A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Connecticut Yankees

I expect to kick some ass in social tennis tonight, but you will never know, kind readers, how my experience worked out.

Before I tape around my patella to keep it centered, however, I would like to thank some of the persons early in my life responsible for tonight's success.

First there is Mr. Lawrence Leighton of Old Lyme, the New Haven Railroad foreman whose eyes were the color of the limestone rocks we picked out from between the rotten track ties.

Next is Wilbert Snow, Middletown School Board Chairman and coastal poet from Maine and fast friend of Robert Frost.

Bill Snow said, "Figure out exactly what you want to say and then say it in words as hard as dimes."

"In words as hard as dimes" is not only iambic trimeter but perfect tennis advice.

Words, tennis strokes with purpose-- what's the difference?

Then comes Katharine Hepburn, who helped me beat her brother and my brother in doubles. Want to know what she was? An apostle of definiteness.

"Be definite" was a message she projected without even trying. And be quick, very quick, with a hand quicker than the eye in Parchesi.

The one time that Katharine Houghton took me in West Hartford to meet her grandfather, Katharine Hepburn was there, too.

And I quickly realized that Kate's father, the urologist from Richmond, Virginia, was as definite as she.

Make crisp pronouncements about this and that and this. Pete Seeger: "I may be right, I may be wrong, but I've got the right to sing this song." As Dr. Robert Hepburn Sr. and his beautiful wife Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn, the birth control suffragette, told Howard Hughes when he landed his plane on the fifth hole fairway in Fenwick and came into the Hepburn kitchen for a visit, "In this family, we read books."

But there, in the second West Hartford house, Dr. Hepburn made the pronouncements as the great Kate (there is a website now called "The Great Kate") quailed at anything he said.

I have never seen a daughter anywhere so hang-dog in the presence of her pop.

Which makes me think some opposite was at work. Servile in the presence of one's father but just as definite a self-starter as he anytime and anywhere else.

[bottle]

~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gROO7xSTxfY

[bottle]

Yuppety-yup-up-up-up (to be combined with a sharp intake of breath)

[tennis_chiro]

What are the constraints?

1) Faster initial rise of racket to make more time for body coil, which is where one should linger most. But every idea spawns another idea. Down together, up together? Why? Tossing arm up first? Why? Hitting arm up first? Why not, in this serve, if one has correctly figured out where to linger? And if one in secret has always wanted coil to assist the toss? Back off from this idea? Won't know till try it.

2) Let drive from flat foot morph into drive from ball of foot and toes and calf and internal raising of right hip over left hip (something learned in physical therapy).

If it's just about power, you can justify all kinds of different rhythms. The left arm has something to do with power, but really very little in comparison to the right side. But if you attach significance to the toss, ...that is, if it is just as important to be able to get the toss to the same place regardless of pressure, fatigue, conditions, ...then the motion and coordination of the right and left sides of the body in a way that produces a consistent toss is just as important as the coil, leg thrust, internal shoulder rotation, etc. Generally, I find this is not acknowledged. Now, a tossing action that reduces power should not be adopted anymore than a hitting action that reduces consistency on the toss. Furthermore, the rhythm of that toss (which I offer is intrinsically linked to the weight transfer, or at least should be) must produce a motion that contributes to easy and repeatable positions and postures that produce maximum power. When you start to put all those elements together, simplicity would seem (according to me) to dictate that the most efficient and repeatable motion is synchronizing the right and left arms in a down and up together kind of action. As soon as you depart from that structural and rhythmic approach (which obviously most of today's current top players do), you have made the overall motion more complicated and inherently less consistent.

If someone can make it work and be consistent enough without regard for what I have put forth right here, great; but if someone is having difficulty, there is indeed a logic behind "down together up together, weight forward as you toss the ball".

don
still tilting at windmills!

[bottle]

Rear Leg Serve

1) Faster initial rise of racket to make more time for body coil, which is where one should linger most. But every idea spawns another idea. Down together, up together? Why? Tossing arm up first? Why? Hitting arm up first? Why not, in this serve, if one has correctly figured out where to linger? And if one in secret has always wanted coil to assist the toss? Back off from this idea? Might in fact lead to LESS lingering? Won't know till try it.

2) Let drive from flat foot morph into drive from ball of foot and toes and calf and internal raising of right hip over left hip (something learned in physical therapy).

[bottle]

Fixed wrist or Straightening Wrist on Backhand?

That is the question.

With regard to a McEnroe modeled full backhand.

Steve and I, I think, have both been operating on the premise that wrist starts curled but straightens before contact.

I always have to wonder because of some of the wild things I've read whether
wrist should give (curl) a second time, at contact.

Maybe I only heard the give idea in connection to eastern backhand grip-- I don't know. Geoffrey Williams wants fixed grip, and his palm is still farther over on the handle.

I'm now delaying, i.e., keeping for a long time, the bends at elbow and wrist both on my mild grip backhand. Rising body then straightens all this slack at once from the shoulder down. I don't feel I even have to think about it any more, not if I've delayed properly through using wave and boat imagery.

The shoulders slant up toward rear fence, with racket parallel to the shoulders line. My boat is on the front of a wave. Now the boat levels. Both shoulders line and parallel racket beneath it are parallel to the court, which is level sea.

Now comes a moderate swell. I'm right on top of it! So shoulders line and parallel racket are still level.

Then and only then does arm start its quick journey down and up.

As in the clip of Laver where he so clearly doesn't lower his arm and racket until his body is coming up.

[bottle]

Weird Order of Posts

To my mind I wrote one then Stotty wrote one then I wrote one. Who knows (or much cares).

[bottle]

Fast If Nothing Else

Interesting, Stotty. Despite my ecstatic claims, I'm just at the beginning of trying (or rather re-trying) this one.

I think the double key is a really fast slap-shot to start the forward motion and to leave out McEnroe's transition altogether.

In some of his forehands there's more transition than in others. When he wants more topspin, e.g., he brings the racket down and in close-- transition almost as in Braden's old sit-and-hit, which has got to take time. After a million McEnroe reps I' m sure even this becomes fast.

Me, I want to bypass that. I'm influenced by Ray Brown, the neuroscientist and innovative teaching pro who had such an interesting website for what-- a decade?

In a private email he advised continental grip for me.

This blew my mind in that everything at his website seemed geared toward the semiwestern-- heavy western end of the grip spectrum.

In his and Becky's website, Ray divided forehand sequence into four interesting parts though I didn't think they had memorable names. Now I have to make up my own descriptions since I haven't remembered the headings.

1) Yank racket butt as if it's a rope (idea taken from Bollettieri).
2) Transition
3) Acceleration phase
4) Both ends of racket swing together.

What I'm fooling with is McEnroe's backswing followed by only two items on the previous list, 3) and 4).

Thanks for the input. Every bit of another person's experience counts.

[bottle]

To Invent vs. to Maintain

Every new invention for the past several months has worked big-time, which could not always be said.

But to preserve recent discovery and other tender conditioning from week to week is a task perhaps greater than the successful invention. (I certainly do see the two things as dependent on the other.)

One starts climbing a training ladder, I think, with "self-feeding" (I am so grateful to Scott Murphy for giving me that term and for revealing that even someone at his level of tennis person HAS HIMSELF DONE SELF-FEEDING AT LENGTH AND MID-CAREER TOO).

At opposite end of the spectrum are players who believe that all tennis success is indelibly established with childhood peers, and if you weren't a ranked junior I don't want to play with you.

I recently met or rather was approached by a former member of the Tulane varsity who in manner along with words, after a minute, expressed that precise view.

[stotty]

Difficult to do

Keep wrist as straight as handle of racket. Straighten elbow but retain slight bend there.

Very difficult to do this. I tried it many times in my attempts to mimic McEnroe. It looks simpler but actually takes longer to than more orthodox/common methods. Keeping the arm and wrist in a fixed position from the end of the backswing to pretty much the end of the follow through actually makes the process of going through the backswing to the forward swing and on to contact quite long. I was forever late when I tried it. No wonder everything minute, unnecessary movement was stripped out of his stroke in order to make it work at such a high level.

Having a break in the elbow and greater wrist flexion facilitates faster preparation and execution in my opinion. I can only go from personal experience of mimicking McEnroe but this was my finding.

I have never looked specifically to find out in those old clips, but I imagine McEnroe's forehand weakness during his era must have been balls coming at his body...seems logical he would find this shot difficult with the wrist/arm so determined to stay in such a fixed position...on forehand and backhand.

I think McEnroe would be in deep trouble playing any of the top four these days with his continental grip....the 3000 rpm rearing balls coming at him...tricky.

Hope you well, bottle. I always enjoy reading your thread.

[bottle]

Simplissimus (CFH)

For perspective on my new continental forehand, I'm reading a Canadian book called ROWING, which is full of beautiful photographs. The writing is good, too. The author-sculler Silken Laumann, who took bronze in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, has one of the best first names in the history of the sport. "Silken" should only be compared to the Homeric/Vergilian "Runningwake" or "Fadingfootprint."

Silken quotes Marnie McBean, a double-gold winner in Barcelona, as saying, "When I began rowing, someone told me that in every stroke there are a hundred and sixty-eight things you can do wrong. Now I disagree; there are more."

McBean adds that you need to have thought about them but be able to forget them when you actually row.

I am sure there is just as much complexity in any tennis stroke. So when someone coaches or writes or speaks meaningfully about tennis, they must use shorthand or metaphor in which one thing stands for another.

So, here's my (I) deal for today: Continental forehand backswing per John McEnroe: Review Tennis Player grips system to assure that top panel is # 1 and not # 0 or top dead center (TDC) as in auto mechanic's parlance. Place knuckle at 2.5, which is sharp.

Rely entirely on pointing across with opposite arm as integral part of unit turn while arms separate and hitting arm bowls down and up. Keep wrist as straight as handle of racket. Straighten elbow but retain slight bend there.

You have timed backswing and movement to oncoming ball. To hit, accelerate down and slightly forward from shoulder and elbow both while rolling racket tip forward as part of this unit of motion as well.

Whether or not roll should start as soon as racket head starts lowering I do not know. Perhaps, perhaps not. There could be delay. If so, keep that delay minimal.

I think of a slap shot in hockey without the ice.

As racket reaches low point the tip has twisted forward, which has closed the strings so much that if you hit the ball right then it would bounce on your side of the net.

So don't do that. Instead, push hand and racket. Each moves forward/upward at speed of the other. This will open strings for square contact followed by natural followthrough.

If these shots are anything less than superb, add transitions of Laver, Navratilova and McEnroe.

Have you understood me, reader? Probably not. I'm recommending the removal of transition from this type of forehand to buy time for anyone.

The resulting smoothness, as in silken rowing, should be synonymous with economy and powerful ease.

[bottle]

Next Experiment in Rear Foot Serve, Rotorded Division

Retain idea of three drops but reverse sequence of the first two. Thus, backward rotation of hips to compensate for stiff rotors in shoulder and nevertheless get racket tip low begins as tossed ball begins to come down.

In either sequence, racket can move behind head and start to lower, but I want to initiate this now with whole body-- thus freeing up what little upper arm rotation is available to fully apply Brian Gordon philosophy of pre-load (of upper arm), to get the pre-load and sudden release of spring-like twist closer together.

I want the upper arm twisting backward as it fights to twist forward just before it does twist forward.

I'm also thinking about cooling front leg extension to achieve uneven lift of back hip-- as a result of recent forum posts by Doug Eng. Before I go to court, at least, I think I can get bent front leg to fight its natural impulse to straighten and thereby preserve some of the foot-assisted bend almost as if this leg is a static brace.

That will mean less clearance for rear leg to come past due to jutting knee. And more imperative to line up with tucked rear foot closer to side fence.

[bottle]

Three Drop Rear Foot Serve

Should a person even write about a rear foot serve? Yes, a person should write about anything, in this case about how I want to adjust my serve including an idea or two arrived at just today.

But why a rear foot serve? Because the front leg is damaged.

Why not just go ahead and have a knee replacement?

But knee replacements are all the fad. And one's serve should not be determined by fad.

"Your knee is pretty much shot," says my current physical therapist, whose father worked for Chrysler in Australia which is where she learned her tennis. "But you can get the most out of what you have left."

She stresses every possible means for loosening the hamstring and strengthening the vastus medallis obliqus, so that the patella will stay better centered; also, we may be quieting internal and inflammation-producing clicks through the use of kinesio tape .

And the serving off of advanced rear foot is my idea.

First drop keeps body tall on rear foot and mimics the motion of tossed ball starting down.

Second drop extends first drop with backward rotation of the hips.

Third drop-- have goal of getting racket frame turned down and out to side aligned on edge with target-- occurs as part of TT (total throw) consisting of LT (leg thrust), HUBR (horizontal upper body rotation), VUBR (vertical upper body rotation), WT (weight transfer through body sway), ROLB (release of long-bow), VVAP (very vertical arm path).

[bottle]

YouChuze

Are the tennis successes of Rod Laver, John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova entirely due to remarkableness of temperament and physical attribute despite poor technical choice; or are the three winning records due at least in part to excellent technical choice?

After one has figured that out, one can decide whether or not to apply parts to one's own game, particularly but not restricted to one's older age game.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_woman/martinanavratilova/nav_net/nav_approach_and_volley/nav_approach_and_volley.html?MartinaFHRet1stSAdBHDropVFront.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_woman/martinanavratilova/nav_net/nav_approach_and_volley/nav_approach_and_volley.html?MartinaBHRet2ndSAdFHHalfVFHVFront.mov

[bottle]

Addendum

I'm working toward an intellectual (or perhaps animal) place where I can say, as in a McEnroe modeled topspin backhand, "Leg lift is core of the shot. So make the arm and racket work adjust to that core rather than the other way around."