April 29, 2015

Top 20 Chuck Norris Table Tennis Facts

I thought I'd have a little fun this morning. Let's see if you can come up with your own Chuck Norris table tennis facts! Comment below - if there are a lot of good ones, I'll refer to them in tomorrow's blog. I saw a thread like this in the OOAK table tennis forum, but they were doing non-table tennis Chuck Norris sayings. (There's actually a Chuck Norris Facts page - I contributed about 50 of them.)

  1. Chuck Norris doesn't smash. He just looks at the ball and it flees in terror.
  2. Chuck Norris shaved his beard and underwent plastic surgery, and then cloned himself. Say hello to the Chinese National Team.
  3. Chuck Norris once smashed a ball so hard even he couldn't return it . . . and then he returned it.
  4. Chuck Norris doesn't play shakehands or penhold. He uses his beard.
  5. Chuck Norris never serves let balls. When he serves low, the net ducks.
  6. Chuck Norris used to high-toss serve. When he stopped using it, the U.S. space program ended, having no propulsion system.
  7. When Chuck Norris hides his serve, the ball can be found in Andromeda.
  8. Chuck Norris once played Superman a match, and the loser had to wear his underwear on the outside of his pants.
  9. When Chuck Norris did a multiball session with 38mm balls, he broke them all and we had to switch to 40mm. When Chuck Norris did a multiball session with 40mm celluloid balls he broke them all and we had to switch to plastic. He plans a multiball session with plastic balls soon, and we will be switching to golf balls.
  10. It's been 4.6 billion years since Chuck Norris looped the earth, and it's still spinning.
  11. Wood has a high carbon content, which is why the handle of Chuck Norris's blade is now made of diamond.
  12. An opponent once managed to touch one of Chuck Norris's serves, and yelled "Oosha!" Chuck karate kicked him into the sun.
  13. A referee once red carded Chuck Norris. He karate kicked the referee's liver to the moon while snacking on fava beans.
  14. Chuck Norris counterloops with sandpaper.
  15. CNN didn't cover World Table Tennis Championships. Chuck Norris mad. CNN now Chuck Norris Network.
  16. Chuck Norris doesn't use celluloid or plastic ping-pong balls. He plays with black holes.
  17. Chuck Norris is seeded #0 at the Worlds.
  18. When Chuck Norris plays table tennis he uses the Sahara Desert as a table, the Great Wall of China as the net, the Moon as the ball, and the Eurasian Continental Plate as his racket.
  19. Chuck Norris scores 21 points in games to 11.
  20. If Chuck Norris were president of USA Table Tennis, there'd be 320 million members . . . or else.

Serve Practice

Have you practiced your serves recently? Practice both your spin serves and fast, deep serves. (Use targets for the latter, and practice until you can hit it over and over.) Do you Visualize Serves for Feedback? Here's my article Practicing Serves the Productive Way.

World Championships

They are from April 26 - May 3 in Suzhou, China. Here are some links.

Playing Against Penholders

Here's the new coaching article by Han Xiao.

Ask the Coach

Table Tennis School - Exercise for Defender and Attacker

Here's the video (3:25).

Multiball Session

Here's a typical multiball session (2:53), I think from Germany.

ITTF Becomes Largest International Federation

Here's the ITTF press release. "The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) is now the largest International Federation, with 222 National Associations. Sao Tome & Principe and South Sudan were accepted into the ITTF family today at the ITTF Annual General Meeting (AGM) to overtake Volleyball as the largest International Federation."

Team Photos from the National College Table Tennis Championships

Here's the photo page.

32 Amazing Sports Photos from CNN

Here's the new CNN gallery - and click on the third one for a picture of "Miu Hirano and Mima Ito, of Japan, train for the 2015 World Table Tennis Championships in Suzhou, China, on Monday, April 27." The picture shows Hirano serving, with the ball over her nose. (But what does it say about our sport that we're excited that CNN runs a picture from it?)

11 Questions with Willy Leparulo

Here's the USATT interview.

Table Tennis Wedding

Here's the video (2:20)! Yep, that's Willy again.

The Two Faces of Jorgen Persson

More Mike Mezyan Pictures

NOTE - If you are unable to see these pictures, all you have to do is join the Table Tennis Group - it's easy! Here are all the past, present, and (soon) future pictures he's collected. (I pick out his best ones for here - he has more.)

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