I just played the best three hours of table tennis in my life. Pat and I headed to the games room on campus, and had three matches to the best of 19, a total of 43 games. Every single muscle in my body is completely exhausted. The worst are the soles of my feet, which are more sore than when I stood for five hours at the Strung Out concert.

We’d been planning to play for more than three months now, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for a while. All week, I had been trying to develop some strategy to beat him, but couldn’t come up with a single idea since he plays with a strong backhand with a pen-grip. I decided to simply play more aggressively than him, and figure out his weakness on the fly. In the end, I just ran him around a lot, putting the ball on alternating corners or at an angle he didn’t expect. I can serve consistently now, and have gotten much better at controlling how long or short they are.

Almost none of his previous strategies worked on me. His quick serves to my right don’t do much anymore because I’ve been successful in balancing out my position at the table. His downspins don’t work anymore because the people at the club really make me work on my chops and my pushes. His rally hits to my left don’t work anymore because I’ve been improving my backhand for the last two weeks. My short game has become as good as his. The only thing he could do was serve a downspin to my left to force a weak return, which is something he figured out rather quickly.

I ended up winning all the matches, 10–5, 10–3, 10–5, but both of us agreed that they were the finest we’ve ever played. It was three hours of pure intensity, not only physically but mentally as well. Concentrating on the serve, the strategy, trying to figure out a weakness, adapting to an opponents, keeping track of the ball, I was ready to collapse when I got home.

Happiness is a backhand place, a forehand smash, then a forehand kill.

My overall table tennis game has finally been improving, mostly from playing against some provincial team players and studying how they move. For the first two months I got back from Hong Kong I had no feeling for the ball. I’ve been trying to balance myself out more, working on my backhand, which was my weakness, without sacrificing too much of my forehand, which was my strength. I was best at counter-driving, but that’s cause I used to play a running forehand game, which was extremely risky. The problem, I discovered, was that I was almost never in the ready stance, a bad habit I picked up when drilling. Now that I’ve achieved a much better balance, I’ve become less aggressive but more versatile.

I went to buy some wristbands, because rule number 3.4.4.1.2 of the 2004 ITTF Handbook basically states that people can only towel off once or twice a game. I look around for some Adidas wrist bands, since I usually play in Adidas trunks, but unfortunately, every place I look either has no Adidas wristbands, or they have the Adidas non-racquet-sport wristbands, the ones that are twice as long and constrict the wrist. There was a set that was some brand I never heard of, but it was half price and the logo looked like the skip button on an MP3 player so I decided to buy it anyway. Turns out that this brand is actually Karl Kani, a brand name in urban fashion.

Let me back things up for a second here.

I’m pure Chinese by blood, raised in a neighbourhood of subtle families who paid off their mortgages, bought mini-vans to drive all their kids to hockey practice, and spent the weekends planting new sets of flowers in their gardens. I went to a high school for the sons of rich couples and government officials. MY FREAKIN NAME IS JEFF. I’m probably the last person who should be wearing “urban fashion”.

So yeah.

wut wut.

Last weekend there was a training course for level 1 umpires in table tennis. It was dirt cheap, and only two hours long so I decided to go for it. Out of the nine people who took the test, only three passed, including me. The test was open book, unlimited time, but the questions were extremely tricky. Since I passed, I can officiate matches for both club sanctioned tournaments and provincial level competitions.

I went to the second league meet yesterday, and it was definitely another experience. The diversity of all the players is just amazing. Their personalities come out in every little detail, from their style of play, to how they lose a point, to how they serve.

There’s the team consisting mostly of elderly ladies in their sweat pants, along with their little, supportive peanut gallery of friends who cheer and clap after every point. Sometimes the players try to high five each other when they get a good rally in doubles, but end up shaking hands in a sort of awkward way. The most they ever say when they lose a point is, “Phooie!”, and fake an angry foot stomp, and are always the first ones to approach you for a hand shake. These are the ones who play socially, as something to do on Sunday with their friends between what I’m guessing is tea and nap time.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are the players who wear faces of dire aggression as soon as the point starts, as if they’ll throw their paddles down and punch you in the face if you serve them an ace. These are the ones who introduce themselves, state their provincial ranking, and immediately ask for yours. They have no problem with shouting one word expletives to release their frustration when they’re losing, even when they’re playing next to the peanut gallery previously mentioned. They don’t play for fun, they play to kick your ass.

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