January 29, 2013
Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers - DONE!!!
It's done. Finished. Completo. Yes, that was me screaming with relief at 2:56 AM eastern time when I finished entering corrections and additions to the page layouts, the last piece of this long book puzzle. Hopefully I'll be able to send it off to my printer later today, and if all goes well, it'll be on sale within a week, in both print (print on demand) and Kindle ebook formats. I'll announce when it's ready. Here's the cover – can you recognize the player and the statue?
I'm not completely done; I still have a bunch of online stuff I have to do to get everything ready for the printer. And there'll probably be some minor fixes I'll have to make. And I'll probably keep thinking of things that absolutely, positively HAVE to be in it. But it has to end sometime, and I plan on getting it to the printer today.
I'm not going to do a lot of promotion of it at first. The plan is to get my other five books (four on table tennis) formatted for print on demand and ebook, and then have all six on sale at LarryHodgesBooks.com (which sell through Amazon.com). Once they are all ready – the goal is by June 1 – I'll start a huge advertising blitz.
Final stats:
- Finalized at 2:56 AM on Tuesday, January 29, 2013
- 101,516 words
- 90 pictures
- 244 pages
- 21 chapters (plus an Introduction, an Afterword, Glossary, Recommended Reading appendix, About the Author, and an Index)
The Importance of Counting or Keeping Score
One thing coaches learn early in their careers is the incentive value of counting or keeping score when coaching. For example, this weekend I was working with a kid on his backhand loop against backspin. I was feeding multiball. His form was good, and he was getting lots of power (both speed and spin), but there was one problem – he was missing about every third one, and couldn't seem to make even three in a row. So I told him he had to make ten in a row. Bingo! Immediate ten in a row.
He was also having trouble pushing. Solution: we had a backhand-to-backhand pushing duel. He wasn't about to beat me – any good player can essentially push forever – but he didn't know that, and he was determined to score against me. And score he did – but I made him push about one hundred in a row, something he wouldn't have dreamed of doing before.
Similarly when teaching the basic strokes, one of the key incentives for new players is to hit 10, then 20, then 50, and finally 100 forehands and backhands in a row. It's progressive, but right from the start I tell them that they don't have a forehand or backhand until they've hit 100 in a row. (When they hit 50 forehands, I tell them they now have half a forehand.) It's great incentive as they really focus hard on getting to one hundred. Then I assign similar challenges for other strokes.
Another incentive game is to put boxes on the table, blocking off the forehand side, and challenging a student to a pure backhand-to-backhand game. You keep score, and since you are going to one spot, you have great rallies – and the student often never would have believed they could rally that well. (Against beginners, I move the box in on their side so they only have to cover one-third of the table, sort of an equalizer.) I've found this to be the best way to really improve a student's backhand. (You can do it forehand to forehand as well, but the rallies end pretty quickly that way.)
ITTF Journalism Scholarships
The International Table Tennis Federation is offering two scholarships for journalists to attend the LIEBHERR 2013 World Table Tennis Championships in Paris from May 13-20, 2013.
Ariel Hsing in Fire & Ice
Here's Michael Mezyan's latest creation.
The Best at What They Do
Here's an article that discusses which athletes are truly the best at what they do. Guess which sport came in first? Yep, table tennis. Finishing second through fifth were soccer, tennis, golf, and chess.
Big Brothers Big Sisters Tournament of Champions
Here's a video recap (2:03) of their 5th Annual Tournament of Champions, where they raised over $95,000.
Table Tennis on King of Queens
Here's the video of a table tennis scene in a recent episode of the TV show King of Queens. The link takes you to the start of the scene, at 2:55, which goes on for about two minutes. Then there's a second scene, starting here, at 14:48, which goes on for 35 seconds.
65 Million Years Ago
They used four paddles at once back then. If a big asteroid hadn’t caused a worldwide let, these dinosaurs would still be playing.
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