January 14, 2016

Weird Racket Retrieving Incident
One of the weirdest incidents ever happened at the club yesterday. I was coaching a junior who pleaded to stay anonymous. We were playing games at the end, and after I won one, the junior tossed his racket into the air. Only – he stumbled as he did so, and the racket went up and sideways, and into the wide pole (or whatever it is called) to the side of the court. Here's a picture of one. It's got lots of pipes and things inside, with the top about nine feet off the ground. The racket was a Timo Boll ALC with Tenergy on both sides, retailing at about $300. Yikes!!!

We were unable to really look in while standing on a chair, so we got out the big MDTTC ladder, used to change lights. Using that we were able to see that the racket had fallen all the way to the ground inside, nine feet down. Worse, it turns out that the wide pole actually is divided into several more narrow ones. The racket was at the bottom of a hole that was nine feet deep, about two feet square. What were we to do?

The junior wanted to climb down and try to reach it, but that was far too dangerous, and I don't think he could have fit down there anyway. He suggested duct taping two Butterfly ball amigos (used for picking up balls during training), but that wouldn't have been long enough – they are only about 3.5 feet long, so seven feet total. He wanted to try to hand down from the top and try to reach down. But then I remembered the bar from the adjustable net height device that John Olsen had made for the club, with the bar in the middle, about 5.5 feet long. (I blogged about this on July 20, 2011.) I duct taped one of the ball amigos to the bar. That gave us a nine-foot poll! I had the junior practice picking up my racket from the floor. Then he went up the ladder, and within about two minutes was able to scoop up his racket.

So the only casualty was the junior's pride, as he was very embarrassed about all this, since half the club was watching! As you can see, the life of a table tennis coach is so exciting – you never know what'll happen next.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Day 9
Yesterday was a "weak" day, as we only did 23 pages and 89 graphics – chapter 21 and about half of chapter 22 (of 27 planned). But many of those pages and graphics were really time-consuming, and there were a huge number of attributions to add to photos and other complications. Plus, as noted in yesterday's blog, I finally slept "late," getting up at 7:45AM instead of 5 or 6AM. We worked until 2:15PM, then I had to leave for the MDTTC afterschool program and private coaching, returning home at 8PM.

Tim has assured me that the rest of the chapters aren't so difficult. Today we plan to finish chapter 22 and do chapters 23-24. On Thursday we'll do chapters 25-27 – they are shorter than earlier ones. Then on Saturday we go through and input corrects – Tim's been proofing the pages very carefully, often in the early morning hours. (He keeps strange hours, going to be around 7PM each night, getting up at 3AM.) Then he'll drive home to New York early on Sunday morning.

One fun highlight – Tim used a picture of Hall of Fame Coach Marty Prager – and lo and behold, it was "Photo by Larry Hodges." He's actually used a few of my photos, both in this and previous volumes, but this time I charged him a nickel. I can now add "professional photographer" to my resume.

Here are the current stats:

Day 1: Tue, Jan. 5: Pages 1-20 (plus covers, so 22 pages total), 42 graphics
Day 2: Wed, Jan. 6: Pages 21-45, 25 pages, 131 graphics
Day 3: Pages 46-85, 40 pages, 126 graphics
Day 4: Pages 86-132, 47 pages, 138 graphics
Day 5: Pages 133-175, 43 pages, 141 graphics
Day 6: Pages 176-216, 41 pages, 149 graphics
Day 7: Pages 217-274, 58 pages, 137 graphics
Day 8: Pages 275-331, 57 pages, 200 graphics
Day 9: Pages 332-354, 23 pages, 89 graphics
TOTALS: 356 pages (including covers), 1153 graphics, 3.24 graphics per page

MHTT Interview with Europe's Table Tennis King: Timo Boll
Here's the interview.

Table Tennis School - Service Attack [Topspin random]
Here's the video (19:35).

Table Tennis Wrist Training
Here's the video from Samson Dubina.

MHTT World Champs Buildup Diary: Day 3
Here's the Day Three Diary of Matt Herrington as he prepares for the upcoming World Championships. Why not follow his daily training as he prepares to take on the best in the world? He's on the New Zealand Team, but currently training at the Lily Yip TTC. (I'm not sure if I'll link to his diary every day, but we'll see.)

2016 US Olympic Trials Participants List
Here's the final list. The 2016 US Olympic Trials will take place in Greensboro, NC on February 4-6.

Nittaku ITTF Monthly Pongcast - December 2015
Here's the video (11:53).

Off the Table - Jun Mizutani
Here's the video (4:08).

Why Table Tennis Training Centers Use Loads of Balls and Ball Pickup Nets
Here's the meme.

Saive v Sean the Sheep
Here's the new video (34 sec), which is a takeoff on the video I linked to yesterday!

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