If we say football represents the strength, pool represents the intelligence, then table tennis must be the symbol of agility. On the 9ft*5ft*30inches table, hitting a light and small ball back and forth makes this game fast and exciting . Fast, yes ,it is the most attractive part of this game. A round of game usually ends within seconds but shows a series of marvelous skills. Audiences who seldom play it always feel unbelieveable about play's lightening reaction because sometimes it requires less than 0.5sec's reaction which is closed to the limitation of human being's reactions. I am good at table tennis and sometimes when I play it with my partner in a high speed practice, I feel that it is a kind of feeling or instinct but not my eyes to lead me pick up every extremely fast ball. Compared to me , an amateur ,the professional players can make the paddle and the ball part of their body and enter into such an amplifying-time condition. On that level, players are using their spirit not the body to play it. Besides the speed , table tennis also requires a high stragety since there are several ways for the ball to spin. A greenhand may find the ball magical against a pro because the ball always goes the opposite way he doesnot expect. The combination of speed and spining makes table tennis a wonderful game.
Table tennis is originated in England but nowadays it is popular in China. As we can see just from one of Yangqi's truth and lies 'I can not play table tennis '. It is popular because it does not require a big ground or many people and the equipment are not expensive. However, just because no more than 4 people can attend in one game, it can be as competitve as the other big multi-players games such as basketball and soccer. Also it is such a designed game , not like soccer , kicking is a kind of human instinct, so it seems harder to know how to play than any others , which limits its popularity much.
