Over-reliant on my own bat?

Hi There,

I've been training and playing with a particular bat of mine for over 20 years. During this time I've became very accustomed to its own characteristics. The weigh of my hits and the arc of my swings were all tuned to the characteristics of my own bat. Problem arises when on game day my bat is not at hand and I had to use someone else's bat. Sometimes I even had to use an extremely substandard bat. Whatever techniques I've developed with my own bat no longer seems to apply on the other bats. It got really bad when I had to play with a toy bat and my opponent, a basketballer who doesn't even take TT seriously, managed to defeat me using an identical bat (i.e. I lost on an equal playing field!)

Question is, to become a better skilled TT player, should I strive be less reliant on a particular choice of bat, especially one equipped with a nice rubber, and instead work on my techniques on bats with varying types and standards of rubbers, even down to a 'flat' bat?

The simple answer is you should become over reliant on your own bat. The worlds best players never use someone else's bat. They have several identical bats just in case anything happens to one of them.

To become a skilled Table Tennis player you need to rely on a quality rubber. Without this you cannot generate enough spin to play some of the most important strokes in the game. 

At PingSkills we recommend you get a good quality bat that will allow you to develop your game. However don't become too obsessed and change your brand and type of equipment every month. Choose some equipment that suits your game and stick with that for a period of time.

Playing with a hard bat can be fun but it really can't be compared with the game of Table Tennis using a quality bat. Just because someone can beat you in a hard bat match does not mean they will be a better Table Tennis player when using better equipment.

So keep using a good quality bat and concentrate on improving your strokes and technique. Learn the correct strokes and enjoy the game.