MULTIBALL
One of the problems of teaching
young beginners table tennis is that they just don’t have
the ball control to keep it going. Since neither can keep the
ball going, neither gets great practice. It would be far better
if they could hit with a stronger player who could keep the
ball going to one spot so the player can concentrate on one
shot. But this is usually impossible.
There are more young players than there are good
players. However, there is one way to improve - multiball.
To use multiball, you must
have a bucket of balls available. One person (the instructor
at first although later the kids themselves can
learn to do it) feeds the balls to the person
practicing. He/she does so by hitting the balls with his/her racquet in whatever fashion is desired to the
spot where the player is waiting. The bucket is
placed on the table near the net, and the feeder
stands to the lefthand side of the table (the
righthand side if the instructor is left-handed).
The feeder can control the shots far better than
if he had to hit the player’s often errant shots. He
can go at whatever speed and pace is desirable for the
given player.
The only disadvantage of multiball is that one
person does have to feed. However, a beginning player
gets well over twice as many good shots off in a
given time than would be possible if hitting with
a partner. This may make it worth the effort. This
is an especially good method to get players started
off on each stroke before sending them off to the
table to hit among themselves.
What seems to work best is the following schedule.
-
Whenever a new stroke is introduced, start with
a demonstration so the students know what they
are supposed to do.
-
Have them line up and do multiball with the
coach one at a time. Here it would be advantageous
to have more than one coach so the players
can spend more time hitting and less time
waiting in line.
-
After each child has practiced the stroke to be
learned, they can be sent out to the table.
They will probably still hit the ball all over the
place, but they will do better than they would
have before. With practice, they will be able to do the
strokes acceptably and with time, they may
surprise you with their skill.
During multiball, the coach grabs ball out of a
box and hits them at the player.
Copyright Larry Hodges
Copyright
Mark Nordby, Dan Seemiller, John Oros
Copyright USA Table Tennis
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