May 26, 2020

Tip of the Week
Three Types of Anticipation.

Cartoon of the Week:
Help Wanted: Table Tennis Coronavirus Smacker. I had some free time.

Still More Table Tennis Tips
As noted in my blog last week, my book "Still More Table Tennis Tips" came out last Monday! It's in both print and kindle. It's 150 Tips from 2017 to the present, organized in logical order and progression, with much of the wording updated and cleaned up. It's the third in the series, after Table Tennis Tips and More Table Tennis Tips. I've dropped the price on all three - they cost $12 each, or $7 for kindle. It's 187 pages with seven chapters:

  1. Serve and Receive (15 tips)
  2. Strokes (23 tips)
  3. Footwork (10 tips)
  4. Tactics (45 tips)
  5. Improving (37 tips)
  6. Sports Psychology (17 tips)
  7. Doubles (3 tips)

Why not buy the complete set of three? You've got lots of free time to read now, right? A special thanks to Mark Dekeyser, John Olsen, and Dennis Taylor, who (as they did for the first two books), gave the book a thorough proofing. (Here are all 17 of my books. If you buy one, I'll be able to afford dinner tonight!)

Juniors at the Maryland Table Tennis Center Training Online with Zoom
Here's the USATT article I wrote, which features MDTTC junior team caption Stephanie Zhang, along with brother James, and coaches Wang Qingliang and John Hsu.

USATT Virtual Town Hall Meeting for Athletes, Coaches, and Parents
It was held on Zoom last Thursday, May 21, and lasted just under an hour. Attendees varied from 39 to 42, including many US National Team members and coaches, along with USATT CEO Virginia Sung, COO Mark Thompson, High Performance Director Sean O'Neill, Director of Para Programs Jasna Rather, National Team Coach/Manager Teodor "Doru" Gheorghe, High Performance Committee Chair Bruce Liu, US Men's Team Captain Yijun Feng, US Women's Team Captain Wu Yue, and board members Richard Char (chair), Niraj Oak (athlete rep) and Tara Profitt (athlete rep).

The items of most interest to me were the ones by Yijun Feng and Doru Gheorghe, where they are setting up weekly meetings and online training for juniors. See the USATT news item soon on the "Ask the Champs" program. The Weekly Junior and Cadet Online Training Program is open to any USATT member age 18 and under - for information, email Doru Gheorghe.

Here was the agenda:

  1. Virginia Sung – Welcome Message
  2. Tara Profitt – Reminder on Athlete Safety
  3. Mark Thompson – Return to Play and Code of Conduct Forms
  4. Bruce Liu – Update on National Team Selection Procedures
  5. Jasna Rather – ITTF Updates (Olympics, Worlds, Pan Ams, Hopes)
  6. Yijun Feng – "Ask the Champs" - weekly meetings to help the young players.
  7. Doru Gheorghe – Weekly Junior and Cadet On-line Training Program (physical & mental) – Each week the coaches will choose MVP
  8. Sean O'Neill – Summarize the completion Sports Psychology and Off Table Training. Online Collaboration (Google Docs/Microsoft Teams). STUPA. Mention Coaches meeting on Friday, will open the floor for Q&A, depending on the time.

MH Table Tennis: 30 Coaching Tutorials in 30 Days
Here's the video page. Matt Hetherington of MH Table Tennis is making one every day! (If you find his videos of value, here's his GoFundMe page.) Here are the recent ones (also see the playlists at the bottom of the page), along with the two-part interview at the end with Zoran Primorac (Chair of the ITTF Athletes Commission, former world #2, two-time Men's World Cup Champion, semifinalist at the Worlds in Men's Singles, Silver Medalist in Men's Doubles at the Olympics).  

New from Samson Dubina

New from eBaTT

New from Ping Sunday/EmRatThich

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

=>BEGIN COVID-19/CORONAVIRUS SECTION

ITTF COVID-19 Guidelines

Handsfree Infrared Thermometer for Table Tennis Clubs
Here's the video (60 sec) from Mossa Barandao, founder of PongMobile, which has pivoted to help address the current crisis. "Prevention will be the key as many businesses begin to reopen their doors. Be a step ahead of COVID-19 and consider including the accurate, simple, quick, and precise Handsfree Infrared Thermometer." (Video is from the Washington DC TTC.)

Broward Table Tennis Club - Rules for the Covid-19 Period
Here are their new rules - see the first six, which might be a model for other clubs reopening. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

JOOLA Medical
Here's the page for JoolaMedical. JOOLA Table Tennis has pivoted into making medical masks, as previously reported. Here are videos from NBC News (1:44) and MoCoCouncilMD (3:20).

New from Steve Rowe
Four more of his Aerobic TT at Home videos came out this week (#7-10). Here are all ten so far. Here's his video Ping-Pong Literacy and Aerobic Table Tennis (45 sec) and the home page for Aerobic Table Tennis. (Why is this in the Covid-19 section? So you can exercise at home while we wait for table tennis clubs to reopen! Some have reopened - it's a gradual process, and mostly based on region.)

=>END COVID-19/CORONAVIRUS SECTION

USATT PongPositive Interviews
Here's the page. This week they interviewed Dell & Connie Sweeris, and Jessica Yu.

New from USATT

New from Steve Hopkins

Who Loves College Table Tennis? Join NCTTA Directors!

The Top Three…The Table Tennis Survey Results
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Sports Without Fans - Time for Boring Sports
Here's the article by Shashin Shodhan.

New from ITTF
Here's their home page and news page.

ITTF High Performance Development Webinar - Planning for Training & Competition
Here's the ITTF video (64 min).

TTBL Top 10: Kanak Jha Video Shots
Here's the video (4:20).

Jimmy Butler (4-time US Men's Singles Champ - 1990, 1992, 1993, 2014!) and 2021 Olympian Huijing Wang - Training Session and Match
Here's the video (5:53). Jimmy: "Didn't end well for me."

Sweden VS China at the 1989 World Team Table Tennis Championships: When the Looping Game Ended the Reign of the Pips-Out Quick Hitter/Blocker
Here's the video (3:14) showing highlights. This was really the moment when the superiority of the European looping game over the Chinese pips-out hitting game became apparent. China stuck with that style for a few more years, until getting clobbered in 1993, after which they almost completely transitioned to loopers (with the notable exception of Liu Guoliang) - and now they are the dominant masters of that style.

Kanak Jha on The Voice
Here's the video. Normally it's a show about singing, but they highlighted Olympic sports in this episode (table tennis, curling, and artistic swimming), as explained at 41:40. They jump back and forth between the sports. US Olympian Kanak Jha (also US Men's Singles Champion the last four years in a row) tries to teach table tennis to Nick Jonas, and shows up at 42:34, 43:00, 43:57, 44;33, and 41:59.

Will Shortz on To Tell the Truth
Here's the video - go to 18:35 (he's in the middle). Besides being the NY Times Crossword Puzzle Editor, Will Shortz is the owner of the Westchester TTC and has been rated over 1900. At 30:33, see where one of the contestants says to him, "And you live to play ping-pong"! One thing - near the end, when they are trying to figure out which of #2 and #3 is the NY Times Crossword Puzzle Editor, #3 says he's used "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" in a NY Times crossword - which should immediately have told everyone that he was NOT the NY Times Crossword Editor, since you can't fit a 45-letter word on one of their crosswords! Also, he badly mispronounces the word, which I'm pretty sure Will could roll off his tongue like it was nothing. (When I was in elementary school I learned of this word, and nerdy me learned to both say it and spell it. It's a lung disease!)

Wally Green - Celebrity Table Tennis Player
Here's the podcast (34:56).

Table Tennis Caricatures
Here's the ITTF page! (Here's the non-Facebook version, though you'll have to go to the Facebook version if you want to verify, via the comments, who each of the nine characters/top players are.) Here's what appears to be the original source, in Chinese, with 33 caricatures.

Ping-Pong in Small Apartments?
Here's the cartoon! (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

New from Adam Bobrow
See his many other past videos on his YouTube Channel!

Weird Ping Pong
Here's the video (3:35) from Pongfinity!

Non-Table Tennis - Philosopher Rex
I just sold "Philosopher Rex" to Zooscape Magazine. It's about a philosophizing T-Rex that meets our earliest ancestors - lemur-like creatures - during the final days of the dinosaurs, and how their attitudes toward each other change after this pivotal meeting. (No talking animals, but we get the T-Rex's thoughts.) It's my 111th science fiction & fantasy short story sale.

Non-Table Tennis - "Going My Way" Made Me Famous!
I'm famous! While watching the movie "Going My Way" on Monday (Best Picture 1945), I noticed a mistake. So I sent it in to the IMDB "Goofs" panel. I received an immediate email that it would go through their fact-checking  team first. Later I checked on it, and it was up!!! Now the huge numbers of people in world who watch "Going My Way" every day and click on "Goofs" will see my immortal words (without my name on it since all "Goofs" are anonymous):

"After seeing the bishop, Father Fitzgibbon calls Father O'Malley into his office where they have a long talk. There's a clock in the background, often seen over O'Malley's shoulder. From the first and last time you see it about three minutes goes by, but the clock always says 5:35."

Watching "Going My Way" was part of my goal of seeing all 92 Academy Award Best Picture winners. I've now seen 81 them, including all of them from 1944 to the present. Of the fifteen from 1928 to 1943 I've seen four (Gone with the Wind, Mutiny on the Bounty, It Happened One Night, and All Quiet on the Western Front), so eleven to go. Next up, probably tonight: 1942's Mrs. Miniver (the winner in 1943).

***
Send us your own coaching news!