Absolutely amazing, from physical training to statistic analysis to equipment.   This is all we've been waiting for.  Sorry for the non-speaking Chinese members here, let's see if we can get someone to translate this...

Enjoy!

Each coach trains each player individually. Ma Long has very thin fingers, thin and soft, like a woman's, a pianist's hands. But TT requires strong fingers and strong wrists. Ma Long is intent on improving his backhand. If his fingers/wrist aren’t strong enough, he will get injuries if he insists on changing his backhand technique. Currently, we are trying to improve Ma Long’s lower body strength and explosiveness, in addition to finger and wrist strength. When training Ma Long’s physical ability, emphasis is placed on strength and explosiveness (silences critics who think Ma Long’s play style revolves around power). For Zhang Jike, however, it is speed and endurance. Zhang Jike has one of the best bodies in the team, but his biggest problem is the number of injuries he has, especially his shoulder injury. During closed training (for those who don’t know, closed training is when all team members are required to follow an extremely strict regimen with barely any freedom to do anything not on the schedule) , Zhang Jike will train his shoulder by doing “X” motions (as seen in video) to improve his shoulder strength, and thus decrease the possibility of shoulder problems in the future. Physical training is extremely important in TT (obviously). For most professional TT players, the forearm of the player’s playing arm is longer than the forearm of the other arm.  Yan An sprained his ankle during closed training. While doing rehab exercises, the fitness coach told him that both success and failure can become “habits” and encourages him to succeed on his balance/foot exercise to recover his foot more quickly. Some of the rehab treatments include submerging his foot into 0 degrees water for 10-15 minutes, massage therapy, and balancing on one foot. Quick tip on being a coach/trainer: you must let your student see/feel changes/improvements. Before the WTTCs, the men’s team always has their closed trainings in Xiamen. During these closed trainings, there is a secret. For 3 days, the main players (those who will participate in the singles) do not do any actual training. Instead, they hold a conference with Liu Guoliang and their coaches to discuss mental/emotional factors that may affect their results in the WTTC. All coaches and players give their input on all the players. So for example, Xu Xin will say what he thinks about Zhang Jike’s playing, etc. Due to the nature of this type of discussion, which may include the main players’ technical abilities (ie. Ma Long’s interpretation on how to do a particular loop in a particular situation) and other special secrets, the details are never disclosed to the public. In this video, there is a discussion on why Zhang Jike’s results keep fluctuating after winning the Olympics. Zhang Jike says that in theory, he should have much less pressure during team competitions. But somehow he always fails to get into the right state of mind during matches quickly enough. One key point that he says is that due to the fewer number of games in a team competition (best of 5 games instead of best of 7), he often feels that the match is already over before he has even gotten into the right state of mind. Even when he wins, he says that he is not comfortable. LGL then talks about how his rebellious nature and over self-centeredness could be the root of his inability to manage pressure during team competitions. Xu Xin says that Zhang Jike plays his best when he feels lots of pressure. LGL is also proud of the fact that the Chinese team can work together as a team during these conferences to truly help out any main player so that the team gets the glory. He says that if it were any other country with the world’s top 5 players in a single room, they would not be able to do what the Chinese team can do – which is to give truthful and honest insights to maximally help a teammate. The reason is simple: everybody wants to be the champion.

 

In the video, Ma Long went to find Li Xiaodong (who is the most experienced coach on the team) to ask him about his rhythm control during his matches, specifically on whether his rhythm is too fast or too slow when he wins/loses matches. The research team also helps out on this. For example, they will calculate the “ball-picking” time of Ma Long. The “ball-picking” time is the time Ma Long spends to pick the ball up between each point during a match. One match, among many that they calculated, was the one against Timo Boll during the finals of the 2010 WTTTC (which Ma Long lost). From what they discovered, the average ball-picking time is 26-27 seconds when Ma Long wins, and 22 seconds when he loses. The best matches he plays are when his ball-picking time is 31 seconds (such as during the Asian Championships against Zhang Jike). Apparently the ball-picking time is 17 seconds when he plays his worst. Ma Long is stunned when he hears that he takes up to 30-40 seconds between each point. But what Li Xiaodong says is that his ball-picking time fluctuates too much, and wishes him to control his rhythm more. He wants him to use his “winning” rhythm more, and that when he is trailing behind, to slow the rhythm down so that he has ample time to think and grasp the momentum.

Research team:

Analyzing Boll: from nerves to overall summary and play style and personality

His match with Fan Zhendong was used in the video. For the particular point that was shown in the video, Boll primarily won the point from the down-the-line shot he executed with his backhand. They make “trajectory graphs” that the Chinese players study often before playing the match. Comments such as “average short game ability” are also common. It takes about 7-8 hours to finish analyzing one match. Every shot is recorded, discussed, and analyzed. Li Xiaodong commends the research team, saying that they are able to persist and do such a boring job that earns them no fame or accomplishments.

 

Equipment:

    CNT members are extremely selective about their equipment. Tens of types of blades are given to the CNT every year to try. It often takes 2-3 modifications to satisfy them. Hundreds of thousands of blades are given to the CNT each year (wtf mind-blowing). Each blade in the CNT is “vastly different” in feel. At the time the video is taken, Zhang Jike uses 40.5 degrees on his Hurricane. Even though the DHS machines already have very low uncertainty values, Zhang Jike can still feel it when the hardness isn’t perfectly even or when the hardness isn’t what he wants. CNT main players are also extremely picky about the shoes. Different shoes can be made for different footwork characteristics or different shapes. Modifications for grip and even appearance can also be done. For instance, Zhang Jike wants his left shoe to have the letter J on the back of his shoe, with 3 stars underneath it to symbolize Grand Slam winner LOL, and his right shoe to have the letter “K” but with only one star underneath it, accompanied by 2 question marks that symbolize future goals. Zhang Jike’s feet is also unique in that size 25.5 is too small for him while size 26 is too big. So the team buys 25.5 for him, but also buys an expander in which they put the shoe for 3 days to have it expanded to 25.75.

 

Li Sun:

    He believes that world champions, and especially Grand Slam winners, are people with such talent and something in them that cannot be taught. Wang Nan, Zhang Yining, and Li Xiaoxia are all his students who have gotten Grand Slams. Li Xiaoxia says that Li Sun not only taught her table tennis, but also taught her how to surmount difficulties, and the state of mind she should have to do so.

 

Very informative. Very very good work. Thanks for the hard work. 

Translation is correct. At 23:20, the person said "几十万", means "few hundred thousands".

Thanks for the translation-

Look at the youtube channel that the vid is from for others. 

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLUV6auSDIXaL3KIuBUlYvQ" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLUV6auSDIXaL3KIuBUlYvQ

Please keep the capital letters (MLfan), as I read is as mifan (= rice)!

On a side note, I wonder is there a cultural component to the idea of freely critiquing one's teammates as the CNT does.  I, for example, cannot imagine it done in my workplace in Ireland even when discussing critical incidents etc.  I suppose the idea of CNT players viewing themselves as a 'team/group' must transcend individual desires/resentments etc.  (Not to say for one minute that underneath it all, each may be raging at their teammate's assessments!)

"Hundreds of thousands of blades are given to the CNT each year"

I don't know what is with these chinese texts, but I always find them so deep and abstract and revealing things that nobody else thinks about.

And now, finally, I feel redemption for the time I spend arguing in a couple of threads about Ma Long's strength and him slowing down when he is losing. I was right and you was wrong, whoever you were, so, yeah, in yo face! 

Zeio is really helpful in this too. We need a thread with original chinese texts and then the translations, and only an admin, zeio and MLfan (and whoever else translates) should have rights to post there, so we don't get the thread littered with the annoying comments of people. 

minja wrote: DreiZ wrote: What I found useful from this video is that ML wins more points by taking a longer break while picking up the ball. Very useful for myself to slow down the pace of the game as well. I noticed a lot of times when I slow it down and take a breath, I can focus on my serve and 3rd ball attack. Very very important piece of information IMO. There's a guy where I play who does something similar to what ma long does of wiping the hand close to the net before every point. It's annoying and disrupts the general timing. I think I play around 10 players there and the only one who does this all the time is him. With the others it's like there's a natural rhythm that's the same and everything flows easily. It's almost as if you are doing something together. With him it's like when I try to have this same rhythm and speed I always get from him a stop, a barrier, a "wait until I'm ready and then we proceed". I find myself time and time again thinking "ok let's play the next point" then look at him and he's close to the net cleaning or doing something. It's like a stoppage to the natural flow and an attempt to be the one who dictates pace. Ma long does this greatly, I think it's a good part of why he's number one. But it's like a dirty trick, I wouldn't be proud of doing this.

Well if my opponent can dictate pace by serving extremely quickly I can slow down pace when its my turn to serve. There is a balance.

There is a reason why pros can take a "Towel Break" every 6 points, which I personally try to follow same way as someone who sweats a lot.

In no way I take 30+ seconds to serve, and I am not one of those players who "raises a hand up for a let" just because I'm not ready. But taking a simple breath and bouncing a ball once or twice before serving is NOT a big deal at all (which most players actually do during tourneys). If you think my actions are outrageous, then you sir are the one with the problem, not me.

minja wrote: serving too fast is also disrupting pace and not cooperating. but nobody does this because it would look too awkward. the opposite, what ma long does, doesn't look too awkward so nobody says a thing. I think I saw a match where korbel got angry with him for doing that. natural pace is, pick up ball, go back to table, look at the other guy make sure everything's ok, serve and play. this is what most people do and is felt as somewhat of a cooperation. if you pick up ball, go back to table, look at the other guy and he's in the middle of the table doing something and not ready then he is disrupting natural rhythm.

I've seen that match. Korbel was way out of line, cursing during the game and then giving a hard time to the umpire in the end. Classless play. Could have asked for the head umpire to come over and watch the match instead.

That said, there are times when you know you are not mentally ready to play a point and this is when I use my point preparation routine.  It might seem like I am stalling, but I am really not ready and I am trying to activate myself.

Ma Long could arguably be doing this.

Agreed.  I freely tell people honestly what I think are my weaknesses and what I think is the best way to defeat me any time other than during a tournament. 

Well yeah.  In your case there is no effective strategy ....

ha ha ha ... I crack myself up...

Actually, I'm surprised since I think we've discussed tactics and strategy before.

It is vaguely stated as "continuous."  There is no specific time limit. So it becomes a judgement call by the umpire whether a player is needlessly wasting time.

And clearly, if you're winning a game you can afford to be a bit faster between points, but if you're trailing (or if the other guys is suddenly on fire), you MUST slow things down. It's in match management 101...