The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Table Tennis Players

I've been thinking a lot recently about the seven habits of highly effective table tennis players. Why? Because I recently browsed a book I'd read long ago, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." The book lists these as the "7 Habits": 1) Be proactive; 2) Begin with the End in Mind; 3) Put First Things First; 4) Think Win/Win; 5) Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood; 6) Synergize; and 7) Sharpen the Saw. (Google the book if you want more info on any of these seven.)

There is a correlation between some of these and the habits of "highly effective table tennis players." For example, you don't get to be a top player without being proactive, i.e. striving to do what it takes to improve. However, I'm not going to try to create a one-to-one correlation between the seven habits listed and ones used by top table tennis players. Instead, I'm going to list my own list of seven habits of "highly effective table tennis players. Here's my list:

1. Loves to practice.
2. Proactive in finding ways to improve.
3. A perfectionist in most or all aspects of the game.
4. Is always thinking about their game, analytically and tactically.
5. Never gives up, whether in tournaments or practice.
6. Loves to compete and win.
7. Is working toward specific goals, both short-, intermediate-, and long-term.

One item I tried to work in but couldn't find room: "Respects opponent's game even while looking to dominate them." So . . . what's your list?

The Backhand No-Spin Serve From the Forehand Court

Over the weekend I played one of our local 2250 cadet players. He's used to all my serves - mostly forehand pendulum high-toss serves, with lots of variations, and yet was so used to them that he handled them easily. Then I tried something desperate - a backhand no-spin serve from my forehand court! I'd tried no-spin serves already to no avail, but now that it was coming at him from a different angle, with a different motion, he completely fell apart against them. I came back and won that game and the next. He finally figured it out in the third game, and came back to win in five - but only after I missed a couple easy balls from up 9-8 in the fourth. (And let's face it, he's twice as fast as I am now, one month short of 51, with me still trying to play all-out forehand attack.) The simple serve worked, but I probably went to the well too many times, and at the end he was quick pushing it to the corners effectively.

Coaching News

• Attila Malek (full-time coach in Sacramento, 1979 U.S. Men's Singles Champion) is now the USATT Club Representative Director as well as the Clubs Advisory Committee Chairman. See the USATT News item that lists the updated committee and board positions. (Malek replaced Linda Leaf on the board; that's the only board change.)
• The USATT Coach of the Year nominations were announced a couple weeks ago. They are: Lily Yip (Coach of the Year), Sean O'Neill (Developmental Coach of the Year), and Daniel Rutenberg (Paralympic Coach of the Year). Congrats to these coaches!!!

Send me your own coaching news!

Let the ticker-tape parades begin - TableTennisCoaching.com is here!

So here it is, TableTennisCoaching.com. What exactly is it? Someone wrote on the home page that it is "Your Worldwide Center for Table Tennis Coaching." Um, I wrote that, so I better explain.

TableTennisCoaching.com is both a table tennis coaching site and a developing table tennis community. It's a place where players and coaches get together. A place to find coaching articles, books, and videos. A place to find other coaching sites and training camps. A place to discuss all aspects of table tennis, both on the forum, and in comments to my blog and the Tip of the Week. Plus, starting soon, the weekly chats with "celebrity" coaches and players.

So here's my question to you: How can TableTennisCoaching.com best help you? The comment section is below - comment away! My ears are already burning. (And because I notice that the "preview" portion of the blog ends here, let me point out that there's more - if it seems to end here, click on the "Read more" button!)

The blog will cover all aspects of table tennis, focusing mostly on the coaching side. I know I'm going to blog on the doings (and non-doings) of USA Table Tennis, and those could easily become heated discussions - but let's keep the temperature down and the reasonableness and courtesy up.

Coaching News

• Congrats to Coach Lily Yip, who recently opened the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center, a 15,000-foot, 24-table full-time facility in Dunellen, New Jersey! Lily's a long-time full-time coach, and a former USA National and Olympic Team Member. They've already held their first camp there. I plan to visit at some point. At the Nationals, I discussed with Lily the idea of holding a USATT or ITTF camp there for top USA Cadets and Juniors. I'd like to bring a coalition of Maryland juniors there to train with their peers from around the country.
• ICC Table Tennis recently hired Massimo Costantinias as their new head coach. Costantini was the former head coach for the Italian National Team and a member of the Italian National Team for an amazing 23 years. He joins Director/Coach Rajul Sheth, full-time coaches Opendro Singh, Kashyap Anal, Hailong Shen, Meng Tien, and Gidla Jitendra, and a number of part-time coaches. The full-time center, with about 18 tables, has become a force in USA Table Tennis the last few years, especially on the junior girls' side. It's getting scary out there!
• Maryland Table Tennis Center recently brought in Zeng "Jeffrey" Xun as their newest coach, joining Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Larry Hodges (hey, that's me!), and Vahid Mosafari. Jeffrey's a former member of the Chinese Sichuan Province Team, and just spent a year coaching full-time in Vancouver, Canada. He played in the U.S. Open and the North American Teams, and despite no longer training as a player, achieved a rating of 2583. (Imagine when he was in practice!)
• Coach Donn Olsen, who coached at Club JOOLA in Maryland the last few years, has accepted a full-time coaching position at the Werner Schlager Academy in Austria. (The site is in German, but you can read the Jan. 14, 2011 ITTF article about it in English. Werner Schlager of Austria, for you newbies, is the 2003 World Men's Singles Champion.) He's already over there, and wrote me the following tidbits (with my notes in brackets): "It's fun watching [former Chinese Team Member] Chen Weixing train and play matches against Werner. Werner left mid-week for a league match in France. [Romania's] Daniela Dodean was here late last week, chatting about her league match in Germany against [Hungary's] Georgina Pota. Peter-Paul Pradeeban [Canadian Team Member] was here for a day earlier in the week to do some training as he plays in the leagues here. Karl Jindrik, Werner's long-time doubles partner, now working for the ITTF, works out of the ITTF office here in the facility; dropped by yesterday also."

Send me your own coaching news!