March 4, 2011

Blog hits

You know what's irritating? Due to the way the blog is set up, it only registers a "hit" if a person goes to the blog and clicks on a specific blog on a specific date. The problem is that since the blog (as currently set up) shows the entire blog for every day since I started it on Feb. 18, so there's no need for a person to actually click on one of them. So it doesn't register as a "hit." I'm working with a programmer to fix this problem, but while the daily blog only lists at most dozens of hits, it's actually in the hundreds each day, with a cumulative total in the thousands. I'll have more specific numbers later.

When should you learn to backhand loop?

There was a time when this was considered "advanced," and players didn't bother with it until they were 2000 level. Now just about any club player can backhand loop. It's a complete paradigm shift. These days when I work with a new player, we get to backhand looping roughly as soon as they can hit 100 forehands and 100 backhands - which is usually in the first five lessons. I focus on backhand looping against backspin, but if backhand looping seems natural to them, then I might have them backhand against the block relatively early. It's important players not get too far ahead of their level and spend most of their time working on advanced shots when they can't do the fundamentals - you gotta get the fundamentals down - but that's no reason a player can't start on these shots early on, as long as they develop them properly.

ITTF Coaching Seminar in Maryland

It's not too late to sign up! There are now eleven people on the list (4 definites, 7 probables). Since I plan to limit to 16, you better hurry up! Here's the USATT announcement, and the info flyer. Seminar is April 16-17 and 23-24 at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, with a Paralympic seminar on April 30.

Are You a Complete Idiot?

I just finalized working with an agent in preparing a proposal for "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Table Tennis." (It's a huge publisher, similar in scale to the Dummies series.) She'll be pitching it to the publisher sometime soon. Cross your fingers. I've already crossed mine. Also my toes, my arms and legs, and my eyes.

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