January 7, 2013

Tip of the Week

Six Great Rallying Tactics.

Can a "2200 Player" Have the Experience to Coach at a High Level?

The question of whether a lower-rated player has the experience to be a top-level coach often comes up. The answer is yes, but rarely. I've seen numerous lower-rated players - some as low as 1100 - who were excellent coaches, even for high-level players. (I've also seen many former world-class players who couldn't coach at all.)

Some believe they can gain the needed experience to coach at the higher levels simply by watching the top players, usually on video. You can learn a lot that way, but if you think you can gain the experience to be a high-level coach just by watching the top players, you are kidding yourself. You not only have to watch them now, but you have to watch them on a regular basis as they develop. The key is not only knowing what they do now, but how they go there.

It also takes a certain type of mindset. If you watch top players play and gain strong opinions on how to coach players to reach that level, you are on the wrong course. You absolutely have to see what they do as they develop, in the playing hall while training and working with their coaches, and learn from this observing. There is no substitute for this. If you want to be a good coach, then find excuses to come watch these practice sessions. Do this for a few dozen sessions and you'll become knowledgeable. Do this for a few years and you have a chance to become a really good coach.

Some think you don't need to see top players developing if they are only going to coach lower-rated players. There's some truth to this - but often coaches who consider themselves good "beginner coaches" are only good for the first few months. For example, more and more players at the higher levels really topspin their backhands, and so if you want to develop a player with a bright future, you have to work toward that goal. Simply teaching them a basic backhand isn't enough. Other "beginner coaches" keep focusing on the basic counter-driving strokes so long that the player never learns higher-level techniques, such as looping over and over from both wings, counterlooping (the basic rallying shot at the higher levels), or advanced serve & receive. The biggest difference between a good "beginner's coach" and a truly great one takes place after the player can hit 100 forehands and 100 backhands. Does the coach keep working only on better and better forehands and backhand drives, or does he move on to more advanced stuff? You still need to focus on the fundamentals - here's my article Develop the Fundamentals - but the fundamentals of high-level play are a bit different than the fundamentals at the lower levels.

So to gain the experience needed to be a high-level coach, you either have to have been a high-level player, or to have spent extensive time with high-level players and coaches, both in training and tournament situations. I'm one of the lucky "2200 players" in that I have spent many years with top players and coaches. Here's my personal background:

  • My regular practice partners my first few years when I started out (at age 16) included future stars Sean O'Neill (5-time USA Men's Singles Champion) and Brian Masters (Pan Am Men's Singles Gold Medalist);
  • I spent four years as manager/director/assistant coach at the Resident Training Program for Table Tennis at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, working with coaches such as Li Zhen Shi, Zhang Li, Hennan Li Ai, and Liguo Ai, where I watched future stars develop such as Sean O'Neill, Jim Butler, Todd Sweeris, Eric Owens, Dhiren Narotam, Brian Pace, Chi-Sun Chui, Diana & Lisa Gee, and many more;
  • I spent two summers as an assistant coach to five-time U.S. Champion and long-time USA Men's Coach Dan Seemiller;
  • I've attended numerous coaching seminars by "elite" coaches - too many to list;
  • I've spent the last 20+ years at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, where I've learned by watching (and coaching) top players and coaches, including Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Xu Huazhang, Gao Jun, Amy Feng, Todd Sweeris, John Onifade, Sean O'Neill, Peter Li, Han Xiao, Sean Lonergan, Jeffrey Zeng Xun, Sunny Li, Brian Pace, and many more. That's five members of the Chinese National Team, ten members of the USA National Team, and a Nigerian National Team Member. Along the way I got to watch and work with many of the top juniors in the U.S. - and personally coached over 200 players to winning gold medals at the Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals.

So yes, it is possible for a "lower-level player" to gain the experience needed to coach at the higher levels - but it is rare that a player at that level gets the opportunity. You can't do it by just watching players at tournaments or on video; you have to watch their training on a regular basis, and learn from it. I've been lucky to have spent decades doing so. 

Today's Todo List

The never-ending list never ceases with its efforts to cease my work on finalizing my new book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers. All I have left are the covers and a final proofing, which I hoped to do this week, but the todo list grabbed me by the collar and shook me until it got my attention. I have no coaching scheduled today, so this is my "day off," right? Here's my list for today.

  • Tip of the Week
  • Blog
  • Junior Class accounting
  • New MDTTC tournament dates
  • Redo and finalize MDTTC tournament entry form
  • Update and print copies of the new Adult Beginning Class flyer
  • Email updates to junior class parents
  • Check on renewals for sponsorship contracts
  • Take Sheeba (my dog) to Vet at 3PM
  • Laundry
  • Bank
  • Arrange car checkup
  • Find out why Super Shuttle is billing me $38.94 for a trip I cancelled well in advance
  • Read and critique Codex stories (something from my SF writing sideline)
  • Not on todo list, but there's an ongoing discussion about leagues with USATT officials which is also somewhat time-consuming, though I'm sort of pulling back from it because of time constraints.

World Championship of Ping Pong

USA's Ilija Lupulesku made the semifinals of the $100,000 World Championship of Ping Pong - a sandpaper events - held this past weekend in London. "Lupi" pocketed $5000 for his efforts. Winning the event for the second year in a row was Maxim Shmyrev of Russia ($20,000), who defeated Sule Olaleye of Nigeria ($10,000) in the final, apparently 11-9 in the fifth, though the scores seem to show him winning 11-9 in the fourth. (Anyone know the real scores?) Also playing from USA was Ty Hoff and Adoni Maropis. 

USATT Player Bio Questionnaire

Why not take a couple minutes to fill out the USATT Player Bio Questionnaire? It's so USATT's "...web streaming commentators will have additional information in case you are featured on center court!" You never know. And it's fun listing your best titles, ratings, etc.!

How Kids Benefit from Table Tennis

Here's an article by Samson Dubina on the benefits of table tennis for kids.

Ambassador Wally Green

Former "bad boy" now table tennis ambassador Wally Green's been getting a lot of press coverage recently. Here he is on the Steve Harvey Show (3:25), using a blackberry as a racket. His partner is Kazuyuki Yokoyama. When asked how he got into ping-pong, Wally said, "It started, I was in a lot of trouble, a guy saw I was in trouble, I was either going to be in jail or just have a terrible life, and this guy said 'Look, I'm going to help you learn ping-pong, so he paid for me to go to Germany for four months to learn ping-pong.'"

Here he is again at the 4th Annual Ping Pong for Poverty Celebrity Event in Virginia Beach (4:20). Here he says, "I used to be in a gang, doing some bad stuff. The worst thing that happened to me is I got shot twice, got stabbed a couple of times, not to the point of death. There were a lot of fights. I was a bad kid, let's say."

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Send us your own coaching news!

If you want to be a really good coach begin the ITTF program of courses. See the article in USATTmag.

Jef Savage, MBA, BSc

ITTF Level II Coach, State Level Coach, Club Umpire

(USATT Certified) & Player

I definitely recommend the ITTF courses. There should be a new schedule coming up for next year soon. I may teach one.