August 11, 2011

MDTTC Coaching Camp - Day Three

• Yesterday's focus was on the backhand attack - smashing, drives against backspin, and backhand loop.
  • To develop the backhand smash (where you lengthen the backswing and/or use more wrist), a good drill we taught is the "hard-soft" drill, which really should be called the "hard-medium" drill. The players hit backhand to backhand, with one player alternating hitting one medium-hard, the other hard. The other player plays steady.
  • To develop the backhand attack against backspin, we introduced a drill for intermediate to advanced players. The entire drill is done backhand to backhand. Player A serves backspin. Player B pushes it back. A backhand loops or drives. B blocks. A chops. (This is the part where beginners have trouble.) B pushes. A backhand loops or drives, and the drill continues.
• We also focused a bit on doubles play, primarily the basics: serving low and short, hitting toward the person who hits at you (or even to his side so he gets in the way of his partner), and moving in and out rather than sideways, which takes you out of the point.
• We've been running competitions to see how many cups a player can knock off a table in ten shots. Alex, an eight-year-old near beginner, set an astonishing record when, out of the blue, he knocked all ten cups off with three perfect forehands!
• Kudos to David Varkey, who's been volunteering as an assistant coach throughout the camp to accumulate the 30 hours coaching needed for his ITTF coaching certification. He should achieve it on Friday. David attended my ITTF coaching seminar in April.

Loop or Stop the Loop?

Starting at the intermediate level, most playing styles focus on either looping or controlling the opponent's loop. Better players can do both. Players who loop often spend a lot of time developing both their loop and ways to get their loop into play. How often do you work on controlling the opponent's loop? How do you do so? Some ways include effective pushes (either long, deep, low, heavy, and disguised, or short); quick pushes and blocks so opponent doesn't have time to react; angles (all shots); effective blocks (quick, consistent, deep, and low; move the ball around, change the pace; and often go to the opponent's strong side first so you can come back to the weak side, most often the backhand); or just attacking first - though you can't assume you'll always attack first and so still need to handle the opponent's loop when he attacks first. At the advanced levels, you can handle the opponent's loop by counterlooping or even chopping, though the latter is primarily for defensive players.

Asperger's Table Tennis

Here's an article on table tennis as therapy for children with Asperger's.

Update on back problems

Find yourself a dagger and heat it over a fire. Have someone stick it in your back. Have that person twist it back and forth all day. Welcome to my world. As noted in previous blogs, I plan to take six weeks off after the two-week camp here ends on Aug. 19. I'll still coach, but I will have others do my hitting for me. I was toying with still doing multiball, but that's what I'm doing mostly at the camp, and, well, see my note above regarding a dagger, fire, and twisting.

Always remember the most important thing in table tennis is...

...to keep your eye on the ball! (It helps to have big eyes.)

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