Almighty Coach

Feng Zhu finished his father’s story, and finally, he talked about himself, "My grandfather and my father have rested their hopes of being in the National Team on me. When I was 3 years old, my grandfather started to train me to play ping-pong. To be honest, I can’t remember things clearly back at that time. I only remember that my grandfather emptied the living room and bought a ping-pong table especially for me, even though I was no taller than the table."

"Then, not only my grandfather, but my father also joined in to train me. I was never in kindergarten when I was a child. I was trained by my grandfather on weekdays, while my father trained me on weekends. My family spent a lot of money on my training. They bought nutrition supplements to help me get stronger, and engaged a coach to help my training. Almost all my father’s salary, and my grandfather’s pension, were spent on me."

"When I was 7 years old, I started to participate in ping-pong games between amateurs. When I was 8, I got my first achievement, the champion of our City Table Tennis Match Children Group. It did not take long before I was selected by City Sport Team. Then, was recruited to Provincial Youth Team. And later, when I was 14, I went to Provincial Sport Team."

"Soon after I joined in our provincial team, a national team coach came for selection. He gave me high praise. However, since I was only in this team for a short time, he didn’t take me to the National Team immediately. He let me stay here and practice for 1 or 2 years to accumulate more experience."

"From then on, I started training madly, and had an additional training day and night. I knew both my grandfather and my father were anxious for me to enter in the National Team. I didn’t want to let them down."

"When I was 16 years old, a National Team coach came here again. It was another coach who came specially for testing me. But in the end, I was not chosen by the National Team." Ending here, Feng Zhu showed a painful look on his face.

"Why?" asked Dai Li.

"The coach thought I lacked strength, and my techniques were outdated. I was really thin at that time, thin and short, and not strong." After a short pause, he went on, "What’s more, I learned my ping-pong techniques from my grandfather and my father. The techniques in their time was different from modern times."

Dai Li nodded to show his understanding. In the past decade, International Table Tennis Association had modified the competition rules repeatedly, and started to use new table tennis equipment. The major purpose was to restrict our National Team and break the monopoly on table tennis.

These changes had slowed down the speed of the ping-pong ball, which on the other hand, made it easier to play stalemate ball. Given an example of match ball, 38mm-diameter balls were used in the past, while 40mm-diameter balls were used in recent years. Although the diameter disparity was just 2mm, the ball speed slowed by 17%, and the rotation degree was cut by 23%, which made the previous playing style of fast and flexible become obsolete.

Almost all the world champions twenty years ago were the kind of players who had flexible bodies and fierce playing styles. The most popular style was like a fierce tiger, which gave the opponent a rush in 2-3 rounds and ended the fighting in 5-6 rounds. It was almost impossible to play stalemate ball!

Especially some short players were at a disadvantage on movement, because of their heights. They had to take two steps, while their opponents only took one. Therefore, these short players had to pursue fast and fierce playing techniques, so that they could gain the initiative and not be led by the nose.

Once they kept playing stalemate ball for a long time, or did not gain the initiative, their shortcomings would be amplified, which brought increasing probability of loss. However, it did not work to use the previous playing style. Modern table tennis not only needed techniques and flexibility, but also ample strength. Without strength, the ball would lack high-speed and rotation, then an attack would be not fierce enough. In this case, the opponent would catch the ball and launched counterattacks easily.

As for strength and rotation, the players who were tall with long arm spans certainly had advantages. That a big player would have more power, was a common view in the sports field. What’s more, based on the leverage principle, players who had longer arm spans led to a bigger ball rotation. So in recent years, there were no more short world champions.

Feng Zhu was not very tall. He was less than 1.7 meters, in fact. Among males, this didn’t matter 20 years ago, but now, it was definitely a disadvantage. The influence of height would not be obvious when players were teenagers, but the disadvantage would show up after they became adults.

That was what professional sports were supposed to be like. No matter what kind of sports, being outstanding when one was young was not real success. Many talented teenagers became ordinary and unknown after they became adults.

One of the important reasons for this was a change of their physical condition.

Youngsters engaged in sports didn’t need to be at high physical conditions, and there was no big gap between youngsters. But after they became adults, being too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, or having arms that were not long enough, legs that were too short, shoulders that were too broad, hands that were not big enough, etc, all those factors would be obstacles to progress.

Take basketball for example, it was almost impossible to be a professional basketball player if one’s height was only around 1.8 meters. But if one was 2.2 meters tall, basketball coaches would find one voluntarily, even if that guy could not play basketball at all.

Beyond that, Feng Zhu’s playing style was another problem. Feng Zhu was trained by his grandfather and father, whose techniques were popular in the last century. Of course, Feng Zhu, who was trained by them, hence, used obsolete techniques.

Pursuing speed and having fierce techniques were nothing wrong for teenage players, and Feng Zhu could easily win against all his peers. In fact, Feng Zhu became the star of hope by his techniques.

However, in the National Team coaches’ eyes, such techniques were out of date. At least, those skills could not survive in the National Team today.

There were too many table tennis talents in the country. Many teenagers’ techniques and experiences were worse than Feng Zhu, but they had better physical conditions. This gave them better potential. National Team coaches valued players’ potentials, rather than their current abilities.

Because there were too many talented players in the National Team, immediate force was sufficient. A lot of players, who stayed in the National Team for 7 or 8 years, hadn’t waited for the opportunity to become the major force, so how could Feng Zhu’s inconspicuous achievements catch those coaches’ attention?

Feng Zhu continued, "After the coach left, I started power exercises. I knew that, compared with those tall players, I didn’t have any advantage in strength. The only thing I could do was to work extremely hard. If others exercised for 1 hour, I exercised for 2 hours. On techniques, I started making adjustments, and began to use strenuous techniques."

"I heard it from Coach Ping Wang!" Dai Li thought back for a while, then continued, "Coach Ping Wang said that your strength was great, your serving speed was very high, and your rotation of the ball was powerful. In this respect, many tall players were no match for you. Therefore, you are the No.1 of our team!"

When Dai Li was speaking, he greatly admired Feng Zhu in his heart. Although Feng Zhu lacked physical talent, he made up for it with efforts. In the respect of power, he had to make a lot of efforts, so that he could fight against big players.

There is no doubt that Feng Zhu is very hard-working. But I can’t understand why such a diligent player bribed a coach in order to enter the National Team. Perhaps his obsession to enter in the National Team is too deep. Dai Li sighed in his heart.

By his side, Feng Zhu sighed, "I did obtain better strength, and changed my techniques. I had expected that I would be in the National Team by doing so. But two years ago, when National Team coaches came here for selection, I failed again."

"Why did you fail this time? You were 18 years old two years ago, which was not too old. It wasn’t your age, was it?" asked Dai Li.

"It was flexibility. The coach thought that my technical movements were too rigid. They deemed that I was not flexible enough, which would influence many difficult technical movements and the continuity of actions. But I didn’t have such problems in the past," answered Feng Zhu.

"Because of power exercises?" Dai Li asked at once.

Feng Zhu nodded, "The coaching staff analyzed it. My body flexibility declined because of overloaded power exercises."

Too much power exercising must lead to the decline of body flexibility. Perhaps there were many people who thought that, male gymnasts or divers who had many muscle groups, including eight abdominal muscles, could still make difficult technical movements. They were undoubtedly flexible. This had proved that muscle men could acquire high flexibility.

But in fact, those difficult technical movements were driven by power. Just like body varial in both gymnastics and diving, it was finished not by flexibility, but by great initial force and lumbar abdomen power in midair instead.

Overloaded exercising on muscles would decline the body’s controllability. Many muscle men in the NBA, who had amazing talents, had poor free throw performance. That was because of physical controllability. They had too many muscles and too much power, which affected their strength of free throwing.

Plus, due to some mental factors’ negative influences, they rarely threw accurately.

But on table tennis, flexibility was a necessity. From characteristics of ping-pong, it was a kind of a skillful sport. In professional contests, players had to make judgments within a few seconds, because of the high speed of the ball. And they had to switch fine stroke movements, which required flexible joints all over the athlete’s body, and high expansion of action range. To achieve this, one must have strong body flexibility.

From technical development of ping-pong, a small ball in the platform had been more and more important. If the player could handle the ball in the platform successfully, one would not lose the game, even if he couldn’t make trouble for his opponent. If one couldn’t handle the ball satisfyingly, one’s flaws would be exposed to, and seized by, his opponent.

To deal with in-platform balls, the player needed fine body flexibility. Body flexibility was closely related to players’ sensitivity, speed, strength and endurance, all of which were essential factors for playing ping-pong. Having fine body flexibility could help players make bigger ranges of actions, as well as aiding them in improving joint flexibility and muscle elasticity. Hence, athletes could move easier, while saving more efforts. Therefore, for ping-pong players, low flexibility would be a shortage, let alone no flexibility at all.

National Team coaches selected the best player out of merely good ones. There was a huge ping-pong talents reserve, so the national team didn’t worry about shortages of players. Even a tiny blemish would be a reason for rejection by National Team coaches.

Feng Zhu continued, "From then on, I had tried many exercises to improve my flexibility, but..."

"But the effect was not obvious, was it?" Dai Li interrupted him.

Feng Zhu nodded and agreed, "There was almost no effect. I was too old to practice flexibility, which was indeed a little late."

The lack of flexibility is indeed Feng Zhu’s current main shortage. Dai Li thought.

Dai Li had studied Feng Zhu before, and already knew his shortage. His training program also aimed at enhancing flexibility. But, to a 20-year-old adult player, it was hard to enhance body flexibility. Female gymnasts, who had fine flexibility, were at their best status when they were 14-16 years old. They should probably retire at 18. The main reason was that they couldn’t improve their flexibility anymore at that age, or even decline, no matter how many exercises they did.

So Dai Li continued, "During training these days, I think you have felt that my training program aims at improving your flexibility. For instance, things such as Kicking Training, which can help you with the flexibility of coxa. I also added Knee Joint Circling Training and Kneeing Foot Training."

Feng Zhu nodded, "I know those exercises can help me increase flexibility. I had been doing those exercises for a long time, but it didn’t work. If I can’t improve my flexibility, I would never be chosen by the National Team!"

"You can’t improve your flexibility, and can’t be selected by the National Team, so you decided to take the other side?" Dai Li said, pointing at the envelope in Feng Zhu’s hand with a bank card in it.

Feng Zhu lowered his head shamefully, "I am sorry, Coach Li. I was too eager to be in the National Team. It is a dream of three generations in my family!"

"But this is not the reason you take the other side!" Dai Li repeated those words, then he continued, "If you made efforts and tried your best, you were still an admirable player, even though you were not selected into the National Team. But you want to enter the National Team by a bribe, I would look down upon you, even if you made it!"

"I am really sorry, but I have no choice. What I have done was all for my grandfather!" Feng Zhu raised his head with a painful look. "My grandfather was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. I don’t know how long he can stay alive. But I’d hoped I could reach his desire in his lifetime, and I now hope he could go without regret!"