I have used Dr.Neubauer Combination Effect, Bulldozer, Gladiator blades before trying a Kung Fu blade recently. The Dr.Neubauer Kung Fu blade was introduced to the market few months back only. I have got the intent to try it after I liked the performance of Dr.Neubauer Gladiator. But the Dr.Neubauer Gladiator and Dr.Neubauer Kung Fu blades are more like a North pole and South pole.
The Dr.Neubauer Gladiator is a hard blade with very hard feeling. The Dr.Neubauer Kung Fu is a soft blade. The Gladiator is a 7 ply blade. I have no idea about Kung Fu. The trend among the blade manufactures these days is they mask the edges of the blades with either paint or wood. That is the case with Gladiator and Kung Fu. A Joola Chen Weixing blade I have received recently also has its edges painted blue. The Kung Fu is 5.5mm thick while Gladiator is 5.0 mm thick.
The Dr.Neubauer Kung Fu is a blade very similar in feeling, speed to TSP Balsa Plus 3.5. I would call Kung Fu a junior Combination Effect paddle. The Gladiator is a mid range defensive while Dr.Kung Fu is a close to the table defensive blade. The Gladiator is faster than Kung Fu. The harder feeling of Gladiator comes from also it handle. The Kung Fu is made of Balsa, and this makes the weight of Kung Fu 74 gm. The weight of Gladiator is 82 gm.
Blocking
The Gladiator is a perfect choice for blocking game. With long pips or anti, the blocking does well. I have noticed the balls sinking effect and reversal. The Ball has excellent reversal, deception and sinking. This is what frictionless style players look for in a returned ball. This effect is the same in chop blocking also. But going further away from the table and making that attempts where fruitless. The Kung Fu does not have enough power to handle such distant balls. The Gladiator shines very better in this area. There is one area Kung Fu does bad is blocking high spinny top spin balls. The countering was very difficult with Kung Fu. I could not keep the ball on the table. This is the same with Darker 7P.2A defensive blade. Both these don’t have meat to counter top spin. The Gladitor performed very good. I played against a player who uses JUIC 999 with WD-40. This player’s balls are very spinny and carry a lot of spin. Gladiator could arrest the ball for a good countering.
Looping
The Kung Fu shines very well in looping the ball. I did not like way Gladiator spins the ball. There is more energy transfer in Kung Fu while looping. The Gladiator spits the ball out faster. I could not see much forward rotations in the balls bounced from the Gladiator.
Hitting
For a close the table game, Kung Fu is a very good blade. It shines very well for hitting, blocking. The Gladiator has more power when it comes to hitting close or away. The Euro style players should consider Gladiator.
Both the Kung fu and Gladiator are regular sized paddles. They are oversized. They are perfect for players who use wrists.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I use the Kung-Fu with the L1 on the backhand and this blade is absolutely fantastic in terms of control and its ability to increase the disturbing effect of long pimples.
This review is really interesting but there is one little mistake as Kung-Fu is not made of balsa : http://www.drneubauer.com/shop.php?cat=2&cat_s=&lang=us&prod=63
Whatvis the weight of cpen? Also i found article saying the straight blade is 85gm. Which is right?