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I play short table power loops and I spin the ball wide. You can do that with any blade but it is easier with a slower blade. It is a mid-distance blocking/countering game that you will find it harder to do with a slower blade.

:p A beginner in a Ferrari will crash the car.

I'm not so much about the material as to whether the blade responds to your touch. Some people do pretty well with koto - I am just not one of them. The problems with a fast blade are many, but in addition to promoting the wrong type of feeling, think about what a beginner needs. He needs to...

While I don't want to sound like it, I have heard this story a thousand times ( 30 of those times may have been from me ) and the ending is almost never good for those who refuse to listen. The key to getting better in table tennis is not speed but control and the easiest way to build control...

A lot of this tells me that you might do better with an even slower blade, but let's not dwell on it for now.

That's my point exactly. Many people who rave about it don't know what they should be looking for in a blade for their level!

To support your point, I think Li Ping uses Euro rubbers on both sides and I remember one year where he was the best Asia vs Europe player.

Nah, not you personally. But it is okay to be Wang Hao as well. They are all good players. We just like the World Champion and say he is the best ever when he wins ;). If Xu Xin had won the last WTTC, he would be the man of the moment as well.

That's because you think you can see Ma Long, but what makes Ma Long Ma Long is mostly what you cannot see. It's the iceberg illusion again. You only see the part above water and are oblivious to the huge mass beneath.

You have to meet Der_Echte and hear him speak to realize that read him as Captain Obvious is a big mistake. And a key part of what he said isn't obvious to people who want to play fast and even occasionally eludes me when I am playing faster - I don't play faster because I am trying to play...

On the latest experttabletennis podcast, Timo Boll's advice to Christian Ortner (the ITTF media/video guy) who started playing 5 years ago at the age of 18 was to spin everything, even the high balls. So everyone can see how easy it is to sound like Timo Boll ;).

Good luck with it. I have gone down that path and it is a sexy one, but one that needs to be experienced to know that it is a wrong one for most players who have not done the required homework. But you learn in life from mistakes as well as successes so it is a good thing to try.

This is the key. Playing faster is about reading the game faster, not about about hitting the ball harder. But you don't get to read the game if you are always hitting the ball as hard as you can. One way to work on reading the game is to actually play mostly flat shots/blocks and just watch...

Sounds to me like you are changing just because you are curious, which is not a bad reason, but is not a great reason either. The reason you change to a faster blade is usually that you are very consistent with your current blade, but want to see if you can get more speed without losing that...

What's your playing level and style? It's never a good sign when a blade is starting to feel slow so how did you conclude this?

Thanks, sspark80. The corollary of this is that with practice, your rally shots get better and become more consistent with about 60-80% of the power of your kills over time. So you will often simply play a rally shot and win points with it as well. Then as you learn to play faster, your...

Andy, You asked me whether I thought you could become a ranked player in the time frame that you set for yourself and I didn't say yes because I thought you would do so as a powerlooping junior. I Said yes because with the right mindset and approach to technique and competing...

This is exactly why I get confused about why the YEO has so many fans - the blade was one of my first blades before I knew anything about blades in general, and ever since I discovered limba outer plies, I realized the blade was too hard. So when I see people raving about it, I get...

It varies with equipment and player style at the lower levels. JP03 1.8 and T80 1.9/2.0 are very different rubbers. For me, I found that the real question was how you won points and how the equipment affected that. If you win by blocking and pushing, its very different from if you win by serve...