Shenzhen Ping Pong: SuperCPen

Recently I've been tinkering with a traditional Chinese-style penhold blade to better support the reverse backhand I've been learning and practicing with. (See here and linked posts therein.)

Attempting to improve my reverse backhand further, basically, I took a regular Chinese penhold blade and epoxied a thumb grip for stability and power for the backhand loop and over-the-table backhand wrist open. (You can see the epoxied support in the picture to the right.)

Details of that experiment can be seen here. Initial indications were very encouraging.

SuperCPen is Dai Feng's idea. (See his website here.) He offers a more much professional-looking solution. And to my eyes, it's a considerably more labor-intensive and adventurous modification than my humble experiment.

He had mentioned to me that he had tried something like a thumb grip before, so I was very curious to see how far Dai Feng had taken the concept.

I was also intrigued about what his modification has to offer someone like me who has been training for the reverse backhand, but also occasionally use the traditional backhand. Moreover, although I don't have any grip problems with the forehand, an improvement there would always be welcome. So I ordered and sent him a brand-new Butterfly Amultart to modify.

[The traditional backhand still offers an advantage for certain common situations in game play. If the ball is looped to your forehand/backhand crossover point, if the incoming ball is a surprise, it's possible to react faster with a traditional block because there is no crossover point.]

I've never seen a paddle quite like it. (See the picture on the right.) Its sheer width and large surface area permits support for the thumb, and also allows maximum surface area contact with the index finger and the fleshy part of the hand between the thumb and index finger.

It also cut a 10g off the blade weight; doesn't sound significant but percentage-wise, that's quite a change: 86g down to 76g.

The thumb achieves its support by rotating the blade in the hand until the thumb contacts the middle or centerline of the new handle. This re-angling of the blade makes the SuperCPen concept unique.

[To get an idea of how different: compare the placement of the thumb here with that of the first picture above.]

By comparing the SuperCPen picture above to the initial pictures below, you can see I've shaved away some material from the beveled top to provide a large, flat angled area for the thumb. (I've also removed a bit of material from the index finger side since I got a blister first time I played with the SuperCPen.)

In contrast to the beveled top, the reverse side is completely flat with a cork sheet glued for good grip.

Initial impressions? Well, I don't have any problems with the traditional Chinese grip. And my thumb modification already improved on that for the backhand, so I didn't expect that much more from the SuperCPen. But what about the forehand?

I've only had the SuperCPen for a weekend. I did some ball drills with it. And I played a few matches, switching back and forth between the SuperCPen and a traditional blade nearly every game. My impressions? It's early days yet but here you go:

Pluses:

• It's definitely good for the reverse backhand stroke.
  Stability is assured. Removing some of the beveled top surface seems to provide a flat thumb area seemed to improve it further. Compared to my thumb modification, the SuperCPen is as good (or better).

• You gain leverage for power on both sides. Your wrist ends up further away from the blade. A bit like the effect of a longer handle.

Minuses:

• Over the table backhand topspin/sidespin flick, the traditional block, and the reverse side small counterloop are definitely not as good.
  The simple reason is that I cannot achieve the same rotation as easily with the wrist.
  It could be a lack of wrist flexibility with the SuperCPen or the fact that the wrist rotation point is further away from the ball contact point: the "long lever" effect. You can easily test your wrist flexibility by closing the distance between your index finger and thumb to zero and then cocking the wrist back. And then check that against having the thumb and index finger further apart. There is a significant difference in my opinion.
  Mitigating against this: let me point out there is a rudimentary video on Dai's website for the "wrist turn" backhand, and also documentation for a "control" grip.

• As for the forehand loop, I found the SuperCPen a bit awkward. Grip was solid, but as I mentioned earlier, I don't have any grip problems with the regular Chinese-style blades. No net improvement felt.

• Push. I found I had less control with the push due to the long-lever effect. I didn't experiment with switching to the control grip just for this shot.

• Serve. Inferior experience due to less wrist flexibility with the SuperCPen.

I'd like to emphasize that some of these problems may go away with more playing time as I adjust to the angling imposed by blade. (Also, my wrist became fatigued after about an hour.)

[Clearly there is some adaptation involved. Initially, I was losing games against the (same) opponent with the SuperCPen that I was winning with a regular Chinese-style blade. Towards the end, I was able to win with it too but not to the same comfort level.]

For comparison, here is the SuperCPen and my modified blade side by side:

[Ignore the short pips rubber illustrated above. I don't use short pips. I loop with Tenergy 05.]

And my modified blade superimposed on to of the SuperCPen.

Update

I felt the grip was rather uncomfortable and I never got really used to it. So I converted the Amultart SuperCPen into a paddle equivalent to the thumbgrip Amultart shown earlier in this blog entry. Meanwhile, I sent Dai another new paddle, a Butterfly Innerforce ZLC to be modified into a SuperCPen.

After a week or two playing with the Innerforce ZLC SuperCPen exclusively, I managed to hurt my index finger (bruise near tip and first joint pain). It eventually became too painful to stroke freely and overcompensation gave my wrist a bit of an overuse injury too. I stopped and went back to the thumbgrip-modified Amultart SuperCPen. Before stopping, I shaved the SuperCPen down to 50mm width to see if that helped. Unfortunately, I still had problems executing my strokes without pain. There could be morphological reasons for this.

For posterity, here is my last video with the SuperCPen executing the reverse backhand (in some pain):

The positioning of the fingers on the SuperCPen:

When I went back to my thumbgrip paddle, the index finger pain went away almost immediately, and the wrist felt under less strain.

At the time of writing, I am playing with the thumbgrip paddle (which plays conventionally but with better grip) and have sent the Innerforce ZLC SuperCPen to be modified into a SuperCPen (size S) - which was not available at the beginning of this experiment. When my injury is healed, I will try the Innerforce ZLC SuperCPen S. Meanwhile, I will try to re-discover and re-balance my strokes with the thumbgrip paddle.

Shenzhen Ping Pong: the penhold grip

In table tennis, the penhold (or spoon) grip is the less common of the two major ways in which to grip the paddle. The self-descriptive shakehands grip is dominant in modern play. Shakehands offers particular advantages for two-winged attack that the traditionally one-sided penhold grip lacks, requiring instead excellent footwork to compensate.

However, in the last couple of decades, innovation in the form of the reverse (side) backhand has allowed modern penhold to compete with the backhand loop of the shakehands grip. In previous relevant entries in this blog, I have documented my attempts to acquire that reverse penhold backhand.

I (un)lucked into the penhold grip by accident. Many decades ago, someone with good intentions gifted me a Chinese-made, one-sided Double Happiness penhold paddle of the kind sold in department stores. It had short pips-out rubber on one side and merely painted wood on the other. Because of a grip size difference, blades for penhold and shakehands also typically have different handles: in particular, penhold handles are too short to hold comfortably with the shakehands grip. As they say, the rest is history: I'm stuck with penhold.

An interesting fact about the human wrist joint is that it has a remarkably limited range of motion. The wrist is really only capable of a limited amount of natural rotation (relatively unstressed) about the cylindrical axis. You can rotate the hand relatively far clockwise but not very far at all anticlockwise (without co-opting the elbow). The hinge at the base of the palm allows the hand to tilt (or "cock") forwards or backhands in addition to the rotation. Furthermore, it's abundantly clear that there is considerable variation in the degree of flexibility exhibited by different players. Small changes in how one grips the paddle can mean large differences in available paddle angle. And differences at the wrist can require (undesirable) larger compensatory differences at the elbow and shoulder. A little sad perhaps, but I can safely report I made it from absolute beginner to 2100 level in the 1990s without really knowing how hold a penhold paddle properly.

Although improvements have been forthcoming, I still cannot state with certainty that I know how to hold the paddle correctly. Having said that, I believe the correct way is to grip the paddle between the thumb and the back three fingers. Obviously, the handle fits in the valley between the thumb and index finger (section 2). But aside from that, a range of subtle but significant adjustments seems possible. The index finger is free to close around the handle or relax and slide away from the center of blade, therefore widening the grip to achieve a more vertical paddle angle when the reverse backhand is deployed. Straightening the back fingers a bit (at least the middle finger) also seems to help with the reverse block/punch stroke. Rotation of the wrist clockwise about the cylindrical axis of the forearm is also critical to helping keep the reverse penhold open and aligned parallel to the table endline. (Otherwise, it seems the natural resting angle points perhaps 45 degrees too far to the right.) In terms of the forehand stroke, straightening the back fingers seems detrimental to a natural followthrough and therefore achievable power. (I find its effect can be felt as awkwardness at the elbow.) One must either fix on a compromise position or be able to execute subtle shifts in finger positioning on the fly. Experimentation is necessary, plus (as I mentioned earlier) some people have much greater wrist flexibility than others.

As for the paddle, the Chinese handle itself seems largely standardized between manufacturers. (The Japanese/Korean and twiddler penhold handles are another topic entirely.) I have made some measurements with calipers that seem to confirm relative standardization. Comfort and fatigue are especially critical issues for reverse backhand penholders who need to put rubber on both sides of the paddle. The resulting paddle is oftentimes nearly as heavy as shakehand paddles, despite having a shorter handle.

For example, here is the Chinese-made Sword blade I've been playing with since I resumed the game until very recently. I find this handle extremely comfortable with minimal customization. It weighs about 188g complete. Only change has been to smooth the sharp edges at the neck of the paddle on both sides. Of course, comfort is individual, given possible variation in hand size.

I recently switched to a Butterfly Amultart blade. This blade is heavier and much faster than the Sword. I weighed two samples at 94g and 90g, respectively. Incidentally or not, it seems to partner Tenergy 05 extremely well (as long as one has the skill level to handle the extra speed, somewhat debatable given my circa 2100 level of play). Outwardly, the unmodified handle is dimensionally extremely similar to the Sword but I found it "too big" and strangely uncomfortably.

After a few weeks of trying to get accustomed to the Amultart blade, I had to carefully modify the handle (over a period of several days) using a Dremel tool to "thin" the center section down to 25.4mm to comfortably accommodate the knuckle area (shown as section 1, top picture) and thumb. I also had to "scallop out" the underside of the handle (for section 2, top picture). Initially, I was puzzled by this. But experiments with an identical Butterfly handle with a thinner center section confirmed to me that the extra core thickness of the Amultart blade was responsible. We're talking just a few mm, but the differences in grip feel substantial and significant. (Incidentally, that other blade was a penhold Innerforce ZL Carbon, which is lighter and plays slower than Amultart, but seems to be another stellar offering from Butterfly.)

Modifications are shown in detail below (1: top/side, 2: top, 3: side, 4: underside).

Note: I have included a small cut out for the thumb on top of the blade.

Update

There exist penhold blades with special handles designed to facilitate use of the reverse backhand. I am grateful to those who brought my attention to the Gushi (古氏) and Sanwei (三维) designs below.