Photo by Donna Sakai
This is an evolving website and Table Tennis Community. Your suggestions are welcome.
Want a daily injection of Table Tennis? Come read the Larry Hodges Blog! (Entries go up by 1PM, Mon-Fri; see link on left.) Feel free to comment!
Want to talk Table Tennis? Come join us on the forum. While the focus here is on coaching, the forum is open to any table tennis talk.
Want to Learn? Read the Tip of the Week, study videos, read articles, or find just about any other table tennis coaching site from the menu links. If you know of one, please let us know so we can add it.
Want to Learn more directly? There are two options. See the Video Coaching link for info on having your game analyzed via video. See the Clinics link for info on arranging a clinic in your area, or finding ones that are already scheduled.
If you have any questions, feel free to email, post a note on the forum, or comment on my blog entries.
-Larry Hodges, Director, TableTennisCoaching.com
Member, USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame & USATT Certified National Coach
Professional Coach at the Maryland Table Tennis Center
Tip of the Week
The Yin and Yang of Serving.
Cary Cup Open
I spent the weekend coaching at the Cary Cup at the Triangle Badminton and Table Tennis Club in Cary, NC. Here are complete results of the tournament, care of Omnipong. I was coaching two players, Todd Klinger and Christian Funderberg. I can't really go into details of most of the coaching – call it coach-player privilege – but here are some highlights. Ojo dominates the big events!
Tip of the Week
Ten Mini-Fixes.
Annexing Moscow
It has come to my attention that the Table Tennis Federation of Russia is in Moscow. While I am sure their players are very good at killing, I'm guessing they are more into killing ping-pong balls than Ukrainians. Therefore, by the power invested in me by USA Table Tennis, I am hereby annexing the city of Moscow. Henceforth, they will be the 51st US state and all residents of the city will be required to join USATT. We will also be granting immediate US citizenship to the 11 Russian men (including world #61 Kirill Skachkov) and 18 women (including #45 Elizabet Abraamian and #49 Polina Mikhailova) who have current ITTF world rankings. And here's Zelensky smashing Putin!
Tip of the Week
The Larry Line.
Weekend Coaching
I coached in four group sessions over the weekend, each 90 minutes long. The kids kept asking me, "Where have you been?" since I'd missed the last two weekends since I was down in Santo Domingo (see segment below on Pam Ams). I quizzed them – none knew where Santo Domingo was, and only about one-third knew where the Dominican Republic was. (This was mostly ages 8-12.) Now they all know.
Tips of the Week
Pan Am Under 11 & Under 13 Championships and a Short Blog
I just returned from ten days in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where I was one of the USA Team coaches for the Pan Am Under 11 & Under 13 Championships, along with Qi Wei, Wu "Jennifer" Yue, Xinhue "Taylor" Wang, Cheng Yinghua, and Thilina Piyadasa. We won 9 of the 16 golds, plus 7 silvers and 4 bronze! (Here's a team picture.) I coached both Under 11 (Hopes) and Under 13 boys (Mini-Cadets), with four players in each, but was in charge of Under 11 boys. The Under 11 Boys' Squad (Kyler Chen, Jason Liu, Caillou Chen, and Arjun Kumar) won gold and bronze in Boys' Teams (the two teams had to play each other in the semis or it might have been an all-USA final), gold in Boys' Doubles, Gold in Mixed Doubles, and silver and bronze in Boys' Singles. See below for my more extensive writeups.
Next Blog
Next blog will be Monday, Sept. 26. I’m out of town Sept. 15-25 coaching US junior team in Santo Domingo (see segment below).
Tip of the Week
Consistency is King.
Tip of the Week
The Simplicity of Tactics.
Weekend Coaching
I coached in four group junior sessions this weekend, one on Saturday, three on Sunday, all 90 minutes. (We have 65 kids in our junior program, divided into four groups by level. Most meeting twice a week for 90 minutes, while the strongest group meets three times a week for two hours, plus smaller sessions after school.) Other coaches in the sessions included Wang Qingliang, Lidney Castro, and Vikash Sahu, with Cheng Yinghua and Jack Huang doing private sessions separately.
I was a practice partner for one of the sessions, where the players rotated around so I blocked for them while they did footwork drills. The kids really improve this way. For some reason, I felt energized the whole session – perhaps after seven days in Texas, 17 in Mexico, and the day before in Chicago (see segment at end), I was craving TT?
Using this newfound energy, I was all over the place in another session as a "walk around" coach, jumping on the kids (not literally) to have active feet, to control their placements, to focus on consistency, and so on.
Tips of the Week
Here are the Tips I put up during my 24 days in Texas and Mexico, plus this week's.
Texas and Mexico
I returned Sunday night from a week in Texas and 17 days in Mexico. (Yeah, I'm exhausted – I've been walking seemingly non-stop the last three weeks.) Here's a short rundown.
I got back last night from seven days in Texas and seventeen in Mexico. My todo list makes the shark from Jaws look like a minnow and I'm a week behind on sleep. So I'm going to postpone this week's blog until tomorrow, Tuesday Aug. 30. Meanwhile, this week's Tip of the Week is up, along with the three I put up while I was away. Enjoy!
Next Blog on August 29
As noted below, I'll be out of town Aug. 4-28. However, there will still be a Tip of the Week every Monday. See segment "Houston, San Antonio, Mexico."
=>UPDATE - Here are the nine articles I wrote at the Classic Hardbat World Championships, Aug. 6-7 In Missouri, TX, just outside Houston.
=>NOTE – Next blog will be on Monday, Aug. 1. See segment below on "Upcoming Schedule."
Tip of the Week
Contact Point on Racket When Serving.
Strategic Versus Tactical Thinking
[I was going to write about this – and then I realized I could just copy and paste from my book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers. Here are all my books – buy a few so I can afford supper!]
What’s the difference? Strategic thinking is how you develop your game. Tactical thinking is how you use what you already have to win. Strategic thinking is long-term planning while tactical thinking is short-term, usually confined to a specific match. (These are the general definitions, and they are what I will use in this book though they are not universal.)
