Post your latest EJ purchase

[J-fed]

View attachment 43824

Got my R9 package, OS 37.5 x2, OS40.5, and BS 40.5. They averaged to just $17 per sheet everything included, so thought I'd give the 40.5s a try. The LGY ALC is for a club mate, he's probably gonna glue his Zyres on it and I'll give it a try as well!

OMG. There's still time to return the LGY. It's gonna make him choke in calamitous fashion when 2 games and 6 points up.

 

[J-fed]

View attachment 43833This is my very fav of the R9. No need to boost so of course no orange sponge 😄

I can see it here for about 3300 yen here. Does it not need boosting due to factory treatment? And is the black also good?

 

[belllfador]

Nittaku Shake Defence - 84g, 5.4mm thickness, frequency 1150 Hz.
Xiom Tau 55.5
Tibhar Speedy Soft MY 1.6mm
P3aV 1.5mm
Joola Shoes NexTT in black

 

[dingyibvs]

OMG. There's still time to return the LGY. It's gonna make him choke in calamitous fashion when 2 games and 6 points up.

You won't believe what happened! He's a higher level player and while we train together relatively often, in the ~3 years I've known him I'd never beaten him in a match before. I gave him the blade today and we had a training session, and then we had a practice match at the end. For the first time ever, I beat him in the match as he crumbled in the 5th! While it might be more due to him playing less TT and more Badminton recently, but I think the LGY blade had a lot to do with it

 

[lodro]

I can see it here for about 3300 yen here. Does it not need boosting due to factory treatment? And is the black also good?

No there is no special factory treatment. Normally , when there is special factory treatment the rubbers come in a Vacuum pack but theses rubbers come in standard packing. I never used a black of the R9. For my forehand (black) I use the Rxton 3 pro

 

[Archosaurus]

You won't believe what happened! He's a higher level player and while we train together relatively often, in the ~3 years I've known him I'd never beaten him in a match before. I gave him the blade today and we had a training session, and then we had a practice match at the end. For the first time ever, I beat him in the match as he crumbled in the 5th! While it might be more due to him playing less TT and more Badminton recently, but I think the LGY blade had a lot to do with it

And people say equipment doesn't matter.


Ordered a sheet of NEO H3 National blue sponge earlier. Forgot to also order the clown wig and facepaint that usually goes with it! If I ever buy the STAR Player versions, I'll need to get the honky horn as well.

I know it's tremendously overkill (Provincial is the most reasonable), but I'm curious if I can tell *any* difference between them. If it just lasts longer then I'll be happy enough, but it'd be nice if there was a quality difference as well. Every National I've tried on other people's blades seemed quite obviously a bit spinnier and faster.

 

[dingyibvs]

And people say equipment doesn't matter.


Ordered a sheet of NEO H3 National blue sponge earlier. Forgot to also order the clown wig and facepaint that usually goes with it! If I ever buy the STAR Player versions, I'll need to get the honky horn as well.

I know it's tremendously overkill (Provincial is the most reasonable), but I'm curious if I can tell *any* difference between them. If it just lasts longer then I'll be happy enough, but it'd be nice if there was a quality difference as well. Every National I've tried on other people's blades seemed quite obviously a bit spinnier and faster.

There was a recent Bilibili video of 4 pretty high level players doing a blind test of commercial, provincial, and national H3's, and the results were interesting. The rubbers were each boosted with 1 layer of Haifu Black. All 4 of them thought the provincial was the worst, and marked it as commercial. Then only 2 out of the 4 rated the national higher than the commercial, so essentially a coin toss there.

 

[Archosaurus]

There was a recent Bilibili video of 4 pretty high level players doing a blind test of commercial, provincial, and national H3's, and the results were interesting. The rubbers were each boosted with 1 layer of Haifu Black. All 4 of them thought the provincial was the worst, and marked it as commercial. Then only 2 out of the 4 rated the national higher than the commercial, so essentially a coin toss there.

I think there's an actual real explanation for that beyond just "players are stupid and can't tell rubbers from eachother" which may be true in some ways but is a bit reductive.

The last Commercial non-NEO sheet I bought measured like 43 hardness equivalent and had immense spin capabilities in strong shots due to that. It spins just as well as my 41 Provincial, if not more in the real cracking shots.

In general, Provincial measures the softest. Probably the way they make the topsheet makes it softer than the other versions. It's not impossible it might be worse in some situations.

If you have high level players who swing very hard and sink deep into the sponge, and you put a super duper mega hard Commercial sheet on their blade, they might actually rate it higher than a reasonable stiffness National sheet, at least in a controlled scenario like FH loop vs block at one point. I bet their impressions could change if they play with both in real tournament matches for a while, though. I found after a while of using that Commercial sheet that while it was easy to play with and the top-end quality was immense, it's harder to get speed with it when off balance and it tends to just kinda die, while my Provincial doesn't do it as often.

 

[J-fed]

You won't believe what happened! He's a higher level player and while we train together relatively often, in the ~3 years I've known him I'd never beaten him in a match before. I gave him the blade today and we had a training session, and then we had a practice match at the end. For the first time ever, I beat him in the match as he crumbled in the 5th! While it might be more due to him playing less TT and more Badminton recently, but I think the LGY blade had a lot to do with it

Holy shit the curse is real.
Honestly the only reason I’m here is coz I had to do a presentation on choking mechanisms for my sports psych masters last year.
I wanted to use a TT example and LGY came up in my searches.
In watching him intensively for a month or two I became enamored with watching TT again. Hadn’t watched for decades until then. So that’s why I’m here. You can thank LGY. Or cuss him.
Incidentally LGY has also been the subject of an academic paper out of the University of Hong Kong as an extreme case of poor psych training and bad handling by a federation.

 

[J-fed]

No there is no special factory treatment. Normally , when there is special factory treatment the rubbers come in a Vacuum pack but theses rubbers come in standard packing. I never used a black of the R9. For my forehand (black) I use the Rxton 3 pro

Ok cool. So why no boosting? Lively enough without?
V happy with this Saturn S-1 unboosted too so far. Not fast enough for the speed merchants but great for me I think.

 

[Archosaurus]

Holy shit the curse is real.
Honestly the only reason I’m here is coz I had to do a presentation on choking mechanisms for my sports psych masters last year.
I wanted to use a TT example and LGY came up in my searches.
In watching him intensively for a month or two I became enamored with watching TT again. Hadn’t watched for decades until then. So that’s why I’m here. You can thank LGY. Or cuss him.
Incidentally LGY has also been the subject of an academic paper out of the University of Hong Kong as an extreme case of poor psych training and bad handling by a federation.

It's bad enough to be choking in important matches and struggling to get wins, but then you get used as an example in a research paper and kicked when you're down. 😭

 

[J-fed]

It's bad enough to be choking in important matches and struggling to get wins, but then you get used as an example in a research paper and kicked when you're down. 😭

LOL. Brutal.
They were definitely trying to help both him and the next generation of players though.
Very interesting paper.

 

[Archosaurus]

LOL. Brutal.
They were definitely trying to help both him and the next generation of players though.
Very interesting paper.

Is the paper "Analysis of Players’ Table Tennis Skills and Strategies--Taking Ma Long as an Example" or some other one? Sorry for OT.

 

[J-fed]

Is the paper "Analysis of Players’ Table Tennis Skills and Strategies--Taking Ma Long as an Example" or some other one? Sorry for OT.

Will try to dig it out later.
Gotta go to a Jazz festival now!

 

[J-fed]

Is the paper "Analysis of Players’ Table Tennis Skills and Strategies--Taking Ma Long as an Example" or some other one? Sorry for OT.

Xiong, Z. (2023). Psychological diagnostic analysis of the "choking" phenomenon under pressure in Lin Gaoyuan's multiple top-level competitions. Frontiers of Chinese Psychology, 5(11).
The Tone of the paper when translated to English is more comment and discussion than an academic study but each country has its own view on what is academics.
It was interesting to have this discussion yesterday and hear that Japanese also recognize the fallibility of the WEIRD (western educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) dominance of international academia.

 

[Archosaurus]

Xiong, Z. (2023). Psychological diagnostic analysis of the "choking" phenomenon under pressure in Lin Gaoyuan's multiple top-level competitions. Frontiers of Chinese Psychology, 5(11).

The one guy who is allowed to say he has a "mindset problem" and not a "skill issue".

Thanks.

 

[lodro]

Ok cool. So why no boosting? Lively enough without?
V happy with this Saturn S-1 unboosted too so far. Not fast enough for the speed merchants but great for me I think.

I always use hard sticky rubbers on my BH . I like to spin and brush. I also feel that soft rubbers do not give me the same control. Boosting does give speed but I seem to be able to generate enough. I am just a mediocre club player not like Tomo Harimoto san 😄

 

[J-fed]

The one guy who is allowed to say he has a "mindset problem" and not a "skill issue".

Thanks.

Indeed.
If I talk about chokes or mindset in future please recognize that I don’t say it lightly. It’s not based purely on results or words.
I’m looking at a lot of factors.

 

[J-fed]

I always use hard sticky rubbers on my BH . I like to spin and brush. I also feel that soft rubbers do not give me the same control. Boosting does give speed but I seem to be able to generate enough. I am just a mediocre club player not like Tomo Harimoto san 😄

Same here regarding the boosters and also regarding level.
Decent but that’s about it. Don’t need extra power because I’m not relooping and win most points from spin, placement and touch.
Once it’s a bash off I’ve lost.
If they can power through my LP trolling I’m in trouble.