More Table Tennis Tips
As noted in my blog yesterday, my new book, More Table Tennis Tips, is out! It’s 200 pages, $11.99, and covers the 150 Tips of the Week from 2014-2016, organized by topic, in logical progression. It’s the follow-up from "Table Tennis Tips," which covered the 150 Tips from 2011-2013. (Kindle version will come later.) By now so I’ll have money for dinner!!! (UPDATE on Saturday morning - kindle version is up!)

USATT Coaching Committee
On Monday I was appointed chair of the USATT Coaching Committee. (This will be my second tenure. I chaired the committee back in 1991-1995, and was on the committee 2010-2013.) This is a big honor, and will allow me to work directly on some of the things I promised to do when I ran for the USATT Board. (I’m also a bit more enthused about this position then I was with chairing the League Committee the last two years – that was important, but not as much my area of expertise or interest.) In particular, I said I wanted to set up a “USATT Coaching Academy.” Alas, many have noted that that makes it sound like an actual building or campus. While USATT doesn’t have the funding for that, I do have plans for the equivalent.

So what exactly are my plans? Well, my immediate reaction upon taking power was this. However, once I was through cackling, it was time to make plans. Here are some.

• Recruitment and Training of Coaches. (Acronym – “RAT”?) It’s not enough to just set up an ITTF coaching course, put out a notice, and see who comes. We need to sell the idea of being a full-time table tennis coach, and train them to do so. The primary selling point is you can make good money doing so, generally from $30-$70/hour, depending on your region, and sometimes over $100/hour for group sessions. (The higher hourly fees are mostly in a high-cost area, like New York City.) We also have to sell the idea that you don’t have to be a star player to be a top coach; with proper training, study, and experience, 1800-2000 players can be great coaches and make a living coaching. We’d likely run seminars at the U.S. Open, Nationals, and in conjunction with ITTF coaching courses where we teach the professional side to coaching - setting up and running a full-time center, recruiting students, setting up and running junior programs, maximizing income through multiple streams, etc.  Much of this could be taught right out of the Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook, which I wrote, and will donate at cost.
• Emphasis on Junior Programs and Full-Time Centers. We simply need more of them. I co-founded the Maryland Table Tennis Center in 1992, and it was the first successful full-time training center. Fifteen years later, in 2007, there were only about eight of them. Then it began to take off, and now, ten years later, we have over 90, with nearly all of them running junior programs. This has been the single best thing that has happened to table tennis in the U.S. in modern history. (The only other thing that’s close was the Olympic debut in 1988.) The side effect, of course, is that the level of play among our top cadets and juniors has skyrocketed. They used to struggle to get out of the preliminary groups at major cadet and junior tournaments around the world. Now they’re beginning to win these championships!
• Coaching Seminars at U.S. Nationals and U.S. Open. We used to do them, but stopped. We’re going to start them up again. We’d recruit a top coach to run them, with different topics each time. USATT certified coaches would be allowed in free, others would pay perhaps $15, with the revenue going mostly to the instructor. If there is interest, is there any reason why we should run only one seminar at these tournament? Why not several? When I go to a science fiction convention (my outside table tennis interest), they have multiple panels going on all day, and they are well attended. Why don’t we do the same? (I’m a regular panelist at these SF conventions, so I know it from both ends.)
• Review and Update USATT Coaching Certification. Here’s the current certification process. I’ll go over this with the rest of the Coaching Committee, once appointed. We currently have both USATT and ITTF certification. We’ll decide later whether to continue with both, or to simply adopt the ITTF system.
• Coaching Links to Coaches. I link to various coaching articles, videos, and podcasts here on a daily basis. Many of these should be collected and sent to coaches – perhaps a monthly newsletter. Learning is a lifelong endeavor!

My first task is to appoint a coaching committee. I already put together a list of ten coaches I’d like on it, and think I’ve got it narrowed down to the 3-4 I will nominate, as well as 1-2 player reps I’d recommend. (If I decide to go with a five-person committee, I nominate three, subject to board approval, and the Athlete Advisory appoints an athlete rep. If a seven-person committee, I nominate four, with two athlete reps.) I’m still mulling them over, and will finalize the nomination list soon.

ITTF President Thomas Weikert Ensures Work to Improve Quality of Balls
Here’s the ITTF article. “Since the change, the main issue that has been put forth is that a ball from different manufactures acts differently, thus making it difficult for the players to adjust to the change. The ITTF understands this issue, and has been relentlessly working to minimize such differences in order to provide the best equipment to the players.”

Ping Pool Shark
Here’s a site with lots of coaching tips and articles, in two categories.

• Ping Pong Tips and Tricks
• Blog

Articles and Podcasts from Expert Table Tennis

• How to Start Coaching Table Tennis Beginners (11 min)
• How to Play as Well in Matches as in Training (9:34)

Third Ball Attack In Table Tennis: Chinese training
Here’s the video (10:04).

2017 Butterfly Cary Cup: Largest Prize Pool in Cary Cup History
Here’s the article by Barbara Wei.

Belarus Open
Here’s the ITTF home page for the event, March 15-19 in Minsk. Follow the action all weekend!

A Clean Sport, Table Tennis Holds Head High at World Anti-Doping Agency Symposium
Here’s the ITTF article.

How Long Has It Been Since a Non-Chinese Opponent?
Here’s the meme! (Here’s the non-Facebook version.)

Ma Long - Top Spin Machine (The Dragon Warrior)
Here’s the video (6:45).

Spectacular Doubles Rally
Here’s the video (51 sec). Actually the point should have ended immediately - the receiver moved the table while returning the serve, so his team should have lost the point right there! 

Blast from the Past: Sweden d. China 5-4 (1973 WTTC Final)
Here’s the video (4:15), featuring Kjell Johansson, Stellan Bengtsson, and Ingemar Wikström vs Li Jingguang, Liang Geliang, and Xu Shaofa. Stellan (now coaching in San Diego, and the defending World Men’s Singles Champion from 1971) wins all three! In the last match, Johansson defeats an attacking Liang Geliang, who would lose all three matches. Liang had originally been a chopper with medium long pips, but (according to interview below) the style was denounced by Chiang Ching (wife of Chairman Mao), and so he was forced to switch to inverted on both sides. He would later go back to pips, and be a mainstay on the Chinese team for many years, including making the semifinals of Men’s Singles at the Worlds in 1977 - where he was ordered to dump to Mitsuro Kohno of Japan (who Liang said he'd beaten five times in a row), who would go on to win. (Info provided by John Olsen from OOAK forum interview.)

Coach Looking for Work
Here’s the email I received from this Portugal coach, who is currently in Peru. Email him directly if interested.

I am Alexandre Gomes, table tennis coach. At this moment I am working on the selection of Peru as the main coach and I have trained several clubs in Portugal as well as I trained the selection of Portugal. I was player of the selection of Portugal in all the categories and several times champion. I trained several world-class players such as Aruna Quadri, Fu Yu, Andre Silva, Sas Lasan Diogo Silva. I would like to work in the U.S.A, I know that table tennis is going to have a very big development and that is why I am interested in working in U.S.A. I would like to know if you would be interested in my services. I send my C.V if interested.

It's St. Patrick's Day!
Wear green to the table tennis club tonight. Did you know I searched the entire Internet for a picture of a Leprechaun playing table tennis and came up empty? (Just Leprachauns or St. Patrick's Day slogans on paddles and balls, or people in green from Ireland or Notre Dame.) 

Would You Like a Ping-Pong Ball?
Here’s the picture! (Here’s the non-Facebook version.)

Cow Pong
Here’s the cartoon!

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More Table Tennis Tips
Here it is! And it’s yours now, exactly 200 pages, for only $11.99! I’ve been hard at work (yes, many of those late nights) compiling it in logical fashion, editing, doing page layouts, the covers, inputting edits from the “Terrific Trio” of proofers (Mark Dekeyser, John Olsen, Dennis Taylor), even putting in a few graphics. I don’t yet have a copy myself. I proofed and okayed an online version, and am now feverishly awaiting a hard copy. (A kindle version will come later.) This is my eighth book on table tennis (and twelfth overall). Here’s the description from Amazon:

Here are 150 Tips to help your table tennis game, by Larry Hodges - a member of the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame and a National Coach. They compile in logical progression three years' worth of Tips of the Week (2014-2016) from TableTennisCoaching.com. They cover all aspects of the game: Serve, Receive, the Strokes, Grip and Stance, Footwork, Tactics, How to Improve, Sports Psychology, Equipment, and Tournaments. (This is a sequel to "Table Tennis Tips," which covered the 150 Tips from 2011-2013.)

How to Get Backspin on a Reverse Pendulum Serve
Here’s the article and podcast (7:50) from Expert Table Tennis

A Guide for Parents to Find the Best Table Tennis Coaching For Their Child
Here’s the article from Coach Me Table Tennis.

It's Not All About You - Something to Think About...
Here’s the article from Samson Dubina.

USATT Insider
Here’s the new issue, which came out yesterday.

2017-2018 Youth National Team Trials and Selection Procedures
Here they are!

Richard Solomon, Kissinger aide involved in ‘Ping-Pong Diplomacy’ with China, dies at 79
Here’s the obit in the Washington Post, which includes a picture of Solomon playing doubles with China’s 3-time Men’s Singles World Champion Zhuang Zedong.

Why Would a Below Average Table Tennis Player Would Try Out for the U.S. National Men’s Team?
Here’s the video answer (3 min) from Richard Perez, who is trying out. (Current rating: 1549; highest rating: 1721.)

Parkinson's New, Unexpected Foe: Table Tennis
Here’s the article and video (2:53). “Nenad Bach, an international musician and Croton resident, is encouraging fellow Parkinson's sufferers to try ping-pong to battle the disease. His health has improved since he started playing two-to-three times a week about a year-and-a-half ago.”

Circling the Table

• Comic Book Pong Race Around a Stone Table
• Comic Race Around the Table
• Former world #1 Mikael Apprelgren plays around the world (31 sec)
• Circle Table with Pots (16 sec)
• Circle Pong to Piano (6:14)
• 13 People Around the Table with Play by Play (6:17)
• Larry Hodges and Derek Nie chasing each other around the table (8 sec)

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USATT Teleconference, New Coaching Chair, and the Service Judges Proposal
The USATT Board had a teleconference on Monday night, starting 7PM. (I blogged about the agenda on Monday.) Among other things, we appointed a number of USATT committee chairs and members. At exactly 8:36PM on Monday night I was appointed to my second tenure as chair of the USATT Coaching Committee. (USATT will publish online the full listings of soon of the various committee chairs and members we just appointed.) I’ll blog later about my plans for the coaching committee. My previous tenure was 1991-1995; I was also on the coaching committee 2010-2013.

The meeting was scheduled to last only 70 minutes, but took about two hours. This was mostly because the seven minutes allocated to the Rules Committee Proposal for Service Judges ended up taking something like 40 minutes of debate. The proposal was to give referees the option of appointing service judges on each end of the court at the upcoming USA Nationals, where they can better see the legality of a serve, in particular whether the serve was hidden. It would essentially be a test, and if it works, it would then be presented to the ITTF. The key thing here is that the referee would have complete discretion over whether to call for this, and would not, for example, call for it if there’s no room for the service judges (i.e. the back of the court is a wall) or if there aren’t enough umpires. They would also not use it in “big” matches at this time, with events such as Under 2400 mentioned as events where it could be tested. The proposal will also be tested at the upcoming College Nationals.

There were some objections to this proposal. The main ones were:

1. It would disrupt big matches, where the players aren’t used to having the service rule enforced.
   (I asked what the players’ arguments would be, “I object to the service judge correctly faulting my illegal serve”?
2. We didn’t get feedback on this from the Tournament Committee.
   (I didn’t see why this was needed – it’s a matter for umpires and referees, not tournament directors.)
3. It will make players nervous – “Players would wonder why is this umpire watching my serve?”
   (I pointed out they already have up to two umpires watching, with the main difference now being they couldn’t hide their serve from the umpires.)
4. It would force U.S. players to play under two sets of rules and conditions, putting them at a disadvantage overseas.
   (Top players who hide their serve – either sometimes or all the time – already have to do this, as they have to be ready for the occasional umpire who does enforce the rules. But the plan is to only try out the proposal, and then submit to the ITTF with the idea that it would become more widespread. If ITTF does not adopt it, we would likely drop the idea as well.)   

I made the motion to adopt the proposal, and gave an impassioned argument that we need to stop looking the other way at all the cheating that takes place in our sport at the higher levels, where illegally hiding the serve is the norm, and so to compete on an equal basis, nearly all top players have to learn and use these serves. I thought it was going to be a close vote, but lo and behold, it passed, 6-1-1 (one abstention).

Other issues: welcome and introduction of new board member Gary Schlager; CEO Report (National Team Trials, USA Nationals, Membership, Sponsorship and Fundraising, Clubs Update, Tournaments, High Performance/USOC, Junior National Team Trials, and Seamaster & Newco.); a closed session for a legal update (has Trump been tapping our phones to learn our coaching secrets?); and a discussion of our upcoming board meeting schedule. (We’ll be meeting near the ICC club in California April 22-23. Taking the weekend off will cost me over $500, but that’s comes with being on the Board.)

[Begin Rant]
One part about the Rules Committee Proposal for Service Judges I didn’t like was the rationalizing for it. It argues, with pictures included, that “the umpires are in poor position to judge whether the ball is hidden.” While this is correct, it misses what I consider the key problem in our enforcement of the service rule. As I’ve pointed out many times in this blog and in arguments with umpires and referees, the key question is not whether the serve was hidden, but whether the umpire was “sure about the legality of the serve,” with the rules also stating that “It is the responsibility of the player to serve so that the umpire or assistant umpire can be satisfied that s/he complies with the requirements of the law.” When players serve so the umpire cannot be “sure” and “satisfied” about the legality of the serve, then the serve is a fault (with an optional warning first).

So while some argue that umpires can’t tell if the serve is hidden or not from their viewpoint, they don’t seem to realize that they have just stated that the serve is illegal. If they are not “sure” and “satisfied,” there is no longer any gray area – the serve is illegal, and if they don’t call it, they are allowing a player to cheat. Alas, umpires and referees don’t want to be singled out as the only one enforcing the rules, so we’ll continue to have illegal serving – yes, cheating – until the people in charge – Rules Committee, Umpires and Referees Committee, USATT Board, ITTF – make it a priority to enforce the service rule as it is written and stop the rampant cheating in our sport. (I tried, at the December, 2015 Board meeting – see Motion 6 – and may bring this up again sometime. I also have my Net Visibility Rule proposal to solve the problem.) We’re still in the “denial” stage, like baseball in the steroids era, where most knew what was going on but mostly looked the other way. But the Service Judges Proposal is a step in the right direction.
[/End Rant]

Coaching Articles and Podcasts from Expert Table Tennis

• How to Switch From a European to a Chinese Rubber (10:06)
• How to Stop Playing All Forehands in Matches (6:40)

Supermicro Returns as Title Sponsor of the 2017 USATT National Championships
Here’s the USATT press release.

Lily Zhang Eyes 8th World Championship Opportunity
Here’s the USATT article by Matt Hetherington.

Anastasiia Rybka Lights the Way for Texas Wesleyan Rams for NCTTA Nationals
Here’s the USATT article by Matt Hetherington.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 18 (1990-1991)
Here's chapter 25! Or order your own print copies at TimBogganTableTennis.com, as well as Volume 19!

Ding Ning Outrageous Table Tennis Rally
Here’s the video (59 sec).

Jason Piech in Training!
Here’s the video (66 sec) of the up-and-coming star from the Northwest Arkansas TTC. I’ve coached him a few times at training camps at MDTTC.

Overweight Player Watches Ball Go By
Here’s the animated gif.

Fish Table Tennis
Here’s the cartoon!

Zhang Jike vs. King Kong
Here’s the picture! I added it to all the King Kong/gorilla table tennis pictures at the end of my March 10 blog.

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USATT Teleconference and Snow
We had it last night. I’ll blog about it tomorrow. Meanwhile, it's snowing here in Maryland, and my coaching (and the Tuesday night League) is cancelled for the day. So I'll get a lot of work done!!!

When was USA Table Tennis Team Strongest?
I’m referring here to the strength of our National Team, and their results at the World Championships in Men’s and Women’s Singles, Doubles, and Teams. (Our results in other events such as Paralympics is a separate issue.) I was asked recently when we were at our best. The answer is probably in the late 1930s.

• In 1936 we won Women’s Singles and Men’s Doubles, and made the final of Women’s Teams.
• In 1937 we swept Men’s and Women’s Teams, Women’s Singles, and Men’s Doubles. Easily the best year ever for us.
• In 1938 we won Men’s Doubles and made the semifinals of Women’s Singles.

By comparison, we won only two titles in the 1940s – Mixed Doubles in 1948 and Women’s Teams in 1949, and one in the 1950s – Mixed Doubles in 1956. (We did have some pretty good performances both decades.) As to the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s . . . less said the better. (I believe Gao Jun, former world #3 from China, after emigrating to the U.S. made the quarterfinals of Women’s Singles at the Worlds one year.) Oh, and Tybie Sommers, who won Mixed Doubles in 1948 (as Thelma Hall) is our last surviving World Champion, and sometimes shows up, medal around neck, at the U.S. Open or Nationals!

Below are a list of World Titles won in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, plus notable performances (semis or better in Singles, finals or better in Teams and Doubles). Note that due to World War II, there were no Worlds held from 1940-1946, which of course cost us a number of titles. But nothing compared to what we did in 1937.

=>1930s

• 1936 World Women’s Singles Champion (Ruth Aarons)
• 1936 World Men’s Doubles Champions (Jimmy McClure/Robert Blatner)
• 1937 World Men’s Teams Champions
• 1937 World Women’s Teams Champion
• 1937 World Women’s Singles Champion (Ruth Aarons)
• 1937 World Men’s Doubles Champions (Jimmy McClure/Robert Blatner)
• 1938 World Men’s Doubles Champions (Jimmy McClure/Sol Schiff)

-Other 1930s Notables:

• 1936 World Women’s Teams Finalist
• 1938 World Women’s Singles Semifinalist (Betty Henry)

=>1940s

• 1948 World Mixed Doubles Champions (Dick Miles/Thelma Hall)
• 1949 World Women’s Teams Champion

-Other 1940s Notables:

• 1947 World Women’s Doubles Finalists (Mae Clouther/Reba Monness)
• 1947 World Men’s Teams Finalist
• 1947 World Men’s Singles Semifinalist (Lou Pagliaro)
• 1949 World Men’s Singles Semifinalist (Marty Reisman)
• 1949 World Women’s Singles Semifinalist (Thelma Hall)

=>1950s

• 1956 World Mixed Doubles Champions (Erwin Klein/Leah Neuberger)

-Other 1950s Notables:

• 1951 World Women’s Singles Semifinalist (Leah Thall)
• 1959 World Men’s Singles Semifinalist (Dick Miles)

Serving Low
Here’s the Serving Low Tip of the Week from July 16, 2012 – but it’s still one of the most under-developed skills in table tennis.

Ma Long Best Points Marvellous 2017
Here’s the video (4:51).

Rachel Sung Takes First International Title in Italy
Here’s the USATT article by Matt Hetherington.

2017 Smash TT Winter Challenge 2 Star Open
Here’s the article. Chen Bowen, Lidney Castro, and Tiffany Ke are all from my club!

Landmark, records broken, World Table Tennis Day bigger than ever
Here’s the ITTF article.

Novak Djokovic Surprises Fans With Ping Pong
Here’s the video (38 sec).

Super-Fast Animated Table Tennis
Here’s the repeating gif image.

Unreturnable Spin Serves
Here’s the video (14 sec).

Fast-Action Balloon Pong
Here’s the video (29 sec)!

It’s Pi Day!
Yes, today’s date is 3.14. Here is some pi related table tennis products.

• Blue Pi Symbol Math Geek Humor Funny Ping Pong Ping-Pong Paddle
• Pi Ring on Navy Blue Ping-Pong Paddle
• Digits of Pi Form a Colorful Spiral Ping Pong Paddle
• Pi Symbol, Bright Rainbow Stripes Ping-Pong Paddle
• Math Humor Ping Pong Equipment

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Tip of the Week
Warm Up the Shots You’ll Be Using.

13.5 Hours of Weekend Coaching
My weekend hours keep going up. This weekend I did five hours on Saturday and 8.5 on Sunday! (Of course, to many full-time coaches, it's just another weekend.) On Mondays I have 3.5 hours, then just two on Tue and Wed. I’m normally off on Thur and Fri. Due to the USATT Teleconference, which is normally scheduled the second Monday every month, I had to cancel one hour for tonight, so being on the Board is costly.

On Sunday we had the tenth and final week of the Beginning/Intermediate Junior Class (90 min, 14 players). The first half was “player’s choice,” where the players go to choose what they needed to work on. Then we did what I always like doing at the end of each ten-week session – lobbing!!! We did a demo and I went over how to smash lobs. Then John Hsu, William Huang, and I each took a court and spent 15 minutes lobbing to the kids, who stayed up until they missed three. Wen Hsu took the youngest beginners and fed them multiball lobs. After an hour of training we did 30 minutes of games. The older players did Brazilian Teams while the younger ones voted unanimously (as they do every week) for the ever-popular “Cup Game,” where they make pyramids of paper cups, then line up and knock them down as I feed multiball.

In the Talent Program (22 advanced juniors, 90 min), we did lots and Lots and LOTS of shadow practice and multiball. Then a lot of serve and attack type drills. I spent a lot of time with one of the kids who was really into developing his spin serves. The night before in a league match he’d pulled off a nice upset, with his new reverse pendulum serve winning him a lot of points.

In the Adult Training session (90 min, 11 players), after the usual drills (FH-FH and BH-BH warm-up, footwork, smashing and looping drills), we did 30 minutes of serve and attack, with the players taking turns, 7.5 min each. The focus was on attacking down the line and recovering. Often players attack down the line and just stand there, leaving a wide angle open. So they practice not only attacking, but following through back into the proper position for the next shot.

USATT Teleconference
Tonight at 7PM we’re having a USATT Teleconference. (I’m one of the nine on the USATT Board.) On the agenda (my wording, not directly from the agenda itself):

1. Roll Call/Conflict of Interest Statements/Welcome Remarks.
2. Introduction of Gary Schlager, who joins the USATT Board as one of the two Independent Directors. He has an extensive financial background, which USATT can use. Gary plays at my club (MDTTC) and other Maryland clubs, so I know him well. (He’s been rated over 2000, and has assisted me in local clinics.) He’s a welcome addition. How long will it take us to convert him from this to this?
3. Rules Committee Proposal. They are proposing the use of service judges, who would be positioned at each end of the court (instead of at the side, where umpires are positioned), so as to better see the serve. They will be used at the recent College Nationals as a test. More on this later.
4. CEO Report, covering National Team Trials, USA Nationals, Membership, Sponsorship and Fundraising, SimplyComplete, Clubs Update, Tournaments, High Performance/USOC, Junior National Team Trials, and Seamaster & Newco.
5. Appointment of NewCo (who will be running major table tennis events).
6. 2017-2019 Committee Appointments.
7. Closed session (legal update).
8. Upcoming Board Meeting Schedule
9. Old and New Business
10. Adjourn.

Whip Forehand Topspin Table Tennis - Like a Boss!
Here’s the new video (4:07) from Brett Clarke.

New Articles and Videos from Samson Dubina

• Emotions A US Open Experience
• Core Training Watch the Video (11:20) and Listen to the Advice
• Leg Training Watch the video (11 min), Listen to the Instruction

Table Tennis Training With a Purpose - Make it Count!
Here’s the article from Table Tennis University.

Unreal Drop Shots by Yijun 'Tom' Feng
Here’s the video (44 sec) as the 2015 U.S. National Men’s Champion practices and demonstrates his drop shop against lobs, fed by Cory Eider. Did you think players develop this type of touch by not practicing it?

Rare Footage of Fan Zhendong at Age Ten
Here’s the video (1:16) as the now world #2 played against German star Thomas Keinath as a kid.

Master Stroke Table Tennis Training Device
Here’s the video (1:28) of this new table tennis invention, apparently from Asia. (Who’ll be the first to let me know whether the sub-titles are Chinese, Japanese, or Korean? I have no idea.)  

2017 Italian Junior & Cadet Open: Gold for Rachel!
Here’s the article by Bruce Liu, featuring USA’s Rachel and Joanna Sung.

Personal Invitation to 2017 Spring High Performance Camp
Here’s the article. Camp takes place March 27-29, between the USA National Team Trials (March 23-26) and the Cary Cup (March 30 – April), all at the Triangle TTC in North Carolina.

ITTF Looking for Media Interns for Liebherr 2017 World Table Tennis Championships
Here’s the article. “The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) offers media internships for young media professionals to work for the ITTF at the Liebherr 2017 World Table Tennis Championships to be held in Dusseldorf, Germany from Monday 29th May to Monday 5th June.”

ITTF Executive Committee Meets in Dubai
Here’s the article, with a summary of the meeting this past Saturday.

China: Marvelous Twelve
Here’s the ITTF page featuring Chinese news, with coverage of the just completed Chinese Team Trials. Lots of articles, including ones on why Ma Long and Zhang Jike both had to withdraw due to injuries.

NCTTA National Championship is Coming!
Here’s the preview video (3:36).

NYCTTA and Aerobic Table Tennis
Here’s the video (1:51) by Jules Apatini, featuring Coach Ernesto Ebuen. “This video is a collaboration between the Aerobic Sports Dance & Music Exercises Group & NYCTTA. It was created to demonstrate how Table Tennis is an excellent form of Aerobic Progressive Exercises. We will bring you videos like this in the not so distant future.”

Amazing Table Tennis Hand Switch Shot
Here’s the video (37 sec) of this great shot. It turns out she had been practicing the shot for this very circumstance!

Shadow Practice at the Gym
Here’s the video (7 sec) – Think of the fitness benefits if millions of Americans did this?!!!

Ping Pong is Night Out for Tech CEOs Zuckerberg, Houston and Kalanick
Here’s the article and pictures. “The trio of tech CEO pals hit SPiN in San Francisco, part of Susan Sarandon's network of ping pong social clubs, last Friday.”

Meet Cody Bellinger, the Dodgers' Latest Budding Superstar
Here’s the article – but is he a budding baseball or table tennis superstar? “Getting a look last year at the club’s pingpong culture, Bellinger worked on his table tennis game in the offseason, in addition to his attention toward baseball. He even has his own paddle now.”

Funniest TT Player Ever? Timo, Who Else?
Here’s the video (2:57) that compiles some of his funniest real or exhibition points. (He’s the lefty, the former world #1 from Germany.)

The Greatest Football Players “Play” Table Tennis
Here’s the video (59 sec) as these soccer stars (yeah, real football) “play” table tennis, set to music!

Non-Table Tennis - Top Ten Leadoff Options for the Baltimore Orioles
Here’s the article I wrote, now featured on Orioles Hangout. (Yes, baseball.)  It includes a number of inside jokes some might not get. The Orioles are a great power-hitting team, but at the moment don’t have a really good option for leadoff hitter (where on base percentage and speed are important). It’s my 32nd article published there, going back to 2012. Other than table tennis and the Orioles, I don’t really follow sports too closely. (I used to coach Orioles players – one hour each with JJ Hardy and Brady Anderson, and about ten sessions with Darren O’Day. Here’s my blog on my visit to the Orioles Clubhouse in 2013 with four of our players, and here’s video.)

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More Table Tennis Tips
The book is almost done! This is a compilation of all 150 of my Tips of the Week from 2014-2016, put in logical progression. It’s the sequel to Table Tennis Tips, which did the same for 2011-2013. Yesterday I finished inputting the edits and suggestions from the Terrific Trio of Mark Dekseyser, John Olsen, and Dennis Taylor, who read the first draft. So the text is now done. Today I’ll be formatting the pages. I also have to do the back cover. (Front cover is done.) If all goes well, it’ll be ready for final proofing in a few days. When it comes out (by the end of this month), I may put together some sort of special where you can get both volumes at a discount. Or why not buy Table Tennis Tips and read it now, so you can go straight to More Table Tennis Tips when it comes out?

Shadow Practice
I’ve been encouraging some of my students to shadow practice. This is a big part of the Talent junior program at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, where the coaches lead the players in shadow-stroking drills, and then feed multiball to each player, with the others in the group lined up behind and shadow-stroking. (Parents take turns picking up the balls so it’s continuous, with short breaks.) Here are three videos I sent to them as examples.

• Shadow Drills (2:36) from PingSkills
• Loop Fundamentals Shadow Table Tennis Training (4:07) from Brian Pace
• Exercise Table Tennis - Only in China! (15:15)

Full-time Clubs
On Wednesday, I wrote about how we had reached 90 full-time clubs in the U.S. Well, now we’re at 92, with the additions of the New York City Table Tennis Academy and the Houston International Table Tennis Academy. I’m not sure how these two were left out before, but now we’re just eight away from that magic 100 mark. I hope to focus on developing more of these centers over the next couple of years. (If you know of any not on the list, let me know.)

It was at the December 2006 USATT board meeting that I urged USATT to make it a goal to have 100 full-time centers in the country within ten years. I created a plan and made the proposal where we’d actively recruit and train people to set up these training centers, focusing on how they could make a full-time living coaching table tennis. (At the time there were about eight such centers, with perhaps a couple dozen full-time coaches in the U.S.; now we have many hundreds.) The program would be paid by the coaches themselves, who already were paying to attend USATT certification clinics. My point was that we were only teaching them how to coach, not how to be professional coaches, and so few of them extensively used the skills we taught them.

The idea was scoffed at, with the eternal argument that there aren’t enough table tennis players in this country – but here we are. It was the primary reason I resigned early in 2007 as USATT editor and programs director. Two board members in particular ridiculed the idea, and others sort of quietly looked the other way. Now imagine where we would be if USATT had helped out by recruiting and training people to set up and run these centers? Instead, people have had to do it on their own, one by one, with experienced people like myself advising informally. Instead of 92, we’d probably have twice that many. If that seems like a lot, remember that back then eight seemed like a lot, and the idea of having 100 seemed a joke. I once calculated that we should have about 500 in this country.

I get scoffed at a lot. When I co-founded the Maryland Table Tennis Center in 1992, it was the first successful full-time training center of its kind, and we were also told it couldn’t work, that there just isn’t enough table tennis activity in this country for something like that to work. What they were missing, of course, is that you develop the interest. We’re the same species of human as people overseas, and it works there, so why not here? But every step of the way the idea of full-time training centers has been scoffed at, with people believing each step of the way that we had saturated the market and there was no room for more.

I was toying with creating a comprehensive lists of all the things I’ve been scoffed at for, but then I’d be here all day. (Do you play in a rated table tennis league, using the USATT League ratings? When I co-founded that with Robert Mayer as an attempt to break away from “winner stay on” mentality of most clubs, it was scoffed at. In both of my tenures as editor of USA Table Tennis Magazine I was told that they had saturated the table tennis advertising market – and each time I tripled the ad revenue. Heck, I didn’t start table tennis until I was 16, and guess how many people believed someone could start that late and reach top 20 in the U.S.?)

How to Plan a Third-Ball Attack
Here’s the article and podcast (7:50) from Expert Table Tennis. I thought I’d comment on one statement, where it says, “If you’re a player with a really strong forehand, but a weak backhand attack, then it doesn’t make sense for you to do loads of pendulum forehand serves when you’re playing matches. Because you’re just increasing the chance that you’ll need to use your backhand for the third-ball.”

I believe this was written more for beginning and intermediate players, where it’s generally true. At the higher levels, among those with fast footwork, it actually changes, and forehand-oriented players (like myself) favor the forehand pendulum serve. Why? Because it allows us to attack with the forehand from the backhand side, which puts us in position for a second follow-up forehand. If we used sidespin to put the ball to the forehand (say, a backhand serve, tomahawk serve, or reverse pendulum serve), then the ball might tend to go to the forehand side, giving us a forehand shot, but pulling us to the wide forehand side – and then the opponent could block to the backhand, taking away the forehand.

MH Coaching Blog
You’ve got a long weekend ahead, so why not curl up with a few good coaching articles at MH Table Tennis (by Matt Hetherington)? They’ve accumulated over the years, so there are a lot of nice ones!

Adam Bobrow 'The Voice of Table Tennis' on Board for the Next Four Years
Here’s the ITTF press release.

2017 Butterfly Arnold Table Tennis Challenge Collegiate Players & Alumni Dominate Rating Events
Here’s the article by Barbara Wei.

MasterChef rivalry: Heston Blumenthal’s Table Tennis Battle Royale with George Calombaris
Here’s the article from the London Daily Telegraph.

LIVE NOW: The Marvellous 12 - Stage 2 Finals
Here’s where you can watch the Chinese Team Trials – live! (Presumably you can go back and watch them afterwards as well.)

War of the Worlds Pong?
Here’s the picture of these tripod beings taking up table tennis!

Humorous Table Tennis T-Shirts
Because only a really boring table tennis player doesn't have at least one humorous table tennis shirt in his collection!

• Café Press – hundreds of choices!
• Spreadshirt – 144 choices!
• Zazzle – 49 choices!
• Red Bubble – 15 choices! (But there’s a few tennis ones mixed in.)
• Amazon – many choices.

Ping-Pong in Kong!
When you see Kong: Skull Island, watch closely early in the film when they set out on the big boat - there's a ping-pong table on deck! As to the movie itself (non-table tennis aspects), this is what I posted on Facebook after seeing it last night (with a few minor edits): “Kong: Skull Island is basically Apocalypse Now + Jurassic Park + Moby Dick + Robinson Crusoe + Beauty and the Beast + Godzilla (as King Kong played by "Caesar" from the Planet of the Apes) all in one. Great movie, very different from past King Kong movies. 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. Stay for the after-credits scene.”

And since we’re on the topic of King Kong, here are King Kong/Gorilla table tennis pictures!

• King Kong Ping Pong 1
• King Kong Ping Pong 2
• King Kong Ping Pong 3
• King Kong Ping Pong 4 
• King Kong Ping Pong 5
• King Kong Ping Pong 6
• King Kong Ping Pong 7
• King Kong Ping Pong 8
• King Kong Ping Pong 9
• King Kong Ping Pong 10
• King Kong Ping Pong 11
• King Kong Ping Pong 12
• King Kong Ping Pong 13
• King Kong vs. Zhang Jike
• King Kong vs. Godzilla
• Long-Armed Gorilla Pong
• Dr. Neubauer Roaring Gorilla Pips
• Gorillas Playing Pong
• Gorilla Blade 1 (there were over 20 different ones)
• Gorilla Blade 2
• Gorilla Blade 3
• I Love My Gorilla Paddle
• Gorilla Ping Pong Ball (there were over 20 different ones)

Non-Table Tennis: Funny Horror
The recent anthology Funny Horror has a story I wrote in it, “Happily and Righteously,” a parody of paranoia. The first review of the book is out, from Imagine Books, where my story is listed as one of the favorites. The reviewer then went over each story one by one, and gave the story the shortest review of all: “Brilliant!”

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Backhands to Get the Timing for Forehands
I have a new student who has been struggling with her forehand. It’s sort of strange – she has a very good backhand, and we can really go at it on that side. But on the forehand, her shots go all over the place. Sometimes she’ll hit a few good ones, and then she’ll swat it straight down into the net, then loft it way off the end, as if there’s no control over the timing or the stroke. The contrast between the two sides is huge. Her background was that she had trained as a kid in Poland, then stopped for decades, and was now picking it up again.

From a coaching point of view, it was rather frustrating as each session would start with us going forehand-to-forehand, sometimes multiball, sometimes live, and no matter what we did, the balls flew everywhere. Eventually we’d wear down and switch to backhands, where she’d have no problem – though by then she’d be a bit tired, physically and mentally, and so even there it wasn’t as good as it could be.

Yesterday (our fifth session) I had a brainstorm. We so often start off sessions going forehand to forehand and then backhand to backhand, and it made sense here – she needed more work on the forehand, so we should start there, right? After a while we could then go to the backhand for a time, and then come back to work on that problematic forehand again. But more and more I was suspecting the forehand problem was strictly a timing problem, and the changes in stroke were her adjustments to timing problems – lunging forward and swatting the ball into the net when she was too early, lofting it off the end when she was too late. We worked on the timing, trying to take the ball at the same spot each time, but were only semi-successful. So what was this brainstorm?

We started yesterday’s session going backhand to backhand. She did so well that I began to increase the pace, and soon she was hitting them like a pro (perhaps at a 1900-2000 level). When I played my forehand to her backhand I began to really tee off, and she got better and better, as if those skills from years ago in Poland were coming back.

Then we switched to forehands – and the change was dramatic!!! Hitting all those backhands, where she’s comfortable, helped her develop her timing, and so when we switched to forehands, she had no trouble. By the end of the session she was smacking in forehands like a pro! (Next week we begin looping, something she learned all those years ago in Poland – and she hinted that she was stronger on the backhand loop than the forehand loop.)

How to Transfer Practice Skills to a Match
Here’s the article and podcast (7:42) from Expert Table Tennis.

Small Steps Training Drill
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak.

Coaching Articles from Coach Me Table Tennis
Here’s a site with regular coaching articles.

• TABLE TENNIS "CONTROLLED TACTICS" 
• 3 EXERCISES TO IMPROVE YOUR CONSISTENCY IN TABLE TENNIS 
• HOW DO WE DEAL WITH DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS?
• HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR TABLE TENNIS BALL PLACEMENT!
• FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL 
• "ONCE BITTEN TWICE SHY" PERSEVERANCE!
• TT PLAYERS WORST ENEMY, FEAR!
• HOW TO HANDLE LOSSES
• WHAT MAKES A TOP TABLE TENNIS COACH?
• GETTING WHAT YOU WANT!

SPiN Announces Its Latest Expansion Into Austin and Launch Of Its New Digital Programming
Here’s the article.

Ask a Pro Anything - Paul Drinkhall
Here’s the video (5:10) with Adam Bobrow. Drinkhall, the #1 player from England, is #39 in the world (#32 in September)

Top 10 Men’s World Rankings – the Video!
Here’s the video (33 sec) from Pong Universe, featuring the new March rankings. Here’s the ITTF World Ranking List, with Men, Women, and boys and girls Under 21, Under 18, and Under 15.  

Incredible Kreanga Over the Barriers
Here’s the video (36 sec).

Ping-Pong as the Fountain of Youth
Here’s the article from the New York Times.

How to Make Ping-Pong Ball Monsters
Here’s the info page and video (47 sec)!

Octopus Table Tennis Shirt
Here it is!

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Celebrities Playing Table Tennis - Want to Host It?
Many years ago, “In a moment of sudden clarity, I realized what this world needed was a web page devoted to pictures of celebrities playing table tennis.” And so I created the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis Page. I maintained and continued to add to it for years, and it now has 1440 photos of 870 different celebrities playing table tennis. Why not browse over it?

How’d you like to take over the site?

A lot of blogs and web pages have links to the site. Here's a list of 68. It was even a "Yahoo Pick," and is one of their "Celebrity Picks.") At its peak, for several months the page averaged over 15,000 downloads per day! (Alas, I’m having trouble accessing the current stats, but I know it still gets a lot of daily hits.)

But it go to be a time-consuming job. A major reason for this was the way I’d set it up, with simple old-fashioned HTML and tables. I think some of the code got messed up, and it became a time-consuming headache adding more pictures. But it’s all there, easy to read, in nine different categories: Politicians/Leaders ... Athletes ... Talk Show Hosts ... Writers ... Actors ... Actresses ... Musicians ... Cartoon Characters ... Other.

I’m just too busy to devote time to it, and so few years ago I stopped maintaining it. And so it just sits there, an orphan in cyberspace, looking for someone it can call “Mommy” or “Daddy.” Yes, I’ve abandoned it; I’m a horrible parent. (I even have a folder of new photos for it that I’ve never added.)

But I’d like to find a good home for it. It would be a great way to attract traffic to your site. You’d have to host it – that means transferring it all to your server, and setting it up in any format you choose. (I'm sure there's a more efficient, modern way of setting up this photo gallery than the way it's currently set up.) Right now it’s a purely non-commercial site – it even says that in bold at the top – and I’d prefer it go to some semi-noncommercial site, rather than a purely commercial one, but let’s see who’s interested and motivated to take it over and maintain it. If interested, let me know.

USATT Young Officials Seminar
Here’s the USATT article – now this is something new and interesting! It’ll take place on Sunday, March 26, at the Lily Yip TTC in New Jersey. Cost is $25. “The one-day seminar . . . will give aspiring young officials 13 – 18 years old the chance to learn the rules of table tennis and earn their USATT Club Umpire Certification. The seminar will be conducted under the supervision of ITTF International Referee and International Umpire Roman Tinyszin, who served as the Deputy Referee at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.”

And Long Island TTC Makes 90!
With the addition of the Long Island TTC, we now have 90 full-time table tennis centers in the U.S. C’mon, just ten more!!! (I was once laughed at for predicting ten years ago that we could have 100 such centers in ten years – back then we had about eight.)
UPDATE - I just added the New York City Table Tennis Academy, so we're at 91. 
UPDATE - I just added the Houston International Table Tennis Academy, so we're at 92. (I thought I had already added them.) 

How to Recover After Your Service
Here’s the article and podcast (6:31) from Expert Table Tennis.

Top 3 Table Tennis Injuries (and How to Prevent Them)!
Here’s the article.

Best of 2016
Here are the eight best videos from Samson Dubina in 2016.

Young Players Excel at 2017 Maryland Hopes Camp and Trial
Here’s the USATT article – by me! It’s from my blog on Tuesday.

2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games Initial Announcement
Here’s the news release.

Serious Fun: Augusta Table Tennis Classic to help put food on tables
Here’s the article from the Augusta Chronicle.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 18 (1990-1991)
Here's chapter 24! Or order your own print copies at TimBogganTableTennis.com, as well as Volume 19!

Ma Long vs Fan Zhendong (Marvelous 12)
Here’s the video (7:12) in the Chinese Team Trials – with links to other matches on the right. Here are the current standings and article – and Zhang Jike (who has dropped to 2-4) has withdrawn from stage one with a foot injury.

Crazy Point!
Here’s the video (43 sec)!

Desperado: Man vs. Cactus
Here’s the picture! (Here’s the non-Facebook version.)

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Tip of the Week
Footwork and Strokes: Use ‘Em or Lose ‘Em.

Maryland Regional Hopes Camp and Tournament
Maryland Table Tennis Center, March 4-5, 2017
By Larry Hodges

They were held this past weekend at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, with 25 players taking part. The camp was on Saturday, with two 2.5 hour sessions, with the tournament on Sunday. A great thanks goes to ITTF and USATT (especially Andy Horn and Gordon Kaye) for arranging these events, and to HW Global Foundation, which helped sponsor it. Here is the USATT Hopes Info page.

Head coach for the camp was Wang Qing Liang (“Leon”), one of the USATT National Cadet Coaches and one of nine full-time coaches at MDTTC. Also coaching were the MDTTC coaching staff, and Jessica Lin helped out as a practice partner. Here’s a group picture of the players and some of the coaches. (Not all the players in the tournament were in the camp.) Here’s a picture of me in action, with Wang Qing Liang on far right. (Notice how attentive the kids are?)

For the morning session I acted as a practice partner, doing one-on-one coaching. There were lots of footwork and serve & attack drills. The afternoon session was mostly multiball. I had a group of three players and went through nine drills:

1. 3-point forehand footwork (forehand corner, middle, backhand corner, repeat);
2. Backhand-forehand-forehand footwork (2-1 drill, with backhand from backhand side, forehand from backhand side, forehand from forehand side);
3. Random topspin;
4. Side-to-side footwork forehand looping against backspin;
5. Side-to-side footwork backhand looping against backspin;
6. Backhand flip against short backspin and no-spin;
7. Random backspin;
8. Alternate backspin and topspin (forehand loop vs. backspin followed by forehand vs. topspin);
9. Repeat previous drill with backhand.

The tournament was on Sunday, with five events. I ran the tournament, with Wen Hsu assisting. Another great thanks goes to Referee Paul Kovac and Umpires Joseph Lee and Stephen Yeh, who umpired all of the Boys’ and Girls’ Final Four matches. Here is a group picture of the players in Boys’ and Girls’ Singles, and staff (with Stephen Yeh missing).

The two main events were Boys’ and Girls’ Singles, for players born in 2005 or 2006. (Alas, many of our top juniors were born just before or after this.) The top three finishers at each of the four Hopes Tournaments become members of the USA Hopes Team and qualify for the North American Hopes Qualifier, to be held April 29-30 in New Jersey. The top four finishers got medals and certificates. There were also three rating events, with players under age 16 eligible. Congrats to the two champions, Jayden Zhou and Faith Hu, both from New Jersey, and to the others who qualified or won medals! Here are complete results from Omnipong. Below are the main results – click on the names to see pictures.

Hopes Boys – Final: Jayden Zhou d. Avi Gupta, -11, 5,3,1; SF: Zhou d. Robert Sun, 8,-5,-9,3,7; Gupta d. Alexander Yang, 7,6,5. 3-4: Robert Sun d. Alexander Yang, 8,9,3.
Hopes Girls: 1^st Faith Hu, 3-0; 2^nd Linda Shu, 2-1; 3^rd Nicole Deng, 1-2; 4^th Hina Sheikh, 0-3.
U2100: 1^st Linda Shu, 3-0; 2^nd Nicole Deng, 2-2; 3^rd Kallista Liu, 2-2; 4^th Stanley Hsu, 1-3.
U1700: 1^st Ainish Dassarma, 4-0; 2^nd Daniel Sofer, 3-1; 3^rd Jackson Beaver, 2-2; 4^th Andy Wu, 1-3.
U1300: 1^st Kay Okawa, 3-0; 2^nd Jason Liu, 2-1; 3^rd Kurtus Hsu, 1-2; 4^th Hina Sheikh, 0-3.

Brian Pace Appointed Head Coach of Triangle Table Tennis Center
Here’s the article – Congrats Brian! I was the manager of the Resident Training Program at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs when Brian went there at age 15 in the late 1980s for I think two years. Later he came to Maryland for five years or so, training at the Maryland Table Tennis Center (which is when he hit his peak, breaking 2600) – for about a year I shared a house with him and several other players.

Articles and Podcasts from Expert Table Tennis

• How to Play Well When You’re Tired (9:48)
• How to Get Maximum Spin on Your Serves (5:41)

R U Ready? The Ball is Coming Back!
Here’s the article and video (23 sec – see last 5 sec) by Samson Dubina.

Tom's Table Tennis Newsletter
Here’s the newest one, with links to numerous coaching articles. (I’ve linked to all or most of them, but a second read often helps.)

Ellen Meets Table Tennis Champion Siblings
Here’s the video (4:21) – GREAT JOB by Sid and Nandan Naresh! And for those who missed it, here’s a screenshot of the “Ellen Table” they got at the end.

2017 USA National Team Trials
They are at the Triangle TTC in North Carolina, March 23-26.

• 2017 National Team Trials Info Page.
• Olympians Head Proceedings for 2017 US National Team Trials
• Kanak Jha Leads Men's Lineup for National Team Trials by Matt Hetherington

Butterfly Arnold Table Tennis Challenge

• Complete Results care of Omnipong
• Jian Li Defends Championship Title by Barbara Wei
• Exceptional Venue and Tournament Organization by Barbara Wei
• Open Singles Finals: Li, Jian v/s Liang, Jishan (40:50)

Revealing the Diamond Within
Here’s a great video (2:39) that, while technically an ad, is really a great statement about the sport.

Lily Zhang and Mark Zuckerberg
Here’s the picture after they played – one of them is an Olympian!

Trump Immigration Policy Worries Ohlone College Table Tennis Champ
Here’s the article from The Mercury News (centered in San Jose, CA), featuring Ying Wang. (Picture shows her holding the YUUUGE trophy she won for Women’s Singles at the 2016 College Nationals.) “Uncertainty regarding the immigration policy of President Donald Trump is causing anxiety for an Ohlone College student who also happens to be a table tennis national champion. A native of China, Ying (Emily) Wang said her fear of being sent back home or not being able to find a job after graduation resonates among the more than 420 international students from nearly 30 countries at Ohlone.”

Donald Trump: Photoshopped into Table Tennis!
Here’s the gallery, which have him photoshopped as (mostly) a wheelchair table tennis player in numerous ways – as a turtle, juggling, and (my favorite), the alien from “Alien” coming out of his chest!

Over-the-Top One on Five
Here’s the video (61 sec) – it’s hilarious! Five men take on one woman in this truly over-the-top video. It gets crazy about 20 sec in.

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And On the Third Day He Rested….
After coaching nine hours on Saturday (including the Hopes Camp), and twelve hours at the club on Sunday (running the Hopes tournament, then 4.5 hours of coaching), I need a day to rest and catch up on my todo list, which is growing like bamboo. (I also have 2.5 hours of coaching tonight, and need to work on my new book, the creatively titled “More Table Tennis Tips,” which should be out by the end of the month.) But here’s a funny dog video (1:40) – skip to the last six seconds to see the dog playing “ping-pong”!