What does this mean? It doesn't mean you should blow big matches because you stubbornly refuse to play a smart tactic that's not how you normally play. What it means is that if you are trying to improve your game, then except in "big matches," you should focus on winning using the playing the style you are striving to develop. In other words, if it's not a big match, then it's somewhat of a practice match, and so you should be practicing your playing style.

What is a big match? It's whatever you define it to be, but you should define it for yourself. For some, it's any tournament match or league match. For others, it's only a championship match. For still others, it's nearly every match they play - and that's a mistake. The large majority of matches you play should not be considered big matches.

This doesn't mean you don't fight hard to win every match - you should. It means that, except in those big matches (where you should tactically do whatever you can to win), you should fight hard to win with the style you are trying to develop. (Note that sometimes, even in non-big matches, you might practice the tactics that win for that match rather than your playing style, but that's to develop tactical flexibility skills. Tactical rigidity is a recipe for poor tactics and poor play.)

As an example, I've seen many players who are loopers who are afraid to loop many deep serves because they miss too often, and they are afraid of losing. So they instead return them passively, and are moderately successful at it at the level they are playing - and since tactically it's the right thing to do at the time to win, they keep doing it. But it's a trap - they are dramatically limiting their looping style and their improvement by not looping these serves. Instead, except for a big match where tactically it might be better (at that time) to return them passively, they should be looping those deep serves. That's how you become better at looping those deep serves, and become a better player in the long run!

Another example are players who do not consistently try to follow up their serve with an attack, unless they get an easy ball. It might make tactical sense at the time, but it's a great hindrance to improvement. The primary purpose of the serve is to get the initiative, which almost always means by following it up with an attack. (If you want to improve, you should almost always follow your serve with an attack, unless the opponent returns your serve in such a way as to take away your attack. How you should attack depends on your playing style.

So what shots should you be developing that you shy away from because you are afraid of losing? How much better will you be later on if you start using those shots, even if you temporarily lose some winnable matches?

It's best not to get angry when you play, period. And if you want to be a professional table tennis player, you better learn to control your emotions. (Even John McEnroe had his best tennis matches when he wasn't throwing fits.) However, if you do get angry sometimes in matches, then you should at least learn to channel your inner "rage."

Ever get really mad about something, to the point that you couldn't think straight? That is "Hot Anger." It's pointless and should always be avoided. And yet that's what often happens in competitive matches, where a player gets angry either at himself, his opponent, the playing conditions, the tournament director or referee, or anything else. The result is poor focus, poor execution, and poor play.

On the other hand, sometimes these anger issues can benefit you, if you know how to take advantage of them. If there's something that angers you, don't get "hot angry," get "cold angry." The difference is now you are thinking with ice-cold clarity with a single purpose in mind - overcome whatever it is you are angry at and beat your opponent. With "cold anger," you become single-mindedly focused and determined.

Some top athletes truly thrive on this, even going out of their way to find slights against them to give them incentive to push themselves to the limit - but they do so with "cold anger." If a team is predicted to do poorly by the experts, players can use this as incentive with "cold anger" - but if they truly get angry at this, with "hot anger," then they will likely self-implode - and that often happens. So next time you feel "hot anger" coming on, change it over to "cold anger" and use it to your advantage.

Most of the time you should be watching the ball, but not always. If the ball is moving slowly, you should watch it all the way into your racket. If the ball is moving fast, you can't react at the last second, so there's no point in watching the ball right to contact. In both cases, as soon as watching the ball no longer is beneficial, you should be looking up to watch your opponent. You should generally be aware of the opponent and what he's doing and where with peripheral vision, but actually looking up to watch him is even better. That allows you to quickly prepare for whatever he's doing. You should pick up the ball again just before he hits it, and then watch the ball the rest of the way - until it's time to look up again to see your opponent.

The Chinese know something about table tennis, and there's a stereotype about Chinese coaches that we can learn from. The stereotype is that in a group training session, they often walk around with their heads down as they do two things - listen to the sound of contact and watch your feet. 

They listen to the sound of contact because a good stroke and good timing result in a "good" contact sound. If the sound is wrong, then something else is wrong. By listening to the sound, they can identify there's a problem, and then look to see what the problem is. (So then they do have to look up. You don't want them to look up.)

They watch your feet because the feet are the base of everything else. There's a reason nearly all table tennis drills are footwork drills - many coaches will say all table tennis drills are footwork drills. Get the feet right, and the rest follows somewhat naturally. Get the feet wrong, and all is lost.

So get the sound and feet right, and you won't have to face the fury of all the problems they cause when done improperly. (I'd add one thing to this - if you get both the feet and grip right, often everything in between falls into place. Get either wrong, and everything gets twisted in between.)

Most players practice their forehands and backhands with a 1-2 stroke: backswing, forward swing. But think about it - how often would you do this in a game? Answer - never! In a game, after finishing a stroke, you would return to a neutral position, preparing for the next shot, since you don't know if it'll be forehand or backhand, or even what type of stroke it will be. So why would one practice doing a backswing immediately after finishing the forward swing part of a stroke?

Instead, practice using a 1-2-3 stroke: backswing, forward swing, return to ready position. This is what you do in a game, and so this is what you should practice. There's also a little nuance here in that with the faulty 1-2 stroke, you backswing directly from a forward-swing position, when in reality the backswing should start from the neutral position - so practicing this wrong leads to bad technique and poor timing in games where you have to do it differently.