My five cents as a table tennis coach at a national elite level in Europe:
Table tennis is a ridiculously technical sport, which also requires somewhat extreme vision skill because of the demand to read the spin of the ball, make a decision and then execute the corresponding motor command in less than a second. I have yet to see any player in the modern era reach a top level (top 20 in the world) if he or she didn't start playing before they were 10 years old. In Japan and China, they often start at an age of 2-5, whereas in Europe the average hovers around 7-10 (and accordingly, European players reach their peak approximately 7-10 years later than Asian players).
And somewhat counter to your claim, I can attest that some kids have a truly spectacular ability for acquiring technical skill with a very low volume of practice. I still can't put my finger on quite what it is, but for some kids it all just makes sense. They understand how the ball is moving and why, they can connect the fact that different ways of making contact with the ball will generate different kinds of spin, they have court vision which allows them to see where a point can be made and how...
Don't ask me how or why some are specifically gifted in this area - I would guess something has to do with the ability to read and understand spin (which is a major separator even at the elite level between men and women, which anecdotally holds true in both Asia and Europe). But my experience tells me that there can be an innate technical talent for some sports as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some neurological factors (perhaps vision combined with being very adapt at 3D rotation?) involved as well.
Thanks for the comment Magnus. I agree that there is such a thing as natural talent for skill acquisition (see my reference to the existence of prodigies above.) It is an interesting question about what exactly this skill might be for table tennis. Great players are probably very unusual in regard to visual acuity, visual processing speed, nervous system speed, etc. I think they must also be very unusual in how they attend to sensory information relevant to ping pong, such as spin. It may be that many people have the ability to acquire and process the sensory information you need to return a shot in ping pong, but that very few have minds attend to this information in the right way. Reading the game is maybe like reading a language, and you can only be truly fluent if you learn from a young age. And you will only learn at a young age if you have the very unusual characteristic of wanting to pay close attention to this language.
Excellent. The point about structure is great, especially with regard to something like a golf swing. I am not a golfer, so had not thought deeply about that, but see how the same structure argument applies to shooting and why someone like a Dwight Howard struggled regardless of the volume of his practice, despite being an otherwise unbelievable player and athlete.
My two additions, if I may:
(1) I think we generally simplify athleticism too much, and especially in sports like football and basketball, equate athleticism with speed and power, dismissing hand-eye coordination, balance, rhythm, and other important elements of athleticism. Some popular players who were dismissed as non-athletic, such as Luka and Harden, are exceptional stoppers/deceleration due to eccentric strength, despite pedestrian vertical jumps and straight-ahead speed. Likewise, Curry's hand-eye coordination, balance, and rhythm are separators. The things we value because they are relatively easy to see often are not the true separators for the elite (although there is a baseline, as even the worst NBA/MLB/NFL athlete in terms of speed/power is 99th percentile in the world).
(2) I think the environment shapes athletes too. People have talked about the "Curry shooting gene" because of his father's and brother's shooting success, and I imagine some characteristics are genetic, but also they spent their childhoods in gyms watching professional players shoot and practice. They have watched the best far more often than normal children, and the current upcoming stars are littered with the children of ex-pros who spent large parts of their childhoods in and around the best in the world (I'm not sure the children in previous generations were given as much access, traveled with the team, etc. I don't know for sure, but I knew the son of an NBA player when I was in middle school and he never seemed to be at the practice facility with his dad; I don't know if MJ or Pippen or the others had their sons on the sideline and at the practice facilities like Curry, Boozer, Arenas, Anthony, LeBron and others). Certainly some of their potential success is genetic - especially well above-average height - but some things we attribute to genes or athleticism are due to learning or even absorbing the environment, and ultimately I think that fits with several examples you suggested, whether Tiger Woods or the kindergartener with better hand-eye coordination because he played with balls from 2 years old.
Hi Brian, thanks for the comment. I agree that athleticism is not quite so simple as speed, strength and power. There also must be an element of coordination in terms of posture and basic locomotive skills. I really like Bernstein's "four levels" concept that I referenced in the earlier post. Level one is postural control; level two is global body coordination mostly related to locomotion; level three is discrete short movements, often involving a target and hand-eye coordination, as in shooting a basketball; and level four is linking together many discrete actions in a flowing variable sequence, as in ball-handling and passing. Great athleticism always implies having levels 1 and 2, but not necessarily levels 3 and 4. People like Curry and Luka have all four levels for sure!
I agree about environment. Humans are great imitators and I think the fastest learners are especially good imitators. Being around greatness at a young age is probably incredibly valuable. You soak up excellence through osmosis.
Very interesting and thought-provoking!
My five cents as a table tennis coach at a national elite level in Europe:
Table tennis is a ridiculously technical sport, which also requires somewhat extreme vision skill because of the demand to read the spin of the ball, make a decision and then execute the corresponding motor command in less than a second. I have yet to see any player in the modern era reach a top level (top 20 in the world) if he or she didn't start playing before they were 10 years old. In Japan and China, they often start at an age of 2-5, whereas in Europe the average hovers around 7-10 (and accordingly, European players reach their peak approximately 7-10 years later than Asian players).
And somewhat counter to your claim, I can attest that some kids have a truly spectacular ability for acquiring technical skill with a very low volume of practice. I still can't put my finger on quite what it is, but for some kids it all just makes sense. They understand how the ball is moving and why, they can connect the fact that different ways of making contact with the ball will generate different kinds of spin, they have court vision which allows them to see where a point can be made and how...
Don't ask me how or why some are specifically gifted in this area - I would guess something has to do with the ability to read and understand spin (which is a major separator even at the elite level between men and women, which anecdotally holds true in both Asia and Europe). But my experience tells me that there can be an innate technical talent for some sports as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some neurological factors (perhaps vision combined with being very adapt at 3D rotation?) involved as well.
Thanks for the comment Magnus. I agree that there is such a thing as natural talent for skill acquisition (see my reference to the existence of prodigies above.) It is an interesting question about what exactly this skill might be for table tennis. Great players are probably very unusual in regard to visual acuity, visual processing speed, nervous system speed, etc. I think they must also be very unusual in how they attend to sensory information relevant to ping pong, such as spin. It may be that many people have the ability to acquire and process the sensory information you need to return a shot in ping pong, but that very few have minds attend to this information in the right way. Reading the game is maybe like reading a language, and you can only be truly fluent if you learn from a young age. And you will only learn at a young age if you have the very unusual characteristic of wanting to pay close attention to this language.
Excellent. The point about structure is great, especially with regard to something like a golf swing. I am not a golfer, so had not thought deeply about that, but see how the same structure argument applies to shooting and why someone like a Dwight Howard struggled regardless of the volume of his practice, despite being an otherwise unbelievable player and athlete.
My two additions, if I may:
(1) I think we generally simplify athleticism too much, and especially in sports like football and basketball, equate athleticism with speed and power, dismissing hand-eye coordination, balance, rhythm, and other important elements of athleticism. Some popular players who were dismissed as non-athletic, such as Luka and Harden, are exceptional stoppers/deceleration due to eccentric strength, despite pedestrian vertical jumps and straight-ahead speed. Likewise, Curry's hand-eye coordination, balance, and rhythm are separators. The things we value because they are relatively easy to see often are not the true separators for the elite (although there is a baseline, as even the worst NBA/MLB/NFL athlete in terms of speed/power is 99th percentile in the world).
(2) I think the environment shapes athletes too. People have talked about the "Curry shooting gene" because of his father's and brother's shooting success, and I imagine some characteristics are genetic, but also they spent their childhoods in gyms watching professional players shoot and practice. They have watched the best far more often than normal children, and the current upcoming stars are littered with the children of ex-pros who spent large parts of their childhoods in and around the best in the world (I'm not sure the children in previous generations were given as much access, traveled with the team, etc. I don't know for sure, but I knew the son of an NBA player when I was in middle school and he never seemed to be at the practice facility with his dad; I don't know if MJ or Pippen or the others had their sons on the sideline and at the practice facilities like Curry, Boozer, Arenas, Anthony, LeBron and others). Certainly some of their potential success is genetic - especially well above-average height - but some things we attribute to genes or athleticism are due to learning or even absorbing the environment, and ultimately I think that fits with several examples you suggested, whether Tiger Woods or the kindergartener with better hand-eye coordination because he played with balls from 2 years old.
Again, great work!
Hi Brian, thanks for the comment. I agree that athleticism is not quite so simple as speed, strength and power. There also must be an element of coordination in terms of posture and basic locomotive skills. I really like Bernstein's "four levels" concept that I referenced in the earlier post. Level one is postural control; level two is global body coordination mostly related to locomotion; level three is discrete short movements, often involving a target and hand-eye coordination, as in shooting a basketball; and level four is linking together many discrete actions in a flowing variable sequence, as in ball-handling and passing. Great athleticism always implies having levels 1 and 2, but not necessarily levels 3 and 4. People like Curry and Luka have all four levels for sure!
I agree about environment. Humans are great imitators and I think the fastest learners are especially good imitators. Being around greatness at a young age is probably incredibly valuable. You soak up excellence through osmosis.