8 Myths That Are STOPPING Your Success
You have been lied to
You have been told that your improvement depends on your training partners, how many tournaments you play, your talent level, your hours on the table, the types of drills you are doing, your fitness routine, your forehand timing, your footwork speed, and many other physical factors!
I used to believe these lies as well. Until something happened…
Yes, something happened about 21 years ago that really changed my perspective! In this article, I’m going to tell you exactly what mental breakthrough I had and how you can have the same breakthrough. Yes, we are going to be diving deep into the mental game of table tennis.
Now, going back to the liars. Many of these people are well-meaning, they are just misinformed and passing along info that others told them. So instead of calling this article “Eight Lies” we are going to call it “Eight Myths”. Once you have a clear vision of what it actually takes to improve, you will enjoy table tennis more, have structure to your training sessions, and be able to have measurable results for years to come!
WARNING:
98% don’t want to read about the mental game of table tennis. So, congratulations, you are the 2% because you have read this far! I don’t expect you to believe me when you read the info. I know that you will believe me when you apply this info. Give it 30 days. Practice these principles for 30 days and see if there is a noticeable difference.
Myth #1: Winning is the Ultimate Goal!
With the mental game, your ultimate goal should be to have a consistent performance under pressure. You want to be able to perform in tournaments similar to what you have trained in practice matches. Most world-class players claim that they play on average at 60% of their full potential. On days that they are at 80% or 90%, then they are winning major championships. Here in the US, players have the funny idea that they will perform much much better in tournaments than in training and it hinders their performance. You will reach your ultimate goal when you learn to have the same mindset in practice as you do in tournaments and make similar decisions in tournaments as you have in training! When you reach this level, training and tournaments become more enjoyable because you understand that the way you practice has direct carryover to tournament play and results!
Now I must admit that there will be many obstacles along the way – sickness, injury, negative people, tricky opponents, and even your own mind. BUT, I want you to learn to think differently. Instead of looking at an obstacle that will block your performance, think of theobstacle as an occasion to rise above it! In the book With Winning in Mind by Lanny Basham, he describes one competition that he attended as a professional shooter. His rifle didn’t arrive at the competition, and so he asked himself the question, “Wouldn’t that be amazing if I could win the tournament with a borrowed rifle?” He did! He went on to win the international competition with a borrowed rifle!
If you are going to apply the mental principles of this lesson you need to have a similar mindset. You need to be mentally strong during good times and bad times. These benefits will carry over to all aspects of life and make you better in school better in work, and better in many other areas of life.
Myth: Winning is the Ultimate Goal
Truth: Performance is the Ultimate Goal
Myth #2 If you play well, you win. If you play poorly, you lose!
Actually, in a match, there are four possible outcomes…
A. You perform well and win
B. You perform well and lose
C. You perform poorly and win
D. You perform poorly and lose
So which two are the best? The good performances are what you are looking for. Ultimately, you are not in control of the outcome of the match. You are in control of your own thoughts, your pre-point and post-point routines, and your shot selections during the point. Having this approach is one of the first steps in being able to perform as you have practiced.
Regardless if you win or lose the point, you need to be in control of your emotions. The scoreboard doesn’t control your emotions, you do. You only have 6-8 seconds between points. The feedback that you give yourself is vitally important. One of the National Team Coaches from Canada was taking notes. He had three faces – a smiley face, a neutral face, and a frown. After each point, he would put a tick mark beside the expression of his player. Why was he doing this? Because at the end of each game, he knew that the player would need to evaluate how he was doing.
So, is mental performance just about being positive? No, it is about being emotionally neutral. When you played really well in practice, you were generally happy, relaxed, clear-minded and playing up to your potential. You need to have a pre-point and post point routine. This is only possible if you have a clear mind and aren’t angry about your backhand.
Myth: If you play well, you win. If you play poorly, you lose.
Truth: Perform well and winning will take care of itself!
Myth #3: Tournament Time is Where it Actually Counts!
So how do you win more in tournaments? Relax. Have fun. Focus on playing well by using your strengths, moving well, adjusting to theincoming balls, assessing the situation, and making necessary tactical adjustments. I’m going to tell you a story…
There once was a 12-year-old kid that began playing tournaments. He wanted to win so badly that he rested for 5-6 days before thetournament, went to bed at 8pm the night before the tournament, wore special clothes, had weird tournament day routines with different food and different racket and ultimately he didn’t play well because he “wanted to win” so badly.
Yep, you probably guessed it. It was me. Over the years, I have learned and been blessed with the opportunity to pass along to my students the vital lesson of performance. If you want to play better and raise your level with different shots, different locations, different timings, and more variations, these things need to be developed in training, continued on in match situations, continued on in practice matches, and then continued on in tournaments.
So, if you want to raise your level, it happens in practice. You can do this with a training partner or Power Pong Robot. Write out exactly what you want to work on for the session. Be as specific as possible. Instead of just saying, “I want to work on my backhand,” try to give more detail like, “I wasn’t to work on looping half-long sidespin serves that have various timings coming to my backhand and middle by implementing my pre-point routine, getting lower in my ready position, making the initial movement into position, engaging the core, adjusting to the spin and depth and timing of the serve, looping to their wide backhand, watching their timing, and moving in anticipation of the next hit.” Once you have a specific goal, then write out your list of drills and benchmark goals within those drills.
The ideal thing with the Power Pong Robot is that you can specifically program it for an exact type of ball and get repetition or widen the location or variety to make it more interesting and challenging. With a training partner, you can do similar drills. Feel free to let you training partner know your exact plan and your benchmark goals within your drill. If you are in a training group or playing practice matches at the club, be willing to hunt down lower-rated players to practice with and play matches with. Many things are easier to implement with lower players. When playing higher opponents, sometimes you are just “hanging on for the ride”. One of the ultimate goals is to dominate the competition with strong shots.
In summary, just remember that your tournament performance should be reflected in your tournament. If you want to get better increase your training quality, focus, shot variety, and consistency. In practice and match play, realize that every session is important no matter who you are training with. There is always something that you can improve.
Myth: Tournament Time is Where is Actually Counts!
Truth: Training and Tournaments are to be Seen As Equal!
#4 Nervousness is Bad!
When playing tournaments, most people have a bodily response of elevated heart-rate, slightly sweaty palms, and some excitement. This is good! This is your body getting ready to perform. We love thrills of roller coaster and scary movies because they are exciting. The same principle with major competitions. Your body’s response is completely normal.
To simulate this in training, picture your main rival on the other side of the table looping or smashing at you. When you win a point, be willing to express emotion just like you would in tournaments.
In tournaments some people perform well with high energy and loud disposition while others perform better with deep breathing and quiet attitude. Which one are you? Once you have determined it, try to reflect the same in practice as you would in tournaments and maintain in tournaments what you have done in training.
You may have heard commentators talking about that guy being “in the zone”. Well it is a real thing. This happens when you let it happen by playing within what you can do. To achieve this state, feel free to give yourself general reminders like “keep spinning” or “stay active” and avoid too detailed of an analysis. In order to do this in tournaments, it must be done in practice as well. About 2-3 months before a major tournament it is ok to work on changes; however, one month before your competition, you should just focus on letting it happen.
Myth: Nervousness is Bad!
Truth: Being excited is good!
Myth #5 I Should Only Practice with Better Players!
Yep, I get it. The table tennis community told you that you can only get better when you play with better players. They lied. That isn’t true. I was never a world class player but did achieve 2300 rating as a teenager from playing with 1700 and 1800 players at the club. Also, Hemming Hu (Australia Olympian) said that he improved much more in Australia playing with lower players than he did training in China with elite players. He gave the same reason. When playing with lower players, it is easier to develop dominant shots. At the end of this article, I’ll give some additional stories to prove my point.
Your perception of yourself is so important both on and off the court. What you think about, talk about, and write about are so important. For this reason, I recommend that all TT athletes start a performance journal. Daily take 5 min to write about what you did well in training and your strongest points in match play. The more specific the better. It isn’t just about being a positive guy; it is about giving yourself a concrete path to travel on.
You have heard the expression, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” What path are you on? You are the path of your strongest points and best performances. I’m not talking about the backhand roller around the net that you hit at 9-9 in the fifth. I’m talking about the ways you actively looked to loop the half-long sidespin serves, the way you visualized the bounce and hit correct timing with downward pressure on your block against the spinny loop to your backhand, the way you had confidence to play more balls to the wide backhand before changing to your opponent’s middle or wide forehand.
Video record yourself playing at least once a week. Take notes of what you did well in those matches and the dominant themes that you want to focus on. When you watch Lin Shidong or Tomokazu Harimoto it is ok… BUT that doesn’t help your confidence. Because he is Harimoto and you are just Bill. How does Bill develop a stronger mental game? When Bill has a good performance, understands exactly what went well, and understands that it is a repeatable process.
Yes, yes I know! My critics are saying that it isn’t the same opponent so it can’t be the same performance!
Yes, I agree. It won’t be the exact performance. BUT many of the principles should be the same. Same approach to your warmup routine, same approach to thoughts between points, same approach to adjusting, moving, shot quality, level or risk, reflection, and energy level.
Not in a prideful way, but in a confident way, the more you think about, write about, and talk about something happening, the more you increase the likelihood of it happening. And not just saying it for an hour or a day, but continuing to have it vividly in your mind.
Myth: I should only practice with better players.
Truth: You can improve with players lower and higher than you. Developing dominating skills like 3rd ball attack and smash are best developed when playing lower-level players.
6. Reflection
When I was a teenager, I didn’t get much coaching and there was no training center to practice at. I had a robot and I had a TT club that was open twice a week where I could play matches. My wrong assumption was that if I trained with 2600-level players daily, that I would reach an elite level. Wow was I wrong! I moved to a foreign country and practiced with elite players 4-5 hours per day and didn’t really improve much for 3.5 years. Then I moved back to Ohio, went to college, coached some beginners for a year, then had the best performance of my life making the US National Men’s Team.
What happened?
The time of reflection away from the table really helped me understand exactly what I should have been practicing. Time away from training got me thinking more about tactical sequences, how to work the point longer, how to make better decisions, and ultimately it led to playing better. That was 17 years ago. Since then, I haven’t trained much for the last 17 years but still had better performances with less practice.
So am I telling you to practice less? Nope! I’m telling you that the time of reflection is important. This can happen on days off but it can also happen on training days and even when you are practicing. As your awareness of your performance gets better, you can begin having a consistent performance. Have you ever heard of someone saying, “I got lucky on that match. I’ll never play that good again.” Well they are probably right. Because they can’t assess what actually went well, they probably can’t repeat it.
The more you are able to see what you did well and understand it in detail, the easier it will be for you to structure practice sessions and implement these things into matches.
Should you do these things alone or with a coach? Both! Knowledge that is self-learned sticks longer. So if you learn it by yourself, you are likely to remember it. However, coaches have a wealth of knowledge and can pass along things that would take you decades to learn on your own. So most ideal is to do both. Have a knowledgeable coach that you guide you and you also think on your own and give him feedback.
A few years ago, Lily Zhang went to train with the Chinese National Team for a couple of months! Yes, the Chinese National Team! This is very very very very very very rare that they would invite a foreigner to train with them. A few weeks after coming back to the US, I asked Lily two simple questions
“How was your experience there?”
“Would you go back if you had a chance?”
I had anticipated a particular answer but she really surprised me. She said the experience was okay, just okay. She said that she wouldn’t go back unless she had a personal coach to go with her.
See Lily knows that even though she is smart, works hard, understands the game herself, that she cannot improve as much alone as if she has a personal coach working with her daily – helping her make specific goals for each exercise, evaluating the progresss point by point, watching her training videos, and making sure that she says on track making progress each and every day.
Myth: Your environment determines your success.
Truth: Your success is determined by your skill set and your ability to use these skills in match-scenarios.
Myth #7 I Don’t Have Enough Talent!
7. Persistence
I don’t have enough talent
So will you reach your long-term goals in table tennis? If you are persistent and patient. Persistent in developing the skills and patient realizing that you will see results once these things are a permanent part of your game. Life happens, there are many things that will come along and try to distract you.
Myth: I don’t have enough talent
Truth: Focus on developing skills and be persistent in having a long-term perspective.
8. WinningI just need to practice more
98% of people don’t want to work on their mental game, they just want to win! Well the desire to win is the same thing holding back these same people. I want to share a story with you of an average American player beating a quite-good Chinese player. The American player going into the match was just planning on having fun, performing well, making good decisions, and not caring so much about winning. It was a 3/5 match. The American player was leading 2-1 and 8-4. When the American player won the next point, his whole demeanor changed and he pumped himself up. He could feel the win so close and wanted it win. Up 9-4 he began crumbling 9-5, 9-6, 9-7, 9-8. At 9-8, he walked back to the barrier to pickup the ball and muttered, “just play, you don’t need to win.” When he said that, his countenance changed. There was no longer fire in his eyes, he relaxed and went on to win the next two points and have the greatest victory of his career.
Myth: I just need to practice more.
Truth: You need to re-read this article and apply what you read
