New Equipment -- Budding EJ

[piligrim]

When I started over after 40+ years I started with Sriver…

But I say this beware of the EJ devil if you don’t want to spend a lot of money.

Cheers
L-zr

If someone learning driving should he get 40 years old car or something people use this days?

 

[Lazer]

If someone learning driving should he get 40 years old car or something people use this days?

That is perfectly alright…

Cheers
L-zr

 

[piligrim]

There is another thing about Sriver. It was made to use with speed glue and with celluloid balls

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Plenty of local league players around here still use Sriver. It'll do the job for the OP.

What is the level of your local league?

 

[ThePongCommenter]

I was not sure between Sriver and Rozena, then went with Sriver to have more of a beginner set up. Should I modify the order?

Yes, get Rozena instead of Sriver.

 

[greenbeanmachine]

Yes, get Rozena instead of Sriver.

I disagree. Sriver is perfectly fine and Rozena has far too much catapult for a beginner. Rozena will not make you learn how to create your own power, and it will be hard to control against slow spinny balls. There's a reason why Sriver has stayed in production after all these years, and it's because it's a very good rubber.

Sriver will be much more controllable than Rozena. If you find it is too slow, then you can put it on your Timo Boll blade. But Rozena is generally a bad idea in my opinion. It suits a very specific niche of intermediate/advanced players who find Tenergy to be too fast/grippy. Rubbers which employ both tensor + soft sponge (such as Rozena) are very difficult to control, and it won't teach you how to create your own power -- only how to redirect your opponent's power against them.

Once you reach 1000-1500 USATT you can move away from Sriver and start using a harder faster rubber, but Sriver is definitely a good one to learn with.

P.S. there's a ~1700 player at my club who uses Viscaria + Sriver + Sriver and beats me regularly. The skill ceiling on Sriver is pretty high.

 

[TableTennisBD]

I disagree. Sriver is perfectly fine and Rozena has far too much catapult for a beginner. Rozena will not make you learn how to create your own power, and it will be hard to control against slow spinny balls. There's a reason why Sriver has stayed in production after all these years, and it's because it's a very good rubber.

Sriver will be much more controllable than Rozena. If you find it is too slow, then you can put it on your Timo Boll blade. But Rozena is generally a bad idea in my opinion. It suits a very specific niche of intermediate/advanced players who find Tenergy to be too fast/grippy. Rubbers which employ both tensor + soft sponge (such as Rozena) are very difficult to control, and it won't teach you how to create your own power -- only how to redirect your opponent's power against them.

Once you reach 1000-1500 USATT you can move away from Sriver and start using a harder faster rubber, but Sriver is definitely a good one to learn with.

P.S. there's a ~1700 player at my club who uses Viscaria + Sriver + Sriver and beats me regularly. The skill ceiling on Sriver is pretty high.

Since I am looking for control as a beginner. I struggle most to keep spiny , swerving serves on the table—- should I opt for Sriver on one side and Rozena on my back hand?

 

[piligrim]

P.S. there's a ~1700 player at my club who uses Viscaria + Sriver + Sriver and beats me regularly. The skill ceiling on Sriver is pretty high.

If someone will beat you with premade racket will make you think skill ceiling on premade racket pretty high?

 

[ThePongCommenter]

I disagree. Sriver is perfectly fine and Rozena has far too much catapult for a beginner. Rozena will not make you learn how to create your own power, and it will be hard to control against slow spinny balls. There's a reason why Sriver has stayed in production after all these years, and it's because it's a very good rubber.

Sriver will be much more controllable than Rozena. If you find it is too slow, then you can put it on your Timo Boll blade. But Rozena is generally a bad idea in my opinion. It suits a very specific niche of intermediate/advanced players who find Tenergy to be too fast/grippy. Rubbers which employ both tensor + soft sponge (such as Rozena) are very difficult to control, and it won't teach you how to create your own power -- only how to redirect your opponent's power against them.

Once you reach 1000-1500 USATT you can move away from Sriver and start using a harder faster rubber, but Sriver is definitely a good one to learn with.

P.S. there's a ~1700 player at my club who uses Viscaria + Sriver + Sriver and beats me regularly. The skill ceiling on Sriver is pretty high.

Ok. I disagree. I have seen many developing players use Rozena without issue and I don't really see anyone using Sriver anymore but your experience may be different.

No rubber "makes you learn how to create your own power" though anyone using Rozena should not have any issues doing so whatsoever if they are being taught or learning in the correct way.

Rozena does not suit most advanced players playing a typical offensive game unless we have different definitions of advanced. And it is specifically designed as a watered down beginner's entryway into Tenergy/Dignics.

Rozena does not employ tensor technology.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Sriver / Rozena what does it matter if you have already bought it. Use it, play with it.... but get a coach to guide you with it.

No coach player

With coach

 

[TableTennisBD]

No coach player

 

[RefereeNumber2]

I am a 42 year old amateur player with tremendous love for the game and a desire to learn the game properly. I hope to take it as a physical activity and do well in our community competitions (no love lost if I do terrible at that). Ideally I prefer to go to a club but because of life, I can go there twice a month if I am lucky. To keep growing, I practice in my basement everyday with a Joola robot and rebound board. I am thinking about taking some lessons to learn proper technique. Any suggestions for me (for development) would be welcome.

It says a lot about this forum that everyone is responding to the part about Sriver but not this.

My 2 cents are:

1. It will be quite difficult to improve without a combination of coaching and playing against better players, no matter what racket you use. Assuming you can't dramatically change your life in order to play a lot more table tennis, I would recommend studying coaching videos and watching high-level matches in your free time. There are lots of coaching and match videos available for free on youtube. You may then be able to develop an idea of techniques/footwork patterns, etc. to practice with your robot when you're at home. Get a camera, record yourself during practice, and compare yourself to coaching/match videos to see how your technique and footwork compare.

2. Don't expect much helpful advice from this forum. This forum attracts people who like to talk about equipment, and those people naturally tend to think equipment is very important. So keep in mind that the people who are answering your questions on here are in the top 0.1% of the English-language table tennis world in terms of caring and thinking about equipment (despite many of them possibly being no better at actually playing the sport than you are). So you will always get strongly opinionated comments telling you what you must or must not do with your equipment. Don't get me wrong, learning and talking about equipment can be fun. But it will have approximately zero effect on how quickly you actually improve.

Last, and least important: I wouldn't recommend Sriver to a beginner. To be fair, I've never used it myself and I can't honestly recall meeting anyone at any club or competition I've attended who used it, so I don't know much about it. But from what I can gather, starting with Sriver would be akin to starting a beginning tennis player with a wooden racket, or a beginner golfer with a wooden-headed driver. You can certainly play with it, but at $30 per sheet you can get some more modern rubbers that will be more fun to use.

 

[impluse101]

Sriver / Rozena what does it matter if you have already bought it. Use it, play with it.... but get a coach to guide you with it.

No coach player

With coach

to the OP >> this is the logical and simplest advice.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

It says a lot about this forum that everyone is responding to the part about Sriver but not this.

My 2 cents are:

1. It will be quite difficult to improve without a combination of coaching and playing against better players, no matter what racket you use. Assuming you can't dramatically change your life in order to play a lot more table tennis, I would recommend studying coaching videos and watching high-level matches in your free time. There are lots of coaching and match videos available for free on youtube. You may then be able to develop an idea of techniques/footwork patterns, etc. to practice with your robot when you're at home. Get a camera, record yourself during practice, and compare yourself to coaching/match videos to see how your technique and footwork compare.

2. Don't expect much helpful advice from this forum. This forum attracts people who like to talk about equipment, and those people naturally tend to think equipment is very important. So keep in mind that the people who are answering your questions on here are in the top 0.1% of the English-language table tennis world in terms of caring and thinking about equipment (despite many of them possibly being no better at actually playing the sport than you are). So you will always get strongly opinionated comments telling you what you must or must not do with your equipment. Don't get me wrong, learning and talking about equipment can be fun. But it will have approximately zero effect on how quickly you actually improve.

Last, and least important: I wouldn't recommend Sriver to a beginner. To be fair, I've never used it myself and I can't honestly recall meeting anyone at any club or competition I've attended who used it, so I don't know much about it. But from what I can gather, starting with Sriver would be akin to starting a beginning tennis player with a wooden racket, or a beginner golfer with a wooden-headed driver. You can certainly play with it, but at $30 per sheet you can get some more modern rubbers that will be more fun to use.

This is a great post. More importantly, on point 2, this forum (and I guess the internet as a whole) attracts people with strong opinions often formed by reading this forum or other places on the internet, and oftentimes these people lack the TT experience or expertise to really be qualified to give quality advice. So you get a lot of people saying the same thing over and over and oftentimes these rehashed talking points aren't really fully understood and experienced by the people saying them. This manifests a lot in equipment discussions and general coaching advice.

So sometimes you have someone who has trained professionally and is an experienced and high level player, being told he is wrong by someone who not long ago broke 1000 and was asking beginner level questions, but you might not know who is who.

 

[greenbeanmachine]

Rozena does not employ tensor technology.

According to the butterfly website, Rozena uses "high-tension" technology, which is the same thing as tensor technology. Andro has a patent on the name "tensor" but every EuroJap company uses the same technology on almost all of their rubbers, including Rozena.

Rozena

Details ROZENA is a ground-breaking rubber that incorporates high levels of speed and spin, while simultaneously making High Tension rubber accessible to the masses. Rozena is a versatile rubber that lends itself to a variety of playing styles. This is a rubber sheet that has high tolerance...

shop.butterflyonline.com

Rozena does not suit most advanced players playing a typical offensive game unless we have different definitions of advanced.

Not professionals for sure, but it suits many players in the 2000+ range. I know a 2370 rated player who uses Rozena on both sides.

It says a lot about this forum that everyone is responding to the part about Sriver but not this.

My 2 cents are:

1. It will be quite difficult to improve without a combination of coaching and playing against better players, no matter what racket you use.

2. This forum attracts people who like to talk about equipment, and those people naturally tend to think equipment is very important.

1. Totally agree
2. Fair enough, but there are better and worse choices that one could make as a beginner. I think there are good reasons for beginners to avoid Rozena, and so does my coach who played in the 2000 olympics. At the end of the day, you can still learn with Rozena. I wouldn't trip over myself or cancel orders just to get Rozena, though.

You can certainly play with [Sriver], but at $30 per sheet you can get some more modern rubbers that will be more fun to use.

Yeah this is a good reason to steer clear of Butterfly in general unless you have money to burn. You can get Hurricane 3 or Battle II or Rxton 5 for much cheaper.

 

[greenbeanmachine]

Since I am looking for control as a beginner. I struggle most to keep spiny , swerving serves on the table—- should I opt for Sriver on one side and Rozena on my back hand?

You could do that, especially if you tend to return serves with your forehand. I personally think it's confusing as a beginner to have two different rubbers, and I would advise using the same rubber on both sides until you have a good reason not to.

 

[Scarfed Garchomp]

There is another thing about Sriver. It was made to use with speed glue and with celluloid balls

Sriver was introduced before speed gluing was a thing, and in the era of the 38mm ball

 

[ThePongCommenter]

According to the butterfly website, Rozena uses "high-tension" technology, which is the same thing as tensor technology. Andro has a patent on the name "tensor" but every EuroJap company uses the same technology on almost all of their rubbers, including Rozena.

Rozena

Details ROZENA is a ground-breaking rubber that incorporates high levels of speed and spin, while simultaneously making High Tension rubber accessible to the masses. Rozena is a versatile rubber that lends itself to a variety of playing styles. This is a rubber sheet that has high tolerance...

shop.butterflyonline.com

Not professionals for sure, but it suits many players in the 2000+ range. I know a 2370 rated player who uses Rozena on both sides.


1. Totally agree
2. Fair enough, but there are better and worse choices that one could make as a beginner. I think there are good reasons for beginners to avoid Rozena, and so does my coach who played in the 2000 olympics. At the end of the day, you can still learn with Rozena. I wouldn't trip over myself or cancel orders just to get Rozena, though.


Yeah this is a good reason to steer clear of Butterfly in general unless you have money to burn. You can get Hurricane 3 or Battle II or Rxton 5 for much cheaper.

Saying that Spring Sponge is the same thing as ESN's tensor technology could not be more incorrect. This is the reason that for a decade from 2010-2020 ESN could not even come close to replicating Tenergy despite their best efforts and the reason that Spring Sponge pretty much unanimously had much better predictability and reliability than Tensor rubbers. And other factors contribute - again Rozena was specifically designed to be a significantly watered down version of Tenergy that is beginner friendly - read what comes next in the ButterflyOnline description in the screenshot you posted.

This is a rubber sheet that has high tolerance, which improves your play through forgiveness and is recommended for players aiming for the top

To make this comparison I have to wonder if you have sufficiently tried both types of rubbers and/or have the level to make such a judgment call.

 

[greenbeanmachine]

Rozena was specifically designed to be a significantly watered down version of Tenergy that is beginner friendly - read what comes next in the ButterflyOnline description in the screenshot you posted.

Nowhere on the Butterfly page does it say that Rozena is "beginner-friendly" or "made for beginners", but it does say that Rozena is "recommended for players aiming for the top". What on earth are you talking about?? Did you even read what the page says?

Saying that Spring Sponge is the same thing as ESN's tensor technology could not be more incorrect.

Nowhere did I say that Spring Sponge and Tensor are the same thing. I said that Tensor and High-Tension are the same thing. Please read more carefully.

As I understand it, tensor technology is primarily about adding tension to the topsheet of the rubber by mechanical stretching and non-volatile chemical compounds. This is meant to replace the tension created by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in speed glue, which was outlawed.

The technology that we compare to Andro's Tensor Technology is Butterfly's High Tension technology, not the Spring Sponge technology. While no other company makes an exact replica of Andro's Tensor Technology, rubbers which use this kind of tension technology are widely known as "tensors". Rozena, and most other modern European rubbers, definitely fall into this category. Are you unaware of this?

To make this comparison I have to wonder if you have sufficiently tried both types of rubbers and/or have the level to make such a judgment call.

You are making incorrect assertions with amazing amounts of confidence. I have to wonder if this is an issue with your reading skills, or if you are just brazenly lying. While I am not an expert, I am also not making assertions which are easily refuted with 5 minutes of googling.

Why do you have such venom for the things I am saying? My opinion, that Rozena is a bad decision for beginners, is certainly not outside the realm of reasonable opinions. Players and coaches who are way above both of our levels hold this opinion. You don't need to call my judgment into question in order to disagree with my opinion.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Nowhere on the Butterfly page does it say that Rozena is "beginner-friendly" or "made for beginners", but it does say that Rozena is "recommended for players aiming for the top". What on earth are you talking about?? Did you even read what the page says?

You'll have to do a little reading between the lines here. "Improves your play through forgiveness and is recommended for players aiming for the top" is very clearly saying it is a rubber made for control and predictability and is geared to developing players.

The technology that we compare to Andro's Tensor Technology is Butterfly's High Tension technology, not the Spring Sponge technology. While no other company makes an exact replica of Andro's Tensor Technology, rubbers which use this kind of tension technology are widely known as "tensors". Rozena, and most other modern European rubbers, definitely fall into this category. Are you unaware of this?

This statement is completely incorrect. Neither colloquially nor literally are any Butterfly rubbers "widely known as tensors". Tensor is a trademark term that specifically refers to ESN-made sponges that attempted (and mostly failed) to replicate Tenergy and Spring Sponge, particularly around the early to mid 2010s timeframe. And it is not an Andro-specific technology as you keep saying FYI. So no, Rozena and Spring sponge do not fall into the "tensor" category" literally or colloquially. Are you unaware of this?

It seems you are conflating marketing terms and wrongly concluding that the actual sponges and rubbers underlying these rubbers are alike simply because both of them refer to rubbers with higher tension.

With terminology discussions out of the way, Spring Sponge is very different from ESN Tensor sponges. And Butterfly engineered the Rozena to make it even more geared towards control and predictability.

Nowhere did I say that Spring Sponge and Tensor are the same thing. I said that Tensor and High-Tension are the same thing. Please read more carefully.

I read carefully. You are saying that two different companies that developed two separate versions of a product (rubber sponges), one of which was clearly superior to the other for the better part of 15 years and arguably still is, are the same thing. Hopefully the above will clarify why.

According to the butterfly website, Rozena uses "high-tension" technology, which is the same thing as tensor technology. Andro has a patent on the name "tensor" but every EuroJap company uses the same technology on almost all of their rubbers, including Rozena.

No

You are making incorrect assertions with amazing amounts of confidence. I have to wonder if this is an issue with your reading skills, or if you are just brazenly lying. While I am not an expert, I am also not making assertions which are easily refuted with 5 minutes of googling.

Why do you have such venom for the things I am saying? My opinion, that Rozena is a bad decision for beginners, is certainly not outside the realm of reasonable opinions. Players and coaches who are way above both of our levels hold this opinion. You don't need to call my judgment into question in order to disagree with my opinion.

Maybe you need to spend a little more than 5 minutes of Googling then before confidently proclaiming that others have reading issues or might be lying when in reality you were mistaken yourself.

You are also making an incorrect assertion with an amazing amount of confidence that you know my level or experience in table tennis, so it goes both ways I guess? And I have a feeling you are mistaken once again if you think my level and experience is anywhere near yours.

I would be very curious to know who if you are comfortable naming these high level players and coaches who are of the opinion that Rozena is not suitable for beginners, because I discuss frequently with many top coaches and players from across the world and North America in particular and none of them have ever expressed that opinion and in fact several of them specifically recommend it to their students.