What kind of feeling you will have when you see a man, whom you have seen over and over on TV for many years, enters your room and also close to you and you can hand shake with him - butterfly in the stomach?
I have been watching Chen Weixing’s tournament videos – plenty of them - from the year 2006. At that time, he was world top 10. He is ranked 30 now, has not played in International tournaments for a while, primarily because of his knee surgery. He is a cool guy, a family man with two lovely kids.
It is a life time opportunity to receive some table tennis training in the United States from coaches who know the modern table tennis game. Few months back, I've decided to travel Hungary to be trained by Farzai who was Chen Weixing's coach for a while. Then came this goldern opportunity when Mike at Joola USA called me up and told me that Chen will be here in June for a camp. Dream came true!
I was so much amazed at how Richard and his team at the Joola USA are raising the bar of table tennis popularity in the United States. The guys surrounding Richard at the Joola Club in Rockville, MD are awesome – they are friendly and helpful.
About the Camp:
I have been to Dan Seemiller camp in Indiana last year. There were some 25 people at the camp – from beginners to experts. The Joola Camp is different. The Joola Camp has advanced to expert level players who focus on improving their strokes – not too many as other camps have. The camp is supervised by Chen Weixing and Tania Hoffman.
The camp started with 20 minutes warm up and stretching. I was in Tania Hoffman’s group on the first day. She is such a lovely lady with a lot of charm. She speaks English very well, so I had no problem in communicating with her. She listens to you with a lot of attention. In the morning session, she has found out many errors in my forehand loop. She helped me to fix it. I was struggling with looping “no spin” ball and she helped me how to loop such balls. She has helped me in the areas of pushes and short chops.
Break:
During the break after the morning session, Richard took us all to a Chinese Buffet. Except in Las Vegas, I have not seen such a large buffet. My favorite was a fish which I have not eaten for years. I don’t know what to call it but tasted the same as I had in India.
Afternoon:
I have had tough time in the first 20 minutes warm up session in the afternoon section - after a stomach full buffet. At this age and with my weight, it was really a problem. But I love to do such warm ups because it gives you great mobility while practicing as well as keep you free from injuries. The afternoon session started with many drills Tania planned for some of us.
Chen Weixing brought his team members to me as well as to another friend who was also a modern defensive player like me in the camp. Chen Weixing carefully watched all my backhand chops. He has found some errors and immediately asked to fix it.
Chen is very serious about winning strokes, so he immediately jumps in when you make a mistake. He communicates to you very well. He speaks English well. He will show strokes and asks the participants to repeat it. I have watched him helping other boys and working them so hard.
After a while, Chen put a toughest player against me – a 2400 rated boy. The boy did the third ball attack – he serves, I chop and he attacks deadly. I have found it hard to back up and chop his attacks because the boy is lightning fast. At that time Chen came to me and showed me how to handle such shots when you don’t have time to chop because the defense rally has not started.
What a day! After the afternoon session, Chen took all the members to a warm up session again.
While I was leaving the club, I saw Chen healing his knee with ice. I chatted with him for a while about his match against Kalinikos Kreanga at the Dunlop Masters which took place like few months ago. I asked him about his current ranking which is 30. Chen is hopeful that he would get back to world top 10 after he gets well which may be few more months.
Chen Weixing as well as Tania Hoffman will be playing at the US Open 2008 - a great opportunity to watch the world top players.
Kudos to Richard’s team at Joola USA.