December 1, 2015

Today's Blog
I've got a huge accumulation of stuff below from over Thanksgiving weekend, as well as loads of work to catch up on. So for today I'll just present the accumulation, and tomorrow I'll blog about my experiences at the JOOLA North American Teams. Basic info, including results, are in a segment below. There's also the Butterfly Teams and the World Junior Championships, so lots of tournament info, plus all sorts of coaching links. So make sure the boss isn't watching, and spend your day browsing over all these links!

Tip of the Week
Use Equipment that Matches the Way You Want to Play. I'm "cheating" and using my Butterfly Tip (slightly reworded) as this week's Tip of the Week. Every three years I compile all of these weekly tips into a book, with Table Tennis Tips compiling all 150 tips, in logical fashion, from 2011-2013, and I wanted this to be part of it. "More Table Tennis Tips" will come out early in 2017, and will include the 150 tips from 2014-2016.

Butterfly Teams
The Butterfly Teams were held this past weekend, Fri-Sun, in Philadelphia, PA. I was originally hoping to drive up for one day, but I was in charge of one of the MDTTC junior teams at the North American Teams in Washington DC, and so was there for all three days. Here are links.

  • Nov. 29: Divisions Results: NYC Table Tennis Academy Are Division 1 Butterfly Teams Champions!
  • Nov. 29: "NYC Table Tennis Academy" Leads Division 1 Standings at Close of Second Day of Play.
  • Nov. 28: Tournament Photos, Saturday November 28.
  • Nov. 28: Top Teams Maintain Seeding in Division 1 after First Day of Play.
  • Nov. 27: Tournament Photos, Friday November 27.

JOOLA North American Teams
The JOOLA North American Teams were held this past weekend, Fri-Sun, in Washington DC, about 45 minutes from my house and from MDTTC. Astonishingly, Quadri Aruna, world #50 and the top seed attending, lost both matches in the final! I'll blog tomorrow about my experiences there. Here are some links:

World Junior Championships
They are taking place right now in Vendée, FRA, Nov. 29 - Dec. 6. USA Junior Girls, seeded #10, are astounding the world with a series of upsets to reach the semifinals. So far they have defeated #17 Canada 3-0, #15 Slovenia 3-2, #6 Belarus 3-0, #4 Russia 3-0, and (in quarterfinals) #8 Germany 3-2! They will be playing the #1 seeded Chinese team this afternoon. Cross your fingers! Congrats to Coach Lily Yip, and players Prachi Jha, Amy Wang, Crystal Wang and Grace Yang! USA Boys (Coach Shigang Yang, and players Sharon Alguetti, Krish Avvari, Kanak Jha, Jack Wang) were seeded #14, and finished #14. Here are some links.

Why Is a Strong Service Game Important?
Here's the new coaching article from MH Table Tennis. And don't forget that he's still trying to raise funding for his trip to the Worlds as a member of the New Zealand Men's Team!

How to Make an Existing Serve Even Better
Here's the new coaching article from Tom Lodziak.

Tactics Against Various Types of Players
Here's the new coaching article from Tapan Bose.

Table Tennis Vision
Here's the new article on the importance of vision from Coach Jon.

Eating What? Improving your game through the choices you make
Here's the new coaching article from Samson Dubina.

How to Do a Forehand Drive
Here's the new coaching video (1:21).

Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert Views on Knowledge
Here's the graph – it sure fits table tennis!

Ask the Coach

  • Episode #193 (26:54) – Patrick Franziska's Serve (and other segments)
  • Episode #194 (25:20) – Overcoming the Yips
  • Episode #195 (23:20) – Xu Xin's Deceptive Serves
  • Episode #196 (28:34) – Disguising the Reverse Pendulum Topspin Serve

Media Accreditation Open for the 2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships
Here's the ITTF Press Release. Wanna be a ping-pong writer?

USATT Athletes of the Month for November
Here's the USATT article – congrats to Kai Zhang, Angela Guan, and the team of Sharon & Gal Alguetti!

11 Questions with Jenson Van Emburgh
Here's the USATT interview.

Is Jimmy Butler Backhand's Backhand Back?
Here's the video (7:15) – judge for yourself!

Christian Ortner: Mr Piingo Mingles with the Pros
Here's the latest podcast (44:10) from Expert Table Tennis. In it you'll learn:

  • What on earth is “Mr Piingo”?!
  • About the work Christian does for the ITTF
  • What a typical day is like for Christian
  • How he first started playing table tennis at age 18
  • Some of the things he struggled with at the beginning
  • The #1 tip Timo Boll gave him that changed his view of the game
  • Stories from meeting other professional players
  • Why Dimitrij Ovtcharov believes Ma Long is the best ever!
  • The importance of using deception and “feints” in your game
  • TOP TIP = Why you must never give up
  • How to follow Christian and Mr Piingo

Best Points of Fan Zhendong
Here's the video (1:20).

Fan Zhendong Showing Off His Football Skills!
Here's the video (2:04).

Ball Bouncing on Side of Table
Here's the video (18 sec) – the one on the left did 63 in a row. Can you top it?

Improvised Pong
Here's the video (3:24) – about one minute in you realize what they are building, and the pong fun begins 67 seconds in! (From 1:30 to 3:15 they are just talking into the camera in Spanish, then they get back to pong the last nine seconds. Anyone know Spanish and can comment on what they are saying?)

A Little Hyperbolic Pong
Here's the picture.

Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld Plays Table Tennis
Here's the video (1:26, but link should take you to 56 sec in where he plays for 11 sec). This is from the episode "The Wizard," where Kramer moves to Florida and lives next door to Seinfeld's parents – in the video he's playing (and bombarding) Seinfeld's dad. Seinfeld once said in one of his standup routines, "Tennis is basically just ping-pong and the players are standing on the table."

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