A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Expensive!

No, it costs money, Nico, so I'll stick to the apprenticeship method. I wonder, though, if Vermeer learned to paint from a video. Of course, although I'm not as bad at tennis as you (and many others) think, I'm not a Vermeer on the tennis court either, and my big gains all do come from videos-- mostly those in this website. You see, I am a very visual person.

This business of language, though, does bother me since I may be teaching writing courses in Europe this summer. Visual imagery by itself is not enough. We need verbal, kinesthetic cues, as well, if tennis is the subject.

Just try and keep the words sensuous and simple, with your students, whether you're speaking English or Dutch.

That's what I'm trying to do with the above description of a Roger Federer forehand. Try following it-- maybe you or one of your students can hit like Roger!

FH: hands point tweeze Mondo arm.

You're right-handed and the ball is coming to your right. You lean with your head and simultaneously turn the same way, pushing off the foot nearest to the ball. Your arms are solid with your body and out front as you move like a crab. Whether you've managed to splay your outside foot or not will affect the shot.

At the bounce (approximately) you do "hands" (count one). This means that both hands lightly lift the closed racket independent of the body thus giving one a feeling of freedom.

On count two you "point." Surely you know how dramatic this can be in the theater. You do it with your left hand. You point all the way across your body at the right fence, which winds back your shoulders farther than in the old days when you kept left hand on the racket for the same purpose and sent it toward the rear fence. But what is your right arm doing? It's opening the racket to neutral position up by your head (with "neutral" meaning neither closed or open but on edge).

Count three, "tweeze," again refers to left arm. It's straight, right? So if you smoothly swing it around a small amount, keeping it straight, it resembles one leg of the tweezers from a medicine cabinet. But if like my Hungarian ex-girlfriend you hate medical imagery and may prefer nautical-- and Roger has called his forehand "modern retro"-- well, how about using the classical image from fifty years of tennis magazines: Your left arm "smooths the waters."
I'm arguing here though that a straight arm calms the waters better than a bent one. Ar at least smooths MORE water. But if both arms are pulling part, and are becoming tweezers, well, they're un-tweezing or tweezing in reverse.
Anyway the right arm gets straight while closing the strings again during this.

Count four, "Mondo," is an international term from the Pro Tour with World implications. This is when the wrist simultaneously turns down and turns back (opening half way to neutral), killing the racket head speed just as Roger pushes off and cranks his body mightily. It allows one to be vigorous before contact and practically caress the ball at one and the same time.

Success of any stroke, however, is determined by how the strings come off of the ball. Sideways movement of "arm" (count five) achieves this in two ways-- remaining straight through contact or scissoring at contact. In either case, the most powerful sideways movement of the arm possible slings the laid back, laid down racket up, through and across the ball, causing a ferocity of mixed spin.

[bottle]

Going with the Tangent

Nico,

I'm still on my forehand tangent because I'm not "just" amusing myself, but think of myself as a teacher, and want to make a connection with someone who has said he can understand neither my language or my thought.

Since you are a teacher yourself, you should at least be curious about this essential method, which is, "throw out the lesson plan."

My subject is a new year's serve, i.e., a serve which is better than the others that one person-- anybody-- has ever tried.

My premise, however, is that the best tennis strokes share a certain duration and rhythmic base.

You wouldn't have to have understood a single word I just said if you realized that "Bottle is trying to put something across, and it has to do with Roger Federer's forehand."

That's right. I broke that stroke into five counts which I then named and next explained. You wouldn't need the names and certainly not the five descriptions or any Dutch or English at all if you had studied the high-speed films of Federer on this website and could do the whole thing with your racket out on the court.

But now I pull the rug out from under you again (you will have to be willing for this to happen).

Take just the first three words of the description, "hands, point, tweeze," and assign them a four-count. Everything else-- the hit-- becomes "FIVE!"

This moves you closer to the Roger Federer of the UTUBE videos where he is playing Fabrice Santoro-- any one of which is the most incredible display of movement, economy, and impact that I've ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS7Gw19v4DY

Any of these Federer-Santoro movies ought to be enough to convert any film buff, to make him less pusillanimous and once and for all stop inflicting his students with the double-bends (Webster's Collegiate: "a sometimes fatal disorder that is marked by neuralgic pains and paralysis, distress in breathing, and often collapse and that is caused by the release of gas bubbles in tissue upon too rapid decrease in air pressure after a stay in a compressed atmosphere...")

[nabrug]

Dear Bottle,

If you want real answers. Please ask short questions which I can answer in a short way.

The mentioned website and the video could have given you a reference model for the kinetic chain in the service which will give you the FEELING. Than in the second phase you can fill it in with the caracteristics you find at Tennisplayer. In general the caracteristics will not give you the stroke. (I mention this because I think you only think in caracteristics and not in the feeling and I am not interested in loose caracteristics).
Besides that we could have had a model in which we could communicate with each other. (By the way McEnroe is doing all the essences described in the video in his own way. Nothing more, nothing less.) Now it is very hard to do that.

I don't think there is a super service or a super FH. I think there is a proper kinetic chain and physical ability.

Nico.

[bottle]

No Way

Sorry, but I don't accept your characterizations, and if you want short sentences maybe you should try a simple sport. Everything I'm doing does have to do with FEEL. It also has to do with first-hand experimentation on the court, not tired, received notions like "kinetic chain" unless you invented that one yourself. In "Rick Elstein's Tennis Kinetics," Martina Navratilova said,
"I never think about the kinetic chain."

[bottle]

Follow Tangent to its End

The same three-worded instruction, "hands, point, tweeze," seems applicable, with these complex actions attenuated over four beats same as before.

The difference, however, will be in content, not form.

If "hands" meant slightly lifting the two connected hands equally, this is no longer true, with left hand now to do more work, in fact flipping racket over right hand, so strings, at head level, face the right fence post.

During second beat, "point," the left fingers will leave the handle with less distance to go before they maximally turn the shoulders. At same time racket will continue its already started twist, in fact closing more as arm extends on a high, level path.

Third and fourth beats correspond to the high-speed Federer's racket, perfectly closed, descending like milkweed.

[bottle]

Enough McEnroe; Federer Now

When I teach tennis lessons, I stick to the basics and go slow, realizing that to do anything else would be criminal unless of course the student is a great player who is completely open to change (but how often does that happen?).

Me, though, I'm not a great player, and therefore, when I'm working with myself, anything goes-- absolutely anything.

A modern historical idea in tennis serving is that John McEnroe developed radical, platform-type stance because of his bad back, which innovation led to modified versions by Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Justine Henin, Svetlana Kuznetsova, and a few others but with most tour players bringing up rear foot instead for pinpoint launch.

I prefer platform. Surprise, surprise! Even lesser players are permitted to have a tennis philosophy and valuable experience and their own preferences. Greater players and hotshot teaching pros should learn to accept this. And-- I insist on this-- the lesser player may eventually come up with something new and valid simply because he's always trying to do so, and mechanical discoveries, as NPR's Tom Magliozzi has pointed out, "are always sheer luck."

Okay, so in my serving talk before I got sidetracked, I was dwelling on McEnroe's Tiantric turn. Federer has a similar though smaller turn, and he's not moving the nub of it, i.e., his head so much while he's performing it. And, since he has a gyroscope in his arm, he can start his toss while his shoulders are still turning back.

Not for me. So I start both arms down together and turn this into a small body turn before the toss. Works great. Also, when you ape Federer, you can be more upright at the start. Best, he keeps his racket on edge, neutral-- employing no real palm down stuff like Vic Braden or opening out of strings like John M. Barnaby or John McEnroe.

When you think about it, this neutral racket makes easy the task of keeping elbow-separation-from-body maximal and in line with both shoulders.

That's very good for a server who can't roll back his shoulder rotors very far since he'll nevertheless get the advantage of longest possible lever ("good extension").

I'm now recommending FOR EVERYBODY-- no, sorry, JUST FOR MYSELF-- the retention of one right-angled arm serve for slice wide left (from a right-hander), utilizing whatever shoulder rotors play that one has. If one can bounce a short overhead over adjacent fences it would be a shame not to apply this skill to at least one serve. (Note: "right-angled arm" doesn't mean
it won't extend for contact.)

On most serves: triceptic extension from two halves of arm briefly clenching is manifestly better for the rotorded server.

The exception is this wide slice. Watch the model videos of Dennis Ralston. He doesn't get the racket tip low at all. And IT DOESN'T MATTER. Because YOU WANT THE BALL TO STAY LOW.

[bottle]

Racket Work, not the Kinetic Chain, is the Key to Tennis

Nico Mol thinks our conversation is over, but it will never be over, not even if neither one of us ever writes another word (which seems unlikely).

Tennis contains such basics as movement, reaction time, recovery and yes, kinetic chain, but KC is much more instantaneous-- and dare I say it-- "electric" than the lucubrations of those who worship it.

In the book RICK ELSTEIN'S TENNIS KINETICS, which I bought because I was in the middle of a torrid, hip-waggling love affair with kinetic chain at the time, the author hardly writes about actual kinetic chain at all. He showed a photograph of a boxer throwing a punch and then moved on to kinetic "cycles" of hitting a tennis ball followed by economical recovery to middle of one's possibilities and doing it all over again.

One thinks of the late John Updike's "fast-moving sap" (golf was the subject) and of ground force starting up the leg of Muhammad Ali. By the time it reached his shoe, the jab was delivered, as was his opponent, so why even think about it?

Nico's assessment that I am discussing "characteristics" of great players is accurate but doesn't distinguish between personal tic and stealable style-- that instant where all tennis basics converge in spare detail.

At such moments the tennis genius is more simple-- much more simple-- than the beginning player or certainly his instructor.

My real answer to Mr. Mol is in Post # 50, entitled "Follow Tangent to its End," although I didn't have him in mind other than keeping the entire instruction down to three words.

The same day I wrote that post I took it out on the court, for the very first time, and had a day unlike any other.

"Change back!" my opponent said.

This is why I recommend that other Federfore believers try my same prescription and write a report (although I realize there is nowhere for me to go but down).

In fact, I hit after the match with a heavy top-spinner, and although my forehand remained improved, it stopped being spectacular.

I am not a great athlete, and I am 69 years old, but an experience is an experience (and sometimes, face it, you can't hide it, you want to say "NYAH!!!!").

Every forehand I hit in my match with The Partridge was a clean winner.

Hands, point, tweeze, baby.

[bottle]

Thanks for the Flossi...

Nico, I'd like to thank you and certain other tennis teachers for their flossi...

(term well-defined on U-Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMrk9ea1m0g )

[holyhobo]

Nico, if nothing else atleast try for the bonus video!

[bottle]

Although I hate to change the subject, tennis evolution, individual or universal, marches on.

Service now is easier.

Forehand and backhand both achieve closed position before one can even see it, while left hand is still on the racket.

[bottle]

Ground Strokes are Evolving faster than Service right now

Yes, and that's not a conscious decision.

Today's Federfore:

. Left hand simultaneously raises and closes racket head
. Left arm points sideways and almost rearward at right fence while hitting arm begins to extend from elbow drawing high strings back a small amount
. Straight left arm smooths the waters a small amount toward target while right arm straightens a bit more now in downward direction
. Left arm starts to bend as right arm gets straight
. Leg and shoulders drive handle as racket tip lays back and down and arm suddenly changes direction horizontally to left. To a neutral observer standing behind player arm motion appears to be horizontal straight through the ball. Racket head wipes up and across as the arm rolls, too.

Some of the free films illustrating this and other stuff and appearing everywhere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymUFbMJJMx8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLYZQX6NSf4&NR=1

Today's backhand back-swing (after initial leaning of head combined with natural pivot same as on forehand side) consists of three actions. Previously, I performed them with three counts, next as a single count. Now I use two counts and this makes a difference. The actions are 1) slight movement of hands to outside 2) slight raising of rear shoulder 3) movement of bent arm around rear shoulder to physical max with elbow arranged directly beneath the strings.

If there is a back-swing, there must be a fore-swing. There is and it consists of three actions: 1) straightening of elbow 2) turn of upper body 3) level turn of arm around upper body to bring strings into delicate touch with the ball. Previously, I performed them with three counts, next as a single count. Now I use two counts and this makes a difference.

It's 1234FIVE! (in which shoulder blades clench violently together as arm rolls strings up ball while itself moving directly through it). This turning inside out of the body to thrust both arms out, besides acceleration, also stops residual body rotation, something that's been known for centuries.

Early closing of both forehand and backhand strings is achieved with left hand on the racket as it still is going up. This eliminates the need for any manipulation of the strings as they go over top of the loop or descend ("Press your palm down toward the court, baby"-- DON'T!!!) so that overall loop becomes a totally relaxed, gravity-assisted affair on both sides.

Such pleasurable grace is usually defined as don't-try-this-at-home athleticism or "tennis genius" limited to a few elites. Despite meaning change for word "elite," you see, tennis still has its exclusivity to deal with, inherited from the old country clubs.

Full disclosure of my knowledge of snobbery dictates I reveal here that in another sport, rowing, I am a "senior sweep oarsman," a distinction far beyond anyone's age and of which I am inordinately proud.

[bottle]

How Much does Roger Federer's Elbow Move before he hits the Ball with his Forehand?

You mean how much does it move INDEPENDENT OF HIS BODY? Answer:
Very little.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/roger_federer/roger

[bottle]

Federfore: I see now why no one ever wants to teach loop

It has nothing to do with educational philosophy since every part of any athletic cycle affects every other. But the details might have to change every day-- hard on student and teacher both.

Neutral (waiting) position is important. Racket tip favors a backhand. Right elbow is out just a bit more than left elbow. And it's pretty far back. The racket itself is out front as everyone says. Without touching body, though,
it's tucked in-- has to be to put elbow in that perfect hitting position.

"Perfect is the enemy of good." -- Voltaire

First two beats are linked. Let left hand cue them both.

On 1) left arm starts to push to right fence from both shoulder and elbow. The movement also is upward, though. Both ends of racket appear to move at same speed. But is right arm extending? Not really. But if this were a time-elapse photograph the racket would form a number of parallel lines on the negative. So upper part of the hitting arm must be twisting in some weird way. Let it.

On 2) the left arm finally turns the shoulders. While doing that, it may get completely straight or not. If right forearm gently pronates now, such movement can passively extend the arm a little-- a nice idea, that: maximum passivity in the loop. On a higher ball the elbow can't remain in one position but must go up, i.e., more out beyond edge of body.

Counts 3) and 4) take the closed racket down, extending it from the elbow. On a higher ball the arm would already be more straightened with hand farther away and would lower just a little mostly from body segmentation.

Five (5) is the big swing with all of its little tricks.

[bottle]

Fanning the Federfore

How can the ends of the racket appear to move at the same speed and yet left hand push (I said "flip" once but now regret it) racket head up over the right hand, both at the same time?

The answer is that "fanning" occurs, with length of the fan far longer than any tennis racket. The fan is a giant, crooked palm leaf used to cool the King of Siam. It runs from racket tip all the way down to right elbow, which on anything but a high shot stays in one place and twists.

Slow movement of such a long lever is going to put some momentum in the racket head which can spill over to forearm pronation and racket descent.

[bottle]

If You Think Everything about Success at the Near-top is Athletic Genius,

and you don't like the thought of Roger Federer's elbow twisting in one carefully chosen spot, try it anyway, then send your elbow to the right and return it to your side as part of the stroke construction like Andre Agassi, and then send your elbow high and backward and return it down by your side like Ivan Lendl.

After you have done all three things, please tell me which worked best for you in a year's worth of matches.