Another EJ thread... with some twist

[Gozo Aruna]

Hi fellow good members of this wonderful and spectacular community,

Not asking for myself but helping a fellow club member.

1. Inquirer is a fairly advanced veteran player with provincial wins in the past. He uses J-Pen Darker Speed 90 with Tenergy / Dignics and no rubber on the BH side. He told me age is catching up and he cannot run as well as his younger days and using J-Pen is very taxing ( FH dominant ala Ryu Seung Min / Kim Taek Soo style )

2. He is looking for a five ply all wood SHAKEHAND blade with one side using Long Pips in mind. He is willing to relearn with a completely new set-up.

3. Any recommendations? I am not good with pimple set up hence I am asking here.

4. Player is an old timer and not so good with using English language and using IT device. Hence I am assisting him with this question.

Thank you all.

 

[blahness]

I would highly recommend simply putting LP on the penhold BH rather than a complete switch to shakehand which means relearning almost everything. It is one of the most effective styles I've seen at amateur high level TT. Heck some players with this style have won against some state/national level players here.

So you retain the strong af penhold FH and short game, but on the BH side you can use TPB inverted and RPB long pips, with twiddling even possible with Cpen. You can do all the long pips sideswipes, punches, chop blocks with the LP RPB with no issues. It becomes a nightmare for the opponent to deal with such degree of variation which will give plenty of opportunities to finish off with the penhold FH.

 

[Trevize84]

No direct experience here, but currently I'm training with a veteran like the man you're talking about, he has shakehand grip and uses a ~30+ yo blade from darker. It's 5ply, 3 wood and 2 carbon. The blade is called Max Control and believe me name is very adequate. It's slow as hell due to age, but feeling and consistency are incredible. My man has many aches here and there so he had to adapt technique to these issues, but he manages to play and win in the league with one soft inverted rubber on FH and long pips on BH. For the sake of curiosity I asked Darker about the blade and they told me it's such an old model that they don't have any record and nobody recalls about that. They cannot advice for a similar product! Our guesses are that the blade is made of a thick hinoki mid layer, then carbon then thin hinoki outter layers. Overall the blade looks thin. I haven't measured it but my guess is ~5.5mm. That for saying you may consider a slow blade, with a larger head, and a large sweet spot thanks to carbon, that is also lightweight because of thickness and type of wood. This way you can easily deal with imperfections in technique due to old habits and/or body ageing.

 

[Trevize84]

I would highly recommend simply putting LP on the penhold BH rather than a complete switch to shakehand which means relearning almost everything. It is one of the most effective styles I've seen at amateur high level TT. Heck some players with this style have won against some state/national level players here.

So you retain the strong af penhold FH and short game, but on the BH side you can use TPB inverted and RPB long pips, with twiddling even possible with Cpen. You can do all the long pips sideswipes, punches, chop blocks with the LP RPB with no issues. It becomes a nightmare for the opponent to deal with such degree of variation which will give plenty of opportunities to finish off with the penhold FH.

Any video of this technique?

 

[Der_Echte]

The father of Korean Pro Jung Young Sik used his J-Pen with an OX on BH side and did exactly what blahness suggests.

He would need to figure out HOW he wants to play LPs...

Does he want to be at the table and bump with OX and power drive a FH ball that is too "safe" given to him? Hard, stiff, FAST blade like Sardius/Primorac Carbon/Tamca 5000 with an OX is for him.

Does he want to chop? A Def + to All+ classic chopper's setup with sponged LP is gunna be one heck of a change and feel for him.

The last two scenarios are Shakehand blades, so that is an entirely new learning curve too... does he want this?

He could also try a double sided J-Pen blade with either inverted, SP, or LP on back side... a little extra weight, but it is still J-pen and a viable option... there is a 45 yr old dude in Washington DC who plays a 2100-2200 USATT level with such a setup 2x inverted J-pen playing a control game off the table and pick hit pick spin.

So many ways to go...

You friend should think this out some more and figure out what he really wants before getting something he will hate on and punch a fist sized hole center of mass in the monitor and mirror.

 

[PaddyPolar]

Not much experience here, but i think that a balsa blade could come in handy. Its got the thickness of a jpen but not the weight, which could help a veteran. Balsa also is good with pips. Maybe I'm wrong here. A medium balance blade could help the engage the use of the wrist on the backhand as the could have to get used to that. Maybe switching to cpen first could help a slow transition to shakehand. This advice might not be good though, wouldn't blame you if you took this with a grain of salt😀. I will keep my eye on this thread to check for advice from more experienced people. Just wanted to do my bit.

 

[blahness]

Any video of this technique?

guy won't be happy about me sharing it unfortunately... but if you play around with it, it is really capable of a lot of nasty LP shots. I would characterise the types as chop, chopblock, fade, bump, sideswipe and punch. The LP RPB chiquita is the ultimate, it produced the weirdest spin ball I've ever seen lol.... The guys over here who can't even believe a sideunderspin chiquita haven't seen anything yet haha

 

[Trevize84]

guy won't be happy about me sharing it unfortunately... but if you play around with it, it is really capable of a lot of nasty LP shots. I would characterise the types as chop, chopblock, fade, bump, sideswipe and punch. The LP RPB chiquita is the ultimate, it produced the weirdest spin ball I've ever seen lol.... The guys over here who can't even believe a sideunderspin chiquita haven't seen anything yet haha

No I didn't meant a video of your guy, perhaps someone else on YouTube practicing same training.

 

[blahness]

No I didn't meant a video of your guy, perhaps someone else on YouTube practicing same training.

Haha I think ppl like that are too steeped into the dark side to share their secrets 😅

 

[NextLevel]

The last Cpen guy I played who drove me nuts was a Korean with boosted Hurricane 3 forehand, Hellfire OX backhand on a Cybershape Carbon - he would just chop block everything and loop kill or hit with the pips after twiddling (yes, he chop blocked with the Hurricane inverted, it created an extremely annoying dead ball). Guy was probably around 2250.

There are many setups that can work with this style for sure, but I don't think 5 ply wood is necessary unless you want to get a specialized blade like something from OSP which uses different plies on both sides.

 

[mightymouse]

I initially agree with the suggestion of retaining the blade and put pimple rubber on BH side, because it is easier to use a blade that he is familiar with.

However, I used to have a Butterfly J-Pen 1-ply Hinoki (quite thick) and gave it away to my friend. He used it for his traditional penhold technique (one side only). Few years later, when he tried to use it for RPB (using LP on BH side) he mentioned that it was hard to do so, then he changed to Chinese penhold blade (YEO) and sold the J-Pen blade.

I don't know if it's true or not, but given the thickness of the blade, it is probably not that suitable for RPB.

If the above is true (thick J-Pen blade is not suitable for RPB), then I am thinking about changing the blade to Clipper (penhold). It is thinner that the 1-ply J-Pen but being closer to 7 mm (in thickness) I guess it is easier to adapt.

 

[JJ Ng]

I used ox-long pips on the back of J-pen when I was younger. There is nothing wrong with that style.

I do, agree, however a j-pen blade is too fast. I think your friend should switch to a 5-ply OFF- chinese penhold blade. One-ply 9mm or 10mm hinoki jpen blade, even with ox-long pips on the backside, the ball could easily bounce off the end of the table.

please see the video below. I have subscribed to a lot of youtube TT channels from China. Apparently long pips penholder with inverted rubber on the back is a popular amateur style with many good players using that technique. Now the TT player in the video is using long pips as her main rubber. But just imagine the same technique using RPB instead to achieve the same types of stroke, then you have a rough idea.

 

[zeio]

Any video of this technique?

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

in asia, most older players who are penholders, will put short, medium or long pips on backhand.
I am surprised your veteran player with provincial wins isn't going that route.
can you ask him why is he not going that route?

 

[Gozo Aruna]

in asia, most older players who are penholders, will put short, medium or long pips on backhand.
I am surprised your veteran player with provincial wins isn't going that route.
can you ask him why is he not going that route?

i'll ask him when I see him again.

 

[JJ Ng]

in asia, most older players who are penholders, will put short, medium or long pips on backhand.
I am surprised your veteran player with provincial wins isn't going that route.
can you ask him why is he not going that route?

I agree. This is not a new idea. When I was in college, playing TT, there was a player from Seattle, back in 1998, who used inverted on forehand and long-pips on the back of a c-pen paddle. He obviousy immitated another player in his local area before coming to our college on the east coast to play. I remember he had three strokes: one is pip hit the ball so a slow backspin push to his backhand turns into a fast topspin coming back at you, two is intentionally hit a no spin ball heads on to create a very very wobbly knuckball back on the table (I am pretty sure even he was not sure where the ball was going to land so he aimed for the middle of the table), and three is a very awkward topspin semi-loop (back then RPB was not very developed). He was good enough that on our college club TT team, he played the second position.

Also in 1998, long pips were "long," if you know what I mean. Long pips did not have as much regluation back then. And I am pretty sure he baked his long long pips under the sun inside his car too, just to boot. Lol

 

[Trevize84]

Sorry for asking, what RPB stands for?

 

[JJ Ng]

Sorry for asking, what RPB stands for?

Reverse penhold backhand so the players usually turn the paddle around and loop the ball, like a shakehand player would.