March 26, 2009
Junior Training at the MDTTC
MDTTC Junior Training
By: Tong Tong Gong
Its five o’clock on Friday, March thirteenth everybody’s breaking a sweat, ten minutes into Junior Training at MDTTC. Everywhere you look, juniors are working hard, sweat dripping off of their faces; either that or the air conditioner needs some serious fixing. Coach Cheng Yinghua yells out the next drill. Juniors who frequently come to the training at MDTTC are Nathan Hsu, John Hsu, Nathan Kung, Justin Kung, Raghu Nadmichettu (Note: Raghu is NOT a junior, he is a coach), Elissa Lin, Nina Zhen, Toby Kutler, Jackson Liang, Kian Mokhtari, Linan Liu, Coach Dong Xin Xin, and myself. Cheng Yinghua barks another drill, forehand loop. After one hour of practicing basic technique, Cheng, or Chen (as we call him) makes us play practice games with each other. The practice games help a lot. They allow you to apply what you just learned, for example, attacking first, new serve, not freaking out after you miss a loop, etc. They help improve your mental toughness. Though losing 2-3 may still be a tough thing to handle, you slowly start to get better at coping with it. During the games, Chen may still give us some pointers, move your feet faster, don’t stand far away from the table, and so on. And sometimes, on really rare occasions, we might play doubles or “World Champion”, a game of where everybody waits in line, then when it’s their turn, play three points, the person who wins two first, stays at the table while the loser is “eliminated”. This is sort unfair for the people who have to go first as they have to play a lot more than the people who go last.
Junior Training teaches you a lot of valuable lessons. Like when you play someone who’s extremely powerful, for example, Kian. He is extremely strong and his loops are even spinier. So how do you beat him? I’ve played him several times at Junior Training and the only way to beat him is to attack first. But, after you loop that push, you don’t keep on looping, you have to smash, if you don’t then count on having several bruises after Kian rips your loop and it somehow hits you in the arm. But then, there is also Nina, her style is like a fast attack style. After you loop the ball, and if the ball isn’t well placed, then you can count on losing the point, or by some miracle, win by an edge or net. Nina is able to counter smash anything, even loops. She usually can smash balls really well if they’re close to her, but if you loop strong, and spinny to where she isn’t, then you could probably force her to block your loop back gently so you can loop in a winner. You also must not allow her to get the first attack, otherwise she’ll be unstoppable. All of this adds to the importance of you attacking first and the placement of your shots, these two small factors play a big role in winning. These are only two examples of what we learn at Junior Training, if I tried to write all of the lessons we learned, you might as well be trying to read all of the Library of Congress.
MDTTC Junior Training
Chen is also like a philosopher in a way, he makes real life examples to help us understand why you have to do that stroke etc. For example, when he was teaching us about the importance of turning your waist when playing, he referred to boxing. When you try to hit someone, you don’t just hit him; you turn your waist, and use your body weight to apply as much force into the strike. Another example of one of Chen’s philosophical moments is when one of Chen’s students complained that the reason he lost was because his opponent got too many edges, 16 in all (no lie). Chen replied, “The ball is round, it doesn’t have edges or sides. What does it mean? Ping Pong is fair, if he gets an edge this time, then he’s lucky, you also have times when you’re lucky.”And with that Chen would usually laugh at your complaining and tell you to work hard.
Junior training is also a lot more fun than you would think it is. You’re surrounded by friends as you play, and its fun to see who’s better than whom. It’s a lot of hard work, and sometimes it can be very tiring, but it pays off.
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