August 14, 2015

Thursday Camp

Yesterday was Day Four of Week Nine of MDTTC's Eleven Weeks of Summer Camps. I've now coached over 200 of these five-day camps, or over 1000 days - nearly three years. That's 6000 hours of camp. (Here's a group picture from yesterday morning. It's missing some of our locals who sometimes come in just for the afternoon session.)

For once I didn't have any additional private coaching or classes, so it was "only" six hours of coaching. At this point the beginning players I'm working with have at least decent strokes and timing, and so can hit backhands and forehands, and can serve. I only wish we had videos of their play on Monday to compare with now!

On Monday, the youngest player in the camp had about a dozen turns at multiball, about 4-5 minutes each time, all forehand work - and throughout it all, she only hit two balls on the table. On Thursday, she hit five in a row. The crowning achievement? She smacked the Gatorade bottle with "worm juice," and so I had to drink it, to her great glee.

We had a new six-year-old in the camp. Let's just say this player had better concentration than just about anyone in the camp – at age six – and with extremely good hand-eye coordination and racket control for that age. That's a triple whammy – if this player takes private lessons, as the father is looking into, this could be interesting. (This player also made me drink lots of worm juice. But the player had an almost icy determination to hit the bottle to make me drink it, while others that age were more likely giggling between shots.) 

A big breakthrough for one player - for the first time he succeeded in serving backspin so it came back into the net. This isn't a serve you normally use in a match - you usually want to drive the ball out a bit more - but it's a great exercise to create a heavy backspin serve. If you're a serious player, you should learn to do this – it'll force you to contact the ball more finely, and lead to spinnier serves.

I spent a lot of time working with one player who, strangely, had an excellent forehand but basically just stuck his racket out with hunched shoulders to hit backhands - it was pretty bad. But he understood this, and soon he was hitting backhands much better, at least in multiball and drills. Hopefully this'll translate into matches soon. 

During break a 2050 player in the camp challenged my clipboard. I was a bit hesitant as I hadn't used it in a while and wasn't sure I could still move around. I fell behind 4-8 in the first game, then led 10-9. I fought off four game points before winning that game, and ended up winning four straight games before break ended. I'll likely be challenged tomorrow - and now the player knows what he's getting into! (I'm normally about 2100 with a clipboard, a little weaker against pips-out players, but it does take me at least a game sometimes to get into it.)

Lily Zhang's Six Tips for Improving Your Game

Here's the article  in ESPN Magazine by the USA Olympian and Women's Singles Champion.

What I Learned From Playing in China

Here's the article by Matt Hetherington.

Short Receive and Follow-up Multiball Drill

Here's the video (60 sec) where the coach feeds one ball and plays one random shot afterwards, and then grabs the next ball. An excellent drill.

Ask the Coach Show

No new episodes today, but here's their archive, with all 166 episodes. At 20 minutes per video, you can zip through all of those in just 55 hours!

Capital Area Team League

Don't forget to enter by Sept. 7 if you live in the Maryland/Virginia/DC region! (I'm now the webmaster for the league, though my webmastering skills are a bit dated.) There's a new "Players Looking for Teams" page, so you can put your name there if you want to play but don't have a team. (It's empty right now since it just went up.)

USATT Insider

Here's the new issue, which came out Wednesday morning. 

Got a Trick – Did a Top Shot?

Here's where you can enter the Butterfly "TTS Award – Tricks & Top Shots" contest for Aug-Sept 2015. "We and the world are looking forward to your video with a surprising trick shot, an awesome top shot or “just” an exciting rally."

ITTF Has Big Plans for Table Tennis

Here's the article from Tabletennista.

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.

China Open Videos

Here are links to 17 of them, including most of the big ones.

Amazing Table Tennis

Here's a new highlights music video (8:38).

Both Lefty and Righty on a Robot

Here's the video (3:56). 

Table Tennis Trick Gif

Here's the repeating Gif image of a player tricking his opponent – why not put this on your table tennis page? (I linked to a video of this before, but not the repeating Gif image.)

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.)

"Here's an Empty Table"

Here's the cartoon!

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