August 3, 2011

Perfecting your serve

Samson Dubina (2009 USA Nationals Men's Singles Finalist and full-time coach) explains how to perfect your serve, breaking it down point by point. I've always said serve and receive are the most under-developed parts of the game for most players. And serves are the easiest part to develop since you can practice them alone. To quote Nike, just do it!

Here are some articles I've written on serving:

Here are some videos on serving:

Drop shot against a lob

Here's a Pingskills coaching video on how to drop shot a lob (2:23). I'm a little hesitant about drop-shotting lobs that land short as those are the very ones you can smother kill at wide angles, but if you don't have great power, and you are up against a good lobber who's in position and just gave a ferociously topspinny lob that goes short, this is often the best option.

Trolley Car Table Tennis Club

Back on April 8, Philadelphia joined the ever-growing number of big cities with full-time table tennis centers with the Trolley Car Table Tennis Club. They are now they are running a coaching clinic (Aug. 6-7 with coaches Razvan Cretu and Choor Oh) as well as their third tournament (Aug. 13-14, with others scheduled every two months). The club has four coaches (Razvan Cretu, Gerald Reid, Enoch Green, and Choor Oh), eight tables, has a league on Tuesday nights, and is open seven days a week. Here's video (0:24) of their Grand Opening, which includes Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter playing.

Full-time table tennis centers

I'm thinking of putting together a listing of full-time table tennis centers in the U.S. I know of most of them, but if you know of any "obscure" ones, or want to put together a listing yourself, please send it to me! I know of a number in Maryland, the San Francisco bay area, Los Angeles, New York City, and a few here and there. I may have certain requirements - a room with a table isn't a full-time table tennis center. To me, a full-time center (roughly speaking) has a website, at least five or more tables, is open seven days a week (six is acceptable), has professional coaches (preferably at least one full-time), a junior program, and a league. If it's missing one of these but has most of the others, it might make the cut. (This will probably be in tomorrow's blog.)

Back problems - update

As noted in a number of blog posts, I've been having major upper back problems the last few months, which has dramatically affected my coaching and playing. (I already saw an orthopedist sports medicine doctor, and am doing various back exercises.) This past weekend I coached only one hour on Saturday, all multiball, and my back was pretty much okay. On Sunday, I coached two and a half hours - some multiball, most live - and my back was starting to go. Then Coach Cheng Yinghua talked me into joining the two-hour junior session, saying I'd only play beginners. (I had been doing this regularly until my back problems started.) Somehow I agreed, and two hours later my back had gone from bad to massive catastrophe. I was in agonizing pain the next two days. Here's an experiment for you: get a spear, heat up the tip over a fire, and then stick it in your upper back. Welcome to my world.

I've got a two-week camp at Maryland Table Tennis Center starting next week (Aug. 8-12, 15-19, plus regular coaching on the weekend in between), and since that's my job, I'm stocking up with Ibuprofen. Afterwards I may bring in one of our top junior players to do my hitting for me when I coach for 4-6 weeks so the back can heal.

Director Spike Jonze playing with a what?

No day is complete without a picture of Director Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation," "Where the Wild Things Are," many more) playing table tennis with his shoe. (And I just learned from his online bio that he lives in Rockville, Maryland, just a few miles from me!)***

Send us your own coaching news!