Recently I've been playing a bit more at the Alameda club, where there's a very unstructured round robin each Wed and Sun. I still want to focus on practicing so just going to the Sunday one. I've been there 4 times now, and I feel like I've been improving a lot in actual game play.
There are a couple EJs at the club, I got to try out their rackets. Yesterday I tried a Carbonado 45 with H3/40/BS and H3/OS combo, felt very nice. It's a bit more crisp than the W968, not quite as powerful at the high end, and the H3 especially on the FH side felt super nice. I then tried someone's W968 + H3/41/BS and DNA Platinum M combo, that felt really good as well. The FH side again felt sublime, while the DNA platinum was surprisingly good as well. It's rather quick, but not very bouncy in the short game. Lastly I tried a W968 + H3/41/BS and V15 Extra combo. The V15 Extra was quite good, seemed to have a bit higher throw but a bit slower than the D09C, countering seemed a bit easier. All the H3 were boosted, some have been in use for quite a while and reboosted, which does make it feel a bit softer. They tell me that after the 2nd boost it kind of just stays pretty good forever. This is making me quite tempted to switch to the H3BS
On the practice front, I'm having weekly sessions with my practice partner. We've both been making a lot of progress. Thus far we've been focusing on the fundamentals. Basic FH/BH hits, loops, blocks, then at the end of the session a bit of BH opening loop practice. I'm finally starting to feel comfortable with my BH block, and my practice partner as well. The improvement in blocking is really turbocharging our looping practices, and our physical fitness is improving a lot as well. We've now decided to set goals for each practice, like how many loops/blocks we can make in a row, particularly when involving the BH block. I feel like our practices have been a bit limited by our inability to block, but that's quickly being taken care of.
My own BH loop drives are finally kicking into gear, starting to add a bit of body now. Now that I know exactly how it should feel, I can execute them with enough power to rival most people's FH loops, at least in practice. I think in maybe another month or so I should be able to execute it well enough for it to become a real weapon in games. I've found that this movement is also key in countering very spinny shots to the BH side, like an opening loop against backspin. It's also a great foundation for the BH opening loop itself, with the ability to transform into both a brush loop or a loop drive.
Due to our deficiencies in blocking, I think we're gonna stick to loop/block practices for now. Once our abilities to block overtake our abilities to loop in practice where we know where the loop is headed, we'll start incorporating multiball to our training. That would really elevate our offensive game and again take us a step higher in our physical conditioning.