October 21, 2024

Tip of the Week
Adjust in One Game.

Weekend Coaching and Training
This weekend was lazy feet day, as I was all over a number of players who weren’t moving their feet. With the beginning/intermediate players, the emphasis is on the reflexively stepping toward the ball instead of leaning. I demonstrated that once you lean in the direction of the ball, your weight goes on that foot and you can’t really move anymore. With the more advanced players, it’s more about having active feet where they move every shot, even if it’s just inches.

During a serving session, I challenged the players to serve backspin so the ball came to a stop on the table, or even bounced backwards. I first demonstrated that to do this, you need to really brush the bottom of the ball -  many players try doing this by hitting the midway between the bottom and back of the ball, which leads to a light backspin at most. Two kids did it for the first time, while others are now determined to do so.

Using my best fake Russian accent, I tried to convince the kids my name was Yuri Vil, a world champion coach from Russia. They quickly figured out that “Coach Yuri Vil” is “Coach You’re Evil.”

I’ve also continued my own training. Since Aug. 1, I’ve dropped from 210 to 193 pounds – but I’ve been stuck at the latter for over a week. I did hit 192 yesterday, but that was from dehydration. I was back to 193 this morning, alas. (Goal is 180.) Regarding training, I’m hitting my backhand harder, but there’s a problem – when I practice it for more than a few minutes, it puts pressure on my shoulder, which begins to hurt from past injuries. I also start every session playing at a 2200 level (not bad for age 64), and then, as I get tired, it gradually works downward until I’m barely 2000 at most at the end. This also happens in my practice or league matches – after a few matches, or late in a match, my muscles tire and the strokes break down, and so I miss key shots at the end of those games – not from the pressure of a close game, but from real muscle fatigue. Hopefully, I’ll be over that by the US Open in December. But it’s already cost me a number of matches, both practice ones and in some hardbat matches I’ve played in tournaments the past few years, where I’d sometimes be winning until the end, and then be unable to keep up the same level, and so lose strings of points as I totter around in exhaustion.

US Team Selection
USATT recently published their new USA Table Tennis Unveils 2025 National Team Selection Procedures. Very soon I started getting unhappy messages from parents and coaches. The new procedures means that players who can afford to go to more events, and who can miss more school, will have an advantage in making the US Team. I strongly disagree with this approach. Even some of our junior players at my club were grumbling about this – the ones setting this up do not seem to understand the money and time constraints for the players involved.

After many complaints, USATT had a Zoom session last week to explain the new system. I didn’t attend the 90-minute session, and I don’t think I’m at liberty to give out the link to the recording. But I read over the comments – probably well over 100 from dozens of parents and coaches – and there really wasn’t one positive one, just lots of disagreement and factual observations about the problems of the system and the great financial and time pressures it puts on parents and players. I finally read over the Selection Procedures, and they are right – I don’t like them either. And yet, with so many USATT issues going on that I disagree with, I’m hesitant to get involved in still another. (I was planning on writing about USATT Coaching Certification this morning, but will postpone that to next week.)

The parents have set up a petition opposing the new system. (I had nothing to do with it – let’s stop that rumor in the bud.) The petition went up on Oct. 16, five days ago, and I’m told already has been signed “by close to 100 families.” I think that’s a mandate.

Here are two links:

I signed the petition, with the following note:

I think the petition speaks for itself. I’m sure the ones who put this new system together were well-meaning, but I don’t think this system selects the best players for the National Teams. It will often select the players of the parents with the most money and the juniors who can travel to more US and international events. The over-emphasis on junior world rankings skews the results since they are not that accurate since they over-reward participation, and many aspiring juniors can't afford to travel the world. They get their primary training at home, which is more important at this stage, with occasional overseas and domestic trips. I also think there should be more emphasis on removing the junior events at the US Open from being part of the system, since often unseeded foreign juniors show up and a top US junior may lose first round, badly hurting their chances. The goal of the Trials should be to identify the best players while maintaining fairness to all national team hopefuls, and I don’t think this new system does that. In general, it seems like every time we have a system that works we change it. 

There’s also been online discussion of this in the Team USA forum (only for players, parents, coaches, and USATT people). One argument being made by USATT people is they want to focus on those trying to be “pro” players, not just “rec” players. I posted the following:

The problem here is that during their junior years, most kids don’t know yet if they are going to be “pro” or “rec” players. During those up-and-coming years, training is most important, as that – along with competition – is what maximizes their development so that they have the *option* later on of choosing between professional and recreational.

They do need competitions to develop, and perhaps team members should be required to play a certain number of tournaments per year. But requiring them to regularly miss school and spend large sums of money flying about the US and the world so they can chase ranking points to make the US Team – that’s counter-productive to finding and developing the best players for the team. It means that, after they go to all the USATT events to chase those ranking points, they miss so much school they can’t go to other events, including international ones.

Most train and go to school all week, and train or compete on weekends in more local tournaments, while focusing on a few larger tournaments or trials where they miss school. This way they don’t miss as much school since they are mostly weekend events, giving them the leeway to go to other events, both domestic and international. The only real “winners” from this new system are juniors whose parents have deep pockets, those who can miss a lot of school (usually home-schooled), and USATT, which collects the entry fees for these additional events.

I later wrote:

When you have a system that's overwhelmingly rejected by those who will be forced to use the system, there's something wrong with the system.

US Junior Team Trials – My Proposal
The is just a flexible outline, with a number of details that can be worked out once main concept is adopted. NOTE - This went up Monday afternoon, several hours after the rest of the blog.

  • Have two Trials, one at the Nationals in July, the other roughly six months later. The second Trials would move to a different location each year. Having more Trial events mean players would focus on just making the US Team, as opposed to going beyond that and focus on maximum long-term improvement. It also puts a great financial and time burden on junior players and parents, the latter because they have a limited number of days they can take off from school. If all those days are taken for Trials events so they can chase after ranking points, then those events and just making the US Team becomes the focus instead of overall and long-term improvement, or international events.
  • World ranking should have no bearing on making the team at the junior level. This too strongly favors those who have the finances to travel internationally over possibly better and harder-working players who train and compete primarily in the US. If the international competition helps the players who can afford to do so on their own, then the results will show in the Trials events. As players get older, the focus can gradually shift to international competitions.
  • The junior events at the US Open should not be a part of the Trials as unranked foreign players could knock out top US players while other US players get lucky draws, skewing the results. Also, the US Open normally takes place during final exams for most schools. (Plus it means another five days of school missed.) A Trials event can only be held at the US Open if it is separate for US players only, and the dates moved to accommodate school schedules.
  • Constant Competition is important to improvement. US Team members should be required to play a certain number and level of tournaments per year, including at least one International (which could be the US Open or a WTT event). Players may ask special dispensation to play fewer tournaments if they are working on a specific technique and prefer to take time off from tournaments, for injuries, or related issues, which the HPC or US National Coach should grant when appropriate.
  • Have eight players on National Team or Team Squad. Top seven in Trials automatically make team. If HPC chooses, they may select the final spot if an injured or sick player was not able to make the Trials. Otherise, the #8 finisher gets the final spot.

2,300th Published Article
Last week I noted that I’d just had my 2,000th published table tennis article. (This does NOT include exactly 2,021 blog entries – 1,974 here and 47 in my science fiction page. Including those, I’ve had 4,321 published articles!) This morning’s Tip of the Week, “Adjust in One Game” (both here and at Butterfly – gosh I look mean in that photo!) is my 2,300 published article (in 197 different publications), and my 2,002nd published table tennis article. Here is a listing of all my published articles (many linked to the articles) as of Oct. 1. (I update it at the start of each month.)

Holiday Shopping
It’s time for some Holiday shopping, both for others and for yourself! Why not get one of my books? Or one of Dan Seemiller’s?

Here are my table tennis books:

Here are books by 5-time US Men’s Singles Champion Dan Seemiller!

More into history? Here are the 23 volumes of History of US Table Tennis by Tim Boggan!

There are many more. Perhaps browse my collection of 337 table tennis books (!) and if you find an interesting one, see if it’s on sale at Amazon or elsewhere!

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

Butterfly Training Tips

Three Tips to React Quicker When Playing Table Tennis
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak.

New from PingSkills

540 Hours to Make a Table Tennis Player?
Here’s the video (14:05) from Performance Biomechanics Academy Table Tennis.

New from PongSpace

PechPong VS Norwegian National Team Player Martin Frøseth
Here’s the video (15:07), with Seth Peth’s usual point-by-point analysis.

New from Table Tennis Daily

New Videos

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

Puerto Rico Wins 10 Medals At The Pan American U-19 And U-15 Table Tennis Championships
Here’s the article by Edgardo Vazquez

USATT Announces Bidding Process for 2025 Regional Championships
Here’s the news item.

Puzzle Master Will Shortz Pieces Together His Recovery from a Stroke
Here’s the CNN article. He owns the Westchester TTC and is on the USATT Board of Directors.

New from ITTF

You Just Got Served
Here’s where you can buy the shirt from Amazon!

Mary Had a Little Pong...
Here’s the video (25 sec)!

Ma Long’s Fake Serve
Here’s the video (10 sec)!

***
Send us your own coaching news!