Tip of the Week
The More Two Players Drill Together the Better They Drill Together.

Tactical Coaching Can Be a Wonderful – or Terrible – Thing
This past Saturday I ran the Butterfly MDTTC September Open. I’ll have a write-up and photos ready hopefully tomorrow, but here are the complete results. It was an exhausting weekend. On Saturday I was at the club at 7:45AM, and didn’t leave until about 9PM, over 13 hours later. I did manage to compile all the results and send to USATT that night, so they will likely be processed in the next couple of days.

During a short lull I watched a match between an experienced player who earlier this year had switched from a mostly looping game (with inverted on both sides) to chopper/looper (with long pips on the backhand). I watch him play against a young junior player, and the chopper won the first, 11-9, and so things looked good for the chopper. But between games the junior received some very good coaching. I didn’t hear the coaching, I simply saw the change in tactics the rest of the match.

First, the junior began to play a bit more patiently, pushing deep to the backhand, forcing the chopper to push with the long pips. It’s tricky pushing low with long pips – it can’t create much backspin to make the ball travel on a line, and the chopper had only started using it this year – and every few pushes would pop up some, and the junior would jump all over that. As noted, the chopper had gone to chopping only

As You Think, So Shall You Become - Revisited
Yesterday I posted this Bruce Lee Table Tennis graphic – and the Bruce Lee quote in the heading, “So you think, so shall you become,” very much applies to table tennis. Most players have self-images of their game, which puts them in a comfort zone. And nearly everything they do re-enforces this, and so they stay in this comfort zone, rarely developing anything new. Sure, they play around with other shots, and practice them, but not in a long-term, serious way. I’ve seen loopers who can’t block react by spending even more time working on their loop rather than mastering the block. I’ve seen players who are great blockers but constantly lament their lack of attacking skills – and spend decades playing as a blocker rather than taking a few months of that time where they develop and incorporate attacking skills. These players are unable to think of themselves as something better, and so are unable to become better. And that’s what Bruce Lee was referring to.

In fact, for players who stay in their comfort zone rather than strive to leave it, I will paraphrase the Bruce Lee quote: “So you think, so shall you remain.”

Those who become great players have a different way of thinking. If they see something that someone else does better than they do, they are certain they can do better and become determined to top it. They may not always become better at it, but they become as good at it as they can possibly be. The best up-and-coming juniors see what the world-class players do, and are convinced they can do better – and so strive to do so. “So you think, so shall you become,” and because they think they can, they become it.

Final Proofing - "Revelations of a Champion"
Yesterday I did the absolutely final proofing of Dan Seemiller’s autobiography, “Revelations of a Table Tennis Champion.” The book is really coming around! I did 4.5 hours of proofing at Ledo’s (noon to 4:30PM, lots of pizza and large Mountain Dew, two refills), did a 90-minute coaching session, and then did another 2.5 hours of proofing at Wendy’s (7:30-10PM, large chili with cheese and onion, and a large Dr. Pepper). And then it was done! Except – I needed another three hours to input all the changes, making sure to keep all the layouts lined up. (Plus some USATT stuff took up over an hour.) I also had 19 questions for Dan, which I emailed to him a little after 2:30AM. As soon as he gets back to me on those, I’ll be able to finalize the interior. (It’s 3:23AM as I write this – I’d rather get the blog done now then have to do it when I get up.)

Meanwhile, today I need to pretty much finalize the front and back cover (plus the spine in between). That was turning into a headache as the cover picture is a great shot of Danny, but it’s in black and white. I colorized it, and added the title and a sub-title, but so far the fonts and colors just aren’t working. I’d like to get this done by Friday, since I’m running the MDTTC September Open this Saturday, and coaching all day Sunday.

There are some nice quotes from Dan in the book – I may blog about some of them later on, after the book is out.

Michael Jordon and Ma Long – the Same?
Here’s the classic picture of both. There’s actually a coaching lesson in this. Players have their best performances when they just let go and let their subconscious take over, i.e. learned reactions. So when top players are performing at their best, they are basically just observers, other than basic tactics. So when they pull off great plays, whether in basketball, table tennis, or any other skill sport, they often have that reaction of essentially shrugging their shoulders and throwing up their hands, as they are just as amazed as we are at what they are doing – because, deep down, they don’t even feel like they are doing it, they are just spectators.

I’ve had this exact same feeling when I’ve played my best. I remember playing Rey Domingo – a 2500 player – in perhaps the best tournament match of my life, and I just watched as his best shots came at me in slow motion, and so easily returned, and anything I touched with my forehand was a winner. I spent the whole match focusing on not paying attention to what I was doing because if I’d thought about it, everything would speed up and my shots would stop hitting. I won the match easily.

I’m guessing most of you have had this experience as well. If not, you need to learn to let go when you play. There’s a reason why you train – so that you reactive instinctively, as the top players do.

Tip of the Week
Looping Slightly-Long Balls.

ITTF Cadet Camp at MDTTC
The ITTF, in conjunction with USA Table Tennis and the Canadian TTA, ran a four-day ITTF Cadet Camp at the Maryland Table Tennis Center over Labor Day Weekend, Fri-Mon. Fifteen players took part in the camp, including five USA national team members: Crystal Wang (Junior and Cadet Girls); Derek Nie and Klaus Wood (Cadet Boys); and Lisa Lin and Faith Hu (Mini-Cadet Girls). Also taking part were Ivy Liao and Isabelle Xiong, members of the Canadian Women’s, Junior, and Cadet Girls’ Teams. The camp had nine sessions, 22 hours total. Here’s a group picture.

Wang Qing Liang (“Leon”), recently named a USA National Cadet Coach, was the head coach, and planned out and ran much of the camp. Other coaches were Cory Eider (USATT High Performance Director), Liu Yongjiang (Canadian National Cadet Coach), and myself (a USATT certified National Coach and former USA Junior Team Coach). Wen Hsu was the Camp Coordinator. Practice partners were Nathan & John Hsu, Heather Wang, You Lyu, and Yan Zhang. (Practice partner and coach is almost interchangeable as the practice partners were also coaching and often feeding multiball.)

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Race
Here is the 2016 Presidential Race – pong style! (Here's the Facebook posting and discussion.) That’s my main blog for today – I was up all night working on it. I’ve done this twice before, though perhaps not quite as exotically:

• 2004 Presidential Race (Bush vs. Kerry)
• 2000 Presidential Race (Bush vs. Gore)

1500 Published Table Tennis Articles
I realized yesterday that I’d just hit exactly 1500 published table tennis articles, out of 1691 total published articles. (This does not include nearly 2000 blog entries.) Wow.

ITTF Cadet Camp at MDTTC
It starts this afternoon, and continues through Monday afternoon. I’m one of the coaches. Today's sessions are 3:30-5:30 and 7:30-9:30PM. There's also a reception for everyone from 5:30-7:30PM - refreshments and beverages will be served. You are invited! I'll blog about the camp on Tuesday. (No blog on Monday - Labor Day.) 

Colin Wilson: How to Fulfill Your Potential
Here’s the new podcast (41:04) from Expert Table Tennis. Colin Wilson “…represented England for many years and is a double Commonwealth medallist. As a coach, he has worked with the English national team at all levels and trained some of the top players in the country.” In this episode you’ll learn:

Revelations of a Table Tennis Champion
Our My long two-week national personal nightmare work binge is over!!! The book, “Revelations of a Table Tennis Champion” (the autobiography of Dan Seemiller) is edited, proofed, the photos fixed up, the pages laid out, and it’s all done! It came in at 214 pages with 94 pictures, divided into eleven chapters.  Book should be available around Sept. 15.

Unfortunately, it’s not actually done. This morning at about 1AM I sent the interior proofs to Dan Seemiller for him to proof. He’ll likely have changes. (Since I wrote this there have already been two changes.) Plus I haven’t finished with the front and back covers. Plus I have to decide whether it’s worth spending roughly seven hours to create an index. Anyway, today I will try to finalize the covers. Fortunately…

Flu Status
Our My long three-day national personal nightmare illness is over!!! It’s been fun exploring the many symptoms of the flu - I won’t go into that here other than to say that you have never had pain like the pain from flu-induced joint pain. I’m still pretty tired; I feel like I just ran a marathon. But I’m mostly over it just in time for…

Still Sick
I’m writing this at 4:45AM. Why? Because I’m in all sorts of joint pain from the flu, especially hip pain, and I can’t sleep. Most of the flu symptoms aren’t as bad as the last time I had the flu (though my stomach can best be described as “hyper-queasy”), but the joint pain is incredible. This happened yesterday as well – it seems to act up more at night. It’s very painful to lie down; sitting or standing is the only way to alleviate it. Anyway, the good news is that most of yesterday it wasn’t so bad, so I got a lot of work done on Dan Seemiller’s autobiography – in fact, other than the index and finalizing the covers, it’s basically ready to print out and proof. I’m hoping to do that today, flu gods permitting.

Big Breaking Sidespin Serve
Here’s the video (4:30), but the link should take you to 26 sec in, where the kid on the far side does the breaking serve. I do this serve all the time, and I’ll never understand why more players don’t learn such serves. It’s just a matter of serving deep with a lot of sidespin. Not only does it work here when you serve into an opponent’s forehand (lefty serving to righty or vice versa), but it also works if you serve it into the backhand (righty vs. righty or lefty vs. lefty), where it breaks away from the player, forcing them to reach for the ball.

USATT News Items
They have a bunch of new ones, so why not browse over them? (I linked to a few already.)

Zhang Jike Changing His Heart on Retirement
Here’s the ITTF article.

I'm sick in bed with a cold, so no blog today. I desperately need to get over this quickly so I'll be ready for the ITTF Cadet Camp at MDTTC this Frida-Mon. I also need to drag myself out of bed later today to continue the page layouts on Dan Seemiller's great new autobiography, "Revelations of a Table Tennis Champion." If I put in a full day, I'd finish the layouts today, other than the index and final proofing. (Dan - I know you're reading this! - I hope to finish tomorrow.) Meanwhile, here's a picture of a solid gold ping pong table in Dubai! 

UPDATE: It looks like I have the flu. And I was planning to get a flu shot last week, then put it off until this week....

Tip of the Week
Keep a Notebook.

How to Stay in Practice Without Practicing
A student told me over the weekend how he’d taken two weeks off for vacation, and when he came back, he couldn’t play at all. He said it took about five sessions before he could play comfortably again. He also said the same thing happens when he takes time off from his other sport, basketball. Yet, he said he knew others who seem to be able to take time off from these sports and come back very quickly. “Why?” he wondered.

Now I’ve never done a study of this, which is why this not yet ready to be a Tip of the Week, but I’ve noticed something very obvious about this. When I asked the player if he’d spent much time thinking or visualizing table tennis during his two weeks away, he said no. I think that players who take time off but spend some of that time visualizing playing (in their head), and maybe even shadow practicing it some, come back more quickly. Your game is controlled by your subconscious, and so any thinking about your shots re-enforces that muscle memory.

So next time you go on vacation or are injured, spend some time each day visualizing in your head playing a match. Really play it out! Serve and attack, receive, block, loop, counterloop, smash, lob, chop – whatever you do in a game, do it in your head. And I bet when you come back, you’ll get right back into it very quickly.

More Spin
Here’s the new coaching article from Samson Dubina.

How to Deal with Losing Confidence When Your Best Shots Start Going Wrong
Here’s the new coaching article from MHTableTennis.