Tip of the Week
Try to Stay Within Arm’s Length of the Table.

Spring Break Camp, Weekend Coaching, Multi-ball Backspin, and Placement
I coached Tue-Fri last week in our MDTTC Spring Break Camp, plus two group sessions on Sunday. I spent over half the sessions feeding multiball, and the rest either as a walk-around coach or practice partner. If there was a theme to the multiball, it was looping against backspin, both forehand and backhand. Most kids learn this pretty easily. The harder part is when I do drills that combine looping backspin and then looping or hitting against a topspin ball that roughly mimics a quick block of their loop. The key is the playing shoulder. You drop it against backspin. After doing that a lot, it’s somewhat natural to drop it at least a little against topspin – and the instant you do that, you’re going off the end. So, I did drills where I’d have them do the one-two of looping against backspin and then a quick topspin.

Tip of the Week
Develop Your Game Around Overpowering Strengths.

Antarctica Classic Table Tennis Championships, April 1-5, 2026 at Esperanza Base
Antarctica! Today I fly to the Antarctica Classic TT Champs., starting Wed, Apr. 1. I’m
playing in the Over 60 Hardbat and Icebat events. Icebat is tricky. Players have to wear
rubber gloves or the racket melts too quickly. The surface is slick like antispin rubber.
It's also rather expensive as a typical racket melts about twice every game, so I'll need
lots of them, plus a portable freezer. (The Antarctica TTA offers discounts on these.)

Tip of the Week
Reverse Serves.

Weekend Coaching and Other Toothy Issues
Just a short blog today – I have a three-hour dental appointment this morning to fix the tooth that broke a few weeks ago during my South America tour.

On Saturday I spent an hour working with two kids, both seven years old. One was mostly a beginner, the other a little more advanced. Both had decent forehand strokes, even the beginner. But both had problems with consistency – the first because he was a beginner, the second because he liked to smack every ball too hard. So, how to fix this problem?

Tip of the Week
The Five Attacking Placements.

Marty Supreme Goes Oh For Nine
Timothée Chalamet didn’t win for Best Actor for Marty Supreme, despite most considering him the slight favorite. Earlier in the year he’d been considered the strong favorite, winning at all of the following (from IMDB):

Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, Chicago Film Critics Assoc., Satellite Awards, Las Vegas Film Critics Society, London Critics Circle, Online Film Critics, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Vancouver Film Critics Circle, Austin Film Critics Assoc., North Texas Film Critics Assoc., Indiana Film Journalists Assoc., Denver Film Critics Assoc., Georgia Film Critics Assoc., Online Film & Television Assoc., Phoenix Critics Circle, Gold Derby Awards, AACTA International Awards, Hawaii Critics Society, Greater Western New York Film Critics Assoc., Discussing Film Critics Award, North Dakota Film Society, Portland Critics Assoc., Critics Assoc. of Central Florida, Minnesota Film Critics Alliance, Astra Film Awards, New Jersey Film Critics Circle.

Tip of the Week
Return to Ready Position Even When Blocking in Drills or Warmup.

Weekend Coaching and Giving Kids a Reason to Want to Be Good
One of the toughest things for good coaches when working with younger kids is finding that balance between disciplined training, and keeping it fun so they’ll want to keep coming back. As I blogged about on February 23, you have to give them a reason to want to get good. This past weekend I had an interesting experience regarding this in one of our group sessions.

I was doing multiball with four kids. I was taking them three at a time where they’d rotate in a circle, doing 3-4 shots each, then the next one, with the fourth player on ball pickup. For example, one would do backhand, forehand from backhand side, then forehand from forehand side, then circle around while the next player was up. If you do this fast, the players are drilling or moving almost continuously. I was also putting targets on the table for them to hit. Toward the end, I put a round box on the table, and challenged the players to knock it off the table. To do so takes a number of hits, with each hit knocking the box from a quarter to a full inch at a time.

Tip of the Week
Play the Inner Forehand Against Backhand Players.

Weekend Coaching and Playing
We have a glut of coaches at MDTTC, so I only coached one junior group session this weekend. I did a lot of multiball the first half. I generally start with four simple multiball drills, and then go on to others, often personalized for the player. The four are: forehand-forehand footwork; backhand-backhand footwork; forehand-backhand footwork; and backhand-forehand-forehand drill, also known as the 2-1 dill or Falkenberg drill, which incorporates the three most common moves in table tennis. (The sequence is backhand from backhand side; forehand from backhand side; forehand from forehand side, then repeat.) After that, I worked in individualized shots, such as looping or smashing, and some pushing as well. The second half I had the players in my group hit among themselves, seeing how many they could hit in a row at a slow pace. The hardest part for younger kids is the “slow” part. They are used to going faster with a coach, and when they hit with another kid and the balls start spraying around they end up with very short rallies. As I explain and demonstrate to them, once you can stroke the ball consistently with a good stroke, then hitting hard is easy.

Tips of the Week

Tips of the Week
Here are the Tips of the Week that went up every Monday during the month I was gone in South America.

This week's Tip of the Week is up, Positioning Part 3 of 4: In the Rally. However, I'm postponing this week's blog until tomorrow because:

1. I only got back from a month in South America on Thursday night, spent Friday resting, coached all day Saturday and Sunday, and now have a month's worth of things to take care of.
2. I have a dental appointment this morning – about a week ago, while in Peru, either the cap of a tooth from a previous problem broke off or the tooth itself broke, I'm not sure which.
3. It's President's Day!

Tip of the Week
Every Shot Sets Up the Next Shot.
(NOTE – while I’m away I’ll still put up a Tip of the Week each Monday. I wrote them up in advance.)

Flu and South America and Next Blog Feb. 16, Oh My!
I’ve been sick in bed all week with a fever, while going through boxes of Kleenex and coughing up an ocean. I thought it was a bad cold. Over the weekend it got worse, so I finally saw a doctor. They gave me a Covid/Flu test . . . and I have the flu. I have medicine now and should be okay in a day or so. So, for this week’s blog I’m just going to post my daily upcoming schedule in South America, where I’ll be, Jan. 15 – Feb. 12. Then I’m back to bed.