OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I never liked talon but I know it's a good rubber. Spend some quality time with it. Especially if it's working for you. I encourage you to practice a push block off the bounce for low backspin you can't hit. I find a push block is more deceptive than a pips loop. This is because depending on how much friction you put into the shot you will have vary degrees of top or dead.

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-Teddy

Great advice . The only thing I want to do is check the Dragon Talon with the Defplay. If it passively blocks better than the Aurora chops, then I'd want to go with the Defplay and follow your advice of sticking with it. If not, Aurora it is.

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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 am also a chopper, but i feel that I have to use blocking a great deal, since many of my opponents does not attack that much, since they struggle to get passed med chopping game
I have found VKM to be the best blade for both chopping and blocking, I mean the Best hybrid between both styles.
I found Defplay too flexy and Joo too fast / hard.
Gionis Def are too hard / stiff as well.
VKM Works very well for fishing away from the table and actually loops great with soft tensors.
It is just a Little harder and stiffer than Defplay so blocking is good and it chops like a dream.

AT the moment is use this :

VKM
Andro Rasant Powersponge 2.1
Dtechs 0x.

Soren

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[color=#FF0000]Setup 1: Joola Chen Weixing - Tenergy 05 2.1 red - Tibhar Grass Dtechs Black 0,5
Current rating : 1825.

Something I've learned is to try to identify which of my many problems are most important to solve, and try to figure out of those, which I really need to change equipment to fix, vs which I can learn to play better, and of the ones where I need to change equipment, to make as minor of changes as possible, to change the fewest number or things with as small of changes as I can get away with and still solve the major problems. By doing so, I have the least adjustment to make in my shots, and the longer and more reps I get of them, the more finely tuned and accurate they should get.

The reason I said that was because on the other thread you are also looking at changing the forehand rubber. Even to change just the backhand rubber is major in my mind. Luckily you seem to have a couple good blades that you've played with, so getting used to playing with one you played before shouldn't take too long. The last time I changed forehand rubber to a different rubber, it took me 6 or 7 months before I was really playing well again. That's why I mentioned it.

Speaking of forehand rubber, you never said what sponge thickness you have? At least for me, it seems a lot of the Seemiller and pips shots are very dependent on me being able to move the blade quickly and use my wrist to flip it hard and fast. I can't do these things well if its heavy or the blade head is too large, it seems, and so I've gone to thinner 1.8 sponge on the forehand side as well as with 0X on the backhand and a fairly light blade at 77 grams to enable me to make those shots better and more often. I would not suggest changing to a different rubber because it affects so many things, but if you could switch to a thin sponge version of the same rubber you are already used to, it will cut out a bunch of weight and slow it down just a touch and increase control by that same amount, and maybe that Seemiller backhand shot will start hitting the table consistently. Your ability to chop or block with it will also improve, but of course you will have to adjust your hitting and smashing to hit a bit harder to make up for having less sponge. Anyway,if you don't already have the thinnest sponge available, I'd suggest you give that a try and see if it doesn't help once adjusted to.

It isn't that any or all of these other rubbers and blades aren't good, or maybe even better at certain things in some cases, its just that being better at one thing probably means a tradeoff of not being as good at something else, and having the problem of needing to relearn ALL your shots to match that new equipment takes lots of time and practice. I've seen a number of friends make an equipment change and then practice with it a couple months age go play a tournament and drop 150 points in a heartbeat because major changes just take lots and lots of time and practice to get used to to where shots are just "automatic".

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--- Push/Chop or Attack ---
USATT 1684 left, Lost it all by playing sick and hurt.
No legs left, no more backing up, just smash it!
Blade: TTPiet OFF-/ALL custom
FH: Spinlord Waran Short Pips
BH: Joola Badman Reloaded 0X

Agreed, good point, 10-4. I'll do just that.

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

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

THank you. This is exactly what I was hoping to see. I'll heed OMSP's advice, but will keep my eye open for this as a solution moving forward.

_________________
Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

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

The forehand rubber on the Defplay was the one I was looking to change, that's the Omega IV Asia. It's too fast for Seemiller blocking, not too fast for conventional shakehand Mod Def game. In fact, it was perfect for the latter. But up at the table, even with soft hands, a strong loop was much harder to block.

On the Aurora, which i have NOT changed, the Vega Europe, which is relatively slow when blocking and nice for counterlooping on power shots, is just right. I am not looking for a new rubber on the Aurora. It's the thinnest variety of that rubber, the 2.0. If it was any less, it would be way too slow on loops for me.

The weight of the blade with rubbers and over-sized head is feather-light. I mean, sometimes I feel like it's too light. But that's probably because I'm comming off of using the DefPlay.

I think I'll be sticking with the Aurora for a while. The VKM is raising an eyebrow for sure, and I might look in to that in the future, but one thing that turns me off about it is the weight. Unless Google mislead me, it's kind of heavy at 90g compared to the aurora at 67g. For WW Grip, that's a huge difference.

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

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

IMO, 67g for the blade is a good weight to be working from. You might be quicker and stronger than me. though. It sounds like you have good, well thought out ideas at this point, so good luck with it, and let us know how it turns out longer term...

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--- Push/Chop or Attack ---
USATT 1684 left, Lost it all by playing sick and hurt.
No legs left, no more backing up, just smash it!
Blade: TTPiet OFF-/ALL custom
FH: Spinlord Waran Short Pips
BH: Joola Badman Reloaded 0X

> By doing so, I have the least adjustment to make in my shots, and the longer and more reps I get of them, the more finely tuned and accurate they should get.

I've often wondered about why some folks are so very sensitive to equipment change while I and a few guys I know well are largely agnostic unless it's pretty significant.

I suspect it has something to do with our general approach to producing the stroke mechanics. For example I do something very simple for active strokes, and IMO pretty flexible:

1. Track incoming ball with the body to keep it in the sweetspot
2. Drop the racket to right height relative to the ball trajectory depending on level of incoming spin
3. Adjust angle for level of desired outgoing spin
4. Trigger the stroke when time comes

So any changes to equipment are mostly reflected in step 3, and a bit in 4 for how fast to swing. For example, with more tacky rubber it's possible to pick up backspin better so a more fixed aggressive fwd angle of attack while a non-tack grip rubber needs more angle adjustment upward to lift the ball. After going through a certain range of equipment to "calibrate" so to speak the adjustments come more or less naturally.

When I watch some others they seem to use what appear to be more predefined motions but re-timed for each shot, which makes them very susceptible to minor changes because it's as if they have to remap their entire movement to adjust. It's possible they have some other process (conscious or not) to calibrate/adjust internally that I don't see but reading TT reviews those reviewers do seem very sensitive to what I feel are non-issues. For example, all this talk of "gears" likely reflect that they have distinct mechanics for higher vs lower speed shots, which sounds terrible for the dynamic game of TT.

If that's the case, it does that sort of stroke production no favors to change anything on the racket.

I never heard it said that way, but it explains why I can't change equipment easily where some others can. My eyes were never good at estimating speed and trajectory, and now as I've gotten old are much worse if there isn't a lot of light, to the point where I almost have to play by sound and body reaction, so essentially, I'm not doing steps 1, 2 or 3 accurately and relying on muscle memory to do those for me. Maybe equipment change doesn't matter anywhere near as much to some others, and yes, I do know some of those and all the ones I know are 2100+ and appear to me to be "naturals" at ping pong because they can pick up any racket and be playing well within a minute or two. In all honesty, I can only say what has worked or not for me or people I know well, and don't pretend to be an expert or prodigy. I'm lucky I'm able to play at all.

_________________
--- Push/Chop or Attack ---
USATT 1684 left, Lost it all by playing sick and hurt.
No legs left, no more backing up, just smash it!
Blade: TTPiet OFF-/ALL custom
FH: Spinlord Waran Short Pips
BH: Joola Badman Reloaded 0X

I think it's pretty typical for amateur club players to learn a few strokes/motions and fit them together best they (or we ) can rather than thinking about their mechanics as whole. It naturally becomes a sort of "if this happens I do that" type of decision tree, a very reactionary kind of game. Matches end up being a battle of decision trees rather than the imposition of will you see at elite levels.

I do wonder if one tendency is stronger than the other with system-trained players. I don't know enough of them or at least haven't watched them carefully enough to say.

Interesting.
My coach refers to the variables around #'s 3 & 4 as "Generic Racquet Placement" and "Generic Racquet Hands." Many people have a base "Hand" (racket angle) which, in the model we train, is typical. However, with the base hand, one then makes an adjustment based on incoming information from your opponent (as you outlined above). Where people usually falter is with "Generic racquet placement" where people place their raquet, not necessarily in the correct path of the trajectory of the ball on the backswing. With the generic placement, they then attempt to adjust during the stroke which causes more moving parts to be initiated within the anatomy of the arm, and thus unstable. Clearly, more prone to unwanted variation.

With much training, and learning to not only read the opponent's stroke, spin, and speed, one will rely less on generic placement, and more automatically place racket in the correct path with the correct hand. For most, it's about reducing variables that none of us are even aware exist.

_________________
Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

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

> Where people usually falter is with "Generic racquet placement" where people place their raquet, not necessarily in the correct path of the trajectory of the ball on the backswing. With the generic placement, they then attempt to adjust during the stroke which causes more moving parts to be initiated within the anatomy of the arm, and thus unstable

The racquet placement is relative to the path of the incoming ball. If you can't read the trajectory the point is unsuitable to attack against and already lost if you do it anyway.