Why are we so adamant about grippy rubber needing tensor?

[Tyce]

I mean, I accept the awesome properties of today's rubbers with all their tensor technology... But end of the day the top players use H3 which is not a tensor rubber.

People on forums advocate using Hurricane to learn how to generate their own power, and that's got me thinking, wouldn't it make more sense for a non-tacky player to use classic grippy rubber to learn generating their own power?

Following that train, exactly how much better would a tensor then be for this player? Or would they still be able to reach up quite a bit using non-tensor, grippy rubbers like Mark V, Sriver etc?
I'm really wondering in what context the comments about classic rubber being useless actually holds true, and how far one might still be able to develop well using classics.

 

[zeio]

It really comes down to the price rather than performance. Mark V and Sriver still cost like more than half of Tenergy (p.s. Dignics as well) today and there is just no way I would waste my money on them anymore.

 

[Tyce]

Bit of a weird argument, since pretty much every single decent grippy rubber costs more than half of a Tenergy.
Not to mention Tenergy really isn't much of user-friendly rubber, or a good option to learn power generation.

 

[zeio]

Bit of a weird argument, since pretty much every single decent grippy rubber costs more than half of a Tenergy.
Not to mention Tenergy really isn't much of user-friendly rubber, or a good option to learn power generation.

Maybe true for Europe, but not for East Asia. ESN pricing was very competitive in East Asia before 2022. There are some decent Chinese grippy rubbers for like 1/5 or even less the price of Tenergy.

 

[Tyce]

There are half decent sort of tensor rubbers for a very small price, but to be honest they tend to combine the worst properties of all worlds. Quick to wear, low grip on light touch and either with a heavy dense sponge or a light one that dies quickly.
The Mark V's of the world at least combine good grip with a hard-wearing topsheet and sponge, as well as keeping the weight in check. You can easily use one sheet of that in the same time span as 3 sheets of Mercury 2 or Ak47.
Of course, quality varies, and when you settle on something like a Rakza or Fastarc durability is pretty much no longer a problem.

Question remains, why not use Mark V instead?

(Don't get me wrong, I use tensor rubbers and mainly because it's just so easy to generate power with them. I just see so much threads about learning power transfer and I think tensors might be detrimental to learning that. And using tacky rubber instead really isn't for everyone. Especially when you intend to go back to tensor after picking up some good power generation skills. So why not use the classics? )

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I mean, I accept the awesome properties of today's rubbers with all their tensor technology... But end of the day the top players use H3 which is not a tensor rubber.

People on forums advocate using Hurricane to learn how to generate their own power, and that's got me thinking, wouldn't it make more sense for a non-tacky player to use classic grippy rubber to learn generating their own power?

Following that train, exactly how much better would a tensor then be for this player? Or would they still be able to reach up quite a bit using non-tensor, grippy rubbers like Mark V, Sriver etc?
I'm really wondering in what context the comments about classic rubber being useless actually holds true, and how far one might still be able to develop well using classics.

if we talk about learning
most kids, age 7-10 or so, would probably be using a Donic Acuda S2,
Donic has a lot of market share in the kiddies space (the relationship between Donic Taiwan and many of the school teams)
I don't even know if we can buy Mark V or Sriver in Taiwan but those S2 users will most likely change to Butterfly if they better than the rest and then some of them will move into H3.

 

[Lazer]

Mark V topsheet is still one of the best. More grippy than many modern rubbers. The downside is the sponge. It is not catapulty and has a low'ish top speed. But if You can live with this it will last You longer than almost any other rubber.

Cheers
L-zr

 

[Tyce]

if we talk about learning
most kids, age 7-10 or so, would probably be using a Donic Acuda S2,
Donic has a lot of market share in the kiddies space (the relationship between Donic Taiwan and many of the school teams)
I don't even know if we can buy Mark V or Sriver in Taiwan but those S2 users will most likely change to Butterfly if they better than the rest and then some of them will move into H3.

Speaking in Donic, why not Vario?

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Speaking in Donic, why not Vario?

no clue
its been like that for years

 

[zeio]

There are half decent sort of tensor rubbers for a very small price, but to be honest they tend to combine the worst properties of all worlds. Quick to wear, low grip on light touch and either with a heavy dense sponge or a light one that dies quickly.
The Mark V's of the world at least combine good grip with a hard-wearing topsheet and sponge, as well as keeping the weight in check. You can easily use one sheet of that in the same time span as 3 sheets of Mercury 2 or Ak47.
Of course, quality varies, and when you settle on something like a Rakza or Fastarc durability is pretty much no longer a problem.

Question remains, why not use Mark V instead?

(Don't get me wrong, I use tensor rubbers and mainly because it's just so easy to generate power with them. I just see so much threads about learning power transfer and I think tensors might be detrimental to learning that. And using tacky rubber instead really isn't for everyone. Especially when you intend to go back to tensor after picking up some good power generation skills. So why not use the classics? )

This goes back to my first post - price-performance ratio. The drop-off in performance is related to the price.

The first wave of porous ESN rubbers released in late 2009-2010 such as Baracuda/Acuda S1/S2/S3, Hexer/Hexer+, Genius Optimus/Optimus+ etc. lasted way longer than the previous generation with high-density sponge such as Coppa JO Gold/Silver/Platinum, Plasma 380/430/470, Sinus/Sinus Alpha etc. The ones in 2011, such as Acuda S1 Turbo, Hexer HD etc. improved the durability further.

I once pointed out at MyTT that difference as the gap between Dignics/Tenergy and ESN rubbers.
Dignics/Tenergy:
___ \___ \___
ESN rubbers:
__ __ \ \ \__ \__

Not that you can't play with them, but other than for nostalgia, and for those new to the sport to get a sense of what old-school rubbers play and feel like, it makes little logical sense to get Mark V and Sriver.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I must add
since these are kids, they are like sponges, and they won't think too much about equipment.
the parents also might not want to spend too much money
once you get older, if you dealing with adults, then there are too much questions from the players. And with that, a lot of view points and complications and that is where equipment starts branching out.

So, kids using what ever the coach suggest for a few years to learn the basics. Taiwan has a big market share using S2. Of course you do have those rich kids who might start off with Butterfly. But then, they will also have plenty of 1 on 1 hours with coaches and would have the luxury of the chance of improving faster than the average school team member. So with that, I won't say it is the equipment, but rather the focused approached training.

 

[Tyce]

This goes back to my first post - price-performance ratio. The drop-off in performance is related to the price.

The first wave of porous ESN rubbers released in late 2009-2010 such as Baracuda/Acuda S1/S2/S3, Hexer/Hexer+, Genius Optimus/Optimus+ etc. lasted way longer than the previous generation with high-density sponge such as Coppa JO Gold/Silver/Platinum, Plasma 380/430/470, Sinus/Sinus Alpha etc. The ones in 2011, such as Acuda S1 Turbo, Hexer HD etc. improved the durability further.

I once pointed out at MyTT that difference as the gap between Dignics/Tenergy and ESN rubbers.
Dignics/Tenergy:
___ \___ \___
ESN rubbers:
__ __ \ \ \__ \__

Not that you can't play with them, but other than for nostalgia, and for those new to the sport to get a sense of what old-school rubbers play and feel like, it makes little logical sense to get Mark V and Sriver.

Now this is exactly the kind of statement I mean to get an explanation for.

Why does it make little sense?

Doesn't it make sense to learn power generation with old-school rubbers? You need to work for your power, they're as linear as it gets in terms of non-tacky rubbers.

If it doesn't make sense to learn power generation this way, how is that different from using tacky dense sponge rubbers for the exact same purpose?

If you do learn good power generation from this idea, how far could you really take it before the rubber becomes an actual handicap? Especially if you take a high quality topsheet like Mark V, you can probably still be pretty competitive up to a certain level.

 

[zeio]

Because that was the consensus at the club I play.

Sriver FX was the go-to rubber for BH in late 2000 before Tenergy was released in 4/2008. But as soon as the price hike hit in late 2008 (first due to a strong yen before the no out-of-region policy in 2010) and the first wave of porous ESN rubbers came in late 2009, most turned away from Butterfly and switched camp. There was a performance hit but the price justified the trade-off.

In the past 2 years, with the weak yen, I see a migration back to Butterfly.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

"Learning power generation" especially in the context of beginning and developing players is mostly a myth. Power comes when the strokes become subconscious and a player can now do them with more force and acceleration. And in order to get to that point, using a 50 year old rubber that isn't designed to grip the modern ball isn't optimal.

 

[Tyce]

"Learning power generation" especially in the context of beginning and developing players is mostly a myth. Power comes when the strokes become subconscious and a player can now do them with more force and acceleration.

No it's not. Most trainers teach kids to make a stroke from point A to point B.

With fast enough rubber, that teaches kids to basically hold their bat at the correct angle so the ball jumps off as they wish.

It's how many, certified, trainers teach. Guess what, kids learn to block, to play against speedy balls, but not how to make their own speed. Give them a couple of dead slow balls and they're helpless.


If the materials are fast enough, or too fast, players will keep relying on it and actually generate a fear of engaging the ball with their own power. I see it all the time in kids and adults alike.

And in order to get to that point, using a 50 year old rubber that isn't designed to grip the modern ball isn't optimal.

It's still designed to grip a TT ball. That ball is still round, light and bouncy. What's so not optimal about it?


I honestly only see baseless assumptions so far, and learning to generate power being a myth is quite a statement to make.

 

[lodro]

pretty much every single decent grippy rubber costs more than half of a Tenergy.

My FH Rubber costs NZ$ 12.50

 

[ThePongCommenter]

It's still designed to grip a TT ball. That ball is still round, light and bouncy. What's so not optimal about it?


I honestly only see baseless assumptions so far, and learning to generate power being a myth is quite a statement to make.

You seem more focused on the "tensor sponge" and not the topsheet which has more to do with proper gripping of the ball. Which TT ball was it designed to grip, the 40+ ABS plastic? Or was it designed for a ball that hasn't been used in decades? Do you think the differences in those balls are negligible?

What makes the assumptions you disagree with baseless, and what are your assumptions solidly rooted in, besides for the forum advocates cited in your first post?

 

[netdriver]

Question remains, why not use Mark V instead?

because if you want strictly classic rubbers, there are rubbers that perform similarly to mark v for half the price

KTL pro XP and 729 focus 3 snipe comes to mind as decent mark v alternatives that costs half of mark v

you can argue about the durability and QC but assuming the newbie is training with a qualified coach i doubt that they wouldnt outgrow the rubber faster than the rubber could die

OTOH there are rubbers within the price range of mark V that offers more performance while also being perfectly suitable for newbies such as Fastarc S1

if A and B is at the same price range and B is better than A, why would anyone go for A

especially when the average joe could adapt to B under the guidance of an expert if B is a little too hot for him to handle?

mark v would be recommended more if the price tag is more reasonable in these modern times

 

[zeio]

You see, the same argument (that beginners should use something slower) was made when Mark V and Sriver were still considered the top grippy rubbers and they had already been on the market for decades at that point. This was the case a year or two before Bryce was released in 1997.

 

[RefereeNumber2]

I honestly only see baseless assumptions so far, and learning to generate power being a myth is quite a statement to make.

“Generating power” is just technique. The idea that there’s some aspect of “power” that’s independent of technique is indeed a myth. Unless the argument is that a slow, dead rubber will literally make you build more muscle mass…that is possibly true for some people, but focused strength training would be much more effective and reduce risk of injury.

To the original question: you seem focused on the fact that “tensor” (for the sake of the conversation I’ll assume you include all modern tensioned rubbers) rubbers are faster, while ignoring or unaware of the fact that they also produce more spin, which means they actually have better control for looping compared to a Mark V. This is true for tacky rubbers as well; boosted H3 is much spinnier and better for looping than unboosted. To me it seems like what you’re missing is that the sponge plays a critical role in generating spin, and therefore control, on topspin shots. It’s not just about speed.

Finally, as a last aside, it seems like conventional wisdom around here that giving beginners “too fast” equipment will make them shorten their stroke too much and be afraid of swinging at the ball. My observations have been the exact opposite. Whenever I see beginner and especially intermediate players, their technical problems are almost always that they have wildly large and inefficient swings. Whenever they try to hit hard, they muscle the swing and end up producing less power than they could with a more compact and efficient stroke. This is generally true whether they have fast or slow equipment, so I actually don’t think equipment has anything to do with this. But trying to learn to loop or loop-kill with a dead rubber like Mark V probably wouldn’t help anyone with this problem.