ARDS SPRING LEAGUE 2026

 I've used a variety of blades now but the first proper blade I bought, the Donic Waldner Senso Carbon, turned out to be the spinniest.  I bought this pre-made bat and it had Bluefire M2 (MAX) on both sides which turned out to be a good all round rubber with excellent levels of control, spin and speed.  What is it that makes this set up so spinny?  The Waldner Senso Carbon has the feeling of a wood with the increased sweet spot and hence speed that the carbon offers.  In my opinion, it offers a perfect balance except that it loses power away from the table so is only really effective at close quarters.  The speed of this blade is ALL+ but that doesn't matter. When the ball is spinning, the speed is more than sufficient.  Later I bought another Donic blade, the Original Senso Carbon.  It turned out to be a bit stiffer than the Waldner Carbon, classed as OFF by Donic, it has more speed and significant power but the ball spins less.  It all depe...

 I've just returned from summer camp which was held at Nishkam school, Birmingham by the Birmingham Table Tennis Academy from the 3rd to the 5th of August 2026.  The three main coaches there are Ed Lynn, Lee McHugh and Mustafa Manager.  I also did a one to one with former England international Sam Wilson who was forced to retire from the professional game through injury.  I worked on a further refinement and upgrade to my pendulum serve which I'm finding out more about constantly and also how to serve a fast long reverse pendulum service.  Ed Lynn suggested that I work on tomahawk and hook serves since I don't use my wrist much during service.  I found a lot of the stuff we did on serve/receive very helpful and also the work we did on forehand open ups against backspin.  I can now return the ball with quality rather than just merely getting it back over the net.  I'm going to put some of the photos and short videos here for readers to gain an impr...