USATT Election

Well, I won. For some reason the vote totals are not given. Anyway, now the real work begins. We've got a big job ahead of us!

I promised to do a lot, but in my mind, these weren't just promises; these were things we simply need to do, and either I do it or someone else does it. I'll be looking for talented people to do as much of it as possible, and taking charge of other items. Some of the issues involve simply making a motion at a board meeting, but it's never as simple as that. Most votes are decided before the motion is made, so I can't just show up and make the motion; I have to bring it up with board members in advance, argue the case, and try to convince them of the importance of the motion. The five "Big Issues" will take a lot of organizational work - but I'm ready to get started! I won't be alone; there are plenty of others in USATT ready to jump in.

I do have a pretty clear roadmap on how we should address each of these issues. I plan to get started on all of them this first year, though some will take years to resolve. Some will be easy fixes; some will take a lot of time and work. Sometimes things will work out perfectly in the way that I foresaw; other times a better solution will emerge, and I'll adopt that instead. The final result is what counts, so we have to be flexible in finding the means to the result.

I think it's important that I and others at USATT remember this quote from Robert F. Kennedy: "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." I want to achieve greatly, and so do others from USATT, and that means taking risks on new ventures. The very idea of growing USATT from its current "round-off error" membership numbers is itself a risky venture. But we're going to do it.

I will be looking to see how others respond to problems and solutions to growing the sport, whether board members, volunteers, or staff. Do they look to fix the problem and find solutions, or just throw up roadblocks? Some do only the latter. Many do not even see the problems (such as low membership totals, small-scale U.S. Opens and Nationals, losing juniors as they approach 18, problems with the rating system, problems with the service rule, etc.), but once pointed out, these are obvious problems that need fixing. Who will actively look to fix the problems and find ways to grow and develop our sport? There's nothing wrong with pointing out the problems while looking for possible solutions, but it should be done in a brainstorming way, with the goal to find a solution.

I don't want to start off by stepping on others toes by proclaiming things I'll be doing that require others to also want to do them, i.e. the committee/staff/volunteers involved. So I won't be able to give blow-by-blow accounts of the issues as we deal with them - but I will keep readers informed as much as possible. I'm going to be doing a balancing act these next four years, where I have to judge what I can blog about and what I can't or shouldn't.

With a new forward-looking CEO who also wants to develop and grow the sport, a new Media and Marketing Consultant (see segment below), and with new committees appointments coming up, USATT potentially has the perfect mix of new and old - the energy and ideas of the new (and sometimes the old!), and the experience of the old.

Top Fifteen Ways My Life Will Change Now That I'm on the USATT Board of Directors

1. I get to move into the USATT Mansion.
2. I get to cut the salary of every USATT volunteer who has ever snubbed me. Oh wait…
3. Hobbies like eating, sleeping, and breathing will go on hold.
4. Robert F. Kennedy's quote now scares me: "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
5. I get a free USATT tie!
6. All those people who call me a crazy fool now have to call me a crazy fool sir!
7. To make time for my USATT volunteer work all that pesky paid stuff like coaching and writing will go on hold.
8. I get to scientifically test the theory that "absolute power corrupts absolutely." I believe it does, and I'm never wrong.
9. I can schedule the U.S. Open and Nationals at my club.
10. If I'm thinking about USATT stuff when I order a pizza, I can send the bill to USATT, right?
11. Next time at I jump on the table at a USATT board meeting and start ranting about coaching and leagues they'll wait a little longer before calling security.
12. Now that 8000 USATT members have access to my email I'll get peace and quiet.
13. Soon USATT members will know why my last name is just an anagram for "He's God." After a few months they'll realize that "USATT Board" is an anagram for "Oust bad rat." Squeak squeak!
14. To those who voted against me - you'll get the 100 rating points back after you apologize and practice your serves 15 minutes.
15. Strange how the day after I'm elected my new USATT rating is 2811.

USATT Hires Richard Finn as National Media and Marketing Consultant

Here's the USATT article. Richard gave a presentation at the meeting at the Nationals in December, and seems pretty competent.

Post Christmas & New Year Coaching

It seems like everyone's out of practice and out of shape! Didn't they get the memo about practicing hard during the break? Or at least shadow practicing? So now we have lots of basics work and footwork drills to get back in shape.

An interesting question comes up regarding this - what's the best way to get back into practice quickly? The conventional wisdom would be to drill and drill and drill, then play matches, and soon you'll be back where you left off. But my experience has always been that the quickest way to get back into practice - along with doing the drills - is to play matches right from the start. You may not do so well at first, but like being thrown into the deep end, you sink or swim - but unlike swimming where you drown if you don't swim, you get a second and third and fourth chance, and eventually it'll start to click. In fact, I've always found that after a break, my game comes back most often when my back is against the wall, i.e. I'm struggling and about to lose against a weaker player, and then something clicks, and bang! The magic returns.

Zhang Jike Serve, Flip, and Loop

Here's the video (24 sec, mostly slow motion) as he serves (alas, we can't see contact), does a forehand flip (note the placement to the opponent's middle, assuming he's a righty), and a follow-up forehand loop (note how he doesn't bother to bring his right foot back, sacrificing that for the sake of quickness).

ITTF Star Awards Night

Winners were Quadri Aruna and Ding Ning. Here's the ITTF article. Here's the ITTF press release (different from the article). Here's the highlights video (6:57). Here's the Tabletennista article, with lots of pictures of the stars as you've never seen them - in suits instead of warmup suits! Here's a video (2:32) of some of the musical and dancing festivities.

Child Contemplates Table Tennis

I can't read the Italian, but I like the picture! (Actually, I had Google Translate convert to English, but the translation wasn't very good.)

Action Shot of the Year

Here it is - it's the first time I've ever seen a barefooted woman fly through a hotel wall in a jungle-print party dress to lob.

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USATT Election

Sometime today USATT will announce the results of the USATT Board election, where I'm a candidate. It'll likely be posted on the USATT News page. (I'll link to it here when it does.) Check back here periodically today, and when the results are out, I'll check one of the below.

V I was elected. Oh No!!!
   I wasn't elected. Lots of sleep planned!!!

USA Olympian and Five-Time U.S. Men's Champion Sean O'Neill on Peaking

Sean has always been one of the hardest working players in U.S. history. (Here's a video by Brian Pace where he gets a lesson in "Work Ethic.") But it's not just hard work - anyone with grit and determination can do that, and many do. The point is to do so intelligently, so as to get the best results. And one of the keys to that is peaking for the "big" tournaments - something Sean may have done better than just about anyone else. Recently I had some Facebook discussions with Sean on this, and below is what he posted about peaking.

Peaking by Sean O'Neill

The real question is how does a person actually peak for big events? Do they just eat more Wheaties? Do they use different glue? Is there one drill you do that others aren't doing? The reason I won so many titles was:

1. My event preparation was far superior to the entire field. My off-the-court training dwarfed my opponents.
2. My video analysis of ALL my opponents wasn't closely matched or even really attempted.
3. My coaching was far stronger with both eastern and western coaching philosophies from day one.
4. My tournament environment was more favorable living on the east coast where I could play from NY to GA in a drive from home. We had monthly events at our local club. I was averaging 25-30 tournaments a year as a 9-16 year old. Playing abroad from age 11 was key. China for two months as a 14 year old was huge.
5. The intensity of my practices was in a different league then my competition. For three hours each day, one ball didn't touch the ground without a 100% effort. Edges were return regularly and net balls were easy put-aways. The first and final points were played as if I was in the finals of the Nationals. My drill selection or multi-ball was far more advanced than other Americans.
6. I made my first adult team as a 15 year old so I was exposed to international play at an adult while still a junior.
7. Played any adult style as a cadet. I learned to finish the point when I was 11 years old and made the main draw at the 1978 US Open by beating Randy Seemiller with stronger shots.
8. I played European style league matches as a junior in Stockholm. Learning how to play in front of a crowd when you only play two matches a night is the same as playing a finals. I also did this at the US Nationals in the Boys under 11, 13, 15, and 17, where Scott [Butler] and I were also prior to men's singles final. That is how one learns to play big when big is expected.
9. I had great doubles partners from Insook to Diana to Hank to Danny to Eric to Team Angby to show me how to play as a team and set my partner up.
10. My parents set everything aside so I could focus on table tennis 30 hours a week plus. We had live-in coaches (Chuchai Chan and Monty Merchant) before anyone ever thought of that idea. I had sponsor help with expenses as an under 11 year old. Larry published a letter to Butterfly to get the ball rolling. I had a European club happy to have exchange with me during critical junior years. I had club mates who would drop their training to help with any drills I needed help on. I had world-class coaches that never charged me a dime for their time, advice or guidance.
11. I knew that if I never gave up I would have a chance to compete. I didn't always win but I always competed.

So those are the top 11 reasons people should understand that allowed me to peak when it mattered most. There was nothing magical about peaking. It was the direct result of planning, preparation, and execution. Each year had a clear plan on what event were markers and which events were final exams. What I didn't do was put the same effort into the Westfield Open as I did the US Nationals. It makes no sense. Those little events are opportunities to try new things, test new strategies, and to gain recon info to be studied prior to bigger events.

No one can perform at 100% optimal level for each and every tournament throughout the year. Every Olympic Coach will talk about macro and micro cycles or even more basic a seasonal approach to physical and mental strengthening. Why is there spring training camps? To get into shape as year-long performances with no breaks are guaranteed to burn one out mentally. I think there was a time I lost to Danny in Detroit [US Open Team Championships] 5-6 times in a row and beat him in Vegas [USA Nationals] 5-6 times in a row. Detroit wasn't the goal tournament for me, it was a prep tournament for me. Did I try to lose in Detroit, NO! Did it bother me, NO! I knew the real prize was two weeks later.

Not that I am in their league, but Tiger, Sampras, Agassi, Nicklaus always spoke about winning majors as defining greatness. For me it was making National Teams and winning National/Olympic Festival/Pan Am Titles. My overall level of play was better than my entire generation. We had foreign-born players that I didn't focus the same efforts on in non-US Championship events. I didn't play for rating points, I played for hardware and medals. My junior titles speak for themselves, my singles titles speak for themselves, my doubles titles speak for themselves, mixed doubles titles speak for themselves, my sport festival titles speak for themselves, my Pan Am titles speak for themselves, my making of national or world cup teams speak for themselves. Winning 5 out of 7 Men's singles finals against some pretty solid opponents (Butler, Boggan, Seemiller, Zhuang, Hank Teekaveerakit) 18 titles between them speaks for itself. Oh, I will say the loss to Hank in 1986 was directly responsible for winning in '87, '88 ,'89, as that lesson never left me on each point of a finals is worth about two weeks of training. I lost my focus for 2 points in our match and Hank made me pay for it big time. Lesson learned big time. 

I broke my calendar in to both physical and emotional cycles to peak at the targeted tournaments.  It is one thing to taper down physically (i.e., reduce the longer distances and increase the intensity), but one must also be aware of the increased anxiety that accompanies getting closer to your goal.  I set emotional check points every 2 weeks out from an event to make sure I wasn’t getting too nervous leading into an event.

Other challenges included dealing with other players or experts after events that didn’t understand my targeted tournament list.  These naysayers were best to be avoided as they simply had no clue that the tournament I just participated in was one to try a new stroke that I had been practicing or to add a new tactic.  My coaches always were aware of my targeted events as they were critically involved in the planning stages.

Going into the final weeks, we would ramp up video analysis of potential opponents and practice more matches with these opponents directly in mind.  Working with the US Olympic Sports Psychologist (Shane Murphy and Sean McCann) we were able to create mental rehearsal tapes I could utilize daily in my visualization exercises.  Many people talk about doing the extra stuff, very few actually follow through.

Crystal Wang 2014 Highlights Video

Here's the video (1:29) created by Jim Butler. 

Practice

Ever feel like you're having a practice session where you're not really getting good practice? One of our top players said this of one of his practice sessions. (It can be because you're not doing the right drills, don't have the right intensity, your practice partner isn't drilling well, etc.) My response was, "When you practice if you are not getting practice stop your practice until you are getting practice."

Pingpong Keeps Seniors Fit both Physically, Mentally

Here's the article from the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Your 2015 Table Tennis Goals

Why not post it with others on this ITTF Facebook page?

Tiago Apolonia Voted Best Shot of 2014

Here's the announcement, along with the video (47 sec, including slow-motion replay), from Table Tennis Daily. "We are delighted to announce that the Portuguese sensation Tiago Apolonia has been crowned winner of the 2014 best table tennis shot of the year for his simply unbelievable around the net forehand in his match with Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov at European Team Championships."

Epic Celebrations in 2014

Here's the article and video links from Tabletennista.

Great Exhibition Point Between Ovtcharov and Persson

Here's the video (1:18, including slow motion replay).

Table Tennis Beer Pong Robot

Here's the video (1:46) - robot evolution has reached its ultimate peak, and there is no further purpose in human life other than to worship our drunken robot masters.

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Capital Area Table Tennis Super League

The League is on! The Capital Area Table Tennis Super League is a team league for the Washington DC region (Maryland, Virginia, DC), starting March 1. (But it could have national repercussions! See below.) While I helped instigate it, the ones primarily responsible for bringing this to life are Michael Levene and Stefano Ratti. (My biggest contribution was getting these two together.) Michael is a 2200 player and coach who used to play in the English leagues, and now runs Smash Table Tennis in Sterling, Virginia. Stefano is a 2300 player who used to play in the Italian leagues. The two of them bring their experience in overseas leagues with the plan to develop table tennis in the U.S. as it is done overseas. (They also want to play in the league!) We also learned a lot by studying the LA League. By combining the best of both worlds, we hope to create a regional league system that can spread all over the country.

This is something I made central on my Election Page for my campaign for the USATT Board. (See item #1.) The election results should come out tomorrow (voting ended Dec. 27), but regardless of the results, we've taken the first step on this.

The importance of creating such a system of regional team leagues cannot be overstated if we want to develop table tennis in this country. I've blogged about this over and Over and OVER; it's the primary reason there are 11,000 clubs and 600,000 paid members in the German Table Tennis Association, and membership numbers in much of Europe is counted in the hundreds of thousands, while here in the U.S. we have about 8000 members.

Of course, it won't happen instantly. Here are three quotes that I think are relevant here - and it's appropriate that two of them come from China.

• "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi
• "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." -Chinese proverb.
• "There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" -Robert F. Kennedy

Here is the email that went out to local clubs on Sunday:

Dear table-tennis club owner,

We are excited to bring to your attention a new initiative we are working on, which we think would be greatly beneficial to clubs, players, and table-tennis in general.  We, as a small group of players with experience in foreign leagues, and with the help of Larry Hodges, are planning to launch a regional team league.  The development of team leagues is the main reason why table tennis is so popular in Europe, and we’d like to introduce this type of team play to the Capital area.

The “Capital Area Table Tennis Super League” would have the objectives of providing players with a fun way to compete (you can imagine the thrill of having your teammates cheer you on as you compete!), and develop table tennis into a more palatable spectator sport.  We believe that, over time, meeting these objectives will lead into an increased number of players.  It would also be an opportunity to publicize your respective clubs to players in the area, and to attract new players to the sport.

The attached flyer has information about the league, and we would ask you to forward this flyer to all your club members as soon as possible.  We also ask you wholeheartedly that you support this initiative, encourage players at your club to form teams, and be flexible in providing space for the league games. Again, we believe that, if we can develop a successful team league, every club will be able to benefit from increased membership and more engaged players.

If you have questions, thoughts, suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best,
Michael Levene
Stefano Ratti
Larry Hodges

Here is a follow-up email that Mike and Stefano sent out yesterday:

Dear table-tennis club owners/managers,

There have been a few questions raised with respect to the Capital Area TT Super League. Here are a few points of clarification, after some discussion. I am sure there will be more.

Keep in mind that, at this stage, nothing is set in stone.  We appreciate your patience as we launch this new initiative; I believe that we will learn a lot during the first season and we will be to fine-tune things in the future. For the time being, we want to get started, so we have made some decisions fairly quickly.  Please let us know if you have additional questions (I am sure we have missed many items!)

Question #1: How will the team fees be used? Will the host clubs collect additional club fees for non-club members playing in the league?
The (fairly modest) team fees ($200/team) will be used to pay for any operational expense (basically a software license), and fund prizes.  At this point, we (as in “league organizers”) are NOT planning on paying fees directly to the clubs (contrary to what I told some of you earlier today – my apologies). It would be the responsibility of each team to find a venue for their home matches – that means that each team would negotiate an agreement with its club, if the team wants to play its home matches at its club (in which case, the club can decide whether to charge its team(s) or not, what day/time can be made available, etc.).  We are going to leave it between the teams and the clubs.  The only request we would have is that clubs do not charge visiting players and their immediate family, though. Teams could also use venues other than their own club, if they so choose and/or if they cannot come to an agreement with their club – it could be other clubs or any other place, provided that reasonable playing conditions can be met.  Keep in mind that, if there is enough interest, and events are marketed appropriately, each club would of course be free to charge spectator fees (this is probably more in the long run, but I could see that happen for some key games).

Question #2: How will the Prize money be distributed?
This is still to be determined, but we will communicate it closer to the start date.

Question #3: Will there be rating caps or restrictions?
We will not have any rating caps, or any restrictions. We would, of course, prefer to have a balanced league, with competitive games and evenly-matched teams.  Of course, teams will be placed in the appropriate division (number of divisions will depend on the number of teams that will sign up), according to the ratings of their top 3 players.

Question #4: What type of balls will we use?
Our intent is to have a ball sponsor, which will allow ball standardization as much as possible.  While we are not sure about the brand, we will be using plastic balls.

Question #5: What is the format of the matches?
Team matches will be nine individual matches, with all nine matches played out. It will be 3v3 players (potentially with the option to substitute in a 4^th player). Points will be assigned for each individual match. Also, there will be 1 bonus point for not defaulting, and -1 point for defaulting. A team will be allowed to play with only 2 players present, but it will start from a 0-3 deficit and not be given the additional bonus point.  For example, if a team shows up with 3 players and wins 7-2, they will win 8 points (7 matches + 1 bonus point).  If a team shows up with 2 players and the two players win all of their matches, the final result will be 6-3 and that team will win 6 points (6 matches + 0 bonus point).

Question #6: What day of the week are the matches?
It will up to each individual team to select the time/day of their home matches, and, again, make sure they have a venue for their home games. However, teams that decide to play during a weekday will be asked to have a start time of between 7 and 8 pm (to allow for realistic travel times in our highly congested area, while not having super-late games).

Question #7: Is there a web site?
We have an initial web site at:

http://www.smashtt.com/capital-area-super-league/

We will add a FAQ section, which we will update as items get ironed out.

I hope this helps. Again, thanks for your help, and let us know if there are any other comments/suggestions, etc.

Stefano and Michael

It Snowed this Morning - No School!

• Here's Derek Nie's reaction on Facebook:
  "OOOOMMMMGGGG!!!! NO SCHOOL!!!! I DON"T HAVE TO GIVE MY SPEECH FOR SETTLAGE!!!!"
• Here's my response:
  "OOOOMMMMGGGG!!!! NO SCHOOL!!!! I DON"T HAVE TO PICK UP KIDS AND DO THE AFTERSCHOOL TABLE TENNIS PROGRAM!!!!"

Smacking Cups

Here's a video (10 sec) from a junior session yesterday where Kerry smacks over a pyramid of cups! I like to end many of our sessions with games like this.

The Paddle of Pong

I made the big plunge yesterday - I started a new novel! "The Paddle of Pong" is a table tennis fantasy dramedy. Our hero is a mid-level American player who aspires to be a champion. So he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis - and finds a mentor, treachery, and a fantasy world where he must achieve the Body of Pong, the Spirit of Pong, and most importantly, the Paddle of Pong - all while being haunted by the spirits of table tennis champions past. (Here are my other books.)

USATT Board Motions

Here are motions made at the USATT Board Meeting held at the USA Nationals in December. I haven't read them yet; I'll go over them later.

New World Rankings

Here's the ITTF article, and here are the ranking lists. There are also team rankings.

World Championships of Ping Pong 2015

Here's the promo video (20 sec) for this $100,000 sandpaper event in London, to be held Jan. 24-25. Here's the home page for the event.

Nice Shot by Jun Mizutani

Here's the video (14 sec).

The Greatest Moments from Wang Hao

He's retired from the Chinese team. Here's video (5:57) of some of his greatest points.

Tuxedoed with Paddles Appelgren, Waldner, and Persson

Here's the picture.

Colorful Tables

Here are pictures of some almost psychedelic outdoor ones from Uberpong. I wish we had one of these at my club!

Mostly Non-Table Tennis - Books I Read in 2014

"I have no life, and I must read!" Actually, I think I read fewer books this year than any year since elementary school. I was too busy much of the year, especially January through the summer, though I caught up with a lot of reading in Sept-Dec. (As you can see, I decided to catch up on my John Grisham - that's what I read all summer during our camps.) 

TABLE TENNIS (1)
Get Your Game Face On Like the Pros! by Dora Kurimay

NON-FICTION (6)
100 Things Every Writer Needs to Know by Scott Edelstein
Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer by Jeff Vandermeer
Flow in Sports by Susan Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Vietnam: An American Ordeal by George Donelson Moss
A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence Krauss
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

FICTION (25)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (722 pages)
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (1120 pages)
Hex by Allen Steele
The Hemmingway Hoax by Joe Haldeman
The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Bad Wizard by James Maxey
Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp
Shattered by Kevin Hearne
Sunset of the Gods by Steve White
The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF, edited by Mike Ashley
After Death edited by Eric Guignard
Storm Front (The Dresden Files book #1) by Jim Butcher
Fool Moon (The Dresden Files book #2) by Jim Butcher
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files book #3) by Jim Butcher
Summer Knight (The Dresden Files book #4) by Jim Butcher
The King of Torts by John Grisham
The Last Juror by John Grisham
The Associate by John Grisham
The Testament by John Grisham
The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
The Brethren by John Grisham
The Partner by John Grisham
The Racketeer by John Grisham
The Confession by John Grisham
The Broker by John Grisham

And somehow I still manage to read the Washington Post every day, as well as Scientific American, The Bulletin of SFWA, USA Table Tennis Magazine, and about five other magazines....

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Tip of the Week

Hitting or Looping?

Ratings

Here is an essay I wrote for the USATT Coaching newsletter in 2009. While it is primarily about juniors and ratings, most of it applies to non-juniors as well. (Note - I've used ratings in the past for publicity reasons, such as when Crystal Wang set records for highest rated player of her age, but that was for just that - publicity reasons. And guess what? Crystal cares very little for ratings, which is one of the reasons she has improved so much at such a young age.)

Juniors and Ratings
By Larry Hodges
From USATT Coaching Newsletter, Nov. 2009

Ratings can be a cancer on junior table tennis. They change the focus from improvement to immediate results and leave juniors nervous and defensive in their matches. They also take much of the fun out of the game for juniors who become obsessed with fear of blowing their rating.

Like a disease, the obsession with ratings by parents and juniors--and some coaches--causes tremendous damage to junior development. It's not enough that a kid faces the pressure of regular win-lose situations when they play tournaments; now, with one loss, they can blow their rating and have to live with the aftermath for--what seems at the time--forever!

It's understandable that a junior might be upset about losing a key match in a tournament. However, once it's done, it's done, and they should move on. With ratings, the effects of that loss live on. Worse, juniors often lose because they are so nervous about their rating that they end up blowing their rating because they are afraid of blowing their rating.

The frustration of watching otherwise successful junior programs--including ones I work with--that are handicapped by rating hysteria is disheartening. The most amazing thing is the often strained defenses given month after month by players, coaches, and parents, all in defense of protecting a rating--while in reality, teaching the junior a loser's mentality. Some of the best coaches in the U.S. came from countries without a rating system, and either do not recognize or do not understand how to address these problems. Yet, when you talk to top U.S. coaches like Stellan Bengtsson and Dan Seemiller, they roll their eyes in irritation at the very mention of ratings.

Most U.S. coaches know of up-and-coming players who flopped because they were more worried about their rating than in long-term improvement. Usually, it was the result of pressure (intentional or not) from parents or coaches, whose worried about short-term ratings cost their player long-term improvement--and ultimately led to a lower level of play and a lower rating.

Coaches, let's put a stop to it.

Rating events are a perfect place for juniors to learn to compete, and to think and play like a champion. Yet juniors--often under pressure from parents or coaches--often enter only higher events where they are less likely to play a weaker player and lose rating points. There are fewer things more sickening to me than seeing a junior rated 1600 only enter events from Under 2000 and up--but I see this type of thing all the time. (A similar thing happens in junior events, where juniors often avoid events they might win--but must defeat lower-rated players to do so--and instead enter older junior events where they aren't competitive but have a better chance of pulling off a "ratings upset.") Entering higher events and competing against stronger players gives experience that can lead to improvement, but it's only half the equation.

How can they learn to compete by avoiding the very players they need to learn to compete against? They need to learn to dominate against weaker players, and you don't learn to do this by playing only stronger players. A player who is rated 1999 and avoids the Under 2000 event because he's afraid of losing rating points isn't thinking like a champion. A champion rated 1999 wants to win that Under 2000 event. He may not do it, and he may even suffer a bad loss--thereby "blowing" his rating--but he'll keep trying, he'll learn from his losses, and eventually he will win it, and move on to higher events. Along the way, he'll learn how to compete and win. The one who avoids the event does not.

I remember a junior I was coaching at the Junior Nationals who was in the final of the Under 12 Boys' Singles. His hands were trembling before the match. I asked him why he was so nervous and his answer floored me: "I've never been in a final before." It was true; the kid had played for three years and probably 50 tournaments, but his parents had studiously kept him out of any rating or junior event that he could compete in, only entering him in higher events. He was rated much higher than his opponent, but he was too nervous to play, and lost badly.

I spoke to the kid's parents, and convinced them of the value of playing events where he was competitive. I'll give them credit; they learned, and soon their son was in the final of a rating event against a lower-rated player. However, it was too late; before the match, the kid was again nervous. I asked why, and his answer again floored me: "I'll blow my rating if I lose this." He lost again; the fear of losing rating points had been instilled in him.

The kid never came close to becoming a table tennis champion.

Rating anxiety by juniors is amplified because juniors are less experienced, and so more upset prone. But that's exactly why they need to compete, to gain that experience so they can learn to dominate matches against all styles. Juniors are the most rapidly improving segment of tournament players, and so are most likely to pull off an upset. Yet it is those painful losses that stick out to those who are obsessed with ratings.

There are some legitimate problems with the rating system that apply here. For a top junior, one bad loss can blow their seeding at a later national tournament. For this reason, I've never liked the idea of using current ratings for seeding at major events, as opposed to average rating over a period of time. But we have to live with the reality that current ratings are used. The problem is that the excuse of protecting one's rating for seeding purposes is way, way overdone. It's far more important, long-term, that the junior get the tournament experience to prepare for the big tournament and future ones than avoiding competition for fear of blowing their rating and seeding.

Imagine for a moment the best players in the world back when they were up-and-coming juniors. Can you imagine them avoiding an event because they were afraid of losing rating points? It's hard to imagine because the best players in the world (and the U.S.) are all very strong mentally. They are not worried about losing. If they were rated 1999, they wouldn't avoid the Under 2000 event; they'd want to win it because they have a champion's mind. They are competitors.

Now imagine the player with a 1999 rating who avoids that Under 2000 event. Is he avoiding it because he has the mind of a champion? Or is he avoiding it because he is afraid of defeat? Does he have a hitch in his mental game--fear, or lack of confidence in himself? How was this fear instilled in him?

Is he gaining the necessary experience to develop into a champion? Or is he avoiding that experience, while his peers compete, learn, and become champions?

Is he unable to perform at his best because he is afraid of failure?

Is he so afraid of losing that he can't make changes in his game to improve? Does he fall back into the same bad habits that worked at the lower levels?

Is he trying to succeed, or trying to avoid failure?

While there is no sure-fire cure for cancer or rating anxiety, doctors and coaches can help. In the latter case, coaches need to instill in juniors and parents from the beginning that ratings are not the focus of their play; improvement is. Coaches should stress the following from day one.

• Do not take ratings seriously. When ratings go up, they are fun; when they go down, who cares?
• Focus on improvement, with the goal to win events and titles.
• Ratings are only a snapshot approximation of your current winning ability in a tournament. Where you will be later on is more important than where you are now.
• Ratings can be a tool if used as intermediate- or long-term goals. There's nothing wrong with a 1600 player making it a goal to go over 2000 within a year, though that should be combined with event-oriented goals, such as winning the state junior championships, or winning the Under 2000 event at a major tournament.

Often a higher-rated player is like a house with a weak foundation, preventing further improvement, while a lower-rated player is like a skyscraper under construction with a strong foundation. The house might be taller now, but which one will someday soar into the sky? Those who focus on ratings may temporarily gain a higher rating but with a weaker foundation, while those who focus on improvement develop the foundation to become a skyscraper. Ask your juniors which they would prefer. If they want to be skyscrapers, urge them to compete in rating and junior events that they can win, and when it's over, don't ask them their rating. Ask them what they learned.

USATT Coaching Newsletters

From 2009-2012, under Coaching Chair Richard McAfee, we had six Coaching Newsletters. Here are links to all six.

Weekend Coaching

It was a busy weekend, culminating in seven straight hours of coaching on Sunday. Okay, it wasn't quite that, as one student had to cancel (which would have given me an hour off but I spent 30 minutes of it going overtime with another student), plus I had a 15-minute break in the middle. It was a long session.

Later this month I'm doing an exhibition with Sameer (13-year-old student) as a benefit for Cystic Fibrosis. So we spent probably 20 minutes of our session practicing for that, and will be spending more and more time on this. Lots of lobbing (including my signature lobbing while sitting on the floor), and various other routines. The plan is to start with a demo, then move to my telling the crowd of a "terrible, terrible" thing that has happened - Sameer has gotten cocky, and thinks he can beat me. ME!!! And so we will have our "challenge match," right there in front of the crowd, with the loser mopping the floors later that night. (Alas, I always play the bad guy in these exhibitions, which means I always lose. I might as well start mopping now.) I'm a bit worried that other coaches will see us lobbing and seemingly goofing off, and will roll their eyes at us!

At one point Sameer hit a ball to my wide forehand and I missed the shot. I said, "I would have made that shot when I was better!" A minute later he missed a shot and said, "I would have made that shot when I'm better!"

We had seven new players in the Sunday junior program, so I spent a lot of time teaching the basics - grip, stance, forehand, and serves this time.

Jim Butler and Major League Baseball

Last month Jim Butler won Men's Singles at the USA Nationals at age 43. He'll be turning 44 in February. How rare is it for players to compete at that age at the highest levels of sports? In the U.S., we've actually had several older players win Men's Singles at these "advanced" ages - Cheng Yinghua, David Zhuang, and Ilija Lupulesku all did so, with Cheng winning in 2004 at age 46, David in 2008 at age 45, and Lupi winning in 2007 at age 40. (I think the oldest U.S. Open Champion was Dick Miles in 1962, age 37.)  So how rare is this? Here's an analogy. I did some checking, and next year there will be 750 major league baseball players and about 6000 in the majors and minors. Assuming Jason Giambi (five weeks older than Jimmy) doesn't return - he hit .133 last year and is unlikely to be resigned - Jimmy will be older than all 6000 of them.

Sean and Chess Pieces

I had some interesting discussions on Facebook recently with 5-time U.S. Men's Champion Sean O'Neill and 4-time and current U.S. Men's Champion Jim Butler. I may post more of them later. Here's one from Sean:

During the 80's and 90's players needed to learn to use all their chess pieces, not just their Queens. Today's players seem to rely on few pieces to win. When Jimmy played the semi's and finals it seemed to me that he was using his positional game to a huge advantage over the "power game." Jimmy simply just wasn't going to miss a return for the sake of missing, his opponent would have to get the ball by him and Jimmy wasn't giving an inch to gain position to play a strong ball.

Neglected Footwork: In and out

Here's the new coaching article by Samson Dubina.

34 Seconds of Multiball

Here's the video. I think I showed this once before, but it's great to watch again if you want to see how the top players train. Red flooring, balls scattered everywhere - looks just like my club, MDTTC!

International Table Tennis

Here's my periodic note that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage).

Ten Most Popular Sports in the World

Here's the article - table tennis comes in at #6, with approximately 850 million fans. "Hugely popular in China, and gaining acceptance in Europe, table tennis has been around for less than a century, but was adopted quickly in mainland Asia. Part of the attraction of the sport, much like soccer, is the ease of play and inexpensive equipment - makeshift nets can be set up on a plank of wood, with simple wooden panels, allowing games to be played nearly anywhere. International play has been dominated by the Chinese, particularly the women, as no non-Chinese woman or women's team has gotten a gold in any international competition since 1992."

Table Tennis Intro

Here's the video (1:44) of how they introduce players in Thailand.

Ovtcharov and Persson Exhibition and Ball Destruction!

Here's the video (33 sec), ending with the "controversial" ball meeting its demise. I don't think I've ever seen a celluloid ball break this way, so I'm pretty sure it's plastic.

China Primary School Ping Pong Army

Here's the video (20 sec)!

Cristiano Ronaldo's Table Tennis Skills

Here's the video (6 sec) as he shows he's not only good at dribbling a soccer ball!

Table Tennis Images

Here are a few interesting pictures I saw this weekend:

• Born to play pong
• Pong on the Brain
• Ocean pong
• Veggie Pong

***
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Welcome to the New Year!

These balls wish you a Happy New Year - but are they plastic or celluloid?

On Rules and Boosting

The USATT and ITTF rules say the ball must be 2.7 grams. That's unlikely. But the ITTF "fixes" this by having a technical leaflet on the ball, which says, "Law 2.3.2 specifies 2.7g, but any weight between 2.67 and 2.77g is acceptable for any one ball." (See B1.) In other words, they set a leeway factor for this. And so while the rules says the ball must weigh 2.7 grams, it doesn't have to weigh 2.7 grams.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that there's a big debate going on right now about boosting. This is sort of like speed gluing, except that it's nearly undetectable and not nearly as unhealthy. (Some boost using just vegetable oils.) It's pretty clear that most top players (both in the world and the U.S.) are boosting. (Those that don't are at a disadvantage.) Some top players refuse to boost since it is illegal - the rules state that "The racket covering shall be used without any physical, chemical or other treatment." Few really follow this rule - after all, rubber cleaner is a chemical that many use to treat their racket covering when cleaning it. Even water is a chemical, so using water doesn't help. (Yes, there are lots of semantics arguments over this.)

But since it's a rule, it means boosting is also technically illegal. But like the rule about the ball, there's an easy fix to this. Rather than have an essentially unenforceable rule that favors those who are willing to "cheat," why not simply put in the USATT Tournament Guide (roughly our equivalence to the ITTF technical leaflets) that any racket that passes the racket testing procedure at a tournament shall be legal for that tournament? (It would be under "Referee Responsibilities," in section 5h.) That gives an "out" for those who won't boost because it's technically illegal, just as it allows them to play with an "illegal" ball that doesn't actually weight 2.7 grams.  

Some will argue that this is simply making an illegal racket legal. But that's how they make an illegal ball (not weighing 2.7 grams) legal. And since these "illegal" rackets are already being used as apparent "legal" rackets, all we're doing right now is ignoring the "cheating," i.e. out of sight, out of mind. I'd rather address the issue openly - and until there's a feasible test for it, set the leeway factor so there's a level playing field for all.

How exactly do you go about boosting? I'd rather not go into that right now, not until it is at least somewhat "legal"!

What I Did Wednesday through Friday

This past month or so was incredibly busy. Between the North American Teams, the USA Nationals, the MDTTC Christmas Camp, and (ten zillion other things), I was pretty exhausted when the Christmas Camp wrapped up Wednesday at 1PM. So what did I do?

WEDNESDAY…

The Christmas Camp had its final session from 10AM to 1PM. As I often do in the last session of our camps, much of it was "player's choice," where I let the players choose what they wanted to work on. Most of them wanted to work on smashing, looping, or serving, so we did a lot of that. I also spent about 20 minutes letting a group of them try to return my serves. We had a practice tournament the second half of the session, then finished with some Brazilian Teams. And then it was over.

We had well over 40 players in all in the camp, with 42 players attending at the same time one day. Coaches and practice partners included myself, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Jeffrey Xeng Xun, Alex Ruichao Chen, Wang Qing Liang ("Leon"), Chen Bo Wen ("Bowen"), Han Xiao, and Raghu Nadmichettu. Players including Crystal Wang, Nathan Hsu, Derek Nie, Klaus Wood, and many more.

After a month of non-stop activities, I'd fallen behind on my biggest vice - movies!!! So I set what might be a new record - even for me - and watched four movies that afternoon and night. Yes, FOUR!!! I started with "Into the Woods." Immediately after getting out of that I rushed over and just made the beginning of "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb." Then I went home and watched "The Interview" online. Then I went back to the theater to see "Unbroken." (Just for the record, I'd already seen "Big Hero 6," "Exodus," "Interstellar," "Penguins of Madagascar," "The Hunger Games," "Fury," "Guardians of the Galaxy," "Horrible Bosses 2," and of course "The Hobbit." Still on my list - "The Theory of Everything" and "The imitation Game.") As to my reviews for these movies, I liked them all. Yes, I did. Apparently I have low standards when it comes to movies! (I have much higher standards when it comes to books.)

Actually, I realized long ago that I look at movies a bit differently than others. Most judge movies by what they actually see, which makes sense. Me? When I play table tennis or other games, I tend to see things from everyone else's point of view, which is a tremendous advantage - I know exactly what things seem like from the opponent's perspective, so I can plan tactically. (This is also true when I play poker, which is why I almost went professional back in 1990.) How does this apply to movies? When I watch a movie, I see it from the director's point of view, i.e. what he intended. While I see the "bad" stuff as well, my focus tends to be on what the director intended, and so I focus on the "good" stuff. Result? I like most movies I see. Which is good, because I'm rarely disappointed! (This doesn't work with books because books are a bit more interactive mentally.)

Before going to bed I updated my todo list, with a solemn vow that I wouldn't look at it until Friday.

THURSDAY…

Despite seeing four movies the day before, Thursday, January 1, was my actual day off. (After all, how could Wednesday be my day off when I coached three hours?) I started the day by reading Dave Barry's Year in Review 2014. Then I did the Washington Post crossword puzzle - nailed the entire thing! Then, starting at 11AM or so, I sat in my easy chair and read for pretty much 12 hours straight. The book I'm reading is the fantasy novel "The Wise Man's Fear," by Patrick Rossfuss, which is the sequel to "The Name of the Wind." The novel is 1120 pages long (though I'm reading it on my Kindle), and so it's a long read. I managed to get exactly 70% through it by the time I put it down last night, or about 784 pages. Surprisingly, my eyes aren't tired. (Eventually I plan to read the table tennis books "The Next Step" and "Ping Pong for Fighters," but when I'm doing table tennis full-time, I usually prefer reading non-TT stuff in my off time.)

FRIDAY…

And now I'm back at work, with a todo list from here to China. Specifically, here's my list of stuff to do today - which I'll cross out throughout the day as I complete each, so keep checking back!

1. Blog
2. Organize and schedule upcoming private coaching and table tennis parties
3. Update MDTTC news clippings
4. Write and send out letters of recommendations for local player applying for colleges
5. Monthly coaching payment to MDTTC
6. Lunch
7. Pay bills
8. Errands in car (bank, post office, groceries - took way too long)
9. Organize Saturday and Sunday junior classes (new sessions start tomorrow)
10. Send out second USA Nationals press release. (The first one was published in the Baltimore Sun - see below.)
11. Organize upcoming afterschool program (starts again on Monday)
12. Create MDTTC January Newsletter
13. Update some corrections to the Print on Demand and Kindle versions of Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers.
14. Schedule and plan upcoming adult beginning class (scheduling postponed until I have more scheduling info on other classes and private coaching)
15. Write up Coach of the Year nomination for someone (who shall remain nameless for now). 
16. Write letter of complaint to United over the two cancelled flights on Dec. 22 - see "My Seven Years at San Francisco Airport." (Postponed to weekend)
17. Organize training schedule for one of our top players (postponed to weekend)
18. Christmas thank you's (postponed to next week)
19. Eating and sleeping (postponed forever)

SATURDAY and SUNDAY…

Lots and lots of coaching scheduled….

Thought for the Day on Serving

The ITTF (and USATT) rules state that the serve shall start with the ball resting freely on the open palm of "the server's stationary free hand." Stationary? That's not really possible. First, nobody can hold their hand absolutely stationary. For one thing, it would require a temperature of absolute zero, which is about -469 Fahrenheit or -273 Celsius. Second, even if the hand were motionless it would be moving through space very rapidly as the earth spins and circles the sun and as the sun moves around the galactic core at about 483,000 mph. Third, motionless relative to what? Haven't they heard of relativity? Okay, I'm just having fun! Or am I?

Crystal Wang Featured in Baltimore Sun

Here's the article. (The words are from my press release.)

Get the Right Info and Practice the Right Elements!

Here's the new coaching article by Samson Dubina.

Reading Spin

Here's a video (8:110 where Tao Li explains how to read service spin.

"Happy New Year to the Sweeris Family"

Here's the video (3:29), "From the Butler Family to the Sweeris Family." (I can't imagine the history of USA Table Tennis without the Butlers, Sweerises, and the Boggans and Seemillers. That's a pretty different world!)

Welcome 2015 with Table Tennis in Top 5 in the World

Here's the article by ITTF Chair and Previous President Adham Sharara.

USATT Hall of Fame Dinner

Here's the video (2:18:10) of the Hall of Fame Banquet held at the USA Nationals, where Lisa Gee, Tawny Banh, Sheila O'Dougherty, and Richard Butler were inducted into the Hall of Fame, and Donna Sakai was given the Lifetime Achievement Award. Emcees are Dick Evans, Tim Boggan, and Sean O'Neill.

Welcome to the New Age of Table Tennis

Here's the video (1:34) from the ITTF!

2006 Planet Ping Pong Documentary

Here's the video (57:17), which covers the history of our sport, with interviews and video of many past greats such as Marty Reisman and Johnny Leach.

Ping Pong Playing Musicians of the Year

Here's the article from Table Tennis Nation.

What to Do with Old Sponge

Here's the picture - I'm sure no referee would object!

Table Tennis in Russia

Here's the picture - welcome to the Russian winter! (Click on pictures to see three more.)

Table Tennis Surfing

Here's the picture of Kim Gilbert as she rides a table on a . . . sand wave at the beach?

***
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Off Tomorrow - New Year's Day

See you next year, on Friday, January 2, 2015!

MDTTC Christmas Camp

Yesterday was a busy day. Besides the camp (10AM-1PM, 3-6PM), I had a 90-minute private session during the lunch break, so I was essentially coaching from 10AM-6PM non-stop except for a few short breaks. I've been on the go almost constantly for the past month, and am badly looking forward to a couple days off after today!

I posted a camp picture yesterday, but we were missing a number of players, so here's one from yesterday with nearly everyone.

During the 90-minute lunch session yesterday with Sameer we kept track of nets and edges for a while - and as usual, it was completely one-side as he beat me 22-6 in nets & edges. (I've blogged about this several times, such as here.) We spent part of the session practicing exhibition tricks as we're doing an exhibition for a charity event in late January. We'll be practicing these tricks more in January, and I'm sort of self-conscious that other coaches and players are going to see our sessions and think we're goofing off. By the end of January Sameer's going to be a great lobber!

I had my group do a lot of service practice yesterday. Besides spin serves we had a number of contests to see who could hit a bottle with their serves. The kids are pretty competitive. Several of the new kids are already learning to loop.

As we traditionally do at every Christmas Camp, we finished yesterday's session with "The Candy Game." I bought (at my own expense) several bags of Jolly Ranchers and Hershey Kisses (both plain and with walnuts - the latter are my favorites). I piled the candy near the back edge of the table, and the players lined up, taking turns (three shots each) trying to hit them off the table. Whatever they knocked off the table, they got to keep! (I allow trades - they can trade what they knock off with other candy on the table.) This went on for about 45 minutes. At the end, because (as usual) I had bought too much candy, each of them were allowed to take five free pieces.

We have one more session in the camp, this morning from 10AM-1PM, and then we're done for the year.

New MDTTC Players

We have two new players at MDTTC. One is our new player/coach/practice partner Sun Jianhao. He's 19, apparently about 2600 level. No Americanized name for him yet - how about "Sunny"?

The other is 13-year-old Klaus Wood. He's not really "new" - I'm told he started out in one of my junior classes about six years ago. But he's spent most of these past six years in Taiwan, returning to Maryland periodically. He's caused havoc at the last two USA Nationals, where his rating has gone from 637 to 1747, then 1747 to 2370. That's a gain of 1110 and 623 points, respectively, or 1733 in two tournaments! I'm fairly certain that's a record. As a 637-rated player he beat a player rated 2261, a 1624 rating difference - I'm betting that's also a record. (After the 2013 Nationals he should have been adjusted much higher than 1747, probably to around 2100. He had wins over players rated 2261, 2068, 1906, and 1892, and his worst loss was a five-gamer to a 2132 player - and yet he only went from 637 to 1747??? The USATT rating adjustment system needs adjusting.)

Professional Table Tennis in the U.S.

One of the five main issues I campaigned on in the USATT election was to professionalize table tennis in this country. In my Election Page the fifth main issue was, "Create a Professional Players Association and Professionalize the Sport," and I explained how I thought we should go about doing so. Since that time I've learned of at least five (5!!!) other plans to do this. Besides my own, there's the North American Tour, one from Jim Butler, two others I can't comment on right now, and this one (see "Professional League" near end) from ITTF North American President Tony Kiesenhofer, where he wrote:

"I would like to see us work towards a professional table tennis league; to start, we may explore to become a “farm team” operation of, say, the Chinese Super League or the German Bundesliga, in North America; then we will see where we can move from there”, continued Tony Kiesenhofer. “If we cannot get the interest from one or two of the major table tennis leagues, to explore a more modest start with North American teams; it is important that such a league serve the player development of North American players."

If elected - results will be announced on January 7 - I'll have to go over these plans with others and find the best one. We need to have some sort of professional tour or league going within four years as that's when the current incredible group of players in the roughly 12-14 age group will hit college age. I'm a big advocate for college, but if you're 18 years old and 2600 or so, why not take off a few years and see how good you can get? Otherwise you might spend the rest of your life wondering. Besides, it's a great way to see the U.S. and the world!!!

U.S.-Born Players Who Have Broken 2700

Here's a list of U.S.-born players who have broken 2700. Did I miss anyone? (Online ratings only go back to 1994. I have all the old magazines going back past 1976, but I'm not about to go through them all one by one!) For me (and hopefully most others), the list of players who have broken 2700 is only of academic interest, not an accurate evaluation of player performance, where winning titles is a bit more important than a few digits on a rating. 

• Dan Seemiller several times (I think he was the first U.S. player to do it. Ratings have inflated since his heyday, so it was a lot tougher for him.)
• Eric Boggan many times
• Jim Butler many times
• Eric Owens (four ratings over 2700 in 2002; highest 2712)
• Todd Sweeris (2706 in Nov. 1995; had 15 other ratings over 2650)
• Barney J. Reed (2751 in 2001. Reed went in rated 2528, and his best four wins were over players rated 2751 (Zoltan Varga, coincidentally Reed's end rating), 2516, 2465, and 2409 - and was mysteriously adjusted all the way to 2751. There are serious problems with the USATT rating system adjustment system.)

OTHERS:

• Khoa Nguyen was 2727 in 1995, but while he was 100% U.S.-trained, he was born in Vietnam and came to the U.S. as a little kid before he ever played. 
• Mark Hazinski reached 2695.
• Sean O'Neill came close, but I don't think he ever went over 2700. His best ratings were from before the ratings went online in 1994. 

Table Tennis Tips by Jan-Ove Waldner

Here's the new video (2:20) from the King himself!

Coaching Articles by Samson Dubina

Here are recent ones. And here's his International Skills DVD!

• Pendulum Serve (I linked to the video yesterday, but this includes his commentary on the serve and the link to the video)
• Tournaments - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• Thinking Toward the Future
• Move Away from Tradition (serving from different positions)
• Learn to Win by Thinking Ahead

Why You Don't Want to Be an Insect

Here's the video (33 sec) from PingSkills on brushing an insect off the ball.

Serving Secrets Introduction

Here's the video (2:31) from PingSkills that introduces their new video. You have to pay for the full video, but the intro has some good stuff to watch as well.

Forehand Looping

Here's a new video (3:27) that just shows top players looping over and over, including slow motion. How does your technique compare to these?

Ask the Coach

Episode #54 (14:25) - Farewell Wang Hao

• Previous #PQOTD  - 0:32: What has been your personal Table Tennis highlight of 2014?
• #PQOTD  - 2:10: What is your Table Tennis Goal for 2015?
• Discussion - 2:35: Wang Hao's Career
• Question 1 - 5:45: Is it ok to stretch the rubber (inverted) when gluing it onto the blade? Jared
• Question 2 - 6:58: You can use sidetape that covers a lot of the edge of the racket. This will help a bit, but unfortunately a lot of the rubbers are fragile and will chip on the edges. Gary
• Question 3 - 8:23: My problem is that my techniques of forehand attacking a topspin and backspin ball interfere with each other. I try to play a lot 5th ball drills concentrating on switching between those two strokes and regulating the swing, can I do anything else? Ilia
• Question 4 - 10:52: One of my friends continuously hits to the backhand side then forehand side. This is becoming a big issue since he makes me quickly lose control and balance. How do I play against him so that he wont be able to place ball? Akash

ITTF News Feed

Lots of international news here!

Great Point

Here's the video (23 sec) with the "spin-round" finish.

Xu Xin vs. Fan Zhendong Highlights

Here's the video (1:26) of the two playing on the "Men's Road to Suzhou 2014."

Best Ping Pong Commercials of the Year

Here's the article and with links to the videos from Table Tennis Nation, showing their picks for the top nine of the year. Personally, I picked the Energizer commercial (their #9) as my #1.

Ten Absolutely, Totally Useless Things I Learned to Do Before I Was Twenty

1. Tie and untie knots with my toes. When I was a kid I read a biography of escape artist Harry Houdini and learned that he could do this. So I spent months practicing. I'd challenge other kids to knot up my shoelaces as tight as they could, and I'd untie them with my bare toes, and then retie the shoelaces with a perfect bow knot!
2. When I was a kid I also learned to pick every lock in my house. Once at the USA Nationals the janitor didn't show up, and we were all stuck outside the playing hall - hundreds of us. I picked the lock, to the cheers of everyone!
3. Shoot the Moon. That's this game - when I was a kid I spent months practicing until I could do it every time. I kept track on paper. I finally stopped after getting Pluto 500 times in a row. Forty years went by. Then, this past summer I saw it at a store and bought it, practiced up again, and brought it to the club. At MDTTC it's now our favorite break time pastime - and I can still get Pluto nearly every time, even blindfolded and behind my back!
4. Play music with my hands - like the guy on the left here.
5. When I was about twelve I memorized every Orioles baseball stat from 1973, and every World Series game ever played (teams and scores). No, I no longer remember most of this, though I still remember that Al Bumbry, Rich Coggins, and Tommy Davis batted .337, .319, and .306, respectively.
6. When I was around ten I memorized the first two chapters (25 pages) of "The Forgotten Door." It was my favorite book for years and my introduction to science fiction.
7. Learned three ways to "prove" that 2=1. (One with algebra, one with simply arithmetic involving complex numbers [square roots of -1, where that was mostly to mislead with the real trick elsewhere], and one with simple calculus.
8. Learned to juggle ping-pong balls, including under the legs and bouncing off the floor.
9. Blowing a ball in the air at an angle. I do this by spinning the ball by blowing under it, with the spin keeping the ball floating in air.
10. Learned to rally in table tennis by blowing the ball back - my record is 33 in a row. Here's a picture from an exhibition.

***

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USATT Ratings

After 14.5 years, North American Table Tennis will no longer be doing the USATT ratings, as of January 15, 2015. They are being taken over by RailStation. Here is the note on the USATT Ratings page from Richard Lee, president of NATT:

Dear USATT Members, January 15th, 2015 will be the last time NATT updates the ratings. USATT has selected a new service provider. It has been a pleasure providing this service to the USATT membership for the past eleven years. Fong Hsu and Marynes Parra have been integral in managing the service and I want to thank them for their tireless and consistent updates. Good luck in all your future matches!
Best Regards,
Richard Lee, North American Table Tennis

Below is my interview with Richard Lee - who won nearly every junior event at the Junior Nationals and Junior Olympics as a junior star from MDTTC in the 1990s!

Q: Some of us remember the mess the ratings were in 2003 when NATT took them over - constantly late. Tell us how NATT fixed and stabilized the problem.

R: As a USATT member who just came fresh off of a tournament, it was always exciting to wait and see what my rating would be when USATT officially posted them.  It was disappointing when USATT headquarters ran into delays which occurred quite often.  We were offered the opportunity to review USATT’s practices for processing ratings and worked on a solution that would help smooth out the system so the membership could expect to get their updated ratings timely.  USATT’s office staff has many core responsibilities and to have them deal with processing individual results makes sense if the ratings coordinator isn’t busy dealing with 5 other tasks.  Also, when a large tournament comes in, the USATT ratings coordinator didn’t really have any backup support that could help speed up the process.  By using NATT’s services, we were able to meet the demand of handling the labor intensive task of processing ratings by putting additional resources to the task when necessary. 

Q: When and why did the rating services agreement end?

R: The ratings services agreement with USATT will come to an end with our last results being processed on January 15, 2015.  USATT will be working with RailStation to continue processing the ratings.  I have supported the transition with everything they need and will continue to offer our support if necessary.  For myself, table tennis is priority and I hope that the transition will be smooth and that RailStation can become an added benefit to the membership.  The RailStation system currently being used for membership processing was put into motion a couple years ago by the USATT board of directors and it was a planned transition so that RailStation can become the one system used for membership, ratings, and all other member communication needs.  I’m excited for USATT’s new CEO Gordon Kaye’s energy and direction with the association and hope he is able to implement some of the great ideas he has.

Q: Any other comments or suggestions on the ratings or ratings process?

R: I hope the membership is patient with USATT while they transition to this new system.  It’s been an honor to provide this service to USATT and the membership.  The system has been used by several table tennis organizations worldwide and we are proud to have been USATT’s partner for the past 11 years.  I wish everyone the best of luck in their next match! 

Christmas Camp

Yesterday was a relative madhouse compared to most days. This was primarily because we had a bunch of unexpected new players, and so were jammed. At one point I had nine players on just two tables for 90 minutes - and if you've ever tried to deal with nine kids (ages 5-11) in such a small area for that long, you know what that's like.

Because of the extra players, we brought out an extra table, but discovered the net was missing. We ended up using the netless table as the robot table, with rows of cups as the net. When the kids became more intent on knocking down the cups than hitting the ball over the cups, I brought out the adjustable serving height device as the net, with the bar at the lowest level - meaning the "net" was two inches too high.

Smashing and pushing were the focus of the day. I was surprised at how fast some of the new players picked up pushing. It's always amazing watching their faces the first time they push a ball with so much backspin that it comes to a stop and rolls backward on the table! Surprisingly, beginners do this more often than more advanced players because they often push the ball higher and shorter, with less forward motion.

I worked with some of the advanced players on their serves. One of the most uncorrected problems I see with advanced players is they contact the ball too high when serving, resulting in a serve that crosses the net too high. In general, even most advanced players don't understand how to make their serves bounce low. Here's my article "Serving Low," which covers five things you have to do to serve low.

Here's a group picture. It's a mostly Chinese group, but if you look closely you'll find six non-Asian players.

Westchester Open

MDTTC player and coach Ruichao Alex Chen won the four-star Westchester December Open this past weekend at the Westchester TTC in New York, defeating Michael Landers in the final, 7,9,7. (MDTTC player Nathan Hsu also made the final of Under 2500, losing to Kun Yang in the final, 5,-9,15,9.) Here's a video of the final (19:03). Here are the results. Here are photos by Glen Randmer and Warren Rosenberg.

Smash Table Tennis in Sterling, Virginia

Another full-time club in my area - Smash Table Tennis! Here's a virtual tour (52 sec), and their Facebook page. There are now seven full-time clubs within 40 minutes of me! Here's what Director/Coach Mike Levene wrote to me about the new club:

At Smash Table Tennis there’s an emphasis on growing the sport recreationally and at grass roots whilst still providing top class training for elite athletes. We have top European player/coaches who are very keen to visit – Ryan Jenkins is one and we'll confirm his dates early in the new year– the space itself is high end and was a former Gold’s Gym. A recent review on Facebook reads “Smash Table Tennis is perhaps the nicest table tennis I have even seen! Perfect flooring, perfect lighting and a facility that is a departure from the usual industrial feel of a table tennis facility”. That said I am not done with improvements to date – I plan to further improve the lighting and add a large TV for our party/recreation/conference/after school room.

League results will be pushed to our web site within 24 hours; along with player statistics. Online player profiles are available here. Anyone can register and post their player profile and picture. Note public profiles are subject to approval.

Foot traffic through the center, exposing a new audience to Table Tennis will be significantly boosted by our resident/locally well-known and 5-star rated children’s entertainer “The Jelly Bean Queen” – the creator of Balloon Man Table Tennis. The Jelly Bean Queen is 100% exclusive to Smash Table Tennis.

Being next to “Spunk”, a popular local gym, we have had several visitors from the gym curious about our sport – one was genuinely amazed seeing my 14-year-old son execute a perfect kill shot this evening (the visitors timing could not have been better!!). Language lessons in our conference room will further draw people through our center. The first step toward growing our sport is finding ways to expose people to the sport.

For recreational players Smash Table Tennis is organizing periodic meet-up events. The first event has just been announced. Details can be found here.

Check out our holiday schedule, location, events and updates online at www.smashtt.com or on our Facebook page.

Interview with the Alguetti Brothers

Here's the interview by Rahul Acharya.

Great Lobbing and Counterlooping Point

Here's the video (35 sec) between Romain Lorentz and Yu Ziyang at Korean Open.

Best Ping Pong on TV and the Movies in 2014

Here's the article from Table Tennis Nation.

Wang Liqin and Ma Long Show

Here's video (9:18) from a year ago of the two putting on an exhibition.

Super Miss Ping-Pong?

Here's the picture!

***
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Tip of the Week

Brick-Wall Blocking Defense.

I'm Back!

Because of the USA Nationals and Christmas, I've been mostly away since my last blog on Dec. 15. Now I'm back to blogging regularly Mon-Fri, though I'll likely take Jan. 1 off like everyone else. However, writing this morning's blog wasn't easy - I was exhausted! I had done the Tip of the Week already, but when would I find time to do the blog and still make it to the MDTTC Christmas Camp this morning? Normally I'd just do it the night before, but I'd barely gotten four hours of sleep the night before, and could barely keep my eyes open. So I did something I normally wouldn't have believed possible - I went to bed last night at 8:30 PM, and got up this morning at 5:30 AM to do the blog. (Meanwhile, my todo list is roughly from here to China and back.)

Christmas Camp

We're halfway through MDTTC's 23rd annual Christmas Camp, which we've done every year since we opened in 1992. We've got 30+ players in the camp, mostly junior players, from beginners to 2450, with coaches/practice partners myself, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Zeng Xun ("Jeffrey"), Wang Qing Liang ("Leon"), Chen Bo Wen ("Bowen"), Chen Ruichao ("Alex"), Raghu Nadmichettu, and Han Xiao. As we've done for the last three years or so I'm working with the beginners. So far we've focused on forehands, backhands, and serves. Today I introduce pushing. I'm also going to bring out the adjustable serving device so they can work on serving low. This week's group seems especially fascinated by spin serves, so we're working on that a lot. Camp started on Dec. 26 and ends at 1PM on Dec. 31 (Wednesday).

USATT Election

As most of you know, I ran for the USATT Board. The voting ended on Dec. 27, with the results to be announced on Jan. 7, nine days from now. I'll post the results here when they come out. And now, with voting closed, I can post my real plans - heh heh heh!!! (Shouldn't board members automatically be rated higher than mere USA team members, get huge salaries and bonuses, and have statues of them erected at USATT expense? C'mon, who could be against any of this?)

USA Nationals

If I'd taken notes I could probably write about the Nationals for weeks - but I was busy coaching and attending meetings most of the time, and at this point much of it is already old news. Congrats to the Men's and Women's Singles Champions Jim Butler and Lily Zhang! Here are the complete results. (Use the dropdown menu to see complete results for each event - every match!) Here's the Men's Singles Final (1:11:33) and the Women's Singles Final (35:33).

I was especially happy to see 12-year-old Crystal Wang (from my club) make history by becoming the youngest player ever to reach the final of Women's (or Men's) Singles, upsetting top-seeded Zheng Jiaqi in the semifinals (here's the video, 44:46), as well as becoming the "second youngest" player ever to win Under 22 Women's Singles. (Who was the youngest? Crystal winning it one year ago at age 11!) Han Xiao, also from my club, made the semifinals of Men's Singles. It's promising that two juniors made the final of Men's and Women's Singles (Kunal Chodri and Crystal), though it says something of the state of our top men right now that 43-year-old Butler was able to win.

I'm not going to write about the matches I was coaching; that's mostly between me and the players I coach. But there was one humorous event I can report on. I was looking for Nathan Hsu and couldn't find him at the table he was supposed to be at. So I called him on his phone. He was sitting about ten feet away, with Chen Ruichao ("Alex"), who is pretty big, sitting between us so I hadn't seen him.

In a ceremony after the Men's Semifinals, Nathan Hsu received the Wasserman Award and $1000 for winning the 18 & Under Wasserman Championships, held at the South Shore Open a couple months ago. During the presentation, Si Wasserman read a poem that he said the editor several years ago refused to run. For the record, I wasn't the editor at the time and I'd never seen the poem!!!

As usual, there were ringers galore. Two were from my club. One was 13-year-old Klaus Wood, rated 1747 from a year ago. He's been living and training in Taiwan most of the last few years, and from his results from last year really should have been rated well over 2000 even then. He won Under 1800 and Under 2000 (the only two rating events he was in), beat a bunch of 2300+ players, and came out 2370. (He started out in one of my beginning junior classes a few years ago!) Another was Daniel Sofer (just turned 10), who was listed at 1423 for the Nationals (though he'd jumped up at the North American Teams a few weeks before), and who started out slow at the Nationals but finished strong, winning all three matches in his Under 1800 round robin despite being the last seed. (I coached those nail-biting matches - deuce in the fifth, 11-9 in the fifth, and deuce in the fourth.)

Overall it was another well-run event. Special thanks goes to USATT, North American Table Tennis, and all the staff, volunteers, and officials who put it together and ran it.

USATT Board Meeting and USATT Assembly

I attended (as a guest) most of the USATT Board meeting held at the Nationals, 9AM-4PM on Tuesday, and 9AM-3PM on Wednesday. Over the years I've attended about 70 of these. The meeting was open to anyone (except for a short closed session where they presumably discussed personnel matters). It was the first board meeting for new CEO Gordon Kaye. I think he surprised many on the board by how ambitious he was on many issues, ranging from turning the Open and Nationals into premier events to various membership proposals. Board discussions ranged from budget items (there's a budget crunch, mostly due to USOC cutting funding for next year and magazine advertising shortfalls), what to do about boosting (which is similar to speed gluing but nearly undetectable), the idea of a discounted membership for non-tournament players (who could buy unlimited tournament passes), and how best to professionalize the sport for the top players. On the latter I spoke up and pointed out that there is a specific timetable. We have the strongest players in roughly the age 12-14 range in our history right now - it's not even close - and in about four years if we don't have professional table tennis we're going to lose most of them.

I think Gordon (or Gordy, as he prefers to be called) is trying to break the CEO/Board dysfunctional impasse we've had for many years. For decades the USATT CEO has been reluctant to take action to develop the sport without the Board first directing him to do so, and the Board has been reluctant to take action to develop the sport without the CEO taking the lead. Result - status quo.

Here's my overall review of the board meeting. It's the first one in decades where I wasn't depressed afterwards.

After the Board meeting, from 7-9PM on Tuesday, was the annual USATT Assembly. Attendance wasn't great - only about 35 attended. After a few reports, the meeting went into question and answer mode. There were a number of unhappy members with pointed questions and observations about the state of USATT. Gordy and USATT Board Chair Mike Babuin did a pretty good job in responding to them. The simple reality is that when it comes to developing our sport, USATT has been dysfunctional throughout its history. Let's hope that is ending now.

The two candidates for office were each given three minutes to speak to the group. Alas, Jim McQueen (my opponent in the election) didn't attend the Nationals, and so didn't give a speech. I gave an overview of the items I'm focusing on (see my Election page). I had a little fun at the start where three times I pointed out something about myself, then observed that Jim had matched or topped me there. (I've been in the sport nearly four decades - but he's been in it at least a decade longer; I'm in the Hall of Fame - but so is he; I was editor of the magazine for twelve years - but he's the current chair of the editorial board.) But most of the speech was about the issues I want to pursue.

My Seven Years at San Francisco Airport

After the Nationals I flew to Eugene, Oregon, for Christmas with my family. Or rather, I tried to. Instead I got stuck at San Francisco Airport, which will forevermore be my nemesis. Here's a rough breakdown of what happened on Dec. 22-23, 2014. (One strange thing about all my flights to the Nationals and for Christmas - for the first time in over a decade security didn't require me to remove my shoes or belt.)  

1. Arrived San Francisco just before noon on Monday, Dec. 22.
2. Discovered that my 1:30 PM United Flight had been cancelled. (I was told this was because of fog at other airports which had caused delays, and they had been forced to cancel a number of flights to catch up.)
3. Went through customer service, standing in line from 12:10 PM to 2:20 PM: 2 hr 10 min.
4. While in line spent 45 minutes on phone with United. Was put on the 8:53 PM flight. Had to stay in line however so I could get standing boarding passes for two earlier flights.
5. 4:00 PM flight delayed 45 min, couldn't get on by standby.
6. 5:37 PM flight delayed 80 min, couldn't get on by standby.
7. My 8:53 PM flight cancelled around 5 PM.
8. Spent another 45 min on phone with United agent arranging a flight to Seattle and then Eugene, only to be cut off while on hold. She never called back.
9. Spent still another 45 min on phone with another United agent, who said the flight to Seattle was now full, and the earliest I could catch a flight to Eugene would be about 9PM the following night.
10. Second time through customer service: 1 hr 45 min standing in line. My legs still haven't recovered from these two long waits in line.
11. Tried to buy a ticket by phone for an Amtrak train at 9:39PM, three hours to Portland, where I could then rent a car and drive to Eugene. But Amtrak was sold out. (Amtrak station is about 30 min from airport.)
12. While at customer service the second time a spot opened up on flight to Portland at 10:40 PM. I booked the flight, and another flight to Eugene the following day at 12:30 PM (nothing earlier), arriving in Eugene a little after 1:00 PM. However, I managed to catch an 8:53PM flight to Portland on standby - first class window seat.
13. The 8:53 flight to Portland had a problem and they couldn't use the plane. However, they got another in its place and it was only delayed 20 min or so.
14. Got to Portland just after 11PM, caught a shuttle, and made it to the Radisson Hotel around 11:30 PM.
15. Was shocked to discover United wasn't paying for the hotel. (I'll be contacting them about this and other compensation soon.) My bags presumably went to Eugene. All I have is my laptop computer and a few reading items. My cell phone and computer are running low on power.
16. I considered renting a car and driving to Eugene (two hours), but decided against it.
17. Flight was scheduled the following morning at 12:30PM out of Gate A7. Gate was jammed, no place to sit, so I sat at Gate A5. I got there 90 minutes early.
18. Flight was changed to Gate 5, which was where I was sitting.
19. Flight was changed back to Gate 7. After finding it still hammed, I returned to Gate 5.
20. Plane was pulled due to mechanical problems. New plane was arranged to come in. Flight delayed to 1:10PM, at Gate 2. It was jammed, so I ended up sitting against the wall the last 30 minutes.
21. Caught flight to Eugene, 40 minutes late.
22. Made weird discovery. My cell phone had been almost out of power, down to a single bar out of four, with my recharging cord packed with my luggage. Somehow it was now back to three bars! Sort of reminded me of the story of the Hanukkah Menorah!

USATT Coach of the Year

Here's the USATT notice about nominations, which are due Jan. 5.

How to Develop the Habit of Winning

Here's the article from Expert Table Tennis.

Slow-Motion Serve Demonstration

Here's the video (1:14) by Samson Dubina.

Serving Secrets Introduction

Here's the new video (2:31) from PingSkills.

Athletes are Born and Champions are Made

Here's the article by USATT Hall of Famer George Brathwaite.

ITTF Development and Education Programs Continue to Innovate and Expand

Here's the ITTF article.

USA Pan Am and National Team Trials

Here's the info page for the Trials, to be held March 6-8 in Forth Worth, Texas.

Top Ten Craziest Table Tennis Shots of 2014

Here's the video (3:39).

The Tao of Ping Pong

Here's the video trailer (1:14) for the upcoming movie. Looks pretty interesting! "Fei Mo is an ambitious Chinese Ping Pong genius. In the midst of the U.S. Open Tournament, he unintentionally meets the superhuman American Ping Pong player Ethan White. When their contrasting personalities collide on and off the court, what appears to be only a game becomes a matter of life and death..."

Interview with Frank Caliendo

Here's the video interview of the table tennis playing comedian by Brian Pace, Part 1 (10:07) and Part 2 (10:14). Frank's been taking lessons, and is up to about 1800 level. (I played doubles with him a few months ago when he stopped by my club.)

The Comeback Story of American Table Tennis Champion Jimmy Butler

Here's the video (9:05).

Jan-Ove Waldner vs. Jim Butler

Here's video (9:11) of the two playing a game back in 1996, when both were at their peak. Butler actually once defeated Waldner in a match in the Swedish league, where I'm told Waldner took Butler on backhand-to-backhand - a tactical no-no but apparently something of a challenge for the Swede.

Table Tennis Grand Slam Champions Unite

Here's the article from Tabletennista, featuring the four members of "The Club," the four players who have won Men's Singles at the World Championships, Olympics, and World Cup - Jan-Ove Waldner, Liu Guoliang, Kong Linghui, and Zhang Jike.

Waldner is Sweden's Third Greatest Athlete of All Time

Here's the article from Tabletennista. Persson was 19, Bengtsson 61, and Appelgren 85.

Zhang Jike Salutes Wang Hao

Here's the article from Tabletennista. (Wang Hao just retired from the Chinese team.)

Quadri Aruna's Shoe Comes Off

Here's the video (9 sec) as the Nigerian (world #31) continues the point without his shoe.

Fantasy Pong

Here's the new artwork from Mike Mezyan. This sort of reminds me of the theme music to the 1989 World Championships, "Magic Ball" (3:09).

Lots of Rackets on the Grassy Knoll

Here's the picture!

Waldner Video

Here's the video (30 sec) of Waldner making a crazy shot and juggling balls, set to music.

Adam Bobrow Directing Aircraft

Here's the picture! Good thing he had a second racket.

Non-Table Tennis - Redcoats

Here's my humorous science fiction Christmas short story "Redcoats," set in post-Revolutionary America as we battle a new sort of Redcoats, published by Abyss & Apex on Christmas. (I got paid $60 for it!)

***
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USATT Election

USATT members, don't forget to vote!!! Here's my USATT Election Page. (You have to be at least 18 years old to vote.) I think we have to decide if the main purpose of USA Table Tennis is to develop table tennis in this country, or just maintain the status quo. If you believe as I do that it's to develop table tennis in this country, then I hope you'll vote for me.

If you're at the USA Nationals, stop by the USATT Assembly Tuesday night (7-9PM), where I'll be giving a short speech. Come to the Larry Side, we have cookies!!!

I resume Blogging on Monday, December 29

As noted below, I'm out of town at the USA Nationals and then a family Christmas. So the next blog will be after I return, on Monday, December 29.

Tip of the Week

Backhand Footwork. (Some of this is a rewrite from my blog last Friday, but I've added to it.)

USA Nationals, and Last Blog Until after the Nationals and Christmas

I'm off to the USA Nationals early this morning with a group of other Marylanders - and so am writing most of this the night before. I'll be back next Sunday night, but only for a day as I leave the following morning for a family Christmas gathering in Eugene, Oregon. (Yeah, I'm flying coast-to-coast on consecutive days, don't ask.) So this will be my last blog until Monday, Dec. 29, when I get back to daily blogging.

The playing hall at the Nationals will be open today (Monday) from 3-8PM. I land at 3:45PM, and will likely be at the playing hall around 5 or 6PM. Due to my recent back problems, I won't be hitting, alas. But I think I'll be ready for the hardbat events on Wednesday. (I normally play sponge, but at the major tournaments where I'm coaching I like to play hardbat.)

If you are in the tournament, this might help - Top Ten Ways to Play Your Best in a Tournament. Have you practiced your serves? Well, have ya???

While at the Nationals I'll be attending much of the USATT Board meeting (Tues 9AM-6PM, Wed 9AM-Noon). I want to emphasize something I wrote recently - that if I get elected, my goal is to help turn this Board and the new CEO into the greatest ones in history. I really mean this, and I want to be a part of it. The indications I'm getting so far is that the thinking is changing, and we might be ready to really tackle the serious problems faced in developing this sport.

I've been in a number of discussions recently about developing a Pro Tour. There are serious complications as there are more than one way to do this. If you have three ways of doing something successfully, and there are three contingents all insisting on their way, then you can't get more than 33% in favor of any one way! Of the five main issues I'm focusing on, this might be the most difficult. Ultimately, the best way to make a Pro Tour successful is to grow the sport, through leagues and other programs, so there is funding. If I'm on the Board, that'll be my focus. When you have 600,000 paid league players as they do in Germany, it's easy to support the top players. If we had 100,000 paid USATT members, or even 50,000, it would be easy to do so in the U.S.

Here's an informal goal: A successful professional circuit in this country - where the top players can make a living - by the time Kanak Jha (and about ten other cadets who are chasing him!) is college-aged. So we have four years. Let's get crackin'! (Sorry, Kanak, we also plan to train this generation of cadets so well that in four years you're going to have some serious competition.)

And yet, with all my talk of pro circuits, leagues, state associations, and how to develop the U.S. Open and Nationals, the issue I'm personally most interested in is developing a USATT coaching academy. Well, of course! I'm a full-time professional coach from a club with seven full-time coaches. (The other six work longer hours than I do - they work incredible hours.)

In recent years I've worked mostly locally, at MDTTC in Maryland. But the sport in this country isn't getting better, and I finally decided I'd done enough talking about it, it was time to take action national to make things happen. I don't want my club to be a big fish in a small pond; I want my club to be one of many huge fishes in a huge pond.

At the Nationals I'm looking forward to finally meeting our new CEO, Gordon Kaye. I've spoken to him on the phone several times but have never seen him. It is my theory that he's just a disembodied voice, with the online pictures of him taken from Getty Images, with the whole plot orchestrated by RailStation. Soon I will get to test my theory.

Here's a list of some of the things I'm taking to Las Vegas:

• Coaching notes
• Rackets (sponge and hardbat)
• Floor towels (for players playing on cement)
• Table tennis clothing (including my "USATT Certified Coach" shirt from long ago)
• Ten precious Nittaku Premium 40+ poly balls, the ball used at the Nationals but with limited supplies
• USATT Election Flyers
• TableTennisCoaching.com flyers
• Flyer stands
• My table tennis books and bookstands. The books will be on sale at the Butterfly and Paddle Palace booths.
• Starting times schedule for players I'm coaching
• Various folders:
  • USA Nationals folder
  • USATT Election folder
  • Table Tennis Professionals of America folder
  • State Associations folder
  • USTA folder (to show how tennis does things differently than USATT)
• Laptop computer
• Kindle full of great books. I just started "The Wise Man's Fear" by Patrick Rothfuss, the sequel to "The Name of the Wind," which I finished recently. I also have Tahl Leibovitz's "Ping Pong for Fighters" and Alex Polyakov's "The Next Step."
• 500-piece "The Hobbit" Jigsaw puzzle - I plan to put it out somewhere for players to put together during the Nationals!

Things I'm Not Good At

Since some of you might be considering voting for me in the USATT Election, perhaps you should know the things I'm not good at.

• Foreign languages, and remembering technical terms and names. (I think these all go together.)
• Judging esthetic or fashion issues.
• An irrational belief that people will respond more favorably to logical arguments than to emotional ones.
• Dealing with Internet trolls and other time-wasters.
• I often speak too fast. I took public speaking classes to overcome this for my group coaching.
• Hearing when there's background noise. I hope I won't need a hearing aid someday.
• Stiff and injury prone.
• Demonstrating smooth strokes.
• I see way too many movies in theaters - better than one a week. I must have low standards when it comes to movies. But the popcorn is great!
• I'm a picky eater. No seafood, hamburgers, mushrooms, mushy vegetables, and if I don't recognize it, I don't eat it. I'm also a non-drinker, sometimes a problem in social situations.
• Looking good in a suit. I can barely tie a tie - but I only wear one about once every few years (weddings and funerals).
• I still use a flip phone. Once I go to a smart phone and am connected 100% of the time, there's no going back. I'm told "resistance is futile," but I'm still fighting this. Someday I'll weaken and life will never be the same. (I use the flip phone to take on challenges from my beginning junior classes.)
• And here are weaknesses in my table tennis game - see "How to Play Larry Hodges"!

$1,000,000 ITTF World Tour Finals

The event finished yesterday in Bangkok, Thailand. Here's the ITTF home page where you can find complete results, articles, pictures, and video. Congrats to the champions - Jun Mizutani (JPN), Kasumi Ishikawa (JPN), Cho Eonrae/Seo Hyundeok (KOR), and Miu Hirano/Mima Ito (JPN)! (As noted in previous blogs, the top Chinese didn't play enough Tour events to qualify for the Finals.) Here's the ITTF Press Release on the two 14-year-old Japanese girls (Hirano/Ito) who won Women's Doubles. Here's the ITTF Press Release on Japan sweeping both singles titles. Here's the Day Four Daily Review (4:50). And don't forget to check out the daily Shots of the day for Day One, Day Two, and Day Three!

Newgy Coaching Articles

Here's the page - I count 114 coaching articles (!) including ten by me.

Ask the Coach

Here are all 47 "Ask the Coach" videos. (By the time you read this there might be more!)

International Table Tennis

While I'm away at the Nationals and for Christmas you can keep track of USA Table Tennis news at the USATT News Page, and all the International news at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage).

Another Reason the Serving Rule Needs Fixing

Here's a thread with links to pictures showing more hidden serves at the European Championships. These aren't isolated incidents - it's common all the time. That's why I want to change the rule to, "Throughout the serve, the ball must be visible to the opponent and to both umpires, or where the umpires would sit."

Scott Preiss "The Ping Pong Man" and Jimmy Butler on Live with Regis and Kathie

Here's the video (4:04), which just went up though I think this was from 1996, after Jim made the U.S. Olympic Team.

Atlanta Beats JOOLA in 2014 North American Teams Championships

Here's the article, along with pictures and video.

USATT CEO Pays Visit to Sports P'ville 'Mecca'

Here's the article.

Washington Post Style Invitational: Think Up a New Radio Channel

Here's the article and graphic. So what was the #1 example used? "Ping-Pong Radio: Play-by-play and analysis of global table tennis tournaments. Station doubles as a metronome if commentary is disabled."

Model Pong?

Here's the video (75 sec) from Spin NY that features "A night of very unique entertainment featuring 'Model Citizens Benefit Match' between Kenza Fourati and Amanda Salvato."

Santa Pong?

Here's the picture!

Bird Pong?

Here's the repeating gif image! This really should be on the home page of some club.

***
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USATT Election

USATT members, don't forget to vote!!! Here's my USATT Election Page. (You have to be at least 18 years old to vote.) 

SPUR USATT Growth and Filling Up a Club

How do you SPUR growth in USATT? This has always been one of my favorite acronyms. SPUR, or more properly S.P.U.R. stands for:

1. Show the sport
2. Play: get them to play
3. USATT: get them to join
4. Rejoin: get them to rejoin

If you do three of these things, you generally won't succeed. (This is for USATT growth; you can replace the USATT part with something else if that's what you are trying to grow.) It's like a chain missing a link. I try to incorporate all four in programs I propose to USATT, or have programs that, working together, do all four.

Many don't understand the concept that to grow the sport, you don't just look for places where there are already players and then set up a club or league. (Though you do want to continue to grow those areas until table tennis is outrageously popular there.) You set up clubs and leagues and other activities to create a player base. That's how the sport grows.

And yet I'm always hearing the following:

• "There aren't enough players for a league."
• "There aren't enough players for a club."
• "There aren't enough players for a training center."
• "There aren't enough players for a full-time coach."
• "There aren't enough players for the sport to be big in this country."

All I can say when I hear this is Jeeeeez!!! These are the people who are living in the status quo mediocrity that's been accepted for so many years in our sport, at least in the U.S. You grow the player base, and that's how you get enough players for the first four items above, and this all leads to the final item.

To grow the sport does mean finding solutions to problems, such as how do you get players into a club? (That's #2 in SPUR.) There's a great quote about this type of thing:

"Complaining about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining."
-Teddy Roosevelt

So what is the solution to filling up a club? The two best ways are leagues and coaches. If your club has a singles league for all levels, then you can fit new players into it right from the start, and they become regulars. If you don't have such a league, and instead have the common "call winners" club concept, then new players call winners, get killed by regulars, and you never see them again. So you need a league if you want to keep these new players and turn them into regulars.

The other way is with coaches bringing in players. A key to all this is understanding the purpose of a table tennis coach in an area where there aren't many players. You don't want a coach who just sits around waiting for students - how does that help the club increase the number of players? You want coaches who are out there bringing in new players as students - and thereby filling up the club. It is this implicit deal between clubs and coaches that has led to the success of many - the coaches bring in the players (who pay for memberships, tournaments, leagues, group sessions, equipment, refreshments, etc., and thereby finance the club) while the club lets the coaches keep most of their money in return for them bringing in players.

It isn't always like this - once a club is successful (i.e. full of players), or if they have a major sponsor (rare), then they no longer need their coaches to be out there scrambling for students. (The best clubs with the strongest players have elite coaches who aren't scrambling for students, but are instead working with the best players and developing them.) But coaches looking for students, and thereby filling the club, is what's needed at the start. They need to be out there doing exhibitions at schools (including Asian schools on weekends), talking to the press, and going to rec centers and churches. They need to have flyers or business cards to give out everywhere, always trying to turn potential players into regular players at the club.

So let me re-iterate: A primary purpose of a coach for a new full-time club is to bring in players.

Backhand Footwork

I've been having my students do a lot of backhand footwork training recently. This is one of those things that a lot of coaches have their students do enough of. I think I've figured out why.

The most basic backhand footwork is no different than forehand footwork - you put the ball side to side, and the student moves side to side and hits backhands. (There's also in-and-out footwork.) This is exactly what a player has to do in a game when covering the backhand side with the backhand, so why don't more coaches do this? Most often when students do backhand footwork drills it's incorporated into a drill where they are also doing forehand footwork, such as side-to-side footwork, where they alternate forehands and backhands, or other variations that mostly have the player move from the forehand side to the backhand side to hit a backhand. But players also have to move around on the backhand side to hit backhands, and need drills to cover. In fact, it was backhand footwork training that Eric Owens attributes as the primary reason he upset Cheng Yinghua in winning Men's Singles at the 2001 USA Nationals.

What happens with many coaches is this. At the beginning stages, players focus on just the strokes, and so don't do footwork. When they can do footwork, they might do some backhand footwork. But soon the forehand becomes the dominant shot, and so the players focus on moving around and attacking with the forehand. Often the backhand isn't as developed, and so the coach doesn't want to push the player into doing too much movement while doing backhands as they think it might hurt the stroke. This is especially true of intermediate players making the transition from standard backhands to topspinning the backhand - and so the backhand is often in a perennial situation of being behind the forehand in development. And so the coach focuses on forehand footwork while focusing only on technique on the backhand side as the backhand develops into a topspin attacking shot.

By the time the player does have a solid topspin backhand, both the coach and the player aren't in the habit of doing backhand footwork drills in their sessions, and so they just don't do them. And this can lead to a weakness in the player's game as they don't move around as well as they could in covering the backhand side. This is a problem as the backhand by its very nature is a more cramped shot, with the body in the way, and so being able to move about and attack with the backhand is key.

A version of this will likely be the Tip of the Week on Monday - sorry in advance for any redundancies!

Back Injury

On Wednesday I wrenched my back pretty badly. I didn't realize at the time how bad it was, but on Thursday morning when I got up I could barely move. Even feeding multiball is like having a knife in my back. So I've had to cancel all my coaching through Sunday. (I leave for the U.S. Nationals on Monday morning.) It seems like I always get injured just before the Open or Nationals. It's like clockwork. Alas, pain killers never seem to work on me.

So if you see me at the Nationals and I'm sort of hunched up, or walking funny, or noticeably even stiffer than usual, now you know why. Thank god for wheeled playing bags! I am entered in two hardbat events, but I don't play until Wednesday, so we'll see if I'm at all recovered by then.

USA Nationals

They are next week, Dec. 16-20, in Las Vegas, Nevada. I leave for them Monday morning. (I should still get one last blog and a Tip of the Week in on Monday before leaving.) Here's the home page for the event. Here's an alphabetical listing of all 761 players, and here's a listing by event. (Make sure to set dropdown menu to "2014 US Nationals.")

I checked with USATT, and the playing hall will be open for practice on Monday from 3-8PM. I arrive at 3:45 local time, and will likely be at the playing hall soon after.

It's going to be a busy trip for me, probably made worse by the back injury I wrote about above. I'm mostly there to coach (that'll take up most of my time), but I'm also in two hardbat events (we'll see about that) and a lot of meetings. Official meetings I hope to attend include:

• Board meeting, Tue 9AM-6PM, Wed 9AM-noon, room N251
• USATT Assembly, Tue, 7-9PM, room N245-247
• Officials & Rules Committee: Wed 7PM room N247
• Hall of Fame Banquet: Thur 6:30PM

I've also got meetings for the Table Tennis Professionals of America; to demonstrate Createspace (for would-be table tennis authors); and with someone who's apparently writing a training center manual. Plus I finally get to meet that disembodied voice better known as the new USATT CEO Gordon Kaye!

Here's an assignment for all players going to the Nationals (and really for all readers): Read the rules. It always astonishes me how many players have never done so. If you do it just one time, you'll have a better idea of just what's in there - and some of it might surprise you! Here are the ITTF Rules.  

$1,000,000 ITTF World Tour Finals

The event continues today, Dec. 11-14 in Bangkok, Thailand, with Men's and Women's Singles and Doubles. Here's the ITTF home page for the event where you can get results, articles, pictures, and video. USA's own Adam Bobrow is, as usual, doing the TV commentary. Here are player bios.

PingPod #42 - Change the Service Rule

Here's the new episode (8:28). (Here's a text version.) At 3:09 (and in the text version) they refer to my serving proposal, but leave out a key part. My proposal isn't that both umpires must be able to see the ball, but the following: 

"Throughout the serve, the ball must be visible to both umpires, or where the umpires would sit if there were umpires."

The second part is key, since most matches do not have umpires. And just as the purpose of the 6-inch toss wasn't to make players toss the ball six inches but to make sure they weren't serving out of their hand, the purpose here isn't to make players serve so the ball is visible to both umpires (or where they would sit) but so that the ball is clearly visible to the opponent - which is the result of this rule. (I didn't originate this idea, but I'm hoping to push it through.) 

Ask the Coach

Episode 47 (20:01) - Pick the World Tour Grand Final Winners

• Yesterdays #PQOTD  - 1:04: Do you remember your first tournament?
• #PQOTD  - 4:18: Write down the Mens & Womens Singles World Tour Grand Final Winners as a comment on the Blog to this show and win a free 1 Month Premium membership. First to name both winners on the PingSkills blog wins. You are only allowed one guess.
• Question 1 - 6:27: I heard the term "dummy loop" on some table tennis blog that I can't quite recall. It had a vague definition and I couldn't quite grasp the concept. What is it? Sawyer Meverden
• Question 2 - 10:00: I see a few players serving with a "pick axe” motion a shakehand version of Wang Hao's service. I don't understand why a professional is serving this way, because there seems to be hardly any wrist action. I must admit that they are hard to read. Dieter
• Question 3 - 13:28: I have been unable to return balls which dribble over the net. Often they are hit hard and I am expecting them to come fast and far back. Is it possible to increase reaction speed to the point that you could lunge forward and return it? Adam
• Question 4 - 15:40: Some friends of mine said that my game is very predictable, like hitting the ball back right at where it come from, and some other stuff. I often lose because of this. I'm a looper, and how to fix this? Erriza

International Table Tennis

Here's my periodic note that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage).

Topspin Charity

Here's a photo gallery from USATT of the event held this past weekend at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. Top players included Sean O'Neill, Lily Yip, Ariel Hsing, Erica Wu, Wally Green, Kaz Yakoyama, and a host of celebrities - go through the pictures to find out who! And here are three pictures of Joel Roodyn on his way to winning the tournament they held (presumably the "celebrities" event).

Inclusion Table Tennis

Here's the USATT News Item.

Table Tennis on Reuters

Here's the article, Table Tennis: the Addictive Spin. "Table tennis bounces as effortlessly as its little white balls through all sorts of venues, from church basements to the Olympic Games to urban social clubs for the ultra cool."

Dangerous Beauty

Here's the latest table tennis artwork by Mike Mezyan - but how do we teach footwork to this fiery pong player?

Xu Xin Under-the-Leg Shot

Here's the video (18 sec), and check out the sidespin!

Don't Forget the Ball

Here's the table tennis cartoon!

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