We've been talking a lot about Brodman Blades here at WTFoodge.com in the past. So as many of you know I play a lot of ping pong (Table Tennis) and Fredi Brodmann of Brodmann blades was nice enough to send a pair over for me to try out. My first impression of it was that the case was really nice. The overall packages comes with:

1. A case
2. Two blades
3. Four ping pong balls
4. Two wristbands
5. A pamphlet

When I got a chance to play with them, I was pretty open minded about it. No expectations. I'll speak of the pros before I speak of the cons. One thing I realized was that it was really comfortable to do a forehand stroke. The blade slipped right onto my hand and you have to grip it once it's in your hand or else of course it'd fly out launching it into your opponents direction. It felt very comfortable, a coach once told me that the paddle should be like an extension of your hand (so it feels natural), in this case the paddle IS your hand! It fits both lefties and righties. The rubber that it comes with is frictionless but soft and that is something I'm not used to, but my friends who are novice players had not problem using the paddle. They were ripping shots left and right! I on the other hand need fast, thick, and rubber with friction. It was very difficult for me to do a backhand but the forehand came very natural to me. Pushing was kind of hard but I don't think it was so much the paddle as much as it was the rubber. I also wasn't used to the feel of the blade. I think I am going to try to replace the rubber that it came with, with a tackier one. The price of the package is $100, which is pretty reasonable, but if it were to come with the rubbers that I use it would probably cost around $250.

My over all opinion on the blades are that I would buy it for fun, lets say I want to just play around with some friends and hit around. These blades could provide hours of fun! On the other hand, if you were to get serious about table tennis and wanted to train and go to sanctioned tournaments, it's better to get a regular racket... The reason? Well...These rackets are not ITTF approved yet, although maybe in the near future they will be. If you're a basement player and you just want something different and fun, I recommend you buy it! It can be ordered here.