Racket Tip When Blocking

On Tuesday I linked to Racket Position, a 54-second video from Samson Dubina. It brought back a memory of my own during my peak years in the 1980s and early 1990s. In the video, Samson explains why it’s an advantage to keep the racket tip down in the same way for all shots (i.e. an extension of the arm), so you can do different shots from the same starting position.

Unfortunately, when I started out in 1976 I learned instead to raise my racket tip on my blocks, to about 45 degrees on the backhand, and a bit more on the forehand. This led to problems later on, as I’d have to have the racket tip up on some shots, down on others, and I’d often get caught the wrong way. Once I started blocking I tended to continue blocking rather change the racket tip up position. And so at my peak, I went on a roughly two-year mission where I tried to fix this, and forced myself to block on both sides with the racket tip more down. This allowed me to wait until the last second on each shot before deciding whether to block, counter, smash, or loop, and perhaps also kept the opponent in the dark.

However, at that point my blocking with the tip more up was pretty much ingrained, and I was never able to block consistently or effectively with the tip down. After losing numerous matches during those two years because of this I went back to my old way, and to this day I generally raise my racket tip when blocking. It’s especially noticeable on my forehand. On the backhand, I now block both ways, which probably isn’t good. In drills, I’ll often lower the tip on the backhand as that’s how I drilled for those two years, and it became pretty consistent that way – but only in drills. In games, I almost always raise the tip.

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday was another long day at camp, including an extra hour of private coaching. Strangely, most of the kids seem more energetic than ever. (But not all!) We spent a lot of time working on serves, as well as a lot of fundamentals.

A lot of other interesting stuff probably happened, but perhaps I don’t remember it. I was feeding multiball to a righty ten-year-old, and I gave him a pop-up to his wide forehand. He smacked it down the line at a zillion mph, smack into the middle of my forehead. I think I saw stars for a few seconds, and I had a slight headache for the next couple of hours. (It’s times like this I’m glad I wear glasses when I play table tennis – I wouldn’t want a ball like that in the eye.)

Backspin Return Over Net Serve

Here’s a video (30 sec) of a Japanese player doing this serve. It’s actually not that difficult a serve for an advanced player, though it takes practice to do it consistently. I did 14 in a row last week in a demonstration for a class, which tied my previous best. (Missed #15 both times. All 14 were “clean,” bouncing back over the net on one bounce and not touching the net in either direction.) I did this serve once in a tournament at something like 20-12 match point against U.S. Under 10 Champion Sunny Li (who I trained with regularly) back when he was about 1900 but too short to reach it, but that’s the only time I’ve done it in a serious competition.

MDTTC Camp and Coaching

Yesterday felt like one of the most exhausting days ever, probably because it was. Imagine coaching a group of 6-to-10-year olds for three hours, eating lunch, frantically reading a must-read document for an hour, then coaching the kids again another three hours, then doing 90 minutes of private coaching, then doing this blog (so I wouldn’t have to get up extra early this morning to do it). All in a day’s work for many full-time coaches, but it left me exhausted, as it has the many times I’ve had to do this before in our camps. But I’m getting older, and it’s not so easy anymore! (There are about 40 players in the camp.)

Several of the kids in my group were near-beginners, so we did a lot of work on fundamentals. Quite honestly, a few seemed pretty untalented at the beginning but surprised me with their progress as the day progressed. At the end, nearly all of them were able to hit the bottle of “squeezed worm juice,” and I was forced to drink quite a bit. Yuck!!! (As far as some of the kids know – and some sort of believe me – I’m spending the night at the hospital getting my stomach pumped.)

It has to be said – I’ve never seen a group who could lose paddles so quickly. I think we spent half the camp searching for lost rackets. I might have to tie them to their wrists.

One of the kids in my group, about eight, who has been in several of our past camps, wrote a note and handed it to me. It read, “Dear Larry, Larry is varey (sic) nice. By [name withheld].”

After a sufficient amount of pleading and negotiating, I finally gave in and treated them all to Slurpees at 7-11 after lunch. There goes my income…

Tomorrow we’re going to spend quite a bit of time on serves. I always look forward to the jaw-dropping, bug-eyed looks of shock when I demonstrate backspin serves that bounce back into the net. I really should video that part.

MDTTC Camps

MDTTC’s annual eleven weeks of summer camps started yesterday. Originally local schools were supposed to finish last week, but because of snow days they pushed over and so yesterday (Monday) was the final school day. Because of that, we had a lower first-day turnout, and so I was able to mostly stay home and do various USATT and MDTTC paperwork. (We still managed to get over 20 players for the afternoon session.) I went in for a 5-6:30PM coaching session with Daniel, and then rushed home for the USATT teleconference at 7PM (see below).

Most likely I’ll be coaching much of the rest of the summer from 10AM-6PM, with a lunch break. I’ll likely have some coaching sometimes during the lunch break, as well as after 6PM, so things are about get busy. Add in the blog, tip of the week, MDTTC stuff (group sessions, private coaching, newsletter, and other marketing things), USATT stuff (don’t get me started…), and few minor details like sleeping and eating, and I’m about to will the earth rotation to slow down so I have a few more hours in the day.

On top of that, my arm was bothering me a bit after coaching nearly all day on Sunday. I’m going easy on it – today, after the camp is done, I’ve got a 90-minute session with two of our juniors, and I’m bringing in Raghu so that I do the multiball and blocking drills, he does looping and free play drills, and we switch halfway through. (Alas, he gets the fun stuff.)

USATT Board Teleconference

We had a teleconference last night, rough from 7-8:30 PM. Main topics included:

Tip of the Week

Good Receive is What Works.

Equipment Edventures
(Did I just coin a new word, or simply force a word to start with “E”?)

Three of my students had equipment adventures this weekend, all involving Tenergy, which they all use on both sides. All are in the 1550-1700 range.

Sameer, 13, has been having trouble against slightly high balls, especially when I go back and fish. Over and over in practice games or drills if I step off the table and just get the ball back, he’d start missing. Part of this is the trajectory as when a player backs up to return with topspin, the ball will bounce out more, and so the attacker also has to take perhaps a half step back or he’ll get jammed. But Sameer was complaining that his sponge was old and that was the problem. He was right that the Tenergy was old as he hadn’t switched in a long time. So he finally bought new Tenergy this weekend. We had a session on Saturday before the change, and he was still struggling against my fishing. After changing, we had a session on Sunday and suddenly he was ripping them. So yes, Virginia, there is such thing as sponge that’s too old.

Daniel, 10, also was having trouble as he too hadn’t changed sponge in way too long. I’d told him he needed new sponge, but he put it off until Friday – with a tournament at MDTTC on Saturday. (See link to results below.) After months of using old sponge, the switch to new sponge cost him control, and he wasn’t able to make the adjustment immediately – and so had a bad loss in his first match at the tournament. But then he adjusted, had a pair of nice wins, and made it to the semifinals of Under 1700. (Much of adjusting to newer sponge is mental, as you not only have to adjust to the sponge, but you have to have confidence you have adjusted or you’ll miss your shots.)

Preparing for the U.S. Open and Other Competitions

Many of you will be competing in the U.S. Open a month from now, or perhaps someday in your future will have some other major competition one month away. It's time to prepare!!! Here are some things you should be doing or thinking about right now. 

Miscellaneous Table Tennis Stuff

Lots of table tennis stuff happening recently. Here’s a rundown.

Top Ten Surprising USATT News Items

Here are some new USATT issues you might not be aware of.

1. Chinese table tennis has been outlawed.
2. Jim Butler, who recently won the USA Nationals, North American Cup, and Meiklejohn Seniors, has been banned from table tennis to allow younger players to have a chance.
3. Plastic is flammable, so we are switching to tin balls. (This is what happens when you mix hot metal balls with regular ones. Which side would you prefer to be on?)
4. Only legal surface is speed-glued sandpaper.
5. The modern TV audience doesn’t have the patience for 11-point games (not to mention those interminable 21-point games from before), so henceforth all matches will be best of one game to one point. (With the new scoring system, the U.S. Open will now be held on July 6 between 1:00 and 2:00 PM.)
6. Because USATT is devoted to improving your table tennis games, they will be adding 100 rating points to all USATT members. Additional points are on sale at $1/point.
7. Topspin is illegal.
8. Players with long pips are required to wear a picture of a yellow ping-pong ball with six “long pips” sticking out from it.
9. The U.S. Open and USA Nationals now have first place prize money of $1,000,000 (pending receipt of $1,000,000 sponsorship).
10. My book, “The Spirit of Pong,” is now the official bible of USA Table Tennis. All members will be required to put their hands on it as they swear eternal allegiance to USATT. Table Tennis is God, and Andy “Shoes” Blue is his prophet.

Upcoming ITTF Coaching Courses in the U.S.

One-Sided Coaching

Had an interesting coaching session with 10-year-old Daniel yesterday. He’s about 1700 level, but tends to play way too passive in matches, and so we spend nearly all our time working on his attack – especially his opening loops, forehand or backhand.

When we were warming up for our session yesterday he was looping to my block, and kept going into the net. It was rather noticeable that the ball was sliding off his forehand sponge. I checked it, and sure enough, the surface was rather slick – it was worn out. The rubber on the other side was fine. He had a backup – his dad’s – but it had a slow sponge on one side. So with either racket he had one side that wasn’t really usable. (He’s getting new sponge today.)

What to do? We spent most of the 90-minute session doing one-sided drills, where he’d play all forehand or all backhand. We skipped ones where he’d have to do both forehand and backhands. For example, in multiball, I had him do a lot of side-to-side forehand looping off both backspin and topspin. Then I’d feed backspin to his backhand, then a quick topspin to his forehand, and he had to loop them all with his forehand. We did similar backhand drills.

Result? Perhaps because he was so focused on just one side at a time he had perhaps his best shot-making session ever. If he could bring into match play the shots he was doing yesterday, things might get scary!!!

NBC News

I’m off this morning to the club for a taping with NBC News and Navin Kumar, he of the Parkinson’s and mechanical heart. More on this tomorrow. (I had to get up at 6AM to do this blog…)

Thoughts on the Plastic Ball

Here’s the new coaching article by Han Xiao, where he analyzes how it has changed the game.

How to Serve Faster

Tip of the Week

What to Think About in a Match.

MDTTC Featured in Montgomery County Magazine

This is the Olympic Sport of . . . Table Tennis came out over the weekend, featuring my club, the Maryland Table Tennis Center. The player pictured - and one of the main ones featured - is Ryan Dabbs, 11, who I’ll be coaching at the U.S. Open. To get that picture of him smashing a winner I lobbed up about 50 balls, one at a time, with him smashing and cameraman taking pictures until he got the perfect shot.

Weekend Coaching Sessions

It was another busy coaching weekend. In the junior class on Sunday, we did a LOT of side-to-side footwork, just forehand to backhand, with the focus on grip. Why? Because I’d noticed a number of the kids changing their grips for forehand and backhand. They needed to find a grip where they could hit both forehands and backhands with little grip change. (Some minor grip changes are okay, but not a lot.)

In the adult training session we did a lot of down-the-line practice. A number of players were trying to hit their forehands down the line with contorted upper body and arm movements, so we spent time working on that – hitting down the line is no problem if you position yourself properly (right foot more back, more shoulder rotation) and time the ball right (a little later, by the back leg). We finished the session with a lot of service practice.