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A little about me. I like weird blades. I like stuff out of the ordinary. Unusual play. etc.
That Wingspan blade thread really threw me down a rabbit hole. Check that out or some of the comments & videos in it if you haven't yet.
After watching a few videos posted in it, while I was trying to envision how it'd effect a penholder, most videos of people testing it are doing a shakehand version. No real surprise there. I came to the conclusion that they were essentially playing with a handle free, slightly head down position version of shakehand. In other words, a short length pistol grip with how they were holding it. Ball in the palm of their hand, two fingers on the BH rubber side. Every now & then one of them would comment how it reminds them of penhold. I presume from the natural more head down position.
I used to play shakehand 15 years ago but always had a bad forehand. The constantly pointing my wrist down on FHs for some reason just felt awkward to me. Then made the move to penhold where the head is already pointing down and the FH was instantly much better. But just like anything, there are plusses & minuses. One thing I've always liked is the idea that the blade face with shakehand, and pistol grip, is that the face of the blade is parallel or in line with the direction of your palm. Could be a mental thing but the angle of the blade is always in line with that. If you were to do a salute like you're in the military, that's practically the perfect angle for a FH drive or loop.
Penhold it's actually quite different. If you're not a penholder you might not have thought about this before, the face of the blade is actually perpendicular to the palm of your hand. If you're swinging with your forehand, you're elbow is almost, not quite, pointing to the sky during the swing to close down over that ball. This might be an exaggerated example because it's common place in penhold to make alterations you don't even think about with your hands helping angle the blade but I'm painting this picture just to give you shakehanders something to think about.
Anyways, the wingspan blade thread took me down to the strange mental loop of "As a penholder, could one easily switch to a pistol like grip? What would be the benefits? What would be the cons? Would RPB feel more natural? Would flips be easier like many found in the wingspan videos? Would service be terrible?" Only one way to test out.
Now I don't have an actual pistol grip paddle. Few people do. They're pretty rare. But I can make due testing holding my penhold blade much the same a pistol grip would be (just shorter handle). Hey if the people can test out a funny blade in the wingspan video, I can test out here. So what I did was taking my forefinger and hold it on the back. Thumb only on the front and try to angle down the blade. Basically trying to replicate best I can what you see above in the picture. If nothing else, certainly got the blade more in line with my palm.
So here you go. First 30 seconds of the video are penhold. Rest of the video I switch fairly frequently testing out the difference. At the end of the video I put in a few observations. It is worth noting that with an actual pistol grip, the hitting area would be further away from what i tested here. More centripetal force / power.
That Wingspan blade thread really threw me down a rabbit hole. Check that out or some of the comments & videos in it if you haven't yet.
After watching a few videos posted in it, while I was trying to envision how it'd effect a penholder, most videos of people testing it are doing a shakehand version. No real surprise there. I came to the conclusion that they were essentially playing with a handle free, slightly head down position version of shakehand. In other words, a short length pistol grip with how they were holding it. Ball in the palm of their hand, two fingers on the BH rubber side. Every now & then one of them would comment how it reminds them of penhold. I presume from the natural more head down position.
I used to play shakehand 15 years ago but always had a bad forehand. The constantly pointing my wrist down on FHs for some reason just felt awkward to me. Then made the move to penhold where the head is already pointing down and the FH was instantly much better. But just like anything, there are plusses & minuses. One thing I've always liked is the idea that the blade face with shakehand, and pistol grip, is that the face of the blade is parallel or in line with the direction of your palm. Could be a mental thing but the angle of the blade is always in line with that. If you were to do a salute like you're in the military, that's practically the perfect angle for a FH drive or loop.
Penhold it's actually quite different. If you're not a penholder you might not have thought about this before, the face of the blade is actually perpendicular to the palm of your hand. If you're swinging with your forehand, you're elbow is almost, not quite, pointing to the sky during the swing to close down over that ball. This might be an exaggerated example because it's common place in penhold to make alterations you don't even think about with your hands helping angle the blade but I'm painting this picture just to give you shakehanders something to think about.
Anyways, the wingspan blade thread took me down to the strange mental loop of "As a penholder, could one easily switch to a pistol like grip? What would be the benefits? What would be the cons? Would RPB feel more natural? Would flips be easier like many found in the wingspan videos? Would service be terrible?" Only one way to test out.
Now I don't have an actual pistol grip paddle. Few people do. They're pretty rare. But I can make due testing holding my penhold blade much the same a pistol grip would be (just shorter handle). Hey if the people can test out a funny blade in the wingspan video, I can test out here. So what I did was taking my forefinger and hold it on the back. Thumb only on the front and try to angle down the blade. Basically trying to replicate best I can what you see above in the picture. If nothing else, certainly got the blade more in line with my palm.
So here you go. First 30 seconds of the video are penhold. Rest of the video I switch fairly frequently testing out the difference. At the end of the video I put in a few observations. It is worth noting that with an actual pistol grip, the hitting area would be further away from what i tested here. More centripetal force / power.
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