We all have periods when we feel our progress has stalled or our form has dipped. This is entirely normal. I often remind the players I coach (and myself), that improvement doesn’t take place in a straight line. In reality you will experience lots of ups and downs, but gradually moving in the right direction. In this blog post, I look at what can cause a dip in form and what you can do about it. Keep reading
Any adult who has played competitive table tennis at any level has faced the unnerving and unglorified challenge of trying to beat a junior player. And not just any junior player. A junior who has been coached. A junior who has good technique and some great shots. A junior who plays without fear. It’s a difficult situation. There is no glory in beating a junior, but if you don’t try your best, you can easily get beat. In this blog post, I’ll give you some tactics on how to beat a good junior player. Keep reading
Most players I coach have at some point had to listen to my dreaded table tennis car analogy. I usually reel it out when a player is having difficulty learning a new stroke. The player says something like “it’s difficult to think about what I need to do and watch what you’re doing at the same time”. Ding! This is my cue. It’s time for my table tennis car analogy. For your benefit, here it is… Keep reading
All of the time I’ve been coaching, there has been one problem I’ve been asked about more than any other. The problem? How to return a sidespin serve. In this blog post I will explain what I think is the easiest way of returning a sidespin serve. I have also created a video which demonstrates what to do, and what not to do. Keep reading
One of the challenges of local league table tennis is that you often don’t get very much time to warm-up. By the time you get to the venue, you may only have five minutes to warm-up with your team-mates, and then it’s straight on with the matches. Your first match isn’t great. You’re a bit tight and tense and you don’t play anywhere near your best level. You moan to yourself about the fact that you haven’t had a proper warm-up. What can you do about this? In this blog post I explain how you can improve your warm-up routine, even if you only have a few minutes to warm-up. Keep reading
Here’s something fun for you to try. Ryan Jenkins, a Welsh international table tennis player, has set a challenge. You have to do a backspin serve which bounces once on the server’s side, once on the receiver’s side and then bounces back over the net to the server’s side again. You get five attempts. Every time you do a successful serve, Ryan will donate £1 to Pink Pong. Ryan got 3 out of 5. Will I get more? Keep reading
One of the most popular table tennis bats for beginners is the Palio Expert 2. As there is a lot of interest in this bat, I thought I would write a review. I also have a Palio Expert 2 table tennis bat, which I sometimes use in coaching sessions with beginners. As I’ve had many hours of playing time with the bat, I feel well placed to give my expert view. Here’s my review… Keep reading
What is the best table tennis serve you can do? A serve which is guaranteed to win you a point against any opponent. A serve which is unreadable. A serve which is unreturnable. Does such a serve exist? Read on to find out… Keep reading
It’s quiz time! How good is your table tennis knowledge? I have 20 questions about table tennis during 2016. Each question has four possible answers for you to choose from. If you don’t know the answer, just have a guess. You have 1 in 4 chance of getting it right! At the end of the quiz you can compare your score to others and you can even add your score to the quiz leader-board. Keep reading
Over the past two years, I’ve given over 1,000 hours of 1-to-1 table tennis coaching lessons. That’s a lot of coaching. Even though every session is focused entirely on the needs of the player I’m coaching, I’m also constantly learning. Learning how to be a better coach. Learning how to improve my instruction and drills. Learning more about table tennis. Since I’ve reached a 1,000 hour coaching milestone, I thought it would be useful to share some of the lessons I have learnt over the past couple of years. Keep reading