88 Full-time Table Tennis Centers in the U.S.
One of my most vividly bad memories in table tennis was the USATT Board Meeting in December, 2006, almost ten years ago. It was at that meeting that I made a proposal for USATT to actively recruit and train coaches and club directors to set up and run full-time table tennis centers and junior programs, with the goal of 100 such centers in ten years.

At the time there were only 8-10 such full-time centers in the country. I’d co-founded the Maryland Table Tennis Center in 1992, the first successful full-time center devoted to training, and we’d set the model that others were beginning to follow.

The response? It was basically laughed off. Two board members openly said that full-time table tennis centers wouldn’t work in the U.S. except in a few specific areas, and that these areas already had a full-time club, so there was no potential for more. The rest remained silent. I remembered arguing with these two with the growing realization that they had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, and yet they were running our sport and firmly believed what they were saying. [I'll likely blog about this more tomorrow, this deep-set belief of many that it's a zero-sum game, that there are only so many players and so only so many full-time clubs possible, as opposed to the reality that these clubs develop their own base of players.]

At the time I worked full-time for USATT as Editor of USA Table Tennis Magazine and as Program Director. I was so disappointed in the short-sighted response to my proposal that I resigned both positions. (I went back to coaching and writing.)

Service Week – Teaching a Beginner to Serve
This past week the focus in both of my beginning table tennis classes was serving. For me, it’s the most fun part to teach, and the part that the kids are most fascinated by. If you show a new kid a backspin serve that bounces back into the net, they won’t stop trying until they can do it. If put a target on the table and smack it with a serve, the kids will spend the next half hour trying to hit it, and keep track of every hit. (I use the latter for the younger kids, who struggle at first with just serving, and aren’t ready to really spin their serves.)

Here’s how I teach serves to beginning kids.

Tip of the Week
Returning Smashes: Reacting and Racket Angles.

Clinton Smashes Trump in Debate
Here’s the cartoon! As you can see, I had a little fun last night – and there’s no question now that she got quite a bump in the polls after the debate. (Here’s my 2016 Election Pong Style cartoon, posted previously.)

Eighteen Private Coaching Sessions in a Day
On Friday, I gave 18 private coaching sessions. You heard that right! Okay, that’s a bit misleading as it was 18 ten-minute sessions, plus two 30-minute group sessions. I was hired by a local business that has gone table tennis crazy to spend four hours at their headquarters. It was a wild afternoon!

They have two tables, both pretty nice ones, though one net is a bit ragged. They were mostly using hardbat and sandpaper rackets, stacked in a box by the table, with a few cheap sponge rackets mixed in. They had a huge quantity of orange 2-star celluloid balls.

Coaching Happenings
Here’s a rundown of some coaching issues that came up this week.

During a junior class yesterday, one 6-year-old beginner was struggling to get his serve on the table. He kept smacking it out toward the net, and it would either go into the net, or way off the end or side. I kept explaining that his target was on his side of the table, just a few feet from him. Finally I put a quarter on the table near his end-line and told him that that was his target. Two amazing things happened. First, he became focused on hitting the quarter, and his serve began to hit both sides! Second, about five minutes later, he became so good at serving that I had him try the same thing with a downward stroke – and within a minute he was serving with backspin! Not heavy backspin, of course, but enough that he was pretty excited.

Another beginning kid was struggling with his forehand pendulum serve. I suggested he try a backhand serve – and within minutes he was serving a pretty nice sidespin.

One kid kept swatting balls all over the place. Later, at the very end of the class we had one of those “Hit the bottle of worm juice and I have to drink it” (well, Gatorade), and this kid became so fixated on hitting it that his stroke straightened out, and three times he made me drink it.

In private coaching, one player said he’d been having trouble with lefties – turns out the problem was he was so used to playing his backhand crosscourt that when he played a lefty he’d mostly go right to the player’s forehand (giving an easy attack). When he did go down the line, he struggled since he wasn’t used to doing it. So we did a bunch of down-the-line practice, my forehand to his backhand. (We’re both righties.)

No Regular Blog Today - Thank the Problems with USATT's Team Selection Process
There have been serious problems in the USATT’s team selection process, and I’ve been drawn into it – and for the third night in a row I was up all night dealing with this and other issues. At some point I’ll blog about it. For now, I woke up with a massive headache, and I’m a little too tired and disgusted to want to do anything right now. It’s hard to stay idealistic when dealing with this stuff. Anybody want my spot on the USATT Board? Oh, please, please, please! (The stuff below I put together at around 4AM when I couldn’t sleep. I went to bed after 5AM.)

Physical Tips for Table Tennis Players – by Werner Schlager
This is “Werner Schlager Week” at Expert Table Tennis, with daily articles from the 2003 World Men’s Singles Champion!

• Thursday: Physical Tips
• Wednesday: Technical & Tactical Tips
• Tuesday: Stroke Development Tips
• Monday: Serve & Return Tips

PongHero
Here’s the page. “PongHero is a site dedicated to providing reviews and information about table tennis equipment. Our goal is to provide unbiased reviews and information to help readers make informed decisions when making a purchase.”

Creative Multiball in Sri Lanka
Here’s the video (2:02).

DHS ITTF Top 10 - 2016 China Open
Here’s the video (4:05).

Watch and Learn
I had a student yesterday who couldn’t seem to find his forehand loop. He kept changing it, and roving about, sometimes too close to the table, others times falling back – he was like a leaf blowing in the wind. Finally I had him put his racket down and had him watch two of our top juniors on other tables who were looping against block with other coaches. After about two minutes of this, we started up again, and suddenly it all came back - and he was on fire!

There’s a related Tip of the Week on this: Watch the Top Players Before a Tournament or Big Match. One of the best ways to learn and to get your game together is to watch the top players.

Technical & Tactical Tips for Table Tennis Players – by Werner Schlager
This is “Werner Schlager Week” at Expert Table Tennis, with daily articles from the 2003 World Men’s Singles Champion!

• Wednesday: Technical & Tactical Tips
• Tuesday: Stroke Development Tips
• Monday: Serve & Return Tips

2016 Coaching Rule Guidance
Here’s the article on the ITTF Coaching Rule – rejected (for now) by USATT, but still to be used in ITTF events such as the U.S. Open – by USATT Rules Chair Kagin Lee. Here is the USATT Rules of Table Tennis page, which shows where USATT rules differ from ITTF’s.

The Debate
I watched the Trump-Clinton Debate (please click on link!) last night. I think it was fairly obvious which of the two prepared, and which one just showed up. (When you go to tournaments, which are you?) I was tempted to comment on the debate, but decided not to, since this is a table tennis blog. But this is a good time to repost my 2016 Presidential Election Table Tennis Cartoon!

Sunday Coaching
Sunday is my busiest coaching day, where I normally have eight hours of almost non-stop coaching. As usual, a lot of crazy coaching stuff happened. Here’s a rundown.

Tip of the Week
How to Play Against a Player with a Coach.

ITTF’s New Coaching Rule – Rejected (for now)
At 9:30AM Saturday the USATT Board of Directors had a teleconference. (I’m one of the nine members of the Board.) There were only two items on the agenda. (We meet again in two weeks on Monday, Oct. 10 in Philadelphia, just after the Women’s World Cup, where we’ll have a lengthier agenda.) The first item was “Agreement for Broadcast Services with Triode Media Group.” This was a tricky one as a member of the Board is involved with this group. Nothing was hidden, however, and there was a lot of discussion. I will blog about this when the minutes come out. (The motions and votes for the meeting should come out soon, probably this week; the minutes have to be approved by the Board, and will likely come out sometime in the next month.)

The second item was the more important issue for many of us – the ITTF’s new coaching rule, which allows coaching between points starting Oct. 1, 2016. Here is the rule (with English spellings and that silly “and and” typo they seem unable to correct):

3.5.1.3: Players may receive advice at any time except during rallies and and between the end of practice and the start of a match; if any authorised person gives advice illegally the umpire shall hold up a yellow card to warn him or her that any further such offence will result in his or her dismissal from the playing area (in effect as of 1st October 2016). 

No Blog on Friday
See “Non-Table Tennis” item at end on the Baltimore Book Festival.

New ITTF Coaching Rule
On Wednesday I blogged about this, and about the USATT Board – which I’m on – will vote on this issue this Saturday morning. If you have any comments or thoughts on this, this is your last chance – I DON’T want to hear from you after the fact if you haven’t commented before. There’s a discussion at Mytabletennis.net which I’m following and participating in, so you can post there, and I’ll see it. (Alas, I will hear from people after the fact because not everyone keeps track of the major happenings in our sport until they are directly affected, and they show up at a tournament and play a match against some kid whose coach is coaching every point.)

Here are my blogs on the topic, on August 19 (on why it’s a bad rule, with 14 reasons) and August 26 (on whether USATT should adopt it, despite it being a bad rule). Two things I plan to make sure of: 1) no matter what we do, tournament directors can opt in or out of the rule (by stating this on the entry form); and 2) we re-evaluated in December. The latter means we may adopt it, and then reconsider in December, or it could mean we postpone adopting, and reconsider in December.

New ITTF Coaching Rule and Board Discussion on Saturday
This Saturday at 9:30AM the USATT Board will have a teleconference on whether to adopt the new ITTF Coaching Rule that allows coaching between points. I think it’s a horrible rule, and yet we’d be handicapping ourselves if we don’t adopt it, so it’s not an easy decision, and I’m still undecided – though I’m leaning slightly toward adopting it, with a note in the minutes that we should take this up again at the December Board meeting so we can evaluate it. This is your chance to chime in.

Here’s what Samson Dubina wrote me about it:

It is a terrible rule and should never have been passed by ITTF.  However, as you mentioned in the blog, we need to follow the ruling if we want to have any chance to have success at the international level.  USATT really needs to have a conference call about this asap.  Myself, as well as the other US Coaches, need to be developing a system of communication with our players and have a few months to adjust and perfect the system.

Here’s my letter yesterday to the USATT Board, which includes links to my two blogs on the topic. (Some people have text-only email, so I put the links in explicitly.)

Dear Board,

The decision on the new ITTF coaching rule is not going to be an easy one, and could be the most consequential vote we make this year as it will have a major impact on the sport. I think it's a horrible rule, but at the same time I'm struggling with whether we should adopt it, since if we don't, our players will not be prepared when they play at the U.S. Open, the North American Teams, and in the various Olympic, Pan Am, and Paralympic continental trials. (Those are all run under ITTF rules.)