A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Forehands. Oh, I'm not going to use my arm. Oh, I'm going to use my arm.

If you are in the latter gang, you might consider this website: https://www.jaegersports.com/year-ro...-video-series/.

[bottle]

Reader, if the following information so disturbs you that your hair falls out and your flesh suddenly colors in parallel stripes of purple, red, green, orange and chartreuse, simply use the old term for muscle memory. That would be "muscle memory." Do that and you will be fine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK27954/

Roger Federer, as an old tennis sage once observed, has good myelin.

[bottle]

Euphoria the Enemy?

The euphoria that comes from great new information given up by Brian Gordon must be worked through so that one can properly confront one's personal challenges in carrying out the Gordon program, straight arm division.

These could relate to old age or other physical shortcoming, more likely to imperfect understanding of what the person has been told.

A left-right-left foot rhythm can keep many players more continuously attached to the ground.

Setting up with racket way out toward right fence is all wrong. It doesn't take the hand sufficiently back. One needs space in which to generate maximum spin. Have short compact solid bod alternatives, but set up now with bent elbow and the two shoulder balls in the same plane.

Thinking from hand and not racket tip, the hand circles forward a foot from strings that lag behind due to the knees-driven flip.

This establishes one's spear.

Torso now accelerates the spear another foot so that one feels as if it or a needle is coming out of one's instep or right ankle.

A blend of arm wipe and arm slam next takes the hand three feet (one yard) to contact.

Which happens on or near a perpendicular line drawn from left shoulder to right fence. This shoulder is likely to have retreated-- doesn't matter. The imaginary perpendicular is traced by opposite arm pointing across which first is there and then isn't.

Well, how long is it there?

Until knees have pivoted. And disappears as torso fires.

But you can remember your left arm fondly and in fact pretend it is still there if you like.

If hitting the flattened version with no windshield wipe for more penetration, one can straighten wrist toward opposite fence after contact.

If hitting full topspin however, wrist straightens a bit later when racket has already started its backward journey toward left shoulder.

One could twist racket low down to one's side. Or up high around top of head. But for Rachel Maddow or anyone else with a healthy long neck, rolling the racket backward toward the shoulder before releasing the wrist is a good compromise.

[bottle]

When Roger Straightens his Wrist

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Arm_Action&stroke=RFFHCenterArmActionSide_250fps.mp4

[bottle]

"For there are two sorts of mind: one that matters and one that doesn't matter. Is that so? That is so, isn't it?" -- Aglaia in THE IDIOT, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The mind that matters, in tennis, is the one that creates, not imitates.

[bottle]

Building a Better Elevator to the Forehand Stars

One can make a resolution, could even call it a New Year's resolution, such as "I shall not think about tennis technique this summer," but when you have an idea, any idea, you'd better write it down, said the film-maker David Lynch-- "Otherwise, later, you'll want to kill yourself."

Well, if the idea is a political one, you can go with it to a political website. If it is a human idea, to a human website if you can find one. The idea here is technical tennis: As opposite arm points across, take bent arm up from three blended sources so no one source works too hard: 1) cocking wrist, 2) rolling humerus, 3) slightly lifting elbow.

The produced incline creates a better drop from the apogee one has picked, a hydraulic elevator ride straight down in which neither hand nor racket tip goes deeper than the other.

This parallelism-- racket tip and hand an equal distance from the court just before the flip, can become a personal goal to be achieved and maintained by slight leg compression on low balls, by slanted drop on higher balls, by sideways instead of downward elbow "opening out" on balls even higher than that unless one decides instead to hit a bent arm shot.

[bottle]

Forehand Iteration (I tell it then I try it)

The more the arm is bent, the shorter the backswing up.

The shorter the backswing up, the longer the extension of arm to straight.

The shorter the backswing, the more one may be encouraged to "scapularly retract."

The steeper the fall, the more one will be likely to use gravity in an easier flip.

The more the scapular retraction, the more the elbow points in a rearward direction.

So that more scapular adduction will be available to move the arm forward in the third of three-point sequence (hips, shoulders, arm).

Put another way, the arm, although taking a solo, has remained solid with the bod. The housing around the shoulder moves the arm, leaving the humerus alone in its rotator cuff to twist (wipe) or not depending on desire.

*****

We need another verb to describe this forward contraction of the scapular girdle. How about "husk?"

*****

Meanwhile, the sooner one points across, the better one's chance of establishing a clear parameter for arm motion independent of bod rotation.

How much should racket thus move in a typical shot, in feet or inches? That information would be useful.

To obtain it, one could tape a yardstick across the front of one's shoulders.

Why bother, though, when one's opposite arm is already pointing across, a useful benchmark.

*****

Desire can determine different follow throughs, e.g., 1) flatten shot out: finish over or around shoulder, 2) more topspin: racket tip spins low.

*****

And then there is this guy (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...t%20500fps.mp4). I won't be trying this today, but really isn't the continued roll of the arm around the top of one's head the same basic idea as when racket tip spins low? "Continued roll" is the uniting principle. The only roll that matters is the roll that is happening when strings scrape the ball. But that scrape is more powerful when there is assured and continuing roll after the contact whether low or high.

[bottle]

The Better Humor that Comes with Better Humerus

The humerus, if you let it, will turn your bent arm sideways in a forehand and off of the ball.

But what happens if you twist your humerus the opposite way and do so during the backswing? The racket flies way out to the right which is where you want it. If you add some cocking of the wrist, that too will impart energy to the racket.

Seems like a case of too much early muscle, right? Right. So add the passiveness of arm straightening down from the elbow, my "descending milkweed" image that LadyPro liked.

The descending milkweed replaces as one's timing element the pause or slow down at the top rear end of an overhead loop in older style forehands.

One has so much energy available that one needn't do anything-- the arm will straighten by itself.

Now it's "hips for flips."

And while hips turn the shoulders turn too. There is sequence but the sequence is "marginal," to use Ted Williams' apt term, he the famous baseball slugger and later genius batting coach.

That leaves straight arm to take its combined solo of straight elbow push forward and straight elbow twist, i.e., short radius wipe.

The backswing wipe was long radius. The foreswing wipe is short radius and quicker. Same thing on a serve. Get the arm straight before ISR.

In the past, we forehanders straightened our wrist shortly after contact. I choose now not to do that. The wipe therefore takes the racket head abruptly down as arm bends and wrist finally does straighten-- down low-- for comfort.

Racket has spun. Body has spun, both in a maximal way. Racket is low and to side like a sword on one's belt. How then to get it back to ready position (which will be cheated left in my and many another case to favor backhands)?

Use both hands while keeping hit wrist straight.

The theory for that is not good if most of the planned forehands and backhands will start from concavity of wrist when looking down at it. One would like to keep hand cocked up like that just as it recently was.

But straight wrist configuration allows for a greater variety of shot and simply feels more comfortable (to me), possibly from habit, who cares, comfortable is comfortable.

And tennis is a personal, not sociological or robotic or "paint-by-the-numbers" game.

[bottle]

False Assumption: That a rotorded server can only improve his game by defying nature somehow to get his racket tip lower

To create a longer runway up to the ball. To allow for more room in which to accelerate the racket. But the word "runway" conjures up the same image in everybody's brain of something straight.

So curve the runway like Pete Sampras and John McEnroe. You are not they. All the more reason to steal what is stealable from them. Either they or some coach was extremely smart. They could get the racket tip low-- plenty low-- and you can't. So don't bark up or rather down the wrong tree.

John and then Pete probably weren't unhappy with their racket lowness. They just wanted more rotary power to add to the mix. And rotary power is denied to no one, not even John McEnroe when he had back problems. It is not denied to the rotorded server like half of his internal drive, viz., half of that part of it which is vertical.

So turn around. Turn WAY around. Bump out the rear hip and start the hitting arm long before you toss.

Works for me, i.e., is better than anything else I ever tried.

[bottle]

A Possible Future

Figure eight forehands, depressed wrist for power off both sides; straight wrist for slices, volleys and McEnruefuls.

I have a great new hitting partner, who is making some of this material come together in my brain.

Iryna knows enough English to deal with basic concepts but tends to learn more from whatever it is that I may be doing.

She read Theodore Dreiser in Ukrainian translation but not in English.

We say, "See the ball. Hit the ball." It's a very good joke.

Since I only play doubles with geezers, a radically new stroke is almost a disaster, so arrhythmic is the nature of that game.

But when, suddenly, you get the chance to hit 10 forehands in a row, you start to get new ideas.

Once wrist is depressed or concave as you look down at the top of your hand, you can keep it that way if you wish.

You now have a modified wait position. The grip changes will feel strange for a while.

But all in all there will be less to do on both sides.

A Stanley Plagenhoef backhand, as I have assimilated it, excludes any drop of the racket behind one.

There's just a straightening of the arm melding into a roll or turning of the corner in which the wrist gets straight for a double-ended push on the ball.

Sarah, a teaching pro here, has noted what I am doing with great interest and calls it an inside out backhand.

Iryna seems (intuitively) to want to adopt that.

She did after our last hit go out and destroy her usual partner. And she was much better this time with me in this last night hit, is improving in "leaps and bounds."

She did experiment with the ATP III forehand I briefly outlined for her but found that too forbidding.

And I'm not about to inflict it on any grandmother just picking up the game.

For me however it's great, and I don't see why I can't use my early hand separation version to pound some imaginary opponent into complete submission with 10 continuous figure eights.

Will be out of town for a week.

[bottle]

Internal Voice, Speaking to Self

Don't think. Right. Not when you're up to bat.

Do think when you do design. And keep a reasonable interval between your design times and your hit times along with the inclusion of work-in time.

Reflect on this maxim: Less is more.

So could one subtract something major from one's forehand, something one has done one's entire life?

There is no magic bullet, Brian Gordon said. But straightening wrist after contact is "not a great thing," particularly if in spite of one's best intention this started during contact.

But what if one keeps the bend in one's wrist-- perfectly-- through contact?

Shouldn't matter to the question of advisability being considered here.

Not straightening wrist could improve one's wiper. Whether it does or not, it would be one less thing to do.

So it's good! A bit idealistic, I suppose, since it counters one's conditioning.

If it doesn't work, forget it but if it does work, go with it.

[bottle]

See the Ball. Hit the Ball. -- Craig Monroe, Detroit Tigers

Stet., Stotty.

[bottle]

Latest Forehand Iteration

Brian's phrase "hips for flips" has finally expunged the word "mondo" from my vocabulary.

His separation of the flip-to-contact tract into useful thirds has finally given me one thousand per cent confidence in my forehand.

His judgment that straightening the wrist after contact is "not a great thing" has given me another option.

I don't know how much credit Brian wants for anything in life. If he is the normal human I suspect, too much credit should make him nervous.

His revelation that he himself uses Cont. grip is splendid illustration of the old saw that "rules were made to be broken by those who know them."

Me, I use a strong eastern grip morphing through the months into a semi-western. The loose thumb by now is on top of the racket. But I will explore Cont. grip for these shots later in the summer only after celebrating present progress first.

Among other changes, I have abandoned seamless bod turns with no transition between them, except for a few attempted service returns. One can be more accurate with the transition. Which now is a forceless chop from the elbow most commonly in a mildly backward direction.

Videos of Federfores now have more meaning. Roger's flip, coming from behind the ball, seems part of hand "linearity" in this shot.

The only swashbuckle I retain, i.e., evidence of the Gilbert and Sullivan inner pirate king, is immediate separation of the hands as part of the unit turn. The high thumb, I believe, helps keep racket stable enough.

The rest of the stroke is a matter of following directions.

P.S. I may or may not be the villain guilty of introducing the esoteric term "ulnar deviation" into the discussion over at the straight arm thread. I only use ulnar deviation to provide interesting positioning and added stability at top of my forceless chop.

I can't see corresponding radial deviation at contact as useful additive.

Two different motions from solo arm seem complicated enough.

Any radial deviation happening then is unconscious result of loose grip.

[bottle]

Credo

I believe Brent Abel when he says that super-seniors champ Paul Wulf started late and figured out how to play the game.

[bottle]

Following Directions

The forehand direction is to get one's forearm parallel to the baseline. Such a position, however, could be hard to visualize when one is on the run.

So I recommend to myself, in the self-feed session I am about to conduct, a simple standing of oneself slightly in front of the baseline.

Then turn in such a way that the forearm coincides with the baseline.

Then lift the racket with ESR-- external shoulder rotation. "Twiddle the humerus," could be another way of saying this.

Memorize this position. Then go there directly next time.

Then chop from the elbow joint albeit without force. Grip will matter. In my case the elbow direction wants the easy chop to take the racket toward the right rear fence post. If the elbow had a personality it would be determinist, not a free will guy.

What is the wrist doing through all this? Well, it's laid back or rather up with a bit of ulnar deflection thrown in.

I wouldn't mind maintaining this fixed wrist position once initial lift establishes it all the way through the stroke.

And what happened to mondo or flip?

It is no longer a combination of wrist layback and forearm turn. That definition like much in tennis is outdated.

The wrist layback has already happened. The flip therefore is arm turn down, a right-hander's clockwise twist.

When one watches videos of Rober Federer straightening his arm from his elbow one sees his racket getting parallel to the court, maybe a little more or less, but never far from that norm at least in most of his forehands.

Yes it gets parallel to court just before the mondo happens.

Now, because the forceless chop took racket back a bit more, one has a nice space in which to create a spear.

The racket head speed-- in the two different system directions, forward and up-- is very extreme from flip through contact and somewhat beyond.