I have seen it in perfectly healthy people, some of whom play feeling based styles, some of whom just hit the ball. and use the extra speed to get quality and like the fact they don't need to do big swings to get it. Sometimes, it is kids who also want to play from distance (most people here would argue that Faraji is using equipment that is much too fast but that might be tied to his initial success). But very often, such equipment lets kids compete with adults in rallies (I remember I once lost to a kid using a Sardius) and T05FX. There are also the blockers who even when healthy don't want to exert effort. And finally, there are coaches who raise kids to play with fast blades with driving styles.
I get the generalizations but sometimes, these things are coming out of the traditional framework. What would help was if people actually put real data into these things. What you wrote in the article was more philosophical than anything else. There are many reasonable philosophies to building a player when it comes to equipment. Everyone can argue with philosophies but it is a bit harder to argue with data. That's why I am sharing some of these anecdotes because I find that in table tennis, a lot of traditional wisdom has underlying assumptions that are not fleshed out.
As an expert, you should be willing and able to flesh them out.
Agreed to both paragraphs, on the first one agreed to losing to kids with fast rackets, when I was training at the borussia dusseldorf place (the andro tt schule in reality) there was an 11 year old kid, Lukas, ranked 3rd in germany under 11 (2y ago ish) and he was hitting harder than any person in my club has hitted before in training. With a zlf blade and tenergies, and he was only 11, barely taller than the table really, it was mad.
Also, the blocker i mentioned before of 50y old, he now has viscaria super alc with dignics, same story as you mention, just chill blocking my shots with good placement
And yes, about fleshing things out, I have many examples of this. One of the guys at our club, called Raoul, was complaining that he couldn't get enough speed from his G-1 rubbers. He plays max on both sides. I said to him, how is it possible, G-1 isn't slow, then saw he was constantly brushing upwards. Using all his body to do this but still no power. In one session together i showed him how to hit through (hit-brush) and since then, he almost had to change rubbers as now many of his shots have too much power. I told him not to change and just adapt
Another couple examples:
- My friend Daan is an EJ like me, and we discuss equipment a lot together. The last time he was missing speed so he bought a SKC and put vega pro on both sides. I told him it was going to be too fast for his technique, but he is stubborn and likes to try stuff. After a couple weeks indeed it was too fast and stiff, he was missing too much and lost feeling. So we talked again and now he has his old korbel and a new innerforce. He downgraded rubbers to glayzer 09c and xiom vega europe and he is much happier now. Has more control, can focus on full body usage and puts more balls on the table.
- Tony, which is a young talent and a great kid was asking me to change equipment after he got tenergy 05 coming from hurricane 3. He plays at an intermediate regional level but has the power to grow a lot. I said you to him that he was gonna have trouble controlling that tenergy specially coming from hurricane 3 and knowing his level. That was indeed the case, he was landing 1 shot amazingly, but missing the other 5. Btw, this was on an old 08X, a great blade. In the end, now he is back to H3 but only chnaged blade to my long 3 (which i didn't use anymore) and 8-80 on BH. He lately won the south holland championships in his category, and ofc this is not only equipment, not at all, his technique is much better now as he trains a lot, but gear is at least not in his way.
Lastly, there are also many examples of our beginners, most of them in fact, who come the first weeks with a premade bat, dead slippery rubbers and then complain they cant play. We have beginner blades at the club with 729fx rubbers on an intro andro blade, sometimes also on stiga AC. Once they understand the technique, they have no trouble spinning and putting speed into the ball, even with such slow racket and rubbers. My point being that with right coaching and gear that doesn't hurt them, you can put a lot of power on the shots.
And we also have examples of the opposite side. Some of our older players with health limitations have actually started playing better with donic true carbon and rasanter blades. I would never advice this for a beginner with normal conditions and a young age, but for them, because their health is a factor, this has actually help them play better and enjoy more. Also a beautiful story.
I'm always up for fleshing it out, 100% agree that theory is just words, facts is what makes it real
