February 3, 2011

Site Fast Enough?

Sometimes the site seems slow to me. Let me know if you are having trouble with this. The last thing I want are a world full of table tennis players and coaches staring at a screen in impatient disgust. Impatient disgust should only be employed when you miss an easy shot to lose a match at the Nationals, and realize it'll be another year before you are national champion.

The American Youth Table Tennis Organization (New York)

Here's their Winter Report. They have a feature on Middle School Table Tennis at North Star Academy. They're also looking for volunteers and donations. Lots of great stuff is going on there! If only more regions had groups like this. Some of the stuff they are doing:

  • Organized League Matches
  • Saturday Academy Expert Instruction
  • Tournaments
  • Scrimmage Matches
  • Instructional Clinics

2011 Pan Am/National Team Trials & Qualifying Tournament

Deadline to enter is Feb. 7, this Monday. Or you might just want to make plans to go watch. It's in San Jose, at the Topspin Club, Feb. 25-27. Here is the Prospectus (which explains everything), the Entry form, and (if you really need them) the Pan Am Code of Conduct, and the National Team Code of Conduct.

Coaching Stories

I've got a long list of what I call "unique" coaching stories, where a simple but unexpected tactic paid off. Probably my favorite was at the Junior Olympics a number of years ago. In the Under 16 Boys' Final, the player I was coaching, Andy, had pulled off an upset in the semifinals to reach the final. He was about 2150, short pips on the backhand, with a strong forehand loop and good backhand, but slow feet. He had a good forehand pendulum serve, but it always went long. His opponent in the final was a 2350 looper who played shakehands, with his index finger almost down the middle of the blade (like 1967 World Men's Singles Champion Hasegawa), and who, quite frankly, was just better. In the first game, Andy lost badly, with the opponent looping his serve over and over and putting Andy on the defensive. (The match was best two of three to 21.) Between games I asked Andy if could serve backhand. He said he'd never served backhand in his life. I said, "Tough. I want you to serve backhand." He argued, but I convinced him to just backhand tap the ball over the net, short to his opponent's forehand. It worked! Andy won the next two games comfortably. What I'd noticed was that the opponent, with his index finger down the middle of the paddle, couldn't bend his wrist back, and so couldn't receive a short serve down the line with his forehand. So all his returns were to Andy's forehand, which he looped for winners. The moral of this story? Have a wide variety of serves and strokes, i.e. a well-balanced game. You never know when you'll find something useful.

Here's a picture of me and a cat.

No, we're not twins! I think. (Picture of me is about 15 years old. I'm much more distinguished looking now. Really.)

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Send us your own coaching news!

In reply to by konnichwakid

After numerous complaints to the server about the slowness, we're moving to a new hosting plan that should (hopefully) resolve the problem. I'm not sure when the transfer will take place, but hopefully by early next week. It's been irritating the heck out of me since from the beginning, I considered speed a priority for this site.

The site definitely seems slow.  Your web host is killer slow.

We've changed our hosting plan, and it's much faster now. Finally!!!