help with rubbers for beginer.

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Hi

I am an advanced level beginner. I am currently practicing FH/BH counter attack and loop against robot and other players. I am using Stiga maple wood 5, Tenergy 64 on FH, Tenergy 05 on BF. My question is, is my racket an overkill for a beginner? I found it is hard to control in my practice with other players. The ball is always very fast and spiny and my practice partner can't get it back. If I intentionally hit the ball light, my stoke get affected.

Do I need to change racket, and if so, what rubber is best for practice basic strokes?

Many thanks
 
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Its mostly likely you and your practice partner, rather than the rubbers or paddle.

I equipment seems pretty good to me, I would just focus a lot more on the basics.
If your partner can't return your counter attacks and loops, then practice forehand to forehand and backhand to backhand hitting with him. Then after a few session of training the fundamentals, he should be able to do a better job of returning your shots.
 
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Tenergy is an over kill, over priced equipment for a beginner.
If your level isn't there, you are not using "all the features" of the "expensive" tensor rubbers. This is the main reason why I say it is "over"
But it is not a no-no, as Burns said, it may be a human error and not equipment.

However, if you serious to improve:
1) Get a coach
2) Ask coach about your equipment
3) big chance your coach will say - go for slower rubbers = more control (less capacult effect) and an allround blade.

Normally with fast tensor rubbers, it is difficult for beginner level players to feel the ball. As the ball will bounce off very fast.
That means you are not hitting the ball, the equipment is doing all the work. And from this, it can lead to maybe bad habbits.

I recently moved back to allround blade, after carbon and ZLC blade. Now with the all wood blade, I'm feeling the ball better than ever before.
 
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Thanks for the help. That explained why sometimes I feel I dont need much effort to hit the ball fast. My coach asked me to get a slower blade and rubber with better control. I am thinking of buying:

blade: WRB Energy Wood Penhold, or Allround Classic Penhold.

Rubber? I am not sure what to get. Sriver L 1.9 on both side?

I am learning penhold with RBH.
 
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I am not familiar with penhold blades in terms of speed and control but in the shakehandworld,
the Allround Classic and Sriver rubbers is a very safe bet for a beginner/learners setup.
Sriver L is IMHO the best learning rubber there is.
Very easy to play and control and yet it's precisely hard enough to punish poor strokes, so it will teach you to play correctly.


Merry x-mas and good luck :)
 
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Thanks for the help. That explained why sometimes I feel I dont need much effort to hit the ball fast. My coach asked me to get a slower blade and rubber with better control. I am thinking of buying:

blade: WRB Energy Wood Penhold, or Allround Classic Penhold.

Rubber? I am not sure what to get. Sriver L 1.9 on both side?

I am learning penhold with RBH.

Go for allround classic penhold.

Sriver to me is a bit expensive. Not sure what is available for you to get.....
For RPB - got for medium to medium soft sponge.
BH - 729 Focus 3 Snipe, KTL Pro XP, or Sriver L/EL, or many other simliar
FH go for something a bit harder than BH rubber. Sriver, Mark V type of rubbers.

But again, depending where you ordering from and what options is available for you.

BTW, keep your current blade in a good storage, after 6 months or 1 year, you can move back to it, or similar use those fast Tenergy rubbers on the allround blade
 
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I beg to differ on this common notion. I feel with the setup you had bought originally, you need to have the correct coaching. If you have coaches who will teach and drill you in shorter stroke techniques which is more common in europe its not that big a deal. Stroke techniques are different with slower rubbers
However, I am not sure about the offensive rating of your paddle ( the rubbers are okay ) , you might decide to have a OFF- blade to start with.
 
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I have a coach but he doesnt know much about penhold. He only teach me footwork, serve and so on. I mainly learned in the last few months from Wang Hao and Ma Lin's video. From those videoes, I developed Chinese style FH counter hit and loop, similar to Wang Hao. My arm is very straight when I loop. My BH is copied from Wang Hao but not consistent. I have big problem blocking from my backhand. I mainly practice backhand block and loop, forhand conterhit and loop, all against top spins. When I play with Robot, my stroke seems to be ok. But against practice partner, both me and my partner make many mistakes. The blade I am using now is stiga maple wood 5, which is OFF blade. I just ordered this afternoon a new blade stiga allaround classic with 2 SRiver L 1.9MM.
 
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Techniques of Wang Hao and Ma Lin are quite different , infact the grip itself is different to start with. Ma Lin has a traditional penhold grip where he uses only two fingers to grip the paddle with the rest three supporting it , where as Wang Hao has the last three fingers open and gripping the backhand side. Also, Wang Hao's forehand technique is different. However, I would suggest, try slapping your tenergies on to the stiga first , check what is appearing faster to you ( back hand or forehand ) , and change that with Sriver. You have to keep in mind that Sriver is an older rubber technology and people ( shakehanders ) mostly use it on the backhand. Rubber wise 05 > 64 >>> Sriver ( 1.9 ) . However, I have always found 05 better for my backhand ( contrary to what most people prefer , that is 64 ) just because 05 has more spin and hence gets the ball down faster in a loop if you can control the velocity.

Bottomline : You need to find a coach to teach you modern stroke technique with modern rubbers :) . Too a certain extent faster rubbers magnify faults in technique, slower rubber ensures that more balls go in the table however it may result in sticking with a wrong technique getting ingrained because you are ale to put the ball on the table nevertheless :) . I am not sure I am able to get the points across, do let me know if you have further questions
 
says Spin and more spin.
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I think the two perspectives of:

1) getting a slower setup

and

2) sticking with the setup and getting coaching to help you learn technique for the setup

both have their merits. It sounds like Yang's coach told him to get a slower setup. But it also sounds like Yang's coach is not really able to teach him penhold technique.

Since you already ordered the slower setup, you will be able to choose which method is right for you since you will have both setups.

I do know a lot of coaches who start players off with a more basic setup until they get control (about 2-5 months) before getting them to use something like Tenergy. You have to have a lot of control of the blade face and how you contact the ball to use those rubbers well. But, you can start with them and, with the right coaching, as ttmonster has said, learn the modern technique of short strokes right off the bat and simultaneously be learning to control how the blade face meets the ball, how much you contact, how much you brush, how much you let the ball sink into the sponge. The fact that both of the blades you will have are high quality, all wood blades, that help you feel the ball well, will help with developing the touch of how you contact the ball.

That original setup is pretty darn good though. Stiga Maplewood V and Tenergy. That must have run you about $240.00 USD (175.00 Euro, 147 British Pound).

Good luck.
 
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I actually know very little about blade and rubber. Original setup was suggested by a friend after I told him I want a bat good for attacking. It is good bat, very fast and spiny. But the t64 is vey hard to control. I can't keep the fh counter hit practice going for long as either me or my partner Makes mistake.

I will compare these two bats once I receive the new one. It is not easy to train without coach. I'm thinking of uploading video of me playing and get advice from good pen hold players



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says Spin and more spin.
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I actually know very little about blade and rubber. Original setup was suggested by a friend after I told him I want a bat good for attacking. It is good bat, very fast and spiny. But the t64 is vey hard to control. I can't keep the fh counter hit practice going for long as either me or my partner Makes mistake.

I will compare these two bats once I receive the new one. It is not easy to train without coach. I'm thinking of uploading video of me playing and get advice from good pen hold players

Not a bad idea. The option of coaching is ideal if you have access to it and can afford it. But, those are two big ifs. If you don't have access or money for coaching you do what ever you can to improve. Like the idea of the video and having people who know what they are talking about giving you suggestions.
 
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