I may have mentioned this earlier in another thread some time ago, but I'm currently a college student who's been playing at my university's table tennis club for 2 years now. Our school is small and we do not have a coach or really adequate players/training equipment, but we make do and we're hopeful to get some funding this semester for a coach or at least practice space a few times a week. We're relatively small and our player quality is pretty bad, if I had to rate them by US scale, they'd around US 800-1100.
Regarding my form, I'm a penholder and I currently use the yasaka sweden classic with tornado v5 FH and focus 3 BH. I feel like I practice more and my technique is better, but I still lose pretty often to a lot of people with worse off forms than me, which is likely because my game mentality is bad, or I have awful habits. When I practice, my form is good and I find myself able to execute almost all basic strokes but in game, the chance never arises to perform some strokes or my game gets so stiff and passive that I'm unable to do it. The worst example is my RPB, which I get complimented so much on during practice, completely goes away during games where a ball would come and I would just end up weakly holding my backhand in front of me like a soft block.
Some bad habits and weaknesses I note off the top of my head:
Some of my strengths (or at least those that I think are decent).
Equipment wise, I've been having serious issues with finding the right equipment that will help me develop as a player and be moderately competitive with. The yasaka sweden classic and focus 3 BH are perfect for me as of now. The tornado v5 I currently have on the FH I don't like because I feel like I have to close my paddle way too much to keep balls on the table, and looping is stupidly hard with it compared to my tg3 neo. When I execute a loop, I can feel the elasticity of the rubber and the ball getting brushed by the sponge. For the v5 it bottoms out and just feels like a flat hit regardless of how well it was done.
I'm currently looking for a decent quality tacky chinese forehand rubber for beginners that's under $20. One that's not too hard, but with excellent control and moderate speed. So far, I have used: Hurricane 3, Skyline 3 (I saw not recommended for beginners, too powerful). Reactor Corbor (don't like), Tornado v5 (Hard sponge is meh, but tackiness is good). Higher Transcend ( not bad, less elastic as tg3, but more than v5 or corbor
Some tacky, control rubbers I'm looking at right now include:
Regarding my form, I'm a penholder and I currently use the yasaka sweden classic with tornado v5 FH and focus 3 BH. I feel like I practice more and my technique is better, but I still lose pretty often to a lot of people with worse off forms than me, which is likely because my game mentality is bad, or I have awful habits. When I practice, my form is good and I find myself able to execute almost all basic strokes but in game, the chance never arises to perform some strokes or my game gets so stiff and passive that I'm unable to do it. The worst example is my RPB, which I get complimented so much on during practice, completely goes away during games where a ball would come and I would just end up weakly holding my backhand in front of me like a soft block.
Some bad habits and weaknesses I note off the top of my head:
- I don't get low enough when I drop my legs and arm.
- I can't return any of my opponents attacks when they open up the ball
- My shots are always flat.
- I'm too slow to loop fast balls
- Serves too obvious
- I don't have time to aim and my shots are always centered (Footwork is bad)
- My loop does not have as much arc (possibly because of chinese, hard, tacky rubbers I use)
Some of my strengths (or at least those that I think are decent).
- My forehand flat hit is strong.
- RPB is good when I practice my form.
- The spin I generate on serves is good
- I can RPB flick a lot of my opponent's serves.
- I can attack well off of lob
- I can loop underspin long on the table.
Equipment wise, I've been having serious issues with finding the right equipment that will help me develop as a player and be moderately competitive with. The yasaka sweden classic and focus 3 BH are perfect for me as of now. The tornado v5 I currently have on the FH I don't like because I feel like I have to close my paddle way too much to keep balls on the table, and looping is stupidly hard with it compared to my tg3 neo. When I execute a loop, I can feel the elasticity of the rubber and the ball getting brushed by the sponge. For the v5 it bottoms out and just feels like a flat hit regardless of how well it was done.
I'm currently looking for a decent quality tacky chinese forehand rubber for beginners that's under $20. One that's not too hard, but with excellent control and moderate speed. So far, I have used: Hurricane 3, Skyline 3 (I saw not recommended for beginners, too powerful). Reactor Corbor (don't like), Tornado v5 (Hard sponge is meh, but tackiness is good). Higher Transcend ( not bad, less elastic as tg3, but more than v5 or corbor
Some tacky, control rubbers I'm looking at right now include:
- Globe 999T
- Sanwei T88 (What is I, II, III, Taiji??)
- Battle 2 (Heard it's much too hard for beginners)
- Big Dipper (Seen relatively good reviews so far.)
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