penhold vs shakehand

i think he prob means pushing over the table ie as in return of serves in stead of choppoin which is a much bigger strokewith penhold the grip is natural for pushing

Penholders are dying out.

i`m shakehander.

i play penhold personally. i can play shakehand but compared to pen, it is terrible.
and i love reverse back hand lol. some reason it makes me really happy

I don't like shakehand. The crossover thing really frustrates me. It's kinda like approaching a traffic light that's green, but you know it will turn yellow briefly, then red. STOP OR GO? LEFT OR RIGHT? I just don't like getting caught in the middle in life in general. With my grip I can hit anything I can get to.
Anyway, I will declare something here that only me and a couple other people seem to believe . . .

SEEMILLER Grip is almost the same as penholder . . . at least the way i have modified the grip. It's just flipped upside down or downside up.

So, If I switch, it will be to penholder.

What I prefer about penholder compared to standard shakehand is:

No crossover.
STRONGER FH.
Great blocking on BH.
WICKED second BH (RPB).
I like most things Asian and it feels more special to me.
I don't feel like I'm playing a small scale tennis match!!!
Standing way back using tennis strokes is whack!!

I think it mostly depends on what feels right. It's just more special for me to use an exotic grip (by Western standards). If there were lots of Seemiller style coaches around things would be different. And, packing up and heading to China changes things. I have a choice of being very unique there or taking advantage of the great penholder coaching available. Hmmmmm.

I notice that with the penhold grip, closing the paddle face for loops causes the elbow to point backwards. This is in contrast to most bent-arm shakehand forehands, which point the elbow mostly downwards. A more obvious reference point than the elbow is the top of the biceps. They point very much forward when using the penhold grip and upwards when using the shakehand grip.

This brings up another observation. With the shakehand grip, the paddle face can be closed by either rotating the forearm like an axle or by pointing the elbow backwards, kind of like doing the chicken wing (that's imitating the flapping motion of chicken wings, not the "chicken wing forehand"). Pointing the elbow backwards with the bent-arm shakehand FH feels odd and weak, but becomes more natural with a straighter arm.

Do any of you feel more leverage when looping with either elbow position?


Edited by racquetsforsale - 12/09/2010 at 8:54pm

I have some thoughts as I play with both penhold and shakehand, but my penhold is stronger as I play with it more. These are just my opinions.

Edited by cotdt - 12/09/2010 at 9:40pm

To illustrate, here are a couple of images of Boll with the elbow pointing down:

cotdt wrote: I have some thoughts as I play with both penhold and shakehand, but my penhold is stronger as I play with it more. These are just my opinions. As far as forehand loops, penhold gives you more range in that you can use the forehand closer to your chest, while away from the the chest the reach is about the same as the shakehand forehand. For serves, penhold is clearly superior as you can use more wrist action to generate more spin. You see this when you compare the top penhold and shakehand players, and also in intermediate players. Shakehand is better for chopping, especially with the forehand. Shakehand BH has a little more reach than both kinds of penhold BHs. Traditional Penhold backhand is superior to RPB and Shakehand BH for close to the table play. Away from the table it loses its offensive power but still great for chopping. With traditional BH, you can vary the angle and spin a lot more, you've got a lot more options, and it's easy to be consistent in it. Overall penhold gives you more options and is better in close-to-table play. I feel it is better overall, hence why penholders have been dominating the Olympics despite having a lot fewer penhold players. These are just my opinions and in the real world the better player will win regardless of the grip.

totally agree!

Nice observation racquetsforsale. Looks that when Boll bents his elbow during a stroke (by using his biceps - quite a strong muscle) he achieves an upward acceleration - while in a case of an elbow pointing backward this will result in a forward acceleration. This would explain different shot characteristics of both techniques: more archy, slower loop in a "euro stroke" and faster, flatter shot in a case of "straight arm" movement. In euro-stroke you would achieve a topspin effect by using your biceps, while Chinese rather use a wrist for this purpose (biceps adds to forward speed)

Edited by Krantz - 12/11/2010 at 5:14am

Shadows wrote: Ooo. this thread. I've switched to shakehand. Definitely much easier to learn, more consistent backhand and a stronger loop. Serve is not as easy/good as pen, shortgame has less control for dropping short/flicks and pen still has a much faster close table fh loop. I would say overall SH is better unless you can get specialized pen coaching though :)

Krantz wrote: Shadows wrote: Ooo. this thread. I've switched to shakehand. Definitely much easier to learn, more consistent backhand and a stronger loop. Serve is not as easy/good as pen, shortgame has less control for dropping short/flicks and pen still has a much faster close table fh loop. I would say overall SH is better unless you can get specialized pen coaching though :) Funny thing, I’m considering switching to penhold for a while. A total of 15 min of me playing penhold so far was a terrific experience. Most of my RPB's just beautifully landed where i wanted (including the very first one in my life) and forehand drive is a dream. I could see a nice potential in serves, although all i could do was simplest underspin so far. I like that it keeps me on my toes, I was starting to get lazy with shakehand strokes.

racquetsforsale wrote: It's unnatural for me to point the elbow down like Boll does for such a high ball, yet most if not all "European" bent-arm forehands appear to share this feature. (Add the bent wrist and I guess you have the "chicken wing" FH, kind of like Samsonov's) I venture to say that pointing the elbow down like so is taught or accidentally discovered when without instruction. As such, it must have technical/biomechanical value. But what is it? I do notice I can accelerate my forearm faster and more easily with the elbow down than with the elbow back, when trying to emulate Boll's bent-arm swing.