Is this bad form? Or am I overacting.

[NetProphet]

The main point about talking to the opponent and remaining 100% focused is a key point I agree with. And that is why it is often recommended that you learn to ignore such things because your focus should be on the match. Where I disagree is that there are in my experience players who play better after addressing such things directly and then refocusing on the game, as opposed to ignoring them and trying to focus on the game without addressing them. That way, they get their opponent's intentions out of the way and can then face them completely without any hesitation. Thanksfully, competitive mindset is something serious competitors grow into with trial and error - it isn't something where the best answer is available to everyone to motivate themselves from the beginning.

Yes, for sure there are players who enjoy the verbal sparring and players for whom that is the better approach.
Everything above was just explaining my view after the OP explained his.
You've made your point in a previous post also but I don't think I've said that anyone shouldn't do this if it works for them.
My point earlier to the OP was that he seemed to get dragged into acting against his beliefs (based on previous posts) in a reactionary manner. I interpret this (rightly or wrongly) as an absence of clarity brought about by a lack of mental focus in the moment because it's a deviation from what you'd otherwise rather do.
Don't get goaded into reacting without thinking or playing their games. It's the same thing I try to teach my children in competitive environment and it's something that can be learned.

 

[NextLevel]

What you've done is take my example in direct response to someone who actually complained and who actually said they didn't want to be the type of person to do said action and applied it to a generic random event that I/we can only make assumptions about.
I can't say why random no example player A may or may not start celebrating a point against a player who also celebrates loudly.
We might logically assume that he got caught up in the emotion of the match/situation or whatever but that's not the same as doing something you have outright said you'd rather not do. For most players (myself included) matching the energy on the other side of the table with a 'yes!' or a fistpump isn't usually something construed as negative.
But YES, they do forego the right to complain about opponent behaviour if they too partake in it. Or you can complain and be called a hypocrite...

I have no idea why Timo was driven to the point of practicing illegal serves, I actually don't know this story.
Knowing Timo's character as a sportsman I would put my money on him doing this purely as a story to bring attention to it (but I could be wrong).
But yes, it was an immature move for someone as experienced and honest as Timo Boll to practise illegal serves and very mature to not use them. Maturity in rising above the BS and saving/further enhanced his reputation.
Do you not think so?
What was the mature and immature move in this situation?

Yes because you know as well as I do that intention matters. You are the one saying 'putdown' though... The OP himself said it was a joke he personally didn't find funny and clarified that the guy was really nice and intended no harm. I relate strongly to this because the 'thank you' joke for bad serves does my head in, as I tried to explain in another post.
Do you believe that the morality of actions remains constant/unchanged regardless of the intention behind them?

I am mostly asking these questions to encourage looking at things with a wider perspective - I don't want to push this to a point where it comes across as point scoring. Harimoto's screaming still has its detractors despite his stated intent that it is about himself not about his opponents. Apologizing that someone missed his serve (and equally common is thanking someone for missing his serve where I play) can be a joke and can be trash talking, but pretending that people should never get offended by jokes and trash talks, well, I will leave that to the angels.

Thanks for the discussion.

 

[NetProphet]

I am mostly asking these questions to encourage looking at things with a wider perspective - I don't want to push this to a point where it comes across as point scoring. Harimoto's screaming still has its detractors despite his stated intent that it is about himself not about his opponents. Apologizing that someone missed his serve (and equally common is thanking someone for missing his serve where I play) can be a joke and can be trash talking, but pretending that people should never get offended by jokes and trash talks, well, I will leave that to the angels.

Thanks for the discussion.

Well I am absolutely not pretending that people shouldn't get offended by trash talk. I myself have taken offence.
I was more trying to discuss the best course of action in response to such provocation and we both agree that decision lies on the individual level.

 

[Loop Lob Smash]

 

[turbozed]

This ended up being a very entertaining and enlightening read on table banter psychology and how to deal with it.

I pretty much started off just thinking that it was obvious OP was being too sensitive being so effected by a common joke (I've heard it myself a few times and have never been affected by it).

@NextLevel provided some good thoughts on individual psychology that is worth mulling over. I also agree a one-size-fits-all stoic approach is clearly not optimal for all people. One of the greatest sportsmen in history was also one of the most petty and most affected by minor slights (actual or merely perceived), using them as motivation to dominate and humiliate his opponents. Everyone who has a passing knowledge of basketball knows who this is.

At the same time, I can appreciate that table tennis is game that requires so much mental focus and attention that, for the vast majority of players, being perturbed by mind games will only detract from optimal performance. Putting more physical effort into play isn't going to yield the same benefits as in other sports since precision, tactics, and control are more important. So I can see how it might just be more practical to just coach for immunity from gamesmanship like @Tony's Table Tennis mentions.

If I were to apply this all to myself, I've found I come into any friendly match with the ultimate goal of using it to learn something to get better at the game, rather than just winning. The times I've actually cared to win every single point is when I come across an opponent that is rude or annoys me in some way or another. It doesn't happen often but the times it does, it's pretty obvious that it should be the mindset I should always bring to a competitive play eventually.

But to bring it back to OP...despite going on a journey with this discussion and chewing on all this food for thought, I'm back at the beginning of thinking his response is sub-optimal. Whereever the line is between shrugging off minor distraction and engaging in strategic gamesmanship, OP is clearly on the far end of letting small things bothering him. If it had been the latter, this thread almost certaintly wouldn't exist.

 

[NextLevel]

This ended up being a very entertaining and enlightening read on table banter psychology and how to deal with it.

I pretty much started off just thinking that it was obvious OP was being too sensitive being so effected by a common joke (I've heard it myself a few times and have never been affected by it).

@NextLevel provided some good thoughts on individual psychology that is worth mulling over. I also agree a one-size-fits-all stoic approach is clearly not optimal for all people. One of the greatest sportsmen in history was also one of the most petty and most affected by minor slights (actual or merely perceived), using them as motivation to dominate and humiliate his opponents. Everyone who has a passing knowledge of basketball knows who this is.

At the same time, I can appreciate that table tennis is game that requires so much mental focus and attention that, for the vast majority of players, being perturbed by mind games will only detract from optimal performance. Putting more physical effort into play isn't going to yield the same benefits as in other sports since precision, tactics, and control are more important. So I can see how it might just be more practical to just coach for immunity from gamesmanship like @Tony's Table Tennis mentions.

If I were to apply this all to myself, I've found I come into any friendly match with the ultimate goal of using it to learn something to get better at the game, rather than just winning. The times I've actually cared to win every single point is when I come across an opponent that is rude or annoys me in some way or another. It doesn't happen often but the times it does, it's pretty obvious that it should be the mindset I should always bring to a competitive play eventually.

But to bring it back to OP...despite going on a journey with this discussion and chewing on all this food for thought, I'm back at the beginning of thinking his response is sub-optimal. Whereever the line is between shrugging off minor distraction and engaging in strategic gamesmanship, OP is clearly on the far end of letting small things bothering him. If it had been the latter, this thread almost certaintly wouldn't exist.

With respect to your last paragraph, I reemphasize that finding your optimal approach to table tennis focus in the face of external slights is a journey. I have lost matches because I complained about an opponent's serve, there was no umpire and lost my ability to focus (or maybe not, serve return was always an anxious point for me). I have also lost matches where I traveled to a club where there were coached juniors, the juniors got leads on me, and then I had to battle both the juniors and their cheering audience. I have even lost matches where I called an umpire and the umpire called my serve illegal just as often as my opponent. I have multiple stories in part because for a few years I was consistently one of the most active tournament players in the USA. So even with my limited playing level, I have dealt with many issues.

OP has actually done a service by bringing this topic here because most of us learn either from our own experiences refined into stories or from the experiences of others. That he posted about his experience is an attempt to make sense of his story and it is unfortunate if people use that to conclude hr is overthinking a minor issue. Many people actually keep latent related issues because they never found empowering or reasonable stories to navigate them. So let's be careful when saying that OP is letting small things bother him because he wants to talk about them. Because the truth is that many people who are bothered by similarly small things often develop annoyances that they just never speak about. Till today, I still get annoyed by players who grunt while playing, especially those who do it inconsistently on random loops. And of course there are pips players and Hurricane players etc. My solution ultimately to all these things is when you can, expose yourself and adapt yourself if your focus is on competitive results. But people who consider these things small still need to explain what big things really are and what it means to overthink something that can non-trivially affect a normal human being given our nature as a social species and the emotion reinforcement (or depression) we can get from contagious shared beliefs.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Telling them to stop is is not necessarily a negative reaction and for some people is part of the process of getting to acceptance. Who knows, maybe OP is now ready to not react "negatively" because he has finally reacted after keeping his annoyance pent up all this time.

telling them to stop, might just trigger them to continue even more

you see, you could end up playing the opponents games now... which they are good at, while you are bad at.
I know a late club mate of mine, played TT for 70 years, and he is very good at this kind of tactic. He has been doing it for, maybe 60 years.
The last time I played him was maybe 10 years ago.

I thought to myself,,, does he have no shame in using trash talk 100 times in a match?
then I thought to myself, maybe he doesn't and it is part of his strategy.

Some players are just so used to it, that it makes no difference.
while me, I don't do trash talk, so if I go and counter trash him or ask him to be nice.
Do you think he will stop? and if he doesn't? it means, just thinking about it, has worked into my head and he has won.

 

[NextLevel]

telling them to stop, might just trigger them to continue even more

you see, you could end up playing the opponents games now... which they are good at, while you are bad at.
I know a late club mate of mine, played TT for 70 years, and he is very good at this kind of tactic. He has been doing it for, maybe 60 years.
The last time I played him was maybe 10 years ago.

I thought to myself,,, does he have no shame in using trash talk 100 times in a match?
then I thought to myself, maybe he doesn't and it is part of his strategy.

Some players are just so used to it, that it makes no difference.
while me, I don't do trash talk, so if I go and counter trash him or ask him to be nice.
Do you think he will stop? and if he doesn't? it means, just thinking about it, has worked into my head and he has won.

That's the thing, "just thinking about it, has worked into my head and he has won" is not true for everyone. In fact, just thinking about it and acknowledging it is not going anywhere means "I just have to deal with it" is a path for some. Unfortunately, some people believe "see no evil, evil doesn't exist" is true, so therefore, they pretend the only way to approach bad things is to refuse to accept they exist because accepting that the exist empowers them. In any case, we have gone over this thing too long, let's agree to disagree, acknowledging something exists is not the same as giving it power over you. There is a huge gap in between.

 

[NDH]

Wow, this thread escalated beautifully! 😂

Just for a second, let’s bring it back to the original post….

We are talking about an extremely uncompetitive club DOUBLES match.

That’s about the least important/competitive matchup you can get, only just beating a back yard outdoor match at a family BBQ (and even then, I think the BBQ match would be more important 😂).

All of this talk of gamesmanship, trying to get an edge, trash talk….. just doesn’t apply to this situation in my opinion (appreciate others may differ).

It was just a nice guy (according to the OP), saying something he’s always said, and that people across the globe have said very regularly….. in an extremely friendly match.

Now, I’m on my phone so I can’t quote (and it’s 5am here so I’m a little tired!) but on the subsequent topic of “gamesmanship”, I’m 100% with @Tony's Table Tennis here.

If a player ever asked me (it’s never happened) to stop doing something in an important match….. I:

1. Know they can be easily affected by things.
2. Feel very happy that they are thinking about it other things rather than the match.

Again, it’s never happened to me, and I don’t do anything illegal (I’m a stand up guy don’t you know 😂), but if I can exploit a weakness of theirs, I will.

As for the serve thing…. At my level (non Pro), I figure it’s down to the players to call it.

I do, whenever I see someone hiding the ball (or not throwing it up), I’m calling a let and telling them straight away.

If you leave it, chances are you are thinking about it and lose the chance to call it out (because you don’t want to look like a sore loser if you call them on it 10-10 in the 5th after they’ve been doing it all game).

Most umpires at the amateur level aren’t strong enough to call it, and don’t want the added hassle that comes with having to argue about it if the player disagrees.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Wow, this thread escalated beautifully! 😂

Just for a second, let’s bring it back to the original post….

We are talking about an extremely uncompetitive club DOUBLES match.

That’s about the least important/competitive matchup you can get, only just beating a back yard outdoor match at a family BBQ (and even then, I think the BBQ match would be more important 😂).

All of this talk of gamesmanship, trying to get an edge, trash talk….. just doesn’t apply to this situation in my opinion (appreciate others may differ).

It was just a nice guy (according to the OP), saying something he’s always said, and that people across the globe have said very regularly….. in an extremely friendly match.

Now, I’m on my phone so I can’t quote (and it’s 5am here so I’m a little tired!) but on the subsequent topic of “gamesmanship”, I’m 100% with @Tony's Table Tennis here.

If a player ever asked me (it’s never happened) to stop doing something in an important match….. I:

1. Know they can be easily affected by things.
2. Feel very happy that they are thinking about it other things rather than the match.

Again, it’s never happened to me, and I don’t do anything illegal (I’m a stand up guy don’t you know 😂), but if I can exploit a weakness of theirs, I will.

As for the serve thing…. At my level (non Pro), I figure it’s down to the players to call it.

I do, whenever I see someone hiding the ball (or not throwing it up), I’m calling a let and telling them straight away.

If you leave it, chances are you are thinking about it and lose the chance to call it out (because you don’t want to look like a sore loser if you call them on it 10-10 in the 5th after they’ve been doing it all game).

Most umpires at the amateur level aren’t strong enough to call it, and don’t want the added hassle that comes with having to argue about it if the player disagrees.

hey hey hey
doubles is very important

i'm loving doubles now than I do singles. haha

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

That's the thing, "just thinking about it, has worked into my head and he has won" is not true for everyone. In fact, just thinking about it and acknowledging it is not going anywhere means "I just have to deal with it" is a path for some. Unfortunately, some people believe "see no evil, evil doesn't exist" is true, so therefore, they pretend the only way to approach bad things is to refuse to accept they exist because accepting that the exist empowers them. In any case, we have gone over this thing too long, let's agree to disagree, acknowledging something exists is not the same as giving it power over you. There is a huge gap in between.

all good

just that I like to add (one last time, haha),
its not that thinking evil doesn't exist, but rather, don't let the evil affect you.
don't need to be any angel to do that, but just to make sure you are in your zone and don't let any opponent, umpire, spectator or anything else out there, make you become a lebrun

and if you are easily affected about it, then maybe, as you said, seek professional help, of which, lebruns need to get a better one

 

[Draycott old man]

all good

just that I like to add (one last time, haha),
its not that thinking evil doesn't exist, but rather, don't let the evil affect you.
don't need to be any angel to do that, but just to make sure you are in your zone and don't let any opponent, umpire, spectator or anything else out there, make you become a lebrun

and if you are easily affected about it, then maybe, as you said, seek professional help, of which, lebruns need to get a better one

Look at John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg from the 1980s both fantastic players in there own right but completely different temperaments but both winners but John had to fire himself up to win whereas Bjorn was ice cool and never showed any emotion. There's no better Match when you play someone who respects the rules and plays with the right etiquette!!! It's a sad world if you have to win by any means when you are only playing in local league's.Win or lose I'm happy if I know I've played the game right way.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Look at John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg from the 1980s both fantastic players in there own right but completely different temperaments but both winners but John had to fire himself up to win whereas Bjorn was ice cool and never showed any emotion. There's no better Match when you play someone who respects the rules and plays with the right etiquette!!! It's a sad world if you have to win by any means when you are only playing in local league's.Win or lose I'm happy if I know I've played the game right way.

i totally agree
but today's world is different to that of 80s for sure.
not just TT or Tennis
look at NBA and soccer - you have more training on acting / falling, than actual ball play.
what can we do about it?

In terms of poor etiquette, I find it more in amateur space than pro space to be honest

 

[Draycott old man]

i totally agree
but today's world is different to that of 80s for sure.
not just TT or Tennis
look at NBA and soccer - you have more training on acting / falling, than actual ball play.
what can we do about it?

In terms of poor etiquette, I find it more in amateur space than pro space to be honest

I agree Tony it's seems to be win at all costs today in almost all sports and life!!! I would rather lose the right way than win the wrong way !!! But that's only my opinion!!!

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I agree Tony it's seems to be win at all costs today in almost all sports and life!!! I would rather lose the right way than win the wrong way !!! But that's only my opinion!!!

and that is why I don't play matches or treat them as my life when playing friendlies.
why the pressure

 

[suds79]

We are talking about an extremely uncompetitive club DOUBLES match.

That’s about the least important/competitive matchup you can get, only just beating a back yard outdoor match at a family BBQ (and even then, I think the BBQ match would be more important 😂).

Perhaps I didn't paint the picture very well. Yes it's a club night. Yes everybody knows one another and are pretty friendly. That does not mean in the least that while we're chummy throughout the night that during a match people are not trying to win. This particular group of guys don't seem to care all that much for singles which I'd prefer as they play pretty much only doubles so my only way to compete with them is to play double where we rotate matchups. Everybody is competitive here. There isn't a player who doesn't want to win in every rotation they can solidifying themselves at the best of the group. So I couldn't disagree more with the situation that it was a uncompetitive doubles match. No we play to win.

I think what I've found interesting from this discussion and I haven't really pondered it much until I've read all the responses here from people. Tony hit on this so this part is somewhat addressing his thoughts & others but I think there's this notion of in order to keep you game face on, you must be cool, calm & level headed. I think that's something apparently many of us believe based on the comments.

I've noticed it in the past but I don't think I've pondered it much until thinking deeper about this situation & experiences I've had in the past. I think this is personality driven. But I know for a fact that for me, as someone who is laid back and can even sometimes feel like taking it easy or needing pump myself up a little to get going, the best way for an opponent raise my level is to slightly piss me off a little internally. Bring out the fight in me a little. That's when you'll get my best. Light a fire in me. This obviously is in contrast to the common, but IMO not true for all, belief that you have or should be this stoic, centered player maintaining this zen like approach at all times. I don't think it's a one size fits all. To bring it back to Tony's example, it was famous that the last thing you ever wanted to do was talk trash to MJ. You do not piss him off or motivate him even more. Your best best was to just play and try to win. (please note I'm not comparing myself to MJ. Tony brought up the example and I'm just using it to cite that it's different from person to person)

I wouldn't call it angry or out of control. I'd call it motivated and a little pumped up. Certainly this approach would work for some and not others. But it does for me when I think about past club nights and/or tournaments. So honestly I think what he did helps make me more motivated to beat him then & maybe going forward.

As I stated before, do I expect him to stop? No. I don't think he even thinks about it anymore. I think it's a reflex condition at this point. Do I think it's bad form? Yes. Am I okay with letting him know at least once it's bad form? You bet. Having said all that, he's still a super nice guy. We'll still chums. That doesn't effect anything.

I'll still answer back if I feel I'm challenged? Oh you want to thank me for a service error? Expect a Yes & fist pump then when you do it. You want to Cho? I'll cho. If we're both internally raising the competitive or "I want to beat this guy" level inside? That works great for me. Maybe it does or doesn't for them. But I'm good with that. (One should note that as soon as the match ends, despite the competition level, we all love it. You still always shake their hand, say good game and move on. It never carries outside the game. At least that's how I feel)

I brought up the topic because I thought it was going to bring up interesting thoughts & stories from you all and it has delivered.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Perhaps I didn't paint the picture very well. Yes it's a club night. Yes everybody knows one another and are pretty friendly. That does not mean in the least that while we're chummy throughout the night that during a match people are not trying to win. This particular group of guys don't seem to care all that much for singles which I'd prefer as they play pretty much only doubles so my only way to compete with them is to play double where we rotate matchups. Everybody is competitive here. There isn't a player who doesn't want to win in every rotation we do. So I couldn't disagree more with the situation that it was a uncompetitive doubles match. No we play to win.

I think what I've found interesting from this discussion and I haven't really pondered it much until I've read all the responses here from people. Tony hit on this so this part is somewhat addressing his thoughts & others but I think there's this notion of in order to keep you game face on, you must be cool, calm & level headed. I think that's something apparently many of us believe based on the comments.

I've noticed it in the past but I don't think I've pondered it much until thinking deeper about this situation & experiences I've had in the past. I think this is personality driven. But I know for a fact that for me, as someone who is laid back and can even sometimes feel like taking it easy or needing pump myself up a little to get going, the best way for an opponent rise my level is to slightly piss me off a little internally. Bring out the fight in me a little. That's when you'll get my best. Light a fire in me. This obviously is in contrast to the common, but IMO not true for all, belief that you have or should be this stoic, centered player. I don't think it's a one size fits all. To bring it back to Tony's example, it was famous that the last thing you ever wanted to do was talk trash to MJ. (please note I'm not comparing myself to MJ. Tony brought up the example and I'm just using it to cite that it's different from person to person)

I wouldn't call it angry or out of control. I'd call it motivated and a little pumped up. Certainly this approach would work for some and not others. But it does for me when I think about past club nights and/or tournaments. So honestly I think what he did helps make me more motivated to beat him then & maybe going forward.

As I stated before, do I expect him to stop? No. I don't think he even thinks about it anymore. I think it's a reflex condition at this point. Do I think it's bad form? Yes. Am I okay with letting him know at least once it's bad form? You bet. Having said all that, he's still a super nice guy. We'll still be chums. That doesn't effect anything.

I'll still answer back if I feel I'm challenged? Oh you want to thank me for a service error? Expect a Yes & fist pump then when you do it. You want to Cho? I'll cho. If we're both internally raising the competitive or "I want to beat this guy" level inside? That works great for me. Maybe it does or doesn't for them. But I'm good with that. (One should note that as soon as the match ends, despite the competition level, we all love it. You still always shake their hand, say good game and move on. It never carries outside the game. At least that's how I feel)

I brought up the topic because I thought it was going to bring up interesting thoughts & stories from you all and it has delivered.

if you can turn into just 1% of MJ when trashed talk.
I am 1000% sure that no one will trash talk you any more

But I think the key thing is, MJ didn't trash talk back.
He just went for the kill mode, no speech, but deadly eye and most importantly, the execution

 

[suds79]

if you can turn into just 1% of MJ when trashed talk.
I am 1000% sure that no one will trash talk you any more

But I think the key thing is, MJ didn't trash talk back.
He just went for the kill mode, no speech, but deadly eye and most importantly, the execution

Eh I don't think you can say that about MJ in that he never trash talked back. He was one of the biggest most famous (Bird right there with him) trash talkers of all time. The man called himself black Jesus in response to Reggie Miller after Reggie talked trash to him. No MJ talked plenty.

I don't think what I did was trash talk anyways. I don't think he was trying to trash talk. I just let him know it's bad form and if he was cool with not saying that to me. That's not my trash talk. I can do way better than that. Like I said. Let him know, probably got a little more motivated from it & kept playing.

 

[Jslick89]

As for the serve thing…. At my level (non Pro), I figure it’s down to the players to call it.

I do, whenever I see someone hiding the ball (or not throwing it up), I’m calling a let and telling them straight away.

If you leave it, chances are you are thinking about it and lose the chance to call it out (because you don’t want to look like a sore loser if you call them on it 10-10 in the 5th after they’ve been doing it all game).

Most umpires at the amateur level aren’t strong enough to call it, and don’t want the added hassle that comes with having to argue about it if the player disagrees.

ok ok i'm going to start doing this because i think you're right, i might be distracting myself by NOT saying something lol. Plus, maybe i can throw my opponent off his game. the only thing is...the one guy at the club that i know does this...he's never beaten me so maybe thats why i let it slide?

 

[Jslick89]

and that is why I don't play matches or treat them as my life when playing friendlies.
why the pressure

one of my best friends in the club does this when he plays me. he psyches himself out even when we are just practice matching in my garage. its a seriously zero pressure situation. I dont understand why he does this at all. he is even aware he does it but he cannot change it for the life of him.