OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I am a penhold player and looking for a light set up given I have a small wrist and am learning to play reverse penhold backhand (“RPB”).

I am an all round intermediate player and play close to the table. I tend to chop, block, topspin and smash with my forehand. For my RPB, I tend to smash and do some occasional topspin.

I am thinking of getting a Yasaka Balsa Blade as it is light (65g) and not too thick (6.2 mm). Based on my research, these rubbers are light weight:

TSP Agrit (either 1.5 mm / 2 mm); medium soft
TIBHAR Nimbus Sound (1.8 mm), soft
TIBHAR Sinus Sound (1.8 mm), soft
Friendship 729 Focus Snipe 3 (2.1 mm), medium soft

I understand the TSP and TIBHAR rubbers have built in speed glue effect. So my first question is whether these rubbers are suitable for Balsa Blade? I have not played with speed glue rubber before.

Second question is given my style of play - all round, close to table and top spin close to the table, what rubber should I use for my forehand and backhand? Thicker or thinner? Hard or soft?

Really appreciate some advice. Thank you.

John

Just my opinion, but balsa blades suck, and a 65g version of it would feel like like a flimsy matchbox.

We have a barely over 40kg female player in our club who players double inverted, if she had no wrist problems then it must be something you can push through.

If its really bothering you, play single sided. I use a 115g blade and total weight is only 160g.

Based on what I've read here (including from the person who makes Re-Impact blades) you should use thinner sponge with a balsa blade. 1.7-1.9mm sponge, perhaps. The blade itself trampolines, so it behaves like extra sponge.

Iskandar

I own the Yasaka Battle Balsa ( ST-handle ) that I use for my C-pen RPB style play.
Edit: I am a two-wing looper. I will play topspin loop even if I get a heavy-cut or chop return. This is an All-Round attacking style with moderate blocks and within the table push rally but mostly looking to topspin loop and place the ball rather than win the point outright. You will see the occasional loop-drive and almost impossible to see me smashing

Following observations as a beginner that I am :

1. Yasaka Battle Balsa is most definitely a ALL+ blade. It is not super fast or super slow. Medium amount of spring+flex compared to most Balsa blades. High-Control with good close-to-the-table block-returns-loops-pushes and decent farther-from-the-table as well.

2. Very soft or very thin rubbers make it feel little weird ... like you are just playing with a wooden plywood sheet You might have to be at least advanced or minimum strong intermediate player to get the best out of this blade ( whatever rubbers you decide )

3. Mid-Hard / Mid-Soft rubbers Max thickness work like magic. The best rubber I had on this blade to date is the Yasaka Shining Dragon. Yasaka Rising Dragon also works very well on this blade but YSD truly shines for me Rakza7 and Rakza9 and RakzaX are perfectly fine on this blade.

4. Hard / Harder rubbers MAX thickness make the blade too head-heavy. Before I can get a proper brush loop the ball just flies off or slips off the hard rubbers. So I don't have good experience with this Balsa blade and hard rubbers.

Edit: Again, I am a two-wing looper. I will play topspin loop even if I get a heavy-cut or chop return.

Let me know exactly what specifics you wish to know. I will try to answer your queries

_________________
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Backup C-pen blades:

• TSP Black Balsa 7.0 :
  1. FH/BH-YRakza9/XOmegaVT
  2. FH/BH-TSP Spectol/Yinhe Qing OX
• 729 Bomb C-P : FH/BH-DHS H2 Orig/DHS H3 Orig
• TSP Versal :
  1. FH/BH-XOmegaVA/YJupiter-II
  2. FH/BH-*blank*

Fun blades:

• Yasaka Battle Balsa(ST) : FH/BH- DHS TG2Neo/Gewo HypeXT 47
• Dr. Neubauer
  High Technology
  Cypress-Carbon(ST)
  ***************************** : FH/BH-YRakza7/YRakza7

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First off a small disclaimer: I seriously dislike balsa and my prime experience with balsa are from +1000 hours of play with the Butterfly Balsa Carbo X5. Did try other more defensive balsa blades but not more than 20-30 hours per blade.

Aside from that I find that balsa creates inconsistency by nature hete is my take on the matter:

The harder the rubber the better I could play with balsa.
Anything less that medium hardness was crap if the arc of the rubber was to low.
I likes rubbers on it that weren't paticulary fast nor thick. 1.7-1.9
I found it horrible with long pips that had dead sponges for some reason I can't fulling put my finger on. Mainly slow close to the table play. Further back was all good.

Personally I wouldn't recommend balsa to a beginner/intermediate. I'd go with something more straight forward, it sounds more logical to me. But that could be triggered because of personal experience.

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~ Puttin' pressure on you kids like I'm a soccer mom. ~

Thanks. It seems that Balsa Blade slows down the ball at low impact and speeds up the ball at mid to high impact. With a thicker sponge, I presume it will make the rebound even faster at mid to high impact, thus reducing dwell time. However, I read a thicker sponge (says 2.1 mm) has the effect of masking the trampoline effect of the Balsa blade at low/ mid impact level. I’m asking because I am primarily concern with reducing the weight of the set up, whilst playing as close to my current set up as possible. I do not hit the ball very hard, even when smashing.

I am considering Friendship Focus 3 Snipe as it is light, however I can only get 2.1mm.

Thanks for your advice, especially given your experience in playing with Yasaka Battle Balsa, the blade I am planning to get. I am hoping to get very light rubber (around 50 g uncut). Taking out the soft rubbers like TIBHAR Sinus and Nimbus sound, it seems I am left with Friendship 729 Focus Snipe 3, which comes at 2.1mm. It’s a mid soft rubber vs. TSP Agrit which comes at 1.8 mm, which is harder and has built in speed glue effect.

You should be fine with the 729 Focus+Snipe III at Max thickness. TSP Agrit is available at Max thickness as well. I saw it on TT11.com
https://www.tabletennis11.com/other_eng/tsp-agrit

From the reviews, on TT11 , I would say if you already have 729 F+S III then by all means try it out as 729 Friendship is very cheap. TSP Agrit seems to be more "Pro" setup, meaning it might take a while to adjust.

Things to note about Balsa + Spring + Trampoline + Non-Linear behaviour .....

- Different layers cause the blade to behave differently.
- Different thickness of layers give different effects.
- Different materials change blade behaviour even more.
- Different rubbers have different effects.

1. Thin-and-light uniform balsa blades play slower and easier.
2. Hard outer-plies are suited for defenders and smashers than for loopers.
3. Composite materials make Balsa blades less flexible and harder hitting. ( doesn't matter if the material is between layers or woven in the top-ply.)

My experience is hard rubber + hard ply blades --> difficult to loop, easy to smash.
Soft rubber + soft ply blades --> has lots of flex --> difficult to counterloop or loopdrive, easy to safe-loop or push or cut or block, a little bit difficult to master incoming spin or smashing or flat hitting.
Mid-hard rubber + mid-hard ply blades ---> compromise of both hard and soft --> takes longer to get used to and has weird quirks and variations, too much small small variations, but right setup is like dream once in a blue moon you get the feel for it .... once you got the feel and drilled it into your soul .... you don't ever forget that feeling ... you just have to pray to keep playing like this forever ...

My absolute Destroyer of Worlds, I will End You, Behold The Armageddon setup is Yasaka Battle Balsa with Yasaka Shining Dragons If you see my setup with those rubbers, just run for the hills! Just kidding. I am saving those rubbers and experimenting with different combos to see if anything will ever work as good as that setup for me has. btw, YBB + YSD took me nearly 1.5 years of experimentations and maybe longer considering my TT journey to get the right feel for that setup. If I had gotten those rubbers too soon or much later I don't know if I would have found that working touch and feel. Note that I GRADUALLY started using the rubbers transitioning from European rubbers, to mixed Euro+Chinese rubbers to YSD ( classic Chinese ) rubber. Had a lot of luck ending up with getting the Yasaka Battle Balsa and having new YSD sheets ready at the same time and being in good form for my style of play.

_________________
__________________________________________________________
Backup C-pen blades:

• TSP Black Balsa 7.0 :
  1. FH/BH-YRakza9/XOmegaVT
  2. FH/BH-TSP Spectol/Yinhe Qing OX
• 729 Bomb C-P : FH/BH-DHS H2 Orig/DHS H3 Orig
• TSP Versal :
  1. FH/BH-XOmegaVA/YJupiter-II
  2. FH/BH-*blank*

Fun blades:

• Yasaka Battle Balsa(ST) : FH/BH- DHS TG2Neo/Gewo HypeXT 47
• Dr. Neubauer
  High Technology
  Cypress-Carbon(ST)
  ***************************** : FH/BH-YRakza7/YRakza7

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