Tip of the Week: Playing Lefties

What are three keys to playing lefties?

MDTTC Training Camp

Today we're starting the last of our MDTTC summer camps, a two-week session, Aug. 8-12, 15-19 (Mon-Fri both weeks). By the end of these two weeks there will be many enlightened, improving players, and my back will feel like what happens when a supernova wrestles a quasar. (After the camp I plan on taking 4-6 weeks off, where I have local top players or juniors do my hitting while I coach so my back can get better.)

Have you ever been to a table tennis camp? Well, what are you waiting for - sign up for one! They are great fun and you'll learn a lot.  You'll have sore muscles, but it's a "good pain." (Note - MDTTC camps are primarily for juniors, though a few adults sometimes participate. But there are plenty of camps for all ages.) Here's a listing of some training camps. It might be too late for most summer camps, but now's the time to start thinking about Christmas camps in December! 

No more celluloid balls?

There have been rumors flying about regarding the apparent ban on celluloid ping-pong balls. I emailed ITTF President Adham Sharara, and here's his response:

Special Section on Ping-Pong Balls

Three-stars and two-stars and one-stars, oh my!

A couple of decades ago you could pretty much tell the star level of a ball with a couple of shots, or by simply examining it. Manufacturing simply wasn't that precise. Your typical one-star or training ball was shaped like an egg with seams the size of a Godzilla wedding ring. But times have changed. These days even training balls are pretty round and consistent, and usable for training even at the higher levels. The main advantage of a three-star ball is that they have been carefully checked, and so you know (well, usually) they are good. Training balls are usually good - but that's not a whole lot different than three-star balls. As to two-star balls, I don't think I've seen one in years - does anyone use them? Also, since training balls and one-star balls are often the same thing, the huge majority of balls used are either one-star/training balls or three-stars.

Here's a challenge. Randomly select five or so three-star balls. Then get the same number of one-star/training balls of the same brand and color. Mix them up, and hit with them. Can you really tell the difference? Only an elite player can really tell the difference in most cases. But I don't think there's that much difference anymore, at least in the ones I've used - Butterfly, Nittaku, Stiga, and JOOLA balls.

I know some players are rather finicky about the ball. Do you agree with the above?

Celluloid ping-pong balls banned?

Grip and Stance

I had a student last night who played his forehand in a nearly backhand position, facing the table. He also held the racket with his index finger almost down the middle, resulting in a floppy, wristy forehand. When I tried to get him to change his grip, his forehand looked like a jellyfish trying to do the wave. When I tried getting him to rotate his shoulders back on the forehand so he could use the whole forehand hitting zone, let's just say that too didn't work. It wasn't until I told him to change the grip and rotate his shoulders back that a little light bulb went off over his head, and suddenly his forehand came alive. We did about 30 minutes of multiball on his forehand, and now he's swinging like a pro. Well, at least in practice. It'll take time to incorporate it into a game.

Feature coaching videos from PingSkills

PingSkills has a number of free coaching videos on just about every subject, conveniently divided into beginner (Bronze), intermediate (Silver) and advanced (Gold) sections. Browse around a bit!

Fred Danner's Ping-Pong Diplomacy book

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:

• Serves to Help You Win
• Ten-Point Plan to Serving Success
• Deception on Serves: Using Semi-Circular Motion
• Maximize Your Service Play
• Serving Short
• Serving Long
• The Fifteen Fast and Deep Serves
• The High Toss Serve
• The No-Spin Serve
• Contact the Ball as Low as You Can When Serving
• Holding Back on Serves
• Hardbat Serving Tips
• Strengths and Weaknesses of the Four Major Serves

Here are some videos on serving:

Celebrities Playing Table Tennis

Yes, it's that time of month again - the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis site gets updated around the first of each month. There are now 1234 pictures of 720 different celebrities playing table tennis - and any short listing of the Who's Who of Celebrities Playing Table Tennis just wouldn't do it justice! There are sections on Politicians/Leaders; Actors and Actresses; Athletes; Musicians; Talk Show Hosts; Writers; Cartoon Characters; and many more!

New celebrities playing table tennis pictures this month include actors Tom Hanks, Haley Joel Osment, Justin Timberlake, Sam Rockwell, Claudette Colbert, Esther Williams, Broderick Crawford; Prince Akihito of Japan (now Emperor); Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco; John Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister of England; Ed Nixon, brother of Richard M. Nixon; golfer Tiger Woods; tennis players Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs; Chinese Olympic Gold Medalist Hurdler Liu Xiang; pool star Mika Immoren; talk show host Regis Philbin; singers Lil Jon and Anne-Marie Godart; English socialite Lady Norah Docker; and cartoon character Donald Duck.

Short sidespin serve to the forehand

Can you serve a short sidespin serve to the forehand that breaks away from a right-hander? A LOT of players have great difficulty with this serve, and many can't return it except crosscourt, i.e. into a right-handed server's forehand. If you play one of these players and can't do this, you are handicapping yourself. Shouldn't you be ready to throw this serve at these people? Three common ways of doing this serve: the forehand tomahawk serve (i.e. racket tip up); reverse forehand pendulum serve; and the regular backhand serve. (This may be expanded into a Tip of the Week.)

New USATT logo

Tip of the Week: Jerky Strokes and Jerkyitis

Yes, you can cure that terrible disease that plagues table tennis - Jerkyitis. Here's how.

Comments on this Blog

While there are a lot of readers on this blog - we're averaging well over 300 per day - there are few comments. Feel free to express yourself! It doesn't have to be Q&A, where readers grill me over what I wrote. Feel free to comment with your own experiences, suggestions, dumb puns or jokes, etc.

Funny table tennis terms

Table tennis has some funny terms. Here are three examples:

• Heavy no-spin - a serve where you use an exaggerated motion to make it look like there's spin but instead serve no-spin.
• Fishing - if you don't know what this is, it's explained here.
• Inside-out off-the-bounce sidespin forehand counterloop - say that fast five times.

What are your own favorite table tennis terms, either real or made up?

Americans in China

A lot of USA juniors are training in China this summer, and it's getting lonely at the club without the pitter-patter of their feet as they race around ripping winners past me. Six top juniors from the Maryland Table Tennis Center (my club) are in China training this summer - Tong Gong, Linan Liu, Pamela Song, George & Derek Nie, and Crystal Wang. Others, like John & Nathan Hsu, stayed home, and are training daily with Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Jeffrey Zeng Xun, Sun Ting, and others.

Table tennis movie

Sometimes play into an opponent's strength

Something that needs re-emphasis - if something your opponent does give you trouble (other than serves), play into it until you are comfortable with it. Then, just when the opponent has gotten comfortable doing this thing, avoid it like the plague. He'll still probably get to use it, but now you'll be comfortable against it, and he'll have to adjust his whole game in mid-match to find ways to use it. How many times have you come off a table with a loss still feeling uncomfortable against whatever it was your opponent was doing and feeling like you have no answer for it? That should never happen in any match that is remotely competitive.

A classic example is playing someone with short pips on the backhand. If you have trouble with the short pips, play into it until you are comfortable.

Why you choke

Fixing the backhand

I had an interesting coaching experience yesterday with a new ten-year-old student. He'd picked up the forehand pretty well, but was struggling on the backhand. Over and over he'd stick his elbow way out to the side and drop the racket tip during the forward swing, contacting the ball with an awkward downward backspin swat, and follow through with his arm extended completely forward, as if he were lunging for something. Over and over I went through the stroke with him, but nothing worked. I told him to keep the racket tip up, keep the elbow in, hit the ball with a slight upward swing with topspin, and not to follow-through with his arm lunging forward. The problem was that all these were symptoms of the one actual problem. I suddenly realized he was contacting the ball too far out in front. When I told him to take the ball closer to his body, in one swoop all the problems disappeared - instant good technique as frustration on both sides of the net changed to sheer glee. Within minutes we were smacking backhands back and forth like pros.

A National Table Tennis League?

Your "Go To" serves?

What are your "go to" serves, the serves you use whenever possible both to build up a lead and to win key points? These could be set-up serves that set you up to attack or to get into your favorite type of rally, or they could be trick serves designed to win the point outright or set up an easy winner. I have zillions of serve variations, but here are some of my major "go to" serves. Most of my serves are forehand pendulum serves, but I use different motions to fool opponents.

Set-up Serves