A New Year's Serve

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Two Steps Back

Use the mondo that was using before.

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To Wipe or Not to Wipe

Before so many deodorants one could recognize people by their different smells. In a forehand, one can be more uninhibited if one does not wipe (twist the arm) in the process of actually contacting the ball. One can rely on body-assisted abduction for one's topspin instead. One need only-- if one has a strong eastern grip-- have gotten any forward roll out of the way before one begins one's lift.

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Through dire computer problems I have kept on thinking about the PetraKordian backhand and the BAM! forehand. It has been my conceptualization that sudden arm lift from an extremely closed racket face was best path to produce the most uninhibited while still workable BAM.

Now I must question that idea. The thought of bowling racket tip under staying-back-elbow has at least been interesting in the way it offers subtle adjustment possibilities in a short space. I am not about to abandon that progress in thought.

The question here however has to do with what comes next. Once elbow releases it continues to change pitch toward openness though at a slower rate.

Previously, I knew from trial and error that forehands in which arm roll on the ball figured were workable. Think of all the instruction from Braden onward that urges the student to keep strings square and reduce the probability of error due to slight variations in contact point.

One still wants this insurance policy while linking it to uninhibited racket head speed.

Therefore: The player pushes lifting through a stuck cellar door (abduction) but at the same time cranks up to contact. These simultaneous actions along with body rotation determine the direction of the followthrough.

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Building a More Potent (and Dangerous) Forehand

Dangerous to opponents but dangerous to you too, reader. More risk but with more possible reward.

Three-quarter arm. Elbow back until one is ready to push through the stuck cellar door. Racket toppling under hand, which makes it open up too much creating the best lobs ever. These items are building blocks.

One must counter the opening racket face long before, immediately before, or during the contact.

I know-- you are unable to do anything deliberative in four thousandths of a second contact-- but you can be doing something interesting when contact occurs. Why won't the instructors tell you that?

Because, like Striker the bad aunt in JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, they want to keep you their malleable, unselfconfident slave.

I don't think I have the answer right now although I am close. Speculation is ever the way to go with changing (growing, one could say) tennis strokes.

Slow the elbow push to accentuate the cranked lift of the strings? The push is a lift too because of construction of the bod. Subdue force and distance of the crank to accentuate speed of this arm lift? Try to do both SIM yet in a thoroughly uninhibited way? Devise a topple-under to windshield wipe sequence that keeps elbow back until the moment the ball is being hit? Don't hold elbow back at all but send it past bod as if on a greased rod while both the mondo and the wipe take place?

The more one knows, the less one knows. This is good but only if one has the temperament to keep such matters open.

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When Feeling Oneself Aging, Go Back to One's First Forehand

It's just an idea. But one's first forehand was probably short. And without a loop unless one's father was Mike Agassi.

I recently figured that, with all my explanatory narratives of stroke technique, I was spending much energy both on and off the court in achieving a specific stroke configuration coming out of my mondo.

What if instead I went directly to that configuration (wrist laid back and forearm rolled down) on three-quarter arm length?

A bunch of new options would open up. I could tock or topple the racket tip under just as I have been doing in more elaborate preparations but now unencumbered by any mondo. Alternately, I could bring pointing down forearm around level as if it were a short-radius baseball swing, which would close one's strings an extra amount while dramatically altering the outgoing ball path about to occur.

And then I could crank whole arm while keeping rotating elbow at a constant level or crank arm while also lifting it to contact or simply lift arm to ball without cranking it at all.

Taken in different combination along with pushing elbow or not pushing elbow, these options would multiply one's choices. I haven't yet tried them in self-feed, only in doubles competition. Those forehands I tried this way did not deteriorate my game and in some instances were more accurate.

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Try This No Crank Forehand

I tell myself to try it. I tell you, reader, to try it. What's the difference? The premise is that both you and I could be more imaginative. And won't want to hit this shot all the time-- of course not.

I propose starting the shot off without a lot of wasted arm motion but rather straight back and down preparation. The "down" is what used to be mondo or flip in more elaborate strokes. I've practiced mondo enough. So I can use mondo anywhere I want. In backswing this time, thank you, whether that makes it mondo still or not. Wrist laid back, forearm rolled down equals mondo, at least in one interpretation. Freeing me to do something simpler at beginning of the forward stroke.

1) Set racket tip down low, 2) Swing elbow horizontally a short distance toward net, 3) Lift elbow up back of the ball.

Did I need to close the racket a bit as I pushed elbow a short distance forward? Perhaps. Do it next time also then.

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Sense of Mystery

Straight back and mondoed forehand preparation opens up a whole new drop-down menu of shot choices, I'd say, although this list in my case is still being populated.

But is the word "mondoed" as used here even accurate? Perhaps not. Not if mondo (flip) can only occur in reactive fashion that counters forward elements in the stroke.

The early layback and turn-down of wrist and forearm can enable:

.Loop or feel in front of bod rather than behind it.

.More control in lobs. Just keep elbow of three-quarters length arm back while rolling forearm downward a bit (bowling) to start hand on a down-and-up path just before elbow starts to push upward.

.A flattened out shot where hand works horizontally around elbow thus closing strings. The elbow can then follow the strings as late body rotation also chimes in.

.Hand again can work horizontally around elbow only this time the thrust of elbow is upward rather than outward.

.No holding back of elbow at all. The elbow goes slowly level than quickly upward. This is a soft topspun shot.

.Another soft topspun shot in which forearm bowls straight down as arm straightens to relaxed full length thus abandoning the three-fourths setting of the other options presented here. That will close racket even more. And create the sensation of a bowled or topped shot hit way out in front. Since I haven't tried this shot I can't know yet whether it is any good.

Talking up one's drop-down menu like this seems important since language is thought. And without thought there are no discoveries.

Opinion: Traditional loop forehands lead to smaller drop-down menus which can be either good or awful.

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Sort of Exciting

It's exciting to come up with a drop-down menu of new forehands due to a slight change in one's basic configuration.

Knowing that one of those forehands is a shot that's never even been tried is still more exciting.

The temperature has been close to a hundred degrees Fahrenheit for several days now. Not the usual number of persons out on the courts.

But if I go early enough perhaps I can get in some self-feed and report back.

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How to Pry

I speak not of interview technique but rather of how to pry in auto mechanics or any other physical activity. One needs a good fulcrum. In the fragile shape of a pry generis tennis forehand, one doesn't want the turning elbow to lose its purchase.

One therefore while keeping elbow back nevertheless moves it forward an inch or half-inch or quarter-inch until the prying is completed.

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A Quite Elegant Shot

Here's the description from which I worked-- before I just tried the shot:

.Another soft topspun shot in which forearm bowls straight down as arm straightens to relaxed full length thus abandoning the three-fourths setting of the other options presented here. That will close racket even more. And create the sensation of a bowled or topped shot hit way out in front. Since I haven't tried this shot I can't know yet whether it is any good.

It is good, at least in self-feed. But I am a betting man and now place the bet is that it will be good in competition too.

Some caveat to the description. This shot is not "soft topspin." It's a lot of abduction type topspin due to the long steep runway to the ball. That runway can be on a slant to the outside to nicely counter the effect of body rotation to the inside. We seek balance in all things, don't you know.

Also, the shot is compatible with classical weight transfer of the delayed variety as opposed to kinetic chain over-scheme which often applies its thunder too early.

The shot may have a big future in front of it since one can pretty easily apply full angular body weight or none or something in between to the contact.

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Who is Capable of Giving or Receiving a Single Instruction?

If "who" has a summer cold and finds three remedies on the net, which of the three will he ignore?

The one that says to stand over a pot of boiling water and breathe the steam for half an hour. I'm doing it. My clipboard is on the same stove. Seems to work, at least somewhat.

Helps, occasionally, to close the unclogged nostril and lower head just a bit more.

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A Straight Arm Shot and A Bent Arm Shot Both

This shot is not "soft topspin." It's a lot of abduction type topspin due to the long steep runway to the ball. That runway can be on a slant to the outside to nicely counter the effect of body rotation to the inside. We seek balance in all things, don't you know...
The shot is good, at least in self-feed. But I am a betting man and now place the bet that it will be good in competition too.

And it was-- it worked every time I tried it despite the greenness of the thing.

But another highly speculative new shot I used today is bent arm at three-quarter length and described at the same time in # 3187 :

A flattened out shot where hand works horizontally around elbow thus closing strings. The elbow can then follow the strings as late body rotation also chimes in.

This is the first forehand I hit today and was such a spectacular winner that my opponent who had just served asked what was going on. I then made the mistake of saying, "That's probably the best forehand I'll hit today." Which proved to be the case except for two or three of the straight arm variety.

We go now or rather I go to Shakespeare in MACBETH: "Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives."

Which means in sterile numbskull contemporary American English. "If you talk something up too much before you try it, the passion drains out and you fail." (The proposed murder of King Duncan in the original context.) To rephrase again: "Don't talk about it. Just stick him."

This is the same thing that Ernest Hemingway said about telling to some girl you're flirting with something you plan to write. You may succeed with the girl but never write the damned thing. To rephrase still again: "If I talk it I don't write it."

The flattened out shot I want to improve here causes the ball to jump high just like the straight arm choice but does so with more poptop, i.e., one eggs the ball more while slinging elbow on a shallower rising path.

To try and bring this other new shot home I now reverse my usual animus against the loop in looped forehands.

I say to myself, "I love looped forehands so long as they are forward emphasis."

What I mean: Racket on arm gets low from wrist simultaneously laying back as forearm winds tip down. That is all smooth motion seamlessly integrated with body turn and footwork and is the beginning of a forward emphasis loop. The elbow moves a little but essentially stays back. The forearm moves smoothly around the elbow. We're still in the loop.

Then and only then you hit the ball with body and firing elbow working together as one.

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The Art of the Name: Elaphe Vulpina and Cream of Federfore

Too bad that a writer isn't as good as a bully at assigning names-- unless the writer is a bully-- always possible.

Tony Schwartz, author of THE ART OF THE DEAL, a man clearly influenced by his 30-year association with Donald Trump, was recently asked what he would call his supposedly co-authored best-seller if he were writing it today. THE SOCIOPATH, he said.

A ninth grader in Granville, Ohio named me, a seventh grader, "Sleeping Jesus." And George W. Bush named Karl Rove "Turd Blossom," the wittiest thing he ever said.

People who aren't bullies or writers don't understand the huge effect that names can have. My name taken from a friend for one of my two new forehands, "Elaphe Vulpina" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk), greatly affects how I hit it.

While I recently abandoned or modified mondo or flip as essential ingredient in most of my forehands, I needn't rush that flip in Elaphe Vulpina the way I do in Cream of Federfore.

In fact, I've decided I want to prolong the two elements of flip, make them sinuous and smooth so as to slow down my forward emphasis loop.

Hand will lay back while turning down followed by downward angled forearm tracking round level while twisting the strings more closed.

What a slow and deliberate loop this will be! Leading to the hardest hit forehands in my life if all goes well.

No name can ever be perfect, and so Cream of Federfore should not give itself airs, should more accurately be called Remnant of Federfore.

The hand can even snap down-- who cares? The smoothness lies in what comes next: a twist from the shoulder ball combined with straightening of arm from three-quarter to full length.

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Cream of Federfore Works but Elaphe Vulpina Does Not

What a miserable mistake my Elaphe Vulpina forehand turned out to be.

The morning was not as full of victory as it could have been; still I don't regret my choice to use the E.V. whenever I could-- there was a clean pass down the alley but more important the experience is educational.

The whole thing about this latest cluster of new forehands is that they all start from the same preparation: three-quarter length arm taking racket back as wrist lays back and forearm rolls the racket tip low.

That wrist and forearm move is known as flip or mondo when it happens in natural reaction to forward motion by the larger bod.

When it happens sooner and only from willfulness it might be called something else-- reader, you decide.

Slowness of this wriggle is what formed the striking Elaphe Vulpina. But one can flip as fast as in a mondo even though the flip is produced sooner and in a different way.

P.S. Aeronautical banking of the shoulders on both backswing and foreswing is a great addition to the flattest version of these shots. Also, how is one ever to come up with a consistently great shot if one isn't willing to hit some home runs along the way?

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Four Options

I'm lucky enough to be in a summer house in South Chatham, Massachusetts with four and possibly five good tennis players-- for a week.

We'll see how things crack up.

I'm the eldest. The youngest has the best forehand, taught to her by Viktor Roubanov, the former boys' champ of the USSR.

I'm thinking, rather than using the inverted loop that was somewhat successful last year, I'll go with my throwback to my own teen-aged forehand.

But unlike other players, I'm always on a stroke production journey no matter the latest decision.

I'd like to see coming naturally out of myself 1) a one-half arm length double bend arm forehand with upper arm roll to bring the right-angled forearm around level like a farm gate followed by residual roll to turn racket slightly over toward left fence:

2) a three-quarter length version in which racket tip gets around faster (and perhaps farther) in the initial stage;

3) a straight arm version from severely inside (and almost in front of one) to severely outside with very steep racket rise;

4) McEnrueful hit from composite grip, a very solid body shot (arm fused to body throughout), especially good in my case for low balls as I'm charging the net.

Why do I go into this stuff? First, to clarify subject matter about which I care.