I had a revelation yesterday. My husband and I were playing ping pong and I realized that there is a really cool mindful component of playing ping pong and there are so many awesome metaphors about life. For example, getting over obstacles, repetitive back and forth creates habits, and strategy.
The 3 ‘A’s for Momentary Joy
1. Anticipation
So right after the serve, you’re just ready. You’re standing and ready for whatever happens. You might be standing in the middle or to the side, but you’re just waiting to see where that ball drops. Isn’t that a cliché we use all the time!
The anticipation is you’re able to do something about it because you have something, aka a paddle, that can deflect it back to where it belongs. So if where the ball drops is not ideal, you just hit it back over. Or sometimes it’ll fall off the table and other times it just kind of bypasses what we want to do with it.
2. Awareness
When playing ping pong, it’s obvious that we have to be aware that the ball is not always going to fall where we want. Sometimes it’s going to go off in another direction. But that’s okay because if we were to sit here and anticipate and assume, then we’re thinking too much of what is happening.
So the awareness piece of it is being aware that this ball is going to drop somewhere on my side of the table and I have to accept that. And so I have awareness of that. That’s the only thing I can focus on more than where or how or why. The reason is because when you ask how and why or what’s going to happen, then we’re not going to be able to hit the ball back effectively because we are only aware of our thoughts. Then we won’t know what’s going on right at that moment, which is the whole point of mindfulness.
3. Action
I don’t know about you, but I love when I finally get that perfect shot where it just like comes right over the table, bounces, goes off the table, then I slam it over the net at top speed faster than my opponent can intervene.
And so what action can you take when a ball drops in your life? It’s going to land somewhere in your space and then what are you going to do with it? The action step is not predictable, so if you overthink even a few possibilities, the action the opponent takes is out of your control. It’s like trying to figure out a million to one odds because that ball could fall into probably a million minuscule places. But the action has to do with you being ready to take action at the right moment. And that comes from the Cumulutative steps of anticipation, awareness, and action.
Therefore, when you finally take that action, it might be one where you hit it off the table or you hit the net, but the next time you’re going to take another action. And with each repetition, it might be the one where you score your game point.
But the whole point is that you have to keep taking action. And with each action, whether it works or not, you still learn and you still grow your skills and your fine motor skills get better over time. That’s what I was noticing. Our volleys got better and better as we did them.
The other thing I want to point out about mindfulness in ping pong is that I found that when I was hitting it with my husband back and forth, just falling, just practicing, it seemed like everything was easier. But when we started keeping score, that’s when it got rough because that’s when I started overthinking it. Because I was trying to keep track of the score, I was playing the game in my head and not paying attention. After a while I let go of that, and I just said every time the ball would come to me, I would say “Ball!” “Ball!” “Ball!” and then there was flow with each volley. I was totally immersed in the ball instead of what to expect.
It wasn’t about the score anymore, but when we officially started taking score, I still had to take that thought out of my mind for the first few terms, but by then the flow was back.
How does this apply to you in your everyday life? It’s obviously a metaphor of just being in the moment and knowing that you don’t have to be perfect. It’s a process of learning and fine tuning little by little and taking the time to have fun and enjoy the ride.
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