June 30, 2016

Training with the Piech's!
Yesterday I had a session with Jason & Alex Piech, the two I blogged about yesterday, along with the video of their going to Las Vegas. We decided to break the session into three parts, 1/3 with Alex, 1/3 with Jason, and 1/3 on doubles. The two have been playing about eight months, coached by Russ Hamilton in Arkansas. (The camp is 10AM-1PM, 3-6PM, so we did the sesson from 1-2PM.) 

First up was lefty Alex, who turns 7 in August, nicknamed "Storm." He has pretty good technique, but can be a bit wild with his shots as his contact can vary a lot. When he loops, sometimes he spins it, sometimes he hits it a bit too flat. We focused on consistency, where he had to make the first two shots every time. First we did it with him looping to my backhand. (We had a running gag where I kept insisting I never missed, with a ready excuse when I in fact did miss. He had his mom video some of the session just to prove to me that I did, in fact, sometimes miss. I don't, of course.) We then did a drill where he served backspin, I pushed to his forehand, he looped to my backhand, and the rally continued, with me blocking, and him looping and sometimes smashing. (No, I never missed. Sometimes I had alternate targets.) We also did some serve practice – he has surprisingly advanced serves. He has a really good tomahawk serve, very spinny, and also does a reverse tomahawk serve. These may cause some havoc to some players next week at the Nationals!

Next up was Jason, 9, nicknamed "Eyebrows" because of his ability to raise them up and down alternately, as shown in the video yesterday. He had a tendency to "muscle" the ball when looping, trying to create power mostly with his upper body. We worked on using the legs and hips to start the body rotation, with the legs getting the hips moving, the hips getting the upper body moving, and the upper body swinging the arm into the shot. I showed how this gives "easy power," leading not only to more power, but more importantly control of that power. (Many players misunderstand when top players say power comes from timing. What they mean is the timing of how they put each part of their body into the shot.) I demonstrated by tossing balls up and looping them myself, then had him do it as well. (Alex joined us for this.) Then we did a little multiball, and then we went live. He picked it up very quickly. We also worked on serves – he too had pretty good serves.

Finally we worked on doubles. Since they are lefty/righty, footwork was less of a problem, but I still went over their positioning when they served and received, showing how each should start the rally in their best ready position. We went over the types of serves they'd want to use in doubles, such as: mostly serving toward the middle so receiver doesn't have an angle; serving out to weaker players, short to stronger players (and the importance of finding out early, preferably in advance, if they had a lopsided team, and if so, who was the strong one); serving low; sidespins that break away often being more effective than those that break into a player (so a righty might use a tomahawk serve against a righty receiving forehand, but a pendulum serve if he receives backhand); and most importantly, that all of these were just guidelines – they should find out what works, and do that. I also taught them how to signal their serves to their partner.

We had a little fun after the lesson where I challenged them to return my serves for a time. Then a little more fun as I showed them various tricks – blowing the ball in the air; the 50-foot serve; and speed bouncing on the table. And then they bought four of my books – I sold them three, and threw in the fourth for free. Alex will have lots to read on the drive back to Arkansas! (They bought Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers, Table Tennis Tips, The Spirit of Pong, and I threw in Table Tennis Tales & Techniques.)

This was their second consecutive week here at the MDTTC camps, which are all summer long. This weekend we all fly out to Las Vegas for the USA Nationals. (We have an even 20 players and eight coaches from MDTTC going, as well as a few other part-time MDTTCers.) Hope to see some of you there!

The Best Table Tennis DVDs & Training Videos
Here's the new article from Expert Table Tennis.

Keeping Score During a Drill
Here's the new article by Samson Dubina. I use similar coaching techniques, such as playing multiball "games" where the student scores if he makes a certain number of shots.

Swing Ping Pong
Here's the video (2:22) of this new ping-pong ball on a thread device.

Table Tennis - Incredible
Here's the new highlights video (8:42).

"Do Yourself a Favor and Take Up Ping-Pong"
Here's the cartoon – and I do believe we've been insulted!

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