June 29, 2016

Jason & Alex Piech: 2016 USA National Championships Promo
Here's the video (33 sec)! Alex and Jason Piech are at our MDTTC last week and this week (I'm one of the coaches), and tomorrow I have a private session with each of them, including some doubles work. This weekend they, along with half our club, will fly to the Nationals in Las Vegas for the USA Nationals. Among numerous other events, the two are playing Under 2700 Junior Doubles together – and Alex is a lefty, with Jason a righty, which is an advantage in doubles – so watch out Vegas!

These two were also the stars of a previous video I linked to here and featured by USATT in April, Kansas City Club Can't Handle Me (3:52). I actually didn't realize until yesterday that they were the two from that video!

You'll note in the new video that Jason (the older one at 9, who has a striking resemblance to former child star Haley Joel Osment of "The Sixth Sense" fame) does this up-down wiggling eyebrow trick. My mom used to do that, and I used to try to copy it, but never could. (The best I can do is slightly raise my right eyebrow.) So I'm jealous. Jason's table tennis nickname, appropriately, is "Eyebrow," while Alex (who turns 7 in August) is "Storm," which is appropriate, considering his energy. (Alex resembles another former child star, Jake Lloyd, from Star Wars 1.)

Jason is pretty active with his eyes – besides the eyebrow trick he spends every minute of his free time reading, and tomorrow his parents are buying three of my table tennis books for him to read on the long drive back to Arkansas. (I think they want to move to Maryland and live at the Maryland Table Tennis Center! They've probably never met so many other table tennis kids their age.) I'll probably blog about our session tomorrow.

So later today I'll introduce them to the techniques and tactics of doubles – where they should stand, what serves to use, how to receive, ball placement, and so on. Not sure if they are ready for circling footwork and control/attack player assignments! (Circling footwork is an advanced doubles footwork where players, after hitting their shot, literally circle back and around so that they can approach the next shot favoring their forehand – but isn't really relevant here, since it's for two righties or lefties, and they are left/righty. Control/attack assignments are where one player focuses on control and setting up his partner, while the partner attacks continuously.)

Maryland and Illinois State Championships, and Westchester and Joseph Bae Opens
They were all run this past weekend, and on by Tuesday they were already processed for ratings! Here they are for the Maryland and for Illinois State Championships, and here's the 4-star Westchester Open in New York and the Joseph Bae Open in California! (Here's the USATT Ratings Page.) The Maryland State Championships were featured as news items by both USATT and Butterfly. (The articles and photos are from my press release.)

The Circular Argument about Boosting
Why is it that nearly every time I bring this up with a USATT official, the response is, "Prove it!" Ummm . . . that's the point! It's circular reasoning where you allow a rule that makes it easy to cheat undetectably, and then refuse to act because there's no "proof" it is happening. Until a year or so ago, when players began complaining about it, many top players openly boosted, and I've seen them doing it all the time. (I'm told that Timo Boll estimated that 80% of top players are boosting.) So as I blogged yesterday, let's bring some common sense to the sport and stop allowing silly, unenforceable rules while allowing all this rampant cheating in our sport, where we honor the cheaters and cheat the honorable ones who don't. (The irony is that while many demand this proof about boosting, the very same ones, when they see players cheating with hidden serves, right out in the open where all can see that it's clearly happening, they don't demand proof – they look the other way and allow it to continue.)

Tournament Officials - Learn 4 Keys to Maximizing Your Performance
Here's the article by Samson Dubina.

Pragmatists Guide to Table Tennis Cardio Training
Here's the article from Coach Jon.

Is It Okay to Use Illegal Serves?
Here's the article from Tom Lodziak.

Zhao Wins 2016 Westchester June Open
Here's the article.

History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 17 (1989-1990)
Here's chapter 15! Or order your own print copies at TimBogganTableTennis.com.

Ask a Pro Anything - Vladimir Samsonov
Here's the new ITTF video (8:45) by Adam Bobrow.

Table Tennis For NepALL
Here's the ITTF video (6:12). "ITTF and United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace launched a 3 year para table tennis project supporting disabled children in Nepal called 'Table Tennis for NepALL.'"

Jun Mizutani Practicing Insane Backspin Serves!
Here's the video (21 sec). Funny thing is that while it may look impressive, many top players can do this type of serve, and I do it all the time in demos. However, what is impressive is that he's actually putting some speed into the serves, and still managing to get the ball to bounce backwards – so he is getting some impressive backspin.

Table Tennis Athlete Working Towards Olympics
Here's the video (60 sec) from 9 News featuring Timothy Wang. (This was from a month ago, but this is the first time I'd seen it.)

Novak Djokovic Plays Table Tennis
Here's the video (5:09) of the world#1 tennis player.

Keep Your Mouth Shut!
Here's the cartoon!

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