I Think I Play Too Much Ping Pong

Okay, so I think I play too much ping pong. It’s not like I’m obsessed or anything but you gotta agree with me that anyone who’s really into a particular sport and I mean really passionate about it, does tend to spend all their free time either doing it or being involved in that sport, right?

I’m pretty sure there isn’t an official name for being crazy about ping pong, but if there was I think it would probably be called something along the lines of Pongerism or a Pingerist or maybe a Pingerism or Pongerist. If you have any ideas as to what it could be called feel free to let me know.

This Is How It All Started

As a youngster I was just a regular kid, doing what regular kids did, you know the sort of thing, always on the lookout for scrap pieces of timber that could be used to make stuff out of.

My folks use to say to me, what do you want that for? as I brought home offcuts and waste bits of timber from the local sawmill, the owner of the sawmill, Mr. Miller (yes, we thought it was funny too) had a wagon that the guys used to throw the unwanted wood into, he let me and my brothers take whatever bits we needed. He knew kids were into construction in a big way.

I think You Can Guess What We Made

Well, we used to make all sorts of crazy stuff like wooden swords, spears, ramps for our bikes to run off, and things that we could use to play sports. We made baseball bats, though not the smooth rounded type you’re thinking of, ours were the sort with edges on. We even made a high jump, this consisted of three pieces of thin, longish timber, two pieces pushed into the ground vertically about 6ft apart, with the third piece of timber horizontally across them and held in position with clothes pegs.

Then one day I came up with the idea of making our own ping pong table. No one we knew had one, we’d seen them on tv and they looked like great fun, it was sort of a light bulb moment and I suppose that’s where my Pingerism started.

We Built Our Own Ping Pong Table At The Age Of 10

That’s right, me, my two brothers, and our friends Levi and Finn, salvaged some 3″ x 2″ timber for the table leg supports, and Mr. Miller kindly donated some sheet timber that he said was not good enough to sell as it was slightly warped.

So we set about making our very own table tennis table at Levi’s house where there was an old outbuilding that we used as our hangout, it had lots of old stuff stored in there that Levi’s folks said was essential and needed to be kept.

Anyway, we managed to fix together what looked like a table tennis table, it had five legs (yes I know, come on, we were only 10 years old) and a piece of sheet timber nailed down on top of them. We didn’t have any dimensions to work to, it was just the size of the timber we had and the space we had to play in. From what I remember it was a pretty sturdy table, albeit a bit warped but hey, we’d built our own ping pong table.

We stretched a piece of string across the middle and used two 6 inch nails as the net posts. We had our own ping pong table, we had an old tennis ball and as for bats, we used some old table place matts – perfect!

Earning Money For A Real Ping Pong Table.

That first ping pong table was great fun, we played for hours and hours, we did as many chores as we could to earn some money to buy real ping pong balls and when we had enough money saved we bought paddles, real paddles.

There was this one time when we thought we’d push our luck and use the dining table as our ping pong table but that resulted in disaster, the table got damaged and somehow an ornament was broken, that was the end of that.

So the next couple of years past and we used our homemade ping pong table so much that we seemed to be spending more time repairing the table than actually playing ping pong on it.

Finally, our parents caved in and bought us a mid-sized real ping pong table, it even had two paddles, a net, and a ping pong ball included in the sale. Of course, we were expected to look after it so we were allowed to set it up in the garage – and that was how we got our own games room.

Fast Forward To The Present Day

Sixteen years down the line I reckon I have become a pretty good player, I have two full-sized tables set up in my basement but I’m beginning to think that I play too much ping pong down there.

One table is always set up for single-player playback and this really helps my reflex action as well as fast close net play and ball spin technique.

I know not everyone is a big fan of single-player playback practice but I know it helps to keep my game sharp and mind focused, I aim to keep the ball just above the net and don’t play high up the table.

My other table is set up for my own kids, who didn’t really have any option but to love playing as much as I do.

I have a ping pong robot too, that thing is so cool, and it never complains when I whup those fast returns back at it.

How Much Ping Pong Is Too Much Ping Pong?

I reckon after work I play for around 3 hours a day in the week, left to my own devices I’d easily double or even treble that time. I know that professional table tennis players put the hours in and you’d expect that, it’s their job, I work and still put the hours in on the table, I just love it.

So you tell me, how many hours a week of table tennis is too much for a non professional table tennis player?