I’m at the JOOLA North American Teams Tournament in Washington, and I had a revelation today. I was playing a match against a higher rated player, the top on the opposing team. This is a “teams tournament” where you send out three players to play each of the opposing team’s three players, making nine individual …
Category Archives: Coaching
Writing Out a Game Plan for Improvement
All serious table tennis players should set long term goals. Having a goal ensures that you keep making steady progress and spend your practice time effectively instead of stagnating as you practice aimlessly.
12 Drills That I Use
To dramatically pick up your game, you need a solid routine of various types of drills. Here are the drills that I personally use on a daily basis.
What I Do When I’m Losing
I’m playing a very important match in a tournament. I am losing 0-2 in games and now losing 0-5 in the third game. What should I do?
Being an Effective Coach at Tournaments
Encouraging and coaching fellow club members at tournaments is one of the best aspects of a competition. In this article, I’m going to outline how to coach another player between games.
Perfecting Your Serve
Serves are the only part of the game where you have full control. You can dictate how the rally will develop by having a serve strategy and executing on it, so focus on this part of your game. Committing considerable time to this craft can be the fastest way to progress. In this article, I will …
Active Blocking
Most players label topspin shots into several categories such as: loop, block, or smash. However, modern attacking players have developed an offensive block called an active block. Active blocking is a combination of a block, loop, and counterloop. It is best used off-the-bounce against a slow to medium speed loop.
Who’s the Coach?
My full-time job is coaching students aged 5-75. Regardless of age, I expect each of my students to listen to my coaching as I give them advice point-by-point and apply what I am teaching them during each coaching session. During a coaching session, I am in charge; my student’s job is to listen to my …
Breakfast of Champions
From Asia to Africa to Europe, there are thousands of professional table tennis athletes who are aspiring to be the next World Champion. One of the key elements to reaching the top is consistent training six hours per day. Most top players wake up, eat breakfast, train three hours, eat lunch, rest, then train three …
The “First Strike” Principle
Seventy-five percent of the time, whoever attacks first wins the point (this statistic applies to two offensive players in competition). One of the questions players most frequently ask me is, “Samson, how can I attack first?” Here are four tips for the beginning player on how to initiate the attack.