Coaching Matches is Trickier Now
Coaching matches used to be easier. In most matches in the "old days" (twenty years ago?) there'd be a style conflict since the odds of two players with the same style playing was rather low. I mean, what were the odds of two players playing with the same style, such as, say, both being two-winged loopers? Sure, it happened sometimes, but there were a lot more common styles back in those days – hitters, counter-hitters, blockers, choppers, various types of pips-out, conventional penholders, Seemiller grip, and all sorts of forehand/backhand combinations.

All of these styles still exist, but it's a matter of degree – they used to be common. Now the matches I coach are mostly up-and-coming players who train regularly under top coaches, and so there are very few "old-fashioned" styles among them – they are nearly all two-winged loopers these days. The few that don't play that way are still usually inverted players who loop both sides, just not all the time.

With style conflicts, there are obvious tactics. There was the thrill of the clash of styles, such as when a looper met a hitter, or a one-winged forehand looper met a blocker. The tactics were more straightforward.

These days, since the large majority of the matches I coach are between standard two-winged loopers, coaching is a bit subtler. Both players tend to play the same, with the same serves, same surfaces, same strokes, and often the same strengths and weaknesses, with subtle differences in degree.

There's still diversity, but nothing like before. In the past it was like throwing a lion, a wolf, a bear, a giant anaconda, a crocodile, a rhinoceros, a shark, and a black widow spider into the quarterfinals, and they'd battle it out. Now it's more or less eight lions, all running around looping everything. The game is more athletic, but it's also more uniform.

Tip of the Week
You're Your Yore.

USA Nationals (and Hidden Serves, Alas)
It's been an incredibly busy two weeks – USATT board meetings, USA Nationals, USA Team Trials, 29.5 hours at San Francisco Airport (see segment below), Christmas in Eugene, and catching up on everything since I returned two days ago. Here are some highlights.

I flew to Las Vegas the morning of Saturday, Dec. 12. And then – I had the day off! Well, sort of. I ended up working on a new science fiction story I'd been planning. (That's what I do when I'm not doing TT.)

The USATT board meeting was noon – 7PM on Sunday, Dec. 13, and 9AM-1PM on Monday, Dec. 14. A quick rundown of the agenda: committee reports and discussions; SafeSport discussion; USOC update; High Performance discussion; lots of time on the budget; TV; USATT events; ratings; marketing and sponsorship; strategic initiatives; and the problem with hidden serves.

This last one – illegal hidden serves – would irritate me the rest of the week, and still does. [Begin Hidden Serve Rant – skip ahead if not interested.] As I've blogged about many times with lots of video and pictures, cheating is rampant in our sport, with the large majority of major titles decided by illegal hidden serves, with the key factor in most matches whether the umpire will enforce the rules. Our sport rewards those who cheat and punishes those who do not. After some discussion the night before, where board members seemed favorable to resolving the problem, it was suggested I make a motion that the board wishes these rules to be followed. So I made the following motion, assuming it would be a no-brainer that'd pass unanimously:

Last Blog Until Dec. 29
Tomorrow morning I'm off to Las Vegas for USATT board meetings (and other meetings), the USA Nationals (Dec. 14-19), the USA Team Trials (Dec. 20-21), and then off to Eugene, Oregon for Christmas with family (Dec. 21-26). I return on Dec. 27, just in time for the MDTTC Christmas Camp, Dec. 26-31, missing the first day. (I blogged about all this on Wednesday.) So this will be my last blog until I return – see you then! (I originally said I'd be blogging again on Monday, Dec. 28, but I needed an extra day to catch up on things.) 

Meanwhile, the holidays are a time to think about giving, so why not consider giving to the sport? Not money – why not run a State Championship? A Regional Team League? Set up a Regional Association?

Tip of the Week
Fast, Quick Motions Disguise a No-Spin Serve. (These tips normally go up on Mondays, but I'm putting this one up early since I'm going out of town tomorrow for two weeks.)

USA Nationals
My pickup to the airport for the USA Nationals is at 5:10 AM Saturday. As usual, I'll likely just stay up all night on something, and sleep on the flight. I arrive in Las Vegas at about 10:30AM (helped by the three-hour time difference – it'll be 1:30PM here in Maryland). There are 774 players entered, and probably an equal number of family, coaches, and staff, so there'll probably be 1500 people there.

Total Ban on Chinese Players
When the U.S. Team lost at the World Championships, thousands of Chinese players cheered from the rooftops in New Jersey. I know; I saw it on television, and all those journalists who have refuted this are third-rate losers. Our country cannot be the victims of incredible play by players that believe in constant training and have no sense of living a normal American life of McDonalds and Dancing with the Stars. It's going to get worse and worse.

And so I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of Chinese table tennis players entering the United States until USATT can figure out what is going on.

To keep the top Chinese players out, USATT will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than USATT, believe me. We will build a great, great wall around our country, and we will make China pay for that wall. Mark my words.

This does not apply to Chinese players already living in America, except we have to be vigilant. Many of them would like to force innocent Americans to live under their table tennis laws, forcing children to train eight hours a day plus physical training, with no TV or video games. If you see a Chinese player trying to force innocent Americans to train really hard, call the authorities, and don't worry about political correctness; I'll protect you. I am a strong leader.

Busy
Things are about to get busy for me – or more specifically, go from the usual busy to lip-smacking, hyper-driven sheer non-stopiness as the work piles on. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "If you need something done, ask a busy person." Thanks a lot, Ben. Here's my upcoming schedule – mostly table tennis, but with a little (lot of) SF at the start.

Regional Team Leagues
By Larry Hodges, USATT League Chair
(NOTE - The following is a USATT news item that went up this morning. Note the links to the new USATT League Page and the USATT Regional Team League Prototype. This league initiative, along with the Regional Associations initiative, the State Championships initiative, and a coaching/training center initiative I hope to do next year, are designed to help jump-start USA Table Tennis to the next level – but it's going to take years, so perhaps "jump-start" isn't the right word.)

Those who study sports association memberships can help but notice a pattern: those with huge membership do so through team leagues. That's the reason why the German Table Tennis Association has 600,000 members, why the U.S. Tennis Association has 700,000 members, and why the U.S. Bowling Congress has over two million members. And the lack of such a league structure is the primary reason USA Table Tennis has only 9000 members.

But you don't play in a team league just so you can boost your association's membership; you do so because it's fun! You're pumped up because your teammates are cheering for you, you win and lose as a team, and when it's all done, you and your opponents go out for pizza.

Tip of the Week
Use Simple No-Spin Serves in Doubles.

Importance of No-Spin Serves
We'll call today the "No Spin Zone," since it's featured in the Tip of the Week, here in the blog, and in a link to another Tip of the Week below.

I've been surprised several times by players, even relatively advanced ones, who don't really know how to do a no-spin serve. Now obviously any player can serve no-spin by just patting the ball over the net, but what surprises me is how many can serve backspin over and over, but cannot execute a no-spin serve with the same motion. By having this combination, receivers can't just mindlessly push every serve back - if they do, the no-spin serves will pop up.

To execute a no-spin serve that looks like backspin, imagine doing a normal backspin serve, where you graze the ball toward the tip of the racket (the part of the racket that's moving fastest as it rotates around the wrist). Now contact the ball closer to the handle without as much grazing motion. Use the same follow-through or even exaggerated it - you have to sell it as a backspin serve. Result? The receiver likely will read it as backspin and pop it up.

Even if they read it correctly and chop down on the ball to keep the push low, it'll come out with less backspin than if they pushed against your backspin serve. When pushing against backspin, the backspin rebounds out as backspin as the ball changes rotation. There doesn't happen against a no-spin serve, and so the ball has less backspin. Also, a short backspin serve is easier to drop short than a short no-spin serve, since the backspin makes the ball die off your racket. 

Christmas Table Tennis Shopping
It's that time of year again, where you have to decide what to get for that table tennis player in your life – which could be yourself! Here are some suggestions. (And here's Santa playing table tennis with a reindeer.)

Table Tennis Instructional Books
I'm a writer so inevitably I'm going to start with this rather long section. There are a lot of good ones out there – including mine! You can read for free the first two chapters of my fantasy table tennis novel "The Spirit of Pong." But my best-selling book is "Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers." Here are many more. Skip this section if you're not the reader type – videos, equipment, and coaching comes next.

Ma Long's Serve and Other Top Ten Players
In my blog on Nov. 24, I pointed out how blatantly illegal world champion Ma Long's serve was, and in particular how he illegally hid it with his head so the opponent couldn't see contact. (Here's the five-picture sequence.) This is now mostly the norm at the world-class level. However, since that time several questions keep coming up, both in online forums and via email. Specifically, some have argued:

1. This was a fast, down-the-line serve, and so isn't his normal serve, and so doesn't show that he hides his serve normally.
2. That he only occasionally hides his serve.
3. That when he hides his serve, he usually does it with his arm, not his head.

So let's look at the video and see what's really happening. For this, we'll use the video of the Men's Singles Final (12:47, with time between points removed) earlier this year when he became World Champion. We'll only use pictures and video in the three games where he's on the far side (where it can be clearly seen). The video sometimes zooms in from the side when he's serving, and so you can't see clearly if he's hiding the serve on those point, so I've skipped those serves. In the end, there were exactly 21 serves on the far side where you could see whether he was hiding the ball or not. Below are links to all 21, both the video and a still image.

So what do we learn by watching the video? 

JOOLA North American Teams
They were held this past weekend, Fri-Sun, at the Gaylord Convention Center at National Harbor in Washington DC, about 45 minutes south of me and my club, MDTTC. This was my 40^th year at the Teams – first in Detroit (1976-1997), then Baltimore (1998-2012), and now DC (2013-present). I used to play in it every year, but since 2007 I've been there as a coach, other than playing a few matches in 2012.

There were 711 players on 181 teams, with 138 tables. Here are complete results – every single match! The lighting and floors were a level better than the erratic lighting and sometimes slippery floors in Baltimore – a major improvement. Over $20,000 was given out in prize money, including $10,000 to the first-place team, AITTA 1 (Timothy Wang, Feng Yijun, Cai Wei, and Wu Yi), with $4000 going to runner-up Team JOOLA (Quadri Aruna, Li Kewei, and Joerg Rosskopf). It was well-run and on time - another superhuman effort by Richard Lee, John Miller, and the rest of NATT. I only wish I could have attended both this one and the competing Butterfly Teams in Philadelphia, 140 miles away – by all accounts, it too was well-run and on time.