OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I'm fairly certain that at some stage they used to coach pushes first (don't know if that was the case in the 80's). Nowadays they don't like it as they worry under pressure you will return to a push, as is if it's the 1st stroke you learn there is a danger it could be developed into a dominat habit.

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Equipment Review Index
Joola Turbo: FH: Joola Peking (2mm) , BH: Joola Peking (2mm)
Another one bites the dust.

Project Kenny [Style].

Prepared and ready to test tomorrow. blade 99g, setup = 176g. The Meteor is a substantial L.P., felt very heavy. Bouncing a ball the setup is slow (the fx has some tack to lose of course) and I think the backspin potential is huge

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

so_devo, I'm enjoying your blog so far. I really like all the history you've included, very interesting. You've got me curious about the Kenny blade and how it plays as well .

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"Success is on the same road as failure; success is just a little farther down the road."

Donic Defplay Senso | Yasaka Mark V 2.0 | SL Dornenglanz OX

Donic Defplay Senso | Butterfly Sriver | Testing

Kenny's looking good!

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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.

I've had a little gap between posts because my daughter was in hospital after a playground accident; one operation later and all is well and she is home, recovering. A stark reminder though that there is more to life than table tennis.

I had been looking forward to attending a weekend training camp run by Gareth Herbert (ex-UK #2, still top 10, Commonwealth gold medalist). Events obviously prevented this, but I am now down to do a weekend at the end of August. I’ve done a few before and each time my game has leapt forward, so I am keen to go again !!

To continue with a ‘current day’ post – I’ll do another ‘history post’ next time – ‘Project Kenny’ has hit his first balls for 32 years !! Dressed for the first time in 2 colours (previously it was strictly red only) he is also having to get used to his first ever play with a 40mm ball; it was strictly 38mm in his day!!

So – how does it play? Well, for me that’s a question with two answers. On the inverted side, it is a pretty awesome chopping setup, and the backspin generated is really very, very heavy indeed. On Sunday we played games to 11 where whoever had the ball served, which had to be a long serve forehand to forehand. My opponent would then start to loop, I’d chop, repeat, repeat etc etc. Great fun, exactly what I made the bat for. Only one of the 4 players I played beat me, but given the exhausted state he was in after all that looping I reckon he’d have struggled to get by me in a best of 5 !!

The second answer is that I was pretty dire with the Meteor – I’ve never really used LP much, and I was also pretty dire using the bat in real match play (because it is no longer in my nature to drop back and chop) and scraped wins where I’d usually breeze through. I think I will make it a double inverted chopping bat with the 729 super fx 1.5mm on both sides.

One issue with the bat is that the painted handle gets slippery in the hot conditions - what were Butterfly thinking of ?

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

I beg to differ! If you'd had your little girl at the TT hall instead of the playground...accident avoid....nuffsaid!

Hope she mends fast!

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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.

OK, back to the nostalgia, and I guess it is around 82/83. I need to get some reasonable equipment to progress my table tennis development. My coach suggested I take a trip to Ken Levin's. Ken ran a mail order business from home - for all I know he still does - which was called KDL sports. If you were local you could arrange to visit his home and have a bat made up 'there and then'; for some reason it also worked out cheaper, maybe because it saved him the hassle of packing and posting etc.

Ken's was a short train ride or cycle from Leyton to Wanstead. He had an office / storeroom on the back of the house, and then a big wooden workshop at the bottom of his garden.

I need to put this era into context. TT was a minority sport, and we didn't have the benefit of the internet to research equipment. Aside from using the bats of/talking to other players, information was very limited. So we all tended to go to the same place to buy and ask advice. Don't get me wrong, I think the advice was good, just that there were less sources.

Ken serviced many players, and the top players would change their rubbers very frequently. Ken would then sell the part-worn rubbers on to young players, which would give the top guys a bit of cash back and also get the youngsters up and running at a reasonable cost. I think he also sold ex-demo rubbers too.

On this first visit my Stiga Ehrlich got its new coat - two red Yasaka Cobra 3 star part-worns at a total cost of £6 for two. Remember we are before the days of the 'two colour rule'. Note that 30 years ago most rubbers cost approx £20 per sheet, so this was an economical way to start for youngsters and beginners. We complain about rubber costs nowadays, but I think they were just as high back then; It is just that we had a price fall with the increased competition and now they have risen again as some brands go 'premium'.

Watching Ken put a bat together was amazing. You'd go to the end of the garden workshop. He must have been high as a kite if he spent any amount of time in there!! - loads of chemical smells !! Procedure was as follows;

1: Rubbers would be removed using a spray, probably acetone.
2: Blade faces lightly sanded
3: Bty chack - full fat VoC version - squeezed from a tube onto blade and sponge
4: A piece of wood, credit card sized, was used to spread the glue and remove excess. In seconds it looked as though he'd scraped every bit of glue from the blade and sponge. It was amazing how little glue was necessary to get a good bond, and I never had a rubber come adrift. A few seconds was allowed for the glue to dry.
5: Rubber was rolled on using a hefty rolling pin
6: Excess rubber trimmed using a monster of a stanley blade
7: Steps 3-6 repeated for the other side of the bat
8: Edge of blade run quickly around the edge of a belt sander giving an immaculate finish.
9: Edge tape cut from big thick rolls on the workbench.

He was of course incredible quick at doing all this but unfortunately there was a step 10. Ken was insistant that the best rubber cleaner was spit; so yes, he spat on the bat and 'cleaned' it. These days I think I'd politely decline, but at 13 you don't tell an adult not to do such a thing! I have known a few players who also 'clean' their bats this way too.......

I only really trained seriously until about 1988 - and I've more to write about this - but in all that time I don't recall seeing anyone making up their own bats.

A visit to KDL sports was a real treat, and often my birthday present was a new bat. I'd send weeks studying the catalogue before going! It was amazing to be among the racks and racks of new blades, rubbers, clothing - even those 1980's style butterfly shorts which would get you arrested for indecency these days. How I ever fathered children after wearing those things I'll never know .......

I later learned that Ken set up the business after the death of his wife, being something he could do from home and be able to look after his children. From the warm atmosphere always present in that house, I think he probably did a great job.

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

Great memories! And yes, it's good to see the disappearance of those shorts! And the shirts with buttons undone down to the waist. And the big hair. Thank heavens the 80s have gone!

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"So long, and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this" Sung by the dolphins in The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

Yes, when you look back some things are best left in the past



Kinda brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

Leave the shorts in the past but I sure wish we had players like Surbek around today.

Ok, a quick current day post this time.

As we approach the end of August the league season is about to start. We do have summer leagues here in the UK, but they are low key and many players, myself included, do not play them. Our season runs approximately September to March/April.

All of the leagues I play in are 3-man teams. Squads tend to be between 4 and 6 players. There are quite a number of leagues in Essex, and lots of players become involved in 2 or more leagues. I am actually registered in 5 this year, and aim to play 2 matches a week. I run 2 of the 5 teams.

As you may imagine, scheduling all of this can be a bit of a challenge, especially as one of the leagues is a bit late releasing their fixtures. Still, I have a good indication of some of the games I'll be playing, and am looking forward to them in a big way (having not played competitively since April).

I am pretty sure that in mid-September we'll have a forum match-up to report, as I am scheduled to play the team that ChrisBuer and his father play for. I've struggled a little with their styles recently in practice, so that should be interesting.

This weekend I have a 2-day training camp at BATTS in Harlow. ( http://www.batts.org.uk/ ) led by Gareth Herbert ( Commonwealth gold medalist, http://www.inspirationsports.co.uk/abou ... th-herbert ) and supported by other top-quality coaches. Frankly, I can't wait! I've done a few before and my game always seems to take a leap forward afterwards.

Summer training has gone really well, some outstanding wins in practice games (players that I have previously never beaten) and I will go into this season with a new found level of confidence, really believing that I have a reasonable chance against absolutely anyone locally provided I play to the best of my ability. Hopefully this is not overconfidence. The single negative at present is that I am getting some nagging and persistent discomfort from my shoulder, and hope this passes soon.

Full training camp report in a few days ......

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

So how'd the training camp go?

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Blade: Re-Impact Tachi. BH: Grass DTecS (ox, new version) FH: Palio Thor's max

Yes, my apologies, been very busy but I WILL keep this blog going.

The camp was, as always, very good. Numbers were down; only about 12 or 14 on the Saturday and just 6 on the Sunday. Probably due to it being a bank holiday weekend.

We did mainly drills on the Saturday which included more backhand work than usual. This in particular was very beneficial for me. There were less exercises around footwork and consistency but more about putting in strong, point-winning shots.

Gareth explained his logic to this; in his preparation cycle he'd spend early summer developing and grooving his strokes/footwork; getting comfortable with any adjustments etc. As the competitive season approached, there would be far more focus on point practice, strong strokes and actually winning the point. We are very near to this second phase (I have my first 2011/12 season league match tomorrow), hence we had drills based on winning points.

Day 2 was lots of serve and service receive practice (especially a flick and deep push that looks very similar until very late) and then lots of match practice. With the small group the coaches joined in the games.

I ended up completely shattered and my last game (against a player who is a top-30 UK vet) would be hilarious if it had been filmed. We were both so knackered we were pathetic!

I usually come off of these camps playing really well. This has not happened this time, and the reason is that my arm / shoulder is still problematic. I've not been hitting forehands as hard as usual and worse still the discomfort has been altering my stroke a bit. I've been treating it internsively for the last week (ice, heat, ibuprofen, stretches) and finally it seems to be improving. Once warm I was able to play pretty much flat out in my last 2 sessions. Movement is now much better. Let's see how it goes this week, and I'll be putting in extra effort to warm up properly.

Something else I'll relay from the camp is some bits of the canteen conversations with the coaches - remember this is a commonwealth games winner and an ex-UK #1 junior (and top 10 senior)......

Q. Best rubber post speed glue - A. Tenergy05, by a mile.
Q. How often did you change rubber when competing - A. weekly (nowadays £120 per week, gulp! presumably was sponsored though)
Q. Thoughts on potential net height raise? A. Worth trying, as the best match-up to watch is attack v defence. Rules should be reconsidered to encourage more defenders.

Also during the camp I got paired up at times with Chris Buer and his father. When playing Chris Gareth came over and was demonstrating some pips shots to Chris. I can say that he has a wonderful touch with LP, short blocking off my best loops was just evil !!

Finally, something gross! If you are squemish, look away now!

Playing yesterday I was aware I had a blister, but was concentrating on my shoulder ........

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

Wow that's one big blister!

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Wow, that will take some time to heal.