Tip of the Week
Looping a Push is Not Going for a Shot.

Three Things Table Tennis Can Learn from Nomadland and the Oscars
I'm a movie buff. I sometimes go several years in a row where I see over 100 movies at the theater - yes, two per week, with a Dr Pepper and small popcorn. Before they closed down due to the pandemic, they were my primary source of throwing away hard-earned money.

Last week I saw Nomadland, which won Best Picture at the Oscars last night. My thoughts on this movie? I had always thought that to be the best picture of the year, a movie shouldn't be boring. It shouldn't be nearly two hours of mundane activities, mostly by amateur actors, and all this allowed because it is a "character movie." ("The Trial of the Chicago 7" should have won.) Here are three things the world of table tennis should learn from this.

Tip of the Week
Imagine a Score or Situation.

Butterfly Invitational in Cary, NC
I had a great time this past weekend coaching at the tournament. We had ten juniors and five coaches - but with the huge RR format, there were LOTS of matches, so LOTS of coaching. Here are complete results, care of Omnipong. The tournament gave out about $10,000 in prize money and prizes. AJ Carney did a great job running the event. Sharon Alguetti was the dominant player, winning all three "Opens" - Thursday Open, 1800 & Over, and Division A of the Giant RR. There were 116 players, including four over 2550, seven over 2400, 18 over 2200, and 35 over 2000. 

Our kids from MDTTC played really well - lots of great wins, very few bad losses. Some of them we knew were under-rated, since some hadn't played tournaments in a while, due to Covid. (Others had been playing tournaments somewhat regularly the last few months.) The main worry was that when you don't play tournaments for a while, you lose some of your "tournament toughness" - the ability to adapt to the different playing styles and pressures of playing in a tournament. They were able to overcome this far better than I'd expected.

Tip of the Week
Learn from a Match.

Breaking News - World Table Tennis Championships to Be Held in Houston
Here's the ITTF news item, and here's an article from Inside the Games. They will be held Nov. 23-29, 2021. (I added this Tuesday morning.) They were awarded to USATT in April, 2019 and were originally scheduled for Houston in June this year before they were postponed. One problem - this coincides with the Thanksgiving weekend dates for the North American Teams in Washington DC, which would normally be held Nov. 26-28. (Nov. 25 is Thanksgiving.) 

Weekend Coaching
I squeezed a lot into Sunday, pretty much non-stop from 11AM to 7PM. Two of the group sessions were with beginning-intermediate junior players, where (as always) the focus was on fundamentals, though I always keep it fun. The key to coaching younger beginning kids? F&F: Fun and Fundamentals!

I also had a one-hour session with Navin Kumar. For various reasons, he had to take most of the past month off, so we worked a lot on fundamentals again. Here's video (56 sec) where I'm warming up his forehand block. The next drill? Multiball looping, where I feed (multiball style) forehand loops to all parts of the table, at first side to side, then random.

Tip of the Week
Reading Service Spin.

Weekend Coaching
I had a busy Sunday - was at the club almost all day. I started with the advanced beginning junior class, where I spent much of the time working on basics and serves. When we went to the more advanced sessions later in the day, I acted as a practice partner for an hour - I may not be as fast as before, but I can still block very consistently, and I wore a few players out. One of the advanced players was having some problems with his serves, so I spent a full half hour on this with him - the main problem was his contact point was too high, and it's often difficult to make that transition. But I also showed him how to make the serve bounce really low. I finished the day with the beginning junior girls' group, where I introduced them to serving with spin. (I'd built up to this the last few weeks by having them practice tossing a ball up and spinning it off their racket.)

All players and coaches are required to wear masks at all times in the club, even when playing. It's a hassle, though the kids have adjusted well. Those with glasses have problems with them fogging up. But things might get a bit easier soon with the vaccines out. Soon everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be. I have my two vaccinations now scheduled - the first is tomorrow (Tuesday, April 6), with the follow-up on April 27.

Tip of the Week
Power Player Control Shots.

Weekend Coaching
This Sunday I had three group sessions. In the first, I worked with Lidney Castro with our "Advanced Beginning Junior" group. It was an easy session - we had a practice tournament! Afterwards, I gathered them and quizzed them on what they had learned regarding their strengths and weaknesses. I emphasized that you should work on everything, but focus on getting rid of weaknesses while developing overpowering strengths.

In the Intermediate Group (mostly up to about 2000 level), I acted as a practice partner, mostly blocking for an hour. The last ten minutes we did a drill where two players took turns returning my deep serves (mostly to backhand) and playing out points - and I gave them fits! I especially worked with them on returning my big breaking serve that breaks sharply into the backhand, with backspin or topspin, though I focused more on a fast, side-backspin serve that broke a foot. I also had a discussion with one of our really promising players, who has great power. I pointed out that because his shots have such hop and power, most he plays now can't block them back - and so he often doesn't need to worry about placement. But placement is a skill you need to develop, and if he doesn't develop it now, by the time he plays players who can block them back, he'll be way behind. So I told him that even if the opponent can't block his loops, he should really focus on placement - not only going to wide corners and middle, but also knowing when to go where. 

I also had a session with three beginning girls - usually there are four, but one was away. Introduced them to spin by lending them a "spin ball" (with two colors), and had them practice spinning it off their rackets. That's the first step toward teaching spin serves!

Tip of the Week
Rally Down Faster & Quicker Players.

Coaching Niches
Recently, I've sort of fallen into four "niche" coaching roles. I used to coach all aspects of the game to all levels, but that's gradually changed. More and more these days at the Maryland Table Tennis Center I've been doing these four things:

Tip of the Week
Do You Really Play the Middle?

The $10,000 Patty and Si Wasserman Junior Table Tennis Tournament
Once again I had a great time in Akron, Ohio, where I went this past Friday and Saturday to coach two of our junior players from Maryland. Here are complete results, care of TTLive. There were 116 players in the tournament, played on 18 tables.

Five juniors from the Maryland Table Tennis Center went to the tournament: Stanley Hsu, Ryan Lin, William & Winston Wu, and Tiffany Ke. I was in charge of coaching Stanley and Ryan; Cheng Yinghua had William & Winston; and I believe Tiffany's dad coached her. Here's a group picture (Tiffany missing) - L-R: Larry Hodges, Stanley Hsu, Ryan Lin, Winston Wu, William Wu, Cheng Yinghua.

Here's a Facebook posting by Stanley about the tournament, along with 16 pictures taken by his dad. Here are some of them:

Tip of the Week
Experiment with Serves and Receives Early.

Sports Psychology, Weekend Coaching, and Ohio, Oh My!!!
I may have to go back to college and get another degree, this one in psychology. I’m starting to do more sports psychology sessions with our up-and-coming juniors. I wrote about this in my February 15 blog, under “Weekend Coaching.” As a match coach, I’ve been both learning and teaching sports psychology for about 40 years (including many group sessions with the sports psychologist at the US Olympic Training Center during my four years there), but now I’m doing one-on-one sessions on it. From those years of coaching and learning, I have a whole basket full of mental tricks to help players overcome almost any sports psychology problem - but rather than deal with it during a tournament, it’s best to address it and solve the problem before the tournament begins.

Tip of the Week
Learn Something New Each Time You Play.

Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips, by Dan Seemiller
I spent most of last week working on Dan Seemiller’s new book, which will be about 200 pages (8.5x11), with over 300 pictures. Each page features a vintage photo from his 50+ years in the sport, with Dan’s notes about it. Most pages also feature a Tip. Dan had put together the rough layout, with the photo and text; my job was to fix up all the photos (they were mostly old ones in need of lots of work in Photoshop); finalize the layouts; edit; write the foreword; and do the front and back covers. Dan is now proofing it - he said he has lots of changes, including some new pages - and will send me those changes probably later today. Then I put in the changes, do the final pre-press work, and send it off for publication in Amazon’s KDP Publisher. It should be ready by March 15. There are still some complications to work out (such as how much color), but we’ll have it done this week. It’s my third time collaborating with him on a book, since I also worked with him on Revelations of a Ping-Pong Champion (his autobiography) and recreating his book from 1996, Winning Table Tennis (instructional). I bet you can’t order and read both before “Smash!” comes out!

Tip of the Week
Rote vs. Random Drills.

National Collegiate Table Tennis Association Hosts Townhall Meeting - Open to All
MEETING IS TONIGHT (Monday) at 9:30PM. Here's the Facebook info page. They will discuss various table tennis issues, but there will likely be a focus on the USATT-NCTTA ongoing battle over the NCTTA's position on the USATT board (see below). From the page, "Thank you to the hundreds of you that have supported NCTTA with emails to USATT. Many of you asked to have a zoom meeting, so we have organized it! We will present to you the why's and what's and any updates and answer any questions too. Any USATT or NCTTA player, volunteer, coach, alumni is welcome to attend!" Here is the direct link to the meeting. Remember, the meeting is open to All, not just college players. (There will be USATT board members present. I will attend, hopefully just to listen.)

The Ongoing USATT-NCTTA War
[Skip this if not interested in such internal USATT fighting. See the segment above if you want to discuss or hear others discuss the situation with USATT and NCTTA. There will be USATT board members present. Here's my blog on this topic last week.]