August 16, 2011

Forum and Blog Comments

I'm supposed to get an automatic email letting me know whenever someone comments on this blog or the forum. This morning I received about 50 emails about such comments going back over a week ago - for some reason they were delayed. So I spent this morning deleting spam comments and reading over other comments I'd missed. I left the latter emails as unread and will respond to them probably tonight. Sorry about the delay and the numerous spam that polluted the site this past week.

Feel free to comment on these blog entries. There's a surprisingly high ratio of readers (300+ per day) to comments. 

MDTTC Coaching Camp - Day Six

  • The day went pretty smoothly with few casualties...other than my ongoing back problems.
  • Three beginners this week, all about age 8 or 9 - and all three picked up the basic forehand and backhand very quickly.
  • I've spending much of our breaks working with players on serves. It's painful to my back when I do forehand pendulum serves - the most popular serve and my primary serve - but I have to do them over and over to demonstrate, alas. But the players are picking them up quickly. The ones who work on serves during break are the most dedicated players, so the extra time (and pain!) spent on them is worth it.
  • I've been showing players how to "do the journey," that serving trick I blogged about previously where you serve from your forehand side (assume both players are righties) with a forehand pendulum serve, and make the ball bounce on your backhand side, cross the net, hit the opponent's forehand side, and curve around and bounce into a box placed in the opponent's backhand side. (You can do this with other serve, including from the backhand side with the reverse type of sidespin.) Another trick is the come-back serve, where you serve a high, short backspin ball so that it bounces back onto your side. These are both great ways to practice putting spin on the ball and controlling it.
  • I gained 2-3 pounds last week by eating Chinese food for lunch every day. This week I'm living on peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (one per meal) and carrots for lunch.

The Science of Sport

The Sports Scientist web page is a great resource for coaches and players who wish to learn about the inner workings of sports. Many of the articles pertain to table tennis. (There's a headline story there entitled, "Training, Talent, 10,000 hours, and the Genes," and subtitled, "Genes and performances: Why some are more equal than others.")

Table Tennis in the Streets of Denver

Yes, it's outdoor table tennis in the streets of Denver. And why not? I once did an outdoor exhibition with Scott Preiss on a street in Colorado Springs during some local fair. It was windy, and just as we started, it began to rain. It wasn't heavy, so we continued, though most of the crowd had taken cover. About five people with umbrellas stayed to the bitter end with us.

WC Fields and how I really hurt my back

Here's comedian WC Fields playing table tennis in the 1939 movie You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (2:33). At 1:27, he smacks a woman in the back to knock the ball out of her mouth. That was me in disguise.

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