The official name of the sport is "table tennis." Not ping pong, not garage table soccer, not let's-go-smack-the-ball-around-in-the-basement. T-A-B-L-E T-E-N-N-I-S. I'm sure some of you are laughing now. Sport? Oh, puhleeze. Table tennis is about as much of a sport the way Nascar (sorry Nascar fans) is a sport. Well, on an amateur level, it's probably more of a game than a sport, but when you get to the competitive levels, you can get quite a good workout, believe me. After you've smashed the ball for the 50th time during a practice session, and your muscles are screaming at you to stop, tell me it isn't a sport.

My experience with table tennis goes quite a ways back. I remember my dad setting up this rickety used table tennis table while I was in junior high. We had some pretty cheap paddles, and we'd sort of hit the ball around like any regular garage enthusiast. My favorite was this plastic handled paddle with orange rubber. I always thought I played better with that one. This smacking the ball around in our basement went on for several years through high school.

Then within a six-month period, starting in the fall of 1986, the table tennis community in the Washington DC area would be revolutionized. My dad had been actively involved with the Chinese community (he still is, actually), and had been running a community center for Chinese people on the weekends. He met a table tennis coach from China and they decided to start offering table tennis lessons at the community center and Chinese school. My dad signed up both my sister and I to take lessons at our Chinese school on Sunday afternoons. Coach Hsu was a excellent coach even though his English was broken and he always seemed to be a bit over-excited when teaching. He had this deep voice and laughed a lot at his jokes, that I didn't think was very funny. But week after week, we improved and soon started playing weekly at a table tennis club that they started running.

I still remember Coach Hsu and his constant reminders of "phootball shape" (referring to the forehand stroke), and "serving line" (referring to an area of the table you have to hit to have a successful serve). His lessons still stay with me to this day. Even now when I serve the ball off the table, his words of "serving line" still reverberate through my head.

For some strange reason, maybe because my dad played with the penhold style paddle, that's the style of paddle I started playing with. This paddle is different than regular table tennis paddles in that there is rubber only on one side, and you only play with one side of the paddle. You hold the paddle between your thumb and index finger and have to contort your wrist to hit backhand shots. I must have played penhold style for months while everyone else was learning to play the more-common 'shakehand' style. While I progressed more quickly than the other kids at first, I soon reached a plateau where I just didn't seem to get any better. No matter what the coach taught me, I couldn't seem to make any headway while the rest of the students passed and exceeded my skill level. I couldn't loop, I couldn't serve, I couldn't chop. I had hit a brick wall traveling at 60mph and my resolve crumbled. It was disheartening losing games to all these other kids, whom I was better than in the past. I was getting to the point where I didn't want to play anymore because I just couldn't get any better.

Then against better judgement, Coach Hsu suggested that I switch to learning how to play 'shakehand' style. That particular idea shocked me as that would entail learning how to play all over again. It would mean throwing away virtually everything I had learned the past 5 months and starting from scratch. If I was behind my contemporaries now, changing styles would put them light years ahead of me. At the time, my feeling was that "shakehand" was a very inconsistent style, for mostly offensive (read: aggressive) play and mostly used by Americans. I think at the time, the world champion (who was Chinese) played penhold so that's why they wanted me to stick with it as long as I could. After all, if the world champion plays a certain style, why change? In addition, I was not a very aggressive player so the more all-around playing style using a penhold paddle was more suited to me.

After thinking it over, we finally decided that I had nothing to lose and that I would try out shakehand. The results were immediate and thrilling. Even though I had to learn the strokes all over again, at least this time I knew what the end result needed to be. And I still could use all the tactical information I learned from before. Within a month, I was playing better than I had ever played using the penhold style. Having rejuvenated my motivation and putting in tons of practice hours, I soon caught up to some of my fellow classmates, though several of my classmates were still quite a bit better than I was.

In the spring of 1997, we got notice that some of us kids may be good enough to qualify for the Junior Olympics (JO) in Table Tennis that summer. By this time, table tennis was getting more popular in the area. I think we had two clubs that met several times a week, and then the community center on the weekends. So there was enough people in the area to hold a qualifying tournament to see if anyone would be good enough to make it to JO. I remember trying my best at the tournament, but having only played shakehand for two months at that point, I was quite a bit out of my league. Since I never thought I was good enough to make it to JO to begin with, I wasn't very disappointed when I found out I didn't make it onto the team (big surprise there). I wished my friends the best of luck that did make it on the team. What a great opportunity for them to go out and compete against kids from all across the nation. This team would officially represent the state of Maryland at the JO.

A couple of weeks later, we found out that somehow, we were allowed to bring another team from the MD/DC/VA area, since DC/VA did not have a team yet. Being alternates to the so-called "A-team," my sister and I and several others were chosen for this team. I always felt somewhat guilty about this. It felt like I had made it onto a team by default, and not by merit. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time and managed to qualify for JO even though I wasn't in the same calibre of players that would be competing.

We drove up to Syracuse, NY that summer (where the JO were being held) as a caravan. I still remember walking into the gymnasium the morning of the competition and being awestruck by the facilities. Whereas back home we played in a junior high school cafeteria with only two or three tables, here at the JO there were probably 40 tables scattered throughout the entire gym. Brand new Stiga Elite Rollers (very $$$ tables). It was somewhat intimidating, but wow, what an experience it was.

Coach Hsu had bought us all new warmup suits that we would wear at the opening ceremonies. I met some other kids on the team that were from other parts of MD that I hadn't met before. In addition to the actual competition, I made several new friends and we had a good time staying at the dorms and hanging out.

I don't even remember all the details of the tournament. I don't remember all the events I competed in. I just remember beating a 900-rated player, and playing a 1600-rated player pretty closely. My most memorable match was playing in a doubles event with one of my good friends. He had played in a few tournaments before JO and was rated around 1200. After the JO were over, I found out my rating was 700+ (which is quite good as a starting rating for a kid.) Most kids started their rating around 500. In doubles matches, the 'team' rating is computed as the combined individual rating of both players. So as a team, my friend and I were rated around 1900. We were playing against a team rated something like 2800 or more (both players were rated at least 1400). In other words, they should've kicked our butts and taken names without too much trouble.

The match format was best 2-out-of-3, 21-point games (must win by 2). In the first game, we took the other team to deuce several times, but ended up losing 28-26. Yes, the game was that close. I think we even managed to beat them in the second game, but we lost the third game quite handily.

It's funny but out of all my competition memories, it's the upset wins or almost-upset wins that I remember the most vividly. When I competed in fencing, I remember beating this one guy who actually belonged to the same club that I did, and even started lessons around the same time I did, only he had taken additional private lessons from this French coach. So thinking he was up against a clueless newbie, I think he was overconfident, and before he knew it, he was down 3-1 (where 5 pts wins the bout). Then I executed a perfect feint-disengage-fleche attack, which surprised even myself. I'm not sure who was more surprised, he that just got hit in the middle of the chest as I ran past him, or me, who didn't expect it to to be perfect. At the very least, I thought he would at least semi-parry my blade. I actually expected to miss completely as fleches rarely work. It was my crowning moment of glory.

And then at another tournament, I qualified for the second round round-robin. My first opponent was an "A" rated fencer (which is the highest rating you can achieve). Not only did I take him to a draw at 4-4 (where the next point would win the bout), I took him into extended time where if no one had reached 5 points by the end of the extended time, the person with the most points would win. That rarely ever happens in fencing. He managed to win the bout, but he couldn't believe that I was unrated. In fencing, unrated fencers were those who were below the lowest rating available (D), even if they had competed in the past. You pretty much had to earn a D rating, but you stayed unrated until you did. I also impressed the other fencers in my group, several of them commenting that they didn't look forward to fencing against me.

I eagerly look forward to next weekend, when once again, I would re-enter the realm of competitive sports. It's quite a different environment from regular playing in any sport. You could cut the tension in the air with your paddle. People who you practiced with on a frequent basis were now all business-like, and less friendly. And you really got a sense of what people were like from the way they competed. You could tell who were the sore losers and who were the arrogant SOBs. You could tell who were the honorable competitors. Competition sure brought out the best and worst in people, that's for sure.

I don't have any huge expectations for myself, only to do the best that I can. I'm interested in seeing if and how my perceptions and feelings of competition have changed now that I'm an adult and much older. If I could make it into the second rounds in my events, now that would be very sweet indeed.