Butterfly Garaydia ALC

Hi All,

I played with this blade for about 2.5 years now and thought i'd share my impressions of it.
It is by the far the fastest blade I have ever played with and i suspect that will be true for most people. Compared to a viscaria I would say its about 20 to 30% faster easily. However I wouldn't say that it is uncontrollable, as I found it it super easy to block with and on the forehand side topspin would generally go where I intended them to go. In general opening up on the forehand or countering is pretty straight forward as the blade feels very stable and when the contact is good it the resulting shot is fast enough to either lead to a direct point or an easy follow up shot in most cases.

Additionally, while the feeling/ feedback isn't great its not as bad as it initially seems. When i first got the blade it seemed very dull and muted, however nowadays I am quite conformable touching balls short and it performs well in general over the table play considering the speed. That being said, its night and day when compared to pretty much any wooden blade i have played with and even compared other ALC blades the touch is lacking. This also comes into play when playing opening loops against backspin and sometimes flicking, where i frequently miss due to the pure speed of the blade.

All in all I think its a great blade for players that play relatively flat and have a big forehand with a passive backhand. I've personally found myself to be almost addicted to the feeling of playing a good forehand with the blade, which is probably the primary reason for me sticking with the blade for so long along whit a nice backhand punch. However I suspect that my terrible backhand opening loop has much to do with the speed of the blade since i'm much better at it whit slower blades and have therefore decided to switch to a slower alc blade with the aim of relying less on power and speed on more on spin.

Hello Everyone!

A video of the Unboxing:


I bought this blade at Hamada Takkyu, in Namba @ Osaka, Japan. The heaviest they had was 87.5g. I added Nittaku Lead Tape on the handle plus TSP Hand Grip wrap. The Handle is Very thin for me, so this works perfectly with the added Grip tape.

I use Hurricane 8 on the FH and Mizuno GF 48T for my BH. At first, started to use Tibhar EL-S for my BH and found it too mushy for my taste. (Med Soft Rubber + Soft Blade = Mushy Mushy imo) Switching to Mizuno 48T was great because its a Hard rubber.

Ill give a short summary:
Using this blade for a month, i found out that:
This blade excels on Imparting great spin on loops.
Has a Small Sweet spot(Imho)(Just a nudge higher than an all wood blade)
Great for Flicks and over the table play
Using Chinese Rubber when driving, i needed to hit the ball as if i was doing a flat drive with a brushing motion at the end.
As for Chopping, There are better blades out there but you still can generate heaps of underspin.
Low Throw blade, Excellent for Blocking
As for pushing, give it that extra push because most backspin balls will go to the net.
The Hinoki did its job well by providing a soft feel but what i disliked about it was the lack of feed back(vibration) that i receive from every stroke.(Thats arylate carbon for yah)
Superb Control, around off- in speed

*i might add more content in the future, for any questions, dont hesitate to ask.