tournament energy

I had a table tennis tournament about a week ago. It was my fourth table tennis tournament and my second as club secretary, so I knew what to expect. Show up early to claim a table, warm up if you can, play a couple matches. As secretary, I also ran around helping the club president with whatever he needed and took pictures if I had time.

I would say I was excited, but honestly, I was also kind of dreading playing my matches. As much as I like to play table tennis, I wouldn't consider myself someone competitive, both in skill and in attitude. I'm not invested enough to be actively trying to improve. I know I'm not very good so I don't mind losing. At tournaments, I'm trying to have fun playing against different people, not necessarily win.

I often talk to the club president about the difference in attitude towards table tennis between me and everyone else. I don’t really understand why people are so competitive. Club president tells me he doesn’t understand how I can care so little about winning.

Last year, at a similar tournament, I remember playing against someone who was a higher rating than me. At first, I just played like normal. “I’m just here to have fun” was all I was thinking about. But then I started to take a lead, and soon I was up two sets. I was laughing, having fun, but my opponent seemed to just get more irritated. Between sets, she was talking to an elderly figure - I imagine to strategize methods to win against me. At some point, it looked like she was on the verge of tears, and it was no longer fun for me anymore. I lost the next three sets. She won the game and she looked so much happier after winning. After that, I didn’t really want to play tournaments anymore.

Tournaments remind me of piano recitals - there’s a sense of electricity in the air, everyone moves with a sense of urgency. But tournaments determine winners and losers, and so there’s always a sense of pride alongside some disappointment. You can see it in the way people carry themselves and you can read it in people’s faces.

Perhaps its because I remember crying after piano recitals that I can’t seem to get invested in anything competitive anymore. When you’re at that level of investment, your emotions are on the line, and I don’t want to do that anymore. It was embarrassing crying after that piano recital - the way the people around me told me to stop crying didn’t help.

“It was just a recital.” Maybe for them, but not for me.

It was disappointing to perform so poorly after all the time and effort.

Perhaps the girl I was playing against that day reminded me a bit too much of the me who cried after a piano recital.

I rewatched a bit of Haikyuu recently, and /spoiler warning/ it struck me that after losing to Aoba Josai, the Karasuno team cried and weren’t shamed for it. The same happens in Sound Euphonium, where Kumiko learns that she too has invested too much to not have an emotional stake in the results. At the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with being invested, with caring, with loving the activity.

Maybe one day, I’ll learn to love table tennis the way everyone else does. Until then, I’ll just love the tournament energy.