December 8, 2015

Regional Team Leagues
By Larry Hodges, USATT League Chair
(NOTE - The following is a USATT news item that went up this morning. Note the links to the new USATT League Page and the USATT Regional Team League Prototype. This league initiative, along with the Regional Associations initiative, the State Championships initiative, and a coaching/training center initiative I hope to do next year, are designed to help jump-start USA Table Tennis to the next level – but it's going to take years, so perhaps "jump-start" isn't the right word.)

Those who study sports association memberships can help but notice a pattern: those with huge membership do so through team leagues. That's the reason why the German Table Tennis Association has 600,000 members, why the U.S. Tennis Association has 700,000 members, and why the U.S. Bowling Congress has over two million members. And the lack of such a league structure is the primary reason USA Table Tennis has only 9000 members.

But you don't play in a team league just so you can boost your association's membership; you do so because it's fun! You're pumped up because your teammates are cheering for you, you win and lose as a team, and when it's all done, you and your opponents go out for pizza.

But someone has to start up these leagues. Until now anyone wanting to create such a league has to start from scratch, a huge problem. What was needed was a prototype regional team league that can spread nationwide. And so here it is – a USATT Regional Team League Prototype. (It is also linked from the newly updated USATT League Page.)

There's little in it that is set in stone - it's in Word format so you can make changes. Use it as your starting basis, and go from there. It's based on successful leagues in the U.S., such as the Capital Area League and the LA League.

But first we need people in each region willing to take charge and start up these leagues. It can be a single person or a group. Or a single person can put together such a group, as I did for the Capital Area League, and then step back as others take charge. (And we owe a big thanks to there to Stefano Ratti, Mike Levene, John Olsen, and Richard Heo.)

Playing table tennis in a team league is almost a foreign idea to U.S. players. Most U.S. leagues are singles. That's fine for a club league, but if you want it to spread and get huge numbers, you need team leagues, where players represent their club in various divisions, based on level. This is how it's done not only in successful table tennis countries, but nearly all other successful sports, as noted above. I've even played in tennis leagues - I was part of a six-man team - and it was all run by volunteers. And that's how they got 700,000 members. (A key is to have regional team leagues where everyone in the league is in easy driving distance. In general leagues should cover an area no more than perhaps an hour drive across, preferably less.) A typical league would have multiple divisions, from beginning to elite.

Keep in mind that tennis having more members than table tennis, as it does in the U.S., is not the norm - we have to get away from that type of thinking, which has been indoctrinated into us along with an inferiority complex to tennis and other sports. All over Europe table tennis memberships are higher than tennis - though both table tennis and tennis memberships there dwarf USA Table Tennis membership. Table Tennis is often called the #2 participation sport in the world, and some surveys show this, but whether we're actually #2 or merely #3, we're near the top of the list, along with soccer, basketball, and volleyball. (Here's a typical listing, which has us at #3.)

There's also the National League Finals, held at the U.S. Nationals each year, where the winners of the major team leagues play single elimination to determine the National Champion!

Here's our current listing of team leagues - please email us if you have information on others.

So, are you interested in a Team League in your region? Then go over the League Prototype, and start up your own league. If you have questions, email me. Together we can create a national network of such leagues.

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A New Way to Teach Table Tennis
Here's the new coaching article by ICC Massimo Costantini. And I've been harping for years on the importance of beginners getting the grip right, and doing the "grab" test (where I grab the racket out of their hand, and if it doesn't come out, the grip is too tight).

How to Strengthen Your Middle
Here are eight tips from Samson Dubina on how he learned to cover his middle (and go from 2400 to 2550), along with a "Rocky" table tennis training video (2:34), on his Olympic funding page.

Ask the Coach Show
Episode #201 (25:14) - Expressing Excitement To Play Better

Work and Play: Ping Pong at Work
Here's the new article from Coach Jon.

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Here's the article by Barbara Wei.

Ping Pong the Animation
You can get this Japanese table tennis anime series at Amazon in Blu-ray (11 episodes, 270 min), or you can get them free online in lower quality. I blogged about this once before, but one of the players in my training group, Chris Buckley, just bought the set and showed me. He described it as, "Ping Pong the Animation is an award winning Japanese anime series that is a coming of age story of top high school players.  The wonderful characterization of even the minor characters has gathered a lot of attention for the director, Masaaki Yuasa."

SONG Chen - SAIVE Jean Michel | SUPER DIVISION 2015-2016
Here's the new video (5:31). Saive may be retiring, but the former world #1 can still play!

Around the Net Compilation
Here's the video (2:25).

Adam Bobrow's New Chopping Blade
Here's the new video (60 sec) as he chops with this new blade. After all . . . isn't that what you are supposed to do with a blade?

The Ultimate Ping-Pong Head Smack
Here's the video (17 sec, including slo-mo replay)!

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