OOAK Table Tennis Forum

You will get a small comparison now, I can write a more detailed one tomorrow if you'd like. I had another session tonight and to me it's clear that the Joo blade really needs a sponge of 1mm or thicker if you're going to focus on chopping. To me everything feels better with the 1mm sponge version, even more control in all strokes and it allows you to do much more with the ball as well. The Joo blade is so hard that you really need more dwell to be able to bite the ball enough. I haven't tried Curl at all on my VKM but I'm 99% sure that the 0.5mm would work much better on that blade, I would still say that the 1mm version is better if you can handle it though. It probably wouldn't be as much difference as on the Joo though.

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

Regarding the session tonight I didn't play too many matches but I got the same feeling as I did yesterday, the setup feels very good as it is now, it feels like a perfect setup for me to start my journey with. Even though I've felt tired the last days and haven't been able to play at 100% it still feels aweslme with this setup. I now feel I know exactly what to expect from the rubber when I hit the ball, I just need to get the strokes and angles into my muscle memory and keep working on my footwork and technique.

Next time I need to change the FH rubber I'll probably go for the 2.1mm though, I feel I need that in my topspin strokes, 1.9mm bottoms out sometimes on harder attacks. After the season I'll evaluate if I should move to the thickest P1r or not but that is a long time from now.

Feels awesome and I'm still having loads of fun! Over and pips out!

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

Sounds very good! And good luck this weekend! Try to film a few matches, that will help you a lot. No need to put them on Youtube if you and your opponents don't want to. You can use them for yourself - very helpful.

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My blog: Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Serving techniques and strategy section

That sheds light on my own TTEX experience. If you will, forgive a slight deviation from the topic...
I ordered some stuff from the Norwegian branch of TTEX, and it took a while before they could send it because they needed to bring in some of the items from the Sweden store. The 802 I got had even less grip than I expected, and felt rather stiff. I blamed that on my fading memory (hadn't played any real TT for 20-odd years, and my pips experience was rudimentary, to put it mildly). Also, I bought it as an experiment, noted my findings, and didn't dwell more on the subject.
A couple of years down the line I wanted to make a small lightweight bat for my youngest (3yo at the time), and figured that 802 on thin sponge would be suitable. Ordered from Eacheng this time, and when I got it I discovered what 802 should be like. Clearly more grip and softer touch than the first one I bought. My impression of 802 immediately changed from "strange" to "interesting". I still have a few hits with it now and then. Fun stuff, "nearly hardbat". Oh well, I digress...

To do them justice, I must say that except for the pips, all the stuff I got from TTEX was fine. If I'd had the mind to follow up on a bad sheet in the first place, I guess they would have done right on me too. Not going there for pips anymore, though

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My blog of failures, etc., also containing equipment list at "resurrection" (referred to in a few of my early posts), and my current lineup
Rating in the middle/low range in the region.
Moderating the LP Attacking subforum in the Technique section.

I must say that I have never had any problems with TTEX, but are very focused on offensive type of TT . For dark siders, Japsko is da' s***

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My blog: Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Serving techniques and strategy section

To be honest I've had a lot of problems with them during the years and I stay away from them as much as possible. Usually it's just very long delivery times and not informing me when a product is out of stock, even though it says they will do just that in the order process. I've got a couple of bad sheets from them in the past as well and this is definitely the last time I order a LP from them. I have an order that's laying with them right now actually and it's been doing so since 3 weeks back, when they hadn't sent it after a week I emailed them and they said the items weren't in stock yet but that they expected the shipment the next day, they said the same thing yesterday when I emailed them yesterday...

Japsko is deifnitely da s***!

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

Looks like you had some success this weekend . Was it a true test? Were the opponents any good?

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My blog: Def-attack's attempts to find balance between defence/attack | Serving techniques and strategy section

Wouldn't say it was a success but not a total failure either, I knew I was going to play at a lower level than before. Normally I would've only lost one of the three matches I lost.

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

A quick question to the P1r users out there; would you say that there's a big difference between the black and the red version? I already feel a lower grip after only a week of playing with the red version, I've used the black version before but can't really remember how the grip changed then to be honest. Also if you look at the top defenders using P1r I think that pretty much all of the uses the black version, unless they have a tacky rubber on the FH.

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

So I'm back from my first weekend of competitive matches with my new setup and style, as I mentioned before it wasn't a success but not a failure either, it went pretty much as expected. The problem with this weekend was that I only played one match against a really good player and the rest was against much much lower rated players or the odd higher ranked player with an "unusual" playstyle. I went 9-3, before the switch or atleast before my one year break, I would probably only have lost one of the matches. I lost two against a player I should beat but he's a lefthander and I've always had a ridiculous amount of trouble with them, and sadly that was by far my two worst matches that weekend, had two matchballs in one of them as well. All in all the result was pretty much as expected and since we won all our team matches it was a good weekend.

If I would analyse my performance not based on the results I realised pretty soon that I wasn't going to beat the better players if I was only chopping, I'm just not at that level of consistency yet and I make too many unforced errors. This meant that I tried to play a lot with my FH against the better opponents and I haven't practiced my FH in over two months, except in practice matches that is. The good news though is that I can generate a serious amount of backspin on my chops in match situations and my opponents put a lot of chops in the net. Footwork felt pretty good to be honest but I need to keep working on my pushes, that's where my main weakness are at the moment.

I pop a lot of pushes high, sometimes really high, and this is often on incoming balls with really heavy backspin. I didn't have this problem when I used OX and sometimes it feels like P1r grips less on these balls compared to a OX Dornenglanz, which is kinda odd. I guess I just haven't gotten used to it yet and adapted my technique well enough but I'm really curious to how the red version compares to the black version in this aspect. I think I have a black 1.7mm sheet somewhere that's a few years old, it won't fit the blade but if I can find it I'll definitely try it to see if there's a difference in surface grip.

If anyone have tried both the black and the red versions i would be happy to hear your opinion in the matter as well!

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

Chtchetinine uses red P1r.

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Yeah, I did some research and realised it wasn't that unusual amongst the top players. Most of them seem to use the black version but there's quite a few using the red as well so I guess the difference can't be that big. I'll just keep on going with the red version.

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

Well, that's an unusual problem for a good player. Every other player complains of missing power in the FH or unability to return hard loops...

I play ox pips and I have tried sponge now and then and I understand your problem. The ox never pops the push.

I have training partner, who plays with JHS, Yanus DF and different sponged pips (P1 the usual choice). He has more problem with speed of the BH sponge. He says that fast sponge works against lower ranked players, but with strong loopers balls go long.

Haha, yeah I guess it wasn't the first thing I'd expected to have trouble with either. The thing with sponge LP is that it behaves so differently when you put pressure on the pips/sponge compared to when you just bump it, of course it's also more affected by the incoming spin/speed. My problem isn't that it flies sky high but when it pops just 5cm it's an easy ball for my opponents to attack hard. A popped LP push also tends to have less backspin whereas a popped chop off topspin often can have slightly more.

I've played with OX pips for 4 years before this and my muscle memory most definitely haven't adapted yet, I need to work on being aggressive on every single push and really dig into that sponge and bend the pips.

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!

I had a small session tonight, mostly sparring against the younger players but the main team played some matches in the end as well. I bought another Joo blade to have a backup and went with a flared grip this time since I realised that I don't twiddle nearly as much now anyways and then I kinda prefer flared.

I put the rubbers from my main blade on the new one to get a good comparison in feel between the blades. The new one definitely has a better feel and also it's a tad slower, felt more controlled as well. Might just be that the glue hadn't 100% set yet though, I often feel like it needs a day or so to get really good with the water based glues. The new one is 1 gram lighter as well (93g). Anyway, I'll keep on using the new one as my main blade if nothing unexpected happens.

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Read about my adventures to perfect my style and the ever-present battle against the evil EJ virus!