November 17, 2015

Yesterday and Today – SF & TT
Yesterday and today are rather weird days for me. I normally would pick up two kids for our afterschool program, and after the program I have a 90-minute coaching session. Normally this means leaving my house by 2:45PM, and finishing at 7PM. (I usually leave by 2:30 PM so as to be safely on time and so I can spend some relaxing time in my car reading or doing a crossword puzzle while I wait for the school bell to ring.) But by a weird coincidence, all the players I pick up or coach yesterday and today are injured or away – one has shoulder problems, one is at a chess tournament, and two others are doing an afterschool activity. And so I had no coaching yesterday or today. (I do have an eye appointment at 12:30 PM today.) So what did I do? I devoted yesterday to science fiction & fantasy, and today to table tennis.

Today I plan to "finalize" the plans for regional associations and regional team leagues. By "finalize" I mean have them ready to go public, though they will be an ongoing thing as they are perfected and updated. (I ran the plans by the USATT League Committee, which I chair, and a few others.) If all goes well, they'll go up as USATT news items in the next few weeks. I might do them together, or perhaps one week apart. (The first part, State Championships, went up in October.)

I blogged about Regional Team Leagues on Nov. 24, 2014, and about Regional Associations on Nov. 25, 2014.

A lot of this isn't just the materials that go online; those won't be super extensive. More of it is making sure I know where we are going, and how to help the various regions that join in. Just trying to decide what regions should make up regional associations was a major headache – do you go with individual states, or larger regions, or what? (My leaning is to let the locals decide.)

We have a long, long ways to go. But to paraphrase Churchill, "This isn't the beginning. But it is, perhaps, the beginning of the beginning."

Non-Table Tennis - As to yesterday, I finalized a new story (a wild west fantasy starring a centaur running for sheriff against an evil dwarf, with elf bandits, dryads, a friendly ogre, a not-so-friendly vampire, and a crazed unicorn, with a twist ending no one will see coming), and wrote a new humorous fantasy about two penguins and their eventful journey from Antarctica to Babylonia to get to the ark before the Great Flood. (It has dinosaurs!) I write both SF and fantasy (and my upcoming novel is pure SF), but yesterday was all fantasy writing. (For you neophytes, SF is what's possible, while fantasy has magic.)

I also recently did a major update to my SF page, in preparation for the launch in January of upcoming SF novel, "Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions." It was basically a long, HTML page before. Now it has menus and everything! The menus are Home, Bibliography, Upcoming Appearances, How To Write SF, Table Tennis, About Larry Hodges, and Contact Me. I'll likely add a tab for "Campaign 2100" once the cover comes out. In addition to my daily TT blog here I plan to start a weekly SF blog there, probably starting in January. I did my first blog entry there on Sunday. (I actually started the blog two years ago, when I did six entries, then took them down. They are back up again.)

Searching for the Right Position
Here's the new coaching article by Han Xiao. Here's a key point I'm constantly emphasizing: "The first step to improving anticipation and being able to always find the right position is constantly moving between shots. Like many other sports where “moving without the ball” is a key part to effective play, in table tennis moving when you aren’t forced to gives you a much better chance to be in position to hit a quality shot when the ball finally arrives."

Ask the Coach
Episode #186 (23:25) - Experience v Talent.

In the Zone – Part 11 (Conclusion)
Here's the USATT sports psychology article. (Links to previous ten parts are on top right.)

The Great Anti Experiment
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Congratulations Maryland TTC and Triangle TTC –  ITTF Hot Spots!
Here's the  MDTTC article – yep, my club made it! - and the Triangle TTC article. 

Teensy Studios Releases Tiny Table Tennis for Apple Watch
Here's the article. Now we can encourage the kids to play video games during breaks! "Teensy Studios, a leading developer of wearable games, is proud to announce the release of their first Apple Watch game “Tiny Table Tennis” available worldwide on the Apple Store."

The Entertainer Par Excellence, Vincent Purkart Passes Away
Here's the ITTF obit on the former French superstar and exhibition partner with Jacques Secretin. (I wrote about Purkart yesterday, but only added the ITTF obit late in the day.)

Players Announced for the GAC Group 2015 World Tour Grand Finals
Here's the ITTF press release.

'Show Support, Not Sympathy' for Athletes with Disabilities: Para-paddler
Here's the new article with links to video from Channel News Asia.

Seahawks "Always Compete" Football Philosophy Carries Over Into Locker Room Ping-Pong Battles
Here's the new article from the Seattle Seahawks web page.

Triple Ghost Serve
Here's the video (6 sec) as Masa Coach serves three backspin balls simultaneously so that all three come back into the net. And here's some rapid fire ghost serve practice (18 sec). Pound that net!

Table Tennis - "Give it Your Best!"
Here's the highlights video (5:15).

Lindenwood Table Tennis Team Video
Here's the new video (3:49).

Fan Zhendong & Heming Hu Training at the Swedish Open
Here's the video (6:54).

Tribute to Marcos Freitas
Here's the new video (2:29) featuring the world #7 from Portugal.

Champions League 2015/2016 - Marcos Freitas vs Xu Gui
Here's the new video (6:16, with time between points removed).

Pray for Paris Paddle
Here's the picture. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

Magic and Yoga  Table Tennis
Here's the crazy new video (9:05) as yoga and table tennis are combined into . . . something!

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