Blog entries from wingspan

Stellangie camp: hardbat style

David Bernstein — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:30:47 +0100

Stellan and Angie were at the Alameda club again for another three day camp over the weekend. I was able to attend only one day this time so at least I got in two good sessions with them. Unfortunately I can't say the same for my two training partners who gamely put up with with my hardbat ineptitude for 2.5 hours each. Tragically it was a father-son duo who otherwise probably enjoyed the camp very much. The basic problem I had, other than my general incompetence with ...

Back in Action

David Bernstein — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 14:08:47 +0100

Thanks to my physical therapist and a lot of exercises that my back has never experienced before my nerve has recovered enough so that I'm able to play again without symptoms. My brain of course has effortlessly shifted gears from being worried about never playing again and permanent injury and disability to being equally worried about the exact location of my wrist on the backswing of my backhand. Brains are just dumb that way I guess.

Last night at the Berkeley club was t...

Hardbat: What I've learned so far

David Bernstein — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:33:08 +0100

I've been knocking around with the hardbat for several months now and I've reached the point where I can warm up fh-fh without hitting the first 10 balls straight into the table. That's good progress for me.

What I've learned along the way:

1. I was never really bending my knees. Hardbat involves a lot of chopping away from the table and to chop a low ball you have to bend your knees just to reach the ball. Chopping a ball a foot off the ground means fo...

Now I know

David Bernstein — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:28:49 +0100

Why they call it hardbat: because it's hard and driving me batty. And whoever told me that "playing hardbat will be good for your sponge game" was also nutty as a fruitbat. Everything is different with a hardbat, all my sponge habits just get me into trouble. Example: I'm programmed to attack all long balls regardless of spin. But with a hardbat attacking low balls is only recommended if your idea of net clearance is a hair width or less. You just can't put enoug...

Our one and only world singles champion

David Bernstein — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:26:17 +0100

Some rare footage of Ruth Aarons in exhibition action. America's only singles world champion (1936, also declared 1937 co-champion in 2001).

A veritable treasure trove of old time table tennis action can be found here (thanks to Larry Hodges for this link).

More Hardbattiness

David Bernstein — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 05:41:29 +0100

My nerve has unpinched itself enough that I felt ok to play again tonight. So I waltzed in to the Berkeley club after a several month absence from RRs and took my prodigious hardbat skills and 1100 rating to table 6. My sponge racket is in pieces and I've been hitting only with the hardbat with the guys at work for the past month so what the hell.

It was a learning experience. At work we just smack balls around, no serving and receiving, no pushing, no short game stuf...

Good hardbat footage is hard to find

David Bernstein — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:20:36 +0100

Here's one of the better ones on youtube. Notice how hard the smashes are and how different the forehand technique is from that of a sponge player's.

Hardbat Rubbers

David Bernstein — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:46:46 +0100

My hardbat experiment is now what, 10 days old? And I've already tried three rubbers: Yasaka A-1-2, Gambler Peacekeeper OX, and Valor Premium. The three rubbers are surprisingly different in feel and in play. In the picture below the Yasaka is the dark red one, peacekeeper the light red one and the Valor rubber is black. The differences are apparent. The Yasaka rubber has the widest pips while peacekeeper has smaller pips and they're more widely spaced. Bot...

Hardbat II

David Bernstein — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:01:39 +0100

I've had several sessions with my "hardbat" at work and you know it just gets more bizzarre every time. How do you serve with this thing? What even constitutes a serve? What would be a heavy chop serve with an inverted racket has such a mild amount of underspin that it sometimes comes out as topspin after the second bounce. You have to really really whack the ball hard to get any side or underspin on it. On the forehand forget using a locked wrist and angling t...

Hardbat

David Bernstein — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:10:31 +0100

The trip down the rabbit hole goes deeper. How is it that in six years of playing table tennis I never picked up a hardbat? Not even once. Seriously? And you call yourself a player. The best sponge players play hardbat and they're good at it. Why? Because they're animals that's why. If I were an animal I'd be a fat little corgi and that's why it's taken me so long to pick up a hardbat.

In any case my first version was simply BBC triflex s...

On the mend

David Bernstein — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:17:32 +0100

It's been roughly 8 weeks since I've been to a club and hit a ball but it seems like a million years. With physical therapy and other treatments the nerve in my neck seems to be a bit less squished than it was a month ago but it still gives me trouble most of the time and the specialist say it's best not to do any vigorous exercise until the symptoms go away completely. Which at the current rate feels like another 6-8 weeks, i.e., another million years, before I get to play a matc...

Sidelined

David Bernstein — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:07:16 +0100

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 eno...

Goal for 2012, part I

David Bernstein — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:28:51 +0100

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...

Penhold Update

David Bernstein — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:06:36 +0100

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 playe...

Fifth Penhold Round Robin

David Bernstein — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:34:01 +0100

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 versio...

Second Penhold Round Robin

David Bernstein — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 05:22:17 +0100

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. ...

First Penhold Round Robin

David Bernstein — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:22:00 +0100

Since it's generally agreed that one training session in sufficient to learn anything I decided to play penhold at the Alameda Sunday round robin today. I was the top player on table 2 so luckily my competition wasn’t too strong. I still lost all five matches but did win four sets total on the day, and would’ve won a handful more if not for some deuce losses.

The amazing thing again was how normal it all felt. Naively you would expect everything to be ...

Penhold experiment

David Bernstein — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:06:54 +0100

I haven't written an entry in a while because well things have been in a bit of a doldrum lately. Being president of the Berkeley club has taken some of my table tennis energy away from playing and the cancellation of the Tuesday night RR at Alameda means I've been reduced to one RR a week.

So to shake things up I've decided on a three month experiment with the Chinese penhold grip. There's really no conceivable reason in terms of improving my playing level for doing this a...

Hitting the ball too hard

David Bernstein — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:46:06 +0100

Regardless of style intermediate players have a lot in common and one of them is that we tend to hit the ball too hard too often. And by too hard I mean not in terms of velocity but in terms of the percentage of maximum power we're capable of. It's kind of a cliche that top players never hit at 100% power, in fact they probably never go above 75 or 80%. Us intermediate players however often go to the limit whenever we can. The inevitable result being of course a lot of...

Tenergy64 Revisited

David Bernstein — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:17:47 +0100

After five months with T05 on both sides I decided to have a brief T64 interlude. It's just as I remember from last year: lower throw and a more crisp feel than T05. Slightly lighter than 05, a little bouncier but not noticeably faster on power loops. The main differences though are that it blocks so much better but lacks the pure massive spin looping craziness of T05. After a week I couldn't wait to go back to 05 on the forehand but decided to keep 64 on the backhand ...