Expert in a Year: Coached by Ben Larcombe, Sam Priestley gets seriously good at table tennis

Well-meaning millions make New Years resolutions, but only a tiny fraction follow through on their lofty aspirations. What if — with dedicated practice — you could go from a ping-pong chump to champ in just one calendar year?

The original Expert in a Year Challenge was the brainchild of professional table tennis coach Ben Larcombe, in part, to prove the old adage “practice makes perfect.” With Sam Priestley as his student, the two embarked on an experiment in 2014 to see if a novice could become an expert in twelve months and break into the top 250 players in England.

You don't need to have the best equipment or the best training facilities in order to see improvements. Actually, those things really aren't very important at all. Sam did 90% of his #tabletennis training on a table top conversion, balanced on top of a cheap IKEA table, in a kitchen that was small and cramped, with his housemates often cooking or washing up less than a metre behind him, using my old bats and dead Tenergy rubbers. Make the best of what you've got. The most important thing is that you actually #dothework.

A photo posted by Ben Larcombe (@benlarcombe) on Mar 13, 2015 at 3:05am PDT

While Priestley was unable to crack the top 250, he did get seriously good at table tennis. Larcombe sat down with his student at the end of the year to answer questions submitted by followers of the pair.

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The two co-authored a book (available on Amazon) in which Priestley documents the ups and downs of his odyssey into sport. Larcombe’s blog invites readers to embark on their own Expert in a Year challenge, with a wannabe marathoner and a Brazilian jiu jitsu practitioner heeding the call.