September 23, 2024

Tip of the Week
The Only Thing That Matters.

Weekend Coaching, Tips, Training, and My Right Foot
I had a busy week, both coaching and playing. I coached the Intermediate junior group on both Saturday and Sunday, and the Elite Group on Sunday. With the Intermediate group, besides the usual stroking and footwork drills, we did a lot of service practice. One kid, age about eight, had a breakthrough – he can now serve a heavy enough backspin serve that it stops on the table and rolls backwards. He’s pretty excited about it. Then I really opened his eyes by explaining and demonstrating a “heavy no-spin” serve – so now he’s practicing that. (The key to heavy no-spin is making it look like it’s actually heavy backspin, so the opponent opens his racket and pops the ball up. You do this by using the same fast motion as heavy backspin, but contact the ball near the handle.)

One kid was struggling with his forehand – he extended his arm almost straight from the shoulder. I had him bring it in, even exaggerate a much shorter stroke, and he quickly develop a much more consistent and reliable forehand – hit one hundred of them while doing side-to-side footwork.

With the Elite group, I spent a lot of time emphasizing to remember the “feel” of a good shot, and then repeat. This is especially important after making a poor shot. Instead of focusing on what happened with the poor shot, you should focus on repeating the good shots. The only time to think about the poor shots is if you can’t remember how to do it correctly and so have to analyze why you keep doing the poor shot. You might need a coach for that. A couple of players were standing too straight, so I quickly straightened that out – or should I say unstraightened it!

In a fit of energy last week, I went through my file of possible upcoming Tips of the Week and, during a looooong session at Panera’s, wrote nine new ones. Since I’d already written tips for every Monday through October, this gets me to the end of the year. They cover a wide range of topics, from “How to Flip Short, Heavy Backspin” and “How to Loop Deep, Heavy Backspin,” to “How to Do a Relentless Three-Point Attack” and “The One-Two Punch of Tactics.”

I continued my own training for my comeback this Fall for the Huntsman World Senior Games, the US Open, and possibly others. Alas, I faced three major problems this week. First, exhaustion – I was lightheaded several times while training and had to stop each time. That comes down to fitness – I train at a level that’s still beyond my current fitness level. Second, after going from 210 to 194 lbs. between Aug. 1 and Sept. 16 (last Monday), I seem to have hit a wall. I dieted all week, and yet my weight has seemingly stayed the same. I’m a bit confused by this, but it might be water retention or something, or maybe I was dehydrated last week. After the lightheadedness session, I went ahead and ate a couple of full meals that might have affected this. We’ll see.

And third, and worst of all . . . I hurt my right foot. (I had the same injury earlier this year.) I think I initially hurt it while practicing. But while hitting with the Intermediate players on Saturday it started bothering me. On Saturday afternoon I was about to play in the MDTTC Elite League (which I now run), but just before my first match, as I did some shadow-practice and the foot was worse, and I had to drop out. I hobbled about all day Sunday while coaching and hitting with players. I’ve cancelled my own training for at least the next 3-4 days. It’s not horribly bad – if I had a big match in a tournament I’d probably play with it, but I don’t want to aggravate it now and make it worse.

Major League Table Tennis
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  • Talkin' Smash by JOOLA Ep14: Building the Major League Table Tennis Dream with Flint Lane and Matt Hetherington (39:19). “Major League Table Tennis has taken the US by storm, and it was a great opportunity as the second season kicks off to sit down and catch up with the MLTT Founder and Commissioner, Flint Lane. Flint is aiming to bring the dream of having a full time professional table tennis league in the USA alive. Season 1 saw an exciting new format for the sport, a number of high level foreign players, and numerous team matches across the country. Flint speaks about the conception to delivery of MLTT, and what his vision is - not just for MLTT, but for the growth of table tennis in America in general, as part of his efforts. New changes are afoot in Season 2 and the journey for Flint and his dedicated team continues!”
  • MLTT Is Going Coast-To-Coast
  • It’s MLTT Opening Day
  • Home Page
  • Major Pong Head (blog coverage)

Timothée Chalamet’s ‘Marty Supreme’ Casts Odessa A’zion, Penn Jillette, Kevin O’Leary and Abel Ferrara
Here’s the article from Variety Magazine on the upcoming Marty Reisman biopic. Here’s the IMDB listing.

Meet Dora Kurimay
Here’s the interview from Bold Journey Magazine. Dora’s a championship player, sports psychologist, and writer.

Butterfly Training Tips

7 Tips For Playing Table Tennis In A Hot Or Humid Playing Hall
Here’s the article by Álvaro Munno, from Racket Insight.

Warm Up Exercise
Here’s the video (2:04) from Pingispågarna.

One Tool to Perfect Your Long Serve with Robert Gardos
Here’s the video (4:34) from PongSpace.

2024 Pan American U11 & U13 Championships At Dominican Republic!
Here’s the article by Maggie Tian

Wang Chuqin DESTROYS His Opposition
Here’s the video (2:06) from Taco Backhand.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

California, Oklahoma, Ohio and Illinois Events Wrap Up 2024 State Championship Series
Here’s the USATT article.

ITTF News

We Challenged Germany’s Best Juniors!
Here’s the video (19:11) from Table Tennis Daily.

The Man, The Myth, The Ping Pong Legend
Here’s where you can buy the shirt at Amazon!

Steve Rogers (Captain America) vs. Forge
Here’s the comic strip. If you go down a few pages there’s several pages of these two in a vicious ping-pong match, which ends when Forge (on left) slams the ball so hard it vaporizes. I’d never heard of Forge until now.

Angry Ping Pong Player
Here’s the clip art cartoon!

Hardest Ping Pong Table
Here’s the video (9:18) from Pongfinity! They take on eight challenges.

Non-Table Tennis – Capclave Science Fiction Convention
This weekend I’ll be at the Capclave Science Fiction Convention in Gaithersburg, MD. I’m a panelist – here’s my schedule and bio. I’ll also be doing two book signing – the mass signing on Saturday night (with all the panelists), and another at a time that hasn’t been finalized yet, but probably on Saturday.

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