Just curious how many Penholders are on TTD?

Originally Posted by Jirrex

Liu Guoliang's coach more or less forced him to switch to shakehand in the 80's because the penholder days were over. After he switched to shakehand, he started losing a lot more and not much later he went back to penhold style again. Now we all know that his coach couldn't be more wrong

WOW, thank you Jirrex for that piece of trivia! I had no idea. With LGL's (and/or his coaches at the time) innovation of the RPB, it helped keep PH style alive. However, I wonder what other innovation can be had at this point in the history of the PH style. Would hate to see the next evolution of PH is to use both sides LP or something.

Suga D,

Wow, since my return to TT after a long layoff, I've not kept track of the players. Those were great videos! Would not imagine JPen using RPB. Will keep Qiu Dang on my radar!!

Thank you!!

Originally Posted by fais

I'm having to relent more and more that shakehand has a significant advantage over penhold. The rise of FZD and his backhand oriented game is like the paper to XX rock forehand - he absolutely smothers him.

Meaning you are a PH now and will convert to SH sooner or later?

Originally Posted by songdavid98

I'm a lefty chinese penholder here.

Modern RPB, about 2100. Relies on serve and attack, but I don't have a problem with power looping mid distance.

You can spot me 7 or 8 points then! LOL at me

But seriously, most PH have to rely on serve and attack ... cannot think of a defensive only PH - that is passive blocking or chopping or something. And in my mind, any defensive PH technique is an offensive technique if able to return the ball to where the opponent is not.

Originally Posted by countrybread

"I am not afraid anymore of the penholders." Hu Melek

Ouch.

FTR, you are not a PH right?

Originally Posted by genrel001

I play allround close-table with RPB. I am the only penholder in our city that I know of. Dark days for penholders.

WOW genrel001!!! Keep it up... PH style must not go extinct!

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Nei ho JeffM

Thank you TurboZ!

and thanks also to Pricey11!

Originally Posted by Suga D

I´ve just played with a friends Jpen blade for the fun of it, not competitive, so i guess this wouldn´t count. Hence my deepest respect to Liten and everyone else that has switched from SH to penhold. I believe it is quite challenging....

Would it be wrong of me to think that that it's easier to convert from PH to SH than vice versa?

Originally Posted by BlueSkies

I'm a part time Table Tennis coach at a local TT Club here in Sweden.


A few weeks ago a kid originally from China started to play during one of the practice sessions where I coach. The thing is, he plays penhold with RPB. Since then I have tried to play some penhold and been watching others who play penhold and so on, to help him get better. He really wants to get better and it is quite the challenge. As you can imagine, some of the stuff I talk about can't be directly transferred to PH from SH.


I find it hard to play penhold, but it is very interesting. Penhold is fun!
I will definitely play and practice more. I've tried RPB but I it's to hard to be consistent. I usually just push block with my BH.

Mostly my penhold play comes down to serve and attack to this point. But as I improve that will probably change.

WOW! You are a great coach then, to have to learn something new in order to help out your student! Respect!!

I cannot RPB at all... will take me forever to learn/train it, but more importantly I may have carpal tunnel syndrome ... found the weight of the extra rubber hurting my hand so for now, I will not pursue to the idea of cultivating the RPB.

Thank you BlueSkies!

Whoa! 2 lefty PH! very cool songdavid98 and suds79!

Originally Posted by suds79

I'm more of a oldschool penholder with the TPB.

WOOHOO!

I can RPB very comfortably and it's one of my stronger shots but during an actual match, if someone hits fast to my BH i naturally go to TPB. So I cannot seem to naturally convert to RPB. If I was younger or a new player, i'd probably almost solely use the RPB.

Interesting! Some modern PH i see love the RPB to the point that they sometimes don't use the punch or even their FH!

That being said, i like styles that are out of the ordinary & different. Must be something in my makeup. So while I've tried, I can't play simple duel inverted. Just not interesting enough for me. I play a twiddling game featuring either inverted and long pips or at times short pips & long pips. I think that's one of the most fun & interesting styles.

I'm more dangerous with inverted & long pips but more consistent with short pips & long pips. I probably play better with the short pips & long pips combination. IDK. Ask me in a few months. :P (it's a problem I know.)

Players I look up to and/or try to emulate parts of their game are...


- Wang Jian Jiang (SP/LP twiddler): amazing crafty game. Good attacking game with the LPs & SPs. No RPB.
- HE Zhi Wen (single sided SP): Pretty sure everybody here already knows who he is and what he's about.
- Wang Qiu Yi (Inverted/LP twiddler): Like her use of RPB with the LP FH play. Convinced I've never seen a better LP attacker. I mean ever.

I think there's 3 penholders are our club including me.

LOVE HE ZHI MEN/HO CHI MUN!

Thanks suds79 on the other 2, will check them out!!

Originally Posted by Jabugo

I think I'm among the rare TPB jpen players. To me, I play interchangeably between shakehand and jpen, and each style has enhanced the growth of the other style. If the jpen blade grip is shaped properly and held properly, TPB can be executed naturally. The problem is that the body must be twisted to the side which requires a split second more time which you often don't have.

Having played CPen forever, I admire how JPenners play. I cannot get used to the grip. I'm psycho though, but have never owned a JPen and tried it ages ago. I should try it from a clubmate.

But yeah, that body contortion seems a little more pronounced by JPenners than CPenners... or what I remember of the old days of the CPen BH

There is ~1800 JPen at my club and his BH is great!

Thank you Jabugo!

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LOL at Tony's Table Tennis!

Originally Posted by OldschoolPenholder

Thanks suds79 on the other 2, will check them out!!

Sure NP. I accumilated a youtube playlist of twiddling LP penholders. Some with SPs. Some with Inverted on the other side.

I think it's a fun, tricky way to play the game.

21 videos and counting as of right now. Big difference IMO from people who use LPs as a crutch (just stick it out there and pray the serveice return goes in) compared to these players who use it as a weapon. ex: playing good chop-blocks vs topspin. Attacking backspin. etc.

I have the specific LP strokes broken down in this post if it helps anybody.
http://chroniclesofgossima.blogspot....-to-table.html

First video features Wang (some sites will tell you it's Jian) Jiang Huang (21 videos will just auto play)

Full playlist here
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...-TTKNYTt9-Ns6t

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLKqSWJv6VSgzmkFGAlD-TTKNYTt9-Ns6t" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

Originally Posted by OldschoolPenholder

Would it be wrong of me to think that that it's easier to convert from PH to SH than vice versa?

I actually switched from shakehand to penhold in my early days because looping hurt my wrist when I used shakehand.

I would say that if you play penhold with a RPB , you can figure out how to play shakehand without much of a problem. If you play shakehand, I would say that it would be a little difficult to figure out how playing penhold makes sense to their hand. There is so much flexibility in the wrist in penhold that players have to sort of figure out what angles to have their wrist go in.

If you think about it, if you somehow erase the player's body and only look at the movement of the paddle, penhold is basically shakehand, except that the paddle is rotated about 90 degrees towards the ground.

Originally Posted by suds79

I think it's a fun, tricky way to play the game.

Yeah it does look like fun ... Liten in 5,4,3,2,1,...

For now, won't try it out though, not until i'm satisfied with my game and consistency

I have the specific LP strokes broken down in this post if it helps anybody.
http://chroniclesofgossima.blogspot....-to-table.html

am firewalled at work from blogspot... will check at home, thank you in advance!

Originally Posted by Suga D

The best thing i can do with PH is serving.

Back in da day, i had 2 teammates on our League team that were SH players but started off as PH. They would serve PH style and then change to SH grip for the rest of the point LOL