Shakehanders learning to play penhold (for fun)

I started out with penhold and I believe it helped me quite a bit with playing backhand and forehand loops with shakehand. I noticed each grip uses the forearm muscles in different ways. It would be nice if companies would show a little love and develop some type of grippy surface you can stick in the middle of a rubber for RPB. The fingers get awfully sweaty in the middle of a game.

I've fiddled with penhold, I'm sure everyone has. I don't think it made me any better though. I think spending that time working on your shakehand stroke would have been a better use of time. I've also fiddled with Long Pip chopping but I think that was a mistake too.

I started as Jpen. Then moved to Cpen. Due arthritis my metacarpophalangeal joint started to hurt a lot after hours of training. In that time i was on a 4 hours/day 5days/week schedule. I had to sink my hand in a bucket of water every end of session.

Now im a Allround shakehander. But once in a while that nostalgic feeling comes back. I am a much aggresive player as penhold. So i got myself some penhold setups. Jpen with inverted and short pips, cpen with pips fh smooth bh and double inverted. It is always a wonderful experience.

At first it may seem a waste of time and money but along with the joy i have while playing with different styles, i also learn a different strategies and i think it gives me more sense/awareness of my body and how to move effectively.

I think i should do an internship to learn this clipboard grip. Seems to be revolutionary!

countrybread said:

...It would be nice if companies would show a little love and develop some type of grippy surface you can stick in the middle of a rubber for RPB. The fingers get awfully sweaty in the middle of a game.

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You mean something like this? The rough surface does give better grip but also add extra unwanted thickness. I think this is meant for use with one side penhold blades in the first place as I found it is all too easy to damage the bare wood side on the back without any protection.

Learning Penhold is sort of hard for a shakehand player but it would actually help shakehand improve in some ways. So it would be useful. And if it is fun, it is not a waste of time.

Shadow drills left handed or, really, doing shadow drills righty and then lefty and going back and forth would actually really help.

And then trying to take that onto the table and learn to play a little left handed would actually really help. That is very interesting stuff. It has to do with left brain/right brain communication. And it has to do with the fact that as you are trying to figure out how you do it righty to translate it to doing it better lefty, your right side learns what to do better. So as your left side learns from your right. Your right side learns from you trying to figure it out with the non-dominant side.

For a left handed player, read left as right and right as left. LOL.

By the way: don't worry if you try this and feel really awkward at first. If you start with shadow drills and then move onto the table, you will get better faster than you would imagine.

This info is probably also why the CNT make all their players train a certain amount lefty.

And Xu Xin is probably awesome with his right hand since he is actually right handed even though he plays TT lefty.

Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

TurboZ said:

You mean something like this? The rough surface does give better grip but also add extra unwanted thickness. I think this is meant for use with one side penhold blades in the first place as I found it is all too easy to damage the bare wood side on the back without any protection.
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Thank you for the post. I had no idea such products existed.

Playing left-handed, or unaccustomed arm, is a great idea. Table tennis pros have such disproportionate bodies. I think women, especially, will be turned off it.

countrybread said:

Playing left-handed, or unaccustomed arm, is a great idea. Table tennis pros have such disproportionate bodies. I think women, especially, will be turned off it.

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Do you mean something like this here?

Shuki said:

Just make sure to work BOTH arms. Don't be like kreanga

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Inspired by this topic and tons of he zhi wen matches i ve been watching, this week i started my adventure as a lefty penholder. So far it was disastrous, couldnt perform a good hit yet and shoto is non existent Lets see if with 4 hours per week as this style can do/be any good

You have to look a little pros' vidéos about J-pen style.

With short pips, it's very fast, you have to take more time !

Ok, im thrilled now about this style. So much fun. Although i gave up on southpaw for now.
I made some deals at my clubs black market and i got a Xiom Katana Special, it arrives this sunday. The blade itself weighs 108gr so i will start with soft, very light rubbers. Vega Europe and Zava, both 2.0mm.
Lets see how i develop as this kind of player. Ive always tended to stay close to table and do 3rd ball kill anyway.

One thing ive noticed as my club slowly starts to introduce polyball, the Pips players there, and also at my local league, have been succeding a bit better. One more point here and there, one set and even winning games that wouldnt before.
Is the polyball better for pips than the celulloid? Because this ball while being slower, you can almost everytime smash it with sp, either FH or BH. Also the ball drops much faster and when you hit a bobble/dead ball, it is a bit harder to generating enough spin in so little time.

I dont know...would you guys share you thoughts about it? Is it a Short pips comeback?
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Thanks Archosaurus for posting the videos. I watched every other related video about short pips penholder too. One interesting thing is when i showed the guoliang video to my coach, he told me himself was sp penholder for almost a decade, back when he started to play. So i think after all i wont have to lurk internet database/forums about coaching or other clubs here.

Grateful,
Raul Pacheco.