Missing is Part of Good Table Tennis

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   My coach often says that missing is part of the game.  I would like to discuss briefly the importance of this statement in the context of practice, match play and overall improvement.  Experienced players tend to understand what I am talking about but newer players developing better strokes as well as players who do not record their matches/practice to get an objective view of their experience may find my comments helpful.  Hopefully, this will help some people who do not have the time to reflect on how important "missing" is in both the learning and competitive process.    It is important to trust the learning process and understand that both successes and mistakes inform it, especially in practice.  Most learning adults tend to overvalue the successes and devalue/undervalue the mistakes.  In reality, a full understanding is built by embracing the mistakes as well especially if they are made in the framework of good technique.
When learning new strokes, many inexperienced players like to focus on their success rate at getting the ball on the table.  This leads to their playing weak shots and never getting better.  They should focus one shadowing the stroke correctly, especially the proper usage of the whole arm and the shoulder (and possibly body and legs), and letting the technique just express itself at the table slowly at and at a comfortable pace in a learning environment.  Slow multiball, using a robot, or receiving extremely precise and slow blocks help.

While the stroke will not come out correct initially, at least three things happen - the first is that the brain is continually adapting and understanding the stroke because it knows the desired outcome.  This is not a conscious process, but it is always happening.  The fact that it is happening should not be ignored just because one is not conscious of it.  The second is that there are physical connections being made, muscles being developed etc. to support the correct stroke.  This is part of the adaptive process, but while the idea of adapting taking time might not click with every player, the fact that muscles need be built should.  Finally, as the arm mechanics are correct and the shoulder mechanics are also taken into account to avoid injury, other elements can be built on them once control has been established to get more power.  But make no mistake, this all takes time.  The third is that by processing both the successes and the mistakes, the stroke is being better and better calibrated.

The above explains why a player's overall game becomes more advanced over time if he tries to learn the correct stroke, even if at the beginning, he is worse off than players who try to get the ball on the table.  As long as he is fit enough to support the technique he is learning (and most people are fit enough to support arm and shoulder mechanics, but even more advanced mechanics with body and knee usage follows the same general principles), the resources that the body diverts to adapting to the stroke will improve and the co-ordination will increase.  This co-ordination enables you to build other elements of the stroke and make them more powerful as well.

I have been lucky to learn a lot recently from Brett Clarke.  One experience I shared with him was watching him teach a student to loop backspin with his backhand.  Brett simply taught the student how to loop topspin with excellent technique over a period of time.  Then without instruction, he told the student to switch the robot to backspin and let the student loop with the same stroke.  After about 4 sets of 30 balls (1 minute per set), over a space of about 15 minutes or less, the student started having a good success rate at looping backspin without any instruction whatsoever.  However, when the student was told to loop topspin, the student began to loop those balls off the table.  Brett explained that he had done this a few times, and that it challenged the way most of us think we learn good technique.  He said that ideally, once one has mastered correct looping technique, all practice should be done with multiple spins, especially in multiball, to force the brain to read and adjust the stroke once one has good looping technique on either side.  According to Brett, a high level loop is largely the same stroke with a few changes to adapt to different spins.  So for the student to master looping, all the student had to do was practice against different spins and that all practice, once an advanced stroke is developed, should ultimately mix in different spins at some point to prevent the brain from fixating on looping one kind of spin.

This is one reason why players who complain about looping backspin should play choppers, or players who complain about playing pips should play more pips players.  The reason they can't do so well is that they have likely avoided those players, when they should be facing those players more often or at least putting some of those spins in their practice.  The best practice would be to play a twiddler who would enable them to practice against inverted and pips or backspin and topspin in a single rally so they can master and adjust to both ball simultaneously!  Initially, they would make lots of mistakes, but if they are patient and have a good training partner, they will eventually come out of the process much better.  It takes a relaxed and confident person to allow the mistakes to occur so that the brain can calibrate the stroke from them.  I have started to incorporate such practice into my training and just one session produced remarkable gains.  If you can't find a good practice partner, multiball is more than sufficient.

This process of experience being key is not just important in practice - it is also critical in matches.  On the whole, reading spin is the most difficult part of this game, but just as important and difficult is adjusting one's reactions to it quickly. One of the most underestimated abilities of the mind is the ability to adapt during the course of a match.

In general, players all adapt to serves better as the match goes on.  This happens quite straightforwardly during a match whether a player is aware of it or not, with or without serve return instruction!  Therefore, if you are a good server, do not expect on your serve advantage to remain at the same level throughout the match, and if you are struggling with serve return, expect your returns to get better as the match progresses, even if not to your satisfaction.

Unfortunately, there are players who struggle with returning serves who do not trust this process and let it aid their play.  They let their frustration with missing serves and misreading spin affect their confidence and strategic process and fail to keep the other parts of their game consistent.  There is a frustration that should come with losing points, but one should not compound it by adding pressure that makes you play worse.  I used to be one of these players, but nowadays, I just let it go.  Usually, I miss the serves of better players and what I have discovered watching my videos is that I almost always return the serves better as the match gets deeper, whether I am focusing on doing so or not.  The improved returning may not help me win the match, but against players who I am competing more reasonably with, or who are closer to me in rating but have better serves, it relieves me of feeling like I have to play 10 times better on my own serve.  As long as I am ready to fight for 5 games, I have time to figure it out.

Even in rallies, many of us are taught that we should loop backspin like this or topspin like that or no spin like this - the verbal information is great, but there is no substitute for just exposing your brain to the spins and letting your stroke adjust. During a match, everyone does not produce the same level of backspin and topspin.  Most of the best players keep their shots safe by playing as high on the ball  as possible with great racket head speed.  However, when your shots are not going in, you need to be able to adjust your contact point on the ball or swing trajectory, depending on what is happening.    If you realize this and you expose yourself to different spins in practice, the process will happen naturally.  This is one of the dangers of using a robot.  If you do use one, be sure to find ways of varying the spin setting, such as letting the ball bounce into the table like a serve to slow down the speed and spin on some shots, or practicing against backspin and topspin of various levels in the same session.

In summary, your brain is learning, whether you realize it or not.  Do not be afraid to miss the ball in practice, and as long as you trust your strokes, don't be afraid to miss in matches either.   Over time, you will adjust better, whether you feel like it or not - however, not realizing it will cause anxiety that may very well destroy the process.  Aid it by letting it happen and concentrating in a relaxed but focused manner that will enable the process to function at its best.  Accept the misses as part of the learning process and track your error rates.  You will be surprised at how often you improve without noticing!