Show #291 - Sports Psychology

7 years ago


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We take a look at the last of our building blocks of table tennis, sports psychology. And as usual we have a great joke for you and answer your table tennis questions.

On This Day - 0:58

Dimitrij Ovtcharov's Birthday

Joke of the Week - 3:37

What do you call a snake that is approximately 3.14 metres long?

Tip of the Week - 5:28

The pre-point routine

Drill of the Week - 9:13

Develop your pre-point routine during training

Tournament Wrap - 10:20

The Austrian Open is coming up soon, and the Worlds Teams Championships will be held in England in 2018.

Professional Training Relevance to Game Play - 13:33

Mary: I am a senior in my 60s and have been taking table tennis lessons for almost 4 years now. I am finally getting the hang of the loop and most of my strokes are good. But when it comes to real games, playing against untrained players, I just cannot get my shots out e.g. odd position so unable to stroke or cannot read spin on their strange service. So how can I direct my training to help me get more points ? So embarrassing to be beaten by untrained people. But again I am a senior lady against senior men. Sometimes I can get strokes in, but at times, I play too light before I can position myself for a smash and too often the smashes failed when they are most needed. Quite discouraging to me. Of course my eyes are not as good as they used to be so it is harder to follow the ball with a large floater in the eye. Is it time to quit training?

Lets Not Ignore the Table - 17:55

Roy: You both speak quite a lot about bats and spin, but what contribution is there from a table, especially ones in athletic stadium that don’t even get dusted let alone serviced? How also can i overcome resulting problems? Go elsewhere to play?

Corns on the Hand - 21:30

Azhar: Have you faced this problem too? Over the course of regular practice and training i seem to have developed corns and hardened skin at 3 places- where the skin of my thumb meet the base of the forehand rubber on its edge; just below my little finger and ring finger on my palm due to holding the handle of the blade tightly. Is this a common occurrence ? Are there ways around it ? Or is it merely an occupational tell tale one has to learn to live with ?

Long Handle Racket - 23:08

Aaron: Was watching Chinese amateur gameplay and came across this match. I noticed one of the player is using a very long handle on his blade. Is that legal within the rules of the game? If legal, why does he choose to use this longer handle? Isn't it just extra unnecessary weight?  I noticed he is very defensive player doesn't attack at all really and mostly serves a tomahawk/punch serve similar style of serve. I feel his style only works because their level is not high, if against a decent level would he easily be beaten? I'm not sure but it seems like that.

Links in this Episode

Long Handled Racket

Austrian Open

2018 Team World Cup Heading Home