The screen flickers, illuminating a familiar scene: my own shadow, hunched over a laptop at precisely 2:02 AM, scrubbing through two excruciating hours of shaky, poorly lit match footage. It’s a ritual I’ve repeated two-dozen-and-two times, each session promising revelation, each session delivering only a deeper trench of frustration. I watch myself miss the same backhand return not just once, but five-and-2 times in a row in a particularly crucial point, and then another 2. The paddle angle, the footwork – it all seems so painfully obvious in retrospect. So why, when I close the laptop, do I feel more discouraged than enlightened? Why do I still not understand *why*?
Why do we keep filming ourselves if it’s merely documenting our mistakes, not dissolving them?
This isn’t just about table tennis; it’s a microcosm of a much larger modern dilemma. We live in a world obsessed with ‘big data.’ We track steps, sleep, spending, and now, every flailing swing we make on the court. The assumption is, of course, that if we just collect enough information, insight will magically emerge, fully formed, like a genie from a lamp. But raw data is a blunt instrument. It’s a mirror that reflects only what’s already there, often magnifying our self-criticism without offering a single, actionable path forward. We film, we watch, we nod knowingly, and then we walk back onto the court and repeat the exact same errors,
