Tibhar Defense Plus

This is an excellent defensive blade. It is very light and hence highly maneuverable. It absorbs power, so it would suit a classic defender that relies on slowing down the opponent. It is unlikely to win points through power shots or loop kills.

It is highly recommended for those who use placement and deception to win a point.

The straight handle is very comfortable, and it is excellent value.

It has more than enough speed for amateur players with hard hybrid rubber. I find a lot of comments that this blade is too slow, but I disagree with speed rating(5). This blade in setup with hard rubber is from All+ to Off-. Its speed could be part of the consistency issue of this blade. However, I agree that for an advanced player, you should get more spin and speed to win a point. You can do this using more body and legs to generate more power from the rubbers.

It could be hard to recover after a powerful shot. As a result, you should plan your shot placement more carefully and play more combination games in my humble opinion.

I try to play Satoshi Aida style in defense with 2 inverted rubbers, and I like this combination with Yinhe Big Dipper Spin(tuned) on FH. I also try a few Chinese rubbers, and all of them work fine with this blade. For BH, I tested a few soft hybrid rubbers(36-38* DHS gradation), but none of them fully satisfy me.

In general, I really like this blade.

BTW, the st handle is a really comfortable shape but too smooth for me. A few times, I was close to throwing it at my trainer, so I started to use Yinhe heat shrink tubing.