Off Until Tuesday
As usual, when there's a holiday and the kids are off school, I'm off too, and they are off Friday (Good Friday) and Monday (Easter). Spring Break actually begins today – no school locally today, tomorrow, or all of next week, with schools reopening on Monday, April 4 – but I'm only taking the two "official" holidays off. I'm not really taking Friday off – I'm declaring it a "USATT day," where I spend the day working on USATT issues. (This weekend and Monday, on the other hand, I may do a "House of Cards" marathon!) I'm also coaching at the two-day mini-camp at MDTTC later this morning and tomorrow, probably only the morning sessions.

In Memoriam
Here are some of the people I've known well from table tennis who have died. The list isn't comprehensive; there are many more, but these are the ones who were influential to me, in alphabetical order, with apologies to those missed. (Feel free to post your own comments below on any of them.) 

Cory Eider Named USA Table Tennis High Performance Director
Here's the USATT article. "Eider will be responsible developing and directing all of USATT’s Olympic and National Team programs (Senior, Junior, Cadet, Mini Cadet, and Para), National Team coaches, as well as creating a National Team Development Program."

This could be a landmark for USA Table Tennis. Here is the "High Performance Director Wanted" notice, where it covers in detail what the HPD would be responsible for. I strongly urge you read the section under "Responsibilities and Requirements."

However, it's not just what he's responsible for – it's what he's expected to do. And that's to develop a year-round program where training centers, top players, top juniors, top coaches, and parents around the country work together to develop a national team that'll put the rest of the world on notice that USA, after sixty years of napping, is back.

Tip of the Week
Visualize Your Serves and Make Them Do Tricks.

The Brain, Visual Skills, and Ping Pong
Here's the video (5:13). The video from a year ago focuses on the two major visual skills needed in table tennis. (Here's the ITTF article on this.) The subjects are William Henzell and Trevor Brown, two Australian Olympic table tennis players. Brown, who is studying to be a neuroscientist, was asked, "What's the key to being a good table tennis player?" He answered, "It's being able to process info as quickly as possible."

The narrator says, "They have honed two visual skills to near perfection." The two keys are:

Off Until Tuesday
I'm leaving very early Friday morning for Lunacon, a science fiction convention in Rye Brook, NY, March. 18-20. I'm there to promote my SF novel Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions – I'm on six panels, doing a reading, and will be in two autograph sessions. (Here's my bio and schedule. My reading is 4-4:30PM on Saturday. And remember, as I've blogged, the novel has lots of table tennis!) I'll be returning very late on Sunday night/Monday morning, so no blog on Monday. See you on Tuesday! (Coincidentally, the convention is about 15 min away from the 4-star Westchester Open held this weekend, but I don't know if I'll have time to stop by.)

2016 State Championships (so far)
There are currently 15 State Championships sanctioned for 2016 – but it's still early in the year. There'll be plenty more – for example, I'm running the Maryland State Championships later this year, but haven't sanctioned it yet. I know there'll also be a DC championships, and based on the listing for 2015 State Championships, there are plenty more to come. Here's the original USATT news item on this, with info on how you can run one. (Here's the USATT news item from earlier this week, on Regional Team Leagues and State Championships.)

Tidbits

Regional Team Leagues and State Championships
(Note – this just went up on as a USATT News Item, and will go in the upcoming USATT Insider and emailed to all USATT clubs.)

Dear Club Leaders,

How'd you like to run a Regional Team League? Or a State Championship? If there already are ones in your state, then you're all set! But if not, USATT needs your help in organizing them.

Here is a listing of Regional Team Leagues currently in operation – email me if I'm missing any.

• Austin Texas League
• Capital Area League (DC area)
• Chicago League
• Denver League
• Genesee Valley League (Rochester, NY)
• LA League
• NY League

Here's a listing of State Championships held in 2015 (with the assumption that most will have similar championships in 2016). So far 2016 State Championships (or State Games) have been sanctioned in AL, AR, AZ, CA, FL, IN, MN, MO, NY, OK, PA, VA, and WI. (I plan to run one in Maryland, tentatively June 25-26. Other states also have plans for ones that are not yet listed as sanctioned.)

Tip of the Week
Outlining the Book on Your Game.

Wild Weekend
I had a rather busy table tennis weekend. Here's a rundown.

FRIDAY: After spending most of the day slaving away at my desk on various issues, I left at 2:30 for the afterschool program (school pickups and coaching at MDTTC) and 30 minutes of English tutoring, finishing at 5:30PM. Then I was off for the Potomac Community Center, half an hour away, for a two-hour demonstration/clinic with 30-40 kids, as part of their Club Friday Program. (This was the third one we've done over the past five weeks.) Great thanks goes to Herman Yeh (president of the Potomac TTC, which meets there) for setting this up, and local volunteers Gary Schlager and others who helped out.

SATURDAY: This was a crazy day - the day Navin Kumar played on the robot for 16 straight hours!!! He did this at the Maryland Table Tennis Center to raise $1600 for an upcoming Paralympic trip to Romania - he has both a mechanical heart and Parkinson's. Here's his funding page, which also explains his situation in more detail. (I think we raised another $420 directly during the marathon.) I was there the entire time, arriving at 6:30 AM to set up, and then from 7AM-11PM for the actual marathon. (Navin will likely do a write-up of this, probably for tomorrow's blog.) So, what did I do while Navin hit approximately 60,000 balls? I did my own writing marathon, where I completed the following eleven articles:

Robot Cleaning, Thursday Class, Potomac Clinic, and Navin's Robot Marathon
In preparation for Navin Kumar's 16-hour robot marathon tomorrow (see segment below), I partly disassembled the robot and cleaned it with wet paper towels and a toothbrush. It's the first time I've done this; took about 45 minutes. I ended up pulling about two handfuls of dust and gunk out of the robot, including half a broken ping-pong ball and part of a crayon! Before, it had been jamming every now and then; afterwards, it ran noticeably smoother and didn't jam during our entire beginning junior training session.

In the Thursday beginning junior class I worked with five kids, ages 11 to 13, mostly with multiball training. Here are some notes on them.

Service Practice Tricks
What tricks can you make the ball do when serving? Can you put two balls on the far corners of the table and knock them both off with two fast, deep serves? Serve backspin so the ball comes back into the net – or even bounce back over it? Can you serve sidespin serves that bounce on the far left court and then curve into the right court and off the right side-line? Can you start with a forehand pendulum serve and then, at the last second, contact the ball with the backhand side (often with a quick, down-the-line topspin serve)? Can you toss the ball under your leg when serving? These are some of the "fun" serving tricks you might try. Hint – this'll be part of an upcoming Tip of the Week – some of these tricks are useful to practice as they give you the control to do effective serves. (Okay, not the under-the-leg one – that's not legal since you can't hide the ball from opponents, right?)

14 Months of Books
I know, I know, to half of you the very title makes your eyes glaze over. Sorry!!! But here's a listing of the 43 books I read from 2015 to the present (so just over 14 months), not in the order that I read them. They include eight books on table tennis, with my reviews on six of them. (But don't forget about my books!) And somehow I still manage to read the Washington Post every day, as well as Scientific American, The Bulletin of SFWA, Table Tennis Insider, and about five other magazines . . . there was a time when I used to devour a new book every day or so, but these days I just don't have the time, plus I'm also into doing crosswords at lunch, which take up time I could be reading. (Confession – I'm in a rush to finish this morning as I'm off to see my tax accountant. I'll try to be more substantive tomorrow.)

TABLE TENNIS (8)

World Table Tennis Day
The biggest holiday of the year is exactly four weeks away – yep, World Table Tennis Day is on Wednesday, April 6! So  . . . what are you doing on that day? More importantly, what are we doing on that day?

When I say "we," I'm referring to all table tennis leaders. It would be helpful to have lots and lots of events that introduce new players to our sport. However, it'll only happen if people organize such events.

Two big questions, whose answers I'll cut & paste from the World Table Tennis Day pages, which is on the "Table Tennis for All" website.

• What is the World Table Tennis Day (WTTD)?
  It is a celebration of the joy to play Table Tennis for fun, bringing people together where the focus is less on the competition and more on participation and fun. 
• What is the purpose of the WTTD?
  To gather Table Tennis enthusiasts, attract people who usually don't play table tennis, promote the love for our sport, and ideally engage new players to the practice in the long term. 

There's also a Join Us page, which answers and gives info on the following:

• Who can organize WTTD?
• Does it have to be EXACTLY on 6 April?
• What can be done on the WTTD?
• Where can it be done?
• Getting Started!
• CONTACT US!

There's also a Downloads page, with a WTTD Toolkit; Promotional Package; a "Get Moving!" Guide (the IOC Guide to managing Sport for all programmes); and an Ideas for WTTD packet.