Kids and Blocking
It always surprises me at how quickly kids pick up on blocking against loops, at least in a drill. But there’s a simple method I’ve found that leads to this. As soon as I explain that blocking is just like playing a video game, they go into “game mode,” and suddenly they are blocking champions! I can loop over and over and they’ll get nearly all of them back, even if their level is in the 500-1000 range. I can even get a little practice out of this.

But there are obvious weaknesses. They can’t really adjust to changing spins – if I suddenly throw a super-slow spinny one at them, they usually block off. If I loop very deep on the table, they get jammed and miss. And they aren’t yet in the habit of stepping to the ball, and so have trouble if my loop goes outside a roughly 18-inch wide zone.

A key here is to teach them, right from the start, that they should step to each ball, even if it’s a one-inch step. If you allow them to develop the habit of reaching for the ball, it becomes a habit that’s harder to break. Even if my loop goes to exactly the same spot twice in a row, they should assume they have to move, flexing their knees as I’m hitting my shot in preparation for moving. You should also teach them not to jam the table – arm’s length is about right – or they’ll always struggle with deep balls.

The Three Types of People and Long Pips
This past weekend at the Cary Cup Open in North Carolina, one of my students, just-turned-11 Jackson (that’s his first name) went in rated 1416, but pulled off a series of upsets, including a win over a 1939 player with long pips on one side. There’s an interesting story behind this.

About a month ago I’d watched him lose a practice match to a 1500 chopper with long pips. In our next session, I pointed out that throughout the match, he’d served and just stood in the middle of the table, waiting to see what return he’d get. Since most of the returns came to his backhand, he mostly followed up with soft backhands, and so both lost his serve advantage and took his strong forehand out of play. I explained that when you play a chopper (or most players with long pips on the backhand who receive defensively), you essentially get one “free shot” off your serve. (This assumes the chopper is willing to chop your serve back.) So I pulled out my chopping racket (with long pips) and had him practice against it, where he’d serve and follow almost exclusively with his forehand. He picked up on this pretty fast.

I also explained to him that there are three types of players in this world:

April Fools’ Blogs
I hope you enjoyed the groundbreaking exposé in my blog yesterday of the new techniques by the Swedes to beat the Chinese – edge serves, net receives, knuckle shots. Some of you may have noticed that although the blog was on April 3, it referred to events that took place on Saturday. April 1. The more attentive of you may have read the first letter of each line. If not, now’s your chance!!! And for the record, Jan-Ove Waldner does have an older brother sort of named Ake Waldner – his real name is Kjell-Åke Waldner, and he too was a top table tennis player.

Here are my past April Fools’ Day blogs, where the first letter of each line spells out this secret message.

Tip of the Week
Coaching Tournament Matches.

How The Swedes Will Beat the Chinese Again
Ake Waldner visited MDTTC this past Saturday, spending the day watching our
players train. He is the brother of former Swedish superstar Jan-Ove Waldner, and was
recently named Head Coach of the Swedish National Men’s Team. Our players had some
interesting questions, of course. Sweden had battled with China for decades, with such
legendary players as Bengtsson, Persson, Appelgren, and of course Waldner.

First question, of course, was rather straightforward – how could Sweden, USA,
or any other team possibly beat China? I’ve always argued that if we use the same
orthodox techniques that make the Chinese so good, we’ll always be just a pale
likeness, with no chance of matching them.

Ake agreed with me! And it turns out the Swedes are working on new techniques,
practicing things that might allow them to beat the Chinese. Serve, receive, and
rallies – you have to win at all three, Ake said. The Swedish team had bought
into the new concepts, and have spent many countless hours preparing for their
likely showdown with the Chinese at the upcoming World Championships.

First, they’ve developed a revolutionary new serving technique. Ake demonstrated
over and over his ability to serve on the edge. He’d stand in his backhand side,
open his racket, and just tap the ball down the line. The ball would hit the edge and
lurch to the side, unreturnable unless you basically lobbed it up, an easy smash.

$2700 3-Star Butterfly MDTTC April Open and Coaching at Tournaments
I'm running the tournament next weekend (April 8-9) at the Maryland Table Tennis Center in Gaithersburg, MD. I hope to see many of you there! We've expanded our tournaments from last year, going to two days and three-star events, doubling the prize money, and going from seven to ten events. Here is our tournament page and here is the entry form. You can also enter online at Omnipong. The ten events are (on Saturday, with prize money in all events): Open, U2400, U2200, U2000, Over 50, and Under 15, and (on Sunday): U1800, U1500, U1200, and Under 12.

Some of you are playing a tournament this weekend. According to the USATT Tournament Page, there are four this weekend in the U.S.:

• 4-star Butterfly Cary Cup in Morrisville, NC
• 3-star DAC April Open in Davison, MI
• 2-star NYISC April Over 40 Open in College Point, NY
• 2-star Clearwater Spring Grand Open in Clearwater, FL

For these players, and for others in future tournaments, here is my article, Top Ten Ways to Play Your Best in a Tournament. Hope it helps! (Note – the following weekend there are ten USATT tournaments.)

USA Nationals Entry Form
While browsing around this morning I discovered that the entry form for the 2017 Supermicro USA Nationals was up. (Here’s a direct link to the print entry form.) This is the first I’d seen it – I printed it out and will go over it more closely later today. The tournament will be in Las Vegas, July 3-8 (Mon-Sat). (The hotel link still links to the U.S. Open hotel from December.)

There are a mind-boggling 97 events. Most are similar to last year’s Nationals. I did find some interesting items – for example, what appears to be Men’s and Women’s Singles are currently named simply “Hsing Family Foundation.” Presumably that’s a sponsor, but it probably should be “Hsing Family Foundation Men’s/Women’s Singles.” Beyond that are the usual events – Men’s & Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles; Junior, Cadet, and Mini-Cadet Team Trials (with the Cadets strangely listed differently as “Singles Team Trials”) for boys and girls; Under 10 and 21 & Under (also for boys and girls); numerous senior events, singles and doubles, ranging from Over 30 to Over 85; lots and lots of rating events, from U1000 to U2400, with the events from Under 2000 down mostly divided into Adult and Juniors categories, plus U4200 and U3200 Doubles; ten Hardbat and two Sandpaper events (Open and U1700); five Paralympic events; and something new, on Saturday, the last day - Junior and Adult Teams!

So what’s this about Team Events at the Nationals? We’ve had Junior Teams before, and there are both Boys’ and Girls’ Teams. But the Adults Teams is new. From the last page of the entry form:

Nationals Team Day

Saturday, July 8 2017

New – Adult Teams. Teams of 2-4 adult players. Teams must have matching uniform colors!

Tip of the Week
Serve and Forehand Loop.

Pre-Tournament Preparation
One of the kids I coached last night is preparing to play in the 4-star Cary Cup Open this weekend. I had gone into the session preparing to really work on his looping game, both forehand and backhand. However, he was noticeably glum about this, and admitted he didn’t think he’d be looping much in rallies at the Cary Cup, that he’d mostly be looping against backspin and then hitting.

Now I could have said, “No, you have to think long-term and focus on looping more,” or the opposite, “Sure, we’ll forget about looping and worry about developing that later on.” Instead, I did something in between. I pulled out an invisible piece of paper, and wrote with invisible ink with an invisible pen the invisible words, “After the Cary Cup, I will focus on looping in rallies.” I then pricked his finger with an invisible pin, and he signed the agreement with invisible blood. And so we spent the session preparing him for the Cary Cup – looping backspin, then hitting, as well as serves, receive, and other shots. Next week we’ll focus on looping in rallies – and I’ll wave that invisible paper at him if necessary.

I also made him promise to practice his serves the day before the Cary Cup. This is one of the biggest mistakes players make, showing up at a tournament where they haven’t been practicing the shot they’ll be using at the start of half the rallies, the serve, and so end up serving mostly to just get the ball in play. Often they don’t even realize how much they are losing because their serves aren’t as low, as fast, as spinny, or as varied as they could be.

Stomach Queasiness and the Tip of the Week
For the second day in a row I woke up to what feels like the World Table Tennis Championships going on in my stomach. I’m guessing it’s some sort of stomach virus, or some sort of cold or flu, or perhaps I swallowed a gross of ping-pong balls or something. Symptoms are extreme stomach queasiness and discomfort; runny nose; extreme exhaustion; and an extreme compulsion to lie down for a few years. I started writing the Tip of the Week (Serve and Forehand Loop), but I think I’ll finish that tomorrow. I did manage to get through 3.5 hours of coaching yesterday, despite exhaustion, helped out by one player having to cancel (I had 4.5 hours scheduled). Tonight I only have two. (My current schedule: Sun 8.5 hours; Mon 4.5 hours; Tue 2 hours; Wed 2 hours; Thu & Fri off - writing days; Sat 5-7 hours.) 

Some of this might have been brought on by recent very bad sleep habits. I generally go to bed sometime between midnight and 1AM, and up at 7AM, but recently I’ve been up until 3AM, and still getting up at 7AM as that’s when I keep waking up – probably because the sun is up. Last night I went to bed at 9:30PM, and got up at 7:30AM – ten hours! – something I never do except when I’m sick or completely exhausted.

USA National Team Trials
They were held at the Triangle TTC in North Carolina this past weekend, Thur-Sun. Here’s the USA Team Trials page for the event, with results, articles, and video. I was going to blog about this, but I think the articles by Matt give a pretty good picture.

New Articles from Samson Dubina

Alas, I woke up this morning feeling sick to my stomach. So I think I need to take a sick day - or at least a sick morning. I have 4.5 hours of coaching scheduled today (3:30-8:00), and I'm determined to make that somehow. (The nice thing about coaching is that you can stay ten feet away from your student.) But I'm probably going to spend most of the day in bed, and see how things are this afternoon. (I don't think I have a fever, but I'll take my temperature later today.) I'll be back tomorrow. While I'm gone, you can browse over the results, articles, and videos at the USA Team Trials page - they were held this past weekend. 

USA National Team Trials
They had the preliminary qualifier yesterday, with the main Trials today through Sunday. Tournament is at the Triangle TTC in North Carolina. Below are links. Livestreaming  starts at noon today, Eastern time. I wish I were there!

• Home page (draws, results, and livestreaming)
• Seedings Prevail as Qualifications Complete Trials Draw (qualifier article by Matt Hetherington)
• Players Practicing (3 min, set to music). Can you name the players?

USATT Team Funding Week
USATT has a funding page, Friends with Paddles, where you can “directly fund USATT’s National Team programming, including coaching, travel, training, participation in international tournaments, and direct athlete support.” Over the course of a year, funding comes in gradually, and it really helps. But we’re always short of funding.