MDTTC Spring Break Camp: Day Three
Yesterday I had six players in my group for most of the session, so I decided to put them in three groups of two. Two of them would practice on a table by on their own. Two would be on the robot, taking 15 shots each, sometimes with a target on the table to aim for. And two would be with me, with one on ball pickup. It worked pretty well. I did some changes in the pairings after each cycle so they'd get different players to hit with when they were on their own.

Much of the session was stroking and footwork drills. But for one cycle I hit with each player live (rather than multiball), and so each got to do some steady forehand-to-forehand and backhand-to-backhand, and some did live footwork drills. (This was the morning session, which emphasizes multiball. In the afternoon session it's almost all live play.)

We also had a serving session, where I worked with the various levels, from one who is still struggling to serve on the table, to several who were well into learning spin serves. One was hard at work the whole session on his tomahawk serve, and he can now do sidespin, backspin, or side-backspin...

Tip of the Week
Finding Simple Tactics That Work.

MDTTC Spring Break Camp
We had a great first day of camp yesterday. As usual in recent years, I worked with the beginners - though they weren't all exactly "beginners"! I got to work with one five-year-old for the first time. I was expecting to have get him started, but lo and behold, he'd been taking lessons regularly with our coaches, and already had an excellent forehand, a decent backhand when in position (not easy when your head barely comes over the table and so the racket hides the ball when you hit backhands unless you hit from the side), and had incredible focus for his age. He was fun to work with.

There were five in my group. All had played, though two (both about 8) hadn't had formal coaching. With those two, I focused on the basics, while the others did more footwork. By the end of the morning training session, all five were doing the two-one drill.

They had great stroking practice at the...

Coaching "Future Stars" vs. Coaching "Older Players" and Fixing Bad Habits
There's a huge difference between coaching, say, a young, up-and-coming player, who started out with a good coach and has good basic technique; and coaching either an older player, or one who has technique problems.

Many top players, without extensive coaching experience, can be somewhat effective in working with young, up-and-coming players, since they are basically coaching younger versions of themselves, and are simply molding the player as they hone those good techniques as they player develops. In fact, much of the coaching may be inspirational, where you help the player strive to be the best. There's more to it than this, but there's less creative thinking involved in trying to solve problems, as opposed to continued pushing of the player to higher and higher levels, where the biggest need is often exactly what the top player brings - high-level play as a practice partner. (Alas, there are aspects where a top player with less coaching experience might miss, which may hurt the player eventually, but they are often subtle, and mostly...

It's Snowing
Yes, it's snowing - we're supposed to get 5-8 inches here in Maryland. But that barely affects us, an indoor sport, correct? Well, obviously it does affect us as players have to get to the club before they can take part in the world's greatest indoor sport. We had to cancel our Tuesday night league last night due to weather.

Except why do we insist on believing table tennis is an indoor sport? Do you really need walls around you to play? I once did an outdoor exhibition with Scott Preiss in the rain, with the wind blowing. (Okay, we looked like amateurs.)

Table tennis can be played anywhere. Don't believe it?

• Table tennis in snow
• Table tennis in rain
• ...