Penhold setup?

It's better to experiment with rubbers and keep the same blade. If you're comfortable with stiga hybrid wood then I suggest you get a penhold version of the same blade. It'll have larger headsize and shorter handle. You can get a Rakza 9 with it. R9 is faster than your current rubber, plus medium throw so that not much adjustment in your strokes will be needed. It'll be heavier than innova ultra light but it's still quite light in comparison to present day tensors. If you want high throw and very spinny rubber then go for donic baracuda, xiom vega pro or yasaka rakza 7. In general, spinny and high throw rubbers are preferred on FH and faster, medium throw like R9 on BH

You don't need to glue rubbers by yourself. You can get it done at the shop where you buy your equipment. Many online TT stores, like tabletennis11.com also provide free bat assembly service if you buy rubbers and blade from them.

I would suggest you get a DHS PG7 penhold blade with friendship focus iii snipe rubbers on both sides.

George.Storm wrote: Any particular reason for those suggestions?

It's a reasonably priced good setup that'll help you develop control.

Sorry for the double post, but I had a quick look and it seems the G12 is reduced to basically the same price as the G7, would that be a good buy? Just figure I may as well try to take advantage of their Christmas offers if I can :)

TurboZ wrote: I think the quality of the cheaper batch of DHS blades like G12 varies a lot. Mine is very flex. Feels good when utilizing the flex of the tip of blade in loops. But other times it can feel mushy and lack of power. Hard to put the power down in smash. I believe the Stiga Offensive Wood NCT would make a better fit, unless of course you really want to feel what a fancy 5+2 Glass Carbon blade is like.   Either way you have to act fast because the discount is off in less than a day. But again there is always something new tomorrow and that is part of the fun.

ronakvyas86 wrote: Yasaka blades are good. They're not all "too fast". I'm currently using yasaka goiabao 5 cpen which is a very good blade.

ronakvyas86 wrote: I use short pips for rpb. It's not everyone's preference. Most people don't like it and it's NOT something anyone just starting out with cpen should use for rpb. Lot of penholders do use pips for FH, specially traditional penholders but for an inverted player it's not something very pleasant, at least not in the beginning. So better avoid em. YEO7P is a fast composite blade, I wouldn't recommend that.

Edited by George.Storm - 12/12/2016 at 5:02am

Yasaka Sweden Extra penhold blade? It is a great blade with control and not very pricey. If you are gonna learn RPB then get a lighter rubber for BH.

Alright. Do this - Yasaka Goiabao 5 CPEN with Donic Baracuda FH + Friendship Focus 3 Snipe/Transcend Cream/Mark V/Sriver (or which ever "control" rubber you see appropriate) for RPB. This is an excellent setup at a very good price.

You can get the Yasaka Sweden Extra with Mark V for under $100 pre-assembled. 

If money is tight then I would suggest visiting Dandoy-Sports. There are many slower rubbers for around 15 EUR to very fast for 20 EUR. A good and fast setup would be Stiga Clipper CR + Airoc M + Airoc S = 76.3 EUR. If you like to try Yasaka then their price of Ma Lin Soft Carbon is very good too and you can save a few bucks for other accessories. For reference a Ma Lin Soft Carbon + DHS H2 Neo + Stiga Neo = 62.77 EUR. Just remember adding up your order to 70 EUR for free shipping. 

Edited by TurboZ - 12/15/2016 at 2:45am

Had a very busy week but finally thought I'd get around to ordering, and it seems you can't order to the UK using the .com site, you have to use .eu which is far more expensive for reasons I'm not aware of :(

Edited by George.Storm - 12/18/2016 at 10:23am

My opinion:
I find it confusing you don't consider yourself very offensive player as penholders have an advantage in the serve and third ball attack and if you let your opponent attack first you might as well play shakehand.
That aside, I would stay away from carbon as you will feel the ball better with wood and get good control. Lots of players like the made in sweden blades (stiga, avalox and yasaka make good ones). If you like 9 ply blades you might like the P900 which has been designed for the new ball. Otherwise, the Ma Lin Extra offensive (ma lin) may be a good 5 ply choice or stiga intensity nct (xu xin).
Choosing a chinese rubber on forehand makes sense as it gives you better service play and good spin/ control. Personally I think the Skyline series are more suited to penhold and Ma Lin, Wang Hao and currently Xu Xin all use either TG2neo or TG3neo. Be aware all the chinese rubbers are all purposefully low throw, especially TG2 and Hurricane 2, so get the Hurricane 3 or TG3 if you want to play loops with a higher arc.
I briefly played rpb. It was quite successful and I used the Xiom Omega Elite (which is ultra-soft). Not sure if they make it any more but any soft bouncy non-tacky rubber should do for rpb.

Any 9 mm 1ply hinoki is a good penhold setup for beginners. With Senkoh 1 you can learn how to spin the ball