Decisive Defense

I'm going to use an example from tennis (what I call "court table tennis"), which I played for years as a hobby. I have a very good forehand in tennis, but a weak backhand. Opponents would often try to bang it out with me, going after my backhand, but I was quick to step around and pound a forehand, usually attacking their wide backhand. Unless they were very good (4.0 or better level in tennis ratings, which is my level when I'm in practice), few could respond with a strong down-the-line backhand winner, and so I'd get a weak return, which I'd pound again, and so I dominated these rallies. Often opponents, faced with my strong forehand attack to their wide backhand, would in desperation throw up a high-bouncing topspin - but because they were usually in an awkward position as they tried to run my shot down, it was often weak and land short, and I'd smack it in for a winner.

One day I played someone who did something different. From the very start of the rally he'd throw up these high, topspin shots. Because he did this on the first shot of the rally, even off my serve, he wasn't attempting an awkward on-the-run shot, and so his shots, though defensive, were decisive, landing deep on my court and bouncing out past the end-line. This forced me off the court, where my forehand isn't so dangerous (since he'd have lots of time to react to it). He moved me side to side, wide to my forehand, then wide to my backhand, over and over, and there was no way I could run these balls down with my forehand all day. Result? My forehand became ineffective and he found my even less effective backhand. Then he'd start pounding shots into my backhand. He won.

Morning, Afternoon, or Night?

I have a student I used to coach in the afternoon after school. He'd always be tired, with little interest. His mom and I decided to try something, and we tried coaching him in the morning one time. Instant energy! He was suddenly enthused and interested. Now we're rearranging his practice to take this into account. We may also try him out later at night, when he's apparently energetic again. (I also suggested a nap after school - perhaps that'll bring his energy back faster.)

I've also faced this. For years I struggled to play in the afternoons - like the kid above, I was always tired during that time. At night, however, I'd come alive. But I've done so much coaching and playing in the afternoons now that my biorhythms have changed. Now I'm energetic in the afternoon, a bit less so at night, and tired if I have to coach in the morning. (Mornings are for writing, not table tennis, in Larryworld.)

Most players play at night, and probably are at their most energetic at that time. But when a tournament comes around, most play is in the morning or afternoon. I know this affects some players; how about you?

When we know the time of important events at big tournaments we sometimes have our local juniors train at that time to get used to it. (If it's in a different time zone, we take that into account.) It really helps. I remember a kid who had to play an 8PM match in Las Vegas, and he was still on Eastern time - so it was 11PM for him, and he was half asleep and yawning before he played. I sent him into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face (this helps), but he literally yawned throughout the match, played poorly, and lost.

Hurricane Sandy

Well, the power didn't go out, neither did the Internet or TV, and there aren't even any major damages to my house or anything else of mine. All I have to show for the hurricane is lots and lots of non-perishable food I bought just in case I wouldn't have a microwave for a few days, and lots of reading. Anyone want a box of apple fritters?

Drill the Fundamentals and the Specifics

It is important to drill the fundamentals into your game until you can do them in your sleep. (Here's my article on that.) But often players forget to practice specifically what they do in a match. For example, I know a player who likes to counterloop close to the table with his forehand. He spends a lot of time practicing counterlooping. But in matches he has trouble counterlooping against an opponent's first loop off underspin, which is usually done closer to the table than other loops, has a different arc, and usually more topspin. A simple drill to practice against this would be to have a coach serve backspin, the player pushes it back, the coach loops, and the player counterloops. The coach doesn't play out the point; as soon as he finishes his loop, he reaches for a ball from a box. (It's an improvised version of multiball.) This matches what a player faces in a match, as opposed to just counterlooping, and it gives far more practice on this specific skill in a given time than just playing out points.

So work on your fundamentals, but also look at what you do in a match - or need to do - and find drills that match that specifically, and perfect the skill. (An expanded version of this might become a Tip of the Week.)

Attacking Short Balls

Here's a video from PingSkills on attacking short balls (2:02).

Tip of the Week

The Falkenberg Drill.

Malware Illusion

If you are using Chrome as your browser (as I do), you may still be getting some malware warnings when you come to this site. It's an illusion, since Google inadvertently listed this (and many other sites I've found) as having malware problems recently, and Chrome is still picking up on this for some reason. (Explorer, Firefox, and other browsers are not.) I'm calling my server today to find out how best to fix this problem quickly. It turns out the site never had any malware at all. None. Zilch. Clean as a fresh sheet of table tennis sponge.

Hurricane Sandy

As I write this, Hurricane Sandy approaches with the sole purpose to disrupt my table tennis coaching schedule. Yes, that's my theory, and I'm sticking with it. The winds haven't reached here yet, but it's pouring rain outside. So here's a special hurricane section.

• HHH: In the junior class I teach on Saturday and Sunday I asked everyone which of the three H's they found most exciting, Hurricane Sandy, Halloween, or Hodges Table Tennis Class. Alas, I didn't fare well in the voting. (John Hsu, who assisted on Sunday, pointed out that he's also an H, so I guess the class was a 4-H meeting.)
• Hurricane Sandy Anagrams: Insured Anarchy, Rude Anarchy Sin, Rich Nerdy Sauna, Rush Rainy Dance, and Dry Insurance? Ha!
• Hurricane Sandy Paddle: Yes, They've already got a Hurricane Sandy Paddle!

Grip Problems

USATT Site Map

Here's the new site map for the USATT home page. It's a good way to quickly see just what's on the site without having to explore every major link on the menu. I was co-webmaster for eight years (1999-2007), and have fond memories of many of these pages. (Sean O'Neill is now the webmaster.) Personally I still liked the old stone-aged version, but perhaps that's because I was so used to it, and knew exactly where everything was without even thinking about it. Alas, out with the old, in with the new. The website contains ten major headings. Let's take a tour. (Let me know if you have any questions about any of these pages. I have to leave for a rare middle-of-the-week morning coaching session, and so didn't write as much as I might otherwise.)

Planetary Table Tennis Tour

Today's blog is going to be a little out of this world - and I mean that literally. We're going to explore the solar system through table tennis. What would it be like playing table tennis on the moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, or in outer space? We'll assume that you (and the ball, racket, and table) are impregnable to extreme heat, cold, pressure, vacuum, gravity, the lack of breathable air, and any other local problems. How will the various local conditions affect table tennis? I'm not going to spend a lot of time with a calculator; I think I can make some decent judgments based on general conditions. Feel free to give your own input.

MOON

Gravity is about 1/6 Earth's, and there's no air. With low gravity, and with topspin unable to curve the ball down without air, there's little to pull the ball down on the other side. So players wouldn't be able to hit and counter-hit very fast. Most rallies might become endless battles of attrition as players pat the ball back at lower speeds than are the norm for a good player on Earth. Or would it? I think that what would happen is that players would take advantage of the difficulty in keeping the ball on the table by putting extreme topspins on the ball. The topspin would jump off the opponent's racket, making it tricky to keep the ball from going long.

Two-Winged Attackers
In this modern era of super-sponges it's a huge advantage to be able to attack effectively from both wings. There was a time (back when I was learning to play) that many players mostly attacked from one side - usually the forehand - and mostly played steady on the backhand, which is how I usually play. It's generally a mistake to develop your game that way; learn to attack from both sides.

However, a common problem for some is trying to rip winners from both wings, whether looping or smashing. This is a very difficult style to master. Even if you have the ability to rip shots both forehand and backhand, it's difficult to get both shots going at the same time. Instead, it's almost always better to focus on ripping winners from one side, and a steady attack on the other side with opportunistic rips when the shot is there. While more players rip on the forehand while playing the backhand as the steady attack side, there are many who do the reverse.

Even on the "ripping" side, you shouldn't rip everything that's potentially rippable, though of course take the shot if it's there. Unless the ball is really easy, in fact, it's almost always best to take a little off for consistency, so even your best smashes and loop kills might be at 80-90% power. But which ones should you rip?

The key is recognizing which shots are rippable and which are not. In general, there are three types of balls that should be put away:

Tip of the Week

Turn Opponents into Puppets with Long Serves.

MDTTC October Open

I ran the MDTTC Open this weekend, a rather exhausting ordeal since I also did four hours of coaching. Here is my write-up and results of the event, followed by the usual blog stuff. 

$2600 Butterfly MDTTC October Open
MarylandTable Tennis Center
Gaithersburg, MD • Oct. 20-21, 2012
By Larry Hodges

This month there were extra large trophies waiting for winners of most of the Sunday events, in addition to $2600 in prize money mostly given out in Saturday events at the October Open at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. The larger trophies went over very well, and hopefully will attract more players in our next tournament, sometime early in 2013.

Wang Qing Liang, rated 2621, defended his title from last month, once again defeating fellow MDTTC coach Chen Bo Wen, rated 2516, in another 4-2 battle, this time at -9,10,-9,7,8,5. There's an old adage that choppers tend to get better as the match goes on as they adjust to the opponent's attack, and that's exactly what happened. By the end of the match there seemed no way to get through Wang's chopping defense, and his forehand loop was as spectacular as ever when he'd swoop in against a push or counterloop from off the table. Chen had actually spit matches with Wang at the recent Badger Open, knocking Wang's rating down from the 2642 he'd achieved mostly from making the semifinals of Men's Singles at the U.S. Open. Wang won $1000 to Chen's $400.

Developing Your Smash

So many players have this strange idea that the best way to develop a forehand or backhand smash is to, well, smash a lot. It seems to make sense, but isn't always the best way. I've seen this in student after student - they work on smashing by smashing a lot, and the balls spray all over the place as they ingrain the habit of spraying the ball all over the place. Smashing is, first and foremost, a precision shot, and if you practice smashing by spraying the ball all over the place, you are being counterproductive.

Instead, focus on driving the ball only at the pace that you can control, and develop the precision at that speed. As you get better, increase the speed. If you find yourself spraying the ball all over the place, take it down a notch. Precision comes from good technique and timing, and these are things you should work on at a pace you can control. Spraying the ball over the place is a great way to develop bad technique and poor timing. (I may expand this into a Tip of the Week.)

MDTTC Open - Last Chance

If you live within 100 miles of Gaithersburg, Maryland, then enter the MDTTC October Open this weekend or we will go online and steal rating points from you. Yes, we can do that. I'll take entries at least until 7PM tonight. 

Here are the top seeds as of now:

1. Wang Qing Liang (2621)
2. Chen Bo Wen (2516)
3. Richard Lee (2424)
4. Raghu Nadmichettu (2328)
5. Larry Abass (2320)
6. Nathan Hsu (2312)

Senior and Hardbat/Sandpaper Camps

The training camps at the Maryland Table Tennis Center are open to all ages and levels, but because we have so many junior players, they tend to be dominated by junior players. Most camps have a few non-juniors, but not many. So essentially we run junior camps.

MDTTC October Open and Tournament Scheduling

This weekend I'm running the MDTTC October Open in Gaithersburg, Maryland (that's USA). Come join us for a weekend of competitions! Top entries so far include Wang Qing Liang (2621), Chen Bo Wen (2516), Raghu Nadmichettu (2328), and Nathan Hsu (2310), and I expect a few more. We're giving away $2600 in prize money, and much larger trophies than before. If you are playing in the tournament, here's my Ten-Point Plan to Tournament Success.

For those of you scared of facing under-rated juniors who spent all summer training in our camps, relax - most gained a zillion points in our last tournament. Besides, if you do lose to a 60-pound kid with a rating 500 points lower than his level, it'll be something to talk about years from now when that player becomes a superstar. It's sometimes fun to watch these up-and-coming kids and guess which ones are going to become the superstars. Also, remember that if one of these kids has a really good tournament - including a win over you - he'll get an adjusted rating, and you'll only lose rating points to the adjusted rating, not his starting one. In fact, by losing to him in an upset, you greatly increase the chances of his getting adjusted!

There's a downside to my running these tournaments - it conflicts with my coaching schedule, where I'm busiest on weekends. Each time I run one I have to do a series of cancellations, postponements, reschedulings, and substitutions. For some players with less flexible schedules, it means they miss their weekly session, which isn't always fair to them. I may have to recruit someone to take over to run our tournaments next year. (Any volunteers? You do get paid! Not a huge amount, but at least $200 per tournament, more if there's a good turnout.)