March 22, 2016

Tip of the Week
Visualize Your Serves and Make Them Do Tricks.

The Brain, Visual Skills, and Ping Pong
Here's the video (5:13). The video from a year ago focuses on the two major visual skills needed in table tennis. (Here's the ITTF article on this.) The subjects are William Henzell and Trevor Brown, two Australian Olympic table tennis players. Brown, who is studying to be a neuroscientist, was asked, "What's the key to being a good table tennis player?" He answered, "It's being able to process info as quickly as possible."

The narrator says, "They have honed two visual skills to near perfection." The two keys are:

  • The speed their brain processes visual information
  • They take in lots of information with every psychotic synaptic snapshot.

Here's the main takeaway for table tennis players. To develop these habits, you have consciously tell yourself to watch for the various telltale signs. When Henzell reacts to the subtle wrist motion of Brown, it doesn't just happen; at some point in the past, during his many years of training, Henzell consciously or subconsciously made the connection between that motion and the direction the ball will go, as well as its speed, spin, trajectory, etc., and reacting to it became second-nature. But if you aren't constantly watching your opponent and making these connections, they won't happen. Most of it happens subconsciously, but you should make a conscious effort to be aware of the opponent and his motions so your subconscious will begin to react to these motions. For example, you can read much about the direction an opponent is about go by watching his shoulders. So be aware of the opponent's shoulders, and you will develop the proper reactions to his shots, reacting faster and faster.

It's not about having faster reflexes; it's about developing proper reactions that just make you appear to have fast reflexes. I'm good at reacting to smashes, not because of fast reflexes but from 40 years of watching opponents, so I react to where their shot is going well before they contact the ball. So do all top players, and so should you.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Your First Table Tennis Tournament …But Didn’t Know Where To Ask!
My article, which I wrote about 13 years ago (with a few recent updates) is currently featured on the USATT page. Also featured (and linked to last week) is my Letter to Club Leaders, on State Championships and Regional Leagues.

The Most Popular Table Tennis Footwork Drills Among Professional Players
Here's the new coaching article from MH Table Tennis. (Includes a link to Ryu Seung Min demonstrating his footwork.)

Distractions: Learn to Control Your Thoughts
Here's the new coaching article by Samson Dubina.

Ask the Coach Show

Lapse in Concentration Almost Results in Dire Consequences
Here's the article.

The Intangibles of Table Tennis
Here's the new article from Coach Jon.

Amazing Kid Fastest Human Ball Machine
Here's the video (2:21). In China (and other training centers around the world) kids learn to feed multiball to each other.

Nittaku ITTF Monthly Pongcast - February 2016
Here's the video (10:20).

Para Table Tennis a Part of Integrated 2018 Commonwealth Games Program
Here's the ITTF press release.

Incredible Table Tennis Point at the 2016 ITTF Kuwait Open
Here's the video (48 sec) between Jun Mizutani (JPN, world #6, lefty on near side) and Tiago Apolonia (POR, world #20) and– is this the point to end all points? And it happened at 10-all, with Mizutani up 3-2 in games.

2016 Kuwait Open

TableTennisDaily Vlog #4 - A day with Adam Bobrow!
Here's the video (8:17). Behind the scenes with features ITTF Commentator Adam Bobrow at the Swedish Open. 

2016 Butterfly Arnold Table Tennis Challenge Angela Guan Interview
Here's the video interview (1:52) by Barbara Wei.

Lunacon, Live to Read, and Westchester Open Table Tennis
I spent the weekend at Lunacon, a science fiction convention in Rye Brook, NY. Here's my write-up. I was there to promote my new SF novel, Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions. (You have bought a copy, right? It has table tennis in it!) Here's a picture of me at my autographing session. I also have a guest blog on Live to Write: "The Big Ideas of Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions."

By an incredible coincidence, the convention was only 15 minutes away from the 4-star Westchester Open, held at the Westchester TTC. So on Sunday afternoon, after my last Lunacon panel, I drove over. I stayed for four hours, chatting on various table tennis topics with Will Shortz, Cory Eider, Tahl Leibovitz, George Brathwaite, Michael Landers, the Alguettis, and MDTTC players Toby Kutler and Tiffany Ke.

Smacking Balls and Trumps
Here's a picture of a player smacking many ping-pong balls. Here it is again, this time smacking many Trumps!

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