May 12, 2015

Dying Arts in Table Tennis

The game has really changed quite a bit in the 39 years since I started in 1976. Some of it has been for the better, but some has been for the worse. From a technique point of view, the biggest loss is the dying of so many techniques and styles that were so common in the past. The game is simply more interesting when there are more styles - modern players often have no clue that the game wasn't nearly always a match-up of looper vs. looper, that there used to be huge battles between styles. Here's a short listing of ten dying styles or techniques.

  1. Pips-out penholders. I have several students pushing the 1800 level who have NEVER played a pips-out penholder in their life. (Recently I called them over to watch Heather Wang, a 2200 pips-out penholder at our club, just so they could see how the style played.) If anyone had predicted 25-30 years ago that the pips-out penhold style would die out at the world-class level while choppers (or at least chopper/loopers) would continue to thrive, they'd have been labeled a lunatic. Few remember that throughout the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, much of the game at the elite level was basically a battle between Chinese pips-out penholders and European inverted shakehanders.
  2. Short pips. There used to be lots of players with short pips-out, either pips-out penholders or shakehanders with pips on the backhand. But the hitting game is pretty much dead, and except for choppers and a few blockers with long pips, pretty much everyone has inverted on both sides.
  3. Conventional penhold backhand. It's almost time to retire the "conventional" part of this, since conventional penhold backhands are so unconventional, unless you are an aging player from the past or Ryu Seung Min - an aging player from the past whose last world ranking was in February, 2014.
  4. Forehand flat hitters. These days when one of our juniors plays a flat hitter, half the time he doesn't know what to do since there are so few of them. At the higher levels, just about all anyone does is loop. You have to practically lob to get a player to flat smash, and even then many world-class players continue to loop. First it died out among shakehanders, with Teng Yi and Johnny Huang perhaps the last of the "great" shakehand hitters, and then the pips-out penhold hitting style died out. I miss the days where you'd have that constant battle between loopers and hitter/blockers.
  5. Backhand flat hitting. I'm constantly amazed at how our up-and-coming players are so unprepared tactically when faced with the flat backhand hitting of Jim Butler - they just aren't experienced against it. Often their coaches are their practice partners, who might be 2600 players in their 20s, and they too aren't really familiar with this type of play and don't coach against it very well.
  6. All-out forehand loopers. Unlike conventional penhold backhands, where the only ones left are aging players from the past, there are nearly none left because aging players don't have the speed to be all-out forehand loopers. Remember the days of Guo Yuehua, Kim Taek Soo, Yoo Nam Kyu, Dragutin Surbek, Shigeo Itoh, Jean-Michel Saive, Jean-Philippe Gatien, and others who relentlessly ran around looping forehands? Once again we're mostly left with the aging Ryu Seung Min. Most modern players still strongly favor the forehand, but it's not like it used to be for some styles, where the whole goal was pretty much to play ALL forehand. There was even an old table tennis saying: "One gun is as good as two."
  7. Forehand flips from backhand corner. This used to be one of the most common receives, done especially by all-out forehand attackers, who'd step around their backhand corner to forehand flip against most short serves. Jean-Michel Saive was a master of it. Some top players still do this as a variation, but it's pretty rare these days as everyone tries to backhand banana flip any serve that goes short. There's a good reason for this - it used to be if you forehand flipped from the backhand corner to the opponent's backhand, he'd block, and you'd get to forehand loop again. These days he's more likely to backhand loop. 
  8. Seemiller grip and antispin. Remember when four of the five members of the USA Team (circa mid-1980s) played with the Seemiller grip, and with antispin on one side? Two reached roughly top 20 in the world (Eric Boggan and Dan Seemiller). Another won the gold medal at the Pan Ams (Brian Masters). Two reached the quarterfinals of Men's Doubles at the Worlds (Dan & Rick Seemiller). These days the grip has gone the way of the dinosaur, and yet it was a pretty effective grip, and below top 20 in the world, still would be. (I suspect it would be an excellent grip in the women's game even at the highest levels, where there's less power than in the men's game.) Antispin is also pretty much gone, though there is a recent minor resurgence due to "frictionless" antispin for blocking. (One of the funniest things is listening to many modern players and coaches trying to coach against the Seemiller grip - they only vaguely understand the style, and almost always coach as if it were some variation of a shakehands grip, and their coaching almost always hurts more than it helps.)
  9. "Pure" choppers. There used to be a lot of pure choppers out there, who chopped and pushed everything unless you kept pushing, in which case they'd eventually pick hit if you gave them a weak push. But they'd win matches where they might attack once per game, relying on pure defense and opponents' impatience. Another style that's mostly gone - most choppers these days are also all-out forehand attackers.
  10. Chop and sidespin blocking. There are a few that still do this, including Ma Long, but not many. It used to be a more common way to throw an opponent's timing off. Part of it might be the livelier sponges of today make it trickier to do. Waldner and nearly every pips-out penholders were the masters at this.

Canadian Junior and Cadet Open

It's going on right now in Markham, Canada. Here's the ITTF home page for the event, and here's the USATT site. The ITTF site has several feature articles on it, including one that features Crystal Wang from my club: Hosts Provide Severe Test for Second Seeds, Crystal Wang Steers United States Home.

Ma Long Videos

Here's a series of videos featuring the new World Men's Singles Champion, posted by Liliek Eko Suprabowo.

Ask the Coach

Episode #123 (18:35) - Changing Technique.

Table Tennis Physical Training in China

Here's the video (31 sec).

Pro Tip Blog: Bilenko on Modern Defense

Here's the new coaching article from MH Table Tennis.

Does Blade Weight Impact Performance?

Here's the new article from Table Tennis 11. There are a lot of past coaching related articles there as well.

China Faces a Heavy Trouble After Suzhou

Here's the article from Table Tennista.

Uberpong Play Anywhere Survey

Here's the survey. "What would you change about the world of ping pong? By answering a few questions, you could help us improve your ping pong experience forever."

Xu Xin Rocks!

Here's the highlights music video (61 sec) featuring the Chinese superstar.

Robin Hood Pong?

Here's the picture. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

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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