Could my equipment be hampering my consistency?

[Somjit Nath]

Exactly, I thought about this too. That's why i have been grinding for a year trying to get my technique right and everything to improve consistency. I just wanted other POVs as to if the blade might be a problem or not. Thanks for your reply

The answer to this depends a lot on your training and practice habits.

People are always looking for equipment so,utions to raise their level and rarely find them. At best these yield small improvements, usually if previous equipment was very highly inappropriate. Otherwise it is just change but you are still you.

[Baal]

Maybe a somewhat slower blade or rubber could help a little, I'd need to see you play to know for sure. It depends a bit on the economics of it. If you can easily afford another blade you could try getting something in the OFF category, but only expect small improvement. If the price of blade or rubber is a strain on your budget, dont do it. When your rubber finally wears out, then get something a little slower.

Until then just train hard. That will make you better.

[Der_Echte]

A lot of my lurker friends have been laughing their tails off over the thread title what blade/rubber combo is in use with the limited experience and training level.

It is beyond apparent when a player with a play style of flexible offensive attack and not so developed fundamentals suddenly gets an OFF+ Balsa-Carbon blade and wonders why it is more difficult to land the common offensive shots.

That setup is optimized for a hitter (at least the blade is) who plays mostly direct impact shots with very solid impact producing flat shots with pace and little spin. This setup class (OFF+ blade and more controllable modern rubbers) is the favored setup of old-school Korean coaches when they start someone out. (as much as it would shock a pundit). That type of setup makes it very easy to use a low power, technically sound compact stroke (the very ones they start out teaching) to produce a fast, straight ball with little spin close to the table. Very quickly, (like within the first 1-3 months of training) these new Korean players become very good at fast drives close to the table with placement and often hit 100 or 200 consecutive without miss.

The point of all that paragraph is that the uber fast setup in question, while crappy for flexible OFF play is a controllable preferred option for a different style of play.

The thing that is cracking up my lurker friends is that the OP plays what appears to be a common flexible offensive style (that the center of mass is ALL to OFF- blade and modern control oriented dynamic rubbers) and is using the polar opposite of that (OFF+ blade and more dynamic oriented rubber) without having established/fully developed fundamentals and is wondering why it is now much more difficult to land the common offensive topspin shots.

It would be very obvious why... and there is now a lengthy thread inquiring about this.

What is even more remarkable about this is that the OP goes to an actual table tennis center (where we would presume are coaches, more knowledgeable/experienced players), has the opportunity to actually practice and presumably, receive some basic feedback and what the player is doing right and wrong.

If a player is not in such a favorable situation, it may be understandable for a player to make such a mistake about equipment and wonder what is going on as such a player has no one around them who knows. In this situation, it is common to make an equipment selection mistake and not know it.

In my own country of USA, the most common place where we play is not an established full time TT club open every day, but great majority only have a 1-2 time a week "TT Club" that is basically volunteers renting out community center space for a couple hours 1-2 times a week to setup tables and play, winner stay and get off after 3 wins, loser make a claim for next match on a table, and wait 3 matches or an hour to get back on.

Players do not generally develop much anything of fundamentals at such a place for obvious reasons. It would be much more understandable for a player from this situation to make this error, not know, and ask about it.

Even if this class of player in that situation were given the most appropriate bat to develop (say a common wooden ALL+ with Vega to use on of a million examples) these kind of players already have many ingrained poor strokes, never developed fundamentals, have no access to coaching or a place to get coached, or if no coach, at least no better knowledgeable player to guide and correct... so this class of player could use the most appropriate equipment and still never develop. (Heck, I see this class of player in a regular full time club)

Why do I write all that?

Heck, that is EXCATLY how I got my start. For 4 years, that is what TT was for me... barely able to get to where tables are setup and no chance to train, get coaching, or learn much. Since I wasn't better than most, I would get on a table, play the match, and promptly get the Das Boot off the table. I also had zero sense of equipment. Soon enough, when I wanted some more "power" I also ended up with an OFF+ blade and some of the most offensive rubbers around... and it wasn't helping my shots... but in that situation, there really wasn't much help for me until I cold get in a situation with better structure to learn the fundamentals and get supervised experience. Myself included at that time, you coulda handed me the same appropriate setup and I still would have missed a lot of shots. I just wasn't fundamentally sound at that time and the trendline for me wasn't good either.

I can say I have been there and done that the exact say manner in which the OP did. If I was around coaches and better players, I could have avoided it, but it is kinda like birth or growth pains in the sport that many of us go through.

[NextLevel]

The thing is that learning to use equipment is like learning to play an instrument or mastering driving a car. The more you do it and the more you push yourself to the extremes doing it, the better you get at it.

While a slower blade might help you in many ways, the most important thing is that you enjoy playing with it and not blame it for whatever issues you have. For me the main issue I had with faster blades was that I couldn't feel the ball and that was hurting me when I tried to block. But knowing what I know now, I could probably adapt to it better but I would probably not enjoy it as much as getting a blade within a certain frequency range.

I train with a guy who is almost 70. His regular preferred training routine is to begin his practice session doing an hour of forehands and an hour of backhands ( with a few mixed drills) across different points on the table. We begin forehand crosscourt, then go forehand inside out cross court, then forehand down the line on the backhand side and then forehand down the line on the forehand side and then forehand down the line on the middle. I think next time I will recommend we also do some shots to the middle from the corners just to mix it up. Then we do something similar for the backhand.

When you hit the ball this much(and some would argue that it isn't going to help you beyond a certain point), and Other players you are hitting with are trying to pulverize the ball with spin and control and trying to block and make the other person miss while still not avoiding their general requirement to place the ball properly, you get a different view of practice. Especially when the person you are hitting with is so consistent that your very best shots are sometimes getting blocked or smashed back in your face. So you have to hit the ball but be very clear on your angles and placement and be sure to recover for the next ball. In the beginning you feel as if you are being punished because you don't think you should be training this way. But at a certain point, you realize that once you know where the ball is going, you have zero excuse not to at least put it back on the table if you are in position to do so. If you don't your stroke is the problem or your ball read is the problem.

The thing is that when you train this much, you can use anything you want because you will get better quickly. And players who train this much and play topspin at the highest levels generally play with equipment that had two requirements- good serve return on short balls and the ability to play with good spin and power when early and late to the ball on longer balls. The key is that when late, the arc will keep the ball safe. If the blade is too fast the lack of arc will send the ball long. If the rubber is too fast one may struggle pushing certain serves short and low on demand.

Because how well you use a blade is usually about how hard you train with it, there is no magic pill in equipment. The main thing I tell people is to use something standard that another player you know or want to play like uses so you can learn from them without difficulty.

To OP, your rubbers clearly bring confidence. The blade doesn't sound like something standard so it may not work the way you think it should when you play someone else. But if you trained hard to figure out how to use it and your fingers responded to the amount of vibration it provides on shots, it doesn't matter.

But if you don't train that much or you don't have that much ball feeling, you may do better with something slower. The slower rebound will give you the feeling of more vibration and hence more control. But this won't necessarily make you a much better player. It will just mean that you can feel more differences in how your shot affects the ball. And if you don't train to make those differences have a lasting effect, it will be just ending up in the same place.

Because paradoxically, when you develop better technique and ball feeling, the blade that was too fast can become a blade you can control assuming the practice hours are there. But some people find that with good physical technique they will prefer the extra control and arc of the slower blade to the speed on shorter strokes of the faster blade. For others it is quite the opposite- they are looking to smash and play faster and find the slower blade control too stifling and want something that makes the ball move so they can finish points faster. This balancing act prevails at all levels of play and while most coaches will bias serious adult learners to use slower equipment to learn to hit the ball properly, at a certain point, if you can block consistently with something, you may want to trade some of that consistency for faster blocks and drives as long a stout service return and looping consistency isn't compromised.

The biggest takeaways are

1) use what you enjoy playing what.
2) there is no shortcut to getting good beyond lots of practice and trying to enhance your technique. Technique for blocking, looping, moving/footwork etc.
3) usually less practice time and less ball feeling means you should use slower equipment. But it doesn't mean that this will improve your game. It just makes it easier for your to get feedback from your practice.
4) table tennis is really difficult.

[Der_Echte]

Next Level could never get 1/3 the coherent usable info from my mouth from all I ever said in our personal meetings compared to what he just posted.

[UpSideDownCarl]

Exactly, I thought about this too. That's why i have been grinding for a year trying to get my technique right and everything to improve consistency. I just wanted other POVs as to if the blade might be a problem or not. Thanks for your reply

But in this circumstance, it does sound like the blade is a problem. And it would make sense that this is likely the case since, with the blade you have that it would be a problem for a decently large percentage of players.

[yogi_bear]

I do not think changing to a slower equipment equates small improvements automatically. By experience, i have seen players who shifted from off+ to off blades who have improved a lotin their games. At the end of the day, it is relatively about able to control. With the kind of rubbers today, you do not really need off+ blades to have a fast setup.

[yogi_bear]

There is one blade that I forgot to suggest - Yasaka Ma Lin soft Carbon. This is my go to blade for control carbon blades that i always suggest to people personally. Medium-soft carbon blades are ideal for a balanced control and speed. The Ma Lin Soft Carbon kinda fell into obscurity but I think it is the best carbon blade ever made by Yasaka.

[Simas]

There is a reason the worlds top players play with slower blades.

And there is a reason why manufacturers make faster and faster

[Somjit Nath]

Sorry for the late reply. Just to clarify. I realise I made a mistake, but as I posted, this was not my preferred set-up. I bought this entire set-up second-hand and at that time I did not have a coach or the knowledge of good equipment. So, I do agree it was a mistake on my part not to research it thoroughly. I just saw that I was getting the expensive set-up for such a low price, so I went for it. Thanks for your reply I realise where I went wrong.

A lot of my lurker friends have been laughing their tails off over the thread title what blade/rubber combo is in use with the limited experience and training level.

It is beyond apparent when a player with a play style of flexible offensive attack and not so developed fundamentals suddenly gets an OFF+ Balsa-Carbon blade and wonders why it is more difficult to land the common offensive shots.

That setup is optimized for a hitter (at least the blade is) who plays mostly direct impact shots with very solid impact producing flat shots with pace and little spin. This setup class (OFF+ blade and more controllable modern rubbers) is the favored setup of old-school Korean coaches when they start someone out. (as much as it would shock a pundit). That type of setup makes it very easy to use a low power, technically sound compact stroke (the very ones they start out teaching) to produce a fast, straight ball with little spin close to the table. Very quickly, (like within the first 1-3 months of training) these new Korean players become very good at fast drives close to the table with placement and often hit 100 or 200 consecutive without miss.

The point of all that paragraph is that the uber fast setup in question, while crappy for flexible OFF play is a controllable preferred option for a different style of play.

The thing that is cracking up my lurker friends is that the OP plays what appears to be a common flexible offensive style (that the center of mass is ALL to OFF- blade and modern control oriented dynamic rubbers) and is using the polar opposite of that (OFF+ blade and more dynamic oriented rubber) without having established/fully developed fundamentals and is wondering why it is now much more difficult to land the common offensive topspin shots.

It would be very obvious why... and there is now a lengthy thread inquiring about this.

What is even more remarkable about this is that the OP goes to an actual table tennis center (where we would presume are coaches, more knowledgeable/experienced players), has the opportunity to actually practice and presumably, receive some basic feedback and what the player is doing right and wrong.

If a player is not in such a favorable situation, it may be understandable for a player to make such a mistake about equipment and wonder what is going on as such a player has no one around them who knows. In this situation, it is common to make an equipment selection mistake and not know it.

In my own country of USA, the most common place where we play is not an established full time TT club open every day, but great majority only have a 1-2 time a week "TT Club" that is basically volunteers renting out community center space for a couple hours 1-2 times a week to setup tables and play, winner stay and get off after 3 wins, loser make a claim for next match on a table, and wait 3 matches or an hour to get back on.

Players do not generally develop much anything of fundamentals at such a place for obvious reasons. It would be much more understandable for a player from this situation to make this error, not know, and ask about it.

Even if this class of player in that situation were given the most appropriate bat to develop (say a common wooden ALL+ with Vega to use on of a million examples) these kind of players already have many ingrained poor strokes, never developed fundamentals, have no access to coaching or a place to get coached, or if no coach, at least no better knowledgeable player to guide and correct... so this class of player could use the most appropriate equipment and still never develop. (Heck, I see this class of player in a regular full time club)

Why do I write all that?

Heck, that is EXCATLY how I got my start. For 4 years, that is what TT was for me... barely able to get to where tables are setup and no chance to train, get coaching, or learn much. Since I wasn't better than most, I would get on a table, play the match, and promptly get the Das Boot off the table. I also had zero sense of equipment. Soon enough, when I wanted some more "power" I also ended up with an OFF+ blade and some of the most offensive rubbers around... and it wasn't helping my shots... but in that situation, there really wasn't much help for me until I cold get in a situation with better structure to learn the fundamentals and get supervised experience. Myself included at that time, you coulda handed me the same appropriate setup and I still would have missed a lot of shots. I just wasn't fundamentally sound at that time and the trendline for me wasn't good either.

I can say I have been there and done that the exact say manner in which the OP did. If I was around coaches and better players, I could have avoided it, but it is kinda like birth or growth pains in the sport that many of us go through.