OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Here's a video I quickly made at work today so you guys can see my style. I started screwing up at the end a bit when I got nervous.

https://youtu.be/dLW6k0Qvc3k

Thank you for posting this! It takes a lot of courage to record yourself and post it on here!

Based on what I can see, you have good reactions, and are used to the bounce and feel of the table and bats you use at work.

The major thing that you will find if you were to play a club player, even a relatively weak one, is that the amount of spin on the ball would be a huge magnitude more.

One of the concepts that you might have seen discussed at length on some of the threads here is the idea of a player's potential being capped by their technique. I can see from this video that you have developed some shots and a way of playing that has emerged organically as a result of who you play with, the style of games, and the equipment that you use. If you were never to change your technique (apart from needing to change your serves, which would not be permitted in a regulated game - the ball has to be served off the palm of the hand, with the ball tossed six inches into the air), you could probably adapt in a club environment and beat a few players at the lowest level. However, to get beyond that you'd need to make a number of changes, and you'd need to start learning how to deal with the spin that your opponents generate.

Now, it could be that you would be more than happy playing at a recreational level at work, or in yours or a friend's garage, or at the lowest level of a local club. However, if you're like most of us, there will be a desire to improve, and to be able to develop and beat people that you can't currently beat. To get beyond the most basic level you'll need to learn a bunch of new shots, new serves, the ability to read and respond to spin, to move, anticipate and think. I have no doubt that you could do that - the question is how to give yourself the best start as you begin to do so.

I've already stated earlier in this thread that it is perfectly possible to use pimple out rubbers without sponge to a very high level. There's at least one hardbat player in the top 50 veterans in the UK, and there are many pretty strong players in the USA that play this way, even against players who use more popular and modern inverted rubber and sponge. If you want to pursue this, then getting 2 x Butterfly orthodox is a great way to start.

However, if you want a more frequently trodden path, you'll definitely find a bigger community of people online, and potential coaches or more experienced players if you adopt a more mainstream approach. This will be harder in the very short run, because the bat will feel very different compared with what you're currently used to, and will be way more sensitive to spin. But you'll pretty quickly get used to it.

What I would genuinely caution against, looking at your current level, is trying to learn to play with a combination setup - that is a very different rubber on one side from the other. I would also caution against getting involved with medium or long pimples until you have developed a feel for spin, and got the hang of the main forehand and backhand strokes and serves.

In terms of whether to stay with hardbat, go with your instinct, or give it a time-based trial. Butterfly Orthodox is a fine quality rubber, which will generate much more spin that the bats you're currently using. You could certainly learn all the main shots with this as your equipment, but I think you'll generally have an easier ride in terms of support and coaching (both materials and people) if you were to go with inverted rubbers.

If you want a recommendation for a decent beginner's inverted rubber, which is made in Europe or Japan, I will defer to others. I am very familiar with the Chinese rubbers available, but can't give you a lead on non-Chinese beginner all-round rubbers. What I will say is that at your current level you could probably buy the cheapest that Paddle Palace offer, and it would do you perfectly for the next year or more.

This looks like: http://www.paddlepalace.com/JMS-Evo-1/p ... nfo/RSSE1/

I've never used it, but it's probably fine.

I'm excited about the journey you have ahead of you. It'll be frustrating at times, but you'll find this a very friendly and supportive place.

Good luck!

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

As they say, I have good news and bad news.

First, good news: you are young, in decent physical form and have good eye-hand coordination. You also don't really need new paddle just yet, I think, especially since you want to stick with hardbat-like setup.

Now, bad stuff: you seem to be more interested in hitting the ball hard at every opportunity than in actually winning the point, and you don't have much of a game yet, even for a recreational/office/basement level (you miss a LOT). I usually recommend to people who are genuinely interested in table tennis to go find local TT club - but I'm not sure you are ready for that (unless you have a really big club nearby with plenty of tables available at all time). I would also suggest bringing a friend - you'd be seriously outmatched against club players right now.

Instead, may be try focusing on making your rallies as long as possible for now, that is practice with someone by hitting the ball with your FH so that you keep the ball on the table 5, 10, 15 shots in a row. Find the best player in your office and ask for practice/tips etc. You need to develop a stroke that is somewhat consistent at putting the ball on the other side of the table - this way you'll win most of your office matches simply by making fewer mistakes than your opponent. Now, coaching/lessons would be best - but it really depends on your goals and finding a hardbat coach would be a challenge, I think. If you are lucky, you might run into hardbat player in the club, so may be it's worth a shot just for that.

Watching stuff on YouTube won't hurt either, especially if you can find hardbat-centric instruction there.

Good luck!

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Well done on posting the video. You've got some good shots in there, keep it up. It can be intimidating putting yourself out for comment but hopefully you will be rewarded by some good feedback. At this stage it looks like your style is predominantly a flat hit, which short pips are very good for however I expect your style has developed due to the equipment rather being your natural style. You also look to backspin at times though I suspect its just because the ball is low and its the only way you can get the ball up and over the net.

At this early stage I'd say that the exact rubber option you choose will make little difference to your game and any of those short pips would be fine. As far as long pips go, I'm not sure you understand enough about the fundamentals of spin to get the best out of long pips of deception and spin reversal. It appears that you guys make enough errors on your own to not have to worry about that stuff (as I also do). Its hard to deceive someone who doesn't know whats coming at them in the first place. I'd dismiss LP as a genuine option but if you wanted to try it for fun, then just grab any cheap chinese LP.

There are hardbat players at high levels however they would have exceptional technique to be able to topspin the ball with the short pips with no sponge. I'm not even close to being able to do it.

Depending on what your goals are there are a number of things you can do.
1) If you just want to have fun at work but want a nice bat, just get a good allround blade with some SP rubbers, you don't need to pay too much but I think you will notice little difference.
2) If you are looking for improvement and develop technique that will smash your work mates, get an allround blade and some smooth rubbers.
3) You could also try some short pips with thin sponge such as 729 802-40, this will act in between smooth rubbers and short pips.

I do the grading for our local club which is a fairly low standard club in a regional area. Having had a look at you, if I were grading you I would have you start in our lowest grade of 3 grades for a season and rank your around 47th out of 60 current players. Having said that, you have a decent eye and contact the ball well so I would expect that within a year you would be around 30-40th and into the middle division and pushing for the top division in a couple of years. To do this though I really think you would need to have a bat with smooth rubbers both sides, its not impossible to advance with SP but in my experience, its unlikely. You've got good potential so would be good to get the most out of yourself, even if its just at a social level.

Given that you are unlikely to tell the difference between a cheaper combination compared to a more expensive combination, perhaps consider buying two bats, one SP and one inverted (smooth) rubber for half the cost each of what you were going to spend. Pretty sure once you start spinning the ball you won't go back to the SP, at least for a while.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

I guess the point of long pips for me was just to block other peoples spins and match me up against better players in the future without having to invest later. Thank you for ranking me, it does help.

I do already have a bat that I had handmade for me and it's a really good bat from someone on this forum that many people purchase from. It's called a Banshee from Craig Smith and is one of the nicest paddles I've ever held in my hand with a beautiful Burl Wood handle, yet it's still very light. That's the paddle I'm looking to get rubber for.

I can understand how and why inverted rubbers with a sponge are better in terms of spin and so many other factors. However, playing with a sponge really takes away most of the joy for me. I want to feel the ball almost crack against the paddle and the vibration down to my hand/wrist. If playing with sandpaper was allowed on the club level then I would do that because that's the most fun for me.

This quote describes it perfectly for me "With a hardbat, the player feels the shock of the ball hitting the wood, the energy transmitted directly to the hand. When a player cracks a solid slam, it is through the force of his/her swing, and nothing else. The power is unaided by any catapulting effect; all action by the player produces an equal/opposite reaction on the ball and a commensurate "whack" sound from the wood." I think in some ways for me it levels out the playing field as well but I want to be good enough to at least beat sponge players on the lower level.

Anyway - I don't see the difference between long and short pimple in terms of it clacking against the bat if both are OX-Spongeless rubbers? How much if at all heavier and thicker will the long pimple rubber be? Advantages and disadvantages of having FEINT LONG II OX on one side and Butterfly Orthodox on the other for example? Obviously I can't play in Hardbat tournaments with that but in clubs and local tournaments against sponged opponents I might have an advantage?

Here's a picture of my bat:


I am leaning towards getting Feint Long II OX on one side and Butterfly Orthodox on the other. I still don't understand why it wouldn't be considered "hardbat" to have long pimpled rubber. I know it's not legal for hardbat tournaments, but other than that it's still spongeless and you could still feel the clack right?

Because rules. 'Hardbat' here is used mostly as an official term for designated type of paddles, and there is a small list of approved rubbers for hardbats. When people talk about sponge-less rubbers in general (short pips, long pips), they usually refer to it as 0X, as in 'zero thickness', or who knows where this term came from, I have no idea.

Yes, you'll get some 'clack' sound when hitting with 0X LP, but not as much - long pimples get more in the way (they are long after all...) and dampen it somewhat.

If you are into sound (and why not) - there are some inverted rubbers with sponge that will make plenty of it when smashed hard (google for names). It's obviously different from what you are experiencing now. I personally like the sound of thick 1-ply hinoki J-Pen blades.

So, to summarize: get true 'hardbat' if you want to be as close as possible to current experience. Want to try LP - sure, why not - but be prepared for different feel, technique and sound.

P.S. Don't forget the balls - new plastic ones sound different too. No idea if you will like it, though.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

I'm particularly excited by the USB-powered hand that displays the bat!

Looks lovely, in all seriousness.



You'll end up with something very similar to what I played with for the last season and a half. Yes, you'll hear and feel the ball as you expect, although, as pgpg points out, the longness of the pimples will dampen that effect somewhat. Nonetheless, you'll enjoy how it feels, and if you put in the work to understand and learn how the pimples work, and post lots of videos of your progress, I'm sure you'll have a blast.

Now... stop thinking! Order your rubbers, some glue sheets, some glue, get some curved nail scissors, and get assembling. Then get playing!

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

So I finally got the rubber and put it on the paddles.



Feint Long II OX in Red on the backhand and Orthodox Butterfly in Black for the forehand. I played today at work and here are my observations when compared to sponged inverted rubbers and the hardbats we have at work:

1. The Butterfly Orthodox and Feint Long II OX don't have that much of a difference in sound or feel. It's very slight - although the difference in blocking and generating spin is huge. The Feint Long II OX wins in this regards.
2. Control is much better than the cheap hardbat paddles we had before.
3. Soundwise - I really like it although it doesn't have the clack that the cheap hardbats do, it's similar just more of a soft clack, like hitting dixie cups.
4. The feel is still there, although not as intense as on the cheap hardbats, at least you can still feel it since it's spongeless.
5. Weight wise it's slightly heavier than the cheapy hardbats but not as heavy as the sponged ones I've used.
5. When using the backhand with the Feint Long II OX, we can play an extremely fast rally as the returns are natural without much effort in terms of hitting, we merely touch the ball and it returns serves perfectly.
6. In general I feel like I'm 100000 times better at playing just based on using this bat because it makes playing so much more effortless. I merely tap the ball now instead having to really try to hit it, and it almost always stays on the table, which it didn't with the cheapy hardbats.
7. My serves have now gotten better, not only due to the new rubber but also due to the fact that I've been practicing serving the proper way from the palm and behind the table as other members caught me out on that.

Overall I managed to lose to one of the top players at work by only 2 points, just from my first try with this paddle/rubber combo. It would not be the case with the cheap hardbats at work. I feel like I can definitely play some inverted rubber players now compared to before.

And finally - I know rules and all, but the long pips OX do feel amazing. You get a lot of spin reversal and you lose only a little feel compared to true hardbat. It's like a master weapon, a sharp knife to slice through, if you will. Although, even the Butterfly Orthodox is a 10000000000 fold improvement over cheap hardbat rubbers (and it's not expensive either at $12)...

I am so glad you finally got some rubber and started playing! Just wondering, did you compare the two paddles, or have you just been using the one? Your paddle should generate more spin on serves while I would expect your buddies to be just a little bit faster. Keep working on the backhand push, and soon try doing some backhand flips!

Glad it worked out well for you

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Ratt Factory "ghost" (oversize kiri, balsa, kiri) innova UL/ Tibhar Grass D.tecs
Ratt Factory "mouse" (mahogany, kiri, kiri, kiri, mahogany) T05/ giant dragon talon
Tibhar Furious/ juic 999/ Tibhar Grass D.Tecs
Yasaka balsa plus/ RITC 837/ RITC 755 (friendship)
Newgy 1040 robot

Great to hear you love the bat, nothing more exciting than a new bat.

Thanks for reporting back. Make sure you post any more questions. Plenty here would be happy to help you with technique so you can start beating that good player at work by 2 points. I'd imagine that practice will do that anyway, with a bit of extra help you will be flogging them.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

Great pic! Very excited to hear your continuing journey!

Could you upload a new video of the weapon in action?

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

So we have not heard from you in a while. Hows it going as you get in some playing time?

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Ratt Factory "ghost" (oversize kiri, balsa, kiri) innova UL/ Tibhar Grass D.tecs
Ratt Factory "mouse" (mahogany, kiri, kiri, kiri, mahogany) T05/ giant dragon talon
Tibhar Furious/ juic 999/ Tibhar Grass D.Tecs
Yasaka balsa plus/ RITC 837/ RITC 755 (friendship)
Newgy 1040 robot