Saturday, September 4, 2010 marks the first day of my new table tennis journey. It has taken me a long time to start playing again. Table tennis has always been a part of my life since my dad is Joe Newgarden. You may have heard of him. He LOVES table tennis (he likes to call it ping-pong) and liked it so much growing up that he invented a table tennis robot to play against, the Newgy Robo-Pong. He eventually turned it into a business, Newgy Industries, Inc., which is now a thriving family business that I am proud to work for. When I was younger he would try to get my sisters and I to learn to play and it hasn’t been any different since I started working for him 2 ½ years ago. Well he finally got me.

I started on Saturday training with Carl Hardin, a good friend of my dad’s and also a great table tennis coach. We started out with the basics. First the handgrip. I actually got it wrong when he asked me to show him how I hold the paddle. The correct handgrip felt a little weird at first but Carl said I would get used to it after awhile and I did. Next we moved on to the proper stance. Feet apart, knees bent. Got it. Then I had to move side to side like that which was a little tricky. Which foot to move first? I kept getting confused. If you’re going left, you move the right foot first and if you’re going right, you move the left foot first, he said. Ok. Got it. (Little did I know it wasn’t going to be that simple once I had to actually swing my paddle and hit a ball at the same time as all that footwork.)

Next Carl had me bounce the ball on the paddle some and then we moved on to my forehand. I practicing dropping the ball on the table and hitting it forehand and then moved onto practicing the forehand on the robot, the Newgy Robo-Pong 2050! Once I was comfortable with that, we worked on my backhand, same routine. Next I practiced alternating both forehand and backhand on the Robo-Pong. This is where all the fancy footwork came in. I eventually got it but felt like I had to really focus on my footwork as well as my strokes. Even after being around the sport my whole life you can’t understand how much really goes into playing table tennis until you’ve done it yourself. It was pretty fun and actually a good workout for me. All of this in just my first training session. So much to learn and master. But luckily for me I have all the tools right at my fingertips to continually get better. I plan to set aside about an hour a few times a week to play at our Table Tennis Training Center in Gallatin, TN (which conveniently also happens to be in the same building as my office). More to come next week…

Jena Newgarden

Welcome to Newgy Robo-Pong’s blog! We are excited to share some interesting articles about the table tennis world as well as valuable table tennis training tips and much more! We will have a great selection of guest writers from top professional table tennis players to amateur ping-pong players, and other fans of the sport. If you would like to contribute an article or tip about table tennis or have a suggestion for something you want to know more about, leave a comment and we’ll be in touch. Thanks for stopping by!