Muscle memory

[klacr]

I don't know about all of that myelin stuff. But you did make it interesting with your illustration. Somehow we all start at that beginning and we are the road to find out. It's rarely if ever a straight route from A to B. You learn to navigate on the run...fly by the seat of your pants. My dear old tennis coach used to tell me that to groove your strokes you can imagine rubbing your index finger on a block of wood and over time there would definitely be a groove in that wood. I can still see him rubbing his finger along the groove on the inside of his hand. Hear his voice. I have never met a better tennis coach than Sherman Collins, formerly of Dearborn, Michigan.

So we beat that path to the destination and somehow find we have missed the mark. What to do? Well you just go back...back to where you took the wrong turn. You need a guide at some point probably. He can show you the way or you can embark alone again and risk more valuable time.

Phil's problem is a technical one. It probably is a matter of his tossing the ball to high and this hinders his motion when he should be letting the racquet head fall behind him...but he instinctively knows that the timing is off. So he waits and then he hits. His swing was interrupted by the timing of his toss. Just a guess. I have seen the video. Phil...why don't you post it again. Or better yet take a flight up here to Sweden. We can fix this. I know that I can and you know that you can. So what's the problem?

Good luck at any rate. One thing you need is perseverance. All of this talk about creating neuro-pathways is just a fancy way of saying practice. But you have to practice the right thing. I wrote of my golfing problems. I'm on the right path now and I have convinced myself not to let the other guy outwork me. But I got the right information from a couple of youtube videos. I didn't necessarily get lucky finding them as I know what I am looking for. I have been there. At the destination...but somehow I left home and got lost. Gee...that sounds like my life as well. Hmmm.

Good posts...seano.

Phil knows the way. And he has done it many times before. Big part of it is relaxation and letting things go where they may. Phil has entered into the paralysis by analysis zone. Sometimes, we need to go back to basics and...

Show me the way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLgeTtYwQ7o

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[klacr]

Kyle, I have a friend who is an ex-ATP Challenger Circuit player. He is head pro at a nearby club here near Lugano. Also worked with him on improving my serve and he said my serve is fine, did not find the lack of more racket drop a problem.

But I see the video and I see no improvement over 2006. I know it can be done, because I can do it in front of a mirror. Will keep at it.

I've faced your serve as you have mine. It's a good serve. 100%, not 99%, but 100% of players your age would love to have your serve.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[gzhpcu]

Perserverance? I have been at since 2006.... . Keep thinking: tomorrow I will solve it, in an endless number of tomorrows... like Scarlet O’Hara at the end of Gone with the Wind... “Tomorrow is another day...”

[gzhpcu]

Phil,
don_budge is right...You can do it! And I know this for certain because I have seen it with my own eyes when I worked with you. Your serve is quite the weapon.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Kyle, I have a friend who is an ex-ATP Challenger Circuit player. He is head pro at a nearby club here near Lugano. Also worked with him on improving my serve and he said my serve is fine, did not find the lack of more racket drop a problem.

But I see the video and I see no improvement over 2006. I know it can be done, because I can do it in front of a mirror. Will keep at it.

[bottle]

Interesting fact: (at least to me)

Muscle memory is actually the myelination of the nerves needed for a particular muscular movement. The more you perform the particular movement, myelin (fatty-like tissue) forms around the nerves involved. The more the nerve fires, the more myelin wraps around it. The more myelin, the faster the signal travels to the muscle, creating neuro-pathways. Thus making for a decrease in wait time and an increase in processing speed of the brain.

Changing strokes is so difficult because you need to form new pathways and built up the myelin around the nerves for the new movement, while not having the brain send the signal down the old pathway. That's why it's so important to start new players with the proper technique and develop the most efficient pathways.

This is all true, but tends at the same time to give experimentation a bad rap. No one knows for sure what's a tweak and what's an overhaul. Does every tweak require an overhaul? Could the tweak maybe glom into an existing pathway? Then you'd only have to myelinate one little branch at one end? Ask a neuroscientist (he won't know).

Since myelin goes around all kinds of pathways, I suggest putting some of it around a pathway of relentless experimentation. A good reason for doing this is that the person or persons providing the early childhood indoctrination inevitably were stupid. Or if that's not charitable enough, they didn't know all that is known now. And if they're still alive they certainly don't know what's coming and seldom seem to wish to be in that number.

A funny and rather unpredictable wrinkle or should I say branch pathway in all this is that one may have laid down some interesting tracks in early bouts of experimentation twenty years ago. If so, can one come back to them now that they are more pertinent? Also, while I am no more than an innocent in matters of neuroscience, I was a gandy dander for the New Haven Railroad and therefore know that switches are important. And would therefore like to know more about the switches in a neuronal track. Or are the only tracks that matter in tennis really simple ones from here to there? Somehow I doubt that.

Whatever the truth (I think I prefer the German word "die Wahrheit"), this field is so new that even its experts don't know much. I just think that trying new stuff is always good and "empowering" and from what I have managed to pick up, the best way to produce a new layer of the good grey goop no matter one's age.

Moral: Changing a stroke is not so difficult if you have extensive experience in changing strokes.

[seano]

A visual image of what it's like to change a neuro-pathway, imagine you're inside a tennis court with a fence surrounding it. Outside the fence, the grass has grown so tall you can't see anything. There's a building in the distance, through the years you have beaten a path to the building. Unfortunately, it's not a direct path, now you need to find the most efficient way to get to the building. It's a process to beat down the brush to find the most efficient way. Often times, not quite sure where you are going and getting lost.

[gzhpcu]

So imagine trying to change a serve backswing after 50 years.

[seano]

Interesting fact: (at least to me)

Muscle memory is actually the myelination of the nerves needed for a particular muscular movement. The more you perform the particular movement, myelin (fatty-like tissue) forms around the nerves involved. The more the nerve fires, the more myelin wraps around it. The more myelin, the faster the signal travels to the muscle, creating neuro-pathways. Thus making for a decrease in wait time and an increase in processing speed of the brain.

Changing strokes is so difficult because you need to form new pathways and built up the myelin around the nerves for the new movement, while not having the brain send the signal down the old pathway. That's why it's so important to start new players with the proper technique and develop the most efficient pathways.

[gzhpcu]

Kyle, thanks, but it is a question of aesthetics...

[klacr]

Phil,
don_budge is right...You can do it! And I know this for certain because I have seen it with my own eyes when I worked with you. Your serve is quite the weapon.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[gzhpcu]

Thanks don_budge. I have never once in life given up, like you. My conclusion is similar to yours: my grip tightens.

[don_budge]

Soon as I am on the court, it is a Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyl siruation. Dr Jeckyl takes over.

I know the feeling. The insanity. Please Dr. Jeckyl...God make him go away. But yeah...I think Jeckyl wants to hit and Hyde is imploring him to swing.

[don_budge]

My guess is that when you put the ball in play you tighten up on your grip in the transition between the backswing and forward motion. When the impulse to hit over rides the will to swing (stay relaxed). Trust me...I know the feeling. If that grip tightens at that point, your forearm is also going to tighten and then it is going to be unable to drop. So after you "shadow" practice backswing and toss a million times...practice transitioning and maintaining a relaxed state of mind and physique through the transition from backswing to forward motion. Once you get to this point and you are able to "drop" and toss you will begin to get the "feel" of what it is you are trying to do. You want to concentrate on feel...and not thought. Thought has a nasty habit of interfering with the bodies "chi". The meridians of energy throughout your body. You might even resort to some acupuncture.

[don_budge]

The Moral of the Story...

The moral of the story Phil is simple...YOU CAN DO IT! It is a matter of a couple of things and perhaps the most important is patience. By being patient you learn to relax. You won't be able to pull off this "feeling" if you are in the slightest bit up tight. You mention that you have concentrated on a loose grip. Now you must loosen up from the mind on down. Starting with the mind. See in my example how the thing was making me so upset that it was impossible to find the necessary relaxation in my body to accomplish a very simple yet efficient motion.

The fact that you can do this motion in the mirror is an indication that this is without a doubt doable. Did you hear me...without a doubt. This is perhaps the most important thought to hang on to. Tell yourself that there is no way in the world that you are not going to accomplish this. It is only a matter of work, information and mental state of mind.

What it is going to take are a number of physical cues that you can eventually sequence together, practice individually and then mindlessly put together. When I hear that your mission is racquet drop then that automatically says to me...backswing. Everything turns simultaneously in the same state of relaxation and then the racquet must drop if it is in the correct position and you can relax through the initiation phase of the motion.

Your problem and my problem are very similar. Something happens in the brain if the body is unsure of the technique at the moment when you go to fire. Once that ball is up in the air and you must swing at it you resort to the old method of hitting at it. The service motion and the golf swing motion are very similar. Particularly because on the serve you are starting from a static position and you can virtually tee the ball up with a good toss. You did mention the toss as well. So now you have two clues or two things to work with. Coordination of the toss with the backswing. I suspect that ninety percent of your problem lies in this and this problem is going to make it difficult for you to relax. It is a self perpetuating cycle.

Go back to the drawing board and start practicing this backswing and toss together. Hundreds of times for weeks if necessary. Just as you have been.

When I was going through my insanity I at one point told myself that if necessary...I was going to be an infinite number of monkeys in a room with an infinite number of typewriters and sooner or later I was going to type out the King James version of the Bible.

Try to synch the backswing and toss...toss the ball exactly where you are going to impact it. You don't want to have to rush to the ball or have to wait for it. You want the right side (the racquet) of your body totally compatible with the left (the toss).

[gzhpcu]

don_budge, I don't give up easily either. In the section "Your strokes" in 2006, I presented the problem. Would you believe it, but I am still at the same point. Tried doing what John suggested. Worked on it with Kyle. It works perfectly when I do practice swings without the ball, but the moment I am on the court playing, the old autopilot takes over. Looked at endless YouTube videos. Will try again when I go play today...