OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Thanks very much to everyone for watching and all the feedback. There is a good chance I'll get a re-match tonight. If so I'll try pivoting on his serves at least for a set. Will be interesting to see what adjustment he makes. I'm sure he has options to deal with that.

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Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

He is over 70 years old and rated 2050 so those options will not be what they were when he was 25 years old and rated around 2500.

Good luck.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Warning, inane ramblings ahead: League match tonight. Just could not keep my mind on track in terms of doing the right things. Tensed up, reverted to old habits and it was like I was watching myself crash a car or something. Knew what was happening, could do nothing about it. I was tense I'm the hand, stood up and on my heels the whole time. Won 1 lost 2 and the two I lost were so close. If I could have utilised even 5% of those correct things I'd have three wins. In one I lost 3-2, I missed a guys tomahawk serve to my backhand 20 times roughly. 20 times! He started doing it exclusively (obviously) and once I missed it 3 or 4 times I could not help thinking about it and trying to consciously put it over which killed me. The few times he hit it to my forehand I had no issues. Incredibly frustrating, I must have won 80%+ points on my serve, and nearly all his serves that I actually returned. Just felt like I was a player 2 levels+ above him in every way but this one really crucial one. Can a loss feel dumber? I am not sure. I need a sports psychologist. I paid for a one to one serve returning only from a coach. I did not miss those serves anywhere near as often as this amateur serve that was 100% long and always about 3 or 4 inches over the net minimum. The quality was so much lower but it was a combination of misreading and it just being an exact spin I could not adjust to get it on the table. I put it 2 or 3 inches long again and again and again.

Thank god the season is over soon, I think I could do with 2 or 3 months off competition and try to train 4+ hours a week and have a weekly one to one coaching session and just not think about winning a single point for months. Drill my subconscious into submission so that even when I choke or get tense I accidentally do the right things it's so automatic. There will be tournaments during this time but I was thinking I should avoid them altogether for a while. Thoughts? I'm a fragile nutcase.

Competition is difficult and very jarring.

I personally just remember to myself: I am not my TT skill. Winning or losing doesn't really matter. I am not a pro. No one outside of me really cares. I can't wait to work on improving and trying again.

Post some video. As much as I like to read tales of woe, I am inherently suspicious of people who evaluate their play at length without video. I remember clearly how I would judge my play without video and how I would evaluate it after seeing the video. One of the biggest lessons I learned was that I always improved on serve return over the course of the match but I never noted this in my head and kept playing as if I was returning the ball terribly throughout the match. This allowed me to focus on how well I was doing on my serve and forget about the problems with serve return when I faced players who I could see that the only problem was my return of their serve.

The tomahawk is a serve where it is very easy to get focused on the downward follow through and to always miss the actual contact point on the ball which is where the spin is created.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

I have some video of training but I don't record matches.

I can see the mistakes I make on video and can feel and observe the same stuff happening. It's muscle memory of wrong technique at this point and almost certainly why I missed those serves. The misreading top/backspin was only a fraction of the serves, most I read correctly and still missed, I could feel that tension and not letting the wrist snap through and over the ball.

100% True. It is very easy to apply too much pressure at yourself. I was guilty of it, and now I am slowly moving towards a healthier approach to the game.

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Tactics Enthusiast

Aboit missing the same serve over and over -- try accepting that you will lose the match. It's true. If a guy has a serve you can't return you will lose. Then try thinking "If I'm going to lose I'm at least going down swinging." And start taking proper fast loose swings at those serves. If you miss wildly, big deal, you were going to loae anyway. And maybe you start making quality receives and the whole match changes. Win or lose, you will feel better afterwards if you tried to play right.

_________________
Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

I have a sadder tale of league woe than fruitloop's. I'm at the same league and I just played the cpen giy who beat me 15-13 in the 5th on Monday. So I'm recording the match to show you guys, and I won 3-0, coming back from 7-10 down in the 2nd and running away in the 3rd. I was psyched! So I walked off to turn on my camera ***and the screen was black***. Dead battery. Dammit!

I'll still post it if there is enough there to bother with. It would have been fun to post a win. I hardly ever do. He's rated 2087 fwiw.

_________________
Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

Is this Charlene's husband?

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

My lucky streak ended. I lost to Kevin after being up 2-0, and David is done for the night so I don't get my rematch this time.

Kevin is a typical good player who has good short receives and takes away my short serves. I adjust, but it feels bad

_________________
Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

Brett saw Kevin at the last tournament I played at before he left. Penholder with RPB and banana and pushes. Brett liked his game.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

It's hard to stomach losses in matches when you lost solely because you got nervous. It happens to everyone and the best theorapy is to take a few days off.

Elite players tell me that they want to quit after it happens. I tell them that I don't believe a word a player says immediately after a loss.

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ETTS54 is now available on ttEDGE.com

There really is nothing new in this video. I'm going to start randomly posting more videos like this so members can see others making positive steps forward.

_________________
Get your 3 wishes here today!
ttEDGE.com Professional online coaching

No, a new guy.

_________________
Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono