May 15, 2015

The Spirit of Pong

It's here!!! This is my fantasy table tennis novel about an American who goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis, and ends up training with and learning from the spirits of past greats. It's in two formats, Print and Kindle, both on sale from Amazon. I've kept the price low - only $6.99 for print, $5.99 for kindle. Buy now so I can afford to eat tonight!!!

I was up half the night working on the kindle version - lots of formatting.) The cover was created by Mike Mezyan, based on a previous table tennis artwork I picked out. It's a relatively short novel, exactly 100 pages. Here's the description from the back cover:

Andy “Shoes” Blue wants to be a table tennis champion, but he’s just another wannabe American. And so he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis. He is trained by the mysterious Coach Wang, and begins an odyssey where he learns the secrets of table tennis from the spirits of Ichiro Ogimura (who helped spawn China’s greatness) and Rong Guotuan (China’s first world champion in 1959, whose tragic story Andy must relive), and must face the mysterious “Dragon.” Can he overcome treachery and learn the final secret of table tennis in time to defeat his ultimate nemesis?

There are 14 chapters, each illustrated with a picture or pictures at the start. The main characters are American wannabe Andy "Shoes" Blue (who's just lost in the quarterfinals at the Nationals for the third straight year), Coach Wang, the spirits of former greats Ichiro Ogimura and Rong Guotuan, the "Dragon" (a famous spirit whose identity I'm keeping secret - you'll just have to read the novel to learn about this huge confrontation, which most of my critiquers said was their favorite part of the novel!), with a large number of other spirits (or "spirits of what made them great" for living people) dropping in, including Deng Yaping, Jan-Ove Waldner, Marty Reisman, and Istvan Jonyer. You'll learn about the "Masters of Pong" - Ogimura, Rong Guotuan, Zhuang Zedong, Stellan Bengtsson, and others; meet the spirits of 24 former Chinese stars in a late-night training session; meet suspiciously familiar-sounding characters such as Chinese Men's Coach Kong Guoliang, U.S. Men's Coach Dan Steth, and U.S. Men's Champion Derek Klaus Hsu; relive tragedy in the Chinese Cultural Revolution; witness great treachery; plus chopstick races and "Danny Boy"! (You'll just have to read about it.)

At the end of the book is my fantasy table tennis short story "Ping-Pong Ambition." In that story, a table tennis player is imprisoned inside a ping-pong ball by a genie for 10,000 years, where he practices table tennis and studies to be a genie himself - with a huge twist at the end. (I originally sold this story to the 2007 anthology "Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic." Here are two reviews of the story:

  • "Ping-Pong Ambition is a fun take on the genie-who-gives-three-wishes story. The tropes are familiar, but the light tone and twist ending make this an entertaining read." The Fix, Jan. 27, 2008.
  • "Ping Pong Ambition by Larry Hodges was a great, quick read. The story squeezes ten thousand years into one thousand as the main character, Toby, finds himself trapped inside the tiny walls of a ping pong ball after having his wish granted by a wizard. I loved the voice of Toby and the description of the passing years. However, it amuses me most that, the sport was ping pong. You don't see that much and it makes me smile." Review from AnthologyBuilder.com.

A lot of people helped with the novel. Without them, it wouldn’t have been possible. Special thanks go to:

  • The Great Eight, who critiqued early versions of this story. Honfai Geoffrey Cheng, Chris Grace, Vince Green, Nathan Hsu, Navin Kumar, John Olsen, Raul Rasay, and Dennis Taylor.
  • Stellan Bengtsson, who spent an hour on the phone telling me about his 3.5 months training with Ichiro Ogimura in 1969-1970.
  • Tim Boggan, USATT Historian.
  • Etsuko Enami, ITTF Project Manager, who personally sent me the English version of the Ogimura book, which wasn’t available in the U.S.
  • Ariel Chen and Qihong Cui from Mytabletennis.net, who helped with some research.
  • Mike Mezyan, who created the cover.
  • Ledo’s Pizza, Hong Kong Café, and the back room of the Maryland Table Tennis Center, three places where I got a lot of work done, ate a lot of pizza and Kung Pao Chicken, and played a little ping-pong.
  • And all the Champions whose spirits appear in this book!

I owe a lot of thanks to the following four books:

  • Ogi: The Life of Ichiro Ogimura, by Mitsuru Jojima, translated by John Senior (2009).
  • Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World, by Nicholas Griffin (2014).
  • Table Tennis Legends, by Zdenko Uzorinac and ITTF (2001).
  • The Ogimura Seminar of Table Tennis, by Dell Sweeris (1968).

Here's my Amazon page, where all of my books on sale are listed.

Develop a Super Heavy Backspin Serve

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

Footwork Training in Thailand

Here's the video (7:54) as players train the small steps needed in table tennis. (You need both small and big steps, depending on the situation.)

Canadian Junior and Cadet Open

It ended yesterday in Markham, Canada. Here's the ITTF home page for the event, with results and lots of articles, and here's the USATT site, which includes a link to lots of video. USA dominated and won all eight non-consolation events - in fact, seven of the finals were all-USA.  

US Open Deadline Extended

Here's the USATT article. Original deadline for the US Open was this coming Monday (May 18), with a $75 late fee for the week after that, and May 25 the final, drop-dead deadline. But they've extended it all two weeks, so you have until Sunday, May 31 to enter without the $75 late fee, and until June 7 with the late fee. This is sort of a semi-annual thing (for the Open and Nationals) - I think they've extended the deadline for every one of them for the past decade or so. It's a way to get more entries, of course. Now, if I can just heal my arm problems and get 20 years younger over the next two weeks, maybe I'll enter the Open!!! (Otherwise, I'll just be coaching, selling table tennis books, attending meetings, and walking about looking important. I need to practice my strut.)

2015 World Championships Most Followed Table Tennis Event in History

Here's the ITTF press release.

Alameda, Austin, and Triangle Named USATT National Centers of Excellence

Here's the USATT article. Here's a listing of the USATT National Centers of Excellence, which includes my club, MDTTC.

Paralympic Hopeful Just Keeps Winning

Here's the article and video (2:10) on Danny Scrivano.

Pint-Sized Pong

Here's video (1:58) of some great points by little kids in a Japanese tournament. I believe it features the lefty kid in this video (1:33) that I posted Wednesday.

International Table Tennis

Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage). Butterfly also has a great news page. 

Air Guitar Pong

Here's the cartoon!

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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