ITTF Seminar
Yesterday we finished the four-day ITTF Level 1 Coaching Seminar (April 16-17, 23-24). I want to thank the 14 coaches who participated: Carmencita "Camy" Alexandrescu (NV), Benjamin D. Arnold (PA), Changping Duan (MD), Jeff Fuchs (PA), John Hsu (MD), Charlene Liu (MD), Juan Ly (FL), Vahid Mosafari (MD), Dan Notestein (VA), John Olsen (VA), Jef Savage (PA), Jeff Smart (MD), David Varkey (PA), and Shaobo "Bob" Zhu (PA). All passed, and pending their completion of 30 hours of coaching (including 5 hours of "supervised" coaching with an ITTF certified or other high-level coach), will become ITTF certified coaches. As I told them, they will be ITTF coaches, and Cheng Yinghua, Stellan Bengtsson, and Dan Seemiller are not!!! :)
Article and photos should be out in a few days.
We covered a lot of material in the 24 hours of the course. I spent a lot of time mimicking bad technique as the coaches figured out what was wrong. Sometimes I felt like I was lecturing too much; other times the coaches joined in and we had great back-and-forth discussions of technique, tactics, and other table tennis topics. In addition, all 14 coaches gave a 5-10 minute coaching presentation on a randomly-assigned technique. Each presentation was followed by a discussion and analysis, both on the substance and the presentation itself. Here's a rough listing of items covered: