Practicing with Weaker Players

Reader Allen Lin asks me how best to practice with lower-rated players. This comes up regularly at clubs. In a practice match, a lower-rated player cannot consistently push a stronger player. However, just because a player is lower rated doesn't mean everything they do is weaker. There are two ways to get the most out of playing or practicing with weaker players.

First, do practice drills where you play into the weaker player's strengths. Perhaps he can't loop, but can he block? Or perhaps he can't block, but he can loop? Or maybe he has a very good push to practice against. Or good serves. Examine his game and find the best of it, and that's what you can practice against. It's not all one-way, however - he wants practice as well, so take turns. In fact, if you look long turn, you can turn that "weaker" player into a peer that'll give you even more practice and competition. Even if he doesn't reach your level he'll get used to your shots, and at least when he plays you he'll be a good practice partner.

Tip of the Week

In case some of you missed it, here is the link to yesterday's Tip of the Week: Where to Serve Short?

ITTF Coaching Course

What an incredible week! I returned late Saturday night from six days at the ITTF Level 2 Coaching Course taught by Richard McAfee at the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center in Dunellen, New Jersey, Mon-Sat. It's part of the ITTF's Coaching Development Program. I took the Level 1 Course two years ago in Colorado Springs, as well as a Course Conductor Course which qualified me to teach that course. (I've taught one so far.) Richard had been trained by ITTF to teach the Level 2 Course.

A big thanks goes to Richard McAfee, the course conductor, who (even as I write this) is teaching another course in Austin, Texas; to Lily Yip and Barry Dattel, our hosts at the Lily Yip TTC (where they even cooked us free lunches each day, often spaghetti or Chinese food); to Adam Hugh for letting us stay in his attic; and to the ITTF for creating the program.

I drove up to the course with fellow Maryland coach Jeff Smart (a past USATT Coaching Chair from long ago), who had received his Level 1 certification from the class I taught two years ago. I hate long distance driving, so I agreed to use my car if he'd do the driving. To save money, he and I spent the week in Adam Hugh's attic! (It was roomy and quite comfortable, and even had a bathroom.) At night we had many philosophical discussions on politics, religion, table tennis, and ice cream. We often agreed on the last two items.

Tip of the Week

Where to Serve Short?

Lots of Stuff to Write About - Tomorrow

I have a LOT to write about after spending a great week at the ITTF Level 2 Coaching Course at the Lily Yip TTC in New Jersey. I've also got pages of links for other interesting segments. Alas, I've been on the go for weeks without a break, plus I woke up this morning with a headache. So I'm taking one more day off from blogging. I'd already written the Tip of the Week (see above), so hopefully that'll tide you over. Tomorrow I'll have lots to write about the ITTF Coaching Course, including what was covered, the day-to-day activities, the final exam, and how I was assaulted during a lecture I was giving by a robotic vacuum cleaner.

But here's a picture of donkeys sort of playing table tennis.

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NOTE - While I'm away at the ITTF coaching course (see below) I'm taking time off from blogging. I'll have lots to report when I return next Monday, Sept. 9!

ITTF Coaching Course

I'm off to an ITTF Level 2 Coaching Course next week, Mon-Sat, at the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center in Dunellen, NJ. The course is six days long, six hours/day and so 36 hours total. Here's the info page. The course is taught by Richard McAfee.

Coaching the Forehand

I had a new student last night, a 62-year-old semi beginner. He'd take a few lessons before, but had an awkward forehand - he'd drop his back shoulder during his backswing (and so tended to lift the ball instead of drive it forward), and lean toward the ball (so was off balance for the shot, not to mention this killed his timing). The stroke needed some serious rehab.

Rather than have him start off by hitting forehands, I had him do the following sequence.

Junior Lobbers

I have an 8-year-old student, about 1200 level, who simply loves to lob (as well as chop). Yesterday I finally made a deal with him that if he'd stopped lobbing every few rallies, I promised to let him lob at the end of the session. He sort of kept his side of the bargain (not always), and at the end he lobbed away. He's actually very good at this! Some rallies went on for 6-7 shots as I'd smash a near full-speed, but to one spot.

I had a 12-year-old for the next session, and he saw this, and he wanted to lob as well. Before we could start our session, he was hitting with the 8-year-old where they took turns lobbing and smashing. I let them do this for ten minutes (and agreed to go ten minutes over for the upcoming session). At the end of the session with the 12-year-old, he also wanted to lob. So I let him lob. Then we played a few games, and next thing we know we were about 25 minutes over on time. (No, I didn't charge extra.) Normally kids want the coaches to lob so they can smash, but now we have a turnaround, and I'm teaching two of them to lob. I have another 12-year-old student who last week practiced lobbing against me. So it looks like an infection that's spreading!!! (They are also learning about fishing, which is basically a low lob.)

There's nothing wrong with lobbing. In fact, it's a great way to learn to react to a smash and to practice covering lots of ground. When the kids learn how to react and move this way, and do so properly so the lob is essentially a high loop with lots of topspin, then they are that much closer to counterlooping at warp speeds. The key is not to make it a habit. Too often players start lobbing whenever they are in trouble when, if they want to be higher-level players, they should focus on counter-attacking whenever possible, and only lobbing as a last resort.

Baltimore Orioles Pre-Game Show

Nathan and Cheng: Short Push Drill

Last night, as I was about to leave the club, I saw Nathan Hsu (17, about 2400) and Coach Cheng Yinghua doing a short push drill. It looked interesting, so I stopped to watch. I ended up watching for something like half an hour as they were really working on this. The basic drill was they'd push short until one of them either popped the ball up (flip it!) or accidentally or intentionally pushed long (loop it!). Most often they'd push short a few times, with Nathan moving in and out each time, and then Cheng would fake another short push and instead push long, Nathan would loop, and then they'd rally.

Three words describe this drill: Tiring, Finesse, and Tricky!

Tiring: There is no more tiring drill in table tennis than in and out drills. Top players are in such great shape they can endlessly and tirelessly move side to side. But those in-and-out drills are the absolute worse. These are drills where the coach drops one short, and the student has to step in and push or flip it, then step back, and be ready for either a deep ball or stepping in for another short ball. For some physiological reason, this is the most tiring drill you can do in table tennis - many top players have commented on this, and I know it from many years of personal experience.

Finesse: Dropping the ball short as you move in like this takes great control. Few players have the finesse for this. Watching Cheng take every ball right off the bounce and dropping it short and low was something to watch. Nathan wasn't far behind on this, though he was often caught by Cheng's...

Tip of the Week

A Step-by-Step Sequence to Learning Pendulum Serves.

MDTTC Camps

"It's Monday . . . and there's no camp??? No lectures on grip, stance, forehand, and serves?" (Okay, it's really Tuesday, but this is what I was thinking yesterday.) Our ten weeks of camps at MDTTC ended Friday. I've now run about 180 five-day camps, six hours per day, or 900 days and 5400 hours of camp. That's nearly 2.5 years of camps. I've given each of my standard lectures 180 times, or about 1800 lectures in all. I've led in stretching (twice a day) 1800 times. (Well, actually less since I've sometimes missed the afternoon sessions.) And we're not done for the year - we have another camp, our Christmas Camp, Dec. 26-31. (Our camps are primarily for kids, but adults are welcome - we usually get 2-3 each week, sometimes none, sometimes more.)

MDTTC August Open

Here are the results (which I also gave out yesterday) of the August Open this past weekend, run by Charlene Liu. Congrats to Chen Bo Wen ("Bowen"), who finally broke through and won against Wang Qing Liang ("Leon") after a series of second-place finishes to Wang. It was a dominant performance - he didn't lose a game. Anther having a nice tournament was Nathan Hsu, who's been in a slump recently - but this time he won Under 2400.

I've been getting up extra early all summer to do the blog Mon-Fri (and the Tip of the Week on Mondays) because I had to coach all day at the camps at the Maryland Table Tennis Center. I also had to get up early on weekends to coach all day. Even on the two (2!) days I've had off since June I did the blog. (I was away for a week at a writers workshop, but that was NOT a vacation - that was hard work, and also started early each morning and often went late into the night. And don't even hint that going to the U.S. Open was time off, since I was coaching all day there!) Now that our summer camps are over (Week Ten ended Friday), and I finished my weekend coaching yesterday, I'm taking a day off. No blog today, and the Tip of the Week will go up tomorrow. I'm going to spend much of today lying in bed reading. If you hear a loud purring sound, that's me. Did I mention I have chocolate? (I'm also toying with doing something crazy, like driving up to Gettysburg, or the National Aquarium in Baltimore, or the National Zoo in DC. Or maybe I'll just stay in bed reading.) See you all tomorrow!

But I'll leave you with this. USATT is now rerunning some (or all?) of the 171 Tips of the Week I did for them from 1999-2003 (under the alias "Dr. Ping Pong") as a Daily Tip, which includes tips from other coaches. Here are a few recent ones by me: 

Orioles Photos

Yesterday I blogged about our visit to the Baltimore Orioles clubhouse, where the top juniors from MDTTC and I played most of their players. Here are the photos I promised! (I should have video of the Orioles pre-game show that featured table tennis next week.)

Here are two photo albums. All the photos in both albums were taken either by Qiming Chen or someone using his camera.

• Qiming Chen's Facebook Album (29 pictures)
• Larry Hodges Photo Album of Other Qiming Chen Photos (13 photos)

Most of the players in the pictures are identified by the photo name/caption, though you might have to click on the picture to see the full name/captions. In the second album there are two group pictures. Here are the captions for those two photos.

Kids Post, L-R - Chris Tillman, Darren O'Day, U.S. Open Under 12 Table Tennis Champion Derek Nie, Steve Pearce, Tommy Hunter, Orioles ping-pong table. Background - Chris Davis (back to us), Brady Anderson, Ryan Flaherty

Group picture, L-R - Darren O'Day, Tong Tong Gong, Tommy Hunter, Chris Tillman, Larry Hodges, Adam Jones, Nathan Hsu, Derek Nie (in front), JJ Hardy (in back), Qiming Chen, Miguel Gonzalez, Steve Pearce, Alexi Casilla, Manny Machado, and Troy Patton

The Atmosphere Inside the Orioles Clubhouse

Here's another article on the Orioles and Table Tennis

MDTTC Camp

Visit to the Orioles Clubhouse

Yesterday was an incredible day. As noted in yesterday's blog, we were invited to give a demo and take challenges from the Baltimore Orioles baseball team in their clubhouse/locker room. They have a nice Killerspin table and lots of room. Many of the players have been playing regularly for the past few years - and it showed! This was not a bunch of "basement" players; they were surprisingly good. About a dozen of them could show up at any table tennis club and battle with the regulars. (Photos are now up in Tomorrow's blog.) 

We were supposed to be there from 2-3PM, but the Orioles kept challenging and challenging, and we ended up taking them on for three hours, from 2-5PM.