What rubbers for flexible blade?

My Perkosan blade is flexible. Speed is around 8 on btty scale. I use unglued bryce fx 1.9 on fh and glued(sometimes) sriver fx 1.9 on bh (dont like low throw on glued bryce fx). This combo is very good for looping(consistent, although quite slow and easy to block) and good for blocking (but one where you go slow through the ball). Not good for flat killing of serves and weak loops. Can I add this hitting precision and maybe sharper blocking by choosing proper rubber, without sacrificing looping feeling too much? Slightly harder rubber, or softer but faster? Prefer sg effect.

Thanks.

Flexible blade - flexible rubber very good combination.

Flexible blade soft rubber is relatively easy for the opponent because of the long ballcontact you can't do much with tiny movements. Easy to use easier to play against. Harder sponge and slight tack means you can have a higher throw by brushing but also lower throw if you hit flat or block.
Total weight of rubber can be too low or too high with flexible blades. If it,s too low it,s difficult to generate spin you can,t use the blades strength as much then. Too heavy the flex can start to be uncontrolled.

My advice would be to learn use harder sponge on fh it,s a technicque thing but it will help you develop that technicque (better technicque) making the fh eventually stronger softersponge is less demanding but if there is no demand on you're technicque you also develop "lazy technicque". To learn to use (somewhat) harder sponged fh rubber a rubber that still allows some dwell (not too fast) on a  flexible blade is the best . You could try a black inspirit quattro 2,0 on 40 sponge on fh for instance or maybe giant dragon Taichi/Karate soft for more speedglue effect.
These have a very slight tack to being highly grippy (black versions often are a bit better in this ) and offer decent dwelltime for strong/spinny slow loops. Topsheet is somewhat similar to bryce topsheet but better tack/grip and sponge is better without glue also, after a break in period of a few weeks it develops a slight klick sound.

Chinese players using flexible blades go from the idea of more powerfull (heavier) fh rubber and quicker lighter bh rubber. They often use nittaku or stiga rubbers (these branches have a relatively high part of their sales in china) . If you look up in the rubber mass database you can see almost all their rubbers are allrelatively light even with medium or harder sponges.
Mendo mp for instance has a firm sponge (oftenc ompared with bryce if you search old reviews) but is as light as sriver fx with a more soft sponge.

The weight difference is for a big part in the topsheet. For bh a firmer sponge with a thin topsheet still can feel soft for looping. The thinner topsheet makes it easier to make the pips (and with that katapult) work and penetrate the sponge even if the sponge is somewhat firmer it feels relatively soft then. For counters, (punch)blocks, smashes etc the firmer quick sponge helps to have a direct/quick feel.




Edited by tompy - 09/11/2010 at 4:59am

tompy wrote: Flexible blade soft rubber is relatively easy for the opponent because of the long ballcontact you can't do much with tiny movements. Easy to use easier to play against. Harder sponge and slight tack means you can have a higher throw by brushing but also lower throw if you hit flat or block. Total weight of rubber can be too low or too high with flexible blades. If it,s too low it,s difficult to generate spin you can,t use the blades strength as much then. Too heavy the flex can start to be uncontrolled. My advice would be to learn use harder sponge on fh it,s a technicque thing but it will help you develop that technicque (better technicque) making the fh eventually stronger softersponge is less demanding but if there is no demand on you're technicque you also develop "lazy technicque". To learn to use (somewhat) harder sponged fh rubber a rubber that still allows some dwell (not too fast) on a  flexible blade is the best . You could try a black inspirit quattro 2,0 on 40 sponge on fh for instance or maybe giant dragon Taichi/Karate soft for more speedglue effect. These have a very slight tack to being highly grippy (black versions often are a bit better in this ) and offer decent dwelltime for strong/spinny slow loops. Topsheet is somewhat similar to bryce topsheet but better tack/grip and sponge is better without glue also, after a break in period of a few weeks it develops a slight klick sound. Chinese players using flexible blades go from the idea of more powerfull (heavier) fh rubber and quicker lighter bh rubber. They often use nittaku or stiga rubbers (these branches have a relatively high part of their sales in china) . If you look up in the rubber mass database you can see almost all their rubbers are allrelatively light even with medium or harder sponges. Mendo mp for instance has a firm sponge (oftenc ompared with bryce if you search old reviews) but is as light as sriver fx with a more soft sponge. The weight difference is for a big part in the topsheet. For bh a firmer sponge with a thin topsheet still can feel soft for looping. The thinner topsheet makes it easier to make the pips (and with that katapult) work and penetrate the sponge even if the sponge is somewhat firmer it feels relatively soft then. For counters, (punch)blocks, smashes etc the firmer quick sponge helps to have a direct/quick feel.

Interesting advice, I'd of course like to have setup like chinese players, but I'm pretty sure I dont have technique for this. Maybe in future. Although...I even now use lot of body twist during fh shots (I saw it from Ma Long on you tube   , or maybe because other way I cant make the ball goes on the other side of net ) although my soft unglued rubbers cant produce much effect from this, maybe chinese rubbers could.
I also agree for tiny movements you said, for example flip, now I have feeling that I have to catch the ball with rubber , then to pull ball on the rubber for some time until it leaves bat, so my movements are very long, which affects recovery time after shot.

Once I tried somebody's freshly glued hurricane 3. It was very good. I, lets say, know both "(" and ")" movements for chinese and european fh, more like chinese, but I dont have fast legs to be on time on ball for chinese one.
Do you think chinese rubber would be better with my flexible wood blade, or with Waldner carbon senso?

I have old bigger head, very flexible blade and can confirm what was said from tompy. With light relatively hard sponge - best combo on FH cause you already have catapult and you don't want soft bouncy rubber. I have Stiga Boost TP on mine and i'm sure that other hard sponge rubbers from Stiga will work very well also. H3 for example don't work - it becomes too slow and heavy.