OOAK Table Tennis Forum

10 hours supervised, 20 hours non-supervised.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

A real breakthrough last night with MP. She knows what to do with her backhand and does the air swings pretty well until that pesky ball comes along. For the first time I introduced the wrist to her backhand where previously we had it a bit locked so to limit her movements as I was thinking less movement, less can go wrong, especially at first, but now she's making decent contact, just the technique could be improved. Previously there were lots of clean misses so I wanted to keep it simple. Then I fed her one ball at a time and before each one, reminded her what she needed to do by saying 'finish high' or 'arm up' or that kind of thing. Result was that she did really well, even someone on the next table took note of how good she looked to be hitting them. We are still talking our bottom grade standard, but now looking forward to our next session and the start of the new competition next week to see if she's made any ground. My initial aim was to bring her up to the standard of her two team mates so will see how she goes.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

Wow, cant' believe its nearly 8 months since I gave an update here.
Since I last reported, I achieve my required amount of hours of supervised and unsupervised. During the April/May period I was quite busy getting my hours up with MP and also various other C and B graders. We were lucky enough to have a level 2 coach come down 450km from Adelaide for work and we jointly were able to put on a free clinic for the members. To get enough hours I also had to travel interstate 200km to do a session with a joint coach over there.

My certificate of accreditation came through on the 17th of June. I was quite drained after doing all the hours in a short time and often at the expense of my own development. For this reason I decided not to take up any coaching in an official capacity immediately such as regular Saturday mornings or paid individuals but am open to this later. Having a baby a few months ago also put a bit of a halt on things time wise and the time I do have, I'd rather spend playing or trying to improve my own game.

Having said that, I'm happy to help people when asked and on practice nights am happy to give up a bit of my time for free to help out the lower players and this was a big part of my motivation. Before I also liked to do it but now I've at least got a certificate behind me to say I CAN do it. Unfortunately my original subject MP is no longer coming out to training for various reasons. She'll be back though and her adult son has just started who seems quite keen.

Another thing I'm doing at the moment and really enjoying is trying to help a fellow player who is at the same level as me, to improve. His technique is quite flawed by his tennis background but has a good eye and what he does well, he does well enough to be a better player at our club (he's rated roughly 1100 US). Because he's a forty something in age, these bad habits are very hard to break but I think on Monday we really made some solid headway. Funny thing is that last time we playing in comp night I beat him in 5 games and I'm basically teaching him to beat me and this week I play him again. I guess in a way, I can't lose. I either win as a player or a coach. I really believe that if we can tidy up a bit of his play then he can make big advancements and be very competitive with those couple of players at the club just out of reach. He's not a competitive guy like me but keen to work at it over the summer to have a good crack at it in the winter season. I hope next time I report we've made progress.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm