Playing in a League and [Not] Reading Hidden Serves
I mentioned in my blog yesterday that some of the USATT board (as well as CEO Gordon) played in the ICC League on Saturday night. I also mentioned I didn’t do very well, and said I’d probably blog about it later. I was hesitant to do so as some will argue that I’m just making excuses. But I’ll just report what happened.

On the very first serve of my very first match, my roughly 13-year-old opponent (I’m told from a local club, not ICC, about 2000 level) served a blatantly hidden serve, hiding contact with his arm and shoulder. I badly missed the first two serves, one into the net, the other off to the side, and complained, to no avail. I didn’t want to create a scene, but at the same time I was pretty disgusted that even kids are hiding their serves illegally these days – but how can I blame him? It’s no different than what the best players in the world and the U.S. are doing, and it’s what his coach taught him to do, and umpires overwhelmingly allow it. If Ma Long and most top players (and Zhang Jike – see below) can serve this way, why not anyone else? I’ve blogged about this many times, and am still working on trying to get ITTF and/or USATT to resolve this issue.

 The key part that many still don’t get is that the key rule isn’t just that you can’t hide the ball. It’s that you must serve so that the umpire can see that the serve is legal, i.e. not hidden. In this case, four serving rules were being broken. (Note that for the last two, when there are no umpires, the players act as the umpires.)

Tip of the Week
How Do You Develop Ball Control and a Feel for the Ball?

USATT Board Meeting
On Friday I flew out to the USATT board meeting in Milpitas, CA, last Friday, arriving in San Jose Airport around 5PM. I spent much of the flight going over USATT coaching committee plans – I was recently appointed the chair. (It’s my second tenure – I also chaired it for four years in the 1990s.) I flew in with fellow board member Gary Schlager (his first in-person board meeting) and USATT lawyer Dennis Taylor. Local player Michael Greene picked us up at the airport – right on time - and would later be picking up others as well.

That night we did a quick visit at the Silicon Valley TTC, which was a five-minute walk from the hotel, hitting for perhaps 15 minutes. Then we had dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. (I just had a salad.)

On Saturday morning we took what I kept calling the “Great White Whale” (a large white van, almost a bus, which USATT CEO Gordon Kaye drove to charter us everywhere) to the ICC Table Tennis Center to observe elite training. They had huge numbers of players training in three large groups, based on level, including U.S. Team Members Kunal Chodri and Nikhil Kumar. We then had lunch at the home of Anil Godhwani, the primary owner of ICC Table Tennis, who has donated over a million dollars to the center. (Pause while you lift your jaws off the floor.) As he put it, the donations were to get the ball rolling, which led to others donating money as well – and so this might be the only “cash rich” table tennis club in the country! But it all goes back into table tennis, so they have an incredibly successful table tennis program.

USATT Board Meeting, and No Blog Until Next Wednesday
Tomorrow morning I’m flying out to San Jose, CA, for the USATT Board meeting on Sat & Sun in nearby Milpitas. I won’t get back until Monday night. I’ll have a lot of work to catch up when I return, so I’m going to take Tuesday off as well to catch up – so no blog until next Wednesday. I’m going to the meeting as a member of the USATT Board as well as the recently appointed chair of the Coaching Committee.

We’ll be staying at the Courtyard Marriot in Milpitas – which, I discovered by chance when I looked it up on Google Maps, is practically across the street from the full-time Silicon Valley TTC. So I may walk over there after dinner on Friday night. (Gee, this could be my big chance to do what I’ve always dreamed of doing – walk into a table tennis club dressed in a gorilla suit, and challenging and beating some of the top players – all without saying a word! If I did this at my own club, MDTTC, they’d all recognize my strokes, plus they’d figure I’m the only one who would do this. Hmmm...except I don’t own a gorilla suit, drat…)

On Saturday morning we’ll be watching advanced training at the ICC club. I may come dressed to play – perhaps they can use a practice partner! (No gorilla suit here.) Then we’re scheduled to do a quick tour of some local full-time clubs – Fremont TTA, Table Tennis America, and perhaps others, time and location permitting.

The Relationship Between Stroking and Footwork
I worked with an adult beginner yesterday. She’s only had a few lessons, and her forehand and backhand shots were still more or less patting the ball back and forth. Until yesterday.

Here’s what happened. We probably spent a good 20 minutes at the start just hitting forehands, first multiball, then live, and she was unable to do more than awkwardly pat the ball back and forth, hitting the ball flat (no topspin). Then we did backhands, and it was the same, though a little better. We did some pushing and serve practice, then came back to forehands, and still mostly just patting the ball back and forth. Then I decided to introduce her to footwork, which we normally hold back on until the strokes are more solid. So I fed multiball side to side as she hit forehands from the forehand side and the middle.

And suddenly she was driving the ball! The balls even had some topspin. She hadn’t been able to do this while standing more or less stationary, but once I had her moving, the stroke fell into place. Presto, instant good forehand! (Well, it still needs a lot of practice, but a lot less pitter-patter.) What happened was that when she was forced to move, she became more aware of getting into position for each shot and rotating the body. When she didn’t have to move, she more or less reached for the ball, which also led to using less body rotation.

We finished the session with something I wouldn’t have expected we’d be doing that session: I fed high balls (multiball), and she smashed. After getting the stroke right while moving, she was now able to smash balls. Quite a transformation!

Tip of the Week
Serving to the Backhand Flipper. (This is similar to a Tip I did a few years ago, but with a different perspective and expanded. I linked to this yesterday in my “shortened” blog.)

Down the Line
This past weekend I emphasized down-the-line shots in much of my coaching. Players habitually drill crosscourt so much that they often forget there’s that other direction. I once realized in my match coaching that about one-half of players at the intermediate to advanced levels automatically cover the crosscourt angle when an opponent is attacking – meaning they are wide open down the line. The reason players don’t take advantage of this is 1) they are so used to going crosscourt; 2) there’s more table if you go crosscourt; and 3) they are worried about leaving themselves open to a crosscourt angled return if they go down the line.

While these are legitimate reasons, all are easily overcome. If you practice attacking down the line, it becomes almost as easy as crosscourt, which takes care of the first two objections above. As to leaving themselves open to a crosscourt angle, that’s may be a problem, but if the opponent is so used to players going crosscourt that he leaves the down-the-line side open, then you don’t have much to worry about as the opponent will either miss or be lunging for the shot. Worse, if you don’t go down the line when it’s open, you let the opponent camp out on the crosscourt angle, making things much easier for him. That’s not a good idea.

Happy Pong Easter!!! Local schools are closed today for Easter Monday, and so I’m off too. (Not really – I still have 3.5 hours of coaching tonight, and a bunch of USATT work, alas. I do need the break – I was at the club 12.5 hours yesterday, coaching and doing other work, and about eight hours on Saturday.) But here’s the Tip of the Week, Serving to the Backhand Flipper. (This is similar to a Tip I did a few years ago, but with a different perspective and expanded.) And in case you missed it in the "Animals Pong" listing on Friday (under "Beagle"), here's Snoopy playing table tennis. 

Interview with Larry Hodges – and the Best Tip Ever!
USATT is featuring my interview from yesterday! 

MDTTC Spring Break Camp Days Four and Five
Here’s the official group picture! Today’s the final day of the camp. Much of yesterday's focus in my group was serve and receive. I confess I still get a kick out of watching a new kid's eyes go wide when I demo the various spin serves. After explaining and demoing the serves, they went out on the tables to practice their serves.

Best part? When we called break, one kid stayed and practiced serves the entire 20 minutes. The highlight? I had introduced the exercise where you try serving a high backspin that bounces back over the net. The kid was very excited when he served his first one! Then he worked on serving it lower, with the goal of getting the ball to bounce back into the net. Soon there was a small collection of balls there.

There was a bit of excitement in the air all day, and for a good reason. In the morning I'd announced that on Friday we would be playing the "Candy Game." At 12:15 PM today (Friday) I'll be putting a huge stack of Jolly Ranchers and Hershey Kisses on the end of a table, and the kids will line up, three shots each, taking turns trying to knock them off as I feed multiball. Anything they knock off, they get to keep! (Trade-ins are allowed, so they can trade what they knock off for different flavors or candy types.) We’ll do this for about 30 minutes. So there was an extra focus on accurate shots yesterday! I think this might be the key to developing a new generation of players to challenge the Chinese.

Today’s focus, in addition to winning lots of candy, will be pushing and smashing – two extremes.

MDTTC Spring Break Camp, Day Three
Yesterday the focus was on honing the forehand and backhand strokes, and footwork. I did a lot of multi-player multiball drills, where I'd work with two or more players at a time. Here are some of the drills we did. (All of the players I worked with were righties.) 

Two players: The Multi-Player Side-to-Side Drill. The A player would stand in the forehand corner, the B player in the backhand corner but a step back. The A player hit a forehand, moved to the backhand side, hit a backhand, moved back to the forehand side, hit a forehand, then step back. Then the B player would do the same, going backhand, forehand, backhand, step back. Then repeat. It's continuous, with me feeding the balls side to side. Halfway through the drill I'd have them switch sides. (If the players are complete beginners, then they just stand in separate corners and practice forehands or backhands.)

Two or more players: Circling Drill. Players lined up on the backhand side, and hit three forehands, one from the backhand side, one from the middle, one from the forehand side, and then circle back to the end of the line. Halfway through the drill they'd switch and line up on the forehand side, and hit forehands from forehand, middle, and backhand. Two other variations: Just two shots, a forehand from each corner, or a forehand and a backhand from the corner. Each drill should be done in each direction. (I did variations of these drills with five players.)

Two or more players: The 2-1 Drill. The players would line up by the backhand side. Each player would get three shots: backhand from the backhand side, forehand from the backhand side, and forehand from the forehand side, then circle around to the end of the line. Note that this drill, when done continuously, incorporates the three most common moves in table tennis – move to cover the wide forehand, move to cover the wide backhand, and step around forehand.

Interview with Larry Hodges – “The Best Table Tennis Tip…Ever”
Here’s the article and interview from Todd Lodziak at TableTennisCoach in England. I’m a bit embarrassed by it!

MDTTC Spring Break Camp
Yesterday was Day Two of our Spring Break Camp. I’m in charge of a group of seven players who are mostly beginners. The complication is their diversity - there are four boys who are all about 10-12 and about the same level; a girl about 8 who is a beginner; and two very young kids, a boy and girl, about ages 5 and 6, who struggle to hit the ball. During the multiball sessions I tend to break them into two groups, the four older boys and the other three, and go back and forth.

We’ve done a lot of work on forehand, backhand, and footwork so far. I started the younger ones on serves on the first day to give them a “head start,” and introduced the others to serving with spin yesterday. I was going to have them practice their serves, but was running out of time, so instead we had sort of a “fun” ten-minute session where they took turns trying to return my spin serves, while I called out where their return would be – “Lonely” meant to the left, where the box of balls were; “Thirsty” meant to the right, where the water fountain was; and “Net” meant the obvious. I think my favorite time in every camp is the first time I serve heavy backspin and make the ball come back into or even over the net, and see the look on the faces of the new kids, who are oohing and aahing at this witchcraft!

Butterfly MDTTC April Open
April 8-9, 2017 • Gaithersburg, MD
By Larry Hodges

Players from six states, DC, and Nigeria competed in our 3-star April Open at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, with over $2700 in cash prizes. I sent the results in on Sunday night; found a mistake on Monday morning and resent the new results at 9AM, and USATT still managed to process the tournament that day! So the rating results of both the 4-star Cary Cup from the week before the MDTTC Open went up on Monday at the USATT Tournament Ratings Page. Here are complete results, care of Omnipong.

The Open final between the lefty top-seeded Alex Ruichao Chen (2689 and a full-time coach at MDTTC) and second-seeded Azeez Jamiu (2609, former Nigerian star visiting New York) was a nail-biter at the end. Alex may have the best pure serve and forehand attack game in North America, but Azeez’s tricky serves, receives, and his own relentless looping gave Alex fits, especially at the start. Azeez went up 2-0 in games, but Alex came back. In the seventh, Alex led 9-4 and 10-7, and then it was 10-9, Alex serving. His serve went slightly long, Azeez looped it really, really wide to the left Alex’s backhand – and Alex stepped way, way around, and absolutely pulverized a crosscourt forehand counterloop for the winner!