A New Year's Serve

[tennis_chiro]

Good place for people crying in the wilderness

I've always thought, Bottle, that you had a special spot in your heart for people crying out for justice.

The following is very upsetting. You can watch it for free until March 6.

And you should.

https://boughtmovie.net/free-viewing/thank-you.php?AFFID=NONE&email=donbrosseau@earthlink.net

don

[stotty]

You are a very good writer, so don't let anybody tell you different, especially yourself: A very interesting and revealing tale.

The late Detroit writers considered the best by the rest are Elmore Leonard and Philip Levine.

Personally, I've been better able to connect to Levine (poet) than Leonard, but loved it whenever Leonard spoke ABOUT writing.

A main rule of his was one exclamation point every 2000 pages, another, writing should never seem like writing.

Do I fall down there? Sometimes. But I find your sensitivity to sentence length very interesting.

It means, I think, that you are aware of sentence rhythm. Rhythm in tennis, music, prose-- what's the difference?

All about confidence and letting go and finding one's "natural voice." The last thing I want to do right here and now is make anybody but especially myself self-conscious-- no need to do that.

But here is the best sentence in Americano English: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

It is Ralph Waldo Emerson and thoroughly Germanic. Note the little monosyllable at the end with its perfect balance as follow-through. And in my sentence immediately preceding this one if you think I ought to be an example the lack of apostrophe in the word "its".

Thanks for this. I feel inspired. That's a wonderful feeling.

I am not sure I have ever found my own voice. Whenever I read a good writers I find myself subconsciously trying to write like them. I feel like a copycat, and a long way from finding my own voice, my own style. Maybe one day...

Thanks again for the inspiration....

[bottle]

Great Article

What a man. And with a sister. What a vision.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31558467

[bottle]

On Writing

I think your blog (I prefer thread) fits in nicely. It took me a while to get used to it but now I am a big fan. I also get writing lessons from you as well. Yes, you're still teaching whether you like it or not. I left school at 15 with no qualifications whatsoever. It's a long story so let's not go there.

When I wrote my first letter to the club committee asking for work, they club captain of the day (horrible bloke) returned my letter with red circles around the word "to" which should have been "too" and "wellcome" which should have been "welcome". The captain really enjoyed showing me up because he had in mind someone else for the job. This is the most humiliating thing that has ever happening to me. I was deeply ashamed. It wasn't my fault, of course, fifteen is no age to quit education, but it hurt all the same. Needless to say I have been trying to compensate ever since...

Much to the captain's dismay, I got the job.

Some ten years ago I took online lessons from Jim over at writeasy.com. He was a retired editor from the Los Angeles Times. I learned an incredible amount from him. It's great to be taught by someone who has done nothing but write for living for many, many years. I just went to his website but see it's shut down. Jim was in his early 80's when he was teaching me so he may longer be around.

I have never mastered longer sentences like you. I simply don't have that skill, although I keep trying and hope some day I will.

Keep posting...

Your biggest fan,

Stotty

You are a very good writer, so don't let anybody tell you different, especially yourself: A very interesting and revealing tale.

The late Detroit writers considered the best by the rest are Elmore Leonard and Philip Levine.

Personally, I've been better able to connect to Levine (poet) than Leonard, but loved it whenever Leonard spoke ABOUT writing.

A main rule of his was one exclamation point every 2000 pages, another, writing should never seem like writing.

Do I fall down there? Sometimes. But I find your sensitivity to sentence length very interesting.

It means, I think, that you are aware of sentence rhythm. Rhythm in tennis, music, prose-- what's the difference?

All about confidence and letting go and finding one's "natural voice." The last thing I want to do right here and now is make anybody but especially myself self-conscious-- no need to do that.

But here is the best sentence in Americano English: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

It is Ralph Waldo Emerson and thoroughly Germanic. Note the little monosyllable at the end with its perfect balance as follow-through. And in my sentence immediately preceding this one if you think I ought to be an example the lack of apostrophe in the word "its".

[stotty]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31558467

[bottle]

Red Thread

It a thread. A very long thread. What would this forum be without bottle and his "A New Year's Serve"? Henry Miller wrote as lovingly about sex as John does about tennis. Both rhythmic motions dependent upon variations of technique. Is that reading too much into it?

Coincidentally…I joined this website on New Year's Eve. A culmination of a search for a video of the Don Budge backhand. I walked right into this…eyes wide shut. Par for the course…in my case.

Speaking of me…on a side note…

(In response to a list by me of flexible servers)

You might have added don_budge…aka you know who. Ferdinand Navarro.

Right, I have a long thread as opposed to an unread blog or unread tennis book.

And I admire flexibility of every kind. In my first big story as a young reporter I got to drink with Jules Feiffer, Art Buchwald and Bill Mauldin.

The headline under a huge photo on the front page of The Middletown Press in Connecticut: "We begin to laugh at ourselves." Feiffer, Buchwald and Mauldin held their glasses discreetly down by their sides. Mine was way up in the air.

This was part of a symposium on humorous writing at Wesleyan, the university now in the news trying to deal with bad hallucinogens, i.e., a number of bad trips, the dealers expelled, a couple of students who almost died, supposedly, but didn't.

Mauldin, leading editorial cartoonist of World War II, spoke of "six-foot-six block-headed Hessians coming over the hill" in Grade B Hollywood war movies. But there he (Mauldin) was in Cassino, Italy, watching American soldiers by the hundreds leap like lemmings across a water ditch.

No one was capable of reacting to what was happening. Seems even more timely today than in 1963 . The soldiers just kept coming, all of them leaping to their death by machine gun fire.

The subject of this little talk: FLEXIBILITY.

[don_budge]

Sexy Tennis…Escher's Dreaming

I think your blog (I prefer thread) fits in nicely.
Keep posting...

Your biggest fan,

Stotty

It a thread. A very long thread. What would this forum be without bottle and his "A New Year's Serve"? Henry Miller wrote as lovingly about sex as John does about tennis. Both rhythmic motions dependent upon variations of technique. Is that reading too much into it?

Coincidentally…I joined this website on New Year's Eve. A culmination of a search for a video of the Don Budge backhand. I walked right into this…eyes wide shut. Par for the course…in my case.

Speaking of me…on a side note…

Don't do it, rotorded server. Since your physical limitation will never permit you to get your racket tip as low as Gonzalez, Roddick, Sampras, Anderson, Karlovic, Raonic and Isner, you just won't have enough play left in your arm for what follows.

You might have added don_budge…aka you know who. Ferdinand Navarro.

[stotty]

#1640
02-24-2015, 07:00 AM

gzhpcu
Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lugano, Switzerland
Posts: 1,845



Just wondering John: bottle and now hockeyscout have set up blogs. Others might want to do so too. Nothing against blogs, but I find them a bit out of place in a forum. How about a separate section in addition to forum for blogs?
__________________
Regards, Phil


johnyandell
Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 3,829



I think it's ok. It's readers' choice.


#1642
02-24-2015, 02:26 PM

gzhpcu
Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lugano, Switzerland
Posts: 1,845



So be it....
__________________
Regards, Phil


I agree that what I do is “a bit out of place.” But so what? Are forums in which nobody tries to introduce much substance that fabulous? Is chat with nothing much behind it that wonderful? Gab, gab...someone may accuse me of that but I probably accuse them of the exact same thing.

But the dichotomy raised here reminds me of what goes on in colleges and universities: lecture or discussion or some combination of both. The borderlines interest me. The best thing that ever happened to me as teacher was to decide to go with interruption or surprise rather than lesson plan (although I had that too).

Frankly, I could have started an independent tennis blog outside of this website long ago. Might have received some advertising revenue as the business types in Detroit constantly advise. But would I have learned as much tennis? When considering either me or don_budge or hockeyscout, one shouldn’t underestimate the response we get—all three.
Quantity yes but quality much more.

Alles muss nicht in Ordnung sein. Translation: Everything doesn't have to be in perfect order and probably is better when it isn't.

I think your blog (I prefer thread) fits in nicely. It took me a while to get used to it but now I am a big fan. I also get writing lessons from you as well. Yes, you're still teaching whether you like it or not. I left school at 15 with no qualifications whatsoever. It's a long story so let's not go there.

When I wrote my first letter to the club committee asking for work, they club captain of the day (horrible bloke) returned my letter with red circles around the word "to" which should have been "too" and "wellcome" which should have been "welcome". The captain really enjoyed showing me up because he had in mind someone else for the job. This is the most humiliating thing that has ever happening to me. I was deeply ashamed. It wasn't my fault, of course, fifteen is no age to quit education, but it hurt all the same. Needless to say I have been trying to compensate ever since...

Much to the captain's dismay, I got the job.

Some ten years ago I took online lessons from Jim over at writeasy.com. He was a retired editor from the Los Angeles Times. I learned an incredible amount from him. It's great to be taught by someone who has done nothing but write for living for many, many years. I just went to his website but see it's shut down. Jim was in his early 80's when he was teaching me so he may longer be around.

I have never mastered longer sentences like you. I simply don't have that skill, although I keep trying and hope some day I will.

Keep posting...

Your biggest fan,

Stotty

[bottle]

Blog vs. Forum

#1640
02-24-2015, 07:00 AM

gzhpcu
Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lugano, Switzerland
Posts: 1,845



Just wondering John: bottle and now hockeyscout have set up blogs. Others might want to do so too. Nothing against blogs, but I find them a bit out of place in a forum. How about a separate section in addition to forum for blogs?
__________________
Regards, Phil


johnyandell
Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 3,829



I think it's ok. It's readers' choice.


#1642
02-24-2015, 02:26 PM

gzhpcu
Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lugano, Switzerland
Posts: 1,845



So be it....
__________________
Regards, Phil


I agree that what I do is “a bit out of place.” But so what? Are forums in which nobody tries to introduce much substance that fabulous? Is chat with nothing much behind it that wonderful? Gab, gab...someone may accuse me of that but I probably accuse them of the exact same thing.

But the dichotomy raised here reminds me of what goes on in colleges and universities: lecture or discussion or some combination of both. The borderlines interest me. The best thing that ever happened to me as teacher was to decide to go with interruption or surprise rather than lesson plan (although I had that too).

Frankly, I could have started an independent tennis blog outside of this website long ago. Might have received some advertising revenue as the business types in Detroit constantly advise. But would I have learned as much tennis? When considering either me or don_budge or hockeyscout, one shouldn’t underestimate the response we get—all three.
Quantity yes but quality much more.

Alles muss nicht in Ordnung sein. Translation: Everything doesn't have to be in perfect order and probably is better when it isn't.

[bottle]

An Either Cruel or Cool Idea for Rotorded Servers

Cruel if it doesn't work. But the hopes of rotorded servers get dashed every time they step up to the line so...Was ist da zu verloren? A woman from Graz, Austria once wrote those words to me. The paper wasn't perfumed but it was stationery. "What's there to lose?" She wanted me to share the renting of a suite-- very sweet of her-- in a castle high above the Danube River. I'm sure I've experienced enough unrequited love in my own life to even things out. But she was thirty feet tall. Would have been interesting.

Most good servers, it seems to me, get the straight arm way behind them and then bend it to trophy position while the hips go out.

Don't do it, rotorded server. Since your physical limitation will never permit you to get your racket tip as low as Gonzalez, Roddick, Sampras, Anderson, Karlovic, Raonic and Isner, you just won't have enough play left in your arm for what follows.

What then to do? Bend the stick the other way? Surely you've tried that a hundred times? Could the fault lie in language? Don't "bend" the stick the other way. "Twist" the stick the other way.

We all know that better external rotation leads to better internal rotation, right? The same logic says then that better internal rotation leads to better external rotation. So employ a triple whammy sequence-- internal, external, internal.

Leave the merely double whammy of external to internal to more ordinary servers while not forgetting to scoff at them.

The action begins. Down together up together to toss but we've kept palm down and through bending the arm have hooked the racket forward a little. Now push palm down farther as the hips go out. Now as legs thrust or hips rotate or however it is that you eternally have provided gross force, you press palm down even more, which is another way of saying that you twist your humerus in opposite direction from the way you always did.

Twisting humerus gets the racket tip lower than it was no matter who you are or in which direction you press, right? Well, maybe you can get it lower this way than the other way unless you are rotorded in both directions.

If your core propulsion unit can get racket tip low one way it can do the same the other way.

Now you are internally rotated to the max. So get externally rotated to the max. And internally rotated to the max.

The goal: ace or at least troublesome spin for one's opponent.

[bottle]

Come into My Think Tank, Ye Teaching Pros of the World

No left or right here. Yes, some up and down. And left and right in the apolitical sense. Let's brainstorm a new shot called The Claudius Caecus after the guy who removed the Z from the alphabet. Or maybe we'll just offer that name as improvement over Federfore or ATP3.

You'll find me strange enough. I was just staring at my toes. Some are straight, some curved, the result of atavism in my long Swiss bloodline extending thousands of years before Alfred Escher dug the world's first really big tunnel through the bottom of Jungfrau Mountain. Up higher was there a Choctaw Ridge?

Nice picture of Bobbie Gentry in this link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_Billie_Joe) At least my ancestor Alfred didn't throw anything including himself from Tallahatchie Bridge and there is a statue of him on a horse in front of the main train station in Zurich.

We'll have some laughs. The Manny doesn't work-- haw-haw. The Pincer doesn't work either. Nor any of the short angles, boo-hoo.

I'll hit a lot of Federfores and McEnruefuls as I've said before along with square backhands, Rosewallian slice and Federerian chop. I'll do fine.

How long to learn The Manny though? An hour. The Pincer? An hour unless one has learned The Manny first-- two hours then.

What if one or the other works? Choose it. What if they both work? Use them both in competition. Is this physiologically possible? Will such neologistic strokes stand up to pressure play?

Why not if orchestration is good with opposite hand and racket tip pushing toward each other in the one and descending in tandem in the other (remember to flutter fingers to set up the sucker punch).

None of it matters, you say, it's how one moves, and Floyd and Manny fight on May 2nd, 2015 .

Okay, I'll be ready to return to the circuit soon. Don't have to do any outpatient therapy it turns out. I opted for one more week of home care and after that will do the exercises on my own.

This is typical of patients with successful partials. The technology moves ahead.

But one's knee ought to swell up once in a while-- don't you think? If not, you aren't working hard enough? If the swelling hasn't subsided by next appointment, the surgeon will remove the fluid and no big deal, he said.

That should inspire me to do the right thing-- alternate ice water therapy and hot wash cloths, perform extra elevation and toe pumps, etc.

XYZ& (The End.)

[bottle]

Smash

http://blog.dictionary.com/z/

(don_budge raising my hand respectfully)

I had this question of you some time ago. Has something happened to "Z" that I am unaware of. Many words that I have spelled with a "Z" in the past now are spell checked and replaced with "S". What gives? Why would this happen? Is it a sign?

Blame Claudius Caecus. Anyone with a name like that is BAD.

Smash computers.

The End (XYZ ampersand).

[don_budge]

Professor bottle…what happened to "z"

http://blog.dictionary.com/z/

(don_budge raising my hand respectfully)

I had this question of you some time ago. Has something happened to "Z" that I am unaware of. Many words that I have spelled with a "Z" in the past now are spell checked and replaced with "S". What gives? Why would this happen? Is it a sign?

[bottle]

In the Imagination, Where Good Strokes Happen First

Roll takes place in a Wawrinkle (backhand) either...

1) Throughout the entire forward stroke starting with the drop.

2) During the drop. Then there is no roll to contact during which tract the strings open naturally from closed to square. Then there is roll all the way to end of the follow-through.

One or the other.

If 2), initial roll for down the line can be pure like a sculler performing his feather-- however, if sculling or rowing perform smooth roll over the ankles late but before the quicker-than-the-eye drop (the catch). Also if 2), initial roll for crosscourt can include some impure turning forward of the racket tip.

Arthur Ashe: "Sling the racket at the ball."

Note: In one of the many casette videos that Vic Braden made, he demonstrated backhand acceleration-deceleration. This blew my mind since to me it countered everything else he was teaching about his own unique backhand.

Vic was short but unlike his brother who came to Winchester, Virginia the day I saw them both had very broad shoulders.

In the video Vic rotated his shoulders very quickly but stopped them abruptly with everything he had. The arm then accelerated forward in linear fashion.

If 2) again, this same process ought to work as one mimics Stan Wawrinka's atypical among all one-handers early substantial turn of his shoulders.

[bottle]

Jim Kacian Thump-the-Court Anesthetized Triceps Forward Emphasis Forehand

Jim gave me 50 free lessons. As my regular chess opponent he always played the English Opening like Petrosian against Botwinnik the Russians in one of the world championships before Spassky and Fischer. Petrosian always got to be white which was blatantly unfair.

Jim won the USPTA doubles twice with the Williams College coach. Like George H.W. Bush, he was doubles champion of Maine. He got to partner with John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova. In singles he played on the circuit at about 400. If I wrote haiku poetry, he would be my haiku editor now.

During a try-out with the Boston Red Sox for second base or shortstop he had some big hits. At some point we decided to collaborate on a tennis book, with him to perform the visuals. The project fell through from lack of impetus from me. My affair with a truly beautiful and fabulously interesting Hungarian woman led to my divorce and departure from Virginia.

And no, I never introduced her or even mentioned her to Jim since "the tennis pro always gets the girl." Somebody uttered those words in my presence. Who? Jim! There must have been another incident that proved the premise.

Somewhere along the way Jim picked up a special forehand where he thumped the court two or three times with his racket (a Prince Magnesium mid-size like Pat Cash) and then went into a late tight loop from that low point to hit the ball all in one swoop.

That shot has never worked for me the way it does for Jim. But as don_budge aka Steve Navarro says..."Connect the dots."

One side of the equation is my anesthetize-the-triceps Randy Johnson Big Unit early squeeze of arm rotorded service, which I haven't tried yet due to knee replacement healing period. I don't know if it will even work.

Regardless, it seems a good model for a new forehand if one has read Louis-Ferdinand Celine (https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/...=yhs-fh_lsonsw) and therefore knows how to connect any dots ever...