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February at PingPongParkinson |
| My dear Snowflakes,
I can hear a mountain cracking, quiet expectations, birds have stopped singing, the world listening, snow is about to rumble, because The Avalanche is coming to your town.
We call it PingPongParkinson® We are coming to your town, We play the game with crazy joy To bring the monster down
It is 2025, a Tipping point for PingPongParkinson® and only two more years to find the cure. #CUREby2027. So, get busy, curious, proactive and escape the abyss of your deep couch—we are about to snowboard on an Avalanche!
Below you will read about the first New York Open. Registration is open until 10 am on March 1st, the day of the tournament and the 8th year anniversary of the first PPP session. You can read about the 5th year of an amazing fortress built by Thorsten and his team in Germany, my second TEDx talk in Zagreb titled Ping Pong vs Parkinson, Uncommon Solution and other exciting news.
Be instrumental in finding the cure and join us who believe that world peace is coming. If you are inspired by what you see or hear, let us know and don't wait a second longer. We do things whether we are ready or not. Support our brothers and sisters with PD, worldwide.
Peace on Earth,
Your Snowman aka Nenad
P.S. 6th PingPongParkinson® World Championship, Italy, November 2025. Details coming soon.
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| | | | On February 2nd, PingPongParkinson Germany celebrated its 5-year anniversary, reaching 2500 members. |
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| | Australia and New Zealand are actively growing their chapter count
Between November and December, our Hervey Bay chapter was promoted by the town mayor on Facebook, by a television news network live and online, and supported by a free feature for two months in our local magazine. This coverage brought forward 7 new volunteers at the existing club, interest from a large table tennis club on the Gold Coast to start the journey towards opening a chapter, and a second chapter being proposed in Hervey Bay in a retirement village. The PPP coordinator in Australia is assisting with establishing both new chapters and recently met with the CEO of Table Tennis Australia, who expressed strong support for PPP and cooperative activities in the near future. |
| | PPP Partnership with Dance for PD
We formalized a collaborative partnership with our friends at Dance for PD in Brooklyn (NY), through which we are committing to working together in support of the shared mission of improving the quality of life for people with PD. We consider ping pong and dance to be a cross-pollination between sport and art, and a powerful cross-disciplinary combination for PD because of their focus on different areas of the mind and body. Our partnership with Dance for PD—which involves cooperative program development, mutual support and the sharing of resources—reinforces our holistic efforts at PD rehabilitation.
To kick off our partnership, Dance for PD Founder and Program Director David Leventhal was invited to give a lecture to PPP members at Henry Street Settlement in Manhattan, where he talked about the scientific basis of the Dance for PD Program in a light and entertaining way.
Learn more about Dance for PD here. |
|  | | | PPP Events and Tournaments |
| PingPongParkinson New York Open |
|  | Marking the 8-year anniversary of PingPongParkinson, the PPP New York Open will be held on March 1st at our flagship club, the Westchester Table Tennis Center in Pleasantville, NY.
Registration Details: This tournament is for PingPongParkinson communities in Westchester, New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Boston. Participants can choose to play competitively or to participate in friendly games facilitated by coaches. You will indicate your preference on the registration form, linked below.
Date: March 1, 2023 Time: 10:00am–2:00pm Location: Westchester Table Tennis Center (175 Tompkins Ave, Pleasantville, NY 10570) Fee: $15 per participant (includes tournament, bus, pizza and water bottle). No fee for volunteers or spectators.
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| | | | Free Parkinson’s Event in White Plains, New York
For our members in New York: there is a FREE Parkinson's event in White Plains, NY this March 23rd. It's being organized with FOX Rehab, Abbott, NJ Brain and Spine, and Insightec to educate and connect patients and their families/caregivers with the latest, most innovative Parkinson's resources.
Our founder Nenad Bach will be there with a PPP table, and we’d love to see you! |
|  | | Ping Pong in Minnesota
There’s a new bar in Stillwater, Minnesota, and they’re hosting bi-weekly ping pong sessions for the Parkinson community. Visit The Lumberjack on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1–3pm, bring friends, play ping pong!
For more information, visit their website or email sara@thelumberjackmn.com. |
|  | | Tournament in River Edge, New Jersey
On January 28th our chapter in River Edge, New Jersey hosted a table tennis tournament! See some photos they shared below. |
| | | Welcoming New PPP Chapters |
| Iceland
We welcome Iceland as a new country member of PPP! Led by Hannes Guðrúnarson in Reykjavík, this new chapter kicked off its first session in January.
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| | New Chapter in Santa Rosa, California |
| Some inspiring words from the founder:
“The Oakmont Parkinson’s Support Group is in a retirement community just outside Santa Rosa, California, in the beautiful Valley of the Moon of Sonoma County. We are a wonderful haven of support for those who need us. A few months ago, we became intrigued by rumors about the benefits of Ping Pong for Parkinson’s/ We watched PPP’s videos and were thoroughly captivated by the positive impact they showcased. It didn’t take long for all of us to be all in. Our retirement community has 5,000 residents and wonderful facilities, which include 4 indoor ping pong tables and 2 outdoor tables. We teamed up with an existing Oakmont Table Tennis Club for mentoring, coaching, and providing the skills needed to help us. It has been a wonderful partnership.
We have been playing for about a month now, and so far, there are about 18 people with a Parkinson’s diagnosis playing and at least that many additional enthusiastic volunteers. At our support group meeting, we always do a “round robin” where we share something good that happened to us in the last couple of weeks—lately, the resounding answer for “something good” is ping pong! Members have reported they sleep better than usual after a session, wake up with less tremor, and notice clearer thinking.
We hope to play in the Senior Wine Country Games in May, but for right now, we are measuring success by the number of volleys we can maintain, the laughter we hear, a growing sense of community, better sleep, clearer thinking, and a bit of joy. We hope to inspire Parkinson’s Support Groups in Sonoma and Marin County to form chapters so we can play with them.
Thank you, PingPongParkinson, for your support and inspiration!”
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|  | – Christine Nota, founder of PPP Santa Rosa |
| | | Nenad Bach at TEDx Zagreb
Last November our founder Nenad Bach was invited to speak at TEDx Talks in Zagreb, Croatia for a panel with the theme "Game Changers"—leaders in their fields, people who break barriers, create new opportunities and push boundaries with their work. Putting this performance together was an impressive international team effort: the PPP Australia coordinator helped Nenad prepare for the talk, and Martin Žagar (24 years with PD) played ping pong with Nenad onstage and to interested observers in the lobby.
The full video is out now! |
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| | | Tulsa, Oklahoma on News on 6
Our chapter in Tulsa, Oklahoma was just visited by a local news channel, News On 6, for a feature on PingPongParkinson. Chapter founder Hamid Ezzat-Ahmadi was interviewed about his experience with Parkinson’s and his decision to start a local chapter in 2024.
Full feature here. |
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“It is not just about ping pong, it is about gathering. I made friends with all these people in a matter of a week.”
– Hamid Ezzat-Ahmadi
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| | Member Achievements
We’d like to congratulate Brian Morand, member of our Westchester Table Tennis Center, for being promoted as Chief of Staff for USATT (United States Table Tennis Association). Brian will be temporarily substituting for Dr. Art Dubow as a coach leader at the WTTC for the next few months. |
| | Parkinson Awareness Month |
| Parkinson Awareness Month is approaching! Mark your calendars, and stay tuned for an announcement about what we’re planning to do to raise awareness throughout April.
Parkinson’s Europe has created a toolkit of ideas and resources to support people that are planning activities throughout the month. Check it out here. |
| | Interested in Starting a PPP Chapter? |
| Check out our website, where we have some introductory information with everything you need to know to start hosting PingPongParkinson sessions in your community. You can also reach out to natalia@pingpongparkinson.org with any questions.
We’re here to make it easy, accessible and impactful to help as many people with PD as possible, all over the world. |
| | | | We are committed to engaging with the medical community to encourage more research that looks into the physical and therapeutic benefits of ping pong. Please consider donating to our organization and help fund our efforts in 2025.
Our book “PingPongParkinson: It Started With a Tremor and It’s Shaking Up the World” (written by founder Nenad Bach and Board Member Warren Rosenberg) is available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. All net proceeds are donated to PPP to support our activities.
Purchase on Amazon Purchase at Barnes & Noble |
| | | | To our readers, we would love to encourage you to submit your stories or any items of interest with the chance to be featured in our periodical newsletters. If interested, please submit to newsletter@pingpongparkinson.org. |
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