A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

Mine works best if I happen to wake up about 3am. I have my best ideas in the middle of the night.

[bottle]

Mine works best if I happen to wake up about 3am. I have my best ideas in the middle of the night.

Me too. And once you give in to this as routine the ideas may come in more and more profusion. I actually had another project in mind for this summer but tennis technique ideas kept asserting themselves at 3 or 4 a.m., so I write them down. They haven't cut out the other project although they've made it go a bit more slowly. Which could be a good thing-- who knows? But whatever the worth of my tennis ideas, the best may have happened today: Cut the service motion in half with half as much energy expended and the same or better result. And maybe find some difficult way to take a nap during the day to make up for the lost time. I'm telling you, what with lumbar pain, it's not often that I will make two trips to two different courts to work on my serve in a single day. But it happened today, this Thursday. That's how excited I am. Fortunately geezer tennis happens tomorrow, which ought to put all this in perspective. But what if I come away from it even more excited? Could easily happen.

[bottle]

Further Orchestration of Two Forehands

So I'm conditioned to come up with new stroke ideas during the night. Question: If I am scheduled to play during the day will I play worse than if I had dreamt about women instead?

A fair question despite its pluralism, but I think the answer is no. How one performs is another subject. Of course one can overthink anything. But one learns when to put some dish on the back burner. All in all, if one wants to do something well one should authorize oneself to think about that subject all he wants and more.

But with the following idea the eventual goal: "See the ball. Hit the ball."

My new forehand, my bending arm 243, is a moderate "keep the ball in the court" type of shot despite its short angle possibilities. My Federfore, which I've had for a lot longer, now begins from the same backswing and uses the same measured wrist opening adjusted to estimated speed of oncoming ball so is a 243 as well. But with a different shape at rear of the loop, steep and straight down to allow for maximum independent arm sweep through the ball.

My moderate forehands, the bending arm 243 and my McEnrueful are the shots I plan to use the most. The 243 is probably more in the range of my natural ability. I need a good day-- then the McEnrueful can get spectacular, in particular for a low ball as one sweeps forward.

The McEnrueful grew out of curiosity about John McEnroe's forehand. It is a strange shot for somebody like me to have, but the one that draws most praise. On a bad day it goes sour.

Any time I want to hit hard I will try a Federfore, but with full wipe to down low on left side.

I'll try some without the wipe and finish over the shoulder.

[bottle]

Next Subject: Hero Worship vs. Having a Critical Mind ("I Want to Sit at the Dining Room Table of Don Corleone")

I can keep this subject to tennis. I can think that Welby Van Horn is the best tennis instructor there ever was and still prefer level volleys like those of Billie Jean King over volleys that chop down a little.

So what happened? I read some SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER. My volleys were screwed up for one day. I had to go to a bangboard and hit little chips to get them back.

[stotty]

I can keep this subject to tennis. I can think that Welby Van Horn is the best tennis instructor there ever was and still prefer level volleys like those of Billie Jean King over volleys that chop down a little.

Me too.

[bottle]

Butterball 243 vs. Harsh Flip 243

There is a young tennis pro in Dave's Barbershop just come from teaching lessons. He doesn't know I play tennis. "You can't get racket back too soon," he says to Dave. That's not what Welby Van Horn says in SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER. Welby: You let the ball push your racket back at its oncoming speed. But the young pro in Dave's Barbershop is right, too, in the case of my Federfore. I find this out from THREE wide forehand service returns all from ad court.

I hit THREE service returns to outside of the right alley! I didn't do that once in the past month. Well, am I educable?

"Don't beat yourself up, John," Aggie Guastella recently told me. She is a diminutive teaching pro at Eastside Tennis here in Detroit.

No, no, I do want to beat myself up for not being more educable after the first missed shot. Then to make the exact same mistake two more times?

Be grateful, Escher, that it happened, and is telling you what to do. You had to figure it out later, in your sleep, at home, but so what?

See this as simple confirmation of the 10-cent computer in the front top of your brain. You've got to be quicker about shifting to the billion dollar computer low and behind. And don't call it a lizard brain unless this is a day when you think all lizards are beautiful.

Be honest, Escher. Didn't you just write that your worst idea of the week was to flip wrist from opposite hand on the racket throat? Flip that. Authorize yourself. Flip flip flip.

Flip and flip.

[bottle]

Serve: Lift Left Foot like an Egret

Do like the featured player in this month's issue of Golf Magazine, the delicate girl who wins all the long drive contests and hit one ball 404 feet. It helps that she used to be a shot-putter and took up golf late after Cornell and knows all about how a baseball pitcher loads up his right side.

I can't remember her name since my casual reading of the magazine occurred in Dave's Barbershop, Grosse Pointe Michigan where people were discussing other subjects. But a golf magazine is best read in a barbershop or doctor's office rather than at home.

I'll keep both hands in close against trunk as I turn for this one. The toss then will be with both arms kept bent and separating to mirror one another.

The left foot will go down as the right foot comes up in the air while becoming pigeontoed for a topspin serve.

The right foot will stay put once the left foot has come down for carved slice and lagged flat serves.

[bottle]

The Apolitical Tennis Player as Reader of World Literature

It can happen, so long as the tennis player's beachside house complete with a dark musty library filled with old books does not get washed away.

For a while-- for a matter of years in fact-- the name of Fyodor Dostoyevsky was batted about in these pages like a tennis ball in a prolonged volley exchange.

Having just completed my re-read of THE IDIOT, I conclude that Myshkin and Aglaia are two of the great characters in all literature.

But I always felt that seriousness was missing in our discussions here and somebody needed to provide illumination. And so I offer this essay by Vladimir Nabokov (https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/m...stoyevsky.html).

[bottle]

And, Since One Good Essay Deserves Another (before I return to serves and forehands), Here's Hermann Hesse on THE IDIOT

(http://world.std.com/~raparker/explo...son_idiot.html)

[bottle]

More Dynamic Posture or a New Can of Worms?

Might as well stay positive while looking at least for the small thing that might make a big difference.

Raising one's front leg is a big choice from which we can retreat by merely lifting the front heel (or toes) instead.

But that would be the earliest retreat in my personal history so I oppose it.

With one leg raised like The Karate Kid, I explore every possible arraignment of the two arms with an eye toward creating and maintaining best balance.

Remember, the arm carrying the racket weighs more than the arm carrying the tennis ball.

And a tightrope walker carries a long pole not a short one.

Is that a dictate of straight arms before the toss?

Want them low or high?

And I am determined to cock wrist early since I hate not knowing where else to do it.

So what do you say, reader? Should I return to down together up together ritual, the factory-made default setting for us all? Are you sure?

[bottle]

Note: Barnaby from the photos in his books is totally on front foot to start and never gets off of it: a minuscule amount of frontward glide leads into hip protrusion and toss.

No lifting of front foot for him.

[bottle]

Short Ones, Long Ones

Here's one with a short backswing that seems to make some sense. The hands and racket stay joined with wrist opening close to bod. The two arms then start slowly upward, separating in a small fountain of movement. One hasn't tossed yet! Before one tosses, one can be slow and deliberate and do anything one wants.

[bottle]

Putting More Logic Behind a Scissoring 243 Forehand

Scissoring brings the racket up to 3 (waist height) on Welby Van Horn's Big Clock.

The key word is "up." An incline is established. One wants the exact same angle of incline immediately post-contact as immediately pre-contact. How to do that? With aeronautical banking so that shoulders are in the process of both turning around and lifting up.

This consideration could alter rear end of loop. For aeronautical banking upward to occur aeronautical banking down must first occur. But the 243 formula indicates subtlety of change, i.e., not much. The loop no longer will come all from arm. And arm can straighten backward more than downward now since playing shoulder will be the partial agent of getting the racket down to 4 .

[bottle]

Putting More Logic Behind a Scissoring 243 Forehand

Scissoring brings the racket up to 3 (waist height) on Welby Van Horn's Big Clock.

The key word is "up." An incline is established. One wants the exact same angle of incline immediately post-contact as immediately pre-contact. How to do that? With aeronautical banking so that shoulders are in the process of both turning around and lifting up.

This consideration could alter rear end of loop. For aeronautical banking upward to occur aeronautical banking down must first occur. But the 243 formula indicates subtlety of change, i.e., not much. The loop no longer will come all from arm. And arm can straighten sideward or backward more than downward now since playing shoulder will be the partial agent of getting the racket down to 4 .

Since, obviously, the goal is to fool the 10-cent computer with the billion dollar computer, envision a smooth 233 forehand that is all arm. From your wait position your wrist can stand in for the good computer. It will assess speed of the oncoming ball and bend up in tandem with moving arm to 2 o'clock at that speed. Next arm will straighten to three. Next arm will bend (scissor) again to three. Sounds complicated and stupid and like an unforced error, but we are trying for a bit of tomfoolery here where the billion dollar computer is Tom.

While arm is following this direction the bod is moving in certain ways as well. Goes without saying.

While we are impressed with expensive toys, we also are influenced by a recent article read on the subject of automation. The possibilities, according to one big pooh-bah in the field, are, 1) wonderful and 2) horrible at odds of 50-50 . The biggest problem with all the new expensive machinery a lot of which has just been invented, is how to give it intelligent instruction since people aren't particularly intelligent and seldom are well-trained.

To jump back to the other side of the analogy, we've got to use our 10-cent computer whether we like it or not since it's all we have to tell the billion dollar computer what to do. I suggest aeronautical banking of the rear shoulder down one number or digit on the clock face. By itself, the shoulder would go from 2 to 3. But we've already got the arm going from 2 to 3.

Add the two movements together and we get 2 to 4, which is what we wanted all along!

So, did we fool the bod? Did we become a beautiful animal? One can hope.

And reverse the logic, calling the new shot a 242 in which the ball gets hit at 3 .

[bottle]

Greatest Tennis Lesson as Example. For Teaching English, Math, History, Science and all other Disciplines

Aleady I am abrasive with impugning that most tennis lessons are not great, right?

To which we can build further indictment against myself by adding one count of celebrity-worship.

The celebrity is Luke Jensen, who won the French Open doubles with his brother Murph.

I've told the story before and will tell it again. Luke came to the Har-Tru courts of the Grosse Pointe Michican Yacht Club to conduct an exhibition tennis lesson.

Three ball machines were set up on three adjacent courts with their backs toward the water.

The class of 40 women were lined up in three groups with their backs toward Lake Shore Drive.

Luke demonstrated what he wanted everyone to do. First, pretend that the ball machine was popping out serves. Second, hit a sharp angle return short in the alley. Third, hit a crisp volley or overhead to the exact same spot.

As I watched from outside the fence behind the ball machines, I came to understand that Luke could do the assignment but no one else could. And yet the ladies all wore sun visors. And tennis shoes. And tennis clothes. And carried rackets. So there was connection to what Luke said.

I, the one male there besides Luke, now had a specific burning coal at the back of my mind-- or should-- for every time I would return serve from the deuce court in doubles for the rest of my life.

Short in the alley (1). Short in the alley (2).

On Friday, I hit one that was short enough. Against almost any other player it would have been a clean winner-- and that was the trouble. I wasn't ready for what came next.

Al Truhan, who is a very good player, got to the ball when it was three inches from the ground and dinked it up. This hasn't happened enough. I wasn't ready.

Halfway to the goal then. That's where I am. But this post is about teaching even more than learning.

One must have a good connection-- and nobody has better patter than Luke Jensen-- but one also must have a very high expectation. The goal must be almost but not quite out of reach.

But I, tipped off half an hour before by an anesthesiologist at The Edsel and Eleanor Ford House, was the only one of 40 persons there who was behind a fence and without a racket.

That Luke then came over to chat with me and knew me by name ("the one and only Bottle?") was very interesting, but my question is about the other 40 persons.

Did any of them absorb the lesson or even try to put it in effect?

Possible. Which is why the teacher must have the high expectation. But on the other hand the yacht club just paved over the courts to make them like all the others in Grosse Pointe and require less maintenance.

To the yacht club's credit they set the new courts at 90 degrees to the old ones so that the sun would no longer be such a problem.

But did anybody learn anything? Dunno. Replace clay courts? Basically uneducable?