A New Year's Serve

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Further Modification to the Forehand of BULL-BOY

Here is BULL-BOY's forehand once again. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs). One should learn it and use it.

But then, instead of straightening the arm behind yourself the way BULL-BOY does, keep it bent through the loop.

Now, as shoulders fire, straighten the arm and bend it again which combined spring-like action melds into flying windshield wipe coincident with hips and pliable knees finishing this variable heaviness shot off.

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Altering a McEnrueful for More Topspin

On a day when my newly invented strong eastern grip topspin forehands weren't especially bad just weren't giving our opponents much trouble I suddenly hit a couple of McEnruefuls that jumped up and forced an error.

The McEnrueful, an imitation of one kind of John MEnroe forehand, the one where he doesn't straighten his legs while hitting it, is a simple shot consisting of three parts: 1) free down and up arm, 2) solid lowering of racket with whole bod, 3) aeronautical banking up to ball with whole bod.

In self-feed the shot always works, in actual play produces unwanted backspin sometimes, and then which is equally surprising, may win the point anyway.

All that is a way of saying that the McEnrueful is a basically flat shot characterized by solid connection between shoulders and arm as one makes contact.

Its composite grip halfway between eastern and continental is good for a surprisingly quick shot off of a low bounce.

This occurrence is impressive enough to make one think it is the be-all and end-all of the shot.

If one uses the same basic form, however, one can hit assured topspin that may be surprisingly troublesome to one's opponents.

Keep bod and racket solid and connected but with a steeper bank.

Use slower horizontal rotation of the shoulders combined with body wriggle closer to straight up.

Such a reconfiguration of the shot, though seeming improbable, is perfectly possible.

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The Image of BULL-BOY Hitting Forehands Continues to Seize Our Imagination

So here he is in rapid-fire glory once again, fed extremely low balls by Coach Gabe Jaramillo before moving back to the baseline for conventional waist-high shots.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs)

To this piece of cinema we add the perverted thought of ostensibly reversing au Tom Okker the center piece of any kinetic chain, the marginal precedence of hips before shoulders so well documented by Ted Williams in THE ART OF HITTING.

Tom, when wishing to hit his famously ground-breaking topspin forehand, sends shoulders around instead.

Then hips fire as both knees press bod into the court to provide an effortless heavy ball in performing the weight transfer that finishes off the shot.

Call this final thrust a Connecticut chain all of its own if you must.

More important, make sure to face your strings at right fence like BULL-BOY on his way back.

And despite the heresy you now will attempt, straighten and bend at the elbow like BULL-BOY over Tom Okker's maintenance of his long and stringy arm.

It is your strings' ephemeral facing toward side fence that triggers perfect alignment of elbow extension and compression.

The arm bends exactly the same way it just extended. The racket went down. Then it came up on same plane and all from the elbow.

So let's review what got us here. We need to do this since BULL-BOY no doubt is using a more westernized grip.

We with our strong easterns consciously lift the elbow as we bend up the wrist.

This briefly faces our strings at the side fence.

Now the arm, fighting itself, extends and bends.

All motion in in this stroke must be continuous as Gabe Jaramillo reminds us.

A 1-2 rhythm I would say with embarkation of the 2 from top of the middle school backswing.

And arm can still be fighting to bend as it opens out in therefore delayed fashion-- while right shoulder rotates downward which causes level travel of the racket.

At which point the hips and lifting twisting wiper kick in.

"Lifting twisting wiper" means precisely this: The wiper wipes but the base of it-- the axis of the wipe-- lifts at the exact same time.

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No no, Dummy

K.I.S.S. Not enough just to watch. Visual tennis is great, but you need to turn up the sound and listen to what Gabe is saying too. And combine all three-- what you see and what you hear and what you already knew.

Be reminded. That's what a good teaching pro can do. He or she can provide another set of eyes. Her name tonight was Aggie, doing the warm-up drill. Like you (me), she values craziness, says it makes life more interesting.

Isn't Aga Radwanska good enough for you?

Snap-face the strings at right fence. That makes wrist layback quick and over and out of the way. Put the emphasis where it belongs on the linked arm rolls one way then the other. You do it on a serve so why wouldn't you do it here? Slingshot then is ISR conquering ESR. How do you think a medieval catapult worked?

Pick another form of slingshot to concentrate on some other time.

That thought should be the end of this post but is not. Is semi-mondo backward too harsh? Start some of the backward roll sooner then. I want a mat that gets smaller and tighter and quicker as it naturally unspools along a table.

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A Great Looking Forehand Hit by A BULL

Suffering only from insufficient language in describing it. Of course I haven't tried it and won't today since today I go cross-country skiing at the park where the park attendants maintain my self-feed court which is a bit under the weather. I did hit a few balls yesterday out of hand with no bounce. The yellow shows up well for subsequent plucking.

Here it is again. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs). Nice. So take it and make it your own. Throw in a few bowled backswings to go along with McEnruefuls if you have McEnruefuls (a dubious assumption but I myself do have McEnruefuls).

Gabe suggests that anybody who straightens arm in the follow through is throwback to the time when people played with a continental grip. Well, I don't have a continental grip but do have a composite grip like John McEnroe and my arm stays at one length. It's true that I don't wrap, only will wrap with the new strong eastern TSFH and the transition strong eastern TSFH I've been working on for a long time.

Although I didn't realize that transition was its possible purpose.

No need to jettison an old stroke unless it's worse than the new one.

Commonality between the two TSFH's: Arm getting straight then scissoring into a wipe. Difference: Higher backswing through middle register in the newer one. Difference: Conventional interpretation of kinetic chain over that of Okker, Budge and Vines. Difference: the body weight and racket vector mix = more exploration. Possibility for a linguistic clue that more or less achieves the goal of facing strings toward right fence: Gradually lay wrist back/up to tandemize with entire middle register backswing.

This accomplishes half the function of a mondo and therefore may be called a demi-mondo.

With rolling of racket under the forearm-- during the 2 of 1-2 rhythm-- providing the other half.

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From 1-2-3 to 1-2 Rhythm

This transition can be applied to any forehand, at any time.

In most but not all cases, the 1-2 delineation will occur at top of a backswing that looks something like this:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs).

Hopefully, the evolutionary period of 1-2-3 will have instilled solid structure in the shot, and this structure will remain intact once it comes across to its wilder manifestation.

How does anybody naturally arrive at such a huge decision?

Through emergency, when one was rushed and thereby hit a 1-2 shot far superior (i.e., more powerful) than any of one's 1-2-3 shots.

But can and should one ever go back to one's 1-2-3 shot? Of course. One should never hit as hard as one can all of the time.

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Understanding the Difference between Forearm Scissoring and Forum Forearm Farm Gate

Until you master this tongue-twister, reader, you won't have any idea what I'm talking about.

But if you recently have eaten some brain food and therefore can make the necessary distinction between the two things, know this:

"Farm-gating the forearm" as I call it brings the hand around level and parallel to the court.

The motion that permits this is ISR or internal shoulder rotation so famed for its power that you wouldn't want to use it up in premature ejaculation.

The very different term "scissoring" learned from Geoffrey Williams takes hand around by contrast on a slightly upward path.

This upwardness combined with eschewing of the kinetic chain as popularly misinterpreted and golfing the shoulder down ahead of hips-fire again produces levelness of hand travel.

And elongation of the low prairie thus produced can mean a truly steep mountain on the far side, a sheer cliff rising like El Capitan.

(https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C...w=1258&bih=647)

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How much do hips glide while rotating in a golf swing? Should this motion be the same in a tennis forehand?-- I think not.

But the best answer depends no doubt on the nature of the forehand. In a forehand that adopts the pressing knees of Tom Okker instead of extending or leaping legs, the lower body remains connected and close to the ground.

Most power swings in golf end with leg extension which cuts off the linear hips travel no matter how much or little of it there was before.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui...f_jay62rug0&zw

(Blow up the image in this link.)

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Go for a Concentrate of Arm Twist Right After Arm Squeeze

Precise and special contact point will figure heavily in the success of this experiment.

The CP needs to be out front, yes, but also to one's right, which posits it back a bit.

This CP (contact point) to the right creates both the inside-out and steep arm bam one wants.

I'm thinking of arm bam or elbow lift toward right net post.

Now arm squeeze (scissoring) aims strings at inside of ball.

Then twisting, lifting elbow contacts backside and outside of ball.

That leaves only a very comfortable follow through like a point after touchdown over the left yoke-- comfortable since the arm twist in the stroke is out of the way.

What the bod does through all of this remains the subject of another post that probably has been written here many times.

To put it in a nutshell hips drive sideways then forward rotating on gliding knees.

One definitely wants to hit the ball with the weight of one's full butt.

Not to be too ridiculous, one creates one's butt by protruding it a bit then sends it twirling while traveling toward the net.

Chant: Downswing, then butt out, then butt through.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKVyKMjeCTw

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In Present Forehand Progression: You Don't have to Straighten Arm All the Way

You just have to straighten it enough so that there will be some confident scissoring the other way simultaneous with shoulder rolling down to push hips away from the ball-- to the side.

The same free thinking that allowed elimination of loop (were shots then less spinny?-- I don't think so) can now be applied to question of arm length.

Why not just find the degree of bend one wants at the outset and thereby eliminate the scissoring too?

I'll try that but suspect before going to court that less racket head speed will germinate.

My hunch is that the arm extension-compression complex, if properly limited, will combine with subsequent arm roll to produce more controlled spin than other methods.

But will report back.

While committing fully to Okker's unique means of neutral stance weight transfer (unique but close to that of Budge and Vines), one knows that one isn't small and quick with long stringy arms like Tiny Tom, hence the ultimate decision to scrape the ball from a loopless double-bend.

If this avenue can find one's destination, possibility of more variation in original pitch setting will open up.

Further speculation (since weather outside looks cold and forbidding with snow on the ground): no scissoring = less spin.

So one plays now with free motion within the elbow in both directions to find best muscular linked and continuous combination.

One can in other words roll up different facets of the ball.

One also can completely coordinate whatever degree of limited arm extension there is with turning back of shoulders, i.e., employ these two motions in tandem rather than overlap.

When gliding to a distant ball one can gradually lengthen the arm at unbelievably low and measured speed.

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Old Age One Hand Topspin Backhand

Old age should mean "more economical." Which means that a person of any age can learn from it since good economy in tennis is ageless absolute.

Why take racket back high? One wouldn't want to eliminate one's loop completely but a waist high takeback in many instances should suffice.

Take the racket back and straighten the arm. Then spin the bod horizontally. Then spin the arm vertically. If not generating enough topspin then make contact farther to the side. That allows for steeper racket rise.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGfohkNkzPE

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A Post with Drawing of Tom Okker's Front Knee During his Topspin Forehand

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#in...0371b1fef0061e

To build on these two drawings, make sure that heinie is away from the ball but not forward toward the net so that its later coming through will add weight to the shot.

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Too Much Concern About Options

Was lucky enough to find a good partner for a simple hit after the three sets and dinner and not worry about having sufficient energy for a 40-mile dangerous drive home.

Since now I live half a mile from the tennis facility.

Have created, through editing, all kinds of time for myself, time that now will best be used in finding rhythm.

The arm slowly snakes down and breaks forward. But the idea of overlap first-- arm getting straight and then going back with bod a tiny bit more isn't bad.

There is no percentage in hurrying anything. Bought time needs wise use.

Area to dwell on: steeper rise of bent arm as hips and knees pry forward.

The McEnrueful, despite its composite grip, also carried a bit more topspin. Where did that come from?