When I read Pico Iyer’s book about aging in Japan, “Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells”, I discovered and envied that ping pong was a key element in his life that kept him active and social in his community. As most of us, I’d played in my youth and loved it then, and wished I had such a connection in my own life.
I kept watching for opportunities and luckily, I found two. The first one helped me get up to speed on re-entering the game after all of these years. People were kind and generous in helping me begin again, learn rules, and volley for practice.
After that, I discovered that my own community center had a regular seniors group that played doubles ping pong, almost exactly the same as Pico Iyer’s community group was set up. Lucky me.
Even though I’m in pretty good physical and aerobic condition, the game keeps one sweating and hopping. It’s so much fun even when you lose most of the time. ;-( . You also lose your ego, which is a good thing. Learning to play is easy, but playing well is very, very difficult. It takes a lot of practice and complete focus. There is endless learning involved as we all strive to improve ourselves. I can’t imagine a better activity for the over-60 age. We all need a place to just show up on a regular basis, and a way to challenge our bodies, brains, and ability to focus and move with agility.
Neurologists are beginning to love ping pong for their Parkinson’s and other patients. One young man I play with is slowly recovering from a benign brain cyst removal by playing ping pong once a week.
Next, I’ll turn it over to Pico, who gave this TED talk about playing Ping Pong “What Ping Pong Taught Me About Life”.
One Seeker's Story 