When I first got involved in the sport, I was repeatedly told, by various sources of varying levels of skill, that I should emphasize primarily speed (controlled amounts of it) and not spin. One notable example was that forehand-to-forehand counterhits should not contain any spin. For a good while I took this blindly to heart and tried my damnedest best to not ‘brush’ the ball when counterhitting, while attempting to maintain accuracy and tempo/speed. Never quite worked. Backhand counterhits, on the other hand, were ultra-consistent when hitting with another player with similar consistency and accuracy. The reason for this? I’m not too sure, but behind the ball and the racket probably has something to do with it. And spin.

Somewhere along the line between my beginner days and today, I finally grasped a few things, one of them being that spin can aid your development. It aided mine. While my backhand was, by and far, a self-enhanced stroke that did not get a lot of external input, it has become a consistent and stable (if not quite powerful) stroke of mine. My forehand, however, was a tale of stark contrasts. On moderate and higher speed strokes (note: strokes not shots), my forehand strokes almost all contain a moderate to heavy element of spin, so they are not quite as fast as the arm swing would suggest. The moderate speed strokes are by far the most consistent of the lot, with the fast strokes a somewhat middling second, but oddly enough, it is the slow strokes that fall terribly far off the chart in terms of accuracy and consistency. This doesn’t happen with my backhand, which follows a somewhat linear pattern of speed and accuracy while maintaining an acceptable level of consistency.

I figured out that my forehand grip, stroke, body mechanics, are all brushing-oriented. No, not to the extent that I cannot flat hit if I have to, but without giving much thought, my shots tend to have an element of topspin to them. Not quite enough to hassle a practice partner unless I intend it to, but it is there, and markedly different from dead no-spin. The very fact that the nature of a forward-moving ball hitting a stationary surface generates slight topspin is enough justification for me to say: learn how to control and USE the topspin, not fear it and shy away from it.

In the table tennis world, spin is the single biggest control factor of the ball’s flight path after it has left the racket. It curves down, it rises up, it veers left or right, and sometimes it just rolls sideways. All achieve the same thing: it makes the ball path predictable and controllable (at least for the originating player). Topspin brings the ball down on the other side and, in most cases, aids the other player in getting the ball OVER the net and back to the originator.

So why shouldn’t it be used in normal counterhitting? No reason why. In fact, I say it should be. True, the notion of not generating significant topspin is the point of the counterhitting, but all involved should realize that unless you intentionally stroke to eliminate the slight topspin generated, you will end up facing a minor amount of topspin anyway, so just live with it and learn how to control the damn thing. If you’re of a decent enough level you’ll know how to control the amount commensurate to you and your partner/opponent’s level. If there’s too much spin, your opponent is either using a stroke that’s meant to generate topspin or you’re just not doing it right (wrong body position/contact point/distance from table etc).

Above all else, I think that instead of trying to isolate just ONE aspect (Speed/spin/contact point/ball arc and height etc) all the time, one should in fact tailor your stroke and shot to the emphasis at hand. Note that an emphasis on one aspect does not mean isolating that one aspect to the neglect of all else. Rather, it is the conscious concentration that separates emphasized aspects from other maintained aspects. Isolated aspects simply mean you don’t make a connection with that aspect to any other, which in most cases simply harms player development.

Found all that out the hard way ’cause no professional coach was on hand to teach. I sure hope my increasing awareness is indicative of my approach and development as a player.

Do note that it is generally an unfair comparison to compare players from China vs players from everywhere else, since China’s players generally outperform everyone else at similarly-rated levels, offense-wise. Also, these are comparisons at world level, not anywhere below. Even the ‘weakest’ offense player may be a devastating opponent for anyone not already #1 in their respective country.

The Tank (Primary tank)

Tank players are straightforward: excellent-to-decent allround offense, and decent-to-above-average defence, but usually with high recovery/stamina to allow them to survive the onslaught. Like their MMORPG brethren, tanks are capable of dishing out and taking considerable amounts of damage without crumbling. In TT terms, they are able to convert from a controlled game (not necessarily defensive) to an all-out offense game without losing much in the way of consistency.

Players: Ma Long, Werner Schlager (in his prime), Wang Hao (in his prime; on a good day now), Zhang Jike (on a good day)

The Off-tank (Secondary tank)

Offtanks are pretty much less-powerful (or if equally powerful, less consistent) versions of main tanks. They still do respectable damage and are able to handle some, but on the whole they are not meant to be as threatening as main tanks, they do tend to pose a formidable challenge. In some cases, the distinction between main and off is blurred to the extent of whoever gets the better rhythm going, first.

Players: Chen Qi, Kalinikos Kreanga (on a good day…only seen it happen once, 2011 Europe Top-12), Ma Lin (on a good day), Oh Sang Eun, Dimitrij ‘Dima’ Ovtcharov, Wang Hao, Zhang Jike (consistently)

The Meatshield

Meatshields are tanks in certain MMOs. However, their relative lack of damage-dealing capabilities place them in the meatshield role, which I define as players best at absorbing damage than anything else, literally…ANYTHING else. Not even doing enough aggro to be considered a main/off-tank. In the table tennis sense, these players can and will take every attack you throw at them; some will even return them when possible, but attacking is definitely not their strong suite while defending is pretty much what they do for a living.

Players: Chen Weixing, Evgueni Chtchetinine, Joo Se Hyuk

The DPS’er

DPSers are there for their consistent damage over time, hence the ‘Damage Per Second’ role. They don’t necessarily have good spike damage but make up for it in having a consistent stream of damage output. Likewise, these table tennis players are known for their consistency under pressure, but are not otherwise known for their attacking power or  defensive strength. From the TT perspective, pretty much everyone using a compact, ‘European’ loop stroke falls into this category by default, since unless they’re sporting significant amounts of muscle, they tend to lose out to players with longer strokes (physics dictate so). The difference between these and offtanks is simply their ability to handle attacks under pressure. Offtanks usually do it better, and have an equally matched offense.

Players: Patrick Baum, Timo Boll, Kong Linghui (in his prime), Mizutani Jun, Vladimir Samsonov, Bastian Steger…pretty much every player who is balanced between offensive and defensive abilities.

The Nuker (a.k.a. “Glass Cannon”)

Nukers rely on massive spike damage, and so do these players. They’re known for massive killshots that are difficult to handle even when you’re at your best. Putting them on defence pretty much takes away their advantage as they tend to not perform too well when forced into the defensive.

Players: Ryu Seung Min, Ma Lin (in his prime), Wang Liqin (on a good day, on a bad day he’s…just a glass statue)

Something about being able to be a dictator of a teeming, booming island is fun. Be the benevolent, ‘democratic’ leader or be what you truthfully are: a no-nonsense, hard-nosed governor.

It’s taking up the slack time in between revision and experimenting with new table tennis methods, and I must say it’s almost as addictive as Civilization. Almost. I really need to get back into the fray with Civ V.

Sometimes, the balance just isn’t there when you need it. Sometimes, it just crashes down around you. All you have left in you is the need to hold on and survive it.

Because it can’t be that bad after this. I’ll make it so.

For too long I’ve worried about whether the groups that I lead are running on time. Whether things fall into place properly. Whether the clock works.

For once I take a step back and it seems like things crash around me. Is it me? Is it my perspective of not having things run my way tainting my perception of what is? Or what can be?

No, I won’t fall for that. I’m determined to let it slide. It’s time to let things go and just watch for once in my life. There’s no point to it.

No one left behind, does it mean no one gets ahead? Think of it in terms of say…childhood education. Everyone’s boosted some way so that they have a ‘fair chance’, or rather, equal chance. What about the natural differences that exist in people? There’s no way that everyone is going to be #1, somebody’s got to play second fiddle. And third. And fourth. And so on. So what then? How are you going to make the tough call between making a distinction between #1, #2, #3? And what’s the cost?

In this particular instance, of table tennis skill, I believe it to be ego. Maintaining everyone’s ego results in ‘perceived equality and fairness’, but it also means that no one really knows, in blunt terms, who’s the weak link in the chain.

This rant was spurred on as a result of young, naive people thinking that maintaining ego is still the most important asset of a player, when it should be quite the opposite: realize that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, not because you are formidable, but because you are quite the opposite, worth very little. Know your place in the hierarchy, and maybe then you’ll realize that you have a long, long ways to go to improve your play, each and every one of you. Captain, vice-captain, all useless titles. Useless in the sense that you wear it as a rank, a position, when all it really means is that you, above all, should recognize your responsibility in making sure your team knows that there is never a point where you are ‘good enough’. Liu Guoliang never lets his team become complacent. Despite dominating pretty much every tourney, his players are subject to intense grilling by their coaches and Liu himself. The result? They never stop pushing themselves to the edge.

Obsessive? Perhaps. The price of victory is never cheap. Whether one can afford it depends on one’s priorities and right now, all I see is a team filled mostly with people who have no dedication to training, no sense of urgency, no sense whatsoever of what it means to take the sport seriously. Whatever, your team not mine. There is an underlying reason why I adamantly refuse to join the team: I know I am not anywhere near competent enough to offer a challenge to the real players, neither are you guys. The difference is, for the past 11 months I have tried my darndest to acquire multiple perspectives to improve. Never stop thinking about what I did wrong and how to correct it. Never stop refining what is acceptable but can be improved upon. When I can win every point, of every set, of every match, then maybe I can say I am good enough. If I fall short, I still have something to improve upon.

For the multiple perspectives responsible for my accelerated improvement, I have Leonard, Shin, King, and Bryan to thank. This is probably going to go unread by them, but it is enough to acknowledge others’ efforts in my development.