Ping Pong Crazy!

More acquisitions...

First off, the Kokutaku Cho Super Cho Tokusen 10mm JPEN table tennis blade. I heard that only 150 pieces are made each year and like my current 9mm Super Cho Tokusen, uses top grade kiso hinoki (Japanese Cypress) from trees at least 300-500 years of age. This one is too precious to use and I will just be keeping it somewhere...
















Next is something I wanted to try for a long time. I wanted to try the most difficult style (but also the most traditional to the Chinese) - Chinese Penholder with short pip (pimple) rubber. So I decided to get a DHS (aka Double Happiness) Hurricane Hao which DHS created specifically for Wang Hao (current No 1 player in the world).
















I put a DHS Hurricane 3 with the newer (and softer) #19 sponge on the forehand and the well known short pip rubber, Friendship 927 802-40 on the back. This configuration will allow me to play my traditional looping style and also give me the option to use short pip straightforward play when needed. I can even choose to twiddle for some surprises.







Copyright (c) Kelvin Tan

Hinoki Is Gorgeous

Whoever thought that table tennis blades can be items worth investing in. This blade made with kiso hinoki (japanese cypress) - wood that's at least 300 years old. Such wood, when harvested, is kept to air and dry over a year before being refined further into the shape of the blade you see below (with a luxurious thickness of at least 10mm). Hinoki used for such blades need to be of a certain age in order to achieve the uniform tight grain you see in the pictures below. The Butterfly Kim Taek Soo gets its name from a famous Korean table tennis player and is perhaps the most famous high end single ply japanese penholder (jpen) grip blade from Butterfly using the aforementioned precious wood. Butterfly also produces 2 other high end hinoki single ply jpen blades namely, Cypress Max and the super rare Cypress Special (which can only be obtained from Butterfly via special order). More on the Butterfly Kim Taek Soo here.
















In any case, look at the very cute keyholder from Xiom. It looks to also be made from hinoki (though most certainly of lower hinoki quality). The back has Ryu Seung Min's signature - the current Olympic champion and Xiom's ambassador.













Copyright (c) Kelvin Tan