OOAK Table Tennis Forum

^I think you have to try other rubbers .blades etc.
You get stuck at a certain level and in order to beat those players you have to try different things.
You then go back to your usual gear and realise thats what suits your style.
I had a feeling you would go back to the pips.
I started tt too late and managed to get into high divisions so its difficult to change my game now.My anti works for me as it gets a lot of serves back and keeps you in the game.

Hi, I’m a lp chopper and wanted to give sp a try. I’m using a Butterfly Matsushita Pro Model with Tenergy 05 1’9 on the fh and 802-40 1’5 on bh. My experience is that I can vary the spin really well, i twiddle a lot. And I’ve arrived to the conclusion of using inverted to chop with heavy backspin and sp for underspin and balls that i arrive really forced.
Last autumn I went to a youth international competition as an umpire and i saw that mainly all sp defenders used Butterfly Challenger Attack, especially japanese players. Has anyone tryed those pimples and can give his opinion???
Sorry for my poor english

I've used challenger attack, and it functions basically like a somewhat slow inverted rubber in the 1.5mm sponge. It's quite grippy on the top and can impart a good deal of spin on its own-- meaning it is pretty sensitive to incoming spin. The challenger is really not too far off from the 802 40 you have, which I've also used. Both are able to spin the ball a lot.

I personally prefer the spectol rubber now, just having come from lp and that allows me slightly better margins of error.

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SOULSPIN CUSTOM BLADES
Fh: Spinny rubber
Bh: Not so spinny rubber...

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Defense Blade with pimples on one side ...

I finally have the chance to post again in my own blog. Thanks for all contributors until now for the 228 replies. !!!

First and foremost: the corona crisis. Here in Belgium we don't have a completely full lock down, but close. We can still go for a walk e.g. and the schools are a babysit for a small portion of the population (e.g. health care people). People who can work from home or are safe in their workplace need to go to work. If I see the numbers here I think our health care system will hold it. The health care system of most of our surrounding countries will succumb to the virus, however. That might have to do with the people Belgium is still a big welfare state and the health care system wasn't cut down as heavily as in the countries that now suffer from the corona virus.

I'm not afraid of the virus. I'm a healthy 33 years old man. A bit overweight, but that's all. As a matter of fact I might have gotten it already. I became sick last week, Tuesday to be exactly. I had a sore throat - although not a strong one at that moment - and a a rise of one degree in my body temperature. I also was cold and my muscles felt tired. The next day my muscles felt painful, the feeling you have the next day after having exercised heavily the day before. Tht felling went away the same day, as did the temperature rise. The cold feeling disappeared in the next two days. They made room for a sore throat, but a stronger one, and a tickling cough, especially in the morning and in the evening. The following days that sore throat and tickling cough disappeared gradually, but it took my body until Thurday of this week to be completely free of those symptoms, although my throat is still not up to what it was before.

However, I'm afraid of the people's response to the virus. Hoarding is still very present here. I went grocery shopping yesterday at 1 PM and the basics were almost sold out. Crazy! Luckily I have enough toilet paper for now. To me it shows people are irrational beings. A portion of the population already lost it. And this isn't a heavy stressful situation. It isn't war or a more deadly virus for example. Not a lot of people will stay rational in those kind of situations.

As a counter measure for my high sensitivity I just don't follow the news anymore. I never did anyway. Now it's all about corona and the things you see are very scary, like the situation in Italy. Monday an emergency doctor found it was necessary to scare people - the young ones - by saying young people came in with a cough and already had severe lung damage. He forgot to say, however, those people were very short of breath (probably the reason thet came in) and couldn't talk two sentences without becoming fatigued. The amount of people cured of the disease, however: you don't see that in the news. I just follow the official numbers once a day and read the headlines in my daily news mail. If something important comes up, I'll be up to date by those means.

Now, let's talk TT. As you know I was a wreck the last time I wrote. This must have been about two months ago. However, steadily I felt a resurrection in my playing level. Every week I became stronger. Players of my club I couldn't beat in week one, I was able to beat in week two. My error load went way down. Two important things to remember during training: timing - late - and accelaration during contact with the ball.

Two weeks ago Sunday I played my first tournament since last year's September. They were the provincial championships of one of our leagues. I had a great drawing. My group existed of five players: a female hitter with medium pips on the backhand, a defender, a young man who plays quite spinless against pips and a looper. First up was the female hitter. It didn't went great. Not because of her style, but because I couldn't keep up with the tempo. I didn't think tactically enough - that was absent tbh. It was my first real game - I anticipated to compete seriously again - since long. I thought to myself: "not again. Why can't I play a game anymore?"

However, things changed. Second was the spinless young man. He played at home. I won 3-0. It was a hard battle. The first two sets were won with two points difference. Everything worked. I won of this guy already, but last time I played him I lost quite heavily. Winning from him when he is playing at his home court was quite impressive.

Third one the looper. He also had home court advantage. I never lost from this guy. He played passivily, however, in the first set and I lost that one. I adjusted in game two and he tried to play a more active game. That backfired in set two and three. Set four he played more passively again and adjusting took time, so I lost that set. Set five was the battle between two scary pants: he was very stressed as was I. My FH chop started to be flawed, but at the right time it started to work again. I won that game closely.

Fourth and filly came the defender. never lose to this guy, because I learned to solely use my pips against that kind of defenders. He attacked like a fool. I just had to keep the ball on the table.

I was second in my group and went to the QF. There I faced a good hitter/looper. Again I felt the tempo was too high and lost 3-0. However, I already won from this guy.

The day felt as a surprise. I had some downs, but boy, I also had a lot of ups. A lot of hits and only a couple of misses.

I also paid a visit to Pipsy's club. Pipsy came in late, so I first trained with a low leveled female player I brought along. After that I played with heavy spin player (both backspin and topspin). He had a strong FH wrist topspin that was hard to read. We played one set that I won. He had trouble reading my spinless pushes and a lot of times I could keep his first attack in. He wasn't ready for that. Good player, though, and not the easiest to play.

Then it was Pipsy's turn. Boy, that FH rubber is strange. It's a tensor, but it comes at you very slow and spinless. When he topspins, however, it's quite fast. We played three sets. I won 2-1. I think I only defended with an occasional pips hit. However, due to injury he didn't have the confidence to attack properly, so the game wasn't a good measure of value between us.

Last I played M., a very steady allround player. I already felt tired at that moment and couldn't keep up with the pace and steadiness he showed in the game. I lost 3-0.

So in the end I lost three games due to not being able to keep up with the pace the opponent imposes on me. That's mostly due to my weight. My goal is to lose 10 kg, so I'm fitter and consequently quicker. I already lost between 2 to 3 kg by eating less meat and changing the amount and times of day I'm eating. So it's a lifestyle change, not a quick diet to lose 10 kg at first and gain 20 kg thereafter.

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

Your description of the Corona situation is almost identicql to how it is here in Sweden. If I had not caught a cold (mine feels like you descriped first stage of yours) I would have had many opportunities for good practice this last week, not much else to do.

Keep it up and get going again, it sounds as if you are on the right track!

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

I feels like I'm on the right track again.

Since the "lockdown" we're not allowed to train anymore which is a good thing. We can go for a walk or a bike ride, however, as long as the amount of people aquals two or if you're part of the same household. Is Sweden in the beginning of the epidemic? Do you think the health care system will hold?

Are you feeling better already?

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

Still a soar throat and head ache, like yesterday . I kept myself a little too busy yesterday, so today I pay for that. Will keep still and try to get better (my body temprature is still normal though).

We are still allowed to keep aour clubs going and to train (but konleague matches and no competitions). Some clubs have shut down but that is not encouraged by the authorities. And schools are not closed, only the higher grades, from 15 years old and up.

Most things are running but with lower intensity. Many companies are closing. Volvo has sent home most of their employees for 6 weeks with almost full salary (with help from the govournment). Small companies have a very hard time since no one is out buying lunch or clothes etc. They are trying to adapt and the municipialities are trying to help, for example by letting students (from 15 years and older that have education at home via computer now) buying lunch from local restaurants and then getting paid from the municipiality. This way the wheels can keep moving.

Hopitals and similar institutions are still ok, less than 20 has died but we are not at the top yet. The following two weeks will show if we have the capacity. They have been preparing a few weeks for this peak that is expected.

As soon as I get well I will get some excercise .

Stay safe!

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

Strange clubs are still open. I'm curious what's the reasoning behind it is?

In Belgium we have a statute called "economically unemployed". It is used when companies are forced to close or to have people unemployed for a period of time due to circumstances beyond their will. Employees unemployed due to the corona virus have that statute now. Small and middle size businesses are helped by the government by giving them a set amount of money. I support the first, but not the latter. Businesses should have kept a reserve for times like this. E.g. I heard Bill Gates's Microsoft has a buffer for operational costs for twelve(!!!) months.

Stay safe!

_________________
There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

The reason is that not more than neccesary should be locked down as long as they can be safely run. So as long as people are responsible and wash their hands and do kot attend if they feel any illness at all or have family members with a cold or a flu, it works. Many people are perfectly fit and can safely keep training. If all clubs are shut down it would cause other problems with youths having nothing to do. But this is for now and as long as primary school is opend. I guess this can change the next days...

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

Obviously no TT news as in TT experiences. Leagues decided to stop the current season 2019-2020 and use the ranking as it is. This means "we" go back to the division we promoted from in season 2018-2019. "We" won exactly zero matches against other teams. So no surprise there. I've decided to stay at the club, but also migrate to a second one. Of course due to the lock down I haven't decided yet where I'll be going to. I'm only going to play some matches in the other league - the one in which we stay in the same division - I'm playing in. For the most part I'm going solo and will be attending a lot more tournaments from now on.

I've received some sad news yesterday. Corona made a TT victim. The man was 64 and was disabled. I've known him from playing against him when I started playing the game and from the occasional chat, when I saw him (which was very rare). Also a FB friend. He was a very kind and wise man who was able to spot the talents of other human beings. A rare kind! I've shed a tear when I read the news. It's always the best ones who go first...

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

Sad news there, lorre! Poor ol' guy...

Our club has been shutdown for several weeks now as well only about a dozen confirmed cases in the city, but lack of testing so relatively useless info...

I've been holed up, experimenting with new rubbers on the robot. Going between sp and lp still, but on the bright side... I found my new favorite forehand rubber! The victas 07 extra sticky. For me it was love from first hit. Not terribly tacky as advertised, rather soft in feel with great control and tremendous spin. Sponge gives a bit of oomph without being too bouncy like other modern rubbers. I think it's the best I've come across, leaning toward the defensive side of things. Md's probably want more speed, unless they fh chop like me most the time

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SOULSPIN CUSTOM BLADES
Fh: Spinny rubber
Bh: Not so spinny rubber...

If you want to estimate the amount of cases, just multiply the diagnosed ones with ten to fifteen. That might give you an estimate. In Belgium there are +-10000 diagnosed cases of 10 000 000 habitants. That means 1%-1,5% of Belgians has been infected.

I see you've also been infected with CEJ, a combination of staying inside due to Corona and the EJ bug.

How's the sponge of the Victas? What thickness are you playing?

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

I got hold of 3 inverted, all in 2.0 sponge: joola golden tango ps (72 grams uncut with plastic covering on), victas v15 extra (71 grams), and the victas 07 extra sticky (66 grams with plastic).

Of those golden tango ps is the hardest, then extra 15 and finally 07 es.

The 07 es feels quite supple actually. I can squeeze the rubber with my thumb and index finger quite easily, having it squish in with much less force than the others. It almost feels like a semi dampening sponge, one you might find on nittaku revspin or spinlord marder. It absorbs incoming power far better than the other two, which will spring the ball back with gusto!

To me it just ticks all the boxes I was looking for. High grip to spin the ball, more forgiving sponge for chopping and to slow it down, enough power to attack when needed. I'm going to order the 1.8 version soon and give it a go.

_________________
SOULSPIN CUSTOM BLADES
Fh: Spinny rubber
Bh: Not so spinny rubber...

Might as well try it if the club opens again. Seems like a very good rubber to try out.

_________________
There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that