Bring Balance to Your Force

I can never stress enough the importance of balance in table tennis. It's both for the shot you are currently doing and (perhaps even more important) for recovery for the next shot. Over and over players move to a ball and hit while slightly off-balance, and never realize it - but this subtle lack of balance leads to variations in their stroke and thereby a loss of control as well as power. Even more subtle is the loss of recovery for the next shot. Over and over players hit a shot and then are unable to react to the next shot if it goes to a wide angle. They blame themselves for being too slow when the real problem was they were off balance on the previous shot (or went off balance during the follow through), and that kept them from recovering for the next shot - not just a lack of foot speed. Even at the higher levels when a player is unable to get to a shot it is often because they went off-balance on the previous shot.

As I've gotten older I've become more and more aware of this. When I step around to play my forehand from the backhand corner (since my forehand attack is much stronger than my backhand attack), I often leave my wide forehand "open." I put that in quotes because if I finish my forehand attack balanced, I can recover quickly enough to cover that wide forehand shot. If I am late in stepping around, and so end up following through more to the side (as opposed to being there early enough to follow through more balanced with the same power), then I'm going to lose precious time recovering balance. And that's why I can't cover the wide forehand sometimes - not because my feet are too slow in covering the wide forehand, but because they are too slow in stepping around the backhand corner, leaving me off balanced and unable to recover for the next shot.

As I said yesterday to a student who was going off balance whenever he hit a powerful forehand, "Bring balance to your force."

Daniel the Lobber

One of my students, Daniel, age 8, has an amazing ability to soft loop, fish, and lob from off the table, with both topspin and amazing amounts of sidespin), as well as sudden counter-kills. His lobbing may be the best I've ever seen of a kid his age. I even suggested they put together a video for the ITTF Trick Shot Competition of him sidespin lobbing from way off to the side and then perhaps counter-killing - his age and size might give him an advantage. (On the forehand he lobs both ways - racket tip down, the conventional way, and racket tip up, the extreme sidespin way.)

The problem with Daniel is he absolutely hates to play at the table. Every rally he wants to back up and soft spin (topspin and sidespin, usually from nearly off the floor), fish, lob, and chop. (He's a pretty good chopper but doesn't want long pips since that'll take away from his lobbing.) He'd rather go to the dentist than stay at the table. When he loops it's always from way off the table. Some kids are successfully trained this way in Europe, where the idea is that it's easier for the kid to learn to loop if he lets the ball drop down to his level, plus you are learning a topspin contact from the very beginning. (I've coached a few players this way.) However, it's about as non-Chinese as you can get. Chinese coaches mostly have players stay at the table. First they learn to hit and counter-hit, bang-bang style. As they get better, the hitting is extended into looping, again without backing up too much. As they get older and they face more powerful opponents, they back up some to counterloop, but usually not as much as European-trained players. Against blocks they loop over and over within a step of the table. It's all about close-to-the-table power, and it's a highly-proven way to develop players.

Examples of Saturation Coaching

My Tip of the Week on Monday was on Saturation Training, where a player focuses on developing one aspect of his game. I thought I'd give some examples of this.

Probably the most famous example was Istvan Jonyer. He made the Hungarian National Team in the early 1970s mostly by blocking. While on the team he developed his powerful forehand loop and became Hungarian National Champion. But he had a weak backhand, and couldn't really compete with the best players in the world. Then he spent six months up in a mountain training, where he did essentially nothing but backhand loop. When he finished, he had a great backhand loop - though other aspects of his game had deteriorated, and he had to practice them to get them back. About two years later he became the 1975 Men's World Champion, and was #1 in the world for two year and a dominant top ten (usually top five) player for over a decade.

Another example is Todd Sweeris, who just yesterday was selected as one of the two inductees this year into the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame. (See my blog yesterday.) Todd made the 1996 and 2000 U.S. Olympic Teams - but through much of 1995 it didn't look like he had a chance. Only the top three U.S. players would make the team, and he couldn't even get games off the top three U.S. players: Jim Butler, David Zhuang, and Khoa Nguyen. He figured his best chance was against Khoa, and that the main thing he could really dominate in would be receive. (That was my suggestion!) So he spent nearly all of that year training overwhelmingly on receive, and with practice partners who copied Khoa. (Sorry Khoa!) He became one of the best serve returners in the country. The strategy worked as Todd beat Khoa 3-0 to make the team. (Fortunately Khoa would, after years of tribulations, make the Olympic team in 2004, and would be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.)

Todd Sweeris, Terese Terranova in Hall of Fame, Yvonne Kronlage Gets Lifetime Achievement Award

Here's the article! I'm especially happy about Todd. He came to the Resident Training Program at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in the fall of 1986 as a 13-year-old, the youngest player there. I was the manager of the program at the time. So I got to work with him for a few years there. Then I returned to Maryland and opened the Maryland Table Tennis Center (along with Cheng Yinghua and Jack Huang), and Todd moved to Maryland to train there. On the back of my book Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers is a picture of me coaching him at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 1996. I've already gone through my files and pulled out lots of pictures of him for use at his induction at the USA Nationals in December.

I've also known Yvonne a long time - she was president of the New Carrollton TTC where I started play at age 16 in 1976. We've differed on a few things politically, but we've both been promoting TT for roughly forever - but she's been doing it for a longer forever than I have!

Terese I mostly know from coaching our players against her players at the Junior Olympics and Junior Nationals for many years, especially in the 1990s when many of the finals were between Maryland and Florida players, and I'd be coaching the Marylanders (along with coaches Cheng and Jack), and she and Marty Prager would be coaching the Floridians.

USA Nationals

Tip of the Week

Saturation Training.

ITTF Level 2 Coaching Certification

Yesterday I completed all requirements for ITTF Level 2 Coaching Certification. I'd taken the six-day, 36-hour course at the Lily Yip TTC two weeks ago, but was also required to do 50 hours of coaching afterwards. I finished that yesterday. I sent the paperwork in last night, and shortly afterwards received notification that it had been approved. So I'm the 11th U.S. coach to achieve this, joining Roger Yuen (who took the Level 2 course with me) and Duane Gall, Mike Mui, Chong Ng, Juan Ly, Federico Bassetti, Iuliana Radu, Ray Pestridge, Jef Savage, Joel Mitchell, and Roger Dickson. Interestingly, I'm the first USATT certified National Coach (the highest U.S. level) to achieve this. There are no Level 3's in the U.S. yet; they haven't taught the course for it here yet, though I hear they are tentatively planning one next year.

Junior Class

We started a new season of our beginning junior class on Saturday morning (10:30AM-Noon) and Sunday afternoon (4:30-6:00PM). One new thing is that we now require all players to register in advance so we know (at least roughly) how many kids will show up, so we know how many coaches to have on hand. For the Sunday class, we only had six pre-registered, a disappointing number. So I arranged for one other coach (John Hsu) to assist. However, since people don't seem to listen (AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!), 16 showed up.

Walter Wintermute Visit

Coach and player Walter Wintermute from North Carolina visited MDTTC last night. He'd emailed in advance, saying he would be in town for a business trip, and wanted to observe our coaching. So he watched while I ran a one-hour session with five beginning junior players. Then he watched some of our top juniors in training (Crystal Wang, Derek Nie, Nathan Hsu, others), and played a practice match with another local top junior (Josh Tran). Then we talked table tennis coaching for half an hour. He's been coaching more and more and wanted to see how we did it. So I went over the various techniques used for coaching juniors, as well as how we ran the sessions, the games we played at the end, etc.

Walter and I go way back. In early 1977, when I was 17 and had been playing about a year, I was rated 1480; he was rated just a few points lower and was two years younger. We played in three finals in a tournament in Virginia - I believe it was Under 1500, Under 1600, and Under 1700. He won two of them, alas. Later that year we would both shoot up in ratings to 1900. Two years later, in 1979, I would move to North Carolina for two years, where I would play Walter regularly on weekends and at the monthly tournaments.

The last two years his son, David, 15, has been coming to our camps. He has an unearthly resemblance to his dad from 35 or so years ago, so it's sort of nostalgic when I work with him. 

Looping Seniors

Yesterday's Coaching Activities

I had three hours of private coaching, then a meeting with others to go over our new junior progress reports.

The first session was with an 8-year-old, about 1200 level, who's struggling to decide whether to be an attacker or defender. He may well be the best 8-year-old lobber I've ever seen; he can lob back my hardest smashes dozens of times in a row as long as I don't smother kill at wide angles. (There's something humorous about a little kid lobbing from way back at the barriers!) He also chops well. He's also got a nice loop from both wings, but has one serious problem on both: he's too impatient to do the same shot over and over, and so it's hard to get him to develop a repeating stroke. Unless I keep a firm hand on the drills, most rallies end up with him looping a couple balls, taking a step back after each, and then he's off lobbing and fishing, and looking for chances to suddenly counter-smash. He's recently faced the realization that if he's going to chop, he'll probably need long pips, which will take away his backhand lob - and he doesn't like that. So we're in a state of flux on whether to train him as an attacker or defender. Ultimately, I'm letting him make the final decision. I've advised him that, unless he very much wants to be a chopper/looper, he should focus on attacking, and he can always switch to more chopping later on. It's a big decision that'll affect the rest of his life!!!

Focus While You Play

Have trouble focusing when you play? Here are a few tips for keeping or regaining your focus in a match. (Here are some helpful links on sports psychology.)

Junior Program

Monday was my "off" day - the only day I don't coach. But it never really is an off day. First, I did the Tip of the Week. Then I did the blog. Writing a feature article and then blogging should be enough, but that just started my day. Then I spent much of the day doing accounting, planning, and organizing for new MDTTC junior programs.

We have two changes coming up. Until now we've had a system where juniors in my beginning/intermediate sessions bought ten sessions at a time, and came whenever they wanted. This meant that we never really knew how many players would come in a session, and so never knew for sure how many coaches would be needed. With beginners, you need to have a rather low player-to-coach ratio as they can't really practice effectively among themselves yet. So starting this weekend players are required to pay for ten consecutive weeks at a time, either the Saturday session (10:30AM-noon) or the Sunday session (4:30-6:00PM). We will allow players to transfer back and forth from one to the other as long as they let me know in advance so I know who's coming each session. This is similar to how we already set up our school program with local schools, which meets Thursdays 6-7PM and Saturdays 9:30-10:30AM. Yesterday I sent out an email explaining the changes to parents, and emailed back and forth with those who had questions.

Tip of the Week

Real Tactics versus Parroting Tactics.

Tournament Tactics

I coached at a tournament this weekend, which inspired this week's Tip of the Week. Some strange things took place at this USATT-sanctioned tournament. The first match my student played was against a player using sandpaper (!), which isn't allowed in USATT tournaments, but they allowed it. We decided not to protest, and simply played (and won) the match. There was also a group of four that started at 1PM. One player didn't show, and so the other three finished at 2PM, and were returning the clipboard to the desk when the fourth showed, a kid about 13, over an hour late. Rather than default him, the players were told to return to the table and play it out. Again, we didn't protest - I mean, it was just a kid - so we just played it out. (My player barely pulled it out in five games.)

I was coaching a 12-year-old named Sameer, who was rated 1131 but was somehow still eligible for Under 1100 since they were using older ratings. He won the event. The strange thing about his matches (other than playing against sandpaper) was that over and over his opponents had strong backhands but weak forehands. Sameer tends to serve into the backhand, and so struggled in the first game in match after match. Over and over between games I'd tell him to serve to the forehand, and over and over it worked.

Tournaments are great for bringing out strengths and weaknesses. My eyes were opened to just how effective Sameer's backhand loop is getting - and I was wondering if it would be read for the Teams in November! But his forehand loop, while generally strong, has a hitch in it sometimes that we need to work on. When he's not confident, he tends to stand up straight, almost falling back as he lifts the ball.

No-Luck Matches