Hi I'm Alois Rosario from PingSkills. Today we're going to show you the Penhold Grip.
To use the Penhold Grip you have your thumb and your pointer finger encircling the handle.
On the other side of your bat you can have your three fingers flat or curved. Whatever
your preference is. You'll notice that Matt uses the Chinese style Penhold bat.
With the Chinese style Penhold bat it's very similar to Shakehand bat except the handle is a little
bit shorter.
The advantages of the Penhold Grip are that you can use your wrist a lot better because you are using your wrist in this motion.
Whereas with the Shakehand Grip you are using your wrist in this motion which is a smaller action.
The Penholders can get a little bit more spin with their serves. Another advantage is that
you don't have a crossover point in the middle. On the forehand side you are playing like that
and as the ball gets to the middle you don't need to change the side that you're using.
So that eliminates the problem of the crossover point . So if Matt uses the Shakehand Grip
you'll notice when it gets to the middle area he needs to change between the forehand side and
the backhand side of his bat. With the Penhold Grip this is eliminated.
What are the disadvantages of the Penhold Grip? Firstly, previously the backhand used
to be a problem with the Penhold Grip because Penholders always used the same side to hit
the ball. However now we can use the reverse backhand, we are going to show you some of
those techniques today. Although there are differences between the Penhold and the Shakehand
Grip you're going to find that there are a lot of similarities as well. Especially when
we are looking at the forehand techniques.
Today we have Matt Low to show us the Penhold technique. You will see that Matt's forehand starts very similar to the Shakehand technique, he starts
with his bat down beside him at table height and flat. He follows through up and forward
towards his head.
To get more topspin he starts a little bit lower just below table
height and finishes up at head height.
From side on you'll get a better view of where he starts and finishes his bat.
The forehand very similar to the Shakehand.
The backhand technique with the Penhold is where the differences lie. With the block
you come straight forward. With the backhand counterhit you tend to start a little bit lower
and come up a little bit but with the grip you'll notice that it's difficult to extend
the wrist. The backhand counterhit becomes more like a
punch technique.
From side on you can see the bat punching forward.
The important part of the technique for the backhand topspin is to make sure that you have your grip correct. You notice here that
Matt's bat is not quite in the right position. If he tried to hit the backhand topspin with
this grip the ball would go off to the side. To get the correct grip technique you need
to show the full face of the bat to the ball. This will eliminate a lot of the errors and
get the ball to go straight with the backhand topspin.
Here you can see Matt's bat facing directly towards the ball.
From the back you'll see that the red side of Matt's bat is always facing towards the back you never see the black side.
You'll notice that Matt's bat starts nice and low and finishes high. And
it's coming through on the one plane so the angle of the bat doesn't change at all.
From the side you will notice that Matt's bat starts below the level of the table and
finishes above head height.
You will notice that the angle of the blade for the Penhold is exactly the same as when you're using the Shakehand Grip.
So for the backhand push and the forehand push you are sliding underneath the ball getting your bat
to slide underneath the ball to impart a little bit of backspin.
Notice also how Matt's right foot is moving in and out after each push. This gets him
ready in case the ball comes along so that he can topspin. With each push he moves his
right foot in.
The Korean or Japanese backhand technique is to use the same side of your bat but starting with your bat out very wide. You will notice
that with the Japanese or Korean backhand technique the contact is quite flat.
The contact point is way outside the line of your body.
Let's have a look at some combinations using the Penhold Grip. This first combination is fairly simple because you are using the same
side of he bat for the forehand push and he forehand topspin.
This is very similar to the Shakehand technique.
This combination is a little bit more difficult, so we are
doing a backhand push then the backhand reverse topspin and then a backhand block. Changing
the side you are using each time. This is something the Penholder needs to practise.
Now Matt's doing a variation of combinations, so he's starting with a backhand push and
a backhand reverse topspin, the third ball can be anywhere so he needs to adjust.
This gets the Penholder used to using the different sides of your bat.
Because the Penholder is using the same side of his bat for the third ball it is quite simple, so the third ball
is either a backhand punch or a forehand using the red side.
You will notice particularly from the side the third ball punch goes forward and flat.