A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

The Price of Tennis Stroke Invention

The day will come when none of your strokes work-- not the new ones and not the old ones either. This is a nervous condition, a case of forgetting how to win. You will make good shots perfectly to set up a kill and then muff the final shot since your nerves, recently become the collective spokesman for all neuroscience, will be crying, "What exactly is it Bottle you want me to do?"

That day is the time not to look over your shoulder but to persevere, comfortable at least in the realization that the other guys keep inviting you back.

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Low Bridge, Everybody Down

Federer has a furbelow at the top of his backswing and so does Djokovic (a different one), and I don't like either and would prefer to take my fur below as part of an early grip change away from my McEnrovian composite.

I read the wisdom somewhere that changing the grip from backhand to forehand is easier than vice-versa but don't care since I do both and often neither.

To obviate the need for high furbelow, my new grip change will 1) turn the handle inside the hand, 2) turn the shoulders at the same time, 3) slightly but not completely lay the wrist back, 4) slightly push connected hands and racket away from the body.

Listen, if I can win (not yesterday but tomorrow) with the early hands separation of my McEnrueful, I can separate those two hands any time I want like in NEW YORK, NEW YORK making it anywhere and like the man in the car rental ad not talking to human beings .

So it's grip change then separate-- that's the backswing. But shoulders continue to load during the separation.

Will this take 10,000 miles, 10,000 hours, 10,000 repetitions to achieve (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8CcCQyj4fc)?
Reader, don't believe that sorry excuse not to have willpower. It's just the clink of the Gladwell runt making money.

What can you expect of the son of Jamaica Kincaid? The children of novelists always want to make money.

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Down Then Up

Sorry for the platitudinous nature of this remark, but, one has to play badly sometimes, maybe even hit bottom, before getting better again. New strokes worked today, old ones did too. Both had been out of order thanks to jangled nerves from too much experimentation without proper interval to let it settle in. Whole game lifted across all of the movement and strokes, I'm happy to say, now we'll see how long the even keel lasts (but I'll spare you, reader, my report back).

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Sometimes, While Playing Deuce Court in Doubles

Sometimes I waited to return serve with diagonally set thumb pad on 1.5 rather than 7.5 since the serve usually comes to my forehand. My present opponents avoid my backhands-- a good learning situation for me. "C'mon, make the new forehand work," I said to myself. And it did work just as much as it failed two days before.

"You're getting a lot on the ball for such a short stroke," my partner suddenly announced. I was surprised he noticed anything new about my game. Second, I didn't think of the new shot as short. Maybe he is right or the new shot looks short. One is wrong to assume that other people in tennis notice less than oneself.

In fact they may notice more. I haven't ever studied that particular partner's ground strokes, just know he hits flat, plays almost every day, hangs on the net and volleys well.

The real test of my Djokovic-itch may be when I change grip for it all the way from the 7.5 position.

Right now I'm just waiting at 1.5 and changing the other way for any backhand.

But forehand side I'm pushing out with both hands a bit as part of initial turn. That creates a subsequent lopsided separation or breast stroke or swan flap in which one wing (the racket) goes up as the other (left arm) goes out. I like this so much better than bringing racket close by body then forcing it out which seems more like an extra step.

The medium early separation is pretty far from Djokovic-- he holds on to racket for longer.

But backswing and foreswing are more directly linked, to my mind, having nothing between them.

Mondo too seems a function of body rotations that seamlessly change direction.

The high mondo is the loop in this forehand version. There is no other loop. Mondo and loop are one and the same.

The upside down topple then melds into the rip.

Still to come: Better weight transfer to keep the ball consistently deep.

I found myself hitting see sees (topspin angles) and this played fine so I messed with nothing further.

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Remove any Cardboard Still Clinging to the Djokovic-Itch

I suggested taking a bit of wrist layback as part of initial move toward the ball. That may be a good idea for Roger Federer or anyone with an equivalent amount of flop available in his wrist. Too much flop during the flip can imbue one's forehand-- on a bad day-- with unwanted harshness.

Roger knows this and already takes a bit at the start of his famous stroke, does not save it all for his mondo (flip) as he accelerates forward at the ball. But if Roger were suddenly to decide to go Djokovic-itch, he might have to learn this little trick all over again.

As for the rest of us with 50 per cent less flop available to us, we need not worry about harshness and can use all of our flop in the flip at the top.

[bottle]

“ALL TOGETHER” by Bill Stowe

Here is an Amazon book review in its entirety, written by a man who suspiciously calls himself R.D. Paauw:

This is such a good book. There is a lot of talk and praise for THE BOYS IN THE BOAT by Daniel James Brown but I think ALL TOGETHER is better because William Stowe writes from first-hand experience: He was the stroke of the famous Vesper eight that won the Olympic title in 1964. He interviewed all the men in the boat forty years later and what an inspirational story he put together!

Stowe's book is better. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t lead to the other. But as an oarsman before I was a tennis player I have to say that rowing even more than tennis is a tight community in which everybody knows everybody else. That said, I adore Brown’s best-selling book (now supposedly being made into a movie) which among other things is one of the best accounts anywhere of the American Depression.

I see immediate connection between any tennis stroke and any rowing stroke in that both are a cycle, not a list of details for memorization. Yes, there are a thousand details or none, twenty or two, thirty or three, any one of which can destroy the whole stew. This to me approaches a definition of art in which every detail is essential part of the organic whole, which means that if you remove a single brush stroke or half a word or dancer’s gesture you spoil everything.

I really was exposed to the cycle idea when one of the oarsmen I was coaching at West Virginia University related to me his experience of participating in a workshop with Bill Stowe during the previous summer. From that moment I tried to put the same emphasis on cycle that Stowe as superb coach at Coast Guard Academy, New London, Connecticut did. And I try to apply that same emphasis to full tennis stroke cycle as I work with myself. The cycle idea makes me think that any small tweak is major overhaul, so one might as well “take it from the top.”

In ALL TOGETHER, Bill Stowe cites the great crew coach before him Rusty Callow as saying, “I never met an oarsman I didn’t like.” Stowe then quips, “Yeah, but he never met the Amlong brothers.” The Amlong brothers were so difficult that their gold medal producing coach Allen Rosenberg had to place them far apart in the boat so they wouldn’t fight.

A confession here: I didn’t like Bill Stowe the one time I met him. He was visiting his prep school buddy Charlie Brainard in Fenwick, Old Saybrook, Connecticut. They both attended the Kent school and to me seemed too much of a clique—anyway, I felt excluded. And thought maybe the coldness had something to do with my crew, Brown, going by Cornell in the 1960 Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship.

Stowe was the stroke—the key guy who sets the rate or pace and example for the other seven oarsmen in the boat—at Cornell. He had learned his beautiful stroke at Kent, just as the great stroke of our boat at Brown, Bill Engeman, learned his beautiful stroke at Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. And if you don't think Kent and Washington and Lee had an amazing rivalry you just don't know rowing history.

But Stowe wasn’t stroking Cornell the day we beat them. He was under academic probation for stealing two figures from a Christmas creche in Ithaca and installing them in his fraternity.

Because of my poor impression from meeting him, I never wanted to read his book despite knowing it existed. And in fact Brown University is not mentioned once in the book, not even in the index. But this month, February, I got to know Dick Bell, the head coach at Detroit Boat Club, who recommended it.

So I read the book and loved it then put the name Bill Stowe in a search engine and learned that he died this month—in February—after a fall from cellar steps of his house in Lake Placid, New York that caused his head to land on concrete.

People in other sports might not want to know, in detail, exactly how one of their own died. But Stowe was such an important strand in the tapestry of all of our lives that this information matters. And the later report was different from the first report. There just seems more dignity in a heart attack before one’s fall over a fall before one’s heart attack.

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Logo for Atlanta Falcons as Cue for Djokovic-Itch

(https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...tlanta+Falcons)

Well, not exactly. Maybe if you turned one of the logos upside down. One wing goes horizontally, the other almost vertically but on a slant back toward the body.

If you can understand this well enough to take it as prescription you may find yourself getting these fully topspun shots off with more ease than expected.

[bottle]

From Half a Dozen Ideas for a Saturday Morn

Order any tennis book by Dennis Ralston since he talks about arm going around the body. Omigod, now I find this (http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/othe...back-in-tennis).

Movement abetted by basic form of the Djokovic-itch.

"I am a snake." A principle built into the Djokovic-itch.

See see forehands utilizing the most unique characteristic of the Djokovic-itch but now without much or any body rotation.

From an old exchange between me and the neuroscientist and tennis coach Ray Brown.

Self-feed some Djokovic-itches, dwelling on weight transfer both angular and linear within neutral and semi-open form.

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I'm not going to write a separate post on each item, at least not today, but will start with movement since it is a strong point of the new shot.

We know that the human head is very heavy, something we therefore want to get going in desired direction as soon as possible without this being advisement of a lurch.

And what if we have a light though large head because of small brain inside the cranium due to Zika Politician's Breed Subdivision caused by a mosquito that bit our mother while we were in the womb.

The question applies as well to small brain in small head (microcephalus).

In either case the initial hips turn combined with gentle tipping of head may not be enough to carry the feet in desired direction. So we add two handed press for half of the backswing for 12 more ounces at the end of our arms.

(http://www.ralstontennis.com/)

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Initial Move of a Djokovic-Itch

SIM: Human head goes toward where the ball will be. Hips and shoulders turn in that direction. The two hands, starting low left and connected by the racket, turn in the same direction going ahead of the turning shoulders like a miniature race car pulling away. This all is SIM SIM SIM, which means that the happening of it is simultaneous.

Two likely things then happen for me, a right-hander playing doubles and returning serve on Har-Tru green clay from the deuce court:

1) One wing, the racket, goes up, arm bending, racket returning toward the body until it reaches the seminal position of Novak Djokovic about to administer topspin and pace on his forehand side. The other arm, also separating, continues parallel to court toward the right fence. And the shoulders and hips keep rotating to the max. SIM!

2) For a see see ("the topspin angle," John M. Barnaby called it) the arms separate in a weird wing flap the same exact way with one wing going up and in, the other out. The difference is that the shoulders do not continue to rotate. The weird wing flap happens as the shoulders stay still. So that by the time you scrape the ball they will not have rotated as much.

[bottle]

An Old Exchange between the Neuroscientist and Tennis Coach Ray Brown and me

ME
First perception: The samples of your forehand lesson seem incredibly clear and self-evident but visually quite subtle, too, and I have questions.

I thought I saw you straighten your elbow during the strike in the Tennis One sequence; I thought I saw you not do that on your own website (I hope it wasn't the same sequence!).

I feel most confident about "Contraction." And then, it seems to me the arm has no independent motion in "Rotation." And no independent motion in "Acceleration." And yes, the elbow slides forward in "The Strike," which will open the racket face. I know you want to get both ends of the racket moving briefly at the same speed but there could be more than one way to do that.

Thanks for your answer. I'd like not to have to think about this quite so much. I'd be grateful if you could still my last doubt.

We've learned that the upper arm can rotate like a hinged gate in Yandell's classic Eastern forehand; hopefully, it's not doing that here.

RAY BROWN
There is a great deal of latitude in the subtitles of a stroke. The sequences on TennisONE and our members site are the same. The sequence on the open site is slightly different. However, all sequences consist of only five frames each. It is possible for the human eye to fill in the intermediate stages even though they are not there.

It is possible to hit a very big forehand with the arm being fixed during rotation and acceleration. But there is room for some movement so long as it is controlled. The danger of movement during rotation is the arm may become destablilized, so it must be done with care. During the acceleration stage the shoulder and upper arm can be used for a small burst of speed.

Getting both ends of the racquet moving briefly at the same speed can be done in more than one way. For example one may use the shoulder, the legs, forearm extension, and perhaps hips. And maybe there is yet another way.

The upper arm rotation is a very subtle matter. It can be used but the elbow must be kept in front of the body plane or the racquet face will turn downward. How far in front depends on the grip!

[bottle]

"When you Finally do Find Something, Don't Beat it into the Ground."

That from Mr. Toohey, high level Canadian figure skater living in Virginia. I don't remember his first name, only that he had an enormous number of kids.

[bottle]

Use Regular Shot

# 2949's idea for a new see see proved untenable just from percentage of self-feeds successfully made compared to the same shot produced from one's regular forehand. Kyle recommended using one's regular forehand long long ago.

Of course my regular forehand-- my Djokovic-itch when I'm not using my McEnrueful-- was discovered just in the past week.

The notion of abbreviated backswing for the see see variation seemed clever but turned out to be no banana.

More shots hit a difficult target from a full Djokovic-itch with the bonus that the angle needn't be as sharp thanks to added pace.

I noticed that my sharp angle potential immediately improved with Thursday's first use of a Djokovic-itch in actual competition.

Retaining Djokovic-itch as a power shot makes sense for a 76-year-old just mastering this option which can generate speed, spin, angle, depth, pace-- the whole package.

All soft shots now get freed up to be hit off of composite grip McEnruefuls. At our club the other day I noticed a consistent but tepid young woman league player using backswing the same natural way but then hitting the ball with backspin.

"What a waste of a great backswing," I thought to myself but now am changing my tune.

With McEnroe's composite conviction to use mild down and up backswing, one can hit soft or hard.

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Communications to Bill Stowe

Since I once gave a brace of tennis lessons to John Higginson, one of the many top oarsmen Bill Stowe writes about in ALL TOGETHER-- his memoir of stroking the 1964 Olympic Gold Medal eight-oared American crew-- I don't see why I can't give a tennis lesson to Bill Stowe himself.

Beginning of Tennis Lesson

For an athlete like you, Bill, this will be nothing.

If you're playing golf you line up your shoulders to the target, right?

Well, for a tennis forehand, you've got to turn your shoulders just to get to that alignment, right? But from there substantial power in either tennis or golf derives from more body turn, right?

So here comes a ball. So get your hands over toward the side fence like a golfer.

No, get the hands over first as shoulders and hips turn at the same time right away-- first but not fast. Just push the racket over with both hands like this-- see? Everything'll be different when you lift the racket from the position of hands over to the side.

Now, what we talked about last time: The shoulders keep turning as the arms do their spread.

Mondo topple rip. You're getting it. Another.

More crosscourt.

You don't think a guy like Novak Djokovic would stop rolling his arm once he got it started, do you?

So here's another.

Slow down. Think. Relax, good shot.

Mondo elbow wrap.

The elbow going out topples/toggles the racket tip under the ball. Nice!

And the elbow going out opens the strings. But the rolling arm tends to close the strings. So the two actions cancel each other out to produce a surgical incision upward. Along with a bit of the poptop from still beveled racket we spoke about. Surgical incision to happen before the racket closes ridiculously much as it wraps around one's neck like this.

Solid mondo, then arm, then rip.

Solid means shoulders and arm move as one but just here near the top.

Mondo, toggle, wrap. Good spin that time.

Mondo rip.

Mondo rip. The toggle has become part of the rip. You noticed that?

Mondo rip.

Keep shoulders turning to get ready for the rip.

Push hands to start.

Bend arm as you lift the racket.

Golfy backswing, right? A right-handed golfer's right arm. A left-handed golfer's left arm.

Get that goofy golfy feel.

Connected mondo, rip.

Mondo wrap.

Wrap.

Mondo.

Wrap.

Rip it.

Wrap.

R.I.P. Requiescat in Pace.

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Second Time Out with the Djokovitch-itch

A fine shot, loaded with pace and spin. It never missed the court or became an unforced error. But it landed too much in service line bailiwick because of the severely closed racket face. The obvious answer at least to me is more topple or toggle or tock or bowl to open the beveled face a smidge more at start of the wipe. Obviously I haven't found the word yet to describe this essential component in which the racket tip, due to elbow moving out, goes down to practically catch up with the hand. If someone were to give me the perfect word I would filch it to make it my own. If nobody puts out and gives me the nomination I seek-- the greatest likelihood-- I shall simply use the device with one or all of the four words just posited or let it go nameless. I have to ask myself if I really want to share this shot much less any of its components-- too big to fail and too good to give away.

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Backswing

This process of developing any tennis stroke doesn't stop. It...never...stops.

I know I've made fun of Malcolm Gladwell. But here is where I take his 10,000 mile stuff seriously.

Both Djokovic and Federer do silly useless stuff at the top of their forehand backswings. You can study this topic all day-- and I have-- but if you study long and deep enough you will come to the same conclusion. Silly. Useless.

So how then can their forehands be so great? Myelination. Good goopy milk grey sticky stuff not hardened too much since they are relatively young men. The microscopically observable goop has been accruing around their neuronal pathways for a long, long time. The electrical impulses have zinged through those insulated tunnels faster and ever faster. For speed of impulse you might think of Gerard O'Neill's mass driver and its spin-off in the military. Or the particle accelerator that never got completed in Waxahatchee, Texas and was built instead in Cern, Switzerland.

Too much snow on the court today for self-feed. If I were there though I'd work on getting the right arm work for my Djokovic-itch backswing just as smooth and fast as that for power version of my McEnrueful.

And then, with hand raised in the seminal position so quickly, I will have bought some time. How best to use it?

This is just the ghost of a thought that might work:

Instead of mondoeing on the way down, just introduce the small fall at the top of every full backswing in golf. But classify it with backswing rather than foreswing.

That frees up arm to immediately make like a race car and pull down and away from one's body whirl.