What's your opinion on important skills for playing Table Tennis?

A lot of things count, of course, like motorics and coordination between several semi-autonomous motoric systems, game intelligence. “Feeling”.

But high agility is certainly important.

Physical, mental and technical aspects are all important in tt. Lacking one of the three will be very hard to be really that good.

Good balance. Ability to move in a relaxed way. High power to weight ratio in legs. Flexibility in upper body. Core strength. Good vision, interestingly enough even peripheral vision.

You can definitely improve your game by improving your body.

BUT it is far more important to spend a lot of time actually at the table since the motor skills required in our sport are very refined and take years to master. In our sport the top players are very athletic, increasingly so with 40+ balls, but it is surprising how good at our sport people can be whose athleticism is at a pretty low level. They can be very good indeed because they have great feeling for the ball, great timing, great ancitipation, don't misjudge spin, keep the ball on the table, and have tactics that match their skill sets. Imagine how good someone like Karakasivic of Serbia would have been if he was as fit as Wang Liqin? His results would have been better, and as it was he was in the world top 50. And how many times have I seen old pushblockers annihilate impressive looking juniors who have no idea what is happening.

In general, observation is a very important skill, and table tennis is no exception. One of the first things that a developing player needs to learn is how to read spin that the opponent creates. Also, tracking the ball and learning to anticipate where the ball will go also are very important skills that are based on observation.

Learning the observe every part of the ball (height, speed, spin) that you are hitting allows a player to select and adapt their stroke to any situation.

If you have no eyes, you can't really play, can you?

All mentioned above plus many other things like feeling of rythm, temp and ballance.
In music people say that one can not be a musision, if he can't swing - its the same in TT - you can't play TT if you can't swing.

langel said:

All mentioned above plus many other things like feeling of rythm, temp and ballance.
In music people say that one can not be a musision, if he can't swing - its the same in TT - you can't play TT if you can't swing.

Click to expand...

Yes. The late Marty Reisman was the most musical table tennis player I have ever seen or had the privilege to practice with. He had every stroke from a delicate pianissimo drop shot to a sforzando forehand and backhand kill to a glissando table game to a subito backhand or forehand block to an andante push and chop with molto to poco a poco backspin. And he had the necessary arrogance, though he himself admitted in over abundance though not publicly, that characterizes a champion, whether outwardly modest or outwardly flamboyant as his cigarette busting fedora and beret wearing self was.

If you’re gonna be tall hog at the trough, whether in the military or at Ohio State University as I was, or internationally as Reisman was, you can’t be a shrinking pong violet. You shouldn’t go overboard either, as I saw Reisman once do, annihilating a player not accustomed to the ways of the hardbat 21-0 then prancing around before going on to win the 1997 U.S. Nationals Hardbat Singles, defeating Larry Hodges. I did not care for that, and I told him so in no uncertain terms. He looked at me sheepishlly and said that he didn’t wish to show his vanquished opponent up; he just had never beaten anyone 21-0 before in the semifinals of an Open event.

So....all the attributes mentioned by the other contributors to this thread, plus a hint of arrogance, or if you prefer, confidence. You can’t go out there thinking I’m gonna get my but handed to me even if chances are very good that since your opponent is better than you are that’s exactly what’s going to happen,

In the spongeslinger/glockpong speed glue hidden serve era, Jan-Ove Waldner cannot be neglected. He could pull shots out of his Scandinavian sphincter that were genuinely microtonal. And he could hold his Amstel Light at the players’ banquet before the commencement of the 2004 U.S. Open.

Waldner at his most creative played like Harry Partch on blow. He could lob better than Ashu Jain or Michael Maze, loop from all distances from both sides, smash forehands with nothing but his arm, and put away a counter loop with a block.

And he had that quiet introverted arrogance that enabled him to walk down Chicago’s Navy Pier in his Donic warmup suit completely unnoticed by Chicago’s Fourth of July celebrating pier walking civilians and outwardly not giving a damn. Even if you’re a born again hardbat man you have to give due props to that.

It is interesting. In this video, the 2700 player is in pretty good shape. So, I am not going to say it doesn't help to be in good shape. But Rich Dewitt is not in good shape. And he is still pretty darn good. Even if he is in such bad shape. And in this video, he is really playing someone who is much higher level than he is. 2700 USATT is not a joke. And Rich definitely plays decently and frustrates the 2700 level player for the first two games.


So, I am so sure the physical stuff is exactly as important as the OP makes it sound.

But I think this video has some information that is related to what you are actually asking.


This is about effective methods for practicing to improve more through training. I think this gives information that is worth understanding if your interest is improving.

If your interest is simply to get in better shape, lots of kinds of exercise are good.

By the way, the term "specificity of training" that the Train Ugly guy mentions at the end of the Train Ugly video, that concept gives a lot of info of how to prepare and strengthen your body for TT.

I think it should be continuous training.

Training to stay low and have good footwork and quickness is exhausting. Especially for an old guy like me. I say you need strong legs and a muscular arm on one side of the body.