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Can the US Catch China in Table Tennis? |
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Written by Scott Preiss
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As optimistic a person as I am, I think not. It is not because Americans do not have the athletic ability, nor is it because of the lack of great facilities we have in our country, it has to do with the numbers game.
I have trained in Shanghai on several occasions and what I see is mind-boggling. There are about 30 ten year olds at this training facility in Shanghai alone that can beat half of the membership to our USA Table Tennis Association.
The Ju Lu training school in Shanghai is an elementary school that has a table tennis training school attached. The children attend regular school and also train four hours a day with table tennis. This particular facility was built by a Hong Kong business -man and is maintained by the Chinese Government.
Although this is one of the top elementary table tennis training schools in all of China, it is still only one of 10 like it in the city of Shanghai.
My two boys Adam and Austin trained last summer at this school for two months, five days a week four hours a day. In just 7 days of training their improvement was remarkable, and they had already adapted to this intense training already. Training is two to three hours a day doing multi-ball training and one to two hours are devoted to match play and serve and return play.
During the day children aged 6-13 years of age come into the training school for training. All of them get individual training with the top coaches. Some of the coaches just train the 6 and 7 year olds, and other coaches coach the older players. The coaches are meticulous in analyzing even the strokes of the 6 year olds. They do however leave a little more time for the children to enjoy themselves than the older children. For the 9 and 10 year olds, it is strictly serious business. What I do feel that it is important is for children to be with children. The camaraderie is so important in keeping the children motivated. In retrospect, in the United States it is more than common for young players to always be playing adults because of the lack of young players.
I myself trained with the 10 year olds and was overwhelmed by the aggressive play of these young players. Be a little passive with your shots and you will get blown away. And if you are not careful to watch these young players serve, the ball will fly all over the place when you try and return their serves.
The boys seem to outnumber the girls maybe 2-1, but don’t let that fool you, just take a look at who the World Women’s Champions have been for the past 20 years.
For the United States to have any chance at all in catching up with these great players we have to change our infrastructure for training. Most important I think the US needs to have full time training facilities where the young players can go to school and have the training environment at the school. Something similar to the resident training program that the US Olympic Training Center hosted years ago.
I must mention too that almost all of the children that are invited to train at the Ju Lu training school are excellent students. If a child is not keeping up with his or her studies it is simply not tolerated. There are hundreds of students waiting for the chance to fill in any vacant positions at the school.
So if you think your working hard at your game you better work harder. When I return to Shanghai this May with my son Austin we will continue to try and catch China in table tennis.
Scott Preiss
US National Coach and Trainer |
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