Moving and Table Tennis
Once again I’ve run into the interesting fact that some players have better shots when they move, especially when moving to the wide forehand. I blogged about this on Sept. 22, where we discovered that Todd’s shots were much better when he did footwork.

Yesterday I coached a new player, Ron, and it happened again. He was an experienced tennis player but new to table tennis. His forehand was decent, but often a bit cramped, with the racket too close to the body, and the tip often tilted slightly up. We worked on this for a while, and then I noticed something. Whenever I went a little wider to this forehand, he’s reach out and hit a perfect forehand! He’d extend the arm so it wasn’t cramped, and the tip would drop down to where it should be. Often his shot would be very wide to my forehand, which was very obvious because, due to my ongoing shoulder problems, I can’t really extend my arm and so have less reach going that way.

I pointed this out to him, and had him shadow practice that “moving” forehand until he could do it (without the ball) from other parts of the table. Then we went back to hitting, and the stroke was much better.

When my shoulder is healthy, I’ve had the same experience. During my peak years it was very difficult for players to win the point going to my wide forehand as I covered that very well. (I was a bit weaker when they went very wide to my backhand, but that’s another story.) Part of the reason I covered it well was because I’d go into the shot (when hitting or looping) with my shoulders rotated back and arm extended, and so could rotate into the shot, giving the shot power.

New ITTF World Rankings
Here’s the ITTF article on the new world rankings, and here’s more from Table Tennis Daily. Here are the new rankings for Men and Women. They are using for the first time a newly updated rating system. Some big changes!

On the men’s side, Xu Xin and Zhang Jike were both removed for inactivity, with Germans Ovtcharov and Boll moving up to #3 and #4. (But their next player is Filus Ruwen, who moved from #24 to #21.) China’s Ma Long and Fan Zhendong are still #1 and #2, but the next two Chinese are Lin Gaoyuang and Fang Bo at #7 and #10. Japan’s Noki Niwa, Jun Mizutani, and Kenta Matsudaira move up to #5, 6, and 9, with their 14-year-old whiz kid Tomokazu Harimoto moving from #18 to #16. (He was #14 two months ago.) France’s Simon Gauzy went from #14 to #8. China is still dominant, but China vs. Germany or Japan could be interesting.

On the women’s side, reigning #1 Ding Ning was removed for lack of activity. The women ranked #2 to #7 last month all moved up one notch, with Zhu Yuling taking over the #1 spot for the first time. Only “big” jump among the top women was Cheng I-Ching of Chinese Taipei, who moved from #10 to #7. China had the top four women last month, but now have only the top three (Zhu Yuling, Chen Meng, and Liu Shiwen), with Japan taking the next three spots (Kasumi Ishikawa, Miu Hirano, Mima Ito). China is still dominant, but China vs. Japan could be interesting.

Table Tennis Writing and Book Sales
When I’m not coaching table tennis, I’m writing about it, along with a little science fiction. (Here’s my Amazon page for both.) As of today, I have 1766 published articles, plus approximately 1600 table tennis blog entries, 34 science fiction blog entries, and 13 books.

Of the articles, they include 1562 on table tennis, 142 science fiction & fantasy, 33 on the Baltimore Orioles, and 29 others. Throw in the 1600 blog entries, and it’s about 3400 articles, plus the 13 books. That’s way too much time I’m not watching Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead!

The 13 books include 8 on table tennis and 6 science fiction & fantasy. Yep, 8 + 6 = 13. That’s because The Spirit of Pong counts for both. (Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions could count for both as well, since there’s a lot of table tennis in this science fiction novel. Here’s my blog on that.) My latest science fiction novel is When Parallel Lines Meet, which I co-wrote with Mike Resnick and Lezi Robyn. Here's my SF blog on that. 

Here’s a listing for book sales for October. I’ve combined print and kindle sales.

Happy Halloween! But I’m Off Today
It's Halloween, my new science fiction novel comes out today, and I've got an injured hip, shoulder, and knee. I'm taking the day off. See you tomorrow. (However, after a day of rest on Monday, the hip injury seems much better this morning. I don’t think I’ll have to miss any of my coaching on Wednesday. I have no coaching on Mondays and Tuesdays, my “weekend.”) But to tide you over, here are pictures and a video (34 sec) of Navin “Bionic Man” Kumar dressed as Randy Daytona from the movie “Balls of Fury.” (Here’s a direct link to the video. Here’s a non-Facebook picture.)

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

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

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

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

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

Ten Miscellaneous Mostly Table Tennis Items

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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