High Racket Tip for a Rotorded Server
"Anything halfway true would just kill them. Don't you know people like that?"-- Greg, a train-riding entertainer of children speaking of his family in the Alice Munro short story "To Reach Japan."
Puerto Vallarte. Such a powerful thought deserves life application better than in the specialized vicissitudes of rotorded serving.
I don't care.
I want better serves for myself, and I am fed to the head with all the superstition about that or any other subject in tennis.
Keeping palm down and then bending arm can bring racket toward head, but is head the best level for the racket just then? Seems low to me.
One way to bump the strings higher-- I have to demonstrate this for myself with a pencil-- is to rotate forearm externally while humping wrist just at the beginning of the arm bend.
One could conceivably coordinate this double action with the arm bend, i.e., do everything in tandem.
Better however to get the snakiest stuff out of the way.
So now the racket is a bit higher, floating. Simple completion of the arm bend waves the high racket to the left. Opening of arm bend to right angle then can be accompanied by straightening of the wrist.
Combination of the two can be likened to stirring an upside down sky pot.
Wrist and fingers can open next to lengthen fall down the humeral runway.
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Leaving the Hitting Hand where it Started
Puerto Vallarte. We heard a good band, Luna Rumba, consisting of two Canadians, three Mexicans, and a lovely Mexican dancer wearing five different costumes to do various kinds of go-go.
In a couple of days we return to hear the young Argentine couple who were sitting next to us, he with a guitar, she with pure voice from way down in the diaphragm-- or at least so I heard-- and I chatted with the lady and liked her.
The lead singer for Luna Rumba was Mexican, the two Canadians retired businessmen one on guitar the other on percussion. Among many distinctions the group had won a John Lennon songwriting award. One of the two women I was with thought the dancer, who owns her own dance school here, smiled too much, but that could have been due to the fact that the smile was very sexy and sweet.
The music, a kind of "fusion," brought many cultures and musics together and was highly improvisational.
Improvisation in jazz, fusion and Latin-- whatever-- has got to have much in common with our game.
With the Manny Pacquiao, I'm ready now to leave the hitting hand pretty much where it started. That would be upper left, in the Philippines. If I've recently been using backswings that look somewhat like -, /, u and >, I ought to be able to use one that doesn't look like anything at all.
Pointing across with opposite arm to start good body angle while turning the shoulders should be the key. That arm however doesn't just go across-- it rises too for subsequent fall as the racket tip goes down on the other arm.
In the Federfore, the whole arm is involved in taking the racket down (dog pat).
In the Manny, forearm rolling is all that performs the task, along with tail end of body tilt to bring high left arm slightly down.
In tennis there obviously is improvisation out on the court, but there should be improvisation off of the court as well. Which is your tennis, reader, sheet music or jazz?
If shoulders turn properly, the hitting arm should naturally ease into punching or cellar door shoving position without your (my) adding anything extra to the mix.
What else would help our understanding? Well, fortunately, kinetic chain theory is better for explaining a Manny or Muhammad Ali jab than for sweeping tennis strokes which-- face it-- are too attenuated to produce such an electric jolt.
The jolt happens now, a unified punch from down deep as if one is boring one's knuckles into somebody's face.
Forward emphasis tennis combined with making as if to catch the ball with palm of the hand as racket tip rolls down-- yes.Last edited by bottle; 02-03-2015, 08:48 AM.Leave a comment:
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Back to Three-Part Harmony
Puerto Vallarte. 1) Achieve an unbelievably short and level (-) backswing. Personally, I start with racket head high and cheated left, so there will have to be some descent. I set racket butt opposite navel.
2) Rhythmically roll (twist) the forearm down but keep wrist laid back only a bit.
3) Hit the ball as if you are boring your knuckles into someone's face.
Right now I'm calling this stroke The Manny Pacquiao after the Filipino boxer of the same name but later may invent another tennis stroke called The Floyd Merriwhether.
Returning to Detroit for a tryout of the Manny should be interesting. I want to see if it's as lousy a shot as the backhand I created here in Puerto Vallarte last year.
Or-- correspondingly-- and this is a very important point...if it is as good a stroke as I hope.
Why does The Manny Pacquiao have to be bad? Are not its origins in solid volley technique?
Note. A boxer likes to keep his shoulders level, no(?), doesn't bend over like Rory McIlroy or Ellsworth Vines hitting a golf ball or a tennis ball. That's one big difference.Last edited by bottle; 02-01-2015, 09:06 AM.Leave a comment:
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Manny-type Topspin
Puerto Vallarta. A boxing program on Mexican TV gave a cue as to the best spelling of Manny Pacquiao and also revealed that most fighters nowadays do lift elbow to outside as ingredient of a knockout punch.
A uniquely non-superstitious tennis player might take this as reasoning for a very small bit of humeral twist as he retools a few strokes for old age.
In the beginning a child was a child. In the middle he was a boring adult. In old age he became a child again.
Similarly, in tennis, he started out with straight back strokes. In the middle he had loops. Growing old, he resorted to a few straight back strokes once again.
If, besides the loop of a Federfore, one can do / and > one can certainly do - .
With - in mind for a Manny Pacquiao forehand, one must understand that this is a very fanciful idea.
On the other hand Manny turns his knuckles in as he delivers his short and lethal punch.
If the tennis player similarly turns his knuckles in he is performing a wipe with his strings, no?
The difference between normal wipe and this wipe however is the difference between natural orange juice and concentrate.
While a sensible person prefers natural orange juice, we want the Manny to be all concentrate.
Next questions then: 1) Mondo? Answer with another question. Does Manny have time mid-punch to screw around with his wrist and forearm? 2) Grip? The one that works. 3) The usual 3-part rhythm of a ground stroke? Nope. Two parts only.
Will this work? How would I know. I'm in Mexico.Last edited by bottle; 02-02-2015, 05:15 PM.Leave a comment:
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Manly Punch from McEnrueful Framework
Puerto Vallarte. Don't mess with either the Federfore or the ATP3-- exact same stroke.
The simplicity of the McEnrueful's backswing or should I say upswing is more conducive to a Manny Pachaio punch than all the dogpat stuff of the ATP3.
The only question remaining is whether the inward turn of the knuckles in the Manny should come A) from forearm only or B) with a bit of humeral twist thrown in per Bruce Lee.
Be conservative. Humeral twist in all known forehands except the ATP3 is the source of destabilization and grief.
So start with A).
Admittedly or rather on second thought, this utterance has not so far addressed the question of best hand level for a stroke that obviously entails a twisting hand wipe up.
More fooling around therefore could include a loop or no loop decision, pencil-thin loop (?), down and up bowled backswing, etc.-- almost but not quite enough chaos to cancel this shot from further thought.
Essential form-- feely or tentative arm swing before wholehearted body shove-- preserves the experiment by remaining the same.
What are we trying to do here anyway? Add a bit more topspin to a lolly or McEnrueful, which in many circumstances is a too fast shot.Last edited by bottle; 01-30-2015, 10:07 AM.Leave a comment:
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Plenty of Loose Wrist in a Serve-- but When?
Puerto Vallarte. We know from other sports that every little detail affects everything else without our wishing to drown in the details either.
Nature of the toss, degrees of hitting arm raise (90 at the pit?)-- these things along with others must already have been learned and established.
Now however we use the Brady-Guerrero words to go sailing: "Where concentration goes, the energy flows, and that's what grows."
The nautical tack we choose is toward hawk throws. And the videos we studied to this end reveal hawk throwers who raise the hawk straight back on a right-angled arm. Most hawk throwers, some of whom are survivalist hawks who believe they will fill their bellies with squirrels pinned against trees, do this.
A couple of videos though reveal the rhythm of inside out loop and more attunement to actual life that relies on natural rhythm to serve itself up.
So, to return to tennis, the ball is already tossed, the front shoulder already up. The hitting arm, straight like the tossing arm, is way back toward rear fence.
SIM: wrist humps while arm bends (squeezes a lot) as forearm opens out.
In two words we become elaphe vulpinus (http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...0716F96D48C76A).
This loop despite the forearm's turning out preserves the heaven of strings and palm turned down.
In addition, the racket has moved beyond one's projected line up to the ball.
The result is that we can employ three SIM openings to put frame edge on to the ball.
They are: 1) Opening of the wrist, 2) Opening of the arm to where it forms a right angle, 3) Opening of bottom fingers near butt rim of racket handle.
Opening of the wrist by itself would take racket in direction of desired line toward the ball. So would the loosening of the fingers (less intuitive). So would the slight unbending of the arm.
Put them together to form a powerful adjustment tool.
In addition, releasing the fingers before closing them and opening the wrist before straightening it have lengthened a slightly spiraling runway up to the ball.
This is a serve designed to maximize contribution from the twisting upper arm.Last edited by bottle; 02-02-2015, 05:09 PM.Leave a comment:
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Words To Live By (but not in the first paragraph)
Puerto Vallarte. I once had a girlfriend who recorded every episode of THE CHARLIE ROSE SHOW.
I don't like the word "had" in the previous sentence if it gives too much away. I wanted to contribute to this woman's life, I really did, but somebody didn't let the other in.
Eventually, I became surfeited with so much Charlie Rose, and when I look back now I prefer the sport shows.
I admire the one where Charlie interviewed Roger Federer in the way that Roger and Charlie put so much emphasis on tennis footwork.
I'm sure that Charlie Rose plays tennis but not at a level where he can stand up at the net and give a private lesson to one or six players and contribute to the world's collective tennis knowledge in this major way.
Basic interview works like this: The interviewee knows a lot. The interviewer knows nothing.
We could and should much more often call the interviewer a willfully ignorant dolt. Me, I call him or her a commentato.
If though Charlie Rose next goes out on a tennis court to concentrate on movement in an entirely new way, he was not a commentato but his favorite expression a tabula rasa.
Because, according to football quarterback Tom Brady and his trainer-friend Alex Guerrero not to be confused with The Brady Bundchen, "Where concentration goes, the energy flows, and that's what grows."
Others can mock the homeliness of this homily or maybe just dismiss or dilute its meaning but not I. Great words to live by whether Brady wins the next Superbowl or not.
When Charlie Rose interviewed Manny Pachaio he did the exact same thing as with Federer. He put huge focus on something simple whether through superb editing or dumb luck.
Looking into the camera or away from it-- I can't remember-- Pachaio, who admires Bruce Lee, shadowboxed from both sides. Hand from in close twisted inward about 90 degrees to put knuckles on the target.
"Unbelievably fast," said Charlie Rose.
This to me looks like the left hand in the most modern two-hand backhand as explained by Dr. Brian Gordon.
For all of his research on this shot, Brian himself can't hit it. Courageously, he admitted that in this forum.
Me, I tried but can't do it either. My left hand has to let go, transforming the stroke into a completely different and less compact shot.
Nevertheless, could one apply the lesson to the ATP3 forehand, i.e., turn a Federfore into a Manny Pachaio-Bruce Lee punch?
The first part of the cycle would remain the same only with pat of a taller dog so as to preserve some arm bend.
Arm then would straighten as it twisted from upper arm or lower arm or both.
Contact would occur with arm still somewhat bent or straight, I don't know.
I'm in Mexico. I don't have to make anything work.Last edited by bottle; 02-02-2015, 05:01 PM.Leave a comment:
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Backhand Slice Experiment
I continue to insist that backhand slice is not a single star but a constellation. Which is not to say it is a thousand points of light or anything else from Peggy Noonan aka Ronald Raygun.
tennischiro recently looked at video of klacr's backhand slice and concluded that it belonged at flat end of the available spectrum but still was more downward than what he, tennischiro, considered Rosewallian.
To me following tennischiro's guidance on this point, the klacr video the forum shared indicates a slightly downward slanting table off of which a marble can roll forward rather than a perfectly level table top on which the marble will stand still.
As with much else in tennis one need not expend ten years at Sparta Training Facility in Sparta, Greece (STF) in order to make some small adjustment especially since STF is notorious for no adjustment at all.
One need not spontaneously break into the Nifty Nine calisthenics from the U.S. Naval Academy either.
One can either A) try for level table top straight off or B) since one is trying to find the edge of the constellation or maybe edge of The Slice Galaxy-- try for upward slanting table in which a marble will roll off backward.
Ivan Lendl reported in his early tennis book with Eugene Scott that he Ivan won junior major with upward swinging slice before he spent three years in development of his topspin backhand.
Reader, you are not going to blow up anything with regularity until you set your depth charges in front of the submarine's bow and behind its stern.
Reader, you are not going to swing perfectly level with regularity before you can swing down and swing up.
Ever heard of a chop? Of slice sidespin? Of a slice lob? Of a dropshot? Of slightly downward level slice? Of slightly upward level slice? Of level slice?
Pat Blaskower, provocative author of THE ART OF DOUBLES, believes that the only backhand anyone needs in that game is slice.Last edited by bottle; 01-24-2015, 11:29 AM.Leave a comment:
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Humorous Twist: What all the Foregoing is About
Not too funny, you say.
Well, I agree.
The foregoing is about the humerus, not the humorous.
Of all the gods up in the sky
None was stupider than Jupiter...
You say Minerva? my mother would say.
Never herva, my father would say.
Whoops, Ronnie Raygun, there I go again, stealing from my father.
And now from Jim McDermott in Latin class at The Hotchkiss School:
With Dido I cannot abide, O
But in Venus I'd like to sink my penis.
The new form that all the concern about Armand Hammer twist is leading toward could find itself exceeding stiff and useless.
Right forearm after a Braden A.T.A. windup (Air The Armpit) opens the racket from being quite closed just as the arm starts to bend.
But the racket, through the miracle of what the body is doing, remains somewhat closed.
And remains that way through a small but natural loop in which one doesn't care whether arm folds to a small amount less than right angle before opening out again to a perfect right angle, i.e., Communist-Fascist Configuration.
However, just as this happens, the conflicted humerus is rolling back just as the fingers loosen and the wrist loose-cocks (SIM), both of which actions combine with the slight arm's opening to set the racket frame perfectly on edge for the snicker-snack to follow.
Remember, however, the "on edge" is not perpendicular to the court but rather on a rakish angle to the left.Last edited by bottle; 01-23-2015, 10:03 AM.Leave a comment:
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Hawks Unlimited
“Keep your wrist locked!”
No advice whatsoever.
It’s a girl!
Very long (22.8). I haven’t watched every minute. The student talks. A living demonstration of hockeyscout’s passion for instrument as likely essential.
Wrist motion seen as a source of inconsistency. I wonder about wrist and fingers blended. Less inconsistency? Only one revolution!?
Poor trees. I wonder if all the info about correct number of paces and revolution corresponds to body toss relationship in tennis only is magnified.
Straight up, this woman says, but she has the loop of Mountain Man 2 .
Focus on instrument and murder victim.
I’d like to whup this guy in tennis.
I only got to the passion for sawhorses. Well, there is an unlimited number of these videos still to watch. But this is all becoming a bit much until maybe another time.Last edited by bottle; 01-23-2015, 09:45 AM.Leave a comment:
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Here's Another One I Kind Of Like
Well, I got the link wrong. But there is a large number of videos out there under the rubric of "how to throw a tomahawk." View them all?
The first video I had in mind for this post contains a lot about doing more by doing less. Again, it helps define good throw as largely from upper arm with elbow very relaxed, although the person, a lefty again, never would say anything like that. For him a throw is a throw.
How translatable are these hawk throws to tennis serves? Very or little or not? Certainly the word "tomahawk" gets used often. One teaching pro even tomahawks old tennis rackets up and over the fence into some woods. You can search for that YouTube video, reader, if you'd like. But I'd rather see you yourself actually perform the experiment. Or find the video and watch it and then do the experiment or imagine it-- anything goes when it comes to freedom of experiment and translation thereof to some discipline (in this case tennis).
I've never heard enough talk about why spaghetti is supposed to be faster and more effective than triceptic extension after purposeful self-trickery temporarily to anesthetize oppositional muscles and in any case what exactly straightens the goupy loose arm? Legs and back, as Allen Fox once wrote? Acceleration-deceleration of the shoulders? Internal arm rotation forming a centrifuge? The one thing I know for certain is that you as tennis player must make a firm decision at least on the point of loose arm or not.Last edited by bottle; 01-23-2015, 02:12 PM.Leave a comment:
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Adding a Loop to Mountain Man 1's Hawk Throw
Mountain Man 2 already has it. The loop seen at about 7.40 of his solitary and snowbound hurls (http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/...spart=avg&tt=b) is what makes him look so much like a tennis player even though his throw is forward and end over end, two factors that the rotorded aspirant must modify to his slantwise purpose.
Mountain Man 1 correctly tells his many students that if they throw with hawk closed their hawk will rotate open once per revolution (http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/...s-invalid&tt=b).
Just imagine a hawk spinning from 4 & 1/2 paces with one closing and one opening on first revolution, another closing and opening on second revolution, the same for pace three and again for pace four.
This is no good. We shall be lucky to stick the hawk in the target at all. Our mistake however will be target driven. We throw the hawk with purely vertical end over end and straight forward revolutions because of envisioning perfectly vertical stick.
Of course this cannot happen if palm is too much down. But look at Mountain Man 2 in slo-mo from 7.47 ! His palm is first pointing down. Then it passes beyond intended line toward the target. Then hawk loops back to that line while opening to perfect square, beveled no more.
Admittedly, all motions are paltry compared to what a tennis player does.
And the tennis player's image in mind is not his frame stuck perfectly vertical in the ball.
Rather, he eggs the ball from the left. If his frame were sharpened enough it could embed itself in the ball but on an angle. Just as his thrown hawk would spin end over end but on an angle.
So racket spins end over end but on an angle and upward without changing pitch.
The arm meanwhile centrifuges straight from humeral contribution.
This creates a desirable shoehorn flourish off of the same humeral twist but in a new direction more up and to the right.Last edited by bottle; 01-22-2015, 04:59 AM.Leave a comment:
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1) Arrange body and toss so the same throw goes up.Originally posted by gzhpcu View Post
2) You want the action more behind you, don't you, rather than following a bad toss around like Ana (Serb) or the demented one (Russian) gone amok?
3) Isn't the big question here about getting the most out of internal arm rotation per Bruce Elliott and all the experts lauding upper arm twist as a prime power factor?
4) Do you use triceps muscle to straighten arm or is arm a loose noodle?
5) Man, I've tried everything and will continue to do that.
6) This circular idea seems troublesome unless you mean the wheels are revolving in opposite direction.
7) I admit that nobody can know everything about everything but could it be that the circular body elements are first and foremost a loading mechanism, second the deliverer of calibrated weight on the ball?Last edited by bottle; 01-22-2015, 04:52 AM.Leave a comment:
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Nice, Phil. Thanks so much. And with a brown foreground and yellow background too. I've always been confused also by what was the reality and what the asserted unreality in the drawings. So I just take from them what I want. Uncramped serve largely but not completely due to a big backswing way way back. Does the arm then bend? I should think so. But does it bend to a right angle or to more than a right angle, soon or maybe real late if you are a Mark Phillippoussis?
You sit in the lounge of a tennis club and watch the various players performing serves through the glass. If you're lucky, everybody in the lounge suddenly turns into a critic. This doesn't happen often but it happens enough so that I'll imagine three of these persons.
The first sees a serve that superficially seems good to him. He points out however that the server never bends to more than right angle and would get a better result if he squeezed the two halves of that arm, upper and lower, together.
The second sees a guy serving whose arm gets all bunched up before it flies straight. Seems good to him but he wonders if the guy is getting any hawk action from the humerus or internal rotation or internal axle-like twist or whatever you want to call it.
A third guy is baffled by the talk but can beat the other two any day of the week so doesn't worry.
Note: I finally got the second link to mountain man hawk throwing to work. I recommend the slow motion sequence toward the end (7.47) and bring this to your attention just in case you are the only person who understands the rotordation I am coming from.Last edited by bottle; 01-22-2015, 04:23 AM.Leave a comment:
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