Tip of the Week
How to Play the Bomber: The Player Who Tries to Blast Every Shot.
[Note – I wrote this as a Tip of the Week in 2010, and put it up as a coaching article once, but somehow it never made its way up as a Tip – so here is an updated version.]

Weekend Coaching, Hip Hurts, and Halloween Costumes
Another busy weekend – and this time a PAINFUL one. (More on that below.) On Sunday, as usual, I had three consecutive 90-minute group sessions.

In the Beginning Junior Class, the day's feature was smashing. They'd spent a lot of time until now on forehands, as well as backhands, footwork, pushing, serving, and so on. So now we had what is probably the most fun session of all for them. Yes, the only thing more fun than smashing is first learning to smash. I went over the basics, did a demo, and then we went into our groups. (Assisting were John Hsu, Martin Jezo, and Greg Mascialino, who was subbing for Coach Wen.) But it wasn't all smashing – we also did side-to-side footwork (as always) and pushing, and then Brazilian Teams and Up-Down Tables at the end.

For the Talent Junior Program (our advanced juniors), we did lots of multiball and other drills. I was working with the younger kids, and we did a lot of shadow practice. We spent much of the session with each coach doing a different segment. For the first half, mine was feeding backspin side to side as they forehand looped. For the second half we worked on pushing.

In the Adult Training Session, after a number of stroking and footwork drills, the focus was on serve and attack, and we spent the last half hour on that.

Ten Miscellaneous Mostly Table Tennis Items

A Song of Celluloid and Plastic
For many weeks now I've been coaching exclusively with Butterfly plastic training balls. Most players I work with still prefer celluloid, but accept plastic balls since they have no choice – it's what's used in nearly every tournament and league. In the MDTTC Tuesday and Friday night leagues they only made the final switch to plastic about a month or so ago. (Until then it had been optional, and most had still preferred celluloid.)

Yesterday I went in to coach. (I had four scheduled, but one called in sick, so only three.) At the same time I was coaching we were running our afterschool program with a bunch of kids, and they, and other coaches doing private coaching, were using all of the plastic training balls. There was only a basket of celluloid balls. Since my students had mostly been lamenting their not being able to use the preferred celluloid, I thought, what the heck, and grabbed that basket rather than check if we had more plastic ones in storage.

Instant problem. My first student, Todd, had recently gone over 1500 in league ratings, which closely match USATT tournament ratings. But when they switched over to plastic, he had trouble adjusting at first and immediately dropped 150 points. He is now working himself back up, and felt like he was finally used to the plastic balls. So when I brought over the celluloid balls, he was rightfully unhappy. "I just got used to the plastic balls!" he said. We decided to stick with the celluloid balls. They do play similar to the Nittaku Premium plastic balls he'll be using at the Open in December, though quite different from the plastic ball used in the league and in the upcoming North American Teams during Thanksgiving Break. These days we all need to be able to adjust back and forth.

Sometimes English Just Doesn’t Have the Word: Ruminating on the Word "Mócā"
Recently during one of our advanced junior training sessions, I kept hearing some of the other coaches say something like “Mocha.” We were feeding backspin so the kids could work on looping, and over and over I heard this “Mocha.” I finally asked what they were saying. The word was “mócā.” In Chinese, that’s 摩擦. You can get the pronunciation here. (Click on “say it.”) The definition is roughly “to rub, to create friction.” However, I'm told there isn't really an accurate English description. 

When I want a player to create more spin, I might say, “More spin!” or “Graze the ball!” But saying “More spin!” really talks about the result, not how to do so, which is what we want. Saying “Graze the ball!” is better, and may work when coaching spinny serves, but for looping is not as accurate unless you are teaching very slow, spinny loops, where you truly graze the ball. But for most looping, you sink the ball more into the sponge, and so grazing isn’t quite accurate.

The Chinese “mócā” seems more accurate, as here the key is to rub the ball, which more accurately describes a looping contact. Perhaps I should tell students to “Rub the ball!”? Perhaps, but somehow in English that doesn’t come off as well, though I might try it. Perhaps “Rub the ball, create friction!”? That’s a bit wordy, but more accurately reflects what’s wanted – and is basically the definition of “mócā.”

Coaching, Injuries, Volume 20, and All That Pushing in Class
I spent much of last week with a cold, but was mostly over it by the weekend. Meanwhile, the right knee I injured way back in July at the Nationals, and re-injured several times since, is about 70% okay now, though I still wear a knee brace just in case. The back is fine - it's been a year or so since that's been a problem. And my arm is okay, though I also still wear an arm brace. So I'm the peak of health, right?

Except for the dumb moment last Thursday (first day back while still fighting the cold) when I found a celluloid ball mixed with the plastic training balls, and tried to backspin smack it all the way across the club to a court where they were being used. Ow!!! I tore my shoulder up doing so. It's the same shoulder injury I've had in the past, but I think it's been okay for something like two years. So it was due. 

So since Thursday I've haven't been able to really extend my arm, whether going to my wide forehand to loop or even on some forehand pendulum serves. I can’t smash high balls. When students loop to my wide forehand I can't reach out to block - I have to completely step over. In theory, I should be able to do that, but in reality, when someone loops aggressively to the wide forehand, you have to be able to reach out to cut it off to block, and if I do that now it's another Ow!!! Anyway, I'll survive if I manage to rest it. On Saturday while coaching I strained it three times - twice inadvertently reaching for balls to my wide forehand, and once, while feeding multiball, just reaching for a loose ball on the table. 

Tip of the Week
Top Sixteen Reasons Players Don’t Improve.

Liebherr Men’s World Cup
It was held this past weekend in Liege, Belgium. As usual in table tennis, one country dominated, with another all- China German Final – wait a minute, what happened there!!! Yes, it was Dimitrij Ovtcharov vs. Timo Boll in the all-German final. So what happened to the Chinese? To be concise, they were Timoed. Ovtcharov won the final over Boll, but he really should share the prize as it was Timo who took out the Chinese. But only barely.

First, note that China was handicapped because at the World Cup, there’s a limit of two players per country, and so their great depth is not rewarded there. Instead of their usual lineup of world #1 Ma Long, world #2 Fan Zhendong, world #3 Xu Xin, world #6 Zhang Jike, and world #9 Lin Gaoyuan (not to mention world #12 Fang Bo and #17 Yan An), they sent only Ma and Lin. (Lin qualified by winning the Asian Cup.) These days, it’s obvious that Ma Long and Fan Zhendong are the two best in the world, and rarely lose to other players. Xu, their #3, is a bit shakier, as is Zhang these days – both occasionally lose to non-Chinese players, which is a no-no for the modern Chinese team. So perhaps China is looking to develop another big star with Lin? He has the game to do so. 

However, at the last Worlds, Lin was up 10-5 match point against teammate Xu and lost. This time? In the quarters, against Timo, he was up 10-4 match point in the seventh against Timo Boll . . . and lost. (He had another match point at 11-10. See link to the video below. Here’s the ITTF article.)

Not Worth a Nuisance Lawsuit
I wrote a long blog this morning (Friday) on the recent happenings regarding the long saga and removal of Lee Kondo as chair of the USATT Ethics and Grievance Committee. (He was removed as chair last night in a board teleconference by a vote of 7-1.) However, while I believe all of it to be accurate, after consulting with a lawyer, and considering the reactionary history of Lee (covered in the blog), I could be facing a nuisance lawsuit, which USATT would also inevitably be drawn into. (Lee's a lawyer.) We've already spent a huge amount of time on this issue, and who knows how much longer it would go on. Sufficient to say that it simply isn't worth spending any more time on this issue just so I could win a nuisance lawsuit while spending who knows how many thousands of dollars to do so, as well as wasting more USATT time. Just as Lee shared his version of events with the USATT Board of Directors and others, I will share my version with those involved as needed. 

$2700 3-Star Butterfly MDTTC October Open, Oct. 14-15
My write-up and photos of the tournament went up yesterday. Here’s the USATT news version, and here’s the Butterfly News version. (The only difference is the feature photo at the top – USATT went with the four Under 12 Semifinalists all laughing as they all grabbed at the first-place trophy (with the picture taken before they played the semifinals), while Butterfly went with the four Open Singles semifinalists (who all wore Butterfly!).

Table Tennis Cold
Yes, when you catch a cold from some evil player while running a two-day table tennis tournament, you get to call it a cold. I’ve had one since Monday, meaning I must have caught it at the latest on Saturday. However, though I skipped my blog on Mon and Tue, I’ve gotten some work done. (Though I’ve spent most of the time in my lounge chair reading, doing crossword puzzles, watching movies, making funny pictures of cold viruses, and eating chicken soup.)

I had sort of a good break on Wednesday. I normally have four hours of coaching on Wednesday nights, my busiest day other than weekends. However:

• One student was out of town, visiting Rome on business. (I mistakenly told a few people she was in Australia, but it’s easy to get the two mixed up, right? It was a friend from science fiction, my other world, who was visiting Australia.)
• One student came down sick and cancelled, not knowing at the time that I was also sick. Maybe we had the same donor?
• One student cancelled because of Diwali, a Hindu holiday.
• The parents of the final student saw in my blog that I was sick and told me it would be okay to cancel, so we did so. So I got another full day of rest.

Tonight I normally have two hours of coaching, from 5:30-7:30PM. (There was three, but one moved to the weekend.) However, USATT is having an “emergency” teleconference tonight at 7PM regarding certain matters I expect to blog about tomorrow, but pertaining to the chair of the Ethics and Grievance Committee. So I’ve cancelled the 6:30-7:30 session, and will rush home for the teleconference after the first. On my todo list for today is preparing for the meeting.

Tip of the Week
Top Twelve Tactical Rallying Mistakes.

Table Tennis North America Submits Letter of Interest To Host 2020 ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships
Here’s the article. “Table Tennis North America, a partnership which includes USA Table Tennis (USATT) and Table Tennis Canada (TTCAN), today announced that the group has submitted a Letter of Interest to host the 2020 ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships in San Jose, CA.”

So, when was the last time the World Championships were held in U.S., or North America, or even South America? Answer: NEVER!!! So this would be a first. USATT has been doing a lot of that in recent times – last year we held the first World Women’s Cup in the U.S., and next year we’ll have the first World Veterans Championships in the U.S. since 1990. (As the article says, other than the 1939 Worlds in Cairo, Egypt – practically a suburb of Europe! – the Worlds has always been held in Europe or Asia.

To quote USATT CEO Gordon Kaye from the article above, “With table tennis exploding across North America, we felt strongly that now was the time to bring a World Championship event to our continent. With the success of last year’s Seamaster Women’s World Cup in Philadelphia and the much-anticipated Uncle Pop’s Women’s World Cup presented by Polar Naturals in Toronto later this month, there is absolutely a strong interest in North America for world-class table tennis.”

Nasty Cold Virus Playing Pong and Making USATT Great
To whoever gave me the cold virus at the MDTTC October Open this past weekend for safe keeping – you can come and pick it up at any time. I know you meant well, but this virus you gave me has multiplied beyond its original numbers, and it has annoying taken up residence in various locations in my throat and lungs, where it is now studying to become a doctor, lawyer, or pneumonia. While I applaud its attempts to better itself, and I may help it out financially if it chooses to go to medical or law school, I’d prefer it not go the pneumonia route, and in fact I’m leaning toward kicking it out at any time as it is no longer welcome. So please come and pick it up at any time.

Here’s a picture of the nasty critter playing pong and crusading to make USATT great again.

Because of the cold, and the struggle to get some timely work done, I need to skip the blog again today. Assuming I'm still alive tomorrow, nothing in the universe can possibly stop me from blogging again.