June 23, 2015

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday was Day One of Week Two of our Eleven Weeks of Camps at MDTTC. (That’s enough capitalization for the week.) With one “minor” exception (can’t go into that since the person involved is a kid who likely won’t be back), it’s a great group this week, especially the ones in my group. We did a lot of work on fundamentals – forehand, backhand, footwork, and serve.

I think right now we have the most talented and promising group of kids in the roughly 7-8 age range than we’ve ever had at MDTTC in our 24 years – lots of depth. Check back with us in a few years – they’re getting scary. We had a 7-year-old today who was smacking bottles off the table like they were the broad side of a barn, and he’s not even in the top five at MDTTC for that age group. Of course, it’s more than just apparent talent – this is a very serious group of kids who already seem to have the mental dedication to the sport that’s usually lacking until much older. Plus they can loop anything!

Every camp there’s something different. This week it seems as if all the newer players have good backhands but need work on the forehand – way too many wristy forehand swats. Also, a number of them have good fast & deep serves, but few can really spin their serves – which will be a focus today. Out come the soccer- colored balls! (So they can see if they are spinning the ball or not.)

One little problem – after standing up all day nearly every day for a million years (subjectively), my legs are exhausted. In fact, as I write this I’m balancing two things – too tired to do anything, but too tired to get up from my computer. The latter overpowered the first, so I’m at my computer, and so I might as well write stuff.

It wasn’t a good day for heads. During break a number of our juniors were doing an exercise where they toss sort of a soft soccer ball around, forcing the catcher to move quickly to catch it. Eleven-year-old Tiffany got smacked pretty badly in the face, sort of like this. I got smacked in the head really hard by ping-pong balls twice, once accidentally, once suspiciously on purpose (see “minor” note above, but this was about the most minor of the problems we had with that minor). And a 7-year-old kid almost broke out crying after crawling under a table to get balls and smacking his head hard on one of the supporting bars as he came out.

New Coaching Articles and Videos from Samson Dubina (he's been busy)

  • Major Renovations: Making Improvements Isn’t Always Fun.
  • Forehand/Backhand Grips, Parts 1 & 2 - two new video tips, both under a minute.
  • 100 Days of Table Tennis. This is about Samson Dubina’s upcoming coaching book. Here’s the opening of the preview I wrote there: “One hundred days . . . if you live to be 82 years old, that’s about 30,000 days. All Coach Samson asks is that you take just a few minutes on 1/3 of 1% of those days to learn something new.” (I edited the book, so I did read it before writing the preview.)

Top 10 Mistakes Made by Table Tennis Beginners

Here’s the article by Greg Letts.  

Capital Area League Finals

The Finals for Division One and Two for the Capital Area Table Tennis League are this Saturday, June 27 – don’t miss it! They will be held at the Washington DC Table Tennis Center from 1-5PM. The Division One final will be between the undefeated MDTTC “A” Team (Alex Chen Ruichao, Crystal Wang, Nathan Hsu, Han Xiao, Klaus Wood, and Derek Nie), and the MDTTC Lions (Raghu Nadmichettu, Stefano Ratti, Heather Wang, and Ernie Byles).

World Police and Fire Games

The Games are taking place in Fairfax, Virginia this weekend, starting Friday, June 26, and finishing on Saturday, July 4. The table tennis action takes place June 27-29 (Sat, Sun, Mon) at the Smash Table Tennis Center. Here’s the table tennis schedule, and here’s the general schedule for all sports. Here’s more info on the World Police and Fire Games. Here’s table tennis director Mike Levene next to a Games banner. (If you can’t get that, here’s the non-Facebook version.)

2015 Para Table Tennis Spanish Open

Here’s a listing of USA players, results, and pictures.

ITTF World Tour Heads to North Korea for First Time Since 1979

Here’s the article on the Pyongyang Open, July 29 – Aug. 2.

Beautiful Table Tennis

Here’s the new music video (2:24) featuring slow-motion table tennis.

Ma Long Gives Demo

Here’s the video (5:30) as Ma (near side) gives an exhibition for a group of children.

Happy Meals are... Gross? - China 2015 (Episode 2)

Here’s the new video (3:47) of Nathan Hsu’s adventures in China. Here’s episode one (6:44), which I posted last month.

Pongman: The World’s First Table Tennis Superhero

This American superhero struggles to beat the Chinese by day, and foils crime at night with his deadly paddle and ball. This may be my next table tennis novel. This would be a humorous fantasy as Pongman battles (tentatively) evil North Koreans intent on kidnapping the Chinese team and forcing them to teach the secrets of table tennis to their players. His superpowers? He can block bullets with his paddle, and flawlessly smack anyone within a hundred feet with ping-pong balls shot at deadly speeds. (I’m toying with putting it in the same universe as The Spirit of Pong.) But I’ve got a lot of planning and big decisions to make: Does he wear a cape? Can he beat the Chinese? Will the North Koreans nuke my house if I write this? (I originally envisioned this as a cartoon, but I had to face a bitter truth: I can’t draw. Here’s proof.)

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.)

Size Restrictions on Bat?

Here’s the cartoon!

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