Sunday 27 March 2016

TableTennisDaily Podcast with the Legendary Waldner!

My good friends over at TableTennisDaily have been busy launching a series of new podcasts with some sensational players including the likes of Jorgen Persson and Marcos Freitas among others. The latest and greatest is the #11 in the podcast series with the Mozart of Table Tennis, Sweden's Jan-Ove Waldner!

I settled in and listened to the interview which totals 40 minutes of great questions and interesting responses from the grand slam champion. Definitely not one to miss, check it out below and visit
http://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/podcast/ to see the growing collection of superb interviews!



Friday 25 March 2016

The Best Physical Training Exercises for Developing Table Tennis Footwork

Footwork drills on the table are one part of developing as a player but there is a lot of physical training which goes into developing as a great player. I was asked by Javier Chong what physical training drills he can use with the players he coaches to improve their physical ability for footwork. This presented the perfect opportunity to write a new blog! Please be sure to ask any questions you have to keep the content flowing! :)

Be sure to check out all the content for helping improve your table tennis at The Coaching Blog.

The Master of Footwork Ryu Seung Min

Thursday 24 March 2016

How to Improve Your Table Tennis with MHTableTennis

I have been running my blog since July 2011 and it has more recently started to transform and become more directed in terms of content. As I have transitioned more towards a coaching career I have started writing a little more about elements of the game and learning resources than previously where I conducted more interviews and covered international events. So how can you make the most out of my blog? Well here are some helpful pieces of advice if you are looking for tips on improving your table tennis.

Head to the Coaching Blog:

One of the major updates I have made in the last couple of months is to consolidate all of my 'coaching' style articles into one section of the blog and created links between articles so you can browse across a wider range of topics. This can be found by using the 'coaching blog' tab at the top of the blog or by heading there via this link - Coaching Blog

Get the most out of MHTableTennis with these tips!

Wednesday 23 March 2016

The Ultimatum in Table Tennis Service Receive: Shut Down or Initiate

After the World Championships in Malaysia it became increasingly more obvious that the long push has a very limited role in the game of table tennis in this generation. There are really two key priorities on serve receive, shut down the opponents attack or initiate. This has come down to two key shots, the banana flick and the dropshot short push. The banana flick is an area I have been less confident in since the introduction of the plastic ball as it has been harder to generate acceleration over a short space. It is definitely an area I will be training hard on in the coming months to improve my serve receive.

Be sure to check out more for tips and advice on improving your table tennis at The Coaching Blog.

Zhang Jike and his iconic banana flick

Tuesday 22 March 2016

The Most Popular Table Tennis Footwork Drills Among Professional Players!

Around the time of the World Table Tennis Championships I pondered on what the most popular drills among professional players were, more specificially what drills they liked to repeat the most to improve their footwork. I decided to ask a few players what their favourite footwork drill is and why they think it is the best one that we should all be practicing! Here are their answers :)

What are the professionals' favourite footwork drills?

Monday 21 March 2016

What I Learnt From Playing My First Table Tennis World Championships

You'll notice things went pretty quiet after the end of the 2016 Perfect World Table Tennis Championships and there will be a blog post about that soon. Now that I have time (more of it than I would like) I felt like it was time to reflect on my trip to my first World Championships. There were some things which were great, some things which I didn't particularly like and some things that I learnt.

Let's start off with the things I experienced which were great. This was a prime opportunity to catch up and meet with a lot of players I had started becoming acquainted with in the past couple of years. I took some time out to catch up with Werner Schlager who I hadn't seen since 2013. I also met up with Petr Korbel just before he left, the fighter Jean Michel Saive and spent some time with the very humble Vladimir Samsonov and Jorgen Persson who I had hung out with last year in Chengdu at the China Open. Being immersed among these professional players is a very valuable experience if you make the most of it.

The 2016 Perfect World Table Tennis Championships, Malaysia