Tip of the Week

Can you write The Book on Your Game?

MDTTC Coaching Camp - Day Five

• Day Five was actually last Friday. Day Six of the two-week MDTTC Camp is today. A number of new players are joining us - this'll probably be our biggest summer camp, with over 30 players, quite a jam on 12 tables. (We do lots of multiball so we can have more than two players on a table.)
• As noted in previous blogs, one of the favorite games we do in the camp is to put ten paper cups on the table in various configurations, and see how many a player can knock down with ten shots. Unfortunately, on Friday this degenerated into "cup wars." During break, several of the kids took the whole stack of cups (about 50) and created a huge pyramid on the table they planned to knock down by hitting it with ping-pong balls. Another kid walked by and knocked it over with his hand. The others were angry, but couldn't really do much about it. They created another pyramid, and again the same kid came...

MDTTC Coaching Camp - Day Three

• Yesterday's focus was on the backhand attack - smashing, drives against backspin, and backhand loop.
  • To develop the backhand smash (where you lengthen the backswing and/or use more wrist), a good drill we taught is the "hard-soft" drill, which really should be called the "hard-medium" drill. The players hit backhand to backhand, with one player alternating hitting one medium-hard, the other hard. The other player plays steady.
  • To develop the backhand attack against backspin, we introduced a drill for intermediate to advanced players. The entire drill is done backhand to backhand. Player A serves backspin. Player B pushes it back. A backhand loops or drives. B blocks. A chops. (This is the part where beginners have trouble.) B pushes. A backhand loops or drives, and the drill continues.
• We also focused a bit on doubles play, primarily the basics: serving low and short, hitting toward the person who hits at you (or even to his side so he gets in the way of his partner), and moving...

MDTTC Coaching Camp - Day One - and the Forehand

Day one of our two-week camp at MDTTC went pretty well, just like the other 150 or so I've run. Yes, that's not a typo - I've run approximately 150 five-day training camps now, the equivalent of over two years, seven days a week! Yikes.

Originally I was only going to do the morning sessions (10AM-1PM), both because I'm not usually needed in the afternoon sessions (3-6PM) and because of my ongoing back problems. But there's a large turnout, and more beginners than normal, so I'm doing the afternoon sessions as well. I agreed to take charge of the beginners all week. (After the two weeks end on Aug. 19, I plan to take about six weeks off where I have one of our top local juniors do my hitting for me when I coach, to allow my back to finally heal up.) This week I'll be living on Ibuprofen.

Most interesting experience on day one was with a new eight-year-old kid who had never played before. He stood up straight, jammed up to the table, didn't rotate his shoulders, and was trying to hit forehands while facing the table, i.e. without turning sideways. His...

Special Section on Ping-Pong Balls

Three-stars and two-stars and one-stars, oh my!

A couple of decades ago you could pretty much tell the star level of a ball with a couple of shots, or by simply examining it. Manufacturing simply wasn't that precise. Your typical one-star or training ball was shaped like an egg with seams the size of a Godzilla wedding ring. But times have changed. These days even training balls are pretty round and consistent, and usable for training even at the higher levels. The main advantage of a three-star ball is that they have been carefully checked, and so you know (well, usually) they are good. Training balls are usually good - but that's not a whole lot different than three-star balls. As to two-star balls, I don't think I've seen one in years - does anyone use them? Also, since training balls and one-star balls are often the same thing, the huge majority of balls used are either one-star/training balls or three-stars.

Here's a challenge. Randomly select five or so three-star balls. Then get the same...