Just curious how many Penholders are on TTD?

Originally Posted by songdavid98

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

I think this is the first time I have ever heard that. Wow, you would think it's the other way.

Originally Posted by 101010

Fairly new player, started 4 years ago with C-Pen and RBP. I can't for my life do a TPB block, which becomes troublesome when trying to play the fishing defense.

My apologies, due to my lapse in TT playing, I'm not familiar with 'fishing defense'.

If you can do a RBP block and/or loop, you wouldn't need to do a TPB block. I totally think RBP offers more options to a PH, but I can't do it for various reasons I've mentioned before.

Originally Posted by lyh

Hello

But dont jpen blades have a layer of cork on the back side?

Hi fellow PH!

Actually if memory serves, you are correct. Perhaps there are JPen blades with no cork for the modern PH game?

Originally Posted by genrel001

My problem with TPB is that before I learned to play with RPB my opponents already know what I'm going to do when they attack on my backhand side (either smash or punch).

They may know what you are going to do, but they don't know where you will place the ball... i play a 'put-the-ball-where-they-are-not' most of the time... so when i punch, for example after a rocket serve to their BH, it will be down-the-line to their FH and if they are fast enough to return that, i 'angle block' (in a recent thread, someone posted a ITTF video of Waldner doing what i call 'angle blocking') it to their BH and if miraculously they return that, i'm ready to pounce on that ball

RPB adds a little flavor to the PH game, I say.

Total agreement.

Good to hear you are representing PH in your part of the Philipines! Mabuhay ang penholder!

Originally Posted by James Livesey

I'm a UK rpb penholder. There are two other pH at my club and one is tcpen and the other is jpen. One of the coaches is Chinese and he plays ph, but thinks sh is better. He plays tcpen though, so I tell him it's his own fault hehe. He still wrecks everyone in the club. And he can show me what to do properly.

Ah, you are fortunate Sir! Happy RPB training!

Originally Posted by violoniste18

I am 57. I used to play for 22 years. I started to play penhold about 2 years ago and I love it. I got many difficulties to improve but now my level is same as before

I'am playing Backside 1 side and anti-top at RPB (I mean long pimples is far more difficult to play)

2 years and you reach your previous level with SH!?!?!? Props and Respect Sir!

Took me about 2 years to get up to lvl too..
To me, the advantages of penhold was nullified for the first year due to the ball often hitting my fingers during rpb.. nowadays it happens maby once a month, and I play 1h each lunch + 2h every monday and thirsday night..

I do hear my clubmates comment that I play shots during rpb they havent seen earlier.. one of them is a pendulum slice from left to right (im righthanded) making the ball end upp over at the fh-side of the opponent. These are 99% of the time really hard for the opponent to read it seems!

Similar to what you do Liten, when i push I sometimes do a small pendulum motion, right to left with wrist, with the head of my blade aimed at the BH side of the table - right to left - and blade head ends up facing their FH side ...

Sometimes though, i have blade angled to their FH side and no wrist motion, just move the blade to guide it from their BH to their FH side

Most of my pushes is like my BH serve - left to right wrist motion, and sometimes no wrist motion, i angled blade to their BH side and just move arm/hand

Originally Posted by OldschoolPenholder

Similar to what you do Liten, when i push I sometimes do a small pendulum motion, right to left with wrist, with the head of my blade aimed at the BH side of the table - right to left - and blade head ends up facing their FH side ...

Sometimes though, i have blade angled to their FH side and no wrist motion, just move the blade to guide it from their BH to their FH side

Most of my pushes is like my BH serve - left to right wrist motion, and sometimes no wrist motion, i angled blade to their BH side and just move arm/hand

You do this with your BH?
Or from your bh-side using fh-side of blade?
:unsure:

I sort of twist my wrist and arm out of place to land these rpb shots!

Originally Posted by 101010

ah, meant to say lobbing game. I just have no idea where and how to hit the ball using the TPB. Usually, my attempts at lobbing on the BH side drift left (as a right handed player)

Ah ok on lobbing then.

By "TPB" you mean traditional penhold backhand, as in an actual backhand stroke (opposite of FH stroke) or do you mean a block or a 'punch' (aka "push-block")? The natural BH stroke is crosscourt... for a righty, starting the BH stroke on your left, you aim to your right. The natural FH stroke is also cross-court, for righty, hitting from their right to their left.

Slightyly higher level skill is to not hit cross-court.

One general idea, and a core part of my game: hit/place the ball where the opponent is not. Strategy in warfare as well as sports ... attack opponent's weakest point. If the opponent is not there, in general that is a weak point. However, most player's FH are stronger than their BH, so generally most players hit to their opponent's BH side.

One downside of missing TPB that I felt was, that the backhand push, which is played with the FH side, doesn't come as intuitively and often I have the bat angled too much towards me when trying to do a BH push. Same with the BH serve with the FH side, I can't quite find a good timing and bat angle to do it right,

Like anything, if you devote time to training BH pushing with the FH side, you will get this in time.

and resort to the reverse pendulum instead, which is much closer to the RPB motion.

I don't understand this part.

Anyways, I love the deceptiveness of the PH grip when it comes to serves, the FH potential, RPB is nice for reducing footwork a little.

Me too on the serves and FH. i have no RPB as i play one-sided, will add that i love punching.

Recently I started experimenting with short pips on the FH on my spare bat for playing doubles, with the idea being that it allows me to stay close to the table and do more controlled blocks and smashes. Still getting used to the technique, it's a much smaller and explosive motion that I can't quite time right yet.

Ages ago, i started off as PH pips. After maybe a year, frustrated i couldn't get a BH smash, i went to inverted and have been plyaying that for sometime

By the way, anyone know any good sources to learn twiddling?

I don't have a good source yet. But you can start with watching some of these vids on member suds79's playlist ... all PH twiddlers. I started watching this playlist.

Also, I made this video of me twiddling... only my 2nd time trying to twiddle... at the time of making this video, i didn't really watch other twiddlers. With brief experimentation, this seems to work for me, using my middle finger to facilitate the twiddling.



As the blade is pointing downward, gravity is helping. Didn't try to twiddle since the video. Will watch more of PH twiddlers in action first. At some point, will see if i can twiddle with the blade horizontal instead of vertical. This will be challenging.

Thank you 101010 and HTH!

Liten,

I am only a one-sided CPenner (for the time being - i may or may not try modern PH or twiddling).

On my BH pushes, i use my FH side to push. Some righty PH when pushing will do a left to right motion imparting side & down spin or just put downspin on the ball when the ball is in their BH side. Alternatively instead of putting some spin on the ball, they angle their paddle and guide the ball back. I sometimes am able to get an extreme angle on guiding the ball back ... i guess it's called 'floating' in modern terms.

When ball is on their FH side, some will pick/flick/flip the ball back. My pick sucks... I don't recall seeing any pro player doing what i do, but i'm sure i'm not the only one who does this ... from time to time, using my FH side of the racket - on balls to a my FH side, instead of 'picking', i use a right to left motion to impart a little sidedown spin aiming to place the ball on opponent's BH side. Generally opponent expects a float back or a pick to their FH side. Using this right to left push, i put it back to their BH and generally get a push back to my BH in which i step around and use my FH.

Is this clearer?

Originally Posted by OldschoolPenholder

Liten,

I am only a one-sided CPenner (for the time being - i may or may not try modern PH or twiddling).

On my BH pushes, i use my FH side to push. Some righty PH when pushing will do a left to right motion imparting side & down spin or just put downspin on the ball when the ball is in their BH side. Alternatively instead of putting some spin on the ball, they angle their paddle and guide the ball back. I sometimes am able to get an extreme angle on guiding the ball back ... i guess it's called 'floating' in modern terms.

When ball is on their FH side, some will pick/flick/flip the ball back. My pick sucks... I don't recall seeing any pro player doing what i do, but i'm sure i'm not the only one who does this ... from time to time, using my FH side of the racket - on balls to a my FH side, instead of 'picking', i use a right to left motion to impart a little sidedown spin aiming to place the ball on opponent's BH side. Generally opponent expects a float back or a pick to their FH side. Using this right to left push, i put it back to their BH and generally get a push back to my BH in which i step around and use my FH.

Is this clearer?

Absolutley!

Then it was as I suspected. (As I know you don't play rpb..

This is what ive been trying to relay:
Instead of always using a flick/flip or push with the RPB(!) I sometimes slice the ball to the opponents fh.. It seems to be a "hard to read" / unexpected shot!

1. "From"


2. "To"


I suspect you do this alot with your forehand, as do I. So its actually nice to have an extra diversion at hand when your already in "rpb"-mode..

Yeah, that's what i thought you meant, which made me think i do something unexpected in pushing, i do the right to left/pendulum type motion on my push to their BH side.

That slice you do, i used to do with wood when i got caught unexpectedly on a deep shot to my BH side. Well, that is before they outlawed use of wood LOL

didn't expect your beard, expected a pic of a snickers bar hanging out of your mouth though ;-)

Originally Posted by OldschoolPenholder

Also, I made this video of me twiddling... only my 2nd time trying to twiddle... at the time of making this video, i didn't really watch other twiddlers. With brief experimentation, this seems to work for me, using my middle finger to facilitate the twiddling.



As the blade is pointing downward, gravity is helping. Didn't try to twiddle since the video. Will watch more of PH twiddlers in action first. At some point, will see if i can twiddle with the blade horizontal instead of vertical. This will be challenging.

Thank you 101010 and HTH!

This is 100% how to do it IMO. Fingers have to be relatively cured on the back. If they're extended or stick out far on the back side of your blade, they'll get in the way too much. But this is how I twiddle. The middle finger is essentially what turns the blade. Keep at it and it will be quick with practice.

My training partner posted this recent match about a month ago. I'm not fond of watching it all that much because I see I don't move my feet enough and I think i got a little lucky with him having a lot of unforced errors. He usually beats me but I'll post it because here you can see me twiddle quite a bit in this match.



PS - in the video i was hitting with a LP OX. but I'm looking to attack more with a sponged LP (which plays somewhat closer to SPs style) and playing it full time on the FH with inverted for RPB. Good returns so far. See my bog post for what I'm doing and future videos. http://chroniclesofgossima.blogspot.com/

Originally Posted by suds79

This is 100% how to do it IMO. Fingers have to be relatively cured on the back. If they're extended or stick out far on the back side of your blade, they'll get in the way too much. But this is how I twiddle. The middle finger is essentially what turns the blade. Keep at it and it will be quick with practice.

ah, very cool, thank you!

you can see me twiddle quite a bit in this match.

I watched this match before, but not for the twiddling. IIRC, you posted it in Carl's Essence of TTDers thread.

~0:31-0:32 / ~1:08-1:10 / ~2:02 - 2:03 - THAT WAS SMOOTH AND FAST, i didn't even see you twiddle it even though racket was in view of camera... i only noticed because i saw the color change.

PS - in the video i was hitting with a LP OX. but I'm looking to attack more with a sponged LP (which plays somewhat closer to SPs style) and playing it full time on the FH with inverted for RPB. Good returns so far. See my bog post for what I'm doing and future videos. http://chroniclesofgossima.blogspot.com/

Good luck! Will keep up with your progress. For now, I don't think i will try this out as I can't even get my "regular" strokes back yet... i may try the modern PH style but only if my hand is strong enough to hold the racket with 2 inverted rubbers. Haven't really considered LP as the FH, but will keep in mind LOL... do have a slight desire to try out LGL style of SP FH and inverted BH.

Thank you suds79!

Originally Posted by suds79

Sorry for double post. Forgot to post this.

Chen Longcan shows us exactly how to do it. Same concept you're doing Oldschoolpenholder

Ah very cool! thank you again suds!

and LOL -- look at his contoured handle for where his index finger rests!

Hey guys ! This thread's a really good idea !

So, another penholder here... well, very recent penholder : it's barely been 6 months since I officially switched from SH to PH. Previously, I had been playing SH for about 15 years, decent level. I loved playing PH from time to time for fun. And last year I went to a game in French 2nd division, and I saw Zheng Junge playing (short pimples FH + RPB), and I decided to go for it... with some internet help from violoniste18 who answered a bit earlier in this thread.

Sadly there are not many penholders over here, I think I've played against 3 penholders over 15 years. I'm playing CPEN with 2 backsides, RPB for offensive play, and TBH for "reflex" blocks mainly. Still got loooots of things to improve to reach my SH level, but things are going in the right direction those days, so I'm pretty confident I will make it