Full Circle?

I’ve been waiting for some big news to put on here, but the truth is that there hasn’t been much to write.  A couple of weeks ago, I participated in my first ever “exhibition” at my friend’s high school.  He agreed to perform for a school assembly, and his coach had a last minute issue come up and was unable to be his co-performer, so I was dragged into it.  I’ve never had so many people watch me play before, and even though it was just a quick show, I got super nervous!  However, it’s pretty sad to learn how few people know about table tennis as a sport.  We just did some basic drills, and then some random lobbing and stuff, and the crowd seemed to be very impressed.  Anyway, it would’ve been worth the effort if we were able to inspire some people to start playing.

Aside from that, I’ve been fooling around with different equipment combinations lately, and I think I want to switch back to my short pips — something I was using when I first started writing this blog.  It’s not so much of an equipment preference, but a style thing.  The chopping is coming along, but honestly, it gets very frustrating not being able to whack balls sometimes.  It’s fun to run around and just get the ball back, but it’s also fun to smack balls really hard, and in the end, I think I still prefer the attacking game.  That being said, I’ve given the smooth backhand a fair chance, and I’m sure that I play at a higher level with smooth, but it’s just not as interesting as having pips.  I really like the ease of opening up with the smooth (opening backhand loop is very easy, as is flipping over the table), but it seems that everyone just plays a two-winged looping game, and that gets boring.  If I can’t chop, I’d still prefer to do something a little more interesting.  In the last two days, I’ve tried my two favorite pips again (Spectol and 802, both 1.8), and decided to go back to the 802 and old school H3 on my MJ.  Actually, I haven’t tried pips on the Xiom blade (might be worth a test), but it just seems too fast.  The 802 is a little more pippy than the Spectol, and has a really nice sound when I hit it.  Interesting how I decided to come back to this exact setup after over a year of testing stuff.  Maybe this is what I was meant to do!

Anyway, I’m on spring break right now, and it’s great.  I’ve been able to play a lot more ping pong than usual, which is pretty much the best thing ever.  I guess I’ll try the V1 with Spectol and decide if it’s any good.  Guess that’s it for now.  There’s a tournament coming up next Saturday, but I won’t be able to participate.  Oh well.  Maybe I’ll get to see some good matches though.

Western Open (and more)

Wow, I’ve been meaning to write something in here, but haven’t really found the time lately.  Anyway, a couple of weeks ago (2/19 – 2/20), I was down in Berkeley for the 2011 Western Open!  I decided not to participate, since I’ve been messing around with not only equipment (like the V1), but styles in general (with all the chopping and stuff), so I was in no shape to play competitively.  Basically, I went for the food (oh, how I miss the food there), coach my friends, and to watch the high level players (lots of them this time).  Turns out that not playing this time was a great decision, since I was able to observe many great players I’ve never seen before, especially the chopper that ended up being 2nd in the open singles.  He is super short, but very athletic, and plays an awesome chopping game.  Plus, he had an incredible suicidal (all-out) forehand, which I love watching (you see that less and less these days, since the speed glue ban).  I think he’s probably the first high level chopper I’ve seen live (aside from Chen Weixing at the 2008 olympics).

Anyway, that re-inspired me to learn how to chop.  Since I’m not planning on playing any tournaments for a good long while (maybe even a year), it won’t be a problem if I commit a few months to chopping.  I’ve actually done some experimenting with different chopping equipment, and decided that I really like my old BTY Matsushita blade (the wood one, not the ALC one).  Unfortunately, it’s apparently discontinued (I can’t find it anywhere), so I really hope I don’t damage the one I have now.  Or, at least, I hope I don’t damage it even more than I already have (the edges already have more than a couple dings).  Until now, I’ve had a 1.8 Mark V GPS on the forehand, and 1.0 Stiga Destroyer on the backhand, and that had caused me a few problems.  First, even though the forehand chop was very stable, the rubber was too ridiculously weak that it made attacking nearly impossible.  Maybe it’s the combination of a soft (also, weak and thin) rubber on a soft blade, but I honestly had problems just warming up forehand to forehand, as the ball would often sink straight into the net.  However, I just found an old sheet of TG3 #21 sponge (the blue sponge), which is 35 degrees and in 2.0 (how rare is that!), so I put that on the forehand.  It makes a world of difference!  The forehand feels very comfortable now, whether it’s attacking of chopping.  The blade itself is extremely flexible, so I would probably only loop with it and never really flat hit.  Like all Chinese rubbers, it’s going to take some time for breaking in.  Out of the package, it was extremely tacky.  Not only did it hold the ball upside down indefinitely, I had to shake the paddle pretty hard (also upside down) to get the ball to unstick from the rubber!  It was ridiculous.  Also, I’m trying this new long pip called CTT Pogo on a 1.0 sponge.  So far, I’ve gotten some mixed results.  The Stiga Destroyer I had on it before (that thing was at least 4 years old, I think) was great for chopping, but I totally sucked with it for the short game.  It behaved very pip-like, and I just couldn’t keep the pushes low.  Maybe it’ll be really good if I had some decent skills with long pips, but I’m just a beginner!  That being said, the Pogo behaves more like the Feint Long 3 (super easy to use), and I’m able to keep both my long distance chops and over the table pushes low.  However, unlike the the FL3, the Pogo doesn’t seem to be able to produce much spin on its own, which is good and bad.  For people who can read the spin coming from long pips, this leads to really easy kills after a push, whereas I was able to put enough underspin with the FL3 even against incoming underspin to force a more spinny (and less fast) return.  On the other hand, this adds an element of deception which is pretty much completely absent in the FL3 (which behaves pretty much like a short pip).  A hard push from the Pogo looks fairly spinny (judging by the stroke), but is actually quite dead, and I’ve noticed that people tend to loop too hard against it.  Overall, I think I’m going to stick with this for a while and try to take this opportunity to develop some new long pip techniques.  The whole setup feels surprisingly natural, and I find myself really liking the round ST handle of the Matsushita.

I guess that’s it for now.  Oh, actually, here’s a final piece of information.  DHS has gotten really stingy with the Neo rubbers!  Originally, I was going to put H3 Neo on the Matsushita, but the piece of rubber was simply too small for the oversized head!  I guess they decided that only attackers with blades of a more compact head size would consider using those rubbers, so they made it as small as possible while fitting on a normal offensive blade.  Luckily, the old DHS rubbers are a little more generous, and the TG3 fit just fine.  I guess I’ll be sticking to the old school stuff!

V1: Continued

This blade is such a mystery to me!  Basically, it seems to be blazing fast.  Easily an OFF+ blade.  But then, when I compared it next to the MJ, the speed seemed fairly similar.  I honestly don’t know how fast this blade is.  What I can say is that the short game is definitely much harder to control with the V1.  I have to make a strong effort to “cushion” the touch shots, and pushing aggressively (deep and fast) is very difficult.  After some adjustment, I’m able to keep the short balls short most of the time, and at the very least, prevent most of my pushes from shooting off the end of the table.  Also, I’ve come to the conclusion that this blade most likely plays better with relatively soft rubbers.  Even though the softer rubbers may have more catapult, I think the blade itself is so springy that hard sponged rubbers simply don’t have any dwell time.  In an effort to slow down the blade, I put on a sheet of old H3 provincial, which is definitely considered a “slow” rubber (that isn’t designed to be slow).  However, it’s still VERY lively, and it felt like I was able to keep the short game more controlled when I had the much faster (but softer) Thor’s on it.  Interesting.  Why do I get the feeling this blade would be magical with Tenergy?  Also, the HPB on the backhand is simply magical.  Couldn’t ask for a better backhand attacking rubber.  My loops are spinny and fast, and blocking is feeling better and better.  It definitely allows me to be more aggressive with my backhand.

That brings me to another observation.  I think relatively heavy blades benefit the forehand strokes more, while lighter blades are good for the backhand shots.  For example, because of the relative lightness of the V1 (compared to the MJ – about a 10g difference), my forehand strokes have seemed less deliberate.  Of course, that could very well be because I honestly don’t know how much dwell time I’m going to get with this blade, but I definitely feel some hesitation in my stroke.  On the other hand, not only is my backhand shot faster and spinnier, the reduced weight allows me to do repeated backhand loops much more easily.  I think my recovery time has been drastically reduced (it could just be a fraction of a second, but it’s a very crucial fraction of a second).  Anyway, this is probably due to the different muscles required for each stroke.  The forehand stroke really allows you to use your bigger muscles more, so keeping your wrist very steady (with a heavier blade) is beneficial.  For the backhand, I found that it’s important to roll your wrist over in order to cover the ball, and the reduced weight allows more flexibility in the wrist.  In fact, I had a lot of trouble blocking with this blade in the beginning, but I realized that it was very easy if I just added a bit more of a follow through to my normal stroke.  This is all speculation, but there is no question that my backhand is much improved with this blade.

In the end, I think the best way to describe the V1 is to compare it to a laser.  It might feel fast simply because it’s strangely fast for the weight, even though it’s really not much faster than the MJ.  But it’s great for very flat attacks.  Generally speaking, my attacking shots (especially on the forehand) have pretty arched trajectories, since I emphasize spin more than speed.  However, the V1 has been great for a really flat kill shot.  The reduced dwell time turns what would have been a loop into something much closer to a drive.  The spin is still there, but the trajectory is very direct and flat.  This does bother me a little on the forehand side, but I’m sure I’ll be ok after an adjustment period of maybe a month or so.  On the backhand, this is great news!  My opening loops are now very deadly (I would say there’s a 50% increase in speed), and now they barely pass over the net, making them harder to block!  Awesome.

Xiom V1: First Impressions

Nowadays, there aren’t many blades that really catch my eye.  Probably because I know what I like, so anything that doesn’t fit a fairly specific range of criteria doesn’t interest me much.  Off the top of my head, I can only think of a few I would like to try, and even out of those, I wouldn’t want to spend the money buying them.  However, for the past month or so, I’ve been looking at the Xiom V1, and a sale finally came around so I had to buy it.  Walnut outer (like YEO), carbon, 5.4mm, and essentially the same head shape as my MJ.  This blade sounds promising!  In fact, this is the first time I’ve purchased a blade even though I absolutely can’t stand the handle design.  It’s UGLY!  I would take pictures, but I lost the battery charger for my camera.  That explains why I haven’t been uploading any new pictures lately.  Anyway, the blade came in a couple days ago, and I was able to hit with it in a friend’s garage for a bit, so I’ll write my initial impressions.

First of all, this is my second encounter with a Xiom blade.  The first time was testing out a club member’s cpen (I don’t remember the model), but I remember thinking that Xiom made very nice quality blades.  This time, I know for sure that the quality is top notch.  The packaging is nice, and the blade is finished very well, just like a BTY product.  Unlike other companies, Xiom doesn’t just categorize blades from DEF- to OFF+, they actually have a bunch of different specs on the blade face.  For example, the V1 is apparently on the “captive” end of the spectrum, as opposed to “repulsive,” which I assume means it’s supposed to be a “dwelly” blade, probably designed more for a spin game than a blocking game.  It’s also ironic, because that handle is definitely repulsive.  But ok, I guess I’ll stop with that, because aside from the handle design, the blade is a beauty.  It’s also OFF, which is exactly in the middle of the Xiom line, as apparently they go from ALL+ to OFF++.  There were some other things written on the front, like it was designed for close to the table play, but I forgot all the other stuff.  Like all my blades, I sand down the “wings” next to the handle for comfort, and this is literally the hardest blade I’ve ever sanded.  I had to sand it for a long time before the edges were nice and smooth.  Does that mean it feels hard?  Maybe.  Also, this is a 5+2C, and it’s apparently “novus tour carbon,” but I really have no idea what it means.  From the looks of it, it’s just the same as any carbon, like the tamca 5000 (I assume there’s nothing special with that stuff).  In any case, it’s just a sheet of black, and doesn’t look like some composite weave like ALC or ZLC blades.  Lastly, the most worrisome to me, is that the handle design, although comfortable, is considerably flatter than the MJ (so less round, and closer to the plane of the blade face).  This worried me because even though the blade is lighter than the MJ (my MJ was 91g, this one is apparently 82.7g), flat handles often make the blade feel more head heavy, and seem to strain my wrist more.  Luckily, this turned out to not be a problem.

Now for the playing characteristics.  I transferred my rubbers straight from the MJ (Thor’s and HPB), and was able to hit immediately with it, meaning it plays fairly similarly to the MJ.  It does feel harder, and the Thor’s played a lot better with the V1.  I think it’ll take me a while to get used to the handle, though.  Since I hold the paddle very loosely, the handle shifts in my hand with every hit, and although I’ve become accustomed to that with my MJ, it just feels unnatural with the V1 right now.  I was also surprised by how fast this blade was.  I expected something slightly faster than the YEO, but the speed of the V1 is pretty close to the MJ, so I would say it’s in the solid OFF range.  I was only playing in a garage, so I didn’t really have a chance to blast the ball or anything, but just from the light shots, it had plenty of speed.  In fact, I was having a lot of trouble keeping my short balls short.  Long pushes often went off, and many short drops went high.  I’m not sure if it’s the throw of the blade or just that it’s very bouncy for the short game, but I’m going to have to get used to it, as it’s definitely faster than the MJ in this department.  On the other hand, my forehand shots were miraculously consistent and accurate, so this blade seems to be very promising!  Since buying a new MJ now will cost me over $200, I really don’t want anything to happen to mine, so I’m going to retire it and keep it safe.  This V1 seems to be close enough to be a permanent replacement.  After I got back, I changed the rubbers on both blades.  Now both the MJ and V1 have TG3 neo on the FH and HPB on the BH (both sheets are new on the V1, and the HPB is 2.1 instead of 1.9).  This way I can compare them directly when I get to play next.

So, why did I take off the Thor’s?  Well, that rubber is very strange.  When I first started using it, it felt VERY Chinese, and then it became more of a hybrid (similar to BW2), and now it seems to be too bouncy for me.  It’s still a great rubber, but I’ve had a lot of trouble dealing with slow, spinny loops.  When I try to drive them back, it eats up the spin like crazy and goes long almost always.  On the other hand, when I try to spin it back, it often slips and dies.  This has been very frustrating!  So I think I’m just going to stick with the TG3 from now on.  It’s not amazing in any aspect, but I feel confident doing pretty much anything with it, and that’s good enough for me!  Plus, it makes the V1 feel harder, which I like.  Oh yeah, the new sheet of TG3 is very tacky!  Able to hold the ball upside down indefinitely.  I still think it’s strange how the tackiness of DHS rubbers vary so much in each sheet, but honestly, after they’ve been broken in (maybe 5-10 hours of play time), they end up pretty much all the same, so I’m not really worried about it.

 

Chopping, etc.

It has been about a month since I decided to try out chopping, and I must say, I’m making some progress.  However, I’ve also realized that playing a chopping style competitively is much harder than I had imagined.  I’ll share some observations I’ve made about both equipment and technique.

As far as equipment goes, I’ve tried several different combinations (by the way, my spell check is telling me “combinations” is not a real word — interesting), but most of them only for very short periods at a time.  Here’s the list: YEO (AN) + Memo 2 (max) + Feint Long 2 (1.3); BTY Matsushita Pro + Mark V GPS (1.8) + Stiga Destroyer (0.5); HK + H3 + Feint Long 3 (1.3).  I’ve also had a Dawei long pip for a very short period on the HK, and that was with a 0.6 sponge.  And here are my impressions:

- Strangely enough, there is little difference in speed between the Matsushita (definitely a DEF blade) and the HK (I would put it as OFF-, even if DHS says it’s OFF++).  Comparing them side by side, I was able to adjust to chopping very easily between the two (on the FH side, at least).  However, it is nearly impossible to attack with the 1.8 FH rubber on the Matsushita, while it was still possible to attack with the HK.

- As of now, I definitely prefer a relatively thick sponge (like 1.3) over the thin ones (like 0.5).  It’s very surprising how much difference the sponge makes between pips!  Mainly, even though long distance chopping is easier with the thin sponge, I just can’t seem to predict the behavior of short balls.

- Along those lines, the Feint Long 3 is the coolest long pip I’ve tried so far.  I’m actually able to produce quite a bit of spin with it off dead balls (of course, nowhere near smooth), and I’m able to control my pushes against underspin much more easily.  In general, it makes my short game predictable (for me), which is great.  On the other hand, it has very little deception for a long pip, so I guess that’s the weakness.  However, at my level, a deceptive long pip tricks me just as much as my opponents, so I would rather go with something I can control.  In fact, I can even attack with the FL3 fairly easily… it reminds me of a very slow short pip!

- As much as I love H3, I find myself eating my own spin, especially after my opponents push back a forehand chop.  I feel more comfortable with tacky Chinese rubbers, but I’m starting to wonder if I should move to something softer and grippier on the forehand.  Or maybe just something less sensitive to spin.  In the end, I don’t think it’ll be that big of a deal, but it is certainly hard to actively push back heavy underspin with H3.  It’s also hard to run up really fast and loop it.

Ok, now for technique.  Basically, it is very difficult.  The forehand chop comes fairly naturally to me, but I’ve been struggling a lot with the backhand chop, especially when I’m not as far out as I would like.  With looping, my stroke can be pretty much vertical, but I still have faith that my loops will land (perhaps this is just due to years of experience), but with chopping, I’m very scared to chop with that kind of angle.  I want to open my blade more than I should (psychological?), which sometimes causes the chop to go way high and long, but at other times, seems to cause the ball to die much earlier than I would expect.  Chopping is very tricky business, and for now, it definitely seems that there is a much smaller window for error compared to looping.  Even when I am very confident in my chops, they will often fly long without that topspin to drop it back on.  In any case, I think I’ve made some great progress with the backhand chop lately, mostly just breaking that mental barrier.  Unfortunately, I still have one huge weakness, and that is stamina.  I don’t know if it’s because I have to run back and forth so much, or if it’s because I have to constantly be thinking about adjusting my stroke for the incoming balls, but I get tired VERY EASILY when I chop.  Basically, I can only play one match, and then I’m spent.  It’s not necessarily that my body is tired, but I end up mentally fatigued.  I’ve noticed that I can only play one match while being focused, and my next match is always a mental disaster.  This is bad news for tournaments, although I’m not planning on playing chopping competitively in the near future.

Oh, last thing.  Using a slow combo has improved my game in one aspect: service!  Since I started chopping, I’ve been very careful about keeping my short serves short, because I definitely need time to scoot back far enough to be comfortable chopping.  That is probably the single hardest thing so far: buying time to move back to chop.  Anyway, out of necessity, I’ve been working on my short serves, and now I actually get many more direct points from my serves than I used to get.  Pretty nice!

There’s a tournament (unrated) coming up in a week and a half here.  It’s a giant round robin.  I might enter just to see how well I do chopping.  Hope I don’t collapse from exhaustion!

Biggest Entry Ever

Ok, this might not be my longest entry ever, but it has been a LONG time since I last posted anything, so this will be packed with material.  I’m going to try to make it concise.

First things first — Nationals!  In a word: awesome.  I can’t say I played that well, but it was definitely a unique experience, and probably the coolest tournament I’ve ever played.  I think there were 91 tables, and they were all brand new BTY tables with REALLY blue tops.  I don’t know if it was just me or what, but they were blindingly blue.  In fact, I had a very hard time seeing the ball at first, because all I could see was the table.  Actually, I had problems with my backhand timing the entire time.  Maybe the bright tables messed with my depth perception, but I always felt the ball was closer than it really was, so my BH always came out early, resulting in me looking like an idiot reaching for a ball which was really far in front of me.  Strangely, my forehand didn’t really encounter this problem, so I can’t explain what happened there.  I got to play against many interesting styles, and I met lots of cool people, so even if I didn’t do that well, it was a great experience.  I mean, ping pong from 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM every day for 4 days is just too awesome.  Additionally, spending the whole time with friends, good food, slots (I won $10, which I think is pretty good), and tea station?  Can’t beat that.  When I first got back, I was going to write a very detailed entry on it, but there was just way too much to write about, so I got intimidated (and lazy).  Let’s just say I definitely want to go back this year, if I can.  The only downside is that it’s VERY exhausting.  Six or seven hours of sleep every night is not nearly enough for me, especially when I’m being active all day.  By the end, I was lucky to not have collapsed.  But, again, totally worth it!

Next topic: chopping.  After nationals, I felt like I needed a change of scenery, so to speak.  Oh, I did take off the T05 and replace it with the Thor’s, which is feeling better and better the more I use it.  The throw angle is much more predictable now, and and only real problem I have with it is the occasional slip, usually against really high, arcing topspin balls.  Trying to spin the ball back gently usually results in slipping, but I guess I can remedy that by just driving the ball more.  Anyway, I’m not really sure it offers anything more than, say, H3, but it seems to work just fine, and feels a little softer.  In any case, I thought I would try to pick up chopping.  Long story short, I now have H3 and Feint Long 3 (1.3 mm) on my HK, and it’s pretty awesome.  Before that, I was using the Tuttle Beijing 3 and Dawei long pips (the name escapes me, but it’s something like 388D-1), but the Beijing 3 was just… useless, and the Dawei pips seemed more for blocking than chopping (they were pretty stiff).  The H3 is better in all aspects (although I guess the Beijing 3 is very user-friendly), and my forehand chops are pretty ridiculously spinny, I think.  The players around here seem to have a very hard time attacking them.  By backhand chop needs a lot of work, but it’s getting there, and the FL3 is pretty much the coolest long pip I’ve ever tried.  However, it seems that playing a chopping style competitively is pretty much impossible.  It’s just ridiculously hard to earn points.  Maybe I’m just impatient, but I have to chop so many times before I can force an error, and as of now, I make just as many mistakes as the attacker!  Of course, I just started chopping, so I’m not expecting to suddenly be great at it.  It just seems like a highly inefficient style.  It’s fun to practice, but I can imagine how frustrating it can be in competition.  I don’t think I’m planning to participate in any tournaments in the near future, so I’m hoping to stick with it and get to a decent level soonish.  I think it’ll help me understand the game better when I can play from another perspective.

Speaking of perspectives, I’m being forced to use my left hand (almost exclusively).  My dad says my back is dangerously uneven (I have to agree that it seems weird), so until I get it cleared by a doctor (or chiropractor?), I can’t play with my right hand.  That sucks!  So, I used my left hand for over an hour of continuous play today, and I think I’m making good progress.  My BH and FH strokes (just warming up hitting) are both decent, and I can loop with the forehand (not at all with the backhand).  I also seem to have very little problem pushing with my forehand, but a huge problem with the backhand, which is the exact opposite of what happened when I first learned with my right hand.  Very strange!  But the hard part is not getting the strokes down.  For some reason, my reaction time goes way up when I change hands, so I’m pretty much just staring at the ball when it comes over, but my body won’t move at all.  Also,  I need to constantly remind myself that my legs need to do the opposite of what they’re used to doing — much easier said than done.  This is quite an experience, but as with the long pips, I think this will pay off somehow in the future.  Who knows, maybe I’ll learn “cleaner” technique with my left hand, and it’ll end up being my better hand!  But I also realized that the MJ feels very fast when I use it left-handed, so I just put together a new blade!  Violin + TG3 Neo + Sriver.  This should be perfect!  I’ll test it out tomorrow.

Wow, that was quite a bit of information.  Actually, there’s a lot more that I would have liked to post, but I just can’t afford to spend all day and night typing away.  Happy 2011!  I hope I’ll update this more frequently, since I’ll be doing lots of experimenting in the upcoming months.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a great Holiday season!  I’ll write about Nationals soon.