From Korbel to Viscaria a big step up?

[dominus7]

I changed to Viscaria last year and played my worst season ever since I started playing.
(And I play competitively for 6 years)

It's not an easy blade to switch to imo and i recommend you use the money you would spend on a Viscaria on a good coach.

Good coaches here in my region work at day, and I work so, the only time is by night and there just 1 coach, he's not the best but either the worst, most of players here are 40+ yo and many played tournaments in their youth, not like me, that I just met the table tennis as sport just in December of 2016, so the gap is enormous about experience, but thanks to this forum, the coach and internet , I can make shorter that gap.

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[dominus7]

I suspect I have been in a situation eerily similar to yours, and my experience might help inform you about what the right course of action is.

I went exactly from the Korbel with H3 Neo/MX-P to a Viscaria with the same setup. In my opinion the Viscaria is the most well-rounded blades you can buy, and it is definitively one of the most popular blades among professional players, especially when you factor in its 'clones,' such the TB-ALC and TBS. If you cannot play well with the Viscaria, all your shortcomings are due to your technique, and decidedly not your equipment. The Viscaria is capable of supporting the play of some of the very best players to have ever played table tennis. I would suggest buying one if you have the money, if not just for the psychological benefit of worrying less about your equipment. I can tell you that once I upgraded, truth be told, I'm not even sure I could tell the difference besides the weight and speed, but knowing I was playing with one of the best blades ever made really took my mind off my equipment and drove me to focus entirely on my technique. I hope this helps.

I would also like to say something I learned firsthand that goes against the grain somewhat. I would not recommend that someone who does not practice regularly and/or does not receive good training uses hurricane without boosting it (that is, I don't suggest you use it right out of the package). The rubber is so hard and slow that a beginner/intermediate player will likely either develop improper technique to compensate for how incredibly slow and hard it is, or will end up frustrated with the quality of their shots. I remember my first season playing table tennis, I hurt my shoulder because I was trying to force too much power through my shoulder as a compensation for how slow the rubber was. While this is certainly an example of bad technique, it's easy to fall into these bad habits to try to get too much out of a rubber that will not give you a lot of speed. I would suggest either boosting it (a complicated and ethically ambiguous process), or switching to a more modern rubber on the forehand that will allow you to slow down your stroke and focus on hitting with proper technique.

Lastly, pain is certainly indicative of either underlying physiological problems (such as untreated injury), or is a result of bad form. You need to make sure you can hit without pain. If you feel pain you need to identify either a movement you are doing that is wrong, and that causes pain, or an injury you have that you need to rest.

Thanks for share your experience, I'm this case the use of viscaria and not a Liu Shiwen, or TBS, or TB ALC, is because I've been testing those blades and I won more rallies with the Viscaria than other blades, the feeling of Korbel is awesome, I had a Yinhe e3 and that's the only blade with the almost same feeling, but I've sold it, as I've sold whole my racquets, because I just want to stick with only 1 setup. The Korbel H3N FH, MX-P BH or MX-P FH, GA8 BH.

I had shoulder injury several times and once I couldn't move my arm for a week and I couldn't sleep either, it was the worst pain that I had ever, btw I don't take analgesic or pills for pain, that's happened when I was using Chinese rubbers, since that event I didn't want to use Chinese rubbers but the h3n is awesome to control and short games, but for kill the ball is very hard to get the speed with spin, otherwise I hit it like a baseball bat

 

[Der_Echte]

Good for you, Der! Wish I could say as much. Anyway, the deeper point I was trying to make is not that there is a strict age at which pain comes, but more generally that you, me, everybody (including all the representatives of the Illinois law enforcement community who have chosen to join us here) need to come to terms with aging. We are not forever young. That's a myth, and you can remain in denial for a while, but at some point that won't wash anymore.

Well, Der_Echte has age test verified that there is no HARD age that such and such is gunna happen, but for me, it was in my young to mid 30s that I noticed I could no longer get away with consuming sugars, processed wheat/corn, or miss too much sleep without a serious effect on my body. I just don't have crazy pain syndromes. I have had more than my share of injuries in my line of work and play, but even there I was very fortunate. I got no big gripes about how the physical stuff turned out for me over life.

 

[Der_Echte]

Now the Illinois law enforcement officials, how are they significantly different from Los Angelas or St. Louis area ones? Yes, overall, I would agree they are not to professional "Standard" whatever that should be.

America has FOUR major problems with law enforcement. But first, I will saw the mission of law enforcement to exist is proper given the circumstances of others violating or abusing others' basic rights and the order of society. The problem of the execution in law enforcement lies with our people, the ones we select to enforce law, and our laws and system themselves.

1) Our people in USA we have WAY TOO MANY ones who have no basic respect for the rights of others or the contribution to a well ordered productive society and/or are very selfish - go to lengths to do what they want regardless of consequences to others/society. We can argue up and down why this is so. I certainly believe there are a whole host of "other" things not so accidentally helping this to small and huge degrees, but the main one is a failure of PARENTING.

Children are influenced most by the parents when developing ethos, values, and character. If the parents become selfish, if the parents cease to exist together (almost 1/3 of kids born do not have parents right away) (more than 1/2 do not have both original parents by the time they are 12).


This causes children to get their values elsewhere outside control of parent or enhanced bad by absent or compromised bad parent(s) Not every child develops "bad" values in this situation and there are always exceptions, but the odds and numbers are there.


2) We select the WRONG kind of people overall to be in law enforcement, then fail to train and supervise them acceptably. YES, police work in USA overall is a real difficult task with many challenging dynamic situations the average citizen does not see. Those disclaimers out of the way, here we go.

JUDGMENT and values/attitude are the two biggest things we get wrong with the ones we select to serve in law enforcement. It takes strong values, knowledge, experience, and judgment to determine which situations require which response considering which actions can be done with which odds of efficiency. Sometimes there is time to decide, sometimes not. Training and experience are assets. The ones we select for law enforcement are mostly lacking this (like most citizens) and the training courses we put them through are not enough to build enough of a foundation for a law enforcement person to "get there. No training class could prepare one totally for what one must do in law enforcement.


This dynamic is magnified when the officers and supervisors have attitudes of superiority and do not carry in themselves a mission to professionally serve and treat others respectfully and properly. Some situations do not allow time to show this, many do. Rules of engagement and have to judge and manage situations are kicking the azz of law enforcement people overall. The vids we all see on social media show this a lot, whether they are slanted or not. The attitude and values thing are difficult to enforce as we have unions and basic rules that make us quantify things, often it can be hard to document things given that. It is difficult to fairly enforce that enterprise wide given our personnel set.

3) USA makes so many laws that makes too many things illegal that have little bearing on social order or well being. Some of these laws start out with an intent for the benefit of society as a whole, but have crept to the bad side over time.

Where else in the world as whole would you get fined $2000 for driving at the speed of the flow of traffic? Then, as the average citizen cannot shyt $2000 for a fine and needs a car to work to pay rent, will drive again and the numbers catch up. Then one could not pay 3-5 of these tickets and loses license, but still must drive to get to work and eventually could be tossed in jail for a good spell to pay off the accumulated fines. This is a small example and we could argue many.

One point to take away is USA criminalizes many things needlessly, even if we do have a lot of criminally minded people.

4) The prisons in USA are mostly managed by for-profit PRIVATE companies. Prisoners in USA jails (yes we have MILLIONS and MILLIONS in jail) are strongly "Encouraged" to work for a very tiny wage under the auspices of "reforming" a prisoner. You can guess who is making a lot of money and the system that provides these outfits what is for all purposes and intents slave labor.

We can see the motivation of the continued existence of a system that is feeding all this.

All the other supporting factors are that, the lawyers, judges, govt officials and others aiding the system support and aggravate it.

Rapists, armed robbers, violent offenders, and others who are takers from society deserve to be in a very miserable difficult oppressive prison without rights, they forfeited them. Yet, anyone with any knowledge and sense can see that the USA prison system is not that and exists for other reasons.

 

[Der_Echte]

Police in Germany might have changed since I last lived there and left in the 2000s. I hope it didn't.

German police were overall a very good example of a trained force with professionalism and judgment overall in executing their duties without being pushy bully abusing.

They professionally, respectfully, and calmly dealt with situations while being firm.

An extreme example might be as below. Of course stuff never happens this way, but it illustrates the attitude and basic respectfulness of police there when I lived there.

2200:00 PM Police: Sir, you cannot be outside in just your underwear blasting your stereo loud like this drinking 2 racks of beer. Please shut off your stereo, take it inside your residence, and get dressed now. Maybe you should also go to sleep.

2200:03 PM Citizen: Screw off.

2200:06 PM Police: Please comply in a timely manner, Sir.

2200:10 PM Citizen: Lick my toes pig.

2200:16 PM Police: Sir, we are sorry to take this action, but it is for your own good and that of the neighborhood.

2200:20 PM Policeman #1 steps between citizen and Policewoman#2 at a distance of 2 steps and Policewoman #2 goes to stereo and turns it off, begins to unplug it all. Citizen makes an aggressive step towards Policeman #1, who quickly subdues citizen, who suddenly has some serious twisted arm syndrome and somehow is asleep. Policewoman #2 carries stereo equipment to the apartment door of citizen, knocks, and hands off equipment to resident. Policeman #1 pushes, drags citizen to apartment door, citizen enters his residence. Police thank citizen and resident for complying in a prompt manner.

2205:00 Police depart.

In USA, the world, or anywhere, respect works both ways. In USA, we have problems on both sides, so it isn't going to resolve itself overnight with congress passing a new law or appropriating funds to start a program.

 

[Arubinsento]

Stick with Korbel. Best blade for me imo

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

If anyone is interested, this is footage from about 8 months ago of Dominus working with a coach:

In 8 months things can change. But there was a lot going on that was not so great from a technical standpoint back then and back then he was a big EJ.

Without seeing new footage that shows he knows how to move his feet and adjust to the ball or to actually do something to the ball like make spin contact, I am suspicious of the reasons for him wanting a Viscaria rather than wanting to improve his technique.

In footage from match play at about this time, I think I watched 4 matches and noticed that in 4 entire matches, there was never a rally of more than 3 shots, (serve, return and 3rd ball). 95% of the rallies ended with the ball in the net or being hit long. The biggest issue, back then that I saw was an inability to hit the table.

I am not so sure that 8 months later a Viscaria would be useful to Dominus. And I would need to see current footage to change that opinion.

From the technical things I see in the footage from November 2017 posted above, I am not so sure that Dominus could have improved enough to make the purchase of a Viscaria even remotely make sense.

If he is injuring himself as a result of poor form, and cannot hit the ball with enough power with a Korbel, I don't think a faster blade is the answer. Someone with good form could hit rocket launchers with the setup Dominus is using. So I have to conclude that the problem is actually technique. Not the equipment. Without the video evidence, it makes no sense to assume Dominus has jumped the 12 levels it would take for him to play at an intermediate level from the beginner level we can see from last November.

There is nothing wrong with being an enthusiastic player who wants to improve. But equipment won't do that for you. You have to put in the time.

And if he does not make spin contact, of course he feels that Hurricane 3 is slow. It is only fast if you know how to touch the ball precisely. And if you watch his contact, every hit is different and they are all pretty flat on the "topspin" shots.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Here is match play footage from a year ago:

I am sure there has been a certain amount of improvement and a deepened understanding of the game. I just feel it is worth seeing the footage before recommending a fairly advanced racket to someone whose progress may be harmed by it.

 

[chintanmashroo]

Dominus, Few things to learn before you actually consider changing your racket:

1. You should always play tabletennis in a quick dry tshirt and breathable shorts

2. Improve your stance while playing, try to widen your legs, look at any pro players video and watch their legs.

3. I see that are using your elbow/forearm for your strokes, whereas you should be using full hand and a little bit of wrist movement to complete the loop

4. “Weight transfer” - remember this word.
Watch the ball till it comes to you and Guide it where to go, enforce it.


You may have Incorporated this into your game, i do not know, but these are some core factors you need to consider from the videos I saw.


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[chintanmashroo]

Thanks Carl,

Coming to the racket topic, you have not yet utilised full potential of your racket and rubber.

practice video, try to copy his style as much as you can. Watch his hands, legs and torso movement

https://youtu.be/S9Gw4Omp6cI


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[dominus7]

Today at the morning it was made this vid, I know my footwork it need better timing and my stroke need to be shorter and get better, but at least I would like you check if i improved a little bit. The setup was, Korbel with the H3N FH and MX-P BH, both rubbers are 8+ months older.

https://youtu.be/x3Kj-Pej3nM

 

[dominus7]

If anyone is interested, this is footage from about 8 months ago of Dominus working with a coach:

In 8 months things can change. But there was a lot going on that was not so great from a technical standpoint back then and back then he was a big EJ.

Without seeing new footage that shows he knows how to move his feet and adjust to the ball or to actually do something to the ball like make spin contact, I am suspicious of the reasons for him wanting a Viscaria rather than wanting to improve his technique.

In footage from match play at about this time, I think I watched 4 matches and noticed that in 4 entire matches, there was never a rally of more than 3 shots, (serve, return and 3rd ball). 95% of the rallies ended with the ball in the net or being hit long. The biggest issue, back then that I saw was an inability to hit the table.

I am not so sure that 8 months later a Viscaria would be useful to Dominus. And I would need to see current footage to change that opinion.

From the technical things I see in the footage from November 2017 posted above, I am not so sure that Dominus could have improved enough to make the purchase of a Viscaria even remotely make sense.

If he is injuring himself as a result of poor form, and cannot hit the ball with enough power with a Korbel, I don't think a faster blade is the answer. Someone with good form could hit rocket launchers with the setup Dominus is using. So I have to conclude that the problem is actually technique. Not the equipment. Without the video evidence, it makes no sense to assume Dominus has jumped the 12 levels it would take for him to play at an intermediate level from the beginner level we can see from last November.

There is nothing wrong with being an enthusiastic player who wants to improve. But equipment won't do that for you. You have to put in the time.

And if he does not make spin contact, of course he feels that Hurricane 3 is slow. It is only fast if you know how to touch the ball precisely. And if you watch his contact, every hit is different and they are all pretty flat on the "topspin" shots.

I'm pretty agreed about my poor strokes and that, the reason was simple, the angle of the racquet and my low coordination eye -hand made me do a lot of misses. By the way I'm agreed about the speed, I don't like the smashing style, I love the spin and that's why I want to be a looper than a hitter. And you're right about the h3n is not necessary kill the ball to win points, may be are not as fast as I would like, but darn that is spinny and I need to be spinnier to death!

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[dominus7]

Dominus, Few things to learn before you actually consider changing your racket:

1. You should always play tabletennis in a quick dry tshirt and breathable shorts

2. Improve your stance while playing, try to widen your legs, look at any pro players video and watch their legs.

3. I see that are using your elbow/forearm for your strokes, whereas you should be using full hand and a little bit of wrist movement to complete the loop

4. “Weight transfer” - remember this word.
Watch the ball till it comes to you and Guide it where to go, enforce it.


You may have Incorporated this into your game, i do not know, but these are some core factors you need to consider from the videos I saw.


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Oh yeah you're absolutely right, on those occasions I was studying and went out from work so I didn't have a sport clothes, and I know I had a little bit more than a tree, I appreciate your advices, check the last vid please send tell me if I improved something.

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[dominus7]

I still would like to see updated footage of you playing.

You can see it now

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[dominus7]

Stick with Korbel. Best blade for me imo

You're right, the problem is not the blade, but just me, any way I can do faster shots, not yet as fast as I want, but I'm happy that today I could play for a while. By the way I couldn't play a rally, but next time I'll try.

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[dominus7]

Thanks Carl,

Coming to the racket topic, you have not yet utilised full potential of your racket and rubber.

practice video, try to copy his style as much as you can. Watch his hands, legs and torso movement

https://youtu.be/S9Gw4Omp6cI


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the video, I want to be able to do those strokes, I know I'm not even close to that but I'll do my best to get it.

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[chintanmashroo]

Good improvement brother, keep going.

Once you and your practice partner achieve a 50 stroke rally with FH and BH, you will be ready for the next improvement tip.


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[Shifu]

You improved a lot! But there are still a lot of things that you have to work on. Your backhand is quite okay, for the forehand remember to keep your elbow low. It’s too high during the stroke. Keep working

 

[dominus7]

You improved a lot! But there are still a lot of things that you have to work on. Your backhand is quite okay, for the forehand remember to keep your elbow low. It’s too high during the stroke. Keep working

I know, I'm working on that, the H3N and MX-P have more than 8 months, should I change it? I was thinking to change from MX-P to EL-P or Gold Arc 8 47,5° for BH. The H3N it feels very tacky almost as new, and I put it kerosene to get it softer and faster, so I think to use it for a couple months yet, or change from H3N to MX-P for FH, I mean to get a faster and work again in do shorter and spinnier services.

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[UpSideDownCarl]

Today at the morning it was made this vid, I know my footwork it need better timing and my stroke need to be shorter and get better, but at least I would like you check if i improved a little bit. The setup was, Korbel with the H3N FH and MX-P BH, both rubbers are 8+ months older.

https://youtu.be/x3Kj-Pej3nM

You have improved a lot and are now spinning the ball and at a different level.

But I want you to look at two specific things:

1) how many of the shots are you taking from a position where you are in the right place and how many of the shots are you trying to adjust where the racket is because your feet are not in the correct place? If on more than 50% of the FH shots you are reaching or jammed (the ball too close to the body), then that is the first most important thing to work on.

2) On the FH strokes where you are decently spaced and take a decent stroke, watch the shape of the stroke and think if that curved shape, where the blade face changes angles would be as efficient as a racket that moves in a more direct plane, where the blade face is always at one angle?

An issues on question 1: sometimes a person being fed the ball like that will feel that the feeder did not place the ball where it was supposed to be placed. But the truth is, a good player will adjust to where each separate ball actually goes. Not to where they thought the ball should go. In a drill like that, if your feet are not in the right place and you get jammed or are too far and have to reach, it is because you did not watch and adjust to where the ball actually went.

One more issue on question 1: how could you possibly hit with power if your feet are not in the right place more than 50% of the time? Just think about that. About how much power you are losing if your feet are not under you and able to be used for power in the stroke.

An issue on question 2: a small improvement of your stroke will result in considerably more power. On FH you are taking the ball as it has dropped considerably from the top of the bounce. If you want more power and speed on your shots, learning to take the ball at the top of the bounce or on the rise for offensive shots makes your shots have a lot more pace.

You have improved a great deal. There is no question. But I am more than 100% sure that the reasons the ball is not as fast as you would like are entirely technical. Watch video footage of yourself and use it to try and help you improve. Film and watch regularly. It will help more than you can imagine.

Last detail: despite very nice improvement, notice that on this video, with the ball being fed to you, there is no rally where you hit the ball more than four times. None of the rallies go past 4 hits for you. There will be a point when you can do that drill and get 40-50 hits on one ball. At least, that will happen if you focus on technique and try to work on the things you need to improve.

That will serve you better than a Viscaria. So focus on improving your technique and your adjusting to random placement. Forget about equipment. It is not the problem. And equipment will not fix the actual skills that need fixing.


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