A New Year's Serve

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Revision of Left Arm Straightening in the Ellie-bam

It straightens as racket reaches high point, not during the loop. This is significant and means the left arm can hold steady while the right arm starts to catch up. The left arm then bends as the body pivot chimes in.

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Enhanced Dropshot off of Ellie-bam Preparation

Don't ask me why. It just happened-- an unexpected benefit.

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Question: Which is better to emphasize in an Ellie-bam-- swing of elbow or gradual extension of arm from elbow?

These two elements are a blend. But emphasis on slow elbow swing is the better answer.

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Is Self-Feed Necessary?

It is if you want to do what I do. (Resurrect old strokes and try to acquire certain more recent, effective examples. Note that I use the word "effective" rather than "famous.")

I realize that most of you people, readers, don't want to do what I do. So don't. And don't ever do self-feed-- always start with a hitting partner to drill deep those habits you already have.

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Where are the Huge Hits this Stroke is Supposed to Bring?

Alter a bit. In some of the old Ellie-bams, Ellsworth Vines ends the stroke with racket pointing at target even though the arm has already re-bent.

You would think, since "Ellie-bam" is one of my names for an imitation, that I never would apply it to an original.

Wrong. All tennis players imitate themselves.

The bent-arm follow throughs still pointing at the target have to indicate more energy flowing to right.

On that premise, today's self-feed experiment will be to violate the Mercer Beasley principle of elbow straightening THE WHOLE WAY.

We go to other frames of experience, specifically the one in which right-angled arm keeps elbow in while keying forearm around.

The keying has never worked if arm was extending from any joint at the same time, so this choice has its rationale.

We key to the compass setting where major power can go to the right.

From that setting everything can extend synonymous with the delayed weight-shifting pivot.

And if this won't work, return to elbow straightening the whole way.

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Report

Although my little narratives may seem ludicrous to some, they have led to interesting shots and trials of shots...and matches.

My quest for a flat sockdologer of a put-away forehand is no joke.

The formula offered in # 3710 may be the answer although the error rate is still a bit high even in self-feed.

But I sought a high risk hit or miss shot to go along with my more consistent shots which are anything but-- I take responsibility for this.

One certainly needs to use erect posture if one is to key right-angled forearm around like a farm gate.

For more bent from the hips and golf-like posture (P. Gonzalez, E. Vines) I have decided on the Beasley-bam with its full circularity behind one's back rather than the Ellie-bam which stays out in the slot. The Beasley-bam also uses more squeeze together of the two halves of the arm and a subsequent more spread out straightening from elbow joint. All in all a more consistent but less spectacular shot. As I said, I want Ellie-bam for a specific purpose.

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# 3710: How fast should right-angled forearm key back? How fast key forward?

Back: Slow almost as if aligning itself with oncoming ball and coaxing it into strike zone.

Forward: Smooth, i.e., not abrupt, and yet quick enough to deceive one's body weight and keep it back.

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Father and Son

The father seemed rational. So did the son until I got to know him better. Took a couple of years.

To whom do I allude? Nobody specific.

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# 3710: How fast should right-angled forearm key back? How fast key forward?

Back: Slow almost as if aligning itself with oncoming ball and coaxing it into strike zone.

Forward: Smooth, i.e., not abrupt, and yet quick enough to deceive one's body weight and keep it back.

Funny, but this shot was very consistent in actual play even after I had suggested that it wouldn't be. Things can happen in your nervous system in a space of as little as one day, I guess. Even better, I hit one of my better forehands of the year, using the new construction. And if one hits a really great forehand, even though it was only one shot, one tends to become very hooked on whatever one was doing. I was conscious of left hand staying on racket throat with racket tip keying backward within the larger turn of the shoulders.

But is that what I want? MayBE. Or should I want shoulders first turning back, then racket keying back. I think I'll go with Chris Lewit on this question when he says you can't get racket back too soon.

We'll see of course if the great shot was a fluke or if it can spawn a bunch of similar great shots. A fluke is a kind of prolific fish, no? Well, it should be.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fluke

[stotty]

Father and Son

The father seemed rational. So did the son until I got to know him better. Took a couple of years.

To whom do I allude? Nobody specific.

Yes it can take two years, or even longer.

"There's nowt so queer as folk" is an old English saying.

Here are some other observations:

- If you think someone is completely normal, you don't know them well enough

- When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

- There is no such thing as abnormal behaviour, just extremes.

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One Shot at the Ellie-bam: The Weight is Where the Elbow is

Thanks for # 3715 . I really liked it.

One builds on the best forehand one ever hit, not on good forehands somewhere in the middle of one's particular range of mediocrity.

This is very romantic of me-- I know. Especially since I probably don't remember the best forehand any more than I remember the best sex or anything else having to do with Hungary.

In which case I build on the best forehand I hit this year. It was this week, yesterday in fact.

It was a doubles service return from the ad court. I had been following Pat Blaskower's advice to hit soft short angles to make the server run a long way before his second shot and thereby compromise his timing space.

I had also been following Chris Lewit's advice to do hip openers and vertical bounces during all dead court time (page 14, "active feet," THE TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE: THE ESSENTIAL REFERENCE FOR MASTERING WORLD-CLASS STROKES AND FOOTWORK: VOLUME ONE).

This more than anything else set me apart from the toadstools of senior senior senior's tennis to the third power. I've been waiting for them to notice and make some funny or unfunny remark but sometime they don't notice much.

My partial knee replacement and squished meniscus in the other leg didn't respond either. Should be all right there so long as I don't do the happy feet nonstop like a wise 18-year-old.

Now I decide to go for one high risk flat shot deep in the opposite alley. I do it. A clean winner. The Ellie-bam.

How was it hit? With composite grip. And right-angled elbow touching side until delayed hips pivot to shift one's weight simultaneous with arm straightening from two out of three available joints, shoulder and elbow. And erect posture. (Ellsworth Vines wouldn't like that. If you asked him to stand up straight he probably would at 28 quit tennis and his coach Mercer Beasley and join the professional golfers' tour.)

The third available joint, the wrist stays out of the technical equation by virtue of having started out and remaining straight.

When you put a stroke into words you are supposedly finished. Better to visualize a few key positions along the way. True unless the words are especially good. Or unless your words only take you part way to what you wish will happen-- still leave room for mystery in other words.

That is smooth bridge crossing or weight shifting pivot so inside out that when the straightened arm re-bends the racket is pointing at the target, in fact is trying to fly out of your hand toward the target.

I am an English expression major more than a tennis major, and so, when Mercer Beasley and J. Donald Budge both use that image of the racket flying after the ball I don't know if they mean before or after the elbow re-bends.

And am trying to use this confusion for my own benefit. I think that's what happened. Racket bending up before it tried to fly is the excuse I give for having hit one great shot. (O begrudge me one great shot in my life mine stingy tennis enemies.)

Note: Forget, for the sake of argument, every other detail of the just outlined shot. It was a feel of bod turning while right-angled arm independenly keyed back that distinguished this one shot from all other tries at the same shot in one day.

Okay, so let's build on that. The moment one goes to erect posture and right angled arm the racket is parallel to the court.

That puts racket tip farther toward the net than other waiting positions.

Which means that hand on throat of racket is farther toward the net.

Which means that if you are using that hand to help push the racket around-- now in two different mechanical ways-- it won't be able to go as far before the two hands have to separate.

The total stroke rhythm resulting from this is 1, 2-3, a rhythm that can work with other shots of very different form as well.

(https://www.google.com/search?q=even...hrome&ie=UTF-8)

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Helping Men to Understand the Agi-scissor

Men, who characteristically lack the delicacy of women (I know from having cropped photos in a yearbook factory) often fail to understand a scissored stroke like that of Agnieszka Radwanska.

For a man trying nevertheless to use this perfectly acceptable forehand form (see the archived forehands of Tomas Berdych) I recommend a 20 per cent spillover of weight transfer instead of Agi's 10 .

And to try to understand that in most of these shots, contact should be made BEFORE the wipe.

Once the ball is gone the nature of one's follow through can have no effect on that ball but could greatly affect balance for one's next shot.

Or am I wrong? I haven't heard much from other people to support or challenge these assumptions.

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Idea to Try on Federfore

In Chris Lewit's first black-covered tennis book, he has a photograph on page 154 captioned "GREAT EXTENSION FROM THE MASTER..." and "AND THE EYES LOOKING DOWN THE RIGHT SHOULDER, LOCKED ON CONTACT."

One provocative idea I glean from this photo in "The Tennis Technique Bible" is, that, although Roger Federer's posture and balance are always exquisite, his shoulders may slope down at the ball during contact.

[hockeyscout]

Helping Men to Understand the Agi-scissor

Men, who characteristically lack the delicacy of women (I know from having cropped photos in a yearbook factory) often fail to understand a scissored stroke like that of Agnieszka Radwanska.

For a man trying nevertheless to use this perfectly acceptable forehand form (see the archived forehands of Tomas Berdych) I recommend a 20 per cent spillover of weight transfer instead of Agi's 10 .

And to try to understand that in most of these shots, contact should be make BEFORE the wipe.

Once the ball is gone the nature of one's follow through can have no effect on that ball but could greatly affect balance for one's next shot.

Or am I wrong? I haven't heard much from other people to support or challenge these assumptions.

nice ...

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You can do Aeronautical Banking in a McEnrueful but don't Dare try it in a Federfore

Thank you very much.

Okay, so somebody doesn't know my private names (I got the idea of putting names on things from religion, philosophy and golf). A McEnrueful is imitation John McEnroe forehand. A Federfore is imitation Roger Federer forehand. More important, the McEnrueful is a flat forehand, a Federfore a topspin forehand.

Arthur Ashe, who was influenced by the Welby Van Horn tradition of tennis thought, once described a theoretical forehand in which one lowers the shoulder, then brings it up to contact, then keeps it going up after contact, then divebombs it down to a collision between shoulder and court. We could name this "The Plane Crash Forehand."

In quickly perusing archived Federer forehands, one can see that Roger keeps his shoulder down while arming the ball. THEN, the shoulder comes up a little.