Hello Red Lion
I enjoy reading your posts and found several similarities. We both used a Lion premade bat ST handle, mine I bought in 1989. I tore the rubbers out of that bat and stuck a new Tackiness Drive and Sriver Killer (without knowing that it was an anti rubber he he). I learned to play with that Sriver Killer chopping on my BH, twiddling to push and such. Over the years I have played with lp, sp and anti. I still have that Lion bat which I keep for memory's sake he he.
I also stopped playing for more than 10 years and now I'm almost 50 years old and now back to playing these past few years. I now use the conventional inverted rubbers on both sides. I have no problem finding good FH rubbers but I seem to have a hard time finding a BH rubber that suits my kind of game. I also prefer to receive service by pushing short serves and chopping long serves. . . . . maybe similar to what you do. The rubber that suits my BH is Sriver G2 FX . . . . difficult to find in my area here in Mindanao.

Red Lion what BH rubber do you use for such strokes? I mean what would you recommend?

Oh and I was also founding member of a club, two years now running, with about 48 members, composed of 32 students and adults. We've had several tournaments, trainings and clinics. And yet so far we are still a game shy of making the Palaro. But hopefully next year, our kids will make it.

All the best!

Great Blog, Red Lion. Is the Bible Center your describing in Intramuros by the Mapua area? PLM grad ako and I have played sa Bible Study Ctr na yun. If it's the same location you're describing, I wish I could have met you there. I recall playing once but chose to play billiards thereafter due to lack of decent competition. Having grown up in the Philippines, I started off playing pingpong using LIHA....played against oldies in my town at Cavite. One player even had sandpaper in his bakya (slipper) and played with it .

After the LIHA (Sandpaper) days, I met Butterfly. Started with the Butterfly Sardius (a mistake because it was too fast for a beginner) but paired with Tackiness and PF4. This was my setup until I graduated college in 1998. Since graduation, it was all basketball even after I migrated to the U.S. Only in 2005 did I find the Hawaii TT club. Fortunately, I still had my Sardius back then and tried the Mendo rubbers. I later changed to Timo Boll Spirit, Ten05 and Ten64, but was still being beaten by the top 10 players. Funny how things change because I'm a long pips player now, No going back to inverted....and no more getting schooled by the top 10. Now, it's the long pimples who does the attacking and schooling,

Very similar indeed only that there are islands separating us! ( Visayas ). Only that you started with anti and LP. While for me, still deciding if I will try LP.
For your BH, try the softest rubber you could get if you want to chop. I have tried the classics, Mark V, Sriver, tackiness, Tackiness D, xiom vega asia, but I am enjoying Joola Rhyzm soft right now. I got good chopping and blocking control and I can use its power when making back hand drive.
We have 2 players from our club playing at the National Prisaa now in Davao. It just sucks that the tournament format for singles is single elimination. I am still waiting for the update today, but hoping it would work to our advantage. One of our player is bracketed with Davao and WV!