To me, it’s all in your head. Literally.

Back in the office, my buddy asked me what it is about ping pong (or probably table tennis is more familiar to you) that I like the most. His argument was about my long arms and legs, saying I can easily make it to the college basketball team. He also added that ping pong can cause me so much trouble because the table is quite low. Next on his list is about the playing are. According to him, there is less reach, height, speed, and strength advantages because of the limited, small playing area. Lastly, his impression about the game is that it doesn’t require a lot of thinking and strategizing. Poor guy, he doesn’t know that this sport is really a physically and mentally challenging game.

Having long arms and legs for ping pong players is not a handicap, but actually an advantage. In an advanced game, a player must react to a fast moving ball. Long rallies and powerful sets of smashes are inevitable, thus your long arms and legs can be an advantage in order to reach the ball faster.

Like any other sports, your physical attributes can give you leverage over your opponents. Although it is not the same as sprinting in a 100 meter dash, speed and agility are absolutely needed in table tennis. Imagine shuffling left and right chasing after a 60mph ball from end to end of the table. That definitely requires an outstanding lateral movement and exceptional balance to be able return the ball properly. But that’s not all, being able to return the ball properly means you have a good lower body strength to maintain your balance and also upper body strength for a powerful return.

What’s more, this game involves a lot of strategy. To gain control of the game, you must have a sense of timing. You should be able to manipulate the ball to the opponent’s direction with spins and drives and also make good decisions quickly with every shot. 

Tiger W. is the man.  He has it figured out.  The reason he’s the champ is because he’s got the mental game part figured out, and he executes it time and time again.. to perfection.

Loving any specific sport makes you want to strive harder to become better at it every single day. And that is what’s keeping me busy everyday – my love for table tennis.

My weekly trainings are all recorded in my scheduler. This is where I plan my weekly table tennis routines, from muscle toning to physical conditioning and drills.

This training schedule helps me keep a closer look at my progress and also pinpoints the areas I still need improvement on.

The log sheet dictates the number of hours for every table tennis sessions and body conditioning workouts I have to spend. As for me, since I have a nine to five, I limit myself to 2 days a week, with 2 hours a day table tennis drills and alternately for my fitness.

My drills are focused mostly on basic drives and strokes. X drills and V drills are the most common exercises for my training. These exercises considerably improve my ball control and footwork.

Another training routine you can try is the multi-ball. It’s as simple as a bucket full of balls served at you one at a time. This is really helpful if you want to develop good service returns, ball control, and speed - and also if you are trying a new technique.

To be always on your A game, you must stay in good shape. Do a lot of stretching, aerobics, and weight lifting. Aside from improving physical condition, it can reduce injuries, and body aches.  This isn’t glamorous stuff, guys, but I’m telling you you have to keep to your practice routine if you want to be a top player.

It can lapse your concentration on training, don’t you know.

On the brighter side, once your girl gets into the came, life can be really cool.

Lately, it seems like my girlfriend is starting to get serious about beating me big time in ping pong. Just the other week, we had a little fun with it and she almost had me.

With that strange fire in her eyes, I was forced to put on my shoes and switch to my competitive self. I thought it was another walk in the park with free pizza and beer again on the line. But I was wrong.

Like a scene from a movie adaptation of a comic series, she quickly tossed a coin up in the air and made it disappear in an instant. She calls the pick and got the first serve.

The air suddenly turned heavy and the tension around increased exponentially. Somehow the room feels suffocating and we knew, at any moment the quiet place will turn into a hostile battleground.

And so the fight went on!

She served the ball the way she normally does it. But as I return the ball, her straight face sent shiver down my spine and without a sound she scored the first point of the game with a smash packed with an awesome side spin. It was then I felt that she was really serious in beating the hell out of me.

The exchanges were hard and the rallies were long. It felt like world table tennis championship with Wang Liqin or Ma Lin, two of the best table tennis players of today.

But in the end, with my very tight defense against her burning drives, I emerged victorious. And just like the old times, I was the one who paid for the bill. All my defenses crumbled before her teary eyes (she does that every time she asks for favor).
What a game!

A few days ago, I had a water cooler talk with my buddies in the office regarding ping pong (also known as table tennis) that turned into one huge and heated debate. Of course, as a huge fan of the sport, I acted as if I know everything. But they never listened. They actually usually blow me off, since I tend to be pretty boring on this subject.  I admit it. LOL!  Since they didn’t listen to me, I thought it is better to just share my knowledge in ping pong to others like you, instead.

As it turns out, most of the world champions and leaders in the sport of ping pong come from Asia. A large sum of them is from China, Japan, and South Korea - no wonder why many believe that this sport originated from the East, aside from the fact that it doesn’t have a Western sounding name.

Would you believe that ping pong originated in England in late 1800s? It is said to be a past time activity of some upper class Victorians who wanted to bring the tennis game indoors. They used different everyday objects to act as the equipment for the game. The books served as the net, rounded cork for the ball, cigar boxes as the rackets, and the dining table was the court.

The name ping pong came from one of the earliest manufacturers of the game equipment, J. Jacques and Son Ltd. It became their trademark in 1901. It was said that the idea came from the bouncing sound made.
 
That’s a quick look on the history of the name and the game called ping pong.  Now you too can bore your friends with this stuff.

When my friends crashed at to our apt., the very first thing they noticed was that long ping pong table we have leaning on the wall just by the front door.

My roommates and I play ping pong almost everyday and this has become our favorite past time activity since it was brought in.

I’ve been playing a lot of ping pong when I was in college, so when I heard that my roommates also love the sport, my fiery spirit suddenly ignited with joy, but that’s a different story.

So, my friends thought that it would be a fun thing to do while they were at my place. Being the good host that I am, I introduced them to the game.

Ping pong is played by either two or four players and like tennis, it also has singles and doubles game. You start the game with a service. The ball should be placed flat on the palm of a free hand. Toss the ball up from behind and a little over the top of the table’s end line, then hit it and make a lob to the other side of the table.

The player on the other side must allow the ball to hit his side of the table once then hit it back to the other side. If it bounces twice on one’s own side, a point will be given to the opponent.

Points are also given in cases of: hitting the ball twice, not hitting the opponent’s table when returning, touching the table your free hand, an illegal serve, hitting the net with racket or any body part among others.

So that’s a quick sum-up of how you can start playing ping pong or table tennis. Since it was just for fun, we carried on without any of the complicated rules yet.  Once I teach them a little, I had this thought that maybe we could put a friendly wager on the game.  LOL!

 However, to actually win a game, then you need offensive strategy.  Not prayer, that’s not what I am talking about.  You actually need to be prepared to sieze victory and to have a plan to accomplish that.

If you are a high schooler reading this, listen to me– brute force is not a strategy.  You need to lear to use your brain as well as your arms.

Here I am again acting like I know everything about my favorite sport. But come to think of it, yeah, I really do know a lot about ping pong. What I want to share with you is my most favorite part of the game - the offensive shots.

Offensive shots are mainly used to attack the opponent’s side with faster, sharper, and stronger drives. Unlike defensive shots or strokes that make the ball spin towards you, the offensive shots are mainly characterized by making movements to send the ball away.

Speed drive – is a shot that banks more on speed than spin. This technique strokes the ball in perpendicular direction, from low to high, giving it a sharp and arc-less motion towards the opposite side, with considerable amount of topspin.
 
Loop drive – is a shot that uses a lot of spin on the ball. This can be achieved by stroking the ball parallel to its path with the intention of increasing the spin of the ball. Like speed drive, you go from low to high to increase the topspin, but this time at a lower angle. This results to a drive with low trajectory than sharpness.

Counter-Drive – as the name implies, this drive is to turn the tables around. For effective counter drive, you must hit the ball before reaching its highest point. This requires timing, accuracy, and technique to become successful.

Flick – is a short and fast wrist action. It is normally used if there is lesser room to make a big swing.

Smash – is generally regarded as the ultimate weapon. You execute this move when the opponent returns the ball and bounces high enough that it gives you a comfortable position to return the ball with a large swing. It normally has a lot of speed in it and can be driven with topspin, sidespin, or no spin at all.

Occassionally you will hear different names for stuff, but these are basically your bag of tricks.  Learn them, and practice them.  Arrogance is your greatest enemy in any sport.  Practice is what helps you get to the win, and to stay on top.

I eat, sleep, and think ping pong. Drives my girlfriend crazy. LOL!

I was watching some videos on the Internet about some ping pong games when I was tempted to click on a training video. So I thought I was up for a special, top class, and Olympic-caliber training, but instead of learning something to improve my drives or maybe footwork (which I expected to be aching after the practice), I just ended up with a stomachache because of endless laughing.

The video has a title of Extreme Ping Pong Training (which made me believe it was for real). The training started with the ping pong master talking while a ball floats between a racket and his hand. After that, the training commenced with the tune of “Eye of the Tiger” in the background.

That training was seriously hilarious. Each trainee was given a ball and ordered to run lapses around the campus. They did jumping jacks while being slapped with ping pong racket on their faces, push ups with ping pong balls under their nostrils, and driving practice ala Matrix (complete with slow motion cinematic effect).

The muscle toning section was my favorite part. Trainees lift weights while being blasted with ping pong balls. One ball even went inside a trainee’s mouth. There was also a nutrition program in which ping pong balls were added to their morning cereals. I think that was supposed to help the trainees absorb the energy of the ping pong balls. 

At the end of the program was a competition and it was not without its own share of crazy humor. Every now and then, a ball coming from nowhere enters the game scene.

Everything was really exaggerated and funny. That was the most entertaining ping pong training I have ever seen – I don’t know if I should feel bad or good after watching it.  I think every so often even people who train full time in this game need to let off a little steam and that’s where bizarre videos like this come from.

 
Because basically they haven’t any strategy.  People these days are undisciplined and without vision.

They say defense is the best offense. But how does defense in ping pong look like?

Unless you know this you’ll be a dead duck in the game.

For sure you will never see man to man play like there is for basketball or any arms held up to cover the face like in boxing. And definitely, you can’t do a tailgating like you can do in races.

So how do you make an effective defense in ping pong? The only way is, to hit it back. And that is what I’ve been practicing for the last few days now.

The main purpose of the defensive shot is to successfully return an attacking ball and at the same time create opportunity for you to make your own attack or force your opponent to make a mistake.

Here are some of the defensive shots that you can also spend time practicing on.

Push – also known as slice, is a stroke coming from a high position going low and hitting the ball from underneath. This stroke will make the ball float or lob, but as a result, will hold a lot of backspin. This is usually seen when serving.

Chop – a heavier version of push. You make a big arm swing to hit the ball, like a push, to produce more backspin. This is a defensive stroke because you hit the ball so that it goes towards you.

Block – is simply putting the racket right in front of the coming ball. It is more like of a drop shot because you make the ball go slower because you don’t apply any force against it.

Lob – this stroke requires a lot of control and high level of accuracy. Most lob shots come from the back end and normally used against smashes. This is the very obvious shot among all strokes because of its very high trajectory.

Once you have mastered this language and these techniques the game can be yours.. as long as you are careful not to become too over-confident.  I have BTDT and can tell you, that is not advisable.

This is because ping pong is such great exercise. People don’t really believe it. The other thing is that eating right is essential
to victory!

How important is the meal before the tournament?

I say, very!

In table tennis or probably in some other sports, it is one of the topics left on the shelves.
Nobody really talks about it– probably cuz
they have their own eating secrets. LOL!

Just like the idea of having breakfast in the morning before starting your day, you also need to take proper meals before engaging into competition.
 
Our nutritionist back in college once told me that it is important to eat foods that are high in carbohydrates on the night before the game. This will provide you enough energy for the next day. In the morning before the tournament, it is suggested that you eat early, and again, fill your stomach with carbohydrates like grains and cereals, or bread.

Lessen the serving or avoid fat and protein. They are hard to digest and can slow you down because of the energy used in digestion, aside from the fact that it’s hard to move if you feel bloated.

Fruits and vegetables are also recommended  especially as snacks during breaks.

Drink plenty of water to get you hydrated. Plain water is good, but if you want a slightly sweetened drink is just fine, as well. But be wary of sugar concentration because too much sugar can make you feel tired.

So, before you jump into an action-filled table tennis competition, fill your stomach first with the right nutrients and finish the day with a big amount of water –I mean huge– for proper hydration.

When I was in high school they started
calling me Black Bart, like I was a pirate
stealing their points.  Well, if they played
better I wouldn’t be stealing their points,
would I?  LOL!

Then later on someone called me Paddles
because I always had the right paddle
in hand.  If you have a smooth paddle your
ball is going to fly every which way.  Better
to have a premium paddle with just the right
waffling, so that it’s you and not some wild
spirit that controls where your ball goes.

At least one good thing came from the
nicknames– sometimes my opponents were
afraid of some guy named Black Bart, or
affraid they’d get paddled by Paddles. LOL!

This is an easy game to get started with
if you would like to learn to play. Table
tennis is one of the few sports that don’t
need big spaces and expensive equipment.

I have one set up in our small apartment
and it is really not a burden to have your
own as well.

If you’re a fan of the sport or you want
to start learning how to play it,  here are
the basic pieces of equipment, the must
haves to get you started.

Ball– Under international rules, the table
tennis ball should weight 2.7 grams and
40mm in diameter. Specifically, just so
you understand, the ball must have a coefficient
of restitution of 0.88. This means that if the
ball is released from a height of 30 cm, it
should bounce back up to 23 cm. This ball’s
characteristic, if my memory serves me well,
was first introduced after the 2000 Sydney
Olympics.

Table– The official table tennis dimension
is 9 feet long by 5 feet wide by 30 inches high.
It is usually made from hardboard called
Masonite or timber with a smooth and
low-friction surface. A 6-inch high net installed
in the middle divides the table, which serves as
the court.

Racket– The table tennis racket is a                   laminated wooden blade covered with                rubber sheets on both sides. The rubber             sheets differ in characteristics and                       performance. There are rubber sheets                 that are ideal for fast plays, rubber sheets            that provide good control, and there are             also those that have all-around characteristics.
Players are allowed to use any combination
of rubber sheets on two faces of the racket.
With this, players use different techniques
with versatility and full control, especially
on ball spin and speed.   

The other good thing is that, compared to
other sports, the cost of getting going in
this sport is usually cheaper.  That was
one of the things that appealed to me
initially way back when.