I'm an amateur table tennis player who likes to play with a "modern defensive" style. I attack with the inverted rubber on my forehand, and chop with the long pips rubber on my backhand.
If you're interested in table tennis, especially the "dark arts" of pimple/anti play, please join us on the OOAK Discord server: discord.gg/bdjurjRF
I live and train in Taipei,TW. What my coach always says is that I have to keep my hand very loose and relaxed, until I hit the ball. Accuracy and consistency come from there. I dunno if this is also your case, but I hope it helps. I think your form is very good.
thanks man. I've struggled with wrist tension my whole TT "career". it's more loose now than it ever has been, but once I mold this technique further, I'm definitely going to focus on getting that wrist as loose as possible
yeah it's something we've spoken about on the OOAK Discord for a few months now it's a good all round rubber. less effective at chopping than P1V, but better over the table ... and very cheap
Hi mate. I've never used Impartial XB but I can't imagine it being as good as Illusion SP. I'd strongly recommend the latter if you want to play a proper chopping game
thanks dude, very kind :) I absolutely love the 08x if I'm honest. I bought it on a whim because some of the guys in our Discord are using it... but it's awesome. it's even a FL handle, and I don't care! previously I've used BTY Innershield, BTY JSH, Victas Koji Matsushita ZC and VKMO... and 08x is my favourite of the lot it's faster than Innershield and ZC, not as fast as JSH/VKMO but plenty of control it does seem to give my rubbers - both sides - a bit of a higher throw, which has needed some adaptation, but it's the perfect balance of control and speed for me. plus it's significantly lighter than JSH/VKMO (or at least mine is - apparently they can be quite variable in weight) doesn't sound "hollow" like the Innershield and a lot of other defensive blades, which I really dislike
@@duncanwraight Awesome man thank you very much for this explanation, I've use VKMO and JSH, but my favorite currently is Yasaka Masamune, which I got as I gift from Japan, and it's also a great blade, and amazing handle design on the ST, but I definitely want to try 08x, thanks man, means a lot!
Thanks for commenting. Curl P1 (either TSP P1-R or recently Victas P1V) has been my go to backhand rubber for 90% of my career. Everything else has changed - that very little. It's the best chopping rubber by a significant distance in my opinion - phenomenal
Thanks. I'm a modern defender that has chopped and changed a bit with long pips. I could see how well you returned the spinny loops and how tricky it was to re-loop the chops. A good technique and a setup you've stuck with by the looks of it.
@@GrayAngus thanks! What do you use? We have a Discord community full of defenders, LP/SP players (and a few orthodox attackers) if you'd like to join us. Loads of chat about equipment: discord.com/invite/VCBfS4kkyG
Good session, Duncan! Main points to work on: 1) looking to set your right leg in place when you attack with fh (and not having your left leg too far forward) 2) 'set play' of long side-spin serve and stepping round for fh attack 3) 'set play' of receiving with pimples wide, then capitalising on the next ball 4) attacking the opponent's middle with your easier balls
hi sir can you please review spinfire rubber 1.8 because in wrm tv they are saying it excels in both attacking and chopping and is very spinny short pips
hi mate. I'd love to, but I would have to buy the 1.8mm version - and I wouldn't ever use it. I suspect 1.8mm will be a bit more spinny, a bit faster, and a bit harder to control. for an amateur chopper, I'd recommend 1.5mm. if you attack regularly with the SPs, then maybe the 1.8mm
In response to your comment re: improving forehand chop, I'm going to share some notes. While I am not top tier nationally or anything, I can rely on my forehand chop in tournament and it is generally quite disruptive. With that in mind, some things I'm observing: 1. In a majority of cases, you are taking the ball too high. I know this can be difficult as a taller player, but its the most frequent cause of FH chop failure in general, and also feels that way in your case. Specifically, you are chopping at a height that would be totally appropriate for a long pimple rubber on the backhand, but with inverted you need to take it significantly lower. One option here is to do what Chtchetinine or Daniel Kleinert do and twiddle to pips on the forehand when you forehand chop. That being said, I think forehand chopping with inverted is totally doable and worth learning, so assuming we want to improve the inverted FH chop ... 2. The way you FH chop a flat hit/smash differs significantly from how you need to chop a very spinny loop. If they load the topspin, you can be more wall-like with the open bat, perpendicular to the ground. If they flat hit it, especially flat, its a lot harder: you need to come under the ball to generate your own spin. To come under a long flat hit, you have to be quite far back, and quite low, which, depending on the space your playing in, can be really challenging to impossible. With that in mind, its important to keep as many chops heavy backspin deep to the back of the table, so they are FORCED to give you the topspin, which makes for a more manageable chop. This is the main reason I'm not a fan of what some people call the pips "push", where you bat it back with topspin. This allows the savvy opponent to flat hit to your forehand, which is hard to both chop and block. 3. This relates to the "too high" element: wait longer to initiate the chop. The longer you can wait, the less spin their ball will have, which usually leads to your forehand rubber being able to apply more of your own spin/not get rocked by their spin. 4. A final point that merits its own essay is the feel of the contact, which can differ based on the speed of the ball you are receiving, and how aggressive you want your spin to be. Watching this vid, it looks like you could stand to have a lot more backspin on your forehand chop, so I'll recommend what my coach described as "peeling" the ball. When you go to chop, keep your wrist soft and pliant, and your fingers firm, but expressive (not a death grip). Let the ball meet you past the end line, close to table height (don't hit it/go chasing it). Once the ball makes contact with your bat, imagine you are "peeling" the skin of a grape with the bat, drawing a curvature with your brush from the back of the ball to the bottom of the ball. Its a gentle motion, one mostly in the fingers and the wrist, but it can really load the ball with topspin. This requires being in the right place at the right time (having time to set it up), so the more time you can give yourself via moving well and waiting, the better. Hopefully some of this is helpful!
Thanks pal, that's all really helpful stuff. Since this video I've gotten my FH chop to a point where it's passable - but still not good. I noticed that my bat angles were crazy, eg bat was often pointing almost at the ceiling as I initiated the chop. I've rectified that now so I can at least get the ball on the table, but I definitely need/want more spin. Ideally I'd like to get to a point where I can vary the spin significantly - get some coming back floaty and some really heavy. I'll have a go at all of your suggestions in my next training session.
Eeep, I meant "Can really load the ball with BACKspin on point number 4 lol. I'm glad to hear it's gotten better, good luck in your practice! @@duncanwraight
I notice the backhand "Push" section seems inconsistent with the curlp1r, as has been my experience, which is why I developed a twiddle (pushing on my backhand side). Do you ever twiddle to inverted for your bh pushes? I'm guessing that wasn't the purpose of this exercise, but was curious if you do it in matches!
Yeah I definitely don't in drills because I'm specifically trying to practice my pushing with the pips In matches though I do. I'll return serve with inverted against some players/serves, and often twiddle during a chopping rally to keep the spin on I probably don't use it well enough though - should actually use pips in the chopping rallies to vary the spin and cause opponents issues, but find it a lot less consistent than an inverted push. At other times, I should use the inverted to make opponents' 3rd ball attacks less powerful Improvement on decision-making would be helpful here!
Yeah the venue isn't huge that's for sure. Check my match against Phil Suetterlin from the same day - some chops where I could definitely do with another metre or so.
thanks pal. just seen your content - really good. gonna watch some more later. I've got a young family so can't really do weekends away at the moment, but I'll be hoping to do some VETTS stuff in a couple years and I'd love to do SBL again if you use Discord at all, I'm part of a TT server dedicated (mostly) to LP/SP type gameplay. some great players on there discussing pips & chopping gameplay etc. here's the invite link: discord.gg/kksByGkWHF
Probably the Illusion SP There is always a trade off - the best pips for attacking won't be the best pips for chopping and vice versa The Illusion SP is a great all rounder
Hi again. It's average for attacking. Not as fast or floaty as Spectol, but capable of generating some topspin In my experience SP chops from close to the table will typically be low-spin because you don't have time to get enough contact on the ball. I didn't really test this with Illusion SP
For amateurs I think Illusion SP is better. It's such a good all-rounder. Good spin, reasonably insensitive to spin, great control. Spectol may be better for elite SP choppers
Hi mate. Thank you! I don't know where ships to India, but I know that WRM from Japan ship pretty much all over the globe - check them out using Google Translate rubber.ocnk.net/
@@arnavanand912 it is yeah - search RU-vid for WRM TT and you'll see tonnes of professional content from them. It was them who inspired me to buy the Illusion SP in the first place
Hi, would you say illusion is better than Spectol, only issue I had with it is not creating enough rotation, so I think illusionwould solve that. And would you recommend any other short pip like D3 or something over the illusion, thanks!
I think Illusion is the best SP for chopping - ahead of Spectol which I've used extensively, or D3 (I've used its old version TSP Super SpinPips Chop Sponge 2) It generates more spin than Spectol, but less than D3 It's more sensitive to spin than Spectol but less than D3 It's just a very good all rounder. I find it the easiest SP to chop with Spectol perhaps better if you're an elite level modern defender, but certainly not for amateurs
it's the best chopping short pip I've ever used. I found it genuinely quite easy to chop with. most SPs that are easy to chop with don't generate a lot of backspin on chops, but this does. it's not a fast pip, so not great for attacking, but it can still be used to block and punch like most SPs for a SP chopper, I'd give it a solid 9 out of 10 for any other form of SP play, there are better options
It would be hard to do - the camera picks up more background noise than it does the coach's voice. We're working primarily on 1) staying low with a wider stance, 2) quicker thought - e.g. play a shot then immediately move into a new position or at least be ready to do so. For this session, I asked the coach if we could work on 1) BH chopping/pushing consistency, 2) FH against topspin/popups and 3) Receiving third ball attack on my FH
What part of the video are you referring to? Do you have a timestamp? Typically, no, you wouldn't see a modern defender do this, but I can't remember doing this in the video. If I did, it's probably because I got confused and played the wrong stroke as part of a different drill
Oooooh he's back home! I bet you love training with him since he loops your chops back a lot lol. I can see where he is going with these drills as well. You gonna end up smashing your div1 with this coaching
This was Friday... I played in the league the following Monday and played terribly 😂But it was my first match back with the LPs, and I'd only had this 1h30m practice since using SPs, so I wasn't expecting much
Yesssss! I know this is just highlights but it looks good! I suspected the SPs would make you a little more all-round and boy was I right, you got more tricks up your sleeve and your FH is good too!!! 🥳
Aye the highlights don't really give the full picture, but in the first 5 ends I tried to exclusively chop and push. I then did a couple of "mixed" ends, and the last ~4 were almost full-out attack. I can't attack with the SPs well at all, made a lot of mistakes trying to do that, but the pushing and chopping has impressed me.
@@duncanwraight you had a couple of nice active shots with them though. Maybe it's just about picking and choosing more carefully. You will get there for sure, especially seeing as you still play so well with little to no playing time for so long 🔥
Dave is great at controlling pace and direction in a rally, he's renowned for it. He was one of the best players in our league, if not the best, when his knees worked!
Forehand chop is my favourite shot by miles. As you can see though, I'm not very good at it 🙂 I've played against/been trained by two great choppers who both had forehand chops that I couldn't loop - and I consider myself really good against backspin. The high ones are, in a way, the best ones - it encourages the opponent to slap them or to loop them without really lifting, and as you can see from the video, it doesn't work because there's too much backspin! I also have a float version which is really useful. Problem with this shot is that if I don't practice it, I literally can't do it. So I either have to spend loads of time on it, or I pad/loop on forehand instead. Sometimes I'll twiddle and chop on forehand too, as that's significantly easier
@@duncanwraight yeah the higher ones are often that ones that get dumped in the net more, false sense of security. At least at the more human lvl of skill lol
@@ndragon88 He uses P1-R now I believe. The FL3 he liked because it meant he could roll the ball nicely with his backhand, but it hurt his defensive game. Not a lot of reversal at all.
@@ndragon88 his FL3 was OK because he's a good chopper. lots of contact on the ball, snappy&wristy stroke. when he changed to P1R though I found it almost twice as difficult to loop. P1R is, for me, the heaviest backspin rubber I've ever played with or against
