International Cinema Festival of India

When you start out with something new, aiming to be the best at it straight away is not what I call realistic goal. So rather than set my immediate sights on thrashing my husband by the end of our first 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 goal in front of you, it’s so much easier to reach it, one logical step at a time. (Your eyes know exactly what to look at and what to look for. With little skill or knowledge about table tennis, I could only expect to have little control over where I put the ball, and with little control I could only expect to have little predictability in my results – the distance 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 before you attempt to improve anything.

As easy as table tennis is, there were a lot of 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 observed I improved best (really satisfying) when I believed about just 1 issue to complete better, like holding the paddle consistently and at the correct angle. Improvement happens so significantly faster when you bed down one improvement at a time. Attempting to determine the complex interactions amongst numerous alterations at once is confusing, exhausting and takes several times longer to obtain outcomes.

The second 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 subsequent 10 to 15 hits. Yes it did much more often land where I intended it to, however it would also unpredictably ping off at probably the most obscure angles. However, it didn’t take extended to obtain a really feel for the new grip on the paddle and – lo and behold – the ball started performing 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 much better practically 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 again I lifted up my swing to correct for the mistake. “You’re hitting down again!” (He’s a very 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 wrong angle, but I interpreted it to mean my swing was at the wrong angle. Assumptions! So make sure you track the changes made by your improvement frequently enough that you can correct things if they go askew – but make sure you know what the feedback is telling you.

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