Blogs

Larry Hodges' Blog and Tip of the Week will normally go up on Mondays by 2:00 PM USA Eastern time. Larry is a member of the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame, a USATT Certified National Coach, a professional coach at the Maryland Table Tennis Center (USA), and author of ten books and over 2100 articles on table tennis, plus over 1900 blogs and over 600 tips. Here is his bio. (Larry was awarded the USATT Lifetime Achievement Award in July, 2018.)

Make sure to order your copy of Larry's best-selling book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers!
Finally, a tactics book on this most tactical of sports!!!

Also out - Table Tennis TipsMore Table Tennis Tips, Still More Table Tennis Tips, and Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips, which cover, in logical progression, his Tips of the Week from 2011-2023, with 150 Tips in each!

Or, for a combination of Tales of our sport and Technique articles, try Table Tennis Tales & Techniques. If you are in the mood for inspirational fiction, The Spirit of Pong is also out - a fantasy story about an American who goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis, trains with the spirits of past champions, and faces betrayal and great peril as he battles for glory but faces utter defeat. Read the First Two Chapters for free!

Tip of the Week
How to Play a Player Who Attacks With Long Pips.

Eastern Regionals in New Jersey
I coached at the Eastern Regional Qualifier this past Saturday at the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center in Dunellen, New Jersey. As usual, Judy Hugh ran a great tournament, with everything on time in a very nice facility. I've been there many times before, including coaching at a two-week USATT Elite Camp, for a week-long ITTF Coaches Camp, and a number of tournaments.

I went up with Manager/Driver/Dad Ron Klinger (3.5 hour drive), along with Todd Klinger and Christian Funderberg. While there I had a tricky balancing act as I was coaching Todd and Christian, as well as Rachel and Jeremy Ku. One little problem I also faced is that the LYTTC has two floors. This is fine for players, who go to the floor where they play and play their RR. But since I was continuously jumping from match to match, it meant I was going up and down the stairs quite a bit! I ended up hurting my right knee, though it's not too bad. But I was limping a bit on Sunday.

As usual, I could write a book on the tactical and mental aspects of the tournament, but here are some interesting ones. In two matches against opponents with very good forehands the main tactic was simple - return every serve to the extremely wide backhand - or, as I kept reminding the player, WIDER!!! This mostly took out the server's forehand. The key to another match was big breaking serves into the wide backhand. In another, it was deep, dead serves. In another, against a player with long pips, it was patience until you find the right shot. In another, it was to stay at the table. I regularly remind the players never to start a point until they are completely ready. A key part of many matches was deciding the best place to attack, and there are generally seven possibilities:

  1. Go after middle
  2. Go after wide forehand
  3. Go after wide backhand
  4. Go after middle and wide forehand
  5. Go after middle and wide backhand
  6. Go after extreme corners
  7. Go after all three spots - wide forehand, wide backhand, middle

Todd, a bit underrated at 1816, had some crazy results. In the Under 2000 round robin, he played players rated about 1860, 1650, and 1600. In all three he won the first two games, often easily. In all three he lost the next two games. He won all three matches in five. He likes to make things exciting. I think this is a first - in 45 years of table tennis, I don't think I've ever seen someone win the first two in all three matches in a preliminary and end up winning all three in five.

Christian learned the value of fighting for every game. In his Under 2000 group, he only lost one match - but he lost it 0-3. When that player lost to another player, it became a three-way tie, and he came in third, with two advancing. That's painful! (Okay, not as painful as a player in a tournament I once ran, who literally lost by, if I remember correctly, 1/65th of a point. He was in a three-way tie that went to points, and he came in third, with two advancing. As I worked out mathematically and showed him, he would have advanced if he'd scored one more point in any of the two key matches - and, in fact, really only needed 1/65th of a point to advance!!! Yeah, every point counts.)

Todd's results weren't my only first. The Klingers took me to a place called Peruvian restaurant and introduced me to Peruvian Chicken and Inca Kola. Both are delicious. I'm now addicted to Inca Kola. (It tastes like a cross between Dr Pepper and Coke, with a touch of some fruity flavor.)

Just before the tournament, Jeremy, age eight, had ten days of fame. He had played his first tournament two weeks before, also run by Judy Hugh. His playing level was probably about 1000 to 1200, and his results showed about that level. However, due to some rating mistake, he came out listed as 1601!!! Result - for ten days, he was #1 in the US in Under Nine and #2 in Under Ten! For the rest of his life he can claim he was the top ranked eight-year-old in the US. Alas, a few days before the tournament his rating was adjusted to a more realistic 1200. But he'll be back to 1601 within a year - just watch!

Weekend Coaching
I returned from coaching at the Eastern Regionals a few minutes after midnight on Saturday night (so technically Sunday morning). Then I was back at the club on Sunday from 11AM to 7:30PM.

First was the Group Three session of our junior program, 90 minutes, with 11 kids, which I run with Lidney Castro. I spent the first third rotating the kids around, where I'd hit with one (footwork drills), another one would be on the robot, and another picking up balls. The second third was similar, but now we went into multiball, mostly working on looping. The last third was up-down tables, where they played games with various rules, such as only serve to the backhand or only serve backspin. This allows them to hone their skills in rallies that start this way, both for the server and receiver.

Next up was a one-hour session with Navin Kumar. He'd has to miss several sessions recently for various medical reasons.

Next up was a 50-minute sports psychology and serving session with Kurtus & Stanley Hsu. This was our second meeting. We went over some of what we'd covered previously, and some of their matches at their recent tournaments. Then we went into various other techniques.

Next up was the Group Two session of our junior program, 90 minutes. I acted as a practice partner for much of this session, blocking for others in various drills. I also did some roving coaching.

Last session was the Group Four session of our junior program, 90 minutes. This one has five girls, all ages 7-8, and all intensely improving at table tennis and all intensively insane. We always have a lot of fun in this session. We started with a number of ball-bouncing drills - I keep challenging them to more advanced versions - and then we went to serve practice. Then we did a couple of circuits where they rotate between me, the robot, and ball pickup. As usual at the end, they do not run, they sprint to where we keep the plastic cups so they can create large walls and pyramids, and then knock them down as I feed multiball. I've been having them do it with their forehands; next week I'm going to challenge them to do it with their backhands.  

USATT Coaches Meeting
As usual, we had our Friday Zoom meeting at noon eastern time. Here's the video (59 min). Alas, I had to leave at 12:25 to go coach at the Eastern Regional Championships in New Jersey, so only made the first half. The primary discussion this week was the use of table tennis robots in coaching.

I pointed out that many years ago I wrote about the three Holy Grails of table tennis robots: 1) Robots that could allow you to do standard table tennis drills, such as side-to-side footwork; 2) Robots that could mimic standard rallies, such as a backspin ball followed by perhaps two quick topspins, to pre-set or random locations; and 3) Robots that hit the ball out to you with an actual table tennis racket, mimicking real table tennis strokes, so that you could practice reacting to a ball hit as it is actually done in a game. Modern smart robots now do the first two. There are robots I think in China that can do the third, though in a somewhat primitive way, but they are not yet on the market that I know of, at least in the US or at an affordable price.

The other problem with modern table tennis robots is that you seem to have two choices. You can get an inexpensive one that basically hits the ball to you with topspin or backspin to one spot (or perhaps can move side to side, shooting out balls to essentially random locations), but have very simple controls; or you can get a modern smart robot that can do almost anything, but takes a while to learn. When we got the latter at my club, we found ourselves spending way too much time explaining how to use it for new players. The simple ones are limited, but you can explain their use in about 30 seconds. What's needed is a hybrid that is a smart robot, but with a "Beginner" mode that you can switch to can be explained in at most 60 seconds. The latter would only hit to one spot with one spin, with hopefully at least one built-in side-to-side drill.

US Hall of Famer Errol Resek Loses Cancer Battle
Here's the USATT article. He was both a Hall of Famer and one of the last surviving members of the 1971 US Ping-Pong Diplomacy Team that went to China. I didn't really know him that well. However, I had a memorable first meeting with him. I think it was in 1977, when I was 17 and rated only about 1700, that I first met him when I had to play him at the New Jersey Open at Westfield. In the very first point of the match, I served short to his forehand. He reached in to flip crosscourt, and I moved to cover my wide forehand. Just before he hit the ball, he tilted his wrist back and flipped it down the line to my backhand instead, acing me with just a medium-speed shot. I was practically open-mouthed - I'd never seen that shot before. I lost the match (of course), but immediately began working on that shot, with the result that I developed a really good forehand flip - either aggressively crosscourt, or deceptively down the line, as he had done. (It also taught me the value of deception and placement.) That one shot of his practically changed my table tennis career, both in sponge and in hardbat, where I'd later use that shot to win lots of titles, especially doubles where I could flip in winner after winner. All because of that one memorable shot he did in the first point we ever played.

New from Samson Dubina

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

New from Eli Baraty

New from Ti Long

Seth Pech vs Sid Naresh $10,000 Invitational
Here's the video (6:15) with Seth's excellent point-by-point analysis.

7 Tips to Get Back into Your Table Tennis Groove
Here's the article by Tom Lodziak.

The Backhand Loop Against Underspin
Here's the video (72 sec), from Pingispågarna, in Swedish but with English subtitles.

How to Be Fast in Table Tennis
Here's the video (3:36). "You want to be faster at the table? Take a listen to Marie Migot from France. She is one of the fastest players on the world tour!"

Getting All Your Table Tennis Ducks In A Row
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Chinese Olympic Trials
Here are videos of all the big matches, from ttlondon2012. Here's coverage by Edges and Nets.

Champion of the 2021 Chinese Trials! | BEST OF ZHOU Qihao
Here's the video (10:18).

Ma Long and Hou Yingchao Interview After Facing Each Other
Here's the video (1:22), in Chinese but with English subtitles. Here's video (5:34) of their match at the Chinese Olympic Trials. Ma is the reigning world champion; Hou is just another of hordes of unranked Chinese super-players.

Automated Table Tennis Video Editing
Here's BetterPlay.ai. "This service allows you to automatically edit your TT videos to cut the time between points. You upload video of a table tennis match and it will create a video with all the time between points taken out (you can choose how many seconds before and after the serve). The AI works very well already and is able to handle many types of angles, play levels and video quality. WTT and some of the most prominent YouTubers are already using it. This can be an invaluable tool for coaching, as it can help you and your coach analyze matches a lot more efficiently. It's currently a free service anyone can use it and the more it's used the better it gets."

Ping-Pong Playing Robot Proves AI-Driven Machines Can Sense Human Emotion
Here's the article from TechRepublic. "Today on BMF we are checking out some Table Tennis Oculus Quest gameplay with Eleven Table Tennis VR on the Oculus Quest."

How a Ping-Pong Game Helped End the Cold War
Here's the article from Upworthy.com.

New from Steve Hopkins

New from USA Table Tennis

New from the ITTF

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

World Championship Videos from the 1950s
Günther Angenendt put up links to a number of them all last week on his Facebook page. They are in German, but you might find them interesting if you are of the historically-minded.

365 Days of Training
Here's the video (14 sec) from Kanak Jha about the upcoming Olympics and Stupa Analytics.

Now THIS Is Table Tennis On The Oculus Quest | Eleven Table Tennis VR
Here's the video (10:40)!

Ping Pong Paddle Used by Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump Sells for More Than $25,000
Here's the article and video (38 sec). But now, due to my investigative journalism, the truth is coming out - Forrest Gump is a Cheater!!! The article has a picture of the racket. Here is a closeup. Notice that the label at the bottom of the sponge has been cut off? Yes, Forrest Cheats!!! From the ITTF Handbook:

3.2.1.3 Any ordinary pimpled rubber or sandwich rubber covering the racket shall be currently authorised by the ITTF and shall be attached to the blade so that the ITTF logo, the ITTF number (when present), the supplier and brand names are clearly visible nearest the handle.

Table Tennis Rollercoaster | Ping Pong Trick Shots
Here's the video (5:20) from XOLAY!

Pongfinity Extras
Here's the video (2:40)!

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Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Team Lineup Strategies.

Weekend Coaching
On Sundays, I did sports psychology sessions with four of our junior players. The sessions range from 45-60 minutes, which usually include up to ten minutes of serve practice at the end. Two of them were first timers; the other two were follow-ups. I generally meet with each of them three times, and then after that play it by ear, but perhaps review sessions before major tournaments. I am running into "session creep" - I keep thinking of more examples and other things to add to the sessions, and so they get longer. So I'm going to move some of those to follow-up sessions.

One of my group sessions on Sundays is a group of five girls, all 7-8 years old, that meet for 90 minutes every Sunday at 5:30PM. They are improving fast! I think all are also signed up for private coaching, but it is the group sessions that they really look forward to. The first hour is practice, then we do 30 minutes of games. But I keep the practice part fun. For example, I usually rotate them around, and often have two taking turns on the robot. For that, I put Froggy on the table as a target, and warn them to NEVER hit the poor frog. Of course, they take great joy then in pelting it. I also have a ping-pong ball with a picture of a cat on it, and sometimes I'll balance that on Froggy's head, and warn them not to hurt poor Kitty, with the expected result. I regularly bring in different targets for them. (Meanwhile, they are developing their forehand technique, consistency, and accuracy.) For serve practice, I no longer have to bring out the two serving low devices - they clamor for them, and bring them out themselves. One is the serving bar (here set high for beginners, but usually set much lower) created by John Olsen. The other was the TT-Serve created and sold by Samson Dubina. I challenge them to serve under the bar/serving net and hit a target, and they take to the challenge - while developing low, accurate serves.

Their favorite game is always "Cups" - they build pyramids and walls of paper cups, often building a "fort" around Froggy, and then, while I feed multiball (usually two shots each, taking turns), they knock it down! Another game I introduced them to is the Serving Game. If there are five, then four of them stand on one end of the table, without their rackets. I put a paper cup in front of each, about a foot from the edge - but they can't touch that. The fifth player gets to do ten serves, where they serve fast and deep. If they can serve so the other four can't catch the ball (so the ball hits the floor), they get a point. If the ball hits one of the cups and then the floor, they get three points!

They had another fun thing to do this past Sunday - one of them had a smart phone where she could take pictures of me, and then write doodles and other nasty stuff on my picture. I'm pretty sure I don't have a nose that goes down to my stomach and those tattoos they put on me are fake. Every break they got together for another selfie. Yes, we also did table tennis.

The scary thing is it looks like all five may sign up for our summer camps, and I've already been asked if I could take charge of them. Five little girls, once a week - survivable. Five little girls, 3-6 hours/day? AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! (Just kidding - I'll survive. Probably.)  

On a related note, I'm vaccinated! So should you.

USATT Coaches Meeting, Goals, and Sports Psychology
We had our weekly USATT coaches meeting this past Friday at noon eastern time. (These are open to all coaches - info is posted each week on the US Table Tennis Coaches Facebook Page.) Here's the video (59 min). The primary discussion was about sports psychology - specifically on goal setting, recall, rehearsal, and affirmations, plus a few other tangents on related topics. Attending were Larry Hodges (me, a member of the USATT Coaching Committee), Sean O'Neill (USATT High Performance Director), Jasna Rather (USATT Director of Para Programs), Dave Fullen (member of the USATT Coaching Committee), Daniel Rutenberg (member of Para High Performance Committee), Britt Salter, and Samson Dubina.

Regarding goals, it's common for coaches to recommend short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals, and these are important. Note that these goals can be about achieving specific results, but they can also be about attaining various levels of proficiency in specific techniques. (For example, until I was 1900 I was primarily a hitter; my long-term goal at that point was to break 2000 as a looper.) However, I've found I've needed to add a fourth - super-long-term goals. What do these four terms roughly mean?

  • Short-term goals: What you want to achieve in the very near future, usually in the next 1-4 weeks.
  • Intermediate-term goals: Usually your next major tournament, perhaps 1-6 months away.
  • Long-term goals: A major event you are training for that's perhaps a year or more away.
  • Super-long-term goals: What you want to be at your peak - an Olympian, National Champion, State Champion, Club Champion, Rating Over 2000, etc.

How do you get good at sports psychology? In my case, it's from:

How To Defeat Your Table Tennis Nemesis
Here's the article by Matt Hetherington.

Gameplay Exercise With Yu Di
Here's the article and video (3:09) from Yu Di.

How To Handle Balls To The Middle
Here's the video (1:47) from Huijing Wang.

New from Ti Long

New from Samson Dubina

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

Swerve Table Tennis Zoom Fitness: Shadow Play and Reaction Training Sessions
Here's the Facebook info page, and here's video (1:44) of one of their sessions with Stevie Brunskill. They meet each week on Wednesdays at 6:30PM English time, which is 1:30 PM Eastern Time in the US. (The other well-known table tennis aerobics site is Aerobics Table Tennis.)

How to Watch the China Olympic Scrimmage
Here's the article from Edges and Nets. "The China Olympic Scrimmage has begun and will finish on May 7. It likely has major implications for which one of Xu Xin and Fan Zhendong (assuming Ma Long is a lock) play in the Olympic men’s singles event, and who out of Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, and Liu Shiwen play in the women’s singles and team events. May 3 and 4 are the group stages, in which the star players will not play each other."

UPDATE: You can see many of the Chinese Olympic Trials matches here

New from Steve Hopkins

New from USA Table Tennis

New from the ITTF

Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Westchester Table Tennis Club
Here's the video (3:44) - not sure if it's a newscast or promotional, but it's pretty well done.

Dimitrij Ovtcharov vs Kay Stumper | MS-QF | 2021 Düsseldorf Masters IV
Here's the video (10:23).

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Pyramid Pong
Here's the picture of the famed armless Egyptian Ibrahim Hamato playing in front of the Great Pyramids. (Here's the non-Facebook version.) It's almost like the cover of my book, Larry's Adventures in Europe and Egypt: Seven Weeks Following Tour Guides with Little Flags and Funny Hats, and the Quest for the Elusive Dr Pepper! Yeah, that's me on the colorful camel (named "Michael Jackson"), taking a camel trip around the Great Pyramid - that's not Photoshopped. 

Ping-Pong Diplomacy
Here's the cartoon!

Unluckiest Moments in Table Tennis
Here's the video (4 min)!

Top 10 Pongponita Crazy Shots
Here's the video (5:46)!

Amazing Ping Pong Trick Shots With Ole
Here's the video (3:52) from XOLAY!

Pongfinity Ball With 100 Holes
Here's the video (5 min)!

Non-Table Tennis - Nanogod
The May/June issue of Dark Matter Magazine is out - and it includes my humorous science fiction story, "Nanogod"! What happens when a microscopic nanobot is damaged and becomes an egomaniac, and travels from star to star forcing civilizations to worship it and build huge monuments in its honor - including the Great Pyramids 4600 years ago! And now it's returned to earth! (You have to subscribe to read it. Alas, no table tennis in this one.) "The alien ship landed in early morning sunshine on the grounds of the United Nations Building in New York City, the de facto capital of Earth. It had been nearly forty-six centuries since its last visit, back when the Great Pyramid of Giza had been completed in 2560 BC, accompanied by the unfurling of a "Mission Accomplished" banner made of papyrus. The banner had long been lost to the mists of time. The Great Pyramid had been the tallest man-made structure in the world for nearly 4,000 years after its creation. Modern humans erroneously believed it was created as a tomb and monument to the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops. Actually, the Pharaoh only commandeered it after the fact. The true creator had returned."

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Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Looping a Push is Not Going for a Shot.

Three Things Table Tennis Can Learn from Nomadland and the Oscars
I'm a movie buff. I sometimes go several years in a row where I see over 100 movies at the theater - yes, two per week, with a Dr Pepper and small popcorn. Before they closed down due to the pandemic, they were my primary source of throwing away hard-earned money.

Last week I saw Nomadland, which won Best Picture at the Oscars last night. My thoughts on this movie? I had always thought that to be the best picture of the year, a movie shouldn't be boring. It shouldn't be nearly two hours of mundane activities, mostly by amateur actors, and all this allowed because it is a "character movie." ("The Trial of the Chicago 7" should have won.) Here are three things the world of table tennis should learn from this.

  1. Boring is Good. Nomadland got rave reviews from those who were able to stay awake for the nearly two hours of mundane activities. For now on, table tennis tournaments will be limited to backspin play only, with no expedite. No more smashing, looping, or counter-hitting, no more attack vs. defense, only pushing duels allowed. The ultimate highlights reel will be a two-hour pushing duel.
  2. Expertise is Not Needed. The main professional actor in Nomadland was Frances McDormand. There were many supporting actors, but only one of them (David Strathairn) was a professional. The supporting actors even went by their real names. And yet, these amateurs got rave reviews, showing that expertise is not needed. Table tennis should learn from that. From now on, teams at the World Table Tennis Championships can only have one professional. The rest of the team will be chosen from people randomly found in the countryside, with one simple question to filter them out: "Have you ever played table tennis before?" If the answer is yes, they are disqualified. China has the top three men in the world and six of the seven top women, but they will have to choose one of each and send the rest home. USA will send Kanak Jha and Lily Zhang, and the rest of the team will be chosen from some random bar that has no ping-pong table.
  3. Tactics Are Not Needed. Nomadland was nearly two hours of random activities. If that's all that's needed to make a great movie, why do we need tactics to play high-level table tennis? Instead, all play will be random, with no thought to any type of strategy.

Weekend Coaching and Sports Psychology
I had two group junior training sessions on Sunday. I did a lot of multiball where I had one player forehand loop while another player blocked the loop, and repeat. Halfway through I had them play out the points, crosscourt only. The bigger highlights of the weekend were two sports psychology sessions with two of our top junior players, where we went over their matches at the Butterfly Invitational last weekend in Cary, NC, and re-enforced some of the sports psychology techniques we'd been working on. As usual, I ended the sessions with serve practice. I'm working with one of them on what I call the three "Holy Grails" of deep serves - big breaking serves to the backhand that spin away from the receiver; fast no-spin at the elbow; and fast down-the-line where you disguise the direction right up until contact.

My "pet" topics in coaching are serve, receive, tactics, and now sports psychology. (I'm also pretty good at teaching the foundation to beginning kids while keeping it fun.) Why is sports psychology so important? If you are just slightly nervous or tense and it throws you off just 1% - well, 1% off in table tennis often means a 100% miss.

I have five more sports psychology sessions this next week with five of our junior players. (I'm now working with eight of them.) I do have to prepare for each session - probably ten minutes outlining what we'll go over. But first sessions are now easy as I know exactly what we'll cover. Follow-up sessions take more preparation. For example, to prep for one of the sessions on Sunday, I watched video of two matches in Cary by one of the players.

I use Dora Kurimay's "Get Your Game Face On Like the Pros" as a text. However, I am planning this week to reread "The Inner Game of Tennis" - the classic book on sport psychology, which uses tennis as an example but is for all sports, and is the most-read and most-recommended book on sports psychology. Soon I will introduce it to some of our junior players.

Periodic Reminder About My Books
Since you, as a table tennis person, is way, Way, WAY above average in intelligence, and of course you read a LOT (you are smart, right?), this is my periodic reminder to support this poor, starving table tennis writer by buying my books!!!

On Tuesday, I'll Be Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank Ma Long Almighty, I Will Be Free at Last!
Yes, tomorrow at 11:45 AM I get the second Pfizer vaccine.

The Original European Table Tennis Union
Q: What ancient Roman first named the European Table Tennis Union?
A: Julius Caesar, who said to Brutus as he was being stabbed to death, "Et tu?"
(You may tar and ping-pong ball me at your leisure. Yeah, I made this up.)

Houston World Championships in November 2021 and Chengdu 2022
Here's an article from Sports Travel Magazine. "The event is currently being planned without spectators and will follow strict COVID-19 protocols for participants. All events will be held at the convention center, with the finals staged in the venue's General Assembly Theater."

Hopefully, they will find a way to allow spectators. Otherwise:

  • If you run the Worlds in the US and nobody sees it, was it actually run?
  • If you run the Worlds and we see no points, was it pointless?

As noted in my blog last week, since the Worlds in Houston coincide with the Teams in Maryland, and I'm committed to coaching our kids at the latter, I will likely be missing the Worlds this year. However, I'm now planning on attending the 2022 Worlds in Chengdu, China. It hasn't been scheduled yet, but will likely be in April or May of 2022. (I may volunteer to do some writeups.) Immediately afterwards I'm going to take two tours - one of the Shanghai region of China, and then one of Japan. I went to the 2001 Worlds in Osaka, Japan, but basically saw the hotel, the huge gym, and the walk between. I only got to spend a few hours randomly walking the streets of Osaka. In 2005, I attended the Worlds in Shanghai, and again, mostly saw the hotel, gym, and the walk between. Immediately afterwards I took a bullet train to Beijing, where I had a memorable three-day tour of that region (with Tom Nguyen and Alan Williams, arranged by Richard Lee), which included The Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, and Tiananmen Square. Now I'm hoping to go back and tour the Shanghai region and Japan.

USATT Coaches' Catch-up - 04/23/21
Here's the video (one hour). As always, we met on Friday at noon eastern time. High Performance Director Sean O'Neill questioned me extensively about the sports psychology sessions I'm running at MDTTC, so I spoke at length about that.

Forehand Topspin Fan Zhendong
Here's the video (4:40) from the Performance Biomechanics Table Tennis Academy. "Biomechanics is the science of movement of a living body, including how muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments work together to produce movement. Biomechanics is part of the larger field of kinesiology, specifically focusing on the mechanics of the movement. Today, Today it is a tool, to decipher the best of each table tennis player."

Learn and Improve the Basic Backspin Serve
Here's the article and video (13:36) from Matt Hetherington.

New from Dora Kurimay

New from Edges and Nets

New from Ti Long

New from Samson Dubina

Seth Pech vs Hector Berrios 2021 Presper Financial Architects Open
Here's the video (9:17) with Seth's point-by-point analysis.

The Under-Used, Under-Valued "Strawberry" or "Reverse Banana" Shot
Here's the video (63 sec).

5min Basic Table Tennis Shadow Practice
Here's the video (4:10) from Ultimate Table Tennis.

A Different Path to Better Serves
Here's the article by Coach Jon. "I've practiced serves for years. They have gotten better, but not as much as I would have hoped. When I do practice, I almost always gain new insights into serving; but the overall quality (speed and spin) rarely improves. I’ve read about serving and watched videos. Nothing seemed to help. I was just about to concede that there might not be any improvement in my future. But, I may have stumbled onto a different approach that shows real promise."

Eight Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Racket
Here's the article from EmRatThich/PingSunday. I agree with most of these. The only one I'm hesitant about is "Never choose a too-soft rubber," which also says, "If you want to improve fast, choose the hardest rubber that you can manage to hit. The harder you choose, the faster you improve. Chinese kids always play with hard rubbers." My club is full of Chinese coaches and Chinese kids, and few use really hard sponges. Using a softer sponge often makes it easier to learn to loop. I may talk to some of the Chinese coaches about this one.

More from EmRatThich/PingSunday

Table Tennis Participation Report 2020
Here's the preview.

  • In 2019, there were 14,908,000 total Table Tennis participants 
  • 4.92% of the total U.S population aged 6 or older played Table Tennis in 2019
  • 2.8% of core participants were between the ages of 13 to 17

NCTTA Internships - Available for Summer 2021
Here's the info page. "Wondering how you’re supposed to get experience when you need experience to get an internship? Do you want to gain real-world skills while helping your favorite sport? Or are you perhaps even frustrated with aspects of NCTTA and want to change things? Apply to our one of summer intern roles! We are offering internships in technology, media, marketing, and grassroots."

New from USA Table Tennis

New from Steve Hopkins

Ping Pong in the Parks?
Here's the article from the Sun Times in Dexter, Michigan. "Dexter residents Jim and Lori Sprague have come up with a fun idea to encourage them to get outside, get moving in a low-impact way, and socialize in a socially distant way. The couple has taken the concept of outdoor Ping Pong that has been successfully implemented in other cities and presented the idea to the Dexter City Council at its April 12 meeting."

Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Turning the Tables: Why the ITTF Believes World Table Tennis Will Revolutionise the Sport
Here's the article from Pro Sports Media. "Despite being played in hotel lobbies, WeWork offices and underground bars around the world, table tennis has until now struggled to gain a regular foothold outside of Asia. But with a new commercial model and revamped event structure in place, the International Table Tennis Federation believes the sport is finally in a position to realise its global potential."

New from the ITTF
They have a of new items, so why not browse their news page, and video page ("World Table Tennis"), along with their home page.

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Jorgen Persson's Top Shots - Birthday Showreel
Here's the video (3:48) of the 1991 World Men's Singles Champion.

Table Tennis Star's Alleged Illicit Romance Bouncing All Over Asia
I really don't want this blog to turn into a gossip column about top player romances . . . but, through gritted teeth, here's the article from Japan Today, about Ai Fukuhara and Chiang Hung-chieh.

Crazy Pong - Do You Have This Ball Control?
Here's the video (1:22)!

Fight Club Table Tennis
Here's the video (10:56) from Adam Bobrow! The muscle-bound guy he plays, Jayden Wang, is a body-builder and looks about 2100.

Missed Shots in Table Tennis: Funny & Fail Moments
Here's the video (3:10)!

Kids Consulting TT Book

Sinking Boat Pong
Here's the cartoon! (Here's the non-Facebook version.) The caption is, "Ricominciare," which apparently means "start over" in Italian. I have no idea what that has to do with the cartoon. Here are my suggested captions:

  • "Let! The ball was wet!"
  • "The point isn't over until the ball hits the ground!"
  • "Better go expedite. The rescue boats are almost here."
  • "My stupid coach taught me footwork but never taught me to swim."
  • That sinking feeling as the ball goes past you that you've lost the point.

Ping-Pong Shirts from Etsy
You know you want one!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Imagine a Score or Situation.

Butterfly Invitational in Cary, NC
I had a great time this past weekend coaching at the tournament. We had ten juniors and five coaches - but with the huge RR format, there were LOTS of matches, so LOTS of coaching. Here are complete results, care of Omnipong. The tournament gave out about $10,000 in prize money and prizes. AJ Carney did a great job running the event. Sharon Alguetti was the dominant player, winning all three "Opens" - Thursday Open, 1800 & Over, and Division A of the Giant RR. There were 116 players, including four over 2550, seven over 2400, 18 over 2200, and 35 over 2000. 

Our kids from MDTTC played really well - lots of great wins, very few bad losses. Some of them we knew were under-rated, since some hadn't played tournaments in a while, due to Covid. (Others had been playing tournaments somewhat regularly the last few months.) The main worry was that when you don't play tournaments for a while, you lose some of your "tournament toughness" - the ability to adapt to the different playing styles and pressures of playing in a tournament. They were able to overcome this far better than I'd expected.

One early dynamic is that they seemed to lose a lot of five-gamers early on, but then the tide changed, and they seemed to win them all the second half. I'm looking forward to seeing the ratings results - these days, tournaments are often processed on the Monday afterwards, so I'll be refreshing the USATT Tournament Ratings Page every few minutes the rest of today! (Shhh, don't tell the kids. Ratings aren't important, and we try to stress this to our students - but when they all go up, they sure are fun! Plus, they are an indicator that all that training paid off.)

I think the story of the tournament, for our players, may have been sports psychology. One or two are already very strong on this, and did well. But it's a perennial problem for most players, especially junior players. Over the last month I've been doing sports psychology sessions with four of them, and it seems to have helped. I've written about one of them in past blog, Ryan Lin, who responded by playing his best table tennis at an Ohio tournament, and achieved the #1 ranking in the country for 11 and under. (He missed this tournament - he's training in Taiwan.) This time around, it was Ryan Lee, Mu Du, and James Zhuang who had very good tournaments - and I've been doing sports psychology sessions with all three. (Ryan Lee may break the rating system - he went in rated 1986 but with a new attitude, and beat two 2250 players and a bunch of other 2000+ players. He just turned 14.) One aftermath is I'll be doing more sports psychology sessions with our other kids. I may have to double my hourly rate from volunteer to volunteer x 2. (Maybe I'll charge one Dr Pepper per session. Yeah, my one vice.)

US Nationals Update
They opened for entries a little over two weeks ago. Here is the entry list - they currently have 81 paid entries. One new feature in Omnipong - they now have columns for State and Club. I'd emailed Craig Krum at Omnipong two weeks ago about this, and he emailed me yesterday letting me know it was done. I then asked if he could make them sortable by State and Club - and he said he'd guessed I'd be asking about that next, and was already working on it! So we'll likely have that feature added soon.

As I blogged about last week, I'm pretty unhappy with it going all single elimination. I'm pretty certain they would have had a very large turnout otherwise. It'll likely be a rather low turnout instead due to this, and also because they are charging about the same for single elimination events as they did in the past for round robin events, where you play more matches. ($80/event or $250 for up to six events. At the last Nationals in 2019, it was also $80/event or $250 for up to SEVEN events.) There was a lot of discussion of the Nationals at the Cary tournament this past weekend (see segment above) - very little of it positive. A lot of players told me they were planning to go but changed their mind when they saw it was all single elimination and other problems.

Another problem is this one, from the entry form: "Players are permitted to physically enter the playing venue fifteen (15) minutes before their match scheduled time." That's obviously because of Covid, but I sure hope they negotiated like crazy to try to let players come in sooner. If you can only enter 15 minutes in advance, it's unlikely you'll get more than ten minutes to warm up for a match. Yikes! (Make it at least 30 minutes.)

World Table Tennis Championships to Be Held in Houston
Here's the ITTF news item, and here's an article from Inside the Games. They will be held Nov. 23-29, 2021. They were awarded to USATT in April, 2019 and were originally scheduled for Houston in June this year before they were postponed.

One problem - this coincides with the Thanksgiving weekend dates for the North American Teams in Washington DC, which are held Nov. 26-28. (Nov. 25 is Thanksgiving.) This means players/spectators have to choose between attending and spectating at the Worlds, or Thanksgiving and playing at the North American Teams. Since I'm committed to coaching our junior players at the Teams (about 30 of them), I will likely miss these Worlds. (I've been to two, in Japan and China.) I may fly out for the first few days of the Worlds and then fly back to Maryland. If I were there the whole time, I'd likely volunteer to do lots of online coverage for USATT as I've done so often in the past, but alas, it looks like that won't happen.

I really wish USATT would learn to communicate. Hopefully, they did everything they could to avoid coinciding with the dates of the Teams. If they had no choice and were forced to do so for some reason, then they should explain that rather than just throw it out there with no explanation. Instead, they are trying to ignore the 800-pound ping-pong ball in the room - that they are running the Worlds at the same time as the largest table tennis tournament in North America. For perspective, the 2019 Teams had 1031 players and 9620 matches; the 2019 Nationals had 721 players and 7260 matches; the 2019 US Open had 684 players and 3743 matches. (All three events were cancelled in 2020 due to Covid.) Since USATT chose not to explain - a long-running problem with issue after issue - instead, I'm hearing repeated conspiracy theories that this was done on purpose. (North American Table Tennis/JOOLA USA ran the US Nationals and US Open for many years, but when USATT CEO Virginia Sung took office in May, 2019, they had a rather inharmonious split.)

Larry Hodges Table Tennis Mask Collection
Here it is! I have nine, and alternate them when at the club. My favorites are the two dinosaur playing table tennis masks.

Help Wanted - USA Table Tennis Coaches
There are two clubs currently looking to hire new coaches.

International Olympian Table Tennis Clinic
Here's the info page (here's the non-Facebook version) for the clinic to be held May 21-23 in Norcross, Georgia, with coaches Matilda Ekholm (Swedish Olympian, world #50) and Yue Wu (2020 USA Women's Table Tennis Team Captain, world #32). You can enter via the Omnipong Tournament page - see listing under Georgia, where you can also see a list of players currently signed up.

Dan Seemiller's "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips"
Now's the time to go to the Dan Seemiller Book page and order a signed copy of his new book, "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips"! (Or his two previous books, also listed there.) He has a large supply of them now. They are already available on Amazon, but why not get a signed one?

USATT Coaches' Catch-up - 04/16/21
Here's the video (51:35). I had to miss this one - I was in a car going down to North Carolina. I considered joining via cell phone, but I was too busy entertaining the kids with brain teasers. Priorities! The meetings are for all coaches, every Friday at noon eastern time.

New from Samson Dubina

Side To Side Footwork Movement For The Forehand Loop
Here's the video (1:40) of Bella Xu, narration by Brian Pace.

Stroke Chemistry & Footwork
Here's the video (1:50) of Liu Juan, narration by Brian Pace.

Cross Court & Down The Line Attack
Here's the video (1:28) from Crystal Wang.

Rachel Yang – Defensive Specialist – Drill #3 video
Here's the video (67 sec).

How to Super Chop Block with Long Pimples
Here's the video from Ti Long (3:49).

Footwork Drills for Kids
Here's the video (3:22) from InMotion Table Tennis. 

New from EmRatThich/PingSunday

New from Steve Hopkins

Health Care Access Presents Karaoke - with a Table Tennis Entry
Here's the page. The last entry is "You'll Never Beat Me Again" (2:20) from Nick Flor. Here's where you vote - and vote TT! "I created a table tennis themed karaoke video for a contest held by our local community health care organization, Health Care Access of Phoenixville. It is a fundraiser event, 1 vote is $1. I intend on giving the money back to the organization if I win anything, so I am not in it for any monetary gain. My video is "You'll Never Beat Me Again" sung to the style of "Cry for You" by September. The video is based on my great desire to beat my friend and co-organizer of the Phoenixville Table Tennis Club!  I'm gonna get you Brady!"

Table Tennis Star Returns to Bay Area to Prepare for Tokyo Olympic Games
Here's the article and video (2 min) featuring Kanak Jha.

Top Things to Know about the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021
Here's the info page from Olympic Channel.

The Duel | Zhang Jike vs Hou Yingchao | 2020 Premier League Challenge
Here's the video (10:31). "Zhang Jike comes out of retirement for one match."

Anton Kallberg vs Omar Assar | FINAL | 2021 Düsseldorf Masters
Here's the video (7:59).

Picking Up the Pieces of Public Ping Pong
Here's the article from Coach Jon. "I spent the pandemic anticipating an eventual return to playing at the Atlanta Table Tennis Center. If you are interested in buying their building and starting your own table tennis center, it can be purchased for $1,399,000.00."

U.S. Players Look Back on 50 Years of Ping-Pong Diplomacy
Here's the article from Ecns.cn. (Last week's blog had ten other articles on Ping-Pong Diplomacy.)

How a Few Games of Table Tennis Raised over $60,000 for Individuals Living with a Disability
Here's the article from Her Canberra.

Table Tennis Grand Slam Winner Ding Ning to Enroll in Peking University Master's Program
Here's the article from Xinhua.net.

12-Year-Old Hana Goda: The Rising Star of African Table Tennis 
Here's the article from the Olympic Channel. "Hana Goda is one of Egypt’s youngest stars, a fast-rising talent with many tipping her as the next big thing in African table tennis. The 12-year-old has got game. She is currently ranked first in the ITTF Cadets category, a position she has held since December 2019."

Ping! Springs into Action with Easing of Lockdown
Here's the article from Table Tennis England.

New from the ITTF

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Ping-Pong Star Shows Off Skills on Tiny Table
Here's the video (3:11) featuring Zhang Shuo. "A table tennis coach in southern China’s Guangdong province has made a mini table and uses it to show off her skills."

Ping-Pong Around-the Net Challenge
Here's the video (5 min) from Ultimate Ping Pong.

Table Tennis Canada Trick Shot Competition
Here's the info page. "Each Monday starting February 8, 2021, we will be sharing a theme for that week's Table Tennis trick shot." To see each week's theme, go to their Facebook page. This week's

Table Tennis Cartoons
There seem to be a lot of new ones out this week.

Lucky Ping Pong Shirt
Here it is!

Bumblebee Pong
Here's the video (54 sec)!

TABLE tennis
Here's the video (6 sec)!

Padel Trick Shots
Here's the video (4 min) from Pongfinity!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Learn from a Match.

Breaking News - World Table Tennis Championships to Be Held in Houston
Here's the ITTF news item, and here's an article from Inside the Games. They will be held Nov. 23-29, 2021. (I added this Tuesday morning.) They were awarded to USATT in April, 2019 and were originally scheduled for Houston in June this year before they were postponed. One problem - this coincides with the Thanksgiving weekend dates for the North American Teams in Washington DC, which would normally be held Nov. 26-28. (Nov. 25 is Thanksgiving.) 

Weekend Coaching
I squeezed a lot into Sunday, pretty much non-stop from 11AM to 7PM. Two of the group sessions were with beginning-intermediate junior players, where (as always) the focus was on fundamentals, though I always keep it fun. The key to coaching younger beginning kids? F&F: Fun and Fundamentals!

I also had a one-hour session with Navin Kumar. For various reasons, he had to take most of the past month off, so we worked a lot on fundamentals again. Here's video (56 sec) where I'm warming up his forehand block. The next drill? Multiball looping, where I feed (multiball style) forehand loops to all parts of the table, at first side to side, then random.

I also had two 45-minutes sports psychology sessions with two of our top juniors. It was the third session for one, the first for the other. I use Dora Kurimay's Get Your Game Face On Like The Pros! as a reference - she can thank us for seven book sales so far! I have another top junior taking his first session with me this week. (We're getting them all ready for the Butterfly Invitational in North Carolina this weekend - I'll be coaching at it.) 

Student of the Game
Last week I linked to Samson Dubina's Help Wanted Video, Hiring!!!! The Samson Dubina TT Academy is now hiring! (4:58). He had an interesting statement about how he is looking for coaches who can see the game "from the lens of the student." This is similar to a concept I've blogged about before - becoming a student of the game. Here are four levels - where are you on this spectrum?

  • Level 1: Student of the Game. Learns all aspects of the game. Classic example - Chinese Men's Team Coach Liu Guoliang, probably the most successful table tennis coach of all time. He was a pips-out penhold hitter/blocker, and yet his coaching is almost entirely with shakehand inverted loopers. But because he was as student of the game, it didn't matter - he simply knows and understands the game. He can see the game from the point of view of a student, not just his own.
  • Level 2: Student of Your Game. This type really knows his game. He knows exactly what he needs to do in any given situation, and adjusts his game as needed to opponents. He is a smart player - but he only knows his own game. This type has difficulty coaching others because he only knows his own game. Some elite players have this problem when coaching - they simply cannot understand the game except from their own perspective.
  • Level 3: Student of Your Game Limited. This type of player knows his game pretty well, in most situations, and is often good tactically against most players. But against unorthodox styles that he's not familiar with, he doesn't really know what to do. I know of a former 2750 player who was incredible against most players - but there were certain players that he was almost clueless about how to play.
  • Level 4: Non-Table Tennis Thinker. May have good strokes, but doesn't really know how to use them. Doesn't really play much tactically and so has difficulty winning or improving.  

Ping-Pong Diplomacy
April 10 was the 50th Anniversary of the start of 1971's Ping-Pong Diplomacy, where the US Table Tennis began its tour of China. (Here's Tim Boggan's book on it - here are his other table tennis history books.) There were articles and videos on this all over the place - here are a few. (Ray Arditi helped compile this.)

Rules Changes
There was a discussion on one of the table tennis forums about rules changes. Somehow, my name came up - a well-known table tennis "troll" claimed I was responsible for the Aspect Ratio rule, which (as he knows) is false. (I didn't even know about that rule until after it was announced.) However, someone then mistakenly said that I hadn't been involved in any rule changes - and that too was false, though this time probably an honest mistake. Back in 2013 I blogged about the three rules changes I was involved with, including two that pretty much instigated - here's the blog!

US Nationals
I really, Really, REALLY do not like writing negative things about USATT, an organization I've been with for 45 years. I'm a life member and a member of their Hall of Fame. I'd really like to focus more on things like coaching and promoting the sport, and other interesting stuff - like the segment above about "Student of the Game." But they make it so hard to ignore these problems, and as a table tennis blogger, I'm feel stuck writing about these problems.

SINGLE ELIMINATION. I blogged at length about this in last week's blog, in the segment "USATT Nationals Entry Form and USATT Coaches Meeting." The more I think about it, the more I feel let down by USATT in their decision to go all single elimination this year. I think USATT owes its membership more than this. For most players, it's going to be a pale imitation of past Nationals. (I've been going to Opens and Nationals since my first in 1976, and I've been to every Open and Nationals starting in 1985.)

I gave the explanation in last week's blog on why USATT decided to go all single elimination, as explained to us in the coaches meeting. Here's what I wrote last week:

"Because of the pandemic, it was feared there would be a low turnout at the Nationals. If USATT rented the normal hall, expecting perhaps 800 players, but only got 300, they'd lose a fortune on the tournament. So instead of getting one with room for perhaps 90 tables, they rented one with room for only 45. But then they realized that if they did get a big turnout, they'd be overwhelmed running RR events on just 45 tables, and decided they couldn't risk that - and so went with all single elimination."

However, at the USATT board meeting last Monday, CEO Virginia Sung gave a completely different explanation, saying, "The reason for running all single elimination is to better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently." I sort of fell out of my chair when I heard this. Now I feel even more let down - they are running all single elimination because they can't do the scheduling and handle conflicts, as they've done at every Nationals and Open for many decades? I spent all week debating whether to email for further comment, but what's the point? It'll just be another circle-the-wagons, Larry's a trouble-maker moment. Besides completely contradicting what we were told in the coaches meeting, it also seems to imply they want to run future Nationals and Opens this way - if they want to go all single elimination this year to "better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently," the situation won't change in future Nationals and Opens. The quote speaks for itself, and I'll let readers interpret it as they see best.

Regardless of the reason, running it all single elimination is a mistake. If you go by the first argument, the worry of a low turnout (likely self-inflicted, due to going all single elimination), they seem out of touch with what's going on in the table tennis world. First, they are getting large turnouts at recent tournaments held in Ohio, North Carolina, New Jersey, and other locations. Second, people are HUNGRY for a Nationals - there hasn't been one since 2019. Third, by the time of the Nationals, anyone over age 16 who wants to will be vaccinated. Conclusion? If they'd run the Nationals with the usual RR format, there would have been a very large turnout and a nice financial windfall for USATT at a time they really need it. As to the second reason, that's basically an admission that they don't feel they can do what others have done in every past Nationals and Open since I began going to them in 1976.

On a related note, single elimination does not make it easier to manage the schedule. Round robin events are easier to schedule - you just send them out and let them play it out, with fewer SE matches afterwards. Single elimination is more difficult to schedule since you have to schedule every round, while in RR events you have fewer rounds after the RR stage to schedule. The only thing that makes SE easier to schedule is the presumption that by going all SE, you'll get fewer players. And THAT makes it easier to schedule.

Someone told me that if they'd run the Nationals with the usual RRs, they might get stuck with too MANY players - and they can't really handle more than a thousand. While I disagree that they can't handle more than a thousand, there's a simple solution - cap the entries at a thousand.)

CHANGES TO ENTRY FORM. There were two major changes to the entry form since it went up last week. At the coaches meeting on Friday, April 2, we spent much of the session discussing the Nationals. I pointed out (repeatedly) that if they were going to have a consolation event for every event in the tournament, it should say this on the entry form. (I can't believe something so basic needed to be pointed out - it literally doubles the minimum number of matches you play in each event.) I also pointed out that the wording on the entry form implied that parents couldn't coach their kids unless they were certified as USATT coaches, which is exactly what I thought they meant based on past discussions, but I was assured that wasn't what they meant. A week later, at the coaches meeting on April 9, I pointed out that none of the changes had been made. After that meeting, I think that very day, they made those two changes to the entry form. To those who fixed this, we appreciate it!!!

SCHEDULING PROBLEMS. There is still a major scheduling problem for players and parents. Several parents at my club last night were frustrated over this. If you look at the entry from (page 5, first column), you can see the scheduling is very top-heavy - lots of events scheduled on the first two days (Sun and Mon), then a lot fewer after that. We were told at the coaches meeting that events should finish by the day after they start - but that's not what it says on the entry form. What it actually says is:

"Event Scheduling: Events are not guaranteed to be completed on the same day that they begin. No refunds will be given for early departure. All events will be completed by Friday (July 9, 2021) evening."

To use the example of the 20 or so kids from my club who plan (or planned) to go to the Nationals, the majority only play in events that start on Sunday and Monday, so presumably they'll be done by Tuesday. A few might stay an extra day for Under 2300 on Tuesday. So, can they fly home on Tuesday or Wednesday, or do they actually have to stay through Friday, where they would likely spend three days stuck there with no events? I've run over 200 USATT tournaments and was Operations Director for two US Opens with large turnouts (i.e. did the scheduling with the Director), and know that USATT should have no problem in finishing these SE events by the day after they start (including the SE consolation) - but the players and parents don't know that, and we don't know if they will schedule it that way. So players and parents are stuck, trying to guess what to do. The entry deadline for the tournament is June 15, and presumably USATT is playing it safe on their side, waiting to see what the turnout will be before making these scheduling decisions. But players and parents need to work out schedules well before that - flight plans, hotel plans, and even their own plans at home if they don't have to stay through Friday. Since the tournament is all single elimination, USATT shouldn't need to wait on this - just put it on the entry form that all events will finish by the day after they begin. Don't leave us in the dark like this - there are junior players whose only events are on Sunday and perhaps Monday (if they play rating events) - are they and their parents really expected to block out Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for this? (They did in past Nationals, but that was because the events were RR and spread out over six days, instead of all SE and at the very start of the tournament.) USATT - PLEASE FIX THIS!!!

Some Nationals links:

  • 2021 USA Nationals Home Page
  • Omnipong listing (You'll have to search for the Nationals - it's in CAPS. The problem is that it should stand out as a 5-star tournament, with the regional ones as 3-stars, the state ones as 2-stars.)
  • Entry Form
  • Player Listing (Alphabetical, by rating, and by event. I've emailed Omnipong asking if they could add a State and Club column. If you hover the cursor over a player, club info appears, but that means hovering over every player if you want to find the players from a club.)
  • USATT News Item

USATT Board Meeting
They met last Monday night, April 5. It was supposed to start at 8PM, but they ran into technical problems on Uberconference and so switched over to Zoom. The meeting began around 8:10PM, then went into executive session an hour later, at 9:10PM, and so I had to get off while they presumably discussed legal and personnel matters. There were 23 people in the meeting. The minutes for the meeting are not yet up, but will go up at some point on the USATT Minutes and Actions page. Here are some highlights.

  • CEO Report: Membership, Clubs, Nationals, Coaches Licensing. Membership and clubs are way down due to Covid. Membership 7007 to 4536. Clubs from 207 to 145. Understandable, with Covid.
  • Mark Thompson (COO) gave a report on SafeSport. SafeSport is important, but I am so tired of it that whenever I hear it, my mind goes to sleep. The "S" in USATT has almost become SafeSport - more time is spent on that than probably any other topic.  
  • Sean O'Neill gave the High Performance Director Report on upcoming events and trials.
  • Kelly Watson gave the Audit Committee report.
  • Bylaw proposals - no vote at this meeting. I wrote about this briefly in my blog last week in the "USATT Board Meeting" segment, where I wrote about the meeting to be held that night. Based on lots of input, they will be rewritten again. (I've blogged about this a few times.) One interesting quote - Dave Patterson from the USOPC said, "Athletes should select who represent them." This sort of ended the argument over whether one of the two incoming athlete reps should be appointed by the Athlete's Advisory Committee and approved by the USATT board (as some on the board were pushing for) or elected directly by the athletes. I wrote about this briefly in last week's blog, but frankly, I'm so tired of USATT bylaw battles that I haven't gotten to involved in this one or the other proposed bylaws.

USATT Coaches Meeting
We had our weekly meeting last Friday at noon, lasting almost an hour. (Here's the video, 58 min.) There was more discussion of the Nationals and Team Trials. Here was the agenda:

  • Welcome
  • Schlager Interview (China) - Linked below
  • Kanak Interview (High/Low) - this is with Stupa Analytics, linked below
  • National Team (Trials)
  • Nationals (2021 &2022) - see mention above about the entry form and the changes that came out of this discussion here and in the previous week's meeting.
  • Use of Titles (dropping words). Some people advertise themselves as, for example, the "US Open Champion" when they won a rating event, such as maybe Under 1800. I've run into this problem - when news reporters ask me about my playing career, if I honestly tell them I was the US Open and National Champion in Hardbat Table Tennis, they don't know that's different than "regular" table tennis unless I explain it. (I'm normally a sponge player, but play hardbat on the side, and have won a lot of hardbat titles.)
  • Ball Speed (100mph?) Some still claim this, but test show the fastest smashes seem to be just over 70mph. I think if players trained just for this, they could get it higher with wristy smashes, but at most they might approach 80mph.
  • Questions

Happy World Table Tennis Day (April 6)

RIP Fred Tepper, 1928-2021
Here's the obit of Mr. Baltimore Table Tennis. I knew him pretty well from many years ago. I even have a copy of his book, "Ping-Pong is Not Table Tennis!" by Fred Tepper, 1990. (I don't think it was published professionally, but I have a copy of the manuscript.)

Heaviest Spin Ever!? My Signature Shot
Here's the video (3:43) from Timo Boll.

How To Create More Spin
Here's the video (3:37) from David Zhuang.

Short Game Play
Here's the video (2:15) from Zhou Xin.

Flip to Random Play
Here's the video (1:29) from Crystal Wang.

Top 6 Exercises for Powerful Forehand
Here's the video (2:24) from inMotion Table Tennis.

Backhand Table Tennis Topspin Technical Tips
Here's the video (26 sec) from eBaTT.

New from Ti Long

New from Samson Dubina

Werner Schlager - "Talk to Me"
Here's the video (33:08) with the 2003 World Men's Singles Champion, from the Canadian TTA and Adham Sharara.

Kanak Jha Joins Stupa Analytics for a Fun Interview
Here's the USATT video (45:30).

Mandy Yu: Byron's Table Tennis Sensation
Here's the article from The Post Bulletin in Rochester, MN.

Ma Long Multiball Training with Liu Guoliang
Here's the video (68 sec). So, how's your backhand loop?

Five Things to Know About Table Tennis Olympic Champ Ma Long
Here's the article and videos from the Olympic Channel.

A Big Stack of Table Tennis Skills
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Interview with Sweden Olympian Matilda Ekholm
Here's the interview (21:21) from Kevin Table Tennis. Ekholm is currently #50 in the world, and was #20 in 2017.

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

New from Steve Hopkins

New from the ITTF

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

I Played Against a Long Pips Player
Here's the video (12:43) from Adam Bobrow.

When Players Go Around the Net
Here's the video (23 sec) from Table Tennis Central!

Hawaiian Table Tennis Shirt
Here it is!

Nick Kyrgios Table Tennis
The controversial tennis player also plays table tennis.

Grasscourt Pong
Here's the cartoon!

Riley Dog Pong
Here's the video (63 sec)!

Real Dog Pong
Here's the video (9 sec)!

Ma Long, Timo Boll or Harimoto? Guess The Table Tennis Pro Player
Here's the video (6:18) from XOLAY!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Reading Service Spin.

Weekend Coaching
I had a busy Sunday - was at the club almost all day. I started with the advanced beginning junior class, where I spent much of the time working on basics and serves. When we went to the more advanced sessions later in the day, I acted as a practice partner for an hour - I may not be as fast as before, but I can still block very consistently, and I wore a few players out. One of the advanced players was having some problems with his serves, so I spent a full half hour on this with him - the main problem was his contact point was too high, and it's often difficult to make that transition. But I also showed him how to make the serve bounce really low. I finished the day with the beginning junior girls' group, where I introduced them to serving with spin. (I'd built up to this the last few weeks by having them practice tossing a ball up and spinning it off their racket.)

All players and coaches are required to wear masks at all times in the club, even when playing. It's a hassle, though the kids have adjusted well. Those with glasses have problems with them fogging up. But things might get a bit easier soon with the vaccines out. Soon everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be. I have my two vaccinations now scheduled - the first is tomorrow (Tuesday, April 6), with the follow-up on April 27.

Dan Seemiller's "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips"
Now's the time to go to the Dan Seemiller Book page and order a signed copy of his new book, "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips"! (Or his two previous books, also listed there.) He will have a large supply of them by the end of this week. They are already available on Amazon, but why not get a signed one?

USA Table Tennis Magazines I Edited
Here's a secret project I've been working on - all 71 issues of USA Table Tennis Magazine that I edited are now online!!! One huge thing - they are all searchable! You can do a search for the name of your favorite player (or your own name) and find them all. This includes 24 issues I did from 1992-1995, and 47 from 1999-2007. Also included are the three copies of Table Tennis World I did independently in 1996.

I initially put together a page that links to them all, but I thought it best that it be a USATT page, so I had Hall of Fame Committee Chair Sean O'Neill copy and paste the page to the new USATT page.

I could have tried doing it myself, taking a picture of each page, but I wanted the text searchable, and I wanted a professional job, so I hired Arc Document Solutions in Gaithersburg to do it, and supplied them with backup copies of all my magazines. Their charge was 15 cents/page if they could destroy the binding (i.e. destroy the magazine), or 45 cents/page if they could not. Since I had backup copies, I went with the 15 cents/page version. Total cost, which I paid myself, was $740.

Here is a listing I put together of every USATT Magazine editor since they began in 1933. (It also lists all past presidents, board chairs, and CEOs/EDs.) There have been a total of 556 print magazines done. I'm hoping someone will spearhead an effort to get them all scanned and put online, either by doing the work or by funding it. It would take an effort to collect copies of all of these magazines, especially since few will allow vintage magazines to be destroyed. (I know of some people with extensive collections, and I have most since 1976.) There are 556-71=485 issues to be scanned. The older ones were smaller. Let's say they average 32 pages each. Then there are 485x32=15,520 pages to scan. At 45 cents/page, that's $6984, or about $7000. Someone can either sponsor this or start a GoFundMe. Unfortunately, I'm just too busy on other things to get more involved in this, but if you are interested and have questions, email me.

USATT's Nominating and Governance Committee, and Clubs and Leagues Committee
The deadline to volunteer for either of these committees is TODAY, Monday, April 5. Here is more info:

USATT Board Meeting
They have an online meeting tonight (Monday, April 5) at 8PM eastern time, on Uberconference. (It's similar to Zoom - not sure why they don't use that, but there must be advantages.) The meeting is open to anyone, and I will be there. You can watch and listen; you can't say anything without permission from the chair. However, you can speak up in the chat box, the board does see that, and usually responds to questions there. The agenda is not up as I write this, but it says it will be posted prior to the meeting.

I believe the main issue is going to be the Proposed Bylaw Changes. (Make sure to page below the actual note, where the proposed bylaws changes are listed. The note doesn't mention they are below, and so many, including me, didn't realize they were there at first.) USATT is getting a lot of flak from members over these, with a number of emails from prominent table tennis people. At issue are whether there should be direct elections of the two new athlete reps or if one should be selected by the Athlete Advisory Committee, and the apparent extension of the terms of some board members.

USATT Nationals Entry Form and USATT Coaches Meeting
It's out!!! Here are some links:

Why am I combining the US Nationals and the USATT coaches meeting? Because that was the primary discussion in the coaches meeting, by far the longest we've ever had, almost two hours. Here's the video (1hr 55min). There are a number of issues with this year's Nationals entry form, though many are communication problems. I'm told there will likely be updates to the entry form to address these communication issues.

Here's a rundown of some of the issues, which I hope will clear up some of the confusion on these issues.

  • Why Single Elimination. I tried to convince USATT to put in the entry form the reason why they are going all single elimination this year, but they chose not to. (Alternately, they could put in large letters that the explanation is in the FAQ page, and put it there.) It seemed to me and others that, regardless of the pandemic, you can have just as many tables and so just as many matches as needed with round robin events - and it's even easier since they are not having any doubles events (to avoid Covid spreading). It was explained to me at the coaches meeting - but why not simply give the following explanation up front? Here's what I was told, primarily by High Performance Director Sean O'Neill, who runs the weekly coaches' meetings.

    Because of the pandemic, it was feared there would be a low turnout at the Nationals. If USATT rented the normal hall, expecting perhaps 800 players, but only got 300, they'd lose a fortune on the tournament. So instead of getting one with room for perhaps 90 tables, they rented one with room for only 45. But then they realized that if they did get a big turnout, they'd be overwhelmed running RR events on just 45 tables, and decided they couldn't risk that - and so went with all single elimination.

    Now this makes some sense, and I wish they'd had the sense to explain this up front. At least there is an argument for why they went all SE, especially if they were being extremely conservative. However, I still disagree with the decision. By the time of the Nationals, anyone over age 16 who wants to be vaccinated will be vaccinated. Plus, there's been no Nationals or Open since 2019. People are starved for one. I'm pretty certain this year would have had a huge turnout, easily justifying the larger hall. However, by going with all SE, it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy as they may now end up with a small turnout. The irony is if they still get a large turnout, imagine what they might have gotten with regular RR! (I'm told that if there is a large turnout, they may then go for a larger hall.)

    UPDATE - at the USATT board meeting tonight (Monday, April 5), USATT CEO Virginia Sung said, "Reason for running all single elimination is to better manage schedule and conflicts more efficiently." This seems to differ with the reasons given above. If this really is the reason, then it seems to imply that this is a permanent change. Someone in USATT recently told me that often the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is thinking and doing. This seems to be another case of that. 

  • Consolation Events. In the earlier version of the entry form that I proofed for USATT, there's no mention of Consolation events. (A Consolation event is where all of the first-round losers are put into another draw and play it out to the final, with prizes.) In the version that went online, it says in the small print near the back, "For further information on the rules for preliminary round play, consolation events, qualification for the Main Draw and Seeding, please refer to the USATT website." Hidden in there was a passing mention of Consolation events. What they should be saying is, "Every event has a Consolation event, so players are guaranteed at least two matches in every event they enter." See the difference? It should be highlighted, in HUGE letters, that players will get at least two matches in every event, due to the Consolation event. Instead, players are left in the dark on this, and so believing they only get one guaranteed match.

    I do think USATT made another mistake here. As I blogged previously and suggested to some USATT people, instead of consolation events, why not simply have a 2020 and 2021 National championships for each event? You end up with two single elimination draws, and except this way we can crown our 2020 champions. It would mean a few more matches and conflicts, but with SE, you have fewer matches and so this should have been relatively easy.  

  • Parents Coaching. The entry form says, "Minor-Aged players are permitted one parent or adult guardian to enter the venue during their match." Then it says, "Coaches must be on the USATT coaching registry to enter the venue for the player(s) match(es)." The problem is that while parents/guardians are allowed in the venue, the moment they coach their kid's match, they become coaches - and so, by this wording, are required to be on the coaches registry. (That means undertaking the USATT's online club coach course for $299, passing SafeSport, getting a background check, paying $75 for an annual USATT "Pro" membership they will likely never otherwise need, and paying an annual $50 for a USATT Coaching License that they also will likely never otherwise need.) When I brought this up at the coaches meeting, I was told that was NOT what USATT intended, and that parents CAN coach their kids. Hopefully, they will fix the wording on this. I was also told that to be a guardian, they would need a signed letter from the parents. (I wonder if anyone will abuse this and get signed letters from all their students, and so be able to coach them as "guardians" without getting on the USATT Coaches Registry!)
  • Event Completion. The entry form says that events are not guaranteed to finish on the day they begin. So players don't know how long to book their hotel and flights for. I'm told that all events will finish by the day after they are scheduled - this should be on the entry form. So, for example, all the junior events are starting on Sunday, July 4, and will finish that day or on Monday. If your last rating event starts on Tuesday, you will be done on Wednesday. And so on.  
  • Hopes. Normally the Nationals has Hopes events, for boys and girls. They are for players under age 12 as of Jan. 1 of that year. When the entry form came out without the events, there were some unhappy players and parents. (My club has two of the top three seeds on the boys' side, and they were training hard for this event.) But ITTF is now phasing out the Hopes event, and instead is going with the following age events - Under 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21, which is what USATT went with. That's understandable, but again, why no explanation? Plus, it turns out USATT is looking to run the usual Regional and National Hopes programs in the fall, so there will likely be a National Hopes Championships after all. I just wish this had all been communicated widely in advance.

There are other things I wish they'd done. The lowest rating event is Under 1400. Why not Under 1200, for example? I just checked, and 13 of the 74 players currently entered are rated under 1200 (including two unrated players). That's 17.6%, a pretty big proportion - and that's without running Under 1200. If they had the event, presumably there'd be even more players rated under 1200 entered. That's pure lost revenue, plus making it a better tournament for some.

The entry form also says that water will not be provided, so I'm hoping they'll make sure water will be available in some way. Imagine the plight of someone who shows up the first day without bringing a gallon of water! Basically, players will need to buy a case of water on the first day of the Nationals and bring as many as needed for each session. Perhaps USATT can communicate to all players the closest place where they can buy a case of water - but with hundreds of players, they will likely get sold out quickly.

Regarding the Coaches meeting, there were six attendees, Sean O'Neill (High Performance Director as well as Hall of Fame Chair), Larry Hodges, Britt Salter, Mike Lauro, Dave Fullen, and Priya Kannan. We also discussed the USATT licensing fee, the new $50 annual fee coaches must pay to be certified. That too was a long discussion. I blogged about this issue in last week's blog. (Search for "USATT Licensing Fee".) I still think we should drop that fee, and instead charge a coach's pass at the Nationals, Open and Team Trials, for those who choose to coach at those events.

Let's do some math. We now have about 50 coaches paying the $50 licensing fee. That's $2500. But we lost 138-49=89 coaches, or around 90 coaches who were USATT certified on Feb. 28 but no longer on March 1. Suppose half of those 90 were paying the $75 USATT "Pro" membership fee just to stay certified as coaches, but decided the additional $50/year was just too much (i.e. $125/year), especially on top of all the hassle of SafeSport and background checks. Then we lost 45x$75=$3375 in membership fees. $3375-$2500=$875 in lost revenue. Now it's not that simple - extra members cost office overhead, and a number of coaches will pay the $50 to get recertified at the Nationals (including me) - but overall, USATT will likely only come out a little ahead with this, and it's simply not worth the loss of all these certified coaches, not to mention the anger over this. As I said in the video, when you go from 400 to 138 to 49 certified coaches in a short period of time, you have a coaching pandemic. To put it another way, the market has spoken. (My suggestion: Cancel the licensing fee until the pandemic is over, and when we have more advanced online coaching courses to offer, and start with a lower fee.)

For me personally, the entry form works well. I'll be coaching the first four days of the Nationals, Sun-Wed. And then, on Thursday, I play in three hardbat events! (I'm normally a sponge player, but play hardbat on the side for fun.) I'm the defending and six-time champion (Nationals and Open) in Over 40 Hardbat Singles, and will likely be top seed in Over 60 Hardbat, where I'm playing for the first time. I'm also playing Open Hardbat, which I've won twice - back in 1991-1992! So I'm playing that more for warm-up, though there'll be a glint in my eye as I secretly expect to win it. Alas, no doubles - I've won Hardbat Doubles 13 times.

USATT Coaching Committee
The new coaching committee has been approved by the USATT Board. I'm returning as a member, as is Chair Pieke and member Dave. The others are new. They are: Pieke Franssen (chair), Larry Hodges, Dave Fullen, Qiumars Hedayatian, and athlete reps Jennifer Wu, Terese Terranova, and Juan Liu.

New from Samson Dubina

New from EmRatThich/PingSunday

New from Ti Long

Table Tennis Penhold Grip (Feeding Multiball)
Here's the article and video (40 sec) from Eli Baraty, on why he often feeds multiball with a penhold grip.

Butterfly Training Tips: Rachel Yang – Defensive Specialist – Drill #2 Video
Here's the video (1:21). Here's Drill #1 (1:18) from last week.

Bruce Lee Philosophy in Table Tennis
Here's the video (3:35) from InMotion Table Tennis.

The Fitness Tests Before the Chinese National Games 2021
Here's the video (6:54).

Explained: The Science Behind TT Racquets with Pimples

Here's the article from the Indian Express. It's written for non-table tennis people, but still pretty interesting.

New from USA Table Tennis

New from Steve Hopkins

All the Things We Don’t Know About Table Tennis
Here's the article by Coach Jon.

Table Tennis Climbs Up Social Standing
Here's the article from World Table Tennis.

New from the ITTF

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

Hou Yingchao vs Liang Jingkun | 2021 Chinese National Games (QUAL)
Here's the video (8:47) of this nice chopper vs. attacker match. Spoiler Alert - the chopper Hou, who has no world ranking, upsets world #10 Liang Jingkun.

Linn Sandstrom is Stunning Table Tennis Star Who Quit Sport for Boxing
Here's the article and video (59 sec) from the U.S. Sun.

Come to the Dark Side: We Play Table Tennis All Day
Here's where you can buy the shirt from Etsy!

Darth Vader vs. the Martian
Here's the cartoon!

20 Funniest Moments in Table Tennis
Here's the video (8:06)!

Funny in Table Tennis
Here's the video (3:46)!

Playing Ping Pong With A Cap | Annikas Roller
Here's the video (6:08) from XOLAY!

King of the Frozen Table
Here's the video (7 min) from Pongfinity!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Power Player Control Shots.

Weekend Coaching
This Sunday I had three group sessions. In the first, I worked with Lidney Castro with our "Advanced Beginning Junior" group. It was an easy session - we had a practice tournament! Afterwards, I gathered them and quizzed them on what they had learned regarding their strengths and weaknesses. I emphasized that you should work on everything, but focus on getting rid of weaknesses while developing overpowering strengths.

In the Intermediate Group (mostly up to about 2000 level), I acted as a practice partner, mostly blocking for an hour. The last ten minutes we did a drill where two players took turns returning my deep serves (mostly to backhand) and playing out points - and I gave them fits! I especially worked with them on returning my big breaking serve that breaks sharply into the backhand, with backspin or topspin, though I focused more on a fast, side-backspin serve that broke a foot. I also had a discussion with one of our really promising players, who has great power. I pointed out that because his shots have such hop and power, most he plays now can't block them back - and so he often doesn't need to worry about placement. But placement is a skill you need to develop, and if he doesn't develop it now, by the time he plays players who can block them back, he'll be way behind. So I told him that even if the opponent can't block his loops, he should really focus on placement - not only going to wide corners and middle, but also knowing when to go where. 

I also had a session with three beginning girls - usually there are four, but one was away. Introduced them to spin by lending them a "spin ball" (with two colors), and had them practice spinning it off their rackets. That's the first step toward teaching spin serves!

Plagiarized Book
Last week I wrote about Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers being plagiarized on Amazon. On Monday, I contacted Amazon and filled out the online paperwork. On Tuesday, they responded, asking for more info, which I gave them. You'd think it would be a quick thing - a glance at the Amazon page showed it was identical to my book, including both the book description and the interior (much of which you can see using the Amazon "Look Inside" tool - just click on the book's picture). Anyway, whoever plagiarized it got to continue selling until Saturday, when Amazon finally took it down. I begrudgingly ordered a copy, both as evidence and as a souvenir.

There were actually TWO plagiarized copies of my book, both going up on Jan. 17, 2021. Both had preposterously unwieldly titles. The first one was this one:

Notice the typo in the title, "Ans" instead of And"? Once you publish on Amazon, you can't change the title. So whoever did this realized his mistake, and redid it under another unwieldly title:

Both books were almost exact duplicates. There were three main differences. The covers were of course different. For some reason, both versions left out the Introduction. And for some weird reason, neither had page numbers. I'm a little baffled by all this - if they got a PDF copy of my book, then it would have the page numbers, not to mention the Introduction. The pages (and especially the pictures) look to sharp for them to have been photocopied from a printed copy of my book. But somehow they must have gotten a PDF version but somehow without page numbers, and for some reason without the Intro (or they left that out on purpose for some reason). The two author names are no doubt made up. I did Google them and table tennis, but nothing comes up.

Dan Seemiller Books
Dan's third book, "Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips," is done! You can order it directly from Amazon. Or you can wait until circa April 8-10, when Dan will have a large quantity available, and then you can order autographed copies directly from him. Full info is on the Dan Seemiller Book page, where you can order this or his previous two books.

Larry Hodges Books
While you are busy buying plagiarized books and Dan Seemiller books, don't forget to order copies of mine! Here are all of my books - nine on table tennis, eight science fiction & fantasy, and a travel book!

USATT Stuff

  • USATT Board of Directors Seeks Applications for Open Position with Clubs and Leagues Committee
  • USATT Board of Directors Seeks Applications for Nominating and Governance Committee
  • USATT Coaches Meeting. Here's the video (61 min) of the Zoom meeting we had on Friday. (I arrived 13 minutes late - something came up.) They are every Friday, normally at noon eastern time. There was a lot of discussions of the regional qualifiers for the Nationals, US Junior Team Trials, and various other topics. All coaches are welcome - you don't have to be USATT certified. Info is posted in USA Table Tennis Coaches page on Facebook.
  • USATT Bylaw Proposals. On March 23, USATT put up a news item with the proposed bylaw changes, with a deadline to comment of March 30 - but when you go there now (and yesterday) and click on this news item, you get "Access Denied." (I linked to it in my March 22 blog a day late.) I also paged through the USATT news items, and this news item about the proposed bylaws is no longer there. So, for unknown reasons, they took it down yesterday, on March 28, two days early. In its apparent place, this morning they put up this notice: USA Table Tennis Board of Directors Statement on Proposed Bylaw Amendments. There are serious problems with the proposed bylaws, including many that were just put out there with no rationalization given. (Most of them involve board tenures and elections.) Yesterday, former USATT Rules Chair Kagin Lee sent a rather blunt email to the USATT board about the problems with the proposed bylaws, including bylaws they are already breaking. For now, he said he'd rather just keep it between him and the board, and so I'm not going to post his letter. (Addendum: I've heard other prominent USATT people have also sent notes to the board, opposing the proposed bylaws.) 

    In the new statement, it seems to come to an end where it is "signed" as "The USATT Board of Directors," followed by "End.21 03-26a" (note the "End"), with no mention that the updated proposed bylaws are online. Then you go through a bunch of blank space, and then the USATT name, logo, and address. If you keep paging down (and you have no reason to do so), through more blank space, you will find the updated proposed bylaws. When I first wrote my blog this morning, I didn't see them, and I'm guessing neither did most people, since there was no reference to them being below the statement, or any link to them in the statement. (I had to do some rewriting of this blog when I discovered them.) At this point, since so many others are dissecting them and pointing out the problems, I might not have to. (Wouldn't that be great?) But if anyone does have comments that they put online, let me know and I'll likely link to them, either this week (as an addendum) or in my blog next Monday. 

  • US Nationals. I've heard that the entry form will be out by today (Monday), so we'll see. USATT has had me proof every US Nationals and Open entry form since the December 1999 Nationals. (I do it as a volunteer and always get back to them the same day they send it to me.) Including the 2020 Nationals (which I proofed before it got cancelled), that's 42 in a row. Typically I find dozens of small mistakes, and often a few big ones. Proofing is one of my particular set of skills - I'm the type who will notice something on page 200 that contradicts something said on page 10. I haven't seen this year's yet - at this point, perhaps they have others proofing it, and it'll go online today or soon afterwards. (When it goes live, I'll post a note here.)
    UPDATE1: They did send it to me, it's proofed, and will likely go up within a day. 
    UPDATE2: US Nationals Entry Form is up! You can enter via Omnipong. (The big change - all events are single elimination and no doubles.)
  • USATT Coaches Licensing Fee. As of today, we are down to just 47 certified coaches in the entire US. Just 3.5 years ago we had over 400, including 77 who had qualified at the National level. The pandemic had brought us down to 138 certified coaches, including 29 at the National level. There are now only ten coaches certified at the National level, and three of them are USATT employees or contractors. This huge drop is a serious problem we needed to address. As I pointed out at the time, I think it was a mistake to do this in the middle of a pandemic, when coaches are going through the hassle of annual SafeSport testing and background checks (many didn't realize it was an annual thing), and without advanced coaching classes yet offered.

    However, the term of office just ended for the previous coaching committee and there will be some changes/additions. When the new group is approved by the USATT board (presumably including me, who agreed to continue), I'll approach them with the idea of reconsidering this - at the least, it should be postponed until later, and with a lower annual fee. To be certified, coaches are required both to join USATT at the annual $75 "pro" rate and pay the new $50 annual "licensing" fee - so $125/year for most. Between this and SafeSport, the market has shown that few are willing to do this. We can't help SafeSport, but we should be focused on fixing the problem of losing so many coaches rather than aggravating the problem.

    Stellan Bengtsson, Dan Seemiller, the entire professional coaching staffs at MDTTC, Lily Yip TTC, Westchester TTC, ICC, World Champions TTA, Samson Dubina TTA - none are USATT certified coaches any longer. There are now zero certified coaches in many states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, and Massachusetts, and only one in Maryland (an inactive coach), New Jersey, and Nevada. Of the 47 who are certified, some are full-time coaches, but many are part-timers or "hobbiests," i.e. those who earned their certification and wish to continue it, but are no longer coaching much on a regular basis. I was told the point of this licensing fee was to get the "serious' coaches, not the hobbiests - but we seem to be getting mostly the reverse. Of course, some coaches will become certified again before the Nationals in July, not because of anything new offered by USATT, but because USATT will likely require it to coach at the Nationals. (I hope that my naming names above won't lead to a witch hunt where USATT coerces coaches into paying the $50 licensing fee - if USATT can't convince them on the merits, then we have to rethink the program.)

  • Kanak Jha vs. Fan Bo Meng - TTBL Selected (5:54)

New from Samson Dubina

Coaching Tip on Mentality
Here's the article by USA Team Member Crystal Wang

Seth Pech Vs Dan Liu 2021 10,000 Dollar Invitational
Here's the video (8:18), with Seth's point-by-point analysis. "Table tennis match between Dan Liu 2600 player vs Seth Pech 2450 player."

New from EmRatThich/PingSunday
He's been active!

New from Ti Long

Rachel Yang - Defensive Specialist - Drill #1
Here's the video (1:18).

How Dimitrij Ovtcharov Solved the Lin Yun-Ju Problem at WTT Doha
Here's the article, with links to a number of short videos of specific points. Lin (TPE) is world #6; Ovtcharov (GER) is world #9 and former #1.

Crystal Wang Interview With Rachel Sung
Here's the video (2:50). Just a few weeks ago it was Crystal interviewing Rachel (3:06)! Both are on the US Junior Girls Team.

US Opens and Nationals Results
Here are all available results, 1931 to present! Vince Mioduszewski, who created and maintains the web page, is still hunting down some results, but the huge bulk are there.

New from Steve Hopkins

Table Tennis – Members Only??
Here's the article from Coach Jon. "Jon’s Table Tennis Training has survived the pandemic. While 2020 earnings were cut in half from 2019, people are starting to ease back into training. As COVID cases have gone down, interest in table tennis has gone up."

Table Tennis Player Wins Eighth State Crown
Here's the article featuring Steve Emmons, West Virginia Champion.

New from the ITTF

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

I Will Strive to Win More than Gold - I'll Raise Awareness of Para Sports
Here's the article from Tokyo 2020, featuring Koyo Iwabuchi of Japan. "With no search results of 'para table tennis video' showing up on the web, I decided to make one myself, and launched my YouTube Channel."

12th Paralympics Anime Short is Team Futari Novel's 1st Anime
Here's the article.

Meet the Talented Quincy, a Ping-Pong Playing Cat
Here's the article and video (36 sec). I linked to a video of Quincy last week, but this is a longer version.

You Just Got Served Table Tennis Shirt
Here's where you can buy it on Amazon!

Pingpong Lucu
Here's the video (7:11) - it's in Chinese, but still interesting and funny to watch!

The Love of Table Tennis
Here's the video (2:32)!

Funny Ding Ning and Chen Meng
Here's the video (1:25)!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Rally Down Faster & Quicker Players.

Coaching Niches
Recently, I've sort of fallen into four "niche" coaching roles. I used to coach all aspects of the game to all levels, but that's gradually changed. More and more these days at the Maryland Table Tennis Center I've been doing these four things:

  • Coach the Beginning Junior Classes. I've been doing this for years. A look at the USATT ranking pages show that kids that started out with me currently are #1 in 11 and Under; #1, 4, and 6 in 12 and Under; #4 in Under 16 Girls; and a whole slew of others among the top twenty or so of their age group. (Many thanks to the great coaches who continued their development!) There are two keys to success at coaching at that level: Give them a good foundation, and keep it fun. Some think that you put the least experienced coach in charge of beginners, but that's a recipe for huge headaches later on when the "experienced" coaches have to fix all those problems! But you don't need to be a top player to teach beginning juniors - you need to have a solid foundation on how to teach the basics, and know how to teach it. (And again, half of that is keeping it fun!)
  • Coach at Tournaments. Since I did write Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers, this has always been a big focus of mine. Even in the pandemic, I've coached our top juniors at two recent tournaments in Ohio, and will be doing so next month at the Butterfly Invitational in North Carolina next month. (A big part of this is also doing writeups for other coaches on what the kids need to work on - both to fix up weaknesses and to develop overpowering strengths. Plus, I've had Covid tests afterwards each time, both negative.) I also spend a lot of time talking tactics with our junior players. Of course, much of coaching matches isn't just tactics; there's also a lot of sports psychology, which leads to...
  • Sports Psychology. I've been doing this for decades, both when coaching matches and in training sessions. I'm not a trained psychologist - they are expensive! - but I've took a number of sports psychology sessions at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs when I was at varying times there as a player, manager, coach, and director. I've also read about ten books on the subject. More importantly, I have many decades experience at it. So recently I've been working with our kids, one-on-one, using Dora Kurimay's Get Your Game Face On Like The Pros! as a reference. Since I know the players pretty well, I know which aspects to focus on for each. For example, one player I'm working on doesn't really get that nervous, but he gets very frustrated when things don't go well (hint - that happens in every competitive match), and so we work on that. Another simply gets nervous and so doesn't play as well as he should.
  • Serves. Along with receive and tactics, this has always been one of my favorite topics. I've taken to mixing this in with the sports psychology sessions. Serves have always been one of my big strengths, and so I'm able to demonstrate by having the kids - often 2000+ players - try to return them, and they miss over and over. (The last two kids I worked with - both rated over 2000 - missed my first five serves. In a game situation, those are called "free points"! It opens their eyes to the possibilities, and pretty quickly they were learning those serves.) They all have good "third-ball serves" the primary serves you should use to set yourself up for an attack (often varying backspin-sidespin and no-spin), and the serves that should be emphasized if you want to get good. But I'm also teaching them "trick" serves - serves designed to often win the point outright, if used as an occasional surprise, and which also make your other serves more effective since the receiver has to guard against the "trick" serves. (Most of these serves are long serves.) So I'm teaching them serves like fast no-spin to the elbow or wide backhand; big breaking serves to the wide backhand, both fast and slow; sudden down-the-line serves to the forehand; and innocent-looking short serves that look like backspin but are actually topspin. You always assume these serves will come back and prepare for that, but if used occasionally, they often are free points, either from outright misses or pop-up returns.

Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers - Plagiarized!
Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers has been the best-selling table tennis book for much of the past eight years - and now some no-good crook has plagiarized it! Someone alerted me to it last night - and there it was, published in January on Amazon, with a different title and cover, and someone else's name! When you do the internal search on Amazon, you can see it's my book - the words, pictures, and every page layout. (The person with the book also verified this.) I googled the "author" of the this "new" book, but nothing came up - likely a fake name. I'm contacting a lawyer later today to see what my options are, and of course will be contacting Amazon. I grudgingly ordered a copy as evidence, and as a memento and reminder of the lowlifes of humanity. (This isn't my first experience with plagiarism - someone also did this in both China and Indonesia with my book Table Tennis: Steps to Success. The book is from 1993, a bit out of date, and out of print - the only ones on sale now are used copies that I don't get royalties on - so I hope to someday go back and update it.)

USATT Board of Directors Seeks Member Comment on Proposed Amendments to the Bylaws
Here's the USATT news item. "Proposed Amendments Seek to Increase Athlete Representation and Expand List of Eligible Elite Athletes." Deadline to comment is March 30. (USOPC now requires us to have 1/3 athlete representation on the board. This segment went up on Tuesday afternoon, when USATT put it up.) 

Tournament 5-Star Sanctioning
There's something weird going on with USATT tournament sanctioning. I'm sure they are following the rules in assigning star values, but when the result of those rules don't make sense, it's time to re-examine the rules. Let's take a look at two tournaments that were both held last weekend:

  • Patty and Si Wasserman Junior Table Tennis Tournament: $10,000 in cash & prizes; 115 players; 964 matches; played on 18 tables; 18 events; nine players rated over 2400, 21 over 2200, 37 over 2000.
  • 2021 US National TT Championships North Carolina State Qualifier: Zero prize money; ten players; 24 matches; two events held (Men's Singles, over 65); zero players rated over 2000.

What is strange about this? The first one was a 2-star tournament (and seemed like a 4-star); the second a 5-star tournament!!! (This is from the USATT listing; in the Omnipong listing, the NC tournament is listed as 4-star for some reason.) It doesn't make sense. There's nothing wrong with holding regional qualifiers, like the one in North Carolina, and there's nothing wrong with the tournament itself, which I'm sure was run expertly (and this has nothing to do with the tournament itself, just its star designation). But it's NOT a 5-star tournament (or 4-star, for that matter), not in any way that makes sense. The US Nationals and US Open are 5-star tournament, the highest level; they are national tournaments with large prize money and typically 800 players. The NC Qualifier is, by definition, a State tournament. Calling a state tournament with ten players and zero prize money a 5-star tournament simply doesn't pass the smell test. I hope USATT or the USATT tournament committee - hard-working volunteers all - can take a look at this - something is out of whack here. (Note also that when people go to the USATT tournament listing and see something listed as a 5-star event - or even search for 5-star events - they are expecting something big.)

The State Qualifiers do have a list of 31 potential events to be held, if they get a minimal number of entries, which range from 2 to 8 (most require 4), but in a state qualifier, most states won't reach the minimum in the vast majority of events. Here, for example, was the NC Qualifier entry form - see page 4.

USATT Coaches Meeting
We had our weekly USATT Coaches Zoom meeting on Friday at noon (eastern time). Here's the video (45 min). We only had four this time - Sean O'Neill, Ty Hoff, Britt Salter, and me. Topics discussed included traveling (especially cross-country) and how to deal with it; US Team Trials, Nationals, and Olympics; and Covid testing.

Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips, by Dan Seemiller
As I wrote last week, the book was done, but many of the photos in it had been scanned at a lower resolution than was optional. So I spent the past week redoing a lot of it, both from scans by Dan's son, Dan Jr., and scanning others myself. The new and final version of the book, with photos scanned at higher resolution, should be up and ready by the end of this week. It's actually done, but a test copy is being sent to Dan for final proofing. I'll update here when the book is available. Once ready, you can order autographed copies directly from Dan Seemiller!

No-Look Forehand
Here's the video (6 sec) as Matt Hetherington pulls it off against John Hsu. The shot was made famous by USATT Hall of Famer Tim Boggan, who demonstrates and explains the shot in his 1976 book Winning Table Tennis. (Amazon doesn't show the actual cover - here it is.) The book is both instructive (circa 1976) and autobiographical. Tim, 90, also has his History of US Table Tennis series.

Fundamentals by Abid Sheikh at the Newton TTC.

Butterfly Training Tips

3 Very Common Mistakes in Table Tennis
Here's the video (2:41) from Pingponged TV.

New from Ti Long

Seth Pech Vs Gabriel Perez 2021 Petty Si Wasserman Tournament
Here's the video (7:30) where Seth analyzes the points.

Magical Number 7
Here's the video (2:32) by Dave Fullen. "Mental preparation for a table tennis match, and all racket sports. Short term memory. Mental focus during competition."

A Practical Path to Table Tennis Improvement
Here's the article by Coach Jon. It's an interesting take from someone who, as he wrote, started at age 40. Most top players start very young. I'm sort of in the middle, since I started at the relatively "old" age of 16. (But I started training many hours almost from the start, and from the start, was a student of the game instead of just practicing and hoping to get better.)

THE Honest Most Complete Blades Guide
Here's the video (13 min).

New from EmRatThich/PingSunday

New from Samson Dubina

  • NEW Record - featuring Sarah Jalli, now rated 2467. (Technically, USATT ratings began I believe in 1974, 47 years ago, but they did have rankings before that.)
  • Sponsorship Secret (This one does contain some religious content, which I try to avoid here, but on the whole, it's mostly about how to get sponsors.)
  • Tournament Videos
  • NEW Training Videos

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

New from Steve Hopkins

New from the ITTF

Missed Serve, Flying Racket
Here's the video (47 sec) of these two serves as Mima Ito (JPN, world #2) serves to Yu Mengyu (SGP, world #48).

Explosive Rackets
Here they are!

Guys Play Ping Pong With FIVE Balls | Racquet Sports Compilation
Here's the video (8 min)!

Quincy The Cat Plays Ping Pong And He Can Probably Whoop Your Tail, Too
Here's the video (14 sec)!

XOLAY vs. JENGA - Who is the KING? + Funny Rap Outtakes
Here's the video (7:12) from XOLAY!

World's Most Ridiculous Ping Pong Serves
Here's the video (3:49) from Pongfinity!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Do You Really Play the Middle?

The $10,000 Patty and Si Wasserman Junior Table Tennis Tournament
Once again I had a great time in Akron, Ohio, where I went this past Friday and Saturday to coach two of our junior players from Maryland. Here are complete results, care of TTLive. There were 116 players in the tournament, played on 18 tables.

Five juniors from the Maryland Table Tennis Center went to the tournament: Stanley Hsu, Ryan Lin, William & Winston Wu, and Tiffany Ke. I was in charge of coaching Stanley and Ryan; Cheng Yinghua had William & Winston; and I believe Tiffany's dad coached her. Here's a group picture (Tiffany missing) - L-R: Larry Hodges, Stanley Hsu, Ryan Lin, Winston Wu, William Wu, Cheng Yinghua.

Here's a Facebook posting by Stanley about the tournament, along with 16 pictures taken by his dad. Here are some of them:

Here are hordes of photos from the tournament, from CLJ Studio Photography. 

The tournament was sponsored by USATT Hall of Famers Patty Martinez and Si Wasserman, and held at the Samson Dubina TTA. Here's info on the tournament's history:

"This event was originally called the Nate Wasserman Junior Table Tennis Classic, this prestigious annual tournament initiated in 2007. It was dedicated to the memory of Si's younger brother Nate, who helped Si run the famous California Table Tennis Center in Hollywood, California in the 1950s. The tournament over the years expanded a number of events and has been conducted every year under the leadership of Danny Seemiller. This is the 14th annual classic. In 2016 the title was changed to the 'Si and Patty Wasserman Junior Table Tennis Championship' to commemorate the marriage of USATT's living legends. These cash awards are given each year to help inspire young champions to continue their table tennis success!"

I went up with Stanley and Ryan and their dads (Steve and Hung) on Thursday afternoon, returning on Sunday morning. We had a lot of fun in the ride - Stanley and Ryan both love brain teasers so I came supplied with hordes of them, and the time went by quickly.

As usual, the tournament was run very well by Samson & crew. The tournament staff was Steve Graber, Josh Graber, Dan Seemiller, Mike Boyd, Blake Cottrel, and Samson Dubina. It's a great facility, with rubberized floors on all 18 tables, and perfect lighting. Once again they offered free lunch (various deli sandwiches) and dinner (delicious pasta with tomato sauce and optional meatballs, I had two plates) on Saturday. All the expected Covid precautions were taken, with everyone's temperature taken on the way in, social distancing, and masks required except when actually at the table playing. The level of play was very high.

The tournament was divided into six time segments: 10AM, 2PM, and 6PM on Fri and Sat. Each time slot had two to four events, with a total of 18. With round robins often of seven, and with four advancing, it was a LOT of matches! Stanley ended up playing 34 matches in two days, Ryan 27, with both playing in five events. I coached 36 matches - fortunately, the matches were spread out enough, and there were enough non-competitive matches, plus matches where the Maryland juniors played each other (so no coach) that I was able to be there for essentially every match that mattered or was competitive.

Coaching at a tournament is both fun and scary. Fun, because you get to work with someone in helping them play well. Scary, because you don't want to be the one to mess up and cost them a match! But Stanley and Ryan are fun to work with. Stanley, 12, came in rated 2274, #1 in the US for 12 and Under. Ryan, 11, came in rated 1992, #2 in the US in 11 and Under, and #6 in 12 and Under. (Teammate Winston Wu is #1 in 11 and Under at 2001, and #5 in 12 and Under.) Both Stanley and Ryan had very nice tournaments, with Stanley winning 13 and Under and making the final of 15 and Under, and Ryan winning 11 and Under.

Stanley played two players named Kai with identical ratings of 2416: Kai Jiang and Kai Zarehbin. Against Jiang, he was up 2-1 in games and, despite some disappointing nets and edges, was up 10-9 match point in the fourth, only to lose 11-9 in the fifth. But then he turned it around and won against Zarehbin, also 11-9 in the fifth. (But Zarehbin would have his revenge, winning 3-0 in their rematch later in the tournament.) Stanley also lost 11-9 in the fifth to Sid Naresh (2492) - on a net ball!!! He had a number of other good wins. However, we ran into a problem on Saturday morning. On Friday, Stanley played the final of 15 and Under, losing to Nandan Naresh. It was the last match of the tournament for that day - but didn't end until 11:45PM. So Stan went to bed late, and had to get up early, just as he had had to do in his last tournament - and for the second time in a row, he woke up with a headache. He played with it on Saturday morning, and had two "bad" losses to 2200 players, before he got over it. But it means we have to make plans for future tournaments - no more late-night events followed by morning events; Stanley gets nine hours sleep for now on! When he gets his sleep, he's 2400 level. He won 13 and Under Boys by winning eight straight 3-0 matches, and gave Nandan Naresh a good battle in 15 and Under Boys.

I could write a book on the 11 and Under Boys' Event. Winston was top seed, followed by Ryan, and then Rignesh Padamanur, rated 1852 but about 2000 level. In the round robin, Ryan was caught off guard by Rignesh's excellent short pushes, strong backhand, and consistent forehand, and lost in five. Emotionally, it was a devasting loss, since he felt like he wasn't in control because he wasn't able to flip Rignesh's short pushes. But he got past it, and determined to play better, fought his way to the final, winning 3-0 against teammate Winston in the semifinals. Before the final, I had Ryan spend 20 minutes practicing with Stanley, where Ryan served short, Stanley pushed short, and Ryan flipped, forehand or backhand. It paid off - this time Ryan was more prepared for Rignesh's short pushes, and won the final, 9,8,7. Ryan played well in other matches, including a win over a 2152 player, and pushed some 2200 players pretty hard.

I got permission from Stanley's and Ryan's parents to write about their matches - but can't give out tactical secrets! Stanley generally dominates with his close-to-table two-winged looping game - few can withstand his relentless backhand loop, done so quick off the bounce it's on you before you can blink. His forehand is also close to table - when players loop there, his off-the-bounce counterloop is often past them before they can react. There are a few things he needs to work on, but I can't write about them here. Ryan plays a similar two-winged attack, with a more forehand-oriented game - but his backhand loop this tournament was very consistent. He gets frustrated when things don't go well, but was much, Much, MUCH better this tournament at dealing with adversity. I've been working with him on sports psychology, and it seems to be paying off. I like that he's taken to nodding his head in acknowledgement when an opponent plays a great point and so doesn't let it bother him. He can also separate disappointment at losing from judging his own play. So when he plays well but loses, he’s more okay with it. Fortunately, this tournament, he mostly played well!!!

There were a lot of tactical things that went on. For example, one thing I stressed with both was having a go-to serve. You should have a general one that you like to use against most players, but it may change, depending on the opponent. For example, back when I was an active player, my "go-to" serve was often a forehand pendulum short side-top serve that allowed me to follow up over and over with my forehand - it was tricky for opponents to attack it to my forehand side, and so I could edge over to my backhand side and cover nearly the whole table with my forehand, and not worry about them dropping it short since the serve had topspin. But against a player without a good backhand loop, my go-to serve might change to a big breaking serve to an opponent's backhand. Similarly, Stanley and Ryan both have go-to serves, but it sometimes changes, depending on the opponent.

I think Stanley and Ryan used their trophies as pillows on Saturday night. And then it was back to Maryland - and Covid tests before we can go back to the club.

Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips, by Dan Seemiller
I blogged about this two weeks ago. The book was done, and was actually up on Amazon - but since it's essentially a picture book, it's important that the pictures be as good as possible. Dan realized that the pictures he'd had scanned and sent to me hadn't been scanned at high enough resolution. And so, he had someone take pictures of 90 of the originals, at higher resolution and clarity. That means I have to go through all 300, do any needed fixing up, and then place them into the book again. Yikes - there goes my week! :) Hopefully, I'll get it done this week, and the book will be ready again by next week. I'll give an update next week.

USATT Coaching Certification and Licensing Fee
I blogged about this on March 1 - see segment on USATT Coaching Excellence Licensing Fee. As I'd feared, we lost a lot of coaches. According to the USATT listing, USATT is down to just 39 certified coaches in the whole country. Hopefully, that'll pick up soon. 

For perspective, on Feb. 28, the day before the licensing fee was required, there were 138 USATT certified coaches. And that was after huge losses in recent years, much of it due to SafeSport requirements. For further perspective, when I stepped down as coaching chair in 2017, there were around 400 USATT certified coaches. (I am still on the coaching committee.) Not all of them were active of course, but neither are all of the 39 who are now certified. (All of California now has only six certified coaches; New York two; New Jersey and Maryland one each.) Many of our most successful and most active coaches are no longer certified - in fact, the huge majority of full-time coaches in the US are no longer certified. Between the hassle of SafeSport (mostly unavoidable), and now the added $50 licensing fee, on top of the required $75 USATT "Pro" membership fee, in the middle of a pandemic when coaches (like many others) are already struggling, it's simply gotten to be too much. I hope I can convince USATT to cancel this licensing fee, and perhaps consider it later on, after the pandemic is over, when we have more USATT coaching courses (we only have ones for club level right now), and with a lower annual fee. We need to think of our coaches as a resource for bringing players into the game, not as a direct revenue source.

We really need to start focusing more on our sport's infrastructure. A few years ago, there were nearly 400 USATT sanctioned clubs. Now there are 161. Again, much of this was because of SafeSport, but USATT needs to find ways to overcome this. I'm fairly certain there are actually more clubs now than before, they just no longer find it in their interest to be USATT sanctioned. We need to find ways to change that because USATT needs them more than they need us. 

On a related note, in the new USATT CEO blog, March Chop and Smash Blog, it says, "Furthermore, requiring [bold is added] that all persons engaged in coaching activities at USATT Member Clubs are properly certified allows the organization to maintain the protections available to those Member Clubs under USATT's Comprehensive Liability Insurance Policy." I don't believe this is accurate - there is not and never has been a requirement for this. There are many dozens of full-time coaches who are not (and have not been) on the certified coaches list who coach at USATT sanctioned clubs. If a non-certified coach coaches at a club, then that club may not get the full benefits of USATT insurance, but that's different than saying that all persons engaged in coaching activities at USATT Member Clubs are required to be certified. (USATT insurance only helps some clubs - why not simply charge the clubs that need it instead of the coaches who usually don't?) I have emailed the chair of the coaching committee on this, but haven't received a response yet.

Serve & Attack Sequence
Here's the video (2:58) by Jishan Liang, featuring Yudi Jin.

Coaches Corner: The Hook Serve
Here's the USATT article by Shuang Wang.

Loop Against Underspin With Zelin Ye
Here's the video (3:16). Zelin, 13, is rated 2246, #5 for his age in the US.

Foundational & Advanced Skills
Here's the video (2:01) with Gabriel Perez.

New from Samson Dubina

New from Ti Long

New from PingSunday/EmRatThich

PingSkills Ask the Coach Podcasts
Here they are, on various topics.

ITTF High Performance & Development Webinar 38 - Coaching Pathway
Here's the video (76 min).

USATT News

Lily Zhang at WTT Star Contender Doha
Here's the video (47 sec).

14-Year-Old Prodigy Will DOMINATE You In Table Tennis!
Here's the video (8:37) featuring Faith Hu. She is on the TTTeamUSA Female National Team.

2021 World University Games Selection Procedures
Here's the info page from NCTTA.

The Table Tennis Writer
Here's the article by Coach Jon. Hey, he's giving out our trade secrets!!!

Genius Skills in Table Tennis
Here's the video (8:03) from Table Tennis Central.

=>BEGIN INTERNATIONAL SECTION

World Singles Qualification Tournament
The ITTF event is taking place in Doha, Qatar, March 14-17.

World Table Tennis Middle East Hub 2 - Coverage by Steve Hopkins

New from Steve Hopkins
(See also his articles on the WTT Middle East Hub)

Tomokazu Harimoto, Mima Ito Claim Singles Titles in Doha
Here's the article from the Kyodo News.

World Table Tennis
Here are lots of great videos! Here's a good one to start with: World-Class Table Tennis Rallies (6:18, Day Three at the WTT Star Contender Doha 2021).

Masters of Skill: International Women's Day Special
Here's the ITTF video (6:28).

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

=>END INTERNATIONAL SECTION

Ping-Pong Ninja Shirt
You can get one at Amazon!

Multi-Sport Ping-Pong?
Here's the cartoon!

Ping-Pong Murder Mystery
Here's the cartoon! Long-pips Phantom users, take note!

German Speedrun Ends Here
Here's the video (10:38) from Adam Bobrow!

One Will Go Home HUNGRY - Stella or Simon? Chocolate Special!
Here's the video (8:36) from XOLAY Table Tennis!

Finally, a Real Chopper
Here's the video (28 sec)!

Quicksilver Plays Table Tennis

Butterfly Manyball Dance Battle
Here's the video (30 sec)!

***
Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week
Experiment with Serves and Receives Early.

Sports Psychology, Weekend Coaching, and Ohio, Oh My!!!
I may have to go back to college and get another degree, this one in psychology. I’m starting to do more sports psychology sessions with our up-and-coming juniors. I wrote about this in my February 15 blog, under “Weekend Coaching.” As a match coach, I’ve been both learning and teaching sports psychology for about 40 years (including many group sessions with the sports psychologist at the US Olympic Training Center during my four years there), but now I’m doing one-on-one sessions on it. From those years of coaching and learning, I have a whole basket full of mental tricks to help players overcome almost any sports psychology problem - but rather than deal with it during a tournament, it’s best to address it and solve the problem before the tournament begins.

I’ve actually found a unique mix - the sessions are actually joint sports psychology and serves. For the sports psychology, I’m using Dora Kurimay’s book Get Your Game Face On Like The Pros! - here's my review. (So she’s getting a bunch of sales from Maryland - a number of them have ordered copies now.) While the whole book is valuable, for our specific purposes I’ve picked out about 2/3 of the book that I assign the player to read. Our first session is before they read it, where I outline what they are going to go over - in particular, the four R’s covered in the book: Reaction, Recover, Ready, and Ritual. While I’d never formulated it that way specifically, I’ve always done the same four things she teaches, as do most top players. In the second session we go over the four R’s, one by one. I also pick out specific parts of the book that apply specifically to the player - that’s the advantage of knowing the players as I do. For these sessions, I have to do some prep work each time.

The serving aspect is both to teach serves and a release. (And it’s easy for me - I don’t even have to prepare since I’ve been coaching serves for many decades.) All our kids have what I would call well-developed third-ball serves. These are serves that somewhat consistently set up their attacks, and are the main serves top players should use. However, it’s valuable to have some “off” serves as well - trick serves that might give you one or two “free” points a game (and probably far more below the 2000 level) - but perhaps even more importantly, they give the opponent something else to worry about, thereby making your regular serves more effective. I start off by throwing all my trick serves at the player, and unless he’s over 2200, he’s going to have a terrible time at first! (I always go in early to practice my serves before such a session.) But pretty much by definition, trick serves only work when used sparingly - but as I point out, think of the value of a few “free” points per game, and how much better it makes your other serves as the opponent guards against the occasional trick serve! I tend to go over fast no-spin to the middle and wide backhand; big breaking serves to the backhand; fast down-the-line to the forehand; tomahawk or reverse pendulum serves short or half-long into the forehand, and ways to make a side-top serves look like backspin (by having racket tip go down during contact, but contact is on other side of paddle, going up, as paddle rotates in a circle; plus exaggerating the downward motion). There are others, but these are my favorites.

I may end up doing group Zoom sessions for a bunch of the kids. This might be more efficient, but I’m leery because 1) it means giving less personal attention to each player in the group session, since each is different, 2) I’ve never taught a class on Zoom, and 3) I wouldn’t be able to do the “fun” serve session we finish with.

On Sunday, I ran one junior session and assisted in another. In the one I ran, we did a lot of serve practice, and I brought out the two serving devices. One is the serving bar (here set high for beginners) created by John Olsen. The other was the TT-Serve (search on the page for it) created by Samson Dubina. Both have adjustable heights. They force servers to serve low, so that the ball goes under the bar or screen. The kids enjoy this challenge, especially when I put Froggy on the far side, so they have to serve under the bar and hit the poor frog. I also spent some time with one of the kids who was trying to learn to serve effectively, since he’d discovered I could loop all of his deep serves. If I do a good job on this, someday he’ll beat me. If I do a bad job of this, he’ll never beat me. Either way I win!!! (But let’s go with the former.)

I also had a session with Navin Kumar. Here are two videos he put up.

  • Blocking (35 sec). I’m feeding multiball loops to his backhand or forehand, and he has to react to each. He’s doing well with the footwork here - note the bouncing between shots and moving to each ball - but he needs to chop down more on the backhand where he deadens the ball with his pips. I should have caught that while doing the drill - earlier he was chopping down much more, returning all my topspin as backspin.
  • Smashing lobs (25 sec).

This next weekend I’m off to Ohio for The Patty and Si Wasserman Junior Table Tennis Tournament. Cheng Yinghua and I will be going there to coach Stanley Hsu, Ryan Lin, and William & Winston Wu. (I’m in charge of Stanley and Ryan, while Cheng has the Wu’s.)

USATT’s T2 Challenge: Season Two
Here’s the home page - they just completed week one, where Jimmy Butler defeated Deng Zhen. Here’s the upcoming schedule:

Matches Team Omega   Team Alpha Premier Date Watch

Match 1

DENG Zhen

vs

Jimmy BUTLER

4 March 2021

Watch Now

Match 2

LI Kewei

vs

Shahin Akhlaghpasand

11 March 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 3

LIN Jiaqi

vs

WANG Huijing

18 March 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 4

Seth PECH

vs

Chance FRIEND

25 March 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 5

DI Yu

vs

LIANG Jishan

1 April 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 6

LIU Juan

vs

Sharon ALGUETTI

8 April 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 7

Matilda EKHOLM

vs

Mishel LEVINSKI

15 April 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 8

Adar ALGUETTI

vs

LI Jian

22 April 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 9

Jon Ernesto EBUEN

vs

Kokou FANNY

29 April 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 10

Jayden ZHOU

vs

Massao Kohatsu

6 May 2021

Stay Tuned

Match 11

Nikhil KUMAR

vs

Angie TAN

To Be Announced

Stay Tuned

Match 12

YE Tian

vs

Dan LIU

To Be Announced

Stay Tuned

Match 13

William BAI

vs

WEI Dianren

To Be Announced

Stay Tuned

Match 14

PU Zheng

vs

LYU Boliang

To Be Announced

Stay Tuned

Match 15

ZHANG Xiangjing

vs

ZHANG Kai

To Be Announced

Stay Tuned

Match 16

Ted LI

vs

Udaya RANASINGHA

To Be Announced

Stay Tuned

Smash! Moments, Memories and Tips, by Dan Seemiller
I blogged about this last week. The book is actually done, but before going public, Dan did one more proofing, and has a number of corrections/changes that I’ll get to after finishing this blog. If all goes well, it’ll be ready and available this week! When it is, besides Dan and I announcing it on Facebook, I’ll add a note and link to it here. It’ll be on sale both at Amazon and by Dan, who will sell autographed copies at a lower price than Amazon!

Ball Picker-Uppers
You may have noticed a new ad on the left here, for Babo Ball Pickers. They have two types - a tube version, and a multiball picker that picks up a whole bunch at once. I tried out the tube one with the kids yesterday, and they had a lot of fun with it. Here are some of the common ball picker-uppers. If you have one or know of one I should add to the list, email me. (I may run this again if I missed some - and I know I did.)  

Junior Representative Poll and Discussion
Here’s the poll and Discussion, on Facebook, put together by USATT board member Thomas Hu. “Your overwhelming response on the previous poll is to add a new director to the USATT board to represent the junior membership. A large group that has never been represented in the USATT at all. Now, I’d like to ask you to help me by answering what type of representative you’d like to see. I have offered four options, if you have another please add it in the comments!”

New from Samson Dubina

New from Seth Pech

New from Ti Long

Training Tips: Loop Against Underspin
Here’s the video (3:16) from Zelin Ye.

Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Tips for Receiving Serves
Here’s the article by Vikash Sahu & Rajko Gommers. “Service and receive are at the essence of competing at a high-level in table tennis.”

The Overwhelming Speed of Table Tennis
Here’s the article by Coach Jon.

New from Steve Hopkins
(See also his articles under Middle East Hub.)

Table Tennis Talk Podcast - Episode 22 - February 2021
Here’s the video (56:37) from Joey Cochran. “In this month’s episode of Table Tennis Talk, we cover the All Japan 2021 tournament and Ryan’s first tournament in VR with Eleven Table Tennis VR. Then we profile notable Black US Table Tennis players including George Braithwaite, Norman Bass Jr, Jennifer Johnson, and Marcus Jackson.”

New from the Malong Fanmade Channel
Lots of new videos here!

91-Year-Old Senior Plays Ping Pong to Stay Active and Mentally Fit
Here’s the video (2:31). “Eileen Greene is 91 years old and enjoyed a lifetime playing tennis, but once she was diagnosed with diabetes, she had to find a way to stay fit safely. That’s when her son Richard got her a ping pong table.”

Massachusetts SQT - Westford TTC, Qiumars Hedayatian
Here’s the USATT news item.

=>BEGIN INTERNATIONAL SECTION

International Women’s Day: Online Conference Open to All
Here’s the ITTF info page. IT’S TODAY!!! (Monday, March 8.) Here’s the USATT news item on it, with various links.

Middle East Hub Articles by Steve Hopkins
“The first ITTF event of 2021 is officially underway in Doha, Qatar.  The “Middle East Hub” is a series of four events that begin with the WTT Contender Event this week, then the WTT Star Contender Event on March 5, then the World Singles Qualification Tournament on March 14, and finally the Asian Olympic Qualification Tournament on March 18.”

ITTF News

Why Did Ma Long Choose Table Tennis as His Sport?
Here’s the article by EmRatThich at PingSunday.

Man in China Plays Ping-Pong with Elderly Mother Using Rolling Pin and Other Objects
Here’s the video (4:26). They make bats out of novel objects and practice two hours per day for the past 20 years.

=>END INTERNATIONAL SECTION

Virtual Reality Table Tennis | Eleven | The Most Realistic VR Game!
Here’s the video (9:14) from Table Tennis Daily.

XOLAY Table Tennis
Here’s a site that features lots of funny and weird table tennis videos!

Ping Pong Legend Tommy Lee Jones Vs An Amateur Challenger
Here’s the video (5 sec) which seems to be someone smashing balls at actor Tommy Lee Jones, who effortlessly returns them, and then the challenger screams.

Ping Pong Trickshot 2 (quarantine edition)
Here’s the video (42 sec)!

Frozen Table Challenge
Here’s the video (9:26) from Pongfinity!

Ping-Pong Can Be Funny
Here’s the video (8:58) of what seems the best of Pongfinity!

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