Having a rivalry is important?

Sometimes I see people give up at things. Sometimes I see a kind of reluctance in whatever they do. Why? Because there is no incentive to do it. There is no motivation. They are simply doing it out of habit. If you play table tennis, and this is you when you play table tennis, STOP! Stop right now and get yourself a rivalry. Find someone who is just as good as you, (maybe slightly better) and get to know each other. It’s easier if you’re roughly the same age, but that doesn’t matter too much.

Become rivals! Set up competitions, bets, anything, but become the other person’s rival! It’s obviously easier if you are friends, but you don’t even have to be friends. Just make sure you monitor his progress, and make sure you feel jealous enough to do something about it. It sounds horrible, but it isn’t really, you’re just being competitive. But moving up alongside someone is 200% more efficient than moving up on your own.

If you end up becoming ridiculously better than him/her, or ridiculously worse, than find a new rival. Don’t break off the old one, but focus more on another one. It may be disheartening at first to know your rival is so far ahead, by channel your frustration and become even better. Practise more, train hard, play him/her often, and you’ll be up to his standard in no time at all. Make sure you don’t give up though, otherwise it will be very hard to come out of the negative zone afterwards.

Finally, even if you can’t find a person who wants to build a rivalry with you, but there are people of a similar level, then make a mental rivalry. I did this for the whole two years from when I started and I’m still doing it. Obviously I have other rivalries, but there was one person who I could never beat, the scores used to be ridiculous. He used to win everything. Most of the time he still does, now, but the gap is closing. After five losses there’s a victory, and the number is decreasing. Maybe in a few months I’ll have beaten him, but If I don’t keep the rivalry, I might as well not play. Table tennis is a two man game.

-Train Hard

 

Trick shots and cool stuff

Bit silly but still fun to watch…

Why you’re playing badly…

We all have those times where we just can’t play. We just can’t get our shots hitting the table, we can’t get them low enough, all oir attacks are missing the table, all our blocks are everywhere. Stop!

 

What you need to do:

-Stop playing immediately. Tell the other person ‘not right now,’ or forfeit the match.

-Stop getting frustrated. You probably are. Calm down, stop.

-Practise, practise, practise your weaker areas of play.

-Don’t feel bad or get panicky. You’re just having a bad day. Practise your shots and you’ll be even better on one of your good days.

-Eat something. It may seem weird to say but sometimes your body and mind just can’t be bothered. You need some energy.

-Focus. We all know that most of the game is about timing and accuracy and all things linked to: the mind.

Method:

Pretty self explanatory from what I’ve written above. Follow all those points and you’ll be playing loads better in no time!

 

How to train well

Today I’m going to tell you guys the best way that I’ve found to trade. I’m just going to go right into it..

What you need to do:

-Make sure you don’t mess around. When training, keep your head down and train

-Make sure you have a good partner who’s willing to train with you (maybe you can help him/her and then he/she will help you)

-If you don’t have anyone to train with, but you have a table, buy one of those automatic machines, they cost a lot but you know…

-ONE THING AT A TIME

Method:

Train using a partner. One thing at a time, tell your partner to do the same thing over and over again until you master the return. Only after then can you move on to something else. Tell your partner to perform a stroke anywhere on the table when you feel comfortable enough, but the main thing is to practise one thing at a time.

 

How to turn a point around…

Amazing display of innovation and spin!

 

Can you do that!?

How to retain a lead

Sometimes, when I’m in the lead and there’s a lot of pressure on me, I make loads of unforced errors which throw away all of my hard earned points. If you’re like this, then make sure you read this.

Normally you feel under pressure when somebody better than you plays you. You feel this rush of adrenaline, and your legs sometimes feel a bit wobbly, and chances are you feel this even before the match has begun. First thing’s first, relax. Caaaaaaalm down. Take deep breaths, and compose yourself. You tell yourself that you won’t beat the player if you’re so jiggly, and trust me, you won’t jiggle. It’s a thing of the mind. Compose yourself. But don’t lose that competitive edge.

Once you start playing, don’t get distracted. He might talk, he might do fakes, all you need to be looking at is the ball, if you look at the player, he has an advantage over you. Forget what the player does, your concentration is on the ball and on the ball only. If you lose points, don’t get frustrated. This is very important! Learn from your mistakes, and move on, but don’t get angry!

Right, now let’s say your in the lead. You have that jiggling feeling even more now. And to be honest, that’s ok. A little bit of that will keep you on your toes, but too much and the opponent will use you as his toilet roll. Calm yourself. But it is worth mentioning that when in the lead, it does pay off to be a little more cautious with your shots, be vigilant and mindful, but don’t be paranoid.

-Train Hard

A message to all attackers…

If you’re an attacker with loads of experience and you’ve been playing for at least a couple of years, this particular post isn’t for you, but you know, I’m not going to force you not to read this post, and you can if you want, but this post is tailored to those just starting out or have been playing for about a year and regard themselves as attackers. These are the pros and cons of being an attacking player:

 

The pros

1) Being able to attack means you are not under pressure

You attack, the opponent is under pressure, so it means you aren’t. You are dominating, and all the other player can do is give them back to you in a slow, sluggish way, making the ball easier to attack.

2) The point is won quicker

When you attack, you are more likely to win a point quicker than if you defend and wait for a mistake, which sometimes can take a long time if you’re playing against a consistent player.

3) You never have too much time, it’s very straightforward

Attacking is quite a basic thing to do, the only thing you have to think about is how to do it, (forehand, backhand etc) and any player worth his salt can make that split-second decision, you never have to wait too long for the ball, you generally know what to expect.

 

The cons

1) You leave yourself open

If you are a slow/sluggish attacker, defenders will run rings round you. If you take too long recovering from an attack, and with big attacks, that often happens, then the defender can just pop the ball over to the other side of the table or put it in an awkward position and you will be finished.

2) It takes much more energy

When attacking, you obviously have to put more effort in to your play. Sometimes, when I play defensively (because some of us haven’t picked a style and that’s ok) I just wait the attacker out. SMASH! block, SMASH! block, and after a while they get tired and they don’t hit the ball accurately.

 

I’ll be doing something similar for the defensive players but it’s just something to think about, maybe attacking is not really for you, maybe it is the best thing for you, whatever it is, make sure you look at these points and think about your speed, fitness, mentality, and check to see if attacking is the best thing for you

-Train Hard

  

Backspin sidespin short serve…

The backspin sidespin short serve is the best serve you can ever use in a game of table tennis. No doubt about it whatsoever. And I’ll tell you why:

It cannot be returned with topspin. A bat simply cannot get low enough to hit one of those balls with topspin. Therefore the opponent either has to return with backspin, which is what would happen normally, or the opponent will not use any spin, which is even better. Therefore, you have the best chance to attack first which is very important in table tennis, and it gives you an opportunity to finish the point off early by putting the opponent in a defensive position.

It cannot be attacked back. Unless you’re just starting out with backspin sidespin short serves, the ball will normally have to bounce on the table more than once in order for it to leave the table, you can see something like that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD1YiwDeBjE. In the video, the guy makes the ball bounce about four or five times before it left the table. This means it cannot be attacked with a loop as it comes off the table. Don’t take an example from that guy though, his serve was really high and you need to make yours lower, depending on your level. All I wanted to show you was the spin.

It can easily make your opponent make a mistake, depending on how much the ball curves. The more spin you put on it, the more confusing it is, the more likely they’ll hit it high, and you can attack. If you think you can’t do this serve then you can scroll down and find out how to do it, but for the rest of you guys…

-Train Hard

How to do the serve:

For starters you have to hold the bat like the woman is doing in the picture, and you have to hit it similar. Here are the specifics:

What you need to do:

-Make sure you brush the ball underneath it, with as much spin as possible

-Make your contact with the ball as lightly as possible, as hitting it flat will take away the spin

-Keep your ball flat, or even curve it upwards to get the spin you need

-Flick your wrist as you contact the ball to give it that sidespin

Optional:

-Curve your bat slightly upwards and brush the ball hard to give it even more spin

-Throw the ball up in the air so it has more power as it comes down as it is moving faster

Method:

You’ve probably figured out by now what to do but it is good to have something to refer back to. Firstly, the stance. Try and stand like the woman in the picture, slightly side on, and holding the bat correctly. Throw the ball up in the air (higher if you’re brave) and hit the ball as it comes down with your bat flat (or upwards), brushing the underside of the ball. Keep your contact light and give your wrist a little flick towards you as you hit the ball to make the sidespin. The ball should bounce more than once on the table and still keep low.

-Train Hard

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Something VERY Important

I have just come back from table tennis, and I would probably call myself a defensive player if somebody asked me. However, I learned that you can never, EVER, just be defensive. This guy that I was playing was also very defensive. As a defensive player, I wait for when the opponent smashes, and when he does, I return it to an awkward part of the table so he can’t get it. This guy could attack, but he knew my tactic and so he didn’t attack.

It was very, very hard. He hit it high so many times, and all I could do was push them back. He beat me with his consistency. Then I realised I need to integrate some topspin into my play. My table tennis session is three hours, and so the next one and a half hours I spent intensively training my topspin to take advantage of times where I can attack.

I played him again, and ripped him to shreds. He gave it to me quite high a lot of the time, and I just smashed back all those shots, I he returned them, I smashed them back. What I’m trying to say is that to play defensive or attacking is fine, but you need some of the other skill as well, or you’ll be found out and exploited. If that happens, you’re dead.

-Train Hard