During the first lesson with a new student, I often ask the following question,
“Which areas of your game are you trying to improve long term and what measures are you taking to improve those areas?” 
They usually respond with a short reply like…
“I’m working on losing this fat belly.”
Or
“I’m just trying to perfect my forehand, that’s all I care about.”
Or
“I just want a serve that no one can return.”
Usually their answers are very short and not detailed.  They want to improve, but don’t have a plan.
 

McAfee’s Mechanics
Mastering Blocks
By: Richard McAfee, Joola Sponsored Coach and USATT Hall of Fame Inductee
While not as flashy as topspin attacks and kills, few strokes are more important to your success as a player than the often under-appreciated block stroke.  The basic “control” block is one of the very first strokes that all players learn and then unfortunately, many players stop developing and improving this core technique. 

Change-Up
Written by Coach Rich Burnside

Too Happy or Too Sad?
 
 
Say you are winning 2-0 in a match, or 10-5. You could be pretty relaxed and thinking about the next game. Another scenario is when you are down 7-3 and thinking about how you can’t win against your opponent or thinking that he is too good. This article will address both of these scenarios and how you can focus during the match.

The moment is here. The moment to prove that all of your hard work has paid off. I will give some tips on the things to do in the tournament which may help.

1. Arrive an hour early
It is important to arrive early so that you can become accustomed to all the aspects of the playing site. These aspects include the lighting and the floor. Also, it is necessary to warm up your strokes. Your 1st match should be treated like your last match, and therefore, you have to be ready.

When looping, where should I place the ball?
Most players would answer by saying that there are 3 main locations that you should be aiming your loop at:  wide backhand, wide forehand, and at the elbow (the backhand/forehand transition point).  This is the correct answer.  In this blog, I’m going to detail when you should loop to each location for a righty playing against a righty:
 
#1 Wide Forehand

I have attended many tournaments over the past 17 years and have heard many coaches give advice to their students.  In this article, I’m going to quote some coaches and tell you what they advised their students between games.  Before reading my comment below, you decide for yourself if the advice is good or bad…
 
The score was 9-9 in the final game, the coach called timeout and told his student, “Do the right thing.”
 

 
This year, set some high goals in table tennis and work consistently to reach these goals.  Look ahead to the competition 200-rating points ahead of you and think about your previous matches against them in tournaments.  What shots worked?  What shots didn’t work?  Did you need to alter your strategy?
 

Here in the Midwest, the Seemiller grip is fairly common among older players.  There are 3 different versions of the grip, but we won’t go into the details about the grip itself.  We will look more closely at the strategy against these players.