Penholder style

[Phillipp Krause]

i'm fan of pen-hold.
I think players like Ryu Seung Min or Yoshida Kaii or some top players switched from Penhold to Shakehand or something ? why

I spent 1 month playing C-pen with my on my own after reading some articles on wedsite about tt and watching some C-penhold TT matches on Youtube.
Getting the grip right was a real challenge ! Then for 1 month I had cuts and bruises on my index and thumb fingers! I tell you once the blisters start to swell its no fun ! Once they pop the pain can keep you awake at night

It took nearly 5 months to develop calluses on my index and thumb finger joints before I could play without the pain. Then the webbing where the handle rests started to blister and bleed :-(

So think before do you have the ability, time and effort to go through all of the training in Pen-hold style ?????

[Kamil 28]

It is an interesting fact, that China has a new generation of penholder players.

After Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin, Wang Hao and Xu Xin, there is now the next generation with players like the Czech Open winner Zheng Peifeng and Xu Fei.

This is really nice to see.

[roman_wall]

Today was clearly an important day for penhold. Xu Xin dominating Ma Long in the finals of the German Open in Magdeburg... I hope penhold will enjoy more attention as it has grown to be very versatile and penhold players have overcome most of the weaknesses there were in time of JPen and pre- RPB...

However it is almost impossible to switch from Shakehand to Penhold and vice versa so unless kids are exposed to Penhold style and manage to stop their trainer from telling them to hold the racket shakehand (which is highly unlikely especially in europe) .......... Well... I'm always grateful to see the handful of exceptions there are out in the sport. I sometimes toy with the thought to start practicing Penhold (I'm totally in love with Xu Xin) but find the idea of loosing years of experience in touch and wrist placement very scary.

Does anyone have experience switching grips?

[roman_wall]

Zitat von Phillipp Krause

i'm fan of pen-hold.
I think players like Ryu Seung Min or Yoshida Kaii or some top players switched from Penhold to Shakehand or something ? why

I'm pretty sure Ryu Seung Min is still playing Penhold. Maybe switched from JPen to CPen, but he's been an ambassador for penhold as a dedicated trainer so the thought of him abandoning this style seems very unlikely to me..

Where did you get the idea?

[Victor Adewale]

Zitat von roman_wall

Today was clearly an important day for penhold. Xu Xin dominating Ma Long in the finals of the German Open in Magdeburg... I hope penhold will enjoy more attention

Yes fantastic! I hope penholder table tennis will never die!

Zitat von Kamil 28

It is an interesting fact, that China has a new generation of penholder players.

After Liu Guoliang, Ma Lin, Wang Hao and Xu Xin, there is now the next generation with players like the Czech Open winner Zheng Peifeng and Xu Fei.

This is really nice to see.

I hope that more will come! I wondering how Zheng Peifeng and Xu Fei will perform in the future!? And also if China has more strong new generation penholder players!?

My all-time favorite is Ryu Seung Min, the korean legend and former Olympic Champion!

But I like also Liu Guoliang, Wang Hao and Ma Lin, the chinese allstars.

My legend penholder player is He Zhiwen!

There will be never again a player like him. This style is unique.

And sadly to say, the penholder style is close to die. Not anymore many players will be teached this style of table tennis. They all are playing the same style, close to the table and shakehand, backhand banana and kick, etc.

[marcush]

xu. xin is alive and kicking ...pen is not dead but a minority.He may inspire many many kids to follow his example...

[roman_wall]

Well I don't think Penhold will ever be established as Asias standard grip again, but I don't think it'll ever die out. There's so many penholders especially in amateur game and there will always be people like Xu Xin. It's surely going to be a minority, perhaps struggling, but I think there's qualified trainers which is most important. (For example I think it's much less likely for players with Defensive Game like Joo Saehyuk to develop a professional game as there's hardly any trainers available to really teach the method.)

[roman_wall]

Hey!
I just wanted to share here that in the quarantine I had some time at home - luckily a few months before I finally bought a table tennis table. Two weeks ago my brother was visiting and we played table tennis for a few days. He*s a decent player but doesn*t train nearly as much as me. So the first day was rather unexciting as I won every set with ease *- however the second day I had the silly idea of playing Penhold against him. Now the first couple of games I lost but I understood the basic concepts and remembered everything I read before (I read a lot about Penhold as it was always very interesting to me) *- and I had so much fun! That I decided to start an experiment if I can be a Penhold player by the end of 2020 (reach my Shakehand Level with Penhold).
I noticed that playing Shakehand I pretty much played tactics of Penhold players already and I*ve been a great admirer of Xu Xin for a long time.
Anyways - this is exciting for me and I just bought myself a Stiga Offensive Classic in PEN with a DHS Skyline II Neo on the FH, as my Butterfly rocket with the Tenergys was a little fast for not knowing what to do with my wrist haha
I understand learning Penhold is much harder than learning Shakehand as you have more freedom in your wrist which also means more room for error - and I hope I will find a trainer in Berlin that knows how to teach Penhold. But for now I*m very curious to see how far I can get. Still my question * anyone here switch playing styles after a few years?
Or do people generally stick with what they start out as?
I read somewheee it*s very easy to transition to Shakehand from Penhold (which comforts me as i still Plan to play long pips ox bh in many years when I turn 60-something) but also everyone seems to say switching from Shakehand to Penhold is very hard.
I*m just hoping to hear some stories of success and encouragement
Sending love in these dark times and wishing you all good health
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