Blade for 10-11 old kids

Korbel

I started with a Stiga premade. But my bother started out with a HRT Rosewood V with Reactor thunder and stiga S4 rubber when he was six. So I guess just depends on the type of kid. Any 4 to 5 star bat from Stiga would be a great first bat.

korbel is a good blade to begin with, well at least for me, just want to share something from a national player in our country who trained once in china, we asked him what they usually use there, he has seen many 10 yo kids there who were using clipper, actually he says most of them there use clipper as a beginner blade

Edited by mikepong - 01/20/2014 at 9:55pm

get a good carbon blade and force them to make controlled shots during practice. i went to a camp in china and all the kids had carbon blades and i was like $%@$#??????? but i asked the coach, and apparently it's a trend to make them use carbon blade to teach them to control fast blades. 

Almost all Euro Korbels are under 80 g. It is the size that is probably bigger for a kid. Try some children racket - most of the Joola, TSP, Andro and now Donic blades are shaped for children with their tiny 153x148 heads. Seems that they hire one and the same idiot designer.

berkeleydoctor wrote: get a good carbon blade and force them to make controlled shots during practice. i went to a camp in china and all the kids had carbon blades and i was like $%@$#??????? but i asked the coach, and apparently it's a trend to make them use carbon blade to teach them to control fast blades.  i personally started with all wood, but i did think the transition to carbon was hard, but now that i've been using carbon, it's great.

Yep, I saw that same trend too in China, not the same place Berkeley doc went.  The places I have been, kids are not always using carbon blades (I saw a few), but reasonably fast all-wood blades.  I saw lots of really little kids with Stiga Clippers, Optimum Plus and Offensive Classic (which actually isn't that fast).  These were kids that were going to be good at some point, but they were pretty young (but already had basic strokes well in hand).  Stiga seemed to be a much more popular brand than Butterfly most places I went, but I think some of that has to do with price.  

I honestly don't think that a Korbel or something along those lines is "too fast" for a kid that is going to be playing regularly in an effort to become a solid tournament player.  Having said that, Appelgren Allplay, which somebody mentioned, while not a fast blade, is a great blade and would work too. There are lots of others. 

Maybe it doesn't matter so much what you get, just get a good blade.  Rubber may be more important.  Don't get tenergy.  Get something reasonably good and durable, like classic Mark V or even something like Donic Vario.

Latika light comes in mind when someone asks me what blade to recommend for a kid. Compact head, small handle,reasonable speed and spin. BTW I have one for sale, almost like a brand new

My student who currently is 15 years old started playing with old Grubba (Japanese version), when he was 11. After around two years I decided to get him an old Primorac and he enjoys the blade till today. All what we do is just modify thickness of his rubbers to match his game style and technique. There is no need for switch as of right now but I think that the third step would be either Korbel / old arylate off- blade, or one of the off carbon blades.*

*Yes, I like butterfly equipment.

cheondo wrote: In Korea, all the beginners start with OFF + blades and tensor rubbers too. I don't know why, but that's the way they do it. I've seen many developing players here, like future pros, playing with Korbel. Korbel is like a staple. A coach I know who's like 2500 + is using Korbel. Played with a 10 yr old pro this weekend, who's parents were both former pros, and he's using Boll ALC with Tenergies. IOW, anything will be fine, and perhaps this American idea of all beginners using ALL + paddles is not necessary or even correct.

It is what I have been saying for awhile.  Kids are a bit different from adult beginners.

The argument is sometimes forwarded that juniors should use fast carbon blades because that is what they will use if or when they become strong players. However so many strong players simply dont use fast carbons. I have heard numerous stories of mega-strong non-sponsored chinese players using wood ALL+\off- blades. In our top grade (2300-2500ish) less than a third use carbons. In fact the 3 most powerful loopers use 5 ply wood in the all+\off- range.

DDreamer wrote: The argument is sometimes forwarded that juniors should use fast carbon blades because that is what they will use if or when they become strong players. However so many strong players simply dont use fast carbons. I have heard numerous stories of mega-strong non-sponsored chinese players using wood ALL+\off- blades. In our top grade (2300-2500ish) less than a third use carbons. In fact the 3 most powerful loopers use 5 ply wood in the all+\off- range.

It is a mixed bag.  In our club three of the four players in 2400-2600 range use composite blades, and one uses an OFF- allwood Old Stiga.

Baal wrote: It is a mixed bag.

I agree and that's my point.

Hello!

In my club (and especially for my son) we made very good experience for beginners (6-10years, 2 weekly training-sessions of 1,5 hours) with the combination of the blade Lion Phung Mag 1 (~ 20$, very lightweight, ~72gr) and the good Friendship 729 Geospin rubbers (1.8mm / ~8$ each).

As they develope and advance in higher ranks they choose their own blades by trial. Mostly they end up by Donic Dotecs or Yasaka Ma Lin combined with Tenergy or equivalent rubbers.

HTH
Rolli