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When you begin out with one thing new, aiming to be the very best at it straight away just isn’t what I call realistic objective. So rather than set my immediate sights on thrashing my husband by the end of our initial table tennis match, my focus was more modestly on just hitting the ball back and having it land where I intended it to go. With such a clear objective in front of you, it is so significantly less complicated to reach it, 1 logical step at a time. (Your eyes know precisely what to look at and what to appear for. With little skill or information about table tennis, I could only anticipate to have little control over where I put the ball, and with little control I could only anticipate to have little predictability in my results – the distance in between where I intended the ball to land and where the ball actually landed fluctuated randomly and wildly. Understanding (and measuring) your variability is your baseline – understand this natural variability prior to you attempt to improve something.

As simple as table tennis is, there were many things that I could have changed to try for a better result. How I held the paddle, how I positioned my feet, how I moved my wrist, how hard I hit the ball, how accurately I read the spin that my clever husband put on the ball (in his wicked attempts to make my returns even more unpredictable). I found I improved best (very satisfying) when I thought about just one thing to do better, like holding the paddle consistently and at the right angle. Improvement happens so much faster when you bed down one improvement at a time. Trying to figure out the complex interactions among several changes at once is confusing, exhausting and takes many times longer to get results.

The moment I became more conscious of how I was holding the table tennis paddle, things got worse. The ball seemed to grow a mind of its own for the next 10 to 15 hits. Yes it did more often land where I intended it to, but it would also unpredictably ping off at the most obscure angles. However, it didn’t take long to get a feel for the new grip on the paddle and – lo and behold – the ball began doing mostly what I wanted it to. I had more control! Any kind of performance improvement can have a ‘bedding in’ period, but then things can grow better almost in an instant.

Pumped by my quick success at bossing the ping pong ball around, I thought I could let go and relax into the game just a little. Large mistake. A couple of quickly and furious returns from my loving husband’s paddle created me immediately aware that holding a table tennis paddle wasn’t yet second nature. The ping pong ball ‘pertwanged’ out my control and was at the sole mercy of my husband. So keep in mind, should you take your mind off an improved alter prior to it becomes second nature, you risk losing control once more along with the variability widens once more.

“You’re hitting down again!” My husband was sounding like a broken record (now there’s a metaphor that’s losing relevance!). So once more I lifted up my swing to right for the mistake. “You’re hitting down once again!” (He’s a really patient man.) What?! Then I asked him what he meant and it turned out that his idea of hitting down meant my paddle was at the incorrect angle, but I interpreted it to mean my swing was at the incorrect angle. Assumptions! So make sure you track the modifications created by your improvement regularly adequate that you can appropriate things if they go askew – but make sure you know what the feedback is telling you.

Learn more about Building A Ping Pong Table. Stop by Kristen Larsen’s site where you can find out all about Build A Ping Pong Table and what it can do for you.

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