A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

You Got A Knee Replacement: How Now Not To Destroy It?

The subject is worth some internet research, to say the least. I've restricted mine to the kind of replacement I have, a partial in left leg on the tibia and not the fibia side.

A lot of the people who have this same replacement complain and moan and bitch while they heal, which ought to take half the time of a full replacement.

I might have been tempted to do this after Dr. Richard Perry flattened my leg with hard downward pressure on my still natural kneecap. The pain was still acute when he left the cubicle and Hope helped me put on my sock. It still felt like an intense charleyhorse a couple of weeks later.

The operation was on Friday the 13th of February (ha-ha). For the first 13 days I did home therapy with both a nurse and a therapist coming into the house. Christie, the therapist, came for a total of three weeks. For the first 13 days there was no pain at all.

Then Dr. Perry flattened the leg and taught me how to do that myself. This act of violence reminded me of how he pulled me by both hands off of the table in our first meeting pre-op. He didn't hold back. He wanted to see how I was put together in my sinews from bottom to top.

It's quite a bond one forms, much like lasik surgeon and patient, supplicant and priest, shrink and shrunk.

You either love this person or you hate him.

Dr. Perry doesn't want to see me until next 2/13 the anniversary of the op. He agreed with me that everything from now to June will be between my ears and advised ice water therapy as needed all Spring.

The ice water circulating machine that came with the procedure may be worth the price to Medicare and supplemental "ARP!" as Robin Williams used to say.

You can velcro that thin strip of water capillaries to any part of your body.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Okay, so how now not to destroy the good work while doing Springtime self-feed? Serves are where you've got to watch out. I got a twinge yesterday-- had to put in extra time on the ice machine.

So splay the front foot a bit more than usual. Keep it fixed and turn the rear hip into it. No big push on a recently repaired leg. The 45-degree or more foot splay may allow transition to back foot coming up early to help the essential hips turn.

As Don Brosseau has said, his students get the hips going while doing his figure eight exercises but then forget to do it when they actually serve. I'm starting to lift my left heel a little and then replace it to remind myself.

Don also has said that eventually he likes to see a left foot hop slightly into the court with kick back. I used to serve that way and know that one doesn't sprain one's front knee if it is turning in mid-air.

Me, though, I come from the era when old men never, on any shot, jumped up into the stratosphere.

[bottle]

In Serving, Is a Live Arm Three Parts Live and One Dead?

Just asking since I don't believe I have a live arm just at this particular second.

If so, first to identify would be the dead part. That would be freewheelingness from the elbow unencumbered by triceptic extension or interference.

The three live parts would be IR (internal rotation at the shoulder), WS (wrist straightening aided by fingers clench), and horizontal adduction, all muscular rather than motion dependent acts.

All three in my view should simultaneously provide emotional and physical catharsis, i.e., a single release of stored energy that answers the ancient question of how far or high one can throw a beat-up tennis racket.

[bottle]

Funniest Sociological Dynamic

Camila Giorgi and her dad (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...gi%20instagram)

(https://www.google.com/search?q=cami...2F%3B300%3B300)

[bottle]

How Much Does He Turn His Shoulders?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/13/manny-pacquiao-s-self-directed-music-video.html

[bottle]

English Opening

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54394

I rooted for Botwinnik in this one for an obvious reason. But Petrosian unfairly got to play white in every game and fianchettoed both bishops right away (took possession of the two longest diagonals on the chess board).

Given tempi and other realities, Botwinnik, despite all his past championships, was unable to fianchetto more than one bishop at the outset, and the much younger Petrosian prepared himself by whipping himself into shape through a large chunk of time spent in vigorous skiing (in the Caucasus one would think but can't be sure).

Many aficionados would say that Petrosian's English Opening-- the only opening he used in the entire championship-- is the slowest and most boring available in chess.

Later in the game however-- if one can survive a blitzkrieg or two-- this strategy takes on characteristics of a python as other pieces clear away to make the bishopric command of the long diagonals ever more dominant.

I would like to adopt a similar strategy in tennis, not too flashy, but very steady while dependent on opening up the court with crosscourt short angle (the "pro" shot).

I have only seen-- in person-- one player employ it in singles, but he was a 70-year-old so completely dominating 30-year-olds that he made a huge impression on my tender psyche.

In doubles if a right-hander playing deuce court one can employ the Luke Jensen prime tactic of a short angle in the alley followed by a crisp volley to the same spot.

In my attempt to master the short angle shot, both long arm and short arm version, I have decided to dispense with scissoring of the arm until after ball has left the racket.

While scissoring before or during contact often worked, its percentage of success in self-feed just looked too low and therefore was not for me.

[stotty]

Vote Loony...might as well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32339415

[bottle]

Thanks. Nice to compare. All of our parties are loony.

Example: The Republicans won't bring to a vote the nomination of Loretta Lynch for attorney general-- a very qualified black person. But they hate her predecessor Eric Holder, who also is a black person. The answer to the quandary is simple, but the president, who also is a black person, is too mild-mannered to act. He simply should have Eric Holder do a quick survey of all police departments to decide who in the view of those departments are their bad cops.

Once Holder has identified the bad cops, he need only send them out to investigate the dysfunction of the Republican party. This will quickly bring about the desired confirmation of Loretta Lynch.

[bottle]

For lobndropshot

Here, with new technology, is a shot you indicated you were having trouble with, particularly in the early stages of the backswing (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4).

It's great that I've received so many clicks in this thread (half of my reward, the other half being whatever has happened for me out on a tennis court).

But when it comes to the nitty-gritty of imparting intricacy of technique, I sometimes wonder if anything is happening at all. One thing to impart it, another to know that it is received and integrated in somebody's game. More often, one would think, it is simply misunderstood.

A teacher doesn't give up, right, even if he is only reaching one or two people?

In considering the Federfore or ATP3, I go with the thought that when these shots start going faster and higher and with more spin that keeps them in, along with a slight tailing off to the left for the right-handed player, well...you are not Roger Federer but you are getting somewhere.

[lobndropshot]

What color is your Forehand?

Thanks for posting. It really is a beautiful stroke.

My forehand has decided that it doesn't like Federer as a model. I have for many years pleaded with it and it says "NO!"

I say think of all the power and spin we will generate. To which my forehand says "shank off!"

I say just look at how relaxed and easy the stroke is doesn't it feel great? "How does the fence feel?" My forehand replies.

We have reached a compromise though if we can be at a 75-80 degree angle of racket tip at the start of the swing. we can have a stroke that feels more effortless and gets reasonable spin and power. The only thing I have to give up is; trying to be Federer.

My backhand on the other hand is protesting Wawrinka. BH seems to think it is much too flashy and I should "be more realistic." My backhand is right I but wouldn't it be sweet to hit the ball through the fence?

I guess what my strokes are telling me is that they just want to be themselves. And I should let them, my job is to help them be the best versions they can possible be.

Bottle, any advice on convincing my forehand to come around?

[bottle]

Count the squares if you have to-- the squares in the net-- just to understand the extent of Roger's separation at contact. Amount of separation, Vic Braden once opined, is an expression of confidence. Or, as Archimedes knew, with a long enough lever you can move the world (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4).

Now back off from contact all the way to top of the dogpat or even a bit more to the transition point where the stroke changes from two hand to one hand.

My transition happens sooner but so what? Let's go with Roger rather than bottle here. (There could be good reasons to do so.) The most difficult part of the stroke-- or will it be difficult now that we can see it so well?-- happens here. Roger's racket transitions FROM:

Racket head next to human head with both heads facing the viewer as if Roger is something on the face of a playing card.

TO: Roger's racket closing through the agency of his right hand only-- closing while tilting so that racket tip though still high is farther from Roger's head.

Then and only then does dogpat begin.

[lobndropshot]

Good advice, I will tell my forehand that it is rude not to make eye contact at the beginning of the stroke.

Thanks Bottle

[bottle]

Criss-crossing submissions. Love the part about dyslexia. Will answer more after doing some leaf-blowing.

[bottle]

Probably we've both said enough about forehands for now. Yes one must establish eye contact with the forehand early or forever be a rudesby. ("Rudesby"-- a word from Shakespeare.)

But on the subject of one hand backhands-- I now know that one person can give advice to another and have it make a big difference. That always has been a possibility but now I know it's true.

Like you, I was trying to imitate Stanislas Wawrinka. If one's last name is Swiss, and mine is, one will try to imitate both Federer and Wawrinka whenever possible. And if one in one's early twenties had a beautiful near Graz girlfriend half Italian and half Austrian one will even try to imitate Domenic Thiem although he comes from the north in Wiener Neustadt.

The result then of having had this Austrian girlfriend (the first of two from Graz if you consider Lassnitzhohe an hour-and-a-half bus ride away as Graz) is that one will experience many poaches in doubles in which one's backhand is picked off-- mercilessly-- at the net.

I had had enough of this. So I shortened the stroke and put more thumb behind the shaft. And started to build a mild tug-of-war between the hands since somebody told me that Roger does that.

The tug-of-war was not a bad idea but I was releasing my slingshot don't-you-know far too late. tennischiro almost offhandedly suggested that one can do an opposite directions hand tug to build extra strength in the arm right after a flying change from forehand grip to one's backhand grip.

I tried this and immediately wanted to lower the backswing (I mean let the flying grip change initiate a medium low and level takeback parallel to the court). All I can say is that a lot of other things must have been in place. To my amazement my swing didn't lose the added energy even though the racket head veered down and in behind the handle right after the two hands separated. Suddenly I was hitting the ball better than in decades or ever-- a nice story and true. This is the farthest (no, let's say highest) I've ever flown on a tennis tip.

[bottle]

Poor Man's Federfore

Count the squares if you have to-- the squares in the net-- just to understand the extent of Roger's separation at contact. Amount of separation, Vic Braden once opined, is an expression of confidence. Or, as Archimedes knew, with a long enough lever you can move the world (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4).

Now slide back off from contact all the way to top of the dogpat or even a bit more to where the stroke changes from two hand to one hand.

My separation happens sooner but so what? Let's go with Roger rather than bottle here. (There could be good reasons to do so.) The most difficult part of the stroke-- or will it be difficult now that we can see it so well?-- happens here. Roger's racket transitions FROM:

Racket head next to human head with both heads facing the viewer as if Roger is something on the face of a playing card.

TO: Roger's racket closing through the agency of his right hand only-- closing while tilting so that racket tip though still high is farther from Roger's head.

Then and only then does dogpat begin.

If (note how often I use the word "if") the transition so clearly watched above does not immediately work for you, reader, you might consider slightly different arcs through the air and fiddle a bit with your grip too.

Suppose you find that transition identified by an emboldened FROM and equally emboldened TO lugubrious, intellectual, micro and generally gumming up of the works, why not go macro instead?

Put another way, if another way works, why would you use Roger's transition? And did Grigor Dimitrov use Roger's transition when he decided on imitation? Could that be the reason that Grigor is failing to reach the topmost echelon of tennis? More likely his failure has to do with his distracting sex life which maybe ought to be compared to that of Tiger Woods? But here is the point: As Roger himself has said, "There should only be one Roger Federer." And why would anybody do something simply because Roger does it-- unless it is spectacular in the way that it works (possible too).

So now we decide to go macro, following the broad outline of Roger's stroke without becoming mired in its detail.

To do this we envision two huge coins, one on edge (the backswing) and one on its side (the Federforian foreswing).

A four-foot deep dogpat also comes across (later our dogpat might degenerate to three feet or two feet but certainly would never expand to five feet).

And mondo too comes across. But the big mistake people are apt to make here is to spear for too long with the racket butt because of all of Nick Bollettieri's soundbit advice on TV to shine a flashlight at the ball.

Wipe starts immediately from the mondo, which produces a slight hook to the right hander's left just before the departing ball lands.

When that happens in golf you've hit the ball well if you want the ball to roll more for distance. In tennis it rolls too, i.e., is mostly topspin which brings it down better in the court.

[lobndropshot]

This is the topic I dream about most.

The one handed backhand is why I play tennis and why I love tennis, and I will consume all tips regarding the backhand especially the high flying ones. I like the idea of building tension with the off hand at the beginning of the stroke. I think I do this and I will have to ask BH next time I hit (which is hopefully during lunch). I just know that my racket feels like it goes through extremes during the shot. At first it's very heavy then it feels like it's made of nothing and at contact the ball feels like a marshmallow. After contact comes a moment of joy, time slows down and I breath out. The OHBH my one true high.