Golden Tango, people. Golden Tango. D05 is a fine rubber by the way. But if you don't want to boost, Golden Tango is a really comfortable place to be. As a bonus, you can get two for the price of one Dignics.
I'm famous now!
Never go full Gozo!
Your mindset already won you the match, seems like your opponent already felt he had to take risk to have a chance which is not a good place to be or way to play. I think the main distinction was that he played as if he was afraid of the rally and you didn't.
Such things are just feelings. I find that whatever you use, if you train enough, the body will adjust. The main reason why 05 feels that way is that the topsheet is designed to spin, but if you hit a bit more to the wood and close the blade somewhat through the stroke, the effect will be decent. And if you hit to the wood and don't close the blade, a lot of the effect won't matter anyway, the key will be just timing.
Getting feedback on training drills as quickly as possible is very important. Otherwise you groove in habits that will be hard to break without major changes and you want to reduce the need for major changes as much as possible. Even a 2 minute section of drill is sufficient.
That was what I was thinking when I tested D05 on both sides but I also learned that Tango was pretty powerful when I ran that experiment. Right now, I play with both paddles and I might put Tango on Forehand and 05 on backhand. But I could definitely stick with the same on both sides, though getting 05 to work on my forehand has been a challenge.
Hmm I never heard of Golden Tango before and I don't think it's sold at my local shop? 05 is terrible for short receives especially push control imo because of the sheer bounciness. But it is amazing for aggressive strokes like flicks and chiquita. My thinking is that once I switch to D05 on the FH, my main FH receive is going to be sidespin (both fade and hook) and flicks on short balls whenever possible and to avoid pushing in general especially against non underspin stuff.
You have to do an immediate recovery intermediate step after the pivot. So during the FH loop itself you transfer weight to your left foot, and immediately use that to bounce yourself back towards the right, then you have to do a large crossover step. It's very important to land with weight on your left foot after the crossover step to stay balanced. Then you have to take another two big steps to get back to BH from wide FH. It definitely takes a lot of energy and physicality to do that against a quality fast block. I saw ex pros panting for air after a few of these on Fang Bo's channel. I trained these a few times and decided that FH pivoting is overrated 😂 I just use my BH now...
I thought though that D05 is alot more bouncier than Rakza X, hence why my friends recommended me to use that instead to develop my bh so that I can play full strokes and not be afraid of hitting too hard like when I am using the D05. When using D05, I am very focused on thin contact as it can become very fast and uncontrollable if I don't get the right contact, but I am told that Rakza X is slower so it encourages a fuller stroke. With that, I have more control on the ball as the ball stays on the rubber for longer and doesn't shoot out as fast.
Dignics series actually does the best with thick contact with the closing of the blade angle as part of the contact (see for eg Ovtcharov stroke structure - it's ideal for Dignics). With that kind of contact you can wrap the ball completely and you gain a lot of consistency because of the wrapping. I feel like it's almost designed to do that, and flatter hitting is just terrible using it.
Ah okay. That makes sense. What I would say is that there is a path adjustment you need to make when you hit the ball hard. That is what enables you to play full strokes closer to the table. It usually involves finishing a bit lower tha you would with a slower rubber.
This I agree with, I have not decided I want to change my stroke that much, but I have felt this a lot. What I will probably do is make the stroke path bigger but close over it.
For me it's the opposite, I feel like I naturally love the closing of the angle because of the control it allows me, it's a remnant when I was using 09c, and for me other unboosted rubbers didn't give me this feeling of security in terms of wrapping the ball (and then releasing it with huge amounts of spin).
The cross over was the drill we were working towards on Tuesday. I'll have to check that video out. Thanks! I think you put it perfectly on why I was having issues. I have a bad habit of leaving my left leg behind and trying to balance all my weight on my right. Going to try to do that side-step mentioned in the video for tonight's practice and see how it goes. @blahness Thank you for the explanation as well. It's definitely the intermediate step I'm missing out on!
