There’s a common saying in high-level sports: “Don't practice until you do it right. Practice until you can't do it wrong." This is another way of saying ingrain the fundamentals. You can never practice the fundamentals too much as that's how you make it so you can't do it wrong. 

Far too often I hear players say, “I already practiced that, I can do it.” What they say is correct, but meaningless in the context. The goal of fundamentals is that they should be nearly unerring unless your opponent does something to force a mistake. Block a loop? You should be able to do this over and Over and OVER – unless the opponent varies the loop, gives you speeds or spins you aren’t used to, moves it around, and so on. But in a drill, where you get the same ball over and over, you should strive for perfection. If you keep making mistakes, then you probably are drilling too fast.

Note that “strive for perfection” doesn’t mean you reach it, but if you strive to reach it in rote drills, then you’ll start seeing results in regular rallies as those ingrained fundamentals become automatic. The irony is that players below the advanced stages often have trouble ingraining these fundamentals because their practice partners are often their level, and if neither is consistent, then neither gets consistent practice and so they don’t ingrain the fundamentals as well as they should. Why? Because they drill too fast! Slow down to speeds both sides are consistent at, and then you can ingrain the shots.

And then you can practice until you can’t do it wrong.

“It’s an unreturnable shot,” said US Team Member Perry Schwartzberg many years ago after failing repeatedly to block, hit, or counterloop against fellow team member Ricky Seemiller’s slow, spinny loop. World #3 Mikael Appelgren had a similar problem against Ricky, losing to him when the world’s best counterlooper couldn’t counterloop Ricky’s spinny loop.

And yet, fewer and fewer players slow loop these days. Part of the reason is because at higher levels, and with modern sponges, players just go for power loops. And that often pays off at the higher levels. But below that – and as a change-up at the higher levels – the slow, spinny loop is a valuable shot.

The weakness of the shot is that if an opponent unhesitatingly blocks, hits, or counterloops aggressively, the slow spinny loop can be attacked effectively. But since players don’t see the shot that much these days, and are usually set up for faster, less spinny shots, they struggle against the shot if not overused.

A key reason players don’t slow loop as much these days is they don’t know the proper technique, and so end up with a less-than-spinny slow loop that is more easily attacked.

The key point here is a slow spinny loop is NOT just a weak, safe loop. It’s an aggressive shot done at full power – but nearly all of the power goes into creating topspin. It’s usually done against backspin, especially heavy backspin where you can convert the incoming backspin into even more topspin with an almost vertical stroke.

How do you do this? A key aspect is to let the ball drop more than usual. This makes it easier to arc it with super spin, using your entire body, and especially your legs. With power loops, nearly all of the force is forward, but with a slow, spinny loop, you use your legs to drive the ball both up and forward, with the emphasis on up. If you take the ball too high, you’ll go off the end, which is why it’s easier to do if you let the ball drop below table level, with knees well bent. (If you have knee problems, then compensate by simply dropping the racket down more and use more upper body, arm, and wrist.) Then use the whole body – legs, hips and waist, shoulder, forearm, and wrist. Each part of the swing propels the next part forward. The stroke is one continuous, smooth motion.

Just before contact, drive into the ball vigorously, with a big forearm and wrist snap as you contact the ball – but just graze the ball. Make that ball rotate like an angry Tasmanian Devil!!! The whole point of the shot is extreme topspin, not safe topspin.

If you go off the end, don’t slow down your swing; contact a little more on top of the ball and stroke slightly more forward, especially if the ball doesn’t have heavy backspin.

Experiment until you find just how much to let the ball drop, how much to drive up vs. forward, and how finely you can graze the ball. Find a partner and practice, where you serve backspin, partner pushes back heavy, and you slow-loop the ball with great power – with all that power going into topspin. With practice, it becomes an extremely consistent shot since the low ball speed and the heavy topspin pulling it down keeps it on the table.

So, what are you waiting for? Time to slow-spin for the win!

The title is a quote from the famous Danish chess champion Max Euwe (pronounced “oo-vay”). What does it mean and how does it apply to table tennis?

It comes down to knowing the difference between strategic and tactical thinking. The words “strategy” and “tactics” (and variations such as “strategic” and “tactical”) are colloquially used interchangeably, but really have different meaning when applied to sports and games. Strategic thinking is thinking long-term about developing your game. Tactical thinking is about using what you have to win now. You need both.

To get back to Euwe, suppose you have an effective loop (forehand, backhand, or both. You give it some thought and strategically decide you need a good short backspin serve to force pushes that you can loop, with other variations thrown in (such as short no-spin and occasional long ones). That’s strategic thinking. But when you observe that your opponent can receive and block in ways that make your loops lower-percentage shots (such as quick, angled, heavy pushes, short pushes, or flips, and effective blocks against your opening loop), then you use tactical thinking to come up with a better tactic, such as changing your serving patterns (such as serving more sidespin/topspin or more deep serves) or pushing more so you can find a better ball to loop rather than go after the first one.

And then you use strategic thinking to figure out how to develop your game so that next time you won’t have trouble with that opponent’s receiving and blocking!

1. Know the rules, or at least the more important ones.
2. Examine opponent’s racket at start of match. Don’t rub your fingers over the playing surface, which can get grease on it and anger your opponent. If he has pips, then perhaps rub your finger on one along the edge. If it’s antispin, some players rub a ball along the edge to test it.
3. Two-minute warmup. Usually players hit a minute of forehand to forehand and a minute of backhand to backhand. Players with combination rackets sometimes use their “normal” inverted side during this warmup, but that’s up to the player.
4. Hide the ball or flip a coin to see who has choice of serving first, receiving first, or choosing a side. If you choose to serve or receive, the opponent can choose the side to start on. If you choose the side to start on, the opponent can choose to serve or receive.
5. Remember that you only have one minute between games or in one time-out per match. Use it well, either talking to your coach, clearing your mind, or resting. You can also towel off every six points.  "You can also towel off every six points." 
6. A coach can talk to you during the match, but you can't stop what you are doing to listen or walk over to him except between games or in a timeout. It’s an advantage if you and your coach speak a language that your opponents do not since then he can yell tips that the opponent cannot understand. Signals sometimes help.
7. Know how to hit balls that come into your court back to their tables. Don’t just smack it at them. If they are a distance, hit with backspin so the ball floats right into their hands. New players should practice this.
8. Normally do not talk to an opponent except on match business. A common psychological ploy is for an opponent to praise your shots, thereby getting you to think about the shot and taking you out of the “zone” where your training takes over. Once a match has started, if an opponent talks to you in any way that’s not normal match business (such as, “Whose serve is it?” or “What’s the score?”), you should normally ignore him. (Perhaps smile and nod while focusing on the next point.)
9. You can only have one coach in a match, except in team competition. In team competition, anyone from your “bench” can coach during any match.
10. If there's a dispute, call for an umpire or referee. Umpires umpire matches. Referees rule on the rules but generally do not umpire unless they assign someone else as referee.
11. Win or lose, after the match shake hands, or bump fists or rackets, and fill out the scores (usually by the winner), and return the match slip to the desk.

This really could mean two things. Some players try to unsettle their opponents by staring at them between points or when about to serve. I’ve never been able to decide whether this is proper gamesmanship or poor sportsmanship. You decide.

But there’s a more important stare, and that’s the one that allows you to regain or keep focus. There are a lot of distractions in a match, both external and internal. External is all the things going on around you – spectators, the opponent, the umpire, noises, lights, the background, and so on. Internal is more important – that’s your internal emotions and thoughts. Nervousness or a lack of focus are two of your biggest enemies.

So, how does a stare help this? Some players, including me, make a habit of sometimes during a match just stopping and staring at something for 5-10 seconds. Pick out something in the distance or nearby, it doesn’t matter. Stare at it while clearing your mind of all thoughts. Breathe deeply. Then, after those 5-10 seconds, focus on the match.

You’ll be amazed at how this helps controlling nerves and focus. And at least one top player I know of combined all of this, sometimes staring at his opponent for those 5-10 seconds, especially when about to serve – and using it to clear his mind and focus while sometimes so disconcerting his opponent that the opponent lost his!