OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I can relate to your hokey pokey situation. Over the last few years I played with 3 different blades and multiple long pips and an anti.

I put a fast inverted anti combo in the second slot of my bag just to quell the need for experimentation and kept a main blade for my true playing style in the other slot.

Overall I've played a fh dominant modern defensive style for nearly 5 years and slowly progressed. I just think to myself that most world champions probably don't change their setup on a monthly basis. Now I think I'm going to set a goal not to buy new rubber till my fh rubber needs replacing. Hopefully I have the knowledge to just buy another sheet of the same old thing...

Keep at it. Eventually the change will become the natural thing.

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-Teddy

Thank you tabesamis.

Today I acquired another silver tag MPM in exchange for some things from my blade and rubber collection that I didn't intend to use. Couldn't wait to weigh it. Only 86g. Now, two MPMs at 85g and 82g, and a Defence Pro (same as silver tag MPM) at 86g (weights after shortening the handles to cpen) are enough. I commit to this blade.

From shakehand Mazunov with H2 to cpen MPM with sp/lp was a long road! I needed to believe in my setup, and I do believe that the first was great for one kind of hitting and the second is great for a different kind, but both kindof flat and direct, like a lot of the players I've mentioned along the way.

In addition to the other problems we have with regard to equipment choices - like manufacturers changing things without telling anyone - there is also disinformation. Here. Don't really want to fight about it though.

The MPM's handle (cut short and played cpen) is bothering the edge of my thumb seriously enough that I must do something about it now. I don't want to modify it (must turn my attention to woodworking and leaves me with something indeterminate). I could switch to the similar but smaller-handled Defplay Senso but it doesn't solve the problem completely so I'd have to modify it too. Or, I could switch to one of several suitable cpen blades that I have. I could make the most of the occasion by finally getting started twiddling; I guess the standard cpen handle is shaped partly to facilitate that.

I felt I should post a good excuse since I've preached about how I settled on the MPM. I don't want to disappoint carbonman.

You're right, you would not want to do that!

What is the dis-information you were referring to earlier?

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[I regret mentioning it if I didn't intend to follow up and straighten it out. I was annoyed by something else that day having to do with, as I said, a manufacturer changing something without notice but continuing to sell it under the same name. Now I remember generally but not *exactly* what my other complaint was. Sorry.]

The good news about my need to modify my MPM or switch blades is, I seem to play as well with a variety of blades I have, all with Challenger Attack 1.9. I just lose the reassuring rationale I had for choosing one in particular.

Lol dont worry about me..... however.....i do look forward to the day when the equipment search and the style search is finally over and the training finally begins. Its been quite a wait!

Changing something to avoid injury must be legit. Yes, it's my fault for agonizing over it.

Her thumb is much narrower than mine, closer in width to my finger than my thumb. I can see this easily on her DVD. So something must give. Unless or until I modify the MPM handle I'm switching blades to something similar enough. It doesn't matter much which except that the P500, e.g., doesn't hurt my thumb.

My Chinese language teacher's thumb is like this, almost as narrow as my finger and with no knuckle sticking out. I didn't want to risk a ridiculous generalization, but yeah, it's the same.

Most TT skills lie outside of equipment or even specific style. Most decent players can mess around with those a tier below them and play pretty much any way they want. It shouldn't be too controversial to claim that if they persisted in that other way and shored up mechanics specific to it their overall level wouldn't change much at all.

I've changed playing style numerous times and the hardest was changing from penhold to shakehand very early on to learn attack from the BH side, but since then I play more or less the same with SH or RPB assuming inverted. Going to chopping w/ LPs level dipped somewhat for a bit but then progressing at same rate as before. Sometime I demo rpb for others and only temporarily dip for that game, hardly worse than playing on a bad day. In the end the strokes and footwork are the same long as you know where to be and when to swing.

Recently a few I know (interm level rec players) have also switched from penhold to SH and if anything improved slightly (perhaps because their rpb was poor and thus not hard to improve on). I suspect if they go back to pen rpb their level would hardly change.

This is a continuation of my previous posts:

After about two and a half years with short pips I have suddenly switched back to inverted. As has been noted before, despite this big change my W-L percentage against my usual opponents has stayed about the same. But I feel a deep reservoir of additional offensive potential in the rubber and I love the feeling.

What about my model player? Li Jiao or Lay Jianfang, I guess.

I need not let the model determine my equipment this time but I can let them demonstrate their judgment with regard to the broad outlines of their game, and I still like control and placement with a big forehand in reserve.

After switching back from short pips to inverted I also quickly migrated back to offensive blades (to make unboosted Hurricane/Skyline behave as I wish).

[Begin Story]
Alright, I'll tell you the story:
1) To make unboosted Hurr/Sky work on my Defplay I noticed that I had to make extra-clean, sharp contact, as it seemed to me that otherwise the topsheet unwinds while the ball is still sitting on the rubber; see the ball sail long, unexpectedly? I think this is why, and it takes a burst of additional effort to prevent that. Also, unlike short pips, I don't think these rubbers need any help from a soft/flexible blade to spin the ball. And, unboosted, they are already slow enough too and don't need a slow blade. So I decided to move to a faster blade. I noticed the sharper behavior that I preferred on (blades I already owned) MPM, then Extra, then HHao (5.65mm koto 5-ply), where I stayed for a while.
2) I was getting in tune with the HHao and unboosted Hurr/Sky for a month or so. Then one day I was doing forehand-forehand topspin drilling with this one friend who is able and willing to continue this until my arm falls off. And I said to myself that this is TOO MUCH WORK! I was stroking right, and hard, and feeling the mix of brush upward + punch forward required, and the punch forward part - to make the ball go very fast - was just too much. So I decided to continue toward (but not all the way back to) blades that I had used in the past with this kind of rubber. I went past YEO and back to 7 ply blades. I'm currently using two that are about the same: YES (6.25mm 93g) and Maxwood (6.35mm 103g), single-sided. They're both still noticeably flexible.
[End of Story]

Back to inverted, back to offensive blades, I have only one last experiment, I think:
I waited a long time before trying my first tensor, as I heard they were much more bouncy that I'd like. But now there are some that are said to be like boosted Chinese rubber, to some extent, and I'm trying them. I can share my opinion now that MX-S and OIVA are too soft to be "like" Hurr/Sky, though they are great rubbers (and no, they are not too bouncy). I adjusted in about three hours but I don't want to change my stroke or my close to table game this much. Of these new rubbers the one I'm most optimistic about is the hardest of them if I'm not mistaken, VS>401 2.0; I want the topsheet to be very active but the sponge inactive until hit hard, like an exaggeration of an unboosted Hurr/Sky.

Having experienced the good properties of MX-S and OIVA (with regard to their bounciness and their speed I found them well-behaved, as expected), I await the much harder VS>401.

That might be true for some, but I've come accross some very soft Hurr/Skyline rubbers as well, whic would have been much softer than these rubbers. DHS are notorious for having large variation in sponge hardness. Even the ones marker vary a lot, so I have little fairth in these markings.
The 401 is indeed quite firm, but with a softer and slightly tacky topsheet. It's still my rubber of choice, and it's the first non-Chinese forehand rubber I've use for many years.

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Edited.

You know how incorrigible EJs come to this forum and proclaim their new equipment choice that they'll never change, only to change it again later? Well, I'm not going to do that:

I am so happy with my current blade and front-side rubber - whose effectiveness and appropriateness for me I have proven to myself by winning enough games against my usual opponents - and I'm so satisfied that there is nothing in the whole wide world that would be better for me - as I now know where their characteristics fit in the spectrum of a wide range of similar products and fully understand that moderate changes in any direction would end up making no worthwhile difference - that I am now terrified to change anything or even to whisper their names in public; I am that satisfied.

That leaves the back-side rubber which, since switching to cpen about three years ago, I haven't been using anyway. It should be pips-out, OX to avoid carrying any more weight, as easy as possible to use, probably a medium pip. As long as they're comfortable under my fingers on the back, trying these should not upset my game at all. But I admit: I'll miss Zhou Xintong.

Well you're no fun.. how are you supposed to inspire other EJ's if you don't tell them about the holy grail that you're found.

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide