Alvin Shiraishi had a look of focused determination as he sent the ball with topspin over the net at a recent table tennis tournament at the Palama Settlement gym. He responded with lightning-quick reflexes in a rally that set him on a back-and-forth dance around the edges of the table.

Although he ended up losing to opponent Kenneth Siu, a higher-ranked player, Shi­ra­ishi said it was a great 20 minutes.

"It was fun," he said. "I was playing in the elite group, so I learned a lot in my defeat. But I played well and got defeated three out of four matches."

Shiraishi, 58, considers himself a competitive intermediate-level player, but he’s in it more for the exercise and camaraderie than for the trophies.

"Most of my life it was just recreational," said the massage therapist. "It was playing in my uncle’s garage or someone’s backyard, in the dorms at (the University of Hawaii)."

Then about 10 years ago he got more serious about the sport. He joined the Hawaii Table Tennis Club, invested more than $100 in a paddle and began playing up to six times a week.

"I had dreams about grandeur, at first, and about how good I could get," he said. "As I get older, it’s become more for fitness."

Pingpong for fitness?

"At a certain level the game is very different than playing in a garage," he said.

Table tennis is a great aerobic workout that requires intensive legwork, hand-eye coordination and mental agility, according to Shi­ra­ishi. It’s as much a sport as tennis, basketball and golf — all sports that Shi­ra­ishi plays.

With pingpong balls coming at you at a rate of up to 60 per minute, it can take only five minutes for a serious player to break a sweat, he said.

The game also requires strength, strategy and finesse.

"There is a certain amount of strength involved," he said. "It might not be the weightlifting kind of strength, but it’s still a strength of technique. … With pingpong you don’t have to be really muscular and bulky, but you need good legs and you have to move really well."

Shiraishi’s favorite moments are when he’s "in the zone."

"It’s not unlike tennis, but the ball comes so much faster and you can’t be thinking about the bad day you had at work," he said. "You have to be in the moment, the here and now."

It’s a way of stilling the mind, he said, sort of like meditation.

TABLE TENNIS originated in England in the 1880s, making its official Olympic debut at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul with solo and team competitions for men and women.

There are leagues across the U.S., with a rating system for different skill levels.

Shiraishi in recent years has shifted to playing more pingpong instead of tennis or basketball, which he said are harder on the elbows and knees. He still enjoys golf, but doesn’t get the same kind of workout in a short amount of time that he can from pingpong.

He plays about three times a week at various recreation centers, including Palama Settlement, Bere­ta­nia Community Park and Kilauea District Park in Kai­muki.

Part of the fun is the camaraderie.

The approximately 50 members of the Hawaii Table Tennis Club represent all walks of life and professions who became friends and mentors to one another.

"The great part about this sport is, you look at the ages and you have anywhere from 16 years old all the way to 87," he said. "You meet all kinds of people. It’s one of the few sports you can have such a wide level of ages and skill levels."

Shiraishi likes to talk about the "pingpong diplomacy" that improved U.S.-Chinese relations during the Nixon administration. In 1971 nine pingpong players became the first Americans to step on Chinese soil since the Communist takeover in 1949.

"When they went to China to play pingpong, at some point they didn’t say, ‘These are Americans,’ but, ‘These are fellow pingpong players,’" he said. "‘They respect and love our national sport,’ and that helped break the ice."

He sees the same magic happening in the multicultural mix of the pingpong community in Hono­lulu. It’s what motivates him.

In fact, Shiraishi said he hopes to keep playing "maybe until I’m 105."