Tennis and Table Tennis

I used to play tennis regularly, going to the Quince Orchard Swim and Tennis Club for group training sessions. But it took up a lot of time and money, and I finally stopped about three years ago. Last night I had an urge to play, and so signed up for the 7-8 group session. It's a full-time center, with five tennis courts and a huge swimming pool. Each is contained in a huge "bubble," which comes down during the summer. (I hate when the bubble comes down, and we're stuck playing outside, in the sun, heat, and wind. If tennis were meant to be played outside, there'd have been tennis courts in the Garden of Eden, right?)

While I was paying for the session in the front lobby area, a kid walked up to me and said, "Hi Coach Larry!" I didn't recognize him at first, but I finally figured out he was Kevin, one of the kids in my Sunday junior session. Outside of a table tennis environment I hadn't recognized him at first. Then a man came up to me and asked if I also taught tennis. Again, I didn't recognize him outside the table tennis club, but he was the father of another player in one of my group sessions; his son or daughter was presumably out playing tennis or swimming. We chatted for a few minutes, where I explained I was just a player at the tennis center. When I went out on the tennis courts at 7PM, guess who was sitting next to the next court, watching his son take a tennis lesson? Stephen Yen, a local 2300 player! That's three separate table tennis people I ran into there in the course of a few minutes.

Tip of the Week

Practicing for the Big Matches.

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight Savings Time took a bite out of a Sunday morning practice session. I coach a six-year-old on Sundays from 10-11AM. Because of DST, that was like 9-10AM. Still not too early, right? After all, kids get up much earlier than that for school, right? Well, not in this case. I think the kid was used to staying up a little later on Saturday night, and his sleep clock was way off. When he came out to play, he was half asleep - literally. A few minutes into the session he put his head on the table and either went to sleep, or at least closed his eyes for a minute. I got him up, but a few minutes later he did it again. I had him splash water on his face to wake up - it did the trick for a few minutes. Then he sort of stood up, closed his eyes, and seemed to fall asleep standing up. Anyway, the first thirty minutes of the session were more or less alternate practice and sleep, practice and sleep. Then he woke up.

He actually had a pretty good second half. For his age, he's developed a pretty good backhand, can even smash pretty hard. (I have to get him to slow down.) On the forehand he tends to face the table without rotating his shoulders, and this also leads to an awkward grip. So we spent much of the second half shadow practicing this properly, and though he at one point put his head on the table again for a short nap, he got the forehand right. Near the end he was smacking forehands pretty well, including 22 in a row at one point - and he's hitting them pretty hard. Not bad for a six-year-old who is very small for his age - he looks about four. We also did some serve practice.

Junior Incentives and Team Leagues

One of the things junior table tennis in the U.S. tends to lack - including at my club - are junior incentives for each level. The kids come out and train and train, but for what? To win a rating event at a tournament? To win an age event at a tournament? (Not enough of them.) To win practice matches? To do well in a singles league? Rating points? These are all nice things, but they aren't quite enough. One way to address this is a junior team league. Another is to give training incentives, especially at the lower levels. At all levels there needs to be a balance between improvement (with specific goals) and fun. I'm now looking into both, with plans to set up various incentives and goals at the beginning level, and a junior team league starting this fall.

How would the junior team league be set up? Kids like doubles, so I want to include that. So most likely it'll be some version of two-person teams. However, rather than have just two or three players on a team (where the third can only play doubles), I'm leaning more toward six-person teams, where the top two play a best of five against the other team's top two (i.e. four singles and a doubles); the third and fourth players do the same against the opposing team's third and fourth; and the same for the fifth and sixth. This means each team will be made up of a balance of advanced, intermediate, and beginning players, but players would mostly compete against players in their own range.

Here are some thoughts on what are needed at the various levels. Please comment or email me if you have any suggestions.

Biggest Things Happening in Table Tennis

Here are the biggest things happening in U.S. table tennis right now. (I'm toying with putting in sandpaper table tennis, with all the new money events they are offering. I may feature them in an upcoming blog.)

How Many Serves Are There?

There are a lot of possible serves in table tennis. How many? Let's look at the ways to classify serves.

Table Tennis Online

As ITTF Coach John Olsen recently pointed out to me, we live in the golden age of online table tennis. You can watch just about any major table tennis match online these days, both live and afterwards. Over the last few days (and below) I've given links for many of the major matches taking place at the Chinese World Team Trials. During major USA Table Tennis events (Nationals, Open, Team Trials), you can watch the matches live as well. And you can go to youtube and find just about anything - just put in "Table Tennis" and anything else you are looking for. Over the weekend John watched the live streaming of the Swedish Nationals, the English Championships, and the Norwegian Championships. (Note that some of the links here that gave the live streaming still have the videos online.)

Tip of the Week

Should You Use a Neutral Grip?

The Flu, Late Players, and James Bond - Oh My!

As readers know, I battled with the flu most of last week, and was pretty much out of commission from Sunday afternoon through Thursday. I was tempted to coach on Wednesday - my 53rd birthday - but I got a call from my dad, and when I answered it, my voice was a croak. (I didn't know since I hadn't talked to anyone that day.) And then it got worse, so I got Raghu Nadmichettu to substitute for me.

It wasn't all bad - I spent part of the time watching James Bond movies which I'd borrowed from ITTF coach and student John Olsen. There are 23 James Bond movies, and I thought I had seen all but two or three. I discovered I had not seen five of them, and only had vague memories of three others. So I spent much of Tuesday through Thursday watching eight of them:

1. From Russia with Love
2. Thunderball
3. You Only Live Twice
4. On Her Majesty Secret Service
5. Diamonds are Forever
6. Live and Let Die
7. The Man with the Golden Gun
8. Moonraker

I got back into action on Saturday, running a junior session that morning and two hours of private coaching that afternoon. On Sunday I did two more hours of private coaching and ran another junior session. I also discussed with Wen Hsu plans for starting a junior team league this fall, tentatively on Saturday nights.

Flu Update

It's much better than before, but I'm still sick. I won't bore (or sicken) you with the details, so let's just say I'm singlehandedly propping up the economy with my support of NyQuil, Campbell Soup, and Kleenex Industries and. If all goes well, I expect to be coaching at the club tomorrow morning. It'll be a short blog this morning, then (after a few other items on my todo list), it's back to bed.

Off-Table Serve Practice

Here's a way to develop your serves away from the table - and it may greatly improve them. Start with a simple exercise: toss a ball in the air as if serving, and spin it with your racket. Try to do this so the ball goes straight up so you can easily catch it. After you've mastered this, try varying the spin. Try spinning it with the racket moving side-to-side, in-and-out, and in both directions. Learn to do all sorts of spins this way, where you focus on sheer spin and control. When you can do this, you are only one step away from doing this with an actual serve.

Ma Long - Superman?

Here's an article on Ma Long, the "Superman of the Chinese Team." Includes links to several videos.

Liu Guoliang and Kong Linghui

Here's an article on these two titans of China, formerly superstar players and now coaches of the Chinese Men's and Women's National Teams.

LA Dodgers Ping-Pong

Here's an article from Table Tennis Nation on the LA Dodgers baseball team quickly becoming baseball's official ping-pong team.

Ping-Pong Making a Comeback

Flu

It looks like what I thought was a cold is actually the flu. The difference is I'm feeling constant muscle aches and soreness, which apparently is a flu symptom, not a cold's. So how am I feeling? Other than the constant coughing, runny nose, green stuff coming out of my lungs, entire body encased in aches, and complete exhaustion, I'm fine, thanks for asking. (I got Raghu Nadmichettu to substitute for my coaching last night as I spent my 53rd birthday in bed.) 

Playing While Sick

Way back in the fall of 1979, when I was 19, I had my big breakthrough tournament at the North Carolina Open. I was rated about 1850, but was way under-rated, and knew it - and so I was somewhat excited in the days before the tournament, so much so that I couldn't sleep. Making it worse is I came down sick. I used to be an insomniac, and often went a night without sleeping. This time I didn't sleep the last two nights before the tournament (Thur and Fri), and I came down with a fever of 101.

Early in the tournament I pulled off a nice win, and celebrated with a quarter pounder with cheese. When I won another match, I had another quarter pounder with cheese. Eventually I found myself in the Open Singles final (despite not being among the top eight seeds). As the match began, my head was burning up - several people had put their hands to my forehand and verified it was pretty bad. I had a horrible stomachache from all the quarter pounders - something like nine of them in one day, and having to play right after eating them. I faced Fred King, who in modern ratings would have been about 2200. Anyway, down 13-17 in the fifth on Fred's serve (games were to 21 back in those days, and you served five times in a row), I scored all five on his serve, and ended up winning 21-19 in the fifth. I also won Under 22, Under 2000, and Open Doubles, all four events I'd been entered in.

Happy Birthday to Me

I'm 53 today and sick in bed. Terrific. I'm still undecided whether I can do three hours of scheduled coaching tonight, 6-9PM. (Usually I have a 5PM as well, but she's out of town.) So today's blog will be a bit short.

Freezing Up

Here's an interesting psychological study. When I serve short backspin to top players, I instinctively prepare to follow up against three possible receives: short push, long push, or flip. This past weekend at the end of a lesson I played a practice game with a student who really could only push long off this serve. But a strange thing happened. I served and instinctively prepared for his long push - and instead, he pushed short! I was so caught off guard I literally froze in mid-backswing as the ball bounced twice on my side of the table.

I had mentioned short pushes to him before, but hadn't really taught him how to do them yet. He'd just picked it up on his own, and he realized he needed to push short to stop my loop. Meanwhile, my subconscious mind was so set on the idea that he could only push long that it not only anticipated it, it froze up when the push went short, as if to say, "That does not compute."

New Players/Practice Partners/Assistant Coaches