Ping-pong Is Not Just a Sport for Me

Layla Sun (Tranlated by Geoff Lamberton)

In this article, I would like to share the experience of my own table tennis journey.

One day, after the pain I experienced melted away, I understood...

"Ping Pong" & "Competition" allow me to experience life.

- - - - -

Fear of making mistakes, fear of failure, fear of not doing well or not being able to do better, complex, confused feelings, followed by timidity, stagnation, and temporary escape. I need to put these feelings aside and strive to do my best.

After a long while, I realised that these feelings are still there. Finally, I have nowhere to escape and I must face them!

I was still struggling to breakthrough these persistent feelings. I needed to attain a higher consciousness, so I would continue to grow until I reached the dream place, the level of national players.

I don't know if you have felt something similar?

In the process of a technological refinement, it is common to encounter a blockage, a bottleneck where your improvement is less than your expectation.

However, there is a way, a set of training methods, that feel authentic, stable, solid and practical, but it takes a lot of time and effort, and requires faith in the process and perseverance.

At this time, several voices surfaced. Do I have that much time? Am I too slow compared to others? Will my efforts be in vain? Am I silly to exert such effort on this path?

Then, some short cut ideas would arise. Maybe I will get lucky and not be so bad? Maybe I can reach my destination without having to work so hard, so there is no need to endure unnecessarily painful experiences to reach my goals.

This led to even more thoughts. Skip what you are afraid of, or what you don't like, or what you may not be able to do or what you can't do well...

Struggling with countless floating thoughts in every swing of the bat, which led to fake fighting, fake training, and fake hard work.

If these thoughts dominate then failure is the end result.

This failure is enough to destroy our self-confidence, diminish our vitality, and lose our original motivation, resulting in the need to redouble our efforts to get back on the path that enables us to grow.

If we repeatedly feel we are not good enough and have failed, each time this will weigh more and more heavily on us, and it will become more and more difficult to find the confidence we need to continue.

However, I don't usually try to avoid problems. Even if my progress is slow, I take the necessary time to adjust my mental state, ensure I focus on the goal in every moment, and steadily move forward. This process of careful reflection on my progress and the difficulties I am experiencing allows me to see more possibilities for myself.

I use this same process as I face many other issues in my life.

Is there anyone else who lives like me?️