A New Year's Serve

[hockeyscout]

Now I edit the foregoing and hope I can get to the court today (bad weather). Go down to low point and start the loop from there. If you want to, tap the court three times, before starting the loop but not for long. Make the loop elliptical enough, though small, to complete it and bring the racket into where you can keep your chest on the ball as you hit it.

That would be for a hard hit shot. The short angle is not a hard hit shot. It's spinny. If it goes fast that's probably from the speed of the oncoming ball and solidity of your body arrangement. This outside seam instruction is similar to Willies Hoppe or Mosconi telling you to hit the cue ball one cue's width to the right of dead center.

In the case of short angle, continue to pull the racket forward farther than in the previous description to square up the strings and get proper aim on outside seam of ball for the rolling flick.

On open shots one can kick forward with left foot like Federer. On closed shots one can kick backward with right foot like Avery. That's true of short angle or long angle shots and I haven't checked out a closed or rather neutral forehand, typical, of Federer, recently.*

Note: I'm tired of the academic distinction between open, closed and neutral forehands. Open and closed used to be good enough for me and I'm ready to return to that state of mind. But of course I don't want to step way across and block core movement.

* Nobody should be lazy. Here's Federer hitting a neutral/closed shot. What he does with his feet is completely different:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...r%20500fps.mp4

Bottle, we sure enjoy you're posts. That's tennis, go to the courts, day dream, play and come up with new stuff. Its great to see an adult who still has an imagination. Perhaps one day we will meet up with you and go out and experiment all day. Our wives will call us home when it gets dark, and we won't know we spend all day playing around at the tennis - armagedon play-ground.

[bottle]

Bottle, we sure enjoy you're posts. That's tennis, go to the courts, day dream, play and come up with new stuff. Its great to see an adult who still has an imagination. Perhaps one day we will meet up with you and go out and experiment all day. Our wives will call us home when it gets dark, and we won't know we spend all day playing around at the tennis - armagedon play-ground.

Thanks very much. But I'll have to marry the girl first. Are you sure you want to do that to me?

I did go to the court. Hit serves from all over the place. Hit them with a motion that delayed toss until I was halfway through the forward travel.

Of what did this forward travel consist? Of a continued turning backward of my back to put racket way back (o, the paucity of tennis language).

Anybody who tries to serve this way may come to regret it. I take no responsibility. Could be right for me though. I don't have much flexibility in the rotors, so I'll try anything, and this gets racket tip a bit lower-- doesn't matter what anyone says.

Tossing arm is now on about a 45 degree angle to the baseline and a bit higher than one might think is healthy to start a toss.

But two power sources, not just the usual hinge from the shoulder, go to work.

You have to make the noise of an airplane. BZZZZZ. Bzzzzzzxz. BZZZZZ.
The right wing banks down. The left wing banks up, assisting the arm in making the toss.

Tried forehand short angles too with 3/3 grip. Bowl to low point followed by small elliptical loop seems a good idea. But how far out the arm? Moderately far out behind the oncoming ball. Such separation means that turning hips and shoulders will count more in both directions to get racket tip a pool cue's width right of dead center when one hits the ball.

The exhilaration of some raspy contacts and fine placements led to changes in full forehands hit from lower register as well.

Up till now in my composite grip slap-shot forehand I've bowled down and up to outside and then brought racket up and in (though still in the slot) like Chris Evert.

Time to edit that. I just want to bowl back neither to the outside with a later tail nor to the inside but just straight in the middle behind the oncoming ball. Simplify in other words. The slap part now of slap shot will get the racket opposite middle of chest between the two shoulders. The rest of the swing will be solid arm and body connection. Will there be an inside out component? Possibly. The slap down has got to bring the racket in. The body core circular shove can shade racket out.

Tried some hard Federfores from the lower register setup as well. Roger, he's looking at high balls most of the time so his upper register loop makes sense. Me, I look at low balls and some high ones too. So I shall groove Federfores from both registers.

[gzhpcu]

Beware of paralysis through analysis...

[tennis_chiro]

Beware of paralysis through analysis...

Come on, Phil. Bottle is so far past that...he's working on how to hit the ball during an out-of-body experience...never had one myself, but a girl once told me...oh, nevermind!

don

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

[bottle]

Beware of paralysis through analysis...

Might be a new form of sculpture.

[bottle]

Abbreviation of a Stroke

All of this stuff is Ted Williams on a 10-hour train ride. The great hitters and even some who are not so great think in a profusion of detail whether or not they bring it out into the open like Ted, i.e., talk about it, and he is the guy who ends up with the highest batting average.

But profusion of detail is always present whether one admits it or not, so one may as well get in touch with it the better to control it.

I am so excited about my shortened McEnrueful, which came about during the writing of a recent post.

This shot will contain an element of my old Ziegenfuss, a forehand in which loop flowed into arm swing which flowed into body shove (as of a large medicine ball). Gone now: the loop, replaced by the slap of a hockey slap-shot.

The backswing for this slap is out from the body and directly behind the ball. It is as straight as the beginning of Rory McIlroy's takeback in golf (Sorry, Caroline).

I don't have time like Rory, however, to do shoulders first then hips. This then is reaffirmation of every classical precept in the philosophy of a good unit turn.

The racket, held in a composite grip halfway between continental and eastern, will swing back straight as a die on the path of the oncoming ball.

My how this shortens backswing over anything tried before at least by me.

And it obviates the great sin of any mild grip forehand, viz., the arm gets too far ahead of the body thus causing the strings to open and send ball to ceiling or sky.

No, the slap or smooth downswing only brings racket handle to a centerpoint between the two shoulders. Racket will be square or close to square. And pitch will maintain forward since body and arm will remain a single piece.

Try this, reader. I just purchase bent thumb on the pointy ridge known as 7.5 .

Have I even hit one ball this way? No-- haven't had time although I conducted a self-feed session yesterday.

"Ho-ho, yuk-yuk," said an observer. "Where's your hitting partner?"

"Some people," I said to this importunate stranger, "like to practice alone before they compete."

Just feel how the bowled up racket held out from the body shortens the backswing. Feel the feel of how the downward swing, arm only, places the racket between the shoulders for the smooth body swing. Arm to body is a single motion.

Smooth and smooth-- there's a description of the whole shot for those who seek simplicity of whom I am one.

I can't wait to bounce a ball and try this for the very first time.

It certainly will be a nice contrast to Federfores in which there exists mondo-flip and in which the significant arm action comes later in the stroke.

[bottle]

Court Trial

I don't see how anybody can figure anything out in tennis if they're not on a train, a plane or in a restaurant, an office, a lunchroom or a bar.

Or they might be in self-feed out on a court.

Even a ball machine provides too much pressure. One needs to have figured out the new stroke before one turns the machine on, invites somebody to hit with him, hits against a bangboard and most certainly before one competes.

A shower is good. One's bed, too. A hike in the woods might do the trick although one should probably be thinking about other things such as stepping on top of a fallen tree rather than stepping over it in case there is a poisonous snake on the other side.

Two of my new forehands appear more consistent and accurate than any I've ever had: the heavy McEnrueful hit with heel to left side of panel two and big knuckle on 2.5; and the short angle hit with 3/3 grip but with the same bowl-back for a take-back.

I'll say this. Some time ago I switched off the usual formula of left hand on the racket during the unit turn. I chose instead a big point across from the beginning, like Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Chris Evert and Tracy Austin. Together these players had illustrious careers and multiple wins in the big one at the U.S. Open.

In the two specific shots I mention now, both designed not to be sole weapons but part of a larger arsenal, since left hand combined with shoulders turn won't start racket sideways, one needs to take racket sideways a few inches through right arm willpower to get it on track with the oncoming ball.

One then can bowl back briefly on that straight line. (It's all one motion.)

"It's very hard to change anything in tennis," says a friend who is one of the best players I normally compete with. She learned her howitzer of a forehand from the Late Ken Angell, the Michigan pro whom Steve Navarro knew all about. Steve was familiar with the ghastly tale of how Angell's son burnt both himself and his father up (and others too?) when he set the family house afire as in an old Doors song.

The secret to effecting change in tennis is to make changes a lot, even to make a routine out of changes until the changes come easy.

[hockeyscout]

I don't see how anybody can figure anything out in tennis if they're not on a train, a plane or in a restaurant, an office, a lunchroom or a bar.

Or they might be in self-feed out on a court.

Even a ball machine provides too much pressure. One needs to have figured out the new stroke before one turns the machine on, invites somebody to hit with him, hits against a bangboard and most certainly before one competes.

A shower is good. One's bed, too. A hike in the woods might do the trick although one should probably be thinking about other things such as stepping on top of a fallen tree rather than stepping over it in case there is a poisonous snake on the other side.

Two of my new forehands appear more consistent and accurate than any I've ever had: the heavy McEnrueful hit with heel to left side of panel two and big knuckle on 2.5; and the short angle hit with 3/3 grip but with the same bowl-back for a take-back.

I'll say this. Some time ago I switched off the usual formula of left hand on the racket during the unit turn. I chose instead a big point across from the beginning, like Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Chris Evert and Tracy Austin. Together these players had illustrious careers and multiple wins in the big one at the U.S. Open.

In the two specific shots I mention now, both designed not to be sole weapons but part of a larger arsenal, since left hand combined with shoulders turn won't start racket sideways, one needs to take racket sideways a few inches through right arm willpower to get it on track with the oncoming ball.

One then can bowl back briefly on that straight line. (It's all one motion.)

"It's very hard to change anything in tennis," says a friend who is one of the best players I normally compete with. She learned her howitzer of a forehand from the Late Ken Angell, the Michigan pro whom Steve Navarro knew all about. Steve was familiar with the ghastly tale of how Angell's son burnt both himself and his father up (and others too?) when he set the family house afire as in an old Doors song.

The secret to effecting change in tennis is to make changes a lot, even to make a routine out of changes until the changes come easy.

God, I really have to come and meet you bottle. Get my kids on the court with you, pack up a picnic and just go and self feed balls, and talk. You know, when my young one is not firing, or when she has a day off, the first thing I do is give her a cart of balls and have her self feed herself and do drills. It used to just PISS off the pro's, like just anger them, and they'd go fricking crazy and wonder why I let her do this for hours on end! She'd set up pylons, cones, do drills, and they'd come and yell at me, "God damned, this is not tennis, this is a mockery, our courts are not a playground." It pissed them off so much, I did more of it, and I think it worked well. Give your player room to grow and think.

When I did it in Czech, they could not believe it, I'd rent 2-3 hours, and she'd warm herself up, feed herself balls and run her own drills for the first 1.5 hours while I had a beer upstairs and watched her, hockey videos. The Czechs could not believe an eight year old could run 35 - 40 complex drills, squats, jumps, etc, however, they did not know we've been purposely practicing this for a long time LOL just as you do Bottle. It looked so efficient, and of course, with eyes watching being the showman she is, she starting doing shit I had never seen her do before that I immediately added into our program (I like watching athletes to see what they do unconsciously, or want to do, but don't know why they want to do it, and adding it into the mix to fill in gaps the athlete wants to fill in unconsciously).

When I went to Czech there was a guy who ran the club who was a hockey player. We knew a lot of the same guys, so we'd talk hockey, and just watch the young one doing her own thing. The pro's (coaches) were all wondering, "What the hell is happening here", however, the two of us got it. The great players in hockey often sit on the ice all day by themselves, waiting for people to show up, and they get very good at keeping themselves busy, practicing, imagining they are playing in a game situation and doing whatever they can to keep warm. He got it, however, the tennis guys have never really understood this developmental vision of mine and its puzzling to me.

I like it when she invents new exercises, and she likes it when I notice!

This thread is the best kept secret on this site.

Tennis should really be an out of body experience. The best ones, who are trained under proper methodology, understand this just as you get it bottle. A few guys think this thread is drivel, however, I get what you are doing and it is a cool vision that I intend to make my athlete follow. Just sit out and type thoughts, visions, plans and all the rest. Write books on tennis! My dad used to have a book like this when he ran a test mill at the asbestos plant, his innovation was off the charts, and it was just like this thread here, and he had pictures he drew, notes, formulas and it was so crazy. That book went everywhere with him, and you'd be in the middle of a conversation with the guy, and he'd continue the talk and write something down in his book. He kind of lived it.

[bottle]

God "God damned, this is not tennis, this is a mockery, our courts are not a playground." It pissed them off so much, I did more of it, and I think it worked well. Give your player room to grow and think.

Unbelievable. I am understood. Where do I go next?

[bottle]

Not Another Edit!

Ono, I didn't want this to happen. It makes me sick. Probably makes you sick too my good reader. Because you never could follow anything I had to say only read me for my style.

But my literary style has led to my tennis style, don't you see, and both include a lot of editing. Hmmm I'm not so sure about the word "editing" at the end of a sentence. Something about the rhythm-- just doesn't sound good.

My forehands yesterday were magnificent. Granted, I only was hitting them from self-feed, with no opponent. I probably would not touch them if I'd already had the knee replacement I need. But a needy knee means you don't move as well as you used to, so on those occasions when you succeed in reaching the ball you would like to put it away. Or at least force a weak return that you can pick off.

Yesterday, I started to take the racket several inches to the right to get to Middle Road, then bowled mildly down and up.

Ridiculous! If you're going to feel for the ball that way, feel for it a bit farther back. Take Slant Drive. The racket can go down as it goes to the side. Then take Obtuse Goose Lane, poorly named since it goes straight up.

Saving time is what this is about.

[bottle]

Body Angle with Hand Equidistant Between the Shoulders

I can only discuss one stroke at a time. The evolving McEnrueful slap-shots hand forward. Now the chest is on the ball.

In the midst of recent experiments I've thought stuff like "Get the arm to plunge. Then blend in the body turn (which includes kinetic chain theory and other arcane information that people love to get distracted by)."

Fine. But I thought the body turn combined with Rory McIlroy's 30 degrees of body angle or Ellsworth Vines' 40 degrees of body angle or Roger Federer's 20 degrees of body angle would continue to take the racket down before bringing it back up again.

Not so. Once the hand is equidistant to either shoulder, it will stay right on the hitting ball and may even go slightly up as hitting shoulder goes down.

After that the racket will definitely go up.

[bottle]

Street Direction for McEnrueful Backswing

Middle Road to down and up is better than Slant Drive to Obtuse Goose Lane and up.

Don’t ask why. It just is.

Here are ten McEnrueful backswings in hieroglyph. If I could easily rotate the ripple on the right by 90 degrees I would.

-~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~

The ripple also is screwed up here in that it seems to go up before it goes down—no good, do the reverse and remove the tails from the ripples. You (I) want each ripple to go down simple before it goes up. We can do that out on the court as if the curves are a miniature swimmer doing the butterfly or a squirrel crossing the street.

Ten pipe cleaner sculptures to represent this might be the answer once one figured how to make them stand up.

The up part of the ripple motion though very minimal creates the feel of lifting racket to hit a slap-shot—crucial for the zen of what comes next.

Of course one could just take the racket horizontally around in the traditional Traceycakes backswing as if carrying a cone so the ice cream wouldn’t fall out—girly and picturesque and not providing the same amount of masculine feel.

The dash represents a few inches of sideways (horizontal) travel. This can be accomplished with both hands together or in free flight. Together is one place where one can make a dial adjustment by putting bent and slanted thumb on 7, 7.5 or 8.5 . I used to have classical eastern forehand available too (8) but did not find it interesting enough compared to the other three choices.

[bottle]

-~

Reader, don't be frightened by the glyph unless your opponent has one in his forehand repertory and is using it to pick you apart with consistency and accuracy.

If you've embedded one in your own game, draw it slowly as you approach the ball.

The glyph is rebellion against huge waving about of the arm as one is trying to get some place.

Remember that many teaching pros refuse to teach a complete beginner a loop on the understanding that loop will come later. If only they could realize that a loop is loopy period. (But perhaps this opinion of mine is just a passing mood.)

Note: A glyph is a glyph because it conveys information nonverbally. The closely related hieroglyph is known for difficulty of decipherment. To achieve our goal of perfect communication here either at inceptor or receiver level we can start with -~ and 1) lop off the beginning tail, i.e., the first part of ~ that one sees when reading from left to right, 2) center the low point of what remains, 3) rotate the u thus created by 90 degrees and make it shallow. Once one has done this one can understand that one is dealing with a "u" but a very shallow and standing up "u." One should turn a sharp corner from "–" to the shallow "u" while moving to the ball. Verdict: minimal motion offering maximum feel.

[bottle]

-u

-~ to -u . That's evolution. Eventually, I suppose, I'll go to UDrawIt if this obsession continues.

Now that I'm looking at -u I'm not too impressed. -~ shows wrong shape for the ripple but overall proportion of the two halves of the glyph seems very good.

Perhaps one should think of a gentle depression in ocean. And use a bit of space to make this reverse swell feel good.

Hand goes a few inches toward right fence. Then turns sharply onto path of oncoming ball, making a very shallow arc down and back up to level of the - .

What one really wants is feel of wanting to clobber the ball as racket goes up the backside of the reverse swell.

You won't actually clobber from that point, just feel as if you're about to. The hand plunges down to mid-point between the shoulders (and out a bit from core body-- think golfer).

The shoulders then, at the top of flat back set at a pitch toward right fence, rotate to clob.

("Clob" is not a word? Does that matter if one gets the idea?)

[gzhpcu]

That brings back memories: I used the word "clobber" as a kid, haven't heard it in ages...