OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hello all

For those of you who live in Adelaide, South Australia and are keen on improving your table tennis skills and knowledge, I am looking for new players to start coaching. You can be of any standard, as I am passionate about helping people reach their goals and maximising their potential.

Below are some facts that will hopefully give my advertisment some credibility:
- Currently I am an accredited table tennis coach.
- I am in the Table Tennis Australia National Squad 2007/2008.
- I have played for South Australia from 2000-present.
- I played league in Germany 2006-2007.
- I played leage in China 2007.

My rates are extremely competitive!!!

If you have any questios or would be interested in giving your game a boost, please feel free to respond to this posting.

G'day mate

I have only coached 1 person previously that used long pimple rubber. Although I personally have never played with long pimples, I have had a lot of practice and training playing against it so I understand how and why it does what it does.

Therefore, I assume that I could teach someone how to use long pimple rubber, preferably as a defender, but also with some attacking options. It would definately be a learning experience for myself also!!!

Cheers.

Hey guys!

I know forehandflick personally from a long time ago, and can assure you his claims and achievements are legit (in anonymous forums people always wonder ).

If you're after some coaching I would highly recommend him, it's hard to come by a coach with that sort of experience under their belt!

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
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Hey forehandflick, it would be great if you can share with us a few things you picked up, while you played in the overseas leagues?

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Reading the first post it’s probable that forehandflick is really WH or SH. After a quick bit of checking I'd be surprised if it’s not SH. Anyway if you live in SA and are looking for coaching I’d suggest you seek out forehandflick; I would if I lived there.

I can recommend using National Team or Ex National Team members as Coaches. I use three of them every week and they are indeed excellent value for money…just consider what you’d be charged to be coached by an Australian Tennis equivalent such as Leyton Hewitt! And you definitely don’t have to be a top player to be coached by them…I am not.

Yes I agree. No sure how many here are from Adelaide...we also seem to get a lot of guest member here who have not registered...
I think coaches need all the support we can give them, since there's not enough of them around... This is one of the problems that's halting the growth of our sport....

PS If you ask him I'm sure he'll tell you who he is, it' not a big secret...

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Hi Haggisv

Thanks for the post about wanting to know about my league experiences overseas. Sorry I haven't had time to reply up until now, I have been pretty flat out preparing for the Australian Championships, and also it is the business end of the university semester.

I played League in Germany in the 2006-2007 season. I played in Leipzig in what was the old East Germany. This was a rewarding experience but of course there were a few ups and downs. It was excellent to be able to play in a competition where every club is fighting to get promoted to a higher league, and also fighting to avoid relegation. The quality of players across the board is very impressive. There were many players who played in my league that were from Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania and other Eastern European countries. In every German league except for 1st league, teams consist of 6 players with every player getting 2 singles and 1 doubles match each week. Matches are played most weekends, with some odd breaks here and there when major international competitions on. The other bonus about playing in Germany is that all the European countries are only a 'stone throw' away. This enabled me to play in numerous ITTF Pro Tours including the German Open, Polish Open, Croatian Open, and Slovenian Open. I also played other non-ITTF Pro Tour events such as the Finland Open and the London Open. This international experience is fantastic and a real eye opener and I managed to pull out some fairly respectable victories, especially at the Finland Open.

Well, I guess I should say about the negatives also. There is a lot of down time in between training and matches. When you are in a foreign country surrounded by a new club, new friends, new coaches, and together with somewhat of a language barrier things can become pretty harsh from time to time. Even though the people whom you are surrounded with are friendly and nice, it is just not the same as home. It is usual for you to feel more and more excitment as it gets closer to League match time, but immediately after the match is finished, particularly if you have a bad result, it is probably the worst time. There is a whole week of hard training to go before you can do primarily what you have gone there for and this can get you down. Another downer that is unavoidable is the harsh European winters. In comparison to Australian winters, I nearly froze to death over there, and for the first time in my life I actually bought a pair of gloves!!! The lack of day light hours also left me feeling quite fatigued also.

But even though there are some negatives, I am very gald I took the opportunity to play League in Germany and I would recommend it to anyone else.

Also, for those who were interested in who I am, I am Scott Houston. Forehandflick is just my 'table tennis cyber name'.

Stay tuned for a recount of my League experiences from China!

Train hard,
Forehandflick.

That's great Scott, thanks a lot!

I'm sure you can apply a lot of these experiences to your coaching, so your pupils can get some of the benefits too.

I look forward to your China experiences... I bet that was an even bigger eye opener!

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Hi forehandflick,

Good to hear from you in this forum, but it is unfortunate for me that you're in Adelaide (me in Brisbane).

However, I know a couple of kids here who are switched on and thinking of going Pro in TT.

Of course there's not much of a Pro league here in Australia so I guess if they are really serious about it, they would have to go overseas.

What's your take on it? Do we really need to send young talents overseas?

Cheers

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Hi Gundam

This is an interesting topic.

I agree that going overseas to play is a very good option and it can help you develop your game a lot. However, it must be realised that it is not the be all and end all.

Personally, I would recommend that you develop your skills in Australia until you get to the stage where you are around the mark in the Australian senior ranks, and then go overseas to fine tune what you already have. If you go overseas before this level, you risk getting paid very little attention by the coaches as your level would not be up to standard. This may sound harsh, but it is very much a reality in many many places.

Also, going overseas before your goals and dreams are clearly defined can actually have a negative impact. Once you see the ridiculuos amount of top notch players that are in Europe and Asia, you quickly realise that you are in fact a very small fish in an extremely large ocean. For many players, (and I have seen it happen on numerous occasions) they go overseas and realise just how much work is required to be competitive internationally, and they think it is simply too hard so they come back to Australia and drop out of the game.

What has worked well for me was that I had good quality training against similar standard players and we helped each other improve. I also regularly travelled interstate to Melbourne and Brisbane to play tournaments each year against the other states best players. I did this for around 5 years before I went overseas to train. This gave me a good base to work with once I went away. I went to China twice simply for training and this further helped me improve. Then just last year for the first time I went to Europe to play league in Germany and I have since played league in China also. Doing a lot of training first combined with a lot of tournaments in Australia helped me adapt to the tough match conditions in Germany.

So to answer your question, going oversedas is beneficial, but I recommend you have to put in the hard yards for a few years in Australia before you can gain this benefit. Also, it must be noted that going overseas is definately not a quick way to become a good Australian player, it will simply give you a better chance to move up the ranks when playing in Australia and overseas.

Cheers,
Forehandflick.

Hello Forehandfllick,

Ballarat Club sponsors a coaching night every Wednesday and club members can come in and the fee is about $2.00. The club pays the coach basically. The thing is, the emphasis of the coach is mostly on the young players (I can understand that as they are the future of table tennis).

But for us "older" players there is always room for improvement and what I would like to see is a training camp for older players who would like to see their game improved.

If you can come up with a training camp for 1 week or so that caters to such population and make it a yearly event, this would be a good thing.

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