Have a problem with a stroke? Need to change the technique? Well, by golly, if you’re like most players, you’ll head out to the table and practice doing the stroke correctly.

No!!!

If you’re like most players, you’ll be struggling to both change the stroke and adjust to the new timing of the stroke, meaning you are trying to do two things at the same time. You’ll find it difficult to repeatedly stroke properly and time the ball, and you’ll likely make subconscious changes to your stroke to adjust to the ball, thereby developing a less-than-perfect stroke.

Instead, repeatedly shadow-practice the correct stroke first. Then, when you (and perhaps your coach) think you are ready and the new stroking technique is mostly ingrained, that’s when you head out to the table and practice with the new stroke. With the new stroke now ingrained from shadow-practice, instead of changing the stroke to adjust to the incoming ball, you’ll adjust your timing to the ball without changing the now-correct stroke.

Imagine trying to learn to hunt from horseback. Would you learn to shoot while on a horse, or would you first learn to shoot and to ride a horse, and then combine the two?

Giddy up!

You can ask three coaches this question and get three different answers. Some say guard against the deep serve and react to the short one. Some say the opposite. Some say guard against both equally.

Make that four different answers, because my answer is, “It depends.”

I once coached a top player who was having trouble moving in quickly to drop short serves back short. I told him to jam the table a bit more, and let his reflexes take over against deep serves. This worked, primarily because the opponent didn’t have great deep serves, and so my player was able to dominate against his short serves.

Recently I coached a player who kept missing against his opponent’s deep, breaking serves. I told him to assume he’d get that serve every time, and just rely on his reflexes against other serves. Even though he only faced that serve about one out of four serves, he went from struggling to dominating against that serve, the opponent’s best serve, and discovered he still had little trouble against the others.

And so, my answer to the question of which to guard against is, “It depends.”

I know of at least one coach and former top player who vehemently says you should always guard against the short serve so you can win the short game battle, and rely on your reflexes against the deep serve. And I know others who say the reverse – and I know that for me, I always had to guard against the long serve, since I always handled short ones better, and needed more time to react to long serves since I usually wanted to loop them with my forehand, since my backhand loop wasn’t so good.

So . . . It depends. It depends on your receiving strengths and weaknesses, and your playing style. It depends on the strength of the opponent’s short and long serves, and how well he follows them up.

You should go into any match prepared for all serves, but perhaps, just maybe, start to guard more against certain serves than others.

So yes, it depends.

Let’s get right to the point – you must lose to improve. Why? Because developing your game means adding new techniques. When you add these techniques, they won’t be developed yet, so they won’t be consistent nor will you be comfortable yet in using them.

Most players have their “comfort zones.” If you stick with your comfort zone techniques, you won’t develop other ones, and so your overall game will stop advancing. Sure, you can improve the shots you already have, but you won’t be adding anything new, and so your development will be hindered and you will never reach your maximum potential.

For example, my comfort zone when I was coming up was to serve and forehand attack, and when the opponent served, to either attack the serve with my forehand (both looping and flipping) or get into a steady backhand rally, often started with a steady but relatively soft backhand flip. Notice what’s missing here? No backhand attack. So, if I could go back to my younger, developing self, I would tell myself to get out of that comfort zone and develop my backhand attack.

Since I didn’t, as I reached higher levels, players got used to my serve and forehand attack game, and I had no real fallback, such as mixing things up with a serve and backhand loop. Or they’d drop my serve short and then quick-push to my wide backhand, and I’d be stuck with either a weak backhand loop, a rushed forehand loop, or just pushing it back. Or they’d just push or flip my serve wide to my forehand and quick block my first attack to my backhand. In rallies, they’d tee off against my steady but not aggressive backhand. All because I never left my comfort zone of forehand attack/steady backhand. (In my defense, I had numerous arm problems that also hindered my backhand attack development, but that’s another story.)

The first thing to do is to think strategically about what new techniques you need to develop. Perhaps discuss it with a coach, top player, or practice partner. Once you have a good idea of what you need to develop, you know what’s coming next – practice, Practice, PRACTICE. And then comes the final part – using it in games. This means losing against players you might have beaten if you stayed in your normal comfort zone. You should look to play weaker players as you develop the new technique, and when you can win there, then use it against your peers. Ideally, do this in practice matches or perhaps in less important tournaments. But the goal is to welcome this new technique into your comfort zone.

When you miss a shot, how do you react? If your first reaction is anger or disgust, you are going about it all wrong. Yes, some top players do show anger or disgust when they miss a shot, but that’s usually a secondary reaction, one that hits them only after their first and primary reaction.

And what is that first and primary reaction? Surprise.

If you want to improve, you need to have the mindset that you expect to make every shot you attempt. If you have that mindset, then you can get the conscious mind out of the equation and let your training – i.e. your subconscious – take over, so that the shots come fluidly and naturally. And if you do have this mindset, then when you do miss a shot, you will be surprised, because missing was unexpected.

The first step toward this mindset is understanding that you don’t have to develop your shots to a high level before you should expect them to hit. The expectation needs to come first, to better allow you to reach the level where they really do almost all hit.

The second step is to stop worrying about winning so as to take the pressure off individual shots. Then you can just let go and let your training take over in the knowledge that that is the best way to maximize your performance, and thereby maximize your winning. Then, when you miss, instead of anger or disgust at losing a point, you are merely surprised you missed a shot you know you can make every time. (No, that is not literally true, but if you believe it when you play, you’ll maximize how often you make that shot.)

The third and final step? Practice, practice, practice, so that this expectation that you can make every shot becomes closer and closer to reality, to the point that, unless the opponent does something to make your shot difficult, you will make nearly every shot where you aren’t pressed to the limit – and when you do miss one, you will be surprised since, with practice, you know you can make that shot every time.

If, deep down, you fully expect to make your shots, and thereby fully expect to win, then you will not be nervous. To use a metaphor, deep down, you expect to be able to walk, and so are not nervous about falling down and breaking your leg. Same mentality. But it all comes down to learning to expect to make every shot.

The grand test for whether this is working comes the very next time you miss a shot. Were you surprised?

It’s important to play to all three spots – wide forehand, wide backhand, and the middle (the mid-point between the opponent’s forehand and backhand, roughly their playing elbow). But often players inadvertently only play to two of them, and opponents, either consciously or (more often) subconsciously pick up on this and so only have to guard against two spots.

Suppose you attack the opponent’s wide forehand. It draws him out of position as he makes his shot. Then, as his shot comes toward you, he moves back into position as he has to guard both the middle and that wide backhand. Many players, after drawing a player out of position by going to one of these spots, automatically goes to one of the other two spots – meaning the opponent only has to guard those two spots.

Instead, often play the same spot twice in a row. Be aware of what your opponent is doing. If you’ve played a wide corner and your opponent is way out of position, then probably go back to the other wide corner. But often the opponent expects that and recovers quickly to cover the other wide corner – but in quickly vacating the first corner he leaves it wide open. So, play two shots in a row and watch him flail about trying to recover for it! It forces the opponent to make two opposite moves – a quick move back into position after the first shot, and a quick move right back for the second shot.

This also works when you attack the middle. To cover it, the opponent has to move out of position to play either a forehand or backhand from the middle. Immediately afterwards he likely moves back into position so he can cover both wide corners – thereby leaving the middle once again open, where (if you attack it), he has to again decide whether to cover it with the forehand or backhand and move to do so. Not an easy thing to do!

And the nice thing about this is that hitting to the same spot twice often means you do the same shot twice, meaning the second one is easier.

So, learn to move your opponent around by not moving your shot around!