A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Even More Rotorded

A person even more rotorded than the server in post # 1264 might try everything the same but with the re-conception that once you start turning your hips backward, presumably at the end of the shoulders wind (long i), you give away needed tension in the stomachy slingshot.

This server, still working with 5 to 95 per cent ratio (before in possible but not inevitable frustration trying something else) would simply load and even pre-load his gut right through the backward 5 per cent of hips even if this meant picking up on something he already was doing.

With only 5 per cent forward hips turn now available (just think perhaps "a very small amount"), one could end up having combined the little move with three big things:

1) The "double-wind" (long i) identified by Charlie Pasarell in the great old book MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES. Shoulders wind back (long i) with back arching at the same time.

2) Beginning scapular retraction, which definitely is the most important component of arching one's back.

3) Easy but powerful drive from both legs to create a wide-threaded corkscrew upward and help put racket head in the slot and conclude the scapular retraction for one's second slingshot with both scheduled for simultaneous release.

[bottle]

...many do this in an attempt to generate topspin. Better to stay down and swing through the ball cleanly allowing the path of the racquet face to dictate the path of the ball.

Keeping the head still as the stationary point of a compass you feel that your shoulders swing freely around the head...just like the golf swing.

I like the idea of staying down. Wish there were more videos of Miloslav Mecir available.

Note: I have finally succeeded in darkening a quote from another person. I've been at this stuff for years! This is the first time.

[don_budge]

Dads and Golf...Keeping the head still ala Federer and Evert

Tennis as golf on wheels. MY father, a Metro handicap of 2 (New York City) golfer, swore by one tip for ten years.

Exactly. If you keep your eyes on the ball and keep your eyes where the ball was just after you strike it you keep your head from moving while your racquet is meeting the ball. Arcs and tangents.

If you keep your head still you will not develop the bad habit of lifting the head as you swing...many do this in an attempt to generate topspin. Better to stay down and swing through the ball cleanly allowing the path of the racquet face to dictate the path of the ball.

Keeping the head still as the stationary point of a compass you feel that your shoulders swing freely around the head...just like the golf swing.

Anyone with a two handicap from NYC must be a very special person. Amazing.

[bottle]

Rotorded Kick Iteration

Bet everything on a swing that comes more over the top of the body.

Ingredients:

1) Extreme stance with body turned as much as both feet allow through being turned way round themselves.

2) Get chest open to the sky and freeze hips in their most wound round position. If Pat Dougherty, the serve doctor at the Bollettieri Academy, says 50-50 hips to shoulders for a first serve and 30-70 for a second (kick) serve, the severely rotorded server is fully justified in saying, "5-95 degrees hips to shoulders for a second (kick) serve."

3) Absolutely stiff though bent legs on flat, unyielding feet most effectively to stretch transverse stomach muscles to form a slingshot. Reader, I'd like to respect you but not if you insist on the needlessly high-fallutin' and scientific term or tennis bon mot "stretch-shorten cycle." "Slingshot" means the same thing. You stretch some set of rubber bands inside of your body; abruptly, then, they shorten. And if you want to buy a new cycle, make sure its chain is properly tensioned and well lubricated.

4) Stop the shoulders 95 per cent forward rotation through resistance rising up through the extending legs. You kept legs firm when they were bent. Now keep them firm when they are extended.

5) Five per cent hips rotation backward and forward. Why have any? Because the backward motion lends feel and rhythm to everything that goes forward. And because you need something to turn the shoulders before the slingshot in the gut releases. You need this initial forward turn as part of working the racket head to the "slot" that's parallel to the outer edge of your body.

6) To force of belly slingshot add scapular adduction slingshot for 10 per cent more racket head speed.

7) In depth understanding of the word "iteration." That means not only to learn its derivation (a "going through") but, like any live word, to understand its resonance-- in this case the vibe must resound through your muscle and bone. Nobody in tennis survives through formula. Tennis is music. People hit the right note through trying for it in new iterations again and again.

[bottle]

Tennis as golf on wheels. Chris Evert stating that the most important technical point she ever received from anybody was from her father, and it was to keep her head still. How can somebody even see the ball if their head is lurching around? But also, if you believe that arcs have their place in tennis (or golf or baseball), you need to center each one somehow. MY father, a Metro handicap of 2 (New York City) golfer, swore by one tip for ten years. It was to point your chin behind the ball. After the ten years he probably went on to think about something else.

[don_budge]

Why?

This would be the part about watching the ball past contact or keeping the head still or even turning it back a little-- the one feature of Roger's form, they insist, that everybody should emulate.

John...what are the reason(s) that one should emulate this characteristic of Roger Federer's?

[bottle]

Modern Retro

The people who think that modern retro is useful only to Federer and not to all the people who have followed him are not the brightest bulbs on the planet but nevertheless may have some intelligence to offer us.

This would be the part about watching the ball past contact or keeping the head still or even turning it back a little-- the one feature of Roger's form, they insist, that everybody should emulate.

Do it on both forehands and serves, I'd say, but don't be doctrinaire and left brain about it. The head doesn't really turn backward, it only seems to turn backward in relation to what the rest of the body is doing just then.

From contact the head finally does turn forward with one's bod.

If this isn't clear or you just want to drill the lesson, go to a swimming pool and think about best form in the front or Australian crawl. When breathing, the head rotates with the body and then doesn't.

[bottle]

Rotorded Serving Requires Some Pretty Slick Invention

As we all should know, the twerp who captured Kirsten Dunst by winning Wimbledon in the movie WIMBLEDON won the Wimbledon men's final by keeping his arm up for longer when he served.

But one of the TV announcers-- was it Mary Carillo...I don't think so-- recently spoke about getting arm out of the way of a really good serve. And Jim McLennan has always taught bringing toss arm down to initiate a unified throw involving both arms.

So here is one of the conundrums found everywhere in tennis. Opposite ideas begging for the first-rate mind that can put them together. (Don't look at me.)

Actually, the word "sod" is stronger than "twerp," but I wouldn't feel right using it since I'm not a Brit.

When I watch films of Tanner or Dolgopolov serving however, I see just a bit of cartwheel before contact (and a lot of it afterward).

The rotorded server can't get the racket tip very low, so he wants to manufacture whatever lowness he can for a long time.

Does this mean he shouldn't cartwheel at all? I don't think so. If racket already is close to the ball he might as well let everything go.

[bottle]

Iteration and Reiteration

Before I even get myself to the court, I think I'll perform a bit more design work.

This will be speculative of course, but the people who detest speculation are doomed to mediocrity forever, and I don't care if that cast-net includes the top ten mullets in the world.

Doesn't matter how good they are. They could be ten times as good again (I like the number ten today) if they would only introduce more speculation into their lives.

Scary, I admit. There you are with improved unit turn particularly on the forehand, with shoulder all the way under your chin. You're moving well. Here comes the ball.

As you start your backswing (lift and extension more backward than downward from the elbow) it's time to try forward rotation from the hips. This will be Ted Williams all the way, in which "hips turn marginally ahead of shoulders."

When Ken Harrelson tried to take Williams' advice, of course, nothing worked. Some of the old Washington Senators, apparently, were making better progress with the new information than he even though he was a far more natural (Cabreran) batter in that sport-- baseball.

Ted Williams set Harrelson straight by teaching him to link backward and forward hip rotations more closely together.

Tennis players, who far too often are as left brain as right-wing politicians could try that, I suppose, but only if nothing else worked.

Let's keep things simple. That's the mantra. So we'll let the forward hips rotation become the fourth ingredient of FLIP along with wrist, forearm, and scapular retraction.

This means, with a 3.5 strong eastern grip, you could aim palm of your hand toward your opponent's backhand on almost all of your own forehands if everybody is a right-hander.

The added body segmentation from making the forward hips turn more conscious will help produce the racket flashlight one wants.

Then, as shoulders turn marginally after hips, you'll bowl straight from the shoulder ball. This is the weakest thing you do during the forward stroke. Good therefore to combine it with the strongest thing you do, a hearty shoulders swing from your newly stretched gut.

If it all doesn't work out just say, "What the hell." Keep hips-shoulders sequence in operation however. Just don't try consciously to connect any part of it with some specific arm move.

[bottle]

Canadian Romp-Whomp

We return to the states today. We only had one heated argument with our very conservative host. He didn't want to play eightball for a second night in a row on his own pool table down in the basement of his big house. "Phil lost?" his wife said. "That never happens." "Well it did," Phil said.

Of course. If anybody scratches on the eightball in the first and second games, his opponent is going to re-discover form in the third and fourth. Probably depends on the length of his apprenticeship in the bars of Winston-Salem.

Anyway, Mitt Romney has a Canadian house a few hundred yards from this cottage which our hosts-- friends of the Romney family-- offered to us on condition that we would leave fifty dollars for a cleaning lady.

As we head back for American tennis courts I'm thinking, "For how to crack an egg, go to Google. For how to parallel park, go to Google. For how to hit a forehand, go to the Tennis Player articles on forehand by Gordon-Macci-Yandell and then carefully consider ALL responses to them in this forum."

(I'm writing this post in small handwriting on the back of debit card receipts.)

The beauty of a Federfore is that it takes some Chet Murphy wisdom on reverse action from A TREASURY OF TESTED TENNIS TIPS and slightly modifies it whether through applied brain-power or evolution, more natural but probably taking twenty-four centuries.

The flip or mondo we think about is reverse action as much as arm going back to counter forward turning shoulders. Of course arm still does go back if you add scapular retraction to wrist layback and racket winding down from the arm.

So, during "solid part of the swing" one can focus on flip. But will this tract of swing still be "solid" then? Who cares? Just make it work.

Early flip followed by straight bowl from the shoulder ball followed by scapular reinforced upward brush should equal a pretty good forehand.

[bottle]

Applying Tom Avery Spin Lesson to One's Full Federfore

The lesson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb_Rch1MOUQ

The goal: Already stated.

Required Knowledge: Physiological distinction between shoulder ball movement and shoulder housing movement.

The argument: The common belief that the more you take racket out front the more it opens holds true only for shoulder ball movement and only then when racket bowls close past body in a straight line.

Shoulder housing movement (scapular retraction, scapular adduction) can go in different directions but essentially is a part of core body not altering pitch.

In a Federfore, one can use "solid swing" to perform a flip, where "solid swing" means body and hand go together as a unit. The flip or mondo I have in mind rolls forearm (clockwise for a right-hander) while laying back wrist while performing scapular retraction.

A fourth element or possibility would be upper arm twisting in its socket (shoulder ball rotation), but why would one ordinarily want to fool around with pitch that much at such a delicate and crucial late micro-moment in the stroke?

After the flip (scapular retraction) one can bowl the racket butt (shoulder ball movement).

The bowling will open the racket to desired pitch as in the Tom Avery video, for a more vertical wipe with no forward egging of the ball, at least not by the arm.

Scapular adduction will still be available to put extra RPMs on the ball.

Results: None yet. Am on eastern shore of Lake Huron in Canada. No tennis courts there, not for someone who purposely didn't bring a tennis racket with him.

[bottle]

Rog Backhand, Djoko Forehand, Rog Fo'hand

Re Post # 1253, "Flashlight Comparison," I'm not selling private lessons right now, but if I were, and my student had a one-hander topspin backhand, and a forehand modeled on either Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer, I'd have her hit forehands of both type for an hour.

"Djoker now," I'd say, feeding balls or keeping a single one in play. "Another Djoker. Roger. Roger. Djoker. Roger."

The rationale would not be that the U.S. Open is taking place but rather to make Audrey more aware of contact point. The theory: Contact point is easier to identify when Audrey has something to compare it with.

"Your Roger isn't far enough in front. Your Novak isn't far enough back. Roger (gasp), Roger. More out front, Audrey!"

The trouble with making arcs in the air, which is something that tennis players do, is that it's all too abstract. Just where is the perfect contact point? Are we going to give the student an old-fashioned astrolabe to measure longitude and latitude at sea?

"Djoko, another Djoko, bent arm, all the same backswing. Now Rogers. Just Rogers. Keep hitting em. Balance. Where's the balance (gasp)? On three from now you get a backhand. Backhand. And another. Where's the tumble? Feel the difference? Long part on the forehands. No long part on the backhands. Way round instead!

"Backhand. Forehand. Which forehand will you hit? Straight arm. Bent arm. All the same backswing. Very good! Very good! Feel the difference! Come to the net. Block it off! But stick it next time. Need a break?

"No? Keep going? Okay okay, five with either (gasp). Fed. Novak. Backhand. Forehand. Which was it? Call it out! Didn't hear you. Louder! Good, Audrey, best shot all day. No it wasn't, it was a Novak. Here's another ball. Hit the forehand you like! Now hit the other. Know both! Contact point! Telephone pole! Backhand. Way around! Prop! Pull that shoulder! No pole! Pole's on the forehand!

"Forehand! Sweep the pole! Ship the pole! Bowl the pole! Point the pole! Shove the pole!"

[bottle]

Logical Imperative from a 30-70 Split?

Chris Lewit has showed us an easy way to subdue hips turn in a kick serve. (Immobilize them. Pull up a heavy object through which they can't twist.)

Pat Dougherty, the serve doctor at Bollettieri, prescribes 50-50 hips to shoulders on a first serve, 30-70 on kick.

Such a small percentage of hips turn immediately suggests flat rear foot to me--
not what Dougherty has in mind. He wants rear heel up and body rotations to occur over the front leg. Sure, but his front leg is less sprained than mine.

[bottle]

Deep Sleep for the Player: Fitful Sleep for the Coach

The coach has instructed himself to have tennis ideas every night while he is asleep. At first this was hard. He would wake up every morning with his head full of his distant lover.

In time, though, the instruction began to work. The secret was to repeat it every night.

Finally, he'd wake up with thoughts about how to improve Buddy's short angle, his approach shot, and his chopper. "Whatever you do, stay away from his forehand," he would tell Buddy at breakfast. And he'd think to himself, "Look at this kid. He's as cross as my third wife." And he'd say, "So what do you want to do? Go back to bed for three more hours? Have you ever considered that if you stopped tweeting and went to bed three hours earlier, this wouldn't happen?"

Sometimes of course there wasn't a coach or a player, just one or the other. Then the coach would have to be the player. At such times he chose carefully: nine hours of restful sleep or six of creative restlessness. Which? As if he had control.

[bottle]

Flashlight Comparison

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Arm_Action&stroke=RFFHInsideOutArmActionSide1_500fps.mp4

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Backhand/RF_BH_Arm_Action&stroke=RF%20BH%20ArmAction%20Wide%20Front2%20500fps.mp4

These are just two films, almost randomly chosen. In the first, forehand, one can see a long period of flashlight or spearing or horizontal telephone pole.

In the backhand video, no such phenomenon is readily apparent. Yes, the butt cap leads the strings in a significant way-- a way just as essential for generation of the desired pathway and racket head speed but caused rather by the degree to which racket tip is turned around in the backswing and transition of the stroke.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Backhand/RF_BH_Arm_Action&stroke=RF%20BH%20ArmAction%20Center%20Side%20500fps.mp4