ego – 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

For Sale: Pixie Dust for Equipment Junkies

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 13:07:00 -0300

We see this scene every week at table tennis clubs across Brazil. The player walks into the gym with the trendy racket case. Out of it comes a state-of-the-art carbon blade, worth thousands of reais, assembled with the fastest tensioned rubbers on the market or hefty “Domestic” versions.

During warm-up, it’s a show, or almost. He tries to imitate Ma Long’s torso rotation. He tries Fan Zhendong’s aggressive chiquita. It’s beautiful to watch. But then the tournament starts. And in the first round, he loses to a veteran using a 5-ply all-wood blade, with commercial rubbers from three years ago, or even an old pips rubber. The veteran does nothing incredible. He just blocks, pushes the ball with a consistent shoto, and waits.

The result? The “ace” with the R$ 3,000 racket loses 3 to 0. He sends the ball flying into the wall, dumps it into the net, and leaves the table huffing, glaring at his own racket with a look of disapproval, as if it were to blame.

If you’ve ever been one of these characters, it’s time for a tough talk.

TL;DR: the Equipment Junkie (EJ) believes his idol’s racket brings his idol’s talent along with it, and uses buying as a defense mechanism so he doesn’t have to admit he lacks training. Add the YouTube drive syndrome and it becomes an endless cycle: impossible shot, ball in the net, blame the gear, pricier racket. The way out is to step down a level, put your ego away and go back to the foundation.

The cowardice of the “EJ” (Equipment Junkie)

In table tennis, the addiction to buying new equipment has a world-famous name: Equipment Junkie (EJ). It’s the player who spends far more time online reading about sponge thickness and types of synthetic fiber than training at the club or even just having fun at the table.

The secret dream of every EJ is that, when he buys his idol’s racket, the box will come with a little jar of “pixie dust” (in Brazil, we call it pó de pirlimpimpim, the magic powder from a classic children’s book series). Deep down, he believes that by rubbing this magic dust on the rubber, his body will be taken over by Chinese talent and his drive will come out identical to that of the famous player the blade is named after. But the credit card goes through, the package arrives, and the heavy, slow arm is exactly the same as before.

And I have to be very honest with you: in the overwhelming majority of cases, this frantic hunt for the perfect racket is not a hunt for performance. It’s a defense mechanism. It’s cowardice.

It’s much easier and less painful for your ego to spend R$ 800 on a new rubber than to admit you’re too lazy to “bend your knees” and train. When the ball goes into the net, the expensive racket gives you the perfect excuse: “Damn, I’m still getting used to the catapult on this ZLC carbon”. No. You’re not getting used to anything. You just didn’t reach the ball because your legs are slow and your center of gravity is too high, or your technique is far below what’s needed. The racket became your luxury scapegoat, your conscience bribe.

The YouTube drive syndrome

This equipment problem takes on dramatic proportions when it meets the curse of the digital age. We consume 15-second highlights on Instagram. You watch the top 10 star you admire hit an explosive super drive far from the table, and you want to reproduce it at your club the very next day.

That is the arrogance of skipping the basics. What the YouTube video doesn’t show you are the thousands of hours that athlete spent doing monotonous lateral footwork drills, blocking, backhand/forehand transitions and physical conditioning. Trying to execute a world-class shot without a mastered foundation (technique) is like trying to build the penthouse of a luxury tower on a plot of sand. It will collapse under pressure.

The meat grinder: the cycle of mediocrity

This is where you get stuck and stop improving. The cycle is cruel, and I’ve watched dozens of talented players die in it:

You try the magic YouTube shot.
Since you have neither the technique nor the physical conditioning, you arrive late and send the ball flying.
Your ego won’t let you admit the failure was yours (physical and technical).
You blame the equipment. You think it lacked “catapult” or “bow”.
You buy a faster, harder-to-control (and pricier) racket, thinking it will do the movement for you (the pixie dust illusion).
You try the YouTube shot again, only now the mistake is even more grotesque because the super-fast racket forgives nothing.

You get trapped in an endless cycle where you become the biggest “equipment expert” in the bleachers, but never get past the round of 16 of a regional tournament.

The 360TT verdict: the bitter pill

The table tennis market wants you to buy ever more expensive rackets. But I’m a coach. I want you to win matches and improve. And the cure for this disease requires swallowing your pride.

Step down a level (or two): put your carbon rocket in the drawer. Grab a 5-ply blade, like an OFF- or ALL+, and fit it with controllable commercial rubbers. Feel the ball in your hand again.
Put your ego in your bag: forget the internet-video point. Stop trying to play the prettiest point in the gym and lose the next 5; start playing the safest point.
Go back to the foundation: for the next three months, your focus should be just one thing: training the basics, serve, legs and consistency.

The magic racket doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t come with pixie dust. What exists is sweat, repetition and the humility to understand that, in table tennis, there are no shortcuts.

The table always collects the bill for what you didn’t train.

So, does the shoe fit?

The choice is yours now: keep being the rubber expert in the bleachers or put your ego in your bag and go train. How many “YouTube aces” or EJs do you know at your club? Do you dare to share this post with them?

Now I want to hear from you (if you dare): what’s the most expensive racket or rubber you’ve ever bought thinking it would save your game? Answer honestly in the comments.

The table is waiting for you!