A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Pre-load of Pre-Launch of Two Boats Friday Night

We could have gone anywhere in the world but chose Stockholm Harbor because of its Vasa precedent.

The Vasa was a richly decked out Swedish warship that was built top-heavy and had insufficient ballast and tipped over and sank on 10 August 1628 outside of Stockholm after it only sailed one mile.

The well-preserved shipwreck is in a museum where it has been seen by 30 million visitors since 1961 .

We or rather I don't want any kind of a repeat, and so I have chosen Stockholm Harbor to remind myself that any last minute modifications in design to the two boats must be very precise.

I've opted to bring over the little virgin from Copenhagen Harbor to perform the double christening on adjacent ways or tracks. This little virgin has a two-handed backhand, and in fact both of her arms are very strong from her tough harbor life. I have no doubt at all that she can easily smash two bottles of champagne to either side at once.

The ATP Forehand is all but ready to sail. It only needs some conformation from famous tennis teaching pros that wrist must be laid back first before the final flip despite what Roger Federer does.

The Abbreviated Looping Homunculus with Long Arms also is ready to sail. It only needs some counterpoint to its circular windup, which means that one can stay low in one's knees just as the Dutchman Tom Okker does except when he's straightening his back one.

In other words, forward swing rather than leg straightening will counter the racket butt as it slides into its harbor.

The continental player will slowly swing the racket tip forward as if it's a long nail hammered through an old board.

This will create space for the racket head to suddenly change direction and plummet down to the foot.

[stotty]

Okker

Nice view of Okker's forehand in slow motion at 1:16 on this short clip.

Also, a succession of shots in slow motion, including serve, two sliced backhands and a forehand volley at 0:53.

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

He is playing Marty Riessen. Is Marty well-built enough?! Physique like a god.

[tennis_chiro]

Riessen a two sport athlete

Nice view of Okker's forehand in slow motion at 1:16 on this short clip.

Also, a succession of shots in slow motion, including serve, two sliced backhands and a forehand volley at 0:53.

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

He is playing Marty Riessen. Is Marty well-built enough?! Physique like a god.

Riessen played Div I college basketball at Northwestern. And he played tennis like a basketball player relying on his athleticism and a serve and volley game.

don

[bottle]

Tom Okker vs. Ben Hogan?

Wow, Stotty. The topspin forehand you identified in the clip has some different things about it than in the break-down you earlier posted and in my MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES book as well. The loop is small, the initial elbow move is to the outside, there's big flip at the bottom-- and I'm sure I'll see more if I keep looking.

Sometimes, Tom Okker in neutral stance stays down, it would appear, so that
body presses forward to balance the loopy tricks he uses to generate big racket head speed.

Lately, in my experiment, I've been opening wrist as I pull the racket back toward my body. But then, on a few service returns last night, I don't know what I did other than hit a good shot (does a very good night where the tide lifts all boats count toward analysis? Maybe not).

Maybe, if you're a design freak like me, you just get a good approximation going and then get a little romantic waiting for unseen magic development.

One thing is for sure. If you get romantic too soon, you're cooked.

I'm also a big believer in the asides that occur in natural conversation, e.g., Don telling me he liked the idea of wrist going back gradually in a forehand. That set me to exploring a whole new area, with some interesting new permutations of strokes, but certainly didn't put an end to various fooling around with flips from mild to harsh.

A lot of tennis, it would seem, doesn't have to be an either/or.

In the Stotty-identified topspin forehand here I see Okker generating racket head speed from leg extension and not staying down at all.

[bottle]

More and More Ben Hogan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCR09QQ5ls4

Suggestion: Turn the noise off.

The hips bring the right angled right arm out toward side fence. Which suggests baseball to me.

I guess the baseball swing is at a low outside ball.

The swing goes mildly down and out before it goes up.

Is there a flip or isn’t there?

The trouble is half the people define flip as arm rotation and laying back of wrist, and the other half define it as arm rotation only.

I’m in the second group in my designed shot, which is called ABBREVIATED LOOPING HOMUNCULUS WITH LONG ARMS.

The angled right arm, identified by Hogan as “intial move” of forward swing is passively moved by the hips into a position where the forearm is parallel to the ground.

I'm sure that no one will ever do better than the Gary Player on Ben Hogan clip Steve posted once and I posted many times:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ywZ4b6vjFc

But go ahead, get confused, watch the following clip, try to convert from golf to tennis and good luck. Notice the belch near the end of the video. It's very important. Here's my question: How can anybody find anything of significance if they don't authorize themselves to get lost first?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=ODCzUcP6GLk&NR=1

[stotty]

Wow, Stotty. The topspin forehand you identified in the clip has some different things about it than in the break-down you earlier posted and in my MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES book as well. The loop is small, the initial elbow move is to the outside, there's big flip at the bottom-- and I'm sure I'll see more if I keep looking.

Sometimes, Tom Okker in neutral stance stays down, it would appear, so that
body presses forward to balance the loopy tricks he uses to generate big racket head speed.

Lately, in my experiment, I've been opening wrist as I pull the racket back toward my body. But then, on a few service returns last night, I don't know what I did other than hit a good shot (does a very good night where the tide lifts all boats count toward analysis? Maybe not).

Maybe, if you're a design freak like me, you just get a good approximation going and then get a little romantic waiting for unseen magic development.

One thing is for sure. If you get romantic too soon, you're cooked.

I'm also a big believer in the asides that occur in natural conversation, e.g., Don telling me he liked the idea of wrist going back gradually in a forehand.
That set me to exploring a whole new area, with some interesting new permutations of strokes, but certainly didn't put an end to various fooling around with flips from mild to harsh.

A lot of tennis, it would seem, doesn't have to be an either/or.

In the Stotty-identified topspin forehand here I see Okker generating racket head speed from leg extension and not staying down at all.

Yes, he's playing a higher ball than in the photo sequence. The loop is more shallow. I would love to know what 10splayers thinks about that particular forehand in terms of the flip.

Any interested viewers should slide to 1:16 on the clip.

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

[bottle]

Attention: Rotorded Back-footed Servers

And welcome to the first day of Wailing Baby Rotorded Back-Footed Camp here in the quaint mountain town of Ocelot-in-the Ozarks. Could we ask for a bluer sky?

At 9:30 a.m. in the Hutchens Lean-to there will be a webinar with Kim Rightfultosh of Alice Springs, Australia. You won't want to miss this one. Kim will discuss the role of arm-bending in the serve. I wouldn't want to give Kim's thunder away. Nevertheless, Kim will help us all with prioritization. With which shall we concern ourselves more: Degree of arm bend or upper arm twist?

At 10:30 a.m. the staff will help the campers implement Kim's central ideas out on the Silver and Magnesium Courts.

At 11:30 a.m., the second webinar will be conducted by Vunku Ramanathan from Bangkok, Thailand, also in the Hutchins Lean-to. Vunku will show us a video emphasizing how good overheads can bring us toward serves with a more sensible design employing that rotor range which we all do have. Staff will then accompany all campers out to the Gold, Platinum and Titanium Courts to try the new knowledge out.

Everybody must report to the mess hall at 12:30 p.m. Lunch will last for one hour, but at 1:30 p.m. sharp everyone must assemble fully dressed at the Titanium Court for our featured event of the day in which Joe Mephistopheles from Adelaide, Australia will show us his provocative ideas about passive upper arm twist morphing into pre-loaded twist, with all of it dependent on pressure from the coiled rear leg. Again, the demonstration will include a webinar in which campers are urged to share their questions. All computer equipment will be located under the taut canvas in the far triangle of Titanium Court. But not everyone should stay there all the time. Groups of campers will be drifting toward the unoccupied sections of the court to try the new concepts out.

At 3:30 p.m. Don Brosseau of Los Angeles will explain exactly what he means by raising elbow all the way through a serve.

From 4:30 p.m. until candlelit dinner at 10 p.m. unstructured tennis will be held on all 16 courts, so think about choosing a doubles partner right now.

[don_budge]

Tom Okker's Dunlop Maxply? Is it longer than standard issue?

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

Tom Okker (The Flying Dutchman) and Marty Riessen (The Northwestern Hoopster) enter the stadium...Okker carrying four Dunlop Maxply’s and Riessen carrying just two Wilson Kramer’s. No luggage...no overnighters. Both players all dressed in traditional white. At .20 a classic tennis point...return of serve to the Riessen backhand followed up with a crosscourt forehand wide to the forehand. A reply to the backhand which is in turn answered with a drop shot. Riessen sensing the invitation to the net slides the ball deep into the backhand corner with a combination of underspin and sidespin and Okker puts up a high defensive lob followed by another lob until he is in position to change the momentum of the point where he immediately goes on the attack.

The next point that we are treated to is an Okker first serve to the Riessen backhand which draws a short ball upon which Okker seizes the initiative and slides a low sliding ball with sidespin into the Riessen backhand who in turn lobs...into the teeth of an Okker smash.

Next is a slow motion view of the lovely free and relaxed classic serving motion of Tom Okker. See how he makes that initial move with half a back swing to loosen himself up for the free flowing serve to follow. That is what is referred to in golf as a waggle. It is a preview of the swing to come. Nice slow backswing, the tempo of which is dictated by the movement and turning of his shoulders with the whole body engaged...a beautiful long follow through to match his swing on the other end. Is it a platform or is it a pinpoint? I will let you be the judge...but I think it is a platform with back leg swinging through. Now this might sound a little strange...but is his racquet longer than regulation or standard size? I swear that it looks like it is...or is it just that he is so diminutive?

One more thing...Okker hits a couple of forehand volleys in the purest of classic tradition. The racquet goes directly towards the ball in flight and never breaks the plane of his body going backwards in his backswing. No muss...no fuss.

He has elements of the modern forehand? Hardly...it is the other way around.

[stotty]

Okker and autographs

I love that forehand at 1:16. It's relaxed and loose. He had no problem with high balls and could generate heavy topspin despite his continental grip. I watched him in the 70's at Earls Court in London playing someone I cannot remember. He moonballed with heavy topspin very effectively at times in that game. He could get as much topspin as Borg when he wanted.

Okker was/is small (and suffered from "small man syndrome" to a degree). He wasn't too friendly when I asked for his autograph as a boy years back. He was dismissive, off-hand. You remember these things all your life. (Nastase of the other hand was very friendly and ran all the way back down a corridor to sign my book...which I still have...which has a single page of signatures from Okker, Bob Lutz, Billy Martin, Corrado Barrazutti and Stan Smith...quite a page of autographs).

I also like the close up of the forehand volley after the backhand approach in the clip...for the same reasons as don_budge. He is clearly caressing it deftly crosscourt...killing any pace the ball had left in it...a simple put away after a well constructed point...lovely.

I could watch clips like that all day. Trust bottle to get us all started.

[bottle]

More About The Little Mermaid And Her Two-Handed Backhand

I enclose a picture, not of us dining together in a very expensive cavelike restaurant, a tomb beneath Stockholm really, but of V. in her natural habitat.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+little+virgin+in+copenhagen+harbor&hl=en&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=bP1OUf6KBInxygHr54GoBA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1422&bih=790#imgrc=ZNI1zPZ1QPfmnM%3A%3BUwCWozoOrjpQlM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.travelstring.com%252Fimages%252Fcopenhagen-0661.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.travelstring.com%252Fdenmark-copenhagen%252F%3B700%3B525

She was well aware of my negotiations with the Danish government to set up a student exchange. The way it would work was that twenty Swedish students from the big university in Stockholm would ride a chartered bus to Copenhagen, where they would give speeches on how their grandparents and even great-grandparents, back in World War II, despite their neutrality, were not as bad people as the Danes thought.

In return for this, V. and I would take public transport-- a bus again-- from Copenhagen to Stockholm, although the Danish government was quite suspicious of my motives, especially since V. had been cut loose by thieves with acetylene torches more than once.

While we were visiting the Vasa Museum in Stockholm Harbor, V. insisted that we find an indoor tennis facility. By wandering around in the dark mist used to preserve the excavated and re-assembled black timbers of the Vasa, we finally found someone who wasn't a tourist, and that guy told us where to go.

I know that all expenses are relative to what one has in one's pocket, but again, I found the indoor court time a bit too much.

V. however hit the ball very well. She didn't think much of my own backhand especially when I told her I was modeling it on Peter Korda that day.

"He does drugs," she said. "And I don't like Czechs." She stared at me in a way that suggested a different spelling of that word.

I would like to describe in full detail our dinner and time together, but that is a sore subject. I was hoping we could discuss the Magna Carta, but V. only wanted to speak of tennis technique.

"Your forehand, what you call it, the ATP forehand-- very interesting. But I think you should extend your arm more like Gulbis. And your other forehand, the crazy one with Hogan's secret. Once you tuck your elbow in like that, you're finished. It might work some day but you'll need a lot more invention. More likely, you'll hit the ball right up to the roof the way you just did."

[bottle]

How to Use the New Information

Here's the logic of new things: It's good to be weird in tennis. But people who don't have an ounce of zaniness in their souls would like everybody to play the same.

Relentless pursuit of this goal might lift the general level of competency but...you fill in the blank. Personally, I would be so bored that I would move to another sport, perhaps to a super-seniors pair in international rowing like the young men Tony Johnson and Larry Hough in the twentieth century.

Their gold in the World's and silver in the Olympics was at least partially due-- according to Tony's high school coach Charlie Butt-- to balancing application of power. A pair is two persons with one oar apiece. A double is two persons with two oars apiece. In the Johnson-Hough pair, Tony got the power on early and Larry got it on late. Because of these personal idiosyncrasies, their boat went unbelievably straight.

To me, the Tom Okker forehand is one of the best gems ever in the game of tennis. I compare it to the Pancho Segura backhand-looking forehand or the Andy Roddick serve or John McEnroe's or Marion Bartoli's total game. I'm talking about effective uniqueness, not who can beat whom.

But Okker's forehand, not too long for him, is too long for me. Is size of loop the essential ingredient in Okker's magic so that I should forget it? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I'm looking for a shot to balance my succinct, working and promising ATP forehand. And Ben Hogan right hand, I think, is the way to do it. The "flip" in a Ben Hogan golf swing clearly happens early with hand still high and hips just starting their forward pivot.

But golf doesn't apply to tennis, you say. Ivan Lendl, who plays both, once made that argument. In the book he collaborated on with Gene Scott, he suggested that the intricate sequence in the golf swing, if completely carried out, would lead to uncontrollable power in tennis, which is a running game. Wise words, but on the other hand Hogan's view of the golf swing is more stripped down than that, and offers the possibility of something extremely powerful but controllable.

I'm interested today in a one-piece circular backswing that may be golflike or not-- I don't know-- but with gradually laying back wrist. And with continental grip (but not for the ATP forehand). And with John McEnroe's method of turning his shoulders (not keeping hand on racket but a big point across). And with rising plane substituted for McEnroe's down-and-up.

Then comes a mild flip with elbow falling into the side to change trajectory into a flatter, more baseball-like swing, which in tennis terminology, will create more separation as it descends.

What will be the ingredients of this part of the stroke? Arm extending at elbow but elbow itself simultaneously moving away from the body.

Roll of arm and fixed, laid back wrist will then, very smoothly, brush strings up the back of the ball.

Later note: The roll discussed in the previous sentence comes from the words of Tom Okker himself in MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES, but I no longer believe that his roll happens on the ball. I think it concludes before contact. Because there's no roll as he comes off the ball.

[stotty]

I agree Okker's forehand is interesting and unique. It's long and fluid. It's strange how he manages to close the racket face so completely during the backswing with the grip he has.

Also, when I watched Okker years ago I remember him micro adjusting his grip just before the forward swing. The clip at 1:16 catches him doing this. Strange the things you remember as a kid...that stay with you forever.

I just love the full extension he gets on the follow through. I find the shot beautiful from start to finish.

[bottle]

We're in agreement about a lot. And I do see Tom Okker "micro adjusting his grip." From what and to what, I wonder. His fingers loosen and replace. This happens with both hands on the racket as anyone would expect. Keeping left hand on the racket for a long time is definitely part of the stuck. Which makes the stuck close in some respects to the Rick Macci stroke (the ATP forehand) although start of forward swing is from a completely different place.

My projected stroke, which I won't try out (for the very first time through self-feed) for at least another hour lays back wrist early and gradual like a golfer and entails no alteration of continental grip.

Then comes "Hogan's secret" in which downward plane is altered from upward plane, i.e., from backswing. The plane is still upward-downward but a bit more toward parallel to the court.

The video at 1:16, as we've both already discussed, is a flatter, briefer and higher version of the Tom Okker full lollapalooza in which racket tip looks like it's about to hit his foot though some of that is camera angle.

And his elbow never comes into his body, so I guess he wasn't a fan of Ben Hogan on that particular shot.

Okker himself, in MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES, makes a big distinction both photographically and verbally between his flat and his topspin forehands. To me they're all topspun forehands.

I'm looking for something utterly weird and great though maybe not so fluidly beautiful-- we'll see.

1) I hope it works. 2) I hope it's great. 3) Would like it to be beautiful as well, but it might be more of a rough sidearm. If I don't immediately write something more about it, I detected some serious flaws. (But I still haven't made it to the court yet.)

[bottle]

There's Always a Surprise

I haven't yet found anything wrong with this shot other than that it hits the ball hard and the ball then sizzles low-- maybe not my expectation. But I'm good with having one solid forehand that bounces high and another that bounces low, with both easy to get off.

[bottle]

Arm-Wrestling at Ocelot Camp

The reason for this activity repeated through the decades has been to demonstrate to the rotorded server community just how vulnerable they are if their forearm clocks much past one.

To try to build service action back there is totally absurd said Louis Lew, director of the camp.

After a few weeks at Ocelot the camper will have an up and down service motion resembling a volleyball serve in which the elbow rises severely before the hand.