A New Discovery: Part 1

Wow have learned a lot over the last week or so. Coming off a tournament I suppose it was an okay time to try new things. I'm thankful it didn't take long to find out.

I was contemplating switching from my penhold twiddle game to something more mainstream.

Namely:

• Duel Inverted shakehand
• Modern defender shakehand
• Duel Inverted Penhold

I wanted to play a more modern style of gaming thinking it could help me reach a higher level. But there's always a struggle with, "what do you enjoy more?". That being said, I knew duel inverted shakehand was out for me. Just too standard. As someone who likes gambits in chess (non-standard type of play that has aggressive risky openings), unusual metas in RTS games, why would table tennis be any different. It might not be the most optimal always. But clearly I like going against the grain.

So that just left Modern defender & duel inverted penhold. last Sunday I first played an older gentlemen, who I had never lost to. I started out duel inverted penhold. I got up 2-0 and he came back to win 3-2. Highly disappointing but it made sense. He doesn't hit with much spin so you have to create it all your own when attacking. I simply couldn't maintain the consistency I had early on to finish it off. Admittedly, my inverted FH loop game is sub-par.

Then played another defender that night as a modern defender myself. This player is much better than the older gentlemen above. We played two matches and he beat me 3-0 then 3-2. The second game I started to get the hang of it much more and had some nice stuff going. Good loops.

Where did it go wrong?

My goodness my knees & legs were shot after 3 hours of play. Coming from the penhold (think He Zhi Wen's game) close to the table attack to playing 5 feet off the table getting low & chopping, moving in to loop etc. They were just not ready for that. I can get over the muscle soreness. That's fine. But the achy joints was killing me. This modern defender I've also beat several times before with my penhold twiddle game.

I enlisted some help from knowledgeable posters on the TableTennisDaily forum. Filmed myself with various shots and was just underwhelmed by my lack of looping.

A few days later I had a go over lunch with my co-worker over lunch. Kinda the same thing. Feeling defeated I twiddled and started playing him almost entirely with my long pips on the FH & inverted on the BH.

My old self returned. He could do nothing from that point forward. Everything to my FH (serves & otherwise) I could place the ball exactly where I wanted. It simply did not matter what spin was on the ball. Then on the BH I could change up what I hit with. TPB LP? Or RPB inverted.

It led me to a discovery last night that I had been thinking about. This is getting ridiculously long so see that post in Part 2.