April 15, 2013
Tip of the Week
Playing the Big Backhand Player.
Incentive
Yesterday I was coaching a 6-year-old. I've been working with him for a while, but his hand-eye coordination make learning difficult. For example, despite months of trying, he can rarely bounce a ball on his paddle more than two or three times. He also has great difficulty timing serves - the timing of throwing a ball up and hitting it accurately is difficult for kids that age - and he can rarely serve two balls in a row successfully. (His record is four in a row.)
Because of his difficulties in learning, he quickly loses patience if he doesn't get it quickly. He also is obsessed with Star Wars, and I made the mistake of letting him know what a big fan I was as well. It's often all he wants to talk about. Sometimes he insists I call him Yoda. He often tries to steer practice sessions into Star Wars question and answer sessions.
I often challenge him to do as many forehands or backhands as possible. His record on the forehand (when I feed multiball, which is easier than hitting them "live") was an even 40, but that was sort of fluky; his second most was about ten or fifteen. His backhand record is 18. His interest in getting as many in a row as possible is erratic.
I came up with an idea a few days ago. I created a chart, "Anton's Chart," where I listed his records for most forehands and backhands in a row, both with multiball and live, as well as ball bouncing, ball balancing (where he sees how long he can balance the ball on his racket while I time it), and how many serves he can do in a row. At the start of our lesson yesterday I brought out the chart, and taped it to the wall. His eyes went wide.
Suddenly he had a goal. Normally we work on a lot of things during each session, but he decided for some reason that he was going to break his forehand record. And so we ended up doing nothing but forehands for 45 minutes! That broke by about 40 minutes his record for focusing on something. The result was he broke the record twice - first with 55 in a row, and then with 64 in a row.
Even after he got the 64 he wanted to keep playing forehands. Why? Because I had explained to him that in table tennis, it's often said you don't have a forehand or backhand until you hit 100 in a row. And I promised him that if he ever did 100 in a row, I'd print out a nice certificate with his name on it and saying what he'd done. He was determined!!!
He didn't get 100 this time, but he was excited to break his record twice, and to be able to write in his new record on his chart. I have a feeling we'll be hitting a lot of forehands until he gets that 100, and then we'll move on to the backhand.
Ball balancing wasn't on the original chart. I added it as his insistence. We spent ten minutes on this as he kept trying to increase his record, finally getting it up to 5.46 seconds. (This, and ball bouncing, are difficult for kids his age, and so great practice in developing hand-eye coordination, but now that he's got a goal, he'll probably learn faster.)
I think the next step is to tell him that in table tennis, you don't really have a serve until you can do, say, twenty in a row. Right now he can't do that, but I bet this way he'll learn fast!
USA College Championships
They were held this past weekend in Rockford, IL. Here's the home page, with results, articles, and video. Here are the new National Champions:
- Men's Singles: Emil Santos, Texas Wesleyan University
- Women's Singles: Jiaqi Zheng, Northwest Polytechnic University
- Men's Doubles: Grant Li & Justin Huang, University of Southern California
- Women's Doubles: Sara Hazinski & Claudia Ikezumi, Texas Wesleyan University
- Coed Team: Texas Wesleyan University
- Women's Team: Texas Wesleyan University
Pongcast 25
Here's the video (17:29), which covers the Korean Open.
What Makes Zhang Jike Beatable
Here's an article from Table Tennis Master on this. Three reasons are given, involving a tendency to take the ball late, attitude, and pressure.
Table Tennista
As usual, there's a host of new international articles on Table Tennista, including Liu Guoliang's sarcastic humor, Zhang Jike criticized by his father, and the Asian Cup.
Tina Lin to Worlds
Here's an article on New Jersey's junior star Tina Lin.
Adam Scott Wins Masters, Plays Ping-Pong
Here's the article and video (5sec) from Table Tennis Nation.
Buried in Ping-Pong Balls
Here's a picture of a woman literally buried in ping-pong balls. (I'm guessing it's actually in a swimming pool, with the balls floating on top. Or perhaps not. (If Facebook doesn't let you see this, try here.)
***
Send us your own coaching news!
