A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

The thing for me is that the racket must stop and the end of the backswing to then come back, the motion cannot be continuous. It's impossible to ignore Mac's genius in all this and that he is, perhaps, the only player who has achieved such lofty heights with the method...although Connors did pretty well with his straight back "racket stuck up" method...skunk tail.

When I try the method I feel like I have less time than with a loop because of the stall at the end of the backswing before swinging forward again. I find "racket back early" (a no-no in coaching these days) is the only way to make it workable for me. Once I do this I feel like McEnroe, and I can achieve that wristless technique...only seen in McEnroe and John Bromwich

But isn't the no-no in coaching of racket back early the unconscious adoption of idea from the other coach the coaches most love to hate, Oscar Wegner?

They hate him but do what he says. As he himself has said, he doesn't care about the lack of attribution but does wish they would get his stolen ideas right.

Forget for good measure who manages to come up with any idea ever?

The decision then to delay taking the racket immediately all the way around is for purposes of sizing up the ball, of keeping racket close to ball until late in order to preserve natural hand to eye coordination and not get too cerebral, i.e, "out ahead of the pitch" asking "Do I pull the trigger now? Now? Now?" And "has my original projection of height of oncoming ball and height of my racket proven to be correct?"

Think of swinging all the way back in January and then swinging forward in February. Might be tough to hit the ball. I understand that.

My solution is a psychological attempt to locate the sizing up in some other part of the body-racket package than hitting hand or racket.

I therefore put imaginary eyeballs in the crossing arm.

Sure the racket is already back precisely like rhythmic unhurried top of backswing in golf but I am not lining up the ball with hitting hand or frame but rather with the eyeballs in the front arm staying close to ball and watching ball carefully pretty much till ball is gone.

Tom Okker called an old method of lining up a forehand with extended opposite hand "mannered," i.e., fatuous and stupid, but he was talking about pointing directly at the ball.

The imaginary eyeballs are in the side of an arm, not in fingers or palm pointed directly at the ball.

Too fanciful, this? I don't care-- if it works-- and it does and can for anyone not just for genius.

Good rhythm makes it possible-- a simple dance maneuver in which both arms go down together and come up together.

I also am arguing for waiting position cheated for backhand (high left for a right-hander). That is where either forehand or backhand waterfall can best start.

You are right, Stotty, that time is expended at top of the backswing, in fact one-handed changes of grip are even possible there.

But earlier grip change is preferable. Most preferable is no grip change at all while one repeats one's immediately previous shot.

The ticket or best cue is unhurried top of the backswing in golf with hip driven change of direction and plane. If one insisted on still calling this a continuous "loop" one could but a loop for which the unhurried time was deliberately and clearly bought.

Most over arm loops are pretty rushed and mechanical in my view. The good ones (rare) have a bit of organic pause or slowing down built in.

I'll still plan occasionally to try mine but only for a switcheroo.

[bottle]

Yes Steve we are arguing for the same thing. (But I want a par round the next time I play golf too.) Note: Yikes, the word "flip" may soon have too many different meanings.

[don_budge]

A golf tip for bottle...

Okay, but don’t these points apply to backward path that duplicates the upcoming forward path? Golf in which backward and forward paths are different is extremely advantageous for timing, it seems to me, and I can’t see why this should not be true for tennis as well.

In any case:

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/annie...ngyoucando.htm

Food for thought...my friend. It is true. You want to know a little secret...the key to the flip is actually in the turning of the hips. Hogan says so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz6lNsrnV0U

Zach Allen interprets and expounds upon Ben Hogan after he plays a beautiful round on Shell's Wonderful World of Golf.

[stotty]

The one convincing argument I can find against straight back is that it is a bit stiff and mechanical and the timing therefore may not be good.

The thing for me is that the racket must stop and the end of the backswing to then come back, the motion cannot be continuous. It's impossible to ignore Mac's genius in all this and that he is, perhaps, the only player who has achieved such lofty heights with the method...although Connors did pretty well with his straight back "racket stuck up" method...skunk tail.

When I try the method I feel like I have less time than with a loop because of the stall at the end of the backswing before swinging forward again. I find "racket back early" (a no-no in coaching these days) is the only way to make it workable for me. Once I do this I feel like McEnroe, and I can achieve that wristless technique...only seen in McEnroe and John Bromwich

[bottle]

Smarter

The thing people most can’t stand about John McEnroe is that he is smarter than they.

The backswing for the John McEnroe forehand is a good example. It is more simple than the loops that most players including McEnroe's brother and myself have used and in fact I haven’t found a forehand yet that can’t be hit with a John McEnroe type backswing.

Those in doubt about all arguments for more stripped down backswings might ask themselves why most tennis instructors start by teaching “straight back.” It is a rare instructor who starts with loop.

If straight back is so basic, then, why should anyone ever abandon it? Many people think the loop adds racket head speed. Really? How can a “pat the dog” sequence in the ATP3-- considering the gentleness implied in those words-- add force or speed? To me the spearing with the racket butt that institutes and succeeds flip is the important part.

Okay, to try for more logic, if loop by itself doesn’t add force, it must be employed for comfort, continuity and timing, but I have to ask, why lift when you can drop? Works on a serve so why not on a forehand?

The one convincing argument I can find against straight back is that it is a bit stiff and mechanical and the timing therefore may not be good.

Okay, but don’t these points apply to backward path that duplicates the upcoming forward path? Golf in which backward and forward paths are different is extremely advantageous for timing, it seems to me, and I can’t see why this should not be true for tennis as well.

In any case:

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/anniegetyourgun/anythingyoucando.htm

[bottle]

Tennis Book Query: BOLO TENNIS IS SUCKY TENNIS, 479 Pages

We understand very well, New York publishers, that you wouldn’t know a good book if it came up and bit you in the ass.

We I mean I will nevertheless try here to keep things brief and very simple for you, all publishers, so that you can quickly and painlessly realize that this is the tennis book you want to go with.

Our hero John McEnroe will do the forehand visuals. He has already provided them (they are all over the place!). These films will demonstrate once again just as the late Cuban Kid Gavilan once demonstrated in the sport of boxing that loop or bolo is unnecessary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Gavilan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_punch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzgfp_Hz0gw

Extraneous loop in tennis as in boxing, baseball, hockey, golf and jai alai sucks, simple as that.

Please send me an advance, option or retainer right away.

But do you play tennis by chance, Mr., Miss or Mrs. publisher, with a loop in your forehand? If so, I would like to engage with you as soon as possible on a tennis court of your choosing in order to give you some religion.

[bottle]

Tennis Book Query-- GOOFY GOLFY BACKSWING: WAVE OF THE FUTURE

Once that our hero John McEnroe declined to write the preface to our proposed tennis book (proposed right here), we decided to defer all writing of the main manuscript until you messieurs and mesdames of American publishing decide as you inevitably must that resuscitation is deep in your genes or jeans.

In the meantime, we thought, a smaller form than 480 pages of exposition would be most appropriate to our personal needs. Please understand, ms. and sir, in using the pronoun "we" we really mean "I."

In this light I think that haiku would be best form for my project. But I don't know how to write a haiku. So here in a nutshell-- a post at TennisPlayer-- are my current ideas about goofy bowl-back/golf-back.

1) Like Johnny the Mac himself, keep hitting arm as straight as straight arm in a pendulous golf swing.

2) Burlesquing the Don Budge forehand, adopt the bent/bending/straightening arm of a golf swing and throw sidearm/underarm like an infielder in baseball.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DBFHFront1.mov

3) Vary grip to swing level with no twist of the arm.

4) With eastern grip hit a Federfore (ATP-3 forehand) only with no patting of the dog.

5) Place base knuckle on plane 4, heel on 3, and backswing farther (higher), then suddenly break arm into a double bend to hit a Thomas Berdych forehand.

6) With a grip of your choice, backswing even longer (higher), so high that arm breaks behind neck to prepare one to hit an Ellsworth Vines forehand, one of the fastest and flattest forehands the world has ever known.

These are just a few of the variations available in this new or if not new at least different way of hitting a forehand. The topspin of Tom Okker also comes to mind but without his huge loop. How important is a huge loop anyway? Is a loop in a tennis forehand any less showy and loopy than the boxer Kid Gavilan's pawing, impotent bolo punch? Note also in any McEnroe clip how Johnboy edits out the time-wasting turn of shoulder through opposite hand on the racket. No, he turns the shoulders just as well but with a huge point across with opposite hand. In other words he plays tennis with more economy than the current players at Wimbledon.

Even an Amazon demoralized and alcohol suffused publisher ought to have enough brain cells left to recognize the efficacy of these thoughts and have a nice day and thank you very much for your kind patience and consideration.

See you on the court, you loopy suckers.

Will kick your ass.

Sincerely

[bottle]

Concept 6

This shot, as one might suspect, builds on Concept 5. Everything is the same except for the addition of ripping the shoulderblades together.

Why do this? Because "cutting the wire" may result in racket head acceleration too near the place where the hands flew apart.

By the time the racket head gets to the ball, you may, reader, be hitting a decel.

The answer since racket head is coming around nicely and probably getting in front of you sooner than before could be a sudden change of direction provided by scapular retraction.

The racket head now speed-shifts a second time. In astonishing sideways direction. Provided that your grip and backswing and step-out are perfectly suited to the task.

[bottle]

Concept 5

Am going to accomplish the clear goal with arm not legs. But won't rely on the diceyness of rolling at contact. I therefore shall slightly flatten wrist early as part of rearward leveling of racket length.

Next question: Should "cut the wire" formula now be applied? Perhaps.

If so, to what degree? Is there a middle road between flashlight (pulling knob toward ball) and no flashlight (the easy swing that works through evenness not high speed)?

This attempt is still at a long arm swing, i.e., with no forward portion of double-handed racket action whatsoever, but with slight tug developed early between hands so that slightly more racket head speed will be imparted to punch with the slightly closed racket.

[bottle]

Articulated Reticulated Python Shot

That would be short-angled one hand backhand topspin service return from ad court in seniors doubles.

One will no doubt be tempted to hit backhand slice to the same place (short T) if one owns that shot.

Don't always do it.

The scheme is to use as handy departure point the basic square strings minimalist looped flat drive discussed here in recent posts.

That shot starts from shoulder level and progresses to waist level. It consists of a firmly connected shoulder turn and a simple lowering from the elbow only, to place racket length parallel to the court.

The forward swing then is smooth and slow-- and one-handed!-- from this rearward position, allowing the racket tip ample space in which to come around.

This swing could otherwise be described as level followed by easy lift with the racket staying on edge from beginning to end.

We or rather I now wish to preserve this reliably even rhythm rather than resort to other more violent and usual forms of 1htsbh-- specifically the genre of spearing, flashlighting, swinging with two hands part of the way and the "cut the wire" formula which involves the two hands pulling against each other before a big release.

The main difference from the gentle basic vertical racket head shot could be a greater lowering and rising from the knees.

Many times when hitting the basic shot, it seems to me, body level stays constant on athletically bent knees until after the ball is gone.

Now, one abandons this constraint by getting oneself extra low. One rises as one makes contact.

Simultaneous, one rolls the racket from square to beveled by 10 degrees.

Concept 2: Keep head exceedingly still. To do this, don't raise from knees, just roll the racket the appropriate amount (ten degrees or less).

Concept 3: Tuck thumb against middle finger. This tuck is good for rolling.

Concept 4 (with more concepts hopefully to follow): Tuck thumb against ring finger, locking it there with middle finger.

[bottle]

Four Different Heel Positions Equals Four Different McEnruefuls

Put big knuckle on 2.5 for all four...but, heel on 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 equals four different forehands.

[bottle]

Short Angled McEnrueful

Some people wonder why I write about the McEnrueful so much.

There is a lot to say. And this stroke gets sadder and sadder the more it realizes that it isn't the McEnroeful.

The McEnrueful changes the face of the person hitting it, too.

Longer and longer grows his face (or "countenance" if one is thinking of The Knight of the Rueful Countenance).

There is progression here not toward bestiality as in the case of Dr. Jekyll but regret and longing and chagrin at lost opportunity.

For sharper angles one can perhaps send one's backward pendulum more to the outside.

The one piece shoulders turn happening at the same time should bring the total racket movement inward to precisely where you want it and no more and no less.

The left hand gliding across toward side fence from the outset should provide good cover and distraction from this plot.

The big mistake in all of these McEnruefuls I'm pretty sure is to treat the backward shoulders turn and the backward pendulum drop and rise as if they are disengaged from one another.

The backward racket work and shoulders turn can conclude at same moment but did these two phenomena speak to one another along the way? Doubtful.

I play with anthropomorphism here-- not usually a good idea-- but shouldn't one goal for effective strokes be a less mechanical and more live arm?

Other big considerations come from pursuing the perennial single vs. double trajectory discussion endemic to golf and to tennis too the minute one opens oneself to the golfiness (pun) of John McEnroe's forehand.

Is not a single path for backswing and foreswing most simple? And does not this philosophy provide last instant rehearsal?

Reader, I leave the answer to you.

Online however you can find refutation of those golf pros who insist that Ben Hogan followed the one path.

One voice short on energy and croaking from the grave points out that Ben compared action of his right arm to a shortstop in baseball throwing combination underarm and sidearm to first base-- a clear argument for a second trajectory unlike Ben's first.

The McEnrueful however-- and for that matter the McEnroeful-- burlesques the straight arm and not the bent arm of golf thus leaving us again without the simple answers we crave.

[bottle]

Pretty good. I'm getting into it. But I've always been a sucker for pan pipes ever since first watching Peter Weir's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK.

[stotty]

The music in the video sounds like Ennio Morricone...n'est pas?

Morricone...prolific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLXyVwaC5qU

[don_budge]

The music...

The music in the video sounds like Ennio Morricone...n'est pas?