ITTF Interview

I was interviewed by Sheri Cioroslan for the ITTF, and it was featured yesterday on the ITTF web page. (It's also up on the USATT web page.) The interview "closes out" the ITTF 100-day Countdown to the end of Adham Sharara's 15 years as president.

Aches and Exhaustion and Coaching

One of the toughest parts of coaching is you always have to be "on." As a regular player, if you aren't feeling well you just take the night off. (Unless, of course, you are in serious training to be an elite player, in which case you tough it out - like many of the players at my club, MDTTC. Of course, "normal" 9-5 jobbers have to do the same, correct?) On both Monday and Tuesday nights I was up very late, one time working on the ITTF interview, the other time on one of my SF stories (my sideline outside TT). Unfortunately, I had a Tuesday morning coaching session scheduled and a Wednesday morning dental appointment, so I had to get up early both mornings to get the blog done before leaving. (I normally don't schedule morning activities Mon-Fri, other than my blog and other writing.) So I got very little sleep those two nights. Tuesday wasn't so bad as I had only an hour of coaching after the morning session, but on Wednesday I was tired and headachy the entire day, but had three hours of coaching. I toughed it out, figuring I'd catch up on rest that night. 

Unfortunately, the dentist on Wednesday morning had found a small cavity, and so we had scheduled an appointment on Thursday morning to put in the filling. I did the blog the night before, got plenty of sleep, and thought all was well. Alas, by Thursday afternoon the pain killer the dentist had put into my gums had worn off, and the tooth with the filling and the area around it felt someone was doing target practice with a power drill - but I had to pick up kids for our afterschool program, do some tutoring, and do three hours of private coaching. I did it all with a smile on my face but often in agony. Fortunately, when you're playing or coaching you don't notice it as much most of the time, but there's no way you can completely ignore the feeling of knives being jabbed into your gums. When the night finally finished I went home and collapsed onto my easy chair to watch TV and wait for the gums to stop hurting. (Which they didn't do that night, but by this morning it was just a nasty ache.) 

The funny thing was that for me, when I'm tired, headachy, or in pain, it tends to focus me, and I probably did some of my best coaching. Thinking hard about the student helps keep my mind on that and not on being tired, headachy, or in pain. On Wednesday I found a little problem with a student's backhand loop technique that turned it into a monster shot. Another student went from spinning forehands to really drive looping them, and also made a breakthrough on serves. On Thursday I had a nice workout with one student on his serve and attack game and on his backhand flip. Another student, who was getting over a one-month break due to knee problems, had a nice return-to-the game session as we focused on fundamentals. 

Today I've only got the afterschool program (pick up two kids from school and take them to the club, then an hour of mostly multiball coaching and some tutoring), and then I'm off, where I'll likely spend some time in bed reading and resting. Saturday is a miracle - I have NO COACHING for this Saturday, which was unexpected and extremely rare. (I teach a junior class Saturday mornings, but there are two weeks break between the summer session and the upcoming one, so no session this Saturday, and my other Saturday students are all off for now.) So by Sunday (a busy day) I'll be rested and ready to go again. Meanwhile, I have several other writing projects I'm working on (both TT and SF), and perhaps I'll write up a storm on Saturday and next week. 

No Forehand Looping?

Were the hardbat and sandpaper players right all along? Has sponge and big forehand loops made the game so boring that they can't put it on TV without a rule outlawing these incredible topspin shots? Apparently, since No Forehand Looping (NFL) was on TV everywhere last night. (Let the booing and hissing begin.)

Tony Kiesenhofer Now President of North American Table Tennis Union

Here's the ITTF article. Tony is the Executive Director of Table Tennis Canada. Here's the NATTU home page.

2014 ITTF Para Table Tennis World Championships

They will be the largest ever, according to the ITTF press release.

ITTF Coaching Course Held in Flushing, NY

Here's the ITTF article on the event, coached by Sydney Christophe.

Top Ten Shots at the Czech Open

Here's the video (4:58).

Who Won?

Here's the picture - but when he wakes up I don't think he'll remember. Anything.

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Where Do Top Players Come From?

I'm always hearing about how USATT leaders want to develop medal contenders and world-class players. When I hear this I have a simple set of questions for them, which leads to a conclusion that's sort of obvious.

1. Where do the overwhelming majority of top players come from? (Answer: successful junior training programs.)
2. Where do successful junior programs come from? (Answer: successful training centers.)
3. Where do successful training centers come from? (Answer: coaches and directors who take the initiative to create them, where they have to reinvent the wheel over and over from scratch and figure out how to do this because there is no one helping them out, no manual or guidance, nothing from any organizing body for table tennis, and of course no one's recruiting them to do any of this.)
4. What's the major stumbling block here?

That's why I strongly believe that one of USATT's top priorities should be to recruit and train coaches and directors to set up and run training centers with junior programs. This is not something that costs much. USATT is already running ITTF coaching courses. What's needed is to adjust the focus to recruiting and training those who wish to become full-time coaches or run junior training programs. If there are additional costs, the coaches in training would pay for them, just as they already pay for the ITTF coaching courses. The "hook" toward recruitment is that coaches can make a full-time living as coaches at these training centers, making $40-$50/hour. (I write about this quite a bit in my Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook, which I'd donate at cost to those who run such programs to recruit and train coaches.) I still have on the backburner the idea of starting up my own coaching academy where I recruit and train coaches, but right now I'm just too busy on other things.

Breaking the Upper Body Forehand Muscling Habit

A common problem for players is to try to muscle the ball when forehand looping. This means they try to produce most of their power with their upper body and arm rather than using the legs and rotating the body's weight into the shot. Normally a way to break this habit is to do lots of shadow-practicing where the player exaggerates the leg and body rotation, and then do lots of multiball. However, in a session with a kid this weekend I found a new way. I've always pointed out that a player should be able to loop with great power while carrying on a conversation, since the power mostly comes from the legs and weight transfer. Players who muscle the ball instead tense their upper body as they use that as the primary source for power. But it's almost impossible to do that if you are talking. The kid I was coaching was trying to rush the shot, and so was muscling the ball with his upper body instead of rotating into the ball properly. So while I fed him multiball so he could practice looping I had him tell me about school, about his favorite sports, or just count. Result? Once he got over giggling, he stopped muscling the ball.

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).

6^th Annual Ping Pong Charity Tournament

Here's the article and video (3:11) that'll take place in Virginia Beach, VA.

Turn Your Kitchen Table into a Ping-Pong Table!

Here's the article and video (2:37).

Kids Playing TT

Here's a video (47 sec) of a kid playing table tennis. Watch his reaction as he loses the first two points, and especially his celebration when he wins the third point! Here's another video (2:44) as Samson Dubina trains his daughter in on-table cross-legged Gatorade-bottle target practice. (Spoiler alert: she hits it at 2:22, and after celebrating gets to drink it.)

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Playing Off-Table Two-Winged Topspinners

A top player messaged me asking me how to play against a player who is relatively solid on both sides and takes a step back from the table, allowing him to deal with opponent's attacks. Here's my response. It's a general response as I haven't seen the opponent in question, but is the general way to play these types of players.

1. Bring him in with short serves and short receives, and then get him with your first attack before he can get into his comfortable off-table pocket. Since these players hang off the table, attacking their serve often plays right into their game.
2. Because he plays off the table, you have more time to get your forehand into position, especially into his wide backhand and middle. He's unlikely to beat you in a counterlooping duel between his backhand and your forehand. [Note - or any other forehand attack against his backhand off the table.] However, don't relentlessly go after the backhand - make sure to go there and to the middle. Players like this often seem vulnerable to the corners, but in reality they usually cover that area pretty well. So often really go after their middle until you have a clear winner to a corner. This was one of the reasons Lupulesku was so successful for years despite backing off the table so much - players relentlessly went after his wide backhand and didn't go after his middle nearly enough.
3. Change the pace, with either softer loops or soft blocks. Find out early which side he's more vulnerable to a change of pace. This is where a chop block can be valuable.

While this was addressed for a top player (2400+), it's true for all levels. At lower levels this type of player backs off the table and more or less fishes the ball back over and over with soft and late counter-drives with a little topspin, and can seem like a wall, but the principles above follow just as much as for top players - except there's less threat of counter-attack, and so changing the pace (#3 above) is probably even more effective. 

"I am Groot"

On Friday I had a coaching session with an 8-year-old. He hadn't seen the movie "Guardians of the Galaxy," but had seen some sort of cartoon version of it, and so knew the characters - and in particular, knew the catchphrase of the giant tree creature Groot. (For those of you who have lived under a ping-pong table the last month, the only thing Groot ever says is, "I am Groot" - but that's only to human ears. In reality, by varying the inflection, it's an entire language.) So for the last ten minutes all of my coaching commands were "I am Groot," but with inflection and hand motions so he understood, once he got over his initial giggles. 

100-Day Countdown to Change in the ITTF's Presidency

Former USATT President Sheri Pittman Cioroslan just finished doing an article every day during the last 100 days of Adham Sharara's ITTF presidency, counting downwards from 100. And yesterday she finished - one hundred down, zero to go! However, she had two more articles she wanted to put in regarding new ITTF President Thomas Weikert, and so here they are - Days 1+ and 2+!

• Day 1+: A New Era Begins
• Day 2+:  Thomas Weikert Shares His Views on the ITTF Presidency
• All 102 Days and 102 articles

As of Monday, the Deputy is the President

Besides the two articles above, here is another ITTF article on new ITTF president Thomas Weikert.

Thomas Weikert

So what do we really know about new ITTF President Thomas Weikert? As usual, we turn to anagrams. And what do they tell us? We know he's going to try very hard to be worthy, since "Make Worthiest" is an anagram of his name. But we must be cautious as some believe he and Sharara worked together to bring about his presidency - as "Teamwork Heist" is another. He may not be worthy of the role as "Shoemaker Twit" is another. In fact, he might not be the best person named Tom for the job as "This Weaker Tom" is another. (And the ITTF Board of Directors does have a Thomas Kiggundu from Uganda.) We might even worry that he'll bring decay to the presidency as "Him Weakest Rot" is another. And the guy might not be a hard worker since "Hate Work Items" is another. Finally, for religious table tennis players, beware the new direction of our sport - for "Ow - Atheist Trek" is another!

North American Championships - Juniors

Here's a new ITTF article about the North American Championships this past weekend that features the Under 18 winners - Jack Wang and Crystal Wang. The article also talks about Crystal's training at MDTTC, my club. I'm one of the other coaches who has worked with Crystal over the years, though I worked with her more when she was younger than in recent times, where she works mostly with her primary coach (Jack Huang) and one-on-one with our top practice partner/coaches. (I do coach her in some major tournaments, such as when she won the North American Hopes Trials last year.) On a side note, for those of you who read this article when it first went up yesterday morning, there was a mistake in the original version, where it had Crystal as being from the LYTTC - but that was corrected as the player from LYTTC was Amy Wang, not Crystal. (I emailed them about this almost immediately after the article went up!)

Butterfly North American Champions

Here's a Butterfly photo layout that features 14 of their players/champions from the North American Championships. (Disclaimer: I'm also sponsored by Butterfly.)

Easy Table Tennis Essentials

Here's a table tennis music video (1:57) from a couple of years ago that I don't think I ever ran.

Mime Your Own Business

Here's another video (3:06) from the Tumba Ping Pong Show. It features table tennis (see background, where someone is smacking people with balls) for the first 35 seconds, but no table tennis after that.

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Tip of the Week

How to Execute a Fast Serve.

Disabled Veterans Camp

Friday was the final day of our four-day Disabled Veterans Camp. It was an honor working with these servicemen. I'd like to thank them for all the hard work they put in, both in uniform and at the camp! I'd also like to thank the USOC and USATT, the Department of Veteran Affairs, MDTTC officer Wen Hsu, and especially Jasna Reed, USATT's Director of Para Programs. 

The focus for the day was backhand attack - smashing, and backhand drive and loop against backspin. We started off by putting the players in six stations, and rotated them every 7.5 minutes. I fed multiball so players could work on their backhand attack against backspin. Steve Hochman had them serve backspin, he'd push it back, they'd backhand attack, and the rally would continue backhand to backhand. Sameer Shaikh had them do backhand-forehand footwork, side to side. Ram Nadmichettu worked on their pushes. Plus I set up the serving bar on the robot table so players could practice serving low. (This is an adjustable bar that goes over the net. Here's a picture of it set high, and here's a picture of it set low. John Olsen made this for our club. It has about ten height settings.) 

Next up was equipment and playing styles. I brought out my "show and tell" super-large racket case, which contains six rackets: an all-around hardbat racket; a pips-out penhold racket; a shakehands racket with inverted and short pips; a shakehands racket with inverted and antispin; and two shakehands rackets with inverted on one side and long pips on the other, one with thin sponge (chopping racket), the other no sponge (pushblocking racket). I went over each of the surfaces and now to play against them, as well as various playing styles that commonly use them. I was planning on some doubles play, but we ran into time problems, and so I only gave a short lecture on doubles tactics. We finished with up-down tables, where they played 11-point games, with the winning moving up, the "runner-up" moving down, with the goal to reach the first table. Steve and Sameer joined in, spotting points to most of them to equalize things. 

It was one of the more fun camps to coach. We used to run senior camps at MDTTC for players over age 50 (and over 40 if they were "old of heart"!). But in recent years the camps we've run were mostly for juniors, where we go easy on the lectures, and there are few questions. This camp was more like the senior camps, with lots of questions and discussion. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Table Tennis

I went to see the movie on Saturday, and despite the mostly negative reviews, I kind of liked it. Out of the blue there was a table tennis scene! The four turtles were being punished for refusing to tell their sensei, Splinter (a giant rat) why they had sneaked out. Each had to spend many hours in some uncomfortable position doing something. Donatello, the smartest of the turtles (the one with the purple mask) was punished by being forced to hold ping-pong paddles in both hands and bounce a ping-pong ball back and forth for hours, while standing on a block of wood that's balanced precariously on a basketball. I've searched but was unable to find a video or picture of this.

North American Championships

They were held this past weekend in Mississauga, Canada. Here's the ITTF home page for the event, with results, articles, pictures, and video. Here's the USATT page with lots of video. Note how Canada dominated all the Men's and Women's events, while USA dominated all the junior events. Also, see the final of Junior Boys' Teams, where USA won 3-0 - but in all three matches the USA player was down 0-2 before winning in five, with each pulling out at least one deuce game. One thing I didn't like about the format was that players could only enter one singles event, which hurt USA, since essentially all the players on the USA Boys' and Girls' team would have been competitive in Men's and Women's Singles but were not allowed to compete. Congrats to all the Champions - see below!

• Men's Singles: Eugene Wang (CAN)
• Women's Singles: Mo Zhang (CAN)
• Junior Boys: Jack Wang (USA)
• Junior Girls: Crystal Wang (USA)
• Men's Teams: CAN (Pierre-Luc Theriault, Filip Ilijevski, Xavier Therien)
• Women's Teams: CAN (Mo Zhang, Anqi Luo, Sara Yuen)
• Junior Boys' Teams: USA (Kanak Jha, Kunal Chodri, Krish Avvari)
• Junior Girls' Teams: USA (Angela Guan, Prachi Jha, Crystal Wang)

New ITTF President Thomas Weikert

Here's the ITTF press release. He took office on Sept. 1 and becomes only the seventh ITTF president since its founding in 1926. He succeeds Adham Sharara, who was president for 15 years. Here's the TableTennista story, which mostly features Sharara. 

100-Day Countdown to Change in the ITTF's Presidency

Former USATT President Sheri Pittman Cioroslan just finished doing an article every day during the last 100 days of Adham Sharara's ITTF presidency, counting downwards from 100. And today she finishes - one hundred down, zero to go!

• Day 1: Turning the Table on the Mastermind of the Countdown
• Day 2: The Perfect Choice, Jörgen Persson Always the Role Model
• All 100 Days and 100 articles

Zhang Jike's Serve

Here's the video (3:25).

Slow Motion TT

Here's the video (25 sec) - some nice shots, and you get to see footwork in slow motion. That's Ernesto Ebuen on the left.

Trend: Playing Table Tennis to Enhance Brain Fitness and Mental Health

Here's the article. Well, yeah!

Scientists Teach Ping-Pong Robots to Master Spin

Here's the article. Prepare to meet our future Masters. 

Ice Bucket Challenge

• Ariel Hsing

Milwaukee Brewers and Green Bay Packers Play TT for Charity

Here's the article and video (2:43).

Six Seconds of Very Strange Rallying!

Here's the video.

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Labor Day

It's Labor Day, and it would be unpatriotic not to join the national frenzy to not labor on this day dedicated to laboring. So like nearly everyone else, I'm off today.

But to tide you over until tomorrow, here's a video (10 sec) of a player accidentally smacking the umpire in the forehead with the ball and getting yellow carded.

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Disabled Veterans Camp

Yesterday was Day Three of the four-day camp. As they have every hour of the camp, 13-year-old Sameer Shaikh (who was humorously insulted that I mistakenly listed him as 12 yesterday) and Wendy Brame-Bogie assisted, with Sameer a practice partner and Wendy on ball pickup. Also joining us yesterday (as well as for an hour or so the day before) was Ram Nadmichettu (father of Raghu), who sometimes helps out with coaching at MDTTC. 

Most of the players came early, so I joined in with an impromptu 25-minute practice session before officially starting at 10AM. The day's focus was pushing, forehand looping, and return of serve. We started off with pushing, where I did a short lecture and demo with Sameer. (I even brought out the soccer-colored balls so they could see the amount of backspin.) Then the players rotated about, taking turns hitting with me, Sameer, Ram, and the robot. We did it a second time with the forehand push. 

Next up was forehand loop. Since the players were older and not young athletes, I started by demonstrating and explaining a regular forehand drive against backspin. Then I did the same with looping. Surprisingly, all but one player wanted to focus on looping - and the one who wanted to work on driving experimented with looping, and quickly changed his mind. So all of them worked on looping, even 79-year-old Bernard, and all of them figured out and did some nice ones. (Modern sponges helped! Most of the players were using the brand new rackets they'd been given as part of this USATT program - Donic Waldner Exclusive AR+ rackets and Stiga Magna TC11 max sponges.) Once again I had them rotate among me, Sameer, Ram, and the robot (which was set on backspin so they could loop against backspin). I did multiball, while the other two did live play, with the players serve and looping against backspin. 

We finished with my receive lecture. This took a while as it seemed of great interest to all. As I pointed out, returning serve is almost everyone's weakness! We also had fun as the players attempted to return serves - but unlike last time, this time I actively helped out, so they were able to return my best serves - as long as I let them know what spin was coming. 

It's been a tiring week, since besides the camp I'm also averaging two hours of private coaching each day/night, the blog, and all sorts of other stuff, such as picking up kids after school for our after-school program. 

Stefan Fegerl's Footwork

Here's a nice video (29 sec) showing the side-to-side footwork and two-winged looping of Austria's Stefan Fegerl (world #53).

China Completes Sweep of Youth Olympic Games

Here's the article on their winning Mixed Doubles Teams to complete the sweep. Here's the ITTF page for the tournament, with results, articles, pictures, and video.

Table Tennis Second Most Views Sport at Youth Olympic Games

Here's the article.

ITTF Competition Managers Seminar in October

Here's the article. The ITTF Competition Managers Seminar (i.e. for tournament directors for ITTF events) will be held at the Werner Schlager Academy in Schwechat, Austria, Oct. 6-8, 2014.

100-Day Countdown to Change in the ITTF's Presidency

Former USATT President Sheri Pittman Cioroslan is doing an article every day during the last 100 days of Adham Sharara's ITTF presidency, counting downwards from 100. Previous ones are linked from the USATT News page, as well as in my past blogs. Ninety-eight down, two to go!

• Day 3: Reasons for Optimism, Walter Rönmark Positive for Future of Table Tennis

Table Tennis: The Best Sport Ever

Here's the video (3:11). 

Ice Bucket Challenge

• Mikael Andersson, ITTF Senior Consultant - Development, Education & Training (he challenged Kanak Jha and Rajul Sheth).

The Fiery Racket

Here's another table tennis artwork from Mike Mezyan.

A Little Ping-Pong Soccer?

Here's the video (22 sec).

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Disabled Veterans Camp

Yesterday was Day Two of the four-day camp at MDTTC. We started with a contest - the players paired up to see who could get 100 forehands in a row. As I explained to them, we often say that a player doesn't have a forehand or backhand until he's hit 100 in a row, and so everyone was determined to do so. 

For inspiration I told them the story of 13-year-old practice partner Sameer Shaikh. About a year before he was struggling to get 100 forehands in a row in a session with me. He got 99 in a row, and missed! Then he got 97, then I think it was 94, and each time, just as he approached 100, he'd miss. It was torture for him! But we decided we'd devote the entire session to this, and he finally got 100 in a row. But once he did that, he relaxed and stopped trying to guide the shot. Result? The rally continued, and he actually hit 1000 in a row!!! I caught the ball and told him he'd done enough, and we'd continue later. (We never did get back to it. I'm not sure if my arm could take another 1000.) The purpose of the drill/contest was both to develop the stroking technique, timing, and consistency, but also to develop concentration and confidence. 

We rotated the players regularly so everyone hit with everyone else, including practice partner Sameer. Then we did the same thing with backhands. Everyone hit at least 100 in a row on one side, and several managed to do it on both sides. We finished with a smashing drill, where players would hit two forehands in a row, then smash and continue smashing, while the other tried to return them. 

Then we went to the main focus of the day - serving. I brought out the colored soccer balls so they could see the spin, and showed them how much spin could be created on a serve, as well as showing them various "tricks," such as backspin serves that bounced back into (or over) the net, and sidespin serves that broke almost directly sideways. Then I had them practice spinning the soccer balls in the air - spin and catch, spin and catch. It's one of the best ways to learn to spin the ball. Then I gave several lectures/demos on the rules, creating spin, deception, the main service motions, and fast serves. Between the lecture/demos they practiced serves, with each getting a table and box of balls to themselves.  

Next on the agenda was more smashing. After a lecture and demo with Sameer, the players formed a line, and in rapid-fire fashion took turns smashing forehands as I fed multiball, three shots each, one to the backhand, one to the middle, one to the forehand, and then the next was up. 

We finished with a receive "game." They took turns trying to return my serves, and stayed up until they'd missed two. The catch was that I got to make fun of them when they missed, while they got to make fun of me if they got them back. I'd mostly serve and quickly put my racket on the table and step to the side of the table my sidespin would force their return to - so if they did return the serve, I'd be stuck rallying with my hand. Or I'd say, "Don't put this in the net!" as I served backspin. Or I'd serve fast aces at the corners. Tomorrow we'll be covering return of serve, along with pushing and looping. 

It was a long day. After the camp I had another 2.5 hours of private coaching. Had some nice breakthroughs - Willie is learning to loop, Daniel's loop is getting powerful, and Matt's is even more ferocious! 

Here's the group picture, which I also linked to yesterday. Using a high-quality version, I printed out copies for everyone on photo paper, which I'll give out today. 

New Two-Toned Ball Undermines Chopper's Advantage

Here's the article and video (2 hours!). 

Interview with German National Coach Jörg Rosskopf

Here's the article. 

100-Day Countdown to Change in the ITTF's Presidency

Former USATT President Sheri Pittman Cioroslan is doing an article every day during the last 100 days of Adham Sharara's ITTF presidency, counting downwards from 100. Previous ones are linked from the USATT News page, as well as in my past blogs. Ninety-seven down, three to go!

• Day 4: Latin American Ascending to New Found Heights

Ping-Pong Balls for Children's Therapy

Here's the article. 

Ping-Pong Table Sound System

Here's the article - yes, a sound system that doubles as a ping-pong table!

Xavier Therien - STIGA 2014 ITTF TrickShot Showdown

Here's the Canadian National Team Member's juggling and table tennis with a crazy contraption trick shot (1:22)! And here are more - there are so many that I haven't really gone through them. Here's the home page for the competition.

Backhand of the Year?

Here's video of Nelson's Backhand (52 sec) - see the shot 7 seconds in!

Around-Net Rolling Return

Here's the video (22 sec) of some rather incredible staged shots. 

Incredible Rally

Here's the video (32 sec).

Ice Bucket Challenge

• Fan Zhendong
• Dora Kurimay

Ping-Pong Cupcakes Anyone?

Here's the picture. 

Tricky Serve!

Here's the video (6 sec).

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Disabled Veterans Camp

Yesterday was the first day of the four-day Disabled Veterans Camp I'm running at MDTTC. We had six players plus three volunteers. One of the players was in a wheelchair, the others were standing disabled. All of the standing disabled were in good enough condition to do footwork. The ages ranged from 32 to 79. All of them were experienced players, with the playing range from about 800 to 1500 in level.

Players in the camp are Marvin Bogie, Anthony Floyd, Bernard Gibson, Honicliff "Cliff" Nitchew, Talmadge "Cash" Nowden, and Crystal Young-Terrell. Volunteers were Steve Hochman, Sameer Shaikh, and Wendy Brame-Bogie. Steve (rated about 2000) and Sameer (age 13, about 1600) acted as practice partners while Wendy did ball pick-up the whole time. Their help was greatly appreciated! Here's a group photo. I got caught with my mouth open wide. As the picture is taken I'm leading the group in a chorus of, "Steve can't smash!"

The camp was made possible by a grant to USATT from the USOC. Not only is the entire camp paid for - the players don't pay a cent - but they sent a large box of goodies for the players, via Paddle Palace. Each of the players received a very nice Stiga blade and sponge. I don't remember the model or types as I'm more versed with Butterfly equipment, but it was top-of-the-line rackets and sponge. The sponge was a type of tensor sponge, and probably retails at $50 to $60 a sheet. I spent a large chunk of time on Monday night putting the rackets together. I'll try to remember to jot down the type for tomorrow. Besides the rackets and sponge, they received Paddle Palace racket cases, free lunches, and each received a one-year membership to MDTTC. 

The focus on the first day was the basics - grip, stance, forehand, and backhand. The main difference from other camps was that we can't be as strict on technique, both because of disabilities, and because some of them have played many years. For example, the oldest, Bernard, 78, has been playing for longer than I've been alive (I'm 54), and uses an extreme backhand grip, and uses the same side for both forehand and backhand. Rather than try to change that the focus for him is to make sure he strokes the ball from both sides, and not just keep the ball in play. From his grip I thought he'd be very backhand oriented, with a weak backhand - but it turned out to be the reverse, with a soft backhand but a very aggressive forehand. So when I worked with him the focus was to play his backhand more aggressively. It reminded me of the story of how Dan Seemiller as a junior went to Dell Sweeris for coaching, and rather than change Dan's "Seemiller" grip, Dell just made sure he stroked the ball rather than just block - and of course Dan went on to be a five-time USA Men's Singles Champion with the grip, where he also hit both forehands and backhands with the same side. 

I set up a six-player rotation, where players had six stations: multiball with me, robot, hitting with Steve, hitting with Sameer, and two of them hitting together (the last counted as two stations). 

We ended the first day with the "ten-cup challenge," where I stacked the cups in a pyramid, and each player had ten shots to see how many they could knock down. One player did all ten, and I think two others did nine. All got at least five. 

New Full-time Club

I've added the Boston TT Academy to the list of full-time clubs in the U.S., raising the number to 74. 

Table Tennis Tutorial in Chinese

Here's the video (59 min), a "Table Tennis Tutorial from Beginner to Advanced, the Secret of the Chinese Team."

Side-to-Side Footwork

Here's the video (2:39) of kids in a junior program doing it really well.

100-Day Countdown to Change in the ITTF's Presidency

Former USATT President Sheri Pittman Cioroslan is doing an article every day during the last 100 days of Adham Sharara's ITTF presidency, counting downwards from 100. Previous ones are linked from the USATT News page, as well as in my past blogs. Ninety-six down, four to go!

• Day 5: Why President Sharara Can Leave the ITTF Presidency with Satisfaction 

IOC President Thomas Bach Gets TT Lesson from Jorgen Persson

Here's the ITTF article and picture.

Aerobic Table Tennis

Here's the new trailer (35 sec).

Another Superstar USA Junior Girl

Forget Ariel Hsing, Lily Zhang, Crystal Wang, Amy Wang, and all the others not mentioned. Here's the future of USA Women!

Spiderman Pong!

Yep, the superhero plays, and so does Pikachu - here's the proof! "P is for Peter Parker Playing Ping-Pong with Pikachu."

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Disabled Veterans Camp

I'm running into a time crunch - I was up late last night working on two timely projects, and this morning I'm coaching a disabled veterans camp. (So blog is a little shorter this morning than usual.) Any locals who want to volunteer to help out as practice partners or ball pickup, email me. The camp is Tue-Fri, 10AM-1PM.

Professional Table Tennis Clubs Association

I've toyed with setting up a Professional Table Tennis Club Association (PTTCA), for full-time clubs. As I've blogged a number of times, I consider the rise of full-time table tennis centers in the U.S. to be the best thing that's happened to table tennis in this country in decades - and nothing else is even close. Here's a current listing which I maintain, with a few more to be added soon.

This is where you get both large numbers of junior players, and elite players as well. Want to develop players who can compete for medals? Well, where do they come from? From junior programs, where they train regularly from a young age with top coaches. Where do they do this? At training centers, where top coaches can make a living as professional coaches while running these junior programs. So if you want to develop medal contenders, you need to develop junior programs and training centers - they go together. It's always been somewhat of an eyebrow raiser that this isn't obvious to everyone, and yet it somehow isn't. It's only in roughly the last eight years that we've seen these training centers pop up all over the U.S., and with it, we now have the strongest players in our history at the cadet and under level (15 and under). Both the level and depth is way, way beyond what it was before.

So should there be an association for these centers? What would be its purpose? What would be the incentive for a professional club to join? Should the association focus on developing new centers or on the current ones? Your comments are welcome.

Serve and Receive Practice

Here's my periodic reminder - have you practiced your serves recently? If not, get a bucket of balls and go to it! It's the quickest way to improve. (Here's my Ten-Point Plan to Serving Success.) Just as importantly, have you practiced your receive? If not, get a bucket of balls and have someone serve to you! (Here's my article Why to Systematically Practice Receive.)

100-Day Countdown to Change in the ITTF's Presidency

Former USATT President Sheri Pittman Cioroslan is doing an article every day during the last 100 days of Adham Sharara's ITTF presidency, counting downwards from 100. Previous ones are linked from the USATT News page, as well as in my past blogs. Ninety-five down, five to go!

• Day 6: Zoran Primorac Credits Sport for Making Him a Better Person
• Day 7: Ivan Santos Ortega: We Must Create a Mystique about Table Tennis

Dimitrij Ovtcharov: Way to the Top

Here's a great video (7:46) that features the world #4 player - and the first point (against Timo Boll) is incredible!

Westchester Open Final

Here's the video (15:38) of the final this past weekend between Qing Feng Guang (rated 2770) and Kai Zhang (rated 2666). Qing is the chopper.

Samsonov Extends Record for Winning World Tours

Here's the ITTF article about his winning #34 (Belarus Open), the most ever. Second is Wang Liqin with 31.

Jorgen Persson Commends Fan Zhendong's Performance

Here's the article on the Chinese's star's performance in winning gold at the Youth Olympic Games.

Chinese Team Supports & Donates to the ALS Association

Here's the article and video. (Yes, ice bucket challenges taken, including by Liu Guoliang, Zhang Jike, Ma Long, and Wang Hao.)

More Ice Bucket Challenges

Here are more from prominent players.

• Timothy Wang
• Aashay Patel

Choo-Choo Pong

Here's the cartoon.

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Tip of the Week

Semi-Circular Motion on Serves.

Serving Tips

My last three Tips of the Week have been on serving. On August 11 I did Ten Steps to a Great Service Game. But when I did so, I realized I didn't have article explaining #5 and #6 (which go together) and #10. And so on August 18 and August 25 (this morning) I did The Purpose of the Serve and Semi-Circular Motion on Serves. I've now updated the Ten Steps to a Great Service Game article, with links to these two Tips. I'm also going to post the Tip here.

Ten Steps to a Great Service Game

1. Learn to serve with lots of spin by accelerating the racket through the ball and grazing it.
   (Here's the article Serving Short with Spin. Here's another, Five Steps to a Great Spin Serve.)
2. Learn to serve various spins, including backspin, side-backspin, sidespin, side-topspin, and topspin, and be able to serve with sidespin in either direction.
   (Here's the article Importance of Serve Variety.)
3. Learn to serve low.
   (Here's the article Serving Low.)
4. Learn to control the depth and direction of the serve.
   (Here's the article Depth Control of Serves.)
5. Learn to serve with spin using a semi-circular motion so you can create different spins with the same motion by varying where in the motion you contact the ball. 
   (Here's the article Semi-Circular Motion on Serves.)
6. Learn to minimize and do quickly this semi-circular motion so receiver has trouble picking up contact.
   (See same article linked in #5.) 
7. Learn to change the direction of your follow-through with your racket the split second after contact to mislead the receiver.
   (Here's the article Exaggerate the Opposite Motion on Serves.)
8. Learn to fake spin and serve no-spin by contacting the ball near the handle.
   (Here's the article Those Dizzying No-Spin Serves.)
9. Learn to serve fast & deep as a variation to your spin serves.
   (Here's the article Fifteen Important Deep Serves. Here's another, Turn Opponents into Puppets with Long Serves. Here's How to Ace an Opponent.)
10. Learn to follow up your serves.
    (Here's the article The Purpose of the Serve.)

Upcoming Stuff

With summer over and kids back in school, you'd think I'd be less busy. I thought so too. But it seems my todo list always grows to encompass all time available. Here's a Top Twelve list from my todo list.

1. Run Disabled Veterans Camp, Aug. 26-29, Tue-Fri.
2. Afterschool program at MDTTC. Mon-Fri I'm back to picking up kids Mon-Fri at school for the afterschool program, and then helping run it.
3. Group coaching. I'll be running junior programs Sat 10:30AM-Noon, Sun 4:30-6:00, and Thur 6-7PM.
4. Private coaching. I'm putting together my fall schedule now. I'll likely be doing about 12-15 hours per week, more if I have the energy.
5. The daily blog and Tips of the Week.
6. I'm getting interviewed for a table tennis feature. I'll post a link to the interview when it comes out, which should be soon.
7. General promotional and other work for MDTTC. This afternoon I need to put aside at least an hour to reglue numerous beginner paddles at MDTTC, since the sponge is coming off many of them. I'm also planning a Multiball Seminar for parents, so they can work with their kids. I also have to put together the September MDTTC Newsletter.
8. Upcoming books. I plan on doing new photos and then a rewrite of my previous book, "Table Tennis: Steps to Success" (which is no longer in print), tentatively retitled "Table Tennis Fundamentals." I'm also planning a rewrite of "Instructors Guide to Table Tennis," which is no longer in print.  I'm also planning on writing "Parents Guide to Table Tennis."
9. Read and review recent table tennis books: The Next Step by Alex Polyakov, and Get Your Game Face On Like the Pros by Dora Kurimay and Kathy Toon. I've been putting it off all summer - was just too busy, and frankly, when I'm exhausted from coaching, I prefer to read SF at night.
10. From Sept. 29 to roughly Oct. 10, Tim Boggan moves in with me so we can put together the pages for History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 15, which covers 1986-1988. (It really covers 1986-87, but goes into the beginning of 1988.)
11. I'm doing the final rewrite on my SF novel "Campaign 2100: Rise of the Moderates," which covers the election for president of Earth in the year 2100 - where the whole world has adopted the American two-party electoral system. I wrote this several years ago, but just had it critiqued at a writing workshop and so have lots of rewriting to do. (As I've noted in previous blogs, it stars a table tennis player and has numerous table tennis scenes.) I also have three short stories in various stages of completion.
12. If I seem tired these days, it's because I'm eating less. I've gone from 195 to 183 lbs in six weeks, and plan to continue right on to 170. I expect to reach 175 by the time Tim Boggan moves in on Sept. 29, and then (alas), as he likes to eat and takes me with him, I'll probably gain a few over the next ten days. But I hope to get to 170 by the end of October.  

Coaching Articles from Samson Dubina

Here are recent coaching articles from the Ohio coach.

• Tournament Tough in 20 Steps
• Fighters!
• Why Should Kids Play Table Tennis
• The Order of Success

Table Tennis Training with "The Wheel"

Here's the video (36 sec). Even if you don't have such a wheel, this is how you can do footwork training with a robot that hits to one spot - alternate hitting an actual ball, and move to the other side to shadow practice a shot, and then move back to hit the next shot, and so on. (I used to have a wheel like this but it broke.)

Corkscrew Return from Waldner

Here's the article and video (1:55).

Atlanta International Academy

Here's the USATT article. How many people remember before we had all these top training centers popping up all over the U.S.? It used to be a barren wasteland out there. There used to be a lot of USATT "leaders" who doubted there would ever be a demand for these things!!! (I remember arguing about this with certain short-sighted USATT board members at the December, 2006 board meeting.)

Belarus Open Men's and Women's Final

Here are the Men's and Women's Finals at the Belarus Open this past weekend, with the time between points removed. Here's a picture of the champions. Here's the ITTF home page for the event, with results, articles, pictures, and video. This was the first ITTF Pro Tour Event that used the new non-celluloid balls. They also experimented with playing without service lets! Not sure yet how that went off - I'm sure there'll be an article on this.

• Men's Final (5:32) - Vladimir Samsonov (BEL) d. Wang Zengyi (POL), 6,4,-8,3,6.
• Women's Final (8:18) - between Sayaka Hirano (JPN) vs. Misaki Morizono (JPN), 5,6,9,-10,-5,-6,9.

100-Day Countdown to Change in the ITTF's Presidency

Former USATT President Sheri Pittman Cioroslan is doing an article every day during the last 100 days of Adham Sharara's ITTF presidency, counting downwards from 100. Previous ones are linked from the USATT News page, as well as in my past blogs. Ninety-three down, seven to go!

• Day 8: Chan Foong Keong Gives Advice to Associations Hoping to Host ITTF Events
• Day 9: The ITTF’s First-Ever Competition Manager Zlatko Cordas Reminisces

MDTTC August Open

We had a 2-star tournament at my club this past weekend. Here are the main results. You can get complete results (care of Omnipong) here.

MDTTC Open
Maryland Table Tennis Center, August 23-24, 2014
Director: Charlene Liu. Referee: Paul Kovac.
Open Singles - Final: Chen Bo Wen d. Wang Qing Liang, -13,2,5,9,-9,8; SF: Chen d. Raghu Nadmichettu, 4,-9,6,7,-9,7; Wang d. Khaleel Asgarali, 6,5,9,6; QF: Chen d. John Wetzler, 9,7,5; Asgarali d. Stefano Ratti, 8,6,-11,9; Nadmichettu d. Bojun Zhangliang, -8,11,11,-10,6; Wang-bye.
Under 2400 - Final: Khaleel Asgarali d. Raghu Nadmichettu, 8,8,-9,13; SF; Asgarali d. Humayun Nasar, 5,-6,1,4; Nadmichettu d. Stefano Ratti, -11,-11,7,8,8.
Under 2250 - Final: Nasruddin Asgarali d. Lixin Lang, -9,-6,9,5,8; SF: Asgarali d. Ryan Dabbs, 1,8,8; Lang d. Humayun Nasar, 5,4,4.
Under 2050 - Final: Gong Yunhua d. Joshua Tran, -5,-7,5,9,10; SF: Gong d. Gary Schlager, 9,-6,-10,3,7; Tran d. Carlos Williams, 9,7,-7,9.
Under 1900 - Final: Justin Bertschi d. Michael Greenbaum, 8,-10,8,-6,7; SF: Bertschi d. Gordon Lee, -10,2,4,6; Greenbaum d. Ara Sahakian, 2,6,10.
Under 1650 - Final: Chanakya Anne d. Jozef Simkovic, -8,9,6,-4,10; SF: Anne d. Gordon Lee, 4,9,9; Simkovic d. Hu Yingyao, 6,8,-10,-6,9.
Under 1400 - Final RR: 1^st. Huang Siliang, 4-0; 2^nd Benjamin Clark, 3-1; 3^rd William Huang, 1-3; 4^th Pelle Deinoff, 1-3; 5^th Ian Dominguez, 1-3.
Under 1150 - Final: Pelle Deinoff d. Benjamin Clark, 6,4,4; SF Deinoff d. Ian Dominquez, 8,9,-10,9; Clark d. Krishna Ganti, 11,-10,3,-9,7.
Under 13 - Final: Daniel Sofer d. Benjamin Clark, 9,4,8; SF: Sofer d. Emily Yuan, 4,5,1; Clark d. William Huang, 6,5,-6,10.

New York Jets Table Tennis Tournament

Here's the article and video (6:31).

Ice Bucket Challenges

Here are more from prominent players.

• Lily Zhang (ITTF will donate 20 cents/share to ALS Foundation.)
• Adam Hugh
• Judy Hugh
• Cory Eider
• Amy Wang
• Jean-Michel Saive
• Compilation of others by TableTennista

Table Tennis in Space

Here's the cartoon.

Non-Table Tennis - Orioles Top Ten List

Orioles Hangout published another of my infamous lists, "Top Ten to Stop the Orioles Historic Two-Game Utter Collapse." (They've now lost three in a row, but still lead the division by six games over the Yankees.)

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