Table Tennis Penhold Engagement Survey

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Hi all, last week I was wondering if I was the only one that is kind of scared that the table tennis penhold style is dying. I heard that Xu Xin is retiring after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics so we will have only Wong Chun Ting as a penholder in the top 10 world ranking. Because of that I made a small survey to try to assess if there are other people that are as crazy about the penhold style as I am. If there are maybe we could start something to keep the penhold style alive. I would really appreciate if you guys could answer this. I can also post the results here later if you are interested. Thanks!
 
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I don't ever think penhold will be as popular as it was before or ever close to shakehand. But I think there's a chance we'll see future penhold players to follow. So you take what you can get.

For years & years what was the stigma? Penhold is limited on the BH. Well that was primarily the TPB. Up until pretty recently, there was only one penholder ever who you could say had a really really good BH. And that was Wang Hao.

Now you have younger players like Xue Fei who just so happens to have a RPB just as good. Sure his overall level of play isn't, and probably won't ever be, to the level of Wang Hao but I think we just need to give it time. Any young penholder out there now a days has a good RPB. Lets see where it develops among top pros over the next say 15 or so years. If any penholders make it there, I'm sure they'll favor a more balanced style with a good FH & BH. The days of Xu Xin largely single winged style is for sure dying out.

It won't ever be like shakhanders, but at least it's not like modern defenders. So it could be worse. ;)
 
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I don't ever think penhold will be as popular as it was before or ever close to shakehand. But I think there's a chance we'll see future penhold players to follow. So you take what you can get.

For years & years what was the stigma? Penhold is limited on the BH. Well that was primarily the TPB. Up until pretty recently, there was only one penholder ever who you could say had a really really good BH. And that was Wang Hao.

Now you have younger players like Xue Fei who just so happens to have a RPB just as good. Sure his overall level of play isn't, and probably won't ever be, to the level of Wang Hao but I think we just need to give it time. Any young penholder out there now a days has a good RPB. Lets see where it develops among top pros over the next say 15 or so years. If any penholders make it there, I'm sure they'll favor a more balanced style with a good FH & BH. The days of Xu Xin largely single winged style is for sure dying out.

It won't ever be like shakhanders, but at least it's not like modern defenders. So it could be worse. ;)

I agree with you about penhold popularity. From what you are saying we will probably have a long gap where there will be no penholders in the top 10 players after Xu Xin and Wong Chun Ting retire. This is exactly my fear. I think once there are no penholders in the top 10 more people will make the switch to shakehand or even stop playing all together. Ok, maybe this is a little too dramatic but for sure there will be an impact in the penholder community. As I started writing this I wondered about penholders in women. Does anyone know who is the top ranked woman penholder? The only one I can think of is Tin-Tin Ho and she is ranked 100th or so.
 
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I think the best way to encourage players to play this style is to perhaps increase awareness about the benefits such as more spin, more power on the forehand and also educate younger players that their backhand no longer need be limited like it was with traditional backhand.

I do agree that younger players follow the champions and if there won't be any penholders in the top 10 or top 20, it will hard to keep this style alive. But one can hope. I think Jpen is dying at a faster rate than Cpen. Defenders at the top level are pretty much extinct.

As for penholders among women. I think they were always far fewer in number than the men and I am not too sure why. It could be that being shorter their reach is less and that means they would have had to move even more than the men to cover both wings. It could also have been that women don't really play the all out power game. They have always relied more on the speed generated by topsins and less so on mid-air shots and smashes where penhold gives a lot of power. It could also be that with smaller hands they could not get a good grip since the bulk of the load is taken by just the thumb and forefinger. I could be wrong in all of this. Just my assumptions.
 
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I don't ever think penhold will be as popular as it was before or ever close to shakehand. But I think there's a chance we'll see future penhold players to follow. So you take what you can get.

For years & years what was the stigma? Penhold is limited on the BH. Well that was primarily the TPB. Up until pretty recently, there was only one penholder ever who you could say had a really really good BH. And that was Wang Hao.

Now you have younger players like Xue Fei who just so happens to have a RPB just as good. Sure his overall level of play isn't, and probably won't ever be, to the level of Wang Hao but I think we just need to give it time. Any young penholder out there now a days has a good RPB. Lets see where it develops among top pros over the next say 15 or so years. If any penholders make it there, I'm sure they'll favor a more balanced style with a good FH & BH. The days of Xu Xin largely single winged style is for sure dying out.

It won't ever be like shakhanders, but at least it's not like modern defenders. So it could be worse. ;)
I agree with most of what you have said except the 15 years of wait time. After Wong Chun Ting's retirement, if no world class penholder plays professionally coaches simply will just train everyone in SH. SH carries lower risk, more balanced and easier to train.

WCT is in his mid 20s. If he retires in 5yrs and Xue Fei does not improve his game, penhold will die off in the world-class tournament by 2025.

It's very scary to think about it. SH was once in minority but luckily Europe revolutionised SH by doing two-wing loop.

So far I can't think of any revolutionary techniques in penhold.

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Jiaqi Zheng is another one to watch. WR 417. Very much in the style of Tin Tin Ho. Righty penholder. Short pip FH. Inverted RPB.

As to SFF_lib's comment.
I don't know how much more penhold can revolutionize. The RPB already has penhold able to basically do everything a Shakehand BH can do.

I suppose Xu Xin came up with this wristy, FH banana flip thing a few years go. That's a penhold exclusive shot that's surprisingly easy to do if anybody here has ever tried it. It's a nice change-up but I don't know if we'll see anybody use it more full time.

Just going to have to wait & see if someone emerges. I have no doubts the grip is complete enough to be on a world-class level. Now just depends if the numbers of players is high enough to allow someone to develop.
 
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Jiaqi Zheng is another one to watch. WR 417. Very much in the style of Tin Tin Ho. Righty penholder. Short pip FH. Inverted RPB.

As to SFF_lib's comment.
I don't know how much more penhold can revolutionize. The RPB already has penhold able to basically do everything a Shakehand BH can do.

I suppose Xu Xin came up with this wristy, FH banana flip thing a few years go. That's a penhold exclusive shot that's surprisingly easy to do if anybody here has ever tried it. It's a nice change-up but I don't know if we'll see anybody use it more full time.

Just going to have to wait & see if someone emerges. I have no doubts the grip is complete enough to be on a world-class level. Now just depends if the numbers of players is high enough to allow someone to develop.
I tried the FH banana flick. Very fun to do and usually caught my opponent by surprise.

Probably someone with Ma Lin's gift could save penhold. His magical touch in short game, unpredictable attack and variation of BH return made his opponents difficult to adapt.

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I think the drawback with RPB is that the grip is hard on your wrist and fingers. Look at how many posts there are about hand pain, and where exactly to put your fingers and how to sand the blade to make it more comfortable. It's a big commitment, to risk permanently sore and bent fingers if you want to play Wang Hao's style.

The good thing is that, because of this, it forces you to play relaxed with a gentle grip, and for me this relaxation was reflected all the way through my body. With shakehand you can squeeze the bat as hard as you want, and it's easy for me to tense and end up with a sore shoulder.
 
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I played Penhold first and then changed to Shakehand for 5 yrs, I enjoyed playing both style but at the end 2 yrs ago, I changed back to Penhold and I play much better then Shakehand , I would not change again, I think Penhold has its advantage, such as easy to serve, fast to block, but of-course back hand attack would not be as good as Shakehand and footwork has to be good to run to backhand side to use forehand to attack and then back to recover position.
 
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I think the drawback with RPB is that the grip is hard on your wrist and fingers. Look at how many posts there are about hand pain, and where exactly to put your fingers and how to sand the blade to make it more comfortable. It's a big commitment, to risk permanently sore and bent fingers if you want to play Wang Hao's style.

The good thing is that, because of this, it forces you to play relaxed with a gentle grip, and for me this relaxation was reflected all the way through my body. With shakehand you can squeeze the bat as hard as you want, and it's easy for me to tense and end up with a sore shoulder.

I have always played as a penholder. I started playing at the beginning of last year with a jpen bat and on August I switched to cpen with RPB. I had a hard time adapting to cpen and had to change my grip many times. I had a little bit pain in my fingers until I learned to have a relaxed grip but now it is fine. The main problem I think is that it is hard to achieve consistency on RPB. Even now there are many times during the matches where I don't feel confident enough to use RPB and I end up just pushing the ball back.
 
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The main problem I think is that it is hard to achieve consistency on RPB. Even now there are many times during the matches where I don't feel confident enough to use RPB and I end up just pushing the ball back.

Same. I can block for days far better with TPB than RPB.

But that's not a RPB problem. That's a me problem in that I grew up playing TPB.

I think the answer is as simple as, it just takes practice. I have a powerful RPB stroke but not much confidence to land it in. So a few weeks ago I started hitting with a buddy who is a real return board. That's his strength. Find a partner like this and simply RPB block it back to them. See who makes a mistake first. Others in the penholder thread have touched on this and I think that's the best way to learn. Start small. Get that block down pat. Then go slightly bigger. Counter hitting back. Then bigger, looping, etc as you feel more & more confident & comfortable.

Interesting that people have mentioned finger pain with RPB in this thread. I've never experienced that. Guess I'm lucky there.
 
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Same. I can block for days far better with TPB than RPB.

But that's not a RPB problem. That's a me problem in that I grew up playing TPB.

I think the answer is as simple as, it just takes practice. I have a powerful RPB stroke but not much confidence to land it in. So a few weeks ago I started hitting with a buddy who is a real return board. That's his strength. Find a partner like this and simply RPB block it back to them. See who makes a mistake first. Others in the penholder thread have touched on this and I think that's the best way to learn. Start small. Get that block down pat. Then go slightly bigger. Counter hitting back. Then bigger, looping, etc as you feel more & more confident & comfortable.

Interesting that people have mentioned finger pain with RPB in this thread. I've never experienced that. Guess I'm lucky there.

Actually now I kind of only block with TPB when the ball is in the table and I want to hit at the beginning of the bounce. When blocking an attack from the opponent I kind of like RPB because the bat is naturally at a more closed angle.

You are lucky not having finger pain. I think I had it mostly because this bat is much more heavy than my old jpen and then you feel the need to grip it very hard.


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I am also lucky not having any finger pain playing RPB.

To improve consistency you need to lock your wrist and only swing your forearm. It's the key to RPB consistency as per Wang Hao in his tutorial.

But consistent RPB is not good enough. I have been practicing top-side spin with my RPB by utilising my wrist and forearm. Once it lands on the table its side spin is very troubling. But my consistency is low at the moment.

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This is an interesting thread. I’m new to ping pong and recently been practicing with a coach. I started playing Penhold mainly because that’s how my cousins played when I was a kid. I tried with different coaches and they all use SH themselves and told me that they can train PH. But only recently I was told that for beginners that SH is better to learn and PH takes much longer time to get good. I tried two lessons now with SH and I’m leaning towards it. I just bought PH paddles though :( what do you all think? PH is dying also cause there are lack of PH coaches who can teach it well.


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Do we get to see the survey results? I don’t know if this was shared already. I’m curious.
 
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I’m also new to TT (been playing maybe 5 months and the last two months I started to really get into it), and I started out as SH as my German buddies taught me so. But then I was farting around with Penhold and though it felt so much more natural! As I was taught SH backhand the RPB made sense to me it was just a little awkward at first.

Now, I have to totally relax my grip to achieve a good RPB stroke, otherwise I’m just too stiff and slow. I literally think of a wet noodle as I begin to BH loop, and then I throw that frisbee (as loose as I can) and that’s when I see the most consistency.

That said, I’m far from consistent on anything.. :p.

Loving every moment of it still though!


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Sometimes I wonder if I'm still going to see a Jpen player in the top 10. Is Jpen now officially dead in the pro scene?

The last one I saw playing was Cazuo Matsumoto but that was a while ago. Don’t know if he is still active.


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