October 20, 2017

Not Worth a Nuisance Lawsuit
I wrote a long blog this morning (Friday) on the recent happenings regarding the long saga and removal of Lee Kondo as chair of the USATT Ethics and Grievance Committee. (He was removed as chair last night in a board teleconference by a vote of 7-1.) However, while I believe all of it to be accurate, after consulting with a lawyer, and considering the reactionary history of Lee (covered in the blog), I could be facing a nuisance lawsuit, which USATT would also inevitably be drawn into. (Lee's a lawyer.) We've already spent a huge amount of time on this issue, and who knows how much longer it would go on. Sufficient to say that it simply isn't worth spending any more time on this issue just so I could win a nuisance lawsuit while spending who knows how many thousands of dollars to do so, as well as wasting more USATT time. Just as Lee shared his version of events with the USATT Board of Directors and others, I will share my version with those involved as needed. 

$2700 3-Star Butterfly MDTTC October Open, Oct. 14-15
My write-up and photos of the tournament went up yesterday. Here’s the USATT news version, and here’s the Butterfly News version. (The only difference is the feature photo at the top – USATT went with the four Under 12 Semifinalists all laughing as they all grabbed at the first-place trophy (with the picture taken before they played the semifinals), while Butterfly went with the four Open Singles semifinalists (who all wore Butterfly!).

Normally write these things on the Monday after the tournament, but as readers who know I was sick most of this week, and so didn’t write it until Wednesday night. The results section links to photos of all the finalists, with the pictures taken by Mossa Barandao of PongMobile. I ran the two-day, 3-star tournament, and between that, my cold, and the long saga of the Ethics and Grievance Committee Chair (see above), I now have about as much energy as a dead stick. (The first person to mention E=MC2, i.e. I have lots of potential energy, gets beaten with said stick.)

Table Tennis Books Selling Like Hotcakes
I checked the sales listing for my book sales at Amazon and had a pleasant surprise. Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers always sells well, but this month the sales are even higher than normal. But what really jumped out is that for some reason, Table Tennis Tips is suddenly selling like hotcakes! (Don’t forget, there’s also More Table Tennis Tips.) Also surprising were the number of sales for The Spirit of Pong. Why not join in the fun – here’s the Larry Hodges Amazon Page.

Liebherr 2017 ITTF Men's World Cup
Here’s the home page. It starts today, in Liege, Belgium, Oct. 20-22. Here’s the news page with lots of great articles. Representing USA is Kanak Jha. Here are some videos and an article.

3 Basic Footwork Drills for Intermediate Table Tennis Players
Here’s the article, with links to video, from Expert Table Tennis.

How to Play Backhand Loop
Here’s the video (6:37) from Yangyang's table tennis lessons.

How to Serve
Here’s the video (6:00). It’s nicely animated, but in German, but you can make sense of what’s going on just by watching. I have a vague memory that I might have posted this before, or something similar, but I can’t find it.

7 Benefits of Table Tennis
Here’s the picture/poster. (Here’s the non-Facebook version.)

2017 Butterfly Badger Open – Interview With Jishan Liang
Here’s the video (1:14) by Barbara Wei.

Fan Zhendong and Lin Gaoyuan Training 2017
Here’s the video (3:55).

Seth Pech vs Samson Dubina at the Millcreek Open in Erie, PA
Here’s the video (69 sec). You get to read a lot of Samson’s articles here, now you get to see him play – he’s on the far side.

SkeletonPongster
Here’s the video (45 sec) of a skeletal looper from Steve Worthington! He says he plans to turn it into a bronze sculpture or t-shirt. Technically, I’d say that the backswing is a bit too much around the body (and so to his left) instead of more backwards, but perhaps that’s because he’s moving so wide to the forehand – plus if the arm goes more backwards instead of to his left behind him, it won’t show up as well on a t-shirt. (Here’s they are on his web page, as a possible poster.)

Ping-Pong Shower
Here’s the picture! (Here’s the non-Facebook version.) This is a great picture - we have to do that at our club in one of our junior sessions!

Top Twelve Tactical Rallying Mistakes – Revisited
Here’s the Tip of the Week from this past Monday (though it didn’t actually go up until Wednesday, since I was out sick). See Mark’s comments underneath – they are rather funny and perhaps more realistically depict what really happens with many players!

Best of Pongfinity Part 3: Ping Pong Trick Shots
Here’s the video (3:48).

Table Tennis Trick Shots
Here’s the hilarious video (3:11)!

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