Table Tennis Crisis

[Caskal]

Hi everybody,

Bit of intro on myself, I'm 37, and started table tennis 4 years ago, so pretty new on the sport, however I've been obsessed training daily, probably one of my mystakes is that because I tried so hard to catch up with my friends (10+ years of experience) using not only coach, but also tutorials / robot, I have a bit of a salad of techniques + bad habits that are hard to fix.

First 2 years I've trained in Argentina, with my first coach who was great, also Argentina is cheap to train, then I moved to L.A and been switching coaches for like 2 years (I know is bad, but didn't found one that worked as spected until last months). Also L.A is very expensive to train (from $50 usd to $100 usd per hourly lesson) and was hard to find a constant training partner, as well as a daily open club due to long distances here.

I started playing tournaments last year, my initial rating was 1530 and from there I went up to 1890, first 7 events I was beating 2000+ players, and my confidence was amazing.

Then I started losing, and the nerves grow like crazy, at the point that on a tournament, I lost all the games in 6 events, and I was about to explode because of the anguish / anxiety, it was so strong that for the next 8 months I didn't played any rated events.

Now a month ago, I decided to give a shot again, my weak point was always backhand, and strong on the forehand, so for the last 2 years I was mainly focused on developing backhand, which lately was starting to feel good, I was opening on games with friends and also in Round Robins, but in rated events... only chop, and when I tried to open, I tried so hard to control my arm that the stroke didn't worked.

So on this rated tournament I join, after 8 months that I had this bad experience, feeling was the same, my head was numb, I was only chopping, the footwork was a mess, seems like everything I learned / practiced was for nothing, I feel like I have 2 very different players on my body, when I'm not under pressure, I'm very aggresive, but on rated events, I'm frozen, I tried controlling the breathe, doing pauses and other stuff I heard, but simply doesn't work.

After this, I was going to not play the San Diego Open, I didn't wanted more stress, but my wife told me, let's go, so I thought maybe more experience will help me to learn how to play under pressure.
Went to San Diego, Saturday I played 3 events, overall better than last week, but still a mess. On Sunday I had 3 events more, arrived short on time, didn't found nobody to warm up, and my group was super stron, 2400 to 2200 players, my anxiety was on the sky, and that was it, I decided to take a break, I defaulted on those 2 events and went to the car to almost cry.

My idea now is to take a break from TT even if I'll miss, I've been feeling more disconfort / stress than enjoying the game. I get very obsessed with anything I learn (on my work is fine lol, that lead me to AAA clients) but table tennis is different, is not like my work that if I'm 24/7 learning, I'm already on a learning curve thats successfull, in TT even training daily, I have days where I feel a complete beginner, and I hate it.

Here are some videos to explain a bit better my situation:

Trainings from the past 2 years (I know I switched too many coaches, and my technique is not the best)

How I usually play in the club (Friendly or Round Robin matches)

How I play on rated events (completely blocked, miss serves, hand frozen, only chop, bad footwork)

one thing to mention here, is that I made the mistake of boosting my d09c for the first time before taking to the trash, and I couldn't control it, bounce was super high, but still, is not excuse.

Sorry for the long read. Any advice will be helpful.

Cheers!

 

[NextLevel]

Hi everybody,

Bit of intro on myself, I'm 37, and started table tennis 4 years ago, so pretty new on the sport, however I've been obsessed training daily, probably one of my mystakes is that because I tried so hard to catch up with my friends (10+ years of experience) using not only coach, but also tutorials / robot, I have a bit of a salad of techniques + bad habits that are hard to fix.

First 2 years I've trained in Argentina, with my first coach who was great, also Argentina is cheap to train, then I moved to L.A and been switching coaches for like 2 years (I know is bad, but didn't found one that worked as spected until last months). Also L.A is very expensive to train (from $50 usd to $100 usd per hourly lesson) and was hard to find a constant training partner, as well as a daily open club due to long distances here.

I started playing tournaments last year, my initial rating was 1530 and from there I went up to 1890, first 7 events I was beating 2000+ players, and my confidence was amazing.

Then I started losing, and the nerves grow like crazy, at the point that on a tournament, I lost all the games in 6 events, and I was about to explode because of the anguish / anxiety, it was so strong that for the next 8 months I didn't played any rated events.

Now a month ago, I decided to give a shot again, my weak point was always backhand, and strong on the forehand, so for the last 2 years I was mainly focused on developing backhand, which lately was starting to feel good, I was opening on games with friends and also in Round Robins, but in rated events... only chop, and when I tried to open, I tried so hard to control my arm that the stroke didn't worked.

So on this rated tournament I join, after 8 months that I had this bad experience, feeling was the same, my head was numb, I was only chopping, the footwork was a mess, seems like everything I learned / practiced was for nothing, I feel like I have 2 very different players on my body, when I'm not under pressure, I'm very aggresive, but on rated events, I'm frozen, I tried controlling the breathe, doing pauses and other stuff I heard, but simply doesn't work.

After this, I was going to not play the San Diego Open, I didn't wanted more stress, but my wife told me, let's go, so I thought maybe more experience will help me to learn how to play under pressure.
Went to San Diego, Saturday I played 3 events, overall better than last week, but still a mess. On Sunday I had 3 events more, arrived short on time, didn't found nobody to warm up, and my group was super stron, 2400 to 2200 players, my anxiety was on the sky, and that was it, I decided to take a break, I defaulted on those 2 events and went to the car to almost cry.

My idea now is to take a break from TT even if I'll miss, I've been feeling more disconfort / stress than enjoying the game. I get very obsessed with anything I learn (on my work is fine lol, that lead me to AAA clients) but table tennis is different, is not like my work that if I'm 24/7 learning, I'm already on a learning curve thats successfull, in TT even training daily, I have days where I feel a complete beginner, and I hate it.

Here are some videos to explain a bit better my situation:

Trainings from the past 2 years (I know I switched too many coaches, and my technique is not the best)

How I usually play in the club (Friendly or Round Robin matches)

How I play on rated events (completely blocked, miss serves, hand frozen, only chop, bad footwork)

one thing to mention here, is that I made the mistake of boosting my d09c for the first time before taking to the trash, and I couldn't control it, bounce was super high, but still, is not excuse.

Sorry for the long read. Any advice will be helpful.

Cheers!

You are a good player, having a level difference between practice and competitive matches is entirely normal. You have to adapt your game to different environment, different opponents, different balls etc. Your opponents look for and target your lowest game, so how you defend against situations you are not practiced against often determines your level.

I think you want to control your results, you can't do that, you can only make or miss more shots. And that is entirely dependent on what you do to your game to adapt to new and unusual circumstances. You have done amazing work to progress as fast as you have already but I fear your obsession with results (as opposed to just trying to improve and reduce your mistakes by developing consistency under pressure) is going to keep you unhappy for a long time unless you change. While there are many things you can try, I would encourage you to work on your blocking and defensive and consistency game and to stop obsessing over the quality of the your attacks, you don't post one point where you are defending your opponents attacks well, makes me feel your focus is that you only play well when you attack. Getting free points with tricky serves, blocking opponent out of position, fishing and lobbing, tricky pushing etc. are all part of the game and important as well.

 

[Lazer]

Don’t forget that 1/2 of the game is in your head. I think it sounds you already gave up. When I get agitated or disturbed I can loose to almost anybody. And when my head is on and I have a good self confidence I surprise myself. Don’t put yourself down it’s just a game. I am struggling a lot with this myself….

Cheers
L-zr

 

[TackyForehand]

You are another person in rated games, too hesitant on strokes. Rubbers don't work well without adequate sponge engagement. There is too much focus on winning games when you should be focusing on playing the game. If you play well, victory will be natural.

 

[NextLevel]

1890 is a strong rating, many players would be happy to be 1890, right now, that is about my current rating. A decade ago, I think it took me about 3 years to get to 1900 and about 4 to get to 2000 and I suspect it is harder now than it was when I did it 10 years ago, as I did in an environment where I could play tournaments almost every weekend. At 1800, you are a serious player, most players will have to do something to beat you.

You play really well, don't let your rating and results depress you, find what you enjoy in the sport, but it cannot be something you do not control like your rating - it has to be something about how you enjoy playing. Me nowadays, I enjoy playing controlled topspins and rallying with controlled topspins, even when it isn't always my best game, so I take more risks to play controlled topspins even when it is not what I should do. I used to be miserable about breaking 2000 because I was trying to do it because someone else did it, but what everyone told me was that I had the playing level, but not the mindset.

The main thing that helped me at that time was playing a competitive league every single week, sometimes even two leagues. When I broke 2000 in both leagues, I broke 2000 USATT about 3 months later. In the leagues, I learned to stop caring too much about the result and just to play my best game. So what you probably should look for is a situation where you can play without putting so much pressure on yourself and learn from results. Good leagues at good clubs are good practice tests, similar to taking a prep test for a standardized exam.

 

[blahness]

It's good to take a step back and see TT for what it is, a fun hobby, and the competition is just that - as long as you play your shots and have fun that should be enough.

On the technical side, I feel like the tentativeness (esp on BH side) has some reasons. In training it looks good because the incoming ball is not irregular (you train a lot against simple topspin) and has decent pace, and you can borrow the speed. But that is actually deceptive to progress because similar to FH, the modern BH stroke cant be played with the arm - both backswing and forward swing needs to come a lot more from the hips and body. Right now, your upper body (looking at your core) is completely static during training. In training against topspin, this issue may not really manifest itself but in serious matches where there are a ton of irregular balls, without body involvement it is simply a bit too much work for the arm to adjust.

 

[lodro]

This is YOU having fun playing TT.
Everything else is of secondary importance.

 

[Gozo Aruna]

Unless one is playing for his livelihood, that is, pro player, winning should not matter that much. Exercise, fun, camaraderie are all important aspect of TT. Or in my case, Tik-Tik / Instagram worthy shots 💪🏼

 

[jbvttcc]

Don’t forget that 1/2 of the game is in your head. I think it sounds you already gave up. When I get agitated or disturbed I can loose to almost anybody. And when my head is on and I have a good self confidence I surprise myself. Don’t put yourself down it’s just a game. I am struggling a lot with this myself….

Cheers
L-zr

Please send me an application form to join this club

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

I would say I have the same problem. my own "rating" is not the one that i think i deserve, but numbers don't lie

There is a cave-at as I'm in Japan and there is no official rating system, only some non-official round-robin type tournaments participate in a private initiative to make ratings. It is not the majority of tournaments, they are not the official ones, and i attach to them less importance, i usually put less mental intensity and fight less "for my life" in those. Whereas there is a lot of things which would hint at me "worth" a higher rating (results and trends in official tournaments, in training matches, overall TT technical abilities etc... ) that unofficial rating is 200 lower than a few years ago while i believe ive never played that well before.

when i go there with the mindset of improving the rating, all i'm doing is putting extra pressure on myself, a recipe for poor results. I got my best results in those type of tournaments when I just focus on the instant, on the joy of playing, and don't care about result or rating. Focusing on it, make me tense in difficult situations, and also choke against supposedly "weaker" but determined players having their day.

---
the only real solution is to train harder and play MORE tournaments, not less. By playing more tournaments, you will have less stress. You will know there is a next one coming soon if you don't perform this time. You will be more often exposed to different players with different tactics and rubbers, who will expose different weaknesses of your game. so you can have feedback and adapt for the next time.

It is important to accept you are not as good as you think you are, and to focus on improving.
in matches, you have to not care so much about the result, and your opponent, that you cannot control, but on playing your best game, by focusing and being aware of as many things your brain can absorb, including your mental state. keep relax and cool and POSITIVE all the time. you can bash yourself AFTER the match, NEVER DURING the match, even if down 0-2 and 0-8.

---
i looked at your videos. I can see a good c1890 player. You know how to play. many would dream to reach this rating.

But i can see many things which you could improve on. even on the videos where you are winning:

- you are pushing long balls instead of attacking them. Not only that but those pushes are low quality.
that happens often in receive (= you cant read the serve or react) but also way too often in the middle of the rally
- you go back far from the table too easily
- overall the stance looks good. good muscle strength in the legs. but you look too tense and heavy. footwork is not fluid. you should try to bounce more
- your timing is too rushed. you try to play too quickly instead of focusing on a better timing, more precise footwork and ball quality.
- as you said BH side is weaker than FH. you are not often not well balanced when playing BH. you're a bit too upright, taking the ball too late, with a too big swing
- it looks like you play all your shots with a bit too much power and not being relaxed enough.

etc... I could go on... the list of things anyone can improve is unlimited.

objectively the player you lost was much better than the one you won. his ball quality was slightly better, ball was a bit less high and less often long, and he was putting more variation in his placement, often forcing you to move to the ball which makes it more difficult.

I wouldn't say you look like choking in this match, perhaps only in the last game, you are losing control and trying to over-play and for instant winners (and thus missing), and getting more and more frustrated.

---
Hope it is useful.

 

[pong99]

I see in your videos that you play at Westside TT Club and have taken lessons from Wei Wang, former US Nat'l champion and Olympic player. She is an excellent coach. I have taken a few lessons from her. Why did you switch to other coaches? I don't think there's any better coach in the local area. I recommend sticking with one coach.

Westside is open Tu, Fri, Sat and you can go to Santa Monica CC on Sunday for another RR. West LA is also not too far from Koreatown, where there are 2 clubs that I believe are open every day.

Forget about ratings. Just play and have FUN. Good things will follow.

 

[Sims]

Hi everybody,

Bit of intro on myself, I'm 37, and started table tennis 4 years ago, so pretty new on the sport, however I've been obsessed training daily, probably one of my mystakes is that because I tried so hard to catch up with my friends (10+ years of experience) using not only coach, but also tutorials / robot, I have a bit of a salad of techniques + bad habits that are hard to fix.

First 2 years I've trained in Argentina, with my first coach who was great, also Argentina is cheap to train, then I moved to L.A and been switching coaches for like 2 years (I know is bad, but didn't found one that worked as spected until last months). Also L.A is very expensive to train (from $50 usd to $100 usd per hourly lesson) and was hard to find a constant training partner, as well as a daily open club due to long distances here.

I started playing tournaments last year, my initial rating was 1530 and from there I went up to 1890, first 7 events I was beating 2000+ players, and my confidence was amazing.

Then I started losing, and the nerves grow like crazy, at the point that on a tournament, I lost all the games in 6 events, and I was about to explode because of the anguish / anxiety, it was so strong that for the next 8 months I didn't played any rated events.

Now a month ago, I decided to give a shot again, my weak point was always backhand, and strong on the forehand, so for the last 2 years I was mainly focused on developing backhand, which lately was starting to feel good, I was opening on games with friends and also in Round Robins, but in rated events... only chop, and when I tried to open, I tried so hard to control my arm that the stroke didn't worked.

So on this rated tournament I join, after 8 months that I had this bad experience, feeling was the same, my head was numb, I was only chopping, the footwork was a mess, seems like everything I learned / practiced was for nothing, I feel like I have 2 very different players on my body, when I'm not under pressure, I'm very aggresive, but on rated events, I'm frozen, I tried controlling the breathe, doing pauses and other stuff I heard, but simply doesn't work.

After this, I was going to not play the San Diego Open, I didn't wanted more stress, but my wife told me, let's go, so I thought maybe more experience will help me to learn how to play under pressure.
Went to San Diego, Saturday I played 3 events, overall better than last week, but still a mess. On Sunday I had 3 events more, arrived short on time, didn't found nobody to warm up, and my group was super stron, 2400 to 2200 players, my anxiety was on the sky, and that was it, I decided to take a break, I defaulted on those 2 events and went to the car to almost cry.

My idea now is to take a break from TT even if I'll miss, I've been feeling more disconfort / stress than enjoying the game. I get very obsessed with anything I learn (on my work is fine lol, that lead me to AAA clients) but table tennis is different, is not like my work that if I'm 24/7 learning, I'm already on a learning curve thats successfull, in TT even training daily, I have days where I feel a complete beginner, and I hate it.

Here are some videos to explain a bit better my situation:

Trainings from the past 2 years (I know I switched too many coaches, and my technique is not the best)

How I usually play in the club (Friendly or Round Robin matches)

How I play on rated events (completely blocked, miss serves, hand frozen, only chop, bad footwork)

one thing to mention here, is that I made the mistake of boosting my d09c for the first time before taking to the trash, and I couldn't control it, bounce was super high, but still, is not excuse.

Sorry for the long read. Any advice will be helpful.

Cheers!

First of all, great post. So well explained, great video footage, it's clear that you aim to do things properly and I can see how you got to such a high level.
There's advice above about just enjoy it etc etc but to get to that point there must be something you need to do.

The question I have is what causes such nerves on match days?
It seemed to be caused first by the feeling of losing and then afterwards by the fear of losing.
What's wrong with losing?
Competing is already an act of bravery.
Winning is a bonus.
Losing is an inevitable consequence.
So don't worry about it, and before you lose you can give everything you have without fear or nerves.
Modern society focuses so much on winning, winning, winning that it doesn't teach people how to lose. Losing gracefully and with dignity is an art an it can be learned. Learn why you lost and take that with you and grow. You will no longer fear losing and your nerves will dissipate.
I really think people need to realise this because in reality, every tournament is ALL about losing. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
There's only one winner and every other competitor lost.
There is a need to know and accept this.
The Olympics is even 99% about losing. You don't see it because the cameras only show you the winners afterwards but ever athlete had a crazy journey of unimaginable dedication to get there and most of them don't win.
Anyway, in my opinion it is fully realising this and accepting this that brings you to place where you can compete and do your best without unnecessary fear and the nerves and frustration that come with it.
It is also humbling and good for ego because another problem of your current place is that it comes with arrogance, like thinking that YOU shouldn't lose but everyone else should. Why think that way?

Watch Rodger Federers speech on winning and losing in his career. He beautifully illustrates that even though his match win % is high, his POINT win % is only 51%. Basically he continually lost almost as much as he won but it is mentally accepting this on every point that put him in a place where he could enjoy it and actually perform to his very best, which eventually led to his enormous success. Players that stew on the lost point or stew afterwards on the lost match don't get anywhere. Djokovic is another mental monster who knows this.
I think the key for you lies in the above and will bring you to a place where you can enjoy competing at your high level without undue stress and nerves and without hating it when you lose.

Sincerely the best of luck to you in overcoming this. I hope you are back enjoying your TT soon!

 

[Leno]

Quick version on how to grow in matches:

- Work on your receives.

Long version:

Too lazy to write, so this is another short version, you have the fundamentals down in open rallies. You just don't have a good opening on serve or receive.

 

[andzejgolot]

yeah I didnt read all but I would consider stop using inverted on backhand
you have my shot here

https://a.aliexpress.com/_EGBfQK7

blade ? 7 ply ALL WOOD
rubber on forhand? whatever you like, (TI voice) but chinese H3 is the ISH( Katt Williams voice)

 

[andzejgolot]

okay I watched your games, I think you have body building body and you play a lot shots without wrist motion and the wrist on backand side is perfect choice for PIPS, you can play the same motion and be more dangerous. Your body building body gives you a lot of stiffness, you are not fluid as table tennis player Your technique is not that bad but.... I am really scared to say that because Emratsnitch will use my words as his content... There is something like TIME- PLACE-SPEED-SPIN-Mind as Reaction Time.
I would get Table Tennis Nobel price for that but it would be long article so in short words... YALL NOT READY FOR THAT CONVO YET.
Your body consume a lot of time to react so your table tennis IQ is low when your mind is not working well, but your technique is not that bad... so you are too slow to react properly and everything is too fast for you when you play with opponent. You start doing anything on the ball without THINKING. The higher level I played the less Time I would get to REACT because better players play with better spin-placement, the ball is faster and IF I receive the ball
they have a lot of time.
I would consider short pips as great weapon on bh for you because you would stop thinking about your weakness and have more time to react because SP are slower and less reactive than Inverted rubbers and you would trade your weakness for power.

you need watch tutorial technique videos just to see what other coaches can show you from their perspective> My homie who was one of the best table tennis junior player in EUROPE and he said to me, when he was young and very stressful , the best option to relax before games was RUNNING, so yeah BYE TABLE TENNIS WELCOME HOKA/ON RUNNING club runner but you can RUN and play table tennis as a hobby and use your wonderful wife as your training partner. It is better to teach her the same technique and play with her than waste your time on playing matches with a lot on your mind because If you waste a lot of money on something which makes you SAD it is hard to develop the best of you.

 

[K.K]

just play point by point. think about how to setup a point that you can get your best shot in. take your service as an opportunity to lead into your best shot and NEVER as something you win a straight point with. when this is not working then think about why - what shot lead you to losing the point and how can you prevent that next time. losing will become a lesson and actually an opportunity to grow as somebody already written. you will be excited to train after a defeat and excited to play that player next time and then know what to do better. get yourself a notebook and write everything down and learn from it.

so i urge you to think about your game plan, tactic and strategy. think about what are your best shots and how to implement those in the game. how can you do a service that leads you to that. you have enough technical skills and ballfeel that led you to a certain level and now you just need to have a gameplan and train accordingly. technic will not make you a better player if you don't know how to bring it in an actual game.

 

[dingyibvs]

It's good to take a step back and see TT for what it is, a fun hobby, and the competition is just that - as long as you play your shots and have fun that should be enough.

On the technical side, I feel like the tentativeness (esp on BH side) has some reasons. In training it looks good because the incoming ball is not irregular (you train a lot against simple topspin) and has decent pace, and you can borrow the speed. But that is actually deceptive to progress because similar to FH, the modern BH stroke cant be played with the arm - both backswing and forward swing needs to come a lot more from the hips and body. Right now, your upper body (looking at your core) is completely static during training. In training against topspin, this issue may not really manifest itself but in serious matches where there are a ton of irregular balls, without body involvement it is simply a bit too much work for the arm to adjust.

Hah, he looks like me playing the BH. I do great against people who just give me moderately paced simple topspins, but struggle when there are pace variations. IMO it's not a mindset issue, it's a technique issue. You play tentative when the ball makes you uncomfortable, and you're uncomfortable when the ball isn't what you regularly see in training and training matches. Your default BH shot appears to be the BH loop, which requires an active backswing and good timing. Work on that timing against slower and less spinny balls, and work on recognizing the speed/spin of the ball quicker and you'll see a quick rise in your game.

It's important to keep in mind that just because a ball is slower or less spinny doesn't mean it's easy. It's easy only if you've put in anywhere near the same amount of time practicing against it as you did against higher quality balls. Kids train for years against those types of balls when they start off. Adults who wish to progress quickly often move onto faster, spinnier balls as soon as they can handle slower, less spinny shots, before we have the hours to really ingrain them into our muscle memory.

My advice is to go back to the basics, and mix in basics with the advanced stuff because you can see both in the same rally. If you misidentify a technique issue for a mindset issue then it'll actually become a mindset issue as you start to expect to perform worse in tournaments. This will be compounded by the fact that people do tend to play tighter in tournaments, so the same people you beat in leagues will start giving you softer, safer returns while you try to compensate for your perceived lack of aggression by forcing attacks against balls you're not used to seeing, resulting in losing to people you usually beat.

 

[JJ Ng]

I see in your videos that you play at Westside TT Club and have taken lessons from Wei Wang, former US Nat'l champion and Olympic player. She is an excellent coach. I have taken a few lessons from her. Why did you switch to other coaches? I don't think there's any better coach in the local area. I recommend sticking with one coach.

Westside is open Tu, Fri, Sat and you can go to Santa Monica CC on Sunday for another RR. West LA is also not too far from Koreatown, where there are 2 clubs that I believe are open every day.

Forget about ratings. Just play and have FUN. Good things will follow.

Ok, I know the LA area well.

If you are going to Westside TT club, I would recommend Wei Wang only. I know there is an assistant coach who came back from Japan and is very very popular. That's another coach to consider.

I don't recommend other junior coaches there. One junior coach was coaching a penhold player (and that was a few years ago) and the penhold player was gripping the paddle too shallow. I approached the junior coach and the student and just told him to hold the paddle more deeply (i.e. move fingers further into the paddle and not let the wrist be sooooo loose). that fixed the problem within 5 seconds! I could not stand by and see someone playing penhold with such a shallow grip. So I put in my two cents.

For Allen & Son, Fovad is the best coach. You don't have to look further.

Not to complicate things further, I have heard that Cherry Zhao at Guo Jun's club is very very good by reputation.

Sorry to kind of make your situation more complicated because like you said, LA is HUGE. You might have to drive around to find the right coach for you.

One recommendation I have for you is that, when you decide to stick with a coach in LA, start asking about strategies.

I do get coaching here and there (like once every 3-6 months). But the majority of the time we are not doing forehand and backhand drills. After all, I am older and I don't want to move that much. Majority of the time we are talking about serve and return, and talking about strategies (my strength and weakness).

You have ALL the basic skills. They are all there. Since coaching is expensive, maybe you want to do drills on your own with other 1800-2000 level players. But during your session, work on some strokes a bit just to see if there is some minor adjustment needs to be done. However since it is expensive, you might get more bang for the buck to then focus on talking about who you are as a player and what do you do in the actual game? Meaning more talking and thinking during the session..... Those are my two cents.

 

[TensorBackhand]

Hi everybody,

Bit of intro on myself, I'm 37, and started table tennis 4 years ago, so pretty new on the sport, however I've been obsessed training daily, probably one of my mystakes is that because I tried so hard to catch up with my friends (10+ years of experience) using not only coach, but also tutorials / robot, I have a bit of a salad of techniques + bad habits that are hard to fix.

First 2 years I've trained in Argentina, with my first coach who was great, also Argentina is cheap to train, then I moved to L.A and been switching coaches for like 2 years (I know is bad, but didn't found one that worked as spected until last months). Also L.A is very expensive to train (from $50 usd to $100 usd per hourly lesson) and was hard to find a constant training partner, as well as a daily open club due to long distances here.

I started playing tournaments last year, my initial rating was 1530 and from there I went up to 1890, first 7 events I was beating 2000+ players, and my confidence was amazing.

Then I started losing, and the nerves grow like crazy, at the point that on a tournament, I lost all the games in 6 events, and I was about to explode because of the anguish / anxiety, it was so strong that for the next 8 months I didn't played any rated events.

Now a month ago, I decided to give a shot again, my weak point was always backhand, and strong on the forehand, so for the last 2 years I was mainly focused on developing backhand, which lately was starting to feel good, I was opening on games with friends and also in Round Robins, but in rated events... only chop, and when I tried to open, I tried so hard to control my arm that the stroke didn't worked.

So on this rated tournament I join, after 8 months that I had this bad experience, feeling was the same, my head was numb, I was only chopping, the footwork was a mess, seems like everything I learned / practiced was for nothing, I feel like I have 2 very different players on my body, when I'm not under pressure, I'm very aggresive, but on rated events, I'm frozen, I tried controlling the breathe, doing pauses and other stuff I heard, but simply doesn't work.

After this, I was going to not play the San Diego Open, I didn't wanted more stress, but my wife told me, let's go, so I thought maybe more experience will help me to learn how to play under pressure.
Went to San Diego, Saturday I played 3 events, overall better than last week, but still a mess. On Sunday I had 3 events more, arrived short on time, didn't found nobody to warm up, and my group was super stron, 2400 to 2200 players, my anxiety was on the sky, and that was it, I decided to take a break, I defaulted on those 2 events and went to the car to almost cry.

My idea now is to take a break from TT even if I'll miss, I've been feeling more disconfort / stress than enjoying the game. I get very obsessed with anything I learn (on my work is fine lol, that lead me to AAA clients) but table tennis is different, is not like my work that if I'm 24/7 learning, I'm already on a learning curve thats successfull, in TT even training daily, I have days where I feel a complete beginner, and I hate it.

Here are some videos to explain a bit better my situation:

Trainings from the past 2 years (I know I switched too many coaches, and my technique is not the best)

How I usually play in the club (Friendly or Round Robin matches)

How I play on rated events (completely blocked, miss serves, hand frozen, only chop, bad footwork)

one thing to mention here, is that I made the mistake of boosting my d09c for the first time before taking to the trash, and I couldn't control it, bounce was super high, but still, is not excuse.

Sorry for the long read. Any advice will be helpful.

Cheers!

I was there at the SD Open. But maybe I didn't notice you. Did you play with Victor? He's also South American and high level player.

We should practice together sometime.

 

[zeio]

Your pushing and blocking game is still stuck at 1530. OTOH, your looping game when holding back (that even the pros do at the Olympics [1, 2]) is unpolished. Those 2 oft-neglected aspects are what tip the balance the most when under pressure.