I bought a Viscaria as a begginer. Here's what it did to me and my thoughts on the subject.

[Arkady]

Sorry bro. Starting with a Viscaria as a beginner definitely hinders development even if you don't recognise it immediately.
It seems you did recognise it when you came back after months and couldn't control it, the strokes were not ingrained enough in muscle memory and I can't believe for a second that you wouldnt have been playing at less than 50% of that blades capabilities with incomplete strokes.
Beginners starting with hard fast carbon blades is a terrible idea. It always makes the strokes more difficult to learn and I've never seen anyone learn it in 12mths.
Advising others to try this as beginners is really awful advice.
The strange part is your coach told you it was a blade above your lvl you ignored him.
I basically do not understand this story 😂

I agree 100% with you: When a beginner starts off with a very fast blade, it hinders development.
The reason is simple: At the very beginning in order to learn and understand the mechanics of each stroke ,the movements have to be much bigger and even "exaggerated". That is something that cannot be done with fast blades that do not "forgive" mistakes. It can only be done with slow blades.

However, this is a very hard concept to explain to someone who begins to learn the sport as an adult.
While little kids never argue with the coach about equipment, adults go to their local club, see the equipment of other more advanced players, discuss with them, make research and then buy the fastest blade they can afford, because as vossi39 puts it very eloquently "they feel that they are the exception and need to be treated differently"... I've seen it many times happening.

So it's not worth arguing about it. Someone who begins the sport as an adult, will never be a professional player.
He will only play for fun at the local leagues. So why bother? Let him play with whatever equipment makes him happy. As vossi39 said it: It's their choice, their money, their time.

 

[Bruschk0v]

My 2 cents.

Being a coach is like being a doctor. If the people you train, do not trust your judgement, than they need to move to a different coach.
AND....With I-Net the number of people going to a doctor, already knowing what the diagnosis will be and which are totally disappointed if the doctor disagrees are raising.

Same in coaching. People will go to forum, getting feedback from people, that have never seen them playing and go back to the coach telling him/her that they are an exception and need to be treated differently.
Its so tempting to feel special. Nobody wants to be an average guy.

But as a coach I would no longer argue with these people anymore. Take whatever bat you like and I will gladly help you master it. Might take a whole lot longer, might frustrate you more than needed and might not make you a good player after all. But it is your choice, your money, your time.

I've seen it happen numerous times on this forum:

• somebody mentions an equipment recommendation from his coach
• people on this forum have a different opinion about equipment
• OP gets recommended to ditch his coach and stick with forums favourite equipment

Not sure if or 😭

 

[Sims]

It's a fairly pointless discussion. Everyone should obviously do what they feel like doing. I can only answer from my own perspective. I myself have been playing table tennis for 25 years and my level is around 2100 USATT if the conversion tables of rankings are to be believed. When I played at a much lower level, I used faster equipment than the one I use now. It was fun at times until I played against higher levels. I couldn't return any serve decently and the higher spin level caused a festival of errors on my part.

I also notice this now when I play against people of a much lower level than myself. Those with ridiculously fast equipment can do absolutely nothing against me. I have no fun because they make one mistake after another. Then when they do make a quick top spin, it usually comes back to them so quickly that the point is also over. At least players of the same level with slower equipment can return balls so I have to finish the point myself. So I always advise taking slower rubbers to such players. On the one hand for my own playing pleasure when I play against them and on the other hand because I sincerely believe that ball control and spin is much more important than the speed of your stroke until you really play at top level.

I agree completely, people should do as they wish and I've never said a bad word to anyone at my club regarding their equipment, even the guy playing 6 mths who spent €250 on Tenergy's and fast blade.
But I also don't try to help him in his game any more (because I can't) and cos he can't hit the table with the technique I'd show him and while others are passing him out in performance he seems mostly happy - fair enough.

He decided that he wanted the nice and expensive thing in his hand and that was that, I have no issue with it whatsoever apart from observing that it doesn't make sense to me 🤷‍♂️

But I also hear him talking up his blade and rubbers and giving 'advice' to other players and that's where I'll step in. They hold that racket and notice all the free spin, how nice it feels etc., often without appreciating what's actually best for real improvement and if I can help someone avoid an expensive mistake I will. There's too much bad advice going around and it doesn't help the guys who are actually there to improve and trying to move up the leagues.
It's with that view that I entered this discussion and tried to make sense of the OPs story.
Anyway, I'm off to trial my new €15 Chinese rubber on my €30 All Wood blade 😁
Each to their own eh 👍

 

[Jan_]

It seems to me that you actually do not know what you are saying.

You wrote that getting a carbon blade so early on had no negative effect, even though you had to actually play clipper for 3yrs to learn to control it and then you literally say that if anyone is thinking of doing the same thing that you recommend the Viscaria.

I've read your post 3 times now, I don't think you've read it at all!

I had to play with clipper because I hadn't touched a racket for a year, thanks quarantine👍

 

[Jan_]

i feel the same. I always imagine some natural athlete kid in like the phillipines or something getting roasted by wealthy old eternal white belt EJ's on these forums.
"Youre not allowed to play until you can secure a korbel, son! Go home." lol
Sometimes, we need to focus on training more than equipment, practice matters most.

Exactly. Hell, I got the viscaria because I didn't know jack back then. Didn't care, the face of that damn thing peeled off though and it's part of the reason I was searching for another blade. I did want something slower to help me get back into the sport and the clipper was recommended to me, heard it played like a slower viscaria and seemed fine. Plus it was 1/3rd of the price and there was no way I would get another viscaria back then.

 

[Sims]

I had to play with clipper because I hadn't touched a racket for a year, thanks quarantine👍

Ok, you're convinced that Viscaria was the correct blade for you and you don't seem to recognise any correlation between the speed in that blade and having to play Clipper for 3 years before being able to properly control it or recognition of the fact that this is what almost everyone advises ppl from the get-go.
I'm obviously not going to convince you otherwise so as Bill Burr would say "fair enough, fair enough!". 👍

 

[Jan_]

Ok, you're convinced that Viscaria was the correct blade for you and you don't seem to recognise any correlation between the speed in that blade and having to play Clipper for 3 years before being able to properly control it or recognition of the fact that this is what almost everyone advises ppl from the get-go.
I'm obviously not going to convince you otherwise so as Bill Burr would say "fair enough, fair enough!". 👍

It doesn't matter, if you practice you can handle shit. Also I used the clipper for 1 year, not 3. The rest was the rock hard intensity.