Sometime around December 18th I did something which caused a pinched nerve in my neck.  I'll spare you the details but it involves the phrase "radiating pain," which is never a good thing.  Fortunately it appears to be not very serious and should heal on its own with some physical therapy.  In the meantime I can't do any activity which requires turning my head quickly or abruptly or at an odd angle so ping pong is out.  It may be 2-3 months before the symptoms decrease enough to satisfy the doctors so until then it's just me an my reflex dvds and running the Berkeley club RR once in a while on Fridays.

The break while I recover will be the longest time without playing since I started six years ago which gives me a nice opportunity to think about what I want to do when I come back.  I've been playing and training as a two winged shake hand looper since I started and while (with a few exceptions) I've enjoyed every minute of it my achievements have been modest to say the least.  My natural abilities (if you can call them that) don't seem particularly well suited to this style so perhaps it's a good time to think about trying something else, becoming a chopper perhaps, or a modern defender.  The grass is always greener of course but it's something to think about.

My goal for 2011 was to improve my backhand attack and, in particular, to stop pushing so much on the backhand side while waiting for a forehand opening.  I think I was more or less successful in that insomuch as I broke the pushing habit although the actual attacks themselves are at this point a hit and miss affair.

For 2012 my first two goals are to improve stroke recovery and to videotape some of my matches.  The first one I know can be done since having a slow recovery is simply a habit I seemed to have slipped into.  (Or perhaps it's a remnant of my tennis playing youth where I had the luxury of several seconds between balls.)  When I actually try to recover more quickly I can do it.  Very similar to last year's, this one has to do with breaking a bad habit.  It's also something that will be important and useful regardless of the grip I'm using.

I've been putting off making a video of a myself for a long time but it's something that has to be done if I'm ever going to improve.  It occurred to me recently while watching the nth penhold match on dvd that, while entertaining, these are not the players I should be watching if I want to learn the most about how to improve my game.

Part II of the goals will be announced once I've accomplished or gotten bored with the part I goals or have simply become distracted by something else.

It's been about a month now since I started playing Chinese penhold and although I've tried a few blades and some different rpb rubbers (H3 on forehand exclusively) I haven't talked much about equipment since really it's all irrelevant at this point.  (Is it ever, on the amateur level?)

I have spent a lot of time going through my stockpile of competition dvds and watching all the penhold players and matches that I previously ignored.  I've also watched the local penhold players (of which there are quite a few fortunately) more closely.  One thing I've noticed is the variety of grips, specifically the placement of the thumb.  Some players have the thumb curled up on the blade, around the end of the bevel, and the index finger just poking over the blade edge.  Others have it the other way around, with the index finger curled around the bevel and the thumb hanging alongside.  For me this is the more comfortable position, plus I can grab the bevel to some extent with my index finger which makes the grip feel more secure.

I understand now why penhold players are concerned so much about racket weight.  My current blade is 81g, 8g shy of my sh blade, and the whole set up is 12g lighter (even with H3) but it feels much heavier than my sh set up.  Obviously the reason is that the racket is so top heavy because of the elongated head and the much smaller handle.

I'm enjoying not having to change my grip after serving, which I was never really good at.  And I have at my disposal all those long, super spinny sidespin serves that penholders victimized me with for years.  I've felt perhaps more than a twinge of guilt in using them against sh players though.  I mean, there's no deception involved: you just whack the ball as hard as you can on its side and away it goes.  Rather lethal at my level but I've been using it sparingly since I know the effectiveness is going to drop dramatically when (if?) my level goes up.

Well the bloom is officially off the penhold rose.  After playing a few weeks the initial novelty phase is over and now the real dirty work begins.  What I like about it so far: the forehand somehow feels more natural, for me it's a smoother and easier stroke than the shakehand forehand.  And even though I'm no good at it yet, I can see how the short stuff, dropping and flipping, and general over the table play might end up being better (that is, better than my shakehand version which is to say better than really crappy).  What I don't like about it so far: the whole backhand side.  My rpb is there but it's not a real stroke by any means and the traditional penhold block is nonexistent.   Even when it's developed you can feel that the rpb won't have the power and versatility that the shakehand backhand does.  There's a permanent asymmetry there which is not necessarily a bad thing.  If nothing else I may actually learn to use my feet correctly because of it.

In any case, today at Alameda I lost all 6 matches in my group and honestly I wasn't in any of them.  My combined record after five Alameda and Berkeley RRs is 5-21.  That normally would be pretty grim but hey, I won five matches playing penhold!

I took my massive penhold skills to the Berkeley club tonight and won three out of five matches.  Of course the asterisk there is that I demoted myself 350 ratings points (1450 to 1100) so that I wouldn't get blown off my normal table.  An egregious abuse of presidential power to be sure but I think it worked out for the best for everyone.

Tonight was a bit better than Sunday as I actually was able to hit a forehand loop and won a number of points off forehand winners.  The rpb was still working quite well and I even managed to loop a few underspin balls with it.  Serving was the same, which is to say fine, probably a few notches below my shakehand serves, but nothing to complain about.

The thing that I was really bad at tonight was the short game.  Fortunately at 1100 you don't need much of a short game to win but still it was distressing not to be able to push or drop.  I didn't push much at all tonight, mostly because I got so many long serves and returns, but I did try a few times just for the hell of it and the results were typically disastrous.  Really no control at all, I don't have a feel for it yet.

One funny thing about the rpb is that it is quite difficult to hit a ball down the line.  Almost all my backhands went cross court.  A few times I tried intentionally to go down the line and did manage to hit one or two but mostly they ended up in the middle.  It's easy to get a very sharp cross court angle though and I hit a bunch of those for winners.  Another funny thing about the rpb is just how spinny it is.  I normally don't expect my backhand loops to be blocked long but that happened a lot tonight.  I think I attempted only one traditional penhold backhand all night long.

So that's more or less the level I'm at, 300 points below shakehand.  Not bad really, considering I've been at it maybe 10 days.  One thing that bugs me though is my crappy forehand step around.  I mean you can't be a penholder without a lightening fast forehand step around, it's something you just have to have, otherwise you're just another crappy shakehand player in penholder clothing.  I'm fit enough now to do it, it's just a matter of willpower.