Table Tennis Boosting and Why Cheating is Rampant in Our Sport

Here's an article by Coach Jon Gustavason about the problems with boosting (and perhaps speed gluing) in table tennis. He wrote, "It also appeared that at least some of the players were using boosters or speed glue on their rackets. There is absolutely no way of knowing how much was taking place, since there was no attempt to test rackets and — even if there had been — current testing methods can’t detect every possible way that table tennis rubbers can be altered."

Next to the problems with hidden serves, this is the most abused rule in table tennis at the higher levels. The rules state, "The racket covering shall be used without any physical, chemical or other treatment." This makes both speed glue and boosting illegal. 

Tip of the Week

Controlling a Match.

Weekend Coaching

Friday was the final day of last week's camp. We did a lot of basics work as well as introducing some new ones. I introduced forehand and backhand looping to two seven-year-olds. An eight-year-old had a major breakthrough. He can both loop and hit, but usually after looping a backspin he'd swat the next ball off the end. We've been playing a game where I feed multiball, alternating backspin and topspin to his forehand, and he has to loop the first, smash the second. If he makes both, he scores; if he misses either, I score. I'm guessing I was 30-0 against in this came, but on Friday he finally pulled it out, "beating" me 11-7. 

We finished the camp with the "candy game." I put stacks of candy on the table near the end-line, and fed multiball. The kids lined up, and anything they hit off the table, they got to keep. (For the younger beginners, if they hit the candy but didn't knock it off the table, they still got a piece. More advanced players who won five or more pieces were strongly encouraged to share with the youngest kids.) 

With three students away or unable to come in, I was off on Saturday!!! I'd like to say I studiously solved all of USATT's problems, wrote a new table tennis book, and put table tennis in the public spotlight with an 11-0 trumping of Donald Trump, but no – I spent the day reading, doing crosswords, and saw "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."

Actually, I did do one serous table tennis thing on Saturday – I created a Classic Table Tennis flyer that introduces players to the hardbat and sandpaper games, for distribution at major tournaments. (I'm normally a sponge player and sponge coach, but as many know I'm a hardbat player on the side.) I've sent it to the Hardbat Chair for review.

Thursday Camp

Yesterday was Day Four of Week Nine of MDTTC's Eleven Weeks of Summer Camps. I've now coached over 200 of these five-day camps, or over 1000 days - nearly three years. That's 6000 hours of camp. (Here's a group picture from yesterday morning. It's missing some of our locals who sometimes come in just for the afternoon session.)

For once I didn't have any additional private coaching or classes, so it was "only" six hours of coaching. At this point the beginning players I'm working with have at least decent strokes and timing, and so can hit backhands and forehands, and can serve. I only wish we had videos of their play on Monday to compare with now!

On Monday, the youngest player in the camp had about a dozen turns at multiball, about 4-5 minutes each time, all forehand work - and throughout it all, she only hit two balls on the table. On Thursday, she hit five in a row. The crowning achievement? She smacked the Gatorade bottle with "worm juice," and so I had to drink it, to her great glee.

We had a new six-year-old in the camp. Let's just say this player had better concentration than just about anyone in the camp – at age six – and with extremely good hand-eye coordination and racket control for that age. That's a triple whammy – if this player takes private lessons, as the father is looking into, this could be interesting. (This player also made me drink lots of worm juice. But the player had an almost icy determination to hit the bottle to make me drink it, while others that age were more likely giggling between shots.) 

Getting a Grip: The Backhand is Back!!!

Yesterday in our ongoing summer camps I taught (blah blah blah), and then we worked on (blah blah blah), and the players were really excited when we did (blah blah blah). And after six hours of camp, I did another two hours of private coaching, where we (blah blah blah). Yeah, let's get through all the boring stuff, and get to the interesting part!

My game has slowly deteriorated over the last few years. Much of this is simply age – I'm 55 (yikes!). Both the muscles and knees won't let me move like I used to. But other parts of my game have also gone done, including my backhand. It used to be a wall when it came to blocking and counter-hitting, which made me a pretty good practice partner. But I've spent much of the last year or two often staring at my racket, wondering where the old magic was.

And then, yesterday, while hitting with a player in a private session, the backhand magic was back!!! Or more specifically, my old grip was back. Somehow, over the last few years, I'd changed my grip. I've always gripped it with my middle finger slightly off the handle, with the racket resting on the first knuckle. Somewhere along the way I'd lowered the middle finger down with the other two fingers. I'd sort of noticed this in the past, but didn't think it made much difference. Boy, was that wrong!!!

Yesterday I raised it back to where I'd done it before, as I'd done other times, and it didn't help. Then, fiddling with my grip, it fell into place, with the key (for me) being the racket rested on that middle finger knuckle when I hit backhands. Bingo – and suddenly the old backhand was back. I think my eyes went a bit wide when the old backhand returned after perhaps a two-year leave of absence. Suddenly I could do little wrong as I was counter-hitting and blocking with near 100% efficiency. It improved my forehand blocking as well, and probably much of the rest of my game.

Tuesday Coaching

Yesterday's focus for the new kids was the backhand. We started with forehand practice to re-enforce what they'd learned the day before. Then, after a short demo, I had them line up and shadow practice backhands. Then it was lots and lots of multiball. Some of the kids are too short for a standard backhand, and so have to move their contact point to the left side of their head or they wouldn't be able see the ball, with the racket in the way. 

I had one scare. Near the start of the morning session one kid I was feeding multiball to kept popping up his backhand. To show that they were too high, I smashed one very hard - and felt a twinge in my shoulder. I hadn't warmed up, since I was only feeding multiball. I was worried all day about it. I had a private coaching session after the camp where I hit live with a pretty strong player, and the shoulder was fine. (Note to self: be careful!!!)

As usual, we did a lot of serving practice. Older and more experienced players often find serving practice boring, but to younger kids, it's both a struggle and a challenge, and just as interesting as rallying. To make things even more interesting, I often put targets on the table, or bring out the net-height device that puts a bar over the net (height adjustable) and they have to serve under it. (John Olsen created this. Here's a picture with the bar set low, and set high.)

Tip of the Week

You Can Be Light on Your Feet. (Includes links to videos.)

Coaching and Other Activities

It's been a busy few days. Here's a quick rundown.

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY
I did little coaching these days, and instead spent nearly the entire time glued to my desk. I gave pretty much a grocery list of things I'm working on in my July 23 blog (before I left for my nine-day writing workshop "vacation"), and I basically jumped from one thing to another for two days. I also started work on rewrites of the three stories I had critiqued at the writing workshop. 

SUNDAY
It was a rather long day. It started with several hours of private coaching. We're doing some technical adjustments for one of my students, a rising junior, and so spent a lot of time on that. (Shorter, more forward stroke, and related issues.) Then came a junior class, where we did a lot of fundamental work, and then spent a lot of time on serves. Then came my Sunday night training session, where we had eight adults training together. It's pretty physical - lots of footwork and attacking drills. (But the attacking drills means that the other player is working on his defense and ball control, mostly blocking.) With Raghu Nadmichettu assisting as a practice partner and moving from player to player about every ten minutes, everyone got lots of good practice. We finished with serve practice, where I emphasized the smooth acceleration of the wrist and fine grazing motion, which leads to tremendous spin.

Yikes! I thought I was off this morning, but I just got called in to coach at our MDTTC camp. I'll be there all day, coaching from 10AM-6PM, plus some private coaching afterwards. So no blog this morning. The Tip of the Week will also go up tomorrow. (Normally, when I know I'll be coaching in the morning, I do most of the blog the night before.)

Capital Area Team League and Other Team Leagues

If you live in the Maryland/Virginia/DC area, it's time to sign up for the Capital Area Team League! Deadline is Sept. 7 (though the page currently still lists it as July 31). Season One had 73 players on 13 teams; why not join us for Season Two? There's nothing better than competing on a team, with your teammates screaming for you every point!  

As I've blogged before, I now chair the USATT League Committee. (I'm too busy during the summer to do much work on this, but will be getting very busy starting in September.) I'm working setting up a prototype team league, using my experience with the Capital Area Team League and learning from other team leagues (both USA and overseas, and table tennis and other sports) to create a league that can be set up in other regions throughout the U.S. I'm also taking over as webmaster for the Capital Area Team League – I'll be working on that much of today. (I'm on the Capital Area Team League committee, along with Stefano Ratti, John Olsen, and Richard Heo.)

Team Leagues are why countries in Europe measure their memberships often in the hundreds of thousands, with huge league numbers in countries like Germany and England. USA needs to follow in their footsteps, but it's going to take time to build it up. But it won't happen until we create such a prototype league that can spread to all regions.

But there will always be the naysayers who can't get imagine anything beyond the status quo.  

Top Ten Things if Donald Trump Were Running USATT…

A little fun with Photoshop this morning!

Tip of the Week

Get to the Root of the Problem. (Adapted from Monday, July 20 blog.)

Sometimes Small Things Are Big Things

I was coaching a player a couple days ago who tended to start his forehand loop drive with his upper body. This is a common problem, and leads to players "muscling" the ball, i.e. straining to create power with just their upper body. Large players often get away with this, as they can create sufficient power this way, but it means straining, which means they lose control as well as having only good power instead of great power. It also invariably leads to injuries.

But telling a player who strokes with just his upper body to use his lower body (legs, hips, waist) doesn't usually work. It's a big change, and incorporating all those lower body movements into a nice, smooth stroke throws the timing off, leading to all sorts of problems. What to do?

They key is to start small. Just have the player use a little lower body to get the upper body started. Once this is done, it all starts to fall into place – as it did here. After a few minutes the player was smoothly ripping shot after shot as I fed him multiball.

Non-Table Tennis: What I Did on My Vacation