January 13, 2016
Push Aggressively
Recently I've been harping on pushing with students. Most players push just to keep the ball in play, which is fine if you have no ambitions to be a much better player. Instead, learn to push aggressively. This can be done in a number of ways: faster, quicker off the bounce, deeper, heavier, lower, shorter, wider, with spin variation, spinless, with sidespin – all of these can turn a "keep it in play" shot into a weapon that either forces mistakes or sets up your more powerful shots. Whatever you do, don't settle for just keeping the ball in play.
Some would say that they mostly push to return serves, and that they need to play safe there so as not to make a mistake. That itself is a mistake. If you only push serves back passively, then you'll never learn to push them aggressively – which leads to players pushing passively because they haven't learned to push aggressively. Get out of that passive cycle and find ways to push effectively, both in returning serves and at other times.
Here are a few articles on pushing:
History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day 8
Yesterday we finished chapters 18-20 of the 27 planned. Chapter 18 was a monster chapter, with 29 pages and over 100 graphics, and took over three hours to finish. The only things that keeps me going are Mountain Dew, popcorn, and Tim's Taser.
Chapter 18 covered tournaments all over the U.S., including the Louisiana Open (six pages), Wisner Open, and College Nationals. It also had a lot of miscellaneous stuff, from Scott Preiss exhibitions to the Eastern Training Center. Chapter 19 was sixteen pages on the Europeans Championships (lots of pictures) – yes, Tim does lots of international coverage in his History of U.S. Table Tennis!!!
Chapter 20 was "Potpourri," with all sorts of stuff, including President Dan Seemiller's "Where is the Association going" report; feature on Chi-Sun Chui (by me); Tournament Tips by Carl Danner; editorials by Azmy Ibrahim and Rick Hardy; On the Road with Scott Preiss; "Coming Home" by John Hildebrand; "Memo to Our Modern Nature" by Gloria Amoury; Caron's Corner (by Caron Leff); Lazlo Bellak's Table Tennis; Hall of Fame Inductee Lily Yip; Observations on the XL ball by Duane Gall; Umpires for the 1990 U.S. Open by Tom Miller; and Regional Centers by Richard McAfee.
If all goes well, we expect to finish on Saturday, and Tim will drive home Sunday morning. I'll feel like I've just run two marathons, and will still have to coach Sunday from 12:30PM-8:00PM. (Note – after a week of near non-sleep, and going to bed last night after 2AM, I finally "slept late" – getting up at 7:45AM this morning.)
Here are the current stats:
Day 1: Tue, Jan. 5: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Wed, Jan. 6: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
Day 4: Pages 86-132, 47 pages, 138 graphics
Day 5: Pages 133-175, 43 pages, 141 graphics
Day 6: Pages 176-216, 41 pages, 149 graphics
Day 7: Pages 217-274, 58 pages, 137 graphics
Day 8: Pages 275-331, 57 pages, 200 graphics
TOTALS: 333 pages (including covers), 1064 graphics, 3.20 graphics per page
Footwork & Physical Training Drill
Here's the video (65 sec). I've done this drill with students at camps many times.
Table Tennis School - Double Training
Here's the video (5:03).
MHTT World Champs Buildup Diary: Day 2
Here's the Day Two Diary of Matt Herrington as he prepares for the upcoming World Championships. Why not follow his daily training as he prepares to take on the best in the world? He's on the New Zealand Team, but currently training at the Lily Yip TTC. (I'm not sure if I'll link to his diary every day, but we'll see.)
$100,000 World Championships of Ping Pong
Here's the info page – it's the annual World Sandpaper Championships, Jan. 22-24 in London.
Timo Boll vs Ruwen Filus (German Cup 2016) Final
Here's the video (6:51, time between points removed).
Table Tennis Queen Says China's Economy Will Bounce Back
Here's the video (2:50) of all-time great Deng Yaping – she also plays!
Wreck on the Road: Dean Johnson Table Tennis
Here's the video (4:13).
We are TENERGY Family
Here's the new highlights video (13 min) from Butterfly.
I Just Want to Know What the Rules Are!!!
Here's the picture of this . . . three-way table??? (No, it's not a circular table divided in three like this one.)
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