A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Tweak-Tweak Chirp-Chirp

It is quite a transition from geezer tennis outdoors to young person tennis indoors.

Suddenly the ball comes three times as fast but I'm still a geezer.

Time, I say, for more commitment to my Stygian backhand, named after the River Styx, although if there were a hundred more videos available of Michael Stich's backhand I might copy IT.

No, my backhand is A Budgian Backhand.

But I'm bored with saying that and Stygian sounds like Budgian.

This will lead me into the very Stygian mists of code I decry. No help for it.

The thing I'm trying to get at is that when one steps out the palm down strings should still be going backward because of what you want to happen next.

And when you're a little rushed, i.e., if you possess a good flying grip change, you're apt to flip the racket around your body all at once-- a great time-saving device to teach somebody but do it exactly that way yourself? Now you're early which is worse than being late.

And on my Federfore, the teeter-totter after the unit turn is absolutely ridiculous. Just lift the elbow some other time and call it your nudge.

Which again sounds like Budge even though his forehand was very different.

Well, Federfore at least sounds better than ATP Forehand or Type Three Codicil Four under the Fifth Amendment.

[bottle]

Swinging from the Shoulder in a Stygian Backhand

In one of the Don Budge videos there appears minimal forward rotation of the shoulders before contact, in another, none.

I propose three successive stages for learning this shot, and a reversal of this sequence any time the player wants to return to basics:

1) Swing from the shoulder with any body rotation to happen after contact.

2) Put a little of this late body rotation on the ball.

3) Fly.

J. Donald Budge said to swing, not flail at the ball. For the most part he left the technical issues and fine points to his older brother Lloyd, but maybe not when he, Don, ran a tennis camp in Maryland.

Where at all times is the fulcrum of this shot? That seems a fair question to me.

Another I might ask of someone aspiring to this great shot: What is the quality of your "bonk-and-roll?" Is it smooth and effortless?

[bottle]

A Wider Fulcrum Change In A Wild Slice Serve

The more one whips the arm around the body the more closed one can keep the shoulder-- for longer.

Experiments up till now have changed the right-hander's fulcrum from body center to left body edge during the serve.

The shoulders have turned, the hips have turned, the bent left leg has braced as foot flattened from toes to heel, accelerating the arm.

This has produced some very good serves but not enough of them in my case.

But is a greater percentage of these good serves on the way? If so I might be a fool to fiddle with basic design again.

Okay, I accept that, but things may be approaching an over-complication.

What if one simply gets the racket butt a-gliding from right side of body and then accelerates it from right hip and abruptly stops the hips from the left side of the body, i.e., with left leg?

This serve will have gone from fulcrum in the right shoulder to fulcrum in the left leg.

[bottle]

Trial: Choose A or B

A) Yes, many more aces became possible.

B) No, the center to left fulcrum change is more reliable since it produces more pace with arm flying in a better direction (down and forward rather than down and across).

These words were written before the trial.

Answer: There was no difference in pace or anything else immediately apparent. Both worked and they worked well. (Sebastien, who used to be a ranked junior hitting with Jo Wilfried-Tsonga in France, saw one of the shoulders first numbers on Friday night and spontaneously pronounced it good although he was teaching on another court.)

I choose A) however-- the fulcrum shift from right shoulder to left leg species-- because it gives me less to think about and makes for a more sensuous feel in the hitting arm. This serve worked best for me, today, when I used change of direction of the toss-- the moment when tossed ball most seems to hover-- as a green light to send the arm forward, having already relaxed bottom two fingers for a bit more racket tip lowness as part of the "up" in my down-and-up launching of the ball.

[bottle]

Forehand Tweaks, Chirrup-Chirrup And Cheer Up

Closing Racket the Extra Amount Required in a 3.5 Grip Federfore

A lot has been written on this subject. The best solution may be simply to lift and nudge backward a little with the elbow at start of one’s unit turn.

One then can roll the racket tip up from bent elbow like Roger Federer.

How he himself achieves the same purpose is probably different and hard to generalize about since he does it in different ways and places in different videos.

An interesting feature at least in the videos I’ve studied is that Roger delays the raising just where I said—at beginning of his unit turn. He often keeps his arm still as he first turns.

This is a good space in which to do something simple that is going to work.

One possible drawback is that a senior player trying to learn this stuff may have been influenced earlier by the elliptical backswing of Ivan Lendl.

Once one starts leading with the elbow there is the temptation to keep the loop squashed and pencil thin.

It has always been my theory that Lendl then makes some consistent adjustment that his imitators were never able to identify and master.

Back-to-basics anti-modeling teaching pros might argue that Roger Federer also makes subtle adustments to find perfect pitch.

Okay. I’m ready to concede that. Which is why I’m proposing a solution for us unsubtle guys.

The thing to realize is that the necessary adjustment from natural contact pitch caused by a 3.5 grip is small. Because of the early elbow nudge, the backward traveling racket tip can now rise the same distance as before only produce strings that are slightly more closed at contact.

It also can produce a nice “tapping the dog” feel since the racket butt will be nicely angled down toward an imaginary dog’s head.

Oh, this sounds like a Type III ATP Forehand, doesn’t it? Well, it should. ATP Forehand and Federfore are exactly the same. The first, it is alleged, was arrived at through science with a smattering of art thrown in. The second, I’ll equally allege, was arrived at through art with a smattering of science thrown in.

*********
I never thought I’d write tennis instruction and certainly not that I would enjoy it more than most of the other kinds of writing I do what with the assortment of buffoons associated with that avocation and industry.

The foregoing passage on Federfore comes from hard knocks. The next passage here is vision, i.e., dream.

The second conscious choice I’ve made for a stripped down forehand to complement the first puts big knuckle on 2.5 and uses perfectly straight wrist in a grandfather clock backswing to produce a constellation of different shots.

Forward swing is composed 50-50 of shoulders turn from the gut (assuming membership in the Kinetic Snake cult) and bowl or spooning from the shoulder. On higher, wider balls, the forward movement is more about a connected swing that doesn't change the pitch so much. On lower balls close to the body one bowls more and the shoulders play a minor role and too much spooning is apt to occur. Better to use happy feet to get out of the way.

The variation I’m exploring in language before self-feed today uses no pitch adjustment of any kind during the down-and-up backswing.

Strings thus close naturally as they tick past the body.

Are hips turning backward at that moment? Yes if one has a good unit turn.

So what happens if hips now pause for a mental collection of wits (?!) and then start forward in two separate but simultaneous ways: They rotate forward while pushing out toward the target.

This lowers the straight arm a lot. It also opens the strings more than seems healthy: A good thing then that they just naturally closed. But the new opening of pitch will exceed the closing. And more opening is imminent. As strings tock ahead of the body you produce “spooning.” That has to happen.

Sounds like we’re about to hit a tall lob-- not the intention here.

The antidote to lob I propose is to close the racket an extra amount in unison with the complex hips movement, but without either depressing the wrist as in an ATP Forehand or flipping the strings forward the way one eventually does in all of the rolled forehands. Nope, I’m feathering the racket in one place like an oar while loading the arm, i.e., the hips are going one way and the elbow is twisting the opposite way while the strings close directly beneath their original apogee but slightly to the inside.

I once read a whole book on continental ground strokes. The author asserted that on continental forehands one uses hips more than shoulders although the hips will turn the shoulders.

And so at this point I’ll simply let the arm sling, knowing that if I hit out front the strings will have squared. But in a hybrid shot the shoulders will smoothly rotate from the gut at the same time.

After doing the backward pendulum of a grandfather clock, one can roll forward on ball or open on ball—it’s a choice.

In this particular variation, a smooth, scything swing should have been enabled in contrast with the abrupt acceleration of a Federfore.

[bottle]

Re # 2 Forehand in # 1790

"Scything" is the word. I think of "egging" or the "poptop" the Gullickson twins used to talk about. You get to swing the frame on edge for a long time including through contact. This is the shot I discovered when I got to court-- a little different from what I had just written although I used that outline as my departure point.

And even now I may be departing slightly from what I did on court. This is a dizzying process. I can't blame anyone for not wishing to follow it. He could do that however if he wanted.

The only goal is "best shot possible."

There still is a down-and-up rhythm but not with arm kept straight the whole way: Unit turn is fast and far with both arms straightening and left hand remaining on racket for longer than before.

Here's where hips supply their double-whammy as hitting arm contracts and elbow rises to cock the racket head rakishly to the inside-- a recurrence of teeter-totter but in the stroke where it best belongs.

Before, I wrote that hips could take straight arm very low. In fact the hips could take the racket overly low. The racket comes up even as it twists down-- a hallmark of the infamous teeter-totter.

A rakish angle with racket head slanted to the inside is produced by the contracting and twisting arm, or did I already say it. Should I repeat it a third time?

The racket frame is mostly on edge and pointed forward.

Surely someone throws a frisbee forehand this way.

The exact specifications are not as important as the fact that strings egg comfortably through the ball. One only seeks the twisted configuration which produces that.

Some wrist adjustment for last instant steering also is available in this shot.

Wrist is straight and ready to egg-- any wrist adjustment will therefore occur in the ulna-radius plane.

The egg is soft-boiled and supported in an egg cup perfectly sized to hold it snug while it loses its head to the executioner's knife.

Hips went one way, racket head the other to load the arm.

I hit these shots from the gut.

Still to try: Slowing down the hips so some hips still are left over to administer the blow instead of having the shoulders and arm do it as a hybrid whole.

Hips and arm then would form the hybrid whole, but who knows now which is best.

In either case the ball is struck with a passively straightened and relaxedly straight arm.

[bottle]

Simplification

Evolving backswing won't get arm all the way straight before contracting it, just goes comfortably and rhythmically down and up to skewed position previously described.

(before court)

After court:

It is nice having a long arm 3.5 grip ATP Forehand III/Federfore that one doesn't plan to mess with right now. This affords more latitude to explore the egged 2.5 grip long arm continental as a well orchestrated complement.

FOUND, in self feed of this particular new shot, that ball went equally fast and spinnily whether I went to hips-to-load-and-propel or hips to load and shoulders to propel. Reader, do you see the difference?

I herewith renounce and subtract any conscious thought about shoulders in this shot other than maybe for radical steering of ball to some unlikely spot in the opposite court.

The working idea is that the complex hips motion-- forward rotation plus thrusting out-- provides structure for the whole stroke as I imagine it did for whole lifetime of the Ben Hogan golf swing.

If that means slowing down or speeding up the total hips action, sobeit.

Here's how arm action in the backswing is sorting out: Down together and up together in a quick but smooth and comfortable action that might involve a bit of arm extension and contraction at the elbow or not.

Body meanwhile turns (and completes turn) as left hand also goes down and up to point and hold a point across.

Elbow now stretches backward to counter beginning of forward hips change to create tension, i.e., develop load in the arm "to make it come alive" as a baseball player might say.

There is some sort of pause between backward and forward body rotations in all good ground strokes. So I'm advising, at least for myself, just to go comfortably down then up with the twisting racket and don't stretch the elbow back too soon.

The little pause, in this stroke, will be caused by the hips, which are naturally not in a panicky hurry to change direction.

Throwing arm then can load as part of the forward swing.

[bottle]

Why I Think This Is A Great Shot

Because you don't pull shoulders around with opposite hand on racket the way you do in your Federfore. That is a very sensible thing to do but a bit mechanical and even robotic.

Going immediately down and up with both arms as you organically fly to the ball encourages great balance for a tall person or anyone else.

This gradual flapping of wings combined with a very full though gradual backward turn of the shoulders just concludes as you set up to hit the ball.

Done right, it is a subtle and graceful dance move, and I am sure one can hit this shot off of either leg.

[bottle]

Educationist, Defined

An educationist is a person who makes generalities about how people learn. An educator could be an educationist or not. A teacher is closer to the action and the only hope therefore for wisdom that could be imparted to others. Worst is the politician, who gave up all claim to honesty about education or self-education the moment he chose his job.

[stotty]

American English

An educationist is a person who makes generalities about how people learn. An educator could be an educationist or not. A teacher is closer to the action and the only hope therefore for wisdom that could be imparted to others. Worst is the politician, who gave up all claim to honesty about education or self-education the moment he chose his job.

Whilst on the subject...

I see a lot Americans on the forum sometimes use the word "peaked" as in "the shot peaked my interest". Over the pond we spell this word as "piqued".

Is "peaked" by chance just being misspelt on the forum or do Americans spell "piqued" as "peaked".

Just curious...

[bottle]

"piqued" unless the person is an illiterate-- a distinct possibility.

[stotty]

"piqued" unless the person is an illiterate-- a distinct possibility.

Well, that's cleared that one up.

[bottle]

Reality vs. Expectation

One can perhaps hit Don Budge backhands in self feed all day long, and then when hitting against a good player suddenly feel this genre of shot coming apart at the seams.

I'm confident that my present grip change is different from anything that Don Budge ever did (maybe even waiting sometime with a backhand grip), but my goal is not imitation of small detail but rather my own equivalent of what was obviously his very great "feel."

A small breakthrough started when I began to emphasize a palm-down "bonk" of fist with the spearing racket butt enclosed.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DBBHRear.mov

But where exactly should one (I) begin the palm-down stuff?

About a foot into flying grip change, I suspect. That's much shorter flying grip change than is possible. For if one wants, one can use left hand as agent to yank the racket as far as it can go-- something I now wish not to do.

So-- about a foot for flying grip change, then the understanding that both hands will continue the takeback, and as I have said before, let shoulders still be turning back as final foot steps out, with that foot NOT splayed as in other one-hand topspin or mild topspin systems.

Somebody might choose less splay for intellectual reasons of tennis philosophy or design, or, something genetic might be involved. A person born pigeon-toed might be less inclined, a wall-footed person more inclined to splay. And slightly pigeon-toed am I.

To return to my main point: For maximum palm down bonk "feel," shift hand function soon in the stroke.

Shift in hand function is a subject broached in the Talbert and Old materials on the Don Budge backhand.

I don't want to change hand function the way he did, especially if he ever held on to a forehand grip and only changed to backhand grip behind himself.

But I wish to do it nevertheless in my quest for more "feel."

After the approximate one or two foot flying grip change both hands will continue to take the racket around body on bent arm but the palm down right hand will do nine tenths of the work.

Here would be a cue to increase confidence (and with it speed and ease). Left hand, both hands, right hand.

[bottle]

Tweak Tweak But Don't Do Tweets

If we are going to be fierce like the late Nora Ephron or Dorothy Parker a couple generations before, we'll need to challenge every statement, especially any of our own. Is a Federfore and an ATP Forehand III the exact same thing?

Well, I turned on the Tennis Channel and there was Guillermo Garcia-Lopez doing well in St. Petersburg, Russia.

And he appeared to have an ATP Forehand III. It looked like Roger Federer but more specifically like Roger's forehand service return and was more compact than one of Roger's ordinary forehands.

Assuming I'm right about this, let's tweak our forehands to be more compact and shorter on the takeback, reader, a bit more extended at the elbow to take racket to outer edge of the slot.

Moreover, how about envisioning two occurrences before they happen-- where ball will be at contact and where racket head should start behind it? And project an imaginary line through these two points (about to become real) directly to the target.

At tapping the dog racket head will still be on this line since arm will have straightened slightly to the outside even as racket went slightly down to the inside. (The two actions will cancel each other out.)

At mondo the racket head will bend and roll slightly to inside of ball to help produce an all-desirable inside-out swing.

[bottle]

Possum Drags Flapping Chicken Into Its Grave

Let's bring these forehands over here in the botcave where we can better dissect them.

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

Never mind that good doubles is scheduled in the next two hours on the good courts out over the waters of Lake St. Clair.

I won't tell my partner. He'd be furious. As would any professional coach if working with me right now. "The shot you practiced is the shot you play with," Stan Smith said.

Do you really think, Escher, this situation has not arisen in the history of tennis?

The imagination, uncaring, races ahead.

Note how "patting the dog" has replaced "tapping the dog" once again. Tapping the dog could have implied the hard racket butt.

But it is the soft palm that pats down. And with it the racket tip, down down like milkweed. "Force the palm down." Yes, but force the left side of the palm (the thumb) around or down first, which is pronation, all in the forearm, to close the racket. And then the right side of the palm (the pinkie) asserts itself, again with perfect intention and confidence during the mondo to open the racket. Whacchu gonna call that? Ghostbusters? Supination of the forearm? Chicken soup?

Well, save me the wishbone.

Note how the racket is pretty much at the same level at bottom of pat and at inversion into the mondo.

Note how racket pries up on one line toward back fence and then plunges down on another line partially toward side fence.

Racket prepares to outside in other words, but not too soon, does so on pat.

Certainly, the elbow doesn't roll in this phase of the cycle. Or nudge. That was a workable idea but these are nudgeless forehands.