Last year I was taking lessons with two coaches: Au Di at lincoln square in Oakland and Silang (Steve) Wang down in north San Jose.  Unfortunately Lincoln Square has moved its table tennis program to mornings so that Au Di and I won't be able to continue our lessons.  In addition I've temporarily stopped going to ICC since I wasn't able to commit to playing in the league every week while preparing to move from SF over to Berkeley.  Hence the lessons with Steve also had to be dropped. 

But now the move is over and things are settling down a bit and thankfully I'm able to play more tt.  Since moving to Berkeley I've been playing more at the Alameda TTC (site of last summer's Stellangie camp) and lately I've hooked up with coach Xin there for some lessons.  I'm not sure what Xin's background is but what I can tell from the first two lessons are that: a) he knows what he's doing and b) he's coached and/or played at a pretty high level in China.  The drills we do are mostly multiball and he pretty much has only one speed: inhumanly fast.  He feeds multiball better than anyone I've ever met.  For instance we do one drill where I'm supposed to use my fh on every shot and he feeds random balls to my fh side.  Short, long, chop, topspin, everything and the kitchen sink comes at you.  And he's good at it: one ball will be heavy deep chop that you need to step back and loop and the next,  one second later, will be a short no spin just over the net that you have to get in and flip or push.  And the next second it's something else.  It's uncanny how he can switch gears like that, and he's fast and rarely misses.

We did another drill where he feeds me a heavy chop to my backhand side which I step around and loop with the fh, then he fires a series of smashes down the fh line which I'm supposed to get over to and counter back.  It's intended to simulate the match situation where the "opening loop" is smashed back.  As soon as that loop hits the table you have to be ready to counter the next ball on the opposite side of the table because he hits it hard and fast down the line and follows it up with 3 or 4 more just like it in rapid fire succession.

Needless to say the lessons are intense and at a much faster pace than what I'm used to.  At first I couldn't even recover from the loop and get to the smash in time: it just flew by my outstretched racket.  At the end of the lesson I was just about recovering fast enough to get over there but I would usually miss the table with the counter (and the next several after that).

Naturally Xin has his own ideas about what constitutes a good stroke and that can be summed up by "keep it short and use a lot of wrist".  This is true even on the forehand where he wants you to use mostly wrist and forearm.  In fact he insists that your forehand should be as wristy as your backhand.  At those speeds you don't have time to waste and he often tells me my strokes are too long, especially the follow through.  Of course this is something I learned from Au Di, who liked a nice long follow through most of the time (but not always).  Interestingly enough, like Steve, he noticed early on that my backhand is better than my forehand, which again is Au Di's influence.  

Overall in the first two lessons we did a lot of things that were difficult for me and made me feel uncomfortable, awkward, slow, uncoordinated, and at times totally incompetent.  It was frustrating and maybe even a little demoralizing.  Naturally going back for more this weekend.

A group of WSOC guys travelled to this event held at Grimsby, Bob, John, Jimmy Tony and Nigel are all regulars with me and they don't enter many tournaments, so to get them all together will hopefully created some 'squad banter' and get them hooked on the tournament scene, I know they all thoroughly enjoyed themselves, particularly Bob, entering his first tournament since the 1980's.
They all played well, with John and Nigel qualifying from their groups. I had a mixed day, playing as No 1 seed in the Mens singles, I lost in the semi's to the eventual winner (paul Johnson) and starting as no1 seed in the vets I lost to Mark Donaghue in the final 11/13 in the 5th end after being 10-7 ahead (3 match points) I then redeemed things slightly by winning the Mens doubles with Mark Donaghue and the Mixed doubles with Lesley keast, both at deuce in the 5th! so a marathon day, I played 18 matches in all and was SO stiff the next day. I've got the English closed on Friday, I've only entered the Vets events, I've got Dave harvey to play in my group, he's a long time team mate of mine in the British league, and I'm partnering Mark Donaghue in the Doubles, so see you there guys!

Is 3 weeks away. Sending off my entry form this week.

I'm down as a division 3 player, but I don't think I'm going to enter the divsion 3 singles. I'm not sure whether its the right thing to do or not. I've only played 3 matches in division 3 (100%), and I only really ever entered division 3 because we tried to get a division 2 team, they wouldn't let us, and then even though I said no, my club still signed me on to the division 3 side. The captain of which is an old friend (who got my playing league table tennis) so I see it as helping their side out abit.

I know I'd be missing out on games (and probably a trophy) by not playing, but I really just want to move on from division 3. I was there 4 years ago, and I'm still there now, not by choice!  I've been asked to play division 1 next season, so thats great news. As for the Nottingham closed though, I just going to enter division 2 singles and then the rest of the events I'm elidible for.  For Men's doubles, I'm partnering up with a good mate from uni who I don't see much these days, even though he plays in the Nottingham league. He plays at Sycamore and is a top division 2 player. We could do well in the doubles...as long as we don't meet a prem side!

Otherwise theres the 'fun' events. Handicap, drawn doubles (picked out a hat), mystery doubles (re-drawn before each round), and hard bat. All of which should provide a good laugh. I think I'm most looking forward to the hard bat. Unfortunately there seems to be age-based events for just about all ages apart from 21-40. Don't know why they miss out this age group, its a shame.

Really looking forward to it though, its a 2 day event at my local club using both halls. I'm not going to win anything, but I'm aware of my chances in the handicap. I'm one of those middling but good players that seems to be at the level where the handicap suits me. We will see...

A couple of years ago I had a blade made for me by San Diego area blade maker Borko (http://borkoandson.com/).  We had a very pleasant exchange of emails and phone calls where he asked me a lot of questions about my style and level which I did my best to answer honestly although that was painful at times.  Being a dedicated EJ of course I went ahead and bought a blade from him, which was custom made to the specifications from the conversations we had.  At the time I was using FL handles and sent him a Stiga clipper with a legend FL handle that he could copy.  Now the legend flared is a pretty thick handle which at the time I really liked (I've since switched to straight handles) but the blade he made for me had one of the smallest FL handles I've ever seen.  It felt like holding a pencil.  Not only that but at barely 4mm  it was the thinnest blade I've ever laid eyes on.  For various reasons I decided not to question him about it and promptly filed the blade away in a drawer.

Now that I'm in full blown EJ mode I decided on a whim to pull out the Borko blade and give it a try.  I took the two sheets of vega (pro 2.0, Europe max) off the strad and used them since the heads were almost exactly the same size.  In addition the Borko weighs in at 83g, just two grams shy of the strad so the setup weight was almost the same.  The handle is as thin and strange as I remember when I first got it: FL but very narrow at the top and shorter than a normal handle overall.  My normal grip is fairly far up on the handle, near the rubber, and there was no way I could use that with this blade.  Instead I had to hold the blade maybe 1/2 to 1cm further down so that my thumb was just covering the beveled upper part of the handle.  Bouncing a ball on the blade gave a distressingly low tone and low rebound.  I'm talking defensive blade low.  I was not optimistic.

Several hours later I left the club in a state of serious confusion: this is definitely the strangest blade I have ever used.  The handle of course was problematic, not so much on the forehand but on the backhand where I couldn't quite make the adjustment to find that stroke.  However that issue is trivial compared to the performance of the blade itself.  Was it slow?  Definitely not!  When I swung hard I could rip forehand loops like nobody's business.  And these were fast power loops with a vicious dip and arc on them.  Faster and spinnier than either the amadeus or magellen could generate with the same rubber.  Probably similar in speed to the strad/vega setup although the strad is a much harder and stiffer blade.

On the other hand I wouldn't call call it a fast blade either as it was not bouncy or touchy at all in the short game.  I could control pushes better than with almost any other blade I can think of.  So that covers the two extremes but what about all those intermediate speed and spin shots that are the meat and potatoes of so many rallies?  That's where things got confusing.  The response of the blade seemed to depend a lot on the incoming ball.  For example blocking loops was a touchy business as one loop would be blocked back totally under control with just the speed and spin you would expect but the next would slower and much spinnier (the block that is) while the one after that would be faster and flatter.  Was it the incoming loop changing or was I changing the angle of the blade or contacting the ball on a different part of the blade?  It was hard to tell.  The results were very sensitive to exactly how much speed and spin were on the incoming ball and how you struck it. 

Similarly looping hard against topspin was simply a dream sequence of deadly, high precision, line seeking missiles.  But I couldn't find the handle on those intermediate to low speed opening type loops.  Sometimes I got a solid feeling and a lot of spin but other times the blade just felt uncertain about what it wanted to do, especially on bh loops where I couldn't generate the speed and spin I could so easily on the fh side.  The bh loops were just, well, ordinary. Weak even.  Perhaps this is due to the handle and the adjustment in grip I had to make but the difference between the sides was so marked that I had to remind myself that I was using both rubbers on both sides (flipping between pro and europe to see if I could tell the difference).

Overall the only thing I can say at this point is that it has a lot of personality.  In fact it would be more accurate to say it's suffering from a multiple personality disorder of some type.  I will for sure use it again as the memory of those monster loops and soft little pushes just clearing the net are calling me back to the table even now.  The handle can be dealt with by wrapping it in tape if need be.  The main thing is figuring out what it's going to do from one shot to the next.

Its been a real good week for the 'wiggy school of coaching' I have had some great feedback from players i have been coaching who are starting to get some real results now, Ray, John, Nigel and Tony have all beaten players for the first time this week, and I was thrilled to be asked for advice from Lesley Keast who hangs aroung the top 15 ladies in England on how to beat the English no 2 lady, I gave her some advice, she followed it, and texted me thrilled that it had worked, so satifying as a coach.
I have been working on Bobs game, I think he suffers in matches from playing slightly too technical a game, we sorted some things out on Friday and he has a match tonight, I'm hoping for a result. Its my counties annual closed tournament on Sunday, I'm going for my 6th mens singles title, I'm not getting any younger and I have not won this since 2002/3 season, so I hope it could be my year, its always interesting to see how things pan out on the day, but at this stage I will be no1 seed for the mens singles based upon the national rankings.

The 2010 Western Open is being held at the Cal gym in Berkeley this weekend and today (2/20) I played in four events: U1100, U1250, U1400, and U1550.  I didn't advance out of any of the RRs but nevertheless had a good day, going 6-5 and stunningly winning 2/3 in the U1550.  Not bad considering I've played maybe 7-8 times in the past seven weeks and am in the throes of a major EJ period, not having played with the same setup more than twice in a row since early January.

Today I was faced with the choice of either using the magellan, which is nice and slow and is the setup I've used the past two sessions, or the stradivarius which I put two sheets of vega on to see what that rubber would be like on a carbon blade.  Common sense clearly favored the magellan but the EJ in me was dying to try out the strad/vega combo so that's what I did.  After using all-wood blades for the past seven weeks the strad felt like a piece of frozen titanium.  Sub nanosecond dwell time.  We had a lot of good times together but I think the strad is officially retired.  I'm going all-wood 5-ply from now on (and if you believe that...).

The tournament seemed to be run better than previous Western/Berkeley opens where I seem to remember there being a lot of problems with events running late.  Today everything went off on time, even the last event at 6pm.  They also seem to have improved the lighting in the gym which again I remember being dimmer several years ago (and it wasn't just me, several players I talked to afterward complained about the poor lighting back then).  Today it was nice and bright.

I had the pleasure of playing against one of the rarest creatures in the TT kingdom today: the japanese penholder with lps on the fh and inverted on the bh.  Unfortunately the only lps player I faced today, all other 10 opponents being regular penholders or inverted shakehanders.  I got by him 3-1 but it was touch and go all the way.

The rest of the matches were unremarkable.  I struggled with the strad all day, especially returning serve where the combo was just too fast and high strung for me to do anything but push long.  I missed a lot of fh loops out of sheer unfamiliarity with the setup.  Well that and the fact that my fh is  a total mess these days!  Backhand was only marginally more reliable.  Overall I have to be happy.  I've been blanked at tournaments before (I remember one particularly sad 0-8 day in the same gym several years ago) and I was a little afraid today was going to be another one.  Perhaps I just got lucky with the draws or maybe all the fitness work of the past 1 1/2 years is paying off.  Or it might just have been all that ping pong training I've been doing.  Either way, I feel good to have come out ahead today.

Like all good shakehanders I learned early on to use the Waldner style grip when serving fh.  The first coach I had didn't do anything with serving until many lessons in but when he did the first thing was "you hold the racket like this..."  Since most if not all shakehanders at a decent level nowadays use that grip I just copied it by default.

Several things lately have made me change my mind about it though.  For one thing I've become aware that I take too long to get into the ready position after service and part of that is I'm not able to change the grip quickly enough.  Second is this article by Greg Letts:

http://tabletennis.about.com/od/howtoserve/a/serving_grips.htm

He recommends the Waldner style grip only for players who can commit a lot of time to practicing it.  Since I only play twice a week, three if I'm really lucky, and practice serving maybe for 15 minutes/week I don't think I fall into this category.  Third is that there are top players (Schlager, Samsonov, Wang Nan) who either don't use the Waldner grip at all or use it only part of the time when serving forehand.

So a few weeks ago I decided to drop the Waldner grip and serve using the normal sh grip but with fingers a little looser around the handle.  At first of course it was uncomfortable and disorienting, as with anything that you change after several years, but in last week's RR at the Alameda club it was starting to feel ok.  I had to make some changes, for instance dropping the reverse pendulum (which I rarely used in matches anyway) and using fewer topspin serves since these have become more difficult to execute.  But overall as far as the serve goes I don't think it's made much of an impact on my game.  The larger change is that now I'm more ready for the 3rd ball, especially when it comes to my bh for some reason.  I'm kind of enjoying the comforting feeling this provides when serving since now I don't have to worry about changing my grip, I'm immediately ready for the 3rd ball as soon as I turn to face the table.  Well, as with everything, time will tell how this will work out.

I finally got a chance to hit with the Magellan last weekend.  Saturday for training at the Sunset TTC and Sunday for a RR at the Alameda club.  Short and sweet: hey I can feel the ball again!  Much slower than the strad, a bit slower than amadeus and vibrates more than both of them by a wide margin.  The vibration was not bad, good enough to feel the ball and to tell where on the blade and how solidly it was hit.  Control was good but not noticeably better than either of the other blades.  Flex was moderate, perhaps a bit more than amadeus.  Definitely not the most flexible blade I've ever used.  It felt a bit head light compared to the amadeus.

As for the rubbers, the vega pro side was definitely faster and spinnier than the pronte side.  Both sides were good for blocking and in the short game with the vega side marginally better at blocking and the pronte side at pushing.

Overall I feel mixed about it.  I liked the wide variety of feedback it gave me about the ball and the fact that it made an instant improvement in my short game.  When hitting the ball on the sweet spot I got a nice solid feeling and a good crack sound.  Off sweet spot however it felt weak and the feeling was less pleasant.  When I had time to get in position and take a good swing at the ball I could generate decent power and heavy topspin.  However halfhearted, off balance, or out of position shots tended to be weak.

In the RR on Sunday I felt like I played fairly well with it.  I was able to keep more balls on the table than usual and noticed that I was getting into longer rallies than normal.  I'm not sure that I actually won many of those longer points but it was pretty fun nonetheless.

Ray..... Div 3 Local league standard, has improved his average from 30% to 60%
Bob......Div3 Local league has the potential to be much higher, probably will move up a div next year. Bob has also qualified for the police force national finals and is training towards this event.

Joe.......Div2 local league, plays with the offbeat p/hold grip, if he can achieve a higher level of consistency, could make a decent div1 player.

Nigel....Div1 local league, an established top performer locally, looking for that little bit exrtra from his serves and structure, he is already an attractive player.

John....Div1 local league, a lefty flat hitter with good serves, John is looking to improve his short game and loop, he's also a top local guy, maybe trying to move on to more regional/national play.

Tony....Div2 local league, he is injured atm and not training hard.

I'm not looking for any more pupils at the moment, I'm eating in to my personal training time with the coaching and its a fine balance.

Next match after winning 3 last week was tonight. I only won 1/3 and whilst I am slightly disappointed with that I had a think about it and I'm happy with my progress this season.

In terms of averages, before Christmas I won 1 from 21, a poor 5%.

Since Christmas, I've won 5/12 for a more respectable 42%

Although this is no great shakes, I am happy with my current level of technical production and both tactical and mental aptitude.

Final note - hit my 2 best shots ever tonight although one in particular was gorgeous. Backhand loop from outside the LHS of the table, round the net and down the line. It wasn't just the placement and trajectory that pleased me, it was the weight transfer, coming into the ball, weight on the left leg and stroking it down the line. Gorgeous.