He Zhiwen
One of the strange things about being at a club where we have ten full-time coaches, where I’m the only one who’s not Chinese, is often I don’t know what’s going on. Others assume I do since they are all talking about it – but in Chinese!!! So I didn’t know that He Zhiwen was even at our club until he’d been there about a week. I had just finished a long coaching session, and as I was walking to the front of the club I saw this elderly lefty pips-out penholder practicing with one of our top juniors. I stopped to watch because there was something about this player, whose strokes looked like machine guns as he almost mechanically smacked in ball after ball, both blocking and hitting, obviously a great player. So I asked Coach Jack, and he was surprised, thought I knew.

He was the famous Spanish player He Zhiwen, 55 years old, formerly a Chinese National Team member. He has now been at my club (MDTTC) for about three weeks, and I believe will be there another week or so. Last year at the World Veterans Games he won the 50-54 Men's Singles without dropping a single game. He was top ten in the world in the 1980s. In 2012, at the age of 50, he was ranked as high as #59. When he left the ranking list in 2016 at age 54 he was #82. He’s a lefty pips-out penholder. Here’s discussion of him at the Mytabletennis.net forum, with several videos posted of him competing at the Westchester Open this past weekend, where he made the semifinals of Open Singles. Here’s a Best of He Zhiwen video (4:57). Here are more videos of him. (He seems to have two spellings for his name, the other one being He Zhi Wen.)

Tip of the Week
Killer Practice Sessions. I actually wrote this article back in 2010, before I started this blog, and never linked to it or used it as a Tip before.

I’m Back
What, you didn’t notice I was away? Here’s my write-up of my nine days at The Never-Ending Odyssey (TNEO) Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing Workshop. (Make sure to click through the 12 “Vacation” pictures! Sorry, no table tennis there. Also, if you know anything about GPS, see the next-to-last paragraph – it’s a mystery how my phone was reprogrammed to try to bring me to some local address when I was trying to drive home.)

There were two table tennis related items from the workshop. First, I brought my weighted ping-pong paddle and shadow practiced nearly every day. (I don’t think you can get this in the U.S. – I bought it in Taiwan when I coached the U.S. Junior Team there at the World Youth Cup in 1994.) Second, and more importantly, I hurt my right knee on the first day and was hobbling about the whole time. I’d hurt it initially at the recent Nationals, but was mostly over that until I tried carrying heavy boxes up some stairs. Fortunately, I had my car with me (eight hour drive up, ten hours back due to incidents – see write-up), and so was able to drive from the dorms to our classes each morning, rather than walk the half mile, back and forth twice each day.

Gone Until Monday, July 31
I’m on vacation and out of town starting this afternoon until Sunday, July 30. Normal people vacation at places like Disneyworld, beaches, or some other vacationy place. Me? Every year about this time I go to a science fiction writing workshop in Manchester, NH, for nine days of intense writing, critiquing, and classes. Fun!!! See you in eleven days.

How You Can Improve at Table Tennis
This morning I was going to write about the segment title – “How You Can Improve at Table Tennis.” But that literally would take a book. I considered shorter ways of doing it, but those would just touch the surface. Then I realized that probably my best and favorite Tip of the Week, “How to Move Up a Level,” pretty much covered it – and yet, these Tips, once published, tend to be lost and forgotten. So below I am reprinting this Tip of the Week from August 4, 2014. (My books Table Tennis Tips and More Table Tennis Tips both have chapters titled “Improving,” with 54 different Tips out of 300 total in the two books.)

How to Move Up a Level
What does it mean to move up a level in table tennis? I'd define two players to be on different levels if it would be a major upset if one defeated the other. Another way of looking at it would be to say that if the stronger player plays his normal level, he would win pretty much every time. Based on this, I'd say a level in table tennis ranges from about 300 points at the lower levels (under 1000 or so), to about 100 points at the higher levels (over 2500 or so). For most USATT members, a level would be about 200 rating points or so.

Goals
Why do you play table tennis? Everyone has a reason, and whether you’ve thought it through or not, it always comes down to goals. Is your goal to have fun? Fitness? To quench your competitive spirit? Improvement? To reach a specific level or win a specific title? To make money?

A Typical Private Coaching Session
What happens in a typical private coaching session? It depends on the coach and the player. Some coaches are more practice partners, others do more coaching. (This also depends on the player - those with good technique need less coaching, more training.) Some coaches do only “live” hitting, while others mix in multiball training. Some coaches do the same drills with everyone, others vary the drills and personalize them for each player.

The player’s level, playing style, and goals greatly affect a session. Beginners work mostly on basics, while high-level players are mostly honing skills they already do at a high level. Players with different playing styles do different drills, obviously. But the player’s goals also make a huge difference. When working with a kid, the sky’s the limit, and coaches often train them as if they someday might be fighting to be world champion. Others might not have the coordination necessary, and so coaches focus on developing basic skills – except, if the player has a lot of drive, he might progress into high-level training. Others are only there to get in shape, have fun, or to work on a specific skill.

Here’s a typical private coaching session with me.

Tip of the Week
Sports Psychology.

Post Nationals Saturation Training
Now that the Nationals is over, it’s time to address various technical issues with some students. You don’t want to mess around with their technique too much just before a major tournament, so there have been some cases where I averted my eyes to certain things, waiting until after the Nationals.

Now it’s time for a few of them to do a bit of Saturation Training. I’ve kept notes on players I’ve been coaching, and now we’re addressing these problems. I’ve noticed a similar bad habit among three of them, who seem to have adopted backhand ready stances as their neutral stance in matches, even though they don’t seem to do so when drilling. One player has been struggling with his forehand in fast rallies – he seems to go into a backhand stance sometimes, and tries to play forehands from that position. Many top players do this, but it takes a LOT of physical and table training to get right, and we’re probably going to make some adjustments.

Two others players have similar problems – they seem to start many rallies standing in a backhand stance, and aren’t ready to attack with their forehand when they get the chance, often backhand pushing even against balls toward their forehand side. That has to stop!!! Anyway, I worked with one of them yesterday, and he’s now focused on keeping his right foot at least slightly back in his ready stance. (He’s a righty.) Note that if you stand toward your backhand side and have your feet parallel to the end-line, then you are facing the opponent’s forehand side. That’s fine if he’s about to hit a shot from there, but if he’s serving or hitting from the backhand side, then you should be roughly facing him, meaning your feet should be parallel to him, not the table.  

Serving Seminar at 2017 USA Nationals
At the USA Nationals I gave a one-hour serving seminar on Tuesday night. Here are the notes I used, with some explanations and links added in brackets.

My first Few Hours in Las Vegas
I think I had the worst first few hours in Las Vegas in the history of table tennis in Las Vegas – and I didn’t even gamble. Most people gripe about this type of thing on Facebook or to friends; I get to blog about it! So here is how my first few hours went, starting from minutes after I landed for the USA Nationals on Sunday, July 2. Skip to the other segments if you don’t want to hear my gripes!!!

USA Nationals
I’m still rather sick, and almost took today off as well. My stomach feels like there’s a hurricane and a tornado chucking 100mm ping-pong balls at each other. But I’ll try to go over briefly some of the highlights. I also have two hours of coaching tonight!!!

Sick as a Dog
I was supposed to start blogging again today, but when I woke up this morning my throat was on fire, my nose was completely stuffed up, and I felt as sick as a dog - and you know that I'm pretty sick when I use a cliché like that rather than come up with something more creative. I feel horrible about this, but I feel even more horrible on the inside. I'm going to need at least another day before I can start blogging again. However, here is the Tip of the Week, Learn Control First on Receive. (This was inspired by Stefan Feth's Return of Serve clinic at the USA Nationals.)