SF East Bay: Coach Lin

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   I first learned of hunkeelin aka Coach Lin in another thread on this forum, and despite the flame war that ensued there, was sufficiently intrigued by his previous training and accomplishments in HK to take him up on his $15 for 30 minutes introductory offer.  That he coaches in the same county I live in was also a plus.  In fact, the training ended up taking place at my home TT club, Concord Table Tennis Club; a club that has no staff coaches and thus no objection to freelance coaches using the facility to train club members (not all Bay Area clubs have this policy for perfectly understandable business reasons).

Prior to the training session I spoke with Lin by telephone so he could be clear on my club's policy toward freelance coaching, and also understand what my goals and objectives were.  I wanted to focus on my BH-to-FH transition; something I've struggled with for years with little progress.  We agreed to meet at 10:30AM for the 30 minute session.

Sunday at the club I began warm-ups at 10:00AM and Lin arrived at 10:20AM.. 10 minutes early.  At 10:30AM we started the session and Lin began assessing my basic strokes and reactions.  Almost immediately he seized on a problem so obvious that, as a USATT 1700+ rated player, I'm more than a little sheepish to admit: I had no FH counter-drive stoke.  I had a FH loop, yes; but it was a long-arm loop with too much backswing.  My loop was effective in corner-to-corner drills; impressive against my robot; but it was way too slow to use in most rallies.. which was exactly why I felt I never had time during a rally to use my FH.  (I'm 6'3" which doesn't help matters).

What proceed next was somewhat humbling: Basic FH-to-FH counter-drive drill, albeit at high speed and with a goal of 150 consecutive hits without a miss.  I had almost zero feeling for this tiny stroke since I had apparently "missed class" that day 5-6 years ago when I took basic TT training.  I hit dozens of easy balls into the net.  I kept wanting to spin and lift the ball.  Lin kept telling me to hit into the ball instead.  I clearly need to drill on this new stroke!

At that point the 30 minutes was up and we quickly agreed to extend to the full hour for $30 total.  For the rest of the session we did more FH counter-drive drills and Lin also assessed by serves.  I like to mix up my serves, serving sometimes with LP and sometime with inverted which was a problem for Lin.  How could LP produce a quality serve given its limited ability to spin?  Sure, I win lots of points with LP serves as I've learned to vary and disguise its spin rather well, but Lin wanted me to have a serve that worked on 1800 rated players and beyond.  And it's true.. certain players are able to pounce on every LP serve I put out there, but I hadn't seriously considered sidelining my LP serves altogether.  Lin showed me how I could generate huge backspin by serving BH inverted and then twiddling for 3rd ball attack.. definitely something I need to practice into the catch net.  At that point we had gone a bit beyond an hour so we called it a session.

How would I rate Lin as a coach?  I've had at least a half dozen coaches and mentors over the past 5-6 years during which time I've built my USATT rating from 900 to over 1700.  I've been coached by 2500+ elite level players as well as retirees who were probably 1500 or below.  I don't know Lin's USATT rating or if he even has one, and we didn't play any points for me to assess his match skills.  By his own admission he has hardly played in the past eight years.  But I don't consider any of that to be of primary importance.  For me, a coach has to be able to do a few things very effectively, and not all coaches are equally skilled in all these areas:

1) Know proper form and be able to demonstrate it.
2) Know effective training drills and be able to perform them.
3) Observe a student's play and from it draw critical analysis.
4) Communicate what the student is doing wrong and what they need to do to correct it.
5) Serve and rally at or above the student's level (simply to keep the ball in play during drills).

Perhaps the most pivotal skills are #3 and #4, and at these Lin is amongst the best I've encountered.  Sure, I've had coaches talk around this topic but none were able to make clear to me the essence of the problem.  And in less than two minutes, Lin was able to both recognize  (#3) and effectively communicate (#4) to me what my primary problem was.  For me, that was a revelation.

For players who already posses a strong grasp of the fundamentals and who are playing at or above 1750, Lin might not be their ideal coach.  This would apply to highly-trained juniors who have trained with elite level coaches starting at an early age.  But for the rest of us, anyone who is either trying to develop their game from scratch, or is trying to correct or improve certain aspects of their game, and appreciates effective and efficient instruction, I recommend taking Lin up on his ridiculously cheap $15 for 30 minutes introductory offer.

Lin can be reached at [email protected], or by phone at (732)216-7799.  I've already got him booked for this coming Sunday.