A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

In Response to Hysterical Fear of Imitating a Mannerism Rather than Something Basic

Doing that would simply be poor scholarship. The mistake shouldn't affect one's own game in any way once one has made one's enlightened correction based only on how things went.

A great or even just aspiring athlete should feel free to imitate anything.

It's more than coincidence that the world's best player is also best at displaying considerable mimetic skills.

[bottle]

Backward Wrist in Ferrerfore

If you were paying attention in # 755, perhaps you could see this proposal coming next. A Ferrerfore, through reverse action, swoops the arm in close to one's side.

In my version, I've been mondoeing the wrist right then as well. A person would be a nut to give this option up thanks to the chance it provides for almost immediate roll, like the right arm in a Ben Hogan type golf swing. (Elbow in to hip, palm soon to face down. A sidearm throw in other words).

Well, one can either, right then, mondo the wrist or swoop arm in close in response to beginning forward driving shoulders or do both.

For the oligos requested change here I'll simply keep wrist straight and only flop the arm in and only mondo on the ball.

Should work fine, but I'll pro-actively scotch any errors discovered along the way.

[bottle]

Sparking Up Some Old Forehands

Man, I only know what I read in THE TALENT CODE (see # 754). My insulating myelin, forehand division, reached its peak accumulation circa age 50, then it broke down, probably got some cracks in it, a lot like overly old spark plug wires in an F-100 truck.

At nighttime, with the engine running, you could sprinkle some water on those wires. Sparks would dance all over the place in engine compartment testament to mechanical inefficiency.

But I liked my old Ziegenfuss, which won a bunch of matches for me. A Ziegenfuss is a forehand in which the arm swings first, thus saving body for a more elongated followthrough. I've moved away from it what with my adoption of my early leg driven Ferrerfore, but I'd like to have both of these shots available, just need to replace one set of sparkplug cables.

I'll have a conversation about this with my oligos. At 71, I only have about 5 per cent as many oligos as I had at the age of six, but they're still here, I tell you, and I'll use them now or never.

So, it's invention time. The loop for Ferrerfore and Ziegenfuss-- at least my Ziegenfuss-- is quite similar, so I don't have to re-invent the wheel there: a moderate loop then that doesn't take the racket back too far or too high.

Mondo can happen early. And I'm favoring neutral or closed stance with inchworm footwork like Stan Smith. As part of the slow arm swing forward, though, I'll add some easy straightening of the wrist.

Then, as body finally takes over, I'll let the wrist give backward once again in conjunction with prolonged contact.

A few of these fine points, hopefully, are just different enough to wrap on new goop and thus give me a new lease for my forehand life.

[bottle]

Listening to THE TALENT CODE During a Long Car Trip

This is the book by the young man Daniel Coyle that deals better with the goop known as myelin than anything else written in the first decade since the millenium, duomillenium, duodenum or whatever it was called.

Myelin is very important to us tennis players, having replaced by improving upon an old expression we all used to love, viz., "muscle memory."

Muscles, it turns out, like tennis players, are quite stupid since they have no memory. And we, whoever we are, really were talking about neuronal pathways each time we discussed our muscle memory.

If you know how to set things up, brothers (and sisters if there still are any women subscribing to Tennis Player-- if so, they certainly don't speak up as much as they used to), your practice can be "deep practice" in Coyle's view, and this will cause your oligos to wrap your desired pathways with more goop than ever before.

The goop or myelin or insulation (which Coyle has seen with an electron microscope) increases the speed of your messages. You can get quick no matter what your age if you do deep-practice enough and know how to "ignite" each specific task.

The New York Times Magazine version of Coyle's book, with a big picture of Elena Dementieva on the cover, dwelt upon the rundown Spartak Club in Russia that produced both her and so many other top ten players.

Coyle, a polymath, frequently speaks to the educator inside himself, and this can get tedious when the professional reader delivering the audio book permits his voice to become too monochromatic.

THE TALENT CODE is in paper however and available in electronic version too as most books are nowadays.

Moreover, the subject matter seems startlingly important and relevant. Coyle makes little distinction among teachers, professors, artists and coaches. Whether he's quoting Robert Lansdorp or John Wooden-- who was an English teacher before he was a basketball coach-- he's deeply concerned with "hotbeds" of competitive excellence.

Just how did Spartak happen? Or Serbian tennis prowess? Or Brazilian soccer? Or the sudden South Korean plethora of women in the LPGA? Or all the great little leaguers coming out of Curacao but not Aruba, the next island over?

A lot of this book is concerned with the communication skills common to all great instructors and coaches. One has to be of a certain age, in Coyle's view, to have developed a sufficient matrix of experience for this role-- especially because of its requirement for adjustment of manner to the individual student.

Personally, I'm more interested in internal dialogue with the coaches who live inside of me, even though this may relegate me to a certain mediocrity (in Coyle's view).

A great novelist can be self-taught, he thinks, but not a great golfer, a great tennis player, or a great violinist.

[tennis_chiro]

Welcome back

I'm trying to figure out the mindset of the head fish. First he sends out the little 12 lb guy, then he sends the 14 lb. guy. It's looking serious with those black thingies so he jumps a class up to the 18 lb guy. Man, what was he thinking when he finally went all in with the 26 lb head of the household?!

Sounds like it was a successful vacation!

don

[bottle]

Vacation

Thanks for asking. I'm fine and just got back from Chatham, Cape Cod, a place I went to when I was six years old, at which time my father somehow applied his Sneed-like upright golf swing to casting a metallic blue "atomic" plug far out into the Atlantic Ocean from the outer tip of Nausett Beach.

On one of his first casts, some of those black cluster hooks went into my big toe, but I recovered. Then he caught, in perfect sequence, a 12-pound striper, a 14-pound striper, an 18-pound striper, and a 26-pound striper.

In tennis this time my partner Hope's son-in-law didn't want a repeat of last August, so he took regular lessons and played in various leagues the entire year long to get ready.

He definitely had a new serve (as did I), and it took me a while to figure his out. Here we'd lugged all of our tennis stuff from Detroit just for one set since other exigencies caused us not to have time for more.

The score, Bottle first, was 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3, 3-3, 3-4, 4-4, 5-4, 6-4 .

So, thanks again for asking!

[tennis_chiro]

Where are you?

Are you OK, Bottle? Haven't seen you post for over a week?
don

[bottle]

Scythe Every Backhand Drive

This idea starts with one hand topspin down the line, in which the player hits the inside edge of the ball, as recommended by Justin Gimelstob.

Is this the only way to pass down the line? Of course not. If you're really good, you can hit something closer to a normal cross-court. The path of the ball is outside the line. Ball swerves into the court at the last instant. Happens all the time among great one hand players.

But Pat Rafter and others could hit the inside edge alternative, never learned,
contemplated or even comprehended by millions. The racket work is simple. Some forward body turn and then the scythe. The racket forms a roof over the court, after contact.

Okay, if that's working, try more scythe cross-court, too. I don't care if this is Wawrinka or not or anybody else. The roof shot was working well, primarily because it had the great feel of a perfectly balanced 19th century scythe, and I've decided to build on that today, thus following my philosophy or rather ethic of endless change.

The way I'll hit it, with barred arm, is three-quarters body swing downward and around (both), followed by some horizontal shoulders swing and then the scythe. There will be no independent arm swing of any kind until the scythe.

On the cross-courts or down the line outside the line there will be some arm roll during the scything upswing as well.

Thank you for considering this shot, which is menu item 999 .

[bottle]

Ha-ha, Reader

After this experiment, my potent serve will finally be ripe, armed and fully prepared.

Sure, reader, you know that's a lie and so do I.

Nevertheless, I'll do it. A while back I fooled around with lateness of arch, which obtained some wildness.

Well, I want to go there again. Why? Didn't learn the lesson? Nope.

Why would I even re-consider? Because Chris Lewit, that reasonable man, advised not to arch too early.

Did he analyze this idea to death? No, he simply wrote that one shouldn't arch too early. So I won't.

I'm hoping that the combination of scapular retraction and intake of breath, done late and simultaneous somewhere around pro drop, will keep the serve wild yet pacified at the same time.

And hope is what a serve is all about.

[bottle]

As I say, the photographic anomaly that Don and I discussed is what most interests me. Because it directly helps me achieve my goal.

[julian1]

A lot depends on stiffness of a racket

Bottle,

I tried to do my little experiment to see what I could see at 1000 fps. Interesting, but you can't really see the frame bending. But I thought you might enjoy seeing it. This is one of my students hitting a good forehand, probably around 60 to 70 mph. The field of vision of the 1000fps drops to 224 x 56 from 480 x 360 for the 210fps video. That's the reason for the limited view. Unfortunately, I can't get the video to loop back and forth on youtube like it does in the Quicktime player and you can't go frame by frame. Still pretty good!

Just the area immediately before and after the contact point:
Doyeob_FhCntctPt_1000fps_halfspd.mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s-py4TLc1Y

The full stroke at 1000fps:
Doyeob_Fh1000_composite.mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orgbcE6rZ4A

View of Fh at 210fps:
Doyeob)FhDS_210fps_8_5_11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhlIk9kK4A

don

A lot depends on stiffness of a racket
A racket can bend three different ways.
If you drop a racket vertically down it will bend.
I have a demonstration at one of Babolat Team's meeting

[bottle]

Federer, Okker and Navarro

One interesting feature of Steve Navarro's (don_budge's) clear declaration of Roger Federer's ideal foot position-- and how Roger works to achieve it last instant even when his feet were nowhere near where he wanted them to be-- is how close the preferred position is to the square or slightly closed topspin forehands that Tom Okker used to hit.

(But I know Okker hit and has taught open topspin forehands as well.)

My source for saying that about Okker's closed topspin is the old book MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES which I don't have in front of me. I just remember the Okkerish look as he hit his full closed topspin-- semi-sitting and very similar to Roger.

I've always been looking for a connection between Okker and Federer and think this is it. Also, Mark Papas at Revolutionary Tennis teaches closed forehands in which front foot doesn't go directly toward the net but a bit to the right-- like Bill Tilden.

Steve's treatise, to which I refer, is at "Westcoast's Ground Game." We've seen some of these materials before but maybe not in such a strong context. Also, there is the problem of reader comprehension. Me, I'm supposed to be a good reader, but I needed time for all of this to soak in.

Also, I'm remembering that the one pro golf lesson I ever had, at the age of 16, was all about Ben Hogan (used here by Steve to talk about tennis, golf and baseball all at once). The teaching pro kept invoking the name of Ben Hogan as he taught me to use hips and knees to lower my 6-iron into perfect pre-release position.

Later, I owned a great book, THE ART OF GOLF, by Percy Boomer (of Scotland) that taught the exact same thing. That was my favorite of my sports books until a nasty girlfriend stole it to give it to her brother.

Good teachers like Steve should be awarded green light to repeat themselves all they want even though the internet already permits that.

Because rich stuff requires repetition along with time afforded to permit everything to soak in.

[tennis_chiro]

About that bending racket...

Bottle,

I tried to do my little experiment to see what I could see at 1000 fps. Interesting, but you can't really see the frame bending. But I thought you might enjoy seeing it. This is one of my students hitting a good forehand, probably around 60 to 70 mph. The field of vision of the 1000fps drops to 224 x 56 from 480 x 360 for the 210fps video. That's the reason for the limited view. Unfortunately, I can't get the video to loop back and forth on youtube like it does in the Quicktime player and you can't go frame by frame. Still pretty good!

Just the area immediately before and after the contact point:
Doyeob_FhCntctPt_1000fps_halfspd.mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s-py4TLc1Y

The full stroke at 1000fps:
Doyeob_Fh1000_composite.mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orgbcE6rZ4A

View of Fh at 210fps:
Doyeob)FhDS_210fps_8_5_11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhlIk9kK4A

don

[bottle]

Underthinking, Overthinking, and Just Right Thinking about Racket Head Lift

Did I say this post is about one hand topspin backhands? I guess not.

If one buys into my premise that a three-quarter, i.e., slanty body swing is the strongest yet potentially least disrupting way to first get the racket head both down and around, one then may be ready to take on a certain mental challenge.

What we want to happen next is preservation of body heft through the ball (Momentum A) while, at the same time, we lift both ends of the racket at roughly even speed.

If we stand in the middle of the court and brush the strings and handle up against the net we accomplish half of this goal.

We've postulated shake hands distance of racket from body, however, which means the racket built up circular momentum as it swung around.

Again, we want to preserve something, specifically THIS momentum (Momentum B).

Can a player transition from a circular swing to a straight ahead lift? Yes, but not easily.

So what additives are going to make the transition efficient?

Slow roll of the arm is one option. (The roll also controls racket pitch as the elbow slides out toward the net.) Residual body rotation is another. The arm could continue its roundabout path just a little, too.

I don't have the answer but suspect it lies in some combination of these three factors.

Perhaps one should eliminate all of them for a very pure inside-edge-of-the-ball backhand down the line in which one ends with a roof over the head.

[bottle]

Thanks once again, Don. The Nadal clip certainly is closer to what actually must happen. Is what we're seeing there some actual bend of the racket backward and then release of that tension so that it bends forward?

The lower speed videos, where there is more of the anomaly, have to interest me the most, however-- me whose focus is on building the best killer forehand, at 71, that I can.

If there is anomaly, shouldn't we try to see it in its most exaggerated form since it's a marker? It certainly has some kind of definite relationship to acceleration-- so that we can count on it as marker if we can figure that relationship out, no?

Does maximum acceleration in the Ferrer model occur at 33 or 33+1 or 33+2 ? That's my question and it's a tennis question.

I'm open to all three possibilities and have hit forehands all three ways. But maybe just talking about it will make me more aware of these subtle distinctions. Guess which one I then would use?

Yes, the one that worked best long before I ever came to a proper understanding of how the tip got so much faster than the handle in one photograph that dismemberment of the racket occurred.

Currently, I'm concentrating on hips and body just then (at 33), also as a marker.