blade/rubber recommendation? (ping pong)

nymeria

United States161 Posts

September 06 2008 04:05 GMT

hi, im a beginning ping pong player with a really old/beat-up japanese/korean style penhold racquet. i want to try learning the reverse penhold backhand (rpb) grip. looking for something durable that will be good for practice until i get serious.

ive done some research and i like this blade/rubber so far:
Friendship 729 Bomb Penhold
RITC 729 GeoSpin Tacky

$50.70 including shipping (blade + black/red rubbers free assembly)

is this a good starter racquet or should consider something else?

also...are there any good ping pong forums for english speakers

geometryb

United States1249 Posts

September 06 2008 04:18 GMT

i haven't played in a while. i think i used primorac and shriver from butterfly. i think it's pretty standard because everyone in the club started out with that.

oh i didn't read the thing about how you held your racquet so what i said isn't very useful.

ieatkids5

United States4628 Posts

September 06 2008 05:11 GMT

This forum might be good. I don't browse the forum except the videos section, so I don't know too much about the rest.
http://mytabletennis.net/forum/default.asp

If you want to start off, I've always heard Sriver or Bryce as good beginner rubbers. This is said, I assume, generally for shakehand, but it might apply to penhold as well; I'm not 100% sure. I'm not too familiar with blades. I assume you'd start off with a blade thats not too fast or spinny. You could probably ask on the forum.

If you want to learn rpb, it would help immensely to take lessons or just practice with someone who has a good rpb. Usually, that would be someone who has taken lessons from a coach who also knows rpb. Hopefully you have a club or league in your area, and can find someone (although in my area, I only know 2 people who do rpb correctly). If you can find such a person, they could probably give you better advice for penhold and rpb rubbers and blades than me, cuz I play shakehand.

rpb has a different grip than traditional chinese/japanese/korean penhold, so a coach would help here too. Getting the grip right is important.

imBLIND

United States2626 Posts

September 06 2008 05:23 GMT

i do rpb as well, but i only practice vs half a table, so its not really that good yet.
Is there really a different hold for rpb?

As a beginner, you shouldn't worry too much about the blade, but you should worry more about the rubber and sponge. Thicker sponge is better for you to practice putting spin on the ball, and choose a rubber that has a lot of tack.

nymeria

United States161 Posts

September 06 2008 05:47 GMT

wow. thanks for all the responses. now to figure out how to get my brother to play...

ieatkids5

United States4628 Posts

September 06 2008 20:37 GMT

On September 06 2008 14:23 imBLIND wrote:
i do rpb as well, but i only practice vs half a table, so its not really that good yet.
Is there really a different hold for rpb?

That's what I was told from someone who learned rpb from a guy who used to play in a lower tier national team for China.

Well, when you look at some top players, Ryu Seung Min (Korean traditional penhold) holds the paddle slightly differently than Wang Hao (uses only rpb for his backhand).

Thrill

2599 Posts

September 06 2008 22:47 GMT

Mad props for picking up the sport. It's the most psychological sport out there, standing so close to your opponent, hearing his cheers when you mess up, have drips of his sweat flying in your direction. If you're tilted in table tennis, it's not like tennis, where you can just shout out your frustration and HIT that f'ing ball really hard, nooo. If and when you're tilted, you have to actively take control of every muscle in your body, forcing your corpus not to rush over to the other side of the table and KNOCK THE GUYS TEETH OUT!

Pugilists and table tennis players are athletes i truly respect and in table tennis, the Rocky Balboa scenario is actually feasable, just look at Waldner and Paersson in the olympics, daaamn!

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