Anticipation

Duane Millslagle Asked 7 years ago

Greetings:

Viewed your video on anticipation.  I have researched and published on coincidence-anticipation which is the underlying ability of hitting and catching and dynamic visual acuity which is one ability to track a moving object.  Your video has the learner cue on track the ball.  Thought I might provide you some interesting research about tracking the ball.  The human visual system cannot track a moving object continuously over the ball's flight in speeds that exceed 9-11 mph.  So how do we really track?  Well, the answer is if the path of the ball is long, we make snap shots at different ball path points during it flight.  If it is a slow ball that is in arch, tracking is a little better.  The hardest ball to track is ball the is hit fast and horizontal.  

But in the game of table tennis, when the ball is traveling fast to us one eyes cannot track it continuously to the bat.  So, the key cue is the ball coming off the opponents bade and initial direction of the ball's path.  We only need a few milliseconds to decide how fast and the direction of the ball. We attempt to determine with the use of TAU, an initiate visual ability that is automatic, the time it takes for the ball to come to us. Since hitting in table tennis is a open ballistic skill, anticipation of the ball is achieved by:

1) preparation, that is, the right preparatory body position.  One needs to be ready.  Being ready improves your reaction and give you just enough time to perform your stroke.

and  2)experience gained through practice and competition.    As I mentioned, hitting the ball is a dynamic open skill.  Therefore, your stoke is determined by initial information of opponent.  One stroke at the ball is a all or none situation.  Visual and kinetic feedback does not have enough time to reach us to provide us with information to correct our errors while performing the stroke. Therefore, experience and practice where the initial cues are present will improve one's anticipation.   

Alois Rosario Answered 7 years ago

Hi Duane,

Very insightful.

Thanks for sharing that with us.