OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Yes, I try all kinds of things and yes, I am pretty sure he can't play a regular forehand with it without swinging unnaturally. He can use the non-thumb side and get a mini loop of sorts, but in addition to my not recommending that kind of contortion, it is not going to have significant power and it will be hard to hit flat.

One of my pet peeves is when we get endless debates over things people don't try. I could post video to show what I mean but I currently don't have the time - I did post the video of my friend using the same grip for his backhand loops.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Reb, thanks for the overall agreement (and the correction of the name - I will do some correcting). I am not saying that the grip cannot be modified into a Seemiller-type grip. I am saying that the way a person plays with this grip is so alien to the way that one plays with the Seemiller that there is no easy benefit in going in that direction.

I mean, I could just as well point out that with a little rotation, this becomes a regular Shakehand grip (which was the point of my finger up the middle of the blade analogy). In fact, it helped me see that my friend's grip switch, which I had always a priori considered a nightmare, was not as bad as I thought. But that doesn't address pushsmasher's problem and I don't believe a modified Seemiller is any better that regular shakehand for him. Video of his play can change my mind but I doubt it would.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Hi guys, thanks for all the feedback! Pushmaster might be a better man lol, it is pretty accurate. I do open the blade and smash in a traditional shake hand style, but I seem to be really inconsistent with it. However, I can get some really strong smashes this way, although they again, are not consistent. Even my punch block kill shot isn't really consistent. Sometimes my elbow hurts when I try it, and my shoulder has been hurting in the rotator area lately (don't know if the two are related).

I think I would drop to 500 or 600 if I go shake hand style (from 1100). Because it is so paradoxical from my current grip. In essence, it would be a total reboot. 90% of my game would change. Like Reb said, I know I would have a better forehand.

So if you guys were in my exact same situation, would you go shake hand? And if so, what would you play with (blade setup)?

I would go shakehand in a heartbeat. 1100 is really nothing. You will get back to 1100 in less than a year if you change and do a few drills I recommend for you - I promise you that. And like I said, you can mix it up as much as you want!

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

You've almost talked me into switching grips NextLevel I will be taking some whippings at my club for a while though lol. I have a Gambler Double Carbon, with Four Kings on both sides. Would this be a good setup to start with?

I was about 1300 when I switched from shakehand to cpen. My play with cpen and shakehand were about equal in about six months.

My reason for switching was just curiosity. But you have, it seems to me, much more compelling reasons than that, and I agree with NextLevel about it.

I would start with a high control setup with the SH grip pushsmasher. A carbon blade is going to it hard to groove the new grip and make it less likely to succeed. A setup that is well controlled will allow you to focus on getting the shots right without having to compensate for power issues.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Pushsmasher, Carbon blades are bad for learning and I cannot recommend them. If you are serious about table tennis, start with a classic Limba ayous 5 ply with good feeling so that the blade helps you feel and adjust the quality of your shot. Feeling is a huge part of this sport and some coaches don't emphasize it enough. So is relaxation. If you tell me where you will buy the blade, I will look through their material and recommend something. No blade I will recommend will cost more than $60, no matter where you buy it from. Rubber is not critical as long as it is a decent inverted rubber. I would probably recommend you get the blade from Paddle Palace and the rubbers from Colestt. Or the whole thing from colestt.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Reb is my pip blocking doppledanger ..

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Ditch the carbon - save money by getting a decent wood blade, not by getting a cheap carbon blades - good carbon blades are expensive monsters and probably still bad for a player like you. A cheap carbon blade is doubly bad.

I think that once you have made yourself open to switching, you will be surprised how quickly things change as long as you let the experts guide you and don't assume you know everything about how you learn. You will become coachable and you will be able to pick up things easily from watching good players where in the past, you may have had trouble taking what they had and fitting it into your game. With concerted effort, getting comfortable with a grip takes a month or so.

You actually inspired me to try out my old backhand grip again, and I think I have at least two backhand looping grips as I noticed something more inherently stable about my old grip which I had stopped using because it required a grip switch that I thought was not necessary. But since I already have an alternative, now I can take a few more risks.

I would actually like to coach you through this if you need help. You don't have to pay me, but you would have to get a youtube channel and record yourself with a camcorder to make it work. You don't have to make your efforts public - you can keep them private/unlisted and share with me, and that way, I can at least give you feedback that will help your changes. After you get the grip down, then you have a variety of options you can pursue.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

I'd like to help out in that project if it goes ahead too.

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Reb & NextLevel, really, really appreciate you guys. Most kind. I've played for 27 years, basically every week at our local club; sometimes I've felt like I really don't have anywhere to go (improvement wise). Maybe a totally fresh start is what the doctor ordered. The Youtube idea sounds great, but I'll have to figure out how to do it

There really isn't a coach in the nearby vicinity, so you can see why I've been at this level for so long, plus the grip of course. The only thing I worry about is that I'm bad to reverse course (meaning the grip). I think I've always known that the switch is necessary. I tried the Seemiller again today, and it felt horrible; way worse than shake hands.

What type of setup were you guys thinking of? Thanks!

Almost forgot: is Zeropong a good place to look for a new setup?

Zeropong is fine - I'm mostly using colestt, but had good experience with zeropong as well.

To be honest - what do you have to lose by switching? If after 27 years with current grip you leveled off around 1100 (which is not really much, as NextLevel said), trying new thing for a few months is definitely worth a shot. You might even like it. For a totally wild idea - have you considered penhold grip? It's on my 'to do ' list, I was always intrigued by J-pen in particular, just for fun of trying new things

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

What's your budget?

I haven't bought a Zeropong blade in a while so I honestly can't say but my answer would be no as I don't believe one should buy whole setups from anywhere per se, and I am not a fan of the cheaper Chinese blades - the rubbers I evaluate on a case by case basis. I decided after (in addition to playing with Giant Dragon and Gambler earlier in TT life) buying a few cheap blades from Cole last year (in probably the wrong brand and model) that it was easier and better to stick with mainstream classic blades with classic compositions, more so because the amortized cost difference was ridiculously small. It might be mental, but I learned a few things and bought a lot of blades and formed my own possibly biased conclusions.

The Chinese blades tend to be head heavier than I would like when you put modern rubbers on them. QC tends to be bad as well.

What I would like you to get ideally would be a Yasaka Sweden Extra and Dawei XP 2008 in 1.8mm thickness - the blade is about $43 +$6 shipping from megaspin and the rubbers are $8 per sheet from Colestt.com . But it sounds like you may not have experience putting rubber on blades - it is a fairly easy process though and you could could use rubber cement and a scissors. Putting together your own setup tends to the first real step towards TT independence (and sadly EJing in many cases).

The blade itself is a keeper and it is something I can play with easily if I put faster rubbers on it - I have a good idea of what it does as I played with it for a significant portion of this year so I have no problem recommending it to you, no matter your age or physical condition because the balance is excellent. The rubbers I also know - they are heavy even if cheap so 1.8mm would be a good starting point.

Right now, you don't need a fast setup - you need something that lets you feel the ball and adjust your strokes to the feeling of the contact. Reb can chime in with his thoughts here.

The alternative would be to go to colestt.com, find his phone number and give him a call. He is pretty conservative about equipment and whatever he recommends and sells to you, I can live with.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus