Basic penhold lessons for Tony's Table Tennis Re: First Time Penholder: Help me out!

[Hlubi]

vomited on Monday March 24 , 2025 in the potentially illegal Table Tennis discussion forum called TableTennisDaily

All I really want to say is master TPB before moving on to RPB (thx for the tip @zhzhzhz ) because TPB utilizes one of the biggest advantages of Penhold, the crossover. The is a really small crossover point when using 1 sided penhold!

what do you mean by TPB

Yo Tony,
Some basic penhold stuff for you

TAB = Traditional Asian Backhand
TAG = Traditional Asia Grip
Zhuang Zedong , Jiang Jia Liang , Ryu Seung Min , Guo Yuehua & He ZhiWen are TAG players

RAB = Reverse Asian Backhand
RAG = Reverse Asian Grip
Xu Xin and Wang Hao are RAG players

HPG = Hybrid Asian Grip (Combination of & the ability to play both TAG and RAG & switch style at will)
Liu GuoLiang is an HPG player He switched both style at will but also twiddled at will at strategic points in a match, as he used a smart racket with wide pips one side , mostly forehand & spinny inverted, mostly on backhand

The last letter B or G is used interchangeably depending on the context of discussion

crossover here?

PenHoldSandro is referring to the crossover point between forehand and backahnd for a TAG player, as compared to other grip styles especially shakehand
What he is saying is that a TAG player does not suffer from what is known as the classic shakehander disease > the indecision point in the middle of the body (or close to the middle) where a shakehander cannot decide whether to play forehand or backhand , especially if caught close to the table. The TAG player does not have this issue because the transition from forehand to backhand or vice versa in the middle of the body (or slightly to the left or right of center) is almost seamless.

Do you understand ?

[James Z]

It would also be interesting to compare TAG with the American grip (aka Seemiller / Boggan grip)
I may be wrong because I am a shakehander (who wishes I was born a HPG or American grip player) but I would tend to think the crossover point would be a touch less seamless for an American grip player compared to a TPG player.

I have read in many places that both Zhuang Zedong (TAG) & Eric Boggan (American grip) had better backhands and opponents made the suicidal mistake of assuming that their backhand were weaker given that TableTennis is mostly a forehand dominant sport