September 14, 2026

Tip of the Week
Playing the Fisher.

Weekend Coaching – Working with Younger Players
There’s a natural progression when training junior players. But it’s easier for a coach to treat them all mostly the same, or just stick them in a multiball group where they all do repetitive stroking and footwork drills. You likely make adjustments for beginning players who can’t yet do anything beyond basic strokes, but then you just have them drill and Drill and DRILL. That’s a quick way to shut off the flow of enthusiastic players who love the sport and who will practice hard and become strong players. As I’ve written here before, telling kids ages 5-10 and often older that if they train hard, they can become top players, is usually counterproductive unless you also give them a reason to want to become top players. And that means having them do age-appropriate drills. You can’t expect a five-year-old to do 90 minutes of drills several times a week and end up an enthusiastic player who wants to be great. You just end up with a bored kid who wants to switch sports or watch video games.

But the two aren’t in any way contradictory. Instead of having them do “boring” side to side drills, have them do the same drills – but with targets on the table that you challenge them to hit. (Or, in my case, I warn them not to hit it – which, of course, gives them great incentive to hit it.) They end up getting the same practice while wanting to come back and do it even more. That’s how you develop enthusiastic future top players and likely lifelong participants.

The amazing thing is that if you do this when they are younger and first starting out, as they get older they quickly grow out of it and become serious players who work hard to improve. After that first year or so, they no longer need targets, though they are still valuable tools in some cases. They become more self-motivated as they both love the sport and want to improve.

I spent much of the weekend working with the four youngest kids in our junior class. Two were five, two were seven. They smacked many water bottles, knocked over many stacked cups, and clobbered our poor rubber frogs over and over. With the plastic bottle, I simply have them do normal footwork drills as I feed multiball, while they try to hit the water bottle, which on this past weekend I told them was a 10,000-year-old one from China, worth $10,000, so please, Please, PLEASE do not hit and damage it! When they do, I pretend shock. They are FAR more enthusiastic about this then if there is no target. (With four players, I usually do two at a time, alternating a drill, usually about three shots each, with two doing ball pickup. With three, only one is on ball pickup.) As to the frogs, I have two of them (from Amazon), which I put at the far corners of the table for beginners and younger kids to practice their fast, deep serves. I have them count how many times they hit the frog, and how many times they smack it in the nose.) With plastic cups, there are two options. You can have them work together to build a giant pyramid or wall on one side, and then you feed multiball as they knock it down. Or you stack ten of them in a pyramid, and they each get ten shots to see how many they can knock down. They have fun, and without realizing it, they get lots of stroking, footwork, and accuracy practice!

Table Tennis Master Larry Hodges on Strategy, Longevity & Coaching Champions
Here’s the interview with me (32:40) from Huntsman World Senior Games and Active Life. This is in advance of the Huntsman World Senior Championships in Saint George, UT, Oct. 5-8, where I’ll be competing in a number of events, both sponge and hardbat.

Major League Table Tennis

New from MH Table Tennis/Matt Hetherington

Butterfly Training and Highlight Videos

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

New From the Table Tennis Teaching Channel

New from GlobalTTStudio

New from Acceleraq

Can Zhang Jike Fix My Backhand Flick In 7 Days?
Here’s the video (10:34) from Table Tennis Daily.

Four Steps to Learning the Forehand
Here’s the video (21 sec) from Liu Wenyu.

You’ll Never Master the Reverse Pendulum Without These 3 Details
Here’s the video (5:01) from Andrea Levenko.

How to Attack Half-Long Backspin | Why Right Foot First?
Here’s the video (11 min) from Ti Long.

Is the Level in the USA Really That High?
Here’s the video (15:37) from Enzo Angles.

The Game Between the Points
Here’s the coaching article by Di Liu.

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from ITTF

MotoraidoEng Table Tennis
Here’s a Facebook page devoted to spectacular and trick table tennis shots – from a motorcycle repair shop!

Anything But a Ping-Pong Paddle
Here’s the video (15 sec)!

Everyone Laughs At The New Guy Until The #1 TABLE TENNIS Player Can't Score A SINGLE POINT On Him!
Here’s the video (1 hr 32 min) – I haven’t watched it yet.

Move Over Marty Supreme, It’s Mr Bean’s Time to Shine!
Here’s the animated video (3:03) from Mr. Bean and Table Tennis England!

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