September 25, 2014

Timeliness and Table Tennis

One of my proudest accomplishments in table tennis is that, in the 22 years since we opened MDTTC, with countless private and group sessions, I've been late to a session exactly two times. Yes, just twice. Once I had a coaching event out in Virginia, and got stuck in a two-hour traffic jam on the way back, which normally would have been about 40 minutes, and so missed a session with Sammy. The other time I got my times mixed up and missed a session with John & Kevin. Ironically, both times when I was late, I missed the entire session. Not once have I ever actually shown up during a session late. (Technically, I showed up for the session with John and Kevin about 15 minutes before it ended, thinking it started in 15 minutes.)

I remember when we first opened MDTTC back in 1992 one of our coaches had a session scheduled with someone from Baltimore, an hour away. The coach forgot about the session, and the person from Baltimore wasn't happy. I ended up subbing for the coach. Later I met with him, and gave him a serious lecture about timeliness and scheduling. The coach was relying on memory to keep his busy schedule, which is a no-no. (He'd forgotten about a session the day before as well, and was walking out the door when the student came in, and so he returned and did the session.) If you have more than a couple of sessions per week, write them down. Full-time or near full-time coaches should keep a schedule book, and go over it each day to make sure they don't miss anything.

Twice in these 22 years a coach has been fired or replaced at MDTTC because of consistent lateness. Other coaches have lost many hours of valuable coaching time because students were unhappy with their lack of timeliness - and the coaches who do this often never know. Timeliness is one of those really important things for a table tennis coach.

The most common causes for lateness is probably the mentality that if you have a session scheduled at, say, 6PM, they need to show up at 6PM, or perhaps five minutes before. That doesn't work, unless you live next door. If I have a 6PM session, plan to get there at least ten minutes early, just in case. It also allows you to prepare for the session, rather than walking into the club and rushing out there. I'm probably on the extreme side on this - I always plan on being there 15 minutes early, which is why I'm essentially never late.

Speaking of timeliness, this blog went up later than usual. Why? Partly because I had to take my car in for minor repairs this morning (and walk a mile back), but mostly because I got drawn into an online "debate" with a close-minded fool. (I searched a Thesaurus for a better word than "fool" but couldn't find one. Even seemingly intelligent people can be fools at some things.) When will I learn to avoid such people?

Deal Chicken Coupons

Recently our club (MDTTC) has been hit with what appears to be a scam. People are coming in with coupons to play at our club, which they paid $50 for. The problem is we had nothing to do with it. Here's the coupon at DealChicken.com - see link at upper right, where it says "Buy Now!" and you pay $50 for $100 worth of supposed MDTTC play. They have lots of other "deals" for other businesses (check their home page). Since we didn't authorize this, it seems sort of scam, and club officers are contacting them about it. But I Googled DealChicken, and according to the Better Business Bureau, while there have been 106 complaints against them, it said:

"BBB has determined that DealChicken.com meets BBB accreditation standards, which include a commitment to make a good faith effort to resolve any consumer complaints. BBB Accredited Businesses pay a fee for accreditation review/monitoring and for support of BBB services to the public. BBB accreditation does not mean that the business' products or services have been evaluated or endorsed by BBB, or that BBB has made a determination as to the business' product quality or competency in performing services."

But since we didn't authorize there MDTTC coupon, that means someone put this up without our knowledge or permission, and they are making money off it, and that makes it a scam, right?

Zhang Jike Backhand Basics

Here's a short video (7 sec) showing the world men's singles champion's backhand. It's pretty similar to Ma Long's backhand, which I blogged about on Sept. 18, though Zhang here is topspinning the ball more. One interesting note - see how he plays the backhand with the left leg slightly in front, which keeps him in position to quickly change to a forehand. Many players play this way. Here's an interesting discussion on world-class backhands at the Mytabletennis.com forum.

Nathan Hsu in China

Here's his latest video report: Table Tennis Highlights! - China Day 31 Hong Kong (4:52). He's on the right at the start, wearing the blue USA shirt. There's both playing action at the Nikon Hong Kong Junior & Cadet Open, and you get to see the sites of Hong Kong. Other USA players appearing in the video include Jack Wang, Tina Lin, Patrick Pei, Sam Rockwell, and MDTTC Coach Jeffrey Zeng Xun (who is traveling with Nathan). And speaking of backhands (see previous segment), check out some of Nathan's off-the-bounce backhand winners!

Hardbat Forehands and Navin

Here's a video (52 seconds) where I'm coaching Navin on his newly developed forehand. He's a hardbat player (also uses sandpaper), with Parkinson's and an artificial heart. (Here's the recent USATT News Item about him.) We've actually just finished the lesson, and he's practicing on the robot, so I came over, and you can hear me coaching him in the background. I also give some commentary in the comments.

2014 Butterfly Badger Open

Here's another article by Barbara Wei: 2014 Butterfly Badger Open: Gateway to Growing Midwest Table Tennis

European Team Championships

There's lots of coverage at the ITTF page and Tabletennista.

Table Tennis Movie Posters

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I found this:

http://www.examiner.com/article/avoid-online-coupon-scams-get-the-skinny-on-dealchicken-com-1

Excerpt:

Update: After this article appeared, I was contacted by DealChicken's Liam Oliver. I received a refund and have the following info for consumers: "If you, or any of your readers ever have any trouble with a DealChicken promotion please have them visit https://dealchicken.zendesk.com/home, or have them email support@dealchicken.zendesk.com. You can also navigate to this page by clicking 'contact us' on DealChicken." For Detroit's local Area Manager, Stella Trunzo, call: (313) 222-1853 or email strunzo@dealchicken.com. The contact information of our other Area Managers are: https://dealchicken.zendesk.com/entries/22823488-Contact-Phone-Numbers. Oliver adds, "We want to ensure each and every user has a positive experience on the site."