A New Year's Serve

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Perfect. Life as we know it.

[tennis_chiro]

I actually bought it!!

Specifically, how does this video translate to a tennis player who has no intention of ever buying the manufacturer's product?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28S9R4K9Fs&feature=youtu.be

He might become more aware of subtle differences of hips speed as an important subject.

He might start asking to which strokes of his the new information could best apply.

He might think of personal ways of increasing hips torque resistance.

He might resolve to mercilessly rob everybody's best ideas, in all subjects, keeping in mind, that, in tennis, this would be perfectly all right and may in fact for the unselfish but self-interested though altruistic player be the best idea of all.

I was convinced it was a great concept. I wanted a little more distance on my golf shots. I also wanted to use the Hip Trainer as an adjunct to a Golf Fitness and Injury Clinic I was trying to run at a driving range where I was taking care of a lot of the golf pros. I figured we could make money by selling the Hip Trainers. I've had it over two years and haven't used it 5 times. It was too hard to get to hold onto my hips. I tried augmenting the harness with "water wings" to improve the connection, but I need to make an entirely different "belt-harness?" to hold the resistance to my hips. Still think it is a good concept, but I haven't gotten around to redesigning the harness.

A lot of hype and exaggeration in the videos, but they are fun. And the underlying concept has merit, just probably not as much as Somax is claiming.

don

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How Does This Translate To Tennis?

Specifically, how does this video translate to a tennis player who has no intention of ever buying the manufacturer's product?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28S9R4K9Fs&feature=youtu.be

He might become more aware of subtle differences of hips speed as an important subject.

He might start asking to which strokes of his the new information could best apply.

He might think of personal ways of increasing hips torque resistance.

He might resolve to mercilessly rob everybody's best ideas, in all subjects, keeping in mind, that, in tennis, this would be perfectly all right and may in fact for the unselfish but self-interested though altruistic player be the best idea of all.

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Forehand Spear

When should the arm, ideally, finish getting straight?

Would one find any advantage or solace in adding a bit of this element to two others that characterize the dynamic spear-- wrist graduation and racket's wind-down getting resisted?

If you (I) enjoy the added energy from straightening arm going backward, why wouldn't you enjoy the same going forward, and why shouldn't I split this activity evenly in half? Or in thirds?

Reader, you've heard the term "tennis practice?" Well, here's another: "tennis practive."

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Reflex Volley, Sharp

Here is one's chance to use what bad teachers thought you ought to learn-- to memorize.

Yes, memorize the radar dish positions that produce sharp angles from a ball that is reflected only.

Everybody who volleys has different ideas about how to do it. I go with Ellsworth Vines' old coach Mercer Beasley. The racket most often goes slowly forward to block the ball, i.e., to use the speed of the oncoming ball.

Exceptions are "sticked" volleys-- brief but chopped karate-style. And swinging volleys which are ground strokes without the bounce. And radar dish volleys, the subject here.

Put the radar dish out to the side and just hold it firm, I'd say, so that the oncoming ball bounces off of it to the precise point, almost parallel to the net, which you had in mind.

But did you truly visualize such a great target? I can't really say I've had a long career in tennis since I only got serious 30 years ago, but as my body falls apart, I can compensate, and sometimes more than compensate by filling in long neglected holes.

In singles I've always tended to volley in the direction of my travel compared to pros who prefer to end a point with a sharp angle.

Sharp angle behind one also can be great in doubles. One way to help develop correct radar dish settings is to try to reflect service returns off of weak but sharply angled serves. I know that a bouncing ball will reflect in a different way but the basic concept is the same, viz., get the setting correct and stay firm and you won't have to do much else.

Other than good movement to a correct court position, the memory work required to learn the precise radar dish settings is the biggest challenge here and can be mimed all at once as a continuum.

A low ball is reflected off of a more bent arm. A progression of different arm lengths puts contact farther away from the body as the oncoming shots get higher. Obviously, too, each higher, farther ball requires a slightly more closed racket face.

I'm preferring this method, at least intellectually before it becomes more animal, to taking the ball way out front.

I just think that all tennis experience teaches separation between hand and strings and that this separation works best to the side. If a fast ball comes straight at me and I try to block it too far in front, without dodging, I may get beaned off of a ricochet.

Learning the perfect radar dish settings can be difficult without a ball machine so sophisticated that it may not yet have been invented.

In self-feeding-- something I love to do-- one can simulate speed of oncoming ball by performing the clench-the-shoulderblades-together trick.

In the actual circumstance you wouldn't do that, but should you ever encounter a perfectly neutral ball with no oncoming momentum whatsoever, you might.

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Reply to Correction

Re: The Reunion
Sent By:
"Robert Personal"
Robert and Monika Larson

Beautifully graceful, correction. ;-). Hi from the land of pivo and duck.
Robert

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blah

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Re Stifel-Steiffel Family Reunion, Tennis Division

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The Stifels came from Neuffen, Germany. Johannes Stifel, a couple of hundred years ago, walked from Baltimore to Wheeling, a pretty fur piece.

For decades but maybe for centuries, the Stifel brand logo included the stencil of a boot. Not because any of the Stifels who carried on the old man's business manufactured boots but rather to celebrate his original walk.

The Stifels went into textiles. People in Africa would turn the label inside out so that everybody could see that the printed calico in their hand carried the boot and therefore was the real thing-- Stifel.

The Stifel family is not displeased with my explanation of the Stifel logo but does point out that "Stifel" means boot in German. (Pretty bad since I once worked on a German ship and also was chauffeur of the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the Bundesrepublik, i.e. West Germany, and therefore am supposed to know German. Oh well.)

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Forehand for the Person with Less than 90-degree Federerian Wrist Layback

That would be me. My wrist goes back 45 degrees, opposite wrist to about 60 degrees—childhood ski accident, don’t you know. Broke radius in two places. Under the influence of truth serum, kept telling one of the nurses what I’d like to do to her. Was 13. The medical staff had a good sense of humor.

So, I should cock the racket up as part of the unit turn but keep the wrist straight? Or, reader, don’t you believe in tailormade instruction based on the individual’s physical, mental and moral deformity? Just the basics for you, right? How about when you try to adapt the ATP Style Forehand for yourself? Do you start wrist a-laying-back right away? That’s what Federer does. At least in the specific Tennis Player videos I studied. Takes some of the 90 degrees to begin with, the rest during the flip. Suppose you got 70 degrees to work with, reader, whacchugonna do? It’s your math problem. I’m glad it’s not mine.

Me, I got 45 degrees max to work with—where Fed is most of the time AT CONTACT. But I’ve been working on a second forehand, a 2.5 continental in which my contact is straight-wristed all the time. Will be no big difference to achieve straight-wristed short crosscourts with my 3.5 strong eastern. And 45-degree wrist long crosscourts like Fed. And 45-degree for down the line? Not as good as 90-degree but there’s always late contact.

So, I cock the racket up as part of the unit turn but keep the wrist straight. Emancipation Proclamation. Racket tip is raked toward the net and I’ll keep it that way as I fast-sweep the arm at this established level while turning body more by pointing across with opposite hand.

To reiterate, the elbow is fast-sweeping back while straightening back, too. Isn’t this simple? I think so. Because if I’m going to have maximum independence of arm going forward I’ll need more going backward first, at the end of which two things will simultaneously happen: 1) downward motion of heel of hand or “tapping the dog,” 2) body core reversing against arm, which lags because it’s trying to come forward but is forced backward instead, as part of the catchup pace system. The heel of hand taps relaxedly down as it is arm-wrestled a small bit to the inside.

The spin system overlaps in that tapping hand makes you wanna roll. Backward. But how much? More for more topspin. Less for flatter drive—huge information for me since I’ve always tried to maximize and quicken the backward arm roll. Big mistake. And if one decides that one is going to spear for one-and-one-half foot and that everything will happen during the spearing—the “flip” that everybody talks about—one may arrive at a different concept of this flip, not abrupt but prolonged through the spearing or aiming of a flashlight or pulling on the knot in a flexible rope or drawing a butt cap to keep the racket spear a-spearing straight. In other words, there’s some wiggle in this move.

The tapping hand makes you wanna roll. Moreover, it starts a roll. How much should you resist this? The more you resist, the slower the racket tip will wind down as you build up force for your wipe. Wrist can be easing backward too if that’s what you want.

Well, Jimmy Arias wouldn’t think that a player of my level should be doing any of this stuff but guess what I’d like to tell him. Same thing that Ivan Lendl told the guy in the crowd behind me in Rock Creek Park that time, the guy who was jeering him for his back problems.

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Alma and Uma

The language "radial deviation" and "ulnar deviation" already is code. Kay Scarpetta, the medical examiner in Patricia Cornwell books (sold: one hundred million copies) might disagree. "Here's the radius," she would say, prying a bone from her bone box. "And here's an ulna. These are real parts of the human arm and those are their names."

Nope. By the time one has added the Latinate word "deviation," one has created code, the secret intention of which is never scientific consistency through elimination of too much suggestion but the exclusion of undesirable people from any chance of understanding what one is talking about.

So, if we're going to use code to create a new backhand slice variation, let's go all the way. We'll call ulnar deviation Uma after Uma Thurman since she's always chopping people in Quentin Tarantino films.

And from Uma we'll need an opposite: Alma for the radial cocking that leads to a relaxed ulnar chop.

Next, we'll time our Alma and Uma to the double roll present in the best backhand slice.

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Discovery-Based Tennis

I'm still on a slicey perfecto jag. You'd think I'd be content with the backhand slice I have since it was found to be good by a jury of Stifels in West Virginia last weekend.

The Stifels came from Neuffen, Germany. Johannes Stifel, a couple of hundred years ago, walked from Baltimore to Wheeling, a pretty fur piece.

For decades but maybe for centuries, the Stifel brand logo included the stencil of a boot. Not because any of the Stifels who carried on the old man's business manufactured boots but rather to celebrate his original walk.

The Stifels went into textiles. People in Africa would turn the label inside out so that everybody could see that the printed calico in their hand carried the boot and therefore was the real thing-- Stifel.

Some of these Stifels became tennis players, a captain of the women's team at Yale, a top junior in Ohio, and two mean uncles who allowed their over-enjoyment to show when they beat the first two playing together one time in a game of doubles.

So, they liked my slice, patterned on Ken Rosewall. But it can easily get out of whack. Keep the elbow high, I would say. The double roll will happen more in an up and down direction then.

This kind of slice is new with me. Or should I say it recurred with enough force for me to call it discovery.

And every discovery in my case immediately spawns another maybe better or worse.

Elbow high relative to body, racket straight up. (We need a constant for the various slices-- perhaps this can be it.)

Arm stays bent as it keys the racket tip down. Now, clench the shoulder-blades together. The late arm straightening will be passive, caused by the vicious clenching and joined by a small amount of forward roll which is deliberate whether conscious or not.

With all racket motion to follow an inside out path. That means the shoulders were turned WAY AROUND.

So, the train has left the station and is coming into the next station at high enough speed to threaten to blow it away.

How to prolong the contact at the cusp of a direction change to the right? A bit of forward wrist sting combined with a bit of forward hips turn.

The pin-oak Steinway meanwhile remains in the Stifel Museum. The brown wood through the lacquer contains the most finely woven texture I've ever seen in a tree bole.

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Trade-offs

If (my favorite word) you can straighten your arm while rolling it backward, as in Rosewallian slice, you can save the straightening for the forward roll if you want to.

But why would you want to? To create a balanced alternative. To form a slightly inside out swing, the most powerful swing possible in all sports. To reduce sidespin which may be breaking the ball in an undesired direction.

Well, why wouldn't you want to? Because the first choice is safe, having excluded the arm straightening variable from the contact zone.

Trade-off.

Seems simple.

But hips are a variable, as well.

Do I turn them here or here or there or both but not all? My vagueness is deliberate since one should find the answer on court.

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“Master the Modern Slice” by John Evert—a Review

This article, appearing in the Wimbledon 2013 issue of TENNIS Magazine, does not promulgate the Federerian chop so discussed and all but promulgated here in the Tennis Player forum as if we all must undo Nadalian topspin in every shot that comes our way.

Let’s quickly look at Federer:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Backhand/RF_BH_Slice&stroke=RF%20BHSlice%20Center%20Side5%20500fps.mp4

Is there a double roll in this shot? Definitely, but it’s mild both going backward and forward. That doesn’t mean the rolls aren’t vigorous or firm. There’s just not much of them.

Is there a double roll in the Evert-promulgated shot? Definitely and more extreme as in Rosewallian slice. How much does the player hit through the ball? Not as much as
Rosewall, in this next clip, but more than Federer does, at least if we’re considering racket work only (as opposed to weight shift, which will take racket through the ball in a different way):

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

I figure rightly or wrongly that most readers of this forum probably subscribe to TENNIS, and so can see what I’m talking about, but if not, let me describe features of the Evert shot derived both from the article’s photography and its prose.

This slice is hit with an eastern grip and from close to the back of the head starting with a soon to straighten bent arm (and best to be straightened passively from the body while combined with backward roll). After unit turn, the arm bends an extra amount to bring racket head closer to human head. Sounds like a pure chop is in the works, but no, what with the eastern grip, contact will be far out front creating more flatness. “The point of contact on the slice tends to be farther out in front than on a topspin backhand,” a caption reads, but of course the brother used for the photography normally hits with a two-hander, we are told.

One also could note that the player has opposite hand all the way up on strings rather than around throat, but maybe that difference from Rosewall and Federer both is not that significant. Note too that Rosewall’s shot starts from farther back and with a vertical racket tip which I have to say I love for any one-handed shot since you get to balance the strings above your hand—a marvelous sensory cue for lightness of grip and repeatability.

But here’s where I’m going with this: Despite the outlined differences between the article’s proposal and Rosewallian slice as we can know it, the two shots are alike, with double roll incorporated into a basically level shot remaining the big similarity.

So why is a “model” approach better than something generic? Because Ken Rosewall is a person, and people are more interesting than things or even ideas.

NOTES: 1) Rosewall’s grip with big knuckle on second slat is more adaptable to extreme situations (and late contact), I’m sure, and also offers the opportunity to add an optional bit of wrist sting. 2) When hitting flat rolled slice, one hits very near the cusp of forward roll and no roll. Just as it’s better to be late rather than early in dancing, I have decided that if I have to make a mistake I don't want a block, i.e., a rock. I wanna roll.

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Stifel-Steiffel Open in Wheeling, West Virginia

Me and any partner didn't win it all but performed well enough in the middle of the draw.

Received universal praise for my sliced backhand. I didn't tell anyone how newfound it was.

So thanks to Don and Stotty for their significant contributions-- not virtual at all-- to my development of my own version of Rosewallian slice.

I have always been fascinated by large families in which everyone is a good tennis player. I think the family teaching philosophy is, "Give them the strokes and let them go." Yes, I heard those exact words at the 100-plus Stifel-Steiffel family reunion this weekend.

I of course will never abandon my always tinker and re-invent theory-- anathema to accomplished tennistas and the 10,000 hours or ten-year approach.

But I believe that learning itself can be myelinated, don't you know.

Since natural results oriented encouragement is the big thing for me in tennis, I shall now apply the basics of my Rosewallian slice to one-handed flat and topspin, as Jim McLennan suggested was possible in his old Rosewallian slice article at TennisOne.

That article impressed me a lot back in the days when I was writing posts at TennisOne-- before John Yandell encouraged me instead to write them here at Tennis Player where he indicated correctly that I would have more fun.

Yes, there was and is huge freedom in this forum, and one can learn amazing things here as well as in the other sections of the TennisPlayer site.

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Whoops. I just remembered interesting advice from teaching pro Dave Smith on hitting a sharply angled volley in which ball departs from racket to travel across the body. Dave is a big believer in hitting this shot from side of the body rather than out front. So I'll have to try that on the "cut-ball-back-into-the-tramline-behind-one" option, too. If it works, one can cover more ground out to the side with one's arm as well as one's feet-- surely not a bad idea. To carry off the experiment, racket tip will need to be up. One might be able to put more strings on ball this way, i.e., achieve a more solid though still cutting contact. Perhaps one can compromise: Put racket partly out to side and partly out to the front. In either case the footwork should be the same-- sidestep with or without carioca additive followed by a hitting step straight toward the net. Stay solid but use oncoming speed of ball even more than usual. To keep racket focused on the target for this reflexive shot, one should straighten elbow more for the high variations, always with racket tip slanted somewhat to the outside? Higher versions will then be hit a bit farther away from core, too.