As the Sauce Burns, the Wormy Bone Turns
Tennis is full of things and devices and exercise programs all frequently competing with each other.
Even the images by which teaching pros describe the basic stroke patterns are vying for attention, as if saying, "Adopt me. Consider nothing else. I'm the best. You'll achieve your goal the quickest if you go with me, for I am the greatest of all tennis tips."
In the rather poetic image of an inverted boot in the following clip, do you, reader, truly see what's going on?
Does Roger's racket tip, rising because of stationary upper arm twist, trace the sole of a tilted L.L. Bean boot with its toe pointed at the bottom of the net?
Does the racket tip at its highest point brush over the heel of the boot?
Does the racket tip then descend the longest line in any boot, which would be its backside away from the toe?
Maybe, but the poet Robert Frost said there is a point where every metaphor breaks down, i.e., you can't push too far or it ceases to be beautiful, illuminating, useful or whatever.
Maybe we'd do better just to say the strings wind up (you can see Roger's elbow barely turn. Yes, it twists. Just watch the muscles and bone. Not much of a movement but it's there).
And now they (the strings) press down. They start on their long descent toward the court. Again, I submit, one should watch the bone in Roger's elbow-- it twists.
Yes, it twists the racket head down toward the court before his arm extends the racket head farther down toward the court.
Many athletes-- the naturals especially-- would die before they ever would make such a distinction.
But are they ever sufficiently dissatisfied with the strokes they have to try some new stuff?
Tennis is full of things and devices and exercise programs all frequently competing with each other.
Even the images by which teaching pros describe the basic stroke patterns are vying for attention, as if saying, "Adopt me. Consider nothing else. I'm the best. You'll achieve your goal the quickest if you go with me, for I am the greatest of all tennis tips."
In the rather poetic image of an inverted boot in the following clip, do you, reader, truly see what's going on?
Does Roger's racket tip, rising because of stationary upper arm twist, trace the sole of a tilted L.L. Bean boot with its toe pointed at the bottom of the net?
Does the racket tip at its highest point brush over the heel of the boot?
Does the racket tip then descend the longest line in any boot, which would be its backside away from the toe?
Maybe, but the poet Robert Frost said there is a point where every metaphor breaks down, i.e., you can't push too far or it ceases to be beautiful, illuminating, useful or whatever.
Maybe we'd do better just to say the strings wind up (you can see Roger's elbow barely turn. Yes, it twists. Just watch the muscles and bone. Not much of a movement but it's there).
And now they (the strings) press down. They start on their long descent toward the court. Again, I submit, one should watch the bone in Roger's elbow-- it twists.
Yes, it twists the racket head down toward the court before his arm extends the racket head farther down toward the court.
Many athletes-- the naturals especially-- would die before they ever would make such a distinction.
But are they ever sufficiently dissatisfied with the strokes they have to try some new stuff?
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