Backhand Topspins
Last Thursday I blogged about Teaching the Topspinny Backhand, and teaching it to an 8-year-old girl. I’d held back with her and others on this because I didn’t want to mess them up just before our “Talent” program trials. But now that they are over, we’re going backhand topspin crazy – and it’s great!

On Sunday I coached Todd, age 12, on topspinning his backhand. Before that he had a decent backhand loop against backspin, but mostly hit his backhand in rallies. Within minutes of trying it out he was playing backhand topspins like a pro, at least in rote drills where he knew where the ball was going. It’ll take time to incorporate this successfully more random drills and in matches – but on the other hand, I told him it would take time to incorporate the shot into drills, and that time turned out to be minutes.

Maybe I should just tell everyone to copy Ma Long, tell them it’ll take them time to incorporate his shots, and watch them all play like Ma Long in minutes.

To me, the biggest change in the game since I started out in 1976 has been backhand play. Back then most players either hit their backhand or they backed up and topspinned, and I’m comfortable playing against either style. Now they’re staying right up to the table and topspinning. It’s not fair - there should be a rule that you have to choose!  

Tip of the Week
Always Think of a Loop as a Set-up Shot.

Sevens
In my 57^th year I have this seven-year itch to tell seven of nine stories I have on sevens. Here are my seven deadly sins stories of seven, otherwise known as the magnificent seven.

A USATT Coaches Training and Certification Program
There are currently two ways of becoming certified as a USATT coach. One is the USATT certification process itself, which explains how to become a Club, State, Regional, or National Coach. (There is also an Instructor category, which is for non-table tennis people with teaching experience, such as PE teachers. I wrote the Instructor’s Guide to Table Tennis for this, which has also been used at the Club level for many years.) The other is to take one of the ITTF coaching courses, where Levels 1, 2, and 3 equate to State, Regional, and National coaches.

However, as is often pointed out, the ITTF coaching courses weren’t really set up as a certification process, and they don’t always teach what we specifically would like taught at each level. And so we are now looking into possibly setting up our own USATT coaches education and certification process. (I’d be working closely with others on this, such as USATT High Performance Director Jorg Bitzigeio and former coaching chair Richard McAfee.)

While I inherited the current process (appointed earlier this year as chair), I actually set up much of it when I was coaching chair for four years back in the 1990s. The situation back then was very different as we had few active coaches, and less than ten full-time professional coaches in the U.S., probably more like five. So to be a club coach, all you have to do right now is pass a simple open-book test. But now we have over 300 full-time professional coaches and over 90 full-time centers (compared to just one or two back then), and we need to raise our standards.

Teaching the Topspinny Backhand
When a player first learns to play, they learn basic forehands and backhands, which include putting at least a very light topspin on the ball. A proper stroke automatically puts some topspin on the ball as the racket is moving forward and slightly up at contact. Beginners often hit the ball almost straight on, and so generate little or no topspin. Here’s a good backhand drive video (2:55, from ITTF). This teaches the standard, light topspin backhand. Here's a good backhand topspin video (3:18, from EmRatThich) showing a more topspinny backhand. Note how the racket tip drops down, allowing more topspin from the stroke. In the ITTF video, lefty Timo Boll is shown for a few seconds hitting backhands 28 seconds in, and also topspins his backhand this way. 

One of my students, age 8, tends to hit the ball almost straight on, resulting in a rather erratic backhand that’s more a blocking motion than a stroke, with the ball coming out dead. I could have done the standard slow progression to getting more topspin, but since she tended toward blocking, this would likely lead to more of a blocking-type backhand, and I wanted more. I've watched great backhand players like Crystal Wang, Han Xiao, and many others develop at my club and know how they and other top players developed their backhands.

So Much Happening!
No matter where you are, there’s something coming up for you. While there’s not much on the coaching side in my blog this morning (after seven in yesterday’s blog), though there's some good analysis in the Table Tennis Tidbits #8 (by Robert Ho), this time it’s full of events all over the place. Here’s a rundown.

Tip of the Week
Make Adjusting a Habit by Playing Different Players.

USATT Board Meeting
It was an extremely hectic weekend – I’m learning that coaching and attending board meetings don’t always mix well. On Saturday I coached from 10AM to 4PM, then drove over to the USATT informal meeting/get-together on Saturday night in Washington DC. On Sunday I left my house at 6:30AM, attended the meeting from 8AM to 2:30PM, drove to my club, and coached from 4PM to 8:30PM. After spending all day sitting in a chair, my back stiffened up while coaching and began to hurt. (I’m doing back stretches before it gets worse.) Here’s a rundown of the USATT meeting.

On Saturday night we all met at Gary Schlager’s large house, with its even larger basement, for informal games, meetings, and dinner. (Gary recently joined the USATT Board of Directors – his financial background is a huge plus.) There was ping-pong, pool, darts, and air hockey. I spent several hours taking on challenges with my clipboard (I didn’t lose a game, no comment on my opponents), and gave impromptu lessons to some of our non-table tennis guests. I played a little pool (I’m a novice) and some darts (used to very good, had a dartboard in my dorm room in college, but that was circa early 1980s). Around the dinner table and afterwards we had some informal discussions on various issues, and perhaps solved all the problems of table tennis in this country.

Back Tomorrow
Yeah, it’s one of those days. Yesterday I was on the go for 14 hours straight. At 6:30AM I was in my car driving to the USATT board meeting in Washington DC, which I attended (as a board member and coaching committee chair) from 8AM-2:30PM. Then I drove back to MDTTC and coached from 4PM to 8:30PM. (Saturday was almost as long – coaching from 10AM to 4PM, then attending various Saturday night board festivities.) I’ll write about the board meeting tomorrow, as well as the Tip of the Week. But just to wake you up this Monday morning, here’s video (31 sec) of the greatest and most energetic table tennis player of all time. 

USATT Coaching Committee Report
September 1, 2017
By Larry Hodges (Chair)
[NOTE – this was submitted to the USATT Board of Directors one week ago.]

Accomplishments
Since I was only appointed in March, and the committee approved in May (myself, Rajul Sheth, Han Xiao, Sydney Christophe, and player rep Timothy Wang, with staff liaison Jörg Bitzigeio), we’ve only had a few months. (Also, I’m busiest during the summer, as are other coaches on the committee, and so I’ve put off a lot until the fall.) Here’s what happened on the USATT coaching front so far this year.

New ITTF World Rankings
Here’s the new listing. On the men’s side, the top five spots remained unchanged. Mizutani (JPN) dropped two spots to #8, with Boll (GER) and Chun Ting Wong (HKG) each moving up one spot to #6 and #7. But the more interesting change came from two other Japanese players. Matsudaira moved from #16 to #12, while the whiz kid, 14-year-old Harimoto, shot from #20 to #13.

So which countries challenge China’s supremacy on the men’s side? Here are countries with at least three players in the top 50.

• China: #1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 29, 35 spots. (They likely have a number of others who would be in the top 50, probably top 20.)
• Germany: #4, 6, 23, 29, 43
• Japan: #8, 9, 12, 13, 18, 19, 25, 28, 32
• South Korea: #14, 21, 42, 49, 50
• France: #16, 20, 44
• Portugal: #17, 39, 48
• Sweden: #22, 24, 39

China is obviously a huge favorite in any team match-up. But when they play Germany or Japan, it can be interesting as those countries have small, but legitimate chances. Perhaps Korea as well, but probably not. Things can get even more interesting if Japan’s Hashimoto begins to beat the best Chinese regularly, but he might need a few more years for that.

On the women’s side, the top four spots remained unchanged – Ding Ning, Chen Meng, Zhu Yuling, and Liu Shiwen, all from China. But just like on the men’s side, the Japanese seem to be making a move. Ishikawa, Hirano, and Ito, formerly #7, 5, and 11, are now #5, 6, and 7. (So Hirano dropped a spot while the other two went up.) Biggest jumps were Jeon Jihee (KOR) from #20 to #15, and Hina Hayata (JPN) from #17 to #24.

So which countries challenge China’s supremacy on the women’s side? Here are countries with at least three players in the top 50.

Tip of the Week
Weapons to Allow Opponents to Beat Themselves.

Fall Coaching and USATT Stuff
My fall schedule keeps changing and getting busier. But the good news is I’ve managed to keep Mon, Tue, and Fri open for rest, writing, and various USATT and MDTTC activities. The bad news it means longer hours on other days. Here’s my updated coaching schedule:

• Wed: 5:30-8:45 (one 15 min break)
• Thur: 5:30-9:30
• Sat: 11AM-4:00PM (will likely have a 4-5PM student, and twice a month also have 6:30-8:30PM)
• Sun: 2:45-8:30PM (one 15-min break, and I will likely have more Sunday hours before 2:45PM)

Meanwhile, now that the summer is over, I’m about to launch into a number of coaching committee activities. (I’m chair.) I’d hoped to get into these issues this week, but they may have to wait until next week as I have a number of other issues still to deal with from my todo list, but I won’t get into that now. (They are a mixture of table tennis and my outside science fiction writing side career. See segment below at the end for upcoming publications.)

This Friday I’ll post my USATT Coaching Committee Report where I go over the things the coaching committee will be working on this fall. They include creating a six-hour club coach certification class; updating the coaching certification process; coaching recertification seminars; coaches education (seminars, webpage, possible newsletter, invitations to coach at national team training camps, the recertification seminars mentioned above); confusion between “USATT Certified National Coach” and “USATT National Team Coach”; and scheduling an ITTF Level 3 Course.