This is one of those tips where the title, by itself, should give you a lot to think about.

If you want to improve at table tennis (or most other endeavors), you need to constantly learn. I’ve been playing almost 50 years, and just last week I think I finally figured out how best to block spinny loops with my backhand. That doesn’t mean I was really bad at blocking spinny loops before with my backhand or that I didn’t know how to; it means I wasn’t as good as I could be, and now it’s better. It also doesn’t mean I was dumb because I didn’t figure this out for 50 years; it means I was smart enough to constantly strive to get better. If you play 1,000 years, you should still find things to improve on.

The same is true of all players at all levels. Some players think of themselves as “smart” players, and so they are confident that they’ve figured out, for example, how to play a particular player. If so, then you have just stagnated yourself. Instead of thinking you’ve figured that player out, think about how he could adjust to your game or tactics, and prepare for that – or for a future, similar player who might make that adjustment. Or whatever it is you successfully do against them, strive to do it better, both because that player may improve, or because you may need those same tactics at a higher level against a stronger player.

Is there a shot in the game that you think you’ve mastered? That would be a pretty dumb thing to believe, wouldn’t it? Long ago, after years of regular practice, I “mastered” the fast down-the-line serve to the point that someone once wrote in a published article that I did it better than anyone in the US. I could fake the serve crosscourt so that receivers would move that way, and at the last second I’d flick the serve down the line for an ace or service winner. I was pretty proud until I saw Jan-Ove Waldner do it with even more deception, speed, spin, and even closer to the line, and I realized how much better I could make the serve – and I tried to do so.

It’s true that when you first started out playing, you didn’t know much about the sport. You weren’t dumb; you simply were at the start of a long learning curve. If you knew you had a lot to learn, and strove to learn, you weren’t dumb. You were smart!

The only way you were dumb before – or now – is if you stop learning. Now that would be really dumb.