A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Sic Semper Tyrannis

I leave it to your imagination, reader, to figure out what may have recently happened on an imaginative level in these pages. Since I am an American, not a Royalist who believes in the Divine Right of Kings or American presidents, I reject out of hand macho male chauvinists of any stripe including macho conservative expats who think "Mein Donald" is just grand. And I aspire to using the "Sic Semper Tyrannis" expression more wisely than that abysmal jerk John Wilkes Booth.

I was recently devastated to learn that Pat Blaskower died of rapid cancer on October 2, 2017 . A charmingly literary person, she was also fantastically successful as a tennis coach. Just ask players in Marin County, California or the women of Trumbull, Connecticut. She was number one in the nation in Womens' Open Doubles, played Billie Jean King once in singles losing 4 and 4 but thought she should have won. The most famous book she wrote, THE ART OF DOUBLES, may be, as her obit suggests, the greatest book on tennis doubles ever written.

The only other book that comes close is THE GAME OF DOUBLES IN TENNIS by Talbert and Old. Just my opinion.

Part of the reason I was so saddened is the striking picture of Ms. Blaskower, tall, strong and youthful, on the cover of THE ART OF DOUBLES. Other photos however reveal that she got to be old like me and even went into Real Estate.

I was looking for the website Ms. Blaskower said-- a year or so ago on line-- she was about to put up. That's how I learned of her death.

I then became intensely interested in more than just Pat Blaskower's tennis. How old was she? And why, although I am neither the best nor most aggressive of researchers, could I never come close to her birth date, not even through attempts to crack the rolls of the Branson School in Ross, California, Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, the University of Cal at Berkeley which obviously offered greener tennis pastures than Vassar did.

Since you have so far humored my opinions, mein reader, let me give you another one. Page 107 is best page of THE ART OF DOUBLES, this best of all doubles books.

It and page 108 delineate four circumstances to contemplate every time your partner is receiving serve while you hold terminator position at service line.

1) is poach by server's partner. Blaskower will have you mirror the poacher's movement, "being careful to stay in line with your opponent's racquet."

2) Server does not come in or ball bounces in front of him. Your position mirrors that of ball.

3) Server comes in but your partner's service return is high. Your position mirrors that of ball.

4) Server comes in but your partner's service return is low. You get to abandon the mirroring responsibility and break for the center in a huge poach.

Knowing precisely what to do in each of the four cases could be as valuable as knowing an opening in chess whereby you can defeat players even better than you if they don't know it.

[bottle]

It's All How One Thinks about it

I've got the basic form of a new forehand waiting to be born.

Have slowed the timing of both backward and forward turns to make up for lack of an interim.

But I have hit the other way for half of a lifetime-- the way of everybody else with backward bod then interim then forward bod.

Newness therefore may feel horrible.

Don't know how the experiment will crack up because haven't tried it yet.

But if it does feel horrible it won't do so because of technical flaw.

And if it doesn't feel horrible one can jump into the purity of the new design with great shots to come later.

But let's assume the new design will feel horrible and one can barely hit the ball.

That will indicate a timing thing.

All one will have to do is substitute some element of the new stroke into the old timing pattern.

Most likely candidate is the pointing across with left hand-- a good thing to think about while there is a foot of snow on every court and one is cross-country skiing after school rather than doing any kind of tennis.

Initial turn is achieved with left hand on racket.

Additional turn is achieved with pointing across.

This pointing across can be made to substitute for the interim breaststroke or dogpat or whatever that just about all tennis players use.

If that's what you want.

Dullards won't like this.

They'll say-- oh never mind. How can any other person's words matter when you're conducting honest experiment?

Unless they're willing and able to help you-- that would be rare.

No interim for service return with point across integrated into the whole stroke.

Point across for interim when one has time.

[bottle]

Shot Beams in, Stays a Month, Beams out Never to be Seen Again

I know. This happened to me, could happen to you. It's a mystery I can't solve though I tried.

Maybe if I now talk about the shot it will come back, something I doubt but stranger things have happened.

The shot as outlined in RACKET WORK: THE KEY TO TENNIS by John M. Barnaby is a forehand service return that ought to belong on one's long list of alternatives to try when the others won't work.

Or maybe if it is working it should be alternative one or two. This happened for the month when I had it.

One "mondoes," (my word, not Barnaby's), uses a neutral step-out and hits the ball with solid bod.

If nothing else this shot is economical.

Does one turn one's hips and shoulders back in a unit turn? Not this time. The shoulders turn a little because of the step-out with left foot. This bit of shoulders turn is all you need.

But can "mondo," isolated, be a timing unit all by itself? It can. The wrist flops back as if to catch the bottom of the ball. The forearm flops the racket under. The two simultaneous flops make a single flip or mondo.

But I prefer to save the word "flip" for the air raid siren that a prairie dog uses when he sees the shadow of a big black bird flying overhead.

The self-proclaimed sentinel does a huge back flip (prairie dog flips-- YouTube-- https://www.google.com/search?q=prai...hrome&ie=UTF-8) and all the prairie dogs disappear in their burrows.

So you mondo because there is danger coming your way-- a big serve too hot to handle.

You open wrist, step, hit.

This shot is also an old-fashioned way of dealing with a ball that is impossibly out of reach.

P.S. The philosophy of balance in all things dictates that abrupt movement like that of a backflipping prairie dog should be offset by slow, smooth and deliberate movement when one isn't panicked.

One learns to mondo but is this always the best idea? Why shouldn't wrist opening happen gradually and in the backswing for some shots?

[bottle]

Trash Talk

"2x2=4," I say.

"You're losing it," my opponent says.

"4x4=16 ."

"You've lost it."

[don_budge]

Trash Talk

"2x2=4," I say.

"You're losing it," my opponent says.

"4x4=16 ."

"You've lost it."

Ist nicht a conspiracy, mein Steve. It's more that anybody who becomes president in this country goes under a magnifying glass. Clearly, you underestimated, with your pie in the sky predictions for Dear Leader, the obvious truth of that.

This is how far I got this time before I stopped reading. You are not engaging your reader. You are failing to make contact. Everybody knows it's just more diatribe, not succeeding in the basic task of writing or communication.

What would the result of a poll be that asks every American if he or she thinks that mein Donald is a Nazi? 53 per cent yes? 47 per cent no? It wouldn't be the exact same thing as approval rating, where mein Donald does worse. And of course we couldn't use the expression "mein Donald," mein Steve, for that would skew the result, but who knows which way? Many people might say, "Oh yeah, that sounds like German from Nazi Germany days. I didn't think of that. Yeah, Donald Trump is mein Donald and shows a list of Nazi tendencies too long to enumerate. I just didn't realize it. I just didn't connect the dots." Then it would be an even larger majority who realized mein Donald is a Nazi. But of course the expression would have the opposite effect on you, just polarize you even more if that were possible. Because you always want to be the victim, always want to think there is a conspiracy coming at you, trying to fix the game and load the outcome.

Anyway, game is the word for you. And for mein Donald too. Deals, game-- same idea. Neither of you care about anything but points and advantage and arm-wrestling and the imagined score (which once in a hundred tries you get right). It's all-- this discussion and this thread-- a game for you. Deny the other person his experience. Emasculate him. What mein Donald and mein Steve have in common, besides 50 or 60 other mutual characteristics, is a superficial and very crass connection to life on this earth. Misogony, ageism, take an absolutist stance against immigrants although they have been the foundation of this country. And exceptionalism always (super-duper supermen). You name it.

Personally, i'm glad you're in Sweden. Detroit needs another Nazi like a hole in the head (Nazis and Nazi enablers are both Nazis but you have most of the traits of both).

What Detroit-- and Michigan-- needs is a new governor. And his name is Shri Thanedar. You can read his beautifully written autobiography at www.shri2018.com . If elected, he will not be another Nazi like Rick Snyder or Betsy de Vos. I include Betsy even though she has not been a governor because of the huge influence she has had on Detroit schools-- the humongous number of charter schools with slogans all over the walls. And slogans were a big part of Nazi Germany. One can imagine some of the same slogans on the walls of Blackwater run by her brother, which changed its name for purpose of propaganda-- volumes of propaganda (lies) being another Nazi characteristic.

Personally, I call people Nazis who discriminate against huge groups on the basis of race and culture. And people who are meaner than usual. And are like Ralph in LORD OF THE FLIES. Did i get the right one-- hope so. Maybe it was Jack-- the one that kills Piggy. I'll look it up and report back. Answer: No, Ralph is a good leader but isn't bloodthirsty enough for the others, like Jack or Roger, who sharpens both ends of a stick. (Ono, his name is Roger-- say it ain't so, Joe.)

Nazis are not hard to identify, though for many people such as yourself they are hard to recognize. First, they are authoritarian. In favor of dungeons, prisons and torture as in Guantanamo and the special rendition sites. They love torture-- that is for sure-- are all for it. That love alone is enough to firmly establish someone as a Nazi. Some person sticks a sprig of hedge through the abdomen of a horse fly and then releases it to watch it fly and laugh. A Nazi. True of any age or any country or any year.

It's complicated...Straw Man. All of the Naziisms...just wearing it out. Then to come back and say that 2 X 2 ='s 4...well therein lies the definition of the personna that you have created for yourself here on the tennis forum. I say tennis forum because that is what it is. But you have changed this forum into a personal vendetta to remove the sitting President of the United States of America. The truth is...you have lost it. But two to the power of two does indeed equal four. Happy to see that you could come to that conclusion without invoking the spector of Nazi's.

Just think of how many German people you have offended with your insane rants about Nazi's. Let's put you in a room full of German folk and turn out the lights after you rant at them about the Nazi's. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get a royal ass kicking which is what you deserve.

Straw Man...Straw Man...you ain't nothing but a Straw Man. Your Nazi meme is yours now. You own it. I wonder how Philipp Kohlshreiber would take to your nonsense. I listened to the tournament in Rotterdam in German all week. Are these people all Nazi's? I just wonder how they might react to your insane rants. You...a little old angry man living in a shell. Keep crying.

don_budge

[don_budge]

These couple of quotes are only the tip of the iceberg of your ravings of Nazi's. You own all of it. Poor you.

[don_budge]

Walk it Back...Straw Man. All of the way back.

"Identitarian Ethnostate"

http://readersupportednews.org/news-...ionalist-group

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/16/ap-white-nationalist-disavow-connection-florida-school-shooter/

No evidence. Oh yeah...4 X 4 = 16. Brilliant.

[don_budge]

Six AM in Detroit. bottle up and at 'em. Spreading more joy...more positive energy. Can't sleep bottle? The poison have you? Toxic unawareness.

[bottle]

If you'd bother, mein Steve, to have read the article about the Florida shooter, you would have found both words, "identitarian" and "ethnostate." It's true though that I was first to put them together in an effort to describe the fog bank in which people like you live.

They are horrid words as is the horrid state of mind that you are always trying to impose on us, with your absolute hatred of immigrants and women professionals, etc., etc. Horrid is as horrid does-- therefore the combined name is appropriate.

Pointing out your or anyone's demogoguery seems a worthy and positive goal though a lifetime project. You clearly are incapable of realizing that you are 100 times more negative than I am. The air needs to come out of your balloon.

Old Appalachian saying: Walk a little plainer, daddy.

[bottle]

Just think of how many German people you have offended with your insane rants about Nazi's. Let's put you in a room full of German folk and turn out the lights after you rant at them about the Nazi's. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get a royal ass kicking which is what you deserve.

Totally untrue, revealing a flawed understanding of the world. Young Germans would, and have sided with me, not with the likes of you. And they've learned to bring up the Nazi meme, realizing that it's much healthier to do so than not.

You really didn't think LORD OF THE FLIES was about Nazi takeovers? That brings us up to 1960. Now don't get all rabid, mein Steve, at what I'm about to tell you. I think you have Nazi tendencies in your extreme desire to manipulate other people. Maybe Sweden's not far enough East? Go to India in order to better learn how to get along with gentle human beings?

Oh, and just for the record: Future Trumpsters and fake Trumpsters (I make no distinction) played the der Fuehrer song when Obama made a few executive decisions. Also, you should know that Walt Disney was Jewish. And he completely co-opted the Spike Jones song, even made movies of it starring Donald Duck.

And married women frequently call their husbands Nazis. The Nazi experience is with us all. What about Mel Brooks treatment of it? Only sickly people try to deny it and quell it-- that would be you.

[don_budge]

As usual as your online personna in the Straw Man role you have completely missed the point. It appears that you have tried to connect the shooter with white supremacy. There doesn't appear to be any evidence to this although it remains within the realm of possibilities. It is important to not rush to judgement just to support your false assumption...all in the role of the Straw Man. You do this consistently in all of your writing. Even in the relatively short post above you manage.

100 times more negative than you? Any objective person would say otherwise. Hatred of immigrants? Women professionals? What...am I not in lock step with your vision of things. What a crime that must be in your world. You are so certain...aren't you? Feeble arguments for feeble attempts to mock, demean and otherwise make yourself look like an intellectual. Phoney baloney. You are fake. Your premises are fake. Go back to sleep. It is now 6:52 AM in Detroit. What could possibly possess you to be up at this hour making ridiculous arguments for mostly non defensible positions? Good question...the key operative word being possess just in case you didn't catch it in bold print. Go back to sleep. Maybe the cobwebs will go away. But maybe not.

don_budge

[bottle]

It appears that you have tried to connect the shooter with white supremacy. There doesn't appear to be any evidence to this...

100 times more negative than you? Any objective person would say otherwise.

Paragraph one here: What? How about the organizations to which he belongs?

Paragraph two: Not.

[bottle]

mein Steve,

I've thought about it. You have absolutely no idea of who I am and even less about who you are. That combined with your wish to exclude whole groups from your life makes the horrid term "Identitarian Ethnostate" a perfect description of your inner workings.

[don_budge]

mein Steve,

I've thought about it. You have absolutely no idea of who I am and even less about who you are. That combined with your wish to exclude whole groups from your life makes the horrid term "Identitarian Ethnostate" a perfect description of your inner workings.

Hope...your ex said that I was a man of the world. This was after she listened to my explanation where I was coming from. Spiritually, intellectually and emotionally. She really listened to me. I thought that was very nice of her. She was and is a very, very nice woman. Give here my best if you would be so kind...if you see her.

If Hope could read the sheer and utter nonsense that you are regurgitating here nonstop I am quite certain that she would be thanking her lucky stars that fate intervened. I would never say an unkind or untoward statement about her. Such is my respect.

Get a grip...10splayer said it best. You are nuttier than a fruitcake. I would say nuttier than a nutcase. Get some sleep Straw Man. You have things to do today. Hopefully better things than writing more of your hate speech. Nazi's? Nutcase.

don_budge

[bottle]

I repeat, you have no idea what you are talking about. And I hate to repeat. You, on the other hand, love to repeat. What do you think you are, a goddamn Greek chorus? And you're not a man of the world. And I don't think she even meant it. But I'll ask her the next time I see her and report back. Warning: you may be disappointed.