A New Year's Serve

[don_budge]

"deeep state" whatever that is.

[don_budge]

Yeah, and it led to a fellowship and a year of working with William Golding. Cool, eh?

[bottle]

The Core of the Thing

Few pose the question other than Stevie Innuendo, the Italian Gang Boss and Mussolini of our time. (He has antlers and plans to move to the north of Sweden thanks to the new pastures opening up there.

Why does Bottle write so much, Stevie the Innuendo asked, then answered his own question (a good thing to do although he then comes up with a substandard and under-imagined thought): Because Bottle thinks he is a writer and therefore must produce something every day.

No, Bottle knows he is a writer and the rest. If a day goes by without him writing something he gets the taste of ashes in his mouth.

Here at Tennis Player, though, the urge is different than in other venues. Here Bottle's writing all comes down to a single Gordian knot, that of a workable solution to the problem of rotorded serving.

I have heard of knotted ropes and stoppados in steambaths, the use of small weights challenging one's down-behind-the-back physical limit, and my own proposal, the locking of oneself in one's car and driving to the nearest dump crusher and insistence on staying in the car.

None of these routes has ever seemed genial enough.

I want my solution in design.

And so, today I propose to try to eschew the turning around of the shoulders to the ball so essential in the philosophy of Dennis Van Der Meer.

Separate the elbows but combine this with body bend.

Then start one's cartwheel with body turning BACK!

If this ploy is successful, the sensible person will want to solve the problem of Donald Trump's presidency.

And go for the answer to that next Gordian knot-- how to rid ourselves of the jerk through good sense.

[bottle]

HERE'S JOHNNY!!! JOHN ESCHER...DETROIT SCHOOL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

No, as usual, you have things wrong. I am not a regular teacher. I am a sub teacher three times a week. And as far as the video, I barely know that person. I have lost 30 pounds and moved on.

[don_budge]

HERE'S JOHNNY!!! JOHN ESCHER...DETROIT SCHOOL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

[bottle]

Echolalia. Eat the wolf, I say. Skin that sucker and nail the hide on the outhouse wall. And no, I never click on anything that has the word "breitbart" in it. That organization doesn't even have Steve Bannon working for it any more. So what good is it?

[don_budge]

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/31/reuters-kosovan-farmer-names-pet-wolf-president-trump/

The strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf.

[bottle]

Yeah, and it led to a fellowship and a year of working with William Golding. Cool, eh?

It was like actually being in the middle of LORD OF THE FLIES. I was neither Ralph nor Piggy. I had the sunny disposition of Roger. the thing of Federer we all can imitate.

[bottle]

Yeah, and it led to a fellowship and a year of working with William Golding. Cool, eh?

[don_budge]

Two established writers at Brown University saw a similarity between my first novel WINDWAY and LORD OF THE FLIES.

[bottle]

"Don't Practice This"

I didn't. But I thought about it, and this is human nature. You give yourself a verbal command. You do the opposite.

Well, don't fight it. Two versions of the McEnrueful emerge instead of one.

First version. Down and up backswing. At top of backswing the arm locks into a longer pin through the two shoulderballs.

If this image still remains unclear for you, find the nearest golf course and walk out onto the first green at midnight. Take the pin from its hole and thread it through your elbows behind your neck.

Swing to and fro. This will give you the proper feel.

Forward stroke becomes nothing but a mild sweep down and up. With no awareness by you of segmentation of any kind.

Second version (discussed before).

Slowness of arm rise is followed by abrupt cranking of the hips.

Version one and version two are just that-- two different strokes.

[bottle]

A smear from an ignorant person, as most smears are. Or does he mean he didn't have the mental capacity to follow? Who knows, with all the rumbling emanations from "deeep state" whatever that is, that continuously occupy his mind.

[don_budge]

I am very confused.

[bottle]

Significant Step in McEnrueful Development

It's just an imitation John McEnroe forehand without the leg extension and pogo stick hop-landing.

In fact John McEnroe himself hits some of these shots this way, and you can find examples in the stroke archive.

In the Detroit indoor club where I play, there are a lot of teaching pros walking around-- four at the very least.

I don't think any of them believe my McEnrueful is a bad shot. Some of them may even think it interesting although I doubt they ever would connect it to John McEnroe.

The improvement which happened and which I'm trying to describe is a classic case of how you put something with something else.

Something: The down and up racket head rhythm of the backswing. I used to think it should be fast. Now I think the up part of it should be very slow and tailored to the oncoming ball.

The more you can protract this rise of the racket, the more compressed the rest of the stripped down solid bod action will be.

Hips followed by aeronautical banking up is what I'm talking about.

Compression of this sequence turns out to be a good thing.

First it worked in self-feed.

Then I tried it in a hitting session with a good partner but sprayed a few shots.

The next day I tried it the spraying was gone.

I'm afraid to practice this shot very much since I have it just where I want it right now. I'll work on other shots or other aspects of the game, thank you.

[bottle]

Not quite the right interpretation. A player can have the racket tip pointing up but not directly vertical. A directly vertical racket tip will by default shove the elbows down into the body. Try it at home. If we tilt the racket tip slightly forwards, the elbows will be inclined to move away from the body when the stroke commences, which is better, I think. A coach can also encourage a player to raise the elbows a little when starting the stroke, sometimes with good results.

Nice. Good. Thanks.