The new challenges include control, footwork, and the time needed to
regain general maturity of play. The happy surprises include a whole
new category of stroke, namely, the thumb side forehand topspin (i.e.,
topspin with the underspin-side of the blade), as well as several
stroke variations that I had never previously been capable of,
including full-strength two-winged loops, a powerful chop return of
topspin, distinctly stronger spins than opponents have expected, a
newfound ability to convert underspin to topspin, the ability to block
against loops, a new thumb-side topspin serve with outside-sidespin
that seems to surprise everyone. I have been getting reports from
opponents that it is surprisingly difficult to read the direction I'm
intending to hit the ball.
"Top" and "Bottom" are probably the most natural terms, but they are
still not completely unambiguous, because there are some strokes where
you rotate the paddle over so the Top side is on the bottom. We could
use them unambiguously only if we can all agree to they are intended
specifically with reference to the neutral position, and not with
reference to the current orientation of the paddle, which might be the
opposite. So you could say "push the ball with an lifting underspin
using the Bottom side on the backhand" and even though the Bottom side
is on top, it's still called the Bottom side.
If I want to be extra clear, I'll use 'Thumb' and 'Ring' sides instead
of 'Top' and 'Bottom'.
The secrets have been to keep my shoulder pressed down, and my elbow
close to my side; stiffen my arm as I stroke and use lots of body
rotation; the results after some training are pretty stable and
accurate. Basically, I've increased my body's stiffness, so that when
I rotate my body into the ball, the paddle, handle, forearm, upper
arm, shoulder, and everything really move as a unit. Although that
may sound inflexible and wrong, if you have a chance to see any
videotapes of Andresz Grubba, the Polish champion of the 80's and
90's, you will see the kind of arm stiffness and body-movement-based
(as opposed to hand-movement-based) strokes that I have found
necessary to get control of this grip.
More support for this leaning-back posture was pointed out to me by
David ??, from California, who is also a tennis coach, and mentioned
in a phone conversation that the Western Grip in Tennis uses movements
and strokes very similar to the V grip (but with thumb on top and
forefinger underneath). He said that Western Grip players also use a
leaning-back posture, again similar to a jai alai player, for their
forehand strokes. He said to watch for this particularly in
clay-court tennis matches, where the Western Grip is apparently more
often used.
This turns out to be a sleeper stroke.
With the V grip, the blade speed is so great that it's not hard to
chop back even heavy-topspin shots, even for a beginning chopper like
me. I started doing this as a fun way of training some of my friends
to loop; I had remembered that in China when I wanted to learn the
reverse penhold backhand loop, they simply had me play against a
chopper (see here). So
if you want to teach people to loop, just practice your chop against
them. Chop against topspin turns out to be pretty easy with the V
grip. In games, I can now reach some fast serves that used to blow
past me, by taking an opening step to the back and putting a heavy chop
onto it. Control seems reasonable.
Since I felt I had lots of control, I wanted a faster blade, to
enhance the power and speed advantages of this style. I happened to
have a Clipper CR penhold blade that Sean O'Neill sold me in 1999, so
I've been using it. And since it's so natural and easy to put massive
spin on the ball, indeed to depend on the spin-torque of sticky rubber
to project the ball back as much or more than the
rebound-against-the-wood bounce effect, and because I felt I could
there's plenty of control even with this approach, I chose a soft
inverted rubber with maximum-thickness sponge, to really catch and
hold the ball against the sticky surface, so that the rubber's
tackiness can be used to spin, drive, and control the ball. If you're
going to spin, you might as well have the equipment to really spin,
and control-oriented short-pips won't really do. So far I'm pretty
happy with this combination, although I'm not sure I won't change
again after more experiments.
Although the Clipper CR plus 2.5mm Mark V GPS combination makes for a
pretty heavy bat, with the V grip you're holding it against your palm
and using several good grip points (with my cork-customized paddle
grips, at least), so it's not a problem, unlike, for example, with the
penhold grip, in which the paddle is held by the sides or tips of
various fingers, which simply don't provide as strong a suspension
system, so that a much lighter paddle is really helpful. I still
enjoy playing V grip with my light and airy Korean-style penhold
paddle, and now that my strokes are stabilizing, it may turn out that
using short-pips rubber on one side of the paddle will be a good
source of complexity for my spin game, but I don't have enough
experience to say if that will be a net plus. Right now I don't want
to give up spinniness on either side of the blade, so I have the same
inverted rubber on both sides.
Twiddle-able penhold paddles are a good place to start thinking about
the handle for the V grip. My Korean friend Sung Yang shaves his twiddler-paddle
handle down to a pretty thin, fat-ended spike (1/2" diameter at the
end, 3/8" diameter at mid-handle) to make the twiddling easier; this
is not the best idea for the V grip since you have a spike poking you
in the palm. Leave the butt of the handle large, or if you want to
shave it down, make it thinner but not shorter.
Brian Pace, in the Butterfly booth at the US Nationals, told me that
the Backface paddle (which has a shelf for the thumb to press down
against) was designed for this grip, but if you actually read
Butterfly's writing on the paddle itself, it's for penhold players who
want to also use the reverse side on the backhand, as Ma Lin and Liu
Guoliang have been doing. The extended shelf for the thumb gives you
more orientation control when the forearm is rotated around for the
reverse penhold backhand. So I disagree with Brian; I don't think
Butterfly actually had the V grip in mind at all. Nonetheless it has
symmetric posts perpendicular to the blade, and is a reasonable
off-the-shelf solution for the V grip paddle.
If you have ever hit golf balls at a driving range, you probably know
the slightly rubbery feeling of the vibrating driver head on a
relatively whippy (i.e., not very stiff) shaft after you hit a sweet
drive. I often get that sensation when I hit a strong forehand or
backhand drive with the V grip, out on the tip of the paddle, except
that it is my arm and paddle, not a golf driver shaft, that is
resonating after the contact against the ball. So sweet, so powerful.
Although the V grip has not turned me into Superman in a month, its
weaknesses continue to seem manageable and few, and experience is
confirming its real strengths, including several surprising and new
advantages. I have seen pretty steady progress over the last four
months, and I still stand behind my suggestion that you think about
trying it.
If you're interested, the way to approach the V grip is to try it with
a steady and consistent drill partner and to decide in your mind that
you're going to spend at least 10-15 minutes on the attempt, and then
work exclusively on developing a flat-hitting BACKHAND stroke. Be
thoughtful: give yourself patience for the inevitable uncalibrated
airballs, and think carefully about how to recalibrate your forearm
rotation from shakehand or penhold orientation to the far-rotated
position required by the V grip. If you give it a few minutes, you'll
probably discover you can drill consistently in pretty short time.
Worry about spins later, and worry about forehands later; first get
the backhand flat-hit consistent.
Okay, there you have it. Let me know if any of this doesn't make
sense to you, or if you have a question about something. I don't have
a digitizing camera, but Alan Lee helped me out with a couple of
preliminary photos that he emailed me, so you can see those here.
Terminology: Thumb Side vs Ring (Finger) Side
It seems like we could use some less confusing terms to refer to one
side of the paddle versus the other in the V grip. "Topspin side" and
"underspin side" are confusing because either side can actually be
used for either type of spin. Maybe we can refer to the two sides of
the paddle as the "thumb" side and "ring finger" or "ring" side; these
terms are at least unambiguous. So the thumb side is the one that is
naturally on top when the hand is in neutral position, with the palm
vertical. And the ring finger side is naturally on the bottom in
neutral position. The thumb side is used primarily for underspin but
also sometimes for topspin. The ring finger side is used primarily
for topspin, although it's also possible to rotate your forearm and do
backhand pushes with it.Expected outcomes
As predicted in my original article, my serves
are distinctly improved, reaction-blocks are awesome, my reach is
increased by inches (and my control on long-reach returns is also
excellent, increasing my effective reach by as much as a foot in either
direction); kill shots have tremendous speed; and lob kills are
generally easier. Although I expected distinctly stronger spins
because of the extended reach of the V grip, I have been pleasantly
surprised by several opponents comments that the spin is stronger than
expected; this means not only that is the spin stronger, but also that
it's harder to see how much spin is on it.
Unforeseen Challenges
Control
Control required some work at first; it was not as easy to develop as
I initially expected. As Fan Yi Yong first pointed out to me, playing
with an extended reach, as the V grip has, would tend to reduce
control. However, this is certainly mitigated, partly or even
completely, by the stability of the paddle orientation through wrist
opening/closing movements. After a few hours working with the Newgy
Pongmaster game, I have learned to stabilize my joint movements, and
generally play with a stiffer body. Since then I've felt that
accuracy and control are not my primary problems. Posture
The forehand topspin stroke brings up its own special
control issues. The normal body posture in table tennis is to lean
your body forward in a crouch. But for the forehand topspin with the
ring finger side of the paddle, the proper posture is the one I saw
modelled by that boy in China: with the knees bent, certainly, but
with the BODY LEANING BACK INSTEAD OF FORWARD. It looks like a Jai Alai player.
Through much experience I have consistently found that with my
previous natural posture, leaning forward, I need great luck to hit
the ball on the table, I am wild, inconsistent, and also weak. On the
other hand, with my body leaning BACK, I have excellent control and
consistency. So if you have a problem with control on the forehand,
try leaning back. It's wierd, I know; it's against everything I ever
learned in any sport, but it really has been the solution for me.
Once I made this change, everything stabilized quickly. Use either side on forehand
Two people that I've introduced this to have initially had the opinion
that forehand topspin should primarily be done with the thumb side
(top) of the paddle, either because it seems more natural, or because
of this control problem. However, my own opinion is to follow what I
saw in China, namely, to primarily use the ring finger (bottom) side
for forehand topspins. It is a much faster stroke off the bounce; it
is extremely solid, consistent, and strong once you get your body in
position, and the topspins are much stronger than the thumb side
forehand-topspin. Actually, one should be able to do both strokes
well; then you can do abrupt rhythm changes by switching from one to
the other; and both definitely have their place and come in handy.
But the ring side stroke basically is a lot more aggressive, so I
prefer it where I have the choice. Footwork
Footwork remains a problem for me, because after five knee surgeries,
I'm just not as mobile at 39 as I was in the teenage edition of this
body. Even so, the anticipated elbow-area weakness of the V grip,
which should require a lot of attention to footwork, has rarely
cropped up in actual play. Instead, if a ball gets blown past me, I
can open back, hitting a lot of middle-distance loop drives, where
there is plenty of time to move aside to get elbow shots. A real
positive surprise here is that because of the extended reach with
extended control found with this grip, the limited footwork that I do
have seems to do me a lot more good.
Maturity
The time required to re-establish a mature level
of play is the other real surprise for me, beyond the adjustments
needed to develop control. Becoming a competent tournament player
means learning how to respond to a wide variety of shots in a wide
variety of play conditions, and you simply have to play a lot of games
over a long period of time and to keep analysing your errors in order
to figure out all the little adjustments that are needed in all those
cases. It's not just a month's work, even though in a month you can
develop really strong basic strokes. In this dimension of maturity of
play, I still haven't caught up with myself as a penholder. One
explanation for this would be that the grip really reduces control,
but I'm not willing to admit that yet.
Happy surprises
Thumb-side topspin
Early on I discovered a whole new category of stroke, the thumb-side
topspin, which is a topspin or drive stroke with the top side of
the blade. Initially I found myself using it as a recovery stroke for
shots that I felt had already gone past me, but I could still reach
back or out far to the side with the thumb side of the paddle and pull
out a successful return.
Backhand Loop
The backhand loop is rippingly powerful with
the V grip. I have been studying Grubba as my role model for this
stroke: it's a body stroke, the wrist is stiff, the body turns
slightly in the windup, though not as much as for a forehand loop, the
shoulder tucks forward and down, and the stroke proceeds like a whip
starting from the waist: the body rotates back to parallel, and the
shoulder opens and lifts, the upper arm rotates about its axis, and
the hand whips up. Wrist is unnecessary; you can add that later after
you have control with the basic stroke. Forehand Loop
The forehand loop is not really a surprise; the
10-year-old in China had ripping forehand loops. It's just that when
you start doing them, it seems a little miraculous. Flip your body a
little, and a rocket ball shoots out. Keep your elbow in tight, even
slightly back, and let your body rotation do the work.Chopping
I've suddenly developed the ability to play the defensive game of a
chopper. You should know that chopping is quite different from
pushing, which is just an underspin against another underspin. A chop
is a large hatchet-like downstroke against a topspin shot, usually
well back from the table; this is a defensive stroke used mostly by
specialist players who can chop anything back and win when you finally
make an error in looping or driving back their heavy underspin. Blocking a Loop
Before trying the V grip, my Achilles heel
had been trying to return a loop drive: I never found a way to control
the hyper spin of an opponent's loop, and even though I put the blade
over as far as I thought I could, the ball would spring out far beyond
the table. This would happen to me time after time, and was quite
frustratingly unsolveable for me. Now, though, the loop block is
quite easy, because in the V grip, the blade in neutral position is
already set in the horizontal position needed for a loop block. I also
got a useful pointer that I should time the point of contact to be
early, just off the bounce. And now although I'm not yet perfectly
consistent, I have come to the point that I feel there is no intrinsic
limit to the amount of topspin on a loop that I could successfully
block back.Thumb-side serve: topspin with outside sidespin
I've talked a lot about the V grip's advantages for serves (here, and here), but I
wanted to mention a new serve I've discovered with it. This is a mid-
to high-toss serve with a thumb-side topspin stroke with added
outside-sidespin. Contact the ball close to the body and put your body
into it, rotating your hip into the point of contact. Both the
topspin and the sidespin can come out stronger than they seem, and
it's a kind of spin that somehow surprises everyone. Even Fan Yi Yong
scratched his head and looked thoughtful when he airballed one past me
the other day. Made me smile. But then I only got one other point in
that game, so there you go.Directional deception
A last surprising advantage of the V grip has been reported by several
opponents I've played: they can't tell which direction I'm going to
hit the ball. Looking left, I can hit right, and they can't tell
until after I hit the ball. This deceptiveness might be nothing but
lack of familiarity: they just aren't accustomed to playing against V
grip players, since so far, I'm the only one. But I think it might be
real, because for all three topspins (backhand, forehand, and
thumb-side forehand), the difference between hitting to the left or
the right is mostly in the instant of contact in the arc of the
forearm, rather than in the orientation of the stroke. Swinging early
and moving the forearm through more of its arc sends the ball one
direction, swinging late and moving the forearm through less of its
arc sends the ball the direction, with the same body orientation and
basic stroke movement. So I am starting to convince myself that
directional deception is for real with the V grip. That's certainly a
happy surprise.
Equipment
Let me say a few words about what I've done for rubber and blade.
Because of the added control with the V grip, I switched equipment
from a control-oriented relatively slow penhold paddle with short pips
rubber (Clippa), to the fastest blade on the market, the Stiga Clipper
CR penhold blade (apparently used by Liu Guoliang), with a soft,
spinny, inverted rubber (Mark V GPS, 2.5mm).
Conclusion; How to Start
Although I feel I'm still learning pretty rapidly and although my
V-grip maturity of play is less than my penhold maturity, even so,
because many aspects of my V grip game are stronger than my penhold
game, I'm probably already slightly better as a V grip player than as
a penholder. I have taken games from stronger players than I was able
to as a penholder, and I even scored 16 points in a game with a
2800-level player a couple of weeks ago.
Last Modified: March 6, 2001.
Comments? Please contact the author at
tv@sprex.com or 1-206-352-1407.