How to Become a Gear Enthusiast in Table Tennis
When I first encountered this question, I was stumped. The idea of a “gear enthusiast” seemed to carry a kind of depth. The more I turned it over in my head, the quieter I became.
Generally speaking, if gear lives in your heart, you’re a gear enthusiast.
It’s a bit like religion. If the Buddha lives in your heart, you see the Buddha everywhere. If you’re constantly thinking about how blades and rubbers affect your game, if you love exploring different equipment, then you’re a gear enthusiast. This is the counterpart to a technique enthusiast. When you analyze problems mainly through a technical lens, you’re a technique person. When you approach things from an equipment angle, you’re probably a gear enthusiast.
There’s no hierarchy here — everyone can have their own gear perspective. It’s not simply a matter of right or wrong. Sure, you can debate, but the world of gear should be open to all. And gear enthusiasm and technique enthusiasm can coexist. At different times, you can flip between the two identities. Ma Long is a technical genius, and he’s also a devoted equipment collector. Players like Lee Sang-su, Francesca Praveen, Wong Yew Cheong, and Niwa Koki — who switch blades or rubbers between group and knockout stages — can be seen as both gear enthusiasts and technique enthusiasts. Because they’re also passionate about technical improvement. In some cases, their gear obsession exists precisely to make them better technically.
Gear Enthusiasm Has No Class System, But There Are Different Levels
A few days ago I wrote about Matsudaira Kenta — his main blade and backup differ by 1 gram, and he can feel the difference. Ishikawa Kasumi can feel the difference between production batches and got fixated on a specific batch of Vis. And I don’t mean “batch code” — I mean an actual production batch. You have to say it: gear obsession has a talent component. Some people just have sharper hands and can genuinely feel the subtle differences.
Those who can feel the subtle things operate at a different level. They can sense the transparency and clarity inside a Stiga Sweden-made blade, appreciate the large sweet spot and high margin for error in a DHS special-edition blade, understand the gripping sensation and energy storage in a Butterfly special-process blade. Apart from the financial drain, being a gear enthusiast is genuinely a joy.
But like a poet whose gift for beauty comes with a tendency toward melancholy — the sharper the touch, the higher the gear level, the more sensitive those players become to their equipment. I think back to watching Kong Linghui play, a perfectionist who would glance at his paddle mid-rally. I recall the story of Zhang Yining selecting rubbers — when a batch arrived, she’d carefully pick through them sheet by sheet. You realize: this stuff is not easy. The higher the level, the more demanding.
Gear Enthusiasts Never Quite Grow Up
It’s like tinkering with toy cars as a kid, obsessing over what each tiny part does; which one spins more smoothly and adds speed, which one reduces air resistance better. Or all those legendary weapons we imagined from martial-arts films and novels. And then you realize: gear enthusiasts never really changed. Whether in video games or real life, “equipment” has always mattered this much — and been this much fun.
Scroll through all the table tennis WeChat groups and you’ll find some reminiscing about old times, some talking technique — but gear enthusiasts have quietly become the biggest group. Countless guys young and old are debating which blade and rubber hits better, which combination produces the most surprising results.
At the club I ran into a grade-schooler who asked: “Are you the Black Horse guy who writes about paddles? I’m using a 968-8.” And my young female training partner mentioned that her dad and grandfather are both subscribers. She said she doesn’t actually know me — her dad and grandfather brought me up first.
I felt a small pang of something, and at the same time, a small surge of satisfaction. Just how many people does this gear enthusiast world connect?