OOAK Table Tennis Forum

What should I look for when buying a forehand and backhand rubber and blade for a penhold player? Should I just use inverted or would anti, short, medium, or long pips be considered too?

This all very much depends on your experience, skill level, and type of game. Any advice given to you will be at best a shot in the dark, and at worst misleading and damaging without knowing this information.

If you can answer the following questions, you'll get a much better answer:

- How long have you been playing?
- What are you using at present?
- What is your current level? Do you play in any leagues / tournaments?
- Do you have any video footage of you playing? If not, could you make some and post it?
- Do you have a coach, or take part in any structured training?
- Do you have a developed style of play, for example you hit whenever you can, you prefer to defend, you loop whenever you can?
- Where do you live?
- What is your budget?

Notwithstanding that, you won't go wrong with a generic penhold blade (I like the 729 bomb) and some allround rubbers (eg 729 Super FX 2.0mm). This will cost you a small amount, and is a proven combination. The world is your oyster should you decide to experiment with other combinations, but you'll need to answer the above questions for anyone to be able to give you any more than generic advice.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

I think it's been 9 months, but I usually play once a week. So I haven't really played a lot.
I use a friends old racket. I dont have a coach or take part in structured training.
I dont have a developed style, but I would like to loop drive (is that a fast loop?)
I live in the US and my budget is $100 or under

OK great, so in practical terms you're a beginner/novice. In which case, I'd suggest, for example, a Stiga Allround Classic Penhold ($37), and 2 x Tibhar Rapid 2.0mm ($36 each). This comes in at just over your $100 budget, and will give you a blade you can use for many years, and reliable, good quality rubbers that will help you to learn your strokes.

All available from Paddle Palace: http://www.paddlepalace.com

Others may have other suggestions, and doubtless my friend Iskandar will be able to give you a (much cheaper) Chinese alternative.

Hope that helps!

_________________
Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

Thanks for the advice.
Do you think that the focus iii snipe for backhand on a pg7 be too much? How about the hurricane or skyline for the forehand?

We're into the realms of speculation now. I'd like to see 60 seconds video footage of you playing against one of your friends, before really saying much else.

I will say that I am a big fan of the DHS rubbers, especially Skyline and Hurricane. However, they're an acquired taste. If you wanted something a little more intermediate, but with the tacky/chinese feel and heaps of spin and control, you could do a lot worse than PF4.

I've not used a PG7 before, but it's pretty quick, and I'd guess perhaps you would do better with an allround blade rather than an offensive one. However a PG7 with PF4 might work, as the PF4 would tame the blade. H3N or TG3N or even what I am using now (Hurricane 8 mid) would all be fine choices on the Stiga blade I suggested.

I'm afraid I know nothing of the Focus III Snipe.

_________________
Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

I suppose one question I'll have to ask is.. how committed are you to playing penhold? How did you start? Do your friends play penhold? Do you have someone showing you how to handle the backhand strokes? That's probably the fiddliest part to learn. You probably know this already but I think I should mention it because you might not. Until this last 10-15 years or so penholders only used one side of the racket - the backhand was taken with the same side of the racket as the forehand, and so rackets usually only had one sheet of rubber on them. This makes the racket a lot lighter, and easier to handle. This "single side" style also meant that the advantage of the penhold grip was the middle - there was no transition from the forehand to the backhand in the middle. Penholders excelled at blocking in the middle.

The more modern players who use a second sheet of rubber on the blade are using what they call a "reverse penhold backhand" - this is an entirely new stroke, and is usually used for drives and loops on the backhand. These players are also completely capable of doing the old style penhold backhand as well - you still need that old style backhand for blocks and pushes. Most penhold players I know DON'T use this reverse backhand, because they learned to play a long time ago and switching to it is supposedly fairly difficult.

So unless you're committed to using the reverse backhand I'd suggest trying a bat with a single sheet of rubber on it first. It'll at least be lighter and easier to handle. I suspect you're simply using a shakehands blade which you hold penhold-style, I'd say try a real penhold blade with one sheet of rubber on it first.

Get one from China. You can easily get a good blade and a sheet of rubber for under $25 including shipping. See how it plays, see if you can use the traditional penhold backhand with this lighter racket. And then if you want to pursue the reverse penhold, stick another $5 sheet of rubber on the back.

OK, now, which blade. There are these things called "Japanese Penhold" blades. Big cork handle, rectangular blade. These are in general fairly heavy, and designed to be used with one sheet of rubber. Here is an example:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 04458.html



You COULD get one of these but I don't suggest it.

There are HUNDREDS of shakehands blades in that AliExpress store, you could go crazy looking through them. MOST of these are available in Chinese Penhold style (read the blurb) - a shorter handle, sometimes the blade is shaped differently, the penhold handle often ends above where the shakehands handle does. Here's an example of what one might look like (there are a very few Chinese-penhold-only blades for sale in this store, this is one of them):



A picture with both a shakehands and the corresponding Chinese Penhold blade:



As for a specific recommendation, those who know me know why I recommend this blade:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shi ... 30858.html



Make sure you ask for the penhold version. Yes, there are other blades that might be better, but I like this blade (in shakehands form) more than any of the others I've tried, including many that cost several times as much.

Rubber? This would work as well as anything might:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 54641.html

or this one:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 20558.html

(This is more complicated - you actually have to choose the sponge thickness. I'd suggest 2.0 or 2.2mm.)

(Problem with these cheap sheets - you have to buy a minimum of two sheets.)

So your total cost is under $23 including postage. And - important. Ask them to glue ONE sheet of rubber onto the blade for you, on the forehand side (usually the side with the printing). Gluing rubber on a penhold blade is NOT like gluing rubber on a shakehands blade, there's a gap of about 15-20mm between the handle and the bottom of the rubber sheet. The shop should know how to do it.

See here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=26852&p=285695

Iskandar

I actually think having a rubber on the back can help with control and rebound.



My team mate uses one of these, but also plays RPB with it. I'd never considered whether Jpen blades aren't designed for it. He got his in Taiwan from a dedicated shop, where he told them how he plays, and they recommended it.



Good point!

_________________
Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

Im more commited to learn penhold than shakehand. I started because of a friend. He tries to teach me, but he said that he still isn't that good (I think hes 1600). Is it plausible to learn rpb with a japanese penhold or would it be better to learn it on a chinese penhold? Is it hard to learn rpb after learning tpb or the other way around?

I suppose there are people who play RPB with Japanese penhold blades these days, but the archetypical Japanese Penhold blade (typically very thick, often single ply hinoki) would be way too heavy for RPB. Back in the day (late 70s) Butterfly did come up with a double sided Japanese Penhold blade called the Rotor, there probably have been more of them later on, but these weren't meant for RPB, these were meant for use with long pips and twiddling. Two thick-sponged inverted sheets on one of these would probably still be too heavy. If they make special RPB Japanese Penhold blades these days then they'd have to be lighter than the usual ones. The reason I suggest a Chinese blade is that there are a lot of them, and most, if not all, are light enough to use with the RPB.

I did meet someone who was playing "RPB" (with Japanese Penhold) around 1980, though. This was way before the top players started using RPB. He'd been in a car accident and he couldn't twist his arm enough to generate the necessary closed bat for a backhand topspin drive with the penhold blade, so he cut the blade down in size to reduce the weight and glued an extra sheet of Mark V on the back.

Japanese Penhold used to be very, very common - the vast majority of kids played that way when I was in school. Lots of cheap Butterfly bats with Biriba rubber on them. It's probably still very common in Japan among older players, at least.

Iskandar

Here is one set up I'd recommend:

Blade: Yasaka Extra Offensive (YEO)
FH: 729-05 (or 729-08 ES if you like tacky rubber)
BH: Focus 3 Snipe

Once you have more controlled, then go to faster (or more expensive) rubbers and keep the blade.

How does the YEO compare to the OC and its variants?

Sorry, I haven't tried the Stiga OC, but it should be a great choice too.

As it happened - a colleague bought this blade a while back, and asked me to put a sheet of rubber on it. This is an archetypical Japanese penhold blade, the Butterfly Senkoh-1, the most expensive penhold blade in the Butterfly catalog circa 1980, bar perhaps the Tamca 5000 (I think there was a Japanese Penhold T5000). Still being sold, I think. One ply hinoki - I should measure it, around 12mm.







Weight is 90.02 grams bare, 127.88g with a sheet of Hurricane 3. Doesn't sound very heavy but I think the optimum weight for penhold bats is much less than for shakehands for most people. Rubber area is 176 sq.cm, most shakehands blades are around 200.

Iskandar

One more thing : in case of Japanese penhold, you will have to choose whether to take the square or rounded square. It is said that square shaped is better if you play far from the table.

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Expert II crwi C-Pen
Red Acuda P1