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!

Pushing the limits

Last night I was coaching an 8-year-old girl. We've been working on her strokes for months, and while she could occasionally get 50 or so in a row at a slow pace, it was sort of a "just keep the ball in play" type rally, at a slow pace, with her mostly standing stationary as she patted the ball back. She was looking pretty bored as I encouraged her to get 50 in a row. So I tried something different - I decided it was time to teach her to forehand loop. Normally I'd want her to have a bit more ball control and athleticism in her game before I'd start this. So I got a bucket of balls and fed her backspin with multiball. At first she struggled, but after a few minutes she made a rather nice loop, and then another, and after a while she was able to hit about every other one on the table with a good stroke and decent topspin. She ran off to tell her mom (who was hitting on another table). Then she ran back and did some more.

Here's the real surprise. We ended the session hitting forehands - and after all the struggles, suddenly she came alive, her feet moving, and for the first time ever we were steadily smacking the ball back and forth, at a faster and more consistent rate than ever. I decided to test her backhand as well, and the same thing. So it was a triple whammy.

Maybe next week I'll teach her counterlooping.

MDTTC Spring Break Camp and other activities

It's not too late to register for our Spring Break Camp next week, Mon-Fri, 10AM - 6PM (with a two-hour lunch break in the middle). It's also not too late to join our beginning junior class starting this Saturday, 10:30AM-Noon. I'll be teaching the class, with Jeffrey Zeng Xun assisting. (We postponed the first session from today to Saturday as we still have people working all day on the club's new expansion, which should be complete by tomorrow.) We also have a new Tuesday Night League starting April 10, along with our usual one on Friday nights.

Once the expansion is complete I plan on starting a beginning adult class and a weekly service practice session. The latter will start off with a service seminar where I teach the basics of advanced serves, and then we meet 30 minutes each week to practice.

Jorgen Persson vs. Ma Lin

Here's a great match from the Worlds between two great veterans (6:03). Of course Persson (who'll turn 46 on April 22) was 1991 World Men's Singles Champion when Ma Lin (32) was 11.

Susan Sarandon

Here's an old article from Sept. 2010 in NY Magazine on Sarandon and table tennis, with a picture of her playing table tennis. And here's a more recent picture of her also playing table tennis, this time on the cover of what I think is Home Magazine.

"Interestingly no one has ever been killed playing ping-pong."

This video (1:47) starts out innocently enough, and for the first 18 seconds seems to be a video about guns deaths. Then it takes a deadly turn into table tennis! Lots of photoshopping, with scenes and actors from numerous major movies, all strangely playing ping-pong.

***

Send us your own coaching news!

Grip and Stance

Let's do a thought experiment. Hold a piece of paper so you hold the top with one hand, the bottom with the other. Now twist the top. Notice how the entire piece of paper twists? Now twist the bottom. Same thing. How does this relate to table tennis?

Now imagine holding a table tennis player in your hands. (You are either very strong or the player is very small.) Hold his playing hand in one hand and his feet with the other. Twist his playing hand and his entire body twists. The same if you twist his feet.

This is what happens when you have a bad grip or bad playing stance. It twists your entire body out of proper alignment, causing all sorts of technique problems. These two problems are by far the most common cause of technique problems. Most often they are not recognized as even many experienced coaches often treat the symptoms of these problems rather than recognizing the cause.

This is why I strongly recommend that players should use a neutral grip during their formative years, and usually well beyond that. (For shakehand players, this means the thinnest part of the wrist lines up with the racket. If the top is tilted away from you when you hold the racket in front of you, it's a backhand grip; if the top is tilted toward you, it's a forehand grip.) A neutral grip means your racket will aim in the same direction as your body is stroking the ball. A non-neutral grip forces you to adjust your stroke in often awkward ways since the racket is aiming one way while your wrist, arm, shoulder, etc., are aiming another direction.

At the advanced levels some players do adjust their grips, taking on usually slight forehand or backhand grips. (I generally use a slight forehand grip, but only after I'd been playing ten years.) There are some technical advantages to this, but only after you have ingrained proper stroking technique.

Similarly, make sure you are in at least a slight forehand stance when hitting forehands (i.e. right foot slightly back for righties, shoulders turned back as you backswing, etc.)

Even at the advanced levels often players have trouble with a specific stroke because of their grip or stance. Because they've played this way so long they don't even recognize the cause of their problem, and most often they are destined to an eternity of stroking like a crinkled piece of paper. In a few cases they realize what the cause is, and fix the problem, which often simply means going back to a more neutral grip or adjusting the foot positioning.

Like a piece of paper, if you get the top and bottom parts right, the rest falls into place. (An expanded version of this might end up as a Tip of the Week.)

World Team Championships
Dortmund, Germany, March 25 - April 1, 2012

Guo Yue in Slo Mo

Here's a 48-second video of China's World #7 Guo Yue in slow motion. She was #1 in the world in January of 2008, and has had probably a record 24 different rankings as #2 in the ITTF monthly rankings. 

Table Tennis - Pure Magic

Here's another table tennis video (5:59), set to music with lots of slow motion. It's from 2009, but I don't think I've ever posted it.

Cell Phone Pong

Yes, table tennis with a cell phone (0:16), with the phone's video camera running!

***

Send us your own coaching news!

MDTTC Spring Break Camp

The Maryland Table Tennis Center will hold its first training camp of the year, our Spring Break Camp, April 2-6. You will be there. Otherwise we will talk about you, and it won't be pretty.

The camp coincides with spring break in local schools, which vary from region to region, so we don't get many out of towners for this camp. However, anyone is welcome to join us. It'll mostly be junior players, but all ages are welcome. Coaches will include myself, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, and Jeffrey Zeng Xun. Hours are 10AM-1PM and 3-6PM each day, Mon-Fri. Chinese food is delivered for lunch for $6 (you order in the morning). The club just doubled in size, and will have about 18 tables set up (more if we squeeze), with all-new red flooring, showers, and wireless web.

If you need a place to stay, we're now allowing players to stay at the club (free for now) if you are willing to "rough it." I'll give rides to local restaurants and for groceries as needed. (Club has a microwave.)

We will be running camps continuously all summer, every Mon-Fri, from June 18 to August 24 (eleven consecutive five-day camps). Come join us!

What is the value of a table tennis camp? Most players spend years trying to improve, and it's a very slow and difficult process. The problem is that 1) you might be practicing bad technique, making it even harder later on to fix the problems, 2) you only get to work at various techniques in a sporadic way, and 3) you have other things on your mind and so can't really focus on table tennis. A camp solves all three problems as you live and breathe table tennis all week, learning proper technique from top coaches (as well as getting to see numerous top players demonstrate it), you practice all day long, and your sole focus is table tennis. If you are a serious table tennis player, I strongly suggest finding a camp where you can really hone your skills as well as have a lot of fun.

FASTT

Here's the Federal Association of Sandpaper Table Tennis home page, where you'll find articles, results, and videos of this rapidly growing "underground" sport. (If regular table tennis is an underground sport in the U.S., then is sandpaper the underground sport of an underground sport?) News Item #29 is on the Cary Cup.

The Worlds on TV

You can watch the Worlds (Dortmund, Germany, March 25-April 1) on TV via Universal Sports, but it's gonna cost you about $10/day, or $40 for five days. Here's more info. Meanwhile, here's the info I posted yesterday:

Michael Landers on NPR

NPR did a radio interview with Michael Landers, "Ping-Pong Prodigy Seeks Olympic Glory." You can either listen to it (3:51) or read the transcript.

Free table tennis videos from Reflex Sports

I received the following email from Reflex Sports yesterday - so now's your chance to sample their huge video library for free!

"We very much appreciate your support of our subscription table tennis video site. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to get enough subscribers to allow us to continue, at this time, to offer our videos this way. We have finally been able to set up a new site (tabletennisvideocentral.com). This new trial site is offering everything free in the hope of attracting enough viewers to have advertisers."

Boys Look at the Stars Ping-Pong

You can download this book for free. The book covers the history of world table tennis.

High Performance on a Budget

Can you create a high performance environment without spending any money? Sean O'Neill sent me and other coaches a link to this article on the topic.

Math Professor Larry Bavly teaches table tennis

Math and table tennis connoisseur Larry Bavly teaches a little girl all the important things about table tennis (4:26). The best part starts at 1:11 when Larry says, "What is the most important thing to learn to be a good table tennis player?" After the girl incorrectly says, "Placement and spin variations," Larry brings out the chart.

***

Send us your own coaching news!

Tip of the Week

The Great Scourge of Table Tennis Footwork: Leaning.

Counterlooping and the Sunset Years

I'm not exactly into my sunset years at age 52, and yet every year my counterlooping skills take another small step backward. Even minor decreases in muscle flexibility and quickness affect this more than most other shots. I did a lot of counterlooping last fall with students who were developing their counterlooping skills, and recently I felt that my own counterlooping skills were getting back to their norm (i.e. the way I remember them from long ago). Yesterday I was counterlooping with a student and there were times where I was just staring at my racket, hoping I could blame all the misses on that. The reality is I was stiff and tired (okay, a few dozen loops beyond bone tired) after four hours of coaching and playing (and seven straight hours the day before), but skills like these should be ingrained and automatic. Instead, balls were jumping all over the place and sometimes I felt like I was just flailing at them. I even had a second wind, felt energized - but still kept missing. It probably wasn't as bad as I remember, since I probably remember all the misses instead of the ones that hit, but in practice most of them are supposed to hit. Alas. (Here's an article I wrote on counterlooping.) 

Speaking of counterlooping, during a recent group practice session I was playing matches with the beginning/intermediate kids, spotting most of them 6 points each. We also let adults join in as practice partners, and an elderly man in his 60s showed up. I didn't see him playing, and don't think I'd ever seen him play, so when Cheng asked me to play him a practice match I went in figuring he was another beginning/intermediate player, and took it easy on him. Down 2-7 in the first game, after watching him rip loop after loop from both wings, I realized my error. I tried blocking his non-stop barrage of loops, but to no avail - the guy may have been in his 60s, but his backhand loop was unreal! I finally went after his slightly-softer forehand, and since he seemed to go mostly crosscourt, I was able to get my counterlooping going. With my back to the wall, I came back to win that first game, lost the second (more backhand rips, plus he started smashing some of my loops), then won the next two very close games on my serves (he had great trouble with my forehand pendulum serve short to his forehand) and counterloops. It turns out he was a former top player from Ukraine. (Note to self: every unknown opponent is a possible top player from Ukraine, or China, or Timbuktu, so be ready!)

For the weekend (Fri-Sun), I coached an even ten hours, but also played about 20 practice matches, and went undefeated, including wins over one 2300+ player, one 2250 player, two wins over a 2100 player, and the rest against players from beginner to 1900.

World Team Championships

The World Team Championships started yesterday in Dortmund, Germany, March 25 - April 1. You can follow all of the action online.

Zhang Jike Backhand Looping Multiball

Here's a short video (0:53) of world #1 Zhang Jike of China doing multiball backhand loop practice at the World Championships. He makes it look so easy.

Road to London

Here's a TV feature (4:22) on USA's Ariel Hsing and Lily Zhang.

The Pongcast - Episode 12

The latest Pongcast (21:14) features the European Champions League.

Dog referee?

Just let the dog play! (0:45)

***

Send us your own coaching news!

Talking versus Drilling

I often think the most difficult part of coaching is finding that line between coaching (i.e. explaining things demonstrating techniques) and drilling (i.e. letting the student work on a skill). The more you talk and demonstrate, the more information you convey. On the other hand, the more you actually have the student drill, the more the techniques get ingrained.  Where's the balance?

It really depends on the student. Younger players often are not particularly interested in a coach who blathers on and on, even if the blather is laden with nuggets of gold. They just want to play. Older students often look for more info, because they have a longer attention span, they understand the value of the info, and because they probably need the rest break anyway.

Ideally the coach says as little as is necessary for the student to get the technique right. But it's not that simple. Let's say you're teaching a kid to forehand loop. He starts out going crosscourt over and over. Then he gets the bright idea of looping down the line, and does so awkwardly. So you show him how to rotate the shoulders back so he can loop down the line more easily. Then he points out that he likes his way better since the opponent can't see it coming. And so you show him how to loop deceptively down the line by lining up the shoulders to go crosscourt, and at the last second rotating them back to go down the line. Next thing you know you are talking about the various placements when looping from the wide forehand (down the line, to the opponent's elbow/crossover point, crosscourt to the corner, extreme crosscourt outside the corner), and then you're talking about when to loop soft, medium, or hard, and pretty soon you're pretty much teaching a graduate seminar on looping to a fourth grader. (The preceding is a rough synopsis of an actual experience.)

The temptation to expand on any topic is huge, at least for me, since I generally have about 10,000 words to say on any topic. Getting it down to 20 words is harder work than going with the 10,000-word blather. But I restrain myself. Usually. Even older players have their limits, and I probably want to narrow those 10,000 words down to 50. Or less.

It's probably best to keep it simple, and let them work at one skill at a time, and resist the urge to expand to PhD techniques and explanations until your student is relatively advanced. In other words, focus on basics like developing solid drives until he's old enough to drive. I'll save the 10,000 word blathers for my next table tennis book.

My next table tennis book

Speaking of that, I put "Table Tennis Tactics: A Thinker's Guide" on hold a few weeks ago. I was just too busy on other things. I've already written a first draft (21 chapters, 86,000 words, about 370 pages double spaced in Courier New), and had it critiqued by a number of people. (Thank you again Scott Gordon, Chris Grace, Richard McAfee John Olsen, Dennis Taylor, and Kevin Walton!) It's still on hold, but I think I might finally get back to it next week, where I expect to both add more material and do some rewriting. It should come out later this year, though it might take longer if I decide to submit to publishers instead of self-publishing. (One publisher has already expressed interest.) 

Ariel Hsing blogs for ESPN

The 2010 and 2011 U.S. Women's Singles Champion blogs about her play at the recent Olympic and World Team Trials.

LA Dodgers partake in Ping-Pong to unwind

Ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw (2011 Cy Young winner) dominates. Here's the article.

More on Korean table tennis movie "As One"

Yesterday I gave the link to the Korean trailer for "As One." It's a movie about how North and South Korea came together to play as one team at the 1991 Worlds, winning the Women's Team event over China. (They defeated Deng Yaping and Gao Jun. The latter would later emigrate to the U.S. and win nine U.S. Women's Singles titles while representing the U.S. at the worlds, Olympics, and other major tournaments a number of times.) The movie will feature actors playing North Korean star Li Bun Hui  (sometimes spelled Lee Boon Hee) and South Korean star Hyun Jung Hwa, rivals until they were suddenly on the same team. (One confusion that took some research to work out - the movie was originally titled "Korea," and is still listed that way in many places, but has been renamed "As One.") I now have more links, all in English.

Cary Cup Highlights Video

Here are two highlights videos from the recent Cary Cup Championships.

Crazy table tennis

Here's another highlights video set to music (3:44).

Eight-year-old does beerless beer pong

Here's 59 seconds of beginning beer pong by an eight-year-old. But it's pretty impressive, even if he probably had to do each shot many times before getting it in.

***

Send us your own coaching news!

What's your secret weapon?

What do you do when you absolutely, positively have to win the next point? How do you serve and follow, or receive, when the game is on the line?

Note that this is somewhat of a trick question as you should be using these plans throughout a match, often to keep you from actually reaching a point where you absolutely, positively have to win the next point. And if you do reach that point, you should have tried out so many of these plans that you'll know which ones work.

Here are my "go to" plans, the secret weapons I pull out when I absolutely, positively have to win the next point.

On serve:

  • Short forehand pendulum serve with a big downward motion that looks like backspin, but actually has sidespin-topspin. With a subtle snap of the wrist at contact, the inner part of the paddle moves up on contact, creating topspin. Opponents pop it up or return it weakly over and over, setting up easy smashes and loop kills.
  • Deep breaking forehand pendulum serve into the backhand that jumps away from the opponent. If the opponent doesn't have a good backhand loop, or can't step around and forehand loop it (and still cover the wide forehand on the next ball), then this serve sets up many easy smashes and loops. Because it goes so deep I have time to get my forehand on the next ball over and over.
  • Heavy no-spin short to the middle. ("Heavy no-spin" means that I fake lots of spin but put no spin on the ball.) As long as I keep it very low to the net, I almost always get a relatively weak ball, usually a push, that goes deep, setting up an easy loop. It comes back with less backspin than if I served backspin, and flips off it are usually softer than off a sidespin serve.
  • Forehand pendulum serve with heavy sidespin-backspin, short to the forehand. As long as I hang back toward my backhand side this tends to get returned to the forehand or middle, setting up an easy forehand loop.
  • Fast no-spin to the middle (opponent's elbow) with my forehand pendulum motion. The opponent has to decide quickly whether to return forehand or backhand, has to swing harder than usual to overcome the no-spin (as opposed to a fast topspin serve, where the topspin makes it jump off their paddle), and they usually end up returning it into the net. If they do return it, they are out of position (from covering the middle), and so usually open to an attack to the wide corners.
  • Forehand tomahawk serve short to the forehand. Most opponents make weak returns to my forehand, setting up an easy forehand loop.
  • Forehand tomahawk serve deep to the forehand. This works against players with weaker loops. Since it breaks away from them, they often lunge for the ball at the last second, which means they both lose control and lower their racket (meaning they will lift the ball too much, usually off the end).

On receive:

  • My favorite go-to receive is to receive anything on the backhand or middle with my backhand, right off the bounce, and topspin to the opponent's deep backhand. This usually takes away their serve advantage and forces a straight backhand-to-backhand rally. (And I'm confident that NOBODY can beat me straight backhand-to-backhand. This might not be true, but as long as I'm convinced of it, I can outlast most opponents with my steady but not-too-powerful backhand.)
  • Against short backspin serves either drop the ball short or quick push wide to the backhand, sometimes deep wide to the forehand. In either case I try to aim the ball one way and change directions at the last second. This is effective on both short and long pushes. On short pushes, I generally aim to the backhand, and at the last second drop it short to the forehand, where players are generally a little slower reacting to. On long pushes I mostly go long to the backhand, often aiming to the forehand side until the last second. But since many opponents anticipate this, I can get a couple of "freebies" in many games by switching directions at the last second and going to the forehand.
  • Against someone who consistently serves long, just loop the serve, but focus on spin, depth, and consistency.
  • Against a forehand pendulum serve (or other serves with spin that breaks away from me on my backhand) I have a pretty good forehand loop, and I see the serve coming, even under pressure I can often step around and loop it away with my forehand. I would normally only do this against a player who not only predictably serves long, but doesn't have much variety on his serve. Against someone who has great spin variety looping too aggressively is usually too risky.

Korean table tennis movie?

This video (1:06) seems to be a preview of a historical Korean table tennis movie. Can anyone translate what it's about? Added bonus - go to 0:32, and you'll see two Chinese women playing doubles on the far side. The one who starts on the right (while the other woman is hitting the ball), and then moves to the left is Gao Jun, former Chinese star (world #3, 1991 world women's doubles champion) who emigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1990s and was USA Women's Singles National Champion nine times.

The table tennis fantasy tour

While we're on the subject of table tennis movies, here's an article I had published in Fantasy Magazine three years ago on fantasy table tennis in movies and on TV.

Nominations open for U.S. Olympic Foundation’s George M. Steinbrenner III Award

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2011 George M. Steinbrenner III Sport Leadership Award, which annually honors a member of the U.S. Olympic family who has made outstanding contributions to sport.

Day off

After coaching table tennis eight straight days and 18 of the last 19, I'm off today. The bad news: I'm going to spend all day working through my todo list. It's long. Really long. Really, really long. (Will I have enough energy left to see a midnight showing of "The Hunger Games"? We'll see. I read all three books.)

Marty Reisman in slow motion

Yes, now you can stretch out those few seconds of Marty bliss to a full minute and a half!

***

Send us your own coaching news!

Jim Butler call

Yesterday I got a call from Jim Butler. He's been reading my blog and liked what I'd written about him in my blog yesterday. It turns out he's been training extremely hard for three months, almost every day, though often with much weaker players. I told him that when I first heard he'd beaten both Peter Li and Han Xiao at the Cary Cup my mouth had dropped to the floor, but after that, nothing he did would surprise me. (Of course, part of the jaw-dropping part was I didn't realize just how much training he'd been doing.)

Jim and I go way back. I wasn't ever his coach (though I've coached against him, practiced with him, beat him in tournaments when he was a little kid, as well as written about him extensively), but I was the manager (later director/assistant coach) of the resident training program at the Olympic Training Center from 1985-1989, and Jim was there for a year (Fall 1988-Spring 1989, turning 18 during his stay). I still remember grounding him for breaking curfew. Sure, all he did was stick his arm (and then his finger) out the door after curfew, but he did it over and over, and, well, you know.... (Hey, how many national champions have you grounded?)

The current status of U.S. players is somewhat unique. Historically we've usually had 1-3 players who dominated, with a bunch of others chasing them, usually unsuccessfully. At one time Jim Butler was one of those players, battling for dominance with Sean O'Neill and later David Zhuang. At the moment we've got a lot of up-and-coming teenaged players; players in their twenties who are at or near their prime; and older players who are still competitive - but no one is dominating. There are about 8-10 players who could win the Nationals right now without my jaw dropping. Jim just joined the mix - and if he gets back to his past 2700 level, watch out!

More bad news for those 8-10 - Jim says he's working on his backhand loop to go with his backhand smash. Just before he stopped playing competitively in the early 2000's he actually developed a pretty good backhand loop against backspin. I'm not sure it's a good idea for him to backhand loop in topspin rallies as well, since it takes away one of the two scariest parts of his game - his backhand smash. (The other scary part is his serves.) However, Jim knows his game better than anyone else, so we'll see how this develops.

There's a good chance we'll be running a "Super Camp" at MDTTC sometime in the future, for the best players and junior players in the country. Maybe I'll be giving Jim a call.

Spring Break Camp at MDTTC

Yes, it's Spring Break here in Montgomery Country, Maryland, April 2-6, and you know what that means - Spring Break Camp! It's primarily for local juniors, since they are out of school, but it's open to anyone from anywhere, and to all ages. (Non-juniors must be prepared to train with lots of juniors who seem to move at light speed.) I'll be coaching at the camp along with Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, and Jeffrey Zeng Xun.

USATT Hopes Program

For top USA juniors born in 2000 or 2001. "The USATT Hopes Program vision is to also identify young players that have developed solid mental, technical and physical skills and provide educational and training opportunities to them.  In addition, the vision also includes important educational opportunities for their coaches and parents."

Liu Nai-Hui joined NJTTC as a coach

2011 U.S. Open Women's Singles Champion Liu Nai-Hui has joined the New Jersey Table Tennis Club as a coach.

Susan Sarandon to bring table tennis to the screen

Actress Susan Sarandon talks about her upcoming movie, "Ping-Pong Summer" (0:33). This is NOT a joke! (Video starts with a commercial that's longer than the Sarandon video, but it's worth it.)

Susan Sarandon explains why ping-pong rocks

Actress Susan Sarandon gives five reasons why Ping-Pong Rocks (1:05)!

Susan Sarandon playing table tennis

(These are from the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis page, which I maintain.)

photo1 photo2 photo3 (with talk show host Jimmy Fallon) photo4 (actress Olivia Munn on right)photo5 (L-R: talk show host Jimmy Fallon, actor Artie Lange, Sarandon, actress Olivia Munn) photo6 (L-R: Table Tennis Superstar Mikael Appelgren, Actor/Comedian Judah Friedlander, Sarandon, Table Tennis Superstar Jan-Ove Waldner) photo7 (singer Lil Jon on right) photo8 photo9 (Maria Menounos on right) photo10 (with tennis players Mike & Bob Bryan)

Cary Cup and ICC State Open Photos

Real People

Every week another chapter of Tim Boggan's latest History of U.S. Table Tennis goes online at the USATT home page. This week chapter 30 of Volume 11 went up. And lo and behold, here's an excerpt! (This was also printed in my book, Table Tennis: Tales & Techniques.)

Think this is a strange story? Here's Larry Hodges' "Real People" (TTT, Dec., 1982, 12):

 In an International sport such as Table Tennis, you meet a wide variety of characters—some good, some bad; some who never stop smiling, some who have hot tempers. Occasionally, if you're exceptionally lucky, you come up against a real whacko or two….

I'm walking along the University of Maryland Campus when I see this Chinese fellow carrying a table tennis racket. After asking him the obvious questions, I find he's the National Champion of Taiwan! Just last year, in fact. We stop off at the Campus snack bar for pizza and start talking. It seems the National Taiwanese Team is touring the U.S.—the rest of the Team is back at the hotel. We talk table tennis for a bit, then I invite him to play me over at the table in my dorm. 'Sure,' he says, 'but I'll beat you pretty bad. Nobody in the U.S. is any good.' So I get set to play one of the top players in the world.

I beat him 21-2.

I'm in a sports store, looking at the table tennis rackets, when an older fellow comes up, wants to be helpful. 'Here,' he says, 'let me show you how.' He teaches me the forehand stroke and (15 minutes later) is well into the backhand when I start wondering, 'Who is this guy?' On asking, I find I am speaking to the current U.S. Senior Champion, a former U.S. Men's Champion. 'Beat the World Champion once," he says to me. Well, there's a display table set up, so we start to hit some.

He can't score a point.

I meet a guy from the University of Maryland who says he's a tournament player—over 1700—and claims to have beaten me in a tournament. 'Don't you remember?' he asks. 'No,' I say. Well, he starts playing me for money—literally forces $20 on me. I get his name and later find his rating in Topics.

1097.

Then there's a certain guy in a certain large city I met who says he's the best player in the world. Says he's beaten the Seemillers, the Boggans, the Chinese—everybody in fact. 'Gee,' I say, what's your rating?'

 '100,000,' he says.

Wacko, huh? But lest you think I made up these stories, let me assure you, they're all true—factually true.

***

Send us your own coaching news!

Balance

Yesterday I coached a player who moved to his wide forehand to loop pretty well, but always ended up off balance. His center of gravity would go outside his outer foot as he stepped toward the ball, and so after the shot would have great difficulty getting back into position for the next shot. It's extremely important to keep your center of gravity between your feet so that you are always balanced. Sure, there are extreme situations where you have to lunge or even dive for the ball, but those rare exceptions. Notice how the top players are able to hit power shots over and over in quick succession? It's because they stay balanced, and so their recovery time from each shot is extremely fast. When going for a powerful forehand loop it helps to think of a rod going through your head, and try to rotate around that rod as much as possible. That'll help keep your balance.

Jim Butler at the Cary Cup

He's 41, and came out of retirement just a few months ago. Sure, he was U.S. National Champion three times, but the last time was in 1993, nineteen years ago, during Bill Clinton's first year in office. So what does he do? He defeats both U.S. National Men's Singles Champion Peter Li and Runner-up Han Xiao. Both are fellow Marylanders who practically grew up and still play at MDTTC. (He defeated Li in the preliminary RR, but both advanced. He defeated Xiao in the 8ths. He lost to Hongtao Chen in the quarterfinals.) Here's a picture of Butler at the Cary Cup. (Butler on right, Greg Robertshaw on left.) Here's his Hall of Fame profile.

I wish I could have coached my fellow Marylanders for that one. I watched (and coached against) Butler for many years, and I might have had some insight about his somewhat unique game, which revolves around his serves and flat backhand kill. His forehand isn't particularly good for his level, and yet he knows how to use it to maximize its effectiveness. He probably blocks better than any of the U.S. players who recently competed at the USA Olympic and World Team Trials. These days most top players topspin their backhands, and probably had difficulty against Jim's flatter shot. Jim's backhand smash, even now, is easily the best with inverted in the U.S.  (Shao Yu's pips-out backhand smash may be as good.)

I've had five articles published about Jim Butler, but alas, none are online. Perhaps later on I'll scan them. (I've also written extensively about him while doing coverage of major U.S. tournaments.) The articles are listed below. (The "Showdown" articles were tactical analysis of what these two players did when they played each other.)

  • The Showdown: Sean O'Neill vs. Jim Butler, Table Tennis Topics, Nov/Dec 1990
  • The Showdown: Jim Butler vs. John Onifade, Table Tennis Topics, Jan/Feb 1991
  • Jim Butler's Backhand, Table Tennis Topics, May/June 1992
  • Jim Butler Most Improved Player, Table Tennis Today, May/June 1993
  • Interview with Jim Butler, Table Tennis World, Mar/Apr 1996

Maryland Table Tennis Center Update

You ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO MISS the MDTTC Open House and Grand Re-Opening on Saturday, April 7. I'll be doing an exhibition and a seminar on serving, and running the various demos. If you are not there we will talk about you behind your back, and it won't be nice things.

Yesterday new red flooring was installed in the new playing area, as part of the MDTTC expansion. Unfortunately, they also took out the old red flooring for half the current club, leaving us with just four tables for a few days. Since we have four full-time coaches, and the four of us were using all four tables last night, there isn't any open play for a few days.

There have been delays to the expansion, leading to the following cancellation note about our scheduled tournament this weekend.

"Due to an unexpected delay with the renovation/expansion project, we have decided to combine the 2012 Butterfly MDTTC March Open and the May Open Tournaments, which will take place on May 5 & 6. The Total Prize Money will be increased significantly. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused and ask for your kind understanding."

Now the good news. In a week or so the expansion will be done, and we'll have 18 full-sized courts (possibly more for junior training), all-new red flooring, showers, and a weight room. Plus wireless web was installed yesterday.

For more info on the club, including tournament schedule, coaching, camps, etc., see the new MDTTC website.

The Pongcast - Episode 11

The latest Pongcast (21:00) features the European Champions League . . . and TableTennisCoaching.com! The site is discussed from 3:45 to 4:50.

Commercial with table tennis

Here's a 33 second Miller 64 commercial with a few seconds of table tennis - twice.

College Republican National Committee

They have turned to ping-pong balls to promote themselves! Table Tennis Nation has the picture and the story. The note on the ping-pong ball box says, "The Best Party on Campus." I think this refers to beer pong.

***

Send us your own coaching news!

 

Tip of the Week

Fixing the Biggest Weakness in Your Game.

Cary Cup

Unfortunately I barely saw any of the big matches since I was coaching throughout the tournament. So I have little to report on that. In fact, I'm trying to find the results online, and haven't been able to find much of anything.

Here are some tidbits.

  • I got to watch the Butlers, Scott and Jim, go at it backhand to backhand, when they were warming up. They can really hit those backhands. And yet it shows how the game has changed as modern top players would be topspinning those backhands while the Butlers were cracking in mostly flat backhands.
  • There was a rather small bag sitting on a chair next to a court I was about to coach at. I nonchalantly picked up the bag with my right (playing) arm so I could put it aside so I could use the chair. I strained the arm slightly when this rather small bag turned out to weight about 50 pounds. I have no idea what was in it - gold bars?
  • There were two water fountains next to each other near the front door. One was at a regular height for adults, the other a very shortened one for little kids. A very tall man, about 6'4", came in with his son, who looked about four years old. Without hesitation they walked to the fountains and the tall man leaned over the kids fountain while the little kid stood on tiptoes and barely was able to use the tall one. I don't think either noticed the humor of the situation. (Anyone remember the similar scene in the movie "The Lion King," when the small weasel-like Timon takes the big bed, forcing the large warthog Pumbaa to squeeze into the tiny one?)
  • After visiting my water fountain I returned to the playing hall to discover my playing bag was missing. I searched the area for five minutes before realizing I was in the wrong hall. (There were two large playing halls and two smaller ones.)

I played the hardbat event on Friday morning. I'd won the event the last two years, but alas this year it was not to be. There were two groups of about eight, with the top two advancing. I went 6-1, losing to Bin Hai Chu, the 2300 player I'd beaten in the final last year. (I didn't lose a game in the other matches.) In the final RR (with the Chu match carrying over), I lost to Ty Hoff while winning against Dmitri Moundous, and so finished third. Ty led both games against Chu, but lost at 19,20, so Chu won the event and $400. (Second was $300, third $100, and all four finalists received huge trophies.) Later in the tournament, using his regular pips-out sponge penhold racket, he'd have double match point on 2647-rated and defending champion Jeffrey Zeng Xun.

I was mostly coaching Derek Nie, who is probably the best pound-for-pound player in the U.S. with a rating of 2080 at 64 pounds. (He looks about 8 or 9, but actually just turned 11.) He looped his way past opponent after opponent, and ended up beating everyone below him while losing to everyone above him in 14 matches. He did give some scares. Against Gabriel Skolnick (2259), he won the first and was up 11-10 in the second when they had a great point, with Derek smacking in a series of backhands and then looping four forehands in a row. The third, to Gabriel's wide forehand, seemed to win the game, and I actually started to jump up to cheer, but Gabriel reached out and barely brought it back. Derek ripped another forehand to the wide backhand, and again Gabriel just got it back, and Derek finally missed. Against Tao Lin (2304) Derek won the first 11-7, and led much of the second game, but Tao came on strong to win that game and the match. Against Richard Doverman (2298) he led much of the first game before losing 11-9, and was up game point in the second before losing at deuce.

This is very promising for Derek, as you'll know if you've read my Tip of the Week on "Larry's Six-month Law."

Some of Derek's most successful tactics this tournament were to focus on really wide angles and attacking the middle; last-second change of direction on his receive; and lots of varied serves. He needs to work on depth control of his serves (too many went long under pressure, and were looped), and his backhand loop often fell apart when he was rushed.

North American Olympic Trials

You can buy tickets now for the U.S. versus Canada showdown at the North American Olympic Trials, April 20-22.

New ping-pong table to the White House

Here are two stories on it, both from England's The Telegraph:

Non-Table Tennis: Two more short stories published

I had two new fantasy stories published, one on Friday, and one this morning.

This morning my short-short story "The Kitchen Debate" was published on Quantum Muse. The 600-word story is a mystical debate between science and religion. Here's the opening:

The impossible object lay on the kitchen table. My life, my work, my very existence was dedicated to the fact that it did not, could not, exist. And yet there it was, in all its implausibility.

The Hand of God.

On Friday my 99-cent ebook "Willy and the Ten Trillion Chimpanzees" (4000 words, about 18 double spaced pages) was published at Musa Publishing. You can download it for 99 cents - so BUY IT NOW!!! Here's the opening:

The demon Willy Shakespeare returned home late one night from a showing of King Lear, and approached the door to his basement where he kept a full-sized replica of North America, populated by ten trillion chimpanzees, all randomly typing away.

With a glance, he turned off the enchanted timepiece that sped time up in the basement a trillion-fold. He'd been away since lunch, about ten hours, so ten trillion hours had gone by in the basement--about a billion years. He allowed himself a small grin. If they hadn’t created at least one masterpiece for him, there'd be serious pain for a lot of chimps.

Here is my science fiction & fantasy page, and here's where you can buy "Pings and Pongs," an anthology of my 30 best published stories ($14.95). BUY IT NOW!!!

***

Send us your own coaching news!

No Blog on Friday - Cary Cup

No blog tomorrow (Friday) - I leave for the Cary Cup Championships this morning, right after I post this. I'll be defending my hardbat titles from the last two years, but it's a very tough draw this year. The rest of the tournament I'll be coaching junior stars George and Derek Nie. I'm going down and rooming with Tim Boggan. I've been having arm problems, but they seem to be over. I was toying with playing primarily as a chopper, but if the arm is okay I'll probably play my usual all-out forehand attack game combined with some backhand chopping. I'll write about the tournament in my blog next week.

A few notes on serve & forehand looping

When I'm at my best, I'm an all-out forehand attacker on my serve. (This is for both my normal sponge game as well as my hardbat game.) The key to this is good serves and good footwork. Regarding footwork, while fast feet are extremely helpful, good footwork technique is just as important for the first shot of a rally. I'm 52 and don't train anymore, and am by no means that fast, but I can attack nearly any deep ball at the start of a rally (deep serves or serve returns) because of good footwork technique and by quickly reading the opponent's shot. (It's the second or third shot that often takes footwork speed, alas.)

If you want to serve and follow with your forehand, here are your main serving possibilities. (They are mostly written as if both players are righties, but the same ideas apply to lefties with minor adjustments.)

  1. If they can't loop a deep serve to the backhand, then serve deep to the backhand and get ready to dominate with your forehand. Since they are returning the ball from farther back, you have more time to get into forehand position, and they can't get good angles as they could off a shorter ball. If you can serve so the ball breaks into their backhand side, away from their body, then they'll have even more difficulty making a good return, and they'll have even more trouble trying to take it down the line, so most of their returns will predictably be to your backhand. Step around and wait for it. (Don't move too early, of course, or they might just take it down the line.)
  2. If they can't forehand flip effectively down the line (to your backhand), then serve short to the forehand and prepare to attack the crosscourt return to your forehand.
  3. If they can't backhand flip effectively down the line (to your forehand), then serve short to the backhand and prepare to step around to attack with your forehand the crosscourt return to your backhand. They have no angle into your forehand, and so you should be able to react to weak returns there even if you are way around your backhand corner. The main danger here (besides a surprise down-the-line attack to your forehand) is a wide-angled return to your backhand. If that happens, then you either have to step even farther around your backhand (way out of position, very risky) or play backhand.
  4. If they can't push short or flip short backspin, serve short backspin to all parts of the table and prepare for the long push.
  5. If all else fails, serve short to the middle. That way they have no extreme angle, and can't go for a wide crosscourt corner (where they have more table to aim for). They also have to decide between forehand and backhand, and that slight hesitation is often all it takes to get a weak return. If you serve short backspin to the middle, you'll usually get a deep push that's not too angled.
  6. Serve short, very low no-spin. It is surprisingly difficult to push heavy, push short, or to flip. (The key is to keep it low.)  It is especially effective if you mix in spinny serves, and learn to fake spin but serve no-spin. (A spinny-looking serve that is no-spin is called "heavy no-spin." Really!) Here's an article I wrote on the no-spin serve.

Susan Sarandon and ping-pong on TV

Susan Sarandon stopped by the TV show GMA to discuss her new movie and ping-pong, and to challenge hosts Josh and Sam to a game (6:09). The table tennis discussion begins at 4:25.

Why a Ponger Left Goldman-Sachs

It's all over the news - Greg Smith isn't just leaving Goldman-Sachs, he wrote a feature article in the New York Times on the toxic and destructive atmosphere there.

But of course the real story is that Smith was also a very good table tennis player. As he wrote in the article, he won "a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics." But there's more! It looks like he has played USATT tournaments, three of them in 1997-98. Here are his rating results, with his final rating at 1983. (He even defeated Tim Boggan at the 1998 Nationals!)

Our friends at Table Tennis Nation have researched the story even more, and here's what they have to say.

Nixon, Ping-Pong Diplomacy, and the University of Oregon

Here's an article on an event at the University of Oregon that celebrates Ping-Pong Diplomacy.

Microwaving ping-pong balls

Yesterday we lit them on fire. Today we're microwaving ping-pong balls! Video is 5:09 long, but the fireworks beginning at 2:13.

***

Send us your own coaching news!