Tip of the Week

Covering the Wide Backhand.

Beetle Baily Cartoons

Beetle Bailey ran a table tennis cartoon yesterday (Sunday). Cartoonist Mort Walker has long had a partnership with table tennis, regularly running cartoons, often featuring epic matches between Beetle and Sarge. In the early years, apparently Sarge would win, but in recent years it's been all Beetle. Below are all the times they've featured table tennis that I can find. Considering the cartoon has been running continuously since 1950, I'm pretty sure there are plenty more, but they didn't start putting them online at beattlebailey.com until 1996. I'm determined to find them all!!! I found mention of a cartoon from Aug. 25, 1975 that is titled, "Blast it! I lost to Sarge in Ping-Pong Again!", and described as "The Chaplain counsels Beetle on his anger...and his ping-pong game," but I can't find it online. So I just ordered the 1975 Beetle Bailey collection (only cost about $7, including shipping), and will scan and put that online when it arrives. (NOTE added later - I received the comic book in the mail, but it was the wrong one, so I still haven't found this one.) (Yeah, today's blog is a bit short - very busy on various USATT and MDTTC issues, and editing the new coaching book by Samson Dubina. But I think there's enough here to keep you occupied.) (NOTE - I'll likely update this periodically with newer ones.) 

Current Activities and USATT Work

My todo list currently runs approximately the length of three football fields, and that’s in 6-point font. I won’t bore you with the small stuff.

This past week, and hopefully finishing today, has been “The Spirit of Pong” Week. I had eight people read and critique the fantasy table tennis novel, which I blogged about on March 16 and a few times since. It’s now complete, except for the page layouts, which I hope to finish today. Since I wrote it for the table tennis market, I’m self-publishing it. (If I were aiming for the general fantasy-reading public, I’d have to go through a publisher.) If all goes well, it should go on sale in a week.

Next week (probably starting tomorrow) is Samson Dubina Week. He’s written a new coaching book, and I’ve agreed to edit it. I really need to finish it within a week because the following week things get even busier. I’ll probably have some long afternoons at Ledo’s Pizza. (I get a lot done there, sometimes going there at 11AM and staying until 2:30 PM, when I leave to do pickups for the afterschool program.)

The following week (May 18-21) is Disabled Veterans Coaching Week. Here’s the flyer about the camp I’m running at MDTTC. At the end of the week I’ll also be attending Balticon, an annual science fiction convention. I’m a panelist, and will be promoting my fantasy novel Sorcerers in Space.

Coaching Between Points

I blogged about this on Tuesday. There has been a lot of online discussion, such as at the Mytabletennis forum and the OOAK forum. The gist of most of the discussions agrees with what I wrote - this is not a good thing. I’m still in the mode of “Wow. Just wow,” and keep checking my calendar to see if it’s April 1. The rule will take effect on Oct. 1, 2016. Has the whole world gone mad? Here is the new rule, with the old wording crossed out, and the new wording in bold:

3.5.1.3 Players may receive advice only during the intervals between games or during other authorised suspension of play, and not between the end of practice and the start of a match; if any authorised person gives advice at other times the umpire shall hold up a yellow card to warn him or her that any further such offence will result in his or her dismissal from the playing area. Between rallies persons who are authorised to be at the bench / field of play have the possibility to give verbal and visual coaching instructions.

Here are some more articles on this:

USA Wins Bid for 2018 World Veterans

Here’s the USATT article, here’s the ITTF article, and here’s the newly created home page. This is one of the single largest table tennis tournaments in the world, if not the largest, with up to 5000 participants expected. It'll take place in Las Vegas, June 18-24, 2018.

A special thanks needs to go to the USA Organizing Committee, which has worked tirelessly on this - Dan Seemiller, Dave Sakai, Stellan Bengtsson, Mike Babuin, and Dean Johnson. USATT CEO Gordon Kaye did the final presentation at the ITTF meeting at the Worlds, and I'm told did an excellent job. USA beat out bids from table tennis powers France, Japan, and South Korea. I've seen the PDF version of the USA bid, and it's excellent - it practically screams competence and excitement. (I hope they'll put it online - I’ve already spoken to them about this, and will link to it when/if it does.) Here's the USATT notice from April 14 of our being one of the four finalists.

For perspective, here's the home page for the 2014 World Veterans in Auckland, New Zealand. Here's the results, which show the 31 events held. If you can't wait until 2018, here's the 2016 World Veterans, held May 23-29 in Costa Blanca, Spain.

Coaching Between Points?

The ITTF has apparently passed a new rule that says, starting Oct. 1, 2016, coaches will be able to coach players between points. Here's a link and discussion at Table Tennis Daily. Here's an article on it by Matt Hetherington. Here's a Facebook discussion. And here's my primary commentary: What???!!!

Until 2001 games were to 21. This meant that the only coaching in a typical two out of three was after the first game, and if it was tied one-all, after the second game. Since games were longer and you could see more points, coaching was much easier. In fact, I had times where I coached as many as three matches at the same time, by rapidly switching from watching one to the others. (Since most time is spent between points, you don't actually miss much.)

Tip of the Week

Good Tactics Lead to Confidence. (This is an expanded version of my blog from last Thursday.)

My Arm, Weekend Coaching, and The Spirit of Pong

It was another busy weekend of coaching. My arm is about 90% healed, but I'm still having some problems, especially if I attack too much with my forehand, whether looping or hitting. Once it gets a bit aggravated, then hitting backhands or simple multiball makes it worse. So I still have to go easy.

On Sunday I gave a one-hour lesson to Navin Kumar, the bionic man with a partially mechanical heart and Parkinson's. Here's video (1:33) of part of the session where he works on his forehand while moving side to side. He's a little rushed, taking the ball a bit too quickly off the bounce, but part of that is because he plays with long pips on the backhand, which keeps him close to the table.

Following that was a 90-minute junior training session. Many forehands and backhands were hit, a few beginners were introduced to pushing, and we finished with around-the-world, knocking down paper cups, and the ever-favorite, hit the bottle and make Coach Larry drink worm juice.

Then came the 90-minute Adult Beginning/Intermediate Class. We started with drills - side-to-side footwork drills; a backhand-to-backhand contest to see who could get the most (most was 202); then looping and/or smashing against block. Then I gave a short lecture on serving (which we've already covered extensively), and then did serve and receive practice. Then came a tactics lecture/discussion, where we focused on playing choppers, lobbers, penholders, and Seemiller grip. We also continued some of the discussion of racket surfaces that we'd started the previous week.

World Championships

They are from April 26 - May 3 in Suzhou, China. As I write this on Friday morning, they are into the final eight in Men's Singles, and the final four in Women's Singles, Men's Doubles, and Women's Doubles. They must completed Mixed Doubles, with Xu Xin/Yang Haeun (CHN/KOR) defeating M. Yoshimura/K. Ishikawa (JPN), 4-0 (7,8,4,6). This is the first time China and Korea have combined to win Mixed Doubles (and probably for any title).  

Six of the top ten men in the world are in the quarterfinals of Men's Singles. Four are out:

Good Tactics Lead to Confidence

Thank about the last time you played a match and got nervous. Now ask yourself this: What were your tactics in that match? If you are like the overwhelming majority of players I've worked with over the years in that situation, you probably didn't have a strong game plan - you were probably just winging it. And so, unsure of what you were doing, you were (drum roll please) . . . unsure of what you were doing. And it is that lack of surety that often leads to nervousness.

So next time you are nervous, ask yourself what your game plan is, and come up with a coherent one. Not only will this give your mind something to think about other than your upcoming doom loss, but it will give yourself the confidence that you know what you are doing. You still have to execute the shots, but it's a lot easier to be confident when you know what you are doing than when you don't. Plus, this confidence allows you to think a bit more clearly and so play even better tactics. In other words:

Good Tactics => Confidence => Good Tactics => Even More Confidence

When I talk to players after losses, often they'll blame their loss on nervousness. It's only when I question them that the truth comes out! (An expanded version of this will likely become a Tip of the Week!)

World Championships

They are from April 26 - May 3 in Suzhou, China. Here are some links. USA is now out of everything, but we did decently in Men's Doubles, where Timothy Wang and Kanak Jha made the final 32. USA isn't that strong now, but think of where we might be in 4-6 years, when our current powerhouse group of cadets are reaching their peaks!!!

Top 20 Chuck Norris Table Tennis Facts

I thought I'd have a little fun this morning. Let's see if you can come up with your own Chuck Norris table tennis facts! Comment below - if there are a lot of good ones, I'll refer to them in tomorrow's blog. I saw a thread like this in the OOAK table tennis forum, but they were doing non-table tennis Chuck Norris sayings. (There's actually a Chuck Norris Facts page - I contributed about 50 of them.)

Man in the Table Tennis Arena

Historically most table tennis leaders have judged themselves not on how much they accomplished, but on how few mistakes they made. They'd go through an entire forgettable career patting themselves on the back for not making mistakes, all the while avoiding doing anything that might risk putting a stain on this great record that few will remember. This is a recipe for what I call "stagnation with a forced smile." We get it a lot.

While getting things right ranks high for me as well, I tend to judge a person's record more on what they actually accomplish. The two are not mutually exclusive; the key is not letting one affect the other, i.e. avoid trying new and possibly risky things so as to avoid mistakes. I'm pretty forgiving of those who make mistakes while trying new things in our sport. This doesn't mean recklessly doing things; part of trying something new is thinking it through and avoiding doing stupid stuff. Otherwise you aren't really trying something new so much as just being reckless. The best way to avoid doing stupid stuff while trying something new? Talk to those who have been working successfully in our sport for years and get their advice on pitfalls to avoid. What may be new to you may not be completely new to them.

To accomplish a lot means trying new things a lot, and that means more mistakes than those poor souls who are afraid of trying anything new with any risk. But without people trying to accomplish things, and sometimes taking risks, nothing gets accomplished. You can't develop a new program without risk, because anything new is a risk. It doesn't mean jumping in at full thrust; remember the saying that "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Plan out the journey as best you can, but take that step. If it turns out the step is in the wrong direction you can always change later. Those who never take the step never make the journey.