OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I'm in KL (Petaling Jaya area) until April 11 and have been taking my daughter to junior group coaching at the Star Elite Table Tennis Centre in Puchong every day since Wednesday. It's great for her, but it seems to be really hard for adults to get a chance to play, with limited numbers of tables available for very limited time windows at this place or that.

I think I can have a TT session with my cousin at PJ Union next Friday night. At this stage, between taking my daughter to coaching and other family outings, I haven't played since last Monday night in Australia. Been observing the differences between junior group coaching here and in Melbourne. For over 10 hours now. Sigh…

My cousin did take me on an excursion to the Tenryu TT shop today, though.(This was because he'd taken us to SETTC in the expectation that he and I could play in one of the other rooms during junior coaching – no dice, outsider table hire finished before junior coaching.) Stocked up on various little gewgaws to present as gifts at home, including two Ma Long mouse pads and a couple of DHS umbrellas. Resisted the temptation to buy various semi-exotic rubbers like Tibhar Hybrid K1, among many others.

So Iskandar, you up for a hit?

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"Once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor." –Doctor Impossible

Certainly! PJ Union's the most convenient for me, they have open play Wednesday and Friday nights. Wish I had known about this last week, I would have asked you over to Weekend Social Doubles ( at a friend's house nearby). A bunch of 1100 to 1400 level players who've never seen anything better and are in need of a shock.. Not happening next weekend since the host is out of town.

Presports is nearby, too, but not really much of a showroom.

Iskandar

Incidentally, Tenryu had an excellent price for Tenergy last I checked some months back.

Checked again. They've only got T64 and T64fx. Price is around USD48-50 or thereabouts.. but it looks like older sheets in the old packaging (though who knows, those are just icons on the web site). Also have Gold Arc 5 and 8 - as we thought, they're expensive (Tensor-like prices).

http://www.tenryu.com.my/store/DHS/q?m=cat&tt=10

Iskandar

I can make it on both those nights from about 8pm, I think. Junior training at SETTC goes from 5 to 7pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

I've not been game (yet) to ask my daughter to attend the 8-10pm SETTC sessions, because her body clock is still on Melbourne time (10pm in KL is 1am in Melbourne, or with the end of daylight saving, midnight).


Yeah, if I had been there, that situation probably wouldn't have changed!

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"Once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor." –Doctor Impossible

I've been thinking about whether I should lay in stocks of Tenergy this trip, as it's ~AU$99 at home vs ~AU$75 here. It's one of those things that might come in handy, like gold or tinned food!

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"Once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor." –Doctor Impossible

I can probably make it both nights - no earlier than about 8:45 pm, though. Can't stay much past 11, though - maybe a bit later Friday night.

Does Tenergy have a long shelf life? Maybe you could keep it in the fridge (or freezer). The other thing I'm quasi-involved in is indoor rubber-powered model flying (this also has its ultra high tech rubber, in this case long strips of it) and I've heard apocryphal stories of the top fliers (yes, there is a world champs - they fly it in places like some underground salt mines in Poland, and in that huge US Navy blimp hangar in Lakehurst, New Jersey where the Hindenburg blew up) squirreling away their precious hoards of 1973 Pirelli or 1995 Tan II by burying it in the back garden.

By the way Presports has it for about the same price, and they've got 05 and 05fx in stock.

http://www.presports.com/8_butterfly

Iskandar

Hi...I'm new here...i work in PJ area...mind if i join you guys?

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HL5, Neo H3 Prov BS, Neo H3 Prov
Maze ALC, Neo H3 Prov BS, Rozena

Sure! And a pips player — great!

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"Once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor." –Doctor Impossible

I've managed to snag an individual coaching session for myself at SETTC from 7-8pm this Wednesday, so I'll also turn up to PJ Union about 8.45, traffic permitting.

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"Once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor." –Doctor Impossible

A thought vis-a-vis Tenergy.. what you can't use you can always sell..

Iskandar

Thought I'd post a little bit about our meeting at the PJ Union club. First, about the club. It's housed on the top floor of what they call a "shophouse" - in days of yore the family running a store (located in a row of stores) would live above it, these days the upper floors are rented out as offices, other stores and whatnot. Nine tables, three "premium" ones with lots of space and excellent lighting, three others in the back with slightly less space and not-as-good lighting and three with much less space, arranged to be used with a robot and for multiball drills. The floor is an old wood parquet floor, bits coming up, not exactly ideal but usable enough. They have open play Wednesday and Friday nights (when Hangdog and I played) from 7-10pm and on weekends from 4pm on. Fees are RM10 (USD2.20 or so) a night or you can join for RM60 a month. The main drawback to this area is parking - there are several large restaurants in the area, and weekend evenings are when people go out to eat (Wednesday wasn't as bad as Friday). There is a train station nearby, so if you are visiting KL and can get on the Kelana Jaya line the club's a 10 minute walk from the Taman Paramount station.

The club is overrun with little kids - and these kids play a heckuva lot better than I do. I spent a short time on Wednesday night counterlooping with a 12 year old boy and that was a real workout. I surprised myself by managing to counterloop and block back a high proportion of his loops. On Friday night this girl who was maybe four foot tall if that, and maybe 9 years old was looping back everything I could hit at her. Spent quite a bit of time on Friday hitting with Hangdog, we eventually settled into serve-and-return practice, which was quite interesting. We switched bats - he's using a Butterfly Chuan-Chih-Yuan blade with a ST handle (I can't find it in the current Butterfly catalog but it looks like this):



It's got Karis on both sides, so I can say I've hit with Karis. My current racket is a M8 with Tin Arc and Yinhe 9000 (this is a heavier 9000 sheet, so the bat's a little heavier than the previous one I was using). My impressions were: the vibrations of Hangdog's racket seemed "muted" compared to mine, it felt very "smooth", if that makes sense. It seemed a little slower - I was initially putting loops in the net, but I adjusted after a few minutes. Or maybe this is what people describe as "throw" - perhaps this bat had less throw than mine, at least on the forehand side. Does Karis have all the properties people have been describing? Reliability in shot returns, etc.? I don't know - it would take a couple weeks of use to find out, I think, and if it takes that long, then differences between rubbers really are, as I often like to say, subtle. This exchanging bats thing - I should do this more often, it turned out to be quite interesting. But there are things like - well, like using the bat to nudge the ball out from behind the shoe rack (there was one behind the table) - I caught myself doing it with the borrowed bat and thought (about a second too late) I shouldn't do that! Also, playing against my own bat - is there a rule against bright fluorescent pink edge tape? I've got a 10mm wide strip on mine (it's actually cloth tape from Daiso), and I couldn't believe how distracting it was..

We tested the DHS D40+ (both one and three star) and Double Fish V40+ balls. Didn't get an impression of the V40+ (other than there's nothing wrong with it). The D40+ one star sounded weird (somewhat high-pitched when it hit the table) but played just fine, in fact we used it for most of the hit on Friday night, until it developed a crack. Hangdog says it's an older ball purchased last year when the one stars first came out, and has been in use since.

Aside from Hangdog, I got to meet his cousin, and with encik_kainz, who played with us on Wednesday night.

Iskandar

Are there Any clubs to practice at near KL city centre, free pips opposition will be at your disposal?

Will be there Late April until Mid June visiting family, if anyone is interested, no car available but I'm used to the Monorail!

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Think, before you drink, before you write!

There probably are but I'm not familiar with them. In any case, the club I describe is easy to get to from the KL City Center. Just get on the Kelana Jaya LRT (from KL Sentral, Pasar Seni, KLCC, and about a dozen other stops) and get off at the Taman Paramount station. About 20-25 minutes out from downtown KL. And then it's a 5 minute walk.

Iskandar

I play at Puchong sports center(PSC) and Seri Kembangan(SK). These places are local community clubs. The environment at SK is small and may be quite sharby and the tables at PSC are not well maintained. But I have good tt mates. If you wish to play with us, just let me know.

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Spin Lord First Strike: FH G Dtec ox, BH Golden Arch 8, 2.15mm

Maybe next time I should see if Puchong Sports Centre is open while Star Elite junior group sessions are on, so that I'll have something to do while Daughter #1 is training!

BTW when I borrowed Iskandar's racket, I was immediately reminded of how good a blade the M8 is. Having spent several months using an M8, it felt very familiar, even with unfamiliar rubbers.

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"Once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor." –Doctor Impossible