OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi. I'm just starting to play with a Butterfly Primorac wood blade, 1.7 Rozena, and 1.3 Gorilla Neubauer anti. I'm switching from a Sardius with Tacky Chop and Butterfly anti. Any advice on how to play with the new setup is great appreciated. I'm a Seemiller style player, just to throw that out. Don't have a great backhand.

Hi,

I don't know annything about playing seemiller grip. So I can't help you with that.
If you are new into Glanti. View some players online who can give you a good idea
on how to play with it. Most of them use it to setup a good and powerfull FH attack.

Some good exemples:
Luka Mladenovic
Carlos Muhlback
Andrea Asschii
Marcus Johansson
Leonardo Arata (has some video's, mostly long pimples player)

DEF-Attack has some good equipment comparisons and instructional video's.
https://www.youtube.com/@JoachimKarlgren

Hope this can help you
Cheers
Pieter

Hello,
just keep playing with your new set up...
many things will change in your game..

Perhaps you can describe your forehand. Most Seemiller grip players I've come across (including Danny Seemiller and Eric Boggan) use powerful looping attacks on the forehand. On the backhand you're limited somewhat to topspin drives and blocks. (Danny Seemiller states on one of his training videos that he doesn't have a backhand loop, due to the limitations of the grip. For those who aren't familiar with it - with the Seemiller grip, you use the same side of the blade to play forehand and backhand shots, and twiddle to put the anti into play.) Your equipment puzzles me - even with a Sardius the Tackiness Chop would have been terribly slow, and I'm wondering why you'd use 1.7mm sponge with the Rozena - these seem more suited to blocking, or a more passive game, than what I mostly see with users of the Seemiller grip. It's not really a chopping grip either (though I've seen Danny play chop defense in practice).

Iskandar

Do you live in North America ?
You can hear the whole story in person from the man Seemiller himself
Check this out
https://omnipong.com/EntryForms/1178-1.pdf
https://omnipong.com/T-tourney.asp?t=102&r=3696&h=

If I had lived closer I would have attended one of his 2 clinics just to pick his brain
And since this is an unsanctioned event I would even have played in Open Singles & Open Doubles LOL

But I also can tell you this. I do not call it the Seemiller grip because it is sort of unfair to Eric Boggan since both reached World #18 ranking & Eric Boggan was one of the considerations (along with Cai Zhenhua & John Hilton) that resulted in the horrible2 color rule of 1983. Danny Seemiller & his brother Rick were in top 10 in the world doubles ranking for a while I think. They have another brother Randy I think reached 2500. All Seemiller grip but if I am not mistaken Danny Junior is shakehand grip

Anyway there are some difference between Seemiller & Boggan grips.
Seelmiller is forehand dominant grip with a very powerful loop. (Chester Barnes in his book says that 1967 World Champion Hasegawa & Danny Seemiller had the fastest loops in their prime).
Boggan is more of a backhand dominant grip (for blocking). I think he has beaten all top players at least once and some more than once because they thought his backhand should be weak like Seemilier but paid the price.
(On a side note Eric's brother Scott was also a USA National Champion but played traditional shakehand short pips. Their father Tim was USATT president & he voted for the 1998 Durban Aspect Ratio Reduction Regulation. If had not it would have been a tied vote at 18-18 or something and I don't know what the tie break procedure was)
If I am not mistaken Seemiller had thumb on the blade on backside but Boggan had it on the side . This probably is why Seemlliier had a better forehand & Boggan a better backhand

Anyway there is a third grip called the Shapiro grip used by Shapiro father / son duo from Connecticut. They hold the racket in same way as the Seemiller / Boggan grip style but slightly modified so that they can use either racket side on either forehand or backhand at will without twiddling. I think they had long pips on back side I am not sure but could have been anti as I do not remember
My personal choice would be medium pips (so called long pips on ITTF LARC after 1998) on back side but you can experiment with both.

I am not sure you can the grip difference on a video but you can see some videos of Seemiller & Boggan playing against each otehr as well as against others on You Tube