Blogs

Larry Hodges' Blog and Tip of the Week will normally go up on Mondays by 2:00 PM USA Eastern time. Larry is a member of the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame, a USATT Certified National Coach, a professional coach at the Maryland Table Tennis Center (USA), and author of ten books and over 2100 articles on table tennis, plus over 1900 blogs and over 600 tips. Here is his bio. (Larry was awarded the USATT Lifetime Achievement Award in July, 2018.)

Make sure to order your copy of Larry's best-selling book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers!
Finally, a tactics book on this most tactical of sports!!!

Also out - Table Tennis Tips, More Table Tennis Tips, Still More Table Tennis Tips, and Yet Still More Table Tennis Tips, which cover, in logical progression, his Tips of the Week from 2011-2023, with 150 Tips in each!

Or, for a combination of Tales of our sport and Technique articles, try Table Tennis Tales & Techniques. If you are in the mood for inspirational fiction, The Spirit of Pong is also out - a fantasy story about an American who goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis, trains with the spirits of past champions, and faces betrayal and great peril as he battles for glory but faces utter defeat. Read the First Two Chapters for free!

November 3, 2025

NEXT BLOG – Monday, Nov. 24
I’ll be out of town the next few weeks with trips to LA and Nanjing, China. See “Traveling” segment below.

Tip of the Week
Learn to Defend on Receive.

Weekend Coaching
Some of you may have heard about the 6-7 thing that’s the latest craze among kids. In honor of that, in the three junior group sessions over the weekend I challenged players to get 67 shots in a row and called it out when they did. In multiball, I always yell, “Ten more seconds” near the end of each player’s turn (usually 70 sec to 2 min), but this time it was always, “Six or seven more seconds!” And I managed to find every possible way to work it in.

We also did a lot of multiball “target practice.” Often I put my water bottle on the table, somewhat deep in a corner, and challenge players to hit it while doing footwork drills. This weekend I brought out one of our ball boxes, which are plastic and about a foot across. Then I challenged the players to knock it off the table. It usually takes a number of hits to do so. When a player’s turn ended and the box was still on the table, the next player took over, and we continued until someone knocked it off. If I had three players, then I’d have one do ball pick up while the other two alternated, such as each hitting three forehands (from backhand, middle, forehand), and then rotating about as the other player did three shots, until they knocked it off. Drills like this really get the kids into it, and it really develops their footwork, strokes, and accuracy.

Christmas Shopping – Table Tennis Novels
Last week I listed my table tennis books as possible Christmas presents, as well as others. Here’s where you can find all of my books, both table tennis and science fiction. But perhaps you are interested in a table tennis novel? Here’s a listing!

  • The Spirit of Pong by Larry Hodges - Fantasy Table Tennis Novel. Andy “Shoes” Blue wants to be a table tennis champion, but he’s just another wannabe American. And so he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis. He is trained by the mysterious Coach Wang, and begins an odyssey where he learns the secrets of table tennis from the spirits of Ichiro Ogimura (who helped spawn China’s greatness), Rong Guotuan (China’s first world champion in 1959, whose tragic story Andy must relive), and others, and must face the mysterious “Dragon.” Can he overcome treachery and learn the final secret of table tennis in time to defeat his ultimate nemesis? 100 pages.
  • First Galactic Table Tennis Championships by Larry Hodges – Science Fiction Novelette. Li Yi is a member of the Chinese National Table Tennis Team and the best woman in the world. She has trained long hours since she was a child. But now she faces her biggest challenge – aliens! Table tennis has spread to the galaxy and alien players now dominate the sport. The best are the giraffe-like Ith, with their dominating champion Egrayu. But Earth isn't part of it, not since the cowboy Americans colonized a moon in the Ith home system, which led to a blockade of Earth. The Chinese hope to reopen trade with the galaxy by using "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" – by running the first Galactic Table Tennis Championships in Beijing. Li, her teammates, and the American champion Danny See – a literal cowboy – play aliens of all shapes and sizes, including the seemingly unbeatable Egrayu, as they battle for the biggest cash prize in table tennis history. But Li is drawn into a corrupt conspiracy that will shake the very foundations of honor and sportsmanship. Plus, there's that problem with the Chinese dumplings… 42 pages.
  • Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions by Larry Hodges – this is my best science fiction novel, and while it’s not really a table tennis novel, one of the four main characters is a championships table tennis player, and there are a number of table tennis scenes. Here’s my blog about those table tennis scenes.
  • Underspin, by E. Y. Zhao, 2025. Here’s my review.
  • Ping, by Lisa Lucas & Steve Landsberg, 2025.
  • Kate's Progress: An Inspiring Table Tennis Story, by Graham Frankel, 2021.
  • The Ping of the Seas, by Ken Robbins, 2019.
  • The Mystery of the Lost Racket, by Enzo Pettinelli, 2013 (children’s ebook).
  • Hank Zipzer: My Secret Life as a Ping-Pong Wizard, by Henry Winkler & Lin Oliver, 2005 (children's book – and yes, co-authored by “Fonzi”!)
  • Ping Pong: A Play About American College Life, by H.C. Kim, 2001.
  • The Mighty Walzer, by Howard Jacobson, 1999.
  • Forrest Gump, by Winston Groom, 1986 – the movie was based on this.
  • Ping Pong: A Play, by Arthur Adamov, 1955.

Traveling - Hall of Fame Induction Dinner, Amity Cup, North American Teams
I’m going to be incredibly busy the next three months, including three trips in November. (So no blog the next two weeks.)

  • Nov. 6-7 – I fly out to Los Angeles early on Thursday morning, spend the day sightseeing in LA, in particular the Hollywood Museum. (In 2020, after the US Olympic Trials in nearby Santa Monica, I spent a week sightseeing in LA, and saw all the major sites – but the Hollywood Museum hadn’t opened yet.) Then I’ll attend the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame Induction Dinner that night (6-9PM) at the LA Table Tennis Club in El Monte, CA. Those being honored are Betty Henry Link, David Del Vecchio, Stellan Bengtsson, and Connie Sweeris (Lifetime Achievement Award). I fly back the following morning, returning Friday night, just in time to coach on Saturday and Sunday. And then, on Monday...
  • Nov. 10-19 – On Monday, Nov. 10, I fly to Shanghai, China, two days later a train to Nanjing, for the Amity Team Cup on Nov. 14-15. I’ll be playing on the US Over 60 Team. There are a number of other festivities, including various friendship exhibition matches. I’ll also do some sightseeing in Shanghai and Nanjing, including a visit to the ITTF Hall of Fame in Shanghai.
  • Nov. 28-30 – Coaching at the North American Teams at the National Harbor in Maryland. I believe we’ll have six or seven coaches coaching 14 junior teams.
  • Dec. 17-22 – I’ll be competing in various senior and hardbat events at the US Open in Las Vegas, NV, and probably coaching as well. I’ve been to every US Open and Nationals since 1985.
  • Dec. 22-27 – Christmas with family in Sonoma, CA (near San Francisco).
  • Jan. 15 - Feb. 12, 2026 – I’ll be competing in the Classic Table Tennis World Cup in Três Coroas City, Brazil, Jan. 19-25, with big prize money for hardbat, sandpaper, and woodbat events. Afterwards I’ll be sightseeing Jan. 26-Feb. 12, primarily in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Cusco, Peru (including Machu Picchu); and Bogotá, Columbia. I’ve been to 24 countries; after this it’ll be 28, plus all 50 US states!
  • Feb. 13 – Dec. 31, 2026 – Sleep.

Injury Roll Call
Alas, just as at the recent Senior Table Tennis World Championships, I’ll be competing while injured in the events above. Most are in the recovering stage, but as my doctor pointed out, they need more time to heal, and they won’t get that until next February. This leads to two problems. First, I have naturally stiff muscles – that’s genetics. All the stretching in the world would only get me up to perhaps normal flexibility, and I don’t have time for that. I do some stretching each day which makes me as flexible as a rock. Second, I’m 65 and still try to train and play like I’m 20. I play an athletic style, with an all-out attacking forehand, and all that movement leads to injuries. Anyways, on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 = 100% healthy, 2-3 bothersome, 4-6 real problems, 7-9 can barely play, and 10 incapacitated), here’s a listing - but these numbers will likely go up each time I play a competitive match!

  • Right side: 7. Makes it impossible to loop with power and difficult to rotate to my backhand.
  • Right shoulder (front): 5. Makes aggressive backhands difficult.
  • Right shoulder (back): 5. Makes forehand loops difficult.
  • Right knee: 4. Makes it difficult to move quickly to my right.
  • Neck: 2
  • Right arm: 2
  • Left Achilles tendon: 2

Major League Table Tennis

New from MH Table Tennis

Butterfly Training Tips

3 Ways to Hold a Table Tennis Racket (Full Grip Guide)
Here’s the video (11:29) from Andreas Levenko.

3 Mistakes That Kill Your Backspin Serve
Here’s the video (3:31) from Ti Long.

Practicing Consistency for Matches
Here’s the video (4:22) with Damien Provost from PongSpace.

Dimitrij Ovtcharov RUTHLESS Table Tennis Training!
Here’s the video (5:53) from Table Tennis Daily.

When Winning Matters More Than Family
Here’s the video (4:26) from Taco Backhand, featuring Felix (world #7) and Alexis Lebrun (world #13) of France.

New from TT11TV

The First Butterfly Training Camp in Ecuador Has Successfully Concluded
Here’s the article by Geovanny Coello.

Puerto Rico Shines At The 2025 ITTF Pan-American Championships
Here’s the article by Edgardo Vazquez.

Sabine WINTER - The Queen of Anti-Top Playing Style
Here’s the video (7:28) from PingSunday.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from ITTF

Custom Table Tennis Lover Themed Pixar Style Portrait Desktop Figurine
Here’s where you can have one made (from your own photo) for $32!

Table Tennis Christmas Tree Ornaments
Here’s what comes up in Amazon.

The Table Tennis Machine
Here’s the video (46 sec)!

Five-Level Ping-Pong Challenge
Here’s the video (60 sec) from Pongfinity!

How Good is a World Rank 3 Player Actually?
Here’s the video (20:48) from Pongfinity! “World number three Hugo Calderano faces ten table tennis challenges. Pongfinity tests the pro's skills in creative trick shots and speed tests. Will they discover any weaknesses in this highly-decorated athlete's game?”

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October 27, 2025

Tip of the Week
Death of the Kill.

Weekend Coaching
In one of our weekend junior group sessions, we had two new junior players, about 9 and 11 years old. It was their first time to a table tennis club. Two things stood out from them. First, they both had surprisingly good strokes, both forehand and backhand, and they moved well. (I think one of them said their father had coached them, and they’d seen videos.) But the problem was they both were using what were essentially store-bought toy sponge rackets. The rackets and sponge were dead, making it difficult to do advanced shots, especially in a fast rally. The older one borrowed someone else’s racket and did well with it. The other stayed with his slow one, for now. He did pretty well in drills but not in games at the end of the session. I’m pretty sure he’ll be switching to a better sponge soon.

So, what type of racket should beginning to intermediate players use? There was a huge paradigm switch a few decades ago. Back then, players were developed as hitters who then learned how to loop. They’d generally loop against backspin, but then either hit or loop once in the rally. But the problem was that once you develop as a hitter, looping is less natural later on. Most coaches can look at a player and quickly tell if he started out as a hitter (like me) or early on began to loop. But the basic idea was that players learned to hit first, and then extended the swing and changed the contact so that it became a loop.

The paradigm switch was for players to go to advanced and thicker sponge as early as possible. Before, it was advised to use slower, thinner sponge while developing your strokes, both hitting and looping. But with such sponge, looping was more difficult, and so players couldn’t really do them effectively in match situations, and so often played more hitting. When they did loop in a rally, it was often forced and awkward, or from well off the table. In contrast, those who switched to advanced equipment early on found looping easier and more natural, and so often pulled ahead of those who waited longer before going to the advanced equipment.

It’s not a firm rule, and many players who used slower sponges in their formative years still became top players. But in general, in the modern game, it’s important to go to more advanced sponge as soon as the basic shots are somewhat developed. For a player who plays regularly and receives coaching, especially a junior player, this generally means by the end of their first year, and sometimes as early as six months.

A key here is that if you are not receiving coaching, and go to advanced sponges, you might not develop your strokes properly. Slower sponges do force better technique since they have less margin for error (less topspin, more swing needed), and so if you aren’t receiving regular coaching, then you might hold back a little longer before going to advanced surfaces.

Holiday Shopping – Buy My Books!
Christmas, Hanukkah, and other holidays are coming up – time to buy my table tennis books! (But feel free to buy my science fiction ones as well.) Here’s a listing with descriptions of each. Below are direct links to the table tennis books. (Next week I will likely do a listing of table tennis novels, both mine and others.)

You can also buy a few from 5-time US Men’s Singles Champion Dan Seemiller!

Or you can buy one of Tim Boggan’s 23 volumes of History of US Table Tennis!

2025 U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame Dinner to Honor Betty Henry, David Del Vecchio, Connie Sweeris, and Stellan Bengtsson
Here’s the USATT news item. I will be there! (I fly to LA on Thursday morning on Nov. 6, spend a few hours at the Hollywood Museum, attend the HOF Dinner that night where I hobnob with the historic stars of our sport, then fly home the following morning. (Three days later, on Nov. 10, I’m off to China to play on the US Over 60 Team at the Amity Cup team tournament in Nanjing!)

Beijing Vlog from MH Table Tennis (Matt Hetherington)

Major League Table Tennis

New from Butterfly

The Two Warmups You Need to Do Before a Competition
Here’s the video (3:09) with Damien Provost from PongSpace.

Short Pimples Mastermind Loa Schoug vs Top Players
Here’s the video (11:07) from Pingispågarna.

Forehand Topspin Explained for Coaches
Here’s the video (2:25) from Biomechanics Applied to table tennis.

Short Table Tennis Video Tips from PingSunday
Here’s the page.

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

8 Minutes of Why Ma Long Is The GOAT Of Table Tennis
Here’s the video from Taco Backhand.

New Videos

New from Steve Hopkins

New from ITTF

I Will Let My Paddle Do the Talking
Here’s where you can buy the table tennis shirt at Amazon!

Ti Long Breaks Another Guinness World Record – His 4th World Title!
Here’s the video (1:59)!

Tri Table Tennis?
Here’s the video (12 sec)!

When You Play in Front of...
Here’s the video (15 sec) from PingPongMaestro!

Adam vs. Truls: NO MERCY!
Here’s the video (11:53) from Adam Bobrow as he takes on Sweden’s world #6, Truls Moregardh!

Retired Ping-Pong Legend Hiding as Janitor Trains an Underdog—Shocks Rivals and Conquers the Court!
Here’s the video (1hr 38min) – enjoy! (I haven’t watched it, but it looks rather wild.)

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October 20, 2025

Tip of the Week
Never Use “Full Power.”

Weekend Coaching
I spent much of the weekend working on our junior players’ forehand loops against backspin. It was sort of the theme of the week. Some of the weekend highlights:

  • One girl, about age 8, said she had learned to loop. It turned out she didn’t really understand the term, and she had never learned to loop. So, I taught it from scratch. Within minutes she was looping like a pro! Key thing – besides getting the technique right – is always the same: get it right one time, remember the feel of the stroke and contact, and repeat. Never focus on the awkward or missed ones or your subconscious will think that’s what you want to do. The ONLY time you think about the mistakes is if you absolutely cannot do it right even one time, in which case you have to analyze why. But once you get it right one time – REPEAT!!!
  • Never end a multiball session with looping against backspin, especially with players below the advanced level. If you do, they will struggle to rally properly afterwards in regular topspin rallies, where they will keep lifting the ball off the end, since that’s what they were doing against backspin. I often like to do multiball looping in three stages: against backspin; against backspin followed by against topspin (for example, a backspin to the middle, they forehand loop, followed by a quick topspin to their wide forehand, which they loop or hit); and then an all-topspin drill. The key to transitioning from looping backspin to topspin is primarily the shoulder – it drops against backspin, mostly stays up against topspin.
  • We have three 7-year-old girls who are getting pretty good, at least between giggling fits, which they go through every few minutes. Just before one of the sessions they “challenged” Stanley Hsu (2500 junior star), and he obliged by rallying with them for 20 minutes. He spent much of it fishing and lobbing, or just countering the ball back softly as they smacked away. I lent him my mini-racket (Tenergy both sides), and he rallied with that for a time, then played lefty for a bit. Then they lined up and tried to return his serves – not too successfully. They are pretty good at rallying but they hadn’t faced advanced serves yet!

Physical Therapy
After seeing a doctor, I had a cortisone shot in my right knee, and underwent platelet-rich plasma therapy in my injured right side. (Insurance didn’t cover that, so it cost me $500.) The doctor said the side, which is currently the more pressing problem, needs 4-6 weeks to heal. Alas, I have big tournaments in November (Amity Team Cup in Nanjing, China, Nov. 10-19, tournament on Nov. 14-15, playing on US Over 60 Team); US Open in December; and Classic World Cup in Brazil in January. I’ll have about three weeks healing for each, meaning the side might almost get healed each time before getting re-injured during competition. So, like at the World Senior Championships a couple weeks ago I’ll likely have to play injured again, primarily with the side and knee issues.

Another scare – I’ve had a lot of shoulder problems this past year, but it’s been better recently. But over the weekend while hitting with students it’s been bothering me again. I also have problems with my right foot and arm, but those, for the moment, are okay. The root of the problem? I still try to play like I’m 20, which was 45 years ago. My body just can’t take the stress of my serve and all-out forehand attack style anymore, which I also often do when receiving, plus I often race around the back court lobbing and fishing. Are long pips on the backhand in my future? Hmmm...

Blog and Tips
Dang, I missed it – eleven weeks ago I had my 2,000th blog but didn’t realize it. I just did a count, and as of today I’ve done 2011 blogs and 721 Tips of the Week.

Table Tennis Novels
I reviewed other table tennis novels, such as “Underspin” by E. Y. Zhao. But perhaps this is a good time to post about the two I’ve written!

  • The Spirit of Pong - Andy “Shoes” Blue wants to be a table tennis champion, but he’s just another wannabe American. And so he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis. He is trained by the mysterious Coach Wang, and begins an odyssey where he learns the secrets of table tennis from the spirits of Ichiro Ogimura (who helped spawn China’s greatness), Rong Guotuan (China’s first world champion in 1959, whose tragic story Andy must relive), and others, and must face the mysterious “Dragon.” Can he overcome treachery and learn the final secret of table tennis in time to defeat his ultimate nemesis? 100 pages.
  • First Galactic Table Tennis Championships (novelette) - Li Yi is a member of the Chinese National Table Tennis Team and the best woman in the world. She has trained long hours since she was a child. But now she faces her biggest challenge – aliens! Table tennis has spread to the galaxy and alien players now dominate the sport. The best are the giraffe-like Ith, with their dominating champion Egrayu. But Earth isn't part of it, not since the cowboy Americans colonized a moon in the Ith home system, which led to a blockade of Earth. The Chinese hope to reopen trade with the galaxy by using "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" – by running the first Galactic Table Tennis Championships in Beijing. Li, her teammates, and the American champion Danny See – a literal cowboy – play aliens of all shapes and sizes, including the seemingly unbeatable Egrayu, as they battle for the biggest cash prize in table tennis history. But Li is drawn into a corrupt conspiracy that will shake the very foundations of honor and sportsmanship. Plus, there's that problem with the Chinese dumplings… 42 pages.

Major League Table Tennis

What is Ping Pong?
Here’s the video (3:23) from Beyond the Podium.

Butterfly Training Tips

How to Finish the Point Like a Greek National Team Player
Here’s the video (2:35) featuring Gerasimos Chatzis, from Pingispågarna.

New from PongSpace with Damien Provost

Tactics to Beat a Left-Handed Player
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak.

New from PingSunday

New from Ti Long

The Art of Winning Points Before They Begin
Here’s the video (15:32) from Andrea Levenko.

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

New from TT11TV
Lots of new videos here!

Lily Zhang and Kanak Jha Earn Singles Medals at the 2025 ITTF Pan American Championships
Here’s the USATT article by Barbara Wei.

New from Steve Hopkins

New from ITTF

Timothée Chalamet Spent Years Secretly Training for ‘Marty Supreme’
Here’s the article from the Hollywood Reporter about the upcoming table tennis movie (out on Dec. 25).

We Challenged Table Tennis Powerhouse Dimitrij Ovtcharov!
Here’s the video (11:06) from Table Tennis Daily!

Upside-Down Table Tennis
Here’s the video (13 sec)!

Bear Table Tennis
Here’s what you get when you Google “Bear Table Tennis”!

Little Na Learns to Play Table Tennis
Here’s the video cartoon (3:36)!

Non-Table Tennis – The Battle of Portland
President Trump says Portland is a war zone – so here’s my cartoon of The Battle of Portland. If you’re watching on a phone, zoom in – lots of little details in there!

Non-Table Tennis - “The Time and Place of the Invasion”
I just sold my science fiction story “The Time and Place of the Invasion” (2600 words) to Black Cat Weekly. It’s a dark and humorous story that takes place on June 4, 1944, a few days before the Normandy invasion. Two German physicists, Dr. Werner Heisenberg and Dr. Erwin Schrödinger, are summoned by Hitler. One of them knows the time of the invasion, the other the place of the invasion, and Hitler demands they tell him both. However, as the physicists explain to him, if he were to know the time and the place at the same time, very bad things will happen. (Yes, it’s a play on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.) It’s my 243rd short story sale and third anti-Hitler story sale.

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October 13, 2025

Tips of the Week
(Two of them since I was out of town last week at the Senior World Championships and so didn’t do a blog.)

Weekend Coaching
Here are three things I did while coaching in three group sessions this past weekend. The third one might be the most important.

  1. Beginning/intermediate players need to learn to drill together. Often they learn this by just hitting forehand to forehand or backhand to backhand. But if they want to do serious drills to reach a higher level, they need to do more advanced drills – especially footwork drills. But they often don’t have the ball control to do this. For example, suppose two of them try to do one-one forehand footwork, where one player alternates between hitting a forehand from the wide forehand corner, and a forehand from the middle. For this to work, his practice partner has to be able to hit the ball to those two spots. Since he can’t at first, the rallies quickly fall apart. Enter me, the tireless coach. I had a group of four players rotating, and I did the footwork drill with each of them, with them hitting alternately to my wide forehand and middle while I moved side to side. Tiring, but they got good at it!
  2. I convinced players working on fast, deep serves that it’s okay to sometimes miss when practicing it by serving off, and that if they don’t serve off somewhat often, they aren’t learning it right. Too often they play it safe, serving more slowly and not as deep so as to keep the serve on the table. But when learning such serves, you need to challenge yourself and serve as fast and deep as you can until you can control it. This means often serving off, and then you adjust your serve on the next one. Otherwise, you’re just practicing a medium-speed, medium-deep serve that isn’t even medium-good.
  3. After practice was done, I taught some of the kids how to play “gnip-gnop.” Yes, that’s ping-pong spelled backwards. It’s a game I learned when I first started out almost 50 years ago. It’s regular table tennis, except that instead of hitting the ball directly over the net, you aim downward, and your shot must hit your side first before going over the net. This results on long, quick rallies. While this isn’t something you do in real table tennis, it’s a new and fun thing for them – and that’s the key. Too often coaches tell students that if they work hard, they can become good, but forget to give them a reason to want to be good. For kids, that means showing them it’s fun. Then they’ll want to do it and become self-motivated. By letting them regularly do new things like this makes it more fun and keeps them hooked on the sport – and then they want to do it, and so want to be good. It doesn’t have to be gnip-gnop. Let them try lobbing or chopping; speed bouncing on the table; serving from fifty feet from the table, even from the side with sidespin; opposite-hand or opposite grip play; playing with new surfaces such as long pips or hardbat; backspin serves that come back into the net or even bounce back over; doubles; Brazilian Teams; and so on.

Huntsman Senior World Table Tennis Championships - Injuries and Net Balls and Medals, Oh My!
First the good news: I won Gold in Over 65 Men’s Doubles with Mark Kraut! Yes, I am a WORLD CHAMPION! I also got Silver in Over 65 Men’s Hardbat Doubles, also with Mark. In singles, I lost in the quarterfinals of Over 65 Men’s Singles, and in the semifinals of Over 65 Men’s Hardbat Singles. (I went back and forth between using sponge and using hardbat in the hardbat events.) Here’s a picture of Mark and I at the Medal Stand.

Alas, I played the entire tournament injured, and it got progressively worse. So, overall, it was a disappointment as I felt I could have done much better if not for the injuries.

I came in with nagging injuries to my right side and right knee (as well as right shoulder, but it was okay this tournament). Early on my right side flamed up, and so I struggled to loop. In my worse loss, my opponent kept pushing my topspin serve up in the air, and over and over I’d try to loop kill it – normally an easy shot – only to “hitch” and miss because of the side issue. It also meant that I couldn’t rotate quickly to my left, meaning every time I went to my wide forehand and my opponent returned to my backhand, I struggled, both in playing regular backhands, and (with hardbat) in backhand chopping. I also re-injured my right knee early on, and this meant I struggled to move to my wide forehand. Since I like to play as much of the table as possible with my forehand, this greatly limited my attack. (As soon as I finish this blog, I’m signing up for rehab again, as I did earlier this year for my shoulder.)
UPDATE - rehab starts Tue, Oct. 14, at 1:30 PM, on both side and knee.

I also learned a valuable lesson in my hardbat semifinal. I had two matches where ball after ball kept dribbling over the net, with my opponents getting far more than me on this. (It’s a matter of style – my opponents in those two matches were a penhold blocker and a pips-out backhand hitter, and those type of players hit with lower trajectory, and so get more net balls.) In the hardbat semifinals, when I was serving up 20-19 game point in the first game (hardbat games are to 21), I served short side-top and my opponent pushed it up high. I prepared to smash and hopefully win the game – but the ball came down and dribbled over the net, unreturnable. (I lost the game and the match.) Afterwards I checked the net – and discovered it was super-loose, practically swaying side to side. It turned out the string that’s supposed to keep the net taut had come loose on one side, and I somehow hadn’t noticed. No wonder all those balls dribbled over! If I’d thought to check the net before the match, the result might have been different. Alas. (If I’d won, I’d have played Mark in the final – he ended up winning the event.)

Once again Jean Bulatao and her staff did a great job of running the tournament, in St. George, Utah, Oct. 6-9. But that word “running” hurts my knee just reading it!!!

And now we get to THE NIGHTMARE TRIP BACK!!!

Some of you may remember that American Airlines lost my luggage back in July on my return from the US Nationals. They found it a day later and tried to deliver it, but they claim the delivery truck was stolen (!!!). I’ve been battling with them ever since – I’ve been on the phone with them over a dozen times, and have emailed repeatedly, and filled out numerous forms, but their response? Nothing. No response at all. No emails returned. No notice of the status of my claim. And each phone call ends with the agent guaranteeing someone will get back to me, and nobody ever does. At some point I may have to take legal action. (The retail value of the missing bag’s contents was over $1400.)

This time around, on Delta, they didn’t lose my luggage. The return trip was delayed an hour, but that’s no big deal. I got back to Dulles Airport, got my luggage, and took the shuttle to the Green Lot, where my car was parked. It was just past 1:30 AM (Saturday morning) when I got in and turned the key.

The car wouldn’t start. The battery was completely dead.

I had no idea what to do – I’m parked in the middle of a huge parking lot with a dead car in the middle of the night. I Googled jump-starting services on my phone, and found a place that could do so for $200. I had no choice, so agreed. But then my credit card was declined – nine times. I called the credit card people three times before they got the problem fixed. Meanwhile, the online tracking feature that let me know when the jump-starting vehicle would arrive didn’t work. I called the company, and got a message that “due to high call volume, no agents are available...” So, I sat in my dead car in the huge parking lot while on hold for nearly an hour. Then the jump-starting truck arrived! All was well – except, after jump-starting my car, it suddenly went crazy! As I tried to pull out of the parking spot, the steering wheel froze, the dashboard lights began flashing, and the engine made funny sounds. This went on for maybe twenty seconds – and then it went back to normal. I have no idea what caused that. After that, the 40-min drive home was uneventful. I got home after 5AM, and had to go coach at 10AM. (Yes, I know about AAA, but since I rarely do long-distance driving, it's not really worth it.) 

PingPongBuddies Fall 2025 – Table Tennis for Children with Autism
Here’s the video (4:35) featuring the new program at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. US junior star Stanley Hsu founded it and is president. He is assisted by numerous members of the MDTTC junior program. They meet every Saturday afternoon.

Virginia Tech Table Tennis Scholarships
Here’s the info page for the 2026-2027 academic year, and the scholarship page. (You need both. If you page down the latter, you’ll also find the link to the Mossberg Table Tennis Scholarship) They are sponsored by Jim and Liz Mossberg. Jim is long-time player from the Maryland region, who for a number of years ran the New Carrollton Table Tennis Club, where I started in 1976.

‘Marty Supreme’ First Reactions: Timothée Chalamet Gives a ‘Career-Best Performance’ in Josh Safdie’s ‘Awe-Inspiring’ Ping-Pong Epic
Here’s the article from Variety Magazine. The table tennis movie, loosely based on the life of Marty Reisman, comes out Dec. 25.

Table Tennis Drills for Progress – 10 Significant Tips for 2025
Here’s the article from Table Tennis Top by Sorin Petroj.

Top 5 Tabletennis Creators You Should Already Be Watching
Here’s the video (4:23) from Beyond the Podium, on table tennis YouTubers. Featured are Pongfinity, Adam Bobrow, Table Tennis Daily, PingSunday, and PingSkills.

Coaching and News from All Over
Since I’ve been away for two weeks, rather than try to list every interesting article, here are links to some of the main news and coaching pages that have been active in that time, and you can pick and choose.

What an Insane Way to End a Match
Here’s the video (78 sec) of this crazy last point of a match between Lin Shidong on the right (CHN, world #2) and Shunsuke Togami (JPN, world #20).

The Best of Fan Zhendong
Here’s the video (4:34) from Pakorn Pingponginter.

Cursed Table Tennis Forest
Here’s the creepy cartoon!

Jan VS Rasmus - Table Tennis
Here’s the crazy TT cartoon (1:35)!

Amped Competitor
Here’s another crazy TT cartoon (2:00)!

Dog Table Tennis Cartoon
Here’s still another crazy TT cartoon (23 sec)!

***
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September 29, 2025

Tip of the Week
Deliberate Practice in Table Tennis.

Sick, Next Blog Oct. 13, and Huntsman World Senior Championships
I think I have the flu – not sure yet. So, I got a very late start on today’s blog, which will be shorter than usual. I’ll be out of town next week at the Huntsman World Senior Championships in St. George, Utah. So next blog will be on Monday, Oct. 13. Wish me luck – I’m in Over 65 Men’s Singles and Doubles (with Mark Kraut), Over 55 Mixed Doubles (with Jia Guo) Over 65 Hardbat Men’s Singles, Hardbat Doubles (with Mark Kraut), and Elite Singles. Wish me luck!

Weekend Coaching
I had a busy coaching weekend. We did a lot of backhand footwork practice, an often overlooked technique. Many players just reach or even rotate their body in an awkward way rather than move. I also introduced “Neuromuscular Adaptation” drills to some of the kids. This is where you feed multiball, but they don’t know where I’m putting the ball. For beginning-intermediate players, you normally just put the ball to the middle forehand or middle backhand, and they have to react. For more advanced players you both go wider and you also go at their middle. The three keys are:

  1. Proper ready position, with racket pointed at where my racket would hit the ball, so the player can move in both directions equally well.
  2. React, don’t guess – don’t move until you see where the ball is going, and always remember that you have more time than you think. First move HAS to be the right direction.
  3.  Move to the ball, no reaching.

Remembering Charles “Chuck” Hoey
Here’s the obit for this US Table Tennis Hall of Famer, by Sean O’Neill.

Story & Lesson Highlights with Dora Kurimay
Here’s the article in Bold Journey.

Styles Through the Ages
Here’s the article by Dr. Zhang Xiaopeng.

I Challenged World No.5
Here’s the video (15:08) as Adam Bobrow takes on Truls Moregardh.

Non-Table Tennis - “Confederate Horses on a Plane”
I made the cover of “The Best of MetaStellar Year Four” for my story, “Confederate Cavalry on a Plane” (4,400 words). A physics professor and his student on a passenger plane argue about the possibility of infinite alternate universes, while being robbed blind by a bratty kid. The professor bets the student that even the most unlikely event possible must inevitably happen somewhere, and a series of unlikely events leads to three very confused Confederate Cavalry charging down the aisle of the plane.

***
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September 22, 2025

Tip of the Week
Reverse Adverse Results With Reverse Serves.

Weekend Coaching and Capclave Table Tennis
Due to being a panelist for the Capclave Science Fiction Convention (half an hour away in Rockville, MD), I only coached one junior group session this weekend, on Saturday morning. I had a rotating group of four to work with. I did both multiball and live practice with one player, one did ball pickup, and the other two practiced on an adjacent table, with the players rotating both in the group, and with other groups. There was a big focus on footwork, but of course in every session the focus on footwork is either big, Big, or BIG. Two players had a tendency let their non-playing arms just hang there like a dead snake, which can lead to poor balance. So, whenever they did that, I yelled out, “Dead snake!”, and they knew what to do.

I’ve been a panelist for many years at the Capclave Science Fiction Convention, but this year, for me, it might as well have been the Capclave Table Tennis Convention. It seems everyone in the SF world knows about my TT world. I was questioned about it a lot between panels. Two people at the convention had relatives that were current or past USATT members. (One bought one of my table tennis books as a gift for them.) Several times I demonstrated my ping-pong ball-blowing trick. (Link should take you to 38:45 of this interview I did in 2020.) Several authors and fans mentioned they have tables in their houses. I also discussed with some the idea of a table tennis demonstration/exhibition at the 2026 World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim, CA, Aug. 27-31. (For perspective, the last World SF Convention, last month in Seattle, had over 8,000 attendees.) 

I was on five panels, moderating two of them, plus part of the big two-hour book signing on Saturday night. In two of the panels where I wasn’t moderating, we were asked how we started writing science fiction and fantasy. So, twice I told my table tennis story. I’ve been reading science fiction & fantasy since I was a kid, and had occasionally written a few short stories. I was hired as assistant manager for table tennis at the Olympic Training Center in late 1985, and during my 4.5 years there progressed to manager, and to director and one of the coaches. But there were long breaks between training sessions, plus I was free at night, which was when I had used to play and train at table tennis. So, in my free time I began writing SF for a few years. I sold a few, then took a 14-year break as I focused completely on table tennis writing, as well as twelve years as editor of USA Table Tennis Magazine. Then, in 2005, I started up again, and I haven’t stopped since. I’m basically 50-50 between TT and SF.

Underspin by E. Y. Zhao
“Underspin,” 252 pages, by E. Y. Zhao, comes out on Sept. 23 (tomorrow, but you can pre-order today) in hardcover, kindle, and audiobook versions. The author, Emily Zhao, is a former junior star who played in US tournaments from 2006-2013, achieving a high rating of 1873. She holds an MFA in prose from the University of Michigan and a BA in history from Harvard College. (I received an advanced copy.)

The novel is the story of the rise and fall of champion player Ryan Lo under a ruthless and tyrannical coach, Kristian. It’s a deep, cautionary tale, with adult themes, exhibiting Ryan’s short career and tragic end, highlighting both the heroics and the warts. Much of it takes place off the table, showcasing both the training aspect and the shenanigans outside. To quote the official description, “the tragedy and triumphs of Ryan’s life are narrated by those caught in his orbit.”

The story is told in 13 chapters with 13 stories from 13 points of view, all associates of Ryan. They are vividly portrayed, ranging from practice partners and rivals, coaches, officials, doctors, and others. Sometimes Ryan is in the middle of the action; other times he’s in the background as we learn about his exploits off-screen. However, in the end, it all revolves around Ryan, his table tennis, and his relationships. Some of the stories feature those who helped Ryan, while others are from jealous players or coaches, or his off-again, on-again girlfriend, Anabel, and, of course, Coach Kristian, whose presence is like a dark shadow over every chapter.

The above is the first three paragraphs of my review. Here’s the rest!

How Sport Can Rewire Recovery
Here’s the video (10:21) with the presentation by junior stars Tanvi (14) & Aarav Desai (12). (In case you’re wondering, Tanvi is rated 2112 - formerly an even 2200, Aarav 2182. But they do science at 2800!)

Major League Table Tennis

Butterfly Training Tips and Highlights

Hook Service Tutorial: Full Beginner Guide
Here’s the video (10:04) from Andreas Levenko.

When They Push Deep to Your Backhand
Here’s the video (3:24) with Cheyanne Chen from PongSpace.

Winter is coming … Time to change your playing style?
Here’s the article by Tom Lodziak.

STOP Missing Serves in Table Tennis!
Here’s the video (6:49) from Ti Long.

New From Table Tennis Central

How These 10 Players Changed Table Tennis Forever
Here’s the video (7:07) from Beyond the Podium.

The Biggest “What if” in Table Tennis History
Here’s the video (3:05) about Zhou Qihao, from Taco Backhand.

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from ITTF

Animals Playing Ping Pong
Here’s the AI video (20 sec) from pingbrotherstv.

Creative Returns
Here’s the video (9 sec)!

Serving Target Practice
Here’s the video (68 sec)!

Bring Annette
Here’s the video (25 sec)!

***
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September 15, 2025

Tip of the Week
Chopping and Playing Choppers – It’s All About the Mindset.

Weekend Coaching
“Keep your left arm up for balance!” I think I said that twenty times this past weekend, mostly to three players, all righties. It seems like every week there’s a different mantra, and that was this week’s. It’s so easy to let the arm just hang there when you aren’t moving too much, and then it becomes a bad habit and the player doesn’t even know how much they are off balance because of it. If you are 1% off balance in table tennis, you might as well be playing in a chair.

I worked with a group of kids on their fast, deep serves, using various targets on the table. For this, you should generally have three, sometimes four targets at the very end of the table. One on each wide corner, of course, but also one where a righty player’s elbow would normally be, a prime target for a fast serve or any other aggressive shot. You can also have a fourth target where a lefty’s playing elbow would be.

One of our top juniors has been experimenting with short pips on the backhand – and has had great success. I’ve always thought that there should be more diversity in table tennis, as it once was, but these days nearly everyone is trained pretty much the same, as shakehand two-winged inverted loopers. It’s true that it’s difficult to break into the top ten in the world with short pips, but not impossible – but more importantly, few players are going to reach top ten, and many players would simply be better with styles that are outside the standard mold. Short pips on the backhand used to be a common style, and sometimes on the forehand. (Sweden’s Mattias Falck, with short pips on the forehand, made the final of Men’s Singles at the 2019 World Championships, and won gold in Men’s Doubles at the 2021 Worlds.) I went over some of this with his father (also a top player) and we analyzed some videos of top pips-out backhand players, including Matteo Mutti of Italy and (a blast from the past) Wang Tao of China, one of the greatest players ever to never win Men’s Singles at the Worlds while arguably half of the greatest men’s doubles team of all time, with Lu Lin.

Cartoon Characters from “Ping-Pong Paddles Can’t Talk!”
Here are the main characters in my upcoming children’s picture book. (It comes out next Spring.) They include the main character, 9-year-old Kevin in his first tournament; his friendly but very good adversary Li; Kevin’s talking paddle; Kevin’s parents; and the tournament director and referee. (The frog might make an appearance.) As noted in past blogs, it’s a humorous Seussian-like rhyming book for children. It introduces kids, roughly 7-10, to table tennis. It features a nervous boy and his talking paddle in their first tournament, where he meets and plays a girl who is really good, and they have an adventurous match. Along the way, kids learn about the sport, with themes on facing your fears, working toward a goal, honesty, and friendship.

Possible TT at the 2026 World SF Convention, and the Capclave SF Convention
The 2026 World Science Fiction Convention will be in Anaheim, CA (near LA), Aug. 27-31. I will be there, likely as a panelist. I’m also in discussions about a possible table tennis demonstration. If so, I’ll contact the local TT community for a playing partner. We’ll see!

Meanwhile, this upcoming weekend I’ll be a panelist at the Capclave Science Fiction Convention in Rockville, MD. (I’ll try to spread the gospel of TT.) I’m on five panels: “Writing at Different Lengths” (moderator, about the difference between writing novels and short stories), “For the Love of Evil” (moderator, about why we often love the bad guy in stories), “The Absolute Boss” (why SF stories tend to have absolute leaders rather than democracies), “Learning the Craft”; and “Humor and Satire in SF & Fantasy.” I’m also got an author signing session (which will include my two SF/Fantasy table tennis novels/novelettes, “The Spirit of Pong” and “First Galactic Table Tennis Championships.” (The convention is Fri-Sun, but I’ll still be coaching at MDTTC on Saturday morning.)

Mastering the Serve: The First Step to Dominating Table Tennis Matches
Here’s the article by Coach Ju/Coach Hailong Shen

New from Dr. Alan Chu, Ph.D., CMPC

Fethomania
With Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman

Tanish Mamidyala – Backhand Loop Ball Placement
Here’s the video (1:44).

How to play against a QUICKER player! 
Here’s the video (4:13) from Pingispågarna.

Looping After the Push
Here’s the video (2:42) from PongSpace, with Cheyanne Chen.

Deadly Backspin Serve | Master the Deep Heavy Serve in Table Tennis
Here’s the video (6:49) from Ti Long.

Table Tennis Passive-Active Exercises
Here’s the video (8:45) from Dr. Table Tennis.

New from Taco Backhand

Improvised Two-Table Drill

Here’s the video (16 sec)!

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

Major League Table Tennis

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

USA Secures 13 Gold Medals at 2025 Pan Am U11 & U13 Championships
Here’s the USATT news item.

New from ITTF

Hyogo: Unique Form of Table Tennis Takes Hold in Hot Spring Town, Players Use Oke Wooden Buckets Instead of Rackets
Here’s the article from The Japan News.

Ping Pong Maestro
Here are dozens of short, humorous clips!

Never Seen This Shot Before
Here’s the video (13 sec)!

Pat and Sam Table Tennis
Here’s the animated video (30 sec)!

We Challenged The Wall of India Sathiyan Gnanasekaran!
Here’s the video (9:34) from Table Tennis Daily!

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September 8, 2025

Tip of the Week
Focus on Controlled Receives at Start of Match.

Weekend Coaching
I coached in four junior group sessions this weekend. While I did a lot of multiball (as always), I also got to work with several kids on serves. One of them is really picking up some tricky deep serves. I explained to him the importance of developing short serves for serve & attack, with the tricky deep breaking sidespin serves as a variation for occasional free points and to keep opponent watching for them so they are slower to react to shorter serves. If you overuse deep serves, they lose their effectiveness, and they generally don’t work as well at higher levels except as surprise serves.

I also did a lot of work with transitioning from looping against a backspin to looping against a block or topspin. In multiball, that means feeding a backspin ball, player loops, then I give a quick topspin, and they loop again. The key is the back shoulder – it drops some against backspin, but if you drop it against a topspin ball, you’ll likely go off the end.

I also was harping on players who kept pushing and Pushing and PUSHING!!! One player, rated about 1000, said, “It’s my playing style!” I hit a few balls with him and showed him what higher-rated players do if you push too much. He’s still a big skeptical, but mostly because his pushing works against his current peers. Hopefully, he’ll get more aggressive later. We did a drill that helps combat this pushing problem – we played up-down tables, games to 11, where the server had to serve short, the receiver had to push long, and the server had to attack or lose the point.

China and Brazil Visas and a Rather Funny, Eary Story
I’ll be playing on a US Over 60 Team at the Amity Cup in Nanjing, China, Nov. 14-15. (I’ll be there Nov. 11-19, also sightseeing in Shanghai.) I was in China for the 2005 Worlds, and coached the US Junior Team to a bronze medal at the 1994 World Youth Cup Championships in Taiwan. To go to China, of course, I had to get a Chinese visa. So, I filled out all the paperwork online and paid $140. It took three days, and two visits to the Chinese Visa Office in Washington DC. Then I ran into a snag when I went to pick it up on the second visit. They had given me a receipt that apparently had other info on it that was needed. But I couldn’t find it. So, I had to go through a line and other complications to get it. We finally found it – when they gave it to me, I had tucked it inside my passport, and they had held on to the passport for the three days they needed for processing. After I got the visa and they returned the passport – that’s when I found it.

I’m also competing in the Classic Table Tennis World Cup in Três Coroas, Brazil in January. (I’ll be sightseeing afterwards in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Machu Picchu, Peru; and Bogotá, Columbia. (I wrote about some of this in my blog last week.)

But getting the Brazil visa was both easier and much more – shall we say ear-raisingly exasperating and downright funny? I did it all online, no visit to the Brazil visa office was needed. But the problem was they required me to take a passport photo of myself. Their software would then evaluate the picture. Over and over it rejected the picture, with the automated software telling me over and over that the ears needed to show and that I needed to brush my hair back to allow them to show. But my hair wasn’t long – apparently my ears are just flatter than normal people’s, and from the front only partly show. The ears actually did show, but apparently not enough for the software, which might have a small software problem. After over a dozen rejections, I finally solved the problem – I literally jammed Kleenex paper behind each ear so they’d stick out - and then my picture was accepted!!!

I’m also competing in the Huntsman Senior World Championships in St. George, UT in October and the US Open in Las Vegas in December - so I’ve got a busy schedule! (Soon I’ll be making plans for the World Masters in Gangneung, South Korea in June next year.)

I Have Four Upcoming Books Coming Out
When it rains, it pours. When I write, the books just pop out! The weird timing thing is that all four books will be coming out between January and April of next year. (Here are links to all my current books – and note that Christmas is coming up!) The four are:

  • Even Yet Sill More Table Tennis Tips (April, 2026), the fifth the Tips series.
  • Amazingly Even Yet Still More Pings and Pongs (January, 2026). It’s the sixth in my “Pings and Pongs” short story collections. Outside table tennis, I write science fiction and fantasy, with four novels and 242 short story sales. (187 of them are original stories, the other 55 are resales.) When I’ve sold enough of them, I put them together in a collection, which sells on Amazon and at science fiction conventions.
  • Cats and Bats (January, 2026). In the world of science fiction and fantasy, I’ve sold five stories that feature cats, and five that feature baseball. And so, they are coming together in “Cats and Bats”! I already have a professional artist doing a nice color cover of a cat playing baseball.
  • Ping-Pong Paddles Can’t Talk! (April, 2026.) I’ve written about this several times – it’s my children’s picture book, for ages roughly 6-10, which introduces table tennis to kids, coming in April, 2026. Next week I’ll likely share the finalized pictures of the characters in the book – Kevin and Li, the main stars, plus Kevin’s parents, the Tournament Director, and the Tournament Referee, and, of course, the main co-star, Paddle, who may or may not talk. (A frog may also make an appearance.)

BIG NEWS - Major League Table Tennis Launches Table Tennis TV
Huge news – here’s the news item! Other MLTT links:

Butterfly Training Tips

Fethomania
With Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman

How to Loop Half Long Balls
Here’s the video (3:50) from PongSpace with Cheyanne Chen.

3 Hidden Backhand Banana Details That Change Everything
Here’s the video (5:48) from Andreas Levenko.

New from PingSkills
Ask the Coach

The Entire History of the Table Tennis Ball
Here’s the video (3:40) from Table Tennis Central.

Underspin Slices Deep and Is a Win!
Here’s the NCTTA review by Michael Reff of the upcoming table tennis novel, Underspin, by E.Y. Zhao. (I was sent an advanced copy and have already read it and written a review. Since the novel comes out on Sept. 23, I plan to post my review here in my blog on Monday, Sept. 22.)

The Star Who Vanished: What Happened to Fang Bo?
Here’s the video (3:27) from Beyond the Podium.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from USATT

New from ITTF

The Hardest Sport in the World According to NASA
Here’s the video (48 sec). “Research even links table tennis to improved cognitive flexibility and protection against neurodegenerative diseases. It’s literally one of the most comprehensive workouts for both body and brain that humans experience.”

Ranking Funniest Truls Moregard Moments - World #5 from Sweden!
Here’s the video (60 sec)! Watch just for the rally in the second example. (Side or edge?)

Crazy Lin Shidong Serve – the World #1 from China!
Here’s the video (11 sec)!

Living Room Pong?
Two videos from Ping Pong Maestros!

***
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September 1, 2025

Tip of the Week
That One Good Block.

Fall Table Tennis Season Begins
It’s been a packed week. Let’s see:

  • The MDTTC Fall Junior Training began this past weekend. I spent most of the sessions feeding multiball, with lots and Lots and LOTS of footwork. Also taught a kid how to do the reverse pendulum serve. Another rather tall kid was struggling to move and his forehands were always awkward. I saw the problem – there were two. First, he was wearing running shoes, whose thick heels are designed to make side-to-side movements awkward. (He’ll have TT shoes next time.) More importantly, he was playing with his feet and knees aimed directly forward, when they need to be pointed slightly outward to allow proper movement and rotation on the forehand. This is a somewhat common problem – make sure you do this properly! Watch top players to see this, as well as to how the knees rotate as they backswing and hit forehands.
  • Finalized, other than a few last-minute items coming later, the 2025 US Table Tennis Hall of Fame Program Book. (See segment below.)
  • Working with the illustrator, we’ve finalized the look of the characters in my upcoming children’s picture book, “Ping-Pong Paddles Can’t Talk!” The characters include the main character, 9-year-old Kevin in his first tournament; his friendly but very good adversary Li; Kevin’s parents; and the tournament director and referee. As noted in past blogs, it’s a humorous Seussian-like rhyming book for children. It introduces kids, roughly 7-10, to table tennis. It features a nervous boy and his talking paddle in their first tournament, where he meets and plays a girl who is really good, and they have an adventurous match. Along the way, kids learn about the sport, with themes on facing your fears, working toward a goal, honesty, and friendship. It’s about 3,000 words, 76 four-line stanzas and a few other miscellaneous lines. It’s a bit long for a children’s picture book at 76 pages (one stanza per page plus pictures), but has an interesting “break” in the middle! Book won’t be out until the Spring, however.
  • I spent this past Tue-Fri sightseeing in Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown. Yeah, I’m a history buff. Highlights included the Monitor exhibit, several cannon firing displays, and on the picturesque walk from the visitor’s center to Williamsburg, from about ten feet apart, a two-minute staring contest with a fawn!!! I won; it ran off suddenly. (The mother wasn’t in sight.)
  • After taking six weeks off due to injuries to side and shoulder, I start training again tomorrow (Tuesday, Sept. 2). I’ve got four big Senior and/or Hardbat tournaments coming up! (See segment below.) I’ll be training for both sponge and hardbat events. I’ve also accepted the fact that I’ll likely be playing injured since I’m always getting injured (foot, knee, side, shoulder, arm, always on the right side), and will just have to compensate.

2025 US Table Tennis Hall of Fame Inductions and Banquet
Here’s the info page. It will be held on Thursday, Nov. 6, 6-9PM, at the Los Angeles Table Tennis Association, in conjunction with the Si & Patty Wasserman Junior and Open Championships, which you can enter via Omnipong. This year’s inductees are David Del Vecchio and Betty Henry Link (with last year’s inductee Stellan Bengtsson also honored this year since he was unable to attend last year). Connie Sweeris will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Why not join us, where you’ll get to meet numerous table tennis celebrities, and perhaps combine it with the tournament? I expect to be there, though I probably won’t play the tournament – no senior or hardbat events for me. (I play with both sponge and hardbat.) Tentatively, I plan to fly in on Thursday morning, take a tour of the Hollywood Museum in LA (which was closed due to Covid in 2020 when I spent five days sightseeing in LA after doing coverage of the Olympic Trials), attend the banquet that night, and fly back Friday morning.

Four Big Events I’m Training For – One Per Month
If you are at any of these tournaments, come and say hi!

  • Oct. 6-9: Huntsman Senior World Championships, St. George, UT. I’ll be among the top seeds in various senior and hardbat events.
  • Nov. 14-15: Amity Cup in Nanjing, China. I’ll be there Nov. 11-19, doing sightseeing in Nanjing and Shanghai after the tournament. I’m on a US Over 60 Team, along with Lily Yip, Ming Liu, Wally Green, and Dave Wilson (Team Leader). Wally isn’t over 60, but they gave special dispensation for him to play on the team due to the difficulty of getting over 60 players from the US.
  • Dec. 16-21: US Open in Las Vegas. I’ll be among the top seeds in various senior and hardbat events. I’m the defending champion in Over 40 and Over 60 Hardbat Singles. I’ve been to every US Open since 1985, so this will be my 40th in a row. (They skipped 2020 due to Covid.)
  • Jan. 18-25: Classic Table Tennis World Cup in Três Coroas City, Brazil. There are two days each for Sandpaper, Hardbat, and Wood events. I’m in Over 60 in all three. I’ll be in South American Jan. 16-Feb. 11, sightseeing after the tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; and Machu Picchu in Peru.
  • Also coming up – June 5-12: World Masters in Gangneung, South Korea. I plan on attending, and then sightseeing in South Korea and Japan. (I was at the 2001 Worlds in Japan, but other than one long afternoon randomly walking the streets of Osaka, all I saw was the hotel, the playing hall, and the street between them.)

Major League Table Tennis
Follow the action!

Table Tennis History Magazine
Here’s the September issue from Steve Grant, just packed with fascinating TT history!

New from Taco Backhand

Fethomania 10 with Stefan Feth and Larry Thoman

New from Pingispågarna

New from PongSpace

New from Andrea Levenko

New from Ti long

I Studied 100+ Table Tennis Workouts... Here's What They're Getting Wrong!
Here’s the video (9 min) from Kevin Finn of Peak Performance Table Tennis.

Are You Committing One of these DEADLY Forehand Mistakes??
Here’s the video (19:11) from Seth Pech.

Analysis of Service Returns in Table Tennis
Here’s the technical article from HAL Open Science. (NOTE – most of the technical articles I link to are sent to me by Kevin Finn of Peak Performance Table Tennis.)

My Road To The 2025 US National Champion by Sally Moyland
Here’s the article by Sally Moyland.

New from Table Tennis Central

US Open Teams Table Tennis Championships Reach Championship Division Final in Myrtle Beach
Here’s the USATT article by Vlad Farcas.

New from Steve Hopkins/Bowmar Sports

New from NCTTA

New from ITTF

New Videos

Education is Important But Table Tennis is Importanter
Here’s where you can buy the shirt at Amazon!

AI Cat Rally
Here’s the vicious rally (7 sec)!

Tank McNamara: Table Pickleball and Court Pingpong
Here’s the cartoon!

TTD Team vs Chop Block Queen Adriana Diaz!
Here’s the video (10:05) from Table Tennis Daily!

Ping-Pong Crew Dancers
Here’s the video (19 sec)!

How Good Is a World Rank 5 Player Actually?
Here’s the video (18:08), featuring Truls Möregårdh, from Pongfinity!

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August 25, 2025

Tips of the Week

Table Tennis and the World Science Fiction Convention
I had a busy nine days in Seattle – and while it was for the World SF Convention (7,739 attendees), there was also some table tennis! As a reminder, when I’m away I still have a Tip of the Week every Monday, which you can find in the Tip of the Week tab to the left. Above are the three tips that went up while I was gone.

The big surprise came at the Pop Culture Museum. A boy, about 12 years old, came up to me and asked, “Are you Larry Hodges?” I said yes. He said, “I have your table tennis book!” Then he walked away. How did he recognize me? Besides my picture in most of my table tennis books, I was wearing my new T-Rex Playing Table Tennis cap. (My previous one, a different design, was lost when my bags were lost returning from the Nationals in July, as I’ve blogged about.) So, that was probably what got his attention. The irony is that I was at the World Science Fiction Convention, and that I have four SF novels and five SF short story collections, but I was recognized for one of my TT books! (The odds are it was Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers, my best-selling book.)

It's actually sort of a regular thing – in the world of science fiction, I’m sort of known as that “table tennis guy.” In fact, in the 2019 SF anthology “Across the Universe,” there’s a story by Cat Rambo titled “All You Need,” with the following lines:

No matter what, all major deals on this side of the mountains were sealed in the boardroom of the Larry B. Hodges Memorial Museum of Ping-Pong History. The original furniture was long gone; the only remnants of the original decor were the murals on the wall depicting a series of ping-pong tournaments on one side and the history of ping pong on the other, beginning with a scene of lawn tennis players fleeing raindrops and snowflakes by taking their game indoors and concluding with a scene of the museum’s construction, overseen by a smiling man Vito had always presumed was Larry Hodges.

Besides panels (such as one on Historic Mistakes in Movies (not just SF ones), where I elaborated on problems with “Braveheart” and “JFK”), I did a reading. I decided to read three of my very short stories (under 1000 words) from one of my short story collections. (These are stories that I sold and were published in various magazines, and then I put them together in collections.) I got to explain to the audience my ping-pong background, which is why I call them:

These, of course, parallel my Tips series:

More importantly, to entertain the crowd between readings, I pulled out a ping-pong ball and did my ball-blowing trick. (Link should take you to 38:45 of this interview I did in 2020.)

Alas, after finding out it would cost about $100 each way to Uber to the Seattle Pacific Table Tennis Club, I didn’t go there. However, amazingly, Spin Seattle was only two blocks from the where we held the WSFC – so I stopped by twice, just to visit. But there were no coaches there either time, and just beginning-level players playing, and nobody I knew or who knew me.

As to non-table tennis, besides the panels and the reading, I attended a lot of interesting panels, watched some of the movies in the SF and Fantasy movie festival, and spent a huge amount of time browsing the gargantuan dealer’s room, which was about three times the size of a football field. (I also signed for dealers a number of anthologies that included my stories.) I also did a LOT of sightseeing (lots of new refrigerator magnets!) – here’s a listing:

  • One-hour Harbor Cruise
  • Five-hour Whale Watching Cruise – saw three killer whales (spent nearly an hour watching them), plus two harbor porpoises, two elephant seals, hundreds of harbor seals lounging on a beach, lots of leaping fish, four bald eagles (one adult, three juveniles), two blue herons, and a kingfisher.
  • Three-hour Seattle Bus Tour
  • Fremont Troll
  • Space Needle
  • Seattle Great Wheel
  • Pop Culture Museum – Captain Kirk’s actual chair from Original Star Trek, Arnold’s jacket from Terminator, the axe and swords of Gimli, Aragorn, and Frodo from Lord of the Rings, loads of Star Wars and Marvel original items, and . . . well, just about everything! I spent hours there.
  • Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
  • Pike Place Market
  • Seattle Aquarium
  • Woodland Park Zoo
  • Olympic Sculpture Park
  • Underground Tour

FlashScore
Here’s a site that shows table tennis results from all over the world.

Touring China's Table Tennis Museum
Here’s the video (8:26) of the museum in Shanghai. I will be there in November, playing on a US Over 60 Team in the Amity Cup and sightseeing – more on that next week.

Coaching and News from All Over
Since I’ve been away for three weeks, rather than try to list every interesting article, here are links to some of the main news and coaching pages that have been active in that time, and you can pick and choose. (I checked all the usual sites to see which ones had new material.)

Cat Pong Shirt
If you’re a cat person, you have to buy one of these!

Five Seconds of Real Table Tennis
Here’s the video!

Second-Story Pong
Here’s the video (19 sec) with Adam Bobrow (above) and Matt Hetherington (below)!

When Coaching Becomes a Desk Job
Here’s the video (9 sec)!

I Challenged CHINA… what could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Here’s the video (16:29) from Adam Bobrow!

How Many Bounces Can Average Players do? [$1000 Contest]
Here’s the video (12:02) from Pongfinity!

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