A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Keep Fiddling with Grip to Hit a Backhand like Stan

Just in one day I saw two very opposite views of Stan's grip in this one website. One of the views appeared in a quote from the internet provided by me. The other appeared and still appears in this month's article on Stan's backhand written by JY. The grip to explore most thoroughly may be heel on 8, big knuckle on 1.5 but pursue all the possibilities-- my mantra. After one has made one's choice, I'm now thinking, one can maybe go with the following simplification of step-out if one is so inclined. Kind of depends on whether one is interested in Arthur Ashe's advice to step at 45 degrees to the net or rather to step straight at the net on a perpendicular, which many instructors prefer.

I go with the 45 degrees-- another basic or should I say bedrock choice if one believes in discipline. Of course some of your shots will be departures but at least there will be a norm.

Backswing toward side fence combined with this step-out gets racket pointed at rear fence, which is classic instruction, to which one might add the thought of keeping racket square through every inch of the stroke. Backswing toward rear fence combined with this step-out gets racket pointed around one's back like Stan, ready to rock, in which case you can "Roll over Beethoven and give Tchaikovsky the news."

[bottle]

Internal vs. External Knowledge in Halep's Game and Wawrinka's Backhand

Simona Halep's mentality is opposite to that of a male warrior who has learned never to give away the slightest doubt of his own prowess.

Halep freely told the entire sports public that when a match gets tight she is apt to get tight, and when she gets tight she suddenly cannot move.

Result: Another championship.

More than revealing a weakness for use by opponents who already knew it, she externalized her fear and so was able to deal with it.

Translation: I can move great during an entire match but tighten up at crunch time as if I am the tin woodman and there has just been a thunderstorm.

Simona is such a complete tennis player that she can defeat opponents with bigger stroke weapons.

All Simona has to do is play as if there is no crunch time at all. The difference is that she told herself this truth. Whether or not someone else said it first, she said it to herself.

When trying to imitate Stan Wawrinka's topspin backhand, we maybe should listen to someone other than ourself. We should combine what we already know with all other sources but especially with anyone willing to be knowledgeable on the subject of Stan's grip. From "about sports" on the internet:

Stanislas Wawrinka uses a Modified Eastern grip to hit one of the most efficient topspin backhands in professional tennis. Stan can deliver a ton of power and topspin on his backhand, and he does it with such a simple stroke, many consider his backhand ideal to emulate. Stan's Modified Eastern grip allows him a slightly later point of contact than a Full Eastern would, but it doesn't support the racquet quite as solidly as a Full Eastern would. For many players, this would be a trade-off, but Stan is strong enough to compensate for the slight weakness of the grip while still benefiting from its timing advantage.

Then you click on "Modified Eastern" and get this: (http://tennis.about.com/od/forehandb...pclosewt_2.htm)

Grip is always the toughest subject in tennis-- hardest to see and hardest to understand and plagued by inconsistent terminology-- reader, YOU figure it out this time.

When I look at film of Wawrinka's backhand today, I think that forward roll of the stroke starts even in his backswing. And that the whole stroke is close to that of John McEnroe though longer at both ends and with more roll through the very finish. Both show early opening of the shoulders here.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/stanislas_wawrinka/sw_backhand/sw_bh_wide/sw_bh_wide.html?SWBHWideClosedStanceCourtLevelRear.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterCourtLevelRear.mov

Note: Nobody is going to bullshit us into thinking that John McEnroe is a muscle man. And he starts his forward roll after his backswing, doesn't he?

Sebastien Foka, one of the great teaching pros around here, went to Europe with his wife Courtney and watched Stan play in the French Open.

Sebastien was struck by the ordinariness of Stan's physique. In fact, if you ask me, Sebastien, who as a French junior came up with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, is bigger and stronger than Stan.

Timing then, not The Hulk's strength, is how Stan or John or for that matter Sebastien, the winningest player ever at Wayne State, does it.

John curls his wrist, doesn't he? John has his racket open at start of the forward swing and cuts off the end, no?

John is more economical, Stan more extreme. They both have great backhands.

[bottle]

From Don Budge's Advice to a Wawrinkan Backhand

I've tried many times for either a Don Budge or Stan Wawrinka backhand without much success.

But advice comes from Don Budge in the form of an old video where he advises students of the game to put a bit more thumb behind the handle.

And from Stan Wawrinka in the form of the tattoo of statement from Samuel Beckett on his forearm: "Fail better."

The Budge advice has led to a modified Ed Faulkner version in which frame stays square through every inch of the whole stroke. Backswing in my variation of the Faulkner is primarily toward LEFT fence but combined with the 45-degree step-out promulgated by Arthur Ashe.

The small success of this shot dictates as next step of a progression another try at the Wawrinka (I've given up on the pure Budge).

The Wawrinka-Beckett advice leads now to use of my regular slice grip (composite or "Australian" but non-wrapped-- thumb is diagonal and up just a little bit to correspond with my other strokes).

Backswing is primarily toward REAR fence or more.

Arm roll is performed through every inch of the forward drive, starting even as racket descends behind the back.

[bottle]

Two Myths about Rotorded Serving

I've been in pursuit of them for a long time, but here they are:

1) Get the elbow higher than where it ought to be (anatomy books suggest that it should be lined up with the shoulder balls). Reason why higher than this is no good, in a word: Impingement. Vic Braden would pull the plastic arm off of a doll.

2) Shun abbreviated structures to infuse more rhythm, openness, looseness, gravity and point down in your serve.

The first four parts are true. The fifth-- more point down-- is a lie. If you can't point your racket tip efficiently downward when it's close to your body you won't be able to do that when racket is far away from your body either. You may club a bit more pace because of the longer, uncramped lever, but spin won't be good, and most of the time you will be ahead of yourself, failing even in miniature version to put John Isner's upward (and sustained) work on the ball and often in fact producing undesirable because downward spin.

Solution or should I say attempted solution since I am in down time and not on the court: An immediate snakily coiled midsection wind-up like Randy Johnson in baseball only synchronized with down and up toss motion.

For anesthetized triceps model for final mechanics required for very late high five read immediately previous posts and/or study Brian Gordon.

In the better serves envisioned here, the arm will centrifuge straight naturally from both external and internal rotations for a more edge on contact.

Note: Why use the neologism "rotorded" at all? Because a problem once named becomes less intractable.

[bottle]

Medical Technology and the Previous Post

MANUAL OF STRUCTURAL KINESIOLOGY offers so many terms for me to learn that I may just as well permit my eyes to glaze but keep on reading all the shoulder material over and over until some of the most difficult parts begin to make sense.

My family physician, Margaret Eckel, just spoke of contribution to external rotation from Teres minor and to internal rotation from Teres major. I was in her office for routine checkup after last Friday's replacement of the tibia side of my left knee.

Today was the first morning where I used my cane, which, though not ergometrically correct, feels like a good tennis racket. While the cane purists would never approve, Dr. Eckel, my own physician, does. She is just fine with my cane which is a west coast Mexican rattlesnake.

In either case Dr. Richard Perry the surgeon wants me to put full weight on my left leg right away so I don't think I'll be using any kind of a cane for long.

The big thing I noticed in the hospital is that most official persons are desperately afraid that one might think for oneself, and I can understand that.

During my one and only day in the hospital I kept seeing a printed sign: "Call don't fall."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A Randy Johnson wind-up folds racket neither high nor low behind one's back.

Elbow is up however almost where you want it.

The advantage is that the rotorded server for once in his life does not compound his physical limitation by two through cutting it in half.

That's what happens when a rotorded player tries to oppose leg extension with racket fall-- he simply does not create enough roller coaster track.

Better to get arm squeezed together with racket counter-cocked behind one.

Now the upper arm has more external rotation available to it. The arm can passively centrifuge straight as the humerus rotates both externally and then internally.

Is there a pause between these two rotations or not? Once arm starts centrifuging straight can it continue to straighten in a motion dependent way?

The spin in spin serves (all serves) most often fails when racket turns (internally rotates) overly much and thus pushes too much on the ball.

Ideally, the racket frame barely misses the ball.

The new arrangement at least enables a rotorded server to be in the neighborhood to incur some essential to development frame hits.

[bottle]

Out of the Asylum!

Attack, you Knights of the Rotorded Garter! Sing your anthem culled from theater of the cruel. Sing without words!

Sing with the centered tubercles of your stabilized arm, using a Randy Johnson wind-up. Just send the energy toward the sky rather than the plate.(https://video.search.yahoo.com/video...=yhs-fh_lsonsw).

"Marat, we're poor! And the poor stay poor! Marat, we don't want...to be poor any more! We want the world! And we don't care how! We want a revolution, NOW! NOW! NOW!"

I would fly off the stage into the audience. The old Shakespeare professor who loved my performance of Sir Andrew Aguecheek in TWELFTH NIGHT detested my performance now as inmate of Charenton Reformatory.

Professor Smith didn't like it but we the actors of the University of Rhode Island Theater thought we were hot stuff and I as the only faculty member in that particular cast thought I was hottest of all.

I still was going bald and so had a miserable forelock which I pulled in front of my eyes.

Through the sparse strands I squinted at my victim as I had for the entire performance having identified her before the play began.

"Someone is staring at me," this beautiful woman must have thought. "Yes he is. Look at him. I'm not making it up!"

"REVOLUTION! COPULATION! REVOLUTION! COPULATION!" we all chanted as we invaded the audience.

The play MARAT-SADE of course is a right wing screed, a send-up of all who want radical social change, which supposedly always turns out worse than anything previously in place.

Eschatology, Isis, The French Revolution, John Escher wanting a better serve in tennis-- all of these combined only I didn't behead anybody. And a guard from the football team knocked me sideways just as I got to the girl.

And now I do it with my arm, inventing a more sensible serve during the down time of knee replacement to go with my rotordedness. As you can imagine, reader, my copy of the Thompson, Floyd MANUAL OF STRUCTURAL KINESIOLOGY arrived in the mail.

Chas Stumpfel said it would cost $10 but in fact it cost a total of $6, $2 for the book and $4 for postage.

And the secret of the Randy Johnson windup emerged of course from the ever blacker rocks of the Antarctican mountains that house in their stony bosom a combined health spa and The Institute of Rotorded Serves.

It's fiction of course or one might say "fuction" or the truth of the matter which is "fuck ya."

Some say a rotorded server will never find success. They preach as compromise a higher than optimal elbow to ensure impingement.

Well I say use a Randy Johnson backswing and we'll meet out on the court and try to return this and "fuck ya."

[bottle]

Manny Pacquiao Fantasy

The home care nurses and therapists who regularly come to visit say that my knee is three weeks ahead of where it should be ("It isn't even swollen!").

That leads to March 30 fantasy in which there is no snow on the streets and courts of Detroit.

BOTTLE, that would be me, carefully ices his left knee with the cool blue circulating machine provided "for free"-- thanks to good medical insurance-- by his surgeon. BOTTLE plans for repeated icing immediately following his trip/adventure.

He thinks he knows a court with net up but carries a strand of rope in the passenger seat of his '97 Camry just in case.

He lugs his balls out on the hard surface, sets up the spider legs of his basket, drops and hits the first Manny Pacquiao of his life.

The indisputable success of this forehand leads immediately to all kinds of new rumination some of it unwanted.

First, American tennis does not encourage enough fantasy but rather teaches players to dream small.

Second, a forward emphasis forehand with all the natural timing of rearward emphasis is just as good a shot and probably better.

Do people actually think that Manny Pacquiao does not generate enough power for conversion of one of his punches into effective tennis stroke?

Granted, Manny has lost five fights in his life, Floyd Mayweather none. But this impending collision between them will be the highest grossing pay-for-view in the history of boxing, grosser even than Ali-Foreman or Ali-Frazier.

Regardless of outcome, BOTTLE will return to his ice machine with new confidence, that, in the next ten years of his tennis life he will have the option of short-hopping any forehand from farther out front.

[bottle]

Nerve-Block-of-Triceps-Serve

This proposed serve will irritate some. In fact if it doesn’t work it will irritate me. Why though should I worry about that now? Design phase of anything should have its own sanctity.

A rotorded server such as myself may come to imagine that he should manufacture extra fast tract for himself.

I’ll do that by sacrificing the lovely second gravity fall of a perfectly designed conventional serve, i.e., “the timing topple at the top.”

That is for high toss servers who are naturally flexible or who have already taken and mastered Esther Ekhart’s three week course (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppToA1N0CgE).

I am not ready for that. Better for the time being therefore to make oneself into a mottled snake completely coiled for the strike.

Up together, down together, up together with palm pointed down and arm completely folded into an elbow led needle.

But why do I have the feeling that I have been here before...and with no success? Again, Bottle, don’t be a neurotic wretch. Anesthetize your triceps muscle, yes, but anesthetize your stupid fears that something won’t work too—or is the real fear that it WILL work?

We combine these recent words of Chas Stumpfel, "This is followed by trained timing that shortens these pre-stretched muscles explosively over approximately the last 30 milliseconds before impact," with the long ago posted animation in the following TennisPlayer article, furniture # 11 where green curved arrow turns red in each repetition (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...pper_body.html) .

Brian Gordon’s arrows change color as they change direction.

The difference this time shall be that the final change of direction occur very late and close to contact.

The arm meanwhile will have centrifuged first from external humeral twist and second from internal humeral twist.

The final internal twist accelerating/liberating from overlapped and conflicting muscular forces will occur with arm almost straight.

Think about this!

Late ISR or “internal shoulder rotation” as Stumpfel calls it starts with arm almost straight and completes the straightening right then, the famous high five from basketball that everybody talks about and performs in end zones, etc.. The ISR can be faster because the racket is not pointing straight at the sky but is closer to doing so say than in the tomahawk throws I wrote about a while back. Nobody talks about this but maybe they should. The same ISR has less racket to turn since the racket tip is higher toward the sky.

Racket accelerates off of the ball to the right if you are right-handed and I am.

Note 1. If you hit your head with your racket your elbow was not high enough at arm squeeze. Note 2. How many times do I have to warn that some of my proposed shots may not work? On the other hand, some unquestionably do. Which is all I want—since I am always trying for a strong tennis game rather than a strong tennis stroke invention scorecard. Note 3. If nerve-block-of-triceps-serve works, it will work because of the way that arm and body complement one another.

Note 4 is a question—can braking of the hips primarily with front leg work to accelerate arm/arms the way it does in a baseball swing or hockey slap-shot? I don’t really understand—at least right now—how the dynamic can be the same. Not in a Chas Stumpfel type serve where external and internal rotations of the upper arm are paramount. Acceleration-deceleration does work through transition from angular to linear movement, a kind of serve I have enjoyed but maybe do not want to use just now. Perhaps someone can convince me otherwise.

[bottle]

How Should Arm Straighten in a Serve?

George Bowman, high school science teacher and director of the summer tennis tournaments in Berryville and Winchester, Virginia, told me to lead my volleys with my wrist. Serving with a loose arm, he said another time, produces greater racket head speed than muscular effort does.

A tennis student such as myself should learn to recognize good advice when he hears it, shouldn't fiddle with or embroider such advice overly much?

From other things George communicated, perhaps by example rather than words, or maybe I got my ideas from somewhere else-- I don't know-- I think I understood that the bad muscular effort to which George referred was triceptic extension.

But I couldn't leave the subject alone, always had a few doubts. Should some of the arm straightening come from triceptic effort, the other from centrifugal force? And is there such a verb in the English language as "centrifugate?" How about "centrifuge" as in "I'm gonna centrifuge my arm straight."

In a TennisPlayer article here Brian Gordon told of a physician using a hypodermic needle to administer a nerve block to some player's triceps in order to immobilize it as serve contributor. In fact, the good server's racket head speed was unaffected compared to before.

Both with Brian and Vic Braden in separate internet exchanges, I had Q&A on arm extension-- can't remember exactly what I asked or what they replied, but nerve block is a big subject with me since mine given for my partial knee replacement is wearing off right now.

Recent statements by Chas Stumpfel and Steve Navarro (don_budge) make me want to centrifuge my arm straight in the two different directions of upper arm twist both external and internal.

Half for one, half for the other?

Two thirds for one, one third for the other?

Three fourths for one, one fourth for the other?

[bottle]

A Partial

Home one day after the operation, can drive, put full weight on left leg (first time in three years), should have done it sooner, don't like the walkers, prefer my snake cane. But I know I'm very lucky to have qualified for a partial. As a betting man I'm hoping for ten more years of tennis, which would make me 85. When Dr. Perry got in there he saw that we had been right about the big space on the outside being full of good meniscus. And now there is a "pad" on the inner side as he said. No pain right now but maybe tomorrow with home care to start tomorrow followed by regular therapy though I haven't decided in which of three hospitals yet. Dr. Perry's wife is an excellent player and his daughter number one on strong South High School here, I recently learned, so he knew what a tennis player might most want (a maximum of sensors within reason left in the knee). Nothing, I suspect, like what Phil Picuri went through or the two-man on the Brown Cinderella crew with replacements of both hips and doing very well, my best friend Phil Makanna, west coast aviation photographer of GHOST calendars and books. But don't mention Eugene Scott or for that matter my late friend Frank Ruff, designer of muscle cars and the Chrysler pentastar. The incision for my partial is only five inches long. I can see it under a plastic seal. The technology is always changing of course, and anybody who has had any kind of replacement immediately has a strong opinion on the subject, e.g., every other woman in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, "Whatever you do, don't get a partial!" Another good reason to get one.

[don_budge]

The Game…let the game come to you. Hang in there.

Absolutely…as we get older shorten things a bit. Depending upon just how "retorded" your shoulder is you can still make that loop…but it is just a bit smaller. You still generate speed…maybe just not as much. Just how much is enough…anyways? Enough…is enough.

So concentrate on aiming…spinning…and placement. Play it smart. Use your intelligence if you cannot overwhelm the enemy with blinding speed. But you should be doing that anyways…even if you can overwhelm him.

So good luck tomorrow…or Friday rather. God speed old boy. I actually had my hand operated on this summer and it was fun. I got a couple of hits of morphine…which I never took until I felt the urge. You'll be alright…you'll be better than you are now. Pain free. It's gonna be alright.

Did you like the roller coaster simile? I'm surprised that there weren't any other comments about it. I thought it was genius. What do I know? hahaha. That is my teaching paradigm now and I am really happy with it. The students think its fun too. It's perfect! Whatever it takes…that's my motto. My teaching mantra. By hook or by crook if necessary. Just keep the bloody car on the track…that's the ticket. You can do it!

If you graduate to pickle ball…I'll give you my Dad's number. He's out near Brighton. It would be worth the ride. A couple of ex professors…he's not nearly like me. It's difficult to compare really. In some ways the fruit fell a long ways from the tree but in some ways I cling to his strengths. You know how it goes. Father and son and all of that.

[bottle]

A Smaller Roller Coaster

Ray Bender, my first USTA opponent and best guide for lifetime tennis decisions, believed in shortening one's strokes as one gets older.

If a serve is a tennis stroke then, why not keep all the benefits of one's best past form while compressing it?

This way, instead of choosing pickleball or some other activity, one can conceivably still remain competitive within the game.

Smallness is probably the one thing I haven't introduced before into my serve. Men are notable for their stubbornness and I'm no exception.

But by "keeping best form" I mean exactly that, e.g., get racket tip down as far as possible, make sure arm is straight before contact, did you maximize internal and external rotation of the arm, did body get out of the way of the external rotation, did the people in the roller coaster scream at the right time.

I'd like to do this and other good stuff on flat front foot (at least at first), preserving design features which are almost infinite in number but with all of it in reduced form.

I wish to do more by doing less.

[bottle]

Flutter your Fingers

Puerto Vallarte. My visionary forehand in development, The Manny Pacquiao, most likely is intellectual poof or Walter Mitty projection.

First, I like it that the name "Pacquiao" sounds like "KO." Like other tennis players I wouldn't mind scoring a knockout with one short stroke.

Never mind that. Reader, you could secure the right to some derision if derision is your bag. Derision is definitely my bag except when it isn't.

The way you could earn yours is to try The Manny Pacquiao as I have described it to discover that it does not work. Me, I'll withhold judgment during recovery from replacement of my left knee.

The Manny Pacquiao is a forward emphasis shot. The right hand (my hitting hand) nestles beneath the crossing rising left arm.

Left arm now falls a short distance from left shoulder hinge. Racket winds down from still hand at the same time.

The flourish or finishing touch is to flutter fingers of the left hand in an effort to distract or hypnotize certain opponents.

The human eye like the horse's eye is drawn to small and suspicious movement. Which will the opponent not used to your mannerisms watch-- the twiddling opposite fingers or descending racket tip?

Distract some new opponent that way and then deliver the sucker punch, and if you meet Manny Pacquiao in a bar be very nice to him and buy him a beer.

[bottle]

New Video to Enlighten Upward Arm Action in a Powerful Serve

Puerto Vallarte. It's furniture one (the only furniture on this month's title page), the repeating video just to the right (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...2015/february/).

The arm has been fully bent. Ivan Lendl would say (and did say in HITTING HOT) that the two halves of the arm squeezed together.

The arm then opens to a transient right angle.

Precisely at that fleeting moment the humerus becomes the driver of a thrown tomahawk.

But there is no release-- good since releases in throwing are tricky.

One's body absorbs the inside out motion.

Logic wants to say that the triceps muscle creates the right angle and this action may or may not be vigorous.

The arm then is only a "spaghetti arm" from the right angle upward.

Preload must have occurred earlier. Which means that upper arm holds the conflict through arm extension to the ephemeral 90 degrees.

This is not the only thing I ever will try but it sure is interesting.

[bottle]

Head Still Version of The Manny Pacquiao

Puerto Vallarte. Head still? Who, live or dead, speaks about keeping the head still? Golfers. Smart tennis teaching pros. Chris Evert's father. My father, John G. Escher Sr.

Keeping head still is such excellent tennis instruction that nobody nowadays should think about it. We wouldn't want nobody to get self-conscious, right?

Let's discuss it anyway, understanding that true discussion of any topic usually involves immersion into its opposite.

That would be Roger Federer slightly lowering his head just before he hits his forehand. He does that sometimes.

It would be elaphe vulpina striking at his or her camera. She has done this so many times that the video-maker transferred the camera's ownership woman to woman (http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...0716F96D48C76A).

It would be the sit and hit forehands and backhands taught by Vic Braden so many decades ago in his book with Bill Bruns TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE.

If you sit and hit, you move your head down and then lift it as you hit the ball. I gave this method a pretty good shake with deleterious result-- same reason that I and golfers all over the world top and dribble a ball 18 feet and then scream at themselves, "Don't look up!"

Down and up of course is just one possible violation of the keep-the-head-still precept.

One should never move in any direction just be a statue as best way to maintain the head-still imperative.

Guess the imperative isn't absolute-- huh?

First question: If one kept head relatively still before the strike like elaphe vulpina, and then used a strike as fast as elaphe vulpina, could one as productively move head as elaphe vulpina?

Well, most likely elaphe vulpina and Roger Federer are wired differently from the rest of us.

To give myself best chance of hitting a clean Manny Pacquiao, I propose now to lower pointing hand from the shoulder rather than from core movement.

Taking of upper body tilt from the hips also should happen early and be quick enough to keep head still for longer.

If the stroke now is too stiff, one could reintroduce a small amount of body into the equation.

Nobody ever said that lowering of opposite arm can't come from a combination of movements.

All of this cerebration, of course, could be big problema.

Upon returning to the states The Manny Pacquiao may not work at all, in which case I plan to hit a lot of Federfores and McEnruefuls.