Doubts-should i go to jpen rpb or stick to one sided jpen.

[olive-nguyen]

Recently, I have started trying to play rpb. However, I have found that I can't really feel the crispness of a one sided jpen, and my forehand doesn't feel to have the same power and even the crisp sound. This is likely due to the rpb rubber dampening vibration. I was thinking since I'm using one ply hinoki, it will likely perform best one sided. So should I remove my backhand rubber and exclusively use tpb?

 

[SFF_lib]

Thickness of the entire setup affects clarity of the feel. Two-side Jpen feels more muted than one-sided in my experience.

Your recovery time is also slower with two-sided due to the weight.

In today's game rpb is crucial. Unless you're Ma Lin it's pretty hard to win a match with just one side jpen

 

[olive-nguyen]

The thing is looking at the older videos of me playing with a one sided jpen it seems that i could get the speed up faster and change the pace of the game for third ball attack fast. I will upload a few videos in another forum for viewing those earlier vids to see it.

Those were me January this year.

 

[kobe23]

If you tinker you grip a little, you might be able to do a 1/2 shakehand backhand with a single side Jpen. At least that was what I opted.

Not the conventional grip used by mbernalesk, but more like playing with the back face of your hand.

 

[suds79]

I've always felt like when I hit with Jpen, they have loads of power but don't spin it nearly as well. (but they are sweet looking and super comfortable)

IMO it's because they're typically 8-10mm thick or so. Stiff and have a lot of weight. So it's like hitting the ball with a baseball bat. Furthermore, you're supposed to wrap your index finger around the cork grip and the face of the blade is very much perpendicular in relation to the palm of your hand.

I have this old picture of how it works for me. At least in my head. The red circle is the face of the blade. Imagine your index finger wrapped around that cork tightly. Hold your arm out naturally now and look at the face of the blade. The face of the blade is facing this way.

So a natural swing you can see how much more into the ball you hit. ie - power.

Now I've played Cpen for a number of years. First & foremost is that I've always felt like it's a bit of a waste not to have at least something on the backhand side. There's this awesome left handed (like myself) TPB J-pener I like to watch named Moriya Tsubasa 森屋翼 (https://www.youtube.com/@moriyatsubasa4178). But for even as good as he is, if he gets pulled far wide to his FH, the next hit he's pretty much boned standing on the left side of the table running back to play a TPB. It's just not great. So this is partly why I'm a Cpen guy.

Now if you play modern style and play inverted both sides with RPB? Great. Congratulations. There's nothing holding you back. If you play single wing with TPB because that's just what you know, that's okay. I still like cpen more because you can still play your single wing game but mix in an occasional RPB chop or block with some weird rubber type. Pick a LP or anti for that RPB side. This strange change of pace can really give some players fits. Me personally I've always felt that off the table chopping with that RPB LP or anti feels very, very natural. And if a quick ball comes at your BH and the opponent is sleeping mentally thinking "here comes another chop", an aggressive TPB punch with the inverted can change pace & speed. Not even a twiddle required. You in a way have two backhands completely different in style.

Lastly, I feel with cpen I tend to use a wider or more loose grip around the front with my index finger & thumb. This allows me greater flexibility as far as how much i rotate the angle of the bat. I might have on some FHs where I'm really trying to spin it up turned down (close to the picture you see of the shakehand grip above) which offers much greater spin than I ever could generate with Jpen. To me spin generally equates to better consistency.

The TLDR - Even if you stick with single sided TPB, play cpen and put something on the back side there to have for the occasional change up option.

Could be wrong but these have been my personal experiences & observations.

 

[xavi]

I've always felt like when I hit with Jpen, they have loads of power but don't spin it nearly as well. (but they are sweet looking and super comfortable)

IMO it's because they're typically 8-10mm thick or so. Stiff and have a lot of weight. So it's like hitting the ball with a baseball bat. Furthermore, you're supposed to wrap your index finger around the cork grip and the face of the blade is very much perpendicular in relation to the palm of your hand.
View attachment 36847
I have this old picture of how it works for me. At least in my head. The red circle is the face of the blade. Imagine your index finger wrapped around that cork tightly. Hold your arm out naturally now and look at the face of the blade. The face of the blade is facing this way.

So a natural swing you can see how much more into the ball you hit. ie - power.

Now I've played Cpen for a number of years. First & foremost is that I've always felt like it's a bit of a waste not to have at least something on the backhand side. There's this awesome left handed (like myself) TPB J-pener I like to watch named Moriya Tsubasa 森屋翼 (https://www.youtube.com/@moriyatsubasa4178). But for even as good as he is, if he gets pulled far wide to his FH, the next hit he's pretty much boned standing on the left side of the table running back to play a TPB. It's just not great. So this is partly why I'm a Cpen guy.

Watch this:

It helped me a lot in doing the correct swing on jpen forehand topspin.

And yes, it's nice to watch also Tsubasa.