MDTTC Camp - Week Ten

Yesterday we started the final week of our ten weeks of training camps. The kids were restless! I've never had so much trouble getting them to quiet down as we got started. I'm not sure if it was because school's one week away or because it was the last week of summer camps. (A number of them had been with us all or nearly every camp.) I had to send two of them to sit in the lounge, only the second time I'd done that all summer. (The previous time was when two kids got into a pushing fight, I think way back in week one or two.)

The focus on day one, as usual, was the forehand. We had a new group of beginners. Several had surprisingly good forehands to start with - not from coaching, but from watching and playing in their basements or other places. Two of them had been playing regularly at a table at their neighborhood swimming pool.

Watching the Ball

Players often advise beginners to "watch the ball." I always thought this was somewhat silly as I can't imagine anyone, even a beginner, not watching the ball, assuming they are playing serious. It's rarely come up when I coach, even with little kids, who naturally watch the ball intently. There are some technical aspects, such as do you watch the ball all the way to contact, or only to a certain point, since you can't react at the end?

I advise players to try to watch the ball right to contact, to allow for last-second adjustments and to make sure they are seeing the ball as well as possible. Watching the ball all the way especially helps when doing spin shots, where you just graze the ball, such as looping, pushing, chopping, and serving.

Tip of the Week

Height of Service Toss.

How to Promote Major Tournaments

Over the years there have been numerous discussions on how to promote the U.S. Open and Nationals so as to bring in more players, more spectators, more press, and make it a better experience for all. There are many good ideas out there, and I read some excellent ones in a threat at about.com over the last few days.

But all of these excellent posters are missing the point - ideas don't get the job done. If you want to improve on these things, don't start by pushing ideas, no matter how good they are. Start by pushing to have someone officially in charge of implementing improvements. For example, if you think we need to present matches at the Open and National better, perhaps with more scorekeepers or better communication, don't press for more scorekeepers or better communication; press for someone to be in charge of presentation. Then there is an official person in charge of this, and he can officially push for these things, and they are far more likely to happen.

Want to increase the number of entries at the Open or Nationals? Have someone officially in charge of increasing entries. Want to have more spectators? Have someone officially in charge of bringing in spectators. Want more press coverage? Have someone officially in charge of media coverage.

You won't find success this way every time since not everyone officially in charge of something will do the job well. If they don't, then thank them for their services and put someone else in charge.

MDTTC Camp and a Day of Rest

After coaching 6-8 hours/day for 14 straight days, I'm finally off today. I was exhausted a week ago; there are no adverbs or adjectives in the English language that adequately describe my current state of exhaustion, so let's just say I'm tired. I went to bed last night at 11PM and slept to 9AM. That's unprecedented for me; I normally sleep about six hours/night.

However, I've got a "busy restful" day ahead. Nothing physical, but a few errands, and lots of paperwork stuff - editing, rewriting, organizing. Mostly stuff I've put off the last two weeks due to the busy workload. We have one more week of our ten weeks of camp this summer, and then I can go back to writing during the day, and coaching nights and weekends.

Yesterday's focus was the backhand loop. I had 4'7" 12-year-old Derek Nie demonstrate; as I think I mentioned in a previous blog, if he can backhand loop at a 2291 level (that's his rating!), then anyone can, right? However, the beginners aren't ready for backhand looping, and we focused on the basics.

The natives were restless yesterday - Thursdays is always the most "dragging" day, as it's four days into camp, but not the last day yet. I let the beginning kids go to games earlier than usual in both the morning and afternoon sessions. The more advanced ones are a bit more focused, and if anything, trained longer than usual before playing games.

MDTTC Camp

There seems to be two groups in this week's group of beginning kids: those who want to play real games (up-down tables games to 11, king of the table) and those who want to hit targets while I feed multiball (pyramids of paper cups, Froggy). Since we have twelve of these beginners in the 5-8 range, I've pretty much divided them into these two groups when we get to games. The better ones tend to want to play real games. None of the four girls want to play competitive games - they perpetually want to line up and take turns hitting the poor paper cups and Froggy. They're inseparable.

There is amazing improvement in their target skills. I end many sessions with the bottle game, where they line up and try to hit a Gatorade bottle that I assure them is filled with something disgusting, like squeezed worm juice, which I have to drink if they hit it. Both groups love this game - the competitive ones compete to see who can make me drink the most. Normally beginning kids in this age group don't hit it that often, but the last two days they've been incredible, hitting it over and Over and OVER! I've drunk a lot of worm juice.

I had a private session with one up-and-coming junior I've been coaching for the past six months or so, with a supposed rating of 950. Yeah, right - he can loop over and over against my block, and pretty hard. "You're really working me!" I told him as I was sweating pretty hard trying to block all his loops. He was looping forehands from his backhand side to my backhand block. Some people don't understand that blocking involves footwork; good blockers work hard to block well.

Nature Versus Nurture

Talent and Table Tennis

There's a lot of online debate and many books (from The Sports Gene to Bounce) and articles out about talent versus environment. How much are top athletes born and how much is made? There's no question that most of it is made, but is there such a thing as talent? Well, yeah. And remember that this is a blog, not a scientific study, so much of what I'm writing is based mostly on my experiences as a table tennis coach. I've also discussed the topic several times with my uncle, who chaired the neurology department at Johns Hopkins for many years.

Some say there is no such thing as talent, and that's nonsense. No two brains are identical, even at birth. There are many studies that show, for example, that IQ is mostly genetic, and yes, intelligence helps in table tennis. (It's a bit more complicated than that - there are different types of intelligence - but I'm not going to get into that here.) The brain is a complex organ that's evolved many built-in areas of specialization (verbal areas, spatial skills, facial recognition areas, etc.), but just as there are variations in the rest of the body, there are variations in these areas of the brain because of the variations in the DNA. Some of these areas help in sports such as table tennis, meaning some players start out with at least an initial advantage.

MDTTC Camp and The Pongs of Power

There are lots of younger kids at the camp this week, which is Week Nine of our ten weeks of summer camps. It's the youngest group of the summer, maybe ever. We have about 30 kids, with about 20 of them under age 10. I'm in charge of the beginning under 10 crowd. In most past camps I pretty much worked with them on my own, but this time there are just too many - 12 of these under 10's are beginners - so coaches John Hsu and Chen Jie ("James") are helping me with them.

The focus yesterday was on the forehand. There were the usual problems - many want to put their index finger down the middle, don't turn their shoulders, lunge for the ball, try to take the ball too quickly, stand up too straight, and above all, won't close their rackets. (I probably said "Aim lower" five hundred times.) I'm always amazed that until about age 8 or 9, most beginning kids don't really understand that the ball is going to go where their racket is aiming. They understand it when I point it out to them, but it's something that doesn't really occur to many of them on their own.

We ended the day with the ten-cup challenge, where I set up a pyramid of 10 paper cups, and each kid had 10 shots (fed multiball) to see how many they could knock down. Several got 7 or 8, but four missed all 10. They now have something to work for. By the end of the week they'll be the terror of paper cups everywhere.

I called this week's beginning under 10 group "The Pongs of Power." What does that mean? I don't know, and neither did the kids, though they debated it. But it has a ring to it, and would be a great name for a music band.

Tip of the Week

Service Contact Point.

When and Where to Learn to Loop

One of the toughest decisions for a coach is when to start a player on looping. There is the "Chinese" theory, which is that you focus on the fundamentals - forehand and backhand drives - for a long period, while teaching the loop only against backspin. When the drives are well developed, then the player just extends his backswing and changes his contact and the shot becomes a loop, and soon the player is looping everything. Then there is the "European" method, where players often learn to loop almost from the start. This allows even smaller kids to loop the ball as they let the ball drop down to their level and spin it on the table. (Of course they have to first learn to hit the ball, so even here they first learn basic forehand and backhand drives.) I put the two methods in quotes because this isn't an exact thing; some Chinese coaches teach the "European" method, and vice versa.

I generally go with Chinese theory, but teaching the loop a bit sooner than most Chinese coaches. However, some kids seem to take to looping very easily, and for them, we go to looping much sooner. More and more Chinese coaches are also introducing looping earlier. Those who learn looping early tend to have more natural loops. Those who go the "Chinese" method tend to have more powerful loops. However, these are just tendencies.

MDTTC Camp and Training Centers

Yesterday's focus was on the backhand attack, especially the backhand loop. I had 12-year-old Derek Nie demo his backhand loop - if a 4'7" 65 lb kid can do this shot at such a high level, perhaps that'll encourage others that they can too. When I was coming up, players had to ask themselves whether it was worth developing a backhand loop since many believed "one gun is as good as two," i.e. you should focus on the forehand and footwork. So the question used to be "To backhand loop or not to backhand loop?" But the game has changed, and now the question is "To backhand loop and be a top player or not backhand loop and not be a top player?"

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was forehand looping. It's always my favorite day as this is when players really begin the route to becoming top players. As I explain in my lecture, starting at the intermediate level looping dominates the game, and everyone's game is based either on looping or stopping the other guy's loop.

I had a player who was having trouble positioning his feet when he stepped around his backhand to play his forehand. I showed him how to solve this problem with what I call the "Hop" method of foot positioning. I demonstrated by first showing him how I positioned my feet when playing a forehand crosscourt from the forehand side. He had no trouble doing this on his side. Then, while standing in the forehand ready position on the forehand side, I pointed my non-playing hand crosscourt. (We're both righties.) Then, while holding my body, arms, and legs as rigid as possible, I literally hopped over to the backhand side and rotated my body until my non-playing hand was pointing crosscourt toward his backhand side. This put me in exactly the same positioning for hitting a forehand from the backhand side crosscourt as hitting a forehand from the forehand side crosscourt. But the hopping part looks pretty comical!

Rules Changes I Was Involved In
Yesterday I blogged about rules changes since I started playing in 1976. I also wrote how I was involved or responsible for three, and promised to write about them today. I'll go in reverse order.

1) Paddle Point Rule. Back in 1991 I shared a ride from Maryland to the U.S. Open in Midland, Michigan with Dave Sakai. Along the way we picked up then-USATT president Dan Seemiller in Pittsburgh. During the long drive we discussed the paddle point rule, which a lot of people thought was silly, including all three of us. The rule then was that if an opponent hit the ball off the end but it hit your racket while still in play (i.e. not hitting the floor or something else to end the point), you'd lose the point. The reason for the rule was back in the hardbat era there were many players who blocked so quick off the bounce it was difficult to tell if the ball hit the table first - but in the sponge era, this doesn't happen much.

But many matches were being decided by the paddle point rule, including the Men's Final at a recent Olympic Sports Festival (then a major USATT tournament), where Sean O'Neill was up I believe 20-19 in the fifth match point (games to 21 back then), and smacked a ball off the end for an apparent deuce, but the ball hit Jim Butler's racket, and so Sean won. So right there in the car I got out my steno notebook and wrote a draft of a rule change to rescind the paddle point rule. I gave it to Dan, who gave it to the chair of the Official's Committee (not sure who - Wendell Dillon?), who finalized the language and submitted it to the ITTF, where it was passed.