August 12, 2011

MDTTC Coaching Camp - Day Four

• Yesterday we focused on footwork. Actually, we do that every day, since - as I regularly remind everyone - all table tennis drills are footwork drills. I gave a short talk on footwork, and on the progression from rote drills to random drills. I also gave them my standard "Are you a tree or a squirrel?" talk.
• Quote of the day: one kid (about 9) was doing a drill that involved stepping around his backhand corner to hit forehands. He looked awkward and kept losing his balance. I came over, but before I could say anything he looked at me and said, "I can't do the drill. I'll step on my drink." I looked down, and realized the reason he was so awkward and was losing his balance was because he was trying not to step on his drink, which sat on the floor on his backhand side. I moved the drink off to the side, and his improvement was immense.
• Sometimes I'm more babysitter than coach. There are two kids in the camp who interact like fire and gasoline. I think I spend half my time telling them to stay away from each other and the other half tuning out the constant cries of, "Larry, Larry, look what he did!"
• We have one 7-year-old kid who's a walking hazard. He's oblivious to others when he plays. When he goes to pick up balls, he constantly walks right into other player's backswings, and keeps getting hit. I keep reminding him not to go near anyone who's playing, but he can't seem to remember.

Broken Bat Open

Yesterday I had the single greatest idea ever in the history of table tennis. I've figured out a way to bring in major table tennis sponsors for tournaments - with the Broken Bat Open! (©2011 by Larry Hodges!) It's very difficult to get major sponsors in table tennis - there just isn't enough money in the sport to make it worthwhile for big sponsors. But here's a way to change that and turn table tennis into the high profit-making sport that sponsors crave!

All we have to do is add one simple rule for tournament play: whoever loses a match must break his racket. Yes, you read that right - he must snap it over his knee, burn it, put it through a wood chipper, or whatever, the exact method doesn't matter as long as the racket is destroyed. Here's why.

Suppose a player enters an average of slightly more than three events per tournament. Since the large majority of players do not win an event, we'll assume that the player loses in an average of three events per tournament. Since most events are round robin, let's assume he loses an about twice per event. That means he will have to break six rackets. Let's assume we're running a four-star tournament with 200 players. That's 1200 rackets broken (and replaced) per tournament. Let's assume the average racket costs about $70. (We're ignoring sponge for now, and let the player take the sponge off his racket and put it on the new one.) Let's assume the distributor pays about $20 for that racket, and so makes a $50 profit each time they sell a racket. (They will be the sole distributor allowed at the tournament.) That's a profit of 1200 x $50 = $60,000! So we go 50-50 with the distributor - they put up $30,000 prize money sponsorship, and make $30,000 profit, and we're all winners!

Training in China

Here's a nice article by U.S. National Junior Champion and Men's Singles Finalist Peter Li on training in China.

Twisted Table Tennis

Yes, sometimes our sport gets a little twisted and seems to be going to the dogs, which is discouraging to us eager beavers, but if we stick to more concrete things and stay above water, we can meet and find devilish ways to develop our sport, and then someday we can all crow* like a rooster.
*Needed: picture of a crow playing table tennis.

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