Beginner setup advice

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Hi all,

I'm starting to play and I would like some advice from you guys, knowing that my motivations and environment may be slightly specific:

- I'm a 44 years old woman, with a poor physical condition. But I want to use this sport as a way to improve my physical condition.
- I have bad arthritis in some of my fingers, so after multiple tests, most likely I will use the pen-hold grip. I also have arthritis in my wrist (not as bad as in my fingers), but so far, not in my knees.
- It seems like I will use the same side of my blade, most of the time. The good thing is, it gives twice the opportunity of a rubber testing, for one blade.
- I can go train in a club only once a week, but I have a training robot in my garage.
- My goal is to start lowest level of team championship, one day, in France.

So far I can stick with my crappy Decathlon blade to learn to keep the ball on the table, but there is a 'bonus' of using decent rubbers:

- I have a kid, almost 11 years old, who plays for 5-6 years. Not specially talented, but passionate and hard-worker. He trains ~8 hours a week, plus various championships the week-end.
- He likes to play different games, depending on his opponent: He can defend, he can attack with ball placement tactics. Not what most of boys of his age play (usually pure attackers).
- He plays for year with LKT "rapid sound" and "rapid power" rubbers. His main coach likes good quality/price ratio rubbers, so he never played with other brands.

But I would like to give him the opportunity to test other brands of rubbers, with my blade(s).

So basically I'm looking for rubbers that I can use to begin without too much struggling, and allow my kid to experiment different hardness/rapidity/control/whatever when he wants to.

I don't have too much budget limit. But let's say, it's probably worthless to invest too much money for a beginner with low expectations, and I don't know if it is a good habit to buy luxury rubbers to a kid, who will not be professional.

Thank you for your advice!
 
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I honestly would clap a LP Rubber. I know an old man who plays penhold with an LP Rubber and he only plays with that side.
This way you don´t have to worry about using wrist and think only about placement of the ball. And you will get to be feared eventually. It´s also funny making your opponent run left and right and have him miss many balls. There is some fun in making a better player look like an amateur vs you. Still your choice ofc
 
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I would study the playstyle of Ni Xialian on youtube and try to get into her equipment. I think this is the best setup for playing in old age because you can punch the ball. There is an old player in my club that plays similar, with japanese hinoki penhold and only tibhar mxp rubber on one side. He is really offensive and this style works when you are not so flexible in the body, I think.
 
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Honestly I don't think you should play. Tt requires a lot of hard and fast wrist movement and it could cause you severe injury to the point where surgery is required. And penhold is even more demanding and will for sure get you injured.

As a coach in training, I recommend picking up running and forget about tt. I almost needed surgery because I injured my knees with sailing, don't make the mistake of pushing where you're weak.
 
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Honestly I don't think you should play. Tt requires a lot of hard and fast wrist movement and it could cause you severe injury to the point where surgery is required. And penhold is even more demanding and will for sure get you injured.

As a coach in training, I recommend picking up running and forget about tt. I almost needed surgery because I injured my knees with sailing, don't make the mistake of pushing where you're weak.

I think tabletennis has so many strategies and different types of equipment, that I think he will find a setup that works for him.

As for rubbers that are tried and well known:

Xiom Vega series
Nittaku Fastarc series

You could start with
Nittaku factive or xiom vega intro
Both would be faster and spinnier then the ktl rubbers you mentioned, but not by too mich to be overwhelmed.

If you want to try long pips, which seems a reasonable approach to me, given your circumstances:

Dawei 388d-1 is a great LP with best price to performance to control ratio.
You can get it for 5$ from AliExpress.

Also Yinhe has relatively cheap Penhold blades you can also buy them on AliExpress.
 
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Hi all,

I don’t know much about Penhold and blades, but I know one thing. Playing with the same side requires a lot of wrist twisting… Also I would try get the setup as light as possible.

I'll do the best of my capability. Normally I can't bend my wrist, but I may be able to twist... On coach in my club told me to 'check my watch' to play forehand, and so far it was not bad.

I would study the playstyle of Ni Xialian on youtube and try to get into her equipment.

I watched one of her video, and I see she can switch the side of her blade, even using penhold. I guess I'll train this part also, to be able to actually use the two sides during a point.

As a coach in training, I recommend picking up running and forget about tt. I almost needed surgery because I injured my knees with sailing, don't make the mistake of pushing where you're weak.

My condition is genetic, unfortunately. So I had to learn to listen to my pain. Hopefully I'll stop before it goes bad, but I want to try before giving up.
Also, Table tennis is much more fun than running. After many years driving my kid to trainings, championships, watching people playing, studying theory, tactics, and so on... It starts to be too appealing.

I honestly would clap a LP Rubber.

You could start with
Nittaku factive or xiom vega intro
Both would be faster and spinnier then the ktl rubbers you mentioned, but not by too mich to be overwhelmed.

If you want to try long pips, which seems a reasonable approach to me, given your circumstances:

Dawei 388d-1 is a great LP with best price to performance to control ratio.

I followed your advice and ordered the xiom vega intro, and the Dawei 388d-1.

So I'll train both and see if I can adapt!

Many thanks guys!
 
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I think tabletennis has so many strategies and different types of equipment, that I think he will find a setup that works for him.

As for rubbers that are tried and well known:

Xiom Vega series
Nittaku Fastarc series

You could start with
Nittaku factive or xiom vega intro
Both would be faster and spinnier then the ktl rubbers you mentioned, but not by too mich to be overwhelmed.

If you want to try long pips, which seems a reasonable approach to me, given your circumstances:

Dawei 388d-1 is a great LP with best price to performance to control ratio.
You can get it for 5$ from AliExpress.

Also Yinhe has relatively cheap Penhold blades you can also buy them on AliExpress.
It's not the setup. You can't play with your body like that or it will punish you and leave you in pain for the rest of your life. My father made the mistake of picking up his motorbike after he dropped it, 20 years later he still can't stand for more than 30 minutes at a time.
 
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