I stumbled across a video on YouTube yesterday showing Xu Jinglei, a famous Chinese actress, mingling with the Chinese National Team in their training hall in the lead up to the 2013 World Championships and speaking to the players and head coach Liu Guoliang.
Fortunately, Google was able to translate the Chinese description into English for me so that I could work out what they were talking about.
One issue that struck me was coach Liu Guoliang’s mention of the different personality types within this elite group.
That got me thinking and I decided to cover the topic of introverts and extroverts in table tennis.
A few questions came to mind initially… Are extroverts more likely to succeed than introverts? Are introverts more suited to table tennis because it is an individual sport? Can introverts perform when it matters, in the Olympic finals and big moments of their careers, or are they more likely to choke?
I’ll be looking at some evidence from table tennis and the world of personality research to try and answer these questions.
Firstly, I recommend watching this video.
Even just from watching the footage I think it’s quite clear that Zhang Jike is very comfortable being around Xu Jinglei. He seems confident and happy to chat and have a laugh with her. There are even points where you get the feeling like he might be showing off a little. When she has a go at playing it is Zhang Jike, unsurprisingly, that is playing with her.
Then Xu Jinglei meets Ma Long. I think from the start you can see that Ma Long has more of a nervous smile on his face. He is constantly looking towards Liu Guoliang to lead the conversation and appears much more quiet and reserved.
When talking about Ma Long and Zhang Jike, Liu Guoliang says…
“Ma Long relatively shy, but also had psychological relations, Zhang Jike belong contest play type, usually do not like Ma Long stable, but the psychological quality is very good, the more people the greater the more he could scene level of play. Ma Long ping relatively well-behaved when listening to words, listen to the coach, to the contest may encounter unexpected situations, slightly less daring, he made great progress in the past two years, the Rio cycle he is the most important players, so that Chinese table tennis also victorious at least six to eight years.”
The translation isn’t perfect but I think the gist of it is that Ma Long is quite shy and has had some problem psychologically on the table. Zhang Jike on the other hand belongs and thrives in the competition environment. Perhaps his results are not as stable as Ma Long but he is very good psychologically. He bigger the crowd or more important the moment, the better he plays. Ma long is very well behaved and listens to the coaches but sometime in tournaments he can be faced with difficult situations that he struggles to deal with because he is less daring. However, Ma Long has made great progress during the last two years and he is one of the most important players for China in the lead up to Rio 2016.
If you follow top-level table tennis you’ll have heard similar reports from the Chinese National Team before.
Here is a quote from an article on TableTennista back in March 2012…
“In previous games, Ma Long was more clever and has a lot of ideas. But in big competitions, Ma Long can get soft in crucial moments. His psychological stability will fluctuate and his ideologies were prone to problems. In order to know if he can succeed in such environment, he must withstand the test of a particular competition. That is the most important.”
Last year at the London 2012 Olympic Games China selected Zhang Jike and Wang Hao to represent them in the men’s single event and Ma Long was relegated to a spot in the team event. In the lead up to the Games Ma Long had been ranked #1 in the world from October 2011 to May 2012, before being overtaken by Zhang Jike in June 2012.
I think this was probably largely due to the fact that the Chinese coaches were concerned that Ma Long would lose to a non-Chinese opponent during the knockout stages and as such China wouldn’t take home both the gold and silver medal, which would be considered a national failure.
It has been said that Ma Long doesn’t enjoy being the centre of attention and he would prefer not to be #1 in the Chinese National Team. I think this is a common trait among introverts. Zhang Jike on the other hand loves the attention. He will rip his shirt off his body, cover himself in tattoos and have photo-shoots of himself featured in Chinese magazines.
This kind of behaviour is exciting and much more marketable than the quiet perseverance and hard work of a player such a Ma Long. In a sport that is dominated by Chinese players the media often mention the lack of any “big personalities” or characters. Ma Long is certainly not appealing to this kind of audience and he at least appears to have less fans in Europe than Zhang Jike, who is almost becoming the new Timo Boll!
Is there any hope for introverts?
It’s easy to look at this and conclude that extroverts will always outperform introverts in high level sport. Many coaches have said that introverts just don’t have the innate self-confidence and self-belief that’s needed to achieve at the highest levels when the stakes are huge. But I don’t think this is completely true…
Ma Long is often compared to Wang Liqin, surely one of the greatest players of the last twenty years. Wang Liqin was also well known for his introverted personality and has been described as the quite, silent type that dedicates himself to his training. He was also criticized at time for not being able to perform to his best when it really mattered.
In the 2004 Olympics, when Liqin was ranked #1 in the world, he lost in the semi-finals to his twenty year old team-mate Wang Hao. Wang Liqin was given another chance in the men’s singles event of the Olympics in 2008 but he once again lost in the semi-finals, this time to Ma Lin. Despite his inability to reach an Olympic men’s singles final, Wang Liqin did manage to win three World Championships singles titles during his career, the second most prestigious event after the Olympic Games.
Wang Liqin was also the #1 player in world for a total of 54 months, which is an unbelievable accomplishment. This introverted player has spent four and a half years as the best player in the world. He’s been in the top 10 for about 15 years! Wang Liqin is also the most successful male player in the history of the ITTF Pro Tour with twenty Men’s Singles titles at open international tournaments on the ITTF Pro Tour and he has been crowned thrice the champion at the end of year Grand Finals.
My point is this… Perhaps Wang Liqin’s introversion cost him an Olympic gold medal, but at the same time it is probably responsible for his impeccable record of consistently winning ITTF Pro Tour events and staying at the top of the world’s ranking list.
What does the science say?
As far as I can tell there hasn’t been a huge amount of research looking at the effect of personality type (introvert/extrovert) on elite sports performance. Here’s what I could find…
- Introverts aren’t always shy and shy players aren’t always introverted. The term introverts refers to someone who recharges their batteries with a bit of peace and quiet and get tired out by highly stimulating environments with lots of people around.
- Research looking at female figure skaters found that shy athletes were much more likely to experience feelings of nerves and anxiety before performing than their less shy counterparts. They also found a negative relationship between shyness and performance (basically meaning the more shy you were the worse you performed). However, they also discovered that the relationship between shyness and competition performance was moderated by the performer’s psychological coping skills. If the athletes had positive coping skills, and were able to use them, then the negative effect was almost completely removed. The conclusion was that shyness does negatively effect performance but it can be managed/removed with the right strategies.
- Introverts perform better at lower arousal levels. This is what Liu Guoliang was getting at when he was talking about Zhang Jike performing better if there were more people watching. Too much arousal can lead to feelings of lacking control and stress for introverts. On the flip side, too little arousal for extroverts can cause them to be distracted and appear agitated. Unfortunately in high performance sport athletes are not going to be able to avoid high-arousal environments (such as an Olympic Games) so it’s important that they learn to cope in these situation if they are to succeed.
- Introverts are also more likely to enjoy training in smaller groups or one-one-one with coaches. They often feel more comfortable speaking and giving their opinion in these smaller groups and can end up blurring into the scenery in larger groups.
- Finally, Anders Ericsson, in his research on the development of expertise, found that time spent practicing alone was the biggest individual predictor of success. This was because practicing alone is free from distractions, requires high-levels of self-motivation and it allows you focus on what you are struggling with individually and improve your own weaknesses. This could suggest that introversion is beneficial in the development of expertise in a skill.
Advice for players
You probably already know if you are an introvert or an extrovert. If not there are tests you can do online that will give you a result. Bear in mind that you probably not 100% of one and 0% of the other and sometimes people find that are more of an introvert in some environments and more of an extrovert in others.
Once you have an idea of your orientation you can do two things…
- Design your practice to suit your personality. If you are an introvert then there’s a good chance you’re not getting the most out of a session with twenty players, where everyone is trying to get their own point across and you are constantly distracted by the other players. You might be better off in a session with only a few players, or a one-to-one environment with a coach or even just practicing with a friend on a single table.
- Look for opportunities to work on your weaknesses. By this I don’t mean the technical weakness in your game. If you are an introvert then perhaps you should work on developing some coping method for dealing with high pressure/high arousal environments. If you are an extrovert that gets bored in low arousal environments such as a local league where losing doesn’t really matter maybe you should enter a league were you would expect to win pretty much every match on paper but set yourself the goal of not losing a single match. Use it as an opportunity to train yourself to perform at your best even when there is no crowd, prize money or pressure.
Advice for coaches
As coaches I think we often have a preference for a certain type of player. This is often just a reflection of our own personality and taste.
If you are an introverted coach then chances are you admire the quieter players that listen to you and training hard ever session. You look at the distracted extrovert and think to yourself, “They’ll never make it with that kind of poor attitude!”
If you are an extroverted coach then chances are you think the opposite. You are always on the look out for the loud, confident players that can make the winning forehand when the pressure is on at 10-10 and the stakes are high. You look at the quiet introvert that has a tendency to under-perform when under pressure and think to yourself, “They’ll never make it with that kind of poor attitude!”
I think we’d all do well to follow the example of coach Liu Guoliang. I was very impressed by his remarks about Zhang Jike and Ma Long in the video. He demonstrated a great understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of both players and their personality types. He wasn’t saying that one was better than the other but he was certain about the fact that Zhang Jike needed needed to be more stable and consistent with his results in all events and that Ma Long needed to improve his mental toughness so that he could excel when it mattered. Liu Guoliang was focused on improving both players.
I think especially if we are coaching beginners we can favour the dedicated introvert (I know I’ve fallen for this trap before). When coaching more advanced players we are made aware of the need to have the self-confidence of an extrovert and maybe start to favour these players forgetting about the necessary dedication and consistency of the introvert.
The lesson from China is that both types of players can reach the highest level and succeed but both require a different approach.
Advice for parents
I think as parents it’s often easy to notice the weaknesses of our children and forget the positives. This is particular apart for the parent’s of introvert who often only see their child perform at tournaments, as they’re not their in the training hall.
If you are the parent of an introvert you may be heart-broken as you see your child struggle to perform their best when the pressure is on. I’ve heard many parents say, “If only he had a bit more zip about him”, or something similar. Don’t forget your child’s strengths. It likely that you don’t see them in training listening intently, trying their best and focusing on the task at hand.
I think one of the worst things you can do is make your child feel like you’d rather they were more outgoing. Let their coach improve their performance and if you don’t think they are doing a good enough job, find a different coach.
Conclusion
Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert there is nothing stopping you from achieving success at the highest level of table tennis.
There are strength and weaknesses, advantages and disadvantages, to both and these will need to be addressed sooner or later if you are to maximise your potential.
Try to organise practice to suit your personality but at the same time don’t be afraid to test yourself in less comfortable situation from time to time with specific goals for how you want to behaviour in these environments.