A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

For People who find Learning Significant Kick very Difficult

Rain. Can't go to court to modify my ideas, wah-wah. Also, scanner won't work and don't have good drawing capacity and can't find the brilliant diagram "Six main ways to generate spin" on the web. An interactive feature, however, will supposedly make a deeper impression on you, dear reader, so you'll need a paper and pencil unless you have a copy of TECHNICAL TENNIS by Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey in which case turn to page 127 (the three pairs of drawings are stacked there).

First drawing, topspin only (l); for second drawing, topspin & spiralspin, erase the vertical line and re-draw it a bit closer to left parenthesis, i.e., to left side of ball. Here's second pair: sidespin only (-) and sidespin & spiralspin for which you need to erase dash and replace it higher up. Third pair, topspin & sidespin (/) and topspin, sidespin & spiralspin, for which you need to erase line and redraw it closer to upper left corner. In each case the second line is parallel to the first but off-center.

We kick questers-- the rotorded ones-- need to flush from our consciousness all thought of players who already mastered kick. They don't exist. This is for us.

We use a provocative sentence of the authors as our strategic guide to our self-directed special education: "It is difficult to generate much topspin in a serve by swinging the racket upward as it contacts the ball."

So, dear reader, if you are like me, you can produce the straight up topspin
and even combined topspin & spiralspin serves of the first two drawings, just not in sufficient amount. Whether you're like me or not, let's eliminate the first two drawings, stop assessing their promise and simply forget them-- especially since there is a simpler, more viable way to go.

That is the second pair of drawings, which indicate a situation that anyone can handle. If you want sidespin, swipe sideways across the nose of the ball. If you want more sidespin, swipe harder. This holds true.

To add spiralspin is only slightly more difficult. You do what you just did only on the forehead of the ball. No immediate result? Then stick with it, altering the toss until balls both go in and KICK.

Still not pleased? Then stay at this level. Every morning at dawn, for the rest of your life, practice swiping side to side across the forehead of the ball, making all necessary, supporting adjustments until, perhaps or perhaps not, you can both put the ball in the service box and depend on a big, unpredictable kick.

Then and only then, go to the third set of drawings, which resemble the tennis magazine water torture drawings of clock faces we've seen so often. Typically, they show racket travel lines across them from 7 to 1:30 or 8 to 2 . That's for topspin & sidespin only, so why not eliminate this perennial source of suffering once and for all?

I'm recommending a program of three steps only: One, sidespin; two sidespin & spiralspin; three sidespin, spiralspin & topspin.

Note: Pure spiralspin characterizes forward passes and good punts in American football. Tennis spiralspin, when it occurs, is always combined with other spin.

To summarize then: KICK HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TOPSPIN. SO GET SIDESPIN FIRST, SIDESPIN & SPIRALSPIN NEXT, AND ADD TOPSPIN LAST.

[bottle]

More on Spiralspin

Yes, I think your dramatic spider web video game image could help an unsure person understand spiralspin, and so can the image given by Cross and Lindsey, the authors of TECHNICAL TENNIS, the spin on a forward pass in football. If that's the only spin (not likely), the ball goes straight through the air but then kicks abruptly in direction of the spiraling the instant it contacts the court.

On a professional knife-thrower masquerading as a serving tennis player, I must confess I've used that analogy myself. But I've definitely seen a good server who's already twisting his arm as it extends from the elbow.

The best tennis player I ever compete against in this city (Winston-Salem) said he thought most good kick-servers don't know the term but stumbled on some spiral spin by trial and error.

I prepared a post on the subject but will not put it here until I consistently produce some really good kickers with it; otherwise, it's mere wishful thinking.

Yes, contact point A) for a serve sounds good where you put it. But what's the racket path from there? Tomorrow I'm going from A) to a spot on the top FRONT of the ball to see what happens. Of course I have unfolding rather than closing wrist which I suppose makes me some kind of freak.

On Federer forehand, I don't advocate closing of racket from forearm. I use forearm but I want racket to knife up rather than over. On this subject I recommend the forehand section of Rod Laver. He does both kinds. Rolling
over is much more high risk, it seems to me, especially since I really messed up my arm one time by trying to do it too hard.

On grab, twist and fling, I understand Cross and Lindsey as saying that scrape and bite is what actually happens, with all increase in spin ceasing at the moment of bite. Is the ball then flung? I guess so!

[rosheem]

Spin an axe, or spin on axes?

Nice post, Bottle.

TECHNICAL TENNIS was the first and only tennis book I ever bought.

I like where you are going with the spiral spin. I have pondered this myself. When I am hitting the ball well, I do feel like I am influencing the ball in more ways, more axes, than just two.

This is why I never liked the axe analogy for the serve or ground strokes. I'm sure you've heard it? (On the serve the swing up to contact is like throwing an axe). Not only does this advice mess with the way we should feel the weight of the racquet during the stroke, but it also limits the possibilities of what can be done to the ball.

Do the strings really grab the ball, twist it, and fling it? I like to think that if my hand can do it, my racquet can. On my serve, I am lifting the ball, pushing forward on it, and also twisting my hand (racquet) so that the strings are an extension of the base knuckle of my index finger, which is used to roll the ball through contact. (I try to get the body to re-engage close to the moment of impact so that this grabbing and twisting is a weighty one and not light and fluffy).

On many Federer forehands, you can see lift, drive, and close. The three combined must give better directional control than just two. Actually, power AND control. If three are better, how about four? I think this is where that leveraged pliability in the wrist comes in. It allows for enough grabbing of the ball to be able to put twisting influence on it. The use of longitudinal twist of the racquet can be a powerful influence, due to the difference in the radius of the handle compared to the racquet face.

This twisting can be used in conjunction with precisely locating the ball on specific parts of the stringbed and altering the angle of incidence between the strings and ball. On the serve, making contact just slightly below/left of center, combined with a twisting of the racquet in the counter-clockwise direction, is, in my opinion, the most efficient way to put spin on the ball. As contact moves further from the center, this twisting influence is even more pronounced.

Here, we come to the really crazy stuff, though. First of all, we can't get too far away from the center because power and stability will diminish. But I think that there is another reason we want to bring things back closer to center. SPIRAL. I visualize contact by taking it to the extreme: A spiraling tennis ball is shot into a spider web. As it makes contact and gets deeper into the backwards-stretching web, the spiral spin causes the web to twist all around the ball. Then, as the ball begins its rebound, the web not only propels it forward, but untwists at the same time, so that the ball rebounds with spiral spin.

(Here I would normally put a big disclaimer...I know the incoming ball can't have spiral spin because the bounce trues up the spin...I realize that the strings cannot twist....actual contact is only 1.235 nanoseconds or something like that....spiders can't seem to get along with each other, so we can't mass produce spider silk for tennis strings yet, etc. But I'm thinking that I'm mostly talking to you, Bottle, and I am just guessing that you are picking up what I'm putting down here.)

[bottle]

How Much "Give" Should there be in a Forehand-- Reversal (again) on Doug King

The scientific drawing of a Federfore on page 135 of TECHNICAL TENNIS by Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey was made from TennisPlayer videos.

To hit this particular shot, bowl unevenly, i.e., starting from point nearest rear fence (way back in Roger Federer's case) bowl slowly and shallowly downward, but rip through and upward to rejoin body rotation swing path. You rapidly but gradually! achieve a 30-degree rise before contact which turns into 50 degrees from contact, the forearm roll. Clearly, in this variation of a Federfore, mondo occurs at contact, cushioning shock. This doesn't by any means indicate that you should do things this way every time. Racket comes to ball hooded by eight degrees. Feel down, rip up. But rip before contact maximizing absorption. Two hundred pounds of pressure bend strings and wrist back to max. That means no more than conventional wrist layback (or a straight wrist!-- choose the best baseball catch setting) as you come into ball, say I. The mondo, anti-mondo Federfores discussed separately by me and Carrera Kent are a different form.

Thank you so much, Ochi, for putting me on to this excellent, mindstring pre-stretch book at Racquet Tech Publishing. It was slow to arrive and I had to endure a right brain chauvinist review on the web: "This won't help anyone." I repeat the central tenet of my tennis philosophy: Everybody needs to use both lobes of their brain at all times. Do you know where the next clinic entitled LEARNING EVERYTHING ABOUT THIRD AXIS TENNIS: HOW TO MAKE SPIRALSPIN WORK FOR YOU will be held?

I shall gladly puzzle over the Rosewall but am opposed to anything that costs money. As to the Wozniacki: I was so busy trying out the drawing described above (with all moments of change of speed perfectly delineated-- a first?) that I didn't get to my already planned experiment with open face. I want to see if I can get some spiralspin that way (or will I just hit the ball up into the sky-- don't know).

A fellow reporter at the Middletown (Conn.) Press, Richard Woodley, had been the open champion of East Hartford and before that was cut from the Syracuse varsity when he smashed the new racket his coach gave him, then went to CCNY where he played small man's varsity basketball. And was fired from the Middletown Press for talking too much in the office, although all the pool he and I and John Pekkanen (subsequent National Journalism Award at the Washingtonian) played during long lunch breaks might have had something to do with it along with a couple stories the bored Woodley faked, doing a very good job. Woodley went on to Life Magazine (as did Pekkanen) and I went around the world, which was cheaper than what they did and also cheaper than staying at home. Woodley then wrote illustrious books, end pieces for New York Times Magazine, etc.

Anyway (whew), Woodley made few distinctions between tennis and billiards.
He always aimed for an off-center spot on the ball. I'm sure he generated spiralspin that way (come to think of it he was a lefty quarterback in football, too). A mixture of spin on all three axes, on a lot of shots, now seems a promising way to go or at least to explore now that I understand the concept thanks to TECHNICAL TENNIS.

[ochi]

Bottle, you have been on a roll.

Here is something for you to play with, to bounce off philosophers, or to ridicule.

Last week, I happened to see a still of Wozniack, or maybe it was Wozniacki, on the Tennis Channel. She had her racquet back for a forehand and it was just about fully open, palm up. It seemed to me it would cause her to impart plenty of topspin, but I haven't remembered to try it, and maybe it isn't worth trying, but I thought I'd bounce it off you.

While I'm thinking about takebacks, what about that great, unique, wonderful Ken Rosewall backhand? I have typical pictures of him with his racquet back at only shoulder height, completely closed. And I'm looking at another in which he was returning a ball that was descending to knee height. He's stretched out, his rear knee only six inches above the court and his right upper leg is almost parallel with the court. His racquet is parallel with the court, completely closed. To do that, you have to pronate a lot. It's something I cannot practice drop-and-bounce. Gotta find a good deal on a battery-powered ball machine on E-Bay. I hope that by tomorrow I will have forgotten this impulse.

[bottle]

But if That (Post # 226), why not This?

Forget triceps. Anesthetize it if necessary. Turn ignition to close racket. Swing bent elbow slowly to situate strings. Clench shoulder-blades together to straighten arm passively as you rip over and around the ball.

[bottle]

One Hander Thought Progresses Two Steps

As I walked out on the tennis court this morning, I felt a bit "müde," which is German for tired, I believe, and recalled a conversation I had over the weekend with a blonde lady I met in the Cafe Prada, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "How do you get emphysema? Not that I want to. And why did you then decide to take up the sax?" Her Southern accent was so thick I couldn't understand either one of her answers.

Use constant slow hand speed to touch ball, I was thinking, but...

There may not be any reason to avoid putting a little oomph in straightening of arm so long as you keep subsequent straight-arm easement swing slow enough to touch rather than slug the ball.

Which thought leads to the possibility of a completely passive easement swing.

Forearm swing then would be faster than whole arm swing, in fact would spring it?

This thinking relates to slice methods in which one extends arm actively or passively as integral part of forward swing, with muscular extension the "safe" version, e.g., for a shot into the open court and passive extension driven by rabbit punch the most blistering version of sidespun slice, a very aggressive, slashing, low and skidding shot.

Should one ever separate one shot from the others? For purposes of discussion, I suppose, but only with temporarily submerged awareness of the arbitrariness of this.

All subjects are related, Michel de Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson's hero, said. Since Montaigne really believed this, he could, unlike Emerson, pick any subject for an essay, start anywhere and be completely personal about it-- things that Emerson four centuries later with a bit of Puritan in him despite the likelihood of his being the greatest American philosopher, never would do or even consider.

If you're accustomed to using a little muscle to extend arm in some of your shots, doing so now will be easier, but the practice need not necessarily exclude players who straighten their arm BEFORE they start forward slice or hit slice in any other way.

So, for this one handed topspin drive, there now will be triceps muscle in straightening the arm but no muscle whatsoever in then easing strings around to outside of ball.

Two counts to get arm parallel to sideline; one count to turn ignition and fire the forearm; one count to feel the slow passive combined weight of racket and straight arm more than ten times heavier; a final count to hit ball with sudden change of direction rabbit punch.

One hopes that step-out and leg extension, if they occur, will take care of themselves, although step-out would probably come in count two and leg extension in count four.

This seems my ultimate interpretation of Arthur Ashe's reply to Vic Braden's probing as to the secret of Ashe's backhand: "I sling the racket head at the ball."

[bottle]

An Old Year's Backhand

Fabulous stuff. Just what I've always wanted to see. I'm afraid to look at Kohlschreiber's backhand, though. I'll do it but might not ever be the same.
I like John Yandell's theory of "flavor of the month," but have to say, the urge to mimic and imitate is very healthy (if a bit time-consuming) and keeps the sport alive and people young and leads to unexpected discovery and maybe even to some ideas the "experts" didn't think of. The trouble with experts and playing pros is that their livelihood is involved and they just about always go with things that caused them to win before. What if every playing pro has an
inner Andy Roddick serve that doesn't look anything like Andy's serve,
but we and they will never know because they're not sufficiently interested
in accessing it the way the angry teen-ager Andy was? It does take something special to be an inventer, even a bad one. Tour technician Ben Ford suggested that it takes the experience of old age, but Roddick's and Lendl's youthful inventions defy that, and Rosheem doesn't sound anywhere near as old as Ochi and me...

About moving wrist-- I don't have much information, to tell the truth. McEnroe certainly does it big time but I can't tell if he's also opening it during
contact. Anyway, I got the idea from reading Lloyd Budge, Don's older
brother, the guy who lured Don away from baseball to tennis, and also from the tennis writers Talbert and Old, combining extremely sketchy information from both sources. Lloyd's book,TENNIS MADE EASY, is considered by some one of the best half-dozen tennis books ever. It's certainly low key, which is nice. There's a lot about tightening up the bone-muscle structure in the wrist just at contact. And with all the teaching pros around who want to emphasize basics (nothing wrong with that so long as they don't get wheedle-voiced about it and pedantic and chase people away), it's my contention that the basics haven't changed as much as the chauvinists of modernity would claim.

Here's what I wrote before I read Rosheem's entry (everyone should have such a basement as Rosheem's-- sounds a bit like the set-up where Tony Roche developed his volleys). Look at John McEnroe again. Does he use the same sequence you (I) do? No. Does he inchworm his wrist exactly when you roll yours straight? No. There appears more SIM (simultaneity) in his level swing; perhaps there's more force also and it's not a "feel" as I have conceived it. The inchworming, it seems, might occur either behind him or when he rounds the corner.

I still like my idea of keeping roll behind me and then feeling for the ball in two linked parts-- 1) forearm swings on still elbow, lengthening arm, and 2) the lengthened arm continues to outside of the ball and 3) the rabbit punch lengthens effective fulcrum a second time as it finally accelerates the racket head from one's spine.

But is the transition from 1) to 2) also accelerative? Are you shifting through first, second and third gears or from first directly to third? I like from first directly to third but maybe that's personal preference. It allows hand to proceed at constant speed to ball by slowing down the long-armed part of easement "swing" just a bit.

This discussion so far pertains to the longer, more McEnroe like version I've described in recent posts. While I've no doubt considered having one option defeat the other for purposes of developing myelinization or muscle memory, right now I feel like keeping both.

Short version: Excellent for service returns, taking ball on rise, dealing with jammer balls when I otherwise might be late. The shot is very solid and good for re-directing the other person's speed.

The longer version is a little more comfortable, however, despite pretty good efforts to make the short stroke rhythmic, also. There is more space in which to hit the ball: It's a more relaxed way to play; whenever I have time this can be my staple backhand (I'm thinking right now).

One stroke I fully designed but plan never to use involves rolling arm behind, thrusting with leg as forearm swings arm long and then swinging hard with an independent arm swing to rabbit punch one-two sequence. It was good at daydream level and worked in dropping-ball practice; but, I think it will become unreliable if I subject it to the slightest pressure or even to an oncoming ball (the first one I tried went over the right fence, which pleased
my opponent even though he had to go and get it).

So if I want to hit a supersonic backhand, which I would only do from now on as a reward to myself for getting WAY ahead in some match, I will hit a Virginia Wade flat backhand, something I learned about 25 years ago from the VHS VIRGINIA WADE'S CLASS. That's a shot where you delay step-out, keep front shoulder down and maybe use a gravity drop for some free speed after which you squeeze arm through the low tunnel created by your still downward sloping shoulder. Unfortunately, I wasn't then able to make the transition from that to the Queen's Jubilee's Wimbledon Champion's topspin backhand.

Recently, I saw a DVD of the British comedy team Saunders and French in which a very attractive lady announcer interviews Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French after they have just lost in doubles 6-0, 6-0 at 2002 Wimbledon.

"Can you explain why you lost?" the announcer asks.

"Lack of ability," Saunders says.

"Can you think of any British woman tennis player in the past who might inspire you?"

"Well, uh...Virginia Woolf."

[rosheem]

1HBH: Development 'Ceiling'

I just went back and read through a whole bunch of pages in this thread.

It's interesting to me, because I have engaged in the same kind of "note-to-self" exchanges throughout my two years of learning this game. The only difference is that I was emailing myself instead of posting to a forum. I also have a notebook in my tennis bag.

As for the backhand, I have chosen to model Kohlschreiber. Obviously, his grip is more behind the handle than McEnroe. There are probably certain elements of the stroke that are tightly tied to the grip and some that may be more universal. I have worked through, and continue to work through, many of the issues you have raised throughout this thread.

When you first mentioned Don Budge, I initially thought "why would anyone want to model such an old-school stroke?"

Then I went and looked at the clips of his backhand. Very cool. Surprisingly "new school" and very athletic-looking. It would be great if we could see it with modern high-speed cameras and different angles.

I have a large, unfinished basement. I use it as a drop-hit laboratory. The ceilings are only about 8 feet high or so. Not a problem on the forehand, but I have smacked the rafters plenty of times on the backhand follow-through. That makes it difficult to really pull the trigger on the stroke when I'm working on it down there.

The way you've described the action of the wrist from concave to straight or straight to convex is one thing that I'm not sure of, and I wonder if it relates to the grip difference. I seem to produce a more consistent shot if I keep the wrist relatively stable.

One thing I really like to do when working in my drop-hit lab is to simulate an open-stance backhand return-of-serve. This forces me to really work the shoulder-blade squeezing action, which I find translates to well-hit shots.

As for the Doug King issue: The way I see it, no matter how great something is, there is always room to question it or test out other views or approaches. I saw that there was a big debate on another thread between the double benders and "The Imitative or Federer-influenced Category of Modern Retro Forehand" camp.

I love Federer's forehand. I've tried often to imitate it. I think there is a sense of freedom and flexibility when the arm is liberated from the body. I understand when some instructors say that it's too complicated for the club player to model, but I totally disagree with that view.

Before I stumbled upon Doug King/Jeff Counts, though, my attempts to imitate Federer resulted in unreliable contact; too much of a sidearm axe-throwing motion and too much racquet speed too early in the stroke.

Now that I have improved my timing and have learned to manage my racquet better and manage the flow of energy better, I can feel the Federer forehand in a totally different way. But in the process of all of this, my own forehand has emerged and I'm pretty happy with it, which allows me to take a position of neutrality in the debate. I'm sure some would argue that this is not possible, but I don't see it that way.

Anyway, I've only been playing tennis for two years so it will be a while before I feel like I'm in a position to state that one way to do something is better than another. I'll throw a dash of this or a sprinkle of that on my forehand any time, and I hope my strokes never lose the plasticity to allow for that.

I really enjoy your writing. Thanks for continuing to share. I'm wondering if we can hope for a new thread title, though. (I enjoy the individual post titles, by the way) Maybe for the new year?

[bottle]

Tennis: A Set of Delays

I'm with Oscar Wegner in complete opposition to set footwork patterns. And "characteristics" and "essences" seems to me one of those academic European intellectual distinctions that makes me glad to be a simple-minded American. So, sorry, Nico, I guess I'm as opinionated as you.

Rosheem, I like Doug King, too, but think he's SO persuasive you sometime have to watch out, e.g., all his beach ball stuff, which wonderful and stimulating as it is, has little relevance to a Federer type forehand. More specifically, he had me convinced for a long time that the wrist ought to be going backward, cushioning, as you contact the ball. Now I think nothing of the sort, but of course I've since had ball-dropping experiences of my own and the benefit of Carrera Kent's intelligence as seen in this forum. I now see a "mondo" where wrist lays back and an "anti-mondo" where it closes at last instant to take racket tip way out to right. That's thinking of arm system as separate from body-- a bit confusing. Also, when wrist opens forearm rolls down (sim); when wrist closes forearm rolls up (sim).

On one hander I like your question about weight shift and discussion point on wrist. On "weight" I remember Peter Burwash's old arguments in "Tennis" and his book TENNIS FOR LIFE about the inconsistency of players who seek a perfect, cross-over-the-bridge linear weight shift that can only deliver desired weight into the shot some of the time. He was for getting out on front foot instead as the rule. I translated this in my own words to "Step, press, hit."

Studying the John McEnroe clips has made me aware of a later kind of weight shift judging by where his feet often come down. I think I've noticed him landing perfectly balanced on one foot or the other but with BOTH feet often ending up closer to the net. But I don't think he ever leaves the ground before he's hit the ball. The legs take him up as his racket swings around on slightest of downward trajectory (net effect: a level swing), then the rabbit punch starts just before contact. If you're going to fly, the best time is after contact and only as natural result of all that came before.

On "wrist," I'm intrigued by your saying that you lay back wrist in the back-swing. What's wrong with that? It can stay there for slice (with a slightly different grip unless you're McEnroe). For topspin drives you do need to close it straight but why does this have to be last moment? I've done that but don't recommend it. Maybe what I'm about to lay down here and wrote before I knew anybody would be responding today will help:

On one hander: Step, press, delay, hit. Seems much too much. But it's all after you've delayed the step-- taken together, fast and continuous in other words. And everything is so stripped down by now that's possible.

The press, for which I found three different cue options, now earns a fourth:
Turn key in ignition to send hips forward, shoulders backward (and with the racket arrangement going down because, though twisting, it's solid with the shoulders coming back.)

And "turning the key" reminds to cock the forearm slightly the other way as part of the slow take-back before that. I want a little tension between coiling
forearm and elbow staying down a bit-- as everything goes back.

Great control of wrist straightening in speed and amount both comes from combining the move with forearm roll. And we're rolling bent elbow more down at the same time, all part of the press.

Next comes simultaneous straightening of knee and easy straightening of elbow (I call it a delay because you're trying to touch the ball without getting violent yet).

Am ready then for A) rabbit punch or B) no rabbit punch but arm lift up and out for more of a finessed but still top-spun shot.

[nabrug]

Well, at the very beginning you might need the scheme. Or depending on the way you learn, maybe scheme out at one quarter way into your career. If trying to channel your caveman forebears you wouldn't want to get overly conceptual too soon. The better you then get, the less information you will need and in fact require-- yes you MUST shrink the information down again. And when you achieve the ultimate athletic prowess of Buddy Apollo, the cue for your next stroke might be something as simple as the sound of the ball leaving your opponent's racket.
....
So we now have three different cues for the same body action and are poised to choose the one we like best, maybe a different one on a different day.

I prefer a teacher who will not tell me but just teach me (my body) the inner system of nowadays tennis strokes. And than let me (or better let my body) decide what caracteristics I am going to use in a given game situation.

So there for, for example, is footwork always a caracteristic and not an essence of tennis stroke production. But having that said, after first teaching the inner system, I offer set footwork patterns to my players (I do the same and other things like Bailey*). Unlike the essence I am open to the outcome. I let the body of the player decide what footwork works for him. But I think in offering the footwork patterns the body can experience a few new ideas.


*Like Bailey and others I stole all the caracteristics and essences from the top players. Nothing original from me. You can see the footwork patterns in every match. There is where I got it from. I think you even see it better when you know the inner system because caracteristics always have to support the essence of stroke production.

[rosheem]

I'll take a good cue any day

That is why I am such a big fan of Doug King's articles. They're full of little cues, and many of them seem to click with me right away. He does a great job of describing how things should feel.

Then again, sometimes it helps to watch video clips over and over for about 20 minutes before I go out and hit...no words or cues at all.

Even better, hitting with someone who hits exactly the way I am trying to hit. That way, I can shut down all of that noisy left-brain nonsense and just plug into the rhythm and go.

Interesting path you're on with the one-hander. I haven't had a chance to really dive into each post, but I see some things that I've worked through and continue to work through with my own one-hander.

My tendency is the lay-back (or cock or bend) my wrist too much in the backswing, which leads to trouble squaring up at contact, which then leads to needing to use the wrist to square up at the last moment, which is not good (at least with my grip, because it usually results in the shear you wrote of).

Would be interested to hear more on weight shift, as I tend to get on the right foot to early and sometimes make contact with the left foot off the ground (not always looking like the pros who sometimes do this).

[bottle]

Which would you Prefer: A Good Cue or a Complete Scheme?

Well, at the very beginning you might need the scheme. Or depending on the way you learn, maybe scheme out at one quarter way into your career. If trying to channel your caveman forebears you wouldn't want to get overly conceptual too soon. The better you then get, the less information you will need and in fact require-- yes you MUST shrink the information down again. And when you achieve the ultimate athletic prowess of Buddy Apollo, the cue for your next stroke might be something as simple as the sound of the ball leaving your opponent's racket.

In the chicken-wing-to-rabbit-punch one hander I have started to examine, certain invitations for a new cue quickly become apparent. Since the stroke is more minimal than John McEnroe's, which is exceptional for its extreme minimalism already, there aren't any ready made conversations available. So one is more apt to make up stuff on one's own. Since the preparation is to the side rather than behind, it falls within one's peripheral vision.

We've felt that in the McEnroe model and the present one both, an essential ingredient is rearward straightening of the back to make it tall and at the same time lower the racket. I've suggested that you could send out your hips beneath your shoulders for the same result. Now, however, you can see your hands and racket and make them loop through solid connection for identical result.

So we now have three different cues for the same body action and are poised to choose the one we like best, maybe a different one on a different day.

[bottle]

Chicken Wing Revival

Everybody agrees that a chicken wing backhand is the pits of the world. On the other hand the rabbit punch method I've been advocating postulates a slow racket approach to the ball followed by a violent rip as you clench your two shoulder-blades together.

If you're coming around so easily and feelingly and touchingly to the outside of the ball what possible difference could it make whether this finesse starts from near or far? And if there's no real difference, why not choose from near and steal some time for yourself and live easy?

To run the experiment, simply follow the prescription of the last several posts, only point the handle end of your sword scabbard in front of you at right fence post. This is a complete change of fence posts from the John McEnroe model and is accomplished by eliminating the easy long-arm swing from the shoulder joint. Now the instant the arm eases straight you rip.

You may think I'm joking. This shot, however, if not immediately as effective as the other, is just as promising. I like especially the way leg extension from knee blends with arm extension from elbow-- very simple.

[bottle]

Oh Yeah, the Grammatical Question

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, not Fred, though maybe Fred agrees.

So I'm not a stickler for grammatical rules, which are never as absolute as some people think anyway. And I'm quite sure that the good grammarians, like Safire, are more interested in clarity than ironclad rules. It almost has to be true of a newspaperman. But I taught college English not too long ago and was surprised by the desperate need that some students felt for a grammatical curmudgeon. They'd never encountered an actual teacher who was anything like Safire, and I found this sad. They'd only had permissive English teachers and never a single strict one all the way up the K-12 plus ladder. So I tried to perform that role for them while being more permissive with others.

The sentence referred to by USPTA146749877: "And guidance hand is close to body in the old swash-buckling pose of knight preparing to pull sword from its scabbard, which nobody ever said should point in a certain direction."
The pronoun "which" pretty clearly refers to the antecedent "scabbard," I think. When writing I don't reflect on grammatical rules any more than -------77 or I reflect on minutiae of technique in hitting some backhand during a match. That work has to have been accomplished before. During childhood would be good but one can't always have that.

I don't seem to get called on grammar too often, but this is a good spot-check, like freezing the end of the circular swing on a topspin backhand, to see if you're going to get strings on outside of the ball. I re-examined the sentence with some trepidation but was pleased to see the antecedent to "which" just in front of it or as close to it as it could possibly be. I learned that as a principle in eighth grade English but again in newspaper and magazine work. If you want to be clear, put the antecedent as close as possible to the relative pronoun. Words in between may or may not create dissonance and incomprehension. If "which" refers to sword, not scabbard, the sentence is truly lousy, but I assure you I meant scabbard. Maybe if you always keep antecedent pretty close to relative pronoun you build up some credibility and people won't think you're a fruitcake too much. Think of all the people who haven't been hired for some job because of a grammatical slip.

This discussion is not as irrelevant to tennis teaching as some may think. Every good teaching pro I've known, except maybe one of those goulasch Communism era Hungarians I was talking about (they'd been drinking and falling apart, and could you blame them after all those sport subsidies were cut off?), had an excellent command of English and was a hell of a good talker, starting with Shea Brown, Jim Kacian and Walt Malinowski and ending with a bunch of virtual friends here and at other tennis websites. It's a requisite, isn't it? Or does somebody think they can teach tennis with a video-recorder alone?

Both images and words know how to obscure, I'm afraid. One tries one's best. The biggest cop-out is not to take on anything too difficult. Do that and you can look great any time and probably get the girl, too.