Which blade should i take?

I think you may be confusing thinking and planning with being focused and present with WHAT IS ACTUALLY DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOU.

So, if you have a ball approaching you and are thinking of a whole bunch of things rather than letting what you see choose how you respond, you are not necessarily focused on what is in front of you which is exactly how you might end up not knowing which side of your shoes your umbrella is on or how you might miss that the match ended as you think you are focusing on what is directly in front of you but are really being overrun by thoughts that are in the backdrop of your mind rather than in the scene in front of you.

So, if you are in the middle of taking a shot and see your opponent break towards his FH before you have made the shot and, reading that, you don't think, or plan, or have a cognitive process, but change the shot to the opponent's BH, you were probably focused on what is in front of you. Which would be much different than all those cognitive processes that you described which would be much more likely to cause you to mess up on the shot because you were thinking too many things at once.

There does not need to be any thought in the matter, at least, if what you are talking about is an actual meditative process unfolding.

That process of, "here are 8 choices and which one should I choose, and what part of the ball should I contact for choice 4, and how much spin should I impart on the ball......etc" would be you paying attention to stuff that is not in front of you. If you are making the decisions spontaneously based on what you READ in the situation in front of you, which in table tennis would be the 1) what your opponent does, 2) the ball (and very much further in the background, 3) the table), then you are reading and responding to what is directly in front of you.

The other sounds more like trying to respond to last weeks coaching session while in a match that is not last week's coaching session.

That being said, how each of us play is how each of us play. I just would not call a whole bunch of mental activities going on all at once being focused on one thing to the exclusion of all other things. So, I am not sure all those thoughts in the middle of play would be describing how table tennis could be a meditative process.

I think one of the reasons why we train the strokes, the body mechanics, the technique, is so that, when we are in the actual act of playing, we don't have to think about the mechanics and we just respond to what is in front of us and make one of many useful choices based on what we see in front of us.

UpSideDownCarl said:

I think you may be confusing thinking and planning with being focused and present with WHAT IS ACTUALLY DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOU.

So, if you have a ball approaching you and are thinking of a whole bunch of things rather than letting what you see choose how you respond, you are not necessarily focused on what is in front of you which is exactly how you might end up not knowing which side of your shoes your umbrella is on or how you might miss that the match ended as you think you are focusing on what is directly in front of you but are really being overrun by thoughts that are in the backdrop of your mind rather than in the scene in front of you.

So, if you are in the middle of taking a shot and see your opponent break towards his FH before you have made the shot and, reading that, you don't think, or plan, or have a cognitive process, but change the shot to the opponent's BH, you were probably focused on what is in front of you. Which would be much different than all those cognitive processes that you described which would be much more likely to cause you to mess up on the shot because you were thinking too many things at once.

There does not need to be any thought in the matter, at least, if what you are talking about is an actual meditative process unfolding.

That process of, "here are 8 choices and which one should I choose, and what part of the ball should I contact for choice 4, and how much spin should I impart on the ball......etc" would be you paying attention to stuff that is not in front of you. If you are making the decisions spontaneously based on what you READ in the situation in front of you, which in table tennis would be the 1) what your opponent does, 2) the ball (and very much further in the background, 3) the table), then you are reading and responding to what is directly in front of you.

The other sounds more like trying to respond to last weeks coaching session while in a match that is not last week's coaching session.

That being said, how each of us play is how each of us play. I just would not call a whole bunch of mental activities going on all at once being focused on one thing to the exclusion of all other things. So, I am not sure all those thoughts in the middle of play would be describing how table tennis could be a meditative process.

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Yeah I get that and agree with you, that’s what I meant about thinking and not thinking, you think ‘I’m going to try and play ball’s that are lower which is the planning, before the point starts, you read the point as best you can and hopefully the micro adjustment kicks in thoughtlessly if / when the opportunity arises.

This is what I was trying to convey earlier, that possibly the really high level players are better able to ignore distractions, both from their surroundings and their brain!! But then in between points are able to think about what they want to try and do, file it away, not necessarily concentrate on that thought, but still implement it. Whilst concentrating on what unfolds in front of them and reacting accordingly.

TT is so fast most of the time you don’t get the chance to think in detail during the actual play!!

is it possible that some people can use both unconscious and conscious parts of their brain, so they consciously have a thought but it gets placed in the unconscious section and then becomes a thoughtless reaction. The sort of training response, that comes with the irregular training you were mentioning elsewhere?

I’m enjoying thread but a bit off topic !! Apologies to the OP!!

UpSideDownCarl said:

...I think you meant percussion instruments. A concussion instrument might be a club or a baseball bat.

I am always amazed and impressed by how many people whose first language is not English do so well posting in English on the forum. So, I don't mean this to be a criticism. I am just having fun with it. I know, in all languages you can say something that is very close to correct that means something entirely different that has a different and entertaining meaning. So, hopefully, you are not offended by my having fun with this.

But the intended content of your post, I think it is pretty good information and quite accurate.

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Carl, if you were Korean and seeing some of the unintended ways I mis-spoke some of the Korean study material when I was learning Korean over 3 decades ago (and understood what I ACUALLY SAID - and I had no clue I was), you MIGHT still have that Orange Juice running out your nose surprised and luaghing more than 30 yrs later.

SO MANY of the things I mis-spoke would have really taken the cake as Americans say and make your example very very tiny mis-step comparatively.

IB66 said:

I had to be told the game was over!! I knew the score but it didn’t really seem to matter!! I just wanted to win another point!!

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Sometimes the individual concentration points in the match feel like so:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In each of them you focus in what is in front of you, which is usually the ball. But they are scattered, intertwined with unrelated thoughts, emotions, etc. Sometimes they feel more like so:

........................*
.*...*...*.......*.....***........ *...*
***.***.***.*.*.***.*.*****.*.*.*.***.***

Like phases where you were concentrated are longer, or some shorter, some longer. But sometimes the match feels like:

....*
...***
..*****
.*******
*********

Like one big hill, everything is integrated into one coherent whole, where you say you zoned-in. You were focused on the ball, but also aware of many other things, like your opponent, some patterns in his movement or behavior, that someone encouraged you or the opponent, where is your towel, that on the other table the match just finished, etc. Without trying or thinking. The thought, like this description, is an after-thought.

If I compare, the last one is better, like time better spent than the first. I'd like to have more matches like that. I would tend to think that people who practice meditation, have more "hills" through-out their days. On the other hand I think the ability is born into everyone, maybe some players "honed" it more than others?

(Can't convince to include spaces

Thanks for the answers and sorry if i hijacked the thread. Maybe need to start doing it more at home first. Would be interesting to see if regularly meditation could make tabletennis performance better? I think Yoga proably is good for injuryprevention.