Why is Japanese Penhold less popular these days?

ProPetrov said:

What's the point of playing RPB with a Japanese penhold blade?

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Not sure as there are more negatives than positives regarding RPB when comparing jpen with cpen., IMHO. They're not that big, but at the highest level it may well be enough to make a difference.

The wrist movement and angle is slightly restricted with jpen compared to cpen RPB.

You can not twiddle a jpen whereas you can with a cpen.

Jpen blades are also usually a bit heavier than cpen blades which could be a drawback when adding rubbers on the backside. (sure, there are light jpens too, but in general...) Not great for the wrist in the long run...

One possible positive might be that jpens are usually much more powerful, more about driving the ball than spinning it and may give you more penetration off the table. Cpens work best over or close to the table, IMHO.

ProPetrov said:

I thought Jpen blades were designed for 1 side penhold players

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That's true, but so are cpens
Cpens began being used with RPB without any modifications. The handle and head of Liu Guoliang's one-sided cpen early in his career, is the same as when he used RPB later in his career.

UpSideDownCarl said:

I believe that, back when people who played penhold just used the one side, that some people liked the handle and shape of the jpen blades better. Now that penholders are using the other side too, there isn't really as much of a reason to use jpen. Just what it seems like to me.

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I think the reason for that is that jpen handles provide more stability and feeling when blocking. And blocking is the most important stroke when playing one sided penhold. It's used to control the rally in order to set up your forehand and is also the basis for all defense with one sided penhold..

I tried japanese blade 1 year ago (seriously, in competition)

Forehand is easy but rpb very difficult. the blade favours a tension of the wrist.

Qiu Dang is an amazing player ! his wrist is quite flexible, incredible ...

now there are some players in japan playing rpb with jpen in serious way. its just to adapt the style to the modern game. About the chiquita, i can do it with one side jpen and Eduardo Tomoike from Brazil can do it too.