What is American Grip ?

[Tayyaba]

I hear sometimes about what is called a Seemiller grip.
Is this the same grip as American grip, where they use only one side of the racket like penhold ?

[Hedghog]

Initially it was called Seemlier grip because it was used by the Seemlier brothers
Dan Seemiller was many time US Singles Champion & I think was World ranked #18 at one time
Dan & Rick Seemiller were many time US doubles champions & were ranked in World Top !0 in the late 70's
Randy Seemiller was also a high ranked US player
They may have a fourth brother & I am not sure if he played

But in early 80's another set of brothers came upon the USA table tennis scene
Scott Boggan was USA Singles Champion. He was a pips out hitter like their father Tim Boggan ,who was USATT president at one time.

Eric Boggan was an inverted looper. He was also ranked #18 in the world at one time in the 80's just like Dan Seemiller in late 70's

Both Dan & Eric held the racket in a way as to what is unaffectionately referred to as the American basement grip. This is because tabletennis is a joke basement game and not a formal sport in USA & many basement players hold the racket this unique way & not like the traditional shakehand grip mostly popular in Europe & south Asia or the penhold grip used to be more popular in far east Asia.

So Seemillers & Eric Boggan sort of took this grip to new heights but in different ways. Seemiller grip was more forehand dominant & Eric's grip was (sort of) more backhand dominant, though they all used only one side of racket to play both forehand & backhand just like the TPH(Traditional Penhold Grip unlike the modern two sided RPG (Reverse Penhold Grip) or the shakehand grip. They had spinny inverted rubber on one side & antispin inverted rubber on the other side but twiddled the racket and used both sides

Dan Seemiller's grip enabled to him to produce powerful forehand loops. Chester Barnes wrote in his book that Dan Seemiller & Hasegawa had the fastest loops in the world. Hasegawa the 1967 World Champion & a penholder turned shakehander also held the racket in a strange way (forehand dominant) but in the weirdest way he also was one of the best lobbers in his prime.

Eric Boggan's grip was slightly modified it was more backhand dominant. Many top players made the mistake of assuming that his backhand has to be weak because of his forehand oriented grip but paid the price as his backhand blocks were like a wall.

So that is the story of the American grip

[TSA ( Terminal Spin Addict )]

There was also a father son duo from Connecticut called Shapiro s who had a variation of this American grip. They had a similar grip but can use either side of the racket on either forehand or backhand though none of them were particularly strong and so was sort an all round 4 sided grip LOL

[Karin V]

on Wednesday October 04 2023, 04:52
The difference between Danny's and Eric's grips are that Eric rotates the blade more so that it is easier to hit a strong backhand punch and use the anti. Danny's grip is rotated only as much so the racket face can be vertical when hitting backhands. They both wrap their index finger around the edge of the blade but Danny is just barely wrapped (maybe one knuckle) while Eric wraps his finger much more (maybe to the end of the second knuckle). Danny's finger is up higher on the blade while Eric's is down closer to the handle.

Its obvious from the video that Danny wants to hit forehands and Eric is the more all around player and he clearly wants to use his backhand more. It's easy to see that Eric twiddles a lot more and uses the anti effectively. They both use anti on one side.

I hope that this will be a big help to anyone that is thinking about using the Seemiller grip.

Looks interesting
I looked for a YouTube video that shows the differences between these grips. Could not find any.
One question I had was about the thumb postion also. You have not mentioned it in your post.