OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I was under the impression before that Yoshida Kaii was a j-pen player, but on closer inspection, he actually uses c-pen and on top of that, is originally from China; in that case, are there any native Japanese, high-level j-pen players at all? Or has Japan unanimously converted to shakehand?

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Custom Blade 'Hard Justice' w/ Yasaka Cobalt a
Tatco Hornet w/ ATP Leland Era

Good question. I would be interested in hearing an answer too.
Also, I wonder what percentage of the ordinary players are JPen in Japan (and Korea).

not japanese...but highest levels i can think of are ryu seung min and kin taek soo of korea

IMO, the post exciting JPen player to watch in recent times would be Wang Jian Jun. But he has gone back to CPen. What a talented TT player!
Yes, Kim I think is the best JPen player. A TT king without the crown he deserves.

If there aren't any high-level Japanese J-pen players, then is there anyone who might know at least what % of the general TT populous uses it, as ShaolinTT said?

Does anyone know the history of the J-pen paddle and if it was definitely invented in Japan? Part of me almost thinks it should be renamed to K-pen, since I've only seen Koreans use it, with the exception of a few people in the Indonesian/Malay area.

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Custom Blade 'Hard Justice' w/ Yasaka Cobalt a
Tatco Hornet w/ ATP Leland Era

I've in the past looked into the history of penhold (and history of TT in Asia). Here is a little bit of the info. on JPen:

-1902: a visiting Japanese professor brought TT from Europe to Japan. Probably not the PH style yet.
-1950's: the JPen became very popular in Japan.

I have stopped asking and researching "who inverted the penhold grip" because I did not get too far!
It is like asking "who invented the Seemiller grip"...Seemiller himself, right? We cannot be sure. Someone somewhere might have been gripping the blade that way long before him. We can only say Seemiller popularized the Seemiller grip. The Japanese popularized the JPen in the 1950's.

I tried e-mailing BTYonline on that but as expected...no answer from BTY. I never got any of my questions answered from them.

I know this question has often been asked before, but I am going to ask it again. Why is it that there are so few Jpen players. I am not trying to derail the thread, but it seems the least number of Jpen players come from Japan. There are more from South Korea unless I am mistaken. I have even met some North Korean Jpen coaches. I personally think it is a great style to play and love watching Jpen players in action.

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1-ply Hinoki Club
Violin/Acoustic Clan
Recreational/Club Player
Local Press Club (Journalists) Champion

The speed of a Rhino and the power of a Gazelle!!!!
http://xtrariter.blogspot.com

I know they are rare and hard to find.
Here is a Japanese Japanese penhold player:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTof7rctfa0
Enjoy!

Wow! Quite a battle-cry every time he wins a point!

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Custom Blade 'Hard Justice' w/ Yasaka Cobalt a
Tatco Hornet w/ ATP Leland Era