A New Year's Serve

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Grunts worked well. Tried some SABR's too.

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Got it. Thanks. My wife did that too and I just had a good talk in Schenectady with my sometimes estranged son.

[klacr]

Recently, I've been accused of circumlocution. So today I'll just grunt.

Breathe, In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

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Recently, I've been accused of circumlocution. So today I'll just grunt.

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I did play pretty well today in the carousel, despite all the driving yesterday from Chatham, Cape Cod to Detroit. The forehands edited themselves out on court-- I didn't have to do it. I ended up with just two, not four or five: the shot I recently described but never had tried before, and my McEnrueful, a straight-wristed shot I use all the time though seldom as my staple shot. The weather was cool for a change here in Detroit-- very good for tennis stroke invention. Some of my partners were hitting the ball better than usual, also-- a good day pretty much for everybody with not a cloud in the sky, maybe an omen of Donald Trump not winning the American presidency.

My chess opponent for the week, John Cowper of the UK, sees Brexit passing in England and the possible election of Trump as similar unfortunate experience.

He pointed out that everybody in the UK, whether they voted for Brexit or not, now hates it. It wasn't up to this American to disagree, and besides, we had great chess matches.

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Four Options

I'm lucky enough to be in a summer house in South Chatham, Massachusetts with four and possibly five good tennis players-- for a week.

We'll see how things crack up.

I'm the eldest. The youngest has the best forehand, taught to her by Viktor Roubanov, the former boys' champ of the USSR.

I'm thinking, rather than using the inverted loop that was somewhat successful last year, I'll go with my throwback to my own teen-aged forehand.

But unlike other players, I'm always on a stroke production journey no matter the latest decision.

I'd like to see coming naturally out of myself 1) a one-half arm length double bend arm forehand with upper arm roll to bring the right-angled forearm around level like a farm gate followed by residual roll to turn racket slightly over toward left fence:

2) a three-quarter length version in which racket tip gets around faster (and perhaps farther) in the initial stage;

3) a straight arm version from severely inside (and almost in front of one) to severely outside with very steep racket rise;

4) McEnrueful hit from composite grip, a very solid body shot (arm fused to body throughout), especially good in my case for low balls as I'm charging the net.

Why do I go into this stuff? First, to clarify subject matter about which I care.

We're back in Detroit. Will play this morning in the Grosse Pointe Senior Men's Tennis Association carousel before starting a gross inventory of items sold in a Grosse Pointe estate sale.

Important it is, too, to reinstitute A New Year's Serve to help me remember some of the new shots I've been working on-- if I want to play well in the carousel. A New Year's Serve is primarily about me, don't you know, although I have no intention of closing anyone out from my findings. Pretty much, I've found, the ones who want to be closed out close themselves out, and that's fine.

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I don't know. We all played pretty well. Nothing to write home about.

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Four Options

I'm lucky enough to be in a summer house in South Chatham, Massachusetts with four and possibly five good tennis players-- for a week.

We'll see how things crack up.

I'm the eldest. The youngest has the best forehand, taught to her by Viktor Roubanov, the former boys' champ of the USSR.

I'm thinking, rather than using the inverted loop that was somewhat successful last year, I'll go with my throwback to my own teen-aged forehand.

But unlike other players, I'm always on a stroke production journey no matter the latest decision.

I'd like to see coming naturally out of myself 1) a one-half arm length double bend arm forehand with upper arm roll to bring the right-angled forearm around level like a farm gate followed by residual roll to turn racket slightly over toward left fence:

2) a three-quarter length version in which racket tip gets around faster (and perhaps farther) in the initial stage;

3) a straight arm version from severely inside (and almost in front of one) to severely outside with very steep racket rise;

4) McEnrueful hit from composite grip, a very solid body shot (arm fused to body throughout), especially good in my case for low balls as I'm charging the net.

Why do I go into this stuff? First, to clarify subject matter about which I care.

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Cream of Federfore Works but Elaphe Vulpina Does Not

What a miserable mistake my Elaphe Vulpina forehand turned out to be.

The morning was not as full of victory as it could have been; still I don't regret my choice to use the E.V. whenever I could-- there was a clean pass down the alley but more important the experience is educational.

The whole thing about this latest cluster of new forehands is that they all start from the same preparation: three-quarter length arm taking racket back as wrist lays back and forearm rolls the racket tip low.

That wrist and forearm move is known as flip or mondo when it happens in natural reaction to forward motion by the larger bod.

When it happens sooner and only from willfulness it might be called something else-- reader, you decide.

Slowness of this wriggle is what formed the striking Elaphe Vulpina. But one can flip as fast as in a mondo even though the flip is produced sooner and in a different way.

P.S. Aeronautical banking of the shoulders on both backswing and foreswing is a great addition to the flattest version of these shots. Also, how is one ever to come up with a consistently great shot if one isn't willing to hit some home runs along the way?

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The Art of the Name: Elaphe Vulpina and Cream of Federfore

Too bad that a writer isn't as good as a bully at assigning names-- unless the writer is a bully-- always possible.

Tony Schwartz, author of THE ART OF THE DEAL, a man clearly influenced by his 30-year association with Donald Trump, was recently asked what he would call his supposedly co-authored best-seller if he were writing it today. THE SOCIOPATH, he said.

A ninth grader in Granville, Ohio named me, a seventh grader, "Sleeping Jesus." And George W. Bush named Karl Rove "Turd Blossom," the wittiest thing he ever said.

People who aren't bullies or writers don't understand the huge effect that names can have. My name taken from a friend for one of my two new forehands, "Elaphe Vulpina" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk), greatly affects how I hit it.

While I recently abandoned or modified mondo or flip as essential ingredient in most of my forehands, I needn't rush that flip in Elaphe Vulpina the way I do in Cream of Federfore.

In fact, I've decided I want to prolong the two elements of flip, make them sinuous and smooth so as to slow down my forward emphasis loop.

Hand will lay back while turning down followed by downward angled forearm tracking round level while twisting the strings more closed.

What a slow and deliberate loop this will be! Leading to the hardest hit forehands in my life if all goes well.

No name can ever be perfect, and so Cream of Federfore should not give itself airs, should more accurately be called Remnant of Federfore.

The hand can even snap down-- who cares? The smoothness lies in what comes next: a twist from the shoulder ball combined with straightening of arm from three-quarter to full length.

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A Straight Arm Shot and A Bent Arm Shot Both

This shot is not "soft topspin." It's a lot of abduction type topspin due to the long steep runway to the ball. That runway can be on a slant to the outside to nicely counter the effect of body rotation to the inside. We seek balance in all things, don't you know...
The shot is good, at least in self-feed. But I am a betting man and now place the bet that it will be good in competition too.

And it was-- it worked every time I tried it despite the greenness of the thing.

But another highly speculative new shot I used today is bent arm at three-quarter length and described at the same time in # 3187 :

A flattened out shot where hand works horizontally around elbow thus closing strings. The elbow can then follow the strings as late body rotation also chimes in.

This is the first forehand I hit today and was such a spectacular winner that my opponent who had just served asked what was going on. I then made the mistake of saying, "That's probably the best forehand I'll hit today." Which proved to be the case except for two or three of the straight arm variety.

We go now or rather I go to Shakespeare in MACBETH: "Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives."

Which means in sterile numbskull contemporary American English. "If you talk something up too much before you try it, the passion drains out and you fail." (The proposed murder of King Duncan in the original context.) To rephrase again: "Don't talk about it. Just stick him."

This is the same thing that Ernest Hemingway said about telling to some girl you're flirting with something you plan to write. You may succeed with the girl but never write the damned thing. To rephrase still again: "If I talk it I don't write it."

The flattened out shot I want to improve here causes the ball to jump high just like the straight arm choice but does so with more poptop, i.e., one eggs the ball more while slinging elbow on a shallower rising path.

To try and bring this other new shot home I now reverse my usual animus against the loop in looped forehands.

I say to myself, "I love looped forehands so long as they are forward emphasis."

What I mean: Racket on arm gets low from wrist simultaneously laying back as forearm winds tip down. That is all smooth motion seamlessly integrated with body turn and footwork and is the beginning of a forward emphasis loop. The elbow moves a little but essentially stays back. The forearm moves smoothly around the elbow. We're still in the loop.

Then and only then you hit the ball with body and firing elbow working together as one.

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Who is Capable of Giving or Receiving a Single Instruction?

If "who" has a summer cold and finds three remedies on the net, which of the three will he ignore?

The one that says to stand over a pot of boiling water and breathe the steam for half an hour. I'm doing it. My clipboard is on the same stove. Seems to work, at least somewhat.

Helps, occasionally, to close the unclogged nostril and lower head just a bit more.

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A Quite Elegant Shot

Here's the description from which I worked-- before I just tried the shot:

.Another soft topspun shot in which forearm bowls straight down as arm straightens to relaxed full length thus abandoning the three-fourths setting of the other options presented here. That will close racket even more. And create the sensation of a bowled or topped shot hit way out in front. Since I haven't tried this shot I can't know yet whether it is any good.

It is good, at least in self-feed. But I am a betting man and now place the bet is that it will be good in competition too.

Some caveat to the description. This shot is not "soft topspin." It's a lot of abduction type topspin due to the long steep runway to the ball. That runway can be on a slant to the outside to nicely counter the effect of body rotation to the inside. We seek balance in all things, don't you know.

Also, the shot is compatible with classical weight transfer of the delayed variety as opposed to kinetic chain over-scheme which often applies its thunder too early.

The shot may have a big future in front of it since one can pretty easily apply full angular body weight or none or something in between to the contact.

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How to Pry

I speak not of interview technique but rather of how to pry in auto mechanics or any other physical activity. One needs a good fulcrum. In the fragile shape of a pry generis tennis forehand, one doesn't want the turning elbow to lose its purchase.

One therefore while keeping elbow back nevertheless moves it forward an inch or half-inch or quarter-inch until the prying is completed.

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Sort of Exciting

It's exciting to come up with a drop-down menu of new forehands due to a slight change in one's basic configuration.

Knowing that one of those forehands is a shot that's never even been tried is still more exciting.

The temperature has been close to a hundred degrees Fahrenheit for several days now. Not the usual number of persons out on the courts.

But if I go early enough perhaps I can get in some self-feed and report back.