Tone is in your fingers
Eddie Van Halen has the tone
I walked into the shop and the staff member picked up the cheapest electric guitar, plugged it into an ordinary amp and started to play some awesome guitar riffs. I was really impressed with the amazing sound and bought the guitar and amp. I took it home and tried to play it. What do you think the result was?
Unfortunately I couldn’t reproduce the sound because I was only a beginner. I’d learnt a few chords on an acoustic guitar but simply did not have the skills to play like the guy in the shop who was a super guitar player who had practiced for years and years.
So what’s my point? Well as one guitar magazine put it – tone is in your fingers.
So how does this relate to Table Tennis?
Give a great guitar player an ordinary guitar and they will still sound brilliant. Give them a guitar with only one string and they won’t be able to produce the same results. I mention this point because if you give a great Table Tennis player a hard bat that can’t generate any spin, it will be the same as giving a musician a guitar with only one string. The resultant play will be pretty bad. So to make a relevant comparison, we need to think of a minimum level of equipment that enables a player to generate some decent spin. With this minimum level of equipment, a great Table Tennis player will still be great regardless of equipment. In fact why don’t you challenge the best player in your club to a match where you swap bats. I bet it won’t change the normal outcome!
So don’t get too focussed on your equipment. Choose a reputable brand, ensure you replace the rubbers regularly to maintain their tackiness. Then simply forget about your equipment for a while. Get on with playing and practicing because that is how real improvement occurs.
I’ve had people ask me, what is wrong with searching for the perfect equipment for my game if that gives me an extra 1% advantage? Well if all things were equal then nothing. But this point of view assumes the time you took searching for the “perfect equipment” could not have been better used. Instead of trying out different combinations of rubbers over 2 hours, you could have spent the 2 hours practicing your serve and actually improving your game. The changing of equipment also takes your focus away from your own technical improvement. When you make a mistake, the focus is immediately on the equipment rather than on your technique. Think about this scenario. You are hitting with a new bat. You hit a forehand into the net. What will your thought be? Yes, probably, “this bat didn’t work properly”. Whereas the truth may be that your technique was incorrect on that stroke. The more you focus on equipment, the harder it is to focus on your own skills. Practising, with focus on your technique, is where you should be spending your time.
I don’t want people to never think about changing the brand or type of rubbers they use but too many people go overboard on this as if it is the solution to their problems. As your skill level improves you may think about moving to a different rubber or blade and that is fine. Once you are at this stage, try out a few different rubbers, pick the combination you like best and stick with it for a while. Remember, improvement results from hard work and not from your equipment.
Tevia
commented on July 13th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Great article.
For me this articles is a little switched around, I can play awesome guitar riffs, and I wish I could be that good on the table!
I see your point though I have been using my same guitar for almost three years now.
Thanks pingskills
BeGo
commented on July 15th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Yes! For beginner, don’t blame the equipment yet, except:
- Those “teacher wannabees” gave You a too restrictive equipment to begin with, e.g., chopper / hitter / looper only bat.
- Those “teacher wannabees” gave You a bat that don’t match Your DNA to begin with, e.g., they gave chopper a hitter equipment
- The equipment is handicapped, e.g. don’t have a rubber on / the rubber should rest in peace already.
David
commented on July 16th, 2010 at 6:03 am
Interesting and VERY true. I’ve played for many years. A while ago, I was working for a large table tennis retailer and had the opportunity to try out just about any blade and any rubber I wanted. I tried blades with titanium, texalium, arylate, all sorts of different types of woods, 1-ply, 3-ply, 5, 7, 9. Fast rubbers, slow rubbers, really tacky stuff, stuff with only mediocre tackiness, hard sponge, soft sponge … and, of course, in any thickness I wanted. In the end, I went back to using my old Yasaka plain wood, 5-ply that I got over 30 years ago. And, while I did switch to a more lively rubber on my forehand (Nittaku Hammon Pro Alpha), I’ve still got good ol’, tried and true Mark V on my backhand. Maybe it’s my own shortcomings, but I play just as well (or just as poorly (I’m a bit short of 2000)) with that combination as with some super high-tech rubber/blade combination. If you can play, you can play; if you can’t … practice. Better equipment isn’t going to make that much difference to most of us.
David
commented on July 16th, 2010 at 6:08 am
Oops - in the above post, it should be “Hammond Pro Alpha”. And maybe I shouldn’t say “better equipment”, but rather “newer, higher-tech equipment.” “Better” is rather subjective - what’s better for you is garbage for me and vice versa. That “2000″ is 2000 in the U.S. rating system.
AK Azad
commented on July 16th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Very good article. and also good comments. i really learned a lot (actually realized) of new thoughts. Once again, thanks.
Scott
commented on July 17th, 2010 at 11:46 am
I have to agree too. I went through a phase where I tried a bunch of blade/rubber combinations. It was interesting, but I certainly spent a lot of time and money. Fortunately I settled on a setup I really like, and I haven’t changed it in some time. I’m sure I’ll always be a little bit tempted by the ads, but I also remember how many rubbers I tried that sounded interesting but turned out to have some fatal flaw.
Satish Shirsath
commented on July 20th, 2010 at 12:44 am
Selection of bat becomes tricky for a defensive player who also likes to hit with back hand and topspin with forehand.A pimpled rubber on back hand side is great for flat hits; but you cannot lift and spin the ball with it.Inverted rubber on back hand is fine for spinning but lacks control. So what is a proper bat for such players?
Alois Rosario
commented on July 21st, 2010 at 8:50 am
You can also ‘twiddle’ or change the bat sides when you are playing. So switch the forehand to the backhand and hit with it.
Milind Patwardhan
commented on July 21st, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Exactly it is human’s brain plays any game with help of the body parts using external tools[equipments] with adopted techniques. It is good article
Ji-Soo
commented on August 10th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Looking back at my table tennis development, my main improvements have come when I’ve just settled on one combination for a long period of time. It’s when I start changing combinations regularly that I get into a rut or start going backwards. It wasn’t because the new combinations were necessarily flawed, but when you start changing equipment regularly you get into a mindset of blaming the equipment first instead of your own technique.