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To Tame a Fast Blade
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racquetsforsale View Drop Down
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    Posted: 03/17/2012 at 2:32am
What elements of mechanics must one have mastered before one can tame a fast blade?

From my experience:
  1. A really soft hand (loose grip) for serving and the short game.
  2. Really concentrate on brushing more (thinner contact) and hitting less when looping against blocks, drives, and loops.
  3. A lot more acceleration to grip the ball and produce a good arc when opening against underspin.
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4) "Footwork" to be able to use weighttransfer for control.
5)  Good stamina/fitness to keep this throughout a match, tournament.



Edited by mercuur - 03/17/2012 at 6:39am

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6) Multiple hours of training a week so you know each and every shot that you can make with the blade. 
7) you can dumb down the rubber to "tame" a faster blade but meh...
8) Don't buy/recieve/try out faster blades if you can't handle them.  You shouldn't have to "tame" a blade you should have a blade that you can pick up and play with and feel comfortable with no matter what. 
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Rubber selection and thickness has a big impact on how that blade will respond. If you feel it is to fast it probably is for your level and style. It's best to select the proper blade class from the beginning. Any player can play any class of blade it just boils down to what tool works the best. My Donic Power Carbon is a beast with T05, T64, Calibra LT so I put Mark V on it and felt it was still to stiff for looping so I semi retired it and now play with a somewhat slower setup and have much better results. If you plan to keep playing with that blade I say tone it down with the right rubber and it should ok but not optimal for you.
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racquetsforsale View Drop Down
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Frogger,

I actually don't use a fast blade. I alternate using my Persson Power Allround (All-->All+) and Donic Waldner Allplay (Def-->All).

I'm just curious to know what skills the typical club player lacks to control a fast blade. Does it require a more precise or cleaner contact? Does it require a faster swing and more brushing to generate sufficient spin for control because there is less dwell time? And so on.

I've used the same pair of rubbers on the two aforementioned blades and on a Stiga OC. I noticed that with the Stiga OC, I had to swing faster and brush more to grip the ball and create the arc I wanted. For this reason, it was easier to flip and open against underspin with the other two blades. I felt the Stiga OC was more demanding in this way.


Edited by racquetsforsale - 03/18/2012 at 1:06am
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Originally posted by racquetsforsale racquetsforsale wrote:

Frogger,
I actually don't use a fast blade. I alternate using my Persson Power Allround (All-->All+) and Donic Waldner Allplay (Def-->All).
I'm just curious to know what skills the typical club player lacks to control a fast blade. Does it require a more precise or cleaner contact? Does it require a faster swing and more brushing to generate sufficient spin for control because there is less dwell time? And so on.


To use faster equipment you simply need to develop good touch and control for the short game so you are no overhitting everything. Mid distance and greater should be easier as any decent swing will get the ball back fast.

I am of the belief that more speed is the upgrade you make when your consistency is good, but you lose points/games because you don't have enough power. If you are losing because you miss many shots, more speed will make you miss more. Faster gear also makes it harder to learn good technique if you don't have it already.
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It requires thousands and thousands of hours practice, quality practices to be able to convincingly control an OFF rated blade, something most club players don't have and will never have
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Originally posted by racquetsforsale racquetsforsale wrote:

What elements of mechanics must one have mastered before one can tame a fast blade?

From my experience:
  1. A really soft hand (loose grip) for serving and the short game.
  2. Really concentrate on brushing more (thinner contact) and hitting less when looping against blocks, drives, and loops.
  3. A lot more acceleration to grip the ball and produce a good arc when opening against underspin.


Thousands of hours of quality training with a very good coach.

The faster your blade, the more you need to practice smart (each day, each week, each month) to stay in control of it. And even then, importance of the quality of the practice is magnified. Otherwise, the blade will shape your mechanics and you can develop small, wristy strokes to try and contain the blade.

And putting slow rubbers on a fast blade will never really tame it, if only because the baseline speed for the short game/blocking/pushing/flicking will still be faster and less controllable than a slow blade with fast rubbers.


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The most important thing is, stick to one blade. If you are an EJ, then avoid fast blades, cause when using a fast blade, you have to really know your blade and how it works on every shot. I use an Off+ rated blade, I'm not a high level player at all (estimate at roughly 2000 Usatt, more likely to be lower then higher) and I don't have any problems with this blade, but I have used it for more then 3 years now. Practice/play 1-4 days a week.
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Originally posted by Speedplay Speedplay wrote:

The most important thing is, stick to one blade. If you are an EJ, then avoid fast blades, cause when using a fast blade, you have to really know your blade and how it works on every shot. I use an Off+ rated blade, I'm not a high level player at all (estimate at roughly 2000 Usatt, more likely to be lower then higher) and I don't have any problems with this blade, but I have used it for more then 3 years now. Practice/play 1-4 days a week.
 
you are right. to stay with the fast blade is good to feel the blade.
sometimes the problem comes when even doing so a day one faces a tough player to know that still it is needed more control.
 
but there is a point the knowing of a fast blade can pay off enough control. there it is good to stay and not ej.  
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Never let someone tell you a racket is too fast or not enough control for you. 

If you want fast, buy fast!   You learn to control your racket, not the other way around :)
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Originally posted by Swiff Swiff wrote:

Never let someone tell you a racket is too fast or not enough control for you.  If you want fast, buy fast!   You learn to control your racket, not the other way around :)



True to some extent, the problem is that if you have to adapt to your racket, chances are pretty big that you will develop strokes where you are forced to hold back on the power, and this isn't a good thing when you are trying to develop good strokes.
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If you generate a lot of topspin, controlling fast blades are simply not an issue because of the heavy arch that you get. As a looper and someone who can block well, I never found control to be the issue. Giving your opponent easy shots is a much bigger problem at the 1800 level.

That said, I prefer 5-ply wood blades (OFF- to OFF) because of a higher spin to speed ratio. I can actually generate faster attacks with slower blades, so I pick the slower blade, because slower blades are faster. A Stiga Allaround NCT with boosted H3 can drive-kill balls at net height faster than the eyes can see already.


Edited by cotdt - 03/18/2012 at 5:19pm
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Originally posted by Speedplay Speedplay wrote:

Originally posted by Swiff Swiff wrote:

Never let someone tell you a racket is too fast or not enough control for you.  If you want fast, buy fast!   You learn to control your racket, not the other way around :)



True to some extent, the problem is that if you have to adapt to your racket, chances are pretty big that you will develop strokes where you are forced to hold back on the power, and this isn't a good thing when you are trying to develop good strokes.

True, and this is where I find recording yourself play and doing regular self-assessments becomes very useful.  You can tell if you've been holding back by watching yourself play, and correct that through practice.
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For those touch shots, I agree it will just be a matter of more practice. But what I'm trying to get at is the specifics. For example, a person was looping just fine with his ALL blade, then with the same rubbers on an OFF+ blade, he now creates less arc and either dumps the ball into the net or hits it long. Or, he was hitting over-the-table topspin backhands and looping backspin just fine with the ALL+ blade, and now with the OFF+ blade, he again dumps the ball into the net. So what are some of the reasons his swing worked fine with an ALL blade but not with an OFF+ blade?

Cotdt alluded to the necessity of being able to generate adequate spin to offset the lower spin/speed ratio of a fast blade. This seems to coincide with my previous comments regarding the average club player being unable to generate sufficient grip and hence spin with a fast blade.  
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Originally posted by racquetsforsale racquetsforsale wrote:

For those touch shots, I agree it will just be a matter of more practice. But what I'm trying to get at is the specifics. For example, a person was looping just fine with his ALL blade, then with the same rubbers on an OFF+ blade, he now creates less arc and either dumps the ball into the net or hits it long. Or, he was hitting over-the-table topspin backhands and looping backspin just fine with the ALL+ blade, and now with the OFF+ blade, he again dumps the ball into the net. So what are some of the reasons his swing worked fine with an ALL blade but not with an OFF+ blade?

Cotdt alluded to the necessity of being able to generate adequate spin to offset the lower spin/speed ratio of a fast blade. This seems to coincide with my previous comments regarding the average club player being unable to generate sufficient grip and hence spin with a fast blade.  


probably because of the different trajectory of different blades.
only move to a faster paddle when your game asks for it.
this means, when you have very good control and nice shots but you lack that extreme speed when you need it.
also, you should never need to move higher than upper off blades (timo boll spirit, clipper).


Edited by sa01 - 03/18/2012 at 8:30pm
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