OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I don't have experience of non-English tournaments, but if you play anywhere in the higher echelons of the sport in England, you'll see/hear the significant majority of players shouting cho, cholay, allez, etc.

Just watching the live feed of the Nationals you can hear the same.

Amongst players I know who are not youngish I only know a few (myself included) who are vocal and noisy.

Dunc once said he finds the notion of a middle-aged white man at local level shouting cho to be utterly risible.

I thought about it, and tried instead saying "good" or "come on!" Interestingly I find saying cho (although I tend to say coh, with a short oh not a long one) much more effective, because the more forceful explosion of air gives me a better feeling.

What about you? If you're in the majority of non-cho-ers, why is that?

Would you do it if you could get over the idea that others might find it silly/amusing/risible?




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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
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I find cho-ing over and over to be annoying and disrespectful to the opponent, so I don't do it. If someone cho's once, its fine. If they do it over and over I'll glare at them. If they keep going I'll ask them to desist. If they keep going I'll focus in and give them reason to shut up....by letting them win less points

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I agree - I think Dora Kurimay speaks about the 80-10-10 rule: 80% of the time, your response to a point should be neutral/positive - an onlooked couldn't tell how the match was going, but would assume you were doing well by your body language. 10% of the time you will celebrate a great point, 10% of the time you will challenge yourself (positively) in response to a missed opportunity etc.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

Wouldn't older English gentlemen tend to say - what was the term in Beano - Cor! Or Cor Blimey! when you miss an easy one? Watched the Logan movie this afternoon.. somehow Prof. Xavier using the F word and the S word that often bothered me.. Wolverine did it constantly, too... Sort of seemed out of character.

Iskandar

I'm with Dunc on this one except I'd probably go further. Like wearing replica football shirts, "cho-ing" is something that doesn't sit easily on anyone over the age of 14.

I am an old white sometime cho-er. I tend to say cho-lay, partly because that's my favorite curry (chickpeas in spicy tomato sauce for anyone who doesn't know), so it's a word with happy mental associations for me and lifts my spirits.

The other advantage is that the English words I would naturally use are profanity and it's rude to shout "F--- Yes!" for example, in a crowded hall with kids and whatnot.

But I cholay fewer than 10% of points, and only on something extra good or at an inportant moment. Except with my good friends I sometimes cholay nets and edges, but they know it's a joke as we have running banter over who gets most.

I also sometimes deliberately cholay in tournaments expressly to piss off people I don't like. When they miss a serve or an easy smash for example. Not many people, but a few. One guy, very close to me in rating, who once after I let him come back from 0-2 in games and then won a tense 5th set, during the handshake after said to me only "You got lucky!" I know a few well-timed and loud Cholaaaaaaays!!! will put him on tilt. So I do that and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

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If I say "cho" it's for a couple of reasons

1. Cho aids breathing, its effective at very quickly getting carbon dioxide out of the lungs so you can get fresh oxygen in
2. To help with focus - like snapping an elastic bad, it's an "anchor point"
3. To annoy my opponent, or to wind them up, same thing really.
4. To be confrontational, get the message across I'm not scared of my opponent. Usually it's accompanied with a fist pump aimed in the direction of the opponent. The nearest you get to punching someone without being expelled or arrested for assault

In reality, I don't do it because:
- reason 1:I find panting from being unfit and generally being out of breath takes over my breathing pattern ensuring adequate oxygen supply or I'll collapse on the floor
- reason 2: I have other anchor points which are less obvious
- reason 3: I'm short, I can't run very fast, it's not in my interest to annoy anyone! - unless it's in practise or at a social session where it's done with a sense of irony. I also don't shout "cho" on match nights at our centre out of respect for other matches which are going on at the same time
- reason 4: I can't control how my opponent feels, I can control how I feel. I tend to occasionally shout "come on" at our home venue and that shout is directed at myself. I'm the only one I can control and it's done as a motivator not as a reminder or to reinforce how I'm playing

My main issue with shouting "cho" is when it happens at events or tournaments where there are 2 or more tables playing at the same time. Cho is shouted by a player at the end of "their"point. It might annoy an opponent but it doesn't happen during their point. There is a rule in table tennis "Disturbance – 2.9.1.3 – if failure to make a service or a return or otherwise to comply with the Laws is due to a disturbance outside the control of the player;" If you have 6 matches going at the same time - which we do on match nights, and one person continually shouts "cho" after every point they win, the 5 matches on other tables would never finish because points would be continually be replayed with let's being called. And let's face it, those players who repeatedly shout "cho" generally only shout it after points they have won. Have you heard anyone shout "cho" after they've lost a point? That to me indicates it's a very selfish egotistical act to do. If I'm umpiring and someone on another table "repeatedly" shots out "cho" - emphasis on repeatedly calls out, I'll call out "match order please" and aim that comment at the person calling "cho". Everyone in the hall can hear and recognise why it's been said. There isn't time in a match situation to get up, walk over and politely ask them in private to respect other players still playing.

In many respects "cho" has the same impact, although done for different reasons as "stamping". Stamping is another contentious behaviour in a shared environment.

Out of respect for players on adjacent tables - there is nothing more annoying than excessively long loud cho-ing on the table next door when you are trying to play. I have once or twice walked across to the next door table and told players to "shut the f%ck up" if they are being ridiculous- and to date, they always have

I agree about the point about it being most annoying to players on adjacent tables. I don't mind when my opponent does it during the match I'm playing. I usually just find it funny and dumb ... as in, seriously, you can't motivate yourself from within and need to scream or grunt like a primitive Neanderthal to celebrate yourself after every point? When it happens a lot, I'll sometimes just start imitating my opponent immediately after his "Cho." This really tends to get in people's heads, but I think it's only fair that if someone is going to do something stupid, they can expect something stupid in return.

I also think that it's a behavior that spreads and that depends for its sustenance on the behavior of those around. For example, I play at a club where hardly anyone Cho's. When someone who doesn't normally play there and who tends to yell starts doing it, unless they're really oblivious to their surroundings, they tend to start feeling pretty silly because they're the only ones doing it, and that puts an end to it very quickly in most cases. On the other hand, there are some clubs, such as the Lily Yip club in New Jersey, where almost everyone yells all the time, and the result you get is tons of little Chinese kids who can barely see over the table but are already yelling loudly after every point. In fact, when teams from that club stopped coming to the annual teams tournament in Washington DC each year after a rival tournament in Philadelphia started up, the DC tournament became noticeably calmer because you weren't being startled by idiotic kids yelling out in the middle of points on adjacent tables and their still more idiotic parents screaming out in unison at the same time.

Now, I think stuff like this has to be caught at an early age. I blame those adults who run that club for not nipping it in the bud. It's just bad sportsmanship. It's a table-tennis-specific version of the same nonsense that has made other sports, such as basketball, nearly unwatchable due to the players' ridiculous showboating after every nearly every successful play. Unfortunately, you always have a segment of fans that enjoys the classlessness because they're classless themselves and just find it entertaining, and that encourages the athletes to keep doing it, and pretty soon you get a race to the bottom.

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I'm just an average cho, happy cho lucky you could say. I try to play extremely fair to my foe at the other end of the table.

It is for this reason I have chosen not to cho.

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At my club the only time we cho is after a net or edge!!!!

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Cho doubt it would chot bother me to play you

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
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I think the kids are actually TOLD to do it. They have drills where they're supposed to yell after every point. Reminds me of that Feng Tianwei interview, where the interviewer mentions the time when her coach would FINE her when she DIDN'T yell at the end of a point. I do notice also that the Japanese women always yell something when they score a point, it's almost expected by now. I can imagine a crowd of kids yelling can definitely be distracting.

Not exactly related, but the worst case of yelling distractions I remember was actually a very well known mercurial older gentleman known for losing his temper. This was at one of the Duneland tournaments in Indiana - he was down a few points, and started cursing and swearing at the top of his voice, stalking up and down the court. A 13 year old kid at an adjoining table held his hand up and yelled "Excuse me!" several times until he subsided, and then the kid yelled "Thank You!" and resumed play. What brought him to Duneland? (He lived on the East Coast.) He was collecting signatures to be allowed to run for the USTTA (as it was back then) president. Actually won, too, but was elected out after a year, after which he quit table tennis (at least for a while). Kinda reminds me of the current US president, in a way.

Iskandar

Because screaming Cho after each point is so contrived...

I realise the point of doing it is psychological warfare, but there's a time and a place...

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It's weird Plus, I am technically a basement player (BUT, BUT, I'm playing as seriously as possible while trying to keep TT as a fun activity). Finally, I am way too... apologetic when I play a game. Every time I warm-up with someone else besides my dad or a close friend, if I make a mistake I always say sorry. If I hit the ball long, I grimace and say out-loud, "Man, that hit the edge!" or, "I should've closed the bat angle!" and petty stuff like that. When I make edges and net balls, you'll see me raise my hand over and over and saying sorry about a millio- actually, the word "million" would be an understatement, let's see.... You'll see me say sorry abnout a couple centillion times Of course, with my friends, I'll gladly say cho as loud as I can because it's funny

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