March 16, 2016

Tidbits

  • Capital Area Table Tennis League. We have an even 20 teams (about 100 players) for the new season, which begins on April 17. This is a big increase from last season's 12 teams/74 players. (We are already looking to get to 30 teams next season!) Just as importantly, we have a new website! I'm officially the webmaster, but as I told the others on the league committee when we started, my web skills are a decade or more behind. Well, Commissioner Stefano Ratti put together the new version in Wordpress, and you can see the result! (I've recently learned how to use Wordpress as well, using it to create my science fiction & fantasy page, but I'm no expert.) We also have six sponsors – Pong Mobile; JOOLA; West, Lane & Schlager; Go Table Tennis; Paddle Palace; and NW Global Foundation. (See links to each on the website.)
  • USA Hopes Team. Over the weekend Tiffany Ke won the Hopes Trials in Austin, TX. Here are pictures and results. This is for boys and girls under age 12. This gives MDTTC (my club) two of the four girls on the USA Hopes Girls' Team, joining Lisa Lin. (Here's the USATT article on Lisa making the team, with a picture and a link to video. Here's the article from the Baltimore Sun on Lisa. There are two others Hopes Trials on the west coast, but I don't have those results handy.) Others MDTTCers on USA National Teams are Derek Nie (Cadet Boys' Team) and Ryan Dabbs (Minicadet's Boys' Team), plus Crystal Wang (USA World Women's Team, Junior & Cadet Girls' Team) before her mom got a job offer she couldn't refuse and they moved to Seattle last fall.
  • Daniel's Forehand, Chopping Blade, and Nets & Edges. I had a 90-minute session yesterday with 11-year-old Daniel, who's about 1650 (but on the verge of making a serious jump). Three interesting takes on the session:
    • 1) His forehand keeps getting better as more and more he can loop winners past me; soon it might be as strong as his backhand. However, he's still less confident with it in game situations. It'll come around.
    • 2) I chopped to him for 30 minutes with my new chopping racket, which I got for coaching purposes – and it's great! It's a Butterfly Joo Saehyuk blade, fl, with Feint Long 2 1.3mm red on the backhand, Tenergy 05 2.1mm black on the forehand. (I'm normally an all-around attacker, with a Timo Boll ALC fl blade, with Tenergy 05 2.1mm black on the forehand, Tenergy 25 2.1mm red on the backhand.) My back and legs almost died during that time – it was exhausting. I'm still feeling the effects this morning. I'm toying with showing up at one of the MDTTC leagues as a chopper – I'm almost as good chopping as attacking, perhaps better these days.
    • During the first half hour we kept track of nets & edges. I've blogged about this before (see Dec. 8, 2014, Feb. 6, 2012, and Feb. 4, 2011), but it's a simple reality that some players, because of playing style and other factors, get more nets and edges than others – and Daniel gets more than anyone on the planet! (This despite the fact that he's a standard shakehander with inverted on both sides.) During those 30 minutes he got 41 nets & edges to my 2! Yes, two.
  • Walking Dead Table Tennis Dream. I had a very strange table tennis dream last night. On Sundays, my busiest coaching day, I get home around 8:45PM, just in time to watch The Walking Dead. Last night I dreamed I was in the show – but no walking dead (I think). Instead, I was in some sort of meeting with the characters, where they were debating who should write the group's table tennis coaching book. Really!!! I had to stand up in front of them and give them my credentials, pointing out how I'd already written seven books on table tennis, and could beat any of them at it. But then Carol put in a bid, and she kept giving me these mean looks. They voted, and I won – but Carol wasn't happy. I was in the back of the room, and immediately began writing, and (as these things happen in dreams), finished the book within minutes. I brought the manuscript up front to give to Rick (the group's leader), with Daryl looking on, but Rick said (in that Rick Grimes voice) they'd changed their mind, and decided to have two books, Carol's and mine. I argued that I'd won the vote, but he was insistent. Then Carol showed me her manuscript, and it was a cartoon book. I began to laugh, and she got very angry, with Daryl looking over her shoulder, and I think she turned into a Walking Dead – and that's the last I remember. I may have woken up at that point – not sure. If you know the show, you know you don't want to get on Carol's bad side – people who do tend to end up dead. (Here are five other table tennis dreams I've blogged about.)

Winning at Deuce: Learn to play your strongest tactics
Here's the new coaching article from Samson Dubina.

Ask the Coach Show
Episode #241 (23:09) - How to Choose Your Drills (and other segments).

Sean O'Neill – Interview
Here's the USATT interview by Rahul Acharya.

14-Year-Old Table-Tennis Star Receives Local Congressional Award
Here's the article on Estee Ackerman.

Michael Maze Retirement
Here's the ITTF article.

ITTF to Use World Team Championships Success as Stepping Stone for Improving Olympic Sport Category
Here's the article.

Table Tennis Camp for Veterans with Disabilities and Members of the Armed Forces with Disabilities
Here's the slideshow from the camp in San Antonio, TX.

2016 World Championships Event Review
Here's the ITTF video review (4:47).

TT Girl Wednesday
Here's the picture! (Here's the non-Facebook version. I might have linked to this picture once before – not sure.) That's a huge picture in the background of Paul Newman on the right, Robert Redford on the left – here's the original.

Grand Table Tennis Entrance
Here's the video (74 sec) of this escalator entrance to the music of "2001: A Space Odyssey"! Easily trumps these other two escalator entrances, this one and that one.

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