A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Alternative Roll from Rabbit Punch

Rabbit punch or clenching the shoulderblades to thrust out both arms is the same phenomenon. Most one hand backhanders, it seems to me, do it near end of followthrough as a way to preserve balance and stay on edge.

When you redefine clench as a power source and move it to beginning of forward stroke a bunch of new computer-menus drop down. I'm committed to the concave-straight-concave wrist pattern I deduced from reading about the Budge backhand, but can nevertheless go three ways:

1) hit ball once wrist becomes straight (musculo-skeletal yoke firms up, Lloyd Budge wrote)

2) hit ball after wrist becomes straight and arm is rolling from both shoulder and forearm

3) hit ball while wrist is becoming concave again and elbow is rotating down.
The elbow staying in and turning down feels strange at first since wrist is opening at the same time. The two actions do counter one another; however, this is a perfectly good way to hit a tennis ball.

The goal of these two different roll strokes here, same as on a Federfore, is to send racket tip unfurling toward side fence even while body whirls everything through the ball.

[bottle]

Exploring the Rabbit Run Backhand

For billiards backhand wide arm best goes pointing in one direction, racket in another. This forms an angle, right? Which if bisected, best forms a perpendicular to the rear fence.

Pretty complicated, right? Yuppety-yup-up-up. If you seek the simple life, just point the arm on a perpendicular to the rear fence. This is what classical tennis instruction has always preached, and who can fault it?

I can.

When Ed Faulkner said to get the arm parallel to the sideline, he was saying the same thing but in a more immediate way. For sideline is in the direction you are both running and looking. So with this one tip Ed Faulkner placed himself in the same relation to other tennis instructors as William Faulkner to American Literature.

But we should question all assumptions in every subject, especially Afghanistan. So when we have transformed ourself into an evil, ancient comic book boxer leveling the illegal rabbit punch to KO Joe Palooka, just where should the straight arm be?

I'm working on this question and suggest that any other person actually performing this experiment work on it, too, without preconception.

For exactly where the roll should be situated is what this stroke is about. And whether it will even work other than when one is dropping balls or competing against a continental grip player is unknown. If it won't work against heavy topspin, we'll have to adopt a different design. But it may.

[bottle]

Rabbit Punch to the Outside

Preserve all recent design features except for body rotations. You'll have a lot of pivot left over for good recovery. It's important to explore the one-hand backhand extremes. Can teach you so much. Also get the straight arm parallel to the sideline. Clenching the shoulderblades together provides all the deceleration-acceleration one needs.

With large backward rotation of the shoulders, contact has never been so far away, i.e., toward left fence. And the two straight arms can bend at the same time to complete the stroke.

On a Federfore you bowl past the wide contact (when people say you need to hit this kind of shot way out front, they really mean way out to the side, I believe). On this backhand you don't bowl but rather clench your shoulderblades together to send both arms out, with the front arm sending its energy past the wide contact the same way.

On a Federfore, final roll of the loosely gripping wrist and forearm to outside works best when passive. On this backhanding stroke you obtain the same free lift but need to add muscle from shoulder and forearm. I wouldn't want to break down any sequence in the roll other than to say, "It turns the corner for you, and does so right while you're hitting the ball."

I have always known, from feathering in rowing, that there is one kind of roll that doesn't put any pressure on the handle and another that does. In rowing you don't want the pressure; in this backhand you do: strings brush up outside of the ball while putting some weight on it.

All power to the roll.

[bottle]

Simple Pattern as Power Cue in One-arm Backhand

Racket tip to inside, racket tip to outside, with massive body contribution in between.

Make these slight, balancing curves happen exactly as you know they should look every time.

Snake imagery is always fun in tennis-- so why not slither racket one way and then the other? The most unique aspect of this, inasfar as my personal history of backhands is concerned, is how soon in the stroke the second slither comes.

This stroke is seriously symmetrical. Instead of always viewing a tennis stroke as narrative (left brain), view it as image this time. And work at the task from outside to in. This way the stroke has two appendages: the followthrough and the takeback.

Between these two extensions are the roll-up when you hit the ball and the roll-down when you provide timing to hit the ball. In dead center is the main power pak: clenching shoulderblades, shoulders rotation, hips rotation, the straightening of legs.

A little bit of legs may overflow through contact.

Nothing is more fun than, after hitting a series of these shots, to think only of shoulders and arm. You stop the shoulders and let the arm perform a long sweep barely rising toward the target-- the billiards shot I can't stop talking about.

[bottle]

Racket vs. Rocket

Tennis is rock...nay, is more complicated than rocket science. The rockets usually go straight. The rackets curve all over the place.

But what gives racket head for someone other than Nadal so much speed?

Is it culmination of a kinetic chain or the result of deceleration-acceleration or sudden COD (Change Of Direction) which leads to sling-shotting of the laid back racket head right through the ball as far as I am concerned.

I've thought a lot about COD and sturgeon and haddock, and have wondered how a windshield wiper can possibly cross-breed with a COD, concluding that it can't.

For if arm is pulling hand to left, wouldn't the racket head just want to track behind without a wipe or other work? One COULD wipe at the same time if everything was integrated enough, but at higher speeds, wouldn't the tracking counter the wipe?

As any hyper-patient reader (my favorite kind) already knows, I've gotten my Federfore unequivocally to work, increasing my accuracy by five times. Okay, such a reader would also know I tend to exaggerate, so improvement in accuracy by three times.

So how did it actually happen? Must be, given the subtraction of COD, either from deceleration-acceleration; or, deceleration-acceleration as integrated in the sequencing links of kinetic chain with its stops and starts, or more precisely though less tongue-trippingly, slowings and starts.

All of this is deeply personal, however, and I have declared my war on kinetic chain, which seems less counter-productive than war on terrorism. (I am far from the first tennis player incidentally to declare kinetic chain theoretically okay but functionally useless.)

I'm for a much bigger emphasis on deceleration-acceleration alone.

[bottle]

Feeling your Hips for the First Time in a One-hand Backhand

It happens, as you would expect, when, having smashed the steel bands around your ankles and wrists, you throw off your kinetic chains and scream "No more tyranny, ever!"

In fact, working from learning rung #181, which is most likely the post just before this one, you concentrate entirely on count number three, leaving all other design features intact.

Count three is described as "legs, hips, shoulders, clench," which sounds suspiciously like a kinetic chain, and kinetic chains must be destroyed wherever they exist. Any kinetic chain is an internal terrorist. You must kill it with simultaneity.

Once you resolve to do away with sequence you are on your way. Okay then, you can ask, "legs, hips, shoulders, clench-- if no sequence, then, in what amounts?" The question more than any answer is your next step toward freedom.

Feel your hips as a horizontal wheel, a giant disc, a thirty-three and one third revolutions per minute vinyl record from the 1950's. Slowly swing the wheel as you clench your shoulderblades together, which thrusts out both of your hands to exactly where you want them.

And what did your shoulders do in the meantime? Rotate a small amount, a big amount, no amount, a perfect amount uncalculated by you?

Precisely. And that's my point.

[bottle]

Triple-stop One-arm Backhand

1) Shoulders and arm back
2) Roll racket tip down
3) Legs, hips, shoulders and clench (simultaneous)-- throw off the kinetic chains
4) Roll racket tip up hitting ball
5) Finish.

The triple-stop occurs at the end of count three when A) the shoulders stop,
B) the clench stops, C) the hand stops.

Count four (the racket tip goes) can work passively through deceleration-acceleration, and these practice strokes are essential, instructive and significant. We all want free energy where we can get it. Still more racket head speed translating as extra topspin is wanted, however, and comes from shoulder and forearm twist. The two muscular sources and the passive source combine for more concentrated racket head speed than any other way at least in this kind of mild-gripped stroke.

Keeping elbow and hand in one spot as racket twists up and through outside of ball may be what John McEnroe meant when he criticized Greg Rusedski's backhand on international television. Rusedski "fails to keep his elbow in," he said.

I see two different strokes for me here. In one, the shoulders stop, so that arm and racket briefly accelerate since they are a lighter mass (deceleration-acceleration). To hit that shot-- all one sweep really-- you add some muscle from the shoulder, and clench shoulderblades with both arms going out for balance and to keep body edge-on at stroke's conclusion long after you hit the ball.

In this stroke (triple-stop) the clenching occurs much earlier and adds to the muscle mass applying body rotation. Still using deceleration-acceleration, you
only shoot the racket head, not the whole arm. Is the racket head too small a mass for this? Maybe. To add heft, you assist the rotation with muscle in shoulder and forearm.

Count five, the finish, is led by the racket tip. Racket tip leads both backswing and followthrough.

[bottle]

Three Backhands: Go With or Too Many?

I'm not including slice, which Nathan, a Winston-Salem teaching pro and brother, recommended some years past that I use exclusively. (I am described by the counter workers at Moe's Southwest Grill as "a brother from another mother.") Backhand slice is my best shot because I can hit it either from muscular or passive elbow straightening in middle of its forward action.

No, I mean the earlier described billiards shot, which I seem never able to get rid of no matter how often I try (it's just too economical and smooth to abandon), the billiards shot modified for a bit more topspin, and the full sling blade backhand which I've been learning and describing here recently.

I know, I know. Learn first before describing. However, I rebel against that tired notion which leads to PR for something already arrived at (arrived at and therefore dead). And full description with warts takes me more rapidly to my next idea.

On forehand side I was able to whittle too big a shot assortment down to one-- the Federfore-- one of the virtues of that particular kind of shot according to Carrera Kent. Two independent persons, he and I, working in entirely different situations, maybe even with different ideas but playing in the same genre reached the same conclusion: In spite of variations, it's all one shot, and this would greatly simplify anyone's game.

Returning now to my backhand concern: The billiards shot modified, if one of the three shots is to become "the staple," seems the most likely candidate. In this shot back-swing is more to the outside. Does arm get fully parallel to sideline? Maybe during step-out but I doubt it.

Such a short backswing means you can delay to get bounce and arm level correct, you can turn down racket tip then as key timing device, you can bowl shallowly both down and up as shoulders turn slowly forward, you can sling blade to left as right shoulder veers right (from shoulderblades clench) with result that strings go both straight yet powerfully upward.

After two matches against same opponent on successive mornings with same result (6-1, 6-1), I think that modified billiard might produce a bit less topspin than full sling blade but is more easily produced-- perhaps the best argument.

When Vic Braden modified Don Budge's backhand for his own use and later description in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE, he learned to bring his arm in close to rear thigh accordion-like before he sent it back out. But I'm not sure that Don Budge's original design isn't equally good, and that's what I'm trying to follow now.

Did Don Budge use "shallow bowl?" From the films I see, I can't decide. In any case it seems to be what's working best.

[bottle]

Coordinate three distinct arm motions with three distinct body motions and then reduce the size of everything.

Bowl down and hips turn: together.
Bowl up and shoulders turn: together.
Arm roll and clenching of shoulderblades: together.

First realization was how much it all should occur to side of body. Second idea is to make it happen, on a low ball, at a pretty low level, so that racket rising to comfortable finish spirals upward and across body.

Match score at dawn: 6-1, 6-1 . But thought I was pushing backhand a little. So I take this newest notion to the court now. Reporting back: Everything went as expected for a change. Concave wrist (when viewed from the top)
straightens as you bowl down. Lots of legs in shot. Lots of step-across to get low and maximize body rotation. Trust shoulderblades clench to supply weight and abrupt change of direction. If starting to crowd ball try a few
hit-through shots from Budge-like preparation deeper in slot just to restore respect for proper separation (some would say "spacing"), then return to main shot, making contact farther out now.

The most important thing is to sling strings to left during contact.

[bottle]

Complexity vs. Simplicity

Thank you very much, gsheiner, and for your social concern, stumphges. I've been thinking seriously about this. An occasional attack would be all right if it didn't come from a Rottweiler. Sometimes, even, I miss "challenges" (a milder word for sure) to what I'm saying and recall how they made me focus more and even achieve simplicity sometimes back when I was teaching writing classes for UMASS in Norfolk and Walpole state prisons in Massachusetts. (Willie Horton was one of my students.) Nobody was into euphemism, qualification, grammar, spelling, complex sentences or symbolism. Whoever the student was, he wanted me to be clear and transparent and stark. I must have done it a bit since I lasted the whole calendar year and still am alive enough to tell the tale.

Some things I've said here recently about wrist-- "concave, straight, concave" to try for Don Budge's backhand feel-- have gone unchallenged by anybody. Is this good? I don't know. Did I really find significance in this case by dropping balls and hitting them? Did I misinterpret a very few words from the old sages Talbert and Old? Does it matter? Is there ever an "answer" when it comes to tennis technique or just a "progression?" I stick with my personal metaphor of getting lost in Budapest, Hungary.

Given my appreciation of tennis complexity, I do need something. Not the right to post without being attacked, but permission to be opaque sometimes.
One might find a more interesting destination by allowing oneself to get lost first, I think. That's how Andy Roddick invented his serve, isn't it?

[gsheiner]

Bottle,

Just a short note defending your right to post without being attacked, especially since your contributions, although opaque to me at times, seem to represent a passionate, if off-beat, attitude towards the game.

There's a constancy to your posts in your semi-private thread which I have to admit I admire.

[stumphges]

Some people dont like me because i am "harsh", in my assesments. So im going to be nice in saying this. SHUT UP!!! And stop wrighting all this bull shit.

Let me explane something to you bottle, very smart people make difficult things look and sound easy. You make easy things impossible to even comprehend!!

You want to serve like the mac? then just do what he does!!! It's not rocket science. You want federes forehand then just do what he does.

Sheesh, sounds like someone took away your bottle!

I sure hope this is deleted and some consequences are meted out. This is a heck of a lot ruder (not to mention just plain abusive) than anything in the super controversial "where the heck did that double bend come from" thread.

[bottle]

Sling Blade

Sling the racket to the outside.

[bottle]

Anecdotal Evidence in a Website such as this

This piece was written in longhand before I read the previous three comments.

There's some (anecdotal evidence) but could be more. I often have the feeling that people are overly reluctant to reveal themselves. It doesn't help that they know they may get attacked (much more likely here than at a political or public affairs site where you'd think the passions really would run high).

"How can we know whether to believe you? How can we tell whether you're on the level or you're making this stuff up." I can remember this criticism.

But if somebody says they won a match they probably did (6-2, 6-0 at dawn this morning). And great skepticism, essential to a discussion of history, science, or Afghanistan, may not always be so appropriate here. Tennis, after all, is just as much art as science and therefore is an act of faith (both art and science are, actually). And now that my backhand has really started to cook similar to what finally happened with my forehand, I know that discoveries in stroke technique are age-indifferent. Anyone can learn anything if it's approached right. Athleticism, reflexes, strength, speed-- another story although the perceived limits there also are exaggerated.

I do regret that for one reason or another I couldn't learn passive forearm-roll-to-the-outside ground strokes sooner and younger so that I could enjoy them for a lot longer. I'll just tell something now I learned long ago from another sport.

"Jelled" is as distinct and real a phenomenon in any sport as ice-out in nature.
As an oarsman, I became acutely aware of jelling as something that could happen once during each season in advance of our eight-oared crew winning all three of its Dad Vail National Regatta championships in Philadelphia. As a rowing coach 20 years later, I became acutely aware of ice-out at the first Saturday regatta I hosted on Fish Creek in New York state.

Fish Creek is more of a boulevard than a creek but has enough current to stay open when everything else freezes. My wife had prepared ceramic trophies for the winner of each race. To mark the course I put down 2000 meters worth of milk cartons painted day-glo orange. Each was attached to a cinderblock under the water. At the end of the third race the couple of hundred participants heard a loud crack: Saratoga Lake had let go.

Saratoga Lake is five miles in every direction. The ice sheets came along mowing down bushes twenty feet in on either bank. The day-glo plastic went under. The ice moved toward the Hudson River ten miles away.

Nobody from the six colleges said a word and nobody left. These are among the things I best remember: the silence of those oarsmen and oarswomen, and the sound of ice splintering in the heavy brush.

Everybody had brought their lunch. After three hours the day-glo buoys started to pop up. The ice was gone. The morning regatta became an afternoon regatta. We finished the races and went home.

Well, jelling in sports is just as real as that. When it happens, you know it. And you don't have to put a film of yourself on the internet although you can.

[nabrug]

Some people dont like me because i am "harsh", in my assesments. So im going to be nice in saying this. SHUT UP!!! And stop wrighting all this bull shit.

Let me explane something to you bottle, very smart people make difficult things look and sound easy. You make easy things impossible to even comprehend!!

You want to serve like the mac? then just do what he does!!! It's not rocket science. You want federes forehand then just do what he does.

This post has been deleted due to violation of Forum guidelines.