Child Abuse - Japanese Style

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I wonder, if you keep smacking your kid with a table tennis ball, what else are you capable of doing. Then the kid grows up and amongst other different issues you bring along from your childhood, might do the same against his own kids. A vicious circle.
 
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Fair enough.

Still, at some point, the will has to come from within. Giving kids a push, yes, by all means, but if many years into it the only driving force is external pressure, there'll always be a lack of creativity and that "extra" factor. Take Ma long, Timo Boll, Xu Xin, Vladimir Samsonov... These guys would play for free, or at least for their own sense of enjoyment, achievement and glory. They look like naturals, and have instantly recognisable styles. I feel this could be the difference between Miu Hirano and Mima Ito, in recent times. "I have to win" only cuts the mustard up to a certain point.

etc.

Carlsen is innately more brilliant than Caruana. Caruana had no chance when it came to rapids obviously. He knows he's better because of results and because of everyone telling him he's better. Hence he is confident.

I think you're motivated by your results and by the respect accorded to you by others. If a kid gets respect from the other kids for being really good at something, he'll naturally try to maximize and overplay that something, and adults are just big bodied kids too. It's because human beings live for the respect of their peers. This respect is also expressed as money, as status, as creature comforts and special handling, as privilege of whatever sort.

Truth is I don't see how 'inner motivation' exists. I mean I don't see any evidence of it being a thing other than idealistic thought.
 
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A little background on Masataka's dad, Makoto Morizono. He is a former player and he runs the Mitaka Club. Winner in singles and doubles of the Kansai Students Championships 1986. Here's a match video of him from this July.

In an interview last year, Masataka used the word "terror" to describe his dad and the training he was subjected to. What's most interesting is he was forced to play table tennis, but he couldn't tell his dad even if he wanted to quit at one point, since he was "born to play table tennis." That was until Koki Niwa appeared, who happened to be also a left-hander and roughly the same build and height, in other words, the perfect arch-rival.

Misaki Morizono, Masataka's older sister, said in another interview that his dad's coaching "was so intense it could pose a problem today."

Zhang Jike and his dad Zhang Chuanming would be the perfect analogy here. The child abuse ZJK went through include "leapfrog, one-legged jump, cross step footwork, trail running, and even swimming in the sea."
 
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Carlsen is innately more brilliant than Caruana. Caruana had no chance when it came to rapids obviously. He knows he's better because of results and because of everyone telling him he's better. Hence he is confident.

I think you're motivated by your results and by the respect accorded to you by others. If a kid gets respect from the other kids for being really good at something, he'll naturally try to maximize and overplay that something, and adults are just big bodied kids too. It's because human beings live for the respect of their peers. This respect is also expressed as money, as status, as creature comforts and special handling, as privilege of whatever sort.

Truth is I don't see how 'inner motivation' exists. I mean I don't see any evidence of it being a thing other than idealistic thought.

Okay.

I don't think we disagree, on the whole ("innately more brilliant" bothers me a bit, but I agree predispositions are a thing - as in, "potential to be uncovered"; have you heard of epigenetics?). It has long been known that different methods will work better or worse with different people, to unfold that potential. The trend in the west is to move away from blanket methods and "transmitting" (typically lectures to be rehashed by the students) to active learning and "empowerment" - I know, a buzzword if there ever was one - with mixed results, as some will benefit more from the clear structure of the older model. I believe in a mixture of both (which is always the case in practice, but in wildly varying proportions and oftentimes purely by accident), ideally in parts suited to each individual. In TT, that'd be drilling 10.000 times the same stroke as shown by the coach, versus analysing on one's own terms anything from touch to match tactics and strategy, why that stroke is performed in that way and not another, and when; developing one's own style due to personal inclinations and intuition, etc. (pretty sure Ma Long was a master at this). In the latter case I am not saying a coach won't be an indispensable asset if you want to make it far, quite the opposite. But the approach is entirely different (you can look up Vygotski and ZPD, although it has been a while now), hence what I called "nurturing" in Carlsen's case.

I went in quite a few directions in my previous post, but to answer your last sentence: I agree with what you said about motivation, but to simplify I meant "inner motivation" as in "I really want this" (regardless of the driving factors), as opposed to "I hate it, but I have to". Again it is never that simple (the reason I went through so many detours), but I think the vast majority of people who have brought any kind of breakthrough or innovation, in any given field, have the ability to take things into their own hands.
 
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Nowadays, so much as changed.
Maybe some have changed to "way toooooo soft"
Some are arguing human right/child abuse etc
We are also having so much more spoiled brats nowadays then previous generations due to softening discipline and rules/rights

I think one need to find a balance.
Champions are not soft and brittle
They are strong and have taken a lot of strain to get there.

Some of your basketball, american football, even soccer etc kids all grow up with bruises and injuries - from more harder contact than a "smack in the face with a pingpong ball"

I do understand there is a culture differences and cultural shocks.
I still remember a top junior goes to train in China, comes back and tell me - wow, the coach scolded a kid.
The mom was there and the kid went towards the mom.... the mom slapped the kid for punishment of some sort because he let the coach scold him.
Now I don't agree with what the mom did, but today, the mom will likely sue to coach for scolding her kid.

As a coach, I have been taught to always protect ourselves.
Ie, nowadays you can't touch the players body/hands without permission and witnesses - even if you want to fix the stroke and touching they hand, someone can sue you for sexual harassment.
 
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Nowadays, so much as changed.
Maybe some have changed to "way toooooo soft"
Some are arguing human right/child abuse etc
We are also having so much more spoiled brats nowadays then previous generations due to softening discipline and rules/rights

I think one need to find a balance.
Champions are not soft and brittle
They are strong and have taken a lot of strain to get there.

Some of your basketball, american football, even soccer etc kids all grow up with bruises and injuries - from more harder contact than a "smack in the face with a pingpong ball"

I do understand there is a culture differences and cultural shocks.
I still remember a top junior goes to train in China, comes back and tell me - wow, the coach scolded a kid.
The mom was there and the kid went towards the mom.... the mom slapped the kid for punishment of some sort because he let the coach scold him.
Now I don't agree with what the mom did, but today, the mom will likely sue to coach for scolding her kid.

As a coach, I have been taught to always protect ourselves.
Ie, nowadays you can't touch the players body/hands without permission and witnesses - even if you want to fix the stroke and touching they hand, someone can sue you for sexual harassment.

Ah! Maybe you have a point (at least, it's defensible), although to be fair it is not just about the ball hurting or not. A good old bruise when playing football can't hurt nearly as much as repeated mental humiliation (I know you'll say this wasn't it, and I am honestly on the fence with this one - but it's not like we lack examples).

Pushing it to extremes you'll make some warriors, and a few broken ones. Maybe decent arithmetics if we were training gladiators, but in table tennis?

In the real world... You're right. I don't long for the days when teachers would smack pupils anytime they liked, but I have known a few who were terrorised because of this type of environment (even more so when I lived in Glasgow... not drawing any conclusions! - to be fair I was surrounded with teachers), or even the way anything they said could be interpreted and reported to the parents. Walking on thin ice all day long.
Trust and common sense... Nope. Can't say the overall outrage-meter is going down with the times!


Just hoping we can find a middle-way somewhere, I am still in favour of the positive approach but you can't do that without the reprimands when they are needed (that's also a part of building trust with the kid, as long as you are being fair) and heck, feeling the pitbull-mum breathing down your neck at each step you take.
Good luck anyhow, at least I don't feel this kind of atmosphere in TT (yet!) in this neck of the woods, maybe because we don't take it seriously enough!
 
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I think you're motivated by your results and by the respect accorded to you by others. If a kid gets respect from the other kids for being really good at something, he'll naturally try to maximize and overplay that something, and adults are just big bodied kids too. It's because human beings live for the respect of their peers. This respect is also expressed as money, as status, as creature comforts and special handling, as privilege of whatever sort.

Truth is I don't see how 'inner motivation' exists. I mean I don't see any evidence of it being a thing other than idealistic thought.

I'm surprised you 'don't see how inner motivation exists'. Personally i can see plenty
- The pleasure to find out / understand new things (ex : how to brush the ball etc..)
- The physical feeling of good shot is very nice
- The physical effort and moving a lot, being tired (sport and dopamine)
- The pleasure to be 100% focus and play fully
- Etc..

I'm also driven by external motivation (winning, respect etc..) but i don't feel that's the main factor. And still i train hard as i like it (so no lack of motivation)
 
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I'm surprised you 'don't see how inner motivation exists'. Personally i can see plenty
- The pleasure to find out / understand new things (ex : how to brush the ball etc..)
- The physical feeling of good shot is very nice
- The physical effort and moving a lot, being tired (sport and dopamine)
- The pleasure to be 100% focus and play fully
- Etc..

I'm also driven by external motivation (winning, respect etc..) but i don't feel that's the main factor. And still i train hard as i like it (so no lack of motivation)

You're right, inner motivation does exist, but it's a bit more complicated than what you wrote, I think.

If to really go into it, there are 6 motivators for human kind:
1) food (the basic desire to survive and feel 'alive', also an animal motivation)
2) sex (the desire to procreate, also an animal motivation)
3) money (the desire to guarantee future survival and comfort, already a human motivation)
4) respect/glory (a wholly human motivation)
5) authority/control (exerting one's will over others)
6) knowledge (the 'inner' motivation)

By this scale people go from animal-like to human. But it's really nearly impossible to differentiate them, even a person himself doesn't know what motivates him exactly and it is a combination.
A person can say that looking good is an inner motivation that he gets pleasure from, but in truth his motivation for it may be respect or sex etc.

The pleasure of feeling a good shot, yes, but is it more pleasure if someone else is watching? maybe it's only pleasure if someone else is watching?
And if nobody is watching, do you enjoy the good shot only because of the good shot, or are you being motivated by the fact that you learned a good shot that you could later use in a game where people will be watching, where you'll win a competition, etc?
Without very close inner scrutiny you can't really tell what the real motivation is at root, if inner or external. That's why I say I don't see evidence for the existence of inner motivation, though theoretically yes I agree there is such a thing in general.

I think what makes us truly human, as in, distinct from animals, is the desire for status among peers, and so that is probably the main motivator. It is obviously the easiest way to motivate people to do something, in any case. Peer pressure it is called, where the most powerful instrument is envy. I would say number 6 doesn't play much of a part in the very intense and so called 'abusive' education of children, I would say.
 
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There is a big difference in systematic child abuse as we know exist/existed in countries like North Korea/China/exSoviet-bloc/..., versus family, individual.

I do not mind to push my kids a bit but I'd never force them. I've seen some parents succeed and majority fails miserably. In extreme cases kids committed suicide when pushed too hard from parents. My kids turn out to be successful, beautiful , more confident, and happy. That is what I like to see and do not need them to be top of the world.
 
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Fair enough.

Still, at some point, the will has to come from within. Giving kids a push, yes, by all means, but if many years into it the only driving force is external pressure, there'll always be a lack of creativity and that "extra" factor. Take Ma long, Timo Boll, Xu Xin, Vladimir Samsonov... These guys would play for free, or at least for their own sense of enjoyment, achievement and glory. They look like naturals, and have instantly recognisable styles. I feel this could be the difference between Miu Hirano and Mima Ito, in recent times. "I have to win" only cuts the mustard up to a certain point.

The counter-argument would be that the overall level might fluctuate more depending on the player's own motivation and state of mind, if you take someone like Pitchford who can beat almost anyone on his day but can also have a bit of a fragile mind. As always, it is a matter of balance and having someone like Liu Guoliang ready to give you a shove and send you to the basement can be pretty handy, on slower days. The important point is that LGL's good intentions and caring are evident even when he is being tough, something that wasn't all that clear with Morizono's father (will leave him the benefit of the doubt..). And if he couldn't see your inner will, Liu wouldn't let you anywhere near him in the first place.






Pushing the chess analogy, take the last world champs. On one hand you have Caruana (not saying he doesn't like chess - I honestly can't picture his frame of mind all that well) with quite likely the highest level of preparation ever achieved, "drills" taken to the next level and blitzing out moves well into the middle-game against the strongest player there ever was, in absolute terms.
Carlsen on the other hand seemingly bored to death with what the classical time-control game is turning into (I know he was also annoyed with the format), doing his best to get off the beaten path at the first opportunity and to salvage a little spark in all this. Not to mention, shutting up naysayers by wilfully going into tie-breaks when he likely could grind out a win in classical, in the last game. At which point, he murdered Caruana in shorter time-controls and came out with panache. Which would you rather have?

Just to be clear: Carlsen is no Mikhail Tal in style and he can rely on his fair share of preparation too (there isn't a single sport or game where "innate talent" will do these days, as you said), but he's always been encouraged to take things into his own hands and follow his intuition.
I know his father has been by his side his entire life. But it has always been a case of "nurturing" rather than "forcing", Skandinavian style, and you couldn't take him off the chess board as a child, unless he didn't feel like playing and you'd probably be facing the opposite. Reminds me of Timo Boll, and his alleged aversion to formal training (now I am also thinking of the Finland vs Korea education excellence debate, but this post is probably long enough..). Carlsen has been described as "arrogant" quite a few times, but what I see is "confident", due to the above.

Does this make sense?
There is no child abuse .. It is good that kids are not spending most time glued to Tabs and Mobile.
May be we don't know some of them will one day become world champ and when look back the trouble they went through in young age was all worth.
Now a day every game has become very competitive may be due to better training easy access to best facilities etc.
Back in India my friend owns dance academy and from past few year he observed that average age of kids starting learning to dance have dropped considerably. Now he has kids as young as 3 yr old.

Chess analogy is difficult to fit in because the involvement of too much computers. I really doubt how effective Mikhail Tal strategies would have been successful today as players would have already studied the lines and would have been well prepared for the all the crazy sacrifices Tal was famous for. I am fan of Tal's play but the game has changed so much that is more of like remaining the lines rather than playing on the board moves.
 
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