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Re: The Reunion
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"Robert Personal"
Robert and Monika Larson
Beautifully graceful, correction. ;-). Hi from the land of pivo and duck.
RobertComment
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Reflex Volley, Sharp
Here is one's chance to use what bad teachers thought you ought to learn-- to memorize.
Yes, memorize the radar dish positions that produce sharp angles from a ball that is reflected only.
Everybody who volleys has different ideas about how to do it. I go with Ellsworth Vines' old coach Mercer Beasley. The racket most often goes slowly forward to block the ball, i.e., to use the speed of the oncoming ball.
Exceptions are "sticked" volleys-- brief but chopped karate-style. And swinging volleys which are ground strokes without the bounce. And radar dish volleys, the subject here.
Put the radar dish out to the side and just hold it firm, I'd say, so that the oncoming ball bounces off of it to the precise point, almost parallel to the net, which you had in mind.
But did you truly visualize such a great target? I can't really say I've had a long career in tennis since I only got serious 30 years ago, but as my body falls apart, I can compensate, and sometimes more than compensate by filling in long neglected holes.
In singles I've always tended to volley in the direction of my travel compared to pros who prefer to end a point with a sharp angle.
Sharp angle behind one also can be great in doubles. One way to help develop correct radar dish settings is to try to reflect service returns off of weak but sharply angled serves. I know that a bouncing ball will reflect in a different way but the basic concept is the same, viz., get the setting correct and stay firm and you won't have to do much else.
Other than good movement to a correct court position, the memory work required to learn the precise radar dish settings is the biggest challenge here and can be mimed all at once as a continuum.
A low ball is reflected off of a more bent arm. A progression of different arm lengths puts contact farther away from the body as the oncoming shots get higher. Obviously, too, each higher, farther ball requires a slightly more closed racket face.
I'm preferring this method, at least intellectually before it becomes more animal, to taking the ball way out front.
I just think that all tennis experience teaches separation between hand and strings and that this separation works best to the side. If a fast ball comes straight at me and I try to block it too far in front, without dodging, I may get beaned off of a ricochet.
Learning the perfect radar dish settings can be difficult without a ball machine so sophisticated that it may not yet have been invented.
In self-feeding-- something I love to do-- one can simulate speed of oncoming ball by performing the clench-the-shoulderblades-together trick.
In the actual circumstance you wouldn't do that, but should you ever encounter a perfectly neutral ball with no oncoming momentum whatsoever, you might.Last edited by bottle; 06-20-2013, 03:12 AM.Comment
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Forehand Spear
When should the arm, ideally, finish getting straight?
Would one find any advantage or solace in adding a bit of this element to two others that characterize the dynamic spear-- wrist graduation and racket's wind-down getting resisted?
If you (I) enjoy the added energy from straightening arm going backward, why wouldn't you enjoy the same going forward, and why shouldn't I split this activity evenly in half? Or in thirds?
Reader, you've heard the term "tennis practice?" Well, here's another: "tennis practive."Last edited by bottle; 06-20-2013, 08:02 AM.Comment
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How Does This Translate To Tennis?
Specifically, how does this video translate to a tennis player who has no intention of ever buying the manufacturer's product?
He might become more aware of subtle differences of hips speed as an important subject.
He might start asking to which strokes of his the new information could best apply.
He might think of personal ways of increasing hips torque resistance.
He might resolve to mercilessly rob everybody's best ideas, in all subjects, keeping in mind, that, in tennis, this would be perfectly all right and may in fact for the unselfish but self-interested though altruistic player be the best idea of all.Last edited by bottle; 06-20-2013, 08:14 AM.Comment
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I actually bought it!!
I was convinced it was a great concept. I wanted a little more distance on my golf shots. I also wanted to use the Hip Trainer as an adjunct to a Golf Fitness and Injury Clinic I was trying to run at a driving range where I was taking care of a lot of the golf pros. I figured we could make money by selling the Hip Trainers. I've had it over two years and haven't used it 5 times. It was too hard to get to hold onto my hips. I tried augmenting the harness with "water wings" to improve the connection, but I need to make an entirely different "belt-harness?" to hold the resistance to my hips. Still think it is a good concept, but I haven't gotten around to redesigning the harness.Originally posted by bottle View PostSpecifically, how does this video translate to a tennis player who has no intention of ever buying the manufacturer's product?
He might become more aware of subtle differences of hips speed as an important subject.
He might start asking to which strokes of his the new information could best apply.
He might think of personal ways of increasing hips torque resistance.
He might resolve to mercilessly rob everybody's best ideas, in all subjects, keeping in mind, that, in tennis, this would be perfectly all right and may in fact for the unselfish but self-interested though altruistic player be the best idea of all.
A lot of hype and exaggeration in the videos, but they are fun. And the underlying concept has merit, just probably not as much as Somax is claiming.
donComment
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Perfect. Life as we know it.Comment
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Re # 1640
Go 2 instead of 1 mph.Comment
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And try going back at .5 mph while building resistance for a headstart on the 2 mph.Comment
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Stay Down Shots
Forehand force comes from many places, even the oncoming ball. To maximize the contribution of one's hips, one may need to stay down, i.e., keep one's knees slightly bent until one has actually hit the ball.Comment
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Imagine an uppercut to the midsection
Imagine the force your legs provide if you were to be driving an uppercut to someone's midsection. The tennis swing should be a lot freeer, but there is an element of that leg action.Originally posted by bottle View Post
donComment
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Thanks for the Grand Prescription
I got it in worse words from a North Carolinan doctor some years ago and re-fill it every month as I bring along (as in "grow") my ATP Style or Gordon-distilled forehand, not double bend but straight arm division.
Uppercut to someone's midsection seems also what John McEnroe does with his continental/eastern cusp straight arm forehand when one thinks of his use of hips and legs.
But I only want to do that with the Gordon-- for orchestration.
Maybe as I continue to master the flatter and more penetrating version of my 3.5 Gordon, the non-lifting legs of my 2.5 continental will fade away like a tadpole evolving in reverse, i.e., I no longer will have need of a John McEnroe forehand backswing anywhere in my game.
For the time being however I love it perhaps because it's me at 16 with the self-invented forehand I had then only in disguise.
That was a 3.0 eastern grip. When you think about it, 2.5 and 3.0 aren't far apart.
The rare pendulum start feels golfy, not goofy. Then I crank with hips (they go round but inch out toward the net, too) as I very actively force the straight elbowed, straight wristed arm straight down at the court.
Transverse stomach muscles take over as hand rolls racket head both up and through the ball.
In the Gordon, now, I try not to depart overly much from Brian's description. I do wonder however-- which could lead any minute to a self-feeding session at the Lake St. Clair courts amidst the fish flies (a peculiarly indigenous brand of inch-and-a-half-long "Mayflies" key to the novel THE VIRGIN SUICIDES by Jeffrey Eugenides)-- whether arm could trail behind the longly backswinging shoulders more, i.e., could (during unit turn only) "feel for the ball," ono, it's Oscar Wegner making a ghost appearance, eek! He'd be right again once more.
That would be a lag before the lag. Could be just what I want (longer freedom from shoulder in both directions while still keeping arm within the Type III slot). If it works.
P.S. I like Novak Djokovic's statement this week that the more you practice the greater the likelihood of your getting "into a zone." I see this as also true if you "practive" instead of "practice" though to a lesser degree.Last edited by bottle; 06-27-2013, 03:55 AM.Comment
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Note on Tennis/Literary Progress
Reader, if you think there was any substance in the previous post (# 1646), I urge that you re-read it for today's emendations, e.g., the fish flies have grown a quarter inch from my study of them this morning on the glass of a storm door on this house.Comment
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Yes, the uppercut from a balanced, loaded position. A powerful platform if ever there was one.Originally posted by bottle View PostStottyComment
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For another perspective
I was looking for a clip to substantiate my point of view that leaping up is not necessarily the best way to develop the most powerful serve; notice I said, not necessarily. I was and may still use this clip in a comment relating to the thread about the now almost mandatory "kickback" of the modern serve. Said movement does not exist in my favorite model, the Michael Stich serve.
But here is an interesting slomo video of some top athletes generating maximum power in a throw where the front foot stays on the ground a long time and the rear leg swings forward without kicking back. No foot faulting either!
I was hoping this might generate some interesting comments.
donComment
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