I have some problems with anger when I play table tennis, I usually smash my bat when I miss a shot, and I miss a lot, and that makes me really uncomfortable, but I want to change and I am here to ask what could I do, to get less angry from losing? Meditation, green tea?
Or is it because I don't get the right exercise before I play? Or it's because I play with Chen WeiXing Autograph blade (see what I did there?)?
Nobody on this peninsula has broken more bats in anger than I have. Is may be inappropriate for one such as I to make recommendations to others with this problem when I am likely the worst long-term failure in this area.
Changing expectations is the easiest instant one thing you can do to positively change this. myself, this works only a few months as I simply for the life of me do not play with low expectations. If the opponent simply played greater than I did, that is easy to accept, but when you one misses easy chance after easy chance it is too easy to become angry at yourself.
Some other things one can do in this area really take a lot of conscious thing and possibly some modification to your character. Yes, people can change, even one's character, but over time, one cannot hide his or her character, but one can slowly change it, yes.
One of the OTHER ways to cope with this situation is make your objectives of playing into a training event where you are looking to identify causes and possible solutions for your failures.
Example, in a match, if you get a desired underspin ball to your FH power zone, but failed to land your high percentage shot, you look at your vid (hopefuly you took a vid) and look at possible reasons why you failed.
Example instant analysis: Possible reasons why failed: Playing too upright, poor position, poor timing, not hitting ball in strike zone, not squatting down enough, not rotating enough, not expecting the ball, distracted by ball in court or noise, grip was too tight, or simply I wasn't good enough at my level to consistently hit good shots in a match situation, or even the most common solution we do not see is the opponent is simply better and I wasn't able to read his ball due his soft hands or deceptive impact.
Taking an analytical approach does involve changing the expectations, you might still be able to play to win, but be willing to accept failure, then be able to analyze and learn from failure with the expectation of improving later, possible many months down the line.
If one is playing to win at all costs, it will likely hamper the "strategic" long-term development, as well as learning some other tactics to cope with the situations you fail in. It is VERY EASY to fall into the trap of playing to win. It is in our competitive nature to win. We DO learn a lot of things from match play improvising things to achieve the victory, but there is a lot more to table tennis than winning a club match. Yeah, I shoud tattoo that to my forearm, or at least tape it to my bat before I play, eh?
The other way involves some imagining.
One can imagine he or she is at the controls of a complicated control room looking above the situation.
When something goes wrong, the controller records it and tires out another sequence using the controls looking for consistency and winning sequences.
That method is similar to the analytical method, but removes oneself from the immediate situation.
Both methods do not necessarily stop the player from playing to win... it is what we do... or at least STRIVE to do. They are simply ways to cope with the failure in a more positive way for those of use who are not exactly positive about self or others when we/they fail in a situation where there should not often fail.
That leads to a realization for us in our sport that we will often fail, even in situations that are low percentage fail, and do that multible times in a match and STILL win... and STILL be a good player on the move up.
Failure is a constant and the ones who develop the most, more often than not are those who learn WHY they failed, do some things that can reasonable correct it, and move on.