Equipment Reviews and Why I Don’t Do Them
Recently USATT has started doing “USATT Equipment Reviews,” by Matt Hetherington. Here are the first two:

• USATT Equipment Review - Butterfly SK7 Korbel
• USATT Equipment Review - JOOLA Maxxx 450

Here are some other good places for equipment reviews. I’m sure there are others – feel free to comment below.

• Table Tennis Database
• Table Tennis Daily
• Expert Table Tennis
• Equipment Junkie
• Table Tennis Earth
• MyTableTennis.net
• OOAK Forum

Some may have noticed that in 6.5 years and about 1500 blogs, I’ve almost studiously avoided doing equipment reviews. I’ve talked about equipment in general a number of times, but very rarely discuss the specific brands. I think there are only two times where I’ve actually done anything resembling equipment reviews. On Oct. 14, 2015, I had an entire segment on Emulating the Equipment of the Top Players, where I wrote about whether we should use the equipment used by the top players, and used Tenergy 25 (which I use on my backhand) as an example of a sponge not used by many top players but which many should probably be using.

Hours Spent in Table Tennis
How many hours have you spent on table tennis? Some say it takes 10,000 hours to really develop a skill. Have you done your 10,000? I got to thinking how many hours I’ve spent on this sport. It turns out an insane number – apparently enough to perfect my table tennis skills, oh, about ten times over. So . . . how many hours? Let’s find out. There’s going to be a lot of rounding and estimates, but I think the figures at the end are pretty accurate. (Feel free to skip ahead to other segments if you find this boring.) 

I started in 1976, so I’m in my 42nd year. I practiced a huge number of hours my first few years. Here are estimates:

• 1976-1981: About four hours per day, six days/week, so 24 hours/week, 50 weeks/year, for 6 years.
• 1981-1992: About two hours/day, six days/week, so 12 hours/week, 50 weeks/year, for 12 years.
• 1992-2007: About 1.5 hour/day, six days week, so nine hours/week, 50 weeks/year, for 16 years.
• 2008-2017: Not so much – just coaching. Perhaps 1000 hours, most of it in the early part.

Now comes the single greatest coincidence in the history of anything. After I wrote the above, and doing the arithmetic, I discovered that the first three segments each added up to 7200 hours!!! Okay, these are just estimates. There were stretches where I put in far more than the above, but I was also injured a few times and had to take time off, so it events out. Anyway, 7200 + 7200 + 7200 = 21,600 hours of practice. Let’s average that up to 22,000.

Tip of the Week
One Point at a Time.

Table Tennis Protests and Walkouts
Below, in the segment on the China Open, you’ll read about the Chinese players refusing to play their matches in protest of the removal of Liu Guoliang as head coach. The top three men in the world, all from China, refused to play in their country’s “premier” event – Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, and Xu Xin, with support from many other players and coaches. World #4 Zhang Jike, also withdrew, due to an apparent injury, but at least early on also joined the protest. How this will unfold is anyone’s guess, but from what I’ve read (and there are many links to articles and discussions below), I have a feeling Liu Guoliang will be hit hard, while the players will likely get something like a three-month suspension. We’ll see.

Here are three other major table tennis protests that led to players refusing to play, all in the U.S. Here’s a summary.

Upcoming USATT Coaching Courses and Seminars
[I sent the following in as a USATT news item, which should go up soon.  (It's up.) I spent much of yesterday putting together a 19-page presentation I’ll be playing on a projector for my “How to Set Up a Successful Junior Program” seminar, which will be held in a classroom. I also have a one-page outline for my “Intermediate and Advanced Serving” seminar, which will be at the playing hall, but I can pretty much do that one in my sleep. I’ll put both documents online after the Nationals.]

USATT is taking a two-pronged approach to educating our coaches – and players too! Take your pick of an ITTF Coaching Course or a USATT University Seminar at the USA Nationals.

ITTF COACHING COURSES
These are for current and prospective coaches who wish to improve their coaching skills as well as get certified as a USATT and ITTF coach. (Note that when you are certified at ITTF Levels 1, 2, or 3, you are automatically certified as a USATT coach at the corresponding levels of State, Regional, and National Coach.) There are five upcoming ITTF Coaching seminars:

Thursday Off
I need a day off to catch up on things – see you on Friday!

Sports Skills and the Myth of the Natural
The following has a table tennis point to it, but starts out in a fantasy world. I’m currently reading Book Two in the Weird West Tales series by Mike Resnick, four fantasy books which feature the adventures of Doc Holliday in a re-imagined west where Americans, led by Thomas Edison, try to use science to battle the magic of Indians such as Geronimo. In Book One, “The Buntline Special,” we learn what really happened at the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Holliday takes on the undead Johnny Ringo. In Book Two, “The Doctor and the Kid,” Holliday, now broke due to a horrible loss in a poker game, needs to hunt down and kill Billy the Kid for the reward money. Alas, he can’t, as Geronimo has used his magic so bullets bounce off The Kid. Okay, as table tennis players, perhaps none of this interests you. But there’s a table tennis angle.

The novel features some very nice writing by Resnick, one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers of all time. But a passage caught my eye last night. In the scene, Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid are drinking at a bar together. They know that they are going to be having it out sometime later, but until then they have become friends. The following conversation takes place – and it could just as easily have taken place at a table tennis club, where they were discussing table tennis.

“How did you get to be so good with a gun?” asks Holliday.

"What I was trained to do long ago..."
During a coaching session last night I blocked a ball rather wide to my student’s forehand. The student moved wide and made a very nice forehand loop that went extremely wide to my forehand, well outside the corner and moving away from me very rapidly. Several things happened very quickly, all the result of training from long ago, training which coaches now try to give to their students.

First, I did exactly what I was trained to do long ago, and after my block went to the student’s wide forehand, I reflexively moved to cover the potential wide angle return to my forehand. I’m pretty sure most club players would have at most moved marginally over, leaving the wide angle open.  

Second, I did exactly what I was trained to do long ago, and stepped to the ball, instead of leaning or reaching. The ball caught me off guard with the great angle, and I’m pretty sure the great majority of club players, when they saw how wide the ball was going, would have reflexively leaned and lunged at it. As an experiment, stand up for a moment, and lean to your right. Now try moving to your right. You can’t!!! By stepping to the ball, I was able to get to it cleanly.

Third, rather than moving sideways, I did what I was trained to do long ago when blocking on the forehand – I moved in, and cut the ball off quickly before it had a chance to get away from me. This allowed me to take the ball right off the bounce – but more importantly, it allowed me to hit the ball at all. I’m pretty sure that most club players would have moved sideways, and with the ball moving away from them, they wouldn’t have been able to touch it.

Tip of the Week
Importance of Routine.

Capital Area League - and How to Create Your Own League!
They had their final meetup this past Saturday (at MDTTC) – and results and photos are up, care of Mossa Barandao and Thomas Olausson of PongMobile! There were 116 players on 24 teams this year, all in the Washington DC area (most of Maryland and Northern Virginia). It’s a great activity that brings everyone together for many hours of great fun and competition – without those pesky ratings, by the way! (Of course, you can run a league with or without ratings.) The league will continue again with a new season this Fall.

Interested in creating a league in your area? Here’s the USATT League page, where you can learn how to set up either a Team League or a Singles League (with the USATT League Rating System). If you don’t have one, you do not know what you are missing!!! Here's a video (81 sec) explaining the league software and who to contact to get it. 

A great congrats goes to everyone in the Capital Area League, but especially the following:

Living a Life of Pong
Sometimes I get so busy from all my table tennis work that I barely can find time to do anything else. I somehow make time for my other interests – science fiction reading & writing, movies, and a few other things, but those are like smoke in a hurricane of table tennis activities. When things get so busy that there’s barely time to breathe, us table tennis people have to remind ourselves that this is the business we have chosen. After all, if we weren’t doing table tennis, what would we be doing? Not table tennis!!! (Horrors!!!)

<Start non-Table Tennis Paragraph.> In my case, I’d likely be a math professor in that other lifetime that never happened. Instead, recently, in my SF writing sideline, I’ve begun writing stories that feature Mad Molly, an 80-year-old autistic black retired math professor who regularly saves the day with math, though she usually does in humorous fashion as she has her own separate motives – such as, in one story, her determination to get an ice cream pie sent to her sister in Paris before it melts, and to make it happen she has to save Washington DC from a nuclear attack. I actually get paid for these stories! Just this morning I received $315 via PayPal for a short story I recently sold. </End non-Table Tennis Paragraph.>

Admittedly, I’m busier in table tennis than most. I often envy my fellow full-time table tennis coaches, who get to focus on coaching and little else. They are often split into two types: Those who just coach table tennis, and those who coach table tennis and still train as players. (I’m sure they have more going on in their private lives.) Alas, I’ve dropped the latter, but double alas, I’ve got a lot more on my ping-pong plate than most.

Preparing for Nationals
It’s that time of year again. So . . . how does one go about preparing for a big tournament? Well, first of all, you read my article, Top Ten Ways to Play Your Best in a Tournament. Well, duh!!! But from a coach’s point of view, here is how our coaching changes.

First, in the age of nearly unregulated plastic balls, where the balls play very differently, you have to switch over to whatever ball is being used. For the upcoming Nationals, that’s the Nittaku Premium ball. I keep a supply of each of the major types, and just yesterday I tossed a bag of these balls into my playing bag.

Second, there’s more emphasis on game play, less on basic rote drills. The time to perfect shots is mostly past; now’s the time to practice what you have in game situations. That means more free play, more points starting with serve or receive, and lots of random drills. It means more emphasis on receive, sometimes playing out points, sometimes not. For top players, it sometimes means mimicking the shots of rival players they will likely play so they can prepare for them.

Third, there’s a lot of emphasis on serves. Now is not the time to develop new ones, but to hone and perfect the ones you have. The coach or player need to decide what serves they will be using in the tournament, and make sure those serves are ready and at their best. Deep serves especially need to be practiced as they are the toughest to pull out under pressure, and the easiest to miss.

Tip of the Week
Great Serves are the Best Way to Avoid Upsets and Compete with Strong Players.

$4500 Maryland State Championships
I ran them this past weekend at MDTTC, with great help from Mossa Barandao of PongMobile and Wen Hsu. Complete results are at Omnipong – the program is great for running tournaments and posting results. After the tournament finished on Sunday night, I sent in the results – and they were processed for rating shortly after lunch! (Do you remember the days when it sometimes took months, and how happy we were when they started going up consistently within ten days?)

Below is my write-up (skip ahead if you aren’t interested in the illustrious play of Marylanders – lots of other segments), which will need some adjusting as I referred to post-tournament ratings a couple of times that will likely change, though probably not too much in these two cases. Alas, there was some sort of glitch, and one event – Under 15 – has all sorts of mistakes. The results sent in were identical to the correct online ones above, but for reasons that aren’t clear yet, the results for that one event were completely jumbled up, so that it has a number of matches by players against players from other groups they never played, including 50-point losses that never actually happened. USATT is working to fix it, and hopefully they will be corrected today. 

[NOTE - ratings were corrected and are online. I've also added links to photos of the finalists in most of the events in the results below.]