A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

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.

[bottle]

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.

[bottle]

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.

[bottle]

A Bunch of Spiral Loop Forehands that Look Much the Same

Stet.

[bottle]

AI, Continued

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

[bottle]

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.

[bottle]

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.)

[bottle]

Why I stopped thinking that Tripod was the name of a racehorse owned by the father of someone I know.

We write something-- that is the time we actually learn something about writing-- i.e., after the thing is written.

We do something: Buy a tripod for our phone, then learn afterward why we did it.

Not to study fine points in one's serve but for the initial shock of seeing oneself serving.

[bottle]

Why I stopped thinking that Tripod was the name of a racehorse owned by the father of someone I know.

We write something-- that is the time we actually learn something about writing-- i.e., after the thing is written.

We do something: Buy a tripod for our phone, then learn afterward why we did it.

Not to study fine points in one's serve but for the initial shock of seeing oneself serving.

So I sent this to my friend Bill, stroke and captain of the Brown Cinderella Crew, and organizer of the first truly national collegiate modern day male rowing championship race. For a number of years this big race, which has continued in other venues, was held on Harsha Lake in Cincinnati. Before Cincinnati, Harvard and Yale were holdouts because of their traditional race the same day in New London, Connecticut. All rowing traditions persist but now Harvard and Yale compete in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships as well as on the Thames River in Connecticut, just some weeks later. My friend Bill brought about the needed change along with the help of Harry Parker, Harvard's late head coach, and Steve Gladstone, now Yale's head coach.

I won't report everything Bill said, just this part: "Bot, indeed Tripod was my mother's nickname for her horse with a lame leg she rescued from the track..."

Note how a friend doesn't blame you for something you got a little bit wrong. And how reality is never exactly what you thought.

[bottle]

Middle Finger Forehands

They sound disrespectful but really are just good rolled forehands in the Doug King way, which may have been undervalued by other teaching pros for a long time-- until now. Tomaz Mencinger has, in my view, elaborated on the basic Doug King idea of coming with your hand to the backside of a beach ball or medicine ball and then rolling it straight forward. Mencinger teaches a flourish as hand reaches the top of the ball. But the two things, the compression of the TENNIS ball from slightly below its equator ("hit the ball in the seat of its pants"-- John M. Barnaby would instruct young kids) and the flourish of fingers are so close together as to be almost simultaneous.

In the free Mencinger video where Tomaz is working with his nephew, they both use bare hand to push a tennis ball toward the other along a bench. The working idea is to first compress ball straight down through your palm with body weight, then roll ball from its top.

When this gets translated to a forehand, the tennis ball gets compressed from just below its middle and then rolled up back and slightly over top.

The whole thing is predicated on the loosest of possible grips. Finger pressure may be saved for volleys, slices, chops-- control rather than "let go" shots. (I'd like to have my whole hand on the racket for them.) But for these rolled rather than wipered forehands I now steal Mencinger's forefinger up and around the bottom of the handle as one pivot point and thumb locked on middle finger thus forming a thin ring around the handle as the other.

That leaves bottom two fingers to come completely off the racket if you want.

When you combine all this with Mencinger's "universal stroke pattern" (outside, inside and straight), and Halep-like conservative edge down rather than Federer's face down flip, the relaxed wrist is laid back to its natural resistance point in plenty of time.

And during the contact, forearm muscles will allow the racket tip (or forefinger) to spring both ways much like elastic strings that increase power and dwell.

Very solid forehands become quickly apparent. But will the two new pivot points on the handle work to produce wipered forehands, too? I think so although I haven't learned that to my satisfaction yet.

[bottle]

What Happened, I Think

After a lifetime of low toss serving, I was greatly influenced by the Feel Tennis YouTube where Tomaz Mencinger addresses that problem.

Now, at last, my tosses were up where they should be. Added force came from the muscles between shoulder and hip. A small pause or Zenlike gathering of resources, energy or intention at the bottom of the toss downswing also helped.

What I didn't account for was, that, the other arm in a down together up together motion would mimic the same pause and thus become miserably late resulting in a cramped, low elbow serve.

This problem, recidivism surely since I must have gone beyond it, emerged when I recorded myself for the first time. That made me more nervous than pressure in a good match. I had recently held serve at love when I really needed something like that.

But then of course the first time I tried to record myself on court I didn't know I was supposed to push the red button and lost the whole session. I had recorded for a few seconds in a coffee shop somehow without pushing the red button. More confusion.

Fortunately I own the famous "Arco book," play better tennis, copyright 1971 .

It hasn't fallen apart. As you riffle its pages, John Newcombe's serve comes alive. John's arms go down together but his toss arm pauses with ball near his thigh. Hit arm meanwhile rises to yardarm position. The two arms then rise together in the toss.

Works. Will record again and keep going (play, record, self-feed, play, record etc.).

Alternatively, if one doesn't like the toss arm pause, one can send hit arm down per gravity and when it naturally starts up, downswing and toss. The two arms will once again get together and rise in the toss.

[bottle]

Why does Tomaz Mencinger Revise the Unit Turn to Upper Bod Turn?

Because he's saving backward turn of the hips for something more interesting.

The hips combine their late start with change of direction to centrifugate the racket.

Well, we can come now to my early separation of the hands. How can one centrifugate something if one doesn't get it going first? Right hand can lead the backward turn. I prefer to keep arm bent just then. Speed of this outwardly directed action will determine height of one's loop. What happens if this initial move goes an inch? A foot? Two feet?

Next up: middle finger serves.

[stotty]

What Happened, I Think

As you riffle its pages, John Newcombe's serve comes alive. John's arms go down together but his toss arm pauses with ball near his thigh. Hit arm meanwhile rises to yardarm position. The two arms then rise together in the toss.

Newcombe's is one of my favourite serves from the classic era. It always looks like his racket arm is moving quicker than the ball toss arm, certainly during the later years of his career, though not in his earlier years. Usually with this kind of feature it's the other way around; the tossing arm goes up at 4mph and the racket arm moves at 2mph. With this method we nearly always get sloping shoulders...with the left shoulder (assume righty) higher than the right around the trophy position.

Anyway I just love the way Newcombe's serve synchs into place.

[bottle]

Newcombe's is one of my favourite serves from the classic era. It always looks like his racket arm is moving quicker than the ball toss arm, certainly during the later years of his career, though not in his earlier years. Usually with this kind of feature it's the other way around; the tossing arm goes up at 4mph and the racket arm moves at 2mph. With this method we nearly always get sloping shoulders...with the left shoulder (assume righty) higher than the right around the trophy position.

Anyway I just love the way Newcombe's serve synchs into place.

I've been trying to use him (Newcombe) as an antidote to chronically low elbow when I serve. But my camcorder doesn't lie. No matter how high I lift my arm before it bends and drops, I end up with elbow low and coming too much around the right side of my body.

The only time I succeed in throwing with elbow properly high is when I do figure eights. So building on those figure eights now becomes my big order.

Did I mention that I have a trick shoulder? No? Probably just as well.

[bottle]

Good Sense

https://www.feeltennis.net/advanced-topspin-technique/

But add Mencinger's outside inside straight use of centrifugal force too. You delay backward hips turn in the unit turn, I would argue. You get the arm going during unit turn also. (How can you centrifugate something that isn't already moving?) And lighten grip almost to a fantastic point. Forefinger up and around handle (one purchase point in grip. The other can be thumb locked on middle finger. The bottom two fingers can actually be off of the racket. Get the outside racket path going in conjunction with backward hip rotation. Get the inside circular path along with arm straightening a-going with forward hip rotation. Then drive racket straight for direction and dwell as flipped wrist gives still more during contact (i.e., bounces back and replaces like synthetic strings).

But one can also use the newly defined pressure points in grip for short angled topspin off of a short, soft ball. I suggest waiting for a fairly high bounce from the oncoming shot. And starting a slow wipe from early coin like flip. (You drop the racket edge, not its face.) Everybody thinks their windshield wiper ought to be adjusted to its fastest setting. Wrong. There's just some mist and a few droplets on the glass.