Definitely have to be careful with those, it's important to slowly ramp up the intensity especially after not playing for a long time. I learnt it the hard way from my previous wrist injury.... especially if you have a powerful FH, there's quite a lot of energy travelling through the joints/ligaments every time you swing the ball, regardless of whether or not you're using the body or not. For me due to my prev injury I'm always afraid to swing hard on the BH  so it's a lot more focus on earlier timing, consistency, spin variation and placement rather than just outright going for winners. Using a fast bouncy rubber helps too 

Easily beat him, and all those serves I missed last week were the same but my mind was clearer today and had no problems with them.  I was happy after those 3 games and then went to focussing on my weak serves and fh again.  Ended up 50/50 but the important thing was the first 3 games to prove a point.  :)

Good session of TT for about 2.5 hours.  My fh was as before, pretty good for the first hour and then just goes to the abyss by the end of the day... 

My fh is always good from a distance in big FH to FH looping.... I just can't get it to stay good near the table against a variety of spins that I just haven't had enough time to groove.

The 38 seems less stable on either wing from a distance.  Less drivey but can be more flingy to make up for it.

I tried very briefly some new sheets but mostly used old 09c.  Can't say I have really used the stuff.  But I felt the H2 40 degrees baby oiled has been pretty dam good as a BH rubber and I might not improve even if I used butterfly's best.

I have shared on pages of this thread my feelings about the price.  If anything I am very close to buying many time T or D 05...  One of these days.... I will bite that bullet.  The speed can be great, and a problem for me too.

Thanks for your kind words.  

If I had a video camera still I'd make some vids, but $ is the factor for me these days since Covid took away my proper line of work and now I have reverted to working in a field I make 3xless 

The money I have I feel is best spent paying $12 a session at the club.  I think I have been averaging about 3 x a week for the last 6 months (I think).

I drool over premium rubbers and robots too though.  

cheers.

I do like being able to slow the game down a hell of a lot as being my quirk in the game.  Some people have this weird one side pip to do it, I have a slow balsa blade with tacky slowish rubbers.  I can still loop the hell out of the ball, counter loop in offensive rallies but also block super short and keep the game at a pace others get frustrated by...

Not sure how long this will last.

You know I never thought about till now, but I stopped riding bikes last year because I got sick of fixing them and again the cost of ebikes is very high....  A battery for my bike is over $1000  AUD...

My foruming never stopped just went to endlesssphere https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=112030&p=1659431#p1658777

Why start riding them?  If you like mountain bike riding, but like riding uphill as fast as you do downhill...  it's called the ebike grin...  not sure if you saw my ebike channel but the vids should inspire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kykW4p6D4c&list=PLhmNPJvDkKg7jlbtXLrGyAYE8YuBJc19A

Living in Thailand slowed down my progression of partner and venues for TT, on return I was suddenly married and a kid.... so time is the biggest reason.... work come home, not fair to leave the family alone....

Now my kids older and I got no other outlet without the bikes to get out and start enjoying me time.

You should get a bike man, I knew a guy share some footage of his high powered EMTB around Hawaii and the place looks so epic to ride!

That makes sense why you took a break for TT, family comes first. Does the kid have TT prospect? That's funny you say I should get an ebike, I live literally right next to a sweet mountain bike track. I hike it occasionally in the mornings, I was there this morning and pondered about getting a mountain bike. 

Tonight is the night.  I got a team at the highest.  Div 1 Monday.

Team member is also a fill in that I know from 15 years ago.  It's gonna be a wacky night.

Playing Tuesday fixtures (which is weaker) I only won 1.  I do not expect much more than that considering the competition in front of me and my own state.

I don't give a F*&^%

Let's go!

I fell short of beating Dennis by a few points and only got a small margin of games off Jimmy.  Jimmy I found out plays comp 3 nights a week and probably does a few hours at the club in the mornings too!  I didn't call up anyone but usually Tuesdays these two guys will be there and will put me through a great deal of testing.  

Dennis and LP only game gives me tons of practise just continuously looping back sping.  

Jimmy also has some LP on bh but is much more versatile and really makes me work to get a game off him.  Wish I recorded our sessions because I am pulling off some insane shots OCCASIONALLY from a distance.  

hmmm can I afford a camera?

I need a new phone and was actually looking at getting one that can do good video and of course have a huge memory, but I wouldn't feel happy about leaving it in case gets knocked over.  Would want to get something that I can clamp to a seat or something like that.

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Cool thing about vloggin, bloggin diaries etc. is that the person making them also forgets what they thought and then ends up repeating mistakes or just not sure what happened in the past.  I have read a few times back what I have said about things such as this being too slow or that being too fast etc....  Yet, looking into the details I can spot things, angles on past thoughts that might not be so true or at least not totally true.

As mentioned earlier, 99% of my diary has not been on recorded competition against strangers.  Not knowing what they do, how they serve, myself feeling much less confident in my own ability to keep it on the table and be competitive these days makes me want to fall back to be fractionally safer = possibly slower being better.  

Why even though the fast equipment feels better for defending away from the table, it doesn't give me the same love where all points start.  Nearer the table.

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I am right now gluing my red H2 38 to the opposite side of the black H2 38 on the Versal.  Something feels kind of right in a greater majority of strokes when under pressure with the whole set up slower right now.  I also was finding that by constantly twiddly the 38 & 40 degrees I was never settling on one way is better.  Hopefully not having the choice will help me get in tune with it on both sides to a greater extent.

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Going to call this G1 generation 1 and G2 generation 2 solely on the packaging of the rubbers.

G1 has clearly more defined crosspattern on the sponge. compared to the G2.  G2 feels a bit softer when finger testing.

 

And man she has made amazing advances... I am just blown away by her blocking skills mostly.

It's like I got a new robot/return board for free.  

I know it's not the same as against strong players but I have been grooving my controlled looping with the primorac carbon H2 38 an hour a night with her.   

I can do occasional attacks and she blocks them with ease.  

Can't describe my love for her not giving up on the sport and what it means to me on so many levels.

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Superficially the primorac carbon with the H2 38 feels so much more dimensional than with the Versal.  

Most the practise I felt like everything was off.  Played a few games at the end and I lost 2:1 in very close games.

Main thing was that our perceptions of my playing were very different.  

Eric said that I am playing better, faster most the time and he wasn't able to attack so much so he was forced to be blocking much more.  He said my FH was more consistant and much improved!?

That's to some extent odd for me, because I felt I also missed way more attacks and blocks than I usually do, even on my strong side.  I can see his point that he was forced to block more because I have sped up the game and putting on the pressure more... I guess he was just blocking because he had to since what I felt was looping and just hitting into the ball as I had to was putting him on the back foot more.  

For me just flat hitting with my FH doesn't feel dangerous but maybe it was at least down the line at his BH mostly, so he may have seen an easy avenue there close?

I must admit when I choose to control the game I can easily, even if it feels to me like nothing since I am not doing a big action, it is perceived as something coming back fast regardless of its spin....  The Primorac feels so good flat hitting back from a distance, it's a safe shot with a large area to make sure not to miss... (kind of pointless having tacky rubber, but it tacky is good for grazing close up)  

hmmmm

Although I got some good attack loops in, they were much less than I think I got in the last time I played.  

Not sure how much I trust Eric on his opinions since he is quite biased to having to be an offensive player.  I respect the reasoning,  but I have beat him past while playing with slower equipment.  

The noticable thing too was that when I blocked they went long much more than in the past... which are points on the table and his opinion is you just got to get used to it ....

And it was the same today for blocking from near the table.

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Yesterday Wednesday there were only a few people at the club...  Today it packed.  I got a bit under 3 hours in and I did not feel tired.  (Had a good small breakfast of rye bread and salad and chees.)

Played a lot of players.

Again I started off a bit worse than I thought I should practising rallying with Michael.  We finished off with 2 games 1:1.  

Backhand power loop/driving started getting stronger the longer I played.

Felt like I had more control against my constant soft looping against Dennis (the LP only at the table player)  Felt like I got a good groove there.

Finished the session off against Simon.

No practise with him, just straight into games.

I remember the first 3 games I lost straight 11:9 each.  Close enough but he was just flat tapping for position either side of the table in the deep corners so well with that.  

We probably played about 10 games all up and we were pretty even by the end, I guess he might have been one ahead at most.  His comments at the end were kind of similar to Eric's from the previous day.  He was impressed with the consistancy, of the spin but noticably the speed of my backhand shots.  I must agree that the Primorac makes up for the missed blocks by giving me more winners.

My forehand woke up half way through those games on service return attacks and most of those were clean winners.  My FH still sucked on most simple other medium rally stuff.  

I think my FH is good when the ball is dropping lower than table height but terrible at looping higher. For some reason my elbow kicks up or something weird happens in the stroke mechanics and well I just don't move my feet before I start the stroke.  I have improved smashing high balls but not looping the higher than table at all.

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So all up Primorac Carbon can be hard to manage at times but make up for it in clean winners.  

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I do have the Michael Maze I have been thinking about seeing if it might hold more value being somewhere between total offensive and a bit more control.

The weekends are great at the club.  It's busy and lots of higher level players to mix with.  

Apart from the usual crew Dennnis, Jimmy, and less usual (MOddie forgot his name!) I played Ken who uses H3 and Dignics 09c... I always enjoy playing Moddie and players like Ken because they just don't hurt my brain LOL.  Roughly equal two wing loopers that I can just focus on my game with.

I beat Dennis today comfortably, but Jimmy beat me mostly.  I just hate Long/medium pip attackers that do it well and also have spin on the reverse side.   Drives me bananas factoring in angles when he punches.   They are weird because its not really reverse so much just kind remove the spin.

Any how onto the fun part of playing Ken mostly for an hour at the end.  Here's similar to Jimmy in that he plays like 3 nights of fixtures per week.  I only lost one game to him after many, but most the fun was just playing points.

The Michael Maze Hurricane 2 on my backhand is as good as its gonna get.  Still a little getting used to required but the gears are all there.  I ripped winners at the table with it off backspin, and far back from the table absolute spinny bombs.  My forehand was much better too for 'mostly' winner type of shots at the table.  I had multiple attempts at the far from the table winner shot but they all just go monstrously long unless I just do controlled loops back.  From back there I was finding if I want to add more action to the ball than just a controlled shot the insane dwell in my set up kind of leaves me with the only one option of sidespinning as well to bring down the trajectory. = mostly faded inside out.

Their is one other shot that I have not practised or done in a very long time.  And that is the most obvious just flat hitting drive just a little harder than I would usually do in blocking or warm up practise.  Odd that I just haven't tried it in points or games but it started to pay dividends.  Just driving a bit harder with a shorter (unexaggerated) stroke.  This I reckon came from last night when I helped out a little with the juniors and was asked to do it.  So yeah it helped me add another long forgotten dimension.

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All up I am really really happy with the Michael Maze + H2.  No set up will be good at everything, but this one is dam good insane amounts of spin and I would say more than I remember using tenergy 05.

I also tried and have tried pretty much every session to put in a bit of time chopping with it and I find the tackiness and lack of any amazing spring sponge really good for chopping.   

It's great for sidespin pushing too, serving short, slowing the game down when I want too.

Really has everything apart from the ability to slap/punch the ball fast easily....  (fine by me)

If you enjoy changing equipment for its own sake that's great.  But changing in response to a bad day will not prevent you from having future bad days.  That's just a thing that happens. 

Short warm up Eric, I think I got the best of him because he always serves to my bh so not much LP action there unless he attacked and my chop was going well.

won 3:0 games against Spence (we were 1:1 last time with me double inverted)

Spent almost a 1.5 hrs with Michael just playing rally points, was tons of fun.  My backhand was actually hammering it again.  My FH was mostly chopping but I twiddled to practise everything.  No games but I reckon I would beat him.

Last 30 minutes or so constant games against Simon (probably my best person to judge against)

I was tired by this time but no excuses.

He were almost even in games but he would have won one or two more, but some of my games I really destroyed him like 11:2 11:4... none of my losses were that close.  I played mostly without twiddling to see how would go against his strategy to play to my FH or LP side.

I was blocking like 3 or 4 in a row of his strong FH loops.  I could get away with a lot less energy while he was expending tons.....

I would have even better against him if for some reason my bh was missing more than usual.  He is good at strategy so would go wide on my bh if he went there.

All up I don't think me using LP on one side really made a big difference to anything since I always try to do winners with my bh.... It might be more fun to have more types of shots I have to do.

There were some amazing killers I did with the LP as in I made a mistake attacking with them as I would my inverted.  A few rocket zero spin shots and a couple of loops against backspin... But I refuse to do that on purpose so that I do not ruin my inverted style.

Commentary:

Michael thought it totally suited my style to use LP the way I was.  He is mostly a defender like me that loves to move back from the table.  

Simon only said the way I used the LP was more troubling than everyone else he plays who clean blocks everything.   He said I chop down on everything making it hard to know just how much of what is on the ball.  Which is partly true because I was chopping, and flat blocking too.  

As with every advantage there are disadvantages.   I rarely mixed up how to do the shots but there were a few...  

Overall the grubba felt off balance or just not right again playing half the time.  Simon could not block my loops that landed with backhand though.... so yes I could do some slow grazy big action loops that still work with it.  And even from a distance, they not be piercing but they seemed powerfully spinny (although they took great effort)

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I don't see myself playing at a very high level in future.  I don't think I will get to the best I played over 10 years ago because I just don't have the time and body for it.  So my attitude to playing table tennis should not about playing the most winning style only.  It should be about doing what I enjoy.

Playing with the LP over the last couple of days puts a smile on my face often.  And I quote Michael saying after a very long rally "That is what table tennis is about"

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Just bought 

Under $8 AU delivered.

I am not fussed on maximum reversal, more interested in better blocking ability against hard loopers and chopping from a distance.