Suppose you have a large gathering and you are asked to do a demonstration/exhibition? Here are some pointers on how to do a great one.

1. Bring needed equipment. Besides the obvious table and balls, you might want to have spare rackets for players from the audience, barriers, boxes of balls (to demonstrate multiball), ball pickup nets, and a scoreboard. You might also want to bring any props you might use - mini- or over-sized rackets, for example. Bring flyers about local table tennis, especially coaching programs if it's for kids.
2. Introduce yourself and your partner. Then give a short talk about the sport. Keep it short - you don't want to bore them. I typically ask them (with a show of hands) how many have played table tennis before; have been to a table tennis club; own their own racket; knew that table tennis was an Olympic sport; and knew that the best players train 6-8 hours/day and make over a million dollars per year. By asking for a show of hands, you get audience participation, which you want. I often end some of the questions with showing of hands of those too embarrassed to raise their hand either time (and I often slyly raise my hand). If you aren't good at public speaking, practice!!! When I first became a coach and had to lecture to groups, I took a class on public speaking, and spent hours practicing by talking to my dog and the dryer. (It makes it more realistic if you have something alive or moving to practice to.)
3. Make sure to talk about local table tennis opportunities! Here's a good time to give out flyers.
4. Give a short demo - again, keep it short. Make sure to have a partner who can rally with you. Then demo the forehand, the backhand, looping, and lobbing, giving a short explanation for each. You can also do chopping if one of you can do that and the other can attack them consistently. You can also give a short demo on serves, showing how a backspin ball can come back into the net, for example. Let it be known that at the end you'll let them try to return the serves.
5. Do an exhibition. It's not a real game; you want spectacular rallies. I like to start by telling the audience that a terrible thing has happened, that my partner - after years of getting coaching from me - has gotten a big head, and thinks he/she can beat me. Then we have a challenge match to 11 points. Neither of us use our spin serves, though I'll throw in a lot of spectacular high-toss serves and maybe a few fast ones, but nothing deceptive. Then rally! Lobbing is best, but don't overdo it or it gets a bit redundant - and perhaps save the best lobbing points for toward the end. (I often fall to the ground and lob while lying and sitting on the floor.) You can play the exhibition "straight," with just good shots, or do more humorous trick shots, as I often like to do, where I pull out the big racket, the mini-racket, a clipboard, do 50-foot serves, blow the ball back, and argue with the umpire.
6. Finish with audience participation. I find the best way is to let the audience line up and try to return serves - two misses and they out (and they'll usually race to the end of the line to try again). Be flamboyant - serve with sidespin, put your racket on the table, and move to where the ball should go and catch it. Or serve backspin, and as you do so, tell them, "Don't go into the net!" I often ask if they want "Speed or Spin," and then give it to them. After you've done this a few rounds, that's the to explain how to return spins serves, and then take your time with each player, showing them where to aim - down and to the side against sidespin, and up against backspin.
7. Give a final short statement, reminding them about local table tennis, and thank them for coming. 

This one is short and sweet. From now on, whenever you hit a really good shot, REMEMBER the feel of that shot - the positioning, stroke, and contact. Then repeat. When you make a poor shot, put the feel of that one out of your mind like it never happened and remember the feel of the good ones. The only time to think about a poor shot is if you absolutely cannot figure out how to make it a good one, and so have to analyze it. That is all. 

Many players constantly obsess over their strokes, rightfully wanting to have "perfect technique." While that's admirable, it often keeps them from reaching their full potential. Why? Because the obsession with perfect technique often comes at the expense of developing consistency, serves, and receive. (Plus, what is "perfect technique"? Not all of the best players have the same technique.)

Especially for players who have played a long time, trying to change technique is difficult and time-consuming. Instead, assuming the players had pretty good technique, the time might instead be used for developing consistency with those techniques, developing great serves, and mastering receive. If players obsessed over these as much as having "perfect technique," many would reach higher levels.

This doesn't mean one shouldn't try to develop great technique - but it's all about the law of diminishing returns. Kids, and beginners without bad habits already ingrained, should focus on great technique. Others might settle for good (or perhaps very good) technique - and then, by using that technique for years, develop consistency without going for that elusive "perfect technique." Meanwhile, few players really develop their serves to a high level, and even fewer become good at receive, which is often called "everyone's weakness."

So if you have good technique, discuss with a coach the relative advantages of going for perfect technique in limited practice time, versus working toward consistency, serve, and receive. Because guess what? Most matches below the highest levels are won on those three.

Before you serve you should always visualize what the ball is going to do. It amazes me how many players just serve without really doing this. Top players have practiced their serves so much that this is instinctive - they don't think about it, they just know exactly what the ball is going to do. Visualizing a serve means seeing in your head before you serve the contact, direction, speed, spin, height, depth, bounces, and curve of the ball.

One fun way of practicing this is to make your serves do tricks. For example, try serving backspin where you graze the ball so finely that all your energy goes into backspin - and so the serve bounces backward into the net. But it's not enough for the ball to come backwards - you should be able to visualize its actual path in advance. Try serving where you visualize how deep the ball will go and how many bounces before it comes backwards, and the direction it'll come back (since most backspin serves have some sidespin as well). This visualizing includes what the ball does on your side of the net - how fast the ball will travel, where the first bounce on your side will be, and how low to the net it'll be. (When first practicing heavy backspin serves or trying to make the ball bounce backwards, don't worry about serving too low. But as you master the serve, you want the ball to practically skim the net.)

Serving backspin so that the ball bounces back into the net isn't really a serve you need in a match. In fact, it's better to drive such a backspin serve out more so that the second bounce is near the end-line, making it difficult for the receiver to attack, push short, or rush you with a quick, deep push. But the key is being able to control the serve - and you can't control it unless you know what you want the ball to do. Try to visualize the entire path of the ball in advance, including both bounces on the far side, and the way the ball curves between bounces if there's sidespin.

Do the same with a regular sidespin serve, where you serve to one side of the table, but curve it back to the other side - but visualize the curving path of the ball in advance. Perhaps set up a target and try to curve the ball into the target.

Then do the same thing with your deep serves, perhaps putting up targets on the far end-line, and try to hit them - again, visualizing the entire path of the ball in advance, right up until it smacks the target. Then do the same with all your other serves, with or without targets.

At first, this visualizing will feel like a hassle that slows you down. But soon it'll become second nature, and you won't even think about it - but you'll have master control over your serves. 

In a Tip of the Week called The Book on Your Game, I wrote, "If you can't write a book on your game, either you don't know your game or you don't have a game." It's as simple as that.

You don't need to actually write that book, but you should outline it. This will force you think about the various aspects of your game - your strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between, as well as where you want to go with your game. It'll get you to actually thinking about the things you should be thinking about if you want to improve. So let's put together an outline of such an outline. Note that we're not interested in inventorying and analyzing every stroke; what's important are what techniques you actually use. Your assignment, should you choose to accept, is to complete this outline for your game.

1. General

• What is your style of play in one sentence? (It can be a long one.)
  • Example - the author's: All-out forehand attacker, both looping and smashing (but first loop sometimes too soft), with strong serve & attack, good receive, a steady but too passive backhand, and steady, all-around defense - blocking, fishing, lobbing, and sometimes even chopping.
• Strengths
  • What's the strongest part of your game?
  • How do you get it into play?
  • How are you turning this strength into something can dominate even against stronger players?
• Weaknesses
  • What's the weakest part of your game?
  • How do cover for it?
  • What are you doing to improve this weakness?

2. Strokes

• Forehand attack
  • Against push
  • Against block
  • Against loop (counterloop or smash)
• Forehand defense or counter-attack
• Backhand attack
  • Against push
  • Against block
  • Against loop (counterloop or smash)
• Backhand defense or counter-attack
• Pushing
  • Long
  • Short

3. Footwork

• Close to table
• Off table
• In and out during rally
• Covering middle
• Short to forehand and back
• Recovery
• General positioning
• Ready position

4. Serve

• Serves that set up your attack
• Trick serves (important but not to be overused)
• Variety of motions
• Variety of spins
• Fast, deep serves
• Variety of depths and depth control
• Low to net

5. Receive

• Forehand against long serves
• Backhand against long serves
• Forehand against short serves
  • Short push
  • Long push
  • Flip
  • Variation
• Backhand against short serves
  • Short push
  • Long push
  • Flip
  • Variation

6. Physical

• General fitness
• Foot speed
• Strength
• Endurance

7. Mental

• Clear-minded and focused
  • At start of match
  • When behind
  • When ahead
  • At end of close games
• Know how to recover from loss of focus
• Know when to call time-outs to recover focus

8. Tactical

• Understand what serves set up your game
• Understand what receives set up your game
• Understand what type of rallies you want to get into
• Know how to get your strengths into play
• Know how to cover for your weaknesses
• Good at scouting opponents in advance
• Good at analyzing opponents during a match
• Consistently able to find two or three simple tactics that allow you to win
• Understand what you need to develop in your game to increase your tactical arsenal