In a Tip of the Week called The Book on Your Game, I wrote, "If you can't write a book on your game, either you don't know your game or you don't have a game." It's as simple as that.

You don't need to actually write that book, but you should outline it. This will force you think about the various aspects of your game - your strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between, as well as where you want to go with your game. It'll get you to actually thinking about the things you should be thinking about if you want to improve. So let's put together an outline of such an outline. Note that we're not interested in inventorying and analyzing every stroke; what's important are what techniques you actually use. Your assignment, should you choose to accept, is to complete this outline for your game.

1. General

• What is your style of play in one sentence? (It can be a long one.)
  • Example - the author's: All-out forehand attacker, both looping and smashing (but first loop sometimes too soft), with strong serve & attack, good receive, a steady but too passive backhand, and steady, all-around defense - blocking, fishing, lobbing, and sometimes even chopping.
• Strengths
  • What's the strongest part of your game?
  • How do you get it into play?
  • How are you turning this strength into something can dominate even against stronger players?
• Weaknesses
  • What's the weakest part of your game?
  • How do cover for it?
  • What are you doing to improve this weakness?

2. Strokes

• Forehand attack
  • Against push
  • Against block
  • Against loop (counterloop or smash)
• Forehand defense or counter-attack
• Backhand attack
  • Against push
  • Against block
  • Against loop (counterloop or smash)
• Backhand defense or counter-attack
• Pushing
  • Long
  • Short

3. Footwork

• Close to table
• Off table
• In and out during rally
• Covering middle
• Short to forehand and back
• Recovery
• General positioning
• Ready position

4. Serve

• Serves that set up your attack
• Trick serves (important but not to be overused)
• Variety of motions
• Variety of spins
• Fast, deep serves
• Variety of depths and depth control
• Low to net

5. Receive

• Forehand against long serves
• Backhand against long serves
• Forehand against short serves
  • Short push
  • Long push
  • Flip
  • Variation
• Backhand against short serves
  • Short push
  • Long push
  • Flip
  • Variation

6. Physical

• General fitness
• Foot speed
• Strength
• Endurance

7. Mental

• Clear-minded and focused
  • At start of match
  • When behind
  • When ahead
  • At end of close games
• Know how to recover from loss of focus
• Know when to call time-outs to recover focus

8. Tactical

• Understand what serves set up your game
• Understand what receives set up your game
• Understand what type of rallies you want to get into
• Know how to get your strengths into play
• Know how to cover for your weaknesses
• Good at scouting opponents in advance
• Good at analyzing opponents during a match
• Consistently able to find two or three simple tactics that allow you to win
• Understand what you need to develop in your game to increase your tactical arsenal

Players often come unprepared at tournaments and leagues. Here's a quick checklist of things to prepare in advance of the event. (Some of this was covered in previous Tips, but this gives you an actual checklist, with a few new items.)

• Lighting and Backgrounds. You are likely used to the lighting and backgrounds at your table tennis club, but when you go to a tournament or league at a different venue, you have to adjust to the new conditions. Show up early so you can warm up at the new venue to get used to the lighting and backgrounds – and note that "backgrounds" is pluralized as you should try to move around a bit and get used to different backgrounds. Often this means just switching sides on the table you are practicing on, since often one side looks onto the wall at the side of the gym, the other into the vast expanse of the gym – two very different backgrounds to adjust to.
• Floors. If you play with good, grippy floors, then you'll likely have problems if you have to compete on slippery ones. Surprisingly, it works the other way too – if you are used to slipper floors in practice, playing on grippy ones might give you trouble as you are used to sliding your feet across the floor as you move. So come early to adjust to the floors. If you are used to grippy floors, then bring grippy shoes to help adjust to slippery ones.
• Tables and Balls. Different types do play different, so do try to practice in advance on the tables and balls you will be using. You might want to order a few of each major type of ball so you'll always be prepared for this. If your club doesn't have the same type of table as the event you are going to, then come in early at the event to practice on theirs.
• Towel. If it's summer and you are used to playing in air conditioning, and you get caught playing in a non-air conditioned venue, you will want a towel, to wipe away sweat both on you, your racket, and the ball.
• Food and Drinks. Don't risk having to eat the local food and drinks unless you know in advance what will be there. You can usually assume there'll be plain water, but other than that you might want to either bring your own food and drinks, or investigate in advance what will be locally available.
• Warm-up Partner. You should arrange someone in advance. Let's face it, some players are easy to warm up with, others are not. Tournaments and leagues are not the time to experiment with how you warm up; arrange this in advance with someone you are familiar and comfortable warming up with.
• Serve and Receive. Why do so many players forget to practice their serves before a major event? They practice everything else, but forget this. You might also want to find a partner and practice receive.
• Sports Psychology. If you come in nervous, you are handicapping yourself. So make sure to come in with a positive attitude, ready to confidently take on the world! 

Whether you are 8 or 80, or somewhere in between, moving your feet is a priority. It's something that coaches constantly harp on. Beginning kids often don't find it important, and so you have to drill it into them, and then they quickly pick up on it. Older players often find it difficult because of their age, but while age slows you down, it doesn't stop you from moving your feet – it's simply a habit. An older player who doesn't move fast but still moves his feet is faster than a really fast player who doesn't.

Here is Exhibit A, video of George Brathwaite (12:05) in a training session. George "The Chief" is well into his eighties (here's his Hall of Fame profile), but see how he still moves his feet? That's because he has made it a habit. Let me emphasize this again: Moving the feet is a habit. It has nothing to do with how fast your feet are or how old you are.

Often players instead reach for the ball, meaning they limit their range, go off balance, and have to do an awkward stroke instead of the one they've spent so much time perfecting. The problem is they haven't developed the reaction of stepping to the ball, and so they instead react by instead reaching – which both puts them off balance and forces them to improvise the shot. Just as a person reflexively blinks if something comes at their eye, you should learn to reflexively step to wherever the ball is going. This doesn't mean you'll reach the ball every time, and sometimes you might even take that step and still have to lunge after it, but that's only after taking that first reflexive step. Focus on balance, with your weight centered as you move, and only going to your back foot for weight transfer as you get into position.  

Some would say, "Of course George can move his feet – he's a Hall of Fame player!" But that's backwards – he's a Hall of Famer because he worked hard to develop such basic habits as moving his feet. George can do it in his eighties. What's your excuse?

If you are the type of player who has trouble generating power when looping, try out these two tips, and you'll be surprised at the improvement.

First, keep your legs farther apart, i.e. a wider stance. This makes it easier to transfer weight into the shot, meaning more power. Watch videos of the top players and you'll see how they all keep a pretty wide stance.

Second, contact the ball more from your side. Many players contact the ball too much in front of their bodies, and so they get power mostly from their arms. By contacting more to the side, you get more natural body rotation into the shot, meaning more power.

Third, tilt your wrist slightly back. This will naturally give you more wrist in the shot – and you'll likely use more forearm as well as you use it naturally to snap the wrist into the shot.

By following these three tips, you'll get more power without really trying since none of these involve trying to "muscle" the ball – it's all about good habits that allow you to maximize your natural power. 

Many players develop pretty good strokes, timing, and footwork, and in practice drills, where they know where the ball is going (i.e. rote drills), can execute them pretty well. But once they get into a more random drill or game, where they don't know where the ball is going (i.e. forehand or backhand), they fall apart. How can you fix this problem?

The key thing here is reaction. Once you have good strokes, you can do various random drills such as having your partner or coach randomly block to all parts of the table while you loop or drive them back to the same spot, or serve backspin that your partner or coach pushes back anywhere and you have to loop. (Focus on a good neutral position, react rather than trying to anticipate, and step to the ball.) These are excellent drills. But many players struggle with them, and don't get enough practice time on these types of drills to progress as fast as they'd like.

There's a simple alternative. Find someone who can help you out – it doesn't have to be a table tennis player, it can be a friend, spouse, son/daughter, anyone – and simply have them randomly point left or right. You react by shadow-stroking either a forehand or backhand, depending on which way they point. Or, if you want to get fancy (and more closely mimic a game situation), have them toss balls at you randomly, forehand or backhand, and you react, either by shadow-stroking, or actually hitting them with your racket. (It's basically multiball, except since they are tossing the ball at you instead of hitting off a racket, anyone can do it.) In both cases, it's not exactly the same since you aren't reacting to a ball coming off a paddle, but it's reasonably close. 

Then watch as your apparent reaction time in game-type play improves! It's all about zeroing in on a weakness, and practicing the specific thing that you are having trouble with. The principle applies here and in all other aspects of table tennis . . . and life.

And a call for help – can anyone design a simple phone app or other inexpensive device that randomly points left or right so a player can do this solo?
EDIT: And from the comment below, here's the solution - Table Tennis Edge!