April 20, 2012

Get your feet moving by lobbing

The large majority of players rarely lob. It's not that they don't like to lob - just about everyone finds lobbing fun - but most simply do not have the mobility to effectively lob, and so they don't. (Many of these players stand like a tree when they should be moving like a squirrel.) But isn't this backwards?

If you don't have the mobility to lob, why not practice lobbing to develop that mobility? It's not a hard concept; if you practice moving, you learn to move better. And the nice thing is that if you develop mobility off the table lobbing, you will also improve your general mobility, both close to the table and away. Not only that, but if you learn to lob, you add a new tool to your table tennis toolbox. Plus lobbing is just one step away from counterlooping, a more offensive and valuable off-table weapon.

Here's an article on lobbing, an article on smashing lobs, a more general article on topspin defense, and an article on counterlooping. Study these articles; you will be tested! (If not by me, then by your opponents in matches.)

North American Olympic Trials

They start today in Cary, NC, Fri-Sun, and here's the page where you'll find Draws, Live Streaming, Participants, Prospectus & Schedule. Here's an article about it. Here are 14 pictures from Thursday's practice and meeting day.

Werner Schlager Special

Here's a 53-minute video on 2003 World Champion Werner Schlager, still a member of the Austrian National Team. Schlager is speaking German, and the commentators Japanese, but there's a lot of nice table tennis footage.

Table Tennis Artwork

Here's Mike Mezyan's latest table tennis artwork. Of this one he wrote, "My Latest Artwork 'Prehistoric Paddle' (Paddle Sounds Like Battle) Inspired By Larry Hodges, I Read This Line in His Blog 'Our Ancestors Carried Around Ping-Pong Paddles To Fend Off Arial Attacks From Large Man-Eating Eagles' the rest was history..or was it?" (The line was from my blog on April 17, in the "Close the Racket!" segment.) If you click on the picture and subsequent ones you'll see about twenty other works of table tennis art he's done.

Funny table tennis pictures

Let's finish today with some funny table tennis pictures. Have a good weekend!

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