One-year Anniversary

Yes, it was on January 17, 2011 that I did my first blog entry here. That's was mostly an intro to the site, with a few coaching news items. The January 18, 2011 entry was where things began to take off! ("The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Table Tennis Players," "The Backhand No-Spin Serve From the Forehand Court" (see the context), and a couple of other news items.) And then on January 19, 2011 we covered "Closing Out a Match" and "The Carrot and Celery Diet" - yes, that's when I started on my diet, going from 196 lbs to 174, which is my current weight.

And here we are, 248 blog postings later!

Drive-Smash Day

Yesterday was "Drive-Smash Day" during my coaching, with three sessions with three semi-beginning junior players. This is a drill where the player hits a regular drive, and then smashes, and then another drive, then a smash, and so on, alternating. The drive gets the rally back under control and helps the player work on his stroke, and then he gets to practice smashing. It also helps develop timing as they play at different speeds. It's done both forehand to forehand and backhand to backhand, and either crosscourt or down the line. (One variation I just thought of I haven't done is they drive down the line, then smash crosscourt, or perhaps the reverse. Have to try that one.) 

A variation for more advanced players is to do this looping - something I plan to introduce to some students next week, both with regular drills and multiball. In this case the player does a regular loop, and then loops one very hard, and continues alternating.

Tip of the Week

Larry's Law.

Back problems

It's Baaaaaaaack!  Some of you may remember I spent much of last year suffering from serious back problems which were muscular related. I finally had to take a month off (getting locals to do my hitting for me when I coached), underwent major physical therapy with a physical therapist, and began a strict regimen of weight training and stretching. The back got better, and all was well. Then, after the Nationals in December, I figured my back problems were cured, and I stopped the weight training and relaxed the stretching routine to just basic stretches before and after playing. BIG MISTAKE. The back has been tightening up over the last couple weeks, and now I'm struggling with my play again. After an hour or so of coaching, the back is back to agony again. So starting today, I'm back on the weight training and stretching regimen. Alas.

Serves and Strategy and nothing else

Here's a lesson for all of us - how to win when you are not playing well, and how to win ever more when you are playing well.

Anticipating versus Reacting versus Responding

One of the things I've always taught is that, in most circumstances, you should react, not anticipate, in a rally. This is because way too often players do anticipate a certain return, and are caught off guard when they don't get that shot. For example, when they attack, many players anticipate a crosscourt return, and so are caught off guard if it is returned down the line. Or they serve short backspin and anticipate a long backspin return. There are times where you can anticipate, such as against a player who does return your attacks crosscourt over and over (as many do), or against an opponent who does push your short backspin serves back long over and over (as many do). In these cases, you can anticipate, but you still have to react if you don't get the ball you expect.

However, in the context I'm using, perhaps I should instead say a player should respond, not react. What's the difference? React may imply that you are simply doing something that you are forced to do, i.e. in reaction to what the opponent is doing. It almost implies that the opponent is in charge, forcing you to react to his actions. Respond implies that you are choosing your response, and that you are in control. It's still a reaction, but it's a more selective reaction.

For example, suppose an opponent attacks hard to your backhand. You could react and block it back crosscourt, the most natural and easy way to return it. Or you could respond by noting the opponent is waiting for that ball and is already edging over, and instead respond by blocking it down the line. Or suppose your opponent serves short backspin. You could react and simply push it back long, the most natural and easiest way to return it. Or you could respond by noting the opponent is waiting to loop that ball, and instead respond by pushing short or flipping.

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Then spread the word! I'm getting about 300+ readers per day. That means there are over seven billion people who are not reading it. Oh, the inhumanity!

Proper use of free arm

A lot of problems arise when players don't use their free arm properly. I've been emphasizing this with students a lot recently - some are getting lazy with this. Here are two common problems.

First, many players let their free arm just sort of hang down instead of holding it up as a counterbalance to the playing arm. Every time they stroke the ball there is no counterbalancing arm to act as a counterweight, and so they are thrown slightly off balance with each shot. Worse, they become so used to this they don't even realize it is happening. The cure - hold the free arm up for balance at all time, and let it naturally counterbalance your playing arm. Note that this is true on backhands as well as forehands. On the forehand, the counterbalancing is more obvious. On the backhand, as you extend your playing arm out, the free hand needs to counterbalance this by naturally pulling back.

Second, when hitting forehands, players don't use their non-playing side. Instead, pull with the non-playing arm as you rotate around on the forehand. The non-playing side (the left side for righties) is just as important as the playing side when you hit a forehand. Your body can't rotate unless both sides rotate.

Here's a video of probably the two best players in the world right now, Ma Long and Zhang Jike of China (15:29), playing the final of the Austrian Open in September. Watch the way they use their free arm on each shot. (Of course, you can learn a lot from this video besides just the use of the free arm!)

An expanded version of this may end up being a Tip of the Week.

USATT Coach of the Year Awards

Reverse penhold backhand

I'm coaching two penholders who have reverse penhold backhands - one an elderly player who normally uses a conventional penhold backhand but is learning the new version, the other a 12-year-old learning this way from the start. For penholders, this is the biggest revolution in penhold play since, well, the invention of penhold play. For shakehanders, it is the shot that stopped shakehanders from dominating at the world-class level. For a while, it looked like the penhold grip would vanish from the world's elite, but this stroke brought it back to par with shakehands. It is also a shot that shakehanders must learn to play against.

What is a reverse penhold backhand? It is a backhand by a penhold player where he hits with the opposite side of the racket rather than using the same side for forehand and backhand (i.e. a conventional penhold backhand). Just as with shakehands, you can block, hit, or loop with it. More and more top penholders play their backhands this way as it gives a stronger backhand attack, though it leaves the player weaker in the middle and often isn't as good for blocking. Historically coaches would say this is simply wrong, and would guide penholders into hitting conventional penhold backhands. Then along came Liu Guoliang in the 1990s, who hit his backhand both ways while winning men's singles at the World and Olympics. Then came Wang Hao, who became the best in the world and the 2009 Men's Singles World Champion playing almost exclusively reverse penhold backhands. Other top Chinese penholders who used the shot include Ma Lin and Xu Xin. Now it is considered the "norm," while conventional penhold backhands are somewhat passé.

Here is a slow motion video (2:17) showing Wang Hao's reverse penhold backhand.

My todo list and coaching schedule

After careful calculations, I have concluded that my todo list, single spaced in 12-point Time Roman, would circle the earth three times. And I'm subbing for Coach Jeffrey (in China for almost two months), so my coaching schedule has doubled. And I've got a cold. So if you are one of those people waiting for something from me, it's coming, but it might take longer than usual.

It's also come to my attention that due to my subbing for Jeffrey, for the next two months I'll be coaching SEVEN DAYS A WEEK. My back: R.I.P.  

Lagging rackets

Two players I coached yesterday had a similar problem. (One was a relative beginner, the other relatively advanced, both right-handed.) And they had the same problem on both the forehand and backhand. They let the racket tip lag behind in their strokes, and so their crosscourt forehands and backhands tended to go to the middle. It's important to have the tip lead the stroke as you drive the paddle crisply through the ball. The racket should aim toward where you are aiming well before contact. If the tip lags behind, you lose control as well as power.

Backhand-backhand games

Tip of the Week

Proper Care of Your Racket.

Serve practice

A few days ago a practiced my serves for 15 minutes, something I hadn't done in a few months. (Remember, I'm 99% coach, 1% player these days.) Last night at the club everyone had absolute fits with them. One player even asked me when I'd developed the new serves - and all I was doing was using my normal serves, but with a bit more spin, lower to the net, and with a quicker, and so more deceptive motion. This has actually happened many times in the past. Serves are one of the most under-practiced techniques in table tennis. I've never understood why more players don't understand this - but it might be because you have to develop your serves to a certain level before the huge advantage from service practice starts to really pay off. Suffice to say that players who usually challenge me struggled to get five points against me last night.

Baltimore Sun and other press coverage

How do you get press coverage for table tennis? By sending out press releases. I've sent out three since the U.S. Nationals in late December. Yesterday the Baltimore Sun sent a reporter out to do a feature story on Tong Tong Gong, who made the U.S. National Cadet Team for the second straight year. He interviewed most of "Team Tong Tong" - me (tactical coach), Cheng Yinghua (who along with Jack Huang and Jeffrey Zeng Xu, are his main drilling coaches), his dad (manager), and we also talked about Tong Tong's physical trainer (he meets with him once week, does other physical training on his own as assigned). The only downside - the players I was coaching during this time (hi John, Kevin) had their sessions interrupted several times as I spoke with the reporter. (I now owe them big time, or as I told them, time and a half.)

Reverse psychology

I think I'm the top reverse psychologist in the world of table tennis. When I'm working with a new kid who's trying to hit twenty forehands for the first time, do I what most coaches do and say, "You can do it!"? No. I have more success saying, "Twenty in a row? You can't do twenty, that's way too many. No chance!" And of course the kid is then determined to prove me wrong, even though they know I'm joking. I've been using the trick for so many years that I've got dozens of variations.

It's also a great way to get in shape - all I have to do is say, "I'll bet you twenty pushups you can't do twenty in a row," and I'll be doing twenty before the session is done, often after the next rally. Getting to make a coach drop and do twenty has a way of focusing one's mind. (Confession: I used to bet twenty pushups, but that was getting to be too much, so now I only bet ten.)

Increasing coaching hours

I'm increasing my coaching hours starting this month. So if you are anywhere near the Maryland Table Tennis Center in Gaithersburg, MD, and are looking to become the greatest player in the history of the world, or at least to work on that bad habit of yours that keeps you from beating the Chinese, contact me. (If interested in group sessions, contact me so I can put you on the info lit. I plan to start up some new programs around March, when the club doubles in size and we have lots of free tables.)

Developing your game

Busy month ahead

One of our full-time coaches at the Maryland Table Tennis Center, Jeffrey Zeng Xun, is leaving Monday for a month in China. Sun Ting, who recently joined our staff, is also in China, also returning in about a month. I'm subbing for some of their students while they are away so it's going to be a busy month. (Pray for my back!) We'll be back at full strength around the start of February.

Around that time is when the wall to our club goes down and we take over the space next door to us, doubling the club's size. It'll probably be another month of renovations before everything's ready, and then we'll have 11,000 square feet, around 18-20 tables all on red rubber flooring, the bathroom that's currently in the middle of the club obstructing everything will finally be off to the side, and we'll have our new weight room. We'll also have a new modernized web page, and our new facebook page will be ready for action. Our coaching staff will then include me, Cheng Yinghua, Jack Huang, Jeffrey Zeng Xun, Sun Ting, Raghu Nadmichettu, and Donn Olsen.

Equipment Junkies: The Next Generation

Yesterday I was coaching a 10-year-old semi-beginner. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten his racket, which was a standard relatively slow beginner's blade with about 1.7mm Sriver on both sides. So he tried out mine - a fast carbon blade with space-aged sponge with built-in glue effect on both sides.

His first ten shots went way, Way, WAY off the end, with his eyes going wide like a pancake after the first one. But then he adjusted. It was like going from a sailboat to a nuclear-powered hydroplane. He loved the way the racket practically trampolined the ball back. He was literally clutching it to his chest, saying "I'm keeping this!"

USA Cadet Depth

The depth of play at the cadet level (which roughly means under age 15) has dramatically increased over the lasts five years in the USA. How did this happen and how much stronger is it? First I'm going to digress to five years ago.

In December, 2006, at the USA Table Tennis Board meeting at the USA Nationals, I gave a Junior Training presentation. USATT had struggled for years to find ways to increase the number and level of our juniors, and at the same time was focused on developing elite players. I argued that the solution to both these problems was for USATT to recruit and train coaches to set up full-time training centers and junior programs. USATT was already running coaching clinics; why not just change the emphasis?

The response was, at best, weird. Most of the board loved the idea, crossed it off the agenda, and went on to the next item. It was as if they had no way of actually implementing things they wanted to do. Two board members did speak up strongly against the idea, arguing that we had no idea if there was a demand for such training centers, and if we got coaches to set them up, what if nobody came?

I'm not making this up. (To those of you who aren't sure why this is so silly, it's because the most basic part of setting up a full-time training center or junior program is that you learn how to recruit new players. You don't wait until a hundred players magically appear, waiting in a parking lot for you to open a training center; you open the training center and recruit new players.) In September, 2009, I made the same argument at the USATT Strategic Meeting, but again to no avail.