September 28, 2015

Tip of the Week

Watch the Top Players Before a Tournament or Big Match.

The Spirit of Pong: First Two Chapters Online

Here are the first two chapters of my 100-page table tennis fantasy novel, which you can read for FREE. If you like them, then you can buy the whole novel at Amazon ($7 print or $6 kindle). Here's a description of the novel:

Andy "Shoes" Blue wants to be a table tennis champion, but he’s just another wannabe American. And so he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis. He is trained by the mysterious Coach Wang, and begins an odyssey where he learns the secrets of table tennis from the spirits of Ichiro Ogimura (who helped spawn China’s greatness), Rong Guotuan (China’s first world champion in 1959, whose tragic story Andy must relive), and others, and must face the mysterious "Dragon." Can he overcome treachery and learn the final secret of table tennis in time to defeat his ultimate nemesis?

The novel includes a bonus short story at the end that I wrote, "Ping-Pong Ambition," which was originally published in the anthology Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic. Here's a description, and a review from The Fix:

"A table tennis player is imprisoned inside a ping-pong ball by a genie for 10,000 years, where he practices table tennis and studies to be a genie himself - only to discover a surprising truth."

"Ping-Pong Ambition is a fun take on the genie-who-gives-three-wishes story. The tropes are familiar, but the light tone and twist ending make this an entertaining read." The Fix, Jan. 27, 2008.

There aren't that many table tennis novels. Here's the only five I know of – am I missing any?

  • The Spirit of Pong (2015) by Larry Hodges. (See description above.)
  • Doubles (2009) by Anne Borrowdale. "Tanni Lydd has given up caring that her father disappeared when she was born. That is until new boyfriend Jez Morley nags her to track him down and miraculously turns up a clue which puts her on his trail. But Jez is a professional table-tennis player who spins and deceives for a living, and soon Tanni is convinced he is playing games off the table too. As the spins and deceptions get ever closer to home, what once seemed a game threatens to turn their lives upside down. Perceptive and skillfully crafted, Anne Borrowdale's latest novel makes imaginative use of a table-tennis metaphor to explore themes of love, loss and self-delusion."
  • The Mighty Walzer (1999) by Howard Jacobson. "From the beginning Oliver Walzer is a natural--at ping-pong. Even with his improvised bat (the Collins Classic edition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde) he can chop, flick, half-volley like a champion. At sex he is not a natural, being shy and frightened of women, but with tuition from Sheeny Waxman, fellow member of the Akiva Social Club Table Tennis team, his game improves. And while the Akiva boys teach him everything he needs to know about ping-pong, his father, Joel Walzer, teaches him everything there is to know about "swag." Unabashedly autobiographical, this is an hilarious and heartbreaking story of one man's coming of age in 1950's Manchester."
  • The Mystery of the Lost Racket (2013) by Enzo Pettinelli. Children's book. "There's the summer, the sea and wind. The winds are the good ones, the light breezes. The tale is about the parable of life: it starts when it is rising high meeting the point where it starts to go down. The charm is possible for who knows how to tell a story, and Enzo Pettinelli tells it through an extraordinary ping-pong metaphor."
  • My Secret Life as a Ping-Pong Wizard (2005) by Henry Winkler (yes, "The Fonz") and Lin Oliver. Children's book. "Hank thought that getting through summer school to get to the fifth grade would be hard enough, but little did he know that it would get worse! Everyone in the fifth grade is starting to focus on a sport—and they’re really good. Everyone, that is, except Hank. When Papa Pete suggests that Hank take up Ping-Pong, he decides to give it a try but keeps it top secret, as he thinks the other kids will tease him about it not being a "real" sport. Hank is so good that he manages to Ping-Pong his way to the championship! But when he finds out the contest is being held at "Nick the Tick" McKelty’s family bowling alley, will he risk being the laughingstock of the fifth grade?" (Here's my review. Page down a bit.)

Capital Area Team League

We had the first meeting of the fall 2015 season of the Capital Area Team League. There are 12 teams and 70 players – that's 5.8 players per team, since we listed the restriction on the number of players per team. They are divided into two divisions of six teams each. From 5-10 PM on Saturday each team played two team matches. I'll post results tomorrow. Here's a group photo!

Injured . . . Again

Yesterday in the first five seconds of my first private coaching session (with Navin Kumar), I felt agonizing pain in the muscles of my upper left chest. I have no idea how or when it was injured, but it got worse and worse. (I've never had this injury - I can add it to my collection.) We stopped 15 minutes early as I could barely play at that point. Fortunately, the rest of the day I only had three hours of group sessions where I'd at most have to feed multiball. Only – feeding multiball involves picking the balls up rapidly with my left arm and tossing them backwards, which was extremely painful. I managed to get through the day, but now I'm once again injured. For today and probably tomorrow I'm cancelling or getting substitutes. We'll see how it is tomorrow. (But I still have a 90-minute tutoring session today.) 

My best guess is I hurt it while carrying my extremely heavy playing bag around. I probably have more stuff in there than any other table tennis person. I mean, seriously, does anyone expect me to go anywhere without my brick collection? I think I'll blog about my bag's contents later this week. Prepare to be mesmerize.

Why is it that I keep getting injured while coaching Navin? I think my last three injuries have come while hitting with him. If only I could be as healthy as Navin.

Asian and European Championships

They are both going on right now:

Brief Discussion of the Four Principles of Table Tennis in Terms of the Beauty of the Sport

Here's the article by Jinxin Wang, world #77 and the 2015 US Open Men's Singles Champion.

The ABC's of the Table Tennis Block

Here's the new coaching article from Coach Jon.

Robert Gardos vs. Alexander Shibaev

Here's video at 10-9 where the two argue over whether Shibaev's serve hit his shirt. (The link should take you directly there – 132 seconds in.) Gardos of Austria is world #26; Shibaev of Russia is #58. 

What's interesting to me is that with all that argument over that, there's no mention of how illegal Shibaev's serve is. Here's an image of the serve in question – he's hiding it with his head as well as having his arm out there, both illegal, as are essentially every serve in the match. Here's the very first point of the match – see how hidden Shibaev's serve is? But Gardos isn't any better – here's his first serve shown on the far side (94 seconds in - they don't show his first two.) Umpires and referees, nothing to see here, move along, just move along. (This is the standard serve at the world class level, and it rarely gets called. See my blog from last Friday and my proposal to end this cancer on our sport.)

Great Diving Picture

Here's the picture of "Superman" - but who is it? It seems to be from the European Championships, but #137 there is Fedor Kuzmin of Russia, who has light brown hair, not the dark hair of this player. Someone thought it might be Emmanual Lebesson, and I originally thought it was Alexander Shibaev, but I'm not sure. Anyone know? Or perhaps, like Superman, we'll never know his identity? (If you know who it is, comment below. I'm leaving for the afternoon, but will check and update this tonight.) 

Beltway Plaza Table Tennis Challenge Raises $1521 for Parkinson's

Here's the info sheet, with Navin Kumar. (My math mind cannot help but notice that's 13 squared times 3 squared. Nice number.)

New Table Tennis News Page

Here's the Pong Universe news page.

Great Point: Dimitrij Ovtcharov vs. Jung Youngsik

Here's the video (38 sec, including slow motion replay) between the world #5 from Germany and world #14 from South Korea. That's Adam Bobrow doing the commentary.

Great Paralympic Point

Here's the video (43 sec, including slow motion replay).

Blade, I Am Your Father

Here's the latest table tennis artwork from Mike Mezyan. (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

Pope Pong

In honor of the Pope's US visit, here are some images I found online. You can get balls or paddles with his image, silhouette, past popes, slogans, and even commemorative ones for his visits to Washington DC, Philadelphia, and New York City.

Insult Table Tennis

Here's the cartoon!

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