A New Year's Serve

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Something can be Either Provocative or Foolish when you Don't Agree

I don't agree right now with the presumption that a topspin one hand backhand requires a huge straight armed and mechanical looking loop to generate sufficient racket head speed.

In fact, many persons trying to use this method will achieve maximum RHS too soon and therefore will hit decels and won't get around on the ball in time.

The key, in the present learning progression I am using for backhand drives, saves loose arm motion for the middle of the stroke and looks like hitting off of the back foot although in reality that doesn't happen.

This hard drive also looks like straight back preparation-- just too simple?-- but again is not what it appears.

Whatever one would think of it once one understood it, one would have to concede that it is closer to the bent arm, straight arm combination of the most well known topspin one-handers on the tour.

I've been trying to describe these Lausian swings after the model provided in CHARLEY LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING for some time, so if you want to take me seriously, reader, please look to the posts before this one or even better to the baseball book itself.

And if I want to take myself seriously, i.e., produce entirely positive experimentation, then I will continue to hit some backhands as fully realized as those in old man doubles this morning, only with more topspin while still without the roll-over at contact that inevitably shortens extension.

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Rosewallian Slice Reviewed

In the three backhand slices shown in the Krosero video, Ken Rosewall's racket head slides under the ball to a point slightly lower than where the ball just was before racket continues forward and out to the right.

If I knew this, I wondered if a dig from the front shoulder was responsible (as in Stefanie Graf's backhand slice). Not in today's viewing. Arm and hand produce this important effect which is specifically the addition of controlling spin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR7kvBGntW8

Note the couple in the background of this video slowly walking up the tilted road while getting a good look. Those are smart people. Everybody else on the planet known as tennis probably is a dope.

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Snowbound Backhand: Weight but not Head is Over Front Foot

That pretty much is what I want to say. The dynamic weight is in the book CHARLEY LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING. If you ever get to see it, reader, note how the photographed home running baseballers slam on the brake (the front leg) to clear the distant fence with their arm by the knob having taken a solo.

So where is head? Halfway between the two feet but in the case of a pull hitter about one third of the way to the closed front foot.

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Backhand Design Refinement

To a point, the mind doesn't stop in cold, in fact may work better. I'm thinking, that, in a palm sandwich backhand one could finish straightening the arm as foot strides out, then continue to stretch any residual slack out of said arm at beginning of hips turn when rear foot still is flat.

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Adjustment to the Environment

Coldest day in 20 years. Big snow. People going nuts all over the place. They evaporate their personal mojo by using the cold as supposed evidence to deny global warming.

The tennis result for me is that I can't perform my experiments outside, even had to turn back in cross-country skiing when I came to the big field where the powder driving sideways both from the sky and the field itself created wind-chill of 50 below.

So I have to wait until scheduled indoors doubles on Thursday. And how much experiment can one or should one do in an overly brief warmup?

My stroke change opinings therefore are rather abstract even as Marriott unveils sketches for a heated swimming pool at the North Pole.

Backhand: Palm sandwich backswing with horizontal loop for crosscourts, a closer down and up for down the line (quite vertical preparation or forward "feeling") using same basic mechanics and contact point since palm will work itself level out front by then. Forehand: Good lowering of racket head by breaking the unified hips turn into intellectual part (1) where foot is flat and (2) where heel comes fully up on toes and (3) where front leg effectively slams on the brakes since human head won't be stationed too far forward. Serve: Explore, for lower racket tip possibilities eastern forehand end of grip spectrum with different finger twiddles during service motion or before it starts.

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Slingshot Again

In all of the planet known as tennis, Tom Avery is one of my very favorite talking heads. I just admire the easy, clear and sympathetic way he explains everything even when I don't think it's the best thing (but most often it is).

The following rap on forehand could almost be seen as switch-over of the progression in one hand backhand I've tried to launch, the essence of which from the baseballers' LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING is "no roll-over until after contact."

Which in tennis could mean the same thing or no roll-over at all. But let's get real by getting something straight: Roll-over during contact when you want to if it's appropriate and you have the skill.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/10456380/tennis_forehand_technique_tips_from_coach_tom_avery_at_tomaveryt/

I have to question something in this video, don't I (?) since one ought to question everything in life or so I learned in college.

The part about continuing the hitting zone by pushing both ends of the racket for six inches or a foot after contact seems old-fashioned and likely to reduce racket head speed when Lau Jr. tells me that what I want instead is pull not push the whole way.

As I opined in # 1935, the significant free arm motion is not at the end or beginning but IN THE MIDDLE of the stroke.

But maybe should go a bit beyond that too.

On both forehand and backhand then, the racket can keep spearing as shoulders from fully cocked gut suddenly change hand direction to form a David's slingshot.

Goal: A maximum collision of ball and racket or "scrape" if you prefer in which extension will be so good that one will gain the same effect of "staying on the ball."

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Bold Moves

I am tall. My backhand stride is shoulders width when it needs to be that width AND A HALF.

Remedy? Measure shoulders and add half? Put marks on a floor? Nail slats down there set at one shoulders width and a half?

After those measures, another, equally bold: Switch from pre-set method of keeping weight balanced over back leg before the stride-- to the 50-50 method. To quote Lau Jr. (with Jeffrey Flanagan):

"For comfort reasons, other players choose a different way of staying back. They start with the head centered between the feet prior to beginning the stride. They slightly shift their weight toward the back side as the stride foot goes forward. Fred McGriff, Cecil Fielder, and Frank Thomas are all examples of players who choose to keep their weight back in this fashion. The reasoning behind this move is to counteract the forward movement of the stride with simultaneous movement backward of the upper body (hands, head, etc.)."

Not workable? Return to pre-set method or raise leg like a dog (Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Bobby Bonilla) or draw in front foot on toes before stepping out with it.

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Progressions Always Will Continue

The constant happiness is curiosity. -- Alice Munro

Speculation can be more gentle, can take its time, when it is not driven by desire. -- Alice Munro

That I even feel the need to make my above statement about progressions is simple reflection on the players I see around me. Seniors, you could say, and set in their ways, but that wouldn't be entirely right. At the tennis socials I am always talking about, I am the oldest player sometimes by 30 years. Nobody at any age, it seems, is trying to change their stroke technique enough.

I call it as I see it. And I had the same point of view when I was a U.S. Naval Academy NAAO accredited rowing coach. I just didn't feel like inflicting untested ideas on a hundred people at a time when there was an upcoming race.

My experiment in applying LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING (a book) to one hand backhand is nothing if not interesting. Eventually, I may toss the whole can, although it is not full of worms, and return to my earlier roll-overs. But not today. In fact, today, I choose cross-country skiing over the weekly tennis social.

A liquid one piece one hander is an eminently worthwhile goal and nothing to be worried or ashamed about. (Or to joke about more than just a little.) Alternately, I suppose one could sign up for cardio tennis and fall on one's ass.

There are, seemingly, a thousand fine points in LAU'S LAWS, so much more attractive than the empty romantic tripe of "a thousand points of light."

On the same fast hip turn, e.g., Lau Jr. suggests there should be the first part (I) where rear foot stays flat and the second part (II) where heel comes way up on toes.

He doesn't pound this thought as much as I will here. But from an abbreviated mid-level palm sandwich quickly arrived at, I step with hitting arm extending behind me.

With hip turn (I) the hitting arm finishes its extension. As hip turn (II) starts, I pull knob at the ball while making every effort to keep shoulders closed which stretches whatever elastic I have in my gut.

A baseball player with two hands on his bat could still stop his swing, and I with just one hand pulling the knob of my racket could too.

But I don't. Instead, I let fly with my shoulders.

Here are the questions: How much free arm movement should there be in any one hand backhand, and where should it occur?

In present design, the free arm movement is in the MIDDLE of the stroke.

So shoulders and arm should stay firmly connected-- a single piece-- as I abruptly change the direction of the motion started by hand pulling the knob.

And if I want an even more sharp crosscourt than the releasing elastic of the gut can provide, I'll clench my shoulderblades too but only as a last resort.

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Are There Different Qualities of Twiddle?

The first mention I've ever read other than my own of finger adjustment to someone's existing grips occurs in PANCHO SEGURA: A TENNIS PECULIARITY by Robert Firlus, an online article with dark spacey background in which a thousand bits of Peggy Noonan are coming down.

http://corfutennis.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/pancho-segura-a-tennis-peculiarity/

Firlus says, "Current guru gripping terminology is obsolete. It talks about the location of the hand on the handle but says nothing about what individual fingers do or don't do on the handle...Idiosyncrasy is the excuse of the guru who says: 'Sure looks like an Eastern to me but it acts like a Semi-western.'"

Having followed this line of reasoning for some time, I should like to assert that a tennis player should still be free to hit his favorite shot without finger adjustment as well as with. And that there is much to learn about this subject. My almost arbitrary arrival at the use of thumb and middle finger was reached after I saw a video on throwing curveballs. In crew, I've said, a person adjusts pitch (partially) through twiddle of thumb and last two fingers (ring and pinkie).

And other fingers might work. The subject hasn't been discussed much less investigated. So I made my innocent tennis choice.

Just as I did to use the word "twiddle." Without meaning to sound arrogant I'll take that word over Firlus' "twitch" any day of the week. My controlled twiddle on initial gravity drop of hands in a serve has helped my ability to keep racket edge on to tossed ball without overhauling my overall motion so much that I become a tennis beginner all over again. And I am constantly looking for places in any stroke to add some twiddle in either direction or rather to add that new possibility for fine adjustment.

What these personal experiments are revealing is that the place where the twiddle happens does not affect one's basic technique as much as it does one's comfort. So a person could be open-minded about this. Where does the twiddle feel best?

On a Charley Lau type liquid backhand-- and I would, like baseball author Charley Lau Jr., insist that a large proportion of modern hitters e.g. my brother-in-law no longer turn over their wrists-- the best place for twiddle may even be after the ball is hit.

Why? Again, for comfort. A Lau type home run produces underspin, not topspin. But I want topspin. Just without the arm roll or keeping the elbow in of certain of my shots. That means more of a Vic Braden type backhand followthrough-- a lifting of the arm even as the racket head is still coming around and weight is going through the ball.

Vic Braden used to think that a player using an eastern backhand grip should draw with a magic marker an X on his thumb. And should keep that X moving toward the target.

Pancho Gonzalez, similarly, asserted that a one hand backhand should end with racket parallel to top of the back fence, not twisted way over.

Pancho Segura, with his forehand two hander, clearly does roll over, a different way of producing topspin.

Against my Peruvian friend whom I call “Pizarro” the other night I was undoing his heavy topspin and producing enough of my own to bring balls down on the crosscourt line—balls that usually would go out.

If one truly swings like Charley Lau the racket would hit the ball flat with tremendous extension then go way out to the right (for a right-hander hitting a backhand).

So one needs, if stealing other virtues from this technique (which is very similar, I would argue, to Bjorn Borg’s early two-hand-one-hand), to form a roof overhead similar to that of Petr Korda.

The Braden idea of thumb going out to target however was predicated on Budgian grip with thumb on a diagonal up the back of the racket. If one’s thumb is more under like mine, the “X” cue may no longer apply.

So, palm sandwich produces power. Edge of fist flies toward ball in the illegal rabbit punch of a corrupt and murderous boxer. The fist edge bonk is a killer. That’s why this punch is illegal.

To strictly use Lau’s use of palm down throughout is impossible when racket has departed from level path halfway through the one-piece motion and started to rise.

As hand moves forward away from body the pitch must naturally open. Nor can the palm stay completely faced down. A bit of finger twiddle right then with thumb rising up over middle finger feels great! And demonstrates that the player has kept his frame perpendicular to the court if not his palm perfectly parallel to the court.

Beyond the nicety or prettiness of this, I can assure you, reader, from being a crew coach, that anything you do in an athletic cycle of any type conditions the ease and effectiveness of whatever came before.

You will do the same thing again, right? You also could conceivably improve your margin of error by keeping racket square at slightly different contact points. Such variation would of course be inadvertent.

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Home Run Two Hand One Hand Backhand Swing

You pull knob by hand or hands, not by rotation of the shoulders.

One makes every effort to keep shoulders parallel to long lines and side fence despite the fact that the hips are whirling in the most weird way.

Remember how Ivan Lendl almost looked like he was threading his left knee through his right knee?

Are the hips and lower body detached then from the upper body? Is this Irish dancing? Czech dancing? Check dancing? The golf teachers Korda and Lendl dancing? The answer to all of these questions is yes.

But what is the purpose of such a big whirl that lifts the rear heel as high as in a Pancho Gonzalez forehand? I was taught, probably from books, to lift the rear heel about half as much on a backhand.

Well, this is a different swing here in which we wish to siphon off just a bit of the magic of modern home run effort. The hips under head, exquisitely centered between both feet, are building up steam for a slamming on of brakes to stop the whirl but provide great momentum leading to front hip and head in perfect balance over the front foot.

The brake is provided by stiffening front leg. So the hips have whirled early while in central position and then stopped whirling as they pushed onto the front foot thus completing the weight transfer or crossing of a bridge.

Could one have previously balanced weight back on rear foot by lifting front knee and front foot off of the ground in the manner of some coiling big league batters? One could. But should one? Once or twice for show.

A junior version is scraping front foot back on toes before it steps out. There will be many occasions when you step out directly without any such in between flourish having happened. But if you have the time, why not? Unless you’re afraid of hitting a home run. Don't forget to land with foot flat and its toes pointing at left fence which is very different from what I learned, don't know about you. (Do it however and you'll be in good company since the videos we have show J. Donald Budge doing it.)

ROOF FINISH. A fun cue is to keep palm parallel to court through the liquid swing from start to finish. Does that mean gradually straightening or even curling wrist once the ball is gone with the acceleration complete and the deceleration having begun?

Possibly.

One should thoroughly explore this subject of followthrough. Petr Korda uses occasional other followthroughs in his final of the Australian Open against Marcelo Rios. Easy roof however is his go to.

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The Most Important Thing

Expressions in tennis instruction like "most salient," "most seminal," "most crucial," "most important," are ridiculous since not more than ten seconds later something equal always comes along, probably an exercise in which you put your fist down on the court and spin your body like a top 30 times with three repetitions of the set to put calluses on the back of your fingers and strengthen your wrist.

Palm sandwich swings off of the backhand side however carry a salient point which is one I don't think anybody can supersede.

(Palm sandwich = hitting palm faced down, supporting palm faced up, handle the filling with both palms parallel to the court.)

The subsequent swing is fluid, effortless and one-piece, which is the very reason bat speed is achieved sufficient to carry a baseball 444 feet.

If I am correct in thinking that such easy power is transferable to a roofed one handed drive effective like Petr Korda's, it is because I have accepted something suggested though never explicitly stated in CHARLEY LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING.

Here it is: A baseball swing or tennis ground stroke in which arm or arms roll over at contact-- if done with perfect timing-- creates more topspin than sidespin and therefore is useful; but, it is two-piece.

What pieces? 1) Spear and 2) Roll is my best guess. (Of course I am only on page 192 of the book. Perhaps the answer will occur by 219, the last page.)

The book is a great one however perhaps because it does rely on suggestion rather than flat statement.

A fluid, effortless and one-piece swing-- that is the key.

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Reflections on No Tennis Social

There wasn't one. Something to do with Christmas. It was a Friday night but there was no tennis social, just another one scheduled for New Year's Eve for which Hope and I have another plan.

But my graduate school friend, he of the Peruvian topspin, was at the indoor facility, equally confused. So the familiar looking gal behind the counter gave us both some free court time. (This was Detroit and Detroit proper, a place that maybe would like to sell its Breugel, and when something is free, you say Hallelulia!)

My friend offered to play a match but I said I don't play singles any more, but how about a hit first and then just play points, with one guy serving four times and then the other.

Fun. And very even. Loved the new backhands. Tried a few with higher backswing, but then returned to low palm sandwich idea just to drill the desired pattern from LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING. Eventually, both backswing and followthrough may have a Kordan symmetry-- haven't decided yet.

But the influence of LAU'S LAWS will not stop there. The full forward turn of the hips with avoidance of "squishing the bug" can apply to one handers in tennis as well as to home run swings in baseball.

Of course the batter in baseball must choose his pitch. He stops midstream to get a walk. Did he come round? Maybe not, but his rear heel sure did come up. That's a lot of early hips turn against a closed front foot. And a lot of spearing with the knob to the outside too. And head halfway between the two feet but soon to be over the front foot. A great freeze point when developing a new drive backhand.

Well, I found that my spearing on my Federfore was going nicely ahead of big body action, so I tried that on continental forehand as well. While holding opposite arm across until hips cleared.

I didn't try any imitation Segura except to think that his forehand surely is a kind of baseball swing what with right hand further up and left hand by or over the knob and overlocking other pinkie in an old putter's grip.

If one is partial to two handers, I think, one can still use non-dominant hand as mere support and guide-- it's a choice.

If one is partial to one handers, one needs that sole hand to provide the same sliding-ahead-spear pattern. One might benefit from occasionally imagining a second hand aboard to help guide and support.

On my rotorded serves, the difference between triceptic extension starting before upper arm rotation and the reverse of that order was far less earth-shaking than I thought. Bounce on opponent's side was slightly different. I probably won a few points by switching back and forth.

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Throwing the Lau Book at a Backhand

LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING, a great instructional book (and how many of those are there in any sport?), comes down, humorously, to Ten Commandments, sort of like the Wardlaw imperatives, but a tennis player should concentrate on Five since he has enough to think about already.

Lau Jr., the author, is explicitly good on the difference between tennis and baseball swings, viz., he declares that the tennis player needs topspin and therefore rollover most likely is indicated.

Me, I've done a lot of rollover but now would like to explore its opposite. The most salient feature of this intragenerational philosophy of Charley Lau pere et fils is "lead arm extension," which is seen to happen with the great baseball hitters of today right after their forward hips rotation begins. Some of them, in the Lau view, do it better than others.

The hips start with arm pull on knob chiming in a split second later. Well, a baseball bat has a knob at the end but so does a tennis racket. And we've been told in tennis to "pull on a rope" but seldom with the further explanation that this pull comes from the arms, not anything in gross body. But gross body is at work already. The hand or hands therefore pulls/pull ahead as in a race. The same thing happens in a Federfore. And who cares if one hand or two is involved since it's the hand by the knob that's doing the work-- the other hand just provides support and position.

Well, if the knob tug starts a split second after hips start, the racket head zings around a split second after the knob tug starts.

But where would the backhanding right hander's racket go then in this one-piece swing? To the right in the direction of a seat one hundred rows behind the stadium fence with underspin to carry it there as his arm finishes circling his body.

But why can't one still find mild topspin through an almost over the head roofy followthrough like Petr Korda rather than finishing way around to the right?

The racket won't care. Well, should you provide just a bit of roll to keep the racket frame on edge for larger percentage? Maybe, but at the tennis social tonight I'm just going to close the racket more then let it open up naturally.

Also, since aller Anfang ist schwer ("all beginnings are difficult"), I'm just at first going to use my flying grip change to create an immediate palm sandwich fairly low. The palm sandwich is one palm facing down, one palm facing up, with bat or racket handle in between.

I envision swinging level on a plane one foot under the ball until I get close to it.

To retreat and repeat, I will slowly finish straightening or barring the arm as closed foot (not splayed as in some other backhands-- you want good ability to slam on the brakes with front leg!) lands flat to start the forward hips rotation which is exquisitely centered between both feet.

"But John, you're going to hit too far to the left."

Then I'll go down the line.

Later I'll use a slightly higher backswing like Korda for even more racket head speed to get the racket sufficiently around for sharp crosscourt.

No matter what I do however full hips turn completing weight transfer will be essential part. There shall be no "squishing of a bug," which is baseball lingo for when rear heel presses down or stays down or stays down too long.

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The Attraction of More Tract

Consensus from the Southern Idaho Regional Correction Facility for Rotorded Servers: Your upper arm rotation, potentially, is just as good as anyone else's-- just has to be saved for late in the serving cycle.

Also, since you don't have enough racket drop and not long enough final pathway up to the ball let's deliberately add to the length of both of these specific sections of one's serve. The total mechanism will be more complicated but do you want more of a full throw or not?

To this end, in your initial down and up motion, raise racket so high that upper arm pinches toward your head. You wouldn't want to hit the ball from there (unhealthy, so Vic Braden demonstrates with a plastic doll losing her arm from her shoulder socket) but such pinched position can happen earlier without harm as a way to create more racket head drop.

Now drop elbow lower than hitting level. Hitting level is elbow lined up with both shoulderballs. So, having raised elbow too much and having dropped it too much, raise it a second time as part of your integrated throw but to the correct level aligned with shoulderballs.

The more the longer racket drop and racket lift (about half the addition of the other) correspond to the arching and unarching (husking or slingshot additive of a good serve), the better.

Your duty, rotorded ones, is to yourself. Try anything to increase velocity and improve direction of upward spin, even reversing sequence of triceptic extension and upper arm rotation. Doesn't work? Did you lose something? Reverse it back. There always is going to be overlap of these functions. Hello, Phil.

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A New Year's Backhand: Keep the Twiddle and Add Copious Amounts of Lau

Thanks so much! I'll go back to Korda if the present experiment doesn't immediately work! Or combine-- especially the extension part!

My last design effort was pretty bad, I realized on page 144 of CHARLEY LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING, which is a photograph with the caption: "Extend through the ball with flat hands as your front leg firms up."

Cancel the ideas of feathering wrist straight mid-swing and muscular rip by consciously clenching shoulderblades together. Just go for an an easy one-piece swing similar to Tony Trabert's backhand in Krosero's 1954 Davis Cup video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR7kvBGntW8

Good drive for me, I hypothesize, is a two hand one hand backhand regardless of where opposite hand slides off. Put another way, the opposite hand (my left hand) is a tray off of which the most accelerative part of the swing will launch.

"Flat hands" means your two palms form pieces of bread with handle the filling in between. From an eastern grip you can twiddle middle finger over thumb for a little more closing of strings (all you may need) as arm straightens behind you.

Now you are ready to pull knob with both hands (or one hand or both hands then one hand in sequence) on as short a line as possible toward the ball.

I don't want to discuss every fine point of a Charley Lau, senior or junior, swing. For the fine points one should obtain a copy of Junior's book by hook or by crook.

Long ball hitters in baseball use underspin, can hit to all fields, have high batting average.

The only two baseball books I care about are THE SCIENCE OF HITTING by Ted Williams and LAU'S LAWS and I now own both. The former, as you would expect, is more ornery, the latter has more heart.

Both guys raised big league team batting average wherever they went by about 50 points, which could be a comment on force of personality since their ideas on technique differed.

Lau Jr., author of the book, could be as good a coach as his late father, sort of like Butt Jr., another Charley or Charlie but in the sport of rowing and now the head coach at Harvard University. In his first race as heavyweight coach, The Head of the Charles, it was Harvard first, Northeastern second, Brown third, University of Washington (defending national champions) fourth, Cal fifth. Possible qualifying factors: The head of the Charlie is an abnormally long race.

The two handed swings described in Lau Jr.'s book are perfect for a tennis contrarian. All the TV tennis announcers, e.g., say a right hander's two hander is a left-handed forehand in disguise. Ha! The most effective swings in baseball are two hand one hand backhands with the hand at the knob doing the main work. The swing is pull with no push over the ball. Roll over comes after contact.

I now want more self-assured spearing toward the ball whether from two hands or one hand or both in sequence and I hope I repeated myself and will for greater racket head speed just as on a forehand. I also have desired, for a long time, a "bonk" with my hitting hand. The word "bonk" almost defines a palm down swing. And if I hit home runs this way-- less desirable in tennis-- I'll change grip or pitch one way or another with less fretting because of so much new clarity of purpose.

Or, if I could only hit down the line this way (something I doubt because of the increase of speed that comes with a one-piece swing), I would do that since I now play doubles and have adequate cross-court slice from ad court.