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Photo by Coach Siniša Borko
Dragojlović ©2005 |
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36 table tennis coaches from 20 U.S. states participated in the USATT Coaching Seminar held at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO, Feb. 11-13. Organizing and running the seminar were USATT Coaching Chair John Allen, USATT Technical Director Ben Grigore, and U.S. Men’s Coach Dan Seemiller.
John opened the seminar on Friday night with introductions and a discussion of a wide range of topics of interest to coaches. Included were the coaching certification standards, the purpose of the seminar, and a range of other topics which John and Ben went over, mostly involving organizational or planning issues.
Dan and Ben next led the group in discussion of advanced technique, highlighted by videotape analysis of matches from the 2003 Worlds. Matches analyzed were Kreanga vs. Keen, Kong vs. Oh, Schlager vs. Wang Liqin, Kreanga vs. Samsonov, Ma vs. Joo, and Schlager vs. Kong. Dan gave almost point-by-point analysis of the many of the games, including what the player was thinking and trying to do.
Dan pointed out a number of new or relatively new techniques, many of which are now being copied worldwide. Some of these included new forehand serves where players hide which sidespin is being used right up until contact (best at this: Schlager and Wang Liqin, also Kreanga); better and better over-the-table backhand topspins (best at this: Schlager, Wang Liqin, Kong, Oh, also penholder Wang Hao although we didn’t see tapes of him); and the near absence of blocking – nearly everything’s a counterloop (best at this: Kreanga, Wang Liqin, Schlager).
On Saturday morning, Sports Psychologist Peter Haberl gave a talk on the mental side of sports, with a focus on table tennis. (He’d prepared by watching numerous tapes.) There’s just too much covered to go over here, but a few good quotes: “Tell athletes what to do, not what not to do”; “Fake it til you make it” (from Mohammed Ali), meaning if you aren’t confident, pretend and pretty soon you’ll convince yourself; and probably the seminar’s favorite, roughly: “Ratings are an illusion; they are unavoidable, but you can find a way to put expectations aside and use the ratings to your advantage.” One important technique he went over was how to get your concentration back when you’ve lost it – reader, has this happened to you? It’s the three Rs – Release, Relax and Refocus. (Release means to just blank your mind out; the other two are self-explanatory.)
The highlight of the sports psychology meeting was when Peter pulled out a puppet with boxing gloved arms, and proceeded to have it smack him in the face over and over while saying things like, “You can’t win. He’s too good. I’m going to look silly.” It was, of course, a demonstration of the negative inner talk that athletes often face and have to learn to avoid.
Sports Physiologist Karen Daigle then spoke to us about muscles and how they get energy. Table tennis is a unique sport in that it requires high levels of both aerobic and anaerobic work, and so we were given a primer on (brace yourself!) ATP/CP (immediate energy), glycolysis (short-term energy), and oxidation (long-term energy). She then gave a long talk and answered numerous questions about sports nutrition and hydration. She too had prepared by watching tapes of matches from elite tournaments. Probably her top two recommendations were to plan ahead and bring healthy things to eat and drink to tournaments, and to make sure to drink a few sips every six points whenever you play.
That afternoon and night we left the meeting room we’d been in and went to one of the Olympic gyms, where seven tables had been set up for us. Dan and Ben led us through lectures and demonstrations on topics such as advanced footwork, serves and receive. Dan ran us through a rapid-fire version of the clinics he’s been running since the mid-1970s. Ben and Dan had two long sessions on multiball training, one in the afternoon, one at night. Poor Dennis Davis, past USATT Coaching Chair. He’s no longer in the best of shape but still has nice strokes, and he became a practice dummy, and very quickly an exhausted one, in part due to the very thin air at 6000 feet altitude.
On Sunday, Adrian Roberts of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) gave a presentation on the current drug testing status, and what elite athletes go through in drug testing. The rest of the morning Dan and Ben gave talks on footwork and balance, and various technical issues such as the importance of the free hand, forehand serving with sidespin both ways, looping with sidespin both ways, various return of serve methods, varying spin, and the short game.
Then the coaches were organized into six groups of about five each, and each group created some aspect of a training program for a “player profile” assigned by John to each group. The seminar then ended with an open question session.
Coaches and clubs are the backbone of advancing table tennis in this country, and while we have a long way to go, seminars such as these can be those first steps in that thousand-mile journey.
For info on USATT coaching, see the USATT coaching page at www.usatt.org/coaching. It includes various coaching news such as future seminars (there will be another at the U.S. Open and in the fall, not yet scheduled yet), links to coaching lists, and many other links of interest to coaches.
Coaches who participated included Boanerges Amon, FL; Ed Ball, CA; Abraham Blattstein, AZ; Houshang Bozorzadeh, IA; Dennis Davis, CA; Sinisa Drajgolovic, CA; Doru Gheorghe, CO; Walt Gomes, AZ; Alan Grambo, IN; Jerry Han, TX; Richard Hernandez, CA; Eddie Hodges, MO; Larry Hodges, MD; David Huggins, CO; Dana Jeffries CO; George Kent, KY; Roland Massoth, NM; Richard McAfee, CO; Cliff Metzger, KS; Mike Mui, CO; Ray Pestride, OK; Scott Preiss, CO; Jef Savage, PA; Steve Slaback, OH; Duke Stogner, AL; Mike Sturtevant, CA; Yang Sung, WA; Stanley Talifero, GA; Bob Tretheway, CO; Lewis Wei, CA; Len Winkler, AZ; Tom Wintrich, NM; Ben Wolski, PA; and Doon Wong, NY.
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