A New Year's Serve

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Got to Try

Just as Jack Sock, down a set, got excited and zoned out while playing David Ferrer, I get excited when I think about what happened last night.

My excitement is about search, not find, and I didn't get to sign a sock and give it to a delighted woman in Auckland.

Steve Navarro had told me that what I need is a good hitting partner, and I found one before the start of the Eastside Detroit Friday night tennis social.

He is Ken Hunt, a senior senior like me, and I have hit with him before then played better than usual in the three sets of doubles that follow.

If Ken didn't teach tennis, he should have. Not that he talked, he didn't except with his racket, but he kept the ball deep with medium pace.

A person having a one-on-one hit should quickly be able to determine whom the hit is about. When it was over Ken said "Better and better."

Well, Ken's game was the same throughout. But as this happy session which caused me to run out of gas by the end of the evening continued, I became aware of just how long we were keeping a single ball in play despite hitting decisively and pretty hard.

When that happens, and one player is building up the other, the other-- I-- has time to figure a few things out.

Forward emphasis, I decided on court, may not mean putting all mechanics out front so much as not putting the bulk of them behind or above one.

So I started taking my FETF (forward emphasis topspin forehand) farther back on level plane. That was all that happened during the hit with Ken, but overnight I've been building on this new idea.

1) For most of backswing keep the elbow in snug against one's side. This is how John McEnroe can prepare his forehand volley so fast even though his wait position is far, far away. So let us, just as a baseball player sometimes pulls in his elbows to get his bat around faster, keep elbow in to get racket tip around quick and far.

2) With racket tip then around and pointing at rear right fence post, let elbow rise no more than a few inches while consequently turning it slightly to close strings. If racket were pointing precisely at fence post it could keep doing so during this process.

3) Time this forehand with a 1-2 rhythm, rising turning elbow then to be classified with backswing. There is no separate transition here.

4) Awareness that duration of end of backswing similar to stop or slowing or easing or floating at top of a looped forehand can vary, in fact invite variance to give you more freedom to choose direction, etc.

5) The raised elbow skews the right angled arm for a second bout of keying, this time in opposite direction down and in toward body to activate mondo (flip).

6) The raised elbow is the extension that teaching pros talk so much about. In imagism, then, ask this question: Does the 20th century teaching metaphor of pushing on a stuck cellar door still apply to 21st century and if not, why not?

7) During body shove part of a quick forehand does bent arm extend (move) against the stuck cellar door? I think not. The arm is firm and activated and part of the push but shouldn't move, not if properly overpowered.

8) Lack of movement in the arm push frees up the arm wipe. One can apply more Zen Buddhism or stretch-shorten or racket head speed focus or whatever one wants to call it.

9) Racket head will rotate down and in before it rotates up and out and finally up and over on a precise perpendicular to one's target.

The overall image here is of a fan-driven swamp buggy boring through the Everglades.

If this forehand doesn't work, I'm sorry.

Note: Shoulder banks down as part of mondo, stays down for contact, banks back up as part of the followthough.

[bottle]

Self-Feed Conclusion

Easiest is to key part way then let elbow continue the momentum until racket points at right rear fence post. That closes the racket automatically. But one could easily forget to keep the arm bent-- a big mistake when one considers what happens next (see previous post).

[bottle]

And I'll Be In Scotland Afore Ye

On the bonnie bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

Where is it, on backswing, that a curved route is more efficient than a straight line? The forehand volley of John McEnroe. Is the curve also faster than the straight line? I don't know but guess the speed is the same.

So what does McEnroe do (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...cFHVRear.mov)? (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...tLevelRear.mov). Keeps elbow in for part of the backswing. Lifts racket then to where he knows the ball will be.

[bottle]

Figure Stuff out Rather than Call it Genius

Example: Forehand volley of John McEnroe. I've already stated or maybe just implied or wished that the difference in backswing from the conventional number (as in "I want to be in that number") is crucial to simplification of backhand volleys.

Backhand volleys!? But they're on the opposite side. Exactly. But I thought we were talking about forehand volleys?

We are. And length on the forehand volley backswing can be anything and in different combination of its basic but blended two parts. Each backswing starts out level. Then rises up or sideways or both. The overall backswing roughly speaking is arc therefore rather than straight line.

Does this create new angles? Absolutely. Although the mentor-writer Tillie Olson advised me that words can express anything, this particular subject takes me beyond the edge of what I personally can describe. But if a guy can achieve a bunch of new angles does he need to talk about each one? It would be better if instead of talking he just did.

I do know that. Also that the emphasis is on tennis not on the writing which in my case enables my tennis whatever it is.

[bottle]

Paring Down for Old Age or Any Good Age

Easiest is to key part way then let elbow continue the momentum until racket points at right rear fence post. That closes the racket automatically. But one could easily forget to keep the arm bent-- a big mistake when one considers what happens next.

What happens next is a double loop same as on the backhand side for one's most solidly struck topspin shots.

Similarly also, the elbow stays out.

Ask this question: Does one want two loops with a big overhead loop having occurred first?

That is too much. One eliminates the big loop and goes with the two small ones, mondo and wipe.

[bottle]

A Forehand Volley with Zero Lift of the Elbow

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_volleys_overheads/mac_fhv/mac_fhv.html?MacFHVBHVWarmUpFront.mov

[bottle]

Unhappy Backswing

I'm not unhappy, but somehow the rhythm of the word UN-HAP-PY like the songwriting author here Ju LIE-DEL-PY (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...0julie%20delpy) helps hone forehand backswing toward what anyone would want.

The level KEY-ING of right angled arm gets the racket tip quickly around and SOAR-ING as elbow finally releases from its posted position close to your side and flies a short distance up.

This short flight is the brain of the shot, the control panel or SHOT-BRAIN where adjustment or altered TIME-ING can take place.

We allude here to a kernel of feel that every tennis stroke should have.

Feel, finesse-- that's what we want, but a power dynamic is at work as well, namely one's stretch-shorten cycle in which the keying reverses.

In actuality both ends of the decelerated racket are finally moving at the same speed but can do this in a bewilderment of ways if we don't choose the right one.

The right one is the one that harnesses the excess of racket tip movement built by keeping elbow in as one whips the strings around-- a move that is as quick, decisive, thoughtless, dry, sterile, mechanical as the subsequent move can be alive.

Remember, this keying is as key as external arm rotation to set up internal arm rotation in a serve.

External, internal-- that is the sequence of elements on which we depend with no passivity to come in between.

One instant the strings are flying around next they decelerate but how? Through the muscles that scale the forearm in opposite direction getting a head start.

At the same time the right angle gets skewed. Structural integrity is maintained but alignment of upper arm post is no longer straight down at ground.

The slant of the whole apparatus is all that flies the racket head back in toward your bod.

Which in turn sets up the whole arm to roll thus becoming one's swamp buggy fan.

One movement is skewed, so is the next. Assuming grip is right, the strings then are slightly closed and scraping ball slightly toward the inside of where a perfectly upright face would aim.

The double roll is linked and very fast as most things in tennis are-- much faster than any words used to describe the happening could be.

The baseball analogy here is a shortstop barehanding a hot grounder. Did he use the weight of the ball pushing against his flesh to activate his perfect throw to first?

The part of backswing from elbow in to elbow up is the shotbrain, we have said. The two ends of the racket move together to form this shotbrain. We might just glom on this form-- fast around the post and two ends of racket moving then at same slow pace-- through the beginning of a warmup.

After that however we need to inject new ingredients into the shotbrain: LePage's glue, Elmer's glue, honey, molasses, 90-weight transmission oil, sawdust, cinders, fragments of cork.

To these decelerants we add a cable that stops a jet plane as it settles down on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

But if that cable is too stiff we change it into a bungee cord.

The idea is to get off the perfect double rolled throw with no transition between backswing and foreswing. Pressure for the sidearm throw builds in the upper arm even as it's going backward.

This has to be a matter of feel not logic. How fast was racket head moving before you proactively decelerated? And how smoothly will it go in all of the many subsequent directions?

[bottle]

New Idea to Try

Lower shoulder in second half of backswing.

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New Species of Self-Feed

Throw ball up and hit it before it bounces. Especially good if court is covered with snow. But might work if court were dry, too. With hitting partner run for ball, catch it, throw, hit before any bounce.

We know this method works for volleys as Dennis Ralston demonstrates in one of his TennisPlayer articles. But if it doesn't work for ground strokes, perhaps the total racket head trajectory is too long.

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Drill

New self-feed drill for doubles: one ball in one alley, next in opposite alley. Vary the depth of these shots.

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Zen and the Art of Left Arm Raise

Lower shoulder in second half of backswing.

We adopted the early separation of hands genre of forehand backswing of recent long ago (Austin, Connors, Evert, McEnroe). And we heard someplace that we should keep our point arm high. Now we have a reason to do that other than that we heard it was a good idea.

The reason is to lower the hitting shoulder just as its bent arm rises with the net result that racket stays level for a ball that sits waist high saying "Hit me" due to a stupid court surface and possible deficit of opponent spin.

We keep the pointer arm slightly bent for extra relaxation and feel. Watching for this in another player could tell us whether that player is relaxed or tense. If tense, be glad. If relaxed, copy-- maybe the relaxation is transferable.

So, hitting arm keys level, then rises. But rises when? During rise of left shoulder. But what do tilting shoulders do to the eyes in your head? Lower them? They needn't. Not if you are determined to keep your head still.

Levelness of total backswing now has been achieved-- a formy thing based on a stupid waist high bounce as default situation.

So, hitting arm goes up as hitting shoulder goes down with net result that the racket stays level.

What a simplification this is for our nefarious purpose of pre-loading a sidearm throw.

The muscles that twist the upper arm are already activated to decelerate the racket frame while loading it up with ergs.

One wants to drive the blood in one's arm through one's fingertips out into the air but not until the actual double-roll throw.

I may or may not be dreaming here but combining mondo with vigorous keying of forearm down toward body center gets rod out toward net without destroying pitch and is a huge change to everything.

[bottle]

FETF: Forward Emphasis Topspin Forehand

First sentence, written before the act: I thought I would wait until after the three sets of doubles this morning before I reported on them in a way similar to that of lobndropshot at the Australian Open, i.e., don't try to cover everything but follow your nose.

Second sentence, a question, written after returning home: Why aren't I bubbling over with enthusiasm right now?

Because I only hit the new forehand three times (but all for winners). Doubles is arrhythmic, not the same as endlessly trading shots with a good hitting partner. But the shot should become great over time, and if not, I'll invent something else to go with my right now more reliable McEnrueful.

My FETF is "forward emphasis" because the arm's rod or forearm is pointing roughly forward, not sideways, during the wipe.

Connecting dots is what this shot is about. The latest revelation is that cranking the right-angled arm could be called internal arm rotation. The cranking is from the upper arm and smoothly continues to form the ideal wipe I want from right fence to left fence.

The useful image here is a swamp buggy boring through the Everglades. The fan on my particular buggy spins counterclockwise and is set at front rather than rear of the boat.

The forehand thus produced is effective when I am relaxed and comfortable and in good position except when it chops up Burmese pythons hanging from the tops of low-lying bushes.

[bottle]

The Beauty of Revisionism: One Dares to Dream

A Sunday golfer constantly moans. Despite his intensive study of every golf magazine ever printed, he remains a hacker. So he places his brains in a cremation urn and gives it to a teaching pro. This improves his game but only somewhat.

What possibly could be wrong? Well, Jack Nicklaus has changed his strokes every day of his life whereas the Sunday golfer only changes his strokes on Sunday.

The poor hacker reads a book called THE TALENT CODE. Now he won't try anything he hasn't practiced for ten years. Where is he going? Down!

We all wish for the natural backhand of J. Donald Budge. But we can't have it. So we study, study. Soon we have studied strokes. But guess what? Same thing as the administrators of the Flint, Michigan water supply. Nobody studies enough.

I'll go Trump/rogue/Beowulf here. Reader, does anyone call you "King of the Slice?" It has happened to me. Whatever the rest of my game is like, I attribute this success to reducing my backhand slice from galaxy to constellation, from infinity to nine or ten shots.

[bottle]

To Try on FETF (Forward Emphasis Topspin Forehand)

The arm starts bent and cheated over for backhand. The arm slightly squeezes and re-straightens to right angle during the keyed backswing. This adds a bit of swashbuckling momentum to what turning body and turning key can sum with the result that arm and racket and elbow float up into position as if on a cushion that is way back though still in the slot.

The idea of tilting shoulders during the backswing is herewith rejected. Downward banking of right shoulder is needed as part of the sidearm throw, not as part of the backswing. That works best.

What is the need for me to make this change? Precisely this. In one occurrence yesterday the score was 0-3 . I changed then from FETF to McEnrueful and my partner and I won the set 6-3 . And yet I had been hitting my FETF well just a few days before in a one-on-one hit with my friend Ken Hunt.

Conclusion: The change I made was bad. I need to retrack and with no boo-hoo. Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Craig B. Melo: "You're always wrong or you're partially right." I want to be partially right when I walk out on the court, i.e., close enough to perfection to be good.

Gosh, is this inspirational writing? I hate inspirational writing. Might work for me though.

[don_budge]

W. Somerset Maugham…Of Human Bondage

Read two short stories by Somerset Maugham, the first THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER, in which the grasshopper succeeds in driving the ant mad.

In the second, THE THREE FAT WOMEN OF ANTIBES, there is this sentence about tennis:

“They drank their waters together, had their baths at the same hour, they took their strenuous walks together, pounded about the tennis court with a professional to make them run, and ate at the same table their sparse and regulated meals.”

By the end of the story the three protagonist bridge players have undergone a transformation but perhaps not what one might think.

I just finished reading "Of Human Bondage" for the second time…there were a couple of references to tennis in it as well. It always amazes me how reading these great novels over is like reading them for the first time. It was if I had never read it before. Not even an inkling of "deja vu". Of course it had been some years.

He chose to settle down by the sea instead of casting himself out into it. Philip did…the main character. He answered to himself the riddle of the Persian rug that his friend had given him in Paris.