Stop Screwing Around and be Faithful to One Paddle

I played quite a bit of table tennis last week. I am go to the club twice a week, and I play three nights a week at the office. I have been busy. I am never been bored because I always use different paddle or different rubbers to try out. However, last week, I lost 5 games by 2 points.
The quick reply is that I would gain two points by simply playing with one paddle instead of always adapting to a different paddle. Sometimes I have taken four paddles to the club and played with all four.
After much thought, I decided that I would only play with my 729 Bomb+Reflectoid+Pogo 0X LP. I find playing with LP is more difficult than playing with anti, but the last few days, I have concentrated on getting to know the LP to do BH topspins and block.
There are many similarities between anti and LP, and some of the anti-skills have carried over to the LP. One thing I know is that I am no PushBlocker, but I do intend to hit BH drives and chop whenever appropriate instead of just push and block.

Last Sunday, I played with a Chinese LP player that uses LP on his FH. He uses Palio LP with a 1mm sponge. It doesn’t have the strong spin reversal as 0X does. I found that I could get his LP balls back without much problem using controlled topspin.

What I had problems with, is when he hit the ball hard. I couldn’t simply block like I usually do. I had to chop or do a distance FH push to get the ball back, but my instinct is to block, and they would take a dive.

More to learn

I gave the Chinese player my LP paddle to play with. I could tell the difference in the amount of spin reversal. There was much more spin reversal than when playing against the Palio LP 1mm. Still, the Pogo LP spin reversal wasn’t that bad until he hit the ball harder, and these often went into the net.

If I have time, I lift the balls with a controlled loop. When I don’t have time, I get into trouble. I have to figure that out. The Chinese LP player said my paddle was ok but slow for him. If I wanted more speed, I should try the 0.6mm Pogo.

I was thinking today during practice when I hit topspins back from the table they are very slow. However, if the LPs were any faster, I wouldn’t block at the table. I have not practiced hitting balls with my BH when over one meter from the table.

Hopefully, I don’t have to do that much at the club. I am getting much better at blocking and pushing, and handling serves with the LP. I now try to place the ball instead of getting the ball back.

The Chinese LP player also wanted to try out my 563 MP 1.5mm. I had previously removed the Yasaka Anti Power from my Samsonov Alpha and replaced it with 563 MP 1.5mm the week before.

While replacing the BH rubber, I notice that the H2 Neo was also coming off, so I removed it. Instead of putting it back on, I put on an old sheet of 1.5mm Scramble that I used last summer to see the difference between the Mark V max and H2 Neo. The paddle had a new feel.

On Thursday, I thought I did well, but the competition wasn’t very strong. The Samsonov Alpha+Scramble+563 MP is now more of a hitters paddle, and the 563 MP was faster than the Scramble.

At first, I used the Scramble as the FH, but later I used the MPs on my FH. I could still get topspin on the ball, and it made counter drives easy. The 1.5mm sponge made the MP fast, but nothing tricky. No spin reversal or wobbly balls.

The rubber is simply fast and not as susceptible to incoming spin. 563 MP. It doesn’t block near as well as Reflectoid. The Chinese LP tried out my 563 MP to see what he could do with it. He could block after a little practice, but that is no big deal. He said it takes a long time to become good with MP, and I should have a 1mm sponge.

I got more stuff than I have time to use now, even though I am playing much more. I will put the other paddles away and stick with the LPs and see if being faithful to one paddle will improve my consistency.