March 17, 2015

Adult Beginning/Intermediate Class

On Sunday from 6:30-8:30PM we had the third session of the class at MDTTC. The class technically ends at 8PM, but I've pretty much made it official policy to stay until 8:30PM, where we work on serve and serve return. There are 19 people in the class, ranging from near beginner up to about 1500. Strangely, there are no women - usually we have a few. One woman actually did sign up, but she was the only one to drop out before we started. Also, all 19 players are right-handed. There is one penholder, the rest are conventional shakehanders. One likes to chop occasionally.

Here's a group picture from Sunday, with one player missing. That's me on the far right in the black shirt. Kneeling in front on the right in the black hat is assistant coach Raghu Nadmichettu; in blue with his hand on his chin is assistant coach Josh Tran. I have to be very careful of everything I say in the class; that's USATT counsel Dennis Taylor in the back, slightly right of center in the red shirt. (He has a 1478 rating, and has been as high as 1619.)  

On Sunday we started with forehand and backhand practice. Then we went over hitting down the line, and practiced that. Then we did some more crosscourt hitting. Since many players are relatively new, I thought we needed a lot of forehand and backhand practice. Then we went over backhand pushing. I did the demo with Raghu, and used the soccer-colored balls so they could better see the backspin. There were a lot of questions, and so the lecture/demo went on longer than expected - but that's a good thing. Then we went to the tables and practiced.

After the session was officially over, I invited players to stay late and had a little fun, as they tried to return my serves. I'm pretty experienced at serving to beginning/intermediate players - it's a somewhat different skill than serving to advanced players - and so the players had quite a bit of difficulty returning the many variations I threw at them. It gives them a good idea of what's possible, and perhaps some of them will practice so they can develop similar serves.

The biggest differences between coaching adults and coaching kids are:

  1. Kids pick up proper technique very easily, but have little ball control. Adults have a bit more difficulty getting the technique right, but have good ball control. One result is you can have even beginning adults practice together and they'll have decent rallies and good practice, while if you have two beginning kids practice together, all you get are balls flying all over the place - they can't control the ball.
  2. Kids want to get to the table now. The fidgeting begins about 15 seconds into any lecture or demo. Anything over two minutes is sheer torture. They have few questions. Adults have more patience, so you can go over things in more detail, and they have lots of great questions.
  3. Kids have endless energy. Adults do not.

There's a lot to cover in these ten weeks. Below is the tentative schedule. I say tentative because I keep changing it, depending on how much was covered in the previous session. For example, I originally planned to cover the forehand push as well in week three, but ran out of time, and so moved it to week four.

  • Week 1: Intro; Grip; Stance; Forehand drive; Spin serves
  • Week 2: Forehand review; Backhand drive; Deception on serves
  • Week 3: Forehand and Backhand practice; Down-the-line; Backhand Push
  • Week 4: FH & BH practice; Forehand Push and Pushing practice; Footwork; Serving Fast
  • Week 5: FH & BH practice; Forehand Loop vs. Backspin, and Blocking; Smash
  • Week 6: Smash & Block drills; Backhand Loop vs. Backspin; Beginning Receive
  • Week 7: Loop and Smash combo; Loop against Block; Advanced Receive
  • Week 8: Blocking; Serve & Attack Drills; Random drills; Equipment
  • Week 9: Drills (countering, footwork, smash); Serve practice; Tactics Against Different Styles; Doubles
  • Week 10: Drills; USATT, MDTTC, tournaments, leagues, books; Smashing lobs; Player's choice

Update on My USATT Board Activities

There's a USATT board meeting coming up in Baltimore on Saturday, March 28. Board members and some staff and committee chairs will be coming in from all over the country for this. I'll give an update on things afterwards, including on my activities on the issues I raised in the election - I'll have a lot to report!

Spring Break Camp at MDTTC

From April 6-10 we'll be running our Spring Break Camp at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. Here's the flyer and the info page. The camp coincides with spring break in local Montgomery County Schools, so the camp (like most of our camps) will be dominated by kids, though all ages (and levels) are welcome. We'll likely have most or all of our eight full-time coaches there, including me.

Zhang Yining Coaching at ICC Spring Break Camp

Two-time Olympic Gold Medalists (2004 and 2008) and World Women's Singles Champion (2005, 2009) Zhang Yining will be coaching at the ICC Spring Break Camp in Milpitas, CA, April 1-10. Here's the info page.

Playing Against Choppers

Here's the new coaching article by Han Xiao, including a link to a video (16:54) of Ma Lin vs. chopper Joo Se Hyuk.

Masters of Defense

Here's the video (7:11) from two years ago that showcases the best defensive players.

What I Learned from Ten Weeks of Grip Experimentation

Here's the article from Ben Lacombe of Expert Table Tennis, which links to a video (10:53).

Zhang Jike Reverse Pendulum Serve in Slow Motion

Here's the video (21:03).

Ma Long Training with Liu Guoliang

Here's the recent video (67 sec) as Liu (Chinese Men's Coach) feeds multiball to Ma Long, who recently regained his #1 ranking in the world.

Incredible Rally

Here's the video (29 sec) - I'm not sure who the players are, though the comments say the player on the near side is Dutch.

1978 Chinese Exhibition

Here's the video (2:55) of former Chinese superstars Liang Geliang and Guo Yuehua (the penholder and '81 and '83 world champion).

Asian Cup Men's Singles Final

Here's the video (8:15, with time between points taken out) between Xu Xin and Fan Zhendong. Here's an article on it from Tabletennista. (The Women's final video doesn't seem to be online yet, but I'll post it when it does, probably tomorrow. Spoiler Alert - Feng Tianwei upsets Liu Shiwen! Here's the article.)

Andrew Gaze Plays Table Tennis

Here's the video (4:58) of former Australian basketball superstar Andrew Gaze getting a table tennis from Heming Hu.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Yep, I'm wearing my green MDTTC Butterfly shirt today. Meanwhile, if you put "Saint Patrick's Day table tennis pictures" into Google, this is what you get.

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