World Class Fun

World Class Fun by Samson Dubina It usually takes about 10-20 years for an athlete to reach a world-class level. Most kids get burned out after 2-3 years and never reach their peak potential. If you want your child or your student to become the best, then focus on having fun. If they enjoy the sport, if they are excited to play, then they will want to focus, want to work hard, want to put in extra training hours, and want to compete in tournaments. Instead of forcing your five-year-old to be the best in the country, focus on having fun. If your child enjoys the sport, gets the right coaching, trains regularly, and works from age 5 to 25, for sure your child has a chance at becoming a world class player. Here in the United States we often want everything IMMEDIATELY! We want extremely fast internet because we don’t have the patience to wait 10 seconds, we want to get through Wendy’s drive-through in 2 min because we don’t have 5 min to spare, we want our Amazon package to arrive the same day because we can’t wait until tomorrow for our new toy. This mindset is bad as it relates to teaching your young child to play… Really really bad. Instead of yelling and screaming because he can’t perfect the forehand loop in 1 day, you should take a long-term approach. Here is what you should do… 5 Year Old Have fun for 1 year, keep your training session very short…….like 10-15 min, or even shorter 6-8 Year Old Have fun 50% of the time, keep your training sessions to 30-60 min Keep the sessions interactive with other kids 9-12 Year Old Have fun 20% and be serious 80%, keep your training sessions to less than 2 hours Structure an actual training program including drills and match play with other kids Allow the player to enter tournaments 13-14 Year Old Have fun 10% and be serious 90%, begin intense training sessions Develop a great communication level with the player talking often about goal-setting for the future Consider playing some international competitions At 14, the player already has 9 years of experience. If you push your 5 or 6 or 7 year old too hard, they will despise it and quit. If you have a 20-year approach, then forcing them today or this week isn’t a huge problem. Additional Tips:

1. Implement doubles! Table tennis is often a lonely sport with 1 player out there battling another player. Implementing a team spirit makes is fun and interactive, especially for young kids!
2. Keep the drills short. With a short attention span, kids often get bored of 1 drill. Instead of doing 15 min drills, consider 5 min drills.
3. Have a goal for each drill, this goal with vary from player to player. Verbally express the goal before the drill begins, through the drill, and work toward success.
4. Give recognition! TT kids need to be recognized even for small successes – hitting 10 forehands in a row, winning their first match, earning a 4th place trophy in the u500 division, etc… Praise and recognition go a long way!

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Samson uses the Nittaku Acoustic Carbon Large Grip Blade (Recent Change!) with Nittaku FastArc G1 rubber on both sides along with Nittaku 3- StarPremium 40+ balls.

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