December 27, 2013

MDTTC Christmas Camp

The camp started yesterday. Our summer camps are all five days long, with a morning (10AM-1PM) and afternoon (3-6PM) sessions. However, our Christmas camps are a bit different. They are six days long, with the first day a half day (3-6PM on Dec. 26), and the last day also a half day (10AM-1PM on Dec. 31), with the four days in between all regular days (10AM-1PM, 3-6PM). So yesterday we only had an afternoon session. However, since we introduce new techniques and give lectures in the morning sessions, and we want to start the camps off that way, we always treat day one at our Christmas camps as a morning sessions, with the morning session on the last day treated like an afternoon session.

I gave lectures to the camp yesterday on the grip, stance, and forehand. (I do all the lectures.) As I've done for the past three years, I then took charge of the beginners. We did lots of multiball training, sometimes in one spot, other times moving. We also did a lot of service practice. There's a wide range of skills among beginners, and they ranged here from some who couldn't even serve at all, to those who were ready to learn to serve with spin. The ages ranged from about 7 to 12, with most under 10.

There were about 35 players in the camp on the first day. Coaches are myself, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Wang Qing Liang ("Leon"), Chen Bo Wen ("Bowen"), and Chen Jie ("James"). Raghu Nadmichettu may join us later. Players range from beginners to a number of high level juniors, including Crystal Wang, Derek Nie, and Nathan Hsu.

USATT Magazine

I just received yesterday (Dec. 26) the Nov/Dec USATT Magazine. Something's going wrong here - a Nov/Dec issue should be received by early November, not at the end of December. Because of the lateness, there's a lot of stuff inside that's wasted, such as a full page of pre-Nationals coverage, received nearly a week after the Nationals (which highlights Cheng Yinghua, who didn't enter Men's Singles, and Lily Zhang, who wasn't there), and the feature "Twas the Night Before Vegas" poem (by Adam Bobrow, which I linked to yesterday) that comes well after Vegas. There's a half-page ad for the USATT Annual Assembly, which was held on Dec. 18 at the Nationals. (It's also announced in the CEO's report.) Nearly half of the tournaments listed in the tournament schedule have already taken place.

The ratings are as of Nov. 1, exactly eight weeks ago, and are useless to readers unless they're historians. (That's seven pages wasted.) There's an obit on page 69 for Shonie Aki, who died Dec. 2 (see the segment in my blog on this), so there's no reason why they couldn't have also updated the ratings at that time rather than use ones that were already a month old. The ratings should literally be the last thing finalized for the magazine, so that they are as up to date as possible. (I was editor for twelve years, and that's what I did. The editor gets the ratings online via an application created specifically for the editor, and so it's just a matter of doing so as late as possible, including redoing it if necessary.)

Strangely, there's nothing in it about the North American Teams, which were held Nov. 29 - Dec. 1. If we're going to get the issue near the end of December, then that should be in it. But it has two pages of coverage of the 2013 Maccabiah Games - but they were held July 17-30. (Gotta put a whip to those writers to send things in a timely fashion, assuming the article was sent in late.)

And the cover? It's a generic Christmas scene with some ping-pong stuff photoshopped under the tree. C'mon, we only get six covers per year, we can do better than that!!! There are some great table tennis photographers out there and lots of great players who could use the exposure. I think table tennis readers would prefer a spectacular table tennis picture.

There are numerous holiday ads which are all wasted for Christmas shopping, including specific holiday specials from Newgy, Butterfly, Paddle Palace, and Ping-Pong Depot. There's also the ad for the $8000 Butterfly Aurora Cup in Illinois on page 2, with an entry deadline of Jan. 4, so members only have a little over a week to enter. Many won't even notice it by then. It also has the MDTTC Christmas Camp ad, which is wasted since the camp started yesterday. Refund!!!

But it does have my article, "Adjusting to Weird Serves and Shots"! I also was intrigued by the article on page 19 on the Junior Table Tennis Foundation by Ethan Jin (www.juniortabletennis.com).

I haven't read much of the issue yet, so if anyone has any comments on that, feel free.

Tips of the Day

Since the last time I posted about them on Dec. 13, USATT has put up seven more of my Tips of the Day. Here's where you can see them all. Browse over them and read the ones that sound interesting or helpful, or just read them all! They are rather short and to the point.

Developing a Tactical Thought Process

Here's the article.

Difficulty Level of Table Tennis Techniques

Here's the article. (I put this up yesterday, but had a bad web address, so I'm putting it up again.)

Happy New Year from the USA Nationals Officials

Here's the picture! I may give a small number of them a hard time, but they all deserve our appreciation.

Around the Net Shot by Werner Schlager

Here's the video (24 sec).

Make Your Own Monkey Ping-Pong Paper Toy

Here's the article. After you finish, consider how many rating points you could have gained if you'd instead spent the time practicing your serve!

Table Tennis Nation Brings You….

• Best Sports Team of the Year (but the Dodgers over the Orioles? Hah! Not a chance.)
• Ping-Pong on TV and in Movies

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