OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi Def Attack,

I recall some post awhile ago you mentioned blocks with anti have more reversal if passive, vs. something like a chop block. Is this correct and usually the case?
I saw this WRM video recently (Gane using Diabolic I think) and was blown away by the reversal he could get off some chop blocks, so it got me wondering...

https://youtu.be/qzf5uAdVs9s

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Penhold Twiddler - Setups:
Darker Speed 25AL 9mm Nittaku Fastarc G-1 1.8 DMS Störkraft 1.6
PP Moby Kiso Hinoki Tibhar MX-S 1.7 DMS Störkraft 1.6
Tibhar Genshu L DHS G666 DMS Scandal 0.9

I think that the Diabolic original (blue sponge) act a little different due to the sponge. But if opponent loops with lots of spin and some speed you get a more spinny block just holding the bat still (timing is of course very important). But blocking a low spin counter may be different. I usually chop back when opponent serves fast no spin (or some top spin) serves. This stroke can generate more back spin than just holding the bat, especially with some anti, like Störkraft and Diabolic (maybe not as much with Reflection or Barna SuperGlanti).

In the case of the video (first seconds) I think it was more a matter of the blocker adding speed to the ball and making the stroke with a very low arc. Opponent did not really try to attack, he just hold the bat up.

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
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Long time without any thing here... Blame it on Corona

Anyway, I have been using my Sworfd Final Strike with Barna Original SuperGlanti 1.6 and H3 lately, works great.

But I have also been struggeling with injuries. Both my neck and my lower back/waist are working against me in many ways. Blame it on Corona... At work (at the office or at home) I am sitting still much more since all meatings are done from the computer.
I am doing some rehabilitation training but I would need some more.

I have not been allowed to play TT in a few weeks but yesterday I was back in training again. Today my lower back hurts a little .

I realized that I have been having my neck problem for about 3 years now. And I think it may have something to do with how I play table tennis.

So, since there are no more league matches this year I am free to try anything . A month ago I was trying the balsa blade Sauer & Tröger Black & White with my anti on the BH side. Really bad. So I removed it and, just for fun, I put a medium pip Tulpe/Kokutaku 110 1.5 mm on it. And it worked rather nice. I used it that session and it was very fun, I could do anything with it - block, attack, counter, counter from distance, chop from distance etc.

So I wanted more of this. But Tulpe 110 is a cheap rubber and even though I had not used it much pips started to fall off. So I bought a DMS Flashback 1.5 mm. And it is very similar I have to say.

I decided to play a few sessions with MP instead of anti, to see if it changed anything with my neck problem. Yesterday was the first time and I used that session to test a lot of blades with Flashback.
Spinlord ultra balsa V: way too uncontrolled for this MP, but rather nice for BH.
Palio V1: rather nice feeling with MP but I had problems with my FH with this blade (strange, I used it for a month this summer).
Stiga Carbonado 90: good för MP, it has some dampening effect on low impact and the blade is very familiar. But still a little unsafe feeling.
Sauer&Tröger Black&White: very nice control for BH with pips (even lp ox) and it works great with MP (I knew that already). And with a proper FH rubber (not too soft) the setup felt great, like I could do anything .

So, I will keep the Sauer and Tröger for awhile, to see what happens. And just for having some fun. I will try to play against different opponents at my club and see what works and what does not. And of course I will need to do some drills.

Also, I found another nice combo. A stiff fast Palio TS3 (titanium and carbon, similar to Palio TCT but a tad slower) with the soft version of shor pimple DMS Firestorm, and some random rubber (Armstrong Attack?) on FH. Very fun and good for just pure attacking game . I will keep that too...

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
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Well... new session, new insights... I practiced for some 90 minutes with Sauer&Tröger B&W, went ok. I then played a few sets and I had some problems. I noticed I played a lot more passive at match, especially with BH (of course, I am used to anti). And the setup was just too slow at low impact, so when my training partner played loose balls I just put the net or played them back way too nice and kind, he could just blast them past me. Also, I had much problems with my FH. As long as I played with power it was good, but when a slow ball landed short on my FH side I could not do anything with it. I did not feel in charge of the blade...

So... frustration. I removed the Flashback and put it on a Stiga Clipper instead. I should have done that the previous session, but I thought I would need a slower blade. It turned out that Clipper felt very nice, especially for my FH game. So familiar. Also, it seemed to work nice with the Flashback. We only played 3 sets because this was at the end of the session. So I will not be able to decide just yet if Clipper is the blade for me with this BH rubber.

Most likely I will not play any more competitions or league matches this year, so I will devote at least the rest of this month to the Flashback. One reason is to decide if my current style, with frictionless anti on BH, is a/the reason for my neck problems. I wonder if my back, shoulder and neck will feel better if I am more balanced in my table tennis, attacking from both positions. Time will tell. I hope a few weeks is enough to notice if there is a slight change, or if it is the same.

Then, in a few weeks, I will hopefully have to start another blog on a related topic. Something like: "Getting better". If so, the blog will also include findings on a totaly new blade. The result of a long mail thread from a few weeks back with Achim at Re-Impact, that seem to have resultet in this topic: viewtopic.php?f=43&t=37441

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
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New session, this time a whole session with Flashback on Clipper. I love this blade! This is a very fun combo, you can do anything, even counters from distance. My friend uses Keiler 1.2 mm on FH.

https://youtu.be/ow9-pV_0ZSQ

This blog is not very active anymore, I started a new one here: viewtopic.php?f=58&t=37457

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
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Just for fun, and because Ruwen Filus was in good shape... Last night I played several sets with a Stiga Allround CR, TSP P4 1.1 mm and a H3-50 on FH. Really nice and fun! P4 is very grippy, I dumped many balls to the net when my opponent pushed. When I landed good chops they were loaded with back spin. The control of that blade is really nice and even though it is not made for chopping it works very well for that. An allround classic without CR would have been better though. But then the FH side may not be as good, with CR and H3-50 I could very easily loop back slow spinny loops, chop and push. Very nice!
I tried it mostly because of Filus but also because my training partners need to practice agsinst this style. And I need to get better footwork and stamina, and for that this style is really good, and fun So, a few more sessions with that setup will follow I think...

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
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Still exploring my defensive side, this time with Spinlord Agenda on a 0.7 mm sponge on BH. First set was ok, then not very good .
https://youtu.be/Ecx4wg9lRZ0

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
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Hello mr Joachim. In last summer, i was playing with Matador + ABS 2 Evo 2,1mm. Everything was OK. Not perfect but OK. Only speed was a little bit high and now i think to change to 2,5mm sponge. Original. Of ABS 2 evo.
After this summer, i meet over internet with Achim, he made one Chevanti for me, for ABS 2 soft. But blocks were very high and it was not OK. After this i tried storkraft,gorilla on this wood but did not work at all. I changed to dermaterial beast 1,5mm, it was way way better. About backhand blocks, backhand chopblocks and pushes. But not enough spin reversal.... after it Achim made new wood for me. But it does not work with Beast or Gorilla either... i tried with Storkraft 1,3mm but when receiving service there are a lot errors and to change trajectory of game is not so easy either.. i can not say it is so bad, but it is not good either to fight with some professional players in our local league. I pay a lot away for this woods.. now Achim will build new 2 blade for me, i have respect to his job. But you have some experience too. Which wood layers can work with ABS 2 evo or ABS 2 or Storkraft? I want to know. Which hardness? With balsa? Without balsa? Which structure?

I can not give advice for ABS, I have not used those rubbers enough or on different blades.

Störkraft seem to work well om many different blades, both balsa, all wood and with carbon. But for med it worked best with stiff blades, no flex in the blade. If there is carbon in the blade then the outer ply needs to be soft and a little dampening. Balsa wood is mostly bes t if there is ko carbon layer and if the balsa layer is thick (5-6 mm or more) the outer ply needs to be rather soft and with some dampening effect. But it also works with a thin rather hard outer ply if the ply next to it is soft. That is how I build my own blades, with 6-8 mm balsa, a softer wood with some dampening and thin walnut as outer ply.

Störkraft works good with Yasaka Battle balsa, Stiga Clipper Classic, Barna Victory, DMS Deluxe Carbon, Stiga Defence pro, Palio TCT, Neubauer Matador, Stiga Allround CR,

For me, it does not work on Neubauer Firewall+, Neubauer Bloodhound, Spinlord Ultra Balsa V, Palio Conqueror.

If you only should buy one blade that works with many anti, try the Neubauer Matador (original) or the slightly slower and more controlled Barna Victory.

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Thank you very much. One more question: there are very stiff blades like Stiga Rosewood, VPS and others. Stiga Expensive woods. Have you tried any of them? Even if you did not. What you can say about?

Hard woods as outer ply are rarely good for anti, with walnut as one exception (if the ply below is softer).
Rosewood is not good with anti, I did try that one. Ebenholz I have only tried with the Loki Violent 9. That is a nice blade but not very good for anti.

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

About 7 yeras ago I ended my first season with the new plastic ball (remember braking 3 balls every match?). I was frustrated that my then defensive game was going nowhere, I could not genereate much spin on chops with my Feint Long II. By the end of that season I started to test short pips (802, Spectol and the medium pip Palio WP). I wnated to be able to attack with BH without having to twiddle. But tha short pip was difficult and it gave me too many options every time the ball went to my BH. But I finally settled for the medium pip TSP Millitall II in 1,5 mm. This was safe for chopping, could do some weird stuff over the table as well. But I never got really comfortable to use it over the table for other things than pushing. Chopping was rather good as well, at least with a defensive blade and with that plastic ball (not ABS). For some reason my team ended up in division 2 (I played division 4 and sometimes 3 previous to that), and we lost a few players. So we were approaching a season with massive losses and humiliations . Autumn 2015 I played the first two league gatherings with Millitall on BH, it was ok, but my opponents had little trouble with it and I was not having that much fun.

During the summer 2015 I attended to a short traingn camp with the then owner of Japsko (he is now retired) Lars Borg and the well known trainer Hans Thalin (he is responsible for Mattias Falck and Fabian Åkerström and a few more good players). Hans asked if I had considered playing with anti on BH. I had not but tried a few he hadwith him to the camp. I then bought a Juic Neo anti and a slow and cardboard like Giant Dragon anti. I tried the Neo for chopping but it was not very good. Then I tried the Giant Dragon and that was very fun, it was very slow and a little grippy, like Lion Mantlet. The slownes bothered my training friends.

So when I later that season got fed up with Millitall I investigated the anti-path a little more. I got a wrinkled 0.6 mm der Materialspezialsit B.A.D from Auzcar and it was soo difficult but also very fun. So I felt I had to buy a blade and and a fresh anti to give it a fair chance. I got the blade Terror and BEAST anti. I tried it at trainings and at a local competition, and it worked rather well. So I decided to sacrifice that season for getting used to this anti path, and I bought Transformer and Destroyer blade (DMS, made for Luka and Transformer). I got better and the next sason I used the blade Revolution and the very safe anti Mega-Block. This was one of my best seasons.

Then came the ABS ball

I tried many different things, like medium pips, faster antis, slower setups, faster setups etc. Then Reflection was released, that worked much better, and then came Diabolic extra slow, and later Barna SuperGlanti (where I am today, this is celarly the best surface for maximizing spin reversal).

Since the ABS ball came into play I have tested way too many blades and antis in the quest for the perfect anti setup. All of those I have used for more than a month have been very good, but I always got into trouble with my FH. The best setup was a few years back when I used Stiga Carbonado 90, that was very good, but I wanted better effect on BH and some more speed. At this time the pandemic started and I got more into trying balsa blade, because I had problems with my neck, my lower back, hips and groins. But this was solved by changing glasses and getting out of the pandemic.

During the pandeminc I have tried soo many different baldes and BH rubbers. But all the time, It actually was my FH that was not working, because I have been focusing on BH for soo many years. Like two years ago I decided that Yinhe Jupiter II was my FH rubber and it has served me well. But when I got the new blade from Achim, the Re Impact Le Géant I decided to follow his instructions to use it with a soft and thin onverted rubber. So I went for the Yasaka Rakza 7 soft 2.0 mm. And it worked well, my FH felt vary good with that blade so I used it some more, but it did not work with my antis (I tried many). I also tried som other blades, like the very nice DHS 08X classic, when I wanted to play like Hou Yingchao. That was very fun but not for my results. It takes a long time to get good at chopping with short pips, and I can practice only 2 times every week. So I had to let go of that idea. And therefore back to playing at the table. And back to Le Géant. But this was when I for some reason tried the Rakza soft on another blade, the hard and fast Palio TCT. And to my surprice it was sooo much more easy to play FH with that rubber instead of Jupiter II when using that blade. So I brought that blade also to the next leauge match (like the day after I discovered that). But I only had a thin anti for that blade, and it was really difficult to use, so it did not work.

But after all this time I finally relized I should not be that stubborn about FH rubber, and go with the soft and easy rubber instead. I can't generate much spin with the tacky rubbbers anyway as long as we use ABS balls (but serving is still a challange with Rakza). And perhaps I will end up testing those other setups that were very good for my anti BH but horrible for my Jupiter II FH when we get closer to next season? Not sure.... But the best combo for now, for being successful with anti on BH, is Barna SuperGlanti Attack (1.9 mm) on Barna Winner blade. I just could not play FH with that blade, but with Rakza I probably could. But that is another story, I may go down that path later, we'll see...


But for now I am eager to get serious with those other ideas I have gotten this past months. And that is to use long pimple ox on BH. I have a sheet of TroubleMaker, a sheet of Spinlord Sternenfall, a sheet of DTecS and a 0.5 mm Barna Virus2. And I have a few different blades to choose from, but this time I will go much more with what I like for my FH game. I must recover the lost faith in FH attacks. I finished the season this weekend with a rather stiff defensive blade, Gewo Velox alpha def, and it worked very nice with SuperGlanti 0.8 and also was ok for my FH, rakza. But I just had no confidence in my FH game. And I faced opponents that are very used to anti (the have one in their team playing just like me, with the same anti), that are above my ranking and used gently guided the ball back to my BH all the time, without any spin. And I tried to step around and attack, and I had some success, but the follow uip - the kill shot, was not there. I missed many smashes and I missed attacks against slow, no spin balls.

I want to try lp ox for being able to attack better with bH and still have some disturbance effect (my service recievement with short pimple was horrible). And I want to play more FH.

So..... after this long rant.... This is my focus for the next months. I want to get to the same level I am today by the middle of the summer. If not I go back to anti (but I am soooo tired of the anti so I need to do something more to find that style fun again).


These were my first attempts with Le Géant and lp ox a few weeks ago (I have also tried Trouble Maker om Gewo Velox def, nice):






My main sources of inspiration are these:












Feel free to help with me more sources of inspiration, or just a few pointer to a newbie on lp ox .

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube

Welcome back to the pips side .I can undertand when a style makes you bored and you try a different strategy to see if you enjoy the sport more -while maintaining a good level,I guess- .

TM is a good pip just to set up a great FH attack.Being passive with TM will yield poor results as the reversal is not that great - well, reversal is worse and worse nowadays however great innovations we are sold by the manufacturers.

As you very well know, this new ball is the final stabbing on the back for defenders , be them amateurs or pros . What else will we see so our style becomes extinct? . Ah ! yes!!, a bigger ball and less and less spin to be generated .

Great post D/A

True about spin reversal, but there I have taken it to a maximum with SG. The spin on the ball is just too little, so spi reversal is not really the issue, just the spin. So what to do? Spin changes, spinmanipulation! And short pips is very good, but also difficult. But still an option for me.
But for now, setup for FH attack is most important. I chosenot to go with Dornenglanz due to cost issues (poor durability), but I may reconsider later. TM is the safe and easy to use choice for attacking and disturbing with BH. SO I do not expect any spin reversal, just some spin changes. At least that is what I have found most troublesome when I face lp ox, not knowing the spin and therfore not being able to go all in attack.

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Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Getting better - health and game |
My Youtube