A New Year's Serve

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Loser? Winner?

I believe that many experiments don't make you a loser but rather a winner for at least doing the right thing.

One trouble with stretch-shorten cycle is that there are too many different places in the human bod where one can apply the theory.

One can find a way to properly activate all these organs and end up with a monster we would have to term "an unwieldy and impossible shot."

So one has to pick and choose-- very carefully-- and one won't, I think, get much help from other persons along the way.

I recently saw a player just pulverizing his forehand on an adjacent court.

A myth (or is it not myth) about Pancho Gonzalez is that he would walk around a bunch of active courts and steal what he wanted.

Can a player of less talent learn to do that? I think so.

The pulverator took both hands up high and close to his head then extended his arm from the elbow down on a slant to the outside.

Call that backswing.

He then pushed his fist forward from his stationary racket head.

But was the racket head really stationary? No, it was relatively stationary since his whole bod was spinning at that time with both legs thrusting out in opposite direction (thank you, Kerry Mitchell).

Call this foreswing although there is of course more to it than what I just described.

In the case of the pulverator he also swayed his quite erect bod slightly backward and slightly forward to add more power.

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Roger Federer's Forehand is Nothing like a Ben Hogan Golf Swing

First, in most cases Roger turns his hips less and sometimes not at all as he hits the ball.

Second, the forward hips rotation that Roger uses is not of the kind where the axis slides forward at the same time.

So anyone with the cupidity to try and steal Roger's thunder should maybe attempt some hip action with the fulcrum of it standing still.

Ironically, a John McEnroe forehand, never considered a big forehand by anyone, does resemble Ben Hogan in the way John's hips turn forward as they slide.

This lowers the hittig shoulder behind the slide. Then aeronautical banking from the gut takes over.

Note: I once opined that Roger's kick happens after he contacts the ball. Now I am not so sure.

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But then you watch a bunch of the high speed archive Federer videos, and notice that he turns his hips just a little on many of his forehands, more in the category marked "Center," almost not at all in "Running Forehands." And if you look further, you find forehands where the hips definitely rotate very late at the tail end of the landing.

Another seniors player I occasionally hit with at the Grosse Pointe Neighborhood Club and I have pretty much come to an agreement that if you make any statement at all about tennis technique, you will find it contradicted within six or seven hours. Both of us are in the same boat-- working on nothing but our forehands after two lives full of a lot of tennis.

So I know less now than I did before. There are players like Geoffrey Williams who will tell you everything in the highest level tennis is about cracking the hips fast-- much faster than recreational players do. Fast? Far? What is it? And if you think I am criticizing Geoffrey Williams you are absolutely wrong. He gave me my best backhands. His advice to use hips rotation to obliterate your one-hander's clever arm work is the best, most translatable advice I ever received from anybody. Even though I don't believe in barring one's arm early like him and as the people at Essential Tennis advise-- an internet virus as far as I am concerned which I try to unsubscribe to at every opportunity without that click ever working. More ads for "Essential Tennis" keep popping up. In a recent lesson on one handers, the girl victim of two tennis teachers, one white and the other black, had the most awkward looking weak-wristed attempt at a one hander I have ever witnessed either on the internet or out on any court.

So, lots of hips or not? A little bit of hips perfectly applied? Late hips that end up pointing the racket at the target as Vines' coach Mercer Beasley and J. Donald Budge advised? Vic Braden spoke of a big crack of the hips as an emergency measure when ball somehow gets almost by you. One would assume he had other things in mind for a non-emergency.

There will be more on this and related forehand subjects by me whether kept at home in my notes or published here-- there always is. But I fully appreciate that some tennis players more accomplished than I can't stand my word flow. I don't blame them. Braden noticed that I am a person who has to explain everything to himself but predicted late-blooming success for me nevertheless. "It just will take you longer," he said.

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Easy to Think and Wrong for This Shot

That the purpose of kicking out the left leg is to slow hips rotation and thereby-- just at contact-- accelerate the shoulders or arm.

Anybody steeped in Vic Braden's ground stroke theory, which might have shifted once or twice, is apt to think this. I refer to his period of advancing the term "acceleration-deceleration."

But there are many different ways to hit a ball. We rather go now with those students of the game who want to maximize (say "concentrate") the speed of their hips turn.

And aeronautical banking can happen at the same time. Along with-- even-- a subtle change of tilt of bod length from backward to forward.

The kicking forward therefore is seen as part of the way to finish the shot, i.e., to land.

Seen as happening, like a lot of other things, after contact.

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To Arrive at Answers or Questions?

I was speaking with a lady from South Africa who believes that good discussion whether in a classroom or a cafe should lead to questions rather than answers.

A difficult proposition when applied to tennis, right? And she is a tennis player-- we established that.

Perhaps the shots of which one is assured almost to the point of arrogance provide a good structure for the shot in which one still has doubt-- in my case, the forehand.

Regular summer play begins for me tomorrow (Memorial Day). Ready or not, I'll participate.

The general design for every forehand is pretty spare and good, I feel, but wish that every detail could have been hammered out.

The racket can lower this way-- or that way. Try both?

And don't think much about any of the other shots?

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The Attempt to Whirl Both Feet from Same Power Train is Interesting Enough (one up, one out)

But to carry out this entire project within the space of one ulnar deflection most likely crowds too much action together.

Training or sequencing the ulnar deflection now into one's normal mondo buys time for the feet to do their thing (which includes taking one to the ball).

More, it deletes overly passive mondoes in which "resistance," to use Stotty's word, is non-existent.

For the same reason it deletes flying mondoes in which hand motion and extension from the elbow are perfectly synchronized even if the racket head does succeed in staying back.

That move shows style-- but the proposal here now is to start hand first then have extension from the elbow counter it for similar conflict but with the elements reversed.

Extension from elbow as last thing that happens seems more compatible with immediate bod tug connected through firm pinky embedded under the butt rim.

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How Fast Does Left Foot Get Up On Its Toes?

Very fast. It's immediate. (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...2%20500fps.mp4). If you're running then, you may be doing so with one foot flat and the other not. (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4). (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...4%20500fps.mp4).

The greatest player at the courts yesterday has played for about an hour and is crossing the street to use the facilities in The Neighborhood Club.

And smiles at me. He doesn't know me. But saw me stop everything I was doing to gawk at his forehands.

What I saw was imbalance beginning with his left foot getting up on its toes.

And more imbalance as his body tilted slightly backward.

And still more imbalance as his hips rotated forward while sliding forward.

And great verticality therefore as his shoulders performed their aeronautical banking.

And the huge supersonic turn concluding with hips faced at the net.

That last micro-instant is like a ball thrown into a pit of wet sawdust.

Or a jet just landed on an aircraft carrier.

The feet continue around for their balanced landing.

But not as a result of hips turning more.

I think of this description as "body loop."

The difficulty of arriving at it does not make the task of performing it more difficult or less.

Me, I can't see why if you have a good body loop you need a medium sized arm loop superimposed on top of it the way the great player has.

I chose not to have an arm loop and will stick with that choice at least for now.

Note: I'm realizing that the videos shown above add complication in that Roger is moving to his left. A more conventional forehand is that of Cageman in the 3-shot sequence that opens the site. One foot flat, the other on its toes as Cageman makes his move to the ball.

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Forward Hips as Main Drive

I now wish to find some use of forward hips equivalent to the break-through that eventually occurred on the backhand side.

I remain committed to ulnar deflection (UD) as my agent of hand separation in a topspin forehand.

The small waggle of the hand can meld into pull-back of the shoulders (though surely that movement begins just as soon as the UD does).

The shoulders rotating backward naturally cock the hips as well but not in conjunction with great racket lowering as discovered before. A bit of lowering however can derive from a simple loading or tilt backward. I get that from having watched a great player today.

Forward hips rotation then farther lowers arm before it drives arm upward coupled with aeronautical banking of the shoulders.

Will one fly or rather stay connected to the ground with knees pressing toward the net like a topspun forehand designed by Tom Okker?

I'm not sure, although such uncertainty only annoys me by now.

I'm always revising just as I used to on backhand side.

The first time I have a hit with any kind of a good player (which also occurred today) I have to devote 90 per cent of my focus to simple recall of all the points I wish to cover-- usually three or four.

The whole idea of developmental practice is not to have to do this any more.

Well, how can you groove something when you stil haven't stopped revising it?

I got past this stage on the backhand side so I can do the same on the forehand side.

All slack will have been removed from the power train when forward hips drive commences to take the arm down and up combined with AB (aeronautical banking) for solid bod lift through the hitting zone followed by more freedom of arm movement once the ball is gone.

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Report

Sadly, the whips produced were not so virulent a sharp noise as in the previous post; still, we're getting there.

It's all about wet towels as we always suspected, not the bull whips that certain prominent tennis instructors have purchased for the purpose of self-instruction.

It starts when as a kid at a public swimming pool you kill a horsefly buzzing in mid-flight by timing the crack of your wet towel just right.

And now in your dotage with polygrip dentures, as 10splayer has suggested, you start the right hand (ulnar deviation), continue the turn with left hand pointing across while spiraling and tilting bod low for your hearty take-off with fist pushing out from stationary racket head-- and now the whip through straightening bod against butt rim just before the arm has finished mid-mondo straightening of itself.

I've already reported that the result was sadder than expected, but that is nonsense since I haven't yet driven to the tennis courts.

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If'n

If'n
yousen
bin
mak'n
whip'n
yousen
donna
need'n
turn'n
kin
whip'n
anyway
an
service return'n
whip'n
nuther time'n
biggun
turn'n
crack
crack
crack
you
won'
be a
man
my son
no hair'n
yo chest man
but
you'n
yourn
grandson
kin
whip'n
dem
badassen
und
whippem
all
day
long.

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Remembering One's Own Design Points

A university academic who once was a forum regular-- yes there is turnover here-- liked to deny the common premise that "whip" is possible in a forehand.

Well, let's find out. By hauling on the butt rim before the flying mondo is complete.

The design points have a way of fleeing your brain the minute you are in an actual game. Or maybe even in an actual hit. They really have to be driven into your muscles and nerves before they are of any use at all-- that is to say, PRACTICED.

But practiced how much? 10,000 times? I doubt that. For all you and I know, the new point may be attached to some other move you have practiced 20,000 times or hours. And not a person on earth can predict if the new flourish means you have to go to jail and not pass Go and start on your 10,000 miles all over again.

Or whether the flourish will pass immediately and effortlessly into your nerve bed. Or something less extreme but nevertheless quite practical can occur.

So, since nobody knows, my idea is just to go ahead and invent. The chips will fall where they may.

But first you have to remember your invention of yesterday today. That would be the whip idea. I was so focused on using nothing but ulnar deflection for hand separation that I never got to my whip experiment.

So, tomorrow morning in self-feed: whip experiment.

But I sure hope the eight guys in Roger Horsley's group won't be there taking two courts for their doubles the way they were last time, only with one guy not having showed up. They're kind of pretending they don't know me or they do.

I'm still in self-feed and not ready for the highest level of competition I can easily find.

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Simple Description of a Forehand

A flying cookery school.

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Spawning Ground for Invention

Last summer I had to drive all the way across Detroit, twice, for each MWF session of the Grosse Pointe Seniors Men Carousel. Now I live just off of Mack Avenue two miles away.

In fact, the carousel runs all year round. But I only join it (10$ annual dues) when it moves outside.

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More tortuous and inhumane writing: what dullards unwilling to try anything new may deserve. But no one should have to decipher too much. All explainers should aspire to clarity.

If keeping opposite hand on racket is as hot an idea as everyone says, then a minimal separation should do minimal damage to its wonderfulness.

I propose as an experiment that immediate separation of the two hands be accomplished by ulnar deflection only.

Ulnar or radial deflection is a waggle of the hand to right or left.

The ulna is the thin bone on the outside of one's forearm. The radius is the thicker bone on the inside.

The design thought I'm working on here is that one can take a huge bod turn and still end up with racket pointing at side fence-- a far cry from the classical tip to point at rear fence.

This post was about a reduction of independent arm work in an early separation forehand backswing.

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And Now, Continue the Progression of Discovery (or not) through Hauling on the Butt Rim Before the Flying Mondo is Complete.

Hit only topspin forehands for the entire self-feed, indulging oneself in variations of footwork but eschewing all the other strokes.

Save work on serve or anything else for another time. What proportion of his teaching energy does developmental coach Olga Morozova's husband Viktor Roubanov spend on forehand compared to the other shots? And why should this proportion change when the player is self-teaching in self-feed in later life?

Term here: "flying mondo." What then is the difference between a mondo and one that flies? Arm extension from the elbow. While the distinction between straight arm and bent arm forehands gets frequently discussed, those forehands that transition from bent to straight in the most critical phase of the stroke out front seldom receive the same attention.

A university academic who once was a forum regular-- yes there is turnover here-- liked to deny the common premise that "whip" is possible in a forehand.

Well, let's find out. By hauling on the butt rim before the flying mondo is complete.