Evening star., 1944-07-15
This and That
By Charles E. Traceuel.

Table tennis is no sissy game Tenn
pleton Jones found this out the other
day after an hours workout.
He had taken up this game-which
he knew in his childhood as ping pong
at the instigation of an enthusiast who
told him that it is good for the eyes.
Having some little knowledge of the
Bates system of eye exercises, Jones at
once said that table tennis would be
the Bates system in action.
SO he took it up at once. and found
that 1t was more than just good eye
exercise, as important as that is-it Is
mighty good fun and swell game.
An hour at the table is guaranteed to
put any middle aged gentleman into a
sweat.
This is one game where the worse
player you are the more exercise you
get-bending exercise, that is in picking
the ball up off the floor.
The ping pong ball, as he still calls
1t, has always intrigued Templeton
Jones. Made of celluloid, it must weigh
just so many grams, and have a bounce
Of so many inches when dropped on a
regulation table from height of foot
Jones has peculiar reason for re-
membering table tennis balls.
In his youthful days, when he was
about 10 years old. he belonged to a
gang whose members had many sports,
one OF which was to see how many ping
pong balls one could swipe from a WELL
known sporting goods store on Four
teenth street.
1t was simply sporting proposition.
All the boys came from well do fami-
lies, so that there was no need for
amateur theft. The boys went in, looked
around, and while the clerk was en-
gagged by one. the remainder filled their
pockets with ping pong balls.
After they got home, they compared
their takes, and the winner was he who
rolled out on the table the most ping
pong balls.
In 1884 the makers of the equipment
for this game got together and decided
to call it table tennis, and so it is cor
rectly called to this day.
Old timers, however, think of it as
ping pong, and probably always will.
Whatever it is called, it is a fine game,
which may be perfectly adjusted to the
capacities of the players.
The worse you play, as stated, the
more exercise you get.
Any rectangular dining room table
will do, but the official tables, of course,
properly made, are the best.
In champion table tennis matches q
hall is required, to permit plenty of
space at both ends and at the sides.
hn f1a
skill needed. This is one game, Jones
feeling. Just battling the ball back and
a great deal Of fun.
X
AS for the eye value of table tennis, it
rests on the enforced movement of the
eyes in watching the white ball against
dark background.
Keeping the eyes on the ball is q
fundamental rule of the game
This inceSsant eye movement is what
the Bates system calls shifting. Shifting
and central f1xation are two of the car
dinal tenents of this method of helping
ones eyes,
Children keep looking around all the
time, and look very pointedly at what
they are looking; the aim of the adult
should be to get back to the good eye
habits Of youth.
Table tennis enforces both rapid and
constant shifting, and central fixation.
After about an hours play, the eyes feel
easy and relaxed.
Try 1t sometime and see, says Tenn
pleton Jones. And play that backhand
stroke properly-keep the back of the
hand to the net, not the front.
Jones does it right instinctively. II
didn't swipe ali those ping pong balls
In my youth for nothing" he boasts.