September 15, 2015

Tip of the Week

Do You Have the Blocking Reachies?

My Weekend

Here's a short rundown of my weekend, Fri-Tue morning.

  • Friday: This is usually my slowest day, where I normally only do the afterschool program, which includes picking up kids, coaching for 30-60 minutes, and tutoring. I'm tutoring one eight-year-old in English after our table tennis sessions. On Friday we focused on capitalization as he has a bit of trouble with that. Then, since he needed writing practice, I had him write a one-page story. The story was "How Larry Died" . . . and I had many glorious deaths (suffocated on Mars, hit on the head by a meteor, star exploded around me, and I was forced to eat 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets full of fish crab cooked dark green vegetable mushroom pumpkin pie ice cream. (That's how many zeroes he used, and as you can see, he knows what foods I don't like. I love ice cream, but not this flavor!) Alas, he still forgets to capitalize a lot of things, including my name, which was "larry" over and over.
  • Saturday: I was scheduled to coach only 1.5 hours that day, but I'd coached every day for about three weeks, and so I got a substitute and mostly took the day off, where I mostly read. That night at 8PM we had an organizational meeting of the Capital Area Team League, where I met with Stefano Ratti, John Olsen, and Richard Heo and worked out the fall schedule and other issues. More on this later when it's all finalized. (We currently have 12 teams with 59 players, but may have one or two last minutes teams added.)
  • Sunday: I did 2.5 hours of private coaching with Sameer and Navin, and the 1.5 hours adult training. (The 1.5 hour junior class I normally run on Sundays is on break, starting up again next Sunday.) Sameer is going through a grip change, and so while his strokes are now smoother and more powerful, he doesn't have as much control yet in games – but that will come. (I blogged about this last Thursday.) Navin continues to work on his forehand, and in particular his transition from backhand to forehand. We also did a lot of work on serve and receive. He recently went from short pips on the forehand to inverted, and he has a bit more punch on his forehand now. Since he now has an inverted side to go with the long pips on his backhand, I'm working with him on developing spinny serves. As to receive, the focus is on low returns at wide angles. I spent most of the morning and then late into the night working various USATT issues, in particular league and regional association plans, and didn't get to bed until 4:15AM. 
  • Monday: I did 2.5 hours of private coaching with Daniel (recently back from a summer in NYC and Germany) and Sameer. Daniel's a bit out of practice, but I was happy to see that the work we did in the Spring on his forehand loop had taken hold – his strokes are good though a bit rusty. He used to swing with too much arm, and so we spent much of a month really working on that, including lots and lots of shadow practice. (I blogged about it while we were doing it.) Alas, I was feeling a bit sick that night, and went to bed early, around 10:30PM.
  • Tuesday morning: I woke up with what I think is a minor cold. It was already 8:30 AM – I'd slept for ten hours straight!!! That's unheard of for me, except when I'm sick – I normally sleep about six hours/night. I almost didn't do the blog this morning because of this as I was exhausted, but then I realized the earth might fall into the giant orange ping-pong ball in the sky if I didn't.

Serving More Deceptively

Here's the new coaching article by Han Xiao, with links to video.

Mental Pitfalls: Switch to Winning in Your Mind

Here's the coaching article by Frank Völler.

The First Three Strokes

Here's the video (27:39) of former superstar player Zhang Yining at a seminar. (She speaks through a translator.) She was the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Gold Medalists for Women's Singles, 2005 and 2009 World Women's Singles Champion, and 4-time Women's World Cup Champion.

Laj Forehand Counterspin Analysis

Here's the video (2:22) where Coach Brett Clarke analyzes this player's forehand counterloop.

The Mysterious Table Tennis Coach

Here's the new article from Coach Jon.

USATT Board of Directors Action Items for August 21-22, 2015 Meeting in Chicago

Here's the page. A more detailed version with minutes will go up later. I made several motions in the meeting – feel free to ask about any of them.

Top 8 Health Benefits of Playing Ping Pong

Here's the chart. (Here's the non-Facebook version.) I linked to another, more detailed one last week – Health Benefits of Table Tennis Infographic.

"I am standing where the ball comes…"

Here's a great quote from the legendary Jan-Ove Waldner. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

11 Questions with Cory Eider

Here's the USATT interview with the 2013 USA Nationals Men's Singles Finalist.

2015 Newgy Ohio Open

Here's the article (with links to video) by Samson Dubina.

Ma Long Training

Here's the new video (1:22).

Japan Table Tennis – The Young Kids are Incredible

Here's the video (65 sec).

One of the Greatest Rallies Ever

Here's the video (64 sec, including replay) of what say is the best rally ever. That's Xu Xin (near side) and Zhu Linfeng, both lefties, in this crazy 35 seconds of counterlooping at the Chinese Super League.

Top Ten Shots from the Austrian Open

Here's the ITTF video (5:28).

Backhand Around-the-Net Counterlooping Practice

Here's video (28 sec) of this fundamental shot that everyone should have.

Chinese Cherries? Nathan Hsu in China

Episode 5 of Nathan Hsu's trip to China is now up. All five episodes are below.

RGIII to the Olympics?

Now that Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III is out of his starting quarterback position, perhaps this would be a good time for him to make good on his dream of making it to the Olympics, perhaps in ping-pong? Here's the video (74 sec) from two years ago of him making this statement, with the response from the MDTTC juniors!!! (Nathan Hsu created this video back then, with Tong Tong Gong, Derek Nie, Roy Ke, and Crystal Wang.) 

Ma Long and Liu Guoliang Around the Table

Here's the video (21 sec) as they put on an impromptu exhibition.

More Mike Mezyan Pictures

NOTE - If you are unable to see these pictures, all you have to do is join the Table Tennis Group - it's easy! Here are all the past, present, and (soon) future pictures he's collected. (I pick out his best ones for here - he has more.)

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