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February 3, 2025

Larry Hodges — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 16:28:47 +0000

February 3, 2025

Tip of the Week
Tactical Observations for the Subconscious.

Weekend Coaching
I think one of the most important aspects of a junior training program is to make things interesting. It’s very easy for the coach to just send the players out to the table and call out the same old drills, session after session, focusing on rote learning and discipline. But kids aren’t robots. You have to make it interesting so they want to improve.

Why would a kid want to work hard to improve at something they are not interested in? They may go through the motions, but if their heart isn't in it, then they aren't going to improve nearly as fast as one who really wants it.

I find the key to that is to constantly challenge them, often with new things. Kids who come early often get the chance to try to return my serves – and since I assure them, “My serves cannot be returned,” the challenge is right there! And yes, they are hooked both with fascination at the various spins and the challenge to return them, which they (eventually) inevitably do, especially when I give out hints on how to do so. I always pretend frustration when they do so, and say, “You’re just lucky, you’ll never do it again” – which is, of course, another challenge.

In drills, I find it’s often good, once their technique is pretty good, to count how many shots they get in a row – challenge them to set new personal records. Or in multiball or serve practice put targets on the table and challenge them to hit them. (I think I have convinced a few of them that my cheap water bottles are actually “$1000 Target Specials,” and if they hit them, they’ll get damaged – so, as I tell them, I put them in the safest place I can find, on the table, since, “You’re not good enough to hit it.” Another challenge!

For service practice, I’ll challenge them to serve backspin so the ball stops or rolls backwards into the net – and I show how to do this, often serving a little high at first, and gradually learning to do this with a low serve. With a sidespin serve, I’ll line up two bottles and challenge them to curve the ball around the first bottle and hit the second. When they can do these things, then they can put tremendous spin on the ball, and just as importantly, they can control the serve – both keys to a good serve.

Two key things are 1) even when doing this, I’m making sure they use good technique, and 2) surprisingly, by having them aim at targets they are learning to let their subconscious take control of their shots, which is what you have to do in games. I remind them of this, showing how I can consistently smack a bottle from eight feet away if I don’t consciously aim at it, instead letting my subconscious take over, i.e., my training, while if I try to consciously aim, my accuracy goes down dramatically.

I think some or most of the top junior players that came out of my club (and presumably others) started out as beginning kids fascinated by the sport, and that made them self-motivated and determined to be great.

Major League Table Tennis on CBS Sports
They had their first major TV broadcast last night on CBS Sports. (Here’s the news item, Major League Table Tennis Announces National Television Agreement with CBS Sports.) It was an hour long, with Texas Smash coming from behind to defeat the Seattle Spinners, with Nandan Naresh scoring the decisive point at the end in the "Golden Game." Commentating were Evan Lepler (play by play) and Matt Hetherington (color). I thought it was well presented. It was fun listening in on the tactical advice given between games – though much of it was more motivational. I had my own tactical thoughts. For example, when Amy Wang was playing, I remembered the “Amy Rules” I developed years ago when I coached against her a number of times. (Basically, two firm tactical rules to follow when playing her. Don’t worry, Amy, I’ll keep them secret!) I have (or used to have) similar “rules” for playing many of the top US players, developed from many hours of watching live and on video.

Home Page
Major Pong Head (blog coverage)

Why Table Tennis Really Is Chess at Light Speed
Here’s the article I wrote for Paddle Palace back in 2012. For some reason it’s recently been making the rounds online. I wonder if anyone from the world of chess has seen it?

TT Pro Net
It’s live! You have to register first. Pro player Robert Gardos is behind it. (I suggested they put some of the info below in the front page so players have a reason to register.) I’m told, “TTProNet is an innovative platform designed to enhance the table tennis experience for enthusiasts around the globe. Accessible from anywhere, it offers a comprehensive suite of features tailored to meet the needs of players, coaches, and fans alike. I haven’t had time to explore it myself – I’ll leave that to you – but I’m told its key features are:

Global Connectivity: Connect with fellow table tennis enthusiasts worldwide, fostering a vibrant community that transcends geographical boundaries.
Comprehensive Resources: Access a wealth of information, including training materials, match analyses, and the latest news in the table tennis world.
Event Tracking: Stay informed about upcoming tournaments and events, no matter where you are, ensuring you never miss an opportunity to engage with the sport.
Personalized Experience: Tailor your experience to your preferences, receiving content and updates that align with your interests and skill level. By leveraging these features, TTProNet aims to make table tennis more accessible and engaging for individuals across the globe, providing tools and resources that can be utilized from any location.

Best Tips from Fan Zhendong – Tip #2 – Forehand Topspin Against Backspin
Here’s the video (2:10).

Butterfly Training Tips

Modified Falkenburg (49 sec) with Maybelline Menendez. NOTE – I like this version and may start using it. A key thing is I think I’ll have the player play the second backhand more aggressively than the first, though both should be aggressive.
Two Backhand, One Forehand (54 sec) with Hong Lin
Forehand Loop & Footwork (54 sec) with Rachid El Bou Bou
Backhand Chop Block & Forehand Loop Pivot (58 sec) with Angel Naranjo

New from Ti Long

How to return a serve Pendulum half long (3:55) – good explanation on how to backhand attack these serves.
How to do Forehand Topspin against Backspin without using knees (4:42)

New from PingSkills

Table Tennis Tips and Techniques – 24 Spins
Here’s the video (4:31) from Biomechanics Applied to Table Tennis (formerly Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis).

How Meditation Can Make You a Better Table Tennis Player?
Here’s the video (8:58) from Enzo Angles.

Learn the Crossover Point with Long Pips
Here’s the video (2:03) with Yang Xiaoxin.

How to Play 3 Players in Table Tennis
Here’s the video (2:45) from Pingispågarna.

Bowmar Sports Tournament Highlights – Sally Moyland Sights & Sounds in Chengdu
Here’s the video (4:28).

New from Taco Backhand

From Hong Kong Women's Champion to Harvard University
Here’s the NCTTA article by Michael Reff.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from USATT

New from ITTF

Would You Rather Have...
Here’s the video (13 sec)!

Quit Spying on Us!
Here’s the US-China cartoon!

Getting Marmaduke to Take Medicine – Ping-Pong Style
Here’s the cartoon!

Somewhere, A Coach Regrets Introducing Ping-Pong Powerlifting
Here’s the cartoon!

Non-Table Tennis – Three New Stories
Last week I had three new science fiction/fantasy stories published. (Yes, I get paid for these stories!) The first two below both came out in the new Dragon Soul’s Dragon Legends anthology.

“The Dragon, the Knight, and the Red-Eyed Flying Unicorn”
A knight on his mighty unicorn steed tells his story as he battles a huge, drunken dragon (you). The sarcastic unicorn just wants to eat & drink. The story is told simultaneously in first- (the knight), second- (the dragon, i.e., you, the reader), and third-person (the unicorn) for humorous effect.
“Small Dragon’s Gold”
A small, pathetic, but highly idealistic and hyper-polite dragon ekes out a living at a street corner by lighting people's cigarettes with his breath for a nickel. He’s determined to get back the gold stolen from him by a cocky, swashbuckling woman, who thoroughly humiliates him - but he won’t give up.
“Mad Molly and the Nuclear Bomb” at Rainy Weather Days.
Mad Molly is an 80-year-old black autistic math professor in Washington DC. She must get the Frooty-Tooty ice cream cake to her sister in Paris by 6PM, when she calculates it will start melting, as she does every Tuesday. She does so via Worldwide Express, with a direct tube through the Earth's interior, DC to Paris, for when it absolutely, positively must be there on time. But a terrorist sends a nuke from Paris to DC. Using her math skills, can Mad Molly stop the bomb from destroying DC so she can get the ice cream cake to her sister on time?

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Larry Hodges Mon, 02/03/2025 - 16:28

January 27, 2025

Larry Hodges — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 18:11:06 +0000

January 27, 2025

Tip of the Week
Do You Serve a Lot of Net Serves? Good!!!

Weekend Coaching, Tips, Eyes, and Shoulder
Over the last few weeks several new players have joined our junior training program. I’ve worked a lot with each of them, working on developing their fundamentals. I think one of the key things here is focusing on grip and stance – if you get both of those right, the rest often falls into place as if you were holding two ends of a rubber band. Get either wrong, and the rubber band (the player) gets twisted. (Here’s my Tip from almost 13 years ago on this, Grip and Stance.)

On the forehand, it’s also important to focus on the idea that you rotate the shoulders back, thereby giving yourself a big hitting zone to the side. Once that becomes a habit, the rest becomes easy.

You know the quickest way to teach spinny serves? Let the kids take turns trying to return my serves. (I keep saying, “My serves cannot be returned.” Eventually someone gets one back, I act all surprised and disgusted, and the kid all excited.) When they see these serves, they all want to learn them, and instead of us trying to teach them, they want us to teach them. Then I start them off by just tossing the ball up, spinning it with their racket, and catching the ball, and repeat. It’s amazing how fast they pick it up. Soon they are serving backspins that stop on the table or even roll back into the net.

I had another long afternoon writing up Tips of the Week. I keep a file of Tip ideas, and periodically write them up. I have enough Tips now written for through April.

As noted previously, I’ve developed cataracts – no wonder I’ve had difficulty reading spin, especially sponge serves! My left eye is 20-70, my right eye 20-150. I was hoping to have the surgery in February but there weren’t any openings. So, here are the dates: they will do the right eye on Mar. 25, the left eye on Apr. 8. For each eye, there’s a one-day and one-week post-op, plus a pre-op for each eye, plus the original eye testing where it was determined I needed the surgery, and the pre-cataract evaluation with the surgeon who will do the operation. I also have to do a regular physical in advance of the surgeries. In all, I will have eleven different appointments for this. Two done, nine to go!

Meanwhile, starting last week I’m meeting with a physical therapist twice a week to work on my shoulder, plus a series of exercises I have to do daily. They did an MRI of it last week – I see the doctor about it on Wednesday, where he’ll be able to give a better diagnosis. The current diagnosis is, “Incomplete rotator cuff tear or rupture of right shoulder.”

Junior Team Trials, Tombstone, African Safari, and This Year’s Travel
I have a lot of travel planned this year. Below is my schedule so far. If you are at any of these events and have copies of any of my books, bring them along and I’ll sign them!

I have two events coming up in February, back-to-back. The US Junior Trials are at the Westchester TTC in New York, Feb. 13-17. I believe we have nine MDTTC players competing, with four coaches, including me. So, for the next few weeks I’ll watching these players closely. But I’ve also been restless, and made plans for two more trips. Immediately after the Junior Trials, I’m flying out to Tombstone, AZ, for several days of Wild Wild West fun! (I actually have to fly to Tucson, then take a bus or possibly Uber to Tombstone, 75 miles away.) I fly out the morning of Tue, Feb. 18, and return on Fri, Feb. 21, just in time to coach that weekend. Maybe I’ll intervene in the O.K. Corral gunfight re-enactment – let the Clanton’s win!

I’ve also decided to do a once-in-a-lifetime African safari. I am waiting until after the cataract surgery to finalize the plans, but it’ll likely be a seven-day tour in Kenya and Tanzania in early June. Here’s the one I plan on doing. I also plan to visit the St Teresa Table Tennis Club in Nairobi, Kenya.

My Current 2025 Travel Schedule, both TT and SF

Feb. 13-17 Thu-Mon, US Junior Trials #1, Westchester, NY
Feb. 18-21 Tue-Fri, Tombstone, AZ
May 23-26 Balticon – Baltimore SF Convention (panelist)
Early June African Safari - Kenya, Tanzania
June 28-July 4 US Nationals, Ontario, CA
July 18-26 TNEO Science Fiction Writing Workshop, Manchester, NH
Aug. 1-3 National Senior Games, Des Moines, IA (tentative)
Aug. 9-19 World SF Convention (Aug. 13-17, panelist) & sightseeing in Seattle, WA
Aug. 29-31 US Open Teams, Myrtle Beach, SC (tentative)
Sept. 19-21 Capclave SF Convention, Rockville, MD (panelist)
Oct. 6-9 Huntsman World Senior Games, St. George, UT
Nov. 7-9 US Table Tennis Hall of Fame Inductions and Si & Patty Wasserman Junior & Open, El Monte, CA
Nov. 28-30 North American Teams – 50th straight year, starting in 1976 (except for cancelled 2020)
Dec. 15-20? US Open in Las Vegas

Best Tips from Fan Zhendong – Tip #1 – Forehand Topspin
Here’s the video (2:04), with English sub-titles.

Butterfly Training Tips

Backhand Looping and Footwork (66 sec) with Rachid El Bou Bou
Random Backhand & Forehand Looping (65 sec) with Arantxa Cossio Aceves

The Multiball Battle
Here’s the video (2:15) from Pingispågarna

Four Effective Ways to Return Underspin Serves in Table Tennis
Here’s the article and video (5:55) from Yasiris Ortiz/Paddle Palace.

3 Things to Help Improve Your Backhand Long Pips Attack with Yang Xiaoxin
Here’s the video (3:09) from PongSpace.

Talkin' Smash by JOOLA Ep16: Developing Your Own Playing Style and Strengths
Here’s the video (28:26) with Vitor Ishiy and Matt Hetherington.

New from PingSkills

Ask the Coach

Bowmar Sports Tournament Highlights

Arantxa Cossio Aceves WTT Highlights (66 sec)
Rachel Wang World High School Games (76 sec)
Karolayn Maldonado Tournament Highlights (58 sec)
Oscar Birriel Singles Dusseldorf WTT (72 sec)

CITTA Dreams League: Empowering Young Players With Competition and Growth
Here’s the article by Rachel Wang.

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

Home Page
Major Pong Head (blog coverage)
Tickets on sale for MLTT Championship Weekend!

New from NCTTA

First 2025 Adult National Ranking Tournament Begins
Here’s the USATT News item. Here are the results from Omnipong. “As the first of two annual ranking tournaments, this event determines the initial eight roster spots for the 2025 National Teams.” But there’s something really wrong when you run an event like this and only 23 players show – 14 in Men’s, 9 in Women’s.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

All Japan Championships
Here’s the video (12:04) of the Men’s Final between Sora Matsushima and Hiroto Shinozuka. Here’s video (14:08) of Matsushima’s upset of Tomokazu Harimoto in the semifinals.

Brianna Burgos, Fabiola Diaz, Alondra Rodriguez, And Oscar Birriel Join National Teams
Here’s the article on the Puerto Rican National Team.

Interview with Danish Superstar Jonathan Groth
Here’s the video (61 min) with the world #18 from Table Tennis Daily.

New from ITTF

Ping-Pong Whisperer
Here’s where you can buy the shirt at Amazon!

This Is How You Loosen Up Before a Match!
Here’s the video (26 sec) of Felix and Alexis Lebrun running around the table as they rally. The funny thing is . . . this really is a good way to loosen up.

Playing on the World’s Biggest Ping-Pong Table
Here’s the video (10 sec)!

Pro Table Tennis Player Beats Me With His Phone?!
Here’s the video (7:54) from Table Tennis Daily, where he takes on world #26 Anders Lind of Denmark.

New from PingPongMaestros

Block Like a Boss (13 sec)!
How to Humiliate Your Trainer’s Serves (17 sec)
How They Think I Play (13 sec)

Non-Table Tennis – Science Fiction & Fantasy Publications
I have a whole mess of short stories just published or about to be published! Here’s a short listing. (Yes, I get paid for each of them.) I was also interviewed.

I was interviewed by Celestial Echo Press on Thursday. Last November they published my story, “Life and Death and Bongo Drums,” in Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel anthology.
My story “Dragon Cuisine” was published Thursday in Dragon Soul’s Dragon Legends anthology. A young dragon seeks his fortune, and battles his food – humans – but a wizard turns him into a huge, dragon-sized frog.
My story “Legacy” was published on Tuesday in the Alternative Liberties anthology. It’s a political satire about the ending of Trump’s second term in office – with nuclear holocaust, killer robots, galactic conquest, and a big twist.
My story “Thank You Miss Kittykat!” was tied for “Second Runner-up” in the Amazing Stories Reader’s Choice Awards. Humans genetically engineer dogs and cats for high intelligence and opposable thumbs. There’s a war, with humans and dogs allied against the cats. The cats win, and now we are the pets.
This Thursday, Jan. 30, I have two stories coming out, “The Dragon, the Knight, and the Red-Eyed Flying Unicorn” AND “Small Dragon’s Gold,” both in Dragon Soul’s Dragon Legends anthology.
This Friday, Jan. 31, my story “Mad Molly and the Nuclear Bomb” comes out at Rainy Weather Days.
I have another twelve (12!) stories in other upcoming publications. I’ve been busy, both in TT and SF!

***
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Larry Hodges Mon, 01/27/2025 - 18:11

January 20, 2024

Larry Hodges — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 18:30:13 +0000

January 20, 2024

Tip of the Week
Practice Each Aspect of a Technique Separately.

Weekend Coaching
I did four group sessions over the weekend, 6.5 hours. Sunday seemed iffy because of the predicted snow, but it came about five hours later than expected, so we got both sessions in. Because of the snow, I couldn’t get my car up the hill outside our club! But one of the parents literally got behind my car and pushed, and we managed to get to the top (fifty yards at most) though it took about five minutes.

I had one session with our top junior group, rated from 1800 to 2550. One of our best players was having trouble covering his wide backhand when blocking – I pointed out that it was a ready position problem, that he was holding his racket to far out in front and so didn’t have time to bring it back against deep attacks to his wide backhand. I also got another of our top players to better disguise his serve – he was setting up differently for regular and reverse pendulum serves. You need to always set up the same way, and hide which you are doing until the last possible moment.

We had one new player in our junior program on Sunday, age 8, who’d never had lessons. I worked with him for over an hour, first alternating between him and one other in multiball, and then one-on-one the last 20 minutes. He started out with this awkward lunging forehand, where his whole body would lean forward as he hit the ball, ending up almost falling on the table. He could barely do two shots in a row this way. The keys to fixing it up were: 1) telling him to imagine a rod going through the top of his head and to just circle the rod as he stroked – if he moved forward in the swing, it would destroy his brain!; 2) Having him bring his arm in, since he tended to extend his arm almost straight, which gave him extra forward momentum and caused a complete lack of control; 3) keeping left arm up for balance; and 4) Guiding him through the stroke repeatedly. In the first 15 minutes he couldn’t hit more than two in a row, and the second one was always rather wild. By the end he got over 50 in a row several times with a good stroke, and was doing footwork drills with it. As I reminded him and others, it’s most important to gave a good stroke and contact; hitting the table is a distant third until you get the first two.

On the backhand, he reached for the ball and had a stroke bigger than Godzilla’s. The key to fixing this, besides shortening the stroke, was to tell him to think of himself as a soccer goalie, and get his stomach in the way of every shot. That got him into position, and then it was just a matter of doing the stroke I’d repeatedly guided him through. He managed to get over 30 in a row at the end.

My Shoulder Gives Me the Cold Shoulder
Fresh off winning both Over 40 and Over 60 Hardbat at the US Open and quarters of Over 60 Men, and with cataract surgery on both eyes coming up in February so I can go back to reading service and other spins (and thereby perhaps challenge for Over 60 Men’s Singles at the Nationals in July, along with hardbat events), I was all excited about playing this year. I’ve been primarily a coach since circa 1985 (other than 1990-91), but now am training again to compete in age and hardbat events. I normally use sponge, but with my cataracts – 20-70 and 20-150 vision in my left and right eyes) it’s difficult to read serves especially, but that should be fixed with the cataract surgery.

So, on Friday, I had my first real training session since the Open a month ago. And 35 minutes in, I had to stop – my shoulder was once again hurting. It’s been an on-and-off thing for years, but progressively has gotten worse. So, that very afternoon, I saw a sports orthopedist, and I have the diagnosis: “Incomplete rotator cuff tear or rupture of right shoulder.” And so I won’t be training for a month or more. This week I have an MRI scheduled and start work with a physical therapist. I can still play – I was a practice partner for some of the sessions this week – but cannot play aggressive backhands and have to careful when extending my arm on forehand shots, or going for bit forehand loops. Basically, I’m just going to block for a while, and maybe even chop some. (All this after spending last year battling knee, foot, and back issues. The trials and tribulations of trying to be a forehand attacker at age 65 next month.)

Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind For Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life
I kept hearing about this book (by Jim Murphy, former professional baseball player), so I finally decided to buy and read it. It was pretty good, though of course some of it is similar to what various sports psychology books suggest, but it put a lot of good info together. Here are three quotes from the book that I jotted down.

P54 BFF – Belief, Focus, Free[dom]. These are three pillars of play that apply directly to table tennis. If you believe in your shots, focus, and play free (i.e., relaxed and let your training take over), you will maximize your play and your chances of winning.
P165 “Simplicity is the key to brilliance.” -Bruce Lee. This is something I harp on in my Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers book, where I open the book by writing, "Tactics isn't about finding complex strategies to defeat an opponent. Tactics is about sifting through all the zillions of possible tactics and finding a few simple ones that work."
P223 “The opponent is not the enemy, they’re our partner in the dance.” -Phil Jackson. If you think this through, it makes great sense. Without an opponent, you can’t do anything, so your opponent is your partner, a specific playing style and level. If you hold up your end of the partnership, you win! If you don’t, then practice until you can.

The Importance of . . . Letting Go of the Fear of Missing (Episode #1)
Here’s the video (16:54) from Neil Myatt Table Tennis. Some good points – but the most important part is at 8:05 when he talks about Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers, and then talks about the difference between tactical and strategic thinking, which is from the book.

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

Home Page
Major Pong Head (blog coverage)
Philadelphia to Host 2025 MLTT Championship Weekend
IT’S MLTT WEEK 8! Let’s Go, Pomona
Here’s the hilarious video (59 sec) posted by Sean O’Neill (the second person to appear, “The man with the heart of a champion”), who wrote, “I am part of MiLTT in Portland. Here is our Pre-Draft Video. This is going to be Epic!” It’s their Minor League Table Tennis Preview.

Illegal Chair of the USATT Board
It’s now been 714 days (102 weeks) since USATT elected Richard Char to an illegal third term as chair of the USATT board on Feb. 6, 2023 – such a stain on our legacy. Here’s my July 1 blog about it. Assuming they follow the USATT bylaws this time, they will elect a new chair at the first board meeting in 2025. No meeting has yet been scheduled in the USATT Agendas and Notices page, which doesn’t yet have a 2025 listing. Char will continue as a USATT board member. I have no idea who might run for or get elected as the new chair. Strangely, the USATT Board Listing no longer has anyone listed as chair.

Butterfly Training Tips

Forehand Flip and Backhand Loop Combo (62 sec) with Rachid El Bou Bou
Topspin Defensive Looping (85 sec) with Yu Di

From Player to Coach: How the ITTF Level 1 Coaching Course Changed My Perspective
Here’s the article by Álvaro Munno. Interesting perspective. I took the Level 1 and Level 2 courses a number of years ago, and taught an ITTF Level 1 course, similar to the one he writes about.

If You Cheat, You’re Gonna Get Beat
Here’s the video (36:46) from Louis Levene, alias “Looee Looee.”

New from Olav Kosolosky

Transitioning Between Smooth Forehand and Pips Backhand with Yang Xiaoxin
Here’s the video (2:42) from PongSpace.

A Guide to Table Tennis Etiquette
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak.

Table Tennis Balls: What Is The Difference Between 38 mm Ball And 40 mm Ball
Here’s the video (3:27) from Pingispågarna.

USA Table Tennis Announces Coaching Leadership for 2025-2028 Quadrennial
Here’s the USATT news item.

Attack vs. Chop Point
Here’s the video (40 sec) – just a good point showing how to patiently play a defensive chopper. But most choppers won’t make that many effective returns!

Academic Eligibility Form--Spring '25 and Post Season
Here’s the news item from NCTTA.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from the ITTF

Top TT Moments of 2024
Here’s the video (65 min) from Table Tennis Daily.

Lots of Ping-Pong Shirts
Here they are from Walmart!

The Ghost Serve or the World’s Fastest Serve?
Here’s the video (9 sec)!

If a Giant Ape and a Table Tennis Player Got Into an Argument...
Here’s the video (18 sec) from standup comic Jimmy Carr!

150 Ping Pong Team Names: Funny, Cool & Catchy Ideas
Here’s the article and listing!

Non-Table Tennis - Alternative Liberties and Upcoming Stories
Tonight from 6-9PM Eastern Time there will be a reading from some of the authors from the new anthology, Alternative Liberties, which just came out today in kindle format. (Here is the Print version.) I’m one of the authors (“Legacy”), and will be doing my reading around 8:15PM or so. My story is 1,200 words, but all the authors are supposed to read just the first 600 or so words – you’ll have to get the book to get the rest! All of the stories are basically in opposition to the incoming administration that starts today. It’s actually one of a series of books in the Alternative Truths series – I have a story in each one.

On a related note, it’s going to be a wild week for me. From Jan. 20-31, I have five new science fiction/fantasy stories coming out (yes, I get paid for them!), and I’m interviewed on Thursday. I’ll post links to these in my next two blogs. These days I'm 50-50 between TT and SF.

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Larry Hodges Mon, 01/20/2025 - 18:30

January 13, 2024

Larry Hodges — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 18:19:48 +0000

January 13, 2024

Tip of the Week
Why Lobbing is Good For You, Why Lobbing is Bad For You.

Weekend Coaching
I coached in four group sessions over the weekend, totaling 6.5 hours. I spent about half of them feeding multiball, half as a practice partner/coach. I think I blocked about 10,000 shots over the weekend! If I block like this in tournaments, I’ll never lose. I also had some good counterlooping duels with some of the more advanced players – my training of the last few months has made this a bit easier. Ryan Li (age 9, rated 1568, moving up fast) did a drill with me where I blocked one to backhand, one to middle, one to backhand, one to wide forehand, and he alternated backhand and forehand – and did 600 in a row without missing at a pretty good pace. (The drill actually started with him serving backspin, I push to his backhand, he backhand loops, I block, and then the footwork drill begins. But because he wasn’t missing, he only had to do two backhand loops – yes, I missed one block along the way, but his count continued.)

We did a lot of doubles in one session. I gave the short version of my standard doubles tactics lecture. (Here’s my book, Table Tennis Doubles for Champions.) After the session, a number of them stayed late to play doubles for about an hour.

It seems like every week my eyes get worse. As noted in my blog last week, I’m getting cataract eye surgery in February. Right now, if I cover my left eye, I can barely recognize people from across the table, their faces are just blurs – my right eye has 20-150 vision. My left eye is 20-70, also pretty bad. As noted before, no wonder I’ve been struggling to read spin – the serving motion and other spin shots, and the ball itself, are just blurs! It happened so gradually that I barely noticed it was happening.

There’s another problem regarding the cataracts. My near vision is also slightly blurry, even with my reading glasses. This means reading, including on a computer screen, strains my eyes – and since I read a lot, I’ve had regular headaches for the last couple of months. Just watching the screen as I type this hurts my eyes – after a while, it’s like a chainsaw in my head, and my eyes feel like burning coals. There’s a chance I might have to stop blogging until after the cataract surgery – not sure yet. I would still have a Tip of the Week every Monday – I recently spent half a day writing up enough to go to the end of March. But the thought of not reading . . . that’s like not eating! (Meanwhile, I’m getting advice now on Medicare – which should cover the cataract surgery – from Luz Brissett, a player from New Jersey. I just got off the phone with her - she’s been very helpful.)

Virginia Tech Table Tennis Scholarship
Here’s info – note that deadline is in two days, Jan. 15! (I blogged about this last week. One item left out previously – scholarship is for US citizens only.) Special thanks to Jim and Elizabeth Mossberg for the creation of this TT scholarship. (Jim Mossberg is a long-time player and leader in Maryland Table Tennis and a big help to me when I started playing in 1976.) Applicants must major in the College of Engineering (which includes computer science), Computational Modeling & Data Analytics, Mathematics, Physics, or Statistics.

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

The Goats of Table Tennis Were Forced to Retire
Here’s the video (2:17) from Taco Backhand.

DON'T MISS OUT--NCTTA Spring 2025 Season
Here’s the article from NCTTA.

Butterfly Training Tips

Gameplay Random Play (65 sec) with Arantxa Cossio Aceves
Random Backhand, Forehand Freeplay (60 sec) with Rogelio Castro
Footwork & Stroke Chemistry (65 sec) with Taiwo Adeyinka
Backhand, Middle, Backhand, Forehand (78 sec) with Arantxa Cossio Aceves

How to Learn and Practice Small Steps
Here’s the video (4:10) from Pingispågarna.

New from PongSpace

How to Return a Serve (5:45)
Taking Shots to the Middle (3:10)

How to Level Up Your Forehand Topspin Technique
Here’s the video (7:30) from Ti Long. Note the part at the start where he shows how to use the power from the legs and hips, a key aspect many don’t do properly.

7 Pro Tactics from Ma Long - How To Win Like A Champion!
Here’s the video (7:45) from Rational Table Tennis. Hey, he stole the first three and last three tactics from me! (My backhand isn’t strong enough for #4.) But these are excellent tactical examples. The first three involve serve and attack, and are ones I use and coach others to use regularly.

The #1 Exercise You Need to Improve at Table Tennis
Here’s the video (8:31) from Enzo Angles.

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

Mental Training Tip – Table Tennis is a Team Sport: Why Cohesion Matters
Here’s the article By Dr. Alan Chu, Ph.D., CMPC.

New from PingSkills

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from USATT

New from ITTF

When Your Friend Forgets His Racket
Here’s the video (20 sec) – where they play with only one racket!

Garage Junk Pong
Here’s the video (16 sec)!

Best of Balls of Fury
Here’s the video (52 sec), with clips from the best scenes from the 2007 table tennis comedy movie Balls of Fury. Yes, that’s Christopher Walken in some of the scenes – he plays the bad guy. Movie is available on Amazon Prime video, Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube, and Fandango at Home.

New from Table Tennis Daily

I CHALLENGED WORLD NO. 26 ANDERS LIND! (11:09)
TTD TEAM vs THE CHAIRMAN! (10:39)
I Challenged The WORLD'S BEST KID! | Benyamin Faraji (7:47)

Master Level Ping Pong
Here’s the video (8:57) from Pongfinity! “Best shots, rallies and moments from 2024! What a year, thank you everybody for your support!”

***
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Larry Hodges Mon, 01/13/2025 - 18:19

January 6, 2024

Larry Hodges — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 18:01:24 +0000

January 6, 2024

Tips of the Week (since my last blog)

Dec. 16: What Type of Backhand Flip Should You Develop?
Dec. 23: Are You Maximizing Your Service Spin?
Dec. 30: Experiment and Learn
Jan. 06: Blocking is Just Reverse Dodgeball

2024 US Open
This was a strange tournament for me as it was literally the first US Open or Nationals since the early 1990s where I was primarily a player. Normally I’m coaching at these events and playing a few events on the side. We normally have around 15-20 of our junior players from MDTTC at these events – our record was 37 at one US Open. But this year we only had three, and they had coaches already, so I wasn’t really needed.

Readers of this blog know that I decided to make a comeback as a player back in August, but I didn’t expect it to be my main thing at the Open. But after 30+ years mostly coaching at these events, this time I was a player.

And I won two golds! I won both Over 40 and Over 60 Hardbat Singles. Normally I use sponge, but I play hardbat on the side. Two other events I hoped to do well in were Over 60 Singles and Doubles (with sponge). Alas, I didn’t play well in those events. But I now have a good idea of why.

I used to wear glasses for distance vision, but not for reading. Then a strange thing happened – as I got older, my distance vision got better and better, while my near vision got worse. I used to wear glasses for table tennis, movies, and driving, but I stopped about ten years ago. A year or so ago, when I last saw an optometrist, my distance vision was nearly 20-20. I even passed the vision test at the MVA without glasses with ease. But over the past year it’s gotten progressively worse, and things in the distance became blurry. Right after the Open I saw an optometrist, and found out why. My vision in my left eye is now 20-70, in my right eye it’s 20-150! This means that, for example, with my right eye what a person with normal vision can see from 20 feet is like 150 feet away for me. No wonder I couldn’t read spins! That affected me more in sponge table tennis, where there’s more spin, than in hardbat. But this will all be fixed – I’m having cataract surgery in February.

The net result was in Over 60 Doubles, where I played with Sung Yang (we were seeded #2), I played poorly, struggling to read both service spins and balls hit by an opponent with long pips, and so we lost in the quarterfinals. (A further complication is I’m told he had frictionless long pips. I won’t go into that here.) In Over 60 Singles, I also had trouble reading spins, as well as reacting to quick-hit shots, and also lost in the quarterfinals. During these matches, I remember feeling like I couldn’t read the spin but didn’t realize just how bad my vision had become.

But I also found another problem with my game to fix. I’m a forehand-oriented player. My backhand is steady but not very aggressive. I’ve worked on that these past few months, and in drills, my backhand is now strong and aggressive. But in games, both at the Open and in practice before, it was as if I couldn’t react to shots. Part of that was likely the vision problem. But I now realize a good part of it was my ready position. Over and over opponents would hit quick shots to my backhand, and I’d struggle to get my racket back in time to make a good shot, and so ended up just getting the ball back without much pace. Why? Because, for some reason, in my ready position, I’d started holding my racket too far out in front. Talk about a small thing that made a big difference!

So, I’m now working on keeping my racket closer in for my ready position so my backhand backswing isn’t so rushed, plus I’ll get the cataract surgery, plus I hope to lose another ten pounds or so. And then I’ll unleash the full fury of my game on the world! I think this news has leaked out – do you think it’s a coincidence that Ma Long and Fan Zhendong are suddenly semi-retiring?

Overall, the training I’ve done with Lidney Castro these past few months have really paid off – despite the vision problem, I’m playing much better, plus I went from 210 to 193 pounds. With the fixes above, I think I can get to 2200+ level, which will make me strongly competitive in Over 60 events.

I did have a few interesting happenings. In one match, an opponent said something rather sarcastic before a match, and somehow I let it bother me. Before the match started I discovered my pulse was racing at over 100! I had to focus on breathing to bring it down, but the result was I started out poorly before getting it together. I had another match where I played well for most of the match, but badly tired at the end and so had to struggle – again, my pulse shot over 100, this time from exhaustion from running about smacking forehands. I had another weird experience. In a hardbat match (games to 21), I was up 16-14 in the first but the opponent played well at the end, and I lost, 21-18. The opponent put the score down as 21-5! When I saw the score listed online, and someone kidded me about it, I went to the control desk and got them to correct it – I had witnesses to verify the score was 21-18.

There was an apparent record 1,485 players in the tournament. (There were about that many at the 1990 US Open, but reports only say there were “1,450 players,” which sounds like an estimate, so the exact numbers that year aren’t clear. So I won’t quibble with calling it a “record” this year.) Why so many? Because players were starved to go back to Las Vegas. People have been telling USATT that for years.

Since the Mandalay Hotel and Convention Center are all in one huge building that seemingly goes on forever, during my eight days in Las Vegas I literally went outside ONE TIME!!! That was when I joined Ryan Lin and his dad Hung to see magician David Copperfield. I also explored the Mandalay Shark Aquarium – I think it’s the third time I’ve gone through it.

And now it’s back to both coaching and training. I hope to be competitive in the Over 60 events at the US Nationals, both sponge and hardbat. However, I expect we’ll have a lot more of our junior players there, so I’ll have to find a balance between coaching and playing.

Weekend Coaching and MDTTC Party
I did five hours of group junior training sessions over the weekend. I spent a lot of it feeding multiball and acting as a practice partner. I had an interesting experience as a practice partner for one of our top players. I’d just spent 20 minutes as a practice partner for a younger kid, about 1600. Against him, I was super consistent. Then I was up against a much stronger player with a much stronger and spinnier loop – and for the first five minutes, my blocks were flying everywhere! It took time to adjust, but then it was like night and day – after five minutes of missing, the subconscious got the message and adjusted, and after that I was back to being a backboard, blocking everything back.

In multiball, the focus was on fundamentals, in particular footwork. I thought this was a good time to explain the specific purpose of each drill so the kids don’t think we’re just making up random patterns. For example, we did the 2-1 drill, also known as the backhand-forehand-forehand drill, also known as the Falkenberg Drill. In this drill, the player does three shots in succession, and then repeats: backhand from backhand side, forehand from backhand side, forehand from forehand side. As I explained to the kids, these are the three most common moves in table tennis.

Afterwards we had our annual club party. Lots of pizza and brownies! (When it was time for dessert I challenged the younger kids, saying, “Brownies are for frownies. No brownies unless you can frown for ten seconds.” They struggled, since most were suffering from the giggles and ignored my declarations that “There’s no smiling in table tennis!”, but all managed to get brownies. Afterwards we had “open play,” where I brought out my racket collection for them to use – five mini-paddles (with Tenergy on both sides), two over-sized rackets, hardbats, woodbats, and the “Ping-Pong Shabbat” book – see below. Most popular, however, was when I put two tables together, end-to-end, with a barrier in the middle as a net (held up by a chair on each side, with the regular nets removed). Playing on an 18-foot table is almost like playing tennis!

Ping-Pong Shabbat: The True Story of Champion Estee Ackerman
I just read it – here’s where you can get it at Amazon. It’s an inspirational kid’s book, 32 pages long, and took about five minutes to read – but reading time wasn’t the point. It told Estee’s story about the predicament of having a finals match scheduled during the Jewish Shabbat and how she dealt with it. It’s got a perfect 5.0 score through 65 ratings.

Estee normally uses sponge, but like me, she plays hardbat on the side, and at a high level. She and I won, and Hardbat Mixed Doubles at the 2017 US Open, and Hardbat Open Doubles at the 2021 US Open.

I’ve added the book to my table tennis book collection – 338 of them! But I’ve discovered a side benefit of the book – it’s hardcover and just the right size for chopping. I’ve been keeping it in my playing bag and taking on challenges from our junior players with it!

Virginia Tech Table Tennis Scholarship
Here’s info from NCTTA! Special thanks to Jim and Elizabeth Mossberg for the creation of this TT scholarship. (Jim Mossberg is a long-time player and leader in Maryland Table Tennis and a big help to me when I started playing in 1976.) Applicants must major in the College of Engineering (which includes computer science), Computational Modeling & Data Analytics, Mathematics, Physics, or Statistics. Here are two other links – I’m told there might be some updates.

2024 Coach of the Year Nominations Open for USA Table Tennis
Here’s the USATT info page.

Tribute to Mossa Barandao at the North American Teams
Here’s the video (3:26). Mossa (RIP) was a pillar of the DC/Maryland table tennis community.

Table Tennis History January 2025
Here’s the newest issue. Here are past issues.

Unpredictable Serves, Unstoppable Game: Malte Möregårdh on Mastering Serve Variation
Here’s the article.

Enzo Angles: The Table Tennis Adventure
Here are his coaching videos.

PPTT Podcast Episode #1 - Introduction + Rapid Learning Techniques for Table Tennis!
Here’s the first episode (14:08) of the new podcast from Peak Performance Table Tennis.

From Good to Great: Marcus Sjöberg on Building Your Game Around What You Do Best
Here’s the article.

Technical Coaching Articles

Self-Confidence and Cognitive Speed: Key Predictors of Topspin Accuracy in Competitive Table Tennis - from Physical Education Theory and Methodology
Indistinguishability of Racket and Body Kinematics during Different Table Tennis Serves for International Elite and Intermediate Players - from Research Gate.

Calls Erupt Against World Table Tennis’ Rule as Support for Olympic Champion’s Decision Grows
Here’s the article from MSN. Since this article came out Ma Long has also withdrawn from the world rankings. Here’s the ITTF article on it.

Coaching and News from All Over
Since I’ve been for a month, rather than try to list every interesting article, here are links to some of the main news and coaching pages that have been active in that time, and you can pick and choose. I’ll get back to linking to individual articles next week.

Butterfly News and Coaching & Video Tips
USATT News
ITTF News
Major League Table Tennis
NCTTA News
PongSpace
Ti Long
Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis
Pingispågarna
Taco Backhand
PingSkills Blog
PingSkills Ask the Coach
Tenis de Mesa from Sevilla (A lot of AI table tennis cartoons)
Adam Bobrow – humorous TT videos
Pongfinity – humorous TT videos

Top Three Best Ways to Spend New Years
Here’s the table tennis video (21 sec)!

Head-Hunting Ping-Pong
Here’s the video (27 sec) showing the dangers of being a coach!

Santa Loses at Ping-Pong
Here’s the cartoon! (Here’s the non-Facebook version.)

Non-Table Tennis – Four Science Fiction & Fantasy Sales in Past Two Weeks
Three of them went to a pair of anthologies from Dragon Soul Press. Here’s my science fiction & fantasy bibliography, with links to many of the stories.

“As a Matter of Fact the Universe Does Revolve Around Me” sold to Dragon Soul’s Between Realms anthology. A teenage girl is literally the center of the universe, which revolves around her, and scientists cannot understand it. Then Galactic Citizens show up, and she begins a multiversal tour.
“Pretty Pictures at War” sold to Dragon Soul’s Between Realms anthology (same as the above). After a well-meaning 4-D being inadvertently humiliates him, a vengeful billionaire invades their 4-D universe with an army. Things don’t go as planned.
“Dragon Cuisine” sold to the Dragon Soul’s Dragon Flight anthology. A young dragon leaves home to seek his fortune, and battles with his food – humans. A wizard turns him into a huge, dragon-sized frog, who hops around smacking people with his tongue. Can he find a human princess to kiss him and transform him back?
“Endlessly Spinning in the Zero Gravity of Space” sold to Book Worms. In the future, criminals are sent to orbital prisons around Neptune, have their arms and legs amputated (care of sadistic guard Pete), their head and torso are strapped into life machines with supplies that keep them healthy and alive, and ejected out of the solar system - spinning, to make it worse - where they’ll live long, incredibly boring lives between the stars. But what happens when one of these criminals isn’t human, and cutting its arms and legs off only makes it angry and determined for revenge? Poor ‘ole Pete . . . and Earth!!!

***
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Larry Hodges Mon, 01/06/2025 - 18:01

December 9, 2024

Larry Hodges — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:25:51 +0000

December 9, 2024

Next Blog – January 6, 2025
I’ll be out of town the rest of the month, leaving for the US Open on Dec. 15, and then Christmas with family in Sonoma, CA (near San Francisco). So, I’ll go back to weekly blogging on Monday, Jan. 6. However, a Tip of the Week will still go up every Monday. Happy Holidays, and see you next year!

Tip of the Week
Off-Speed Blocks.

US Open, and Elite League, and Weekend Coaching
This Sunday, Dec. 15, I’m off for the US Open Dec. 16-21. I’ve been to every US Open and US Nationals starting in 1985 (plus several before that, starting with the 1976 US Open when Gerald Ford was president). So, this will be my 39th US Open in a row, to go with my 39th US Nationals in July. It would be 40 in a row for each except they canceled both in 2020 due to Covid.

Usually I mostly coach at these tournaments but this year I’m more of a player. We only have three juniors from our club going, and they may already have coaches. I’ve been training hard to get ready, though sometimes I feel like the training just gets me tired.

I’ll be competing in six events: Over 60 Men’s Singles (seeded tenth, but there’s a whole bunch of players just ahead of me in the same rating range); Over 60 Men’s Doubles with Sun Yang (we’re second seed); Hardbat Singles (which I’ve won twice before at the US Open or Nationals, but am not really competitive at that level anymore); Over 40 and Over 60 Hardbat Singles (I’ve won Over 40 eight times and Over 60 one time, and have a good chance again in both); and Hardbat Doubles with Allan Anzagira (I’ve won it 14 times – but the field is very strong this year).

Five-times US Men’s Singles Champion Dan Seemiller once told me that when you get older, you sometimes feel like you can play almost as well as you could at your prime. But other times you absolutely can’t play at all. This past Saturday was one of those times.

I played in the MDTTC Elite League on Saturday. And yes, it was a disaster. I’d had a hard training session the day before (Friday), and my muscles were still tired. Then it got worse. We had an odd number of players in our junior group sessions that day, and so for three hours straight (10:30AM-1:30 PM) I acted as a practice partner. I thought this would be good practice for the US Open. I then left for two hours for a late lunch and did some writing. I came back for the Elite League at 4PM, and felt tired, stiff, and old. I played anyway and got killed. I felt like I could barely move, and I kept missing easy shots – the muscles just wouldn’t cooperate. If I’m like that at the US Open, I’m doomed. While I’m an expert on most aspects of table tennis, this training while old (I’m 65 in February) is a new thing.

I’m going to try again in the Elite League next Saturday, the day before leaving for the Open. But I’m going to try to get a little more rest first!

During those three hours I acted as a practice partner I put the players through the usual assortment of drills, all involving strokes and footwork. One interesting drill was the down-the-line drill. I put a ball net on the table so the long handle on it gave them only about 18 inches of table to hit to, and then we hit down the line, first their forehand to my backhand, then their backhand to my forehand. (We were all righties.) When they did well, I moved the ball net closer to the sideline. It kept moving it closer and closer. One girl was able to hit 19 backhands in a row with only four inches of table!

At the end of the more advanced session we met and discussed what we had learned at the North American Teams, which had been held the previous weekend, where they played LOTS of matches. (Nearly all gained rating points, probably an average of over 100 points each.) Some of the topics they brought up:

Vary your serves
Ball placement
Play aggressive
Be aggressive with backhand, not just forehand
Keep your focus
Find opponent’s weakness and go after it. (I noted that this, combined with forcing your game on the opponent, essentially makes up all tactics.)
Don’t forget your shoes and racket!

Help Support the USA Collegiate TT Team at the World University Games!
Here’s the news item. Would you like to be a sponsor?

Open Letter to Petra Sörling (ITTF President) Regarding the Service Rules Issue
Here’s the video (7:01) from Monqui Pong.

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

Home Page
Major Pong Head (blog coverage)
MLTT – SPECIAL EDITION WEEKLY ROUND UP
This MLTT Player Just Made GLOBAL Shockwaves

Butterfly Training Tips

Forehand Looping and Footwork (48 sec) with Jabdiel Torres
Improve Forehand Footwork (2:26) with Jeff Yamada
Forehand Punch Block Against Forehand Loop (60 sec) with Yu Di
Penhold Backhand Loop from Underspin (45 sec) with Hong Lin
FETHOMANIA 19: Drill 5 (50 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman
FETHOMANIA 20: Drill 1 (48 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis.

Biomechanical model forehand topspin table tennis (8:15)
The Grip in Table Tennis classic grip (1:39)
540 hours to make a table tennis player? Video 17 (13:04)
540 hours to make a table tennis player? Video 16 (16:26)
540 hours to make a table tennis player? Video 15 (17:35)
540 hours to make a table tennis player? Video 14 (24:22)
540 hours to make a table tennis player? Video 13 (9:14)

New from PongSpace

Ping Pong Whole Body Workout
Here’s the video (12:02) from Dr. Table Tennis.

New from PingSkills

Kanak Jha and Sid Nareth Training and Talking
Here’s the video (90 sec).

Hugo Calderano vs Darko Jorgic
Here’s the video (13:58) of the 2024 City of Barcelona International Trophy, from TT11TV.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from ITTF

‘Ping Pong’ Serves Up High-Stakes Drama at JAFF Market
Here’s the article about this upcoming movie.

Dark Pong
Here’s the video (21 sec) as they play table tennis in the dark at the San Antonio TTC on Sunday, Dec. 15, 2-6 PM!

We Challenged 100 Kids | German Edition
Here’s the video (6:21) from Table Tennis Daily!

Why I Lose at Table Tennis
Here’s where you can buy the shirt!

Toddler Pong
Here’s the video (8 sec) of toddler playing while standing on table – and he’s pretty good!

No Mercy: Adam vs Timo
Here’s the video (9:58) from Adam Bobrow!

Extreme Mini Golf Courts
Here’s the video (9:09) from Pongfinity! Some great stuff.

***
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Larry Hodges Mon, 12/09/2024 - 17:25

December 2, 2024

Larry Hodges — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:22:14 +0000

December 2, 2024

Tip of the Week
Where to Serve From.

North American Teams
Yesterday I finished coaching at my 48th consecutive Teams – that’s 144 days! My first was in 1976, when it was the US Open Teams in Detroit. Now it’s the North American Teams in Washington DC. (They skipped 2020 because of Covid or this would be my 49th in a row.) I used to play in it, of course, then became a player/coach, but now I just coach. This year there were 239 teams and 921 players. My club, MDTTC, had 14 junior teams and 7 coaches. I ended up coaching in about 90 matches – sometimes two at a time. On Friday I coached from 9AM to 8PM; Sat 8AM to midnight; and Sunday (on very little sleep) 8AM to 8PM. (That’s 39 hours in three days.) I coached 17 Team matches in all.

Here's an interview (90 sec) at the Teams with Stanley Hsu, the US # 16-year-old, from MDTTC.

As usual, it was a combination of tactics, sports psychology, and other happenings. Here are some highlights:

The hardest thing about coaching in tournaments is finding the balance between playing tactically to win now (which might mean, for example, just pushing at lower levels), and playing strategically, where they try to learn to win with more advanced playing techniques, which usually means attacking. If your junior player wins now by just pushing while the opposing junior loses by looping, but a year later the opposing player is better because he focused on learning to win with a more advanced style, who really won? However, it’s also important that players learn to think tactically, and if they just blindly play “advanced shots,” they don’t develop their tactical skills as well. But there is a balance, if we can find it.
There was a stretch on Saturday where every time I called a timeout I’d tell the player what to serve, and like magic, the opposing player would promptly miss every one of those serves. It was as if they were cooperating. There is an instinct for this type of thing that comes from years of playing and coaching, but sometimes it’s almost like magic. I felt like a Jedi. (Key thing to remember – I stress to the player that you never serve with the expectation that the opponent will miss the serve – always assume it’ll come back, and if they do happen to miss the serve outright, you can then be pleasantly surprised.)
There were at least three times where I was literally on my feet, about to call a timeout, and then decided not to. Again, almost like magic, each time I didn’t call a timeout, my player would go on a run! The best one was, when, at 9-all, I wanted my player to do two specific serves. He was on the far side, so I couldn’t call out to him without the opponent hearing, and I didn’t have a signal system set up for him. Without my prompting, he did exactly those two serves, and the opponent missed one and popped the other up! Some of the best timeouts are the ones you don’t call.
I had a déjà vu experience. At 9-all in the fifth, my player was serving. We’d already taken a timeout. The opponent rolled his first serve off the end, 10-9 match point for us. This was an identical situation to a few years ago, when US junior star Ryan Lin was in the same situation in a big tournament in Ecuador, at the exact same scores. Both times I did the same thing – with my player on the far side, I waved my arms to get his attention, then pantomimed a backhand serve. Neither player had a particularly good backhand serve, but it was a new look, and both of them did it only with sidespin that looked a bit like backspin. Both times the player did the backhand serve, and both times the opponent rolled the ball off the end, and both times my player wins on that, 11-9 in the fifth. And both times I was incredibly nervous – what if the opponent rips the serve in for a winner? But in both cases, while I thought there was a good chance the opponent would put the serve off the end, the actual plan was to use the serve to set up a strong attack.
One of our younger players could serve backspin but had never really served “heavy no-spin,” where you use a big motion and fake heavy backspin, but hit the ball near the handle and so give little backspin. After losing the first game to an opponent who pushed his serves back low and deep, I literally showed him how to do the serve between games, and he went back out, and using an almost comically exaggerated motion, started using the serve, and got so many popped up returns he won!
As usual, we constantly stress placement to the three spots (wide corners and opponent’s middle); varying the serve’s spin, location, and depth; smart receives; playing aggressive; quickly finding what works against each opponent while getting our own strengths into play; and staying relaxed and calm no matter the score. Focus has to be not on winning, but on playing well, as that’s what leads to the most winning.
Sports psychology is important at all levels, but even more so for kids. The simplest solution, which worked for many of them, was to simply take a step back from the table between if they got nervous, and stare at something in the distance for five seconds to clear their mind. Then they’d restrict themselves to thinking only about simple tactics, and the nervousness would be gone. Well, mostly!
I watched two kids, both about 8 years old and rated about 500, out of the blue play a 2700 point. I wish that sudden exchange of counter-smashes, about four each, were on video. I think my jaw is still dropping.
I found a simple way to cheer up the kids or to relax them. I asked one of them, “Want to see me hit forehands?” She was hesitant, but I convinced her to hold out both her hands. Then I lightly hit both her hands, then hit my own left hand with my right, and my right hand with my left. Then I said, “See, I just hit four hands.” I did this joke with about ten of our kids. At least one of them was seen doing this joke with a kid from another club.
There was some cases of bad sportsmanship. Two really stuck out. In one, I was coaching a girl, about ten, and the ball rolled to the adjacent table. The other table was between rallies, so it didn’t disturb their play. As she approached to pick up the ball, one of the players on that table – a grown man – reached down and smacked the ball with his racket as hard as he could, sending it four tables away and causing lets on two tables.
The other case of bad sportsmanship came in the fifth game of the ninth match. Our player took a 4-1 lead. The opponent hit the ball well off the end, hitting my player’s racket and ricocheting back into the table’s side, our point, 5-1. Our player and the opposing player, a junior girl, agreed her shot went off the end, as did the scorekeeper who flipped it to 5-1, and they were about to switch sides. The opposing coach insisted the ball had hit the table, even though it had been well off. A referee came over and asked the players, and both agreed the ball had gone off the table, our point. Kudos to the opposing girl for her honesty – if she’d claimed her shot hit, the referee would have declared the point a let. But despite this, the opposing coach, with their large contingent following his lead, kept arguing about it, and it got pretty ugly. The end result was, after ten minutes of arguing, my player, age ten, a complete innocent stuck in the middle of an unwanted and unneeded controversy caused by adults, was on the floor crying. They finally went back to play with the score correctly at 5-1, but the damage was done – our player couldn’t play, and lost seven points in a row after the break and lost, 11-9 in the fifth of the ninth match. As one of the umpires had told me earlier, the kids are not the problem, it’s the adults. (Alas, I don’t think we have video of the point. But what’s interesting is that the opposing coach, after seeing the ball ricochet off our player’s racket and into the table and badly wanting the point, probably convinced himself that it had hit the table first. The adults in their contingent, also badly wanting the point, just mindlessly followed his lead. Meanwhile, the kids on both teams and others around were all watching all this and learning, one way or the other. We had a good talk with our kids about this situation, and the one who got stuck in the middle of it seems to be over it – helped by the fact that his team ended up getting medals.)

Coaching and News from All Over
Besides being exhausted from coaching 39 hours and 90 matches in three days, I have a bunch of errands and other things to take care of today, so rather than link to all the new articles and videos, below are ones that have new items out.

The World’s Fastest Table Tennis Serve
Here’s the video (25 sec).

Five Misses in Three Seconds
Here’s the video (8 sec)!

No Table Tennis No Life
Here’s where you can buy the shirt!

Adam Bobrow vs. Timo Boll
Here’s the video (14:34) from Adam Bobrow!

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Larry Hodges Mon, 12/02/2024 - 17:22

November 25, 2024

Larry Hodges — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 16:25:31 +0000

November 25, 2024

Tip of the Week
How to Do a Relentless Three-Point Attack.

Teams, Coaching, and Foot
I’m rushing to get this blog out since I’m coaching at the MDTTC Teams Camp over the next three days, getting our players ready for the North American Teams, Fri-Sun, Nov. 29 – Dec. 1. There are currently 910 players and 226 teams – here’s the listing. There are 14 MDTTC junior teams. We’ll have seven MDTTC coaches working with them, including me.

I first played in the Teams in my first year of playing, way back in 1976, when I was 16. I’ve played or coached at them every year since – this is my 49th year in a row except for 2020, when they were cancelled due to Covid.

While coaching a junior group this weekend a couple of them had trouble hitting forehands down the line. They would often twist their arm around like a pretzel to get the racket to aim down the line, thereby messing up their stroke. The correct way is to either take the ball a little later while rotating the body and shoulders about more (often with back foot farther back) to line up the shot down the line, or to step in closer with the left foot (for a righty), which also rotates the body clockwise and puts you in position for that down the line shot.

I also worked with a group of advanced beginners on smashing. One of the best ways to do this is to put a box or some other object on the table, and feed multiball as they take turns trying to smash the ball into the target. Each time they hit it the target should move back some, until they finally hit it off the table, to great cheering. (We have a bunch of spaghetti collanders we use for this and to hold balls for service practice.) I had them do it three players at a time, each getting three forehands (from wide backhand, middle, wide forehand) as they rotated clockwise in a circle, taking turns, with a fourth player picking up balls and rotating in every two minutes or so.

Meanwhile, I’m still having problems with my right foot. I spent much of the weekend coaching, about half of it as a practice partner, and towards the end I was hobbling about. I saw a podiatrist last week and now have a new insole, but it’s uncomfortable. I haven’t tried it out playing yet.

Bill Lui RIP
Long-time Bay Area coach Bill Lui died on Nov. 13. He was one of the coaches that turned the Bay Area into a table tennis powerhouse, starting in the early 1990s or possibly earlier. For twenty years I regularly sat across table tennis courts from him, coaching our respective players. He was the 1996 USATT Developmental Coach of the Year.

Here’s a profile/obit by Sean O’Neill
Here’s an eight-minute video of Bill coaching
Funeral Announcement – it’s tomorrow (Tue, Nov. 26)

Want to be a Coach or Team leader for World University Games Team in 2025?
Here’s the news item from the NCTTA.

US #1 Kanak Jha Has Youtube Page
Here it is.

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

Home Page
Major Pong Head (blog coverage)
MLTT Bringing Pro Pong to Westchester County

14 Must-Read Table Tennis Books
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak.

Block Like a Pro – Top 5 tips from Craig Bryant
Here’s the video (7:18).

Butterfly Training Tips

FETHOMANIA 19: Drill 1 (55 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman
FETHOMANIA 19: Drill 2 (51 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman

New from Dr. Table Tennis

Table Tennis Balance Training (56 sec)
Table Tennis Serve Training Drills (10 exercises) (5:17)

New from Beyond the Podium

Xu Xin - The Penhold Genius Defying Gravity (5:07)
Anders Lind’s Life-Changing Car Crash: A Remarkable Comeback (4:19)
Ma Long: A Legend’s Journey (4:34)

New from PingSkills

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

540 hours to make a table tennis player? Video 9 (14:01)
540 hours to make a table tennis player? Video 10 (18:32)
Medium intensity training. Two balls per second (1:03)

How to Play with LONG PIMPLES | Part 2
Here’s the video (3:06) from Pingispågarna. (Here’s Part 1.)

Backhand Shaving Technique (with Long Pips) with Yang Xiaoxin
Here’s the video (3:37) from PongSpace.

New from Table Tennis Daily

USATT Announces Election Timeline for Third and Fourth Elite Athlete Board Reps And Opens Nomination Process for USATT Athlete’s Advisory Council
Here’s the news item.

New from Steve Hopkins

New from ITTF

Furniture Pong
Here’s the video (7 sec)!

Building The Perfect Ping Pong Table
Here’s the video (8:06) from Pongfinity!

Non-Table Tennis - Even Yet Still More Pings and Pongs
My 22nd book just came out, “Even Yet Still More Pings and Pongs.” Nope, it’s not table tennis, it’s the newest collection of my science fiction & fantasy short stories. When I sell a story to a magazine or anthology, after it’s been published, I put them together in collections – and this is the fifth in the series. (Here are all my books.) As with my “Tips” series, I keep adding a word to the start, so there was “Pings and Pongs”; “More Pings and Pong”; “Still More Pings and Pongs”; “Yet Still More Pings and Pongs”; and now, just published, “Even Yet Still More Pings and Pongs” (156 pages)! Here’s the back cover description:

Here are 25 stories from the insane mind of Larry Hodges ... God and his pet squirrel are not happy with humanity ... What really happened when Neil and Buzz stepped on the Moon? ... How a silver bowl from Roman times destroyed and saved the world ... If a sentient computer is programmed to feel emotions, perhaps you shouldn’t put it at the highest setting ... Can a super-smart goldfish take over the world ... Meet the world’s first T-Rex superhero - but does he have humanity’s best interests in mind? ... A 4-D being collects 3-D beings for his wall - but runs into problems when he collects a vampire ... Aliens are poaching humans for their teeth! A dark allegory on the elephant and rhino poaching trade ... War is so pointless and endless that it might as well be played on a clock ... In a world of non-stop action, where superheroes constantly battle supervillains, watching paint drip might be the only break ... A human goes to war with the spiders under his skin ... A bullied werewolf boy settles all accounts on Halloween ... A family that eats grandma’s eyeballs, where virtue is the ultimate perversion ... And many more!

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Larry Hodges Mon, 11/25/2024 - 16:25

November 18, 2024

Larry Hodges — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 17:26:13 +0000

November 18, 2024

Tip of the Week
How to Loop Against Deep, Heavy Backspin.

MDTTC Open and My Books
Here are the results of the MDTTC Open, held at my club this past weekend. Winning the Open was Stanley Hsu (2521), who recently turned 16. (He defeated MDTTC coach Bruno, rated 2558, in the final, 9,9,9.) In the semifinals were Mu Du (16, 2376) and Ryan Lin (just turned 15, 2399). James Zhang (17, 2275 but recently over 2300), was up 7-5 in the fifth against Stanley in the quarterfinals. All four started out in my beginning classes. (Mu Du technically started in our summer camps, but spent the first month or so in my beginning group.) They spent years since in private and group sessions with our other great coaches (and I’ve also worked with them since), but I helped get them started back when they could barely see over the table!!! They (and their coaches) have worked incredibly hard to get where they are. It’s hard to believe that they’ll all be heading off to college soon.

I set up a table at the tournament (paying MDTTC $100) and sold my books there, both table tennis and science fiction. I had 20 on sale. 11 were table tennis and 11 SF, which adds up to 22, since two of them were hybrids, i.e. my two table tennis novels, “The Spirit of Pong” and “First Galactic Table Tennis Championships” (technically a novelette, since it’s only 41 pages long). I ended up selling 41 books – one for every page of the “Galactic” novelette. The choices were wide-ranging. Here’s the breakdown of sales for the weekend:

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers 7 (would sell more except all the locals already have this, including all our top junior stars, who I gave copies to long ago as gifts)
First Galactic Table Tennis Championships 6
Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips 4
Table Tennis Tips 3
More Table Tennis Tips 3
Still More Table Tennis Tips 3
The Spirit of Pong 3
Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook 3
Table Tennis Tales & Techniques 2
Table Tennis Doubles for Champions 2
Larry’s Adventure in Europe and Egypt 2
Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions 1
More Pings & Pongs 1
When Parallel Lines Meet 1

In my free time between selling and chatting, I did the final proofing of my next book, “Even Yet Still More Pings and Pongs,” the latest collection of my short stories, which will likely be on sale by next Monday – I’ll link to it in that blog. (I managed to work table tennis into a few of the stories.) I sell the science fiction & fantasy stories to various magazine and anthology markets; they pay me varying amounts from roughly $50 to $1500 for the stories and publish them; typically 3-6 months later the rights revert back to me, and then I compile them in the next collection. (I explain in the forward to each book that I adopted the “Pings & Pongs” as the name for my short stories because of my table tennis background.) You may have noticed the parallel naming paradigm I’ve been using for my Tips and Pings & Pongs series. The two series includes:

Table Tennis Tips
More Table Tennis Tips
Still More Table Tennis Tips
Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips
Even Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips – coming in 2026
Pings & Pongs
More Pings & Pongs
Still More Pings & Pongs
Yet Still More Pings & Pongs
Even Yet Still More Pings & Pongs – coming next week!

USATT Election and My Choices
=>NOTE – skip ahead if you have no interest in USATT politics. My interest there is also waning.
I strongly considered running in the current USATT election. If I did, I’d have run on specific issues on developing our sport via grass roots and as a partner with Major League Table Tennis, and on cleaning up our sport (i.e., USATT following their own governing rules). However, I concluded that I’d spend the next few years in the minority, arguing with the majority about these issues and unable to get anything serious done, especially in terms of something as simple as following our own rules, as I’ve blogged about repeatedly. My arguments that we should follow our own bylaws, or that we should address the problem that we’ve lost over 2/3 of our USATT certified coaches, have fallen on deaf ears. (Quick note – I voted for Alex Figueroa and Dell Sweeris – see my reasons below.)

For example, the current chair of the board, Richard Char, is on his third consecutive term, and the bylaws say you can only serve two consecutive terms and so he is not legal. But few on the board are willing to point out the obvious – and they are not happy that I keep bring such uncomfortable issues up. They used a maneuver where they made Char’s re-election in Dec. 6, 2021 effective Jan. 1, 2021, eleven months before, thereby claiming his first term was not a full term and so didn’t count, when of course he had already served a full term at the time of the election on Dec. 6. The bylaws are very specific that a term continues until the next election, not when the board arbitrarily makes it “effective” as they did in this display of political abuse. But there's no longer any accountability. I’ve blogged about it a number of times, including Feb. 12, 2024 and Feb. 19, 2024. I would not be popular on the current board, just right – and being right when you are in the minority can be highly frustrating. As readers of this blog know, this is only one of numerous issues like this.

Just for the record, we’ve now had an illegal chair for 93 weeks (651 days), since Feb. 6, 2023. Unless they do more shenanigans – less likely now since they’ve been called out on it – his term ends in a few weeks, on Dec. 31, 2024. And once again, no accountability for this blatant abuse.

Another reason I decided not to run was the “USATT Board Member Code of Conduct” and the “USATT Board Member Social Media Policy.” (Both are on the USATT Policies and Documents page.) The Code of Conduct the statement, “As a member of USATT Board I will not…”

Be critical, in or outside of a board meeting, of other board members. This does not restrict me from respectfully disagreeing with another board member
Interfere with the duties of the CEO or undermine the authority of the CEO

Anything I write critical of USATT, as I often do here in my blog, would be taken as violations of the above. They might not actually be violations, but in recent years USATT has interpreted things however they want to, and they’d be looking for anything they could say is a violation, whether it was or not. All the CEO or chair has to do is bring in one of their hand-picked lawyers who, as a lawyer, will argue their case to the board, and then the board can rationalize they are just going along with the lawyer. They’ve done this over and over, and is literally how board members have explained to me why they’ve gone along with some of these shenanigans. “I just followed the lawyer’s advice” is almost a mantra for some.

For example, see my Oct. 14, 2024 blog, where in the USATT Election segment (where I also wrote about why I decided not to run), I point out how when board member Thomas Hu, an MBA, saw possible discrepancies in the budget. Rather than let him see the detailed financials, they brought in a lawyer to argue that he had a “possible” conflict of interest and so shouldn’t see them, even though the bylaws clearly say board members need access to these financials. Putting aside that there is no conflict in owning a club and seeing the USATT financials – Thomas even said they could keep anything about sponsors out of what they sent him –the even bigger issue is they didn’t even try to pretend it was a conflict of interest, the lawyer argued it was a “possible” conflict, and that’s all the board needed to rationalize going along with it. If Thomas has seen the financials and taken advantage of it in some way, then they could have gone after him in all sorts of ways. But that wasn’t the goal – the goal was to keep him from seeing the financials, and they succeeded. Result – Thomas, one of the very few board members over the last four years to ever vote against the CEO or chair, including arguing against the illegal third term for the chair (and even running against him, knowing he had no chance), decided it was pointless staying on the board, and so isn’t running for re-election.

A third reason I didn’t run is that I find the election somewhat less significant than the bigger one the US recently had – and no, I’m not happy with the result. We’ll see how that works out and I’ll refrain from writing more on it in this table tennis blog.

One thing that comes up whenever I discuss the shenanigans of the current USATT administration with board members or other USATT people is that they quickly try to change the subject to reciting the apparent accomplishments of the administration. Three problems. First, it’s almost a recitation, as if they are just repeating what they’ve been told over and over. Second, it’s generally an exaggeration that mostly falls apart when scrutinized. And third, I get frustrated because I can either point out they have changed the subject to avoid the issues I’ve brought up – and thereby not refute the exaggerations – or I can refute the exaggerations, and thereby let them change the topic away from the shenanigans. Welcome to political talk 101!!! (Much of this is reminiscent of the “Nixon defense,” where he was defended not by refuting the corruption charges, but by trying to change the topic to the good things he’d done. It’s the typical autocrat defense – “but he got the trains to run on time,” where they often didn’t actually get the trains to run on time, but it successfully changes the topic from corruption to whether or not the trains ran on time, and with control of the media, they could convince the masses that the trains did, in fact, run on time. And even if they did, that doesn’t excuse the abuses.)

Regarding the election, there are four running for two spots, Alex Figueroa, Dell Sweeris, Tuan Le, and Danny Leung. I originally didn’t plan to get involved, but what the heck. I voted for Alex and Dell. Below is my analysis, with * by my two votes.

I’ve linked their names to their campaign statements. I wasn’t impressed by any of the campaign statements, alas. They were all generic. If I were advising them, I’d strongly advise them to come up with some specific issues they’d fight for, so as to stand out. As it is, none of them really stand out – most give credentials (good), and then make a few general statements about fighting for us or advancing the sport, etc., without giving specific reasons why you should do so. Specifics are important in a campaign statement.

*Alex Figueroa. He’s the only one of the candidates that has been critical of USTT for some of the issues I’ve pointed out, and the most likely to continue to do so. In his campaign statement he rightly argued for better Communication and more Transparency, two of the few specifics in the four campaign statements, though I’d have liked him to have been a bit more hard-hitting on why these are needed. (Ironically, many of the USATT abuses are done right out in the open, where all you have to do is read the minutes. There’s currently no serious oversight of most USATT matters or repercussions for abuse.) Some USATT people are very strongly opposed to Alex being on the board, and I’ll likely hear from one or more of them for voting for him. If you like things exactly as they are, don’t vote for Alex. If you want some changes and feel USATT should follow its own governing rules, vote for him. (I haven’t actually met him, though I’ve had some discussions with him online.)
*Dell Sweeris. Very nice guy, previously on the board in the 1980s, and a member of the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame – surprisingly, this was left off his campaign statement. He’s done more for the sport than any of the others, as a player, coach, and administrator, and only a handful in the sport have credentials as strong as his. He has a strong financial background, with an MBA. My only concern is that he seems to see the best in people, and so may go along with some of the shenanigans we’ve gone through these past few years. Board members are often stuck in a bubble, and if you focus on seeing the best in people when you are in a governing role, it’s easy to just go along to get along, especially since the ones abusing the rules are often the friendliest, though in a glib way. We’ll see.
Tuan Le. I’ve only met him briefly, and I’m told is another nice guy and apparently good regionally. But he’s strongly supportive of the current administration and appears to go along with their shenanigans. Shortly after he was elected he told me to contact him if I had any concerns. I sent him an email outlining my concerns, but he never responded. When I emailed the board about the illegal chair, he also did not respond.
Danny Leung. I don’t think I’ve met him, and know nothing about him other than that he’s a coach at Table Tennis America and what’s in his campaign statement. Since he’s generally lesser known than the others (at least nationally), it was important for him to come out with a strong set of specific issues in his statement, rather than general statements. Since he’s a fellow coach, I’d have liked to have found a reason to vote for him. Maybe next time.

On a related note, I’m disgusted about the Club Rep “election.” Four years ago they had an election for Club Rep, and Will Shortz, another nice guy who’s good regionally but goes along with the various shenanigans I’ve outline, was elected. (In four years and over 200 votes, he’s voted with the chair and CEO 100% of the time, and never raised an objection to the abuses I’ve pointed out. See my note on this and more in my Oct. 14, 2024 blog, USATT Election segment, second bullet list, third item.) This time around the USATT Nominating and Governance Committee decided to simply appoint the position (presumably Will, though that hasn’t been announced that I know of), and so there will be no election for the position. Sorry, you aren't really a club rep unless you are elected by the ones you are supposed to represent. The USATT membership, which funds the bulk of USATT activities, now only gets to vote for two of the 12 board positions, which is a travesty that someday needs to be changed.

Butterfly Training Tips

Step Around Forehand Loop (1:35) with Darryl Tsao
FETHOMANIA 18: Drill 4 (47 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman
FETHOMANIA 18: Drill 5 (40 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman

Hate Long Serves?
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak. “These simple tips will help you return these nasty serves.”

One Forehand One Backhand Drill with Robert Gardos
Here’s the video (2:56) from PongSpace.

We React To THE MÖREGÅRDH SNAKE
Here’s the video (3:13) from Pingispågarna.

540 Hours to Make a Table Tennis Player?
Here’s the video 8 (14:04) from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis.

JOOLA’s Talkin' Smash: Do Players Focus on the Wrong Areas for Improvement
Here’s the video (46:47) with Matt Hetherington interviewing Thiago Monteiro.

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

Home Page
Major Pong Head (blog coverage)

The Broken Promises of a Table Tennis Olympian
Here’s the New York Times article on Michael Hyatt. Wow. Just wow.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

USATT Announces Results of First and Second Elite Athlete Board Positions Election And Opens Nomination Process for Third and Fourth Elite Athlete Reps Election
Here’s the USATT news item.

New from ITTF

LA Times Crossword
On Thur, Nov. 14, the 16 across question was, “Reason for copyright suits filed by Atari?” The answer: “APINGPONG,” i.e., “Aping Pong.” It was a play on the “Ping Pong” with “A” added at the start. This fit in with the puzzle’s theme, which came from 57 across, where the question was, “’Haven’t seen that before,’” and an apt title for this puzzle.” The answer was, “ITSAFIRST,” i.e. “It’s A first.” The puzzle had four answers where a regular phrase was changed by adding an “A” at the start. Here’s the puzzle – alas, you have to go through a 13-sec ad and then select the proper date.

Incredible Forehand Block
Here’s the video (14 sec)!

Incredible Point
Here’s the video (20 sec)!

Mad Table Tennis
Here’s the video (2:38)!

Climate Change is a Hoax
Here’s the cartoon! Amazingly, there are people who still believe it’s a hoax.

Non-Table Tennis - Galahad Returns
My fantasy story, “Galahad Returns,” is in this week’s issue of Black Cat Weekly!

***
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Larry Hodges Mon, 11/18/2024 - 17:26

November 11, 2024

Larry Hodges — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 17:19:45 +0000

November 11, 2024

Tip of the Week
How to Flip Short, Heavy Backspin.

RIP Mossa Barandao
Alas, this icon of DC and Maryland table tennis passed away in his sleep two days ago in a hospital in Malaysia. In late September, while attending a wedding in Shantou, China, he went for a morning run, and collapsed, apparently from heat stroke, which led to massive internal organ failures. He went into a coma in the hospital. Since China didn’t recognize his American health insurance, $52,760 was raised from 224 donors on GoFundMe (which also explains his situation, with updates).

Mossa came out of his coma on October 4, 2024. On October 12, he turned 51, and the doctors and nurses in the Chinese hospital, along with his wife, threw him a surprise birthday party. His family and friends shared video messages to wish him a happy birthday. On October 21, he was airlifted from China to Malaysia for further treatment. Alas, the internal trauma was too much.

Back when I used to run MDTTC tournaments, it was a major headache running them alone. Mossa volunteered to help run them, and for several years we ran them together. He was one of the nicest and hardest-working people I’ve ever known, and extremely smart – he pretty much took over the computer operations. He was also an energized player (and long-distance runner), rushing around the court looping and fishing with his inverted penhold game at a near 2000 level. (Here’s an action photo of him.) He played primarily at the Washington DC TTC but we still saw him regularly at MDTTC in our tournaments. Here’s more from the GoFundMe page:

“Mossa is a pillar in the D.C. community and prides himself in his work through the THEMBA Foundation. He also started Homeland Togo Project, which is an organization that supplies resources and educational opportunities in Togo, W. Africa. Outside of his work, he is full of light and adventure, and spends most of his time long-distance running and is an expert table tennis player. He is an athlete through and through who was in top-notch health. Thus, to see Mossa in this state is devastating, though he was doing what he loved. We have faith that these contributions and prayers will result in full restoration and healing for our dearest Mossa, and that he will eventually return home and run again.”

Weekend Coaching and Toronto
On Sunday I worked with a number of beginning kids, where the focus was on them hitting together. At that level, we often do more multiball or have them take turns hitting with a coach, since together they can’t rally that well. When they do rally, because the balls are spraying everywhere, they can’t really develop their strokes and timing or get into a groove. But they have to learn to hit together. The key is to expect to move, rather than wait and see if you have to, and then you just move to the ball. Some picked up on it quickly, others had more trouble.

On the backhand side, one thing that really helped was explaining to them that it’s just reverse dodgeball. As the ball comes to you, you move to get your body in front of the ball – and then you stroke your backhand. By thinking of it that way, they more easily learn to move to each ball.

However, I wasn’t there on Saturday. Why? Because I was out sightseeing in Toronto! Robert J. Sawyer, the dean of Canadian science fiction writers (winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards), had arranged a big party on Saturday at his house nearby for his Patreon contributors, and I was so invited. I like to go to major cities and spend a few days sightseeing – I’ve done this at most major cities in the US and many around the world. This was my excuse to do so in Toronto. I’ve been there before for tournaments I think twice, but pretty much just went back and forth from the hotel to the playing site without really seeing anything.

I flew out on Tuesday morning, and started sightseeing on that afternoon with a one-hour cruise around Toronto Harbor. I ended up seeing: Royal Ontario Museum; Art Gallery of Ontario; Ripley’s Aquarium; CN Tower; Toronto Zoo; Casa Loma Castle; Bata Shoe Museum; and Bakka-Phoenix SF Bookstore. I also spent many hours walking the streets of Toronto, mostly in Chinatown, where my hotel was located. I also visited the Canadian Community TTA on Thursday night, a HUGE full-time facility with 53 tables (!), and the place was filled up by 6PM when I arrived. I was told it’s like that every night! There were at least a dozen coaches working with students. I hit with several players at the start, then played matches – alas, after 2.5 days of walking about, I didn’t play too well. I was invited to join in a training session at the Grace TTA on Friday night, but was both too tired at that point plus had two writing projects I had to work on.

I spent Friday night and Saturday morning on those writing projects before heading off to the Robert J. Sawyer party. (He has the most incredible collection of SF figurines and action figures imaginable - just his stegasaurus collection was mindboggling!) There were a few dozen people at the party, I think all Canadian, with a lot of discussions going on. A major issue was the unanimous disbelief about the US presidential election. (This was a highly educated group, mostly scientists and writers.) I’m disgusted by it as well – one of my writing projects is a satire for an anthology about that very issue that postulates that everything Trump has said is 100% true. I may also do one from the point of view of the poor dogs and cats that Trump says the Haitians are eating!

Holiday Shopping
It’s time for some Holiday shopping, both for others and for yourself! Why not get one of my books? (Both table tennis and science fiction.) Or one of Dan Seemiller’s?

Here are my table tennis books:

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers - best seller – here’s the review from Table Tennis England. “If you are looking for a stocking filler for a table tennis fanatic, then a book on tactics by a leading coach may be right up their street.”
Table Tennis Doubles for Champions – NEW, came out this year
Table Tennis Tips (First of the Tips series.)
More Table Tennis Tips (Second of the Tips series.)
Still More Table Tennis Tips (Third of the Tips series.)
Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips (Fourth of the Tips series.)
Table Tennis Tales & Techniques
Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook
The Spirit of Pong - fantasy table tennis novel - American travels to China to train with the spirits (ghosts!) of past champions.
First Galactic Table Tennis Championships - science fiction table tennis novelette - aliens from around the galaxy compete in Beijing!

Here are books by 5-time US Men’s Singles Champion Dan Seemiller!

Revelations of a Ping-Pong Champion
Winning Table Tennis: Skills, Drills, and Strategies
Smash! Moments, Memories, and Tips (black & white)
Smash! Moments, Memories, and Tips (color)
You can also get autographed copies directly from him – see the Dan Seemiller Books page.

More into history? Here are the 23 volumes of History of US Table Tennis by Tim Boggan!

There are many more. Perhaps browse my collection of 337 table tennis books (!) and if you find an interesting one, see if it’s on sale at Amazon or elsewhere!

Want to Run a Classic Event?
Here’s the worksheet to bid to host an International Event. This is for hardbat, sandpaper, and wood events, under the auspices of the International Classic Table Tennis Federation (ICTTF).

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

Incredible Point Between Lin Yun-ju and Alexis Lebrun
Here it is (23 sec)!

Butterfly Training Tips

Random Play Sequence (77 sec) with Rogelio Castro
Looping & Footwork Sequence (73 sec) with Rogelio Castro
Middle Corners (95 sec) with Laurent Jutras-Vigneault
Looping and Footwork Combo Training (2:03) with Laurent Jutras Vigneault
Backhand Loop from Underspin and Reset (54 sec) with Jacob Kordus
Forehand & Backhand Loop Combo Play (59 sec) with Tiana Piyadasa
Forehand & Backhand Loop Combo Play (57 sec) with Tashiya Piyadasa
The Key to a Good Training Session with Brian Pace (55 sec)
FETHOMANIA 18: Drill 1 (45 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman (from last week)
FETHOMANIA 18: Drill 2 (44 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman
FETHOMANIA 18: Drill 3 (46 sec) with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman
Tiffany Ke US Open Highlights (86 sec)

How to Practice and Improve Footwork
Here’s the video (23 sec) from Pingispågarna. While they demonstrate with a kid, this works for all ages. The key is that it gets you in the habit of being ready to reflexively move in all directions.

Counterlooping on the Side of the Ball with Robert Gardos
Here’s the video (2:57) from PongSpace.

Forehand Drive Fixes and Improvements
Here’s the video (3:05) from Ti Long.

New from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis

World's BEST Backhand vs TTD Team!
Here’s the video (6:47) from Table Tennis Daily, featuring Kalinikos Kreanga.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from Table Tennis Media

Thiago Monteiro (BRA) and Youruo Wu (CA) Capture Men’s & Women’s Titles at 2024 Edgeball Chicago International Open
Here’s the USATT news article by Lauren Wang.

New from ITTF

It’s Only Ping Pong Said the Loser
Here’s where you can buy the shirt!

Archie Comic Book Covers
Here are a couple ping-pong covers!

Psyching Your Opponent from June, 1964.
Reggie with Two Rackets, from March 1976 (on sale on Ebay)

The Top Three Table Tennis Services in the World
Here’s the video (11 sec)!

Ultimate Mini Target Shot
Here’s the video (9:14) from Pongfinity, where they face eight challenges!

Non-Table Tennis - Small Dragon’s Gold
I sold another story last week, “Small Dragon’s Gold.” (It's my 221st short story sale.) A small, idealistic, gallant, polite, but wimpy dragon has his gold stolen by a cocky swashbuckling woman. In a society where dragons are second-class citizens and where he’s completely outmatched in any physical confrontation, how can he get his gold back? And how many times can he say, “My name is Puffy Smogoya. You stole my gold. Please give it back.” before I get sued by the producers of “The Princess Bride”?

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Larry Hodges Mon, 11/11/2024 - 17:19