A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

https://estream.to/zqfuynes90bf.html

Fun. Patricia Pemberton, Frank Parker, Gussie Moran, Babe Zaharias, Aldo Ray, Don Budge and Little Nell the horse and Charles Bronson (?) all playing together. Written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, the same guy who wrote TRACY AND HEPBURN, the best by far of the too many biographies.

So Dick, the brother who called me with the offer that I play the skinny fool in Coco, had the idea that they all tie themselves together with a single long rope. One by one they crawled out of the same window. Together they then made it to The Riversea on barely higher ground.

When we lived there (two parents and five kids), the rear section shown in the postcard no longer existed but the place still was big enough. And most of the people in the Borough of Fenwick, but not Dick Hepburn, came to the ballroom there whenever there was a dance or a hurricane.

[bottle]

NE (Next Experiment)

The major shift I recently made from linked bod turns to bod turns with a transition between them LEE (like everybody else) does not mean I can't occasionally go back and try the old way but with inclusion of SLTTMMABD ("some little thing that might make a big difference" in the centenarian Aunt Frieda's words).

A natural progression of iterations now has me sweeping the court in opposite direction-- an antiquated way of hitting a tennis ball-- or is it if one dissolves all transition between the two long broom sweeps?

Senator Paul Laxalt after all came out of his high Virginia mountain house one morning and saw me sweeping his tennis court and immediately suggested that that was the way he thought I ought to hit the ball.

And we know what Helen Wills Moody did for him with some such sharp observation the nature of which is forever lost (https://www.google.com/search?q=athe...hrome&ie=UTF-8).

And Senator Laxalt was always more than ordinarily interested in anything about Katharine Hepburn because of his Nevada connection to Howard Hughes.

And Howard Hughes once landed his plane on the par 6 fifth hole at Fenwick, Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

Both Tennischiro and now Brian Gordon have indicated in a way that other tennis instructors won't, that, a mondo or flip can be too harsh for sustainability.

Well I have straight arm forehands, the category in which that is most apt to be true and yet haven't sensed danger up until now.

"Perhaps you're not trying hard enough, Bottle," I find myself saying to myself, "Tack closer to the big rock. Create some danger and then if you have to back off."

And so, in search of a harsher flip, I abandon dogpat or floating milkweed altogether. The final straightening of the arm is from back to forward away from lagging strings. The flip and arm straightening and small loop if you insist on that term become one and the same.

More harsh or less harsh-- if it worked, who would care?

To court: So why couldn't I do it before? Because my idea of flip included sudden racket roll-down and wrist lay-back both. No, the wrist must lay back before the flip. But as with so many experiments, I have only found my success in self-feed. It is the occasional exception to this rule that builds my game.

Getting as much spin? Perhaps not. But who knows? One competes to find out.

Are parameters the same? No. Racket butt is now farther forward at same elapsed time. The combined arm slam and arm roll is accomplished in a space closer to two feet than three feet. That would be two feet from end of spear to contact.

One thing less is being done! And whatever the trade-off, a strong argument has to be made for a believed ease of production in this new shot.

[bottle]

The Clash of Two Tectonic Plates, the One Sliding over the Other

Guy says arm is passive. Other guy says arm takes off. So what does that make me? A trouble-maker but one who is covered since he has both kinds of shot.

[bottle]

Hiss

The legitimate critics of my verbal approach to tennis-- as opposed to the cheap shot artists who also love to get into the act-- find an excess of detail in my permutations.

They might be right if their judgment pertained to a single post.

Always however there is movement-- often between posts-- which I argue is toward feel and more vivid sensory cue and proper spacing between those theatrical cues.

And so, in the present, outlined forehand the first cue-- a movement cue-- is the bent elbow still sliding toward rear fence even when the shoulders have abruptly changed direction.

Second cue is racket on still laid back wrist pointing at left side fence.

Everything must go now into concentration on these two images, the first a motor image, the second a visual one.

All other detail must temporarily be pushed aside. As well as the vector considerations that go along with bod staying low like a striking copperhead or uncoiling upward like a striking rattlesnake-- two separate subjects that must be saved for another time.

[bottle]

Exigency

I probably owe it to myself not to write a post today, just to concentrate on the two images identified, one motor and the other visual, just as I said.

The geezers' carousel is scheduled for later this morning. There I can attempt to put the two images into practice but with the arrhythmic difficulty that comes with doubles tennis or even when trying new stuff whatever it is in actual play-- what about all the buildup time needed?

My hitting partner of the moment, Iryna, is on her way back to Kiev to take care of her sick mother and so my best chance will come predictably in a few forehand returns off weak serves.

Not a sufficient trial of anything. Especially when there are good servers interspersed among the geezers. I further dilute the trial now by the wish to talk more. The exigency here (https://www.google.com/search?q=exig...hrome&ie=UTF-8) is to do something reasonable for my tennis. But this thread too has its exigency, I tell you whether you, reader, believe that or not.

I simply cannot believe that, in the annals of tennis thought, there has not been more explicit attention given to the difference between passive arm and active arm forehands. I see rampant confusion everywhere on this point.

When Norman Ashbrooke asserts the efficacy of passive arm and then does so again-- with no response either time-- I understand that no one except for possibly don_budge with me wants a quarrel.

But drain all emotion away from the substantial question here, so as to see it, to understand it, or at least to recognize it.

I only know that, when I hear Stotty declare that there are a lot of great forehands around nowadays, I want to be in that number no matter my age. But if I want to do well I'll need the other kind of forehand too.

[bottle]

Two Hundred to One

How many self-fed reps of a new forehand produce one example of the same shot perfectly hit in a two-hour session of doubles? About 200 in my experience. Most attempts at the shot stayed in the court and even figured in won points. Their quality however was only remotely close to that of the shots hit in self-feed. The one that did meet the experimenter's (my) criteria was a story in itself.

I've seen this same ratio of 200 to 1 in other experiments. To generalize, one self-feed session produces one good shot. Not much of a reward unless one believed that soon the number would grow from one to four then 16 then success every time one attempted the new shot.

Idealism, in other words, so difficult for those singed by life to accept.

The shot that provided so much promise was perfect in some ways, imperfect in others. First of all the player (I, me, he) was well out ahead of oneself, returning serve from the ad court.

The return did not pin the server on the baseline as intended.

Instead it went down the middle barely clearing the net before plunging at the ankles of the paralyzed net-man.

But, was it turbo-charged? Absolutely. Was it an ideal combination of pace and spin? Absolutely. Did it inspire the whole game of the player who hit it for the rest of the morning? Absolutely.

[bottle]

Does a Flip Become Harsher or Milder with the Inclusion of More Elements?

One element previously included but now extirpated (https://www.google.com/search?q=exti...ome&ie=UTF-8): sudden, reactive lay-back of the wrist. I do it earlier to separate the two hands.

So what could be an expanded list of wanted elements with all of them driven by the bod turns? 1) hand straightening forward from the elbow away from the lagged strings, 2) a tugged shoulder thus prepared for power-adding release, 3) a turned down racket, 4) backward flow of bent elbow as knees and torso reverse direction, 5) a sense of pulling on the butt-cap.

[bottle]

Rotorded Serving: One More Time

The roller coaster of don_budge is a brilliant idea.

As are the windmills once propounded by John Yandell.

And the figure eights of tennischiro.

And the throwing exercises of Alan Jaeger (https://www.jaegersports.com/staff/), particularly those Alan advocates before long toss.

Jaeger's emphasis is that the arm is a human organism, not a metaphor for weakness. It is seen as individual (quirky) and best thought of as something stout and loose and full of blood from shoulder right out to one's fingertips. Arm health is everything, a passion even, at the Jaegersports website.

The windmill exercise seems an especially good beginning for this. So with racket in hand, do five backward windmills or more right now to animate and invigorate the arm.

Now squeak a few times: You are a mouse.

Now do some figure eights just as tennischiro (Don Brosseau) has explained in his videos, but with this exception for rotorded serving. Instead of letting them get facile and continuous like Serena's six or seven at the coin toss, save your complete continuity for the windmills.

My idea, for the figure eights, is to run each one through the full cycle you have carefully engineered-- through Don's online advice-- but stop at the point where you last started your service motion in its previous incarnation.

For me that is with hip bumped out and hands at medium height, which is not high enough.

The seminal cue, given to me by a teaching pro in Front Royal, Virginia, Jason Robertson, is hand behind neck as prime characteristic of a good serve every time.

That cue has the arm nicely bent as if poised to throw. The racket is neither open nor closed but on edge above the hand.

Well, both hands will be nicely bent now to begin every serve. But not high enough. So, to go the full roller coaster route I'll lift them to just in front of my neck as weight rocks forward. One might hear the clicks of an imaginary winch pulling the joined hands up.

This creates two roller coaster mountains, one directly in front of the neck and one behind it, with hand at same level in both instances and arm identically bent.

Now the hands fall to straighten arms and separate at the rate of gravity from the weight of the arms and racket; but, only the hitting arm comes up.

How should one do this? From momentum only? No, add a little muscular lift of the elbow. You won't need much thanks to the first tall drop point but still ought to add this small bit of oomph to buy time.

What else needs emphasis? A lot.

Especially the following idea for us restricted shoulder servers. There is no backward bod turn of any type until just before hand reaches its seminal position directly behind the neck.

But that bit of turn, kept purposefully small, gets to meld with liquid continuity into the full backward bod turns that occur in tandem with upper arm twisting inward and delayed toss now finally allowed to occur.

Such a delayed toss, it is my contention, should be hit at its apogee, not when it has dropped. And I started from a stance turned WAY AROUND.

And held serve every time in a two-hour doubles session as opposed to losing serve every time in the previous two-hour session.

[bottle]

There Has to Be a Pay-off for Doing Less

First though we need to ask ourself why the discrepancy between forehands fed by ourself and forehands fed by an opponent.

The answer beyond the possibility that one is not getting into perfect position is that momentum of the oncoming ball changes the math of the collision between the ball and the strings.

In self-feed you supply all the power yourself. In opponent-feed you get to use the other person's speed to increase or decrease the speed of your own shot. So if you practice self-feed a lot as I do for purpose of discovery, when you start to play you will find yourself over-hitting too many shots.

Actually this is not a bad place to be if only you will understand it.

To meet the transitional challenge I propose 1) soften the flip and 2) narrow up the frame.

Softening the flip is a process that began with laying the wrist back early. But rolling the racket over early has the same effect-- in fact if you do both to physical capability you could see the subsequent flip disappear, something you may not wish to do.

Solution: Just roll the racket down part of the available range as you lay back your hand to the max. The combination from early separation will take the strings back a considerable amount, enough that, with huge shoulders turn factored in you won't need to do much else.

The wide base of Roger Federer and other modern players suggests much hitting through the ball.

For comparison, however, consider the early pioneer of extreme topspin Tom Okker. He stayed down on widely set knees in predominantly neutral stance with those knees pressing toward the net. And had contempt for bod movement that went up.

While Roger's knees, torso and arm all combine to offer sequential "linearity," the linearity is combined with total body extrusion and rise-- a narrow frame in other words.

[bottle]

Report

So I just got to play-- on the Fourth of July-- and I am surprised at how many geezers showed up at the lakeside park immediately to the north of the Edsel and Eleanor Ford Estate.

The other day on my way there I got stopped by a cop. I was doing about 45 in a 35-mph zone. The cops are very strict in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.

So now I just set my cruise control at 35 and putt-putt up there and down from there, and tell myself that the amount of time the two drives take doesn't matter in the least. The view of Lakeshore Drive and Lake St. Clair is best in Detroit, after all. This was the signature shot of the Clint Eastwood movie Grand Torino. One passes Mansions and McMansions if that is what one likes, along with Canadian geese pooping on the grass and in the water. Milos Raonic, Justin Trudeau and the Stratford, Ontario theater, arguably biggest and best in North America are not far distant, and one can see portions of the Canadian shore to the south, which is counter-intuitive.

The cop let me off. It was either what I said or didn't say.

So we played, and I hit a lot of the new forehands, not just one or two.

I cannot see how-- logically-- any forehand that contains slow extension from the elbow just before a flip can claim extra pace and spin from a loop.

Rhythm, positioning, even comfort and flow, yes, but I argue for all the editing, i.e., paring away I now have done.

Brent Abel, who recently won another national championship (in seventies bracket singles this time), argues against constantly trying to retool one's strokes especially for the purpose of generating a few more RPS of topspin when there are more important things to think about, such as WRS, "what's the right shot?"

The caveat he permits is modification toward simplicity, a weeding out of gratuitous elements.

That is what I feel I am doing. What used to be flip is now a single tug, caused by rotation reverse, and powerful enough not only to remove all slack from the arm but to stretch the housing of one's shoulder into a slingshot for 15 per cent more linear power-- from the arm.

I know the arguments for keeping left hand on the throat of the racket for a good proportion of the backswing. But consider too how much movement gets excised when one simply points across to achieve just as big a bod turn as in any other method.

Most controversial of the news changes, I suppose, is elimination of all transition between bod rotations backward and forward.

No one has insisted that I have incurred a loss of control and precision by making this change-- at least not yet.

I myself don't know if such dissolution is true. I will experiment until I have the answer.

[bottle]

"I like to talk about tennis."-- Roger Federer

So we are at least in good company.

[bottle]

Voices Speak in His Sleep

Alphonse: You did away with descending milkweed? That was the best part of your forehand!

Black Bart: It's gone. But replaced with the relaxation of ulnar deviation and racket roll-down, arm still moderate high and bent.

Alphonse: That doesn't sound a tenth as good as descending milkweed.

Black Bart: But it is as good. Better in fact. And the elbow stays in. It fulcrums on the edge of your torso as wrist lays back. Then hand relaxes to drop the racket tip, with arm bend still held in place.

Alphonse: Better to get the elbow out early.

Black Bart: Conflicting notion. The distancing of elbow is part of the nuclear tug. One gets small hand movements out of the way to prepare for the arm-length-and-more full tug.

Alphonse: Well why can't racket relax down at low point same as before?

Black Bart: It can, but is that better? I don't know. I'll try it both ways.

Alphonse: Too much to do. Too complicated.

Black Bart: Not if you follow this simple rule. Mechanical then organic then mechanical then organic...Eventually it all becomes organic. With legs a perfect blend of circular and vertical thrust. Weight on both legs the ideal throughout. I don't know if it's old school. But it's definitely old French ski school. The less the hips angulate the more one's bod power is drawn out of the gut.

To the court, where Bottle learns in self-feed that Stotty is right once again. Better to get elbow out from bod early. But Bottle is stubborn. So he compromises. Half of elbow space is achieved during wrist lay-back, the other half during nuclear straightening of the arm.

[bottle]

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ar2_250fps.mp4

Upward administration of topspin from the bod before the wiper begins. The wiper is encrusted therefore on the upward spiraling bod movement. Or would "imbedded in" be the better term? This is a narrow frame forehand. The hand reaches low point close to the bod, not far out from it. So frame is narrow in the back. And frame is narrow in the front, too, because of the steepness with which the racket goes up.

[bottle]

I like the image of a roller coaster but now move on to another, a pyramid.

That would be a serve that is broad at the base and pointed at the top.

Could use legs for the base, I suppose, but more whimsically, I choose arms.

Racket drops at the rate of gravity but then, instead of climbing to a ridge goes OUT like spilled water. In fact both arms go out-- the water squashed against a hard surface spreads evenly in different directions.

The hands now are far, far apart.

But something else has happened-- a huge body turn measured through gravity drop and water spread.

All this started with stance turned far around. And is slow as everything in any serve before toss ought to be.

I've discussed delayed toss before, which may have led me, in practice, to serves in which toss was delayed too much.

I see delay here, but just a little as the two straight arms spread out.

Now the two hands go up, again on a single brain impulse, one from arm kept straight, the other from bending arm.

At the same time, the body bends like an archer's bow. The two hands now are closer together.

After and above that, you are on your own.

[bottle]

Put Your Thumb Down

This post is about the excitement of finding one's best forehand ever.

The other shots all seemed to work then too.

But I detect the chimera here (https://www.google.com/search?q=chim...hrome&ie=UTF-8).

A forehand that's great today-- especially a new one-- tomorrow is apt to go awry.

Well then, at least one got to see some excellence for the single day-- i.e., reward for design effort.

What all listeners/watchers of the recent Brian Gordon instructional videos are now doing isn't science but applied science-- the application of HIS science.

Me, I make an extrapolation (https://www.google.com/search?q=exst...hrome&ie=UTF-8) from the talk we all have heard or dished out on the subject of mondo or flip.

Brian Gordon explains very well, that, in straight arm version of the ATP3, 15 per cent increase of racket head speed comes not at the racket end of the arm but rather from the shoulder end.

A repeating video in his article "Developing an ATP Forehand. Part 1: The Dynamic Slot," 18th furniture, shows one player actively countering the arm swing of another and letting forward pressure build before letting the other guy's racket go.

The caption reads: "Holding back the arm demonstrates how the sling shot is created."

This is the stubbing or sling shot or catapult (https://www.google.com/search?q=cata...hrome&ie=UTF-8) effect from which I extrapolate my design change.

One lays wrist back same as Roger Federer does before HIS flip.

But one can roll racket down before the flip, too.

I do it without any lift of the racket but do let the elbow move backward from the bod a very few inches at the same time.

To back up, there is sequence from wait position which is best explained at the cue level.

Me, I have my thumb on top of racket, which doesn't mean the shot wouldn't work if thumb were someplace else, maybe wrapped.

As opposite hand points vigorously across to turn the bod a maximum amount, the thumb on top of the handle goes independently to work. It travels level to the court indicating a clean separation from the other hand as well as a laying back of the wrist. Looking down, one sees one's thumbnail through this. The ball of the thumb-tip is positioned down sliding sideways parallel to the court.

Then it curls down.

To repeat, thumb goes sideways then presses down-- a single move which does not affect one's arm setting (bent).

To reiterate, you've formed the top of a small loop from your hand only.

The pressing thumb in fact causes ulnar deviation and roll-down of the arm thus shortening the distance of racket from bent arm to low point of racket about to occur.

What you are doing mimics action at the racket end of a conventional flip ahead of time.

Mr. X, a teaching pro who made a You-Tube video but was so humble he forgot to put his name on it, stressed that flipping hand and racket butt accelerates forward from lagged strings, the strings don't go backward from the hand.

The same thing can happen without any roll-down of the racket since that has already occurred.

The rising and rotating bod takes racket butt away from the lagging strings. It does so by removing slack from the arm and putting a tug on the shoulder.