BOOK
Excerpted from “People Who Lose Do Useless Practice,” written by Olympic gold medalist Jun Mizutani
In 2002, the struggling Japan men’s team began a reform effort.
Two promising young players, Ryosuke Sakamoto and Seiya Kishikawa, were sent to Borussia Düsseldorf in Germany to train under Mario Amizic. One year later, Jun Mizutani followed them to Düsseldorf.
Profile Jun Mizutani
Jun Mizutani
Born June 9, 1989, in Shizuoka Prefecture. He won every event in the age-group divisions of the All Japan Championships (U12 and so on), and later also rose to the top in the junior division (U17). In the general division of the “All Japan Table Tennis Championships,” which boasts more than 90 years of tradition, he set an unprecedented milestone by winning a total of 10 titles. He has appeared in four consecutive Olympics since the 2008 Beijing Games. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, he won bronze in Singles and silver in Team, and at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics he captured gold in Mixed Doubles and bronze in Team. He is known as one of the most successful players in Japanese table tennis history. He is currently active as a commentator on television and elsewhere.
Chapter 1: The Mentality Needed to Become a Winner
If you rely on asking other people instead of doing it yourself, you will never acquire the technique or way of thinking.
Don’t ask for advice too easily. The process of struggling to find the answer is what matters
The longer you play, the more there are periods when the more you practice and the more matches you play, the worse your condition gets.
More recently, that happened around September and October 2014, when the table tennis Ball changed from a celluloid Ball to a plastic Ball. In the more than 100-year history of table tennis, which is said to have begun around 1890, the Ball changed from celluloid, which had been used for over a century, to a Ball made of new material. Because the bounce, flight, and hitting feel of the celluloid Ball had become ingrained in my body and nerves, it was difficult to adapt to the new plastic Ball.
At one point, I even thought, “Maybe I can’t play table tennis anymore.” At times like that, I asked other players over and over, “How did you change when the Ball became plastic? How did it change? What exactly is going on?” The comments they gave me became hints for my comeback.
At first, when I hit the plastic Ball, all I could tell was that it “flies too far” and that I “can’t deal with the bounce.” But getting advice let me see various things and understand how to solve the problem.
You struggle through trial and error on your own, keep worrying, and even then still don’t understand it; only at the very end do you ask others for advice. If you rely on asking other people instead of doing it yourself, you will never acquire the technique or way of thinking. You need to push yourself thoroughly until you reach the point where you think, “I can’t do any more on my own,” and then, while struggling and suffering, try to find the answer. I think that process is important.
*Plastic Ball = For more than 100 years, the table tennis world used celluloid Balls made from natural cotton. However, because of their high flammability and manufacturing restrictions in China, the main production base, Balls made from plastic material were introduced from international tournaments starting in September 2014.
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