Author: Baal
Subject: Are equipment reviews worth much?
Posted: 08/07/2013 at 7:37pm
I agree with the OP, more or less, but maybe I would not go as far as I think he wants to take the argument.
Here is a view I offer respectfully. Without any question, innovations in equipment change sports. Perhaps this is more true in tennis, and, say, pole-vaulting, but it is true in table tennis too. I have been playing TT a long time and I have seen lots of changes. Also, if you change your rubber or pick up a different kind of blade it feels different. Hell, I have two Viscarias that are as close to identical as I could find them, with the same rubbers on both sides, and they don't feel the same. Moreover, I have a preference for one over the other -- although God only knows if it has any effect at all on the way I play. If the universe is really malevolent, then it would turn out that I play worse with the one that seems to feel better to me. Probably though, the truth is, within pretty wide ranges of "table tennis equipment space" -- that is, with pretty much any OFF- to OFF+ blade, and any of the rubbers out there generally designed for modern spin-based table tennis --once accustomed, my level is exactly the same. Also, with a great deal of familiarity, that would just become what I like best. Rationally I know this is probably true. On the other hand, crossing over to a markedly different class of equipment is another matter, and among other things incurs added risk of certain repetitive use injuries, etc. There is a very real sense in which equipment is optimized for certain broad classes of table tennis strategies.
Does that mean I would have any chance at all against Zhang Jike if he picked up a hardbat even if he had never used one before? Nope. He is a scientifically trained, genetically perfect, freak of nature in the prime of his athletic life, and I am not. In a very real sense, guys like that are more or less created in a laboratory (which in this case is called the Chinese national table tennis team, and if ZJK isn't the answer they are preparing more samples that are slightly different). But it doesn't mean equipment is entirely irrelevant.
I do try stuff quite frequently just to see how it feels. I rarely buy stuff, though, since lots of other people buy things and I try them.
OK. So what about reviews? That's the main point of the OP. Eventually if one hangs out here long enough, and has tried enough stuff, one discovers certain other people who like the same things you do. And then you find that their reviews have some predictive value -- at least with the stipulation that it may not matter at all to your level, just to how you like the feel of a particular blade or rubber the first few times you use it. ALso it takes quite a bit of time to figure out what is signal and what is noise. Hell, a substantial number of the flame wars that appear on this site arise from the fact that we can't even agree on the meaning of the terms we are trying to use to describe what we feel.
Anyway, quite awhile back I learned to never spend money on any piece of TT equipment I had not tried myself.
Subject: Are equipment reviews worth much?
Posted: 08/07/2013 at 7:37pm
I agree with the OP, more or less, but maybe I would not go as far as I think he wants to take the argument.
Here is a view I offer respectfully. Without any question, innovations in equipment change sports. Perhaps this is more true in tennis, and, say, pole-vaulting, but it is true in table tennis too. I have been playing TT a long time and I have seen lots of changes. Also, if you change your rubber or pick up a different kind of blade it feels different. Hell, I have two Viscarias that are as close to identical as I could find them, with the same rubbers on both sides, and they don't feel the same. Moreover, I have a preference for one over the other -- although God only knows if it has any effect at all on the way I play. If the universe is really malevolent, then it would turn out that I play worse with the one that seems to feel better to me. Probably though, the truth is, within pretty wide ranges of "table tennis equipment space" -- that is, with pretty much any OFF- to OFF+ blade, and any of the rubbers out there generally designed for modern spin-based table tennis --once accustomed, my level is exactly the same. Also, with a great deal of familiarity, that would just become what I like best. Rationally I know this is probably true. On the other hand, crossing over to a markedly different class of equipment is another matter, and among other things incurs added risk of certain repetitive use injuries, etc. There is a very real sense in which equipment is optimized for certain broad classes of table tennis strategies.
Does that mean I would have any chance at all against Zhang Jike if he picked up a hardbat even if he had never used one before? Nope. He is a scientifically trained, genetically perfect, freak of nature in the prime of his athletic life, and I am not. In a very real sense, guys like that are more or less created in a laboratory (which in this case is called the Chinese national table tennis team, and if ZJK isn't the answer they are preparing more samples that are slightly different). But it doesn't mean equipment is entirely irrelevant.
I do try stuff quite frequently just to see how it feels. I rarely buy stuff, though, since lots of other people buy things and I try them.
OK. So what about reviews? That's the main point of the OP. Eventually if one hangs out here long enough, and has tried enough stuff, one discovers certain other people who like the same things you do. And then you find that their reviews have some predictive value -- at least with the stipulation that it may not matter at all to your level, just to how you like the feel of a particular blade or rubber the first few times you use it. ALso it takes quite a bit of time to figure out what is signal and what is noise. Hell, a substantial number of the flame wars that appear on this site arise from the fact that we can't even agree on the meaning of the terms we are trying to use to describe what we feel.
Anyway, quite awhile back I learned to never spend money on any piece of TT equipment I had not tried myself.