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[ejunkie]

When you are just playing on club nights and not involving in matches that 's meaningful, how hard do you play and how much thinking, both between points and during points, do you do? I have respect for players who play like they practice and not alternate their game too much to try to win. I know some players who gets coaching and practice looping for hours. When they play they set up every point to loop bh and fh. A bit boring but it's very straight forward and effective. When I started playing I was this way, a lot of training aiming on footwork and combinations, but as I got more "experience" I got "smart", but has coming back to this style two years ago because this is real table tennis. It requires fitness and athleticism. You win by the amount of work you do, no cheating. No doubt about it, you will be tired.

I have less respect for those " smart players" who win by doing a lot of "thinking". They seem to stand there studying their opponent and lack emotion for people in general. while their short game is great their rally sucks. Their mind work so fast and their spin change so fast with it, but their body move in opposite direction, very slow. They seem lacking fitness, lazy. They have very slow feet and weak legs. They play only to win and not enjoying anything else. These players have low self esteem and they are hard to get along off the table.

I prefer to have goals. I prefer a body full of energy for work and home, and I prefer to be able to focus on whatever I do.

[varghese]

Yes, there are "smart players". I have seen this among the Chinese players. In the area I'm playing, there is a self acclaimed coach (rated 1900) goes after me whenever I play against any other Chinese player. While I'm playing, he sits there and coach my opponent in "Chinese". I have no idea what he is teaching my opponent in Chinese, but I have this notion that he is telling his opponents to push against my pips. After many months of gap, I played him last week. He does not have any idea what I do on the table close or away - no idea of what kind of spin I put on the blade. His hits sometimes go outside of the playing hall. Darn! When I lead 2 or 3 points, he brings out his "smartness". He does not toss and serve direct to the body. Is that called "smartness"? All of his students and mostly players he has coached to play against me really struggle. They all push, then a push then again a push. At the same time, there are players who take risk against me. Another friend who used to loose to me like 0-3, now catching up against me. He has improved his looping skills and sometimes beat with his heavy top spin against my pips.

The table tennis is all about athleticism. Since I have slowly recovered from my lungs problem, I move better and enjoy the game a very lot these days. I have to have three t-shirts with me to wear in a 3 hours club time these days - I sweat a lot.

There is something you need to consider is the age of the player. When the players get older, their mobility becomes slow. Some resort to close to the table "no emotion" game. I have a friend at the club who has both his legs had surgery and can't move at all well. He uses some kind of iron knee cap to support his legs. I think they will play like the way they do.

You are young. When you get older you may get such situations. I fear that in my case too. That is one reason, I try to avoid injuries, so keep maintaining my body by seeing a Chiropractic regularly.

Good topic.

[ejunkie]

I can understand an older person doing his best to play a younger player in less than ideal ways, but for players of the same age that's a no-no. The worst I have seen is an older player in his 70s playing younger than a lazy 50 year old Vitnamese player. My suggestion for older players is to play less and play at a higher level.

I am also not totally critical of someone playing the way the want to play, or live life the way he chooses. I am just saying I have slightly less respect, it's how I feel--which is natural.

[ejunkie]

Oh and BTW Varghese, I saw your video and I love the way you play, a lot of defense and a good fh.

[varghese]

I can understand an older person doing his best to play a younger player in less than ideal ways, but for players of the same age that's a no-no. The worst I have seen is an older player in his 70s playing younger than a lazy 50 year old Vietnamese player. My suggestion for older players is to play less and play at a higher level.

I am also not totally critical of someone playing the way the want to play, or live life the way he chooses. I am just saying I have slightly less respect, it's how I feel--which is natural.

Your opinion is respected. You have valid points. Even though I have tried to defend the older players, I still think the older players can move if they want to. I can name many players in the age 60 to 70 from my neighborhood in India who play badminton and move very good. They all take extra care to make sure they can move. They avoid injuries to keep going well.

Larry Hodges once said to me that his looping skill has started diminishing while he is getting older.

[varghese]

Oh and BTW Varghese, I saw your video and I love the way you play, a lot of defense and a good fh.

I might have lost the first video that I put out (the one I was standing close to the table) because I have changed the video hosting company. Now all the videos are at http://www.vimeo.com/tabletennis.

I can move pretty well now. Now I have started using TSP Curl P-H and that keeps me busy for doing a lot of spin variation. I have also seen a 25% increase in my opponents not returning my chop via pushing back. I can still play the close to the table game but for a good fun game, there is nothing like defense on the backhand and offense on the forehand being little away from the table.

I will post some videos of mine soon. I have hundreds of hours of video to post on the vimeo site. Now I'm preparing for some job interviews to move out of state, I'm not getting that much time to edit the video. The editing of the video takes hours. I've got an offer to move to Virginia, but I have declined (the pay was not that good). The Virginia is a hub of great table tennis. To some extend I regret for declining that offer by considering that fact.

[729 fx]

I repected your opinion and have valid points.

But to some tt players, my opinion is - " to each its own".

That means every tt player has his/her own right on how he/she wants to play it. As for me, since I am not playing tt competitively, I will always ask my opponent what he/she want to play - rally or short game? And I will oblige to the request, for example a friend of mine prefers to rally, so I will rally with him irrespective of who win the game. For those who wanted to play short game for some competition practice, I will play the " smart players style" by doing a lot of "thinking"studying my opponent and lack of emotion on my part (I pretend to be his opponent in the actual sense)

I agree with varghese that the older players can move if they want to. But majority of them cannot due to old age or injuries from sports or accidents, so I respect them for being very good in controlling shots after shots near table.

[varghese]

I would like to add another point. It is called experience. The players who play for years like 30 or 40, they can do a lot of magic with their wrist. They know how to control the ball on the table - some kind of He Zhi Wen style player from Spain. I have tried to find a video of Peter Chen from California (eJunkie may know him). I have heard he is a master of controlling the ball on the table. He does not move much, and wins point as soon as the server is done with few shots over the table. There is numerous trophies on his name.