I flew to Los Angeles after the US Nationals 2009 was over. I visit Los Angeles every year to see my relatives, and this year also I followed that tradition.
I have been to most of the table tennis clubs in Los Angeles. This time I went to Grace Lin table tennis club in Everret, California. It is a 45 minutes drive from Los Angeles on I-15 towards east. It may take 1-2 hours during heavy traffic in evening.
I’m not coached by any Chinese coach except Wei Wang. She is a very experienced coach, writes regularly in USATT magazine. I focused on hitting during that coaching. She was happy with my looping.
Grace Lin is different in many ways. She has a more “win the game” attitude. She has developed many winning talents in America - her students won the 2009 Joola Team Championships. This is where I have found how Chinese think different when it comes to table tennis.
We focused on:
1. Hitting soft and short top spin balls on the forehand.
2. Returning very curvy top spin curving towards the long pips from the forehand side of me.
3. Returning tennis serves from the forehand side of the opponent to the body of me - both under and topspin.
4. Returning very spinny under spin serves from very high rated players. I have seen many such serves from Joe Cochran.
5. Blocking high curvy loops from opponents.
Though I can handle the above strokes my way, I want more variation. I focused more on doing the same close to the table.
Grace’s continuous training of feeling the ball while hitting was amazing. I learned an important lesson of where I can be successful in effectively executing all the strokes I do - chop, block, loop, hit.
I met friends I see regularly at tournaments. I played Albert Huang, David Lu’s dad.
Left to right : Chenyi Du, Hu Li, Wentao Zhu, Richard Lee, Jeff Huang, and coach Lin.
If you are planning to take classes from Grace Lin, you should do an advanced booking. More details of Grace Link table tennis club is available at Paddle Attack.
Sponsor Ad: TableTennisStore.US - 1000 XIOM, TSP, JOOLA, CHAMPION table tennis products!
