February 10, 2017

Upcoming Events
Things are busy these days . . . but they always are, with all my writing projects in addition to coaching, and USATT and MDTTC work. I spent part of yesterday working on the cover for "More Table Tennis Tips" (which I blogged about yesterday) - I've got several options I'm working on. The one I'm leaning toward right now is either really good or really corny, I can't decide yet. I also spent much of yesterday at the car place, where they were replacing the broken windshield. What had started out as a small crack had grown until it went all the way across. The fan for the heat and AC also had broken and had to be replaced. Total cost: 11 table lessons (i.e. how much I normally make in 11 hours of coaching.)

Here are upcoming events.

  • Fridays are usually a day off, but not today. Tonight at 6:30PM for about two hours I'm running a volunteer exhibition/demonstration/training camp for up to a hundred kids at "Club Friday" at the Potomac Community Center, home of the Potomac TTC.
  • Saturday has recently been my other day off - surprisingly, since that's when lots of players are free for coaching. I'm opening up Saturdays again for coaching starting this weekend, and already have two sessions scheduled. From 6:30-8:30PM I'm helping with the MDTTC Junior League & Training, where many of our top juniors come in for training and match play. We often have them do "improvised games." In the last session, they played league matches where if you serve and looped, and your opponent returned your loop off the end, you got two points. The same if the receiver looped the serve and the server returned it off the end. The idea was to emphasizing looking to loop and to loop with great spin, so as to force returns off the end.
  • Sunday I have two hours of private coaching, then a 90-minute beginning class I teach, then the 90-minute "Talent Program" (our top juniors mostly under age 10), then the 90-minute adult training session I run. Then I rush home to watch "The Walking Dead"!
  • Monday I normally have 2.5 hours of coaching, 5:30-8:00PM but we have a USATT Teleconference at 7PM, and I need to be home for that (so I have access to my computer and Internet), so I have to leave by 6:30PM. I rescheduled one hour of it for later, and cut a 90-minute session to 60 minutes. As to the meeting itself, it'll be our first one with new board members Rajul Sheth (newly elected At-Large Rep) and player rep Eric Wu, and the second one for player rep Tara Profitt and National Organizational Director Deepak Somarapu. Agenda includes welcoming new members, election of new board chair (not sure who's running yet), discussions of committee appointments and upcoming meetings, and possibly a couple other items. I'm especially interested in the committee appointments, as there are issues I want to work on that are held up until certain committees are filled. (In particular, the coaching committee - I have some proposals I want work with them on.)
  • Tuesday and Wednesday I have two and three hours of private coaching, respectively.
  • Thursday about 100 kids from the highly exclusive private St. Andrews school in Potomac, MD come to visit at 1PM. I'll be doing exhibitions and demos, and then organizing games, along with fellow coaches Wang Qing Liang and John Hsu.
  • Friday I set up and Saturday and Sunday I run the 3-star $2700 MDTTC Butterfly February Open. Why not come and join us? You can enter online!

Chinese World Team Trials
They are doing daily coverage at ttnews365.

  • Day One - Feb. 8: World Table Tennis Championships: China Begin. ("Ma Long and Zhang Jike are already guaranteed positions in the elite squad heading for Düsseldorf.")
  • Day Two - Feb. 9: China Selection Trials: Xu Xin Capitulates

How to Practice Table Tennis Alone
Here's the new article and podcast (11:29) from Expert Table Tennis.

How to Return a Sidespin Serve
Here's the article by Coach Tom Lodziak in England.

USATT Pins
Here's the USATT article. I have mine!

Over Half a Billion Watch Table Tennis at Rio!
Here's the article by Coach Shashin Shodhan from the Fremont TTC.

Samson Dubina on News 19
Here's the video (2:22). Yes, he's in the news again!

How to Make a Self-Playing Hand-Held Mini-Table
Here's the video (52 sec) - set to music!

35 Seconds of Extreme Multiball
Here's the video - I've linked to it before, but thought it'd wake you up and inspire you to train this weekend!

Fountain Pong?
Here's the picture! (Here's the non-Facebook version.) 

Angry Paddle: Is it Ping Pong or Table Tennis?
Here's the cartoon!

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