Ping Pong, anyone?

Actually, it's table tennis. We just say ping pong because it's easier to say hey! let's play ping pong! Two syllables versus four. ^_^

Well, anyway, whichever way you call it, the players love this sport. They play; they watch; and they talk about it enthusiastically. It's fun just listening to them talk about -what else? pingpong! and watching them play and do a certain backhand stroke that makes a ball spin wildly up and far off the table when an opponent doesn't know how to counter it, makes me smile a smile that could eat a banana sideways LOL...and say to myself, I can do that...ahem.

The class A players, I found out, are always practicing. They have to keep it up so they play at least three times a week but some of them play everyday for at least two hours every time. The class B, which are quite good players too, are the younger ones...mostly students, therefore, practice less because of lack of playing time and money. Some are lucky to have supporting parents who practice with them and pay the bill.

There's never a dull moment when they play. It's quite interesting to see each serve style and how it spins or stops the ball somewhere near the net. One Class A player,Sir Opong, sometimes do an antic serve that never fails to make everybody laugh and set the mood light and enjoyable. And the good thing is, no matter how the opponents take the game seriously, and inevitably say the f*** and s*** words when they miss a ball, the game always end up with high fives or a handshake. It feels good to observe such sportsmanship and camaraderie in action. Come to think of it: Politicians should PLAY table tennis to ward off ill feelings towards opponents!!

There's one thing though that bothers the current Class A players who also are the officials of their table tennis club. There are not many Class B players to choose from to become Class A that would in years to come, be the officials of the group. They lack funds to keep up with expenses for tournaments. They need sponsors and sponsors are hard to find. I asked Sir Peter, the president of the BTTC, why he thinks tournaments are so important and he said: Tournaments are a motivation to be better players, Tournaments are something to look forward to. Tournaments are a natural way of choosing officially who among the Class D would become Class C and who among the Class C would become Class B and so on...which would answer to their quest for future leaders of BTTC (Bohol Table Tennis Club) when the time comes that the officials are too old to stop a spinning a ball. I'm not saying that the need is urgent though...the current officials are still young to even think about retirement. It's just that becoming a Class A table tennis player is a long process. We are not talking about months of playing but years...lots of years and lots of tournaments and competitions to win. It's not just how well you play. You have to prove it. Now that really is something to think about.



Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates";