Training at 4 years old

That's soo cool!! 

Wow, that is one talented little girl!  And the little boy too!

chu_bun wrote: These are very gifted kids.  All the kids I know did not possess this level of hand-eye coordination at that age.  You can kind of see that their brains tell their hands to hit the ball, but by the time the signal reach the hands, the ball already flights by.

Agreed, and I have seen many little kids about this age or even older, 6-7, who just don't have that kind of hand-eye coordination.  Also, these kids seem to have fun doing it top, which is the next big thing.

Not gifted at all. Just lots of practice, hard work and lots of opportunities to practice and people around them willing to give time and effort to help them develop. Gifted to me would imply that this level was achieved without any real effort which I'm pretty sure it was not.

Edited by JKC - 11/22/2014 at 6:08pm

JKC wrote: Not gifted at all. Just lots of practice, hard work and lots of opportunities to practice and people around them willing to give time and effort to help them develop. Gifted to me would imply that this level was achieved without any real effort which I'm pretty sure it was not.

Hear, hear. Talent is a myth. The problem is that it's both prevalent and persistent. In popular consciousness, talent is the be all and end all, the ultimate excuse for some achieving and the rest remaining firmly tethered to the couch.

kenneyy88 wrote: Talent is real with regards to speed of acquiring the abilities, and maximum potential of abilities.

Yes, that is the myth. It's just a pity there is absolutely no evidence to support it. I would be happy to see any scientific studies that show some people have this unidentified quality. Until then, it's just another name for hard work.

john18 wrote: Interseting debate. Personally, I think there is a "thing" that can be called talent and you need it to be at the very very top of the world in sport (or in an another field).

Yes, that is the myth. Something that can't be seen, can't be measured, has never ever been identified and for which we have no real definition is called talent just because some people are better than others. It's a magical case of circular reasoning: we know talent is real because A beats B; A beats B therefore A must be talented.   

The example given is flawed on a number of levels. First and foremost because simply putting 1000 people in an environment for the same length of time still leaves lots and lots of other variables which can't be controlled for. For example, my eyesight is crap, my limbs are disproportionate for my muscle mass, I have marked cross-lateral dominance, my proportion of slow twitch muscle fibres is very high, and I'm too stupid to learn anything. Being able to beat me does not prove talent.

Equally flawed is to confuse excellence with talent. As much as I can't stand Cristiano Ronaldo, I have to concede he is a brilliant dead ball kicker, not because he has a special talent but because he practises it over and over and over again. When everyone else is heading home, he's still kicking the ball. The same was true for Beckham and Jonny Wilkinson, and Tiger Woods and every other super "talent". The hall with 1000 would-be table tennis players will have one or two who want it more and who will work to get it. That's not talent; it's commitment.

Tassie52 wrote: john18 wrote: Interseting debate. Personally, I think there is a "thing" that can be called talent and you need it to be at the very very top of the world in sport (or in an another field). Yes, that is the myth. Something that can't be seen, can't be measured, has never ever been identified and for which we have no real definition is called talent just because some people are better than others. It's a magical case of circular reasoning: we know talent is real because A beats B; A beats B therefore A must be talented.    The example given is flawed on a number of levels. First and foremost because simply putting 1000 people in an environment for the same length of time still leaves lots and lots of other variables which can't be controlled for. For example, my eyesight is crap, my limbs are disproportionate for my muscle mass, I have marked cross-lateral dominance, my proportion of slow twitch muscle fibres is very high, and I'm too stupid to learn anything. Being able to beat me does not prove talent. Equally flawed is to confuse excellence with talent. As much as I can't stand Cristiano Ronaldo, I have to concede he is a brilliant dead ball kicker, not because he has a special talent but because he practises it over and over and over again. When everyone else is heading home, he's still kicking the ball. The same was true for Beckham and Jonny Wilkinson, and Tiger Woods and every other super "talent". The hall with 1000 would-be table tennis players will have one or two who want it more and who will work to get it. That's not talent; it's commitment.

Talent is not a myth - it's just that at the top levels, the amount of hours required to get there are so large that talent is not clearly the highest differentiator.  There are levels of talent, but unless you use the right predictive metrics, how are you going to know?  I mean, look at Zhang Jike's athletic base - that is unreal.

Edited by NextLevel - 11/24/2014 at 10:57am

Just think of your left hand and right hand.  You can train your LH to do whatever your RH can do, but I would say my RH is more "gifted" than my LH.  And we are talking about hands and arms shared the same body and brain.  Now think about arms from different bodies and brains... It won't be hard to imagine that there will be hands that say 5 times the level of difference between my LH and RH better than others.  Next consider arms, legs, lungs, brains...  There must be individuals out there who have all the "right hand" parts for TT.  After 10000 hrs of training, these individuals should beat the crap out off an average Joe with the same training.

I am in no way criticising the kids who have reached this level by this age, but as a teacher I think it is far more worthwhile to congratulate them on the effort put into getting to the level that they are at than assuming they are 'super-talented' and have got to this level easily.

Edited by JKC - 11/24/2014 at 6:22pm

JKC wrote: No one gains if we put barriers in front of ourselves and assume we can't all get there. The ones who lose out most are the kids themselves when they start to believe they are talented. The longer you can keep a kid thinking they are as good as they are because of hard work, the longer they will keep working.

Yes!!!    Matthew Syed singles out Darius Knight as a classic example of what happens if you praise talent rather than effort.

Tassie52 wrote: NextLevel wrote: As for Cristiano Ronaldo, Tassie52, if you think all he is is a brilliant deadball kicker, you are pretty blind. Sportscience did some test on him ... Yes, Ronaldo is an extraordinary athlete, but there was nothing identified in the Sportscience programme which can't be explained in physiological or psychological or sociological terms. There's no need to resort to some mysterious quality. For example, his amazing ability to anticipate the flight of a ball: years of careful observation have taught him how the shape of the kicker at contact predicts how the ball will leave their foot. His dribbling skills: from an early age he learnt to watch his opponents rather than focussing solely on the ball. His speed: physiology. A similar battery of tests could be performed on Lionel Messi or Gareth Bale or any other football superstar and similar results would turn up. Yes, there are going to be individual differences but that is all they would be - individual differences.

Edited by Ringer84 - 11/24/2014 at 9:16pm

Tassie52 wrote: jrscatman wrote: There was debate on about.com regarding this issue. It was proven conclusively in that thread (to my satisfaction) some people are more talented. Sean O'Neil was arguing for hard work. Then he mentions the Swedish team brought him in for training (Waldner, Persson and Appelgren - were on that team). Sean was the hardest working guy in that group! Last time I checked some of those non-hard working guys won world championships. So I say they had more talent than some very dedicated hard working players.  But this is reductionist thinking: it's not X so it must be Y. What about all the other possible variables? Even simple things such as muscle types are going to make a difference. Hard work alone is not enough. Why reduce the argument to "they had more talent"? Why not, "They had better coaching at an earlier age" or "They're working in a better national setup" or "They have better psychological profiles" or all of the above?

First, that's not what reductionist thinking means, and second and great deal of our understanding of the universe around us is based on reductionist thinking.  Again, I repeat that not everybody is the same, and certain people have body types or other sensory-motor capabilities that are particularly suited for certain sports, which doesn't mean you can't be really good if you don't have one or all of those traits.  But anyway, I enjoyed watching these kids.  And the fact is, no matter how hard we work we can't all get there.  So many other things have to be perfectly in place.

That little kid is really talented... I can not force my son who's of the same age to pick up a ping pong paddle, no matter what, even though I have several former Olympians ready to train him and have taken him to ping pong venues countless times... You do need something inborn just to wanna do it to begin with.  *BTW some posters are really talented at arguing against common sense, which also proves my point. 




Edited by roundrobin - 11/25/2014 at 1:31am