OOAK Table Tennis Forum

You are right that you will get caught out closer to the table more often than defenders on TV. In order to avoid this you need a consistent long/low ball to give yourself a safe margin to move back. Before that happens you need the functional block. LPs won't be able to counter topspin back into topspin to help pull the ball down so your physical angle control will need to be better. OTOH LPs are less reactive to incoming spin so that helps. If you're having trouble with touchiness of the shot which is likely, go with thinner sponge (or even no sponge) or slower LPs. Continuing the point is contingent on getting the ball back on the table, so measures which increase its likelihood should take precedence over long-range fanciness.

Also, unless your goal is a very aggressive game, twiddling is a big time commitment for modest gains over a reasonable LP attack against loose balls which can be put away. For the maybe-attack-maybe-not balls a less than great BH will also open you up to counters which can place more demands on you than the opponent. At less than somewhat high levels, IMO twiddling is more useful to confusing opponents who become familiar with typical LP play; reading people who can drastically change up spin at will is very difficult, so they will basically have to alter how they watch a point just to play you.

Twiddling is also useful for pushing with inverted and giving your unsuspecting opponent a much heavier ball.

Regarding chopping on the forehand side, I can chop better w my inverted than my pips.

edit-spelling (fixing my spell checker!)

They shouldn't be able to smash in the first place. If that happens a lot when you push their push, then you need to work on your pushing.



I wonder what equipment you play, Hex, because advising a defender to go from sponge to no sponge is just not right. Those are two different animals all together. Most of the ball contacts made without sponge are firmer/fuller (less brush) then with sponge.

I had Globe 979 on very thin sponge and recently got D.tecs OX because a knee injury prevented me from moving well. Things are slowly gradually improving but I suspect I might stick with OX for a bit because of better playing properties at the table.

Unless a sponge is especially dead, OX will be slower. D.tecs is a pretty fast LP, but markedly slower than the 979 on chops and thus offers better control esp at mid distances. D.tecs 1.2mm is nearly unusable for amateurs until well back from the table.

Some sponge is somewhat better for variation but that's low on the list of stack ranked priorities for developing a solid def, well below consistently low and long placement. Opponents who can reliably loopkill that sort of safe chop don't arise until >>2k level.

Great blog! I have been using almost the same setup but Feint Long II 1.1 mm on BH instead. You need to be able to make an ordinary block with LP and to perform a loose drive with it. That is not very diffucult with P4 but takes som practice. Just make drills where you hit and block with it like with any inverted and adapt your stroke. You need a good partner for this.

Then you need to twiddle. At least for BH serves and some pushes. Even better for some occasional attacks (pop ups). And also for chopping FH. Then, if you can learn to stay at the table and block their safe loop from BH corner straight down the line from your BH, you've got a real winner. I have a fellow defender in my club who is very gold at this (see my blog for some vids of him). He twiddles a lot....
Most important - practice and practice a lot. And bend your knees

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
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Thanks, everyone, for kind words and advice!

Couple of takeaways for me is to figure out and practice BH strokes and at least look into twiddling, I'm sure Google can unearth some advice/video.

One unexpected thing I realized once I switched to the new setup: my grip is wrong, and probably was that way for a bit. Basically as I look at pictures of correct shakehand grip, it has index finger on the BH rubber, thumb on the FH rubber border or close to it and remianing 3 fingers wrapped around the handle. Well, my middle finger lately wandered away from the handle and is now creeping into low left corner of the FH rubber, wrapping around the edge of the blade instead (if it makes any sense to you...). I started noticing it couple of months ago, while I still was playing with my double inverted combo: why do I suddenly have calluses on my middle finger's side? It got more noticeable with VKM blade, since it is a bit larger and I even noticed that it started separating lower corner of FH rubber from the blade. So now I have one more thing to worry about.

Finally, here is a list of my favorite chops :

* The one with a rising trajectory that lands right at the end of the table (but not an edge ball!) at the very last moment, while opponent is already convinced it is going long.
* Low and long, full of spin and going into opponent's body
* Short and reasonably high, but still going into the net if they try to smash it
* The one which hits the net and just drops on the other side - pure evil

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Yes, that was one of unpleasant surprises when I first tried pushing with LPs - it occasionally would pop up. Happens less lately, though.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Or DTecs 1.2 might be unusable to you because you're used to using OX...

Sponge makes for a better defense, because it gives lenght to the ball and it offers more grip. Like I already stated: OX and sponge are two different animals. Why do you think people have difficulty going from one to the other?

When you say 'better' - do you mean more consistent so that more balls land, or more spin and thus harder to return? For me right now FH (inverted) is more consistent, but BH(LP) has much more spin.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Inverted pushing against underspin is better in that you can get heavier underspin and it is more consistent (or easier to play more consistent). So when I receive serve on my BH I can push with the pips, but occasionally I twiddle right before I receive and my opponent has to deal with a heavier push and often they expect the lower spin pip push and put it in the net.

Sorry, I meant chopping - I understand your point about pushes.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

I actually chop better with inverted on my FH, meaning I get the ball back on the table more consistently than with pips. In my case its primarily a matter of practice since I twiddle only occasionally so I usually chop with inverted on my FH. I do think I would get more spin with LP if I practiced more. I see most professional choppers using their inverted to chop on the FH. Indeed many of them rarely twiddle though a few do (Filus? speling)

Yes, as I see it, the relatively easy ball to attack is part of what you are chopping for, not just chopping forever until you get an outright miss. You could twiddle and attack or twiddle and do a very aggressive chop with inverted.

But to use any technique you have to have practiced it, not just do it once or twice and think you've got it. So devise a drill to do the twiddle and backhand attack so that you really are comfortable with what balls are favorable to do the attack.
Dietmar Palmi is an example of a high level (world class when he was younger) chopper who usually prefers to attack by backhand loop.
He still plays.You can see him using the backhand shot as a finishing stroke in this video.

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Acuda S1 Turbo
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He twiddles primarily to attack with inverted on his backhand, and only chops with pips on the FH if no time to twiddle back.

Viktoria Pavlovich twiddles to chop on the FH on purpose and often. She's amazing at it and I didn't even notice it until Leatherback pointed it out in her video thread!

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

I've only started using OX recently due to mentioned injury so the exact opposite is true. It's much easier to adjust to than I would expect the other way around. The fwd thrown chop is harder but the reversal chop easier so a mixed bag depending on what you want to do.

The 1.2 Dtecs and such are alright well away from the table. The problem is as mentioned above most amateurs esp when they start will not have the quick and well anticipated in-out movements plus consistency of setup shot necessary to make this work well for modern def. IOW it's much better to start with rubber what works well everywhere instead of one with more limited range.