A New Year's Serve

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"This Shot Can Develop into a Very Good One"

That's what I said. So all effort should go in that direction, right? Yes and no.

My cat-killing curiosity wants me to compare the following three variations including 1), the one I just described but will describe again.

1) Wrist slightly lays back as arm squeezes racket toward body core and lays back more combined with forearm roll down to complete the mondo as racket launches into the forward shot (mondo but small one).

2) Hump wrist as arm squeezes racket toward body. This will increase the size of the loop/mondo.

3) Keep wrist straight for contraction phase (the squeeze) for a moderate mondo.

Explore the new form with different heights of backswing also: My curiosity exceeds my wish to be immediately good today.

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Friday Night Tennis Social

After a hit with my favorite hitting partner Ken Hunt, and three sets of social doubles, dinner then, and just about fifteen balls in self-feed before driving home, I think I was getting off the track a bit when I spoke of strings about a yard above the ball.

That is where the strings are, but, the ball has moved. It's just an optical thing that doesn't indicate anything very much. I thought that special yard might still be acceleration but now I have reconsidered.

My first impulse of interpretation was the best one. The strings go up one racket width from contact. And that is the end of the acceleration, the beginning of the deceleration. I got faster spin when I tried this. This shot can develop into a very good one.

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When Does a Novak Djokovic Forehand Begin its Deceleration?

A very short distance above contact, one would think. But let's do the clicks that will move us beyond conjecture toward elusive truth.

Here is a forehand (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4). We click on the third arrow under the still photo. Then we shift to right arrow on our computer keyboard. The vertical block and Djokovic both begin to move. We get Djokovic to where he has just performed his mondo. The strings are on their way down. I think I will have completed my mondo a bit sooner, at least at first.

But from end of Djokovic's mondo (strings just below his shoulder) we start our count. In two clicks the strings are on the ball. They went a long way! They are moving tremendously fast. A third click takes racket one racket head width directly above the ball.

We now do one click, stop, think, just to see what will happen. The next click puts strings about a yard above the ball. The next click starts bringing racket around more than up. The next click gets strings to left shoulder. The next click gets strings past left shoulder. The next click starts making a horizontal turn we can see because of our vantage point. The next click takes racket an even lesser distance. Four more clicks complete the wrap.

We have just described a lot of clicks, 11 in fact.

Compare this 11 with the two that took racket all the way from mondo to contact. We have witnessed both acceleration and deceleration at work, hopefully satisfying our curiosity-- well maybe somewhat.

Now comes a second question: Why should we care? Because, presumably, 1) we possess normal human curiosity and 2) the knowledge may help us tweak our own forehand to an optimal level with acceleration and deceleration now in their proper place.

Personally speaking, the knowledge of these clicks once and for all destroys the image of a windshield wiper as something useful to me.

One could cling to one's dear windshield wiper, I suppose, but the wiper then would work about the way it would if you were sstanding outside at front of your car during an ice blizzard with hand on a moving wiper and applying your body weight to it (inadvisable).

Racket trajectory may resemble that of the wiper but the speed of it is uneven.

And some other explanation or cue may improve on our old wiper friend.

A wipe but not a windshield wipe applies the topspin, and the wipe goes straight up.

Since Djoker's right arm is rotating, and very fast, it may take the racket through a section of arc from five to two o'clock: the crucial part of acceleration that started when the elbow plunged.

The arm then continues to roll as racket wraps around neck, but that part of the stroke is decelerative.

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Helium not Lead Elbow

The recent forum discussion about pause or no pause at the top of ground strokes (but why not extend it to serves and overheads too?) gives this dude the idea for slight modification to his always emerging Djokovic-itch.

One design idea for the stroke is no dogpat or anything else before the mondo, that mondo happens at the top, that mondo itself could be called the loop. Also, mondo can be somewhat like the easy fall of the club head as a forward golf swing commences.

This is romantic, I admit, an illusion of ultimate power. (In real time political debate on live television Donald Trump has just boasted that he hits a golf ball 285 feet.)

Against this we posit Ivan Lendl rejecting in his early book collaboration with Eugene Scott the notion that one should drive a tennis ball the way one can a golf ball.

One can use a perfect kinetic chain to do it, Lendl argues, but at the same time lose all hope of consistency and control.

So give me a compromise. A loop abets smoothness, the most desirable quality in athletic motion. A mondo introduces a microsecond of harshness into the smoothness of a good forehand. So we start the golfy fall at top of the fat-bellied outside in contraction we have devised.

But we complete this mondo only on the way down.

The earliness of this completion still frees up a longer bowl of the racket tip under the ball.

And straight bowl and wipe up and rolling wrap around neck all coalesce for more racket head speed and topspin and pace.

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Still Head More Often than not is a Joke

In my first sport-- rowing-- keeping head still means chin over the keel in that you are on little wheels traveling down and up the boat. One is apt to think of eight heads sliding back and forth on a single rod.

Through keeping chin behind the ball until the ball is gone one can play good golf.

Everybody in tennis knows that Roger Federer hitting a forehand turns his head backward to keep looking at contact point.

So Roger kept his head still, right? Not if both feet went up in the air taking his head with them.

And there are serves like his in which eyes stayed glued on the ball until it likewise is gone. Of course his head rose again with flight of his feet. In all of the best serves the body straightens out like a hard-on in homage to Alexander the Great in love with Alexander Technique.

George Plimpton, sport writer, oarsman and literary man, wrote in his introduction to a tennis book by the teaching pro Vince Eldridge that, he, George, was the worst person in the world at receiving tennis instruction because he took the terms too literally.

One can imagine "keep the head still" as one such term.

So why is being a literary man a handicap in tennis? Because the literary man, unlike too many tennis players, cares about precision of language.

One question in all of this: Did Chris Evert, told by her father to keep her head still, really do so? Whether she did or didn't, her more modern successors don't.

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Yay!

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Silly...

I couldn't agree more. That is the exact reason my forehand hates it when I try to be Federer or Djokovic. My forehand always protests when I call up images of them. It is my forehand's opinion that there is too much silliness to be had throughout the entire backswing.

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Backswing

This process of developing any tennis stroke doesn't stop. It...never...stops.

I know I've made fun of Malcolm Gladwell. But here is where I take his 10,000 mile stuff seriously.

Both Djokovic and Federer do silly useless stuff at the top of their forehand backswings. You can study this topic all day-- and I have-- but if you study long and deep enough you will come to the same conclusion. Silly. Useless.

So how then can their forehands be so great? Myelination. Good goopy milk grey sticky stuff not hardened too much since they are relatively young men. The microscopically observable goop has been accruing around their neuronal pathways for a long, long time. The electrical impulses have zinged through those insulated tunnels faster and ever faster. For speed of impulse you might think of Gerard O'Neill's mass driver and its spin-off in the military. Or the particle accelerator that never got completed in Waxahatchee, Texas and was built instead in Cern, Switzerland.

Too much snow on the court today for self-feed. If I were there though I'd work on getting the right arm work for my Djokovic-itch backswing just as smooth and fast as that for power version of my McEnrueful.

And then, with hand raised in the seminal position so quickly, I will have bought some time. How best to use it?

This is just the ghost of a thought that might work:

Instead of mondoeing on the way down, just introduce the small fall at the top of every full backswing in golf. But classify it with backswing rather than foreswing.

That frees up arm to immediately make like a race car and pull down and away from one's body whirl.

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Second Time Out with the Djokovitch-itch

A fine shot, loaded with pace and spin. It never missed the court or became an unforced error. But it landed too much in service line bailiwick because of the severely closed racket face. The obvious answer at least to me is more topple or toggle or tock or bowl to open the beveled face a smidge more at start of the wipe. Obviously I haven't found the word yet to describe this essential component in which the racket tip, due to elbow moving out, goes down to practically catch up with the hand. If someone were to give me the perfect word I would filch it to make it my own. If nobody puts out and gives me the nomination I seek-- the greatest likelihood-- I shall simply use the device with one or all of the four words just posited or let it go nameless. I have to ask myself if I really want to share this shot much less any of its components-- too big to fail and too good to give away.

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Communications to Bill Stowe

Since I once gave a brace of tennis lessons to John Higginson, one of the many top oarsmen Bill Stowe writes about in ALL TOGETHER-- his memoir of stroking the 1964 Olympic Gold Medal eight-oared American crew-- I don't see why I can't give a tennis lesson to Bill Stowe himself.

Beginning of Tennis Lesson

For an athlete like you, Bill, this will be nothing.

If you're playing golf you line up your shoulders to the target, right?

Well, for a tennis forehand, you've got to turn your shoulders just to get to that alignment, right? But from there substantial power in either tennis or golf derives from more body turn, right?

So here comes a ball. So get your hands over toward the side fence like a golfer.

No, get the hands over first as shoulders and hips turn at the same time right away-- first but not fast. Just push the racket over with both hands like this-- see? Everything'll be different when you lift the racket from the position of hands over to the side.

Now, what we talked about last time: The shoulders keep turning as the arms do their spread.

Mondo topple rip. You're getting it. Another.

More crosscourt.

You don't think a guy like Novak Djokovic would stop rolling his arm once he got it started, do you?

So here's another.

Slow down. Think. Relax, good shot.

Mondo elbow wrap.

The elbow going out topples/toggles the racket tip under the ball. Nice!

And the elbow going out opens the strings. But the rolling arm tends to close the strings. So the two actions cancel each other out to produce a surgical incision upward. Along with a bit of the poptop from still beveled racket we spoke about. Surgical incision to happen before the racket closes ridiculously much as it wraps around one's neck like this.

Solid mondo, then arm, then rip.

Solid means shoulders and arm move as one but just here near the top.

Mondo, toggle, wrap. Good spin that time.

Mondo rip.

Mondo rip. The toggle has become part of the rip. You noticed that?

Mondo rip.

Keep shoulders turning to get ready for the rip.

Push hands to start.

Bend arm as you lift the racket.

Golfy backswing, right? A right-handed golfer's right arm. A left-handed golfer's left arm.

Get that goofy golfy feel.

Connected mondo, rip.

Mondo wrap.

Wrap.

Mondo.

Wrap.

Rip it.

Wrap.

R.I.P. Requiescat in Pace.

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Use Regular Shot

# 2949's idea for a new see see proved untenable just from percentage of self-feeds successfully made compared to the same shot produced from one's regular forehand. Kyle recommended using one's regular forehand long long ago.

Of course my regular forehand-- my Djokovic-itch when I'm not using my McEnrueful-- was discovered just in the past week.

The notion of abbreviated backswing for the see see variation seemed clever but turned out to be no banana.

More shots hit a difficult target from a full Djokovic-itch with the bonus that the angle needn't be as sharp thanks to added pace.

I noticed that my sharp angle potential immediately improved with Thursday's first use of a Djokovic-itch in actual competition.

Retaining Djokovic-itch as a power shot makes sense for a 76-year-old just mastering this option which can generate speed, spin, angle, depth, pace-- the whole package.

All soft shots now get freed up to be hit off of composite grip McEnruefuls. At our club the other day I noticed a consistent but tepid young woman league player using backswing the same natural way but then hitting the ball with backspin.

"What a waste of a great backswing," I thought to myself but now am changing my tune.

With McEnroe's composite conviction to use mild down and up backswing, one can hit soft or hard.

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"When you Finally do Find Something, Don't Beat it into the Ground."

That from Mr. Toohey, high level Canadian figure skater living in Virginia. I don't remember his first name, only that he had an enormous number of kids.

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An Old Exchange between the Neuroscientist and Tennis Coach Ray Brown and me

ME
First perception: The samples of your forehand lesson seem incredibly clear and self-evident but visually quite subtle, too, and I have questions.

I thought I saw you straighten your elbow during the strike in the Tennis One sequence; I thought I saw you not do that on your own website (I hope it wasn't the same sequence!).

I feel most confident about "Contraction." And then, it seems to me the arm has no independent motion in "Rotation." And no independent motion in "Acceleration." And yes, the elbow slides forward in "The Strike," which will open the racket face. I know you want to get both ends of the racket moving briefly at the same speed but there could be more than one way to do that.

Thanks for your answer. I'd like not to have to think about this quite so much. I'd be grateful if you could still my last doubt.

We've learned that the upper arm can rotate like a hinged gate in Yandell's classic Eastern forehand; hopefully, it's not doing that here.

RAY BROWN
There is a great deal of latitude in the subtitles of a stroke. The sequences on TennisONE and our members site are the same. The sequence on the open site is slightly different. However, all sequences consist of only five frames each. It is possible for the human eye to fill in the intermediate stages even though they are not there.

It is possible to hit a very big forehand with the arm being fixed during rotation and acceleration. But there is room for some movement so long as it is controlled. The danger of movement during rotation is the arm may become destablilized, so it must be done with care. During the acceleration stage the shoulder and upper arm can be used for a small burst of speed.

Getting both ends of the racquet moving briefly at the same speed can be done in more than one way. For example one may use the shoulder, the legs, forearm extension, and perhaps hips. And maybe there is yet another way.

The upper arm rotation is a very subtle matter. It can be used but the elbow must be kept in front of the body plane or the racquet face will turn downward. How far in front depends on the grip!

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Initial Move of a Djokovic-Itch

SIM: Human head goes toward where the ball will be. Hips and shoulders turn in that direction. The two hands, starting low left and connected by the racket, turn in the same direction going ahead of the turning shoulders like a miniature race car pulling away. This all is SIM SIM SIM, which means that the happening of it is simultaneous.

Two likely things then happen for me, a right-hander playing doubles and returning serve on Har-Tru green clay from the deuce court:

1) One wing, the racket, goes up, arm bending, racket returning toward the body until it reaches the seminal position of Novak Djokovic about to administer topspin and pace on his forehand side. The other arm, also separating, continues parallel to court toward the right fence. And the shoulders and hips keep rotating to the max. SIM!

2) For a see see ("the topspin angle," John M. Barnaby called it) the arms separate in a weird wing flap the same exact way with one wing going up and in, the other out. The difference is that the shoulders do not continue to rotate. The weird wing flap happens as the shoulders stay still. So that by the time you scrape the ball they will not have rotated as much.

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From Half a Dozen Ideas for a Saturday Morn

Order any tennis book by Dennis Ralston since he talks about arm going around the body. Omigod, now I find this (http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/othe...back-in-tennis).

Movement abetted by basic form of the Djokovic-itch.

"I am a snake." A principle built into the Djokovic-itch.

See see forehands utilizing the most unique characteristic of the Djokovic-itch but now without much or any body rotation.

From an old exchange between me and the neuroscientist and tennis coach Ray Brown.

Self-feed some Djokovic-itches, dwelling on weight transfer both angular and linear within neutral and semi-open form.

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I'm not going to write a separate post on each item, at least not today, but will start with movement since it is a strong point of the new shot.

We know that the human head is very heavy, something we therefore want to get going in desired direction as soon as possible without this being advisement of a lurch.

And what if we have a light though large head because of small brain inside the cranium due to Zika Politician's Breed Subdivision caused by a mosquito that bit our mother while we were in the womb.

The question applies as well to small brain in small head (microcephalus).

In either case the initial hips turn combined with gentle tipping of head may not be enough to carry the feet in desired direction. So we add two handed press for half of the backswing for 12 more ounces at the end of our arms.

(http://www.ralstontennis.com/)