Tip of the Week

Returning Long Serves with the Backhand.

Chinese players in slow motion

Here's a video (3:30) that showcases top Chinese players in slow motion, which especially showcases their serves - though initially it mostly just shows their strokes. Serves are especially hard to learn by watching at normal speeds since the contact motion by a top server is so fast - it is designed not to be read very easily.

Charity Table Tennis

• Charity Ping-Pong for Poverty and the 28,818 ping-pong balls
  Yes, 28,818 ping-pong balls in a Toyota Prius, and it's all Ping-Pong for Poverty.
• More Charity Table Tennis
  This one at Comet Ping-Pong in Washington DC on Oct. 9, with "All entry proceeds will be donated to Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts."
• Still More Charity Table Tennis
  Here's another charity table tennis event, this one in Chicago Nov. 3, where "100% of net proceeds from our inaugural event will directly benefit high-impact nonprofit organizations local to Chicago."

Practicing, weight training, stretching, and a new blade

Between actually practicing, weight training, stretching, and a new blade, I'm suddenly playing the best I've played in years. (My equipment: Timo Boll ALC flared, with Tenergy 05 FX black 2.1 on forehand, Roundell red 2.1 on the backhand.) Suddenly I'm eyeing the tournament schedule, thinking maybe, maybe.... (Conflict: I coach at most local or major tournaments. Need a tournament that's not local or major, but within driving distance.) Regarding the blade, I discovered it the way most players should find out about different blades - I tried out someone else's racket, in this case Tong Tong Gong (a member of the USA National Cadet Team that I coach at tournaments), and really liked it. As I told him, he can have the blade back when he pries it from my cold, dead fingers. (I'm using one of his backups.)

Update on glasses

Last week I blogged about how I was experimenting by playing without glasses. I read without glasses, but have to put them on to see distance. When I played without them for the first time in decades, I found that I could see the ball better on slow shots - my own serve and when attacking pushes. However, opponents serves and loops became blurs, and I couldn't read the spin. I was fine for the two hours I coached without glasses and a two-hour practice session, but when I played matches, things didn't go so well. So I'm back to the glasses. Anyone else have experiences like this, where they have to trade off on distance versus near vision?

Boys Look at the Stars

Just a reminder that you can download this free table tennis book.

Another USATT Rant

I don't plan to keep harping on the problems with USATT, though I'm obviously peeved about things not going on. It wouldn't be much of a blog if I avoided such issues. Whenever I do write about USATT, I tend to get so aggravated that, well, it's simply not worth writing about too often. (And there are people there who are trying, though they often don't speak up or aren't sure what to do.) But here goes! Here's a posting (with a number of changes and additions) that I did at about.com a few days ago.

There have been many times in USA history where Ping-Pong Diplomacy, the Olympics, TT on TV, features in Boy's Life and other major magazines, etc., brought out droves of players. If it were tennis or most other successful sports, they'd put the kids in a junior training program and later leagues. If it were adults who wanted to learn, they'd put them in a class or group training. If they wanted to compete, they'd put them in a league with players their level.

In table tennis, the large majority of USA clubs will tell them, "Call winner on a table." The new person gets killed, he sees little potential to improve or have fun, he leaves, and we never see him again. The next day, another player goes through the same experience and leaves. There is no infrastructure to get these new players together for coaching or leagues for beginners. (Getting new players into a club isn't that hard; it's keeping them that's the trick.)

There are also limited numbers of clubs in the U.S., so few potential players are near a club, not to mention one that's conducive to new players. While Germany has 11,000 clubs in an area half the size of Texas and 1/4 our population, we have about 300 or so. Their 700,000 members are almost all league members - and nearly all the clubs came about BECAUSE OF THE LEAGUE. Reread that last part a few times. Some of the leaders in our sport think those clubs just came about by themselves, and so they decided, "Hey, let's start up a league!" It was the other way around. And while there are always differences between countries, there is no magical gene that makes Germans play table tennis, or the British (500,000 players, nearly all league players, in an area the size of New York with one-sixth our population), or the rest of Europe, or of course the zillions all over Asia.

We should be able to do what countries like Germany, England and others do in several densely populated regions of the country, such as the northeast, the great lakes area, Florida, Texas, and the entire west coast. It's not that we're too spread out; we are like a bunch of Germany's knitted together.

The U.S. has only 8000 members because we completely, positively, and absolutely refuse to learn the lessons that table tennis and other sports in the U.S. and around the world have learned. From the perspective of developing our sport, we're complete idiots, unable to learn even the most basic lessons from those who have.

This is obvious stuff to those who work at our sport, especially those, like myself, who make a full-time living coaching and organizing. It's been explained to USATT leaders numerous times for decades, but there is little interest from that direction in organizing any type of nationwide league, or in recruiting and training coaches to set up and run junior and other coaching programs at a club as professional coaches, as tennis and other sports do. And so while the problem is obvious, and the solution is obvious, nothing gets done. It's not that USATT doesn't do anything, it's that they focus on things that sound nice but don't develop the sport. Since they have no goals in terms of increasing membership, more junior members, more clubs, etc., they can't be held accountable, and aren't.

USATT runs periodic "Strategic Meetings" to solve problems - I've been to four - where they spend the time coming up with slogans and vague priorities, while refusing to make any specific goals or programs to reach the never-created goals. When nothing is accomplished and membership stays at 8000, with about 1200 junior members (the vast majority non-serious, without coaches or regular training), we get a new logo and crow about how "this symbolizes the new USATT." (This latter is an exact quote from a board member.)

If we can't do the obvious stuff, how can we do the hard stuff? Is it any wonder that we can't get the sport going in this country? Is there anyone here who can talk sense to the people who run our sport? I've tried over and over and failed miserably. It's someone else's turn.

I've written about some of this in my blog, and this last week I emailed the board and others from the 2009 Strategic Meeting to ask what programs had been implemented from that meeting two years ago, but of course the answer is pretty much nothing, as was predictable (and predicted) at the time. About the only thing they could come up with as a result of bringing in 30 people from around the country for a weekend of meetings (at USATT expense) was that they now do a monthly e-newsletter (about one page), which really had nothing to do with the Strategic Meeting. (They were planning the e-newsletter before the meeting - we were one of the last Olympic sports to do this.) The newsletter is "nice," but since we have no serious programs to promote, it doesn't accomplish much of anything.

But we have a new logo!!!

I wrote about the 2009 Strategic Meeting and the lack of follow-up in my daily blog on Sept. 26, the two-year anniversary of the meeting. The bottom line is that it doesn't matter if USATT leaders talk big about the things they are going to do if they act small, which keeps the sport small. Big thinking isn't that big a deal, it's just a matter of understanding what's been successful in making the sports big in table tennis and other sports all over the world, adapting it to our situation, and then making it top priority to do the things necessary so our sport can become big in this country. While making the sport will not be an easy task, the things need to be done to do so is rather obvious.

Suppose there are 50 countries that have small table tennis associations. One of them sets up a league, and gets a large membership as a result. So a second country sets up a league, and it too gets a large membership. Then others follow, and soon there are a number of countries with large memberships from these leagues. (This roughly what has actually happened.) And then USA look at this and wonders, "Gee, how can we get a large membership?" And the really startling thing is they really do not know.

I was asked earlier this year to be on the USATT Coaching and Club Committees, and because the chairs of the committee are well-meaning and serious (Richard McAfee and Attila Malek), I agreed. However, I'm contemplating resigning both since it is a waste of time, since USATT simply is not ready to commit to the obvious steps needed to develop our sport. To USATT's credit, despite my obvious displeasure in some of my blogs and online postings, they haven't asked for my resignation.

Tennis growth

Mitch Seidenfeld, a professional table tennis coach and league director from Minneapolis, posted the following recently. "The Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association (ALTA) was founded in 1934 to promote the development of tennis through tournaments and junior tennis programs in the Atlanta, GA area. ALTA started league play in 1971 with less than 1,000 players. It grew to almost 10,000 players by 1975, 35,000 by 1982, over 51,000 in 1988 and 71,000 in 1992. Today ALTA has approximately 80,000 league members. It has evolved from a small group of volunteers to a large non-profit corporation."

Now how does this apply to table tennis? Keep in mind that the U.S. Tennis Association has 700,000 members, and they didn't get these members and then start a league; they started a league, like the one in Atlanta, and that led to the 700,000 members, nearly all of them league players. Just as sports all over the world have done, including table tennis.

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Ratings - Love 'em or Love 'em

Way too many players are obsessed with ratings. Ratings are fun when they go up, but players (and coaches and parents) shouldn't worry too much about them. They are a good measure of level and improvement, and while you shouldn't worry too much about what your current ratings is, they are a good shorthand for various levels of play. Since goals are generally about winning a specific event (which includes making a team), or about reaching a specific level of play, ratings can be useful for the latter. They are also useful as a stepping stone toward winning a specific event - you aren't going to win a state title, for example, if the best players are 2100, and you are only 1500. Just to be a contender you need to approach that 2100 level, and rating level is useful in keeping track of that.

Here's my article about Juniors and Ratings. (It was published in the USATT Coaching Newsletter.) But most of it applies to all ages.

Peter Li and Michael Landers in China

Both are training and competing in China. (At age 18 and 17, they are the best in the U.S. for their age.) I'm kind of proud of them - Peter was from my club from when he started until about age 14 or so and I used to practice with him and coach him in camps, and Michael came to a number of our summer camps when he was about 11 to 13, where I did a lot of multiball coaching with him.

Weight Training Update

During my second session of my new weight training regimen I added four new exercises to the list: fly & rear delts, calf extension, and back extension. The calf extension was especially obvious - guess which muscle is used when short-stepping around the table? And the fly delts seem to build up muscles used when forehand looping. I'm basically an amateur when it comes to weight training, and yet I'm gradually beginning to remember that I was somewhat knowledgeable about table tennis weight training routines back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I've forgotten a lot, but it's starting to come back. Here is my updated regimen, three times a week, doing three sets of ten for each, usually after a table tennis session:

1. Triceps: Arm Extension
2. Biceps: Arm Curl
3. Chest: Chest Press or Fly Machine
4. Back: Pull Down or Row
5. Shoulders: Overhead Press
6. Hamstrings: Leg Curl
7. Quadriceps: Leg Extensions
8. Other: Leg Press
9. Abs: Ab Crunch or Abdominal Machine
10. Torso: Torso Rotation (both ways, so this is really two exercises)
11. Fly Delts
12. Rear Delts
13. Calf Extension
14. Back Extension

Also, I made the interesting discussion that one of the people I rent the downstairs of my townhouse to works at Fitness First. (I live on the third floor, and rent out the first two floors to a father and 23-year-old son; the latter is the one who works at Fitness First.) We discussed my routine, and he thought (as did a commenter here) that I should eventually go to free weights, so as to build up the stabilizing muscles. But he thought my plan of using the machines until I'm a bit stronger and more experienced seemed reasonable. I did discover they have free weights at the back of the Planet Fitness I'm working out at.

Werner Schlager exhibition shots

Here's 2003 World Men's Singles Champion Werner Schlager of Austria playing an exhibition point (0:51) against Oh Sang Eun of Korea.

Ping-Pong Diplomacy Book

Yes, "The Origin of Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Forgotten Architect of Sino-U.S. Rapprochement," by Mayumi Itoh, 266 pages, is out! But $72???

Another option for those interested is to read Tim Boggan's History of U.S. Table Tennis, Vol. 5, which covers Ping-Pong Diplomacy. (Presumably the Itoh book covers things a big differently; Tim covers it in a very personal way, since he was on the trip to China, and part of the U.S. tour.) You can buy the eleven volumes in this series (individually or all of them) at TimBogganTableTennis.com, or you can read it online:

• Ping Pong Oddity (1971's U.S. tour of China)
• Grand Tour (1972's Chinese tour of U.S.)

Inspirational Music for Table Tennis

I may have posted this once before, but the subject of inspirational music for table tennis came up recently, so here's a good listing. I don't actually train with music, but many do, and many find listening to such music before playing revs them up. (These are mostly from movies.) What are yours?

• "Gonna Fly Now" by Rocky Orchestra ("Rocky" theme song)
• "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor (from "Rocky 3")
• "There's No Easy Way Out" by Robert Tepper (also played in Rocky! There's a pattern here...)
• "You’re the Best" by Joe Esposito (a theme from "Karate Kid")
• "Final Countdown" by Europe, the Final Countdown Tour
• "Magic Ball" the theme music of the 1989 World Table Tennis Championships

A Cat and Beverly Hills Cop

And since we're on the subject of table tennis music, here's a cat, table tennis, and the theme music to Beverly Hills Cop (starring Eddie Murphy at his peak). (3:42)

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The Inner Games of Table Tennis

When a looper plays a blocker, there's an inner game being played between the two. The looper wants to be in a stable position where he can make strong, well-placed loops that force the blocker to lunge for the ball, back up, or just miss or return the ball weakly. The blocker wants to be in position so he can make quick, well-placed blocks that force the looper to lunge for the ball or just miss or return the ball weakly. In most rallies, one style takes control while the other struggles, although the advantage can change quickly and multiple times during a rally. When you are in such a match, are you playing blindly or are you focused on winning this inner game?

There are similar inner games in most matches. For example, between two players with strong backhands, both might battle for control of the backhand diagonal. A righty and a lefty might battle for chances to hit aggressive backhands to the opponent's wide forehand, thereby drawing the opponent out of position, or they might battle for forehand control into the opponent's backhand. Or there's the battle between the serve & attacker against the receiver who wants to force a neutral rally. There are countless such examples of these inner games. Have you learned to recognize the inner games that take place in your matches?

Glasses or no glasses?

I started wearing glasses in college because I had trouble reading what was on the blackboard. I also need them to watch a movie or TV, to read road signs when driving, or to see anything clearly in the distance. At some point around 25 or so years ago, I started wearing them when I play table tennis. The problem is that I take the glasses off to read - my eyes are fine for that. When I wear the glasses, I can't read anything close up. When I wear the glasses in table tennis, I can see my opponent's racket clearly, but up close, the ball is a blur.

Yesterday I experimented playing without glasses. I can see the ball much more sharply when serving - my serves seemed better as a result - and I could almost see the ball right into my racket in rallies. My opponent's racket isn't as focused, but I think I can see the racket motion well enough to read spin. So I'm going to continue this experiment. I'll report back later.

Anyone else have experience in these matters?

Slippery Grip?

If you have problems gripping your racket when you get sweaty, you might consider wearing a wristband, and drying your hands with a towel regularly. When it's humid, you should bring two towels, one for the ball and racket, one for you (in particular your hands). Other options include getting a rubber grip or perhaps power grip. (I haven't tried power grip, but I've seen others use this or something similar. When the blog first went up this morning, I incorrectly called and linked it to court grip, which is for shoe traction - another topic to cover someday.)

It's Ping-Pong Diplomacy Night in Colorado!

Yes, you read that right. Read about it here. There will be a live re-enactment of 1971's Ping-Pong Diplomacy games. Actually, it's Ping-Pong Diplomacy Month in Colorado - there are a whole series of Ping-Pong Diplomacy events taking place, such as Ping-Pong in the Park in Denver.

Ping-Pong and Music and Parties, Oh My!

The London Ping-Pong Company is a company that creates ping-pong events with music in a party atmosphere. To use their own description, "Our unique ping-pong events are based on fun, teams-based ‘tournament-style’ parties involving fantastic venues, trained hosts & umpires, MCs, DJs, super coaches, & exhibition matches." Sounds like something someone in the U.S. could emulate - a niche just waiting to be grabbed.

Polar Bear versus a Penguin

In this episode (3:36, starts with a short ad), Bernard the Hairless Polar Bear plays ping-pong with a penguin. (As someone notes in the comments, the cheating bird illegally hides his serve at 2:22.)

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Minimum-quality shots

Often players and coaches harp on creating quality shots, as they should. However, what about minimum-quality shots? These are shots where your opponent has made you uncomfortable - perhaps with his attack, his serve, or something else - and so all you are trying to do is get the ball back in a way that he won't cream it past you.

Minimum-quality shots can be tricky to pull off correctly. First, you have to judge whether it's time to go for one. Second, you have to judge just how weak you can make your shot - to maximize consistency - and still get away with it. And third, you have to be able to something with the ball to give the opponent some trouble, such as angling the shot, going to the opponent's weak side, keeping it deep, changing the direction at the last second, changing the spin, etc. This last part is almost an art form. Ultimately, you don't want to try to win with your minimum-quality shots, but they will often keep you in the point. And some decent players pretty much base their whole game on just getting the ball back like this, though not at really high levels.

Often players don't distinguish between incoming shots that they have read properly and are in position to attack, and ones where they are not, and so blindly attack both. While they sometimes pull off a nice shot this way, and it might actually be good practice to raise you level by attacking shots that you are not really comfortable attacking, it's not usually the percentage thing to do, tactically.

One of my favorite strategies is to just keep taking the ball right off the bounce and returning it really, really wide to the opponent's backhand, but not too hard. You'd be surprised how much trouble they have doing anything with this shot. It's way too far over for most to use their forehand (and they are wide open on the forehand side if they do), they can't really hit this ball down the line very hard, and I give them no pace to work with, and so all I have to do is be a brick wall on my backhand side until they miss. This works especially well for me in returning serves, in backhand-backhand rallies, and for wide-angled pushes. The first two here are especially well underutilized by most players.

Getting back in shape for table tennis

I've decided to devote the next two months to getting in great table tennis shape. Besides the usual hitting with students and practice matches Fri-Sun (mostly with our local juniors as a practice partner), this means about three training sessions/week, plus lifting weights at a gym three times a week, plus daily stretching. (This is on top of going from 196 lbs in December to the current 173.) Here's my new weight training regime, which I started yesterday, with ten reps each, three times each, weight set so the last few reps are a slight struggle. I start and end each session with stretching. Right now my arms are very, very tired, but the rest of me seems okay.

1. Triceps: Arm Extension
2. Biceps: Arm Curl
3. Chest: Chest Press or Fly Machine
4. Back: Pull Down or Row
5. Shoulders: Overhead Press
6. Hamstrings: Leg Curl
7. Quadriceps: Leg Extensions
8. Other: Leg Press
9. Abs: Ab Crunch or Abdominal Machine
10. Torso: Torso Rotation (both ways, so this is really two exercises)

Table tennis videos

Can't get enough videos? There are lots of ones in the TableTennisCoaching video section. I've just added the ITTF video page. Or just type in your favorite player (and perhaps the words "table tennis") into youtube, and you can pretty much find anybody.

Table Tennis University

Table Tennis University opens for enrollment on Thursday, Sept. 29. It's an online table tennis school. I've linked to a number of their videos, but haven't otherwise been involved with them, but (from the videos and table tennis resume) they obviously are knowledgeable table tennis people. (I have my own video coaching at TableTennisCoaching.com.)

Penny-Pong

My favorite sport is now penny-pong. (Patience - it takes about a minute to get into it in this 4:42 video.) But why does this remind me of the rickety bridge scene from Balls of Fury? Except they have, apparently, learned backhand.

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Steady or aggressive blocking?

There are generally two types of blockers, steady blockers ("walls") and aggressive blockers ("jab-blockers"). Which are you? You should do both, of course, but it's usually best to specialize in one or the other. For example, David Zhuang (six-time U.S. Men's Singles Champion) is primarily a steady blocker. He can block forever, side to side, often changing the pace and even sidespin blocking. But when he sees the chance, he snaps out an often point-winning jab-block, which is made even more effective by the contrast with his usual steady but not-too-hard blocking.

A key to blocking is placement. Steady blockers mostly block side to side at wide angles, since a softer block to the middle can be hammered. Jab-blockers play the extreme corners and to the opponent's middle (playing elbow), rushing the opponent who has to decide between forehand and backhand, which often opens up a corner to jab-block a winner to. (This is because the opponent has to move to the middle of the table to hit a forehand or backhand, leaving one side open.) The nice thing about having a good block is you can get away with a lot of tactical things that others might not be comfortable doing, such as long serves or aggressive pushes. The opponent may have trouble with these, but if he does attack them, a blocker isn't worried since he's comfortable blocking.

Berkeley Open Results

Isn't it great how at the North American Table Tennis events, such as the Berkeley Open this past weekend (choose "Berkeley Open" from the dropdown menu), you can see not just the results (which most tournaments are slow to put up), but every single match played in each event?

The Amazing Michael Maze

Here's a profile of Denmark's Michael Maze, with the understanding that after this, we'll have a moratorium on the clichéd nickname "Amazing." He's probably the best lobber in the world. He was the 2005 World Championships Men's Singles Semifinalist, 2009 European Men's Singles Champion, 2004 European Top 12 Champion, 2004 Olympic Men's Doubles Bronze Medalist, and is currently world #21, was World #8 one year ago. Here's a tribute video to Maze (6:37).

If you want to relive Maze's greatest victory ever and see some of the greatest lobbing ever, his comeback against China's Hao Shuai in the all-lefty quarterfinals of the 2005 World Championships (he was down 3-0, won 4-3, lobbing over and over), here's the full match (52:11).

Maze defeated China's Wang Hao the round before, 4-1, perhaps an even bigger win. I can't find the video in one segment, but here are the five games. That's Liu Guoliang coaching Wang.

• Game 1 (10:07)
• Game 2 (8:27)
• Game 3 (10:08)
• Game 4 (8:27)
• Game 5 (8:25)

Men's Singles Finals, 2011 World Championships

In case you want something more recent than Maze's Amazing (there's that cliché again...) matches in 2005, here's Zhang Jike versus Wang Hao in the 2011 Men's Singles Final, with the entire match in just 12:11 (by cutting out the time between points). Yes, you can relive the entire thing (and study their techniques) in just twelve minutes!

World Cup Participants

The participants list for the 2011 LIEBHERR Men's World Cup (Paris, Nov. 11-13) are announced. Wang Hao of China will be defending his title.

Sports Coaching Brain

Here's an interesting sports webpage, the Sports Coaching Brain, that (to use their "About" text) calls itself the "ultimate source of ideas, innovations and inspiration for all sports, coaching, sports science and performance issues." Someone who read my blog yesterday about USA Table Tennis gave me the link to this article, Coach-Driven, Athlete-Focused, Administratively-Supported? Isn't it time we did something different? It does seem to fit our sport's situation.

Obama playing table tennis

We already have lots of pictures of Barrack Obama playing table tennis. Now we have the other Obama, Michelle Obama playing table tennis! (And for those who missed it before, here is Barrack Obama playing table tennis: photo1 photo2 photo3 (Photos 2 and 3 are from a picture on the wall at the White House); Obama and David Cameron, Prime Minister of England: photo1 photo2 photo3 photo4 photo5 photo6 photo7 photo8 photo9

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Tip of the Week

Develop Your Game Around Your Playing Style.

Two-Year Anniversary of September 26, 2009 - the USATT Strategic Meeting

What's so big about this date from exactly two years ago? It's when USATT completed its 2009 Strategic Meeting in Colorado Springs, Sept. 26, 2009. I was one of the 26 participants at the meeting. The biggest discussion point at the meeting was the consensus that USATT's 8000 members was basically a "round-off error." So what programs have since been implemented to increase membership and solve this problem?

We came up with three "priorities," with a task force for each - "Juniors," "Grow Membership Through Added Value" and "Communication." (The "Grow Membership Through Added Value" was verbally said would include setting up regional associations and leagues, but nothing specific was listed on this.) Despite having 26 experts in the room, no specific plans or goals were created. 

I strongly disagreed with much of this - I believed that we needed specific goals and timelines, with specific plans and timelines to meet those goals. The task forces would then work out the specifics, including recommended changes, and then the plans would be implemented. Others believed that the task forces would do all this, and so the only purpose of the 26 attendees (many of them flown in at USATT expense) was to come up with these vague priorities and slogans.

I believed that the Junior priority (way too vague) should be "Club-based Junior Programs," since that's how the most successful table tennis countries do it. You recruit and train coaches to be full-time coaches and to set up and run junior programs. Independently of USATT, a number of full-time training centers have been popping up around the country, leading to junior programs and an increase in the number of active junior players, and a noticeable increase in the number of "elite" juniors. It would have been helpful if USATT were involved in this by recruiting and training those who wish to create full-time centers and junior programs, but there seemed little interest in this at the Strategic Meeting and by the junior task force. 

I also very strongly believed that the so-called "Grow Membership Through Added Value" priority was also way too vague, and that it should have instead been "Nationwide Leagues," with the goal to set up a model that could be turned into a nationwide network of leagues, expanding on the success of current leagues in regions such as the bay area (San Francisco/San Jose), Los Angeles, and New York. Alas, I was voted down. As I've blogged about a number of times (see especially my Sept. 22, 2011 blog), this is how table tennis and other sports all over the world do this successfully. I am completely clueless as to why we ignore these successful models that show a well-trod path to success. (How's that for a slogan?) I also thought that the prevoius Club Catalyst and Creation Program (to have a club in every moderately large city), Coaches National Network (a coaching program in every club), and other state-based programs should have been re-incorporated. 

I think Communications could be important, but I discount its value until we have something to communicate about. For example, the U.S. Tennis Association (700,000 members) regularly sends out email newsletters that focus on their leagues, grassroots junior programs, and the U.S. Open Tennis Championships. What does USATT have to communicate about? It is not particularly involved in leagues or grassroots junior development, and has made no serious effort to increase participation in the U.S. Open or USA Nationals. (Participation is actually down from past years.) The point of a newsletter is to promote the sport, but if you don't have any programs to promote the sport, there's nothing serious to communicate about. Player profiles and other news items make the newsletter interesting, but the central focus must be about central programs that are being promoted. USATT now does a monthly newsletter and even has a new alternate website, but few programs to promote.

There was also a lot of discussion about the USATT's webpage, with a consensus that it was dated and redesigned. We did a lot of brainstorming on what should be on the new webpage. About half the participants wanted to take it down immediately, with a new one designed and created within a week! (Not too likely.) The end result was that it would be redesigned as soon as possible. Two years later, there's been little change. There is the new alternate Team Table Tennis website, but that's not the USATT's primary site. (Do a Google search for "table tennis," and the first thing that comes up is the USATT website. The alternate one doesn't show up on the first page.)

I've been to five of these USATT "Strategic meetings" (plus numerous smaller meetings where the board broke into small groups to do "strategic thinking" on various topics, such as regionalization), and each of which followed the same script, leading to lots of slogans and vague priorities. The problem is that slogans and vague priorities don't bring in membership, develop junior programs, create elite athletes, etc. They simply make the participants feel good about themselves. At the time of the Strategic Meeting, I was ready to volunteer with USATT, but I've sort of lost interest until they show they are ready to take their game to the next level (see their "Brand Promise"). I was asked to be on the USATT Coaching and Club Committee earlier this year, and agreed, but I'm undecided whether there's any point in that - the USATT board and task forces simply have different ideas on how to accomplish things.

It would be interesting to ask the 26 participants to honestly access the success of programs implemented since the Strategic Meeting, and see whether there wpuld be an honest assessment, or the "circle the wagons" response we so often get. (The first one who talks about "what we will do," as we've done for 78 years, instead of "what we've done," gets jettisoned off the planet. Sure, we need to talk about "what we will do," but not until we've had an honest assessment of "What we've done," and figure out how we can do better.) The problem is that there really haven't been any programs implemented. They created a monthly newsletter (like nearly all other sports already were doing, except we don't really have anything to communicate about) and a new logo (which a board member told me symbolizes a "new USATT"), but that's about it. The coaching committee adopted the ITTF coaching program and that has led to a number of ITTF coaching seminars in the U.S. (I ran one), but that was planned by coaching chair Richard McAfee before the strategic meeting, and had little to do with the "priorities" developed. (I also think that program needs more emphasis on recruiting full-time coaches and on teaching how to set up and run club-based junior programs.)

As noted, at the Strategic Meeting we came up with lots of slogans. Since we spent nearly half the meeting on these, I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. Here are the things we came up with. Have we fulfilled any of this? Has any of this made us a better organization, gained us new members, or developed elite athletes? My comments are in brackets, but they are rather repetitive as I keep asking what programs have been implemented to accomplish the statement. If nothing is being done to fulfill the words, then they are empty words.

Brand Promise
USATT: Taking our Game to the Next Level 

[Has USATT taken its game to the next level? Has it implemented any programs to accomplish this?]

Brand Vision
We will introduce a new generation of youth to a new generation of Table Tennis.  We will ignite a grassroots movement that connects the fun of basement ping pong to the awesome intensity of Olympic competition.

[Has USATT implemented any programs that will introduce a new generation of youth to a new generation of Table Tennis? Has it implemented any programs that will ignite this grassroots movement?]

Club and league directors will see us as their trusted ally in engaging the masses and nurturing talent.

[Has USATT implemented any programs that will cause Club and League directors to see them as a trusted ally in engaging the masses and nurturing talent? Has it implemented any programs that even involve Club and League directors?]

Colleges will offer Table Tennis scholarships and attendance at intramural competitions will be standing room only.  Table Tennis will become a varsity high school sport.  Corporate sponsors we now seek will instead seek us out.

[Has USATT implemented any programs that will lead to colleges offering scholarships, with standing room attendance at intramural competitions? Have corporate sponsors begun to seek us out?]

We will be known as innovators and agents of change.  Ten years from now, other sports’ NGBs [National Governing Bodies] will meet and ask themselves, “How can we grow our sport like Table Tennis did?”

[Has USATT implemented any programs that merit it being known, or will lead toward it being known, as innovators or agents of change?]

Brand Values

• We believe that working together, we can accomplish far more than working alone.
• We welcome players from the basement to the Olympic arena.
• Respect and integrity will not be sacrificed for results.  We call our own faults.
• It is better to serve than to receive

[Has any of this led to anything?]

I'll end this diatribe with this.

How to set up a fourth-ball attack

Coach Li explains and demonstrates this in the latest video from Table Tennis University (4:18). This means how to return serves to set up an attack on the next shot.

Loss of power

This past weekend I realized I was losing power on my forehand loop from the backhand corner - a cornerstone of my game - for a reason that is probably common to others. As I've gotten older, my feet have slowed a bit, and I realized that I wasn't going around quite as far as before. And so I was looping while standing closer to the ball, and so wasn't really using any arm extension while looping. Once I realized this, I made a conscious effort to exaggerate the step around movement so I was almost reaching for the ball on those shots, forcing me to fuller arm extension - and the rest of the night I had the most potent forehand loop from the backhand corner I've had in perhaps years.

Going to the well too often on serves

Sometimes it's easy to fall into the trap of trying to win too much from a few tricky serves. The problem is that if you use the same tricky serves too often, opponents get used to them. To use an experience I just had as an example, I played one of our top juniors this past weekend. I had three specific serves that the junior had problems with (all from a forehand pendulum motion) - a breaking side-top serve deep to the backhand, a fast, dead serve to the elbow, and a short side-top serve to the forehand. Rather than vary these serves in along with other, simpler third-ball serves (i.e. short backspin and no-spin serves followed with loops), I tried to win the match on free points from these serves. It worked in game one (11-4), but the junior got used to the serves, and by game two was hammering them. I lost the next two games. Realizing that the time of trickery was over, and that I'd have to earn the win, I convinced myself I had the greatest serve & attack in the world (it's a nice sports psychology trick), and won the next two games almost exclusively by serving short and looping the next ball. Imagine how much easier things would have been if I'd done that from the start, while mixing in the trick serves to get 3-4 "free" points per game? (An extended version of this will probably become a Tip of the Week.)

Note to Kevin

Do your ellipticals! Yeah, Kevin's a student of mine getting in shape for the North American Teams, Nov. 25-27. You and others also training for that - as of today, you have exactly 60 days to prepare. Hup, hup, hup!

Truly spectacular table tennis - with a moral

This video (1:42) has a moral - no matter how badly things are going, you can battle and come back. But you have to take action to make it happen. Are you listening, USATT?

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Creating racket velocity on serves and strokes

Many players have great difficulty creating great spin with their loops and serves. They stroke through the ball with a constant not-too-high velocity, and the result is a not-too-great spin. There's little acceleration in their shots, and so there's little velocity.

There's a distinction between speed and acceleration. Velocity is the actual miles per hour; acceleration is how fast you are speeding up. To get a lot of velocity, you need a lot of acceleration. For maximum velocity, you need to accelerate right up until contact. How do you do this?

For looping, start with the lower body muscles, and work your way up. This means the legs, then waist, then shoulders, then arm, then wrist. Think of it as a whip, which also starts at the base (near the handle) and works its way down to the tip. This is especially true when looping and serving. Rotate your body around in a circle, creating great torque. You do so by using the muscles exactly as noted above, in that order - legs, waist, shoulders, arm, and then wrist.

On serve, you generally don't use your legs much, but for forehand serves you do rotate the body into the shot from the waist, shoulders, and arm. Then the wrist snaps into the shot like the tip of a whip, generating massive spin.

If you wave it, what moves faster, the tip of a whip or the tip of a stick? The tip of the whip. To maximize acceleration, you need to relax your muscles as if they were rubber. If they are tight, you'll have the velocity of the stick.

Ultimately, power comes from good technique (muscles used properly and in synch) and relaxed muscles.

Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook

Here is the Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook, a must read for all coaches in the U.S. (Or am I biased, since I wrote it?)  It is written as a professional guide for those who wish to coach table tennis professionally, with the U.S. market in particular, though most of it should be applicable anywhere. It incorporates most of what was originally in two previous manuals I'd written, "Junior Training Primer" and "Beginning Class Primer," as well as lots of other stuff. The focus is not on how to teach techniques, but on the "professional" side, i.e. how to get a facility, recruiting and keeping students, setting up and teaching classes and junior programs, etc. I originally wrote it a few years ago, with the last update on Jan. 1, 2010. The primer is based on years of experience coaching myself, along with co-coaches Cheng Yinghua and Jack Huang and others, and numerous discussions over the years with other coaches. Here is the Table of Contents:

1. The Profession of Coaching
2. How Much Income Can You Make As a Table Tennis Coach?
3. What Credentials Do You Need to Be a Table Tennis Coach?
4. Getting a Facility, Tables and Other Equipment
5. Start With a Plan
6. Recruiting Students
7. Setting Up and Teaching a Class
8. Setting Up and Running a Junior Training Program
9. Private Coaching
10. Keeping Players Interested
11. Drills Library
12. Sample Flyers
13. Helpful Links & Resources

Pro Players Equipment Page

So you want to know what equipment most of the top hundred players (and many more) actually use? Here's the listing, for the Equipment Junkie in you.

Scientists play ping-pong with an electron

Really!!!!!

Hello . . . I'm Mister Ed

Can a horse play table tennis? Yes, and they did this in the TV show Mister Ed (1958-1966). Here's the picture that proves it! There's no digital manipulation; they apparently got the horse to hold the paddle and probably filmed a lot to get what they needed. I remember seeing the footage, but alas, I can't find it on youtube. And so I'll leave you with this:

A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and nobody plays pong with a horse, that is, of course, unless, of course, the horse is the famous Mr. Ed! (Sung to the tune of the Mister Ed opening theme, 0:42, with some minor horsing around with the lyrics.)

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USA Table Tennis Infrastructure

No sport can get big without infrastructure. In countries like Germany and England (700,000 and 500,000 members of their respective table tennis associations), the focus is on their leagues, with a secondary focus on junior development. The U.S. Tennis Association (700,000 members) also focuses on its leagues and junior development, as well as the U.S. Open. Little League Baseball, pretty much by definition, focuses on leagues and junior development, and has millions of players. The United States Bowling Congress, with over 2.5 million members, has over 70,000 leagues administered by 35,000 volunteers in 2900 local and state associations. I could go on and on and on, with country after country, sport after sport, but it's always the same message. What can USA Table Tennis (8000 members) learn from this?

A number of times in our past we've had huge media coverage, and a large influx of players. Each time it was temporary because, predictably, without the infrastructure to absorb the players - leagues for all levels, junior programs for kids - the players came, didn't find what they wanted, and they left. And so the media coverage from Ping-Pong Diplomacy in 1971 and 1972, the Olympic debut in 1988, the Olympics in the U.S. in 1996, even Forest Gump in 1994, didn't help; we simply weren't ready. We've been on national TV numerous times, from the ESPN coverage circa 1980, Prime Network in the early 1990s, various times during the Olympics, and more recently Killerspin ESPN broadcasts. Again, it didn't help without the infrastructure. USATT is like a shoe store with bad shoes; until they fix the shoes, TV and other promotions aren't going to develop a membership base. If we were a shoe store, we'd be out of business. Since we're a non-profit, we stay open, a monument to how not to grow a sport.

USA Table Tennis, don't just say leagues and junior programs are priorities, and create task forces to look into these issues, and then do nothing, as we've done over and Over and OVER. If you can't make these your top priority (or make a strong argument for something else), and act like they ARE your top priority by actually making it your, *cough* *cough* TOP PRIORTY, by actually implementing something - then you are just caretakers for a sport waiting for true leadership.

I've blogged about this numerous times, so here it is in a nutshell. Create the prototypical USA League, make it available to potential league directors, recruit volunteers, and promote the heck out of it. Recruit and train coaches who wish to run junior programs. See sport grow. Grow sport grow.

This is not a sport where talking the talk will get anything done; we need to walk the walk. There is a well-trod path to success; to quote the great Yoda, "Do or do not." Which will it be?

Returning short serves to the forehand

Having trouble with those short serves to the forehand? Often find yourself barely getting them in time, since you also have to be ready to cover deep serves? Try practicing in and out movement. Go into your regular receive stance. Then step in, with the right foot well under the table (for righties), and shadow-practice flipping or pushing that serve. Do this a few dozen times, in and out, in and out, in and out. It can be tiring, but it'll pay off if you do this regularly, perhaps a few times a week.

How to Be a Champion

Required reading for all players and coaches. (I posted this once before, but I should post this a few times a year.) These are from the May/June 2005 USA Table Tennis Magazine "How to Be a Champion" issue.

• What It Takes To Be a Champion by Sean O’Neill
• Develop the Basics by Larry Hodges
• The Improvement Pyramid by Richard McAfee
• Developing a Winning Playing Style by Carl Danner
• Dominate With Serve & Receive by Masaaki Tajima
• How to Move Up a Level by Larry Hodges
• Tactical Table Tennis Thinking by Dan Seemiller
• Killer Practice Sessions by Larry Hodges & Sean O’Neill
• Sports Psychology for Table Tennis by Richard McAfee
• Strength and Conditioning for Table Tennis by Christian Lillieroos
• Ten Tips for Future Champions by Jan-Ove Waldner

Werner Schlager

Here's a profile of 2003 World Champion Werner Schlager.

iPhone table tennis app

This seems to be table tennis, but since I use a phone designed to make, you know, phone calls, I'm not really sure.

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Receive

The last couple of blogs I've had a lot on serving. Now let's talk about receive. Below are links to ten articles I've written on receive. Receive is the hardest part of the game to learn, and the most under-practiced. When players drill, they work on their strokes, their footwork, and they even practice serves. But how often do they systematically practice receive? To do so, you need to find practice partners who is willing to let you practice against their serves, and many players are protective of this - they don't want to give potential rivals a chance to get used to their serves. Sometimes the best way to practice serves is to find a stronger player (one who doesn't consider you a potential threat) and ask to practice against their serves. Or hire them as a coach. As to the receiving itself, enjoy browsing or reading the below. Any questions? C'mon, I love questions!!!

• Reading Service Spin
• How To Return Different Serves
• When Receiving, Emphasize Placement & Consistency
• Returning Short Serves
• Looping Spin Serves
• Stopping the Third-Ball Loop Versus Push Attack
• Never Give a Server What He's Looking For
• What To Do With Problem Serves
• Why You MUST Attack the Deep Serve
• What is the goal of the receiver?

Getting back to my old level

Now that my back problems are over, I'm toying with how serious I should take my own playing. If I want to get back to my old level, I'm going to have to:

• Do lots of stretching or I will get injured. There's no "if" here.
• Lift weights to regain full muscle strength.
• Practice a lot.
• Play lots of tournaments to become tournament tough again.
• Give up most other activities. :)

*Sigh*. It seems like a lot of time and work. There's a reason most coaches stop competing. (And the huge majority of my match play these days is as a practice partner for local juniors.) Maybe I'll just continue to focus on coaching, and let others do the above. (Like I've been doing for years.) On the other hand, I can rely on 35 years of playing experience to win matches. There's some pride to winning a match when the opponent has you completely outgunned, and they come off the table wondering, "How the heck did I lose that?"

Counterlooping

Coach Tao Li teaches the forehand counterloop (8:35). If you like this, here are seven coaching videos by Coach Tao

• How to play long pips (10:38)
• How to return short no-spin serves (13:41)
• How to loop a dead ball (4:56)
• How to improve reaction time (3:51)
• Hitting your second topspin (3:21)
• How to control your counter-attacks (5:06)
• Forehand counterloop (8:35)

Joo Se-Hyuk

Here's a profile of South Korea's Joo Se-Hyuk, the best chopper in the world (really a chopper/looper, since he's often all-out looping on the forehand), and a men's singles finalist at the 2003 Worlds.

National Physical Disabled Table Tennis Association

Straight from Nepal!

USATT logo

Do you prefer new, the old, or the older one? 

New USATT logo	Old USATT logo	Older USATT logo

Exciting but catty table tennis action

Can the catchy new USATT logo (see above) be the catalyst for catapulting our catatonically-growing sport to catching on with new categories of fans as we no longer cater to the catastrophically few who currently play our catlike sport? Or am I just being catty? See what these fans and players think.

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More on Serving

On Friday, I gave my periodic "Practice your serves!" reminder, a public service for the benefit of the vast throngs of table tennis players who forget to practice their serves unless I remind them. Over the weekend I put up two more articles on serving, both previously published in USA Table Tennis Magazine: Serving Short with Spin and Serving Short the Productive Way. Want more? Here are 19 articles I've written on serving. (The two new ones are at the end.)

• Serves to Help You Win
• Ten-Point Plan to Serving Success
• Deception on Serves: Using Semi-Circular Motion
• Maximize Your Service Play
• Serving Short
• Serving Long
• The Fifteen Fast and Deep Serves
• The High Toss Serve
• The No-Spin Serve
• Contact the Ball as Low as You Can When Serving
• Holding Back on Serves
• Hardbat Serving Tips
• Strengths and Weaknesses of the Four Major Serves
• Importance of Serve Variety
• A Journey of Nine Feet Begins at Contact
• Exaggerate the Opposite Motion on Serves
• Fifteen Important Deep Serves
• Serving Short with Spin
• Serving Short the Productive Way

The Shoulder Method of Hiding the Serve

I've blogged about hidden serves a number of times, but I want to point out the most popular method of hiding serves so you can watch for it. Think of it as a public address announcement for the benefit of umpires, who are in the unenviable position of having to call hidden serves, as well as for players and coaches who have to call the service rule on opponents who hide their serves.

It's not enough these day to just hide the serve these days; illegal servers now are able to hiding their hiding! (Hopefully you will read the following so as to watch for it, not to learn to do it - though of course some will do that, alas.) Most umpires watch the non-playing arm closely to make sure the serve isn't obviously hidden by that. The rule says that the non-playing arm must be "pulled out of the way as soon as the ball is projected upwards." However, most umpires aren't strict on this as long as the arm is pulled out before contact so as not to hide the ball. And this is where they are getting fooled.

Most players who hide their serves now do it with their shoulder. They leave their non-playing arm out as long as possible, and then pull it back just before contact. Since most umpires are watching the arm to make sure it is pulled out in time, they think the serve is legal. What they don't see is that by keeping the arm out, the server is able to keep his shoulder thrust out. While the arm is pulled out of the way before contact, the shoulder lags behind and doesn't quite come out of the way until just after contact, and that's what hides the contact. It's like a magic trick, where you distract the observer with one thing (the arm) so they don't see the more important thing (the shoulder). 

And just as a reminder, here are the pertinent parts of the service rule about hiding contact:

• Rule 2.6.4: "From the start of service until it is struck, the ball ... shall not be hidden from the receiver by the server..."
• Rule 2.6.5: "As soon as the ball has been projected, the server's free arm and hand shall be removed from the space between the ball and the net."
• Rule 2.6.6: "It is the responsibility of the player to serve so that the umpire or the assistant umpire can be satisfied that he or she complies with the requirements of the Laws."

Three more coaching articles by Samson Dubina
(Here are all his coaching articles.)

• Four Stages of Peaking for a Tournament, Part 1
• Four Stages of Peaking for a Tournament, Part 2
• Scouting Your Opponent

Deng Yaping

Here's a short profile of the great Deng Yaping, now 38 years old and with a Ph.D from Cambridge.

Dora Kurimay

Dora Kurimay, top table tennis player and sports psychologist, is interviewed at The Pongcast. Then check out her table tennis sports psychology page.

Table Tennis and More Commercial

Here's a commercial (1:29) for Table Tennis and More, a club in Phoenix, Arizona. Why doesn't your club have one?

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