (July 11-22), I'll be blogging about it daily, but probably not including the other segments I normally include in the blog. I'm just too busy here coaching, managing, and chaperoning!

USATT Supercamp - Day Four
By Larry Hodges

[Here's the USATT Day Four page, with video and photos by Matt Hetherington, and this article.]

It’s 9PM, and the training ended an hour before - and nearly half of the 27 players are still at the club. They are playing penhold, doubles, and against my clipboard. They don’t want to go home, they want to keep playing, just in different ways. Cory Eider and I both agreed that this is why some players develop such a feel for the ball, by constantly trying new things, just as generations of past players with great control did. (Waldner was infamous for that, and it seems to have paid off for him. The Alguettis seem to be following in his path.) This doesn’t mean you replace practice with such “goofing off” - it means you have fun with it while developing that feel.

Several new players joined us today - Allen Wang (18, 2546), Amy Wang (13, 2416), Matthew Lu (12, 2241), and Jack Wang (15, 2537). Jack was there only for the day, but might rejoin us next week. Alex Ruichao (2699) Adam Hugh (2582) also spent the day training with us.

The big breakfast discussion for today was how each player got started in table tennis. Most got started by their parents or older brothers. I told the group I went to the library to get a book on track and field, and looked left, and that changed my life - and Rohan Acharya (13, 2133) correctly guessed I saw a book on table tennis, which is alphabetically just to the left of track and field. (The book was “The Money Player” by Marty Reisman - and when I recited the story to Marty many years later, his response was, “Great; another life I’ve ruined.”)

For physical training (9:30-11:00 AM), the players were divided into four stations. Each station had a different set of exercises. My group had to: 1) jump high into the air five times; 2) sidestep rapidly across the exercise ladder on the ground; 3) jump high in the air five more times; 4) sidestep rapidly across another exercise ladder on the ground; and 5) jog back rapidly to the end of their line, where they’d have a few seconds of rest, and then go again. Each group did each station for five minutes continuously, took a short break, and then moved to the next station. Michael Tran was the best at my station, with Allen Wang and Aziz Zarehbin also standouts, though plenty others were good at it.

Some people probably still don’t buy into the idea of the importance of physical training at the higher levels in table tennis. Let’s take a look at world-class players. See how fast they are, and how they generate so much force on each shot seemingly effortlessly? Listen closely: This Doesn’t Just Happen!!! It comes from years of such physical training. It’s the norm for overseas countries that regularly produce top players; it’s not the norm in countries that don’t regularly produce top players.

I spent the afternoon session (12-2PM) with the lower group, where we did something you rarely see in a table tennis camp: we spent the entire two hours working on serves. This doesn’t mean they went out there and practiced serves for 120 minutes; it was broken up by numerous lectures on specific serves (mostly by Richard McAfee, with Cory and I joining in with comments). They had segments where they worked on heavy backspin serves; sidespin serves; corkscrewspin (sometimes called deviation spin) serves; and others.

During a break I introduced them to the “Comeback Serve” game. Each player gets five serves. They serve the ball high with backspin, trying to make it bounce backwards. If it hits their side, goes over the net, and bounced directly back to their side on one bounce without hitting the net, they get three points. If it hits the net in either direction or takes more than one bounce before bouncing back, two points. If it bounces back into the net, one point. Several players were able to do three-pointers.

In the night session (5-8PM), I went back and forth a few times between the lower and higher groups. In the lower group, the focus the first hour was short pushes, long pushes, and then flipping, with lectures/demos on each, and then drills (with each drill starting with the focus and ending with free play). Richard ran this group, with Cory assisting. Richard stressed the importance of the fingers positioning and pressure to control short pushes. He also gave us a Chinese saying about the importance of the various parts of the arm, which goes roughly like this: “The shoulder is kindergarten; the elbow is elementary school; the wrist is high school; and the fingers are college.”

Samson Dubina ran the higher group, with practice partners like Alex Ruichao and Adam Hugh helping out. The first drill had the server serving medium long and the receiver looped anywhere. If it went to the backhand, the server blocked; if it went to the middle or forehand, the server counterlooped. Then they played out the point - or as I put in my notes, POP.

Then the focus went to tactics. They were paired up and each played an 11-point game. Samson asked them to make notes afterwards about what tactics worked and which didn’t. Many of the players couldn’t remember. (Adam Hugh was able to recite nearly every point of his game with Michael Tran.) Then they went out and played again, this time focusing on trying to remember what happened. Afterwards they wrote out notes on what worked and what didn’t. (Here’s a picture of some of them writing out their notes.) Then they did the “20-second between points” drill - they played a game to 11, and had to think about the point for 20 seconds before they could play the next point. Once again they wrote out afterwards what worked and what didn’t. I had some discussions with players on these tactics - tactics and serving are my favorite table tennis topics.

One player was struggling against another player, who was good at quick angle blocking. He kept attacking the corners (giving the blocker a wide angle to block into), and kept going out of position to forehand loop from the backhand side (and got killed over and over on the wide forehand). A better tactic would be a strong backhand attack to the blocker’s middle (elbow), forcing a weaker return with less angle, with the attacker in position and ready to attack from both wings.

I’m having a great time working with these kids. In most camps, there’s a mix of players from goof-offs to serious, and everything in between. Here, everyone is serious about their game and improving. (As I explained to one of them, you have to be serious about both your table tennis game and your table tennis goofing off.) One of the things I’m stressing in these sessions is that you don’t just tell players what they are doing wrong; you also tell them what they are doing right, so they can re-enforce good habits.

The kids are in high spirits tonight - there’s a tournament here on Saturday, so the Friday training will be light. Instead of 9:30AM, we’ll do physical training, lecture, and table training from 11AM to 2PM - and then, from 5-7PM, we’re going bowling!

And just for the record, Sharon Alguetti appears to be the penhold champion (everyone in the camp plays shakehands); 9-year-olds Nandan Naresh and Daniel Tran (both over 1800) lost a close five-gamer to their dads (they are in the 1800-2000 range), and only Aziz Zarehbin and Avery Chan have gotten games against my clipboard this week - and each was awarded a trillion dollar bill as a prize.

NOTE - during my stay at the USATT Supercamp (July 11-22), I'll be blogging about it daily, but probably not including the other segments I normally include in the blog. I'm just too busy here coaching, managing, and chaperoning!

USATT Supercamp - Day Three
By Larry Hodges

[Here's the USATT Day Three page, with video and photos by Matt Hetherington, and this article.]

I started off the morning telling horror stories over breakfast: the player who, after a loss, utterly destroyed a bathroom (something like $5000 in damages); in another match, the same player broke his racket after losing a few points, tried playing with the broken paddle for a while and lost more points, borrowed a friend’s paddle near the end (it was legal back then), but ended up losing an 800-point upset - and broke the friend’s racket; the player who ate half a notebook of paper after a loss; and yes, me, who once bought ten cheap sandpaper paddles and broke them all, one by one, during a tournament. (It was a long time ago, and I was only 17!)

As usual, we started off with physical training - but this was a short session. After jogging to the track (1/2 mile), and some stretching, we gathered the players together. I gave a few tips on distance running - proper breathing (through mouth, deep into belly), proper form (upper body relaxed, especially jaw and shoulders, leaning slightly forward, elbows at 90 degrees and pumping straight forward, light steps, and not overstepping by trying to step forward of body), and pace (steady for most of run, faster at the end). Then they jogged one lap for practice.

After some calisthenics and a short rest, it was the main event - a timed one mile, four laps around the track. I’m not going to give out the times - some of the kids would be rather unhappy if I did - but they ranged from about 5:45 to over eight minutes. A number of our top juniors were a little over six minutes. Conclusion: most were in pretty good shape, but for athletes trying to be the best in a sport like table tennis, not that good. Cory Eider and I agreed that by age 14 or 15, our best juniors should be breaking 5:30 - otherwise, how can they train as long and hard as their overseas rivals? (For perspective, when I was a miler in high school - 40 years ago - my best was 4:53. I ran the mile with the others, but let's just say it's been 30 years since I ran regularly...) Coach Samson Dubina came in first, with Andrew Song and Michael Tran giving him a good run for it at the end.

Then it was back to the club for a 45-minute lecture/slide show/video on Body Movement by Richard McAfee. Here are some of the main topics from my notes.

1. The Base. Wide stance, knees bent, low center of gravity. Stability vs. ability to move - need to find a balance.
2. Core Strength. This is the area between arms and legs. Without a strong core, it’s impossible to play high-level table tennis. It’s one of the focuses of the physical training.
3. The Strength Addition. This is about how movement should start and the sequence of muscles, from big and slow to small and fast: Legs and knees, hips, trunk, shoulders, elbow, wrist.
4. The Supports. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest length.” So if one muscle is underdeveloped, everything falls down to that level. Some ideas here;
   •    Transmission of forces: “The faster the athlete has to go, the more his stance is bent.”
   •    Proprioceptivity - yes, that’s a word! It means “the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.” One device that helps in this type of training is a BOSU training device, which we have here. During break, it’s in constant use.
   •    Release. This involves lightening of the supports. If your weight is on a foot, you can’t move it, so you have to get the weight off the foot first.
   •    Landing.  How you land when moving.
5. Basic Position. The receive position is generally lower than the playing position.
6. Body Adjustments. These are often less conventional adjustments, often to cover the middle. Lots of examples were shown with video, such as 1993 world champion Jean-Philippe Gatien, who popularized “draw” footwork, where one covers more of the table with the forehand by essentially leaning away from the ball and powering it more with the upper body (though done properly, you also use lower body).
7. Lateral footwork, pivot footwork, depth footwork. Moving in different directions!
8. Games - footwork adjustment. “Players with good footwork in drill can be bad in games. They need game-type drills (random) and off-table training.”
9. Watching the feet. Overseas, especially in China, coaches are notorious for looking down much of the time, the idea being that 90% of problems involve the feet and lower body.

Afterwards we spent some time watching an ITTF training video created by Tibhar. We will likely watch more of it later. I’m especially interested in the one on multiball drills, which we’ll likely view later.

Then came the 12-2 table session. Once again I was with the lower group. Since we had an odd number, I was once again a practice partner for much of the session. Samson Dubina and Richard McAfee ran the session for this group. Here are three of the drills we did.

1. Two Loops, Two Blocks. Either player serves topspin, other player loops two balls in a row to the other player’s block; then the looper blocks back, and the other player loops two in a row, and then they switch again, and so on. I did this drill for a time with Jayden Zhou, 11, rated 2060, and we really went at it! Many great rallies.
2. Short Push, Receiver Attacks. Server serves short backspin, they push short twice each, then receiver attacks, and play out point.
3. Close and Far Counterlooping. One player serves backspin and loops off the push return. Then the two counterloop, with the server looping from close to the table, the receiver looping from off the table. (One of the players had to leave, so I didn’t do this drill - but I worked with several of the players on it, demonstrating how to loop quick off the bounce with a hooking sidespin at a wide angle.)

Then it was lunch time - spaghetti; rice, sausage & egg dish; and a few side items. And then, while everyone was eating, they brought in one more dish. I yelled out, “We have orange chicken!” - and there was a stampede as most of the camp came running. It was a huge pot, but they cleaned it out in minutes like a pack of piranhas. Note to self: never get between a group of hungry athletes and orange chicken. After lunch was a break until 5pm - and what did most of the kids do? There's some sort of Pokemon Go craze, and that's how many spent the afternoon and again that night. 

Up until now I’d worked almost exclusively with the lower group (younger and lower rated) because with them, I can be a pretty good practice partner and work one-on-one, plus for this group we had more lectures and demos, which I sometimes gave. But for this night session (5-8PM) I was able to join the higher group. I coached some as well as taking notes. Han Xiao mostly ran the session, with Wang Qing Liang, Alex Ruichao, and Jin Yuxiang as practice partners. (Samson and Richard ran the lower group, with Cory acting as a practice partner and one-on-one coach.) Han and I had some good discussions and analysis of some of the players. Here are two of the drills they did:

1. Server serves backspin, receiver pushes back long to backhand, server loop (forehand or backhand), receiver blocks to backhand only while server loops consistently anywhere with forehand or backhand. After about five shots, the server tries to end the point.
2. Server served long or medium-long, receiver attached anywhere, and rally continued with receiver attacking and server blocking. After about five shots, the server could counter-attack, and they’d play out the point.

Then they did about an hour of multiball, with the players in groups of three, with one player feeding multiball to another, and the third doing ball pickup. (This allowed the coaches to focus on coaching.) It was interesting to see how some of the players were highly proficient at feeding multiball, while others were not. Players in the group were the three Alguettis (Sharon, 14, 2558; Adar, 16, 2535; Gal, 14, 2500); Michael Tran (13, 2451); Klaus Wood (14, 2354), Rahul Acharya (17, 2320), Kai Zarehbin (12, 2261), Sid Naresh (12, 21910, and Roger Liu (15, 2163). Did I mention these players were good?!!! I especially enjoyed watching Michael Tran and Sharon Alguetti go at it in drills - super speed vs. super control. Now, if we could just combine these two, maybe we’d have something like this.

Then it was dinner time! Sesame chicken, curry chicken, soup, dumplings, broccoli, fried rice, and fruit. (I was in a spaghetti mood.) Then it was back to the house to rest up for the next day.

Allen Wang (18, 2546) and Amy Wang (13, 2416) arrived last night and will be with us the rest of the camp (July 11-24). Arriving Thursday are Tina Lin (17, 2354) and Matthew Lu (12, 2241). The 27 players in the camp range from age 9 to 18, and about 1800 to 2550, with a whole pack of kids in the 10-12 range rated between 1900 and 2100.

NOTE - during my stay at the USATT Supercamp (July 11-22), I'll be blogging about it daily, but probably not including the other segments I normally include in the blog. I'm just too busy here coaching, managing, and chaperoning!

USATT Supercamp - Day Two
By Larry Hodges

How do you spell exhaustion? U-S-A-T-T-S-U-P-E-R-C-A-M-P! No, not exhausted kids - how about us older coaches trying to keep up with these energized looping machines? Yes, they get tired during training, especially the physical training, but minutes later they are bouncing around like hungry Tasmanian Devils. (They never stop moving and eating. Even during breaks they are hitting with mini-paddles; playing doubles; lobbing to each other; or dragging me onto the table to challenge me where I chop and pick hit with a clipboard.)

Here's the USATT Day 2 Page, with video and photos by Matt Hetherington, as well as this article.

The physical training may be the most important aspect of the camp, which is taking place July 11-24 at the Lily Yip TTC in New Jersey, with 27 of the top juniors from around the country taking part. Compared to overseas players, top U.S. players and juniors are way behind in physical training. The stuff we’re doing here is new to nearly all U.S. juniors; it’s routine overseas. The Chinese players and coaches all say this is standard, and are always surprised top U.S. juniors don’t also do it regularly.

But the camp is also about other things. Along with the physical training, perhaps the other camp pillar is developing USA Team unity. Overseas, players train as part of a team, and the best countries are focused on beating the other top countries. Yes, they also want to be the best themselves, but they train and compete as a team, whether it’s the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, or past great countries like Sweden and Hungary.

But in the U.S. it’s mostly individual players or clubs competing against other players and clubs. We need our players to train and compete as a team, working together to reach the top. That means often getting them together where they train and compete together, each pushing the others to be better, both in the camp and year round. It also means having USA National coaches look at the players - i.e. a different perspective - and make suggestions to the players’ coaches on things they can do to improve - not to supersede those coaches, but to work together with them to bring their players to their maximum potential, and thereby Team USA as well. Changing the culture of table tennis in the U.S. in these ways are key ingredients to bringing Team USA to the next level, and are perhaps the biggest focus of USATT High Performance Director Cory Eider.

To be specific, the actual listed camp goals are the following - with elaboration on each of these points:

1. Create “Team USA” spirit;
2. Send all players home with an “Action Plan”;
3. Education of the importance of physical fitness training;
4. Movement education;
5. Evaluation of all participants both technically and during competition;
6. Improvement of serve and serve return;
7. Improvement of first 5 balls;
8. Tactical education.

Many of us have been to table tennis camps, and this camp is not attempting to take away from other camps. But there are a few key things that make this camp different from most. Since all these players are aiming to be the best, they have to understand what it takes to be the best. That means not just doing drills, but understanding the purpose of each drill, and how it will help them move to a higher level. So before all drills the players are called together so we can explain the drill and its purpose, and what they should be focusing on when they do it. Similarly, after practice matches the coaches often meet with the players to discuss the tactics in the match - what worked, what didn’t, and what they need to work on to improve.

Physical training was once again from 9:30-11:00 AM at a local quarter mile track. Samson Dubina and Richard McAfee led the training, with Cory Eider, Wang Qing Liang, Han Xiao, and me assisting. We started with three laps, and then stretching. Then they were divided into two groups by age and size. One group went first to Richard to work with the medicine balls and bands. The other group went to Samson to work on planks. Most of the exercises were done for 30 seconds, three to four times each.

The medicine balls came in four, six, and eight-pound types, about 8-9” wide. They did four exercises with them.

1. “Side-to-Side,” where they swung the balls side to side in a circle, so the balls went way to their left and behind them, and then way to their right and behind them.
2. “Over head,” where they swung the balls over their heads, also side-to-side.
3. “Chopping Wood,” where they swung the balls down between their legs, and then back up again.
4. “Circles,” where they sat on the ground and twisted to the right, putting the ball behind them - and then twisted to the left so they could grab the ball and bring it around their body to their right again, so the ball circled their body. Then they did the same thing in the opposite direction.

There were three band exercises. (The bands are strips of stretchy rubber.)

1. The first was simple arm curls, where they held one end of the bands on the ground with their foot, and did curls with each arm.
2. Then came the triceps pull, where a partner held the band behind them and they pulled the bands forward, like throwing a ball.
3. Then they did the same thing (with partner holding the band), and did forehand strokes.

There were six “plank” exercises. These are exercises where the athlete typically lies on the ground and then lifts himself in the air in various ways with his arms or legs, and holds it there for 30 seconds, with body relatively straight. (The first two aren’t really plank exercises.)

1. Hand and leg extensions (Go on hands and knees and extend left arm and right leg; repeat with the reverse)
2. Russian twists (Sit on ground, leaning backwards, and rapidly touch each side, rotating body side to side)
3. Forward plank (Lie on stomach, and raise body on elbows/forearms and legs)
4. Right plank (Lie on right side and raise body with right arm and leg)
5. Left plank (Lie on left side and raise body with left arm and leg)
6. Back plank (Lie on back and raise body off ground with arms and legs)

Table training was from 12-2PM and 5-8PM, with the camp divided into two groups by levels. (I was with the lower, mostly younger group.) I was a practice partner for the first session, where we did a number of blocking and looping drills. One drill focused on looping with sidespin both ways, both hooking and fading, with both forehand and backhand loops. I helped run the second session, along with Han Xiao and Wang Qing Liang, and gave several lectures/demos on third-ball attack against pushes; third-ball attack against flips; serving short with sidespin and following with a loop; and random drills that start with various deep serves, with the receiver attacking the serve and then rallying as the server blocks side to side at random. We constantly harped on ball placement. For example, when third-ball attacking from backhand side, there are four placements - down line; to opponent’s elbow; crosscourt to corner; and crosscourt outside corner. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Meanwhile, Richard McAfee and Samson Dubina ran the higher group, with Cory Eider taking a turn with each group, often acting as a 2500+ practice partner.

We finished with up-down tables, where winners move up, losers move down, and everyone tries to reach the first table, with single games to 11 (no deuce - 11-10 wins). The twist - if you won on your serve or third-ball, you got two points. One other twist - if it reached deuce, you had to yell “Deuce!” and the whole camp stopped to watch the next point. Players need to learn to play under pressure with people watching!

Once again lunch and dinner were cooked by Lily Yip and a pair of volunteers. Lunch included a Chinese dish of rice, sausage, scrambled eggs, and spices; clam chowder; spaghetti; and the usual assortment of fruit. Dinner was sesame chicken; two types of ribs; fried rice; potato soup; and fruit.

What did I do in between the two sessions? I have no idea; I finally took a nap and slept through it. (How do you spell exhaustion?) 

NOTE - during my stay at the USATT Supercamp (July 11-22), I'll be blogging about it daily, but probably not including the other segments I normally include in the blog. I'm just too busy here coaching, managing, and chaperoning!

USATT Supercamp - Day One
By Larry Hodges

The camp started yesterday (Monday), with 27 players at the Lily Yip TTC in New Jersey, July 11-24. I volunteered to be the resident manager and one of the coaches. USATT High Performance Director Cory Eider is in overall charge. For the first week, the other coaches are Richard McAfee, Han Xiao, Wang Qing Liang, and Samson Dubina. For the second week it will be Sean O’Neill, Dan Seemiller, and Lily Yip. Matt Hetherington is also here doing video; here are his day one videos and pictures. (When you see some of the younger ones, remember - that little kid you see is probably over 2000. And note the nice camp shirts - everyone got six of them, three blue, three orange.)

Most of us arrived on Sunday. I flew home from the Nationals in Las Vegas on a red-eye flight Saturday night, arriving in Maryland at 7AM. After spending much of the day taking care of miscellaneous business and repacking, I drove the four hours to New Jersey, arriving around 7PM. Most of the kids were already there. They are divided into three groups: the seven girls are at Lily Yip’s house (with daughter Judy Hugh also chaperoning), with an eighth living separately; the older seven boys are at Adam Hugh’s house; and the other twelve are at a separate house, where I’m the house manager.

The players range in age from 9 to 18, and from about 1800 level to 2550, including four players over 2500 (three Alguettis and Allen Wang); two others over 2400 (Michael Tran and Amy Wang); and three others over 2300 (Klaus Wood, Tina Lin, and Rahul Acharya). There are three 12-year-olds approaching 2300 - Kai Zarehbin (2261), Mathew Lu (2241) and Sid Naresh (2191). The youngest are the two 9-year olds, Nandan Naresh (1830) and Daniel Tran (1801). They come from eight states - NJ, NY, MD, MN, OH, IL, CO, and CA.

There are three sessions per day. From 9:30-11:00AM is physical training, along with possible technical/tactical discussions later on. Samson Dubina is in charge of the physical training, with Richard, Cory, and I assisting. Here was yesterday morning’s physical training:

1. Jog to track (1/2 mile)
2. Stretching
3. Three laps (3/4 of a mile) - I explained the importance of “stomach breathing,” i.e. breath deep into the bottom of the lungs rather than “chest breathing,” where you only use the top of the lungs. Tomorrow I may introduce 2-2 and 3-2 breathing, where you inhale for two or three steps, and exhale for two.
4. Side-to-side shuffling. The kids shuffled side to side on the track for 40 seconds, three times - with the addition that they had to jump when Samson blew a whistle.
5. Ladders and hurdles. This involved a series of exercises where they quick-stepped on exercise ladders on the ground, followed by going over the short hurdles. One of the exercises was called the “Hickey Shuffle”! Here’s a video (22 sec) of the kids on the ladder.
6. Cones. I was in charge of this one. We put four cones on the ground, creating a square about 8-9 feet on a side, with a kid in each square. The cones were black, white, yellow, and orange. My job was to yell out a color, and the kids had to quickly sidestep to it, and return to the center, staying low, and with the feet always moving. I’d then yell out another color, and they’d repeat - and I’d try to time it so they’d barely have time to get to the center before I’d call the next color. They did this seven times, 30-seconds each, with 30 seconds rest in between.
7. Sprints. They did a series of them. First were regular sprints; then came sprints where they started by sitting on the ground, looking the other way, and had to jump to their feet and run. Then they had to lie on the ground and jump up to run.

It was pretty strenuous - we already had one player throw up. But as we explained to the players, this is what players overseas do, and to compete, so do we. They were all up for it; I heard literally no complaints. This is a very hard-working, ambitious group.

We all snacked, and then we had the 12-2 session. I was a practice partner the first 45 minutes, but then one of the resident 2550 players came in and took my place. Some of the drills were regular ones many of us do; others were not. One drill had a player serving backspin, looping the push return slow and spinny, looping the next ball medium, and then loop killing the next one.

At the end they played a game where whoever served would serve three times. If the server won all three, he won a point. If he won two of three, he won no points, but got to serve three again. If he lost two of the points, then the receiver became the server, serving three at a time. (In the current version, the receiver can’t score, but I suggested that if the receiver wins all three points, he gets a point, just as the server does.) The games were to five, but it was a slow, laborious process to get that many.

Since it was July 11 - i.e. 7-11, i.e. “Seven-Eleven Day,” where 7-11s give away free Slurpees, seven of the older kids decided to walk the mile to the closest 7-11. After they left, Mr. Naresh and I drove nine of the younger ones there. We of course beat the older ones, waving to them as we passed. But after bringing the younger ones home, we went back and gave the older ones rides back.

The final session was 5-8PM, more table play. Wang Qing Liang and I were a practice partners the first two hours for the players in the lower half of the camp (roughly 1800 to 2150), with Samson Dubina running the session. The focus was five-ball attack. Here are three drills we did, with each player doing them each for ten minutes:

1. Server serves backspin, partner pushes to backhand, server loops forehand from backhand side, partner blocks back to backhand, server forehand attacks anywhere. We gave a short lecture about ball placement - wide corners and middle (elbow) - and about being aware of opponent’s positioning so you can best choose your placement.
2. Same drill, except now it was backhand loop followed by backhand attack.
3. Same drill, except partner pushes the ball anywhere on backhand side - either wide or to the middle - and server attacks forehand or backhand.

For the last hour the players were put into two- or three-person teams and had a team competition. It went late and didn’t finish until close to 8:30PM. After the matches we got together for stretching - but first Samson had a simple question: On a scale of 0 to 10, how much did they apply what they learned that day into their matches? The players seemed pretty honest, with answers ranging from 3 to 8. The practice tournament also gave the coaches a chance to watch the players in action. (I have a “secret” topic I’m watching the players for; I’ll bring it up later, after I’ve seen enough match play from all or most of the players, and then I’ll mention it in my blog.)

Then we had dinner at the club - very tasty chicken and potato stew, dumplings, salad, fruit, and other items. Lily Yip did most of the cooking! She also served lunch - spaghetti and hamburgers, plus a number of side dishes. Then I called half the kids together and announced we had one more training session - they groaned - that we’d decided they needed to be better at “blowing” the ball away. And so we had a ten-minute voluntary session where I taught them how to balance the ball in the air by blowing it.

Then it was back to the house for the thirteen of us staying there, a five-minute walk from the club. Then sleep and repeat!

7 Best Table Tennis Blogs from Around the World
Here's the article from Table Tennis 11 - guess which one was listed first?

7 Step Plan to Improve Your Forehand Topspin
Here's the article from Tom Lodziak.

Starting Out In Table Tennis #269
Here's the new video (50 min) from PingSkills, which is now a weekly thing.

Footwork Exercise Tip to Improve the Forehand and Backhand Strokes
Here's the video (1:32) from Eli Baraty

The Real Rallies of Table Tennis
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Fighting Fit: How Table Tennis Helps Elderly Live Well with Dementia
Here's the new article. 

Timo Boll & Ma Long Backhand Attack
Here's the video (33 sec). Which is better?

Ping Pong Balls Raise a Boat
Here's the video (69 sec)!

Rainy Pong
Here's the video (11 sec) – kids playing outdoors in the rain with umbrellas!

Tommy Lee Jones Ping Pong Commercial
Here's the video (30 sec)!

Weird Six-Armed Players
Here's the video (4 sec) of these extremely weird hexi-armed players!

Animated TT Against a Dodging Squirrel
Here's the repeating gif image!

Parade Pong
Here’s the video (28 sec)!

***
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USA Nationals
I wasn't planning to blog for a few more days, but had to put down some thoughts after watching the Men's and Women's Singles Finals. First I'll give the facts, then I'll give a little analysis. 

Table tennis can be a cruel sport. In the Men's Singles Final, we had defending champion Yijun "Tom" Feng (top seed at 2722) against junior star Kanak Jha (second seed at 2655, coached by Stefan Feth). Here's the short version: Tom went up 3-1 in games, and was up 12-11 championship point in the fifth. That was the first of three turning points. Kanak was to serve, but first he did a simple thing: he tied his shoelaces. Now you can't get away with tying your shoelaces every point, but Kanak picked the right time - it allowed him to clear his mind. And it worked. They'd been having surprisingly long rallies, but this time Kanak basically ripped three forehands to win the game. He's still down 2-3, but he'd win the next game 11-7. 

Next thing we know it's 4-4 in the seventh - and we had our second turning point. Tom scored five straight points, and leads 9-4. As Kanak later said, "I thought it was over." And as I said above, table tennis can be a cruel sport - and this was the third and final turning point. Kanak scores the next two points to 6-9. Then he gets a net ball to make it 7-9, with Tom to serve. You could see Tom taking his time, focusing, knowing these would be some of the most important points he'd ever play. And then the serve went slightly long, Kanak loops it in, and it's 8-9. And then Kanak gets another net - an unreturnable net dribbler - and it's 9-9! With Kanak to serve - and two points later, he's completed the 4-9, 11-9 comeback (-10,-6,10,-5,12,7,9), and is the new USA Men's Singles Champion. 

Think about it - Tom had a match point in game five, then led 9-4 in the seventh. Kanak pulled off the gritty comeback, but with the help of two net balls. What are the chances of one player getting both? One in four, or 25%. So Kanak got the 25% and five other points as well. (For a little more math, assume both players are even. Then the chances of scoring seven in a row is two to the seventh, or 1 in 128. But it wasn't all even at the end, with Kanak dominated at the end, especially in backhand exchanges.)

This isn't the first time Kanak's made such a comeback. As posted by Bruce Liu, "Kanak is no stranger to the 7th-game comeback. The most notable one was probably earlier this year at the North America Olympic Trials when he was down 0-5 and won 11 points in a row. Not only did he earn himself a seat in the Singles event in Rio, he also made Team USA eligible for the Team event." (That was against Canadian Pierre-Luc Theriault.)

Now a little analysis. Tom's a penholder, but with reverse penhold backhand, and so the two play surprisingly alike. Tom's more power, Kanak more control and willing to block more, but subtleties aside, they are very similar. But if you watch the match closely, it could be seen as basically a cat-and-mouse game of serve and receive. Both have extremely good receives - it drives me crazy watching up-and-coming players spend hour after hour developing strokes and footwork and not also have a coach serve to them over and over so they can develop this part of the game as well. (Every rally starts with a serve and receive, right?) These two have receives that are just ahead of most of the field. In particular, both have great short pushes and great backhand (banana) flips. 

If you look at the match from the beginning up to the point where Tom was up 3-1 in games and 12-11 match point, the primary reason Tom had the edge over Kanak was because of his reverse pendulum serve from the middle of the table. Most players are robots, serving from the backhand corner over and over. They may do this serve short to Kanak's or some other player's forehand, but only down the line, which allows players like Kanak to step over and receive backhand. By serving from the middle, Tom had an angle into Kanak's short forehand, meaning Kanak had to either receive with his good (but not great) forehand receive, or had to step over with great backhand receive - but then be way out of position for the next shot, something Tom took advantage of. 

And it worked to the point where Tom had the match point. But the problem with something that works is that you tend to use it over and over, and Kanak was getting better with his forehand receive against this serve all the time, often dropping it short to Tom's forehand, or flipping it either forehand or backhand. And so the serve became less effective - and that was a primary reason why Kanak pulled himself back into the match. Along with a well-timed shoelace tying. 

Here's a prediction: Next year's Men's Singles Final will be an all-junior final. We've never had so many up-and-coming kids, especially in the 14-15 age range, and it's going to be difficult for players like Tom (2015 champion), Timothy Wang (champion in 2010, 2012, and 2013) and Jimmy Butler (absent this year, but champion in 2014 . . . and 1990, 1992, and 1993!) to hold off this massive charge, led by Kanak. There was a time when we might have one or two juniors over 2400, and rarely any over 2500. (Why? We didn't have many full-time training centers back then; we've gone from about 8 to 86 in the last ten years.) 

Here's the current listing of players over 2400 from the Cadet Boys (under 15 as of Jan. 1): Sharon Alguetti (2558); Victor Liu (2534); Gal Alguetti (2504); Nikhil Kumar (2503); Michael Tran (2451); and Derek Nie (2427). Then we add in the other players over 2400 from the Under 18 list: Kanak Jha (2655); Kunal Chodri (2601); Krish Avvari (2597); Jack Wang (2537); Adar Alguetti (2535); Allen Wang (2526); Nicholas Tio (2481); Aarsh Shah (2455); Felix Gao (2444); Roy Ke (2437); Newman Cheng (2418); and Shivansh Kumar (2417). That's an incredible group!!!

For Tom, Timothy, and Jimmy, of course, it's a challenge - and perhaps reading this will give them added incentive. They are already great champions, but if they win next year, they'll be even greater champions. 

On the women's side, there was less drama - but drama there was. Lily Zhang led defending champion Jiaqi Zhang 3-0 in games and served up 9-7 in the fourth - just two points from being the champion. She would have to go into the sixth game before winning, 12,8,7,-9,-5,6. It was Lily's third - she also won in 2012 and 2014. 

All four of these finalists, along with Timothy Wang and Wu Yue, will be leaving soon for the Rio Olympics. 

As to me, I mostly coached at the Nationals (plus some meetings), but I was in three events - Over 50 Men's Doubles (with Ty Hoff), Hardbat Doubles (also with Ty; I've won it 13 times, nine of them with Ty), and Over 40 Hardbat (which I've won four times). Result? Three semifinals. Alas, my feet and body just don't move like they used to. Plus, I have an entire page in my notebook labeled "Problems," with nine different problems that have come up here (mostly by people coming up to me and saying, "Larry, can you look into this problem?") that need to be resolved, and all these things led to a lot of tension - making it hard to loosen up for matches. Perhaps I'll blog about some of them later. 

Here are results for the USA Nationals (with one more day of play on Saturday). I fly out late on Saturday night, arriving at BWI in Maryland at 7AM on Sunday, then I drive home, do some more updating on Tim Boggan's recent History of U.S. Table Tennis volume (yes, he's found more changes needed...), pack, and then drive up to New Jersey to manage and coach at the USATT's two-week Supercamp for 26 of our top juniors. I'll blog about that probably starting on Tuesday. (Some of those attending include the three Alguetti brothers, Allen and Amy Wang, Michael Tran, Tina Lin, and Klaus Wood. Coaches include myself (I'm also manager), Sean O'Neill, Dan Seemiller, Han Xiao, Samson Dubina, Richard McAfee, Lily Yip, Wang Qing Liang, and Cory Eider.) 

World Series of Beer Pong
Guess what they are holding right next door to the USA National Table Tennis Championships, at the Westgate Hotel? The $65,000 World Series of Beer Pong!!! 

Some Breakfast Table Tennis at the Nationals!
Here's the video (65 sec)!

Last Blog until Tuesday, July 12
I'm actually going out of town for a month, July 3 – Aug 3. I don't plan to blog during most of this time – even I need vacations! – but I do plan to blog from July 11 to July 22, during the USATT Super Camp. Here's my upcoming schedule:

• July 3-9: USA Nationals in Las Vegas;
• July 10-22: coaching at the  USATT Supercamp at the Lily Yip TTC in New Jersey;
• July 22-30: at the TNEO Science Fiction Writing Workshop in Manchester, NH;
• July 31-Aug. 3: coaching at the Junior Olympics in Houston.

I won't actually be gone continuously for a month. I'm flying to Las Vegas on Sunday, returning the following Sunday morning (on a Saturday night red-eye flight, landing 7AM at BWI Airport), then I quickly finalize packing, and drive to New Jersey for the Supercamp. Then I drive from there to New Hampshire for the writing workshop. Then I drive all the way back to Maryland on June 30, and fly out to Houston on July 31, flying back late on Aug. 3. (Or perhaps staying the night, and returning Aug. 4.)

Preparing for the Nationals and USATT Supercamp
As a coach, I don't train much as a player. But I'll be playing in three events next week at the USA Nationals, though as usual playing has to take second priority over coaching – but I still want to win all my events do well. I'm in three events: Over 50 Men's Doubles with Ty Hoff; Hardbat Doubles with Ty Hoff; and Over 40 Hardbat Singles.

At last year's Nationals Ty and I played the top seeds, Li Yu Xiang and Chu Bin Hai, in the quarterfinals – and were at 8-all in the fifth before losing. (Ty and I also lost in the quarterfinals of Men's Doubles at the USA Nationals in 1989 to Jim and Scott Butler – 21-18 in the third – and the Butlers went on to win it.) This year Li & Chu are top seeded again, while Ty and I are seeded third, meaning we won't have to face them until at least the semifinals – but bring 'em on! So, how am I preparing for these big doubles matches?

I spent half an hour yesterday practicing my doubles serves (from right-hand court, of course) – mostly forehand pendulum serves, regular (sidespin left) and reverse (sidespin right). Because I've been teaching these serves to students a lot recently, a strange thing seems to be happening – I seem to have more control over them then before, at least since I stopped practicing them regularly many years ago. This is especially true of my reverse pendulum serve, which I expect to mix in with my regular ones. I've got lots of variations ready for both – backspin, side-backspin, sidespin, side-topspin, and no-spin. As an added bonus to this serve practice, several of the kids in the camp saw me practicing my serves, and next thing I know, a pack of them joined me, all practicing their serves. One kept asking me how to do them, and so I finished the session working with him on his serve. (This was during break!)

In Hardbat Singles and Doubles I'll likely use the same serves – I plan to practice my hardbat serves tomorrow, along with perhaps some more inverted serving. The main difference in my hardbat singles serves is that I mix in far more deep serves – I like to mix in short serves to the middle and long ones to the wide backhand, always following them, if humanly possible, with a forehand. I've won Hardbat Doubles 13 times, nine times with Ty. I've won Over 40 Hardbat four times. I've also won Hardbat Singles twice, but am not playing that this year. (These are for both the USA Nationals and the U.S. Open.)

To prepare for coaching at the Nationals I've been spying on the players I'll be coaching. At the Nationals during our first warm-up session I'll have them throw all their serves at me so I have a good feel for what serves they can do and how they come out. (Of course, I'm pretty familiar with their serves already, but more is better.) I'll mostly be coaching Adrian at the Nationals, but when he and I aren't playing, I'll likely coach other MDTTC players.

To prepare for the USATT Supercamp – where 25 of the top USA juniors will be training in New Jersey, July 10-24 – I spent some time working on my speed multiball. Our top juniors do most of their training now with our top 2550 Chinese practice partner/coaches, and so I mostly feed multiball to players under 2000. So I have to make sure my multiball is ready for the 2500 crowd. The main difference is I almost always bounce the ball on my side when feeding multiball, which is standard when feeding backspin and for most topspin drills. But when going full-speed, it's better to feed the ball directly into the paddle, and I've gotten rusty at that. So a few people at the club saw a strange sight this afternoon during break – me feeding multiball to the table tennis robot's net. I still feel a bit slow at it, so I might have to work at it some more. (I have to leave the camp two days early to go to my writing workshop. Normal people vacation at the beach, camping, Disneyworld, etc.; I go to science fiction writing workshops.)

But it's not just multiball I need to prepare for the camp – I'm also going to be chopping practice partner for the players. Though I'm normally an attacker, I chop at about a 2150 level – almost as good as my normal game – and so tomorrow I plan to get some extra chopping practice in so I'm ready. I have my own chopping blade, a Butterfly Joo Saehyuk blade with Tackiness Chop II 1.9mm black on the forehand, Feint Long II 1.3mm red on the backhand. (I actually had Tenergy 05 2.1 on the forehand so I could both chop and attack, but switched to Tackiness Chop II for the camp so I can chop better.) I normally use a Butterfly Timo Boll ALC blade with Tenergy 05 2.1 black on forehand, Tenergy 25 2.1 red on forehand.

It's going to be a busy time, but compared to the past month, this next month will be a breeze. Those reading this blog regularly know of all the tribulations this past month as I struggled to put together History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 18 (!) with Tim Boggan (the proof copy was just ordered for Tim) while trying to do all my other work. Last night, besides doing most of this blog, I also put together the MDTTC Newsletter and about twenty other things as I try to get ahead on as much as possible before leaving for a month.

Dan Seemiller's Autobiography
Here's the promotional flyer for this, coming Aug. 31 – you don't want to miss it! (I'm working with him on the editing, page layouts, photos, and print on demand publishing. Plus I'll likely be the first outside Dan's club to get to read it!!!)

13 Stages: Develop a systematic approach to learning a new skill
Here's the coaching article from Samson Dubina.

The Serve
Here's the coaching article by Aiman Fazeer Yap.

Interview with Alan Cooke: England’s Performance Coach
Here's the podcast (43:44) from Expert Table Tennis. In this episode you’ll learn:

• Alan’s review of the World Team Championships [1:30]
• An update on Rio 2016 for Team GB [3:00]
• How Paul, Liam, and Sam prepared for Kuala Lumpur [5:00]
• The current plans for Rio 2016 [10:00]
• How and why to use periodization in your table tennis training [11:45]
• How to use goal setting for your tournaments [14:15]
• How to stay focused during a tournament [16:30]
• Alan’s coaching style and philosophy [19:00]
• What Alan says to the players in the corner [22:30]
• The correct mindset when facing “unbeatable players” [25:30]
• How to debrief, reflect, and learn after a tournament [27:30]
• Using video analysis to learn about yourself and others [31:30]
• What the plan is for Team GB after Rio [33:00]
• What separates top 50 players from top 20 players in the world [35:15]
• The future for English table tennis [38:00]

Ask the Coach Show

• Episode #265 (23:30) - Xu Xin Wins Korean Open
• Episode #266 (19:14) - Receiving Heavy Spin Serves
• Episode #267 (20:35) - Getting the Most From Your Training

DHS ITTF Top 10 at the 2016 Korea Open
Here's the video (6:02).

USATT Insider
Here's the new issue that came out on Wednesday.

U.S. Table Tennis Player Will Be the Youngest in Olympic History
Here's the article from USA Today featuring Kanak Jha.

An Introduction to Coach Pieke Franssen (Part One)
Here's the article.

USA and International Table Tennis
Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) that you can great international coverage at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage). Butterfly also has a great news page. (Tabletennista, which used to do great international coverage, apparently closed down after May 31.) For USA coverage, see the USA Table Tennis News Page.

Best Animated Table Tennis Videos
Here's a selection of some of the best animated table tennis I know of – enjoy! (I've linked to all of them in the past.) Sorry, no anime – there's just too much of that to go through. I'm sure I'm missing some good ones that I just don't recall at the moment – feel free to add links to others below.

• Octopus pong (34 sec)
• Energizer pong (31 sec)
• Shaun the Sheep pong (68 sec)
• Bernard the Bear pong (3:18)
• Minion pong (repeating gif image)
• Ghost pong (repeating gif image)
• Speedy Gonzalez pong (repeating gif image)
• Snoopy pong (repeating gif image)
• Penguin pong (repeating gif image)

Trump Umpiring Table Tennis
Here's the new video (4:24)! (From Larry Bavly.)

Non-Table Tennis – Penguins of Noah's Ark
My new humorous story Penguins of Noah's Ark just went up at Galaxy's Edge! It answers the age-old question of just how two penguins in the Antarctic managed to make their way to the Middle East in time for Noah's Ark. It also answers a lot of questions about dinosaurs, burning bushes, and the Garden of Eden. Galaxy's Edge is one of the top "Pro" markets – I'm sharing the table of contents with George R.R. Martin, Robert Silverberg, Mike Resnick, Nancy Kress, and Gregory Benford, all huge names in SF.

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