Rules Changes I Was Involved In
Yesterday I blogged about rules changes since I started playing in 1976. I also wrote how I was involved or responsible for three, and promised to write about them today. I'll go in reverse order.

1) Paddle Point Rule. Back in 1991 I shared a ride from Maryland to the U.S. Open in Midland, Michigan with Dave Sakai. Along the way we picked up then-USATT president Dan Seemiller in Pittsburgh. During the long drive we discussed the paddle point rule, which a lot of people thought was silly, including all three of us. The rule then was that if an opponent hit the ball off the end but it hit your racket while still in play (i.e. not hitting the floor or something else to end the point), you'd lose the point. The reason for the rule was back in the hardbat era there were many players who blocked so quick off the bounce it was difficult to tell if the ball hit the table first - but in the sponge era, this doesn't happen much.

But many matches were being decided by the paddle point rule, including the Men's Final at a recent Olympic Sports Festival (then a major USATT tournament), where Sean O'Neill was up I believe 20-19 in the fifth match point (games to 21 back then), and smacked a ball off the end for an apparent deuce, but the ball hit Jim Butler's racket, and so Sean won. So right there in the car I got out my steno notebook and wrote a draft of a rule change to rescind the paddle point rule. I gave it to Dan, who gave it to the chair of the Official's Committee (not sure who - Wendell Dillon?), who finalized the language and submitted it to the ITTF, where it was passed.

MDTTC Camps

Another day, another camp. We've been running these five-day camps at MDTTC since 1992. My best estimate is that we've run over 170 of them, and I've been at nearly all of them. That's over 800 days of camp, almost 2.5 years. I've given each of my lectures 170 times, led in stretching (twice a day, except I missed the afternoon session sometimes so I took off 100) about 1500 times, and (I just did some quick calculations) fed about seven million balls in multiball. Yesterday's focus (as it was about 170 previous times on day two) was the backhand. This is in addition to at least 30 other camps (most about five days long) that I'd coached at before we opened MDTTC.

I noticed an interesting dynamic among some of our developing juniors. Compared to other juniors from other programs, I think our juniors tend to have better backhands (especially looping), but less power on the forehand. Our juniors tend to develop more forehand power later in their junior careers. Right now we have several of them who are in slumps as they are trying to loop with more forehand power, which (initially) leads to inconsistency, as well as problems with other aspects of their games. (More focus on the forehand means less focus on other parts of their games, plus if the first loop comes back, they aren't used to the different timing since it often comes back quicker.) The good news is they've chosen good times for this - during the summer, the best time to work on your game since there aren't many tournaments, and they are off school and so can really work on these things. Hopefully by the fall the juniors in question here will have mastered the extra power. (Much of it comes from extra hip rotation.)

Rule Changes

Tip of the Week

Blocking Tips.

Back Stiffness

My back is now so stiff I've been offered money to use it to carve stuff on diamonds. There's a rumor it's made of collapsed matter.

I spent most of July feeding multiball and hitting with beginners, then spent nine days at a writers workshop (mostly sitting down), and then another week at another camp mostly feeding multiball or hitting with beginners. When I finally had several sessions with more advanced players this weekend (John, Kevin, Sameer) I could barely move. At some point in the last month or so the wide forehand has moved another three feet away. The backhand corner is now somewhere way off in the distance to the left. And looping with power is like trying to lasso someone with a hundred-pound dumbbell.

If I weren't so busy with MDTTC camps, private & group coaching, a new tenant just moving into my townhouse (I live on third floor, rent out first two floors), battles with previous tenant (who left without paying rent, cleaning the place, and left numerous damages), plus an incredible amount of time now devoted to my novelist career (my first one's coming out Nov. 15 - see my July 30 blog), this blog and Tip of the Week, a pair of upcoming ITTF coaching seminars, promoting Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers (as I just did!), and a few jillion other things, I'd focus on getting back in shape and back to my normal 2200 level - not easy at age 53.

This morning we start another camp, Week Eight of our ten weeks of camps. We have stronger (i.e. younger) coaches who act as high-level practice partners, so most of my coaching time will likely be giving the usual group lectures, demos, and feeding multiball.

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was the backhand loop. Most of the players in the camp were ready for this, including two of the five beginners I was mostly working with. The harder part for most was doing a backhand loop against backspin and then and a backhand drive against topspin consecutively, fed multiball style. Inevitably, when they first try this, they'd either shorten the backswing on the backhand loop (and go into net), or swing up on the drive (and go off the end). Some of the more advanced players backhand looped against both backspin and topspin, but being more advanced, they had little trouble making the adjustment.

I gave a private lesson to a player roughly in his late 40s (not sure), where I introduced him to forehand looping. This was where the power of the subconscious became a problem. He quickly developed a pretty good forehand loop technique, except his racket was always too closed. And so when I fed him backspin with multiball, over and over he went into the net. Even when I told him to spin the ball way, way off the end, his subconscious took over as soon as he began his stroke, and the balls kept going into the net. This happens all the time when the loop is first introduced to older players. The key is you have to really, Really, REALLY convince yourself to aim to loop way off the end, so that your subconscious gets the message, and so it aims there - with the result that the ball probably hits the table. After doing that a few times, the subconscious has the feedback to aim better, and then it can loop off the end. Then you tell it to aim for the table, and kazzam, you can aim for the table and the ball hits the table.  

It was a long day at the club. Due to the camp, private coaching, meetings, and other TT issues, I was at the club continuously (except for a lunchtime walk over to 7-11 with a bunch of the kids) from 8:30 AM to 9PM.

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was on forehand looping. We didn't have most of the beginners do this, though a couple of them badly wanted to and so I taught them the shot. Normally you give players at least a few weeks at least of regular forehand and backhand drives before introducing them to looping. The six-year-old I blogged about yesterday who had a pretty good backhand loop (at least in multiball) had an even better forehand loop! Very smooth and rather consistent. However, he's not ready to do this effectively in a game yet - he still loses head-to-head to other beginners who don't have his techniques, but are a couple years older and are more consistent.

One of the important points that came up several times yesterday is the importance of rotating mostly in a circle when forehand looping. Imagine a rod going through your head; you should rotate around it. The left side (for righties) should pull back and around as much as the right side goes forward. This doesn't mean you never move your head and upper body (i.e. follow through sideways), but that's usually done to create power when rushed, especially when stepping around the backhand corner. By rotating mostly in a circle you stay balanced and immediately ready for the next shot - which is how top players can pull off a series of powerful loops in quick succession, while intermediate players often struggle to do two in a row.

The younger kids in this week's camp absolutely have gone bonkers over Froggy. All they want to do is put it on the table so they can try hitting it while I feed multiball. I'm starting half the sessions by saying various versions of, "If you work hard for the first hour, I'll bring out Froggy and you can take turns hurting the poor amphibian." It's good target practice, as long as they use good form when hitting.

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was on the backhand, as it always is on Tuesdays during our camps. (Mon=FH, Tue=BH, Wed=FH Loop, Thu=BH Attack, Fri=Pushing and Player's Choice.) One local six-year-old kid badly wanted to demonstrate his backhand loop, and though I was skeptical at first, I let him - and it turned out to be very nice and fluid. So I let him do a bunch of that, along with other hitting drills. Not too many six-year-olds are already backhand looping! (If a kid wants to do something that you aren't sure he's ready for, it's better to teach it to him so he learns it properly than have him learn on his own, as he undoubtedly would.)

The kids I'm working with are improving rapidly. There are five beginners in the 6-8 age group that I'm mostly in charge of. None had even a semblance of forehand or backhand strokes when we started on Monday, but after two days all have the basic shots in multiball, and three of them can now rally live with me forehand to forehand and backhand to backhand. Two of them still struggle to serve, so we're going to focus on that a bit today. We did some service practice yesterday, and I even brought out the serving bar so they could practice serving low. (This is an adjustable bar that goes over the net. Here's a picture of it set high, and here's a picture of it set low.  John Olsen made this for the club and for a few others. It has about ten height settings.)  

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday was Day One of Week Seven of our ten weeks of summer camps. This week we have our smallest turnout, only about 20 players. Originally I was going to work only the mornings, since the turnout is smaller and because I need more time for my writing (both table tennis and fiction), as well as to prepare for upcoming ITTF seminars (one I'm attending, one I'm teaching), and other TT organizing activities. However, there are four beginning younger kids, and I was asked if I could take charge of them. So I'm working with these four in the afternoons. But it means I'm facing a time crunch. I may write more about this later - I've got a todo list that's longer than a "Game of Thrones" novel. (Thing will ease up at the end of August when our camps end and the kids go back to school.) 

One thing that jumped out among these four is that three of them have a lot of head movement when they play forehands. I'm working on minimizing that. Two of them tend to hit forehands with backspin. One has trouble hitting the ball at all. Two can't serve yet. So we've got a busy week ahead of us.

Tip of the Week

Topspinny Backhands.

Last Week's Tip of the Week

I put up a Tip of the Week last Monday, but since I was out of town and not blogging, some of you may have missed it. If so, you get a special double-tip week! So here's the July 22 Tip of the Week: Pushing Change of Direction.

I'm Back!

It's been eleven days. I doubt if you missed me more than my dog, who went berserk at my return. (I had people taking care of her, but she tends not to eat much when I'm away.) As noted below, I was at a writers workshop in Manchester, NH, July 19-27. See segment on this below. And right after I finish this morning's blog I'm off to coach at the MDTTC camp. (We have ten consecutive camps this summer, each Mon-Fri; this is week seven. I should be at the rest of them - I missed two weeks, one for the writers workshop, one for the U.S. Open.)

Table Tennis Fitness

I just returned from nine days at a writers workshop (see below). While there was no table tennis there - other than my showing off my "blowing the ball in the air" trick, and one time showing off my ability to bounce a ping-pong ball up and down on a cell phone over and over - I did notice something related to table tennis.

Last Blog until Monday, July 29 - Off to Writer's Workshop

When most people go on vacation, they go to beaches, Disneyworld, or Las Vegas. When table tennis players go on vacation, they center it around a major tournament. When I go on vacation, I go to a science fiction writer's workshop in Manchester, NH, July 19-28. After non-stop table tennis action since early June (when kids got out of school), I need the physical and mental break. (Actually, it's been pretty much non-stop table tennis for 37 years!!!)

Back in 2006 I attended the Odyssey Science Fiction & Fantasy Writer's Workshop, an intense six-week program for such writers. Every year a group of the graduates get together for nine days of intense workshopping, called "The Never-Ending Odyssey" or TNEO. I've got three stories getting critiqued, I critiqued dozens of others, plus we have a number of other programs, with two one-hour "master classes" each day, taught by various graduates.

It's a busy time right now. I'm juggling ten consecutive weeks of training camps (all Mon-Fri, 10AM-6PM, June 17 - Aug. 23); the U.S. Open (July 1-7); an ITTF Level 2 Coaching Seminar I'm attending (Sept. 2-7 in New Jersey); an ITTF Level 1 Coaching Seminar I'm teaching (Oct. 2-7 in South Bend, Indiana); the usual private and group coaching and general table tennis promotion (that's enough to fill my schedule alone); the daily blog and weekly tip; and the usual science fiction & fantasy writing that I do on the side. (I'm already gearing up to write the sequel to the novel I just sold - see my blog the last two days.) I'm also planning to do a rewrite of my book Table Tennis: Steps to Success (probably retitled "Table Tennis Fundamentals"), but for now that's on hold. Things will ease up dramatically by September, when the kids go back to school. 

MDTTC Camp

Yesterday's focus was on the backhand. I gave a talk on it, explaining both the technique and the variations, such as how dropping the tip gives more power (sort of a second forehand) but you lose quickness and have more trouble in the middle, while holding the tip higher does the reverse - though you can still hit it pretty hard. I also explained how the backhand has evolved, from the flatter backhands of the past to the more topspinny ones of the modern day. I also talked about the revolutionary change in penhold play, from conventional backhands to reverse penhold backhands.

For some reason many coaches do not have their students do backhand footwork. I too am sometimes guilty of getting lazy on that, focusing on forehand footwork. Often players only do backhand footwork in conjunction with forehands, such as alternating forehand and backhand shots (either alternating from the corners or alternating both shots from the backhand corner). How about backhand-backhand footwork, where the coach puts a ball to the wide backhand, and then a ball to the middle backhand (or even more to the middle), and the player moves side to side hitting backhands? This type of footwork is even more important for players who use good topspin their backhands, whether looping or just having a topspinny backhand, since these players have longer strokes, and so positioning is even more important to get it right. (Players with more of a blocking stroke should also move for each ball, but can often get away with more reaching.)

Later I completed my serving lecture, going over deception and fast serves. Then we had service practice. As usual, we finished with games. Many Brazilian teams were victorious, many cups were knocked off tables, and poor Froggy also got smacked around a bit.