Coaching Is Like Awkwardly Programming a Computer
How is this true? When coaching, you are trying to change the habits of the student's subconscious, which is what controls his conditioned shots. The student's conscious mind might be a partner in doing this, but it is the subconscious that is really the student.

If the student really was a computer, you'd just program him properly. Is he hitting forehands without rotating his body? Just go into his forehand programming, click the "rotate body" button, and you're done. But in real coaching there's no "rotate body" button, so you have to do it more awkwardly. Here's what really happens.  

STEP ONE: Tell student's conscious mind he needs to rotate his body on forehands.

STEP TWO: Student consciously rotates his body while hitting forehands.

STEP THREE: Student's subconscious mind notes that body is rotating while hitting forehands, and protests, since this isn't "normal," and so gives student feeling of awkwardness, which the student attributes to not being used to rotating his body while hitting forehands....

Forehand Blocking
Here's the last point of the match (18 sec) where 14-year-old Japanese whiz Harimoto Tomokazu (world #13) recently upset world #1 Fan Zhendong at the ITTF-Asian Cup. The camera angle shows just how fast these players play. But to me the key thing here is what Tomokazu does at the start of the rally when Fan loops to his forehand - he blocks. Yes, at the highest levels of our sport, where nearly everyone tries to counterloops everything on the forehand (and often on the backhand) - he forehand blocks. And this is a well-placed block. He has an angle into the forehand, so Fan has to be ready to cover that - and so when Tomokazu instead blocks down the line, he forces Fan to play his backhand, followed by an awkward, out-of-position forehand, which sets Tomokazu up to win the point. (Fan would have tried to counterloop.)

One of the most under-used shots in table tennis (at all levels) is the down-the-line forehand block - most players automatically go crosscourt, both because of the angle (which forces the...

USATT Hall of Fame Inductions and Lifetime Achievement Award
They have been announced, and so today is sort of a "WOW!" day. Why?

I'm this year's recipient of the USATT Lifetime Achievement Award! (The official title is "Mark Matthews Lifetime Achievement Award," named after 1931 and 1932 U.S. Open Men's Champion, then called Marcus Schussheim.)

This year they are inducting five new members to the USATT Hall of Fame - most years it's two or three, but this year we're inducting a basketball team!!!  This year's inductees are Li Ai, Dhiren Narotam, Norm Bass, Henan Li Ai, and Doru Gheorghe. The induction ceremony for all six of us will take place at the USA Nationals in Las Vegas, on Thursday night, July 5.

This could also be called the "Resident Training...

Summer Table Tennis Training Camps
Summer is coming, and it's time to plan for your summer training needs!!! Email me if you'd like me to add you to the listing below - I will likely link back to it numerous times. (With apologies to those missed - I put out a note last week asking for those running camps to contact me, plus I listed the ones I already knew about. I visited many of the major full-time clubs to find info on their camps, and listed those I could find.)

Why would you go to a table tennis camp? The simple answer is . . . to get better. But many would say, "I can train at my home club, why go to a camp?" At a camp, besides getting expert coaching, you get intensive training typically for five days, which is enough time to dramatically improve your game. This type of saturation training will lead to far more improvement than just practicing on and off for longer periods of time. Plus, it's a memorable event - you love table tennis, and this is a table tennis vacation! Some of my best table tennis memories are from the late 1970s when I was a regular at the Seemiller Camps. (I...