Tip of the Week
On Short Serves to the Forehand, Fake to the Forehand, Then Go Down the Line.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Days 11-12
My long national nightmare, I mean my twelve days sitting at a desk with Tim Boggan looking over my shoulder and yelling things like, "the photo goes there, you fool!" ended on Saturday. Between that, my normal coaching/tutoring/afterschool program, and my other USATT and MDTTC work, it was roughly twelve straight 18-hour days.

On Day 11 (Friday) we finished the pages, finishing with 450 pages and 1499 graphics – which I've rounded up to 1500. Then we spent Saturday inputting corrections, which he'd been compiling during in the early morning hours as he edited the pages from the day before. (He goes to bed around 7:30PM each night, gets up by 3AM.) I also did the one-page ad flyer for the new volume, printing 120 copies for him. We finished late on Saturday afternoon, then met Dennis Taylor (USATT pro bono lawyer) for dinner at China Bistro, "home of the best dumplings in the region." On Sunday I had a "restful" day with only five hours coaching at the club. Then I took Monday off (MLK Day), mostly in bed reading and saw the excellent but gritty movie "The Revenant."

With this project over, I can go back to normal stuff, like coaching and writing and eating and sleeping. This week I've got all sorts of issues to blog about –ratings problems (see below), players with fake ages, and my return to running tournaments (alas). And make sure to see the final segment below on my upcoming novel, coming out in one week – it's got table tennis!!!

Here are the final stats:

Day 1: Tue, Jan. 5: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Wed, Jan. 6: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
Day 4: Pages 86-132, 47 pages, 138 graphics
Day 5: Pages 133-175, 43 pages, 141 graphics
Day 6: Pages 176-216, 41 pages, 149 graphics
Day 7: Pages 217-274, 58 pages, 137 graphics
Day 8: Pages 275-331, 57 pages, 200 graphics
Day 9: Pages 332-354, 23 pages, 89 graphics
Day 10: Pages 355-409, 55 pages, 203 graphics
Day 11: Pages 410-450, 41 pages, 144 graphics
Day 12: Inputted corrections all day, plus ad flyer
TOTALS: 452 pages (including covers), 1500 graphics, 3.32 graphics per page

USATT Ratings
I'm aware of the serious problems with the rollout of the new USATT ratings page and processing problems. USATT Headquarters is working with SimplyComplete to fix the problems. I'll likely blog about this later. Believe me, I'm not happy about it either. (I didn't see it until it went public, the same time you all did.) There's quite a bit of discussion of this over at the Mytabletennis.net page - see the latter pages to see where things stand. USATT CEO Gordon Kaye has chimed in with updates. 

Brain Training
Here's the video (1:42) from TTedge and Brett Clarke – "The world's first brain training table tennis experience."

Table Tennis Robots
Here's the article from Alois Rosaria from PingSkills.

Instructional Table Tennis - Kalinikos KREANGA
Here's the video (1:04:64)

Ask the Coach Show
Episode 209 (28:40) – Longer Breaks Between Points (and other segments).

Table Tennis Instructional - Techniques to Be Mastered Trainer
Here's the video (32:24).

Table Tennis School - Defense Training
Here's the video (16:44).

Ladder Drills
Here's the video from Samson Dubina.

2016 Japan Nationals Final
Here's the video (6:42) between Jun Mizutani and Chan Kazuhiro.

Insane Around the Net ROLLER!
Here's the video (12 sec).

Trump Talks Table Tennis, Part 2
Here's Part 2 (3:21) where he talks about the service rule! (I linked to Part 1 [1:47] last week.) I never realized how much Donald Trump looks like Larry Bavly!

Mostly Non-Table Tennis – Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions
My new SF novel comes out in exactly one week – see the posting that went up this morning in my weekly science fiction blog. As noted in previous blogs, table tennis comes up over and over in the novel – one of the four main characters is a professional table tennis player who ends up running a campaign for president of Earth.

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No blog today - it's Martin Luther King Day! After working twelve consecutive 18-hour days, followed by a "restful" five-hour coaching day on Sunday (yesterday), I need a break. See you tomorrow!

Help Wanted: USA Table Tennis High Performance Director Position
Here's the USATT info page for this – if you think you're qualified and would do a great job, why not apply? This could be a groundbreaking thing for table tennis in the U.S., if we get the right person. As I've blogged before, the U.S. is now a world power at the cadet level, and if we play our cards right, that could lead to the U.S. being a world power. We have the potential to challenge any country in the world outside China, and of course challenging China, something few could dream of doing, is exactly what we should be dreaming of doing. If countries like Sweden and Hungary can develop teams that played even or better than the Chinese for over a decade at a time, why can't we?

The whole idea is not for USATT to take over training our elite up-and-coming juniors, the best of whom are already getting great training. The point is to have someone to oversee all this training, including some group training, but emphasizing the resources we already have at clubs. He'd be working with the actual coaches who are doing the actual coaching, but the coaches at training centers and clubs all over the country would be completely in charge of whoever they are coaching. But as I note below in #3, the High Performance Director would have valuable input on how to maximize our players' potential, as well as running group training. The specific plan would be created by the High Performance Director himself. (Jeez, I'm tempted to apply, but I'm already on the Board of Directors – conflict of interest – plus they are probably looking for more international experience. Alas.)

Here's a key sentence from the info page: "Successful candidates must demonstrate a willingness to design and execute a '52 week' philosophy by integrating and leveraging local, regional, and national resources to provide our athletes and coaches with the best opportunity to compete and succeed internationally."

Here is my email to the USATT Board of Directors on this. I've added a few notes in brackets. I do suggest you read the USATT info page first.

Hi Everyone,

I’m a strong supporter of this plan. A few notes, some of which Gordon [USATT CEO Gordon Kaye] has already emphasized:

1. Just as the USATT board of directors has mostly allowed the CEO a free hand in most of his actions, we need to allow the HPD [High Performance Director] a relatively free hand in his job. The only way this won’t work is if we hire the wrong person. So the key to everything is hiring the right person. To some of us, that’s equates to “duh!” But it’s very easy to hire the wrong person – flashy credentials don’t always mean flashy results.
2. A key is to rely on the resources of clubs, including the parents who are paying for their kid’s training. USATT may be able to budget one or two hundred thousand dollars to this; many millions are already being spent at clubs. [Here I added a note about how my club and many others have many kids whose parents pay over $20,000/year for their training, but I'd rather not list the specifics here.] The HPD needs to find ways to best utilize the resources we already have.
3. The HPD needs to emphasize the development of general weaknesses among U.S. players. For example, many of our top juniors don’t do enough physical training – and while there are several reasons for this (coaches get paid mostly for table time, not physical training; lack of time in general due to school and other activities; no one taking the initiative to start physical training programs), a HPD could approach the clubs with strong junior programs and work to get physical training more emphasized. (You only need one coach at each club to run the physical training sessions, which would be group sessions.) There are other general weaknesses among U.S. players, such as receive, so the HPD could also ask that training centers put more emphasis into that, or whatever aspects he believes are needed.
4. Because we need training centers all over the country to buy into this national concept, we need three things: a) reasons why they should buy into it; b) a HPD who can sell them on it; and c) a few top training centers to join in early on, so others would follow.
5. In general, we need to change the culture from the current situation, where most up-and-coming players focus almost exclusively on winning national events and making national teams, to focusing on beating other countries and becoming the best in the world. At the cadet level (both boys and girls), we can challenge any team in the world outside China, and might even give them a run for it. This is the perfect backbone of a future world-conquering team. Now is the perfect time to start moving in that direction.
6. We also need to remember why we suddenly have so many promising cadet players – the dramatic increase in the number of full-time training centers in the country, from 8-10  just eight years ago to over 80 now. This is the source of our future elite players, and if we keep increasing the number of such training centers with top coaches and training programs, our situation will continue to improve. So we need to focus on that aspect as well. The depth of play now compared to just a few years ago is mind-boggling – at the cadet level we now have dozens of players who likely would have dominated their age group ten years ago, while players who used to make the semifinals or even finals couldn’t make the final 16 or even 32 these days. I remember one year the final of Under 14 Boys was won by the top seed, rated just over 2100, over a 1950 player who had upset a 2000 player in the semifinals! [This was often the norm back in those days – can you imagine why USA was often so weak in international play?] Those players wouldn’t make the final 32 these days.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day 10
Yesterday we had a monster session. I got up at 5:30AM – Tim had already been up for hours – and we worked almost non-stop from 6AM to 2:30PM. We did a record 55 pages and 203 graphics as we did the second half of chapter 22, and chapters 23-25. All that's left are chapters 26-27, which we'll do tomorrow – and then we spend Saturday inputting edits Tim's been making in those wee hours of the morning where he has nothing better to do than check out every photo ("Take out that person in the background, Larry – he's distracting"); every sentence ("Move that comma over here – and it looks crooked, could you straighten it?"), and I now believe every pixel. (I should never have gotten him a magnifying glass to check out the printouts I do after each chapter.) Lots and lots of tournament coverage, including the 1990 U.S. Open/World Veterans Championships/International Junior Open, all held together in Baltimore.

Here are the current stats:

Day 1: Tue, Jan. 5: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Wed, Jan. 6: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
Day 4: Pages 86-132, 47 pages, 138 graphics
Day 5: Pages 133-175, 43 pages, 141 graphics
Day 6: Pages 176-216, 41 pages, 149 graphics
Day 7: Pages 217-274, 58 pages, 137 graphics
Day 8: Pages 275-331, 57 pages, 200 graphics
Day 9: Pages 332-354, 23 pages, 89 graphics
Day 10: Pages 355-409, 55 pages, 203 graphics
TOTALS: 411 pages (including covers), 1356 graphics, 3.30 graphics per page

The Ramblin’ Wreck of College Table Tennis
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

MHTT World Champs Buildup Diary: Day 4
Here's the Day Four Diary of Matt Herrington as he prepares for the upcoming World Championships. Why not follow his daily training as he prepares to take on the best in the world? He's on the New Zealand Team, but currently training at the Lily Yip TTC. (I'm not sure if I'll link to his diary every day, but we'll see.)

Follow Your Ping Pong Dreams
Here's the article.

Teen Pingpong Star Aces Nike Ad
Here's the article on Amanda Malek, daughter of coach and 1979 U.S. Men's Champion Attila Malek.

Table Tennis School - Backhand Topspin
Here's the video (3:31).

Joo Se Hyuk – the Best Defender
Here's the video (5:11) – some really great points with Chuang Chih-Yuan at the start!

The Rules of Table Tennis (Ping Pong) - EXPLAINED!
Here's the video (3:42).

International Table Tennis
Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage). Butterfly also has a great news page.

Ping Pong and Fairy Tales
Ping-pong pictures.

Seahawk Players Become Rivals in Ping Pong Grudge Match
Here's the article and video (1:45).

Jabba Plays Ping-Pong
Here's the meme.

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Weird Racket Retrieving Incident
One of the weirdest incidents ever happened at the club yesterday. I was coaching a junior who pleaded to stay anonymous. We were playing games at the end, and after I won one, the junior tossed his racket into the air. Only – he stumbled as he did so, and the racket went up and sideways, and into the wide pole (or whatever it is called) to the side of the court. Here's a picture of one. It's got lots of pipes and things inside, with the top about nine feet off the ground. The racket was a Timo Boll ALC with Tenergy on both sides, retailing at about $300. Yikes!!!

We were unable to really look in while standing on a chair, so we got out the big MDTTC ladder, used to change lights. Using that we were able to see that the racket had fallen all the way to the ground inside, nine feet down. Worse, it turns out that the wide pole actually is divided into several more narrow ones. The racket was at the bottom of a hole that was nine feet deep, about two feet square. What were we to do?

The junior wanted to climb down and try to reach it, but that was far too dangerous, and I don't think he could have fit down there anyway. He suggested duct taping two Butterfly ball amigos (used for picking up balls during training), but that wouldn't have been long enough – they are only about 3.5 feet long, so seven feet total. He wanted to try to hand down from the top and try to reach down. But then I remembered the bar from the adjustable net height device that John Olsen had made for the club, with the bar in the middle, about 5.5 feet long. (I blogged about this on July 20, 2011.) I duct taped one of the ball amigos to the bar. That gave us a nine-foot poll! I had the junior practice picking up my racket from the floor. Then he went up the ladder, and within about two minutes was able to scoop up his racket.

So the only casualty was the junior's pride, as he was very embarrassed about all this, since half the club was watching! As you can see, the life of a table tennis coach is so exciting – you never know what'll happen next.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day 9
Yesterday was a "weak" day, as we only did 23 pages and 89 graphics – chapter 21 and about half of chapter 22 (of 27 planned). But many of those pages and graphics were really time-consuming, and there were a huge number of attributions to add to photos and other complications. Plus, as noted in yesterday's blog, I finally slept "late," getting up at 7:45AM instead of 5 or 6AM. We worked until 2:15PM, then I had to leave for the MDTTC afterschool program and private coaching, returning home at 8PM.

Tim has assured me that the rest of the chapters aren't so difficult. Today we plan to finish chapter 22 and do chapters 23-24. On Thursday we'll do chapters 25-27 – they are shorter than earlier ones. Then on Saturday we go through and input corrects – Tim's been proofing the pages very carefully, often in the early morning hours. (He keeps strange hours, going to be around 7PM each night, getting up at 3AM.) Then he'll drive home to New York early on Sunday morning.

One fun highlight – Tim used a picture of Hall of Fame Coach Marty Prager – and lo and behold, it was "Photo by Larry Hodges." He's actually used a few of my photos, both in this and previous volumes, but this time I charged him a nickel. I can now add "professional photographer" to my resume.

Here are the current stats:

Day 1: Tue, Jan. 5: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Wed, Jan. 6: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
Day 4: Pages 86-132, 47 pages, 138 graphics
Day 5: Pages 133-175, 43 pages, 141 graphics
Day 6: Pages 176-216, 41 pages, 149 graphics
Day 7: Pages 217-274, 58 pages, 137 graphics
Day 8: Pages 275-331, 57 pages, 200 graphics
Day 9: Pages 332-354, 23 pages, 89 graphics
TOTALS: 356 pages (including covers), 1153 graphics, 3.24 graphics per page

MHTT Interview with Europe's Table Tennis King: Timo Boll
Here's the interview.

Table Tennis School - Service Attack [Topspin random]
Here's the video (19:35).

Table Tennis Wrist Training
Here's the video from Samson Dubina.

MHTT World Champs Buildup Diary: Day 3
Here's the Day Three Diary of Matt Herrington as he prepares for the upcoming World Championships. Why not follow his daily training as he prepares to take on the best in the world? He's on the New Zealand Team, but currently training at the Lily Yip TTC. (I'm not sure if I'll link to his diary every day, but we'll see.)

2016 US Olympic Trials Participants List
Here's the final list. The 2016 US Olympic Trials will take place in Greensboro, NC on February 4-6.

Nittaku ITTF Monthly Pongcast - December 2015
Here's the video (11:53).

Off the Table - Jun Mizutani
Here's the video (4:08).

Why Table Tennis Training Centers Use Loads of Balls and Ball Pickup Nets
Here's the meme.

Saive v Sean the Sheep
Here's the new video (34 sec), which is a takeoff on the video I linked to yesterday!

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Push Aggressively
Recently I've been harping on pushing with students. Most players push just to keep the ball in play, which is fine if you have no ambitions to be a much better player. Instead, learn to push aggressively. This can be done in a number of ways: faster, quicker off the bounce, deeper, heavier, lower, shorter, wider, with spin variation, spinless, with sidespin – all of these can turn a "keep it in play" shot into a weapon that either forces mistakes or sets up your more powerful shots. Whatever you do, don't settle for just keeping the ball in play.

Some would say that they mostly push to return serves, and that they need to play safe there so as not to make a mistake. That itself is a mistake. If you only push serves back passively, then you'll never learn to push them aggressively – which leads to players pushing passively because they haven't learned to push aggressively. Get out of that passive cycle and find ways to push effectively, both in returning serves and at other times.

Here are a few articles on pushing:

• Pushing: Five out of Six Doesn't Cut It
• Push with Purpose and Placement
• Pushing Change of Direction
• Pushing Short
• Backhand Sidespin Push

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day 8
Yesterday we finished chapters 18-20 of the 27 planned. Chapter 18 was a monster chapter, with 29 pages and over 100 graphics, and took over three hours to finish. The only things that keeps me going are Mountain Dew, popcorn, and Tim's Taser.

Chapter 18 covered tournaments all over the U.S., including the Louisiana Open (six pages), Wisner Open, and College Nationals. It also had a lot of miscellaneous stuff, from Scott Preiss exhibitions to the Eastern Training Center. Chapter 19 was sixteen pages on the Europeans Championships (lots of pictures) – yes, Tim does lots of international coverage in his History of U.S. Table Tennis!!!

Chapter 20 was "Potpourri," with all sorts of stuff, including President Dan Seemiller's "Where is the Association going" report; feature on Chi-Sun Chui (by me); Tournament Tips by Carl Danner; editorials by Azmy Ibrahim and Rick Hardy; On the Road with Scott Preiss; "Coming Home" by John Hildebrand; "Memo to Our Modern Nature" by Gloria Amoury; Caron's Corner (by Caron Leff); Lazlo Bellak's Table Tennis; Hall of Fame Inductee Lily Yip; Observations on the XL ball by Duane Gall; Umpires for the 1990 U.S. Open by Tom Miller; and Regional Centers by Richard McAfee.

If all goes well, we expect to finish on Saturday, and Tim will drive home Sunday morning. I'll feel like I've just run two marathons, and will still have to coach Sunday from 12:30PM-8:00PM. (Note – after a week of near non-sleep, and going to bed last night after 2AM, I finally "slept late" – getting up at 7:45AM this morning.)

Here are the current stats:

Day 1: Tue, Jan. 5: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Wed, Jan. 6: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
Day 4: Pages 86-132, 47 pages, 138 graphics
Day 5: Pages 133-175, 43 pages, 141 graphics
Day 6: Pages 176-216, 41 pages, 149 graphics
Day 7: Pages 217-274, 58 pages, 137 graphics
Day 8: Pages 275-331, 57 pages, 200 graphics
TOTALS: 333 pages (including covers), 1064 graphics, 3.20 graphics per page

Footwork & Physical Training Drill
Here's the video (65 sec). I've done this drill with students at camps many times.

Table Tennis School - Double Training
Here's the video (5:03).

MHTT World Champs Buildup Diary: Day 2
Here's the Day Two Diary of Matt Herrington as he prepares for the upcoming World Championships. Why not follow his daily training as he prepares to take on the best in the world? He's on the New Zealand Team, but currently training at the Lily Yip TTC. (I'm not sure if I'll link to his diary every day, but we'll see.)

$100,000 World Championships of Ping Pong
Here's the info page – it's the annual World Sandpaper Championships, Jan. 22-24 in London.

Timo Boll vs Ruwen Filus (German Cup 2016) Final
Here's the video (6:51, time between points removed).

Table Tennis Queen Says China's Economy Will Bounce Back
Here's the video (2:50) of all-time great Deng Yaping – she also plays!

Wreck on the Road: Dean Johnson Table Tennis
Here's the video (4:13).

We are TENERGY Family
Here's the new highlights video (13 min) from Butterfly.

I Just Want to Know What the Rules Are!!!
Here's the picture of this . . . three-way table??? (No, it's not a circular table divided in three like this one.)

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Long Hours for One More Week
Ever have one of those weeks where you work 18 hours/day, spend an hour on meals and other activities, and blink each night and suddenly it's morning and you have to do it again? Well, that's what it's like for me right now, while I work with Tim Boggan on his History of U.S. Table Tennis, Vol. 17 (!). My days are divided into three parts. While we generally start around 7AM, the last two mornings we've started at 6AM. We go until 2:30 PM each day. Then I'm off to the TT club to coach, afterschool program, some tutoring, etc. And then I get home, usually around 8PM or so, and my real day is just beginning as the cascades of USATT, MDTTC, SF, and other stuff keeps coming in. I haven't been to bed before 1AM this past week, usually working past 2AM, and I haven't slept past 6AM, and I've been up by 5AM several times. I'm guessing this isn't healthy, but something keeps my brain from comprehending the problem, whatever it is. (Note – last night I finally went to bed and got up at a "reasonable" time – 12:30AM and 6:30AM. Now I feel as refreshed as waking up the night after playing three days at the Teams…)

Meanwhile, I was so tired while teaching a junior class on Sunday that I kept forgetting names of players who have been in the class for some time. I've always been weak on remembering names, but jeez, it took half the session to remember who some of the kids were. (On the other hand, I could still give detailed info on their games, techniques, and what they needed to work on. Just don't ask me their names when I haven't slept since Satoh won the Worlds.)

I've actually been a bit "lucky" this past week as one student had to cancel sessions due to final exams in his private school, and another came down sick. That helped some. It also gave me less to write about in this column, which generally features coaching. Anyway, we expect hope pray to finish by this Saturday.

I had a new student today in the afterschool program, a 7-year-old who had never played before. He was enthusiastic, though he had trouble paying attention. I had to keep reminding him not to hold the racket like it was the Hammer of Thor – he grasped it so tight his arm practically trembled. It took him a while to hit a single ball in multiball, but he finally came around. What was great was how well the more experienced kids treated him, especially during breaks when they invited him to join in the type of games kids that age play during breaks – you guessed it, lots of video games.

I was going to blog today about the problems of "juniors" playing with fake birth certificates or passports – a serious problem – but I'll save that for when I'm more rested.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day 7
Another day, another 58 pages and 137 graphics cleaned up and placed as we finished chapters 15-17 of the 27 planned. At this rate we'll finish by the end of the Trump Administration. Chapter 15 really stuck out as it covered the 1990 election, which brought back a lot of both good and bad memories. It was not a good time for USATT (then still called USTTA), and all of the eight officers up for election that year and the following year were voted out in landslide elections. The biggest landslide of them all those two years? My election as USATT vice president! (However, I only spent one year on the board. They needed an editor and coaching chair, and so one year later I was asked to switch, so I resigned and took over both jobs.)

Here are the current stats:
Day 1: Tue, Jan. 5: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Wed, Jan. 6: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
Day 4: Pages 86-132, 47 pages, 138 graphics
Day 5: Pages 133-175, 43 pages, 141 graphics
Day 6: Pages 176-216, 41 pages, 149 graphics
Day 7: Pages 217-274, 58 pages, 137 graphics
TOTALS: 276 pages (including covers), 864 graphics, 3.13 graphics per page

Table Tennis FITNESS!!!
Here's the link to the two videos (1:18 and 1:48) from Samson Dubina.

2016 U.S. Olympic Table Tennis Trials Press Conference
Here's the article.

Chinese Squad Trials
Here's coverage from Tabletennista. They finished last week with Xu Xin coming in first, Zhang Jike second.

MHTT World Champs Buildup Diary: Day 1
Here's the Day One Diary of Matt Herrington as he prepares for the upcoming World Championships. Why not follow his daily training as he prepares to take on the best in the world? He's on the New Zealand Team, but currently training at the Lily Yip TTC.

Inspire Peace with Ping Pong Diplomacy
Here's the article.

The Dirtiest Word in Table Tennis
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Tress Way Has Made Winning Ping-Pong Easier For Jay Cutler
Here's the article featuring the football stars.

Sheep Pong
Here's the video (70 sec) (with claymation characters from the Shaun the Sheep movie), where you also visit (I hope I got my landmarks correct!) Rome, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and Mount Fuji, while going around the world in 80 days one rally. Shaun's lobbing makes Michael Maze look somewhat less amazing.

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Tip of the Week
What Is a Good Serve? 

If I Won the Lottery
People are sometimes surprised that I occasionally buy lottery tickets. I know the odds, and they know I know the odds, and I'm a little embarrassed because they know I know they know I know the odds, and so why do I do such a silly thing?

It's all for the good of table tennis.

First, let me be up front that I don't believe in supernatural beings, so the odds of my winning the jackpot are mathematically something like a really, Really, REALLY big number to one. (To be exact, 292,201,338 to 1.) In fact, the odds are so small that I have a better chance of winning if I'm wrong, and that there are supernatural beings out there, such as some benign God who loves table tennis, and he or she decides to award me the winning lottery ticket because, well, I'll be good and use some of the $900 million ($558 million cash value, about $2.58 after taxes) to develop table tennis.

But let's be real. I don't buy lottery tickets (occasionally) because I objectively think I have a good chance of winning. I buy them for the excitement knowing there's a chance I might, and so I can dream. You know, like everyone else who buys one?

You have to remember that I'm not only a table tennis coach & writer (and 246 other table tennis things), but a science fiction & fantasy writer, which means I have a vivid imagination – which means I can imagine a LOT of things to do with that $558 million or so. Training centers!!! Professional Leagues!!! TT on TV!!! And of course, highly-paid umpires who enforce the hidden serve rule!!!

So you better believe I have it all planned out. I'm writing this on Saturday night - what else does one do on a Saturday night? – with the winning numbers to be announced in just a few minutes. I'm dreaming really hard while I can, even planning out which table tennis people I'll hire, and which ones have ever snubbed me in any way might not be right for the job. (Normally I do my blog on the morning I put it up, but with USATT Historian Tim Boggan here, we're starting at like 6AM now every morning, so I'm doing the blog early.)

And the numbers are….

Drat. There is no benign God who loves table tennis.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Days 4-6
Help! If you are reading this, I am a prisoner in my own office. If I let up for a moment, slave-driver Tim Boggan has taken to boxing my ears with simultaneous lefty and right forehand smacks to the side of my head. I'm sure this is against the Geneva Convention and the International Rules of War. Meanwhile, over the weekend we did another 131 pages, and are through Chapter 14 of 27. Also, an historic event occurred on Sunday: there are no graphics on page 191. NONE!!! Just a page of text. Tim must have blinked.

Day 1: Tue, Jan. 5: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Wed, Jan. 6: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
Day 4: Pages 86-132, 47 pages, 138 graphics
Day 5: Pages 133-175, 43 pages, 141 graphics
Day 6: Pages 176-216, 41 pages, 149 graphics
TOTALS: 218 pages, 727 graphics, 3.33 graphics per page

Table Tennis Punch Serve - Like a Boss! 
Here's the new coaching video (2:24) by Brett Clarke.

A Little Motivation From Xavier Thérien
Here's the new article from the Canadian star.

Han Xiao Selected as Athlete Services Coordinator for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio
Here's the USATT article.

USATT News Items
There are a number of new ones – so why not browse over them?

USATT Hall of Fame Profiles
Five people were inducted into the USATT Hall of Fame in December. Three already are profiled online (by Tim Boggan) in the USATT Hall of Fame: Eric Owens, Wang Chen and Dean Johnson. Coming up soon – Tahl Leibovitz Coach and Jack Huang. Here's video (34:17) of the Eric Owens induction.

Dimitrij Ovtcharov Gets German Sportsman of the Year
Here's the article.

Club Table Tennis in Japan
Here's the new article from Coach Jon.

World Champion Richard Bergmann and Korean #1 Player Lee Dal Joon
Here's the picture and short article. D-J Lee would soon move to the U.S. and win the U.S. Open six straight times, 1968-73. Johnny Leach of England was the 1949 and 1951 World Men's Singles Champion. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

Table Tennis School - Forehand and Backhand Topspin
Here's the video (40:09).

Ma Long vs Fan Zhendong (Chinese Trials 2016)
Here's the video (3:21).

Zhang Jike vs Xu Xin (Chinese Trials 2016)
Here's the video ().

The ITTF's Top 5 Moments of 2015
Here's the video (3:23).

Tribute to England's Paul Drinkhall
Here's the video (2:31) featuring the English #2 and world #70 (former #31).

Great Animation Gifs
Here's a thread at MyTableTennis.com with lots of nice ones.

Trump Talks Table Tennis
Here's the hilarious new video (1:47) from Larry Bavly!

Non-Table Tennis: Reading Recommendations from World Weaver Press, and the Odyssey Writing Workshop
Here's my weekly Science Fiction & Fantasy blog!

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Three Biggest Problems in USA Table Tennis
While there are many problems in our sport, I believe the following are the three biggest ones currently faced by USA Table Tennis.

• Grow the Sport. USATT membership is in the 9000 range, just as we were in the 1990s, though I hear we may be approaching 10,000 or so. Alas, at the various "Strategic Development" meetings we've had over the years we've had a good name for our membership totals: they are a "round-off error" for what membership should be in a country this size, which should be in the hundreds of thousands. (How can all those little countries in Europe have memberships that dwarf ours??? Let's not even talk about Asia.) I believe when membership grows, many of our other problems will be resolved, such as money problems (from membership fees), turning the U.S. Open and/or Nationals into premier events (more players and money available), and so on.

  How do we fix this? It comes down to having a product that the masses will join in. In Europe, that means lots and lots of regional team leagues. In the U.S., it'll likely be the same, whether it's team or singles leagues. USATT's historic focus on tournaments simply hasn't worked, and neither has the culture at the club level of "winner stay on." When the focus is on leagues – as it is in nearly every successful sport all over the U.S. and the world – membership will begin a long and steady increase. But it's going to be a long and slow process creating such an infrastructure. Here are the plans for regional team leagues; already there has been interest in a number of new regions, as I've blogged about previously.

• Develop a Professional Class. There is no such group of players in the U.S., though there are players who rely on sponsors to eke out an existence. Nearly all high-level players in the U.S. have to make a living separately, whether by coaching or an outside non-table tennis job. And without such a professional class, and a corresponding professional league or circuit, there is little prospect for up-and-coming players to become professionals in this country, and even less for the masses to take the sport seriously as the Olympic sport that it is.

  How do we fix this? I've been in on discussions on this; I think 2016 is the year we take the first step. More on this later. Ultimately we need to both develop U.S. players and develop some sort of professional league or circuit where they can make a living, and there are plans for both right now. (I will be able to blog about at least one of them next week.)

• Change the Culture of Cheating. I've blogged about this many times. We're so used to elite players openly breaking the rules by illegally hiding their serves that it's barely taken seriously – because we are used to it and practically expect it. But it's a growing scandal that's going to erupt at some point. There are just too many players who play by the rules who are getting cheated out of national titles and teams by players who serve illegally (i.e. cheat), and when they or their coaches complain about opponent who openly cheat them out of matches, the complaints aren't taken seriously with any action. Because of this culture of cheating, most umpires will not fault elite players for illegally hiding their serve, often arguing that they aren't sure that the ball is hidden, even though the rules say that they should call serves if they are not "sure" the serve is legal, and that it is the responsibility of the player to serve so the umpire can see that the serve is legal.

  For the second year in a row, nearly every major event at the Nationals was decided by hidden serves, and by umpires not calling them. I blogged about this on Dec. 28.

  I hope this problem is addressed before it blows up in our faces. It's not just USATT that's facing problems with this scandal; think about all the elite kids who train and train, and then discover they can't compete with their rivals unless they too openly cheat. There are a lot of frustrating discussions on this all over the country between these kids, their parents, and their coaches. As I've blogged before, the problem has escalated dramatically the past year, where such illegal serving has spread to nearly all our top cadet players, few of whom like doing it, but feel they have little choice, since umpires are allowing their opponents to do it.

  How do we fix this? Before the next major USATT tournament (Open or Nationals), let the players know well in advance that the service rules will be enforced, including the rules against hiding the serve. The tournament referee must then let the umpires know in advance that the service rules must be enforced, that the players have been warned, and that if they all enforce the rules, then they won't be stuck as the only ones doing so, as often happens right now. If the tournament referee is not willing to do this, then he should not be the referee.

  The ITTF meets at the next Worlds, starting at the end of February. There will be serious discussions of this problem there – they are quite aware of it, and I've been in discussions with several. I'm hoping they will address this issue either by a new emphasis on enforcing the rules, changing the rules to make them easier to enforce, or (as a last but unfortunate straw) simply changing the rules to allow hidden serves, since that will at least level the playing field for those who do not cheat and for those who feel humiliated because they are forced to do so to compete fairly. 

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day Three
Yesterday Tim Boggan and I did pages 46-86 (41 pages), which puts us about halfway through chapter 5 of the 27 chapters planned. Along the way I cleaned up and placed another 127 graphics, about 3.1 per page. So far we've done 88 pages (including the covers), with exactly 299 graphics. Below are the running totals. The latest chapter covers lots of regional tournaments. The last photo I placed yesterday? A picture of future USATT president Sheri Soderberg Pittman, holding the second place Under 1300 trophy she won at the Butterfly Open on July 15, 1989, in Wilson, NC – she lost the final to Brent Galloway, who would also win Under 1500 – ringer!

Day 1: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
TOTALS: 87 pages, 299 graphics, 3.44 graphics per page

Judith Kaye RIP
On Wednesday night, Judith Kaye, 77, longtime New York State Chief Justice and mother of USATT CEO Gordon Kaye, passed away. I never realized just how an illustrious career she had until I read the below. Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered that flags on all state government buildings be flown at half-mast today (Jan. 8).

• New York Times
• New York Daily News
• Statement from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo

Table Tennis on FOX News in Greensboro, NC
Here's the video (4 min) from Wednesday, with 3-time U.S. Men's Singles Champion Timothy Wang and USATT CEO Gordon Kaye. They talked about the upcoming U.S. Olympic Trials and numerous other topics.

Message from President, Successful Year Completed, More Successful Year Ahead
Here's the message from ITTF President Thomas Weikert.

Quadri Gets Colourful Reception in U.S
Here's the article.

Squad Nails the Science of Table Tennis
Here's the article.

USA Nationals Pictures from Nick Beymer Photographer
Here's the photo page.

Perfect 2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships About to be Drawn
Here's the ITTF press release.

Superb Forehand by Zhang Jike in the 2016 China Trials!
Here's the video (13 sec).

International Table Tennis
Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage). Butterfly also has a great news page.

MDTTC is an Animal House
Yesterday the Maryland Table Tennis Center welcomed our newest member, Barry the Bear. He joins Froggy the Frog (don't call him a toad!) and Don Iguana as the non-human members of the club - we welcome players of all species at our club. (Barry is the property or sibling – I'm not sure which – of Willie Shi. The photo is care of Stefano, Giovanni, Alessandro, and Adriano Ratti.)

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How to Wake Up a Student
I had a one-hour session yesterday with a kid who was half asleep. So what does one do when a student (or yourself) is half asleep, and you need to wake him up? I have my own proven method, which I use both on students and on myself – such as every morning when I have to get up early to work with Tim Boggan on his new volume. (See next segment.) So what is my secret?

You splash water on your face. Really, it works! I do it every morning when I first get up, and sometimes in the afternoon if I'm feeling sleepy. When I have students who are sleepy – and kids are always either sleepy or hyperactive, there is no in between – I have them do so as well. It really works! (Usually. Oh, and splashing water on face to wake up ©2016 by Larry Hodges. If you do it, you owe me $1.)

There are other tricks you can do as well to wake yourself up. One simple way is to simply do a little shadow-stroking. Another is to bounce up and down or from one leg to the other before going out to play or between points – it really wakes the body up.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day Two
Tim Boggan continues to hold me captive in my office, forcing me to fix up photos and layout pages for his new volume. He's a merciless slave driver who keeps me in chains and smacks me with electrified ping-pong balls if I slow down. If anyone gets this note, please contact Donald Trump so he can tweet bad things about Tim, and Tim will feel remorse and go away.

Remember how I wrote we'd be working from 7AM-2:30PM? Hah! For unknown reasons, I dragged myself out of bed yesterday at 5AM (or did Tim drag me out kicking and screaming?), and we started at 5:30AM, and went to 2:30PM, when I left to coach. He allowed me a thirty-second lunch break of moldy bread and water that smelled like old ping-pong shoes.

The night before I hadn't finished my own work until 11:30PM, and shortly after that I received a call from a USATT person on a huge issue (more on that next week), which we discussed for over an hour. When I finally got to bed it was 1AM. Let's see, go to bed at 1AM, get up at 5AM . . . I think there's something wrong with this, but I'm too tired to figure it out. And so I simply splashed water on my face every couple of hours all day, and lived on Mountain Dew. (I normally limit myself to one 7.5oz can per day, but until we're done with the book, I'm lifting that limit.)

We did chapters 3 & 4 and the first five pages of chapter 5, 45 pages in all, and 131 graphics according to my quick count. The volume starts off in the spring of 1989 and will go through 1990. We've already had some hints about the upcoming landmark three-way 1990 USATT presidential election (where challenger Dan Seemiller will easily win over incumbent Mel Eisner, who finished third, with George Brathwaite finishing second), lots of tournaments, including the 1989 U.S. Open, and later we'll get to the infamous 1990 U.S. Open ("Tournament of Champions"), run under Murphy's Law. Want to read more? Order a copy when it's available in a few weeks! (Tim made me to write that – he threatened to stuff speed glue in my nose if I didn't.)

I left at 2:30, and coached (plus a 30-minute tutoring session on writing) until 7PM. When I got home, I had over 100 emails, including about 20 that needed action or responses. So while Tim snores away (I think he keeps a rifle under the blanket, or is it a flamethrower?), I'm working away on USATT, MDTTC, and SF matters. He'll be up at 4AM, and I just hope I'm in bed before that.

USATT Insider
Here's the latest issue, which came out yesterday.

Interview with Dimitrij Ovtcharov
Here's the interview.

AITTA Wins 2015 North American Teams Table Tennis Championships
Here's the article. It's a bit old, since the tournament took place the last weekend of November, but better late than never! It includes lots of pictures.

College Table Tennis News

• University of North Texas Faces Denton High Table Tennis Team
• British Columbia Thunderbirds Win Fall Table Tennis Tournament

That Time Rockstar Made a Table Tennis Game
Here's the article. "When the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 arrived, people expected open world experts Rockstar Games to come blaring out of the gate with something truly next-gen. What they got was something surprising: a table tennis game. Yes, that actually happened."

Ma Long vs Xu Xin (Chinese Trials 2016)
Here's the video (3:42).

Zhang Jike vs Lin Gaoyuan (Chinese Trials 2016)
Here's the video (3:58).

Ding Ning Tribute 2015
Here's the video (3:04).

Off the Table - Feng Tianwei
Here's the video (6:05).

Any Up For . . . Um . . a Little Quidditch Pong???
Here's the article and pictures. "Quidditch Pong Is The Most Magical Option In Drinking Games." (Dang, I'm a non-drinker…)

Ball and Racket Confusion
Here's the picture. (Here's the non-Facebook version.) "You need to hit the ball with the bat not the other way around."

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A Blast from the Past
Yesterday while I was coaching, an elderly man was practicing on an adjacent table on the robot. He had some questions for me, and it soon became an interesting discussion, mostly taking place while the two kids I was doing multiball with were picking up balls. He was obviously once an experienced player, with decent technique and could hit regular forehands and backhands.

The man looked perhaps 65, and was Asian, but spoke perfect, unaccented English – he likely grew up in the U.S. He said that this was the first time he'd played in 40 years, and that he'd last played in 1976. This was ironic, since I started playing in 1976, and so was now in my 40th year of playing!

The first thing he'd noticed when he came in was that everyone had black and red surfaces on their racket, which surprised him. Back when he played, everyone had the same color on both sides. I explained the two-color rule of 1983, and about how in the years just prior to that the game was dominated by players with combination rackets who flipped and used deception to force misses and easy pop-ups. He found this interesting, yet difficult to understand. He wondered why players didn't just read the spin from the ball.

He also said that the ball seemed a bit big, and asked if these were standard sizes. (I think he said he had an old 38mm ball at home.) I explained how the ball had gone from 38mm to 40mm in the early 2000s, and explained why, which led to a discussion of modern surfaces. He was clearly surprised at the number and bounciness of modern surfaces such as Tenergy. He also wondered if the bigger ball would spin as well.

I found a Butterfly plastic ball mixed in with the celluloid balls he was using on the robot. I pulled it out and explained why. He was surprised we were switching away from celluloid, so I explained the whole controversy about the celluloid balls being more flammable, etc., and how they played differently. I bounced a celluloid and a plastic ball on the table so he could hear the sound difference – and we both agreed the plastic ones sounded funny. (And this for me was after using them at least semi-regularly for a year.)

He'd never seen multiball training before – it was very rare in the U.S. back in his day – and so he watched with interest as I ran the two junior players through a series of stroking and footwork drills. These days, multiball at a training center is like the sun rising in the morning.

He also was quite surprised games were to 11!

I wish I'd asked him more questions, such as about the players he remembered from back in 1976, but I was a bit busy working with two students. But it was certainly a blast from the past to see our sport now through the eyes of one who last saw it 40 years ago.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day One
As noted in my blog yesterday, USATT Historian Tim Boggan moved in with me yesterday morning to work on his History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, which covers 1989-90. I had to start by scanning and fixing up a bunch of photos that Mal Anderson hadn't already scanned for us, and then we got to work. But since he didn't arrive until 9:30AM, and I had to leave to coach at 2:30, it was a shorter work day than will be the norm. We did the front and back cover (the latter was complicated), the title page, author page, dedication page, acknowledgements page, chapter 1, and the first page of chapter 2 – which got us to page 20. Including the front and back covers, we did 22 pages, with 42 graphics. It'll like be 400-450 pages long, so we have a long way to go.

Simply Compete Launch (for USATT Members)
Here's the USATT article. In Simply Compete you can:

• Manage your personal information
• Renew your membership
• View your tournament and rating history
• View your friend’s and family’s tournament and rating history
• Find and register for tournaments
• Find and register for leagues
• View your rating progression chart
• Upload a picture to your profile
• Use Google Maps to find clubs
• Share your tournament results on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more!

Simply Compete is a one-stop shop for clubs as well!

• Manage club information
• Renew club affiliations
• Sanction tournaments
• Run tournament registration
• Submit tournament results
• Run Leagues
• Post to social media

Timo Boll: Coaches Are Crucial
Here's the interview in fifa.com from the German star, world #7 last month and former world #1. Excerpt – and probably the first part applies to beginners of all ages, though he's talking about future stars, who have to start very young: "Coaches are unbelievably important during that first phase between the ages of eight and 18, as that’s when techniques are honed and weaknesses are ironed out in training. After that, improvement is a matter of fine margins that aren’t immediately apparent, and coaches can often spot these from the outside. That’s why it helps if the coaches themselves played at a high level previously, because they know what it’s like to be in your position."

Table Tennis School - Random Topspin
Here's the video (43:25).

USATT Athletes of the Month: Yijun Feng and Jiaqi Zheng
Here's the USATT article.

Jean-Michel Saive Meets with King Philippe
Here's the ITTF article on former world #1 Saive meeting with the Belgium king. (The year is 2016 . . . and we still have kings??? Yes, I know, there are lots of them still.)

Rackets as Works of Art to Raise Cash for Children
Here's the article from the London Mirror, headlined, "Incredible table tennis bats are truly a work of art as designers raise cash for BBC Children in Need."

93-Year-Old Has Eyes on Olympics
Here's the video (1:26) from NBC News featuring Bill Guilfoil. "For many retirees a short stroll is enough to get their blood pumping, but for Bill Guilfoil, a walk in the park is exactly that. That's why the 93-year-old plays daily rounds of table tennis. In February, he will leave behind the green courts at Overland Park Racquet Club in Kansas City for Greensboro, North Carolina where he'll try to qualify for the 2016 summer Olympics in Brazil."

Does China Have (Singing) Talent?
Here's the USATT feature which links to three videos of Chinese team members singing, including the one I linked to yesterday.

Ma Long - Visions of Destiny
Here's the video (3:47) featuring the reigning world champion and world #1.

Popeye vs. Bluto
Here's the cartoon!

Non-Table Tennis - Reading Recommendations from World Weaver Press Editors and Authors
Here's the article, which includes a segment from me! (See third item.)

Non-Table Tennis – SF Blog on More Pings and Pongs
Here's the blog entry on the new anthology of my best science fiction & fantasy stories, and a little on writing workshops!

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