The practice nights scheduled for 27th August and 3rd September 2009 have been cancelled because the sports hall at Southport College is unavailable due to student enrolments.
Unfortunately, we have been unable to rearrange the practice sessions at short notice.
From Thursday 23rd July, the practice sessions will run from 7.30pm until 9.30pm. The experiment of having a separate early session for newcomers/beginners has been abandoned due to low uptake.
Wednesday, 28th January – as notified a long, long time ago in the practice night schedule.
There will also be one or more practice nights next week, on Tuesday and/or Wednesday and/or Thursday, because the only teams left in the Anon Plate competition are drawn away from home. One of the nights may be used for a rearranged match, so I will update the list of practice nights as soon as I know which days are available.
On Thursday, 18th December, there will be an extra practice session from 7.30 to 10.00 – the last one this year.
We’d love to see you there.
Well, clearly it was a golfer! Most people credit this comment to Gary Player or Arnold Palmer, but Lee Trevino and Tom Watson also get mentioned as possible sources. It was supposedly in response to a spectator’s wisecrack about a lucky shot in holing out from a bunker. But is there anything more to it, and could it apply to table tennis?
We’ve all played against opponents who seem to get more than their fair share of net points or edges, and we tend to think they’re rather lucky. On the other hand, when we get an edge, we regard it as a well placed shot and a richly deserved point. Can this really be the case? Or is there a way to become as lucky as our opponents and still play good shots?
Maybe there is. If “practice makes perfect”, then perhaps we should be practising aiming at the edges or keeping the ball low over the net to better our chances of getting more of those “lucky” points. The better players hit their shots with greater accuracy, and guess what? this accuracy isn’t pure luck! Hours and hours of practice lie behind this ability to place the ball where they want it, with the speed and spin they choose.
So, if you want to become a luckier player, get down to the college on a Thursday evening over the summer and practise, practise, practise. If you want to develop a good “edge” shot, practise hitting the ball “down the line”, within 6 inches of the edge. The more consistently you can place the ball withing that corridor, the more chance that you’ll get a few extra edge points. Similarly, to get a few more net shots, you need to practise some defensive push/chop shots, keeping the ball within an inch or two of the top of the net.
Put in sufficient practice and the luck will surely follow!