Kim Jung Hoon visits new club - plays handi matches with all 24 club members

Like the title said,

KJH visits a new Joola club in Jan 2020. (Hey, he's sponsored by Joola, he is supposed to do that!)

He plays a single handicap game with everyone in the club ho is wearing a uniform... like ALL of them.

Against a Div 1 2000+ player, he gives 5 handicap points, often 7 or 8. Lots of stuff can happen with that large a handicap, a free swinger, and nets/edges. Some of those nets busted KJH's hip stopping and getting to the ball.

Ask Takkyuwainochi this vid Igor is Japanese.

Publicaly, KJH is a show-off showman who wants to have a good time.

Der_Echte shares a lot of that approach, but is not nearly good enough to pull that off consistently.

One on one, KJH is among the best teachers of amateur TT the sport has even known -hands down. it is just that he speaks Korean and no one really makes an effective effort at making his vids easily understood by English speakers.

As much as I have gisted a lot of his vids, I do not think I have even made a 3% dent into what needs to be done for him to be understood in his vids in English.

The Korean women TT YouTube TV duo of Bbae-Rong/Yo-Rong (Who make most of their vids from my old Korean amateur TT club) do a good effort to get their ideas into English along with their antics. Their vids are geared toward the raw beginner amateur TT crowd and have some use for below average to average club players elsewhere.

In general, since a lot of the more modern topspin oriented pros, semi-pros, and those who were pro-trained and didn't quite make it... since a lot of this topspin crowd in now running clubs or important members in clubs... a LOT of them are active on youtube with content oriented towards topspin play that was hugely lacking from the old-school crowd.

You see literally 20x more of the Korean topspin oriented type teaching sound things today in 2020 than you see in the early 2010s era.

Hi Lula,

I have answered that question periodically throughout my time on the forums.

J-Pen used to be the dominant grip. Maybe 80-20 back in the day, whenever that was, like late 70s and 80s.

Once the more spinny topspin techniques developed, especially the power and spin of the BH, single sided Penhold at the pro level was under much more pressure for it to be successful at the top levels.

Some pros and pro coaches saw this coming, some didn't, some didn't care. Eventually, by the time I made it to Korea in 2009, just about EVERY coach in a club would not choose to start a player out on penhold. Also, a large number of single sided penhold, (J-Pen was like a 90-10 ration to C-Pen) the penholds mostly converted to shakehand in order to at least have a quick blocking or low spin attack to make their games a little more complete and competitive.

When I got to Korea in 2009, you have MAYBE 15% of the amateur players still using J-Pen and 5% with C-Pen. Everyone else was Shakehand user. If you wore lipstick and were over 40 yrs old, it appeared that there was a pre-existing national law requiring 90% of that category to use a ridiculous fast OFF+++ balde with Grass D-Techs on BH.

The ones who were still using J-Pen were at least 90% comprised of O40 guys. Of this segment, over half were Div 1or 2 City/Regional play level (1900-2200 USATT) and a lot were Div 4 city - your average club player or up to two levels better.

Basically, the ones still using J-Pen were the diehard old-dude Geezer crowd who still loved J-Pen and were still pretty good players compared to the average club level. It was that or the ave club level player just didn't care, still loved J-Pen, and didn't want to go through the pain and work to get good or same level with shakehand.

So, when you see a vid of a Korean club and you get to see deep double digit of players, you can get a feel for what it is like over there.

KJH by the way, is kinda like the old school coaches in teaching the BH in that he is more inclined to train the amateur player to make the first offensive response vs an incoming weak or medium underspin ball by using the FAST LOOP or LOOP DRIVE (fast ball speed maybe medium spin).

He DOES teach the slow/heavy spin loop we all know, but his progression is the loop drive first.

At the pro level, spin is nice, but many feel they have to play fast.

Myself, I was way different, I was spin first. When I went to Korea in 2009 as a RECREATIONAL PLAYER of maybe average Korean club level, I had the most spinny BH loop vs an underspin in the entire city as a Div 4 level player. That city had a half million population and maybe 100-200 players who were better Div 4 or higher level players than me.

That is remarkable that a dude, a fat 40 yr old dude, a rec player walking into the club right off the street with ZERO prior coaching would have the city's best BH spin loop vs a cut ball. They just never saw amateur players do that - it amazed them, it froze them and they would block the ball out and long, even the Div 1 players who were WAY better players than me. Even more remarkable is that I learned my spinny BH loop simply by reading Larry Hodges TT Book that teaches the basics of TT... and playing some rec center matches in Iraq the second time I was there.

That is the degree that the BH topspin heavy loop was not used or taught. No coach taught it or did that shot... it was all BANG BANG go for speed. At the time, there simply wasn't much teaching and coaching of the attacking BH for Shakehand players. You kinda figured out how to do that if you made it to Div 1 and got better touch timing and goofed off to learn it.

The predominate teaching of the BH in general at that time was similar to penhold concept in that the use of the BH was to be consistent, keep ball in play, away from opponent's strengths, and then seek a chance to step around and use powerful macho man FH kill.

... and this was just 10 years ago !!! In a nation with great pro players.

At about the same time, you had a lot of retired pro players who were shakehand and could play with some spin... and teach it. These all made their way to clubs as assistant coaches or club owners/coaches. It took some time, but now, on youtube, you can see all manner of ex-pro, ex semi-pro, and the pro-trained crowd teach all kinds of wonderful SH topspin play technique.

Archyan said:

Edit: Seems like he has always had a bit pushy BH, interesting!

Click to expand...

Hi Archyan,

I can tell you this story of KJH's "Pushy" BH.

I was at Nexy Korea HQ one day. I had just gone over KJH German contract with Next Korea Prez Moon and KJH came in to sign it and hang out with the staff and lucky me. This was 2011 I think and KJH was about to play in the German Bundesliga with a Tibhar sponsorship. (Nexy Korea was the country's Tibhar agent)

KJH made it a purpose to show me what is a KOREAN PUSH. He would do a warm-up drill where he is hitting medium paced balls VERY loaded with spin. I am a good blocker and adjusted quickly and could block the ball where he liked it. He would do maybe 10 heavy med speed loops, then WHAN, from same arm slot, he woul "PUSH" through the ball and it would be a fast ball with next to zero spin... needless to say, I blocked that ball right at the bottom of the net if it even made it to the net.

Yet, it you look at hos pro matches, AND if you look at the choices he shows amateur players, it easy to say he is first inclined to hit the ball hard and fast with enough spin to let it land... but I can tell you he knows the heavy spin techniques.

Hi Silversharma,

KJH had some wins vs CNT players on tour and in international comps. Overall, he just wasn't consistent enough to become a WR10-20 player and retain a spot on the national team for long.

This is just personal opinion, I also suspect he just wasn't a "Yes-Man" and sometimes pissed off the natl coaches or administration. That would fly in Europe, but over there, you do not say yes 100% of the time and it is over... even with the top coaches and pro players saying that there is no single correct answer in TT.

If you do not stay on the natl team, it is hard to get natl assn expense paid trips to international comps and the pro tour.. which reduces your income considerable.