A New Year's Serve

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Am Recording my Serve (“O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!")

Am too horrified to write. But if you think, reader, this means I'm about to post my videos, you are sadly mistaken. I am embarrassed in front of myself. I don't need to be embarrassed in front of you, too. All I can say is that, obviously, I have studied the subject of the tennis serve a lot, and certain remedies do spring to mind. But that doesn't mean there are about to be after and before videos posted in this thread. Ono. The way to criticize me is to call for an appointment. We will play. And you will clobber my serves (if you can).

Two very serious points. First, we don't know how we look. Seeing high quality film of oneself for the first time can be a severe shock. Not only do I not stand up straight enough, but I'm not doing all kinds of things I thought I was doing. At least I now am at that good first step.

Second, the little things teaching pros say can be as important, or even more important, than the big things. Also, my theory is that something a teaching pro would say in a bar or coffee shop would be more tellingly received than out on a tennis court. I say that even though I don't go into bars any more.

Well, both Tomaz Mencinger and Brent Abel say, in recent videos, that everybody needs to record oneself. Yes, go into moving selfie mode. And Brent says (he the number one singles player in the U.S. seventies) that there isn't an excuse any more. What used to cost thousands now is just the price of a tripod if you have a fairly modern phone with high quality photo and video.

My new tripod came in the mail in a few days. Puts my phone in a vise and then twists it any way I want. Made in China. Twenty dollars, delivered. And it's great. (Just don't step on it.)

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Report: Four Senior Players, All Pretty Good

But one was twenty years younger than the others. He cleaned up even though I didn't think his strokes were that hot.

In the first set, the Al who invited me and I hung with the other Al (Et Al) and the 59-year-old to 3-3 . Then came a game as long as a set. We finally gave it away. That was the momentum shift that did us in. Bottle is 0-1 in sets.

In set two I'm with Et Al, the next oldest-- eight years younger than moi but with dreamy strokes. 2-6 . Bottle now is 0-2 in sets.

In set three I'm partnered with the young 'un. Pretty soon we're ahead. "4-0," Young-un notes in sotto voce. Bottle is holding his serve!

Man is the Har-Tru nice at Indian Village Tennis Club in Detroit. Gets replaced at five grand once a year. Gets watered twice a day. The people at Indian Village are nice too, almost too nice. They'd like a recruitment award.

They show us the showers, the bar, the air-conditioned interior, the shampoo and clean towels, the special key they all carry to bring them through a narrow door in a brick wall that suggests THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnett . The two of us, Young 'un and I, are wearing hats. We look better and play younger than our aches and pains.

Everyone wants us to join the club. Some of the women even flash their stuff at us and advise us later how wild the parties there are.

They don't seem to know how little one can get out of a turnip. But there is a pool table there! And a kind of monument to Clark Scoles, the 1954 Gold Medalist in short butterfly at Helsinki. Clark was so unable to get along with his college teammates that the University of Michigan swimming coach made him tow a big truck tire up and down the length of the Ann Arbor pool.

Clarkie drank a lot. That's why he no longer is with us. He played tennis with a huge finned racket (finned as in Finland). I owned it for a while until I got rid of it in favor of thin frames. Clark was one of Hope's boyfriends before and after me. In the first of the seven years I lived in the Hope house we went to a party in honor of Clark a year after his passing. The party consisted mainly of theater people. Movies and photos of Clark on stage were abundant. I never met him.

So it's 4-0 . We lose the next three games. I serve at love. "Grrrr," I say after knocking off the last volley. My partner, Young 'un, youthfully uses great service returns to close out the final game.

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AI, Continued

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRzBk_KuIaM

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A Bunch of Spiral Loop Forehands that Look Much the Same

Stet.

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An Invitation to Play Saturday Morning Doubles as a Free Guest at India Village Tennis Club here in Detroit

It's the swishiest place in this part of the huge city. And is expensive in my view. A friend, hearing me talk, once fixed me up with some of the strongest players there.

But then, observing me actually play, withdrew the offer (fired me, you could say).

He shortly thereafter died.

Well, I've played at Indian Village once. Tomorrow will be the second time.

A friend made it to the final of a recent doubles tournament there.

The prize for winning was a free year's membership.

Sadly, the day before the final, his partner came down with an almost terminal case of hiccups.

The hiccups persisted through the next day too and, as a team, they had to concede.

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In Reply to Private Inquiry

Julia Kis in the novel SUMMERTIME by J.M. Coatzee: "A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us. What else should it be?"

I'm not sure that kids in Pre-K to Second Grade even have the frozen sea inside of them. The sea freezes now around Grade Three.

You might be surprised, reader, that I so freely discuss a book that I am in the process of writing.

That is because I have observed the obligatory code of secrecy in the writing of all other of my books and it didn't work out.

(Hemingway: If you talk it you won't write it. Shakespeare: "Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.")

Well, the good sense in this didn't work for me.

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All for Feel and Feel for All. Feel for All and All for One, etc.

And if I see a great teacher I'll say so. Why wouldn't I when the school year is about to begin and I just re-discovered last year how much I love to teach.

The year is about to commence and I may be writing a book about a large proportion of Detroit schools (but want to take it slow-- could be a mistake?).

Whatever, the book won't interfere with the doing and I can't wait for the teaching to resume-- any day now. Whoever thought I'd feel like that? Not I.

Academic subjects however must not interfere with one's tennis. It all comes together in the teaching.

An old form of education is best in the view of Brent Abel-- apprenticeship.

But I'm not about to apprentice myself to him or Tomaz Mecinger or anyone else.

That doesn't stop me from doing my Abel, Mecinger, Van Horn, Brian Gordon and anyone else kicks. Or from Van Horn's supposition that front foot in a neutral stance forehand is the axis or pivot point.

It's serial monogamy, I guess, but in the meantime I don't see enough balls to put all the new ideas in effect-- am always getting avoided and "froze"-- more fakes and poaches become the antidote.

And a better use of the feet. Dance, baby, dance, bounce bounce. Observe Mecinger's vehemence on this point. If you stand there you're doing something other than tennis. (Mushroom?) The feet move always always always. Ready position is one thing, ready state another.

Now, personally, in this recently apprehended bowling exercise (you bowl tennis balls at the net): The arm is straight. This is my old waterwheel. To which I add Mencinger's universal stroke quality of centrifugation and lag. And now use the more spread forefinger on serves and forehands both although in different ways.

Forefinger finally points at the target on a serve.

Forefinger moves slightly BACKWARD to demonstrate forearm muscle elasticity in a basic forehand. How much I have wondered about this! Because no one explained it well enough for the everyman. They explained it in discussing Andre Agassi but always as something special and forbidden.

And forefinger spins the racket over wrapped thumb in the more topspun versions.

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A Few Notes on the Following Video (but You Really Should Make Your Own)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KRYA9ZlYmM

1) The dance step Mencinger teaches starts with inward movement of one foot. The other foot then goes out and immediately comes back in. Which gives impetus to the other foot to go out and come back in, etc., etc.

2) The grip taught here is a change for me since I've recently had thumb on top, not for basic forehands when it doesn't matter where thumb is; but, for wipered forehands the forefinger to be wrapped around the bottom of the handle and the thumb is naturally wrapped too, and the wipe is levered from those two points. The other fingers as Mencinger demonstrates could come off.

Less work, Mencinger suggests. Well, you're turning the racket from a somewhat choked up position if you do it just from thumb and forefinger. Also, since forefinger is two inches farther up the handle then thumb, that's two extra inches of leverage to power fast spin.

3) Gravity drop feels like you're waving racket on edge. Try some with bottom three fingers off racket and not hitting a ball?

4) Bowl balls.

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Hey, Wait a Minute

If stretching lead side shoulder-to-hip muscles and sinews increases toss height, why won't same stretch on trail side of bod improve weight transfer (and upward component!!!) on a topspin serve?

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Your and My Service Toss: Not as Virtuoso as John McEnroeso

One of my favorite Tomaz Mencinger videos (so far) is called "Analyzing a Tennis Serve & Improving the Toss Height."

I recommend it especially to the barfly in Winston-Salem who was on the city crew that produced Davis Cups against India and France, a guy who was blown away by American Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe's ground strokes.

Sitting on a bar stool, this bearded Kenny Rogers look-alike, despite succeeding with the main bartendresse, complained repeatedly that, in his own tennis, he was unable to get his service toss high enough to be effective.

Well, it turns out this problem is almost universal.

I will not replicate the Tomaz Mencinger video since my mission here is not to be a flak for anybody.

If someone is seriously worried about the height of their toss, however, they will get on line and sleuth it out.

Its wonderfulness is for many reasons, some teacherly and one even humorous.

First, Mencinger actually tells where to get more oomph for the toss-- from that section of bod between shoulder and hip.

Think about that. It's just one phrase, expressed briefly and only once-- "from shoulder to hip"-- you'd better not miss it. Reflect then how this new expenditure of energy will add to one's form without one having to think about it.

If you have an ice cream cone grip, say, and an entirely straight arm, and an emphatic downswing, and are committed to physical effort rather than relaxation in this phase of the cycle, and then stretch the muscles between shoulder and hip as arm goes up, you will heave the ball as high as you could possibly want.

In the video, Mencinger has drawn a horizontal line where he thinks the apogee, the acme and zenith-- all one-- ought to be.

When his student gets the ball up to this bar he cries, "Victory!"

But when the student on a subsequent toss regresses, he cries "Defeat!"

"Defeat!" "Victory!" "Defeat!" "Defeat!" "Victory!" "Victory!" "Victory!"

This is how it can go.

Of course there is no line, no bar, no suspended wire out on the court nor should there be.

Mencinger, wearing glasses, drew the line into the video afterward.

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Clear and Early Intention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW8Yh3hVG08

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Hit the Ball in the Seat of its Pants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3K9y8ptQ0s

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Throwing to Pushing Ratio: Letting Go vs. Control

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb2Wz0alEjs

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Tomaz Mencinger on Weight Transfer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b96lTo4zKA

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Thoughtfulness: Unit Turn Mistakes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xH1jAL_KNo