A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

An Important Distinction

What I do on a tennis court and on a concept board (or in my case a clipboard from having been a reporter) are two different things.

Like any tennis player, I want to do well, so I never bring more than one or two new concepts with me out on the court.

Right now however I am indoors writing in longhand on my clipboard.

And foresee a return to earlier experiments where there was more of a pause than a slow-down occurring at some point in a loop.

With this pause occurring at a high point that isn't very high established through leading with bent elbow.

The latest forehand experiment included double elbow movement within a loop and no doubt I will return to that.

For now however I want to keep elbow back and in one spot while I wind forearm around and down.

Why? Two reasons. 1) Great for a lob. 2) Hit a couple of these moderately fast forehands without thinking today and they were sweet what with their late elbow push producing poptop.

"John, you had a lot of spin on that one."

(Thank you for saying that, partner.)

[bottle]

Divvy-Divvy: Aeronautical Banking This Time

I put the lowering of an imaginary Maule's right wing with downward section of a forehand loop.

This frees the wing to bank upward during body-and-elbow push.

The Maule is a small plane good for quick landings and quick take-offs.

Arthur Ashe maybe had some sort of similar action in mind when he spoke of a theoretical forehand in which one lands on the court on one's right (hitting) shoulder.

But this scheme all sounds too neat. Should downward section of the forehand loop be classified in the 1 of 1-2 rhythm? No, downward section is part of the 2, i.e., is part of the unified hit.

Backswing then, to go back to beginning of the stroke, must immediately raise the racket tip. We should perhaps re-define the word "loop" only to refer to the phenomenon of backswing.

This no doubt is difficult, complex and confusing thought but we are more interested in the new forehand being born here than in English expression.

In fact there is loop in the backswing and loop in the foreswing but who cares about fact when one's mental health is involved? For sanity's sake just lift the racket tip like Roger Federer while squeezing elbow closed a bit and call that the 1 of 1-2 rhythm. Unless you want to add a bit of excess backward body turn which almost could suggest the existence of a transition.

Now comes the 2 of 1-2 rhythm with all of the subsequent: The arm straightens to 3/4 length. The forearm bats down and around. Since the elbow momentarily stays back the strings have to close from wherever they were. Then and only then the elbow releases for its big push defined in the single word-sound BAM!

[bottle]

Design Feature in Bam Forehand

Banking down of hitting shoulder occurs after hitting step with right-hander's left foot just as in a McEnrueful.

This banking takes place in tandem with forward hips rotation. Unlike a McEnrueful where arm and body then perform as a single piece however, one uses all kinds of forward arm and backward wrist additive along with a strong eastern rather than composite grip.

Do you think, reader, that one could convey this instruction to oneself or anybody else through photography, cinematography or natural science illustration?

Ha!

[bottle]

New Forehand

The previous forehand worked for one hour of competition before disintegration-- not good enough. I now propose an almost straight back backswing in which hand moves parallel with court but forearm does not. (The forearm instead points slightly down. The essential design feature here is a three-quarter length arm.) Forearm slightly pointing down plus hand moving parallel to the court create the effect of a moving caliper.

Also proposed: straight wrist through this process permitting the wrist to mondo through the keying of forearm forward which comes next.

There shall be no aeronautical banking in the performance of this particular forehand. That is saved for McEnrueful which in my view is an all body shot.

Let me be clear the speaker said before emitting a cloud of ink revealing a political squid.

I don't want that. But understand, reader, that the strings open backward and close forward within this plan.

Okay, I'm picking up a racket. The minimal arm work of this backswing accomplishes one half of a normal mondo-- the rolling down of forearm.

So that the other half-- layback of wrist-- now occurring as one cranks racket tip forward tries to go downward since the forearm already has rolled back.

This is all the loop that anybody should need. Or is it a loop at all since forearm rolling forward should cancel out wrist laying backward?

Rolling the racket forward now becomes easy.

And release of the held back elbow happens next.

As I mime this indoors (but with an actual racket) I see arm roll blending into elbow release more seamlessly with the feel of a huge pingpong slam.

Some roll of the racket even during contact now becomes possible to maintain constant pitch without destroying the freedom of the stroke.

[bottle]

Best Cue for Preceding Material

Does levelness of hand travel cause the arm roll or vice-versa or both?

Both, obviously, but let the arm roll cause the levelness for best cue.

Am leaving for doubles now.

[bottle]

Review

A very functional forehand, maybe the best I can hit. Unfortunately, however, at 40-love for us I got a short high sitter for a power volley-swat in the right alley and missed the wide open court and pulled up lame with a high right calf sprain that will keep me from playing tennis for at least a week.

[bottle]

Reflection

Okay I'm damaged, but the damage had nothing to do with the new forehand other than its making of me more competitive.

What happened has nothing to do with whether the new shot is excellent or very good or good.

I love the way the quick half mondo-producing roll with elbow in one place melds into slower roll as the elbow goes out.

Using this shot, I hit the outside line of the crosscourt alley for full pace clean winners a number of times and certainly will have good motivation to heal.

[bottle]

Further Reflection

It's probably the same forehand I used when I was about 30 and got to play one match with Katharine Hepburn, who was considerably older, against her brother and my brother. I kept hitting that same line even though I was playing the ad side.

Back then, I hit that line because my partner was Katharine Hepburn. Now, 46 years later, I hit it because I finally figured the stupid shot out.

[bottle]

Reflect More

Here comes a thought that seems obvious but is not.

It seems likely that forearm roll backward and forward were accomplished from the forearm.

And that the roll as elbow finally went out was accomplished from the whole arm.

The palm of the hand laying back as forearm rolled forward could have been squashing a mosquito on one's stuck cellar door just before one pushed through.

[bottle]

A Loop That Isn't A Loop

I tend to become hyper, giddy, carbonated when a new stroke truly works out.

The situation is compounded by my getting injured at the same time.

My sober re-assessments are impossible. I can't get out on a court, play doubles, encounter the talented people who will expose my new discovery as a sham.

Usually, that is what happens. Okay, the new thing worked against A and B but how about against C and D?

This healthy progression is precluded this time. In fact I can hardly stand up. Hope had tickets to the Tigers-Red Sox game and I didn't want to miss that, so I limped miles through the rain with the aid of my western Mexican rattlesnake cane. A physician from Hope's church saw me limp-climbing down the nosebleed bleachers of Comerica Park and just laughed at my foolish decision not to stay home.

The injury has fixed in time my discovery of the stroke and all the new illusions that come with it.

It is a loop without being a loop. It is only a loop if one thinks solely about what the forearm does. Instead of forearm and wrist pulling together they now pull against one another which puts initial foreswing on a level plane with more chance than usual for repeatable success.

And when you use a modified grip system as I do that always places thumb on a pointy ridge you can lightly hold your stick from top and bottom which helps you from laying back your wrist too soon.

The extra opening of racket face creates excess forward forearm roll. This actually helps the subsequent whole arm roll as the elbow finally goes out-- something that's only been a dream. One puts a big push on the ball like Big Papi hitting a home run to defeat the Tigers 3 to 2 but one gets big spin, too. Wrist lays back as forearm rolls forward. Altogether an extremely satisfactory shot. And the Tigers organization shouldn't have made such a big deal of honoring the retiring Big Papi (David Ortiz) with gifts, testimonials and photographs before the game started last night. He took it as encouragement.

[bottle]

The Katoui

If my new forehand is as important as I think I ought to give it a name.

I considered "The Katharine Hepburn Destiny Forehand" then "The Kate Fate" but am going with "Katoui."

Our little doubles match-- Katharine Hepburn and I beating my brother and her brother-- had to have a payoff.

Her brother had seen my Aguecheek in the University of Rhode Island Theater-- another factor-- but the biggie was beating that good player, Dick, and the other good player, Derek.

And so I got a call from Dick. I would be the skinny fool in COCO since the old one just quit, and had 24 hours in which to learn 140 lines. I would stay in Kate's brownstone for the duration of the run.

I am not so stupid as not to realize this was a remarkable and generous offer. And I remember telling the story decades later to actors at the North Carolina School of the Arts and hearing them thoroughly condemn me as a complete idiot.

I just felt that I already had enough madness in my life. And didn't think I could learn 140 lines on the train ride to New York. And wasn't sure what life in the brownstone would be.

Years later when I'd read every biography of Kate, I wondered if any of the authors had an identity of his or her own.

In the book written by A. Scott Berg the most important detail came from Berg's initial interview of Hepburn in the aforementioned brownstone (the interior of which I saw twice).

The big question, with allusion to Kate's urologist father, was how often Kate thought Berg should pee.

I'll put my identity in the forehand that she praised a lot and that helped us beat her brother and my brother. Its name: "The Katoui."

[bottle]

How Much is the New Stroke Private or Potentially Public?

Nothing wrong with private strokes. The tour is full of them. But if the stroke is very simple, why not give it away? I'd love to teach my Katoui to a tabula rasa, somebody with a sawed off racket-- a person who never heard of Katharine Hepburn.

This infant's first stroke wouldn't be better than a Federerian or Nadalian forehand but still would prove far superior to the majority of forehands currently being taught.

Or do I delude myself? Should I learn from a painful experience I had in Winston-Salem North Carolina at a time when I thought I had Roger Federer's forehand figured out?

When I met a good looking Eurochick at a party I told her I could teach her Roger Federer's forehand and she agreed to a couple of lessons.

The result was a disaster. She over-thought every move and added her complications to my own, in fact creaked like a rusty gate and had to sit down gasping against the back fence despite being well put together.

And yet she was very smart and clearly educable, a libertarian professor of economics at Salem College who subsequently was flown across the pond to explain her private enterprise laden national health care plan before the Swiss Parliament.

So what went wrong? I'm still trying to figure that out. We drove from one court to another after which she observed that I didn't drive fast enough.

Even worse, my Federfore or imitation Federer forehand began to fail me too in all of my own singles matches.

So I don't know if the Katoui is readily transferrable to my hypothetical infant or anyone else. Perhaps one needs to have developed a modified grip system in which the tip of one's thumb always touches a pointy ridge. And a wait position with racket cheated low to backhand side. And early separation of the two hands like McEnroe, Austin, Connors and Evert.

It's so simple. The forearm of three-quarter length arm simply rolls in time with all other backswing elements while wrist stays straight. The forearm next rolls forward while the palm lays back like a filling sail. The whole arm rolls more slowly as the elbow finally goes out. The departing penetrating ball carries heavy topspin with sharp veer to one's inside. What a shot and what more does one want? This shot is good enough.

[bottle]

Stotty's Advice for Hitting a See See

"Use as few moving parts as possible."

In my case that would be the solid body shot I call my McEnrueful, a stroke that is sad it isn't a John McEnroe forehand.

Terminology in play here: "see see" or topspin angle. Preferred version: short crosscourt although short reverse crosscourt could be good too.

On Saturday I hit one of these see sees for a clean winner. "Bet he can't do that again," one of my opponents said to the other people on the court.

But using few moving parts should give me a good chance.

My McEnrueful employs early separation of the hands along with bowl-back in which the arm goes down and up before making solid connection with the bod.

With step-out already having occurred, the hitting shoulder banks down in tandem with hips rotating forward against flat front foot.

The ball then is hit from shoulder rotating around while banking up-- with solid bod in other words.

The counter-argument is success in achieving the angle in other ways.

But I have decided now to always try for a solid shot with bent thumb on 7.5 pointy ridge.

One thing though. Shots using more independent arm may have more room for last instant adjustment along with their greater propensity for mistake.

Position of feet is more crucial-- with the solid body version of see see-- than perhaps with any other tennis shot.

[bottle]

Loop Lob

By cutting in half the major components of a normal mondo-- 1) rolling down forearm and 2) laying back wrist-- the Katoui (katooey) Forehand attempts a small loop.

This happens since forearm without turning elbow already rolled back. Hence laying back the wrist would take racket head down. The only thing is, if you want the sensation of palm filling like a sail, the forearm will roll forward at the same time. Instead of summing, the famous two elements will cancel each other out but still create the sail. Or diaphragm. Or something with a rubbery feel square to the net and essential to the shot.

To lob from this construct one simply does not roll forearm forward. This forms the loop that tried to form before.

Elbow stays back the same to get rod of arm forward for a big push straight up in this case.

[stotty]

Stotty's Advice for Hitting a See See

"Use as few moving parts as possible."

Good advice. Don't have any movements in there that serve no purpose. Simplicity is key. Yet why is it that trying to be simple is never simple?

Amazing day today. Went to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam where I am presently vacationing. A fight broke out between a Dutchman and a Brit. The Dutchman was upset because the Brit called the Dutchman's wife a bitch over some incident that happened in the lift. Both men were whirring around the museum amidst priceless paintings and at one time just six feet away from Sunflowers. The Dutchman (a strong man) overwhelmed the Brit who then started yelling for security. Security cam and pulled the Dutchman off the Brit. Both were then escorted off the premises. The incident certainly woke the browsing intellectuals up....and my family. My son though it was the highlight of the day.

What a great man Van Gogh was. He only started to paint aged 27 and became a master in no time. Aged 37 he was dead. Ten years of painting, virtually non-stop. He could have been a writer. His letters to Theo and to other painters were detailed and wonderfully written.