Mental aspects of table tennis – Get your Game Face on!

If you have limited options or time for physical training in table tennis, are there other ways you spend your time that will improve your game or win you more matches? This was the question I asked myself, when I could spend only spend limited time training on the court due to a tennis elbow injury.

The answer is a resounding YES, as I discovered searching for answers the in the forums for ideas and feedback. One of the first books suggested to me by several people, is the eBook titled in this review. After reading through it thoroughly twice, and trying to put the idea into practice in real matches, I’ve certainly convinced myself it’s already improved my game!

I thought it worthwhile to write a little review, to help others decide if it’s worthwhile. The $4.99 price tag made it easy to convince me, but I’ll let you decide for yourselves.

Book Description:

Have you ever stopped to consider how elite table tennis players deal with the pressure of competition and consistently perform at their best? How do they summon and sustain their talent and skill when they need it, regardless of the circumstances? What does it take? What makes them so special? And how can you learn from their example? Your goal as an athlete is to get your body to do what it’s capable of doing under pressure. Take a second and consider this: the top complaint that players have is – “I can’t execute in com- petition, under pressure, when it counts the most!”

Each of us has our own unique peak performance “zone.” This zone has a very specific chemistry behind it – one you can train for and learn to control. This Fast Guide calls it your Game Face and gives you the tools to get in the zone. When you are in the zone, you can play your best table tennis on demand, when it counts, on a consistent basis. Get Your Game Face On! Table Tennis: A Fast Start Guide walks you though to build a personalized Game Face routine between points and helps you to manage stress during even the fiercest competition. Kathy Toon, a former Cal tennis coach, sport performance coach and a writer, the director of the Game Face Program and Dora Kurimay, a former Hungarian Table Tennis National team member and sport performance and mental skills coach, worked together and specially tailored this program in table tennis. This Fast Start Guide helps you to play your best table tennis and enjoy your game more.

Book Format:

The book is released as an Amazon Kindle edition, which was a little new to me. My first thought was that I need a special Kindle reader device to read it, but as I soon discovered, you can easily read it on your PC, laptop, tablet or phone simply by downloading the free Kindle software.

For a PC you simply install the software, create an Amazon account and log in, and you’re ready to go. For tablets or phone, you simply need to download the free App, log in using the same amazon account and away you go!

The beauty of this method is that you can share it among several devices. I first installed the software on my PC and read the book. Later I wanted to read it again, so I installed the App on my Tablet, and as soon as I logged in, the same book was there. It even remembered the page that I was up to!

 

The Author

Dora Kurimay is a former European Table Tennis Champion in team in cadets, second place in Junior team and member of Hungarian national table tennis team for six years. She is also six times Hungarian national champion. She played at the Table Tennis US Open  2009 and 2012 where achieved third place in doubles.

Dora completed her MA degree in Sport Psychology at John F. Kennedy University in California and her other Masters degrees in Psychology from Hungary, in Budapest. She coached table tennis at several clubs (Concord Table Tennis Club, Berkeley Table Tennis Club, Alameda Table Tennis Club and at ICC Table Tennis Club) in California for 4 years. She has been a mental performance coach since 2009 and worked various athletes in many sports.

 

Review

The book first discusses some of the mental issues that players face, and how it affects their game, such as inconsistency, playing under pressure,energy level and getting distracted. It then poses the question and discusses why most professional athletes seem to be able to always play their best (i.e. put their Game Face on)when it counts. Through analysis it determines what makes these players different, and forms a strategy on how you can apply it to your own game.

The main section goes into the four parts of your Game Face (the 4 Rs), consisting of Reaction, Recover, Ready and Ritual. All four of these aspect of ‘in-between’ points time is discussed in great detail, discussing what the normal reactions and responses are, and how you have control over your brain and can train to change this, for the benefit of your game. It breaks down every section into different parts, in simple language making it easy to understand.

Dora draws onto a great deal of experience from others, including top players, coaches, other authors of books with similar topics, and other Psychology experts. It’s quite impressive that when you analyse a lot of the great players, you’ll see that they indeed use similar techniques as described in this book… something you simply would not have noticed otherwise.

 

Conclusion

Firstly I thought the book was a little short, as it took me just over an hour to finish. However it does indeed contain the information you need to make some quick and easy changes to your game, that can reap great benefits. After I read the book twice, I was actually happy that it wasn’t that long, as I could easily read the book again when I needed to, just to refresh the principles. For a mere $5 it’s certainly worth every cent.

Instead of telling you exactly what you need to do to improve the mental aspect of your game, it explains the theory behind it, and gives lots of examples of what other players do, so that you can form your own routines that work for you. This is much better, as you can customise your reactions and rituals into something that works for your individual game, which would be different to what works for others.

A few days after I read the book first time, I already tried to put some of the principles into practice, and I’m convinced it’s already working for me, improving my focus and handling pressure points. I’ve also noticed that some of the top players in our league already seem to use some of the techniques… pure coincidence I’m sure! 🙂

 

Feel free to share this with your friends and team mates, but share it with your opponents at your own peril. 🙂

 

For more reviews check out the Kindle edition of this book Direct on Amazon here.

 

 By: haggisv