One of the best ways to play your best is to watch the top players. Their techniques and timing will rub off on you. Your subconscious, which really controls your play, will especially pick up on it. Choose a top player who has a similar game and strokes, and just imagine being that player as you watch. Focus on:

• their strokes;
• their consistency;
• how they move;
• how they serve to set up their shots;
• how they receive to stop the server from making a strong attack;
• how focused they are.

Just remember not to over-play. What looks like a big shot from a top player is often just an average shot for them. Focus on their techniques, tactics, mental strength, and consistency. 

Table tennis is a game of movement. You'll regularly see players fail to run down a shot, and then grumble to themselves, "Too slow!" But was he really too slow, or did he fail to recover from the previous shot?

Everyone is limited by their natural foot speed. However, players who grumble about being "too slow" often have it wrong – they aren't too slow, they simply get a slow start because of a poor recovery from the previous shot.

Here are some tips that'll allow you to recover and react more quickly to an opponent's shot, allowing you to move more quickly. Do these, and your slowness of feet will be gone with the wind – or, to paraphrase a famous quote, "As the Table Tennis Gods are your witness, you'll never be slow again!"

• Focus on balance. If you are even slightly off-balance from the previous shot you'll have a slow recovery as you recover that balance, and so will be slow to get to the next shot. This especially happens after players do exaggerated follow-throughs on forehand shots. Try to stay balanced throughout the stroke.
• Ready stance. If you don't smoothly and quickly move into a good ready stance after the previous shot, you won't be ready to react to the next shot. This means feet relatively wide, weight toward the inside balls of the feet, feet pointed slightly outward, knees slightly bent, racket held out in front and aimed at the opponent.
• Racket height. If you hold your racket too high after the previous shot or in your regular ready position, it'll take too long to bring it down for the next shot.
• Flex those knees. If you don't flex them at least slightly as the opponent is hitting his shot (i.e. a mini-bounce), you'll have to do so after he hits his shot before you can move, which slows you down. Learn to be light on your feet.
• Clear the mind and just react. If you try to anticipate an opponent's shot, then unless you get it exactly right every time you won't be physically or mentally ready for the next shot, which slows you down. It's better to just watch the opponent and react as soon as he's committed to a shot and direction. Learn to work with your subconscious. 

Raise your hand if you tend to reach for the ball when blocking. Don't be shy – raising your hand is like reaching for the ball, so you should be good at it!

The problem with reaching for the ball is that it means you'll have multiple blocking strokes, rather than two good ones (backhand and forehand). This doesn't mean you can't ever reach when needed, but that should be a last resort. Stepping to the ball allows you to use the same consistent blocking stroke over and over, leading to a consistent block. So let's kick this habit once and for all so you'll never reach for the ball when blocking or find yourself raising your hand while reading a coaching article.

What causes the Blocking Reachies? Several things.

1. You have no choice but to reach if your feet are anchored to the ground. So be light on your feet. Weight should be toward the front inside part of the feet. Bounce slightly between shots to better prepare yourself for the next shot. Even slow, out-of-shape players with bad knees can do this; it's just a habit to develop.
2. If you wait to see if you have to move, you're wasting time. Expect to move; it's just a matter of what direction and how far. So imagine you are on the starting blocks, and take off as soon as you see where the ball is going.
3. Moving is a habit. Players who think they aren't fast enough to move are mistaking a bad habit for slowness. The instant you see where the ball is going your reaction should be to step in that direction. You can begin a step just as fast as you can begin a reach. If necessary, do both, just don't skip the stepping part. One way to make this a habit is to shadow stroke the footwork. Imagine a ball coming to you to your right or left, and practice stepping to it to block. Do this over and over until it's habit. Focus on balance as you move. And don't rush; in most cases you have more time than you think.

Develop confidence in your blocking, knowing that you can cover the entire table with a single step in either direction, and turn yourself into the Great Wall of You. 

Many players are always looking for shots to put away, especially when serving. The problem here is that if you consciously look for shots to put away, then you are consciously taking control of your shots instead of letting your training (i.e. your subconscious) do what it's been trained to do. Instead, just let the shots happen, i.e. let your trained reflexes take over.

If there's a shot you can put away, your training should take over and you'll put the ball away. If it's not a shot you can put away, then your training will allow you to react appropriately – but if you were consciously looking for a ball to put away, then that won't happen as you've put aside your training to consciously take control. If your training doesn't take control properly, then you need to train yourself so that it does happen.

How do you train yourself to reflexively go for winners when the shot is there? Practice. (Pause while you stop groaning.) And how do you do that? Here are two ways.

• With a coach: He can feed you multiball where he mixes in difficult and easy shots, and you put away the easy ones. After each shot is when you consciously think about whether you went for the right shot. You can do this against either backspin or topspin, or a mixture.
• With a practice partner or coach, or in practice matches: Practice your serve and attack, where you have to judge each time if your partner's return can be put away or not. Try to clear your mind and let your reactions take over. After each rally, that's when you should consciously think about whether you went for the right shot. If you think about it, your subconscious will get the message.

When should you go for a put-away shot? That's different for everyone, but you'll learn what you can do with experience and practice. Obviously high balls should be put away, but you should also learn to put away most balls that land in the middle of the table (depth-wise), shots where you aren't rushed or pressured (by the ball's speed, spin, or placement), and perhaps even off a strong shot when you read and time the ball just right. 

One of the most difficult and often frustrating players to play is the one who seems able to attack all of your serves at will, even short backspin serves. In your attempt to get the attack, you might serve short backspin serves, but he just reaches in and backhand flips them.

You could just accept this, and play rallies with him, where each rally on your serve starts with you having to counter-attack off his backhand flip. But that means giving up your serve advantage – and since you still have to face your opponent's serves, is likely a losing tactic. However, there's a better way of looking at this. You can't stop him from attacking your serves, but you can make him miss a good percentage of them. How to do this? There are three main ways.

First, you challenge him with extremely low and heavy backspin serves, with a few no-spin serves thrown in to mess him up. Many players think they are serving low, but their serves actually cross the net too high and bounce too high. (Here's a Tip of the Week on Serving Low.)  Or they think they are serving heavy backspin but aren't getting enough spin. (Here's a Tip of the Week on How to Create a Truly Heavy Backspin Serve.) Or they don't vary their backspin serves with no-spin serves. (Here's a Tip of the Week on Those Dizzying No-Spin Serves.)

Second, you challenge him by varying the spin and placement, and mixing in long serves. Here are some Tips of the Week on these: Serving Short with Spin; Where to Serve Short; and Turn Opponents Into Puppets with Long Serves.

Third, you can serve from the middle or forehand side of the table so you have an angle into the short forehand, and then vary between serving short to the forehand and long to the backhand, using the same motion. (It's most effective if you can serve short to the forehand with a backhand sidespin type serve.) Here's a Tip of the week on Serving Short to Forehand and Long to Backhand.

Ultimately, you cannot stop a receiver from trying to attack your serves, but you can maximize the number of mistakes he'll make in doing so. If he makes too many, either you win from that, or he'll have to reconsider his aggressive receives.