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?

Over the many decades I've watched and learned about this sport, there are certain trends I see that stick out. This is one of the simplest, often the difference between fast-improving players and those who just stare at their rackets in frustration after missing a shot and continue to do so the rest of their playing years.

When you miss a shot, instead of staring at your racket in disbelief, or whatever other bad habits you've picked up after missing, instead do a simple thing: shadow practice the shot as you should have done it. It's a simple way of re-enforcing to the subconscious what it should have done, rather than what it did do. There are a zillion things that can go wrong with a stroke, and if you do one of those things wrong and don't correct it, guess what? You'll do it again. And again. And again.

Suppose someone pushes heavy to you, and you mistakenly baby the ball, and so either go into the net, loft it off the end, or (probably worst of all) make a weak topspin return that any good opponent will smack into subspace. Or perhaps you stroke it properly but misread the spin and so go into the net or off the end. Immediately after the rally, shadow practice what you should have done. Then, the next time you face this same heavy push, guess what? You are far more likely to do it properly than if you had just stared at your racket. Sure, staring at your racket allows you to accurately describe your racket, but that's not very helpful to your table tennis future. Instead, fix the problem immediately.

And guess what? By doing so, you'll likely start doing it correctly, and it'll be the other guy staring at his racket wondering why he's not as good as you!