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question of talent

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 3:19pm
Tassie52,

Can genetic advantages be mental/psychological in nature? Or are they all just physical gifts?

Thanks,
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Originally posted by Speedplay Speedplay wrote:

so, conclusion is, Andy knows that talent exists, but he doesnt like the word talent so he wants us all to stop using it.

To be honest, I fail to see his point or why the word upsets him. If we claimed that it was all about talent, then I could understand him, but we all know that talent alone means nothing. Hard work combined with talent can get you far. Hard work, without talent, still beats purely talent.

In the book about JO Waldner, his brother says that JO could try a new stroke in warm up and begin using it in the next match, while he himself needed to spend several hours working on a new stroke before it was ready to be used in matches. To me, that is a talent of JO. Was he born with it or did he get this from some strange events earlier on in his childhood? Doesnt matter, according to me, because its still a talent that JO had.
Well said. 
Also in the case of Waldner, I don't think he was physically the most gifted player during his era. He appeared to win more with strategy than sheer speed or power. 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AndySmith Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 4:50pm
Originally posted by jrscatman jrscatman wrote:

Originally posted by Speedplay Speedplay wrote:

so, conclusion is, Andy knows that talent exists, but he doesnt like the word talent so he wants us all to stop using it.

To be honest, I fail to see his point or why the word upsets him. If we claimed that it was all about talent, then I could understand him, but we all know that talent alone means nothing. Hard work combined with talent can get you far. Hard work, without talent, still beats purely talent.

In the book about JO Waldner, his brother says that JO could try a new stroke in warm up and begin using it in the next match, while he himself needed to spend several hours working on a new stroke before it was ready to be used in matches. To me, that is a talent of JO. Was he born with it or did he get this from some strange events earlier on in his childhood? Doesnt matter, according to me, because its still a talent that JO had.
Well said. 
Also in the case of Waldner, I don't think he was physically the most gifted player during his era. He appeared to win more with strategy than sheer speed or power. 


I just don't like certain words, totally at random.  I pick a new one from the dictionary every day and decide that this is the one I don't like now.  I really must get myself checked out at some point.

Ha!  No, you just don't understand my point, as you have admitted!  My point is not that anyone is saying that it's ALL about talent.  That the sum total of everything is just talent.  That would be total nonsense, of course!  Ha hahahaha!  Crazy talk!  Sounds like another straw man, but I've seen so many that I can't see the straw men from the men of straw.

(And your moving goalposts on JO's talent - wow.  So you're now saying that JO's talent could be a talent, or it could be "strange" events (LOL - strange like doing more training, or doing improv sessions at the table while everyone else was robotically doing counter-hits - these are strange to you?), which doesn't matter to you because it's ALL talent, even when it's not talent, but it is, because....ah!  My head fell off.  Apologies.)

My point is that people are incredibly intractable on the issue that they can see and evaluate talent, like some magical talent whisperer.  They look at groups of people and just know that talent is there, going on, doing it's thing, making the difference.  This last bit is key.  It's popped up several times on this thread!  And yet, even though the sensible, reasonable approach is to say it's all talent and practice combined, people just know that any differences between (to give an example given here) FZD and his peer group are all down to talent!  Nothing to do with training, nope.  Nothing to do with anything interesting or special in FZD's life experience.  And that we don't even have to look to find out!  Because we would be in danger of learning something useful, and we can't have that!  Imagine if we learned the source of JO's ability and could do something with it.  Modify our training approach to include some innovative techniques which shook out of our analysis.  But no!  It doesn't matter, let's not look, because it's all talent, even when it's not and ah!  My head fell off again.

This is my issue.  And yet, everyone keeps totally missing my point, and saying that I'm arguing about something different.  I might be losing my mind.  Incredible.  It doesn't matter how any times I say it, or how differently I phrase it, it just doesn't seem to register.  

It is the assumption that, when you look at a group of people, talent will be the thing that separates the top from the rest.  The assumption is what I'm arguing about.  Not the reality of talent/training coexisting.  Not that it exists, or not.  The tendency of people to assume that talent is the thing they see making the difference, and for them to not even realise that they are making an assumption at all, because it's all so obvious, apparently!

I can't spell it out any clearer than that.  I await someone else to say "But Andy, how can you think that talent doesn't matter" or "It can't just be all training" or "That doesn't mean that the difference is down to training" or "You haven't made the case for wearing blue underwear on tuesdays" or some other, equally unrelated comments.  Please forward these posts to my therapist, once I appoint one.

(I actually don't like the word talent, but only because the use of it has become so unbearably, insufferably ridiculous to me that it has been ruined in my brain.  People say "oooh talent", like that actually says something interesting about what they're seeing.  It's so high-level and non-descriptive that it's like saying "ooooh purple" or "ooooh concrete" to me.  Purple and concrete both exist, but telling me that you find them interesting would probably make me ask you for more detail, or I might think that it was a waste of good air saying it.  It's also a bit like when people insist that TT equipment has "control" - that makes me itch my own face too.  You either detail what's at work to produce the appearance of "talent", hence making it a description so broad that it could mean anything and what was the point of saying it in the first place (unless it's a time-saver, or to start a conversation about the detail I suppose), or you can't detail what's at work and then realise you were guessing in the first place.  But just saying "that FZD, he's got talent!"....gah.  My brain just died a little bit typing that last one in.)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote wturber Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 5:54pm
Originally posted by Baal Baal wrote:

Here is another one in addition to the glasses issue.  Is there anyone in the top 50 in the world taller than 6'5" (about average height for a shooting guard in the NBA)?  Or more than 220 lbs (on the small size for an NFL football player)?

And what if there is?  Someone here would likely call them an outlier and dismiss their relevance.

As for the "glasses" question, maybe I missed something but shouldn't the question be more specific?  Shouldn't we be asking about the actual visual acuity of those players and then checking to see whether that is innate or augmented?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote berndt_mann Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 6:36pm
Hi Jay,

Is being an "outlier" any more linguistically accurate than being an individual with a particular aptitude, knack, proclivity, or shall we say "talent" for extraordinary success at a particular discipline, art, or sport?

I don't know.  I suppose I'm an outlier, but I''m not sure what being an outlier means.  And after reading every post to this forum regarding whether or not talent does or doesn't exist, I'm finding myself more confused than ever.

It's a fascinating discussion, recapitulated now on the MyTableTennis forum.  Table tennis players, at least those who post to forums such as this one, are a highly intelligent and disputatious lot. 

Some of you know so much about so much stuff I'm amazed that you can actually find time to play table tennis. 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roundrobin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 6:44pm
Instead of wasting time debating, I just won our college's badminton doubles' tournament after just eight weeks of learning.  I must be freakin'ly talented.  Yes.





Edited by roundrobin - 05/05/2015 at 6:46pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote wturber Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 7:54pm
Originally posted by NextLevel NextLevel wrote:


For something as complex as TT, for any one trait, there would clearly be exceptions. And in fact, its quite possible that TT is complicated enough that the contribution of single traits is so small that the combination of all the traits is what matters. Ultimately, my point is that everything we know about human beings says that when something has been exposed to a population as large as China, a lot of the top players have genetic advantages.


Seems likely.  What is harder to say is which particular individuals have more or less of the advantages.

It might be pretty reasonable in sports or activities with high rewards to point to top achievers and say that it is very likely that they have a high proportion of advantageous "innate"(genetic/epigenetic) attributes.  This seems reasonable given that we know that genes and innate traits have influences, that high desire and effort are virtually givens for elite athletes, and that good fortune in regards to injuries and circumstances of birth and location are also likely at play.  When the rewards are extremely high every advantage would surely seem to count.  With a small edit, I think Andy's (APW46) belief matches my view.  (The strike-throughs are where I semantically disagree.  It isn't "why", it is one factor of many in "why". Getting more dedicated can be very hard.)

 "At the very top of the sport, the players have something extra, that is why they get there, below that, dedication wins over talent every time. An individual can get more dedicated easily, but nobody can get 'more talented'

My personal view from experience is that reasonably often the players with more gifted touch progress quicker and are seen as 'talented' but if they lack dedication they are soon overtaken by the dedicated workers. If you get both you get a good player, then it comes down to other factors such as nationality, funding, mental strength, luck ( being around the right players/coaches) as to how far they go."

And that's the practical problem with the notion of talent IMO.  Perhaps you can say after the fact that J.O. Waldner probably has a good mix of the traits that would help a player to become a world champion - even without knowing what those particular traits are.  You might even be able to say that this is true once he breaks the top 50, but you would/should be less certain even at lower but still quite high level.

As a sidenote, people should keep in mind Ericsson's 10,000 hours (popularized by Gladwell) referred only to achieving an expert level.  He didn't really have much to say at all about the most expert/accomplished of experts.

At a practical level coaches and sports organizations have few options but to support/promote players that exhibit actual skills, achievements and other characteristics that are highly correlated with high level success.  That's the best we/they can do.  But at these earlier (pre-world elite) points in time, they don't know whether a player has a particularly favorable mix of attributes, if they are a harder/smarter worker, of if some other advantage is a greater proportion of the success so far.  In a sport like table tennis, it can be very hard to say how much current success is due to "innate advantages" and how much is due to other factors. You have to try to make the journey to have a shot at knowing.  And if you do  make the journey and fail to become world champ or maybe even land in the top 10, you'll still never know for sure if you "failed" because you didn't have a good enough gene mix or if it was some other combination of factors that kept you from being that little bit better that might have made the difference.  

But let's be clear.  Every activity is different.  The simpler the activity, the easier it is to narrow down specific advantageous traits. Though, even then it is possible to fall into a trap of making inferences based more on correlation than on actual understanding of what is at work.  Usain Bolt's success at 100M defied the ideas at the time of what makes an ideal sprinter.  He was too tall to be "ideal." So maybe we can still say that he probably has a good mix of the right attributes, but he has surely made us rethink how the basic attribute of height attribute factors in to things.

So I tend to agree with the other Andy about the use of the concept, talent (note, it's the concept that "talent" represents and not the term per se), and very much do not like the way I see it frequently used in regards to individuals and even narrow groups of individuals ... for instance the way it was used/meant by the originator of this thread. 










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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roundrobin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 8:09pm
As if the word "talent" will ever disappear from the English lexicon, or "God's given gift" from Mandarin or Japanese LOL  ...what a massive waste of cyber ink.  No one ever agreed to change their beliefs on an online forum on anything.  EVER.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Baal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 8:14pm
Originally posted by wturber wturber wrote:

Originally posted by Baal Baal wrote:

Here is another one in addition to the glasses issue.  Is there anyone in the top 50 in the world taller than 6'5" (about average height for a shooting guard in the NBA)?  Or more than 220 lbs (on the small size for an NFL football player)?

And what if there is?  Someone here would likely call them an outlier and dismiss their relevance.

As for the "glasses" question, maybe I missed something but shouldn't the question be more specific?  Shouldn't we be asking about the actual visual acuity of those players and then checking to see whether that is innate or augmented?


Actually there were two I can think of who were that tall in last 30 years or so:  Kalinic (whose son plays on Serbian national basketball team now) and Thierry Cabrerra.  But in any case, the paucity of really elite players who are in that size range suggests it may not be ideal for our sport. 

In any case, I said what I wanted to say about this. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tassie52 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 8:39pm
Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Instead of wasting time debating, I just won our college's badminton doubles' tournament after just eight weeks of learning.  I must be freakin'ly talented.  Yes.
6 Reasons Why "Talent" Is Not A Factor
  1. It's doubles.  Your partner carried you
  2. Your college has a very, very low standard of badminton
  3. There was a gastro epidemic, which affected all players except you
  4. You have played racquet sports for most of your life - TT, squash, tennis, pickle ball. The transition to badminton was easy
  5. Eight weeks' training was actually 56 days of playing 10 hours per day = 560 hours of training
  6. The umpiring was fixed
See, no need to invoke the gods of talent at all.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tassie52 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 8:49pm
Originally posted by geardaddy geardaddy wrote:

The fact of the matter is in TT genetics do matter.  Probably the most significant genetic factor is one's reaction time.  All successful TT players possess superior reaction time, and it is known to degrade with age.  Without good reaction time in TT, you are sunk!
BZZZZ!!!  Wrong.

Every study I have read on reaction time states quite categorically that reaction times are sport specific; that is, they are trained.  Syed talks about Desmond Douglass's reaction times and how they were not superior in any way for anything other than table tennis. And they were superior there because he trained in a way which decreased his reaction times (i.e. made him faster).

F! racing drivers are no faster at dodging a punch than you are, but their driving reactions are trained to be lightning fast.  Boxers are slower than you at returning a TT ball. And so on and so on.  Not a single person been born with superior reaction times.  Try taking a swing at a baby and see if it ducks!  Pick the infant born to a boxer and an F1 driver.  Still won't duck.  If ZJK marries LXX and they have a child, it still won't have "superior reaction time".
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roundrobin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 9:00pm
Originally posted by Tassie52 Tassie52 wrote:

Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Instead of wasting time debating, I just won our college's badminton doubles' tournament after just eight weeks of learning.  I must be freakin'ly talented.  Yes.

6 Reasons Why "Talent" Is Not A Factor
  1. It's doubles.  Your partner carried you
  2. Your college has a very, very low standard of badminton
  3. There was a gastro epidemic, which affected all players except you
  4. You have played racquet sports for most of your life - TT, squash, tennis, pickle ball. The transition to badminton was easy
  5. Eight weeks' training was actually 56 days of playing 10 hours per day = 560 hours of training
  6. The umpiring was fixed
See, no need to invoke the gods of talent at all.


Nah, I am simply talented, Tassie.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tassie52 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 9:26pm
Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Originally posted by Tassie52 Tassie52 wrote:

Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Instead of wasting time debating, I just won our college's badminton doubles' tournament after just eight weeks of learning.  I must be freakin'ly talented.  Yes.

6 Reasons Why "Talent" Is Not A Factor
  1. It's doubles.  Your partner carried you
  2. Your college has a very, very low standard of badminton
  3. There was a gastro epidemic, which affected all players except you
  4. You have played racquet sports for most of your life - TT, squash, tennis, pickle ball. The transition to badminton was easy
  5. Eight weeks' training was actually 56 days of playing 10 hours per day = 560 hours of training
  6. The umpiring was fixed
See, no need to invoke the gods of talent at all.


Nah, I am simply talented, Tassie.
Sorry, RR, I have a photo of you in training. I admire your partner's physical ability.


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I will not let an Internet hack deny my greatness. I believe in Lord.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tassie52 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 9:46pm
Originally posted by NextLevel NextLevel wrote:

Can genetic advantages be mental/psychological in nature?
Yes, I believe so.  However, you also need to take into account how environmental factors can also be mental/psychological.  For instance, according to Seligman, pessimism is a learnt trait - primarily taught by mothers.  I doubt that any elite athlete is a pessimist (no research to support my hypothesis) so we would need to count their positivity at least in part to environmental rather than genetic advantage.
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Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Instead of wasting time debating, I just won our college's badminton doubles' tournament after just eight weeks of learning.  I must be freakin'ly talented.  Yes.
Depends who was your partner Lin Dan?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roundrobin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 10:37pm
Originally posted by jrscatman jrscatman wrote:

Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Instead of wasting time debating, I just won our college's badminton doubles' tournament after just eight weeks of learning.  I must be freakin'ly talented.  Yes.



Depends who was your partner Lin Dan?


I wish! Just some beginner named Chen Long...l think I could beat him in singles.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ttTurkey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 11:06pm
Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Instead of wasting time debating, I just won our college's badminton doubles' tournament after just eight weeks of learning.  I must be freakin'ly talented.  Yes.




Oh noes, after all this time believing that you were a real person, you have just outed yourself as Igor's sock puppet!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jrscatman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 11:08pm
Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Originally posted by jrscatman jrscatman wrote:

Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Instead of wasting time debating, I just won our college's badminton doubles' tournament after just eight weeks of learning.  I must be freakin'ly talented.  Yes.



Depends who was your partner Lin Dan?

I wish! Just some beginner named Chen Long...l think I could beat him in singles.
If you are able to beat Chen Long in singles - definitely "talented" till then we'll reserve judgement!
BTW: Congratulations on winning the gold.


Edited by jrscatman - 05/05/2015 at 11:24pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/05/2015 at 11:23pm
This is very much untrue. Yes, anticipation within a sport is sport specific, but psychologists have a way of testing reactions of the nervous system, which are very separate from the physical response to the stimulus. If I remember rightly, this statistic had a fairly high correlation with some other tests of quick mental skills.

Originally posted by Tassie52 Tassie52 wrote:

Originally posted by geardaddy geardaddy wrote:

<span style="line-height: 1.4;">The fact of the matter is in TT genetics do matter.  Probably the most significant genetic factor is one's reaction time.  All successful TT players possess superior reaction time, and it is known to degrade with age.  Without good reaction time in TT, you are sunk!</span>
BZZZZ!!!  Wrong.

Every study I have read on reaction time states quite categorically that reaction times are sport specific; that is, they are trained.  Syed talks about Desmond Douglass's reaction times and how they were not superior in any way for anything other than table tennis. And they were superior there because he trained in a way which decreased his reaction times (i.e. made him faster).

F! racing drivers are no faster at dodging a punch than you are, but their driving reactions are trained to be lightning fast.  Boxers are slower than you at returning a TT ball. And so on and so on.  Not a single person been born with superior reaction times.  Try taking a swing at a baby and see if it ducks!  Pick the infant born to a boxer and an F1 driver.  Still won't duck.  If ZJK marries LXX and they have a child, it still won't have "superior reaction time".
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Speedplay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/11/2015 at 5:51am
Originally posted by AndySmith AndySmith wrote:

Originally posted by jrscatman jrscatman wrote:

Originally posted by Speedplay Speedplay wrote:

so, conclusion is, Andy knows that talent exists, but he doesnt like the word talent so he wants us all to stop using it.

To be honest, I fail to see his point or why the word upsets him. If we claimed that it was all about talent, then I could understand him, but we all know that talent alone means nothing. Hard work combined with talent can get you far. Hard work, without talent, still beats purely talent.

In the book about JO Waldner, his brother says that JO could try a new stroke in warm up and begin using it in the next match, while he himself needed to spend several hours working on a new stroke before it was ready to be used in matches. To me, that is a talent of JO. Was he born with it or did he get this from some strange events earlier on in his childhood? Doesnt matter, according to me, because its still a talent that JO had.

Well said. 
Also in the case of Waldner, I don't think he was physically the most gifted player during his era. He appeared to win more with strategy than sheer speed or power. 



I just don't like certain words, totally at random.  I pick a new one from the dictionary every day and decide that this is the one I don't like now.  I really must get myself checked out at some point.

Ha!  No, you just don't understand my point, as you have admitted!  My point is not that anyone is saying that it's ALL about talent.  That the sum total of everything is just talent.  That would be total nonsense, of course!  Ha hahahaha!  Crazy talk!  Sounds like another straw man, but I've seen so many that I can't see the straw men from the men of straw.

(And your moving goalposts on JO's talent - wow.  So you're now saying that JO's talent could be a talent, or it could be "strange" events (LOL - strange like doing more training, or doing improv sessions at the table while everyone else was robotically doing counter-hits - these are strange to you?), which doesn't matter to you because it's ALL talent, even when it's not talent, but it is, because....ah!  My head fell off.  Apologies.)

My point is that people are incredibly intractable on the issue that they can see and evaluate talent, like some magical talent whisperer.  They look at groups of people and just know that talent is there, going on, doing it's thing, making the difference.  This last bit is key.  It's popped up several times on this thread!  And yet, even though the sensible, reasonable approach is to say it's all talent and practice combined, people just know that any differences between (to give an example given here) FZD and his peer group are all down to talent!  Nothing to do with training, nope.  Nothing to do with anything interesting or special in FZD's life experience.  And that we don't even have to look to find out!  Because we would be in danger of learning something useful, and we can't have that!  Imagine if we learned the source of JO's ability and could do something with it.  Modify our training approach to include some innovative techniques which shook out of our analysis.  But no!  It doesn't matter, let's not look, because it's all talent, even when it's not and ah!  My head fell off again.

This is my issue.  And yet, everyone keeps totally missing my point, and saying that I'm arguing about something different.  I might be losing my mind.  Incredible.  It doesn't matter how any times I say it, or how differently I phrase it, it just doesn't seem to register.  

It is the assumption that, when you look at a group of people, talent will be the thing that separates the top from the rest.  The assumption is what I'm arguing about.  Not the reality of talent/training coexisting.  Not that it exists, or not.  The tendency of people to assume that talent is the thing they see making the difference, and for them to not even realise that they are making an assumption at all, because it's all so obvious, apparently!

I can't spell it out any clearer than that.  I await someone else to say "But Andy, how can you think that talent doesn't matter" or "It can't just be all training" or "That doesn't mean that the difference is down to training" or "You haven't made the case for wearing blue underwear on tuesdays" or some other, equally unrelated comments.  Please forward these posts to my therapist, once I appoint one.

(I actually don't like the word talent, but only because the use of it has become so unbearably, insufferably ridiculous to me that it has been ruined in my brain.  People say "oooh talent", like that actually says something interesting about what they're seeing.  It's so high-level and non-descriptive that it's like saying "ooooh purple" or "ooooh concrete" to me.  Purple and concrete both exist, but telling me that you find them interesting would probably make me ask you for more detail, or I might think that it was a waste of good air saying it.  It's also a bit like when people insist that TT equipment has "control" - that makes me itch my own face too.  You either detail what's at work to produce the appearance of "talent", hence making it a description so broad that it could mean anything and what was the point of saying it in the first place (unless it's a time-saver, or to start a conversation about the detail I suppose), or you can't detail what's at work and then realise you were guessing in the first place.  But just saying "that FZD, he's got talent!"....gah.  My brain just died a little bit typing that last one in.)


Andy, this isnt my native tongue, so I might be wrong here, but when I said new stroke, that sort of excludes previous training. So, JOs talent was that he could learn new strokes much faster then his brother. The strange events comment was made especially towards you, since you refuse to accept talent. Or, wait, you do accept it, you know it exists and plays a part, you just dont like that the rest of the world assumes that talent is what seperates the best from the rest. Despite your dislike for it, Im going to continue to believe that the top players all have talent and that is what have made it possible for them to become top players. If two players both receive 10,000 hours of virtuellt the same training, Im going to assume that the one who is better have more talent.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tassie52 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/11/2015 at 9:27am
I have decided that I am perfectly happy to ascribe to talent everything that is not learnt (i.e. skills such as strokes, touch, anticipation, strategy, emotional control, footwork, balance, timing, reflexes, etc.) or genetic (i.e. height, weight, body type, eyesight, muscle profile, handedness, intelligence, flexibility, etc.) or psychological (resilience, optimism/pessimism, adaptability, confidence, humour, aggression, etc.) or some combination of these. Anything that isn't learnt, genetic or psychological is talent.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ringer84 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/11/2015 at 11:51am
Richard Prause's thoughts on "talent" in table tennis, and recognizing early talent in Timo and Ovtcharov.



Hopefully this hasn't been posted already.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote roundrobin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/11/2015 at 4:20pm
Originally posted by Tassie52 Tassie52 wrote:

I have decided that I am perfectly happy to ascribe to talent everything that is not learnt (i.e. skills such as strokes, touch, anticipation, strategy, emotional control, footwork, balance, timing, reflexes, etc.) or genetic (i.e. height, weight, body type, eyesight, muscle profile, handedness, intelligence, flexibility, etc.) or psychological (resilience, optimism/pessimism, adaptability, confidence, humour, aggression, etc.) or some combination of these. Anything that isn't learnt, genetic or psychological is talent.


That's asinine.  Some people just think they are so brilliant, they get to redefine words as they please.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Speedplay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/12/2015 at 1:53am
Originally posted by roundrobin roundrobin wrote:

Originally posted by Tassie52 Tassie52 wrote:

I have decided that I am perfectly happy to ascribe to talent everything that is not learnt (i.e. skills such as strokes, touch, anticipation, strategy, emotional control, footwork, balance, timing, reflexes, etc.) or genetic (i.e. height, weight, body type, eyesight, muscle profile, handedness, intelligence, flexibility, etc.) or psychological (resilience, optimism/pessimism, adaptability, confidence, humour, aggression, etc.) or some combination of these. Anything that isn't learnt, genetic or psychological is talent.


That's asinine.  Some people just think they are so brilliant, they get to redefine words as they please.




Nice to be back and actually agree with you RR!

strange if we dont consider learning ability to be a talent, and that genetiks arent talent.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tassie52 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/12/2015 at 7:23am
RR, I'm very happy for you to point out my ass-like features. However, I am going to disagree with you on the question of whether or not I'm redefining the word "talent. According to a reliable source, "talent" means:
Originally posted by Collins English Dictionary Collins English Dictionary wrote:

innate ability, aptitude, or faculty, esp when unspecified; above average ability: a talent for cooking; a child with talent.
The American Heritage Dictionary also specifies "innate", and the Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary says it's a "natural ability or aptitude". So, talent cannot apply to anything learned, which is exactly what I am saying about "skills such as strokes, touch, anticipation, strategy, emotional control, footwork, balance, timing, reflexes, etc.". All of these things are learned. If they weren't a "talented" infant would be able to do them.

Secondly, all of the psychological factors are also learned - "resilience, optimism/pessimism, adaptability, confidence, humour, aggression" - so they cannot qualify as "talents" either. And you may want to refer to Martin Seligman, Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Psychology, should you want to claim otherwise.

Thirdly, we need to consider the Collins phraseology "aptitude, or faculty, esp. when unspecified". Not one of the physical attributes that I listed would qualify as a talent, even though they are by definition "innate": height does not presuppose aptitude (tall people who suck at basketball); great eyesight (people with 20/20 vision who can't track a ball); muscle profile (people with fast twitch muscle fibre who can't jump). And when these things are present in an elite athlete, no one identifies those things as talents; they simple identify them as physical attributes.

And finally, the clincher: "esp. when unspecified", which is the whole point of this debate. All of the things I have listed can be specified. Most of them can be scientifically identified and measured. My comment remains entirely valid: "You show me something which is unspecified and I'll happily call it talent." But first, you're going to have to specify what it is.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/12/2015 at 8:08am
Originally posted by Tassie52 Tassie52 wrote:



Secondly, all of the psychological factors are also learned - "resilience, optimism/pessimism, adaptability, confidence, humour, aggression" - so they cannot qualify as "talents" either. And you may want to refer to Martin Seligman, Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Psychology, should you want to claim otherwise.


Having read Seligman, I seriously doubt he would describe his position as you do.  While those things are learned, many of them have genetic underpinnings.  It's no different from saying you need to eat food to become tall.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Speedplay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/12/2015 at 11:48am
Tassie, you mentioning learning, but the ability to learn can in itself be a talent.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote VictorK Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/12/2015 at 12:09pm
Originally posted by Tassie52 Tassie52 wrote:


And finally, the clincher: "esp. when unspecified", which is the whole point of this debate. All of the things I have listed can be specified. Most of them can be scientifically identified and measured. My comment remains entirely valid: "You show me something which is unspecified and I'll happily call it talent." But first, you're going to have to specify what it is.



What's frequently "not specified" and very difficult to identify and measure is WHY certain individuals have higher baselines, and acquire certain abilities, traits and skills at faster rates, and/or take them to often extraordinary levels.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05/12/2015 at 1:35pm
And since we are unable to measure or specify them in detail, dome of us would rather pretend they are not there until we can.
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