Newgy’s Blog

The Modern Olympic Games are rich in tradition, famous, and respected events. They began in Athens Greece on April 16, 1896. Medals are coveted and represent world supremacy in every event won.

Table tennis first became an Olympic Sport in the summer of 1988 in Seoul, Korea. Since the 1896 beginning of the Modern Olympics the U. S. has won 2,298 total medals.

In the 23-years since table tennis became an Olympic sport, the United States has never won a single medal in table tennis. In a proud country so economically blessed and with athletes who compete favorably in most sports, why can’t we win a single medal in table tennis? We submit that it is not simply the lack of athletic acumen.

There are several complications which hinder if not preclude our parity in the sport of table tennis: Perhaps the major reason, from which all other sub-reasons spring is our national cultural disregard for table tennis: The sport is apparently not physical enough for our appetite: There is little money, i.e., signing bonuses and mega-bucks, for excellent play or coaching: Except for a very select few, it is not capable of rendering a decent living for players: Even this few must produce other marketable products (books, videos, recommended equipment, etc.) to survive: There is insufficient corporate support and no government support as in table tennis winning countries. Perhaps the missing ingredient is the lack of a table tennis infra-structure, or grass-root level interest and participation.

According to my research from the USATT, in the entire country there are only 450-young players under age 11 serious enough to play the sport of table tennis. Following the data, only 1,254 players under age 15 and 2,120 under 20 participating in the sport. The largest age group of registered USATT table tennis players is ages 41-60 with 2,998 players. There is no information readily available to show if these numbers are on the increase or decrease by age group. These low numbers may shed some light upon one of the reasons for our table tennis players never standing on the Olympic podium to receive a medal in table tennis for the United States.

Mr. Joseph Newgarden of Newgy Industries is determined to begin the attack of the under-participation aspect of table tennis through his Newgy Table Tennis Schools Program. It will be left to others to address the other needs.

Bill Neely

From Asia to Africa to Europe and even to the USA, there are thousands of professional table tennis athletes who are aspiring to be the next World Champion. One of the key elements to reaching the top is consistent training six hours per day. Most top players wake up, eat breakfast, train three hours, eat lunch, rest, then train three more hours in the late afternoon. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day to fuel an intense early morning session.

Here is the secret recipe for my power-packed breakfast.

For one serving:

1 cup of uncooked rolled oats (Uncooked oatmeal is the key)

¼ cup of sliced almonds

¼ cup of raisins

1 cup of milk

Mix them all together in a bowl. Preparation time is one minute.

Here are the nutrition facts:

Calories: 730

Carbs: 104 grams

Protein: 25 grams

Fiber: 14 grams

Every morning, I eat two servings of The Table Tennis Breakfast, and it gives me the right balance of healthy carbs and protein to fuel an intense training session with my Newgy Robo-Pong 2050.

Before I discovered The Table Tennis Breakfast, I used to eat three bowls of cereal or prepackaged oatmeal, two pieces of fruit, and two bagels. This breakfast would give me energy for approximately two hours. Cooked, pre-packaged oatmeal only offers about 1/3 cup of oats but expands when it is heated. It appears to fill the bowl, but is digested in less than half the time. Additionally, prepackaged oatmeal is loaded with unnecessary sugars and preservatives.

I challenge you to try it for one week – The Table Tennis Breakfast! You will feel energized and will avoid morning cravings for at least four hours. This breakfast is the key for anyone aspiring to move to the next level.

Samson Dubina

I recently played in the 2011 World Table Tennis Championships in Rotterdam, Netherlands. What made it such a great experience was that I got to compete against the best players in the world. Unlike last year in Moscow, this year was a singles tournament. (Last World Championships was a team competition; it switches off every year) The top 64 players were seeded into the main draw and the other 308 players were put into round robin groups of either three or four players. Only one player came out of each group. After the group stage, the remaining players had to play either one or two single elimination matches to reach the main draw, depending on if they had a bye into the second preliminary round or not. After the preliminary matches came the main draw, which consisted of the best 128 players in the world.

My goal going into the tournament was just to do the best that I could and make it out of my first group. I was seeded second in my group out of three people; the two others were from India and Djibouti. My first match against Djibouti went smoothly, as I won 4-0 without too many problems. The match against India was the following day, and the fact that his world ranking was 220 got into my head more than it should have. (For anyone that doesn’t know, 220 in the world is about a 2700-2750 U.S. rating) My problem was that I kept thinking about how badly I would get killed rather than focusing on how to win the match.

The following day I walked up to the table shaking. After many unforced errors and what seemed like only a few minutes I found myself down 0-3 in games. The next game I decided to try playing without any pressure and just have some fun. Surprisingly, I found myself with game point and closed it out to be down 1-3. I realized at that moment that just because he was 220 in the world, he wasn’t unbeatable. I started gaining some confidence and went up 9-3, but failed to close out the game and lost 14-12. Though I lost the match, I learned an important lesson: to never be intimidated by an opponent. It doesn’t matter how good they are, where they’re from, or what their ranking is. In my case, I lost the match before it even started, which I will make sure to never do again.

Here are some useful tips for the next time you’re the underdog in a match.

-Your opponent is probably more nervous than you are, so don’t count yourself out

– Try to play one point at a time and analyze what’s going on in the match (why you’re losing certain points, where their weaknesses are, etc.)

– Change a losing strategy and have fun! Even if you are losing, it’s not the end of the world. Just try to do something different and see what works and what doesn’t.

Michael Landers

Newgy Industries, Inc. is proud to sponsor Michael Landers. Michael is the 2009 U.S. Men’s Singles Champion. Michael is the youngest male table tennis player to achieve that title in history at just 15 years old. He is also currently on the US Junior Team and is the reigning U.S. Junior Boys Champion.

Michael is 16 years old and lives in Old Westbury, New York. He is coached by Ernesto Ebuen and plays at SPiN New York and the New York Table Tennis Club. Michael has been playing table tennis since he was 10 years old.

When Michael is not playing table tennis, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends and always loves to meet new people.  He likes listening to music, exercising, and sleeping.

Competition Record:

2010 U.S. National Junior Singles- 1^st Place

2010 Men’s and Junior Team

2010 Youth Olympic Games- Boys PanAm Qualifier

2009 U.S. National Championships- Men’s Singles Champion

2009 World Junior Circuit Canada- Cadet Teams First Place

2009 North American Championships- Cadet Boys Champion

2008 Canada Cup Open Doubles Champion

2005 Juniors Olympics- U-12 Boys Silver and Doubles Gold

2007-2011 National Team Member

Working on the technical aspect of your game and playing matches are both very important for your game. But it can sometimes be difficult to know when to work on what, and how much to do. Here are some tips that I think will be very useful.

When you are first starting the game of table tennis, it is very important that you know the correct strokes and can read spin. For people just starting, I would suggest that you mostly focus on learning your strokes. Because in a game, you can sometimes lose focus on your strokes, and concentrate more on just getting the ball back on the table. If you just work on getting the ball back, your strokes will become sloppy. And once they become sloppy, it is VERY hard to fix them. So I would suggest mainly technical training at first. But make sure you know how the strokes should be, and once you learn them, practice them over, and over again. A good tool for practicing is the Newgy Robo-Pong table tennis robot. This will allow you to work on a shot for a long period of time.

Now, even though you should do a lot of technical practice at first, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play matches at all. Playing some matches is good. A good ratio to go by is, for every hour of matches you play, you should train about five hours.

Once your strokes become more natural and consistent, you can slow down with the technical training. But that doesn’t mean you should never train again. Just make sure you keep your strokes correct.

Now if you have been playing for a long time, it doesn’t mean it is too late for you. You can still begin to practice a lot on your strokes, and your game will still improve.

Train Smart!

Perry Wilson