OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I’m trying to understand but I hear different explanations, so please enlighten me…

Are throw and arc the same concepts pointing to the flatness (or curvedness) of the ball trajectory?

Do faster blades by definition mean a flatter trajectory (lower throw)?

How does wood hardness play a role in trajectory. I’d assume lower throw because it’s faster?

Does flex mean higher catapult and less linearity? Making throw higher? Or is catapult basically the same as speed?

I’m trying to understand but I hear different explanations, so please enlighten me…

Are throw and arc the same concepts pointing to the flatness (or curvedness) of the ball trajectory?
- Kinda yes, sort of. Flat blocking a loop, throw is initial launch, arc is ball trajectory. Just close the blade face and gave enough speed, and You can flat arc Your loop with very high throw rubber, which separate throw and arc.

Do faster blades by definition mean a flatter trajectory (lower throw)?
- There a problem of nuance in TT, Some say fast based on loop, Other use drive, but generally, more speed less spin equal flatter trajectory on perpendicular loop.

How does wood hardness play a role in trajectory. I’d assume lower throw because it’s faster?
- Yes.

Does flex mean higher catapult and less linearity? Making throw higher? Or is catapult basically the same as speed?
- No, the other way around. Wood bounce not fast enough to add to ball return, so it act like a damper, high flex means lower bounce, generally.


Sent from my i5E using Tapatalk

I keep hearing this but I don't believe it, or at least it's not been proven to my satisfaction. (I've also heard the opinion that rubber also "can't bounce back fast enough". Yet everyone admits solid wood and solid rubber balls bounce off the flor just fine.) The "flex" here isn't end-to-end flexing - I don't think that happens to any great degree considering how stiff blades actually are (try bending one and see how much you can make it bend before it breaks at the neck - besides, rubber is a lot softer than the underlying wood) but locally the wood can behave like a drumskin, even if the movement is a matter of fractions of a mm. I think this is particularly true of balsa blades, and can add to the ball's bounce speed.

Iskandar

There a simple way to test it,

Just drop table tennis ball from 2 m height to the blade face,

I shall be surprised if the ball bounce back higher from wood or any kind of TT combi rubber than from the hard floor.

Most drum set I know are more bouncy on the steel rim or wooden body than on the drum face, and actually a good thing, more energy converted to sound than to anything else.

Still, I agree on one thing, bouncy blade is counterproductive for looper.

Sent from my i5E using Tapatalk

How about projecting the ball at the floor at high speed and doing the same with the blade or racket? We're talking about hard impacts here, not ball-terminal-velocity ones.

Iskandar

Shall even more apparent that harder surface bouncier than anything softer, with accelerated ball.

Sent from my i5E using Tapatalk

Still haven't seen it actually done, so I'm not convinced.

Iskandar

The problem is that there are a lot of vague terms in use, with multiple meanings, depending on who's doing the talking. As far as I can tell, "throw" is a measure of the angle which a ball comes off a racket in a loop - which angle, measured how, no one's actually defined this. But it's a measure of how grippy a setup is, how much spin can be produced with a given stroke. "Arc", on the other hand, is the effect seen on the path of the ball of the amount of spin imparted on the ball. So, yes, there is an equivalence between "arc" and "throw". Both of these terms are more often used for rubbers than blades. As far as throw vs. speed when it comes to blades, and the effect of wood, and "flex" (a huge can of worms), perhaps we can compare blades which are known to be slow (e.g. Yinhe W6) and those known to be fast (e.g. Yinhe T8). Does everyone agree the W6 is "higher throw" than the T8? (I've never had a T8 so I'm staying out of this.. ).

Iskandar

good