Your measure of the amount of e ff o r t

that is expended by performing

each of these table tennis maneuvers once
• Write your measure to the right of each listed maneuver.

• To give us a baseline that standardizes the weight of what all respondents will
deem a unit of effort, I rated the survey’s first maneuver (a push that is high and
slow) as 1 (i.e., taking one unit of effort).
• If you think any maneuver needs less effort than a push that is high and slow,
rate it as a decimal number, including a zero to the left of your decimal point.
• There is no pre-set maximum or minimum number for the measures that you write
because I can’t know (and no one can know) what multiple or fraction of the amount
of effort that is needed for a high and slow push is the amount of effort that is
needed for the maneuver that someone else considers the most demanding or for the
maneuver that someone considers the least demanding.

Instructions unnecessary and irrelevant unless you think this survey is

unanswerable:
Ignore any factors that preclude the survey’s measurement by making you scrutinize
and overturn the survey’s premise or methodology: factors such as…
• the difference between a high-quality execution of a maneuver and a low-quality
execution of it
• the differences between different players’ age, strength, paddle, grip, level of skill
or gender
• whether the setting is a tournament or a basement
• whether a player is trying to win a match or a bet or is just practicing or
experimenting
• whether physical, mental, spiritual and instinctive efforts can be lumped together
for weighing on one scale
• how much overlap there is (and isn’t) between effort and force, creativity, attention,
skill, the requisite quantity of training or the requisite quality of training
• and whether effort decreases a person’s supply of energy needed for other effort.
In short: Disregard any complicating factor by assuming “all other things being
equal.”

Posit an imaginary/average / typical/ generic / random table tennis player or answer

about one that you have watched or coached or about yourself.
 Maneuvers
a push that is high and slow (1)
a push that is low and fast
a block
a drive
heavy underspin
heavy topspin
returning heavy underspin
returning heavy topspin
returning heavy underspin with a shot that
doesn’t let the opponent take over
returning heavy topspin with a shot that
doesn’t let the opponent take over
brushing the ball lightly
a forehand shot with full-body rotation,
including during the backswing
a loop
a counterloop
a twiddle of the paddle
an unreturnable forehand smash
an unreturnable backhand smash
returning an unreturnable smash
a low and very short drop shot
returning a low and very short drop shot
a drop shot that isn’t low or very short
returning a drop shot that isn’t low or very
short
returning an errant net ball
a snake (a.k.a. a corkscrew lob)
returning a snake
a fast piece of footwork
jumping
changing the direction of a jump in mid-air
finding a place to stand from which the
opponent doesn’t like being served to
stomping when serving
yelling “Cho” after a rally
bellowing “Cho lei” after a rally
picking the ball up off the floor after a rally
remembering, when the opponent’s rating is
300 points higher, that s/he can lose
remembering, when the opponent’s rating is
300 points lower, that s/he can win
resisting temptation to become emotional
a five-bounce serve
a ten-foot pre-serve toss
a fifteen-foot pre-serve toss
a pre-serve stare in the eye
ignoring the opponent’s pre-serve ritual
remembering to call out the score before
serving