A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Adopt Semiwestern Grip

[QUOTE=bottle;n60450
The racket wriggles to this closed position as it descends to inside of slot and behind one.
[/QUOTE]

I don't think such a "wriggle" or other awkward adjustment becomes necessary if one is willing to use a semiwestern grip. Doug King explains very well why semiwestern fits this forehand. (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...ew/7.grips.php). I thought I could hit these shots with my strong eastern but am conducting self-feed all the time. And self-feed is the first thing to guide my decisions. (Forgive me for being so enthusiastic about this new forehand if you don't like enthusiasm).

Now I have three different grips for the three different forehands I will use, each with thumb on a different pointy ridge.

One backhand grip will have same thumb position as for a McEnrueful-- i.e., composite grip for a flat and very-solid-with-bod forehand and for backhand slice.

I just considered all the tennis advice ever offered by anybody to anybody one day and chose J. Donald Budge's to ordinary players (or any players) to hit backhands better by putting more thumb behind the ball.

This has led, in my case, to perching thumb on a sharp ridge no matter the grip.

Topspin backhand perches thumb on pointy ridge just under rearward slat. A power cord forehand puts it on third pointy ridge to the right of that. Pointy ridges are my self worked out system, you see. The forehands don't much care if a thumb is in front of them rather than wrapped, I have found.

[bottle]

Learning this Special Kind of Forehand with Personal Philosophy for Doing So

Don't be a dope like Donald Trump, a hero with clay feet.

Allow your listener to craft her or his response to everything you say, understanding that words have their own life and don't really exist until the response, a response you can't spin or later control.

Conversely, to read or receive correctly, one crafts one's own response.

(https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...slowmotion.php)

Like it or no, there is a huge transition from pointing tip forward to racket butt pointing out at future contact or to the far side of it.

There is a rush of acceleration as the racket tip goes down and topples up to contact.

Racket butt may point to outside of ball as on one-handed backhand too.

All the roll you've worked on provides acceleration not preparation same as on backhand. Backhand discipline applies here too.

You counter the big muscle groups with small muscle groups until big naturally overpowers small and the racket zings.

It's near the end of this video-- you have to relax hand so it can add speed as it grabs.

There has to be a snap just as on the backhand side.

The sequence now is mondo-hand or mondopop.

The racket does not come around.

It golfs under, rakishly.

It golfs. It does not baseball. It's close to a lob. The lob however does not happen.

The bod rotation and power cord activate this toppling-under SWISH.

The strings go from open at top to mondoed at bottom.

The racket wriggles to this closed position as it descends to inside of slot and behind one.

Only from closed racket face can racket tock under to contact at great speed, the fastest thing by far in this slo-mo video.

The small muscle groups never break out (from) the larger muscle groups path.

The power cord helps take the racket butt to climax.

The mondo takes the racket tip back when everything is going forward to create delayed acceleration.

Racket speed is relatively slow both before and after the sudden acceleration.

Open at top. Closed at bottom.

The left hand is still for this.

"Light quick turn in the hands." Sure, with the turn a golfy swish down and up to near square.

The left hand goes fast. The two arms do not go together as thought.

As left hand goes the racket tip fights to stay back!

If there is learning progress here it can be marked in growth from mondo alone to mondopop.

Slow before mondopop. Slow after mondopop.

The mondo has changed from forearm rolling racket open as happens in other genres of forehand.

You already rolled racket open.

Racket in fact rolls closed. Yes, but wrist still snaps back.

Racket butt leads the racket down with straight wrist.

The circle of the arm is a subject in itself.

Point racket tip at ball or even to outside.

Open racket abbreviating rearward path. Take it down open.

At last moment synonymous with the tuck do a mondo with reversed forearm roll to close strings.

It's fast. It's quick. It's light. It's not over till the pop of mondopop.

Practice the body form. Make no attempt to do anything special with the hand. Don't worry about pitch or anything else. Move body only through the path. Let the hand just ride along. Do this without racket, holding hands together. Then try it with hands moving apart.

Then add the unique hand action just outlined.

[bottle]

Relevance

This discussion (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...orecontact.php) ought to have relevance to your forehand, reader, whether you have an ATP3, a power cord, a Skeeziks, a Ziegenfuss, a Dirty Sock, a Nicolescu or a McEnrueful.

Should have relevance to your volley, too.

[bottle]

Power Pocket is Established in Waiting Position before the Stroke Even Begins

https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/membership/videos/king.forehand.new/14.slowmotion.php

[bottle]

Back to Doug King Forehand

Maybe it's good, when you are convinced that something is very good, that somebody else tell you it is not good.

The Doug King forehand, though not "The ATP Forehand," is effective and beautiful.

Today I'd like to check out how much one's human head goes backward and forward, having already ceded that it rises a bit.

(https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m....wavemodel.php)

[bottle]

Ja, We ist der Superman, Super-Duper Superman

Ja, wir sind der Ubermensch, Super-uber Ubermensch

One doesn't want to be like that, in tennis or anywhere else. Further, one doesn't want to elect such a person one's president.

In a whirligig serve I suggested a while back that one may need to speed up the first part of one's whirligig to make time for the racket to revolve 180 degrees from ISR (internal shoulder rotation).

whirligig (http://www.bing.com/search?q=whirlig...R&pc=EUPP_DCTE).

Now I reverse the notion, which can be called "bending the stick the other way" to solve the problem of breaking the stick (maybe one is building a campfire).

In tennis, breaking the stick is considered poor form but the richer, more spoiled players do it all the time.

Do they try to do it overhead in their serves however? Well, they should. Because, although the racket won't break they may generate a powerful serve.

To this purpose I now cram desired form into a shorter time box.

So, within this model (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...DB1stSRear.mov), the racket reaches the first of its two bottom positions as ball reaches the top of the toss.

The racket reaches the second of its two bottom positions, tocked out to right, as ball begins to fall.

Now there is less time for the racket length to spin 180 degrees. It therefore goes fast. That is the theory, and it's good to have a theory before one goes to practice.

[bottle]

Absorption

Working from this single video alone, how does absorption at contact best work? (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m....wavemodel.php)
From fingers loosening and grabbing or fingers and wrist doing it? If the wrist is not involved (one needs to play catch to check this out), then one doesn't need to adopt the free wristed approach outlined in the previous post. But could anyway to create better angles.

One of these days all of this stuff is going to just happen. I have such days (as anybody who sticks with their tennis does, I assume). It's what keeps me going.

[bottle]

Forehand

So what's it going to be, dog pat or dog tail? Flip or catch? Feel for the ball or collide with the ball? Wind forearm on elbow toward the ball or save that upper arm roll for a baton like wipe? Soft hand or hard? Corn flakes or rice krispies shot from a gun?

The answers: Know thyself. Decide for thyself.

Learning the form of these Doug King strokes could not be a bad idea, not if we want to know what's out there.

And form provides freedom to use the imagination and come up with new stuff, Doug King's best idea of all.

Today I want to try a free wristed forehand identifed by Paul Metzler of Australia (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...about%20tennis) as a shot in which laid back wrist closes gradually as racket nears the ball.

Why wouldn't this method apply to a power cord forehand?

You get the wrist open early at a place of your choosing to close it gradually along the way-- one more aid to feeling for the ball along with clearing of the hips and shape shifting of the two hands and the natural fall of the elbow to tuck into the cave in one's side.

All of these elements, simultaneous, take the racket in a mild and subtlety producing way to the ball.

Now comes the mondo, no longer a harsh flip but rather the soft catch or grab of the ball.

You just gave the strings the ability to go backward by gentle closing from the wrist first to prepare.

With this subtle hand grab happening as greatest possible force from the right edge of the bod is being applied.

Does this contact become less or more confusing if we break it down?

The bod's right edge pushes both from rotation and bod pocket transforming inside out into taut string. The elbow lifts up the ball toward the net too. The guts moving inside out act as a wedge to extend upper and lower bod. The whole arm wipes like a well-balanced twirling baton. The wrist and fingers give then tighten in a single blend of catch and toss.

[bottle]

My Team: The Bad Knees Bears

Volleys, overheads, lobs, service returns: Normal.

Backhands: Right left right (quick quick slow).

Neutral and Semi-Open Forehands: Left right left (quick quick slow).

Open and Semi-Open Forehands: Right left right (quick quick slow).

Shots Farther Away: Don't think but go for them.

[bottle]

Playing Tennis on Bad Knees

I understand that split step followed by descent onto foot on opposite side from desired direction is quicker than anything I am about to do.

But it hurts. Even though one could then bring down other foot now splayed in a rapid staccato-- bip bip.

One might see then bip-bip-- step.

So what to do? One doesn't want to stand still like a stone figure on Easter Island.

I suggest the old foxtrot rhythm-- not the only one but a good one-- quick quick slow. Left right left for a forehand, right left right for a backhand, and if you get wrong-footed that's tough.

P.S. The other basic foxtrot rhythm: slow slow quick quick. I certainly don't want that one.

[bottle]

Green light all the way.

[bottle]

Reflection

Any little change in tennis is very difficult to bring off. But acquisition of a really great one-handed topspin backhand should be every sportsman's dream.

I go now to court to see if scraping upper arm with inner racket rim looks promising or good.

Also to ensure body straightening to activate racket sling before clenching together of the two shoulder blades, which is to occur after or rather above the contact.

[bottle]

Big Muscles vs. Small Muscles in a One-Hander

The lesson or word itself does not matter. It's how and if it is received.

The tip one can start with is the racket frame sliding down the upper arm from shoulder to left pocket.

What put the racket in so close that it can actually graze you? A) bent arm, B) elbow position, C) backward roll from the forearm to open the strings, D) the image of a hoop?

Answer: A bit of all but the hoop image consolidates. (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...o.analysis.php).

As the racket slides and separates from guide hand the hips turn forward.

So tension can start building between the two hands as they slide down.

The tension needs to continue growing after the separation of hands (keep an imaginary hand on the racket)?

The racket butt is being pulled around and forward by the hips.

The arm's task is to resist by keeping the racket spear straight or even cocking a bit toward the outside.

Hips vs. front of the shoulder is the essence of the conflict just as it always has been through the history of the one-handed backhand.

But the hand never pulls the sword out of its scabbard.

Just the opposite. The hand pushes the sword further into its imaginary scabbard.

Until the hips stop and the body straightens with shoulder blades next pressing together.

That is too much. The big muscles have won.

[bottle]

DB Serve

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...DB1stSRear.mov

The slow hips turn happens as ball goes UP. The fast hips turn (and tail wag and long body kick) happens as ball starts DOWN.

[bottle]

Holding Form

The first tennis social of the season happened last night at Eastside Tennis and Fitness Facility, Detroit. Would like to say I played well, but didn't, had too much that was new on the mind and had physical therapy earlier in the day so was a bit gassed.

I have two forehands, McEnrueful and straight arm topspin that I can get off quickly but now I want one where I take more space to transition from anticipation to reaction as Doug King advises. Anytime in the past that I have decided to listen to Doug King I have immedately begun to play better so why won't the same thing happen now?

https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...slowmotion.php

I point especially to the yellow line graphic four fifths of the way through showing how elbow can tuck into "power pocket" or body cave a bit farther back than this player thought.

I also now think that slightly hunched-from-the hips waiting posture can help partially achieve the cave before the elbow settles in. This counters advocates of perfectly erect posture the way Poncho Gonzalez did-- he played from an athletic hunch ready to break in any direction.

Did anybody ever say that tennis doesn't entail figuring out the stuff that is right for oneself?