Last Blog Until Tuesday, July 11
I leave for the USA Nationals early tomorrow morning (Sunday), returning next Sunday. As always, I don’t blog when I’m traveling – so next blog will be the Tuesday after I return, July 11. Until then, Pong On! (While I’m gone, why not browse the news pages at USATT, ITTF, and my sponsor, Butterfly?)

How You Can Support Table Tennis
There are a lot of ways you can help support our sport. Why not join in? Below are 15 ways you can do so. (Much of it is focused on USATT-related issues, but not all – and the same ideas apply locally or in other countries.)

1. Donate to USA Table Tennis. “100% of the monies raised through the ‘Friends With Paddles’ program will be used to directly fund USATT’s National Team programming, including coaching, travel, training, participation in international tournaments, and direct athlete support.” If you are not a member of USATT, why not join?
2. Donate to USATT Hall of Fame. “Interested in helping the Hall of Fame continue to fulfill its mission to honor the greatest players and contributors of the game?”
3. Become a Certified Coach. What can be greater than passing on your years of knowledge? Plus, you learn when you teach!!! Note that the certification process is undergoing changes that will likely go online next month. ITTF Levels 1, 2, and 3 will likely be used for USATT State, Regional, and National coaching levels. Here is my recent USATT news item, Upcoming USATT Coaching Courses and Seminars, which includes info on upcoming ITTF courses in the U.S. and seminars at the USA Nationals. Here’s the Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook and Instructor’s Guide to Table Tennis. (I wrote both of these. At some point I’ll likely update and expand both.)
4. Become a Certified Umpire. Here’s info on the various levels and requirements.
5. Run Tournaments. You get to be in charge!!!
6. Run a Club. Then join the club listing!
7. Open a Full-Time Table Tennis Center. Ninety-three others have done it, so why not you? The Club Development Handbook might help.
8. Run a League. Take your pick, a singles or a team league, rated or not rated.
9. Run a Junior Program. I’m running a seminar at the USA Nationals, How to Set Up a Successful Junior Program. If you can’t make that, there’s info in my Professional Table Tennis Coaches Handbook.
10. Recruit and Welcome New Players. Many new players show up at a club and nobody wants to talk to or hit with them – they are beginners!!! Well, we all were once.
11. Volunteer with USATT. Here’s the USATT Committee listing.
12. Blog or Send out Press Releases. The more exposure we get, the better. Let me know if you have something online, and I’ll likely link to it here.
13. Buy Table Tennis Books. It’s a great way to support the table tennis writing community! Here are mine. Here are other recent ones by Dan Seemiller, Samson Dubina, Tahl Leibovitz, Tim Boggan, Guido Mina di Sospiro, Donn Olsen, and Ben Larcombe.
14. Become a Big-Spending Equipment Junkie with USATT Sponsors.
15. Participate as a Player. Most of you are probably already doing this, but the more you compete in tournaments, the more you help the organizers with needed funds – while improving your own game, winning prizes, and going up in rating!!!

SuperMicro USA Nationals
Here’s the home page for the event taking place July 3-8 in Las Vegas. Here’s where you can see the events, players, and results (which will go active when the tournament starts – until then you’ll need a password!). Follow the action on the USATT New Page! I’ll be there – if you see me, stop by and say hi!

Australia Open
Here’s the home page of the event to be held July 4-7 in Gold Coast, Australia. (Preliminaries are July 2-3.) There are already a number of news items.

PongMobile for Ratings
Want a better, faster way to check your rating and search for others? “PongMobile is a web search software for USATT players, ratings and tournament histories. It is the companion application for the avid table tennis competitor. PongMobile allows for an intuitive, quick and easy search experience. Get a free account today, add your favorite players and begin following their progress.”

Two Brothers
Here’s the video (13:45). “This is the story about two brothers . . . they’ve always been competitive in everything, career, women, money, but nothing as much as the game of ping-pong.” (See two cartoon movies below, near the end.)

Improve Your Serves with Some Solo Service Practice
Here’s the article from Tom Lodziak. Includes diagrams.

Yangyang Jia Table Tennis Lessons
Here are 14 video lessons. These have all gone up over the past month.

How to Play Competitive Ping Pong
Here are six steps from WikiHow.

Ask the Coach
Questions answered at PingSkills.

Chinese National Team Boycott: The Story So Far
Here’s the video (5:29).
BREAKING NEWS (added Friday night) - new video from EmRatThich: Will Ma Long be banned? (11:44).

US Olympians Kanak Jha and Lily Zhang Back to Defend Singles Crowns
Here’s the article by Richard Finn on the Upcoming USA Nationals.

Perusing the Paddle Palace Catalog
Here’s the article from Coach Jon.

DHS ITTF Top 10 - 2017 Japan Open
Here’s the video (4:53).

Videos from EmRatThich
Here’s his page, with new ones going up almost daily.

Adrian Crisan vs. 11-year-old Jason Li
Here’s a great rally (23 sec)! Crisan is a 5-time Olympian from Romania. Jason is rated 1775.

Attack vs Defense
Here’s the video (6:39).

Hungarian #4 Peter Fazekas
Here’s the video (14:10, a sequel to yesterday’s), where he is interviewed by Tahl Leibovitz, and plays Alexis Perez and Nicolas De Francesco. Videotape by Jules Apatini.

Ping-Pong Socks
Here they are!

Piano Pong Paddle and Other Pong Stuff
Here’s the picture, with lots of other ping-pong merchandise underneath from Pinterest.

Ultimate Table Tennis
“To play like a champ, learn from the Masters.”

• Table Tennis like you've never seen before! (45 sec)
• Catch the exciting Table Tennis action unfold LIVE (45 sec)

Table Tennis is a Family Affair in the Jun Mizutani Household
Here’s the video (45 sec) of him watching as his wife (I presume) hits with their baby girl on the table. He’s ranked #6 in the world, the baby somewhere in the top 7.5 billion.

Man and Baby Pong – Another Family Affair
Here’s the picture, taken at MDTTC a few days ago by Carolyn Klinger.

Trick Shots

• Crazy Ping-Pong Trickshots (1:18)
• Ping Pong Trick Shots (4:06)
• Ping-Pong Trick Shot 2 (4:31). Here’s Part 1 from last September.

What's in a Ping Pong Ball?
Here’s the video (3:43) from HobbyKids. They do a bunch of weird table tennis stuff.

Spookiz Best Ping Pong Match Ever
Here’s the video (89 min). It’s a crazy kids’ cartoon that features table tennis. I browsed through it quickly, and the wild table tennis scenes take place in the first 30 sec, from 1:07 to 3:30, from 41:24 to 41:52, and from 42:31 to 45:00.

Sunny Bunnies Ping Pong Hero
Here’s the video (3:30 – link takes you 22 sec in, past the opening credits). It’s a series of short cartoons for kids, over 48 min long, but only the first features table tennis, the first 3:30.

Crazy Ponger
Here is the cartoon image – I wouldn’t want to play this guy!!!

***
Send us your own coaching news!