amateur-players – 360TT Blog

There Are Many Places to Go (Literally or Not)

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:43:00 -0300

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

That quote from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland dates back to 1865 (!!!), and unfortunately it is heavily used by today’s famous so-called modern-thinking gurus, sellers of courses on how to sell courses, and everyone below them. And yes, also unfortunately, they are everywhere. They do try to lay out different goals, but in the end they generally converge on pointing to a “fascinating glory” or an “intoxicating happiness”. And look, there is nothing wrong with actually seeking any of that, OK? But what you define as your destination may not only make no sense at all, it can make your road miserable, and in the worst case, even start making you hate your passion.

First of all, I won’t run the risk of being just one more of the “geniuses” I mentioned above: I have no science or formula to bring to anyone. Most of what is here (and whatever I may bring at any time) has to do with what happened to ME, from the experience of one more of the majority of you, amateurs who practice this sport with all their heart to the point that it fuses with their personality. And when it didn’t happen to ME, it comes from experiences with countless people (from beginners to professionals) who have crossed my path and suffered from these questions and restlessness. It doesn’t mean there is anything wrong (or right) if these things have never crossed your mind. But it may happen at some point, and if it doesn’t, even better!

TL;DR: the risk of tying your identity to the result is that you never control your opponent, and nobody is a result: they are only in one. Between “professional” and “recreational” there are plenty of people in the middle, and that is why club, coach and partners don’t always give you what you want. More useful than asking where to get to is asking what you enjoy doing along the way, demanding less from your club and partners and remembering that you have the right to be happy with the sport.

The danger of results

Obviously, every sport is about winning or losing, and even more obviously, everybody plays to win. The effect of that, seen in a healthy and controlled way, is essential in sport, in life and in society. So far, so good.

The problem is that there is an enormous risk in tying your identity in the sport to results. It is nice (and once again, even healthy) to set yourself the goal of beating A or B, winning C or D, and that can, in fact, drive you to improve. But who will you be when you lose? Notice: I am not talking about sportsmanship here, because that has to do with who you are toward the world. But what about toward yourself? Regardless of frustration (a topic for another occasion, and probably with content that would stray from what you believe would be the standard), how would it affect your image in the sport and vice versa? You can be at your best form and on your best day and still not win. There is someone on the other side of the table who is a whole other universe, and making your identity depend on something so externally influenced is Russian roulette, and one where you don’t even know how many bullets the gun is carrying.

I have had and still have many privileges in my journey with this sport, but perhaps the greatest of them was realizing very early on (and by myself, certainly more luck than anything else) that I would have minimal chances of achieving even the tiniest thing in it in terms of results. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have my own little crises about it, and at times they took some of the shine off the whole thing.

In other words, the most important thing is to understand that, in terms of results and achievements (or the lack of them), nobody IS anything. They just ARE in it. No matter how big or small, whatever you achieve leaves merits and memories, but it does not DEFINE anyone. Over many years in this sport, I have seen people defeated by their own ego or, worse, even quitting the sport, haunted by it for lack of what they judged to be a relevant result, which in itself is already a treacherous definition.

The danger of extremes

If everything is polarized, rest assured that thinking is first in line. Of course, not everything is deliberate or ill-intentioned, but it is very common for people to see basically two approaches to the sport: professional and recreational. Yet while we worry about labels, a lot happens between the two ends of that ruler, which is where the absolute majority of us are.

This usually becomes obvious when there are several people in the same space, in a training group, for example. There are, indeed, people who leave home just to “play around”, but that doesn’t mean none of them is interested in learning anything. There are others who treat it as a kind of “performance routine”, but that doesn’t mean they are chasing an Olympic medal either. And along this road, there are people everywhere in between, and at some point, their interests will potentially collide, basically because of three factors at play:

The places where we practice usually have a reasonably defined direction, but we are a sport that cannot afford to dedicate such specific resources to many different interests individually, since even that space is probably struggling to keep what it has just as it is;
Coaches, regardless of the effort they are willing to put in, often (usually, in fact) have a very heterogeneous group and the mission of not only trying to do the best for each of those interests, but of not losing anyone along the way (and there is no need to say how hard that is);
Not always (rarely, to be honest) do the practitioners themselves have much clarity about what they expect from their own practice.

Path, destination, mirror and window

Yes, someone can try to teach you how to serve, receive and strike, but not to discover what is inside you and what moves you. I would like to say it can, but well… it is that hard. On the other hand, one thing is quite simple and spares you a lifetime of frustration: no destination will make you happy if you don’t enjoy the road. Lots of people would like to be champion of A, know how to do B, be the best at Y, but the truth is that none of that matters if you are not willing to travel the road to get there. So it makes far more sense to ask yourself what you like or would like to do than to imagine what you would like to achieve. And the one has nothing to do with the other.

The good news is that it is much truer to deal with the “process”, which we carry out often, than with the “goal”, which we may never reach. You will always have an answer while you are doing it, so things start to make more sense. While doing / learning, you will have frequent opportunities to stand in front of the mirror and assess the meaning that this has for you, the good it does for your life, and so on. If the only thing that makes sense to you is what you see looking out the window, you may find that the road to get there was not really what you wanted for yourself. And unfortunately, all of this is further amplified when you see, in that window, incredible videos lasting seconds as if they were the ordinary and not the exceptional.

It is not simple, it may take a while, but the fact is that if you can’t have happy moments along the way, you will hardly reach whatever you define as your destination. And whatever it is, it won’t make you happy for long. And more than that: still based on what you saw looking out the window, was it really you who chose your road and your destination? Is someone thinking for you, or worse, do you just want what you saw? Believe me: although there is nothing brilliant about it, that answer and what you do with it can change your relationship with the sport for the much better.

Buying a car at the butcher’s

Although I can’t remember right now who I heard it from in order to give proper credit, wise was the person who once said that “table tennis is the most collective individual sport there is”. And all of that starts right on the other side of the net. It’s no use knowing exactly what you want if your training partner isn’t at least minimally willing to help. But a warning: even though both wanting to travel the same road is the perfect alignment and the best of all worlds, the almost inevitable lack of it is no excuse for every frustration. It is a topic for a symposium, which won’t happen here, but not everything, and probably much less than you imagine, is your partner’s fault.

Anyway, with that in mind, it makes no sense to look for something where there is nothing to offer. In many years in this, I have seen and lived frustrations in every direction. But many of them (including any conflicts arising from them) could be avoided with the simple maturity of understanding what you can expect. Sometimes the club doesn’t have the direction you would like, sometimes the coach, sometimes the group, sometimes the facilities, sometimes a bit of all of it, but in the end it is up to you to choose where you want to look for what you want. And considering that we are a small sport (and I’m not talking only about Brazil), you will most likely not find everything you are looking for in one place or with one set of partners, so flexibility is called for, along with setting its limit. But important: have you ever asked yourself how much YOU are offering (and money here is the least important thing) in the middle of all this?

Be good to yourself

It is incredibly easy to be unhappy with what supposedly makes you happy. Often, as I said above, because you accepted a road that belonged to someone else, a mold that doesn’t fit you. And often, the problem lies precisely in treating all of this as “screw heads”, that is, there is a limited number of pre-established kinds of them, and it is up to you to have the right wrench to handle them, or to get one if you don’t have it.

You can have fun doing what the rest of the people think is just a price to pay for the fun. And that’s fine. You don’t have to compete if you have no real motivation for it. And that’s all right. If you do compete, you don’t have to expect any result, and especially, you owe no explanation about them to anyone other than yourself or whoever has actually invested in your journey (use sparingly in both cases). And that’s great. In short, (although many people seem to want to take it away from us almost systematically) you have the RIGHT to be happy with table tennis, and if you don’t make a living from it, it is almost an OBLIGATION to yourself. So don’t be afraid to choose your roads, nor to create your own road, if need be.

Choose between cure and disease

Anyway, if you don’t understand what makes you happy, table tennis can be one more source of frustration. As if we needed one in the age of anxiety. And it doesn’t mean that something so deep has to be obvious, and indeed it isn’t. But opting out of that understanding can bring frustrations that lead you to a distorted sense of yourself. So how about dedicating a little reflection to keeping frustrations strictly in the realm of the serve you missed at 9-9 or the shot you hit on the edge of a medium ball?

Choose your limits and own the consequences. And never forget the reasons why the sport is in your life.

Now I want to hear from you: have you ever felt that table tennis has put more weight than support on your shoulders? Share your experience in the comments.

Cover image credit: ittfeducation.com

You Don't Need Your Idol's Rubber (and Clóvis de Barros Explains Why)

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 01:20:00 -0300

I’m a huge fan of Professor Clóvis de Barros Filho. Recently, watching a video of his about values and decisions, my mind blew up and went straight to table tennis. The philosophy is his, but the analogy here is mine, and it explains exactly why choosing equipment hurts so much.

Choosing equipment is agonizing. You walk into our store and see rubbers at R$ 80.00 and rubbers at R$ 800.00. The natural tendency is to think: “If the R$ 800.00 one is what Hugo Calderano uses, it must be the best. If I want to be good, I need it.”

The problem is that, thinking this way, you fall into a classic “context” mistake.

The wrong “answer key”

Professor Clóvis explains that, to give value to something (an exam grade, a soccer player), we need to compare it with a reference, an ideal “answer key” (the gabarito). If we say Neymar is a star, it’s because we compare him with the idea of a perfect player.

The problem with the amateur table tennis player is that he usually uses the wrong answer key.

You look at Hugo Calderano or Ma Long as your “perfect 10” reference. Automatically, you conclude that the “perfect 10” equipment is what they use.

Note

When I say “Calderano’s rubber,” take it as a metaphor for any elite equipment used by your idols. The point here is not the brand, it’s the concept of using professional material without having the professional “touch.”

You buy the fastest, most expensive rubber on the market thinking you’re making the best possible choice (“the chocolate cake,” as Clóvis says), but you forget to look at where you’re going to eat that cake.

Army vs. nursing home: where do you play?

Here comes the brilliant part of the reasoning, which I adapted for us. Clóvis compares two places with opposite values: the army and the nursing home.

In the army, the supreme value is discipline. If the bugle sounds at 5 a.m., the right thing is to get up. In the nursing home, on the other hand, the supreme value is rest. If the bugle sounds at 5 a.m., nobody hears it, and that’s fine. The good life there is the peaceful life.

(Before moving on, a heads-up: when I say “nursing home,” I’m not making a reference to old age, but to the concept of a place where the supreme value is rest and tranquility, as opposed to military rigidity.)

Now, bring that to the table:

Your idol’s context (the army): he trains 8 hours a day, has an elite physique and perfect technique. The value there is maximum speed and surgical precision. His rubber charges that price: it demands absolute technical discipline. If your movement is late by milliseconds, the ball goes into the wall.
Your context (the nursing home/club): you play two or three times a week, you want to improve and have fun. The supreme value here is not suicidal speed; it’s control, consistency and forgiveness.

Using “your idol’s rubber” at your current level is like waking up at 5 a.m. blowing a bugle inside a nursing home. You have the “right” attitude (top-end equipment), but in the wrong place (a technical and physical level that doesn’t match). The result is chaos: balls in the net, balls blasted into the wall and frustration.

The realistic solution

Table tennis, just like life, doesn’t have a single answer key. For our context of learning and improvement, the “perfect 10” is not the Tenergy or the Dignics. It’s the rubber that talks to your current technique.

As the official DHS distributor in Brazil, I use the PF4-50 as my example. There are countless other rubbers on the market that would fit this analogy, but I mention this one because I see many players ignore it out of prejudice, often just because it’s cheap, thinking that, because it costs little, it’s a slow, bad or “dead” rubber.

That’s not true. Being very realistic: a rubber like the PF4-50 supports you comfortably up to the Absoluto B level in Brazil, maybe more…

It combines the best of both worlds: it has the tacky (sticky) top sheet to generate plenty of spin on the serve and the drive, but it also has the #50 sponge, which is elastic and soft, and that makes it a hybrid rubber. It delivers speed when you attack, but offers the control that the professional rubber denies you.

DHS PF4-50Hybrid rubber with a tacky top sheet and an elastic, soft #50 sponge: spin on the serve and the drive, with control. Visit the store →

For an amateur, this rubber has more practical value than a R$ 500.00 rubber, because it gives you the confidence you need to do the most important thing: win the point.

The illusion of “magic”

To wrap up, I’m going back to Clóvis. He pokes fun at those self-help books that promise “50 tips to be happy forever.” Obviously that doesn’t exist, but we buy the illusion.

In table tennis, buying the most expensive rubber on the shelf thinking it will fix your drive and win you the game is exactly the same illusion. It’s trying to buy success without going through the process.

As the professor says when he closes: “we are handing back to you the task of taking the reins of your own life”.

Take the reins of your own improvement. Stop trying to “buy” Calderano’s game.

Tenha Brio! (Roughly: “Have spirit!” Did you catch the reference?)

Choose equipment that is consistent with your level, train for real and improve within your reality. When you’re “in the army” (advanced level), then yes, we’ll swap the ammunition.

Now I want to hear from you: which rubber are you using today? Does it talk to your current technique, or is it your idol’s? Tell us here in the comments.

Reference: video “As Decisões Dependem Dos Valores | Clóvis de Barros” (watch here).