Some of these are table tennis specific, others are more general - but they are all tips for travel to table tennis events. (Some are things you should do in advance of the tournament to help prepare.)

1. Keep necessary stuff in carry-on bag when flying. Bags sometimes get lost. So try to keep your racket, shoes, and one set of playing clothes in a carry-on bag.
2. Rolling bag. Not only are they great for carry-on bags, but they make it a lot easier to carry your stuff around at tournaments without tiring yourself out from carrying a bag around. They also make handy stands to hold your drink when sitting down - the area where the handle comes out is usually perfect for that.
3. Shoes. Not all floors are equal. With a good, rubberized floor, you can get away with most table tennis shoes. But if the floors are slippery (often with wood or cement floors), you might want new shoes to maximize traction. If playing on cement floors, you might want shoes with more support.
4. Snacks. You need these both for travel to/from the tournament, plus during the tournament. You can't always count of getting what you want at the playing site, so it's best to bring snacks with you. I always bring granola bars.
5. Drinks. Check if water or other drinks will be available at the playing area. Sometimes they only have expensive bottles of water. If so, perhaps arrange a quick trip to a local grocery store for a case of water or sports drink.
6. Luggage scale. If you fly a lot like I do, and often take a lot of stuff - and sometimes more on the flight back (trophies! souvenirs!) - it's important to be able to tell if your bag is over the maximum weight limit if you check in a bag, usually 50 pounds. Here's the one I use – it only costs $10, and it's small and weighs only 3.2 ounces. It's easy to use - just clip it to the bag's handle, lift, and read the display.
7. Stay organized. Make sure you know your playing schedule and keep it handy.
8. Warm-up partner. While it's good to play many styles in practice matches to get used to them, and used to adjusting in general, for warmup you want someone you are comfortable with. Try to arrange in advance who and when you'll be warming up with. Come early - tables sometimes fill up early and then are hard to get.
9. Scout opponents in advance. In particular, watch their serve and receive. Imagine returning their serves, and imagine following up against the type of receives they give. If possible, watch them play from the far side so you can see their serve as the receiver sees it. You can also go to YouTube and put in a player's name, followed by "table tennis," and you'll be amazed how often you'll find a video of your upcoming opponent. If the video is old, however, things might have changed, especially for junior players or players who's level/rating have changed a lot.
10. Thank the tournament director and officials! Do this at some point during the tournament. They are putting a lot of time and energy into their jobs, and you'll likely be working with them in future tournaments.

We've all done it - faced with attacking a heavy backspin, often deep on the table, you get nervous and try to weakly topspin it up, and it goes right into the net, plop. Often players get frustrated by this heavy backspin, saying or thinking, "It's too heavy! I can't lift it!" That, of course, is downright silly. Even spinning, the ball still weights 2.7 grams (less than a tenth of an ounce), and anyone who wants to can smack it up over the net and off the end. (I tested this theory once with a two-year-old, who sat on the table and had no trouble smacking my heaviest multiball backspins toward the ceiling.)

The real problem is that your instincts tell you that if you aim up, you'll go off the end, and so while you know you have to lift, your subconscious doesn't want to do this. That struggle results in those weakly hit shots into the net. (Or, for some, wild shots into the net. And for others, an over-reaction where they throw their training to the wind and try to consciously guide the shot and end up lifting it off the end.)

How do you overcome this? As usual, it involves practice. Find someone who can push heavy, or feed multiball with heavy backspin, and simply get used to it. You have to make it a habit, because only then will your subconscious learn how to do this. And then it'll be automatic.

The catch is that if you've spent years struggling against heavy backspin, having trouble with it has become ingrained. Overcoming this will take two things: 1) Practice; and 2) Willingness to miss a shot in practice. Why the latter? Because it is that ingrained wish to make the shot that causes your subconscious to fight against the actual need to lift against the heavy backspin. Once you decide that all you want to do is topspin the ball up over the net, even if it goes off the end, then your conscious and subconscious minds can work together and ingrain just how much you should actually lift against a heavy backspin.

And now for the key part, right from the title. If you struggle lifting heavy backspin, have a simple rule - Never topspin into the net. Don't worry about going off the end, all you want to do is arc that ball over the net, and not worry about the rest. If you do this, then your technique, timing, and ball control for the shot will develop, and the topspin in the ball will pull it down and give you consistency.

And then repeat to yourself, over and over, "Though I loop against the heaviest of chops, I will fear no backspin." Amen!!!

I’ve seen coaches give tactical advice that wasn’t particularly helpful in itself. And yet, it often paid off with the player confidently executing the so-so tactics - and winning. Why? Because it's not always the tactics. Given confidently, these tactics, whether good or not, gives the player a plan, and that inspires confidence. And confidence means you are more likely to make your shots, which leads to confidence, which leads to making your shots, which leads to…

Yeah, it's circular reasoning - but you have to start somewhere. And that means developing confidence in any way you can - Confidence, Then Consistency!

You don't always need a coach to give you a tactical plan. With experience, you can come up with them yourself - and just as importantly, have confidence in your tactical plans, which leads to your making your shots, which leads to confidence, which leads to…

Yeah, I think you get it.

Many, many times in my coaching career I've thought of all sorts of ways that my player could win but realized that the key problem was the player wasn't confident in his shots. So, I'd tell him just one key thing he could do over and over. Alone, that one tactic probably wouldn't win the match, though it would make it closer. But by giving just one key thing, the player focused on that, and having that simple plan in mind led to the confidence needed to win. There's actually one go-to tactic that works wonders - just tell the unconfident player to go after the opponent's middle, relentlessly, over and Over and OVER. And in an amazing number of matches, that's all it takes. (This tactic works in most matches, but usually combined with one or two other key tactics. Normally the only time it doesn't work well is against an opponent who is effective at covering the middle with his forehand.)

The key takeaway? It's often better to have any tactical plan you are confident in then having a good one that you aren’t confident about.

How many years have you played before noticing that “Table Tennis” is just an anagram of “Nine Battles”? And it's applicable to our sport. Here's my list of the nine biggest opponents you battle with in a match. Your assignment is to think about each and figure out how best to deal with them.  

1. Preparation. This means getting a good warmup as well as going into the match with a relaxed frame of mind. Here's how to get A Good Warm-up.
2. Equipment. Make sure you are using proper equipment for your level and style. (Here's Use Equipment that Matches the Way You Want to Play and Suggested Equipment for Beginning and Intermediate players.)
3. Pressure. The more you play, the more you get used to it. But you will also greatly help yourself if you learn a bit about Sports Psychology.
4. Tactics. You learn tactical thinking by a combination of thinking and experience. (Yeah, there's also Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers!)
5. Strategic. Play to win (tactical thinking) or for the future (strategic thinking)? But you need both. (And yes, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers also covers Strategic Thinking.)
6. Serves. Do you have serves that dominate, either by forcing mistakes or returns you can attack effectively? There are endless articles on this, but perhaps Ten-Point Plan to Serving Success helps.
7. Receives. Do you have receives that control the opponent, while making few mistakes and stopping him from making strong attacks? Here's Three Types of Receive Skills and Good Receive Is What Works.
8. Opponent. He's a real person with strengths and weaknesses, who can change his own tactics to adjust to yours. Do your shots match up to his? (Perhaps with a little tactical thinking - see above - so you can match your best shots against his not-best shots?) You might want to learn to See Things from Opponent's Point of View.
9. Yourself. This is the biggest battle of all, and often includes all of the above. The key thing is to believe in yourself. See 1% Hesitation = 100% Miss.

I once watched video of a top junior who'd just lost a close five-game match. He's normally an aggressive player, but has a good, stiff push that often catches opponents off guard. He's also comfortable blocking, so he can get away with letting the opponent attack first as long as he's not giving him an easy attack. But in this match, something went wrong.

Here's the part that stood out. When he pushed serves back long 2-3 times a game, the opponent wasn't really ready for it and he won about half those points. But toward the end of the match he began pushing more. In the fifth game, he pushed five serves back long and the opponent was ready - and won all five.

The lesson? A good, stiff push, even at high levels, is a highly effective weapon when the opponent isn't expecting it. Corollary - below the elite level, a good stiff push is almost always effective, as long as the pusher is comfortable if the opponent does a soft attack.

So, what is a good, stiff push, and when should you use it? Roughly speaking, there are six attributes of a good, stiff (i.e. long) push – and if you don’t practice them, you won’t be able to consistently execute them:

• Quick off the bounce
• Deep
• Low
• Heavy
• Angled
• Disguised placement

At higher levels, you want all six. At lower levels, you might get away with doing only some of these. Sometimes you can get away with just one, such as pushing really heavy or well angled. (Here's my Tip from 2011, Pushing: Five out of Six Doesn't Cut It.)

When should you give the opponent a stiff push? It depends on the opponent. If they have trouble with them and don't really seem to have any way of dealing with them effectively, you can win an entire match almost entirely on this one shot. Against others, you have to be more judicious in their use. If they know it's coming, they'll be set for it. Against some players, it's the best way to return the serve. But it's usually best to push long when the opponent doesn't know it's coming. That means being aware of what your opponent is doing. Is he jammed to the table, vulnerable to a long push? Is he crowding his backhand corner, looking to forehand loop from that corner? Have you given him any short balls, so that he has to stay close to the table, watching for them, thereby making him a bit slower in reacting to deep pushes? With experience, you begin to see these things automatically, and then you automatically will give your opponent a good, stiff push at just the right time.

So . . . is it time to get pushy?