Happy Thanksgiving!!!

See my Thanksgiving links at the end of this blog.

Malware warnings all gone

It took a while, and I had to hire Sucuri Securities, but all the problems are over with Google blacklisting the site for malware that was long gone. Our long national nightmare is over. Or at least mine is. (One complication - apparently you might get a false malware warning if you visited the site recently. If so, clear your cache - sorry! - and it'll go away. That's what happened to me.)

No Blog Friday

I'll be coaching (and playing part-time) Fri-Sun at the North American Team Championships. Here's a preview picture!

Crystal Wang Enters the Stratosphere

Crystal Wang, age 10, is now rated 2245. This is by far the highest rating ever achieved by a girl at that age, and the second highest for anyone that age, boys or girls. The highest rating ever achieved by a 10-year-old is Kanak Jha two years ago at 2265. (And Crystal still has three months to gain 20+ points before she turns 11.) No one else has even been close to breaking 2200 at that age. For perspective, Ariel Hsing's highest rating as a 10-year-old was 2066, and Lily Zhang's was 1887 - and these two are now both our best junior girls and our best women as well.

To recap what I wrote in my blog last week (Nov. 13), Crystal already had achieved the highest rating ever for a 9-year-old last year, boys or girls, at an even 2150. She was rated 2166 earlier this year when she began complaining of wrist problems, and had three poor tournaments in a row, dropping to 2099 - still #1 in the country for Under 11, Under 12, and Under 13. They x-rayed the wrist and discovered she'd been playing with a fractured (i.e. broken) wrist. So she had to take most of the summer off. She started up again at the end of the summer, and now she's even better than before. At the Potomac Open she defeated players rated 2334, 2240, 2205, and 2149, without losing to anyone under 2200. It's no fluke as she just before the Potomac Open she defeated two players over 2300 to make the final of the MDTTC Elite League. (Crystal trains at the Maryland Table Tennis Center.)

Crystal (yes, she was born in the U.S.) plays a very modern two-winged looping game, hitting and looping on both sides. She's a member of the USA Cadet Girls' Team, making the team last year as a 9-year-old competing in an under 15 event. She trains long hours, day after day, with Coach Jack Huang her primary coach, though she also trains with the MDTTC coaches and players. She and Amy Wang (no relation, a year younger, coincidentally rated 2099, from NJ) are essentially Ariel & Lily, Part II, east coast version - the new Dynamic Duo, but rated even higher for their ages. The Walloping Wangs? But they both have a lot of work ahead of them if they want to follow in the huge footsteps of Ariel and Lily. 

And to think I'll have to write about this all over again if Crystal breaks 2265 in the next three months....Jeez.

Just to be clear, I'm not obsessed with ratings, and in fact believe they often hurt the sport, especially at the junior stage. (Here's my article on Juniors and Ratings, which I also linked to yesterday.) But they are usually a pretty decent indicator of level.

Update: 2013 USA Junior and Cadet National Team Selection Procedures

There's a mysterious change in the USA Junior and Cadet Team Selection Procedures. Here's the note from the USATT web page - it sure would be helpful to have some hint on why they withdrew the previous procedures. Below is the text from the message:

• The previously published selection procedures for the 2013 Junior and Cadet National Teams are hereby withdrawn.  The High Performance Committee will promptly review and revise those procedures, subject to the approval of the Athletes’ Advisory Council.   The selection procedures then will be republished.
• As previously announced, the 2013 Junior and Cadet Trials will be conducted in Las Vegas at the U.S. National Championships on Dec 18 – 22, 2012.  All entries have been received, and all who entered will compete for spots on the National Team.
• The revised 2013 Selection Procedures will be posted on the USATT website NO LATER THAN Dec. 10, 2012.

The Power of Zhang Jike

Here's a musical highlights video of World Men's Singles Champion Zhang Jike (6:07).

Jean-Philippe Gatien

Here's a highlights reel (5:02) of 1993 World Men's Singles Champion Jean-Philippe Gatien, often called the fastest man in table tennis. (He and 2004 Olympic Men's Singles Gold Medalist Ryu Seung Min should have a race!) The key thing to see when you watch Gatien play is how much of the table he covers with his forehand without backing up.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Last year I did an entire blog on Thanksgiving and Table Tennis. Rather than try to up that, I'll simply link to it so you can again enjoy these nine items, including the Table Tennis Thanksgiving Turkey.

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Quick Note on Malware

Most or all of the malware warning problems I blogged about previously seem to be gone, but there might still be some traces left of whatever got the site blacklisted on Google. If you are reading this, you arrived here successfully, so all's well with the world.

Merit Badges for Table Tennis?

As noted in my blog on Monday, there's a great proposal on the USATT web page (by Diego Schaaf and Wei Wang) to award "merit badges" for achieving various rating levels. Read it over and see what you think.

I've always argued that players take ratings way too seriously, and that they are, in general, a very bad thing for junior players. (Here's my article Juniors and Ratings.) Because of ratings players (especially juniors) tend to focus on immediate results instead of long-term improvement; it makes them nervous when they play as they worry about their rating (and this nervousness becomes a habit); and it often causes them not to play tournaments so they can protect their rating (thereby losing valuable tournament experience and so falling behind their peers).

I've always found the bridge system to be intriguing. In bridge, you cannot go down in rating; you only go up. This gives incentive to play more as you try to go up. It's not as accurate a system, but it incentive to compete. Given a choice between an inaccurate system with zillions of players (such as the American Contract Bridge League with 160,000 members), or a more accurate one with 8000 (USATT says hi), I have 152,000 reasons to go with the less accurate system. (This is a simplistic version of a more complex argument I won't go into here.)

The strength of the proposed system by Diego and Wei is that it gives incentive to keep playing as you get merit badges for going up, but unlike rating points, they aren't taken away when you go down. Sure, you might blow your current rating, but you'll still have that merit badge to show how good you were, plus every time you go out there you know there's a chance you might have that great day where you beat everyone and win ANOTHER merit badge!

As I wrote in my blog on Monday, similar suggestions have come up in the past, but three things always stopped it: 1) What should be awarded for these achievements - belts, like in martial arts? Pins? Badges? Certificates? etc.; 2) Few ever put together an actual proposal such as this eon, and 3) No one ever follows up on it.

There is the question of who pays for the merit badges, but that's a no-brainer to me. It's the responsibility of the player who achieves the new level to apply and pay for the merit badge. If it's not worth the small payment needed to pay for the badge and the office time to deal with them, then it's not worth their having.

There's also the transition period - at the start, why not let players send in proof of their highest rating achieved? It's all online since 1994, and before that there are magazines that can be copied. (Sorry, USATT doesn't owe you that. But I'm sure there are USATT members who might help out with this at the start.)

I hope someone from USATT follows up on this.

Last-minute coaching and preparation for Teams

Lots of last-minute training for the Teams in Baltimore and Ohio! I'm writing this blog the night before (Tuesday night) because I have to be up early to coach this morning. (Or should that be tomorrow morning since I'm writing it tonight, the night before the morning that the blog goes up? Never mind.) I've even got some coaching on Thursday. (I expect to blog on Thanksgiving morning, but perhaps a shorter one.)

I'm primarily going to be coaching, but I was talked into playing as a part-time fifth player by two of my students. I'm only committed to playing about one team match per day. The rest of the time I'll be coaching. (I'm mostly coaching Tong Tong Gong. At the Nationals I'll be working with him and Derek Nie.)

ITTF Video World Cup

There are now 17 entries in the ITTF Video World Cup. Take some time and watch them - they're pretty good. Of course the one I most like is "TTism (in slow motion)," by Richard Heo. Why? Because I'm in it!!! (I show up for about three seconds at 1:29, cheering silently and motionlessly for Raghu Nadmichettu, who is celebrating a win silently and motionlessly. That segment was filmed at the Maryland Table Tennis Center.) Here's the info page for the contest. First and second places are $5000 and $2500. Deadline to enter is Nov. 30. Oh, and it turns out you can vote once every 24 hours! So vote, and vote often.

2013 USA Team Trials

Here's a short news item from USATT: "The 2013 National Team Trials will be held on February 7-10, 2013, at the Top Spin Club in San Jose, CA. Prospectus and entry form will be posted on USATT webpage."

Reverse Forehand  Pendulum Serve

Here's an article and photo sequence on a version of the reverse forehand pendulum serve by world #27 Sayaka Hirano.

Ma Long Dong a Split?

Now here's a great picture of China's Ma Long looping from the backhand corner. Not sure if he's going to recover for the block to his wide forehand.

Table Tennis iPhone App

Here's the new TTProPlanner Promo - "for those of you who would like to plan/review your Table Tennis training" - on video, or read about it at the app store.

Terese Terranova in Broward County Hall of Fame

Here's a short article from Table Tennis Nation on wheelchair player and coach Terese Terranova's induction into the Broward Country Hall of Fame.

The Passion of Table Tennis

Here's another new highlights video (4:18). This one starts off by building tension as we watch the players get up and prepare for the tournament.

Ariel Hsing, Athlete of the Year

Here's a video about a minute long showcasing Ariel Hsing as the 2012 San Jose Female High School Athlete of the Year.

The Ping-Pong Dance on ABC Good Morning America

Here it is! (It's about one minute long, where they show Adam Bobrow doing one of his patented celebratory dances after winning a point.)

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Malware Update

I got up early this morning so I could get the blog done and go straight to work on the U.S. Hall of Fame Program, with the hope that I could finish that soon and go back to work on the page layouts of "Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers." The first thing I found was an email from Sucuri Securities that the site was now not only malware free, but was no longer blacklisted by Google. Yippee!!! Life was good again. I could go back to focusing on table tennis rather than various painful deaths for malware developers. 

So I clicked on the link I have that says "New blog entry," and immediately received a malware warning. (This was in Chrome.) After some checking, I found the malware warnings are erratic. On the main links to the left only "Chat room" gets a malware warning. (And I've never even used the chat room - I'll probably remove it soon.) When I do a search of the site (see field on top left) I get a malware warning. And of course if I try to do a new blog entry (like this one), I get a malware warning. I also can't seem to call the blog up at all in Explorer. (If you are reading this in Explorer, could you let me know?)

But there's apparently no malware, just the warnings from Google due to the blacklisting that seemingly won't go away. And yesterday there were a lot fewer reads than usual - obviously a lot of people are getting these false malware warnings. 

So I'm going to skip the blog today, and discuss the situation with Sucuri Securities. 

Tip of the Week

Backhand and Forehand Playing Distance.

Malware and Spammers and Hall of Fame Program, Oh My!
(And update on "Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers")

I was really hoping to finish the page layouts before Thanksgiving for my new book, "Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers" (previously titled "Table Tennis Tactics: A Thinker's Guide.") However, I'm in an ongoing battle with false malware warnings and spammers, plus I'm doing the USATT Hall of Fame Program booklet for the upcoming inductions at the USA Nationals. Plus, of course, the usual coaching duties, this blog, and little things like eating and sleeping and seeing the dentist this afternoon. (Pause for dramatic cringing.) So it's probably not going to happen. There's still a small chance it'll be done in time so I'll have copies for the Nationals, but probably not. (It's looking like it'll be about 240 pages and right about 100,000 words.)

Regarding the malware problem, the site has been scanned over and Over and OVER, and no spam has been found. You can scan it yourself in seconds at Sucuri Securities, and it comes up clean. (It's the removal that takes time, not the scanning.) The problem, as noted previously, is that there seems to be ongoing vestigial remnants of past malware warnings from a malware problem from over a month ago. The problem comes from Google, and it mostly affects the 40% of viewers who use Google Chrome as their browser. Some Chrome users have said they aren't having problems, and there have been some reports of warnings from Firefox, but none from those using Explorer. You should be able to just ignore the warnings.

I've emailed with Sucuri, and they've assured me they can stop the malware warnings, but it's going to cost $189.99/year for their coverage, on top of a couple hundred I've already spent trying to solve this problem on this mostly volunteer site.

Regarding spammers, the problem there is the malware warnings have somehow effected email notifications to me of spam postings, and so recently I've had to hunt them down manually. Normally, with the email notifications, I can delete them, and block and report the spammers within seconds. If you happen to see a spam posting either as a comment to a blog entry or on the forum, let me know so I can send a nuclear device at whoever created it.

Brian Pace's Serve & Return Videos

Brian Pace of Dynamic Table Tennis has produced two videos on serve and serve return. They are Serve and Server Return Training for Table Tennis, Part 1 (2hr 21min) and Part 2 (1hr 58min). Here's the promo video (1:19).

USATT Coaching Newsletter

The latest USATT Coaching Newsletter, Issue Number 6, just came out. (You can see the previous five here.) Here's the Table of Contents:

• Last Call for "Coach of the Year Nominations"
• USATT Holds First Ever ITTF Level 2 Course
• First USATT Coaches Certified as ITTF Level 2 and Level 3 Course Conductors
• USATT Coaching Reaches an Historic Milestone – 100 ITTF Coaches
• USATT Coaching is Looking for Clubs to Host Regional ITTF Courses
• Towards the Future!

Merit Badges for Table Tennis

Here's a proposal from Diego Schaaf and Wei Wang on Merit Badges for Achieving Playing Class (i.e. reaching specific ratings). I'll probably blog about this later on, but for now, what are your thoughts? It seems like a good idea. Similar suggestions have come up in the past, but three things always stopped it: 1) What should be awarded for these achievements - belts, like in martial arts? Pins? Badges? Certificates? etc.; 2) Few ever put together an actual proposal such as this eon, and 3) No one ever follows up on it.

Ray Chen

I am sad to report that Ray Chen, 79, a longtime Maryland player and lifetime member of USATT, passed away last Wednesday, on Nov. 14.

Athlete Isn't "Extraordinary" in Visa Bid

Here's an article in the New York Times about the U.S. turning down the visa bid for Afshin Noroozi, Iran's first table tennis Olympian and world #284.

TopSpin's Fourth Annual Ping-Pong tournament

Here's an article about this annual New York City event, which included guest appearances by present and former NBA players Gerald Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse, and Allan Houston, as well as radio host Angie Martinez, the "Voice of New York." The tournament raises money for three charities, A Better Chance, Change For Kids, and Horizons.

For People Who Don't Really Know Table Tennis

Here's a great new highlights video that just went up yesterday (7:31), and one of the best I've ever seen. I'm nominating for point of the year the one between Germany's Timo Boll and Croatia's Andrej Gacina that starts at 1:25 and continues all the way to 1:51. Amazingly, as so often it seems to happen, the point was at 10-8 match point in the fifth, and this was no exhibition point.

Crazy Rabbit

If I ever find the creator of the malware that caused so many problems on this site, I will do to them what this bunny rabbit does to this ping-pong paddle (1:43).

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We're undergoing problems with malware attacks. Three or four weeks ago the site was infected, but it was cleaned out, as verified by our server and Google itself. However, since then there were vestigial false reports of the malware problem somewhere in Google that caused Chrome to falsely list this site as malware infected. (If it had been infected, then other browsers would have picked up on it as well. The site was clean last night, and the problems with Google and Chrome a thing of the past (we thought), but this morning it's getting more malware reports. I'm not sure if it's actual malware or just more false reports. Until this is fixed, I'm going to skip the blog and work to resolve this problem. Have a good weekend; I have a feeling I won't. 

ADDENDUM - I'm still getting malware warnings on Chrome, but according to the Sucuri scanner, the site is malware free. See for yourself:

http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/

Incentive Table Tennis

Yesterday I made use of the infamous snickers bar incentive to help kids achieve specific goals. (Fun-size only.) 

The first was a 7-year-old girl, Linda. She's hit hundreds of forehands and backhands in a row, and can loop from both sides, but yesterday I challenged her to do something seemingly simple: hit 50 forehands in a row while moving side to side, covering about half the table. (That's a lot of table when you're seven.) She's done this before with multiball, but now we were going to do it live, where the ball doesn't come out exactly the same every time, and at a pretty good pace.

She struggled at first, kept missing in the 20s. (She does like to go fast!) Seeing her frustration, I told her I had a snickers bar in my playing bag that was hers if she could get 50. (I also made it clear it was a one-time offer.) Her eyes lit up, and she went at it again. Unfortunately, twice she made it to the 40s - once to 48 - and missed! Now she was too frustrated to concentrate. So I went to my bag and brought out the snickers bar, and put it on the table by the net. Her eyes went wide as she stared at the prize.

I said, "At the end of this session, one of us is going to eat that snickers bar right in front of the other. Which one of us is going to do that?" Having the candy bar right in front of her had a way of focusing her attention. She got 54 on her very next try. (Would have gotten more but the instant she reached 50 she was too excited to keep going much longer.)

Immediately following that session I had another with an 11-year-old boy, Thomas. He'd been picking up balls and cheering for her, and now it was his turn. (She was now picking up balls and cheering for him. They're not related, but they are both in a junior class I teach on weekends.) However, being older, I challenged him to do 100 forehands, moving side to side. He tried and tried, and kept getting into the 40s without getting to 50 (including 49 once). He wanted to know if he could have a snickers bar if he got to 50. I made a judgment call; I was certain he could do more than 50. So I stuck by the challenge to get to 100. He broke 40 several more times, but something always went wrong. I believe he did 40 to 49 at least eight times without breaking 50, so hadn't even made it halfway to 100. I finally said, "Two more tries, and then we'll have to give up on it for now." Then, just as before, I went to my bag and brought out the candy bar and put it on the table by the net. Once again, this really helped focus the attention - and on the very next try he did 124 in a row!

A key for both of them was I kept reminding them not to guide the shot, not to aim or think about it. The key was to blank the mind out, watch the ball, and just let the shots happen.

Pongcast TV Episode 20

Here's the latest Pongcast Episode (14:42). "In this episode: A Jan-Ove Waldner TV commercial, more TT robots, ping-pong for a good cause, and the German team goes GQ. Highlights and results from the 2012 Polish Open, including a screaming match. Has the ITTF been watching? Is there a new fan favorite to watch?"

Aerobic Table Tennis

Here's the Facebook Page for Aerobic Table Tennis. They are about "Aerobic Table Tennis. A new workout experience. Burn calories. Have fun keeping fit." Their mission? "To help women keep fit, and take up the game of table tennis. There is a shortage of women playing table tennis. The sessions will be fun, include aerobic exercises, and will help you burn those calories. No table tennis experience is required. Why not have fun, burn calories, and learn the game of table tennis?"

Here's a video (4:48) of an actual aerobic table tennis class taught at a school (St. Joseph Sliema), with 100 girls. It's sort of a mixture of table tennis, dancing, regular aerobics, and singing, all done to music. (If you look at the links listed to the right in youtube, there are a number of other examples of aerobic table tennis in schools.)

Stina Kallberg of Sweden

Here's video footage (6:09) of the latest junior phenom, 10-year-old Stina Kallberg from Sweden. (What, you thought all junior phenoms came from China?) What really jumps out is how well she moves about the court as she loops nearly everything. Far too many kids at that age just stand at the table, moving only side to side and hitting.

Table Tennis Wine Bottle

Here's a picture of a table tennis wine bottle that was presented to the Chinese National team.

Celebrities Playing Table Tennis

I did a recent update of the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis Page, which now has 1440 photos of 870 different celebrities. This month's update includes 51 new pictures of 33 new celebrities. New ones are:

Actors & Directors 
Oliver Stone, movie director
Wallace Ford, actor
Terrence Howard, actor
Trevor Jackson, actor
Richard Narita, actor
Actresses
Kim Kardashian, actress 
Khloe Kardashian, actress (6 pictures)
Jessica Alban, actress (new picture)
Susan Sarandon, actress (new picture)
Kate Upton, actress & model (4 pictures)
Lynn Bari, actress
Shay Mitchell, actress
Shirley Temple, actress & UN Ambassador (new picture)
Singers
Justin Bieber, singer (new picture)
Lady Gaga, singer
Michael Jackson, singer/dancer (new picture)
Nick Jonas, singer (3 pictures)
Booboo Stewart, singer, dancer & actor
Dinah Shore, singer & actress
Adam Yauch, Singer for the Band "Beastie Boys"
Yelawolf, rapper
Athletes
Roger Federer, tennis star (new picture)
Rory McIlroy, golfer
Manny Pacquiao, boxer
Ramil Akhadov, boxer
Ken Norton, boxer
Jesse Owens, Olympic sprinter & long jumper
Ronald Belisario, baseball player (2 pictures)
Justin Sellers, baseball player (2 pictures)
Wayne Rooney, English soccer star (3 new pictures)
Rio Ferdinand, English soccer star
Theo Walcott, English soccer star
Joe Hart, English soccer star
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, English soccer star
John Heitinga, Dutch soccer star (2 pictures)
Nani, Portuguese soccer star
Miguel Veloso, Portuguese soccer star
Zoran Tošić, Serbian soccer star
Gojko Kačar, Serbian soccer star
Miscellaneous
Kate Middleton, wife of Prince William of England (3 pictures)
Ellen DeGeneres, talk show host (new picture)
Snoopy, cartoon dog (new picture)

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Looping or Handling the Loop?

Is your game centered around looping or handling the loop? At the intermediate and advanced levels, the game is dominated by looping. Most players center their games around looping. But some take the reverse approach, and center their game around handling the loop. This includes both defensive players (choppers, fisher/lobbers, and blockers) as well as hitters.

Often players who center their games around handling the opponent's loop (or simply not letting him loop, at least not effectively) make the mistake of going too far, and never developing their own loop. Even if looping will never be their strength, it's a great variation at minimum, forcing the opponent to deal with one more thing. It's almost always the best way to deal with a deep backspin ball. Even players with short pips and hardbat can loop against backspin, and if the opponent has to adjust to both your drive and loop against backspin, he's got a lot to deal with.

Players who do loop often make the mistake of also going too far, centering their game around looping but not learning to deal with the opponent's loop very well, both in terms of keeping him from doing it (or doing it effectively) and from dealing with it when the opponent does loop. It always amazes me how many players with strong loops will serve or push long over and over, letting the opponent loop rather than serve or push short to set up their own loop.

Some are so loop happy that they try to counterloop any incoming loop. This can lead to problems as it's not easy trying to counterloop an opponent's opening loop against backspin (often very spinny) if the opponent is mixing up the speed, spin, direction, and depth. That's way too many variables for any but the very best players. If you are one of the very best players (or if you aspire to be, and are training at least 4-5 days a week), then perhaps you can learn to do this. Otherwise, consider blocking against more aggressive loops, and perhaps jab-blocking (i.e. aggressively blocking) or even smashing against loops that land short. A loop that lands short is easy to jab-block or smash (if you don't hesitate), but it really rushes a looper, and unless you are able to jump all over that ball with a full swing in a split second, counterlooping it is not easy. (Remember that you also have to wait and see if the ball is going to your forehand or backhand, and then judge the depth, speed, and spin before you can properly react.)

On the other hand, some players learn to shorten their counterloop stroke against shorter balls and sort of soft-spin off the bounce. This can be effective but takes lots of practice to get the timing down. This is especially effective if you use some of the modern high-end looping sponges (i.e. expensive ones). If you use more of a hitter's sponge, then it's better to jab-block or smash.

The main advantage of counterlooping anything that goes long, including an opponent's loop? You don't have to hesitate since you know what you are going to do. You just have to decide forehand and backhand, and then let the shot go. (You do have to decide how hard and what direction you are looping, but that's relatively easy.) This works for many world-class players, but remember - it takes lots of practice and perhaps some physical training as well.

TopSpin's Charity Benefit

Here's an article in Forbes Magazine on the TopSpin Charity Benefit being held tonight, and here's the opening paragraph: "Over 1,000 members of the sports, entertainment and media communities will be hoisting ping-pong paddles in New York City tomorrow at TopSpin’s fourth annual Ping-Pong Tournament.  And they will be doing so in an effort to benefit three city programs for under-served students.  Among the confirmed guests are Hakeem Nicks, Prince Amukamara and Terrell Thomas of the New York Giants, and Gerald Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse of the Brooklyn Nets."

ITTF Video World Cup

Here are the twelve entries received so far for the ITTF Video World Cup. You can view them and vote for the winner! Of course, the best one is "TTism (in slow motion)," by Richard Heo. Why? Because I'm in it!!! (I show up for about three seconds at 1:29, cheering silently and motionlessly for Raghu Nadmichettu, who is celebrating a win silently and motionlessly. That segment was filmed at the Maryland Table Tennis Center.) Here's the info page for the contest. First and second places are $5000 and $2500. Deadline to enter is Nov. 30.

Sampson Dubina's Favorite Serving Videos

Former USA Men's Singles Finalist Samson Dubina posted links to his favorite videos of top players serving. (And here's his article "Perfecting Your Serve.") I've added names/descriptions. Here are the serving videos:

• Michael Maze (6:56)
• Tomahawk Serve of Kenta Matsudaira (1:09)
• Werner Schlager (9:23)
• Super-Fast Serve of Asuka Sakai (0:45)
• Jun Mizutani ghost serve (0:55)
• Ma Lin (6:08)
• Wang Hao (0:59)
• Haruna Fukuoka (0:21)
• Werner Schlager Serving to Jac Jenkins, Welsh #1 Cadet (1:22)
• Ma Lin's Crazy Breaking Serve (0:19)
• Par Gerell Serving to Werner Schlager (watch the last 45 seconds)

John Ping Pong

Here's a ping-pong song (2:44) I hadn't heard before. It's set to some old-time music.

Non-Table Tennis - "The Devil's Backbone"

The new anthology "After Death," which features fantasy stories about what happens after you die, includes my story "The Devil's Backbone." (Anthology comes out in March, but they just announced the table of contents.) It's the story of an ice cream man who is killed and pulled into the ground by an incredibly gigantic hand, which turns out to be the Devil's, who literally jams him down his throat and (from the inside) onto his equally gigantic backbone, where there is an entire city of lost souls. How can he escape?

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Tip of the Week

Complex or Simple Tactics?

Crystal Wang

This past weekend 10-year-old Crystal Wang (from MDTTC) had a great tournament at the Potomac Open. You don't know who she is? Last year Crystal achieved a rating of 2150, the highest rating ever for a 9-year-old, boys or girls. She also made both the USA Mini-Cadet Girls' National Team (Under 12) and the USA Cadet Girls' Team (Under 15) at age 9, competing against girls much older. Unfortunately, this year she played three tournaments in a row where she struggled (including the U.S. Open), complaining her wrist hurt. They finally had it x-rayed, and discovered she had been playing with a fractured wrist from a fall! Her rating had dropped from 2166 to 2099, and she couldn't play for a couple months.

But now she's BACK! At the Potomac Open, at age 10, she beat players rated 2334, 2240, 2205, and 2149, while making the final of Under 2300. She didn't lose to anyone lower than 2200. I'm pretty sure she'll be adjusted well over 2200, which could definitely be the highest rating ever for a 10-year-old girl, and possibly for boys as well. (I'm pretty sure Kanak Jha is the only 10-year-old boy to break 2200.)

It's no fluke. In the MDTTC Elite League last week she knocked off two players over 2300 without losing to anyone below 2300. Even at 2099, she was the top rated girl in the U.S. in Under 11, Under 12, and Under 13.

Crystal plays a very modern two-winged looping game, hitting and looping on both sides. I've watched as she's gradually gone from basically hitting to looping from both wings, and her off-the-bounce backhand loop can now be a terror. She and Amy Wang (a year younger, rated 2069, from NJ) are essentially Ariel & Lily, Part II, east coast version - the new Dynamic Duo.

Potomac Open

Here are results, photos, and videos from the Potomac Open in Maryland this past weekend. Wang Qing Liang came back from down 0-3 to win against Sean Lonergan in the final. Sean upset Chen Bo Wen in the semifinals, also in seven games. Sean's been in China the last few years - not playing table tennis much - but started training recently to get ready for the North American Teams and the USA Nationals. You can see all of the final in the video page above, and many other big matches.

"He's the One" - Starring Derek Nie

Here's a funny music video (4:02) by the band E.D. Sedgwick that features U.S. Open 11 & Under Boys' Singles Champion Derek Nie. (Derek is from my club, MDTTC - I coached him in all his U.S. Open matches.) They had been planning this video for some time, and were originally going to use a regular actor to play the kid, and put the ball in via computer afterwards, but then they saw this Washington Post video (3:26) in August on the Maryland Table Tennis Center, which featured our juniors, including Derek - and thought he'd be perfect for the role. All the action scenes where you see one player playing I'm feeding multiball to the player, both to Derek and to the members of the band. It was great fun helping them put this together. It also taught us what I already knew but hadn't really experienced - that much of film-making is waiting around. Derek and I filled the time with lots of smashing and lobbing and various trick shots.

World Cadet Challenge

Here's an article on the USATT web page on the recent World Cadet Challenge, which included several USA cadets.

USATT Minutes

Last week the minutes to the April 19, 2012 USATT Board meeting finally went up. Now there's been a flurry of activity, and the minutes to the July 16 and Sept. 22 meetings have also gone up. Here are the USATT minutes dating back to 1999, including the new entries.

2012 World Fair Play Awards

Here's info on the awards. "If you had a fair play act within your association’s activity in 2012 or you consider a person or organization worth to be nominated for the Trophies, please submit your your application on the attached form before 1st December 2012."

Dancing Table Tennis

Here's a dance video tribute to table tennis (2:10).

OK Go Ping Pong Tips

Here's a humorous "how to" video on table tennis (4:34). It's from 2006, but I don't think I'd seen it before.

Non-Table Tennis - Update on U.S. Presidential Election

As I noted last week, I called all 50 states and the exact electoral count (332-206) in my blog last Tuesday morning. Now we have the essentially final popular vote. I predicted Obama over Romney, 50.5% to 48.5%. Final count was 50.6% to 47.9%. Not bad, considering everyone over at Fox News thought Romney was going to win, many predicting a landslide. (It's tricky predicting the vote turnout for third-party candidates, since many who say they will vote for one change their mind at the last minute rather than "waste" their vote. In this case I thought they'd get about 1% of the vote, but they got 1.5%, which is why I over-estimated Romney's final numbers.)

• Here are pictures of Obama playing table tennis:
  photo1 photo2 photo3 (Photos 2 and 3 are from a picture on the wall at the White House)
• Here are pictures of Obama and David Cameron, Prime Minister of England, playing table tennis:
  photo1 photo2 photo3 photo4 photo5 photo6 photo7 photo8 photo9
• Here are pictures of Michelle Obama, First Lady of the USA, playing table tennis:
  photo1 photo2

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It's Veteran's Day, and like millions of Americans, I'm going to take the day off . . . from my blog. Since I have no coaching scheduled on Mondays, I'm going to spend the day on the long procrastinated page layouts of my book "Table Tennis Tactics: A Thinker's Guide," in the hopes of getting them done this week. (I'm also leaning toward changing the title to simply "Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers." I like the word "Thinkers" in the title.) My blog will continue tomorrow, along with this week's Tip of the Week, tentatively on the backhand smash. (NOTE - changed my mind, did one on Complex versus Simple Tactics instead. Will do the one on the Backhand Smash later.) 

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Random Drills

Recently I've been introducing a lot of our new juniors to random drills. Until you have the fundamentals down, it's important to focus on rote drills, where you do the same thing over and Over and OVER again until you can do them in your sleep - forehands, backhands, loops, blocks, pushes, etc. But once you have the stroke down pretty well, you have to be able to do them in match situations, where your opponent doesn't put the ball to the same place over and over - instead, you have to react to the shot. That's where random drills come in.

There are two basic types of random drills. The more basic one is where you have a choice between two spots. For example, the coach or practice partner (often using multiball) puts the ball either to the forehand or backhand, and you have to react to the shot with either your forehand or backhand. The key is that you don't anticipate; just react until this becomes second nature. Your first move should be the right move; you don't want to start to your forehand side and then have to recover to hit a backhand, or vice versa. Make sure to move to each ball (don't reach), and focus on balance - no leaning.

The other way is where the ball goes more randomly anywhere on the table or within a restricted area. For example, the coach or practice partner might put the ball randomly to the forehand side, and you have to move about driving these balls back with your forehand, moving to each one. Or, or in the ultimate random drill, the coach or practice partner puts the ball anywhere on the table, and you drive the ball back.

If you just do rote drills where you know where the ball is going, you are not matching what you will face in a game. So put some randomness into your drills, along with rote drills to hone your strokes. What you develop with random drills is called neuromuscular adaptation, where your brain learns to react properly and quickly to any shot. Not only is this the key to high-level play, but it's fun to say! (An expanded version of this might become a Tip of the Week.)

MDTTC Junior Team, Ratings, and Rankings

I thought I'd give a shout-out today to the juniors at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. (Some also play at other local clubs.) They're a great bunch of kids whose sole goal is to beat me, um, I mean to win Olympic Gold Medals. Here's a listing of those over 1600 with some of their ranking/best title(s).

SPiN for the Cause Charity

Here's the Facebook page for "Susan Sarandon presents: SPiN FOR THE CAUSE - Hurricane Sandy Relief Fundraiser," which is being held tonight at Spin NY.

TopSpin Charity

Here's an article in the Huffington Post that features TopSpin, the table tennis charity that has raised $750,000 for educational non-profits.

2013 USA Team Trials Bids

Want to run the 2013 USA Team Trials, Feb. 7-10, 2013? The deadline to bid is Nov. 15. Here's bidding info.

ITTF Level 2 Coaching Seminar

Here are two articles on the ITTF Level 2 Coaching Seminar held in Colorado Springs, Oct. 30 - Nov. 6. Here's the USATT article by Richard McAfee, and the ITTF article by Ian Marshall. Alas, I wasn't able to make the seminar - too busy coaching and writing in Maryland.

People's Ping Pong Party

Here's the Facebook page of this exhibition of table tennis and art (or something like that), starting Nov. 10 (tomorrow). One of the two running this is Rocky Wang, alias "LiL Big Wong," a 2300 (formerly 2400) player originally from Maryland (a junior star from the 1980s) but now living in New York. I'm having a hard time describing this, so I'll just cut & paste their first two paragraphs.

Present Company is delighted to announce the inauguration of the People’s Ping Pong Party (PPPP) and introduce their two leaders Madame WuWeiWoo and LiL Big Wong. WuWeiWoo, an unbeknownst time traveller, was born in Cuba from a union between a Buffalo Soldier and a young Martial Artist during the Spanish American War. LiL Big Wong’s lineage comes from an ex-Black Panther mother and a Chinese Ping Pong champion, but given his strict Chinese upbringing, he has no clue that he’s actually Black.

A collaboration between artists iona rozeal brown (WuWeiWoo) and Rocky Wang (LiL Big Wong), PPPP serves as an artistic and proto-political paradigm based on the Venn intersections of the radical politics of the Black Panther Party, Ping Pong Diplomacy of the 1970’s, the ethnic stereotypes of not only Chinese and African Americans, but a host of other offbeat characters and the B-movie antics of Kung Fu Saturday Matinee.

Wide-eyed with Happiness or Disbelief

This is what most people looked like after the presidential election. The only difference was whether the mouth was concave up or down.

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