Here is one of my club mates playing against an old guy. It was the top 16 match. Winner advances to the top 8. Here is the last set (the whole set, you can't see the score easily though, sorry). It was 2-2, the final set.  Here's the whole match.

Let me know what you think. I'm curious what rating you guys would rate these players, too. I know there's a lot of controversy around this question, but let's just have fun with it. I can tell you more about them later, if you want to know.

I know it's a little long for a single set, but there are a lot of really cool rallies mixed in. Please enjoy!

If you would like more videos, let me know. There were like 30 juniors (elementary school kids) participating at the tournament, too. Most of them beat the senior high school kids as well. Very high level for their age! A lot of them I would lose to, I think.

Yeah, people here all dress up in uniform. I'm one of the only ones who only wear regular Adidas stuff. Maybe it's just me, but I find the table tennis uniforms supppppperrrrr ugly. 

I'll post a few more. I'm at work at the moment using a pocket wifi. There's a typhoon passing by at the moment, so no classes. All students are at home. Us teachers though, still have to come in!!

Yes, please share with us more videos.

Entertaining to watch for sure. Please keep uploading. I'll sub to your channel. thanks.

With setups, we get everything here. People with every combination of long and short pimples, on both forehand and backhand. A lot of people used to use Tenergy until the price hikes recently. 

There are 60k people in my city, which is considered tiny in Japan.

Here's another video. The girl in red is about 10 years old, and her opponent is about 16. It's a little short, and was taken from the top.

Thanks for the videos that enable us to see how the ordinary Japanese rural players play.

But the videos are too short covering only one game.

Do you have the video of a whole match?  (like 3 games out of 5).

I should have some, but most the time I was walking around, recording for a minute here and a minute there. Usually a set (or whatever was left of the set when I got there).

I'll upload some some and post them tomorrow! It's midnight here atm.

I'm uploading all 5 sets from the match in the OP. I'll update the OP to include them when they're done (or after I wake up).

I'll upload another match afterwards too, with a 11 year old girl versing a 16 year old. I liked them because they were also left handed like me <3. I have videos of stronger juniors, too, but only like parts of a set. I also have videos from other tournaments.

Here's most of the match between the 11 and 16 year old. I started recording when they were already at 1 set each.

By the way, these juniors (the ones in the red and white uniforms) are from one of the three or so strongest table tennis clubs in my prefecture. The levels range, of course, but overall they're very strong for their age!

I wish I had videos of the guys playing because I saw them practising the day before, and it was pretty amazing. I arrived late, so the guys all finished already.

Enjoy!

I probably have some videos of 12-14 year old penholders. Most of them would have only been playing for a year or two, so their playing level won't be terribly high.

Here are 2 more videos from a local middle school tournament:

Sorry about the shortness of this video. I started recording mid way through the set. But I really liked the girl's movement. My school also versed that school, and we lost 0-3. All I can say is, I've never seen students with better discipline than those students. I wish I recorded it to show you guys. There were a few schools like them. The way they greet you, the way they line up, bow, everything, was very very cool to see.

Here's another video. The girl in black is really strong. She's one of the strongest middle school students in the prefecture. Check it out.

In both videos, the opponents (girls on the further side from the camera) are using long pimples. In the second video, the opponent is from the same school as the girl I played in my other thread "My Progress Over Time".

It is interesting to see her serving with Black inverted side, then twiddle to red (LP) side to hit,

almost like Zhou XinTong (CHN), penhold with LP on FH,

What brands of rubber does Zhou Xintong use on each side and how much sponge ?

Following info was posted by a forum member, AJay (not sure he is still here, he reads a lot but only post very infrequently.)

We are talking about Japanese player (non-professional) here. The LP penhold magician - 小島(駒大)   of Japan that that rural Japanese girl can try to emulate.

Table tennis is much more popular in Japan than in the U. S.

Then, why not just buy a tt table and play in your house basement?

But table tennis still rules! Never give up!

There's a place to play table tennis every night, usually all within 20 minutes drive. The amount of people playing per night range from like 10 people (smaller clubs) to like 30+ people.

Also, nearly every school in Japan has a table tennis club, so a lot of people continue playing table tennis as a form of exercise when they get older. And because they've been playing for years already in middle and senior high school, usually their playing level is pretty decent.

I really am lucky to be surrounded by so much table tennis.

The FH has to be like 0.6mm or 1mm thick sponge.

Please keep those videos coming.

2 middle/high schools that each has 16 tables. I chose the school that is cheapest to rent.

It is amazing because they are all Butterfly, and not used much.

It seems that was left over from way back, when some team was training for Olympics(Atlanta),

so I guess some lucky schools got them for free!!!!

Hi mickd, thanks for your posts.

I wonder if you had any shakehand Long Pips BH, Short Pips FH players there to show? 

...or any other  LP on Shakehand blade players? It is always hugely interesting for me to watch how different players use the pips with the Shakehand style.

You're welcome, JacekGM. I have a lot of videos of long pips backhanders. Probably about 30% of the middle school girls use it because it's extremely effective at their level of play. A lot less boys use it. Short pips are a lot less common here, especially short pip forehanders.

I'll see what I can dig up when I have more time. I still have to find some more videos of pen holders, too!

I don't know much about the players except the girl in teal in the second video was one of the better players. I think she went top 4. Sorry that the level of play isn't very high. These videos are more for the people who enjoy watching regular people play :)

If indeed it is RPB, then her RPB is more powerful than her FH.

Thanks for the interesting video.  Btw, they are very polite kids.

Enjoy!

======================

Japan's top players on the world stage, there is only ONE penhold player - Yoshida Kaii.

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Yet, look at other tables in the video, there are quite a few penhold players.

mickd, thanks for sharing the video.

Oh, mickd, I am not a girl... I am 50+ man. I am using pips mainly because a few years back I had a "rotator cuff" condition in my playing shoulder that, even after it healed, basically eliminated my BH loop, which BTW has never been good before that happened anyways.

Still, watching LP shakehand play from real-life players is always of interest to me. You are providing us with lots interesting penhold player examples. I bet you can find some SH players, too.

I wish I could see the penholder play when he was young. A lot of people in this area have a lot of respect for him. He also organises a lot of the tournaments in this prefecture.

I screwed up the points and serve once, but it was just a friendly match, anyway! Oops!!

Old vs Young!

The old guys are 52 and 59 years old. I don't know about the young ones. Probably early 20s. This was all I was able to record. I only cut out the time between points. The young guy does a nice backhand at 1:19, and the girl had a big forehand winner at 1:01 and 1:51.

Sorry it's only about 1 set.

This was all I could find on youtube.

Nice, thanks a lot for sharing. Three penholders out of 4 players, that's pretty unusual for me... that's more than all the penholders playing in my area in France haha  Thanks again and do not hesitate to share again, it's always a pleasure !

Here is another video of old vs young. I don't remember their exact ages, but the young guy is about 24 and the old guy is about 63. The old guy uses long pimples on the red side.

Unfortunately, some of the match is missing due to data corruption on my hdd (I've replaced it now).

One one of the points the old guy actually did a cartwheel to return the ball, and won the point. He was out of my camera's range and because of the data corruption, I'm not sure if it was one of the points that got lost. But I think it might have been the one at 3:31. I just remember thinking the young girl laughed after he missed.

Enjoy!

Hey all. It's been awhile since I've posted in this thread!

This is from a local beginners only tournament this week.

Everyone sitting in the picture below is competing!

There are 2 categories. 7th graders and 8th graders. Boys and girls compete separately.

There is a condition though. For 7th graders, they must have been playing table tennis for less than a year. For 8th graders, less than two years. Also, previous top 4 winners can't compete in the following year.

This is some of the girls' finals for the 7th graders (playing less than a year):

And this is some of the boy's semi finals for the 8th graders (playing less than 2 years):

Hope you enjoy!

EDIT: Oh, I should probably mention this, too! Nearly all of the participants would have started playing only 4 months ago (when the school year starts and they join a school club). That said, the ones in the semi finals or higher probably started a little before that.

This year there were 2 little kids playing in the same group as me. They are brother and sister. I'm usually pretty good with kids (it's part of my everyday job) so I got along with them quite well. They were very good players!!

A bit about them. The girl is 8 and the boy is 9. They both started playing 4 years ago. 2 years ago the girl came top 32 in the All Japan Bambi Division Competition (up to year 2). Her brother also went but didn't make it to the main round in the Cub Division (up to year 4), tho he was still in year 3 then.

By chance I ended up playing against the girl. It was a very fun match! Here is a short version of the match. Some random highlights plus the last set. At the start of the last set I played a little more serious though (because I still didn't want to lose hehe).

There were some really nice rallies from her! At one point she even rallied against me from mid distance. I was really impressed! I hope you enjoy!

I also have a video of her versing a fellow club mate in his late 70s. That was also a good match so once I edit the video I'll post it here too!

And I have a video of her brother versing another club mate in his late 70s too. That was also a really good match! :) So look forward to them!

About 70 years difference between the two in age. I forgot how old he was exactly, but I think he was 78, plus or minus a year.

The older guys plays a lot more angles. He uses short pips on his forehand and has long pips on his backhand, but he doesn't really use it (traditional Jpen style of play).

Enjoy!

It even went to the final set deuce. Unfortunately, my camera was having overheating issues, so I missed the middle part of the match.

I hope I can play as well as these guys (the girl and the boy's opponent) when I'm in my late 70s...

I only recorded part of two of his matches. The first one was against one of my club mates (the pushblocker).

My average against the pushblocker is probably 6-7 points per set, occasionally taking sets. He got absolutely destroyed, though.

The second match was against someone I don't know. It was a higher level game. When I started to record it was already the 3rd set, with the set count being 1-1. I don't know how the pen long pips player took a set, but maybe the guy needed time to adjust. By chance I also played the pen long pips guy. I lost 3-11, 10-12, 3-11.

If you guys were to estimate, what rating would you think he would be? Something I'd love to aim for but might be forever out of my reach. Unfortunately those are the only videos I have of him playing. I'm probably between 1800-1900.

Guy looks like a Kim Min Seok wannabe haha...he has very good use of the body and large flowing strokes. 

I would have thought you would be able to beat your clubmate...he doesn't have such a tricky game compared to the resident MyTT pushblocker lol... His serves ain't that tight and he doesn't have a good reverse serve to jam the chiquita. You just gotta play safer shots, simplify the game and attack the deep FH. 

Haha yes stiltt, he is a very good player. It's the same player in the second video. He just changed between games!

I'll keep working on finding that feel to effortless looping. I will get it... someday!!

Yeah. You'd think so but videos of those type of players are so deceiving... I think that looper is just completely outclassing him. The reason why I can't beat him is because I have no ability to finish the point. So many end up being extremely long rallies and he never misses returning any of my balls. He's not as good as pushblocker for sure, but pushblocker is a very high level player.

Also, I'm bad against that style. I do well against inverted players who play with spin.

I think the pushblocker in that first video plays at about low 2000. I've seen him win against some very good players (but this is just my opinion so don't attack on it haha).

As a lefty I thought you had an extreme angle into his deep FH which he would find very hard to defend against haha... Time to work on that killshot!

That is definitely a very unique strategy lol, you must have a very high percentage and powerful loopkill 

You need to look at your spin and placement, spin especially.  If your best shots are coming back, then you are hardly making him adjust. 

I want to know what are usiing ( rubber blade) the best penhold short pips  players in japan

The video you quoted are both shakehand players with the old guy using long pips on the backhand.

ok it would be useful if you can get that info,I know a player who visited a club only penhold short pips in japan