February 5, 2016

Lawyers, and Coaches Seeking Clubs, and Clubs Seeking Coaches, Oh My!!!
A long time ago, before the explosion of full-time clubs in the U.S., when I was a webmaster for USA Table Tennis, I put together a page for Coaches Seeking Clubs and Clubs Seeking Coaches. At the time there were only a few full-time clubs – less than ten – and there just wasn't much demand for this in either direction. And so it wasn't very active.

But things have changed. Over and over we're finding new full-time clubs looking for full-time coaches to help their club, since most successful full-time clubs are oriented around the coaches, who are the ones who bring in new players to fill up the club. (That's the model that led to the "explosion" noted above.) Most of these coaches are from China, which has about ten zillion top players looking to become professional coaches. (Being a top player doesn't make one a top coach, but the ranks of top coaches tend to come from them. And most top players become at least decent coaches, and with experience, many become excellent coaches.)

But how do we get these coaches into the U.S. and into the clubs that need them? (Or start up new clubs centered around them, as often happens, but that's a separate issue.) There are all sorts of immigration issues. I'm only tangentially knowledgeable about these issues. At the request of lawyers, I've written a number of letters of recommendation for coaches, mostly for my club but for others as well. How these letters are used and the specifics of the immigration process, well, I think most of us know more about intelligent life in Andromeda than this process, which is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. (Sorry Winston.)

Currently when a club needs a professional coach (or more likely, realizes they need one, since they all need them), how do they go about finding one? There are more and more coaches in the U.S., but most already are coaching at a club. What's needed are new ones, and the source for that is mostly China. So how do we get the many there who want to come here to the clubs here that want them?

Perhaps somewhere out there is an entrepreneurial lawyer knowledgeable about the immigration process who can start up a business doing just that. He'd find players/coaches in China looking to coach full-time in the U.S., connect them with clubs looking for such coaches, and work on their immigration. Often the clubs will pay for this; other times the prospective coach will. That's all part of the business model this entrepreneurial lawyer would set up.

USATT does have a Coaching Opportunities page, but it's not very active. There are three items there, from Oct. 2014, May 2015, and Nov. 2015. So it's currently a service, but not actively being used. This could change if we were able to systematically identify coaches looking for clubs, and get more clubs to look for coaches (or more entrepreneurial people to create such clubs that need these coaches). I believe several clubs are currently looking for full-time coaches, and I'm guessing more would if they there was a listing of ones looking to become full-time coaches. (While I've been focusing on bringing in Chinese coaches, the opportunities would be for any qualified coach from anywhere in the World, including USA's own home-grown coaches.)

So, immigration lawyers and others knowledgeable or interested in this topic – anybody want to take a shot at this, and develop a new cottage industry of connecting coaches (especially Chinese ones) to clubs, and vice versa?

Happenings
It's been a busy few days, so here's a rundown on coaching and other activities.

  • Last week I declared this week to be "USATT week," and I planned on devoting most of this week to that. Alas, a zillion things intervened, and I didn't get nearly as much work on that as I'd planned. So I'll continue it next week.
  • Yesterday a student asked me if it was legal to brace yourself against the table when smashing, or move the table. I explained how you couldn't touch the table with your non-playing hand, or move the table. I demonstrated by smashing while ramming my left leg into the table – and it really hurt! I was limping for the next hour. Note to self – less realistic demos.
  • I'm coaching a new 7-year-old who has decided that smacking balls off the end as hard as he can over and over is the most fun thing in life. I'm trying to get him to learn a regular forehand, but all he'll do is smack home run after home run while giggling! You'd think a stern warning would work, but it doesn't. In my 40 years in table tennis this is the second time I've had a kid like this. Hopefully he'll get over it, but right now all he does is smack ball after ball way off the end on purpose.
  • One of my students has spent much of the last few months fixing a problem with grip changing – he had a very different forehand and backhand grip. It's fixed now! But it took a lot of practice.
  • I've been teaching backspin serves to a new class of beginning kids. They are absolutely mesmerized by this! All of them have served at least one ball that bounced backwards, and they want to do this consistently. Several are now obsessed with learning to serve so the ball bounces back over the net, as I do as an exhibition trick (and somewhat regularly in classes). And they greatly prefer the soccer-colored balls that show spin to the "boring" white or orange ones.
  • My todo list was roughly infinite in length as of a week ago, but I've been working my through it, and now it's only half as long. ∞/2=?

Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions
Here's the new press release from World Weaver Press about my upcoming novel. As I've blogged about a few times, one of the main characters is a professional table tennis player who ends up running a worldwide campaign for president of Earth in the year 2100. More on this as the March 8 release date approaches. (The cover is basically done, and will be unveiled next week.)

U.S. Olympic Trials
They began yesterday and continue through tomorrow, in Greensboro, NC. Here's the home page, which includes the draws and results, schedule, format, ticket information, playing listing, and lots and lots of articles and other stuff. The women's and men's finals each night at 7 and 8PM will be streamed lived. Day One's big winners were Timothy Wang and Wang Chen, who qualified for the playoff against Canada for the Olympic spots allocated to North America.

Basic Side-to-Side Forehand Footwork
Here's the video (1:33) of Egypt's Omar Assar (world #33) in training. Here's another video of the Chinese team training (5:36), which starts with Zhang Jike also doing this same forehand-forehand footwork. So . . . why aren't you?

Ask the Coach Show
Episode #218 (19:54) - Teaching Friends Table Tennis (and other segments)

2016 ITTF Europe TOP 16
Here's the ITTF home page for the event, with results, articles, pictures, etc. It starts today, Feb. 5-7, in Gondomar, Portugal.

Budapest Officially Bids for 2019 World Table Tennis Championships
Here's the ITTF press release. "Budapest, Hungary has been announced as the sole bidder for the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships, an event they have not hosted since 1950."

International Table Tennis
Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage). Butterfly also has a great news page.

German Open 2016 - "In Motion"
Here's the highlights video (8:58).

Watch This Rally-Ending Backhand!
Here's the video (23 sec, including slo-mo replay). And check out the first one as well – that's a more standard one that you should copy.

10 Brilliant Ping Pong Graphic Designs
Here they are!

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