A New Year's Serve

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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

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Planning on a Progression Rather than a Solution

I'm thinking of how in the new shot the arm straightens then bends. Could one be building elastic power toward compression even as elbow straightens? If so that slows the straightening.

My opposite idea, already expressed, is get the arm straight early and use the scissoring as mere "feel" device.

One knows that the "feel" shots work. The assumption has to be that the slam shots eventually will work too.

Even though most serious serve instruction aspires more to loading twist potential of the upper arm, one maybe ought to ask, Can both ISR (internal shoulder rotation) and arm compression-extension (fantastically quick) be similarly loaded? Or is that too much to ask?

If both work in a serve-- i.e., ISR and the compression-extension pairing-- then both can work in a forehand.

In a serve, of course, compression precedes extension. In the part of the forehand we are discussing, however, extension precedes compression or scissoring. After which there is more extension as elbow flies.

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Dogpat, Breaststroke, Loop: Replace it All with Gliding Snake Head

Me, I think that despite all the whittling down that has recently occurred in this evolving stroke, one still needs a bit of transition between arm straightening and arm scissoring.

They are opposite motions, after all, with no pleasant linkage between them similar to that offered by arm scissor and arm twist. Those two events are naturally sequential.

One can therefore be quick in sending arm down straight.

Once straight it can still go back a bit more with backward turn of the shoulders. That gives it time in which to get ready to bend.

Meanwhile, one can maximize the rearward body turn by not only pointing across but pointing on a slant backward toward right rear fence post

This like a McEnrueful is an early separation shot, i.e., the two hands immediately leave one another.

And one can and should use any trick one can think of to maximize one's shoulder's turn.

Grigor Dimitrov actually squeezes his arms short to keep left hand on the racket for longer.

In early hand separation shots, one may need an equally good trick.

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The Hips Only Come Down One Inch

Most of this inch is squashed out over several inches of forward travel.

The hips rotate around an axis but with the axis moving forward.

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New Topspin Forehand: Don't Bend Knees Too Soon!

I am an Escher (John Escher) who eschews. And I eschew bending the knees a lot near the beginning of this intriguing shot. In an effort to get the racket extra low of course.

No. Get the racket low in other ways.

And save bending of the knees for contact so as to give effortless weight to the shot.

Reader, I wouldn't underestimate this change if I were you.

The shoulder, the arm and the racket go up.

The hips and the knees go down.

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Why You Don't Fall Over in these Shots

Because you add forward pressure toward the net with both knees. This not only gives effortless pace to the shot but subdues and controls the concluding hips turn although it still is plenty fast.

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Upward Emphasis Forehand

Utter relaxation of the hitting arm enables the racket to gravity-drop close behind one's ankle bone.

The looseness of this exempts the arm from the tyranny of unit turn happening at exact same time.

Forward turn of top half of the body lowers the shoulder while driving hips forward and off to the side away from the ball with arm scissoring at same time.

The hips, like a coaxial cable, fire the shoulder, arm and racket upward as pliable knees drive toward the net.

The rotating hips feel like they plunge rather than extend.

The rhythm of this shot in a hurried service return is 1-2 .

A normal slam shot however is 1-2-3 with slight pause during which the player does nothing between the downward and level-to-upward action.

One could also say "the player does nothing" at the beginning of the shot if referring to the gravity drop down of the arm.

Next, after two nothings in a row, the arm does everything.

1) Its bending or scissoring of arm optionally turns into a mild roll or not.

2) Its lifting and transmittal of energy rising from the coaxial hips is pure simultaneity.

1) and 2) taken together are simultaneity.

The narrow frame action is a delayed concentrate.

There can be no separation into different parts in the human mind whatsoever if this stripped down shot is to meet with success.

The simpler something is, however, the more ambiguous it may become.

Use of the biceps-- a powerful muscle-- may now come into play.

Or not. If not, smooth scissoring rather than twitch scissoring will feel for the ball.

Thinking more about this subject, if a bad idea, nevertheless is good fun specially if one maintains 123 rhythm for two options.

Gentle scissoring replaces dead stick pause at low point and thus becomes count 2 .

Forcible scissoring relies on dead stick or static pause first.

This would be the difference-- in ping-pong-- between a holding shot and a totally committed slam.

In an hour's warmup, one could think, one would hit 10 "feelies" (holding shots) to 1 slam.

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How Many Hitting Steps in a Plush Forehand Down the Line?

1.5 .

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My Journey: Why Presented Here?

Well, the journey ought to be of interest since everyone is on a journey of one kind or another.

If the journey is toward better tennis strokes as in my case the conclusions someone may reach may be very different from my own.

But we both are looking for something different-- don't we have that in common?

I get excited-- this has happened before. Narrow frame idea for better topspin comes from the Doug King teaching videos available to anyone at TennisPlayer.

While I'm working on topspin forehand right now, eventually I would like to put my topspin backhand in a narrow frame as well.

This could lead to the amazingly high follow through of Chris Lewit himself (but not that of the students as far as I can tell) in his TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE.

Jimmy Arias is another player with that same high follow through but only in his younger days.

The steeper, closer lowering and raising of one's racket like two ocean waves huddled together puts more emphasis on natural body transfer, it seems to me, to provide effortless pace.

I understand that one could put EVERYTHING into the generation of extreme topspin but think that's not for me.

I prefer the black arrows that Tom Okker places behind both knees in photos of him hitting his forehands.

Narrow frame then but with pliable knees adding or subtracting weight from the result.

I'm biased enough (but let's call it "convinced enough") that everyone should have two black arrows, one behind each knee.

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Practice One-Step and Two-Step Plush Forehands Down the Line in Strict Alternation

Do this and you will see that there is something behind this post and it is not just words. In the one-step, at contact, the front foot will be down. In the two-step, reflecting more commitment, the gliding walk through foot will still be mid-air.

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Note to Self

Experiment with straight wrist kick where tossed-to-place is ideal and humped wrist with toss farther to the right.

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Perfecting Forehand Plush Shot Down the Line

If we are supposed to create rather than imitate, there has to be an exception.

Strict imitation of the John M. Barnaby photographic production of this shot is the way to go.

So why don't I buy a scanner or go to the library or print shop or learn how to use the camera buried somewhere in my very old dumbphone?

Too many other pressing matters. And to be blunt, reader, you wouldn't know how to interpret what you saw even if you bothered to click on it-- and you have a record of insufficient clicking on photo attachments.

Just be fairly hunched over as you down-and-up the racket on straight arm way out to side.

Push the upper bod a little more as the drawn paper cutter starts down. Walk outside foot through almost as if to shove the ball with it.

Right foot directly beneath ball is what I see before same foot finishes its slow stride toward net and target.

Straight arm continues to opposite side.

If there is any relief to the arm pressure of this it comes at the very end. Both wrist and elbow can bend a tiny amount.

The racket and outside foot arrive at the ball at the same moment. One substitutes two hitting steps for the normal one in a neutral stance forehand with second still in the air as one makes contact.

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Simultaneity or Sequence

An old Chet Murphy alternative for players with deep-seated physical impossibility of producing significant upward service spin is to actually straighten arm so late that this happens on the ball.

This sort of works, in my view, if you come up to ball with racket on edge. And then pronate right after hand passes ear. Arm then can snap straight.

But if this "sort of works," then why won't it work even better if you combine all available elements into a single simultaneity rather than breaking them into sequential bits.

Thus one keeps the arm squeezed together for a long time with humped wrist as one ingredient of this coiled spring.

The unified transition then will be from full spring-like coil to fully extended arm by which time the ball will be scraped and gone.

Immediate follow through of straight arm will then be a trip far to the side. This serve would preclude conventional follow through were it not for rotation of the shoulders finally chiming in.

A question I won't let go of is whether the humped wrist stays humped or is in process of opening at contact. And if so, how much? Whatever produces the most distinctly heard sound of tearing silk.

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Why Does Right Leg Kick toward Right Fence in Old-Fashioned Kick Serves?

Guess: Because the server's ordinary serve contains forward hips rotation that carries right leg (dead leg) into the court. But now the server wants to scrape the ball upward from its lower left quadrant. So he inhibits the hips turn.

This can lead to upward body segmentation similar to that of an inchworm. The two legs can drive together although weight is shifting from rear to front foot at the same time. The right leg, suddenly released, kicks toward right fence.

Next question: Are shoulders also inhibited from their customary turn? Keeping them closed until after contact seems like a good idea.

Next question: Does humped wrist (if in fact the server has humped it) open out as strings scrape ball or continue to stay humped for similar reason of wanting to brush up left side of ball?

Google's first answer to first question: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrBCX2ESnlE).

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Put the Going Down Closer to the Coming Up

This is continuation of the orchestration of four forehands described in post # 3937 .

More specifically, I refer to a tall narrow frame in which to contain the topspin shot.

"Windshield wiper" and "getting the racket tip back" are minimized maybe even sacrificed in this new PLOT to put more longitude into the form of the SHOT.

So elbow goes up a little behind you or short in the SLOT. That twists the arm. Then as you push palm down you twist the arm more.

It only follows that the more you twist the arm and racket before you hit the ball, the less you will be wiping during contact, n'est-ce pas?

With a strong eastern you can now almost get the netside frame lower than the rear fence side frame.

The shot from there is hit as already has been described with arm scissoring before exploding forward and upward and then settling over opposite shoulder best described in three letters, BAM!.

The advice or self-advice here pertains to shape more than body segmentation, which has been explored before.

Desired shape for the whole stroke is a tall narrow coffin set on end. Sorry about that.

But you must admit, reader, that a bent arm brings hand up closer to front of your head than a straight arm.

And everything in your bod, with the exception of your legs, contributes to the narrow upwardness.

The squeezed path indicates another shot in which racket path, designed to administer maximum spin, is at right angles to one's bod movement delivered toward the net by pliable knees in this case.

Jack Kramer in THE GAME: MY 40 YEARS IN TENNIS, attributes a youthful gaining understanding of weight transfer to watching Ellsworth Vines.

I wholly buy into this, in fact bought into it a long time ago, and believe that Tom Okker uses the same bending of the knees combined with late hips turn for the same purpose.