OOAK Table Tennis Forum

An interesting thing happened during my last practice session. I've been thinking about it since, and still can't quite figure out how the heck this worked.

I got a small cut on the little finger of my playing hand. Nothing major, but I had to improvise a bandage out of a piece of a paper towel and some Scotch tape, for lack of anything better, just so I wouldn't get blood on my clothes or racket. What this effectively did was limit the movement of the knuckle closest to the tip of my finger, preventing me from really gripping the handle with it--the best I could do was loosely wrap it around so that the racket didn't go flying out of my hand, but I had to get all of the stability of my grip from my other fingers. At first it felt awkward, as I'm used to having a very balanced grip when playing shakehand.

Then something weird started happening. I was landing chops I wouldn't normally make, off both wings. I consider myself a pretty consistent chopper (enough so that I'm working on transitioning to a classical defense style), but this was plain uncanny. Against a guy who normally gives me a reasonable challenge, I was getting damn near everything back. For some reason, that subtle change in my grip, of not being able to apply much pressure with my little finger, made an enormous difference in my consistency. I don't think it was a fluke, either, as I played for several hours longer and it felt the same against other players.

I'm going to test it (the closest I can to) scientifically the next time I go to practice, by alternating playing my regular way and with a bit of tape wrapped around that knuckle. I'll report back here if it still works the same magic. Perhaps some other people could try it out to see how it affects their game too.

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Shakehand Modern Defense
Butterfly Defence Pro ST, Butterfly Tenergy 64 (1.7), TSP Curl P-1R (1.0~1.3)

does it give you a better knuckle ball or cut shot

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That is very interesting, Sir.
Please keep us posted

Probably your grip all along was too tight?

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GFoT |Blade : Timo Boll ALC • FH : DHS 3 Neo Provincial MAX • BH : Tenergy 64 MAX
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Pure backspin chop. I don't use float shots all that often.


That's the strange thing, my grip before was neither excessively tight nor loose, just firm and balanced. My best guess is that the change has something to do with having to choke up on the handle a bit more with my thumb and forefinger, but it's beyond me how that would produce a much better chop.

Edit: I think I have it figured out. I got a bit too curious to wait until next practice and went to go hit a ball around in the house. I made another little improvised bandage, and it seems that my guess above was correct. The effect is not so much about a looser grip towards the end of the handle, but rather a tighter one at the neck. Keeping the head very stable during a chop seems to make the path very predictable, and it even makes a difference going from a firm grip to a firmer one. Good to know!

It does make sense, though. I guess I just always thought before that having a grip that was too tight would cause more problems than it solved. It seems, at least for chopping, maximizing stability is key.

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Shakehand Modern Defense
Butterfly Defence Pro ST, Butterfly Tenergy 64 (1.7), TSP Curl P-1R (1.0~1.3)