May 27, 2015

Forehand and Backhand Loops Falling into Place

I had a great 90-minute session yesterday with one of our top 10-year-olds, Daniel, who’s rated 1639. (They said it was okay to blog about it.) In practice, he alternates between pretty good and then extremely awkward forehand looping, the latter because he either rushes or hangs back and plays lackadaisical. His contact point for his forehand loop, whether against backspin or topspin, is often all over the place, and so he can’t really time it, and it throws the rest of his body off as well. (His backhand loop right now is probably better than his forehand loop.)

I told him at the start of the session we were going to do a lot of shadow practice during the session, where we’d do the stroke and imagine the contact point. We’d done this once before and it worked well, but he’d fallen back into old habits. I explained the importance of stroking and contacting the ball roughly the same way each time, and we went through the stroke slowly to re-enforce the proper technique and contact point.

And guess what? Suddenly Daniel was looping over and over really well against my block, every ball with good speed and spin. We did this for a while, and then some footwork drills, but I kept each drill short as I didn’t want him to tire physically or mentally and fall back into bad habits. Then we did a bunch of multiball, and after a shaky start where I had to keep reminding him to use his legs more against backspin, he forehand looped really well. We did the same for his backhand loop, which also was strong. Then we did random backspin, where he had to loop forehands or backhands, and he did very well again. I decided to skip the shadow practice.

The key for his success yesterday, besides the emphasis at the start of the session on good technique? I think it helped that I joked with him throughout the session, keeping him loose, while constantly reminding him of one of my favorite tips – “You have more time than you think.” (I first heard this from 2001 USA Men’s Champion Eric Owens, a likely Hall of Famer this December now that he’s 40.) Between the two, he didn’t feel pressured and didn’t rush, and so made strong shots. When he has the confidence to use these shots in tournament matches the way he can in practice (sometimes), he’ll be a terror. But first he has to get that confidence, which he doesn’t yet have even in practice matches, not to mention league matches.

He tends to push serves back too much, even backspin serves that go long to the forehand, which is a horrible habit for an up-and-coming player. He knows this, but is often afraid to loop these serves, and he has so much ball control that he can often win this way. That’s actually the root of the problem – he knows that, right now, he wins more by pushing and blocking then he does looping. (Though every now and then he surprises us by going on the all-out attack.) But he knows this has to end, and that winning now isn’t as important as developing his game for later. We spent some time where I served long backspin serves all over the table, and he had to loop them, forehand or backhand. (For some reason, although he has a good backhand loop, he went forehand happy, and tried looping them all with his forehand, with pretty good success.)

Then we played two games where he served every point, always short backspin, and I always pushed it back deep anywhere on the table, and he had to always forehand or backhand loop and to continue to attack unless I did something to take the attack away. (If he got passive, I’d catch the ball and claim the point, which gave him incentive to play aggressive. He jokingly accused me of being an “unfair” umpire when I did this, so we agreed I was a rotten umpire but a great coach.) We’ve done this before, where I spot him six points, and I usually win, but this time he won both games with the spot. I look forward to the day when we play even, but for now the spot gives him the confidence to play aggressively. He’s going to skip tournaments for a while as he focuses on developing his looping, and equally important, the confidence to use it in a game. He’ll likely play tournaments again in the fall.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Day Two

Here’s a recap, which I may put up each day, so ignore this paragraph if you’ve seen this already.

USATT Historian Tim Boggan moves in with me about once a year for 10-14 days to do his next volume of his History of U.S. Table Tennis. I do the page layouts and photo work for the roughly 450 pages in each volume. We’re now working on Volume 16, which covers 1988-89. About half the photos are by USATT Hall of Famer Mal Anderson, who scans and sends them to me on a CD. We start work each morning at roughly 7AM, and except for a short lunch break, work until around 2:30 PM, when I have to leave for the MDTTC afterschool program and other coaching. I usually get back after 8PM, and then have to do all my regular work, including the next morning’s blog, which I normally do in the morning, and usually a zillion other things.

Here’s where things stand. We started on Monday, either two days or two years ago, I’m not sure. We’ve done the covers, intro pages, and the first three chapters (of 24), and it’s taken us about 12 hours. Chapter two had so many photos (most needing Photoshop fixes) that it took us about five hours. (I think every active player in the U.S. and the rest of the world circa 1988 was pictured in this chapter.) After it was done, I played the first seven seconds of this, and when he said there might be one or two other chapters just as long, I played him these five seconds. (I wonder if Gerald Ford and Darth Vader have ever been reference in the same sentence together – and in two consecutive sentences here!) Hopefully it’ll go faster as we move along. Here are the chapter headings for the three chapters so far:

  • Chapter One - 1988: USTTA Potpourri.
  • Chapter Two - 1988: Jan-Feb. Tournaments.
  • Chapter Three - 1988: International Tournaments—Europe-Asia; Leeds English Open; West German Open; European Top 12; European Championships.

Serve Return Tips

Here’s the article from Han Xiao – a MUST read.

Story Time! Learn about Fred’s weakest moment!

Here’s the new coaching article from Samson Dubina.

Ask Mark on Sports Psychology

Here’s the new playlist from Expert Table Tennis, with questions answered by Mark Simpson of Brain Spec (a Sport Performance Enhancement Consultancy) answers questions pertaining to the mental side of table tennis. There are currently two videos up, on developing habits and routines between points, and on how to stay calm when closing out a big win. Both are about 3.5 to 4 minutes long.

As the Coach

Episode #130 (27:50): Rule Change: Deciding Game to 7.

Table Tennis Coverage on the Edgeball Consulting Facebook Page

Here’s the Facebook page.

11 Questions with Homer Brown

Here’s the USATT interview with the man who’s played in 46 consecutive US Opens. (I believe this year will be my 32nd consecutive US Open and US Nationals, so Homer’s always going to be 14 ahead of me, alas. I played my first US Open my first year, in 1976, but missed a few Opens and Nationals until 1984.)

Quadri Aruna to Play in 2015 US Open

Here’s the USATT article, with links to video.

National Collegiate Table Tennis Association

Jun Mizutani vs. Dimitrij Ovtcharov in Russian Premier League

Here’s the new video (5:24, with time between points removed). Great points!

Top Points from the Worlds

Here’s the video (8:53) from International Table Tennis Thailand.

What is Table Tennis? What is Ping Pong?

Here’s the new video (2:06) that answers this, from the Smash club in Massachusetts.

Adam Bobrow Plays Cyber Table Tennis in China

Here’s the video (2:14). It looks pretty real!

Fox vs Chickens

Here’s the cartoon! (Here’s the non-Facebook version.) Any suggestions for a caption?

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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