January 19, 2016

Tip of the Week
On Short Serves to the Forehand, Fake to the Forehand, Then Go Down the Line.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17, Days 11-12
My long national nightmare, I mean my twelve days sitting at a desk with Tim Boggan looking over my shoulder and yelling things like, "the photo goes there, you fool!" ended on Saturday. Between that, my normal coaching/tutoring/afterschool program, and my other USATT and MDTTC work, it was roughly twelve straight 18-hour days.

On Day 11 (Friday) we finished the pages, finishing with 450 pages and 1499 graphics – which I've rounded up to 1500. Then we spent Saturday inputting corrections, which he'd been compiling during in the early morning hours as he edited the pages from the day before. (He goes to bed around 7:30PM each night, gets up by 3AM.) I also did the one-page ad flyer for the new volume, printing 120 copies for him. We finished late on Saturday afternoon, then met Dennis Taylor (USATT pro bono lawyer) for dinner at China Bistro, "home of the best dumplings in the region." On Sunday I had a "restful" day with only five hours coaching at the club. Then I took Monday off (MLK Day), mostly in bed reading and saw the excellent but gritty movie "The Revenant."

With this project over, I can go back to normal stuff, like coaching and writing and eating and sleeping. This week I've got all sorts of issues to blog about –ratings problems (see below), players with fake ages, and my return to running tournaments (alas). And make sure to see the final segment below on my upcoming novel, coming out in one week – it's got table tennis!!!

Here are the final 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
Day 10: Pages 355-409, 55 pages, 203 graphics
Day 11: Pages 410-450, 41 pages, 144 graphics
Day 12: Inputted corrections all day, plus ad flyer
TOTALS: 452 pages (including covers), 1500 graphics, 3.32 graphics per page

USATT Ratings
I'm aware of the serious problems with the rollout of the new USATT ratings page and processing problems. USATT Headquarters is working with SimplyComplete to fix the problems. I'll likely blog about this later. Believe me, I'm not happy about it either. (I didn't see it until it went public, the same time you all did.) There's quite a bit of discussion of this over at the Mytabletennis.net page - see the latter pages to see where things stand. USATT CEO Gordon Kaye has chimed in with updates. 

Brain Training
Here's the video (1:42) from TTedge and Brett Clarke – "The world's first brain training table tennis experience."

Table Tennis Robots
Here's the article from Alois Rosaria from PingSkills.

Instructional Table Tennis - Kalinikos KREANGA
Here's the video (1:04:64)

Ask the Coach Show
Episode 209 (28:40) – Longer Breaks Between Points (and other segments).

Table Tennis Instructional - Techniques to Be Mastered Trainer
Here's the video (32:24).

Table Tennis School - Defense Training
Here's the video (16:44).

Ladder Drills
Here's the video from Samson Dubina.

2016 Japan Nationals Final
Here's the video (6:42) between Jun Mizutani and Chan Kazuhiro.

Insane Around the Net ROLLER!
Here's the video (12 sec).

Trump Talks Table Tennis, Part 2
Here's Part 2 (3:21) where he talks about the service rule! (I linked to Part 1 [1:47] last week.) I never realized how much Donald Trump looks like Larry Bavly!

Mostly Non-Table Tennis – Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions
My new SF novel comes out in exactly one week – see the posting that went up this morning in my weekly science fiction blog. As noted in previous blogs, table tennis comes up over and over in the novel – one of the four main characters is a professional table tennis player who ends up running a campaign for president of Earth.

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