A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Do You Really Suffer From A Feeble Capacity to Design?

Tom Allsopp's review of my book at tpatennis.net has made me better appreciate my possible niche in tennis-- "niche" being a word advanced by Steve Navarro and earlier indicated to me by Doug King-- an idea man if ever there was one. Tennis pure and simple can use more people coming up with personal thoughts and new ideas.

But this is Dec. 31 when all ideas can dry up in hope of resurgence if not madmen's "surge" in the coming year. Actually, that's a bad idea. Ideas come whenever they want and will if you make yourself open to them and refuse to be silly, backward and feeble-brained about this.

Today's design has once again to do with one hand backhand. I almost could re-name this thread or start a new one called "A New Year's Backhand" but won't. A "New Year's Serve" stands in my book for a new year's backhand and everything else new in tennis for anybody in any coming year especially if willful and self-inaugurated.

ELBOW shall move smoothly from beginning to end of the forward stroke. How then? Slow to contact and slow beyond contact-- one speed the whole way. Racket head acceleration shall be relegated to arm twist only.

GRIP: Here's the formula in dreary song that doesn't scan: "Free grip in the free world." Extreme as hell if you so choose and don't be scared. I choose extreme grip right now since I want some karate with edge of hand on ball, at contact, a good "bonk" with a hunk of hand behind it. Also, I'm going to fan the strings up the back of the ball. Extreme grip with delayed arm roll will do it.

RACKET TIP: Extremely low and far around at end of the backswing because of the extreme grip. Slightly below hand at contact. Forming a roof at end of followthrough.

ARM EXTENSION: Passive from hips rotation, shoulders rotation, weight shift forward and initial travel toward net by elbow (four-part simultaneity).

ARM ROLL: Forearm may contribute but this action comes mainly from the elbow which can travel at a constant slow speed to contact while still twisting abruptly at the last instant and continue at its one speed afterward.

[bottle]

A New Year's Serve

Re 12/31 (last post): Not as much roof as I may have suggested. Roof formed by racket face above head or "halo" or "lid" as visual image is all the same notion useful through being anti-flip.

Finding the correct amount of some action rather than denying it very often is crucial to successful invention.

The accelerative action of strings fanning upward, strengthened by what body and arm just did, creates a bit less overhang. One can see this if one freezes one's followthrough and then looks up.

[bottle]

Bang One Down The Line

If # 946 written 12/31/11 contained my best idea of the year, then the following idea written on 1/2/12 ought to contain the worst. But why be judgmental? Test later after the snow.

The idea of slow elbow starting simultaneous with angular and linear weight shifts proved fantastic in its promise.

So, for a down the line shot, flattened out, I'll try half as much late arm roll but directed more through the ball (with similarly vertical racket face not closing over the top).

If this doesn't work, I'll revert to keeping arm back for a longer time and devise something else.

[bottle]

~

The swing must be circular. The arm straightens passively. Movement of the elbow can be part of the circularity that not only contributes to whirling the arm straight but will put strings on outside of the ball sooner. Easy angular momentum is multiplied by simultaneous elbow movement. Momentum from linear transfer of body weight is similarly multiplied by the elbow movement.

Early posting of weight on front foot prepares for the significant arm roll that sharply turns the corner. Body and shoulder joint moves upper arm away from the hand, i.e., straightens the arm, but even more than that loads the racket with little units of energy which we could call "ergs".

The form of these backhands is inside out. The projected line of flight is 90 degrees to inside. The arm is relaxed as a string. Did it stay taut?

Dwell on a flat shot is created through transition to longer lever's continued swinging but with no more twisting from the shoulder joint. (Twisting creates a sharper arc. And we want a broader arc than we just had.)

The lighter topspun shot or moonball or "academic ball" is more a combination of factors at contact. The strings wipe up as arm continues its mono-speed run forward. And one could always add a McEnroe type pogo stick hop since weight transfer as it is usually thought of already occurred but body going through the shot could still be in order.

[bottle]

A Big Forehand

As I watched David Ferrer take down Rafa Nadal in Abu Dhabi, I couldn't help but notice the reverse action in his forehand pertaining to his wrist only and not to his whole arm.

This had to interest me since I have a Ferrerfore right now for better or for worse in which arm and wrist both flap back in response to fully orchestrated forward body rotation.

Also noticeable, to this viewer, was 1) leg drive taking Daveeed off of the ground and 2) powerful shoulders rotation exceeding that of the hips so that it pulled those hips around at the end of its physical range and 3) landing then and only then for recovery back to the middle.

Translation: A lotta shoulders.

[bottle]

Spine of Scapula

In serving, it would seem, one can't think about the SOS too often:

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=spine+of+scapula&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=771&bih=446&tbm=isch&tbnid=xkh_3VoEv4ZdFM:&imgrefurl=http://www.courses.vcu.edu/DANC291-003/unit_10.htm&docid=jPiCVnIZP4BCNM&imgurl=http://www.courses.vcu.edu/DANC291-003/scapula_spine.jpg&w=262&h=270&ei=flkET67SJsrrgge79_n_AQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=393&vpy=127&dur=30599&hovh=216&hovw=209&tx=82&ty=239&sig=117405255315570275247&page=1&tbnh=116&tbnw=113&start=0&ndsp=11&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0

[tennis_chiro]

Great illustrations!!

In serving, it would seem, one can't think about the SOS too often:

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=spine...1t:429,r:3,s:0

Bottle,
Is this a syllabus or text from a VCU extension course? Excellent!

don

[bottle]

Negative Experiments are Positive: Keep Hand Still

Re # 944, "Oregano," which was about introducing a bit of looseness into the stroke tract of Steffi-slice, don't do it.

The hand becomes the fulcrum of a teeter-totter. Then shoulder becomes fulcrum for a second roll, this one in the forward direction.

Mess not with this.

Sometimes change isn't glacial and evolutionary and doesn't involve ages and eons. I knew after two missed shots.

[bottle]

SOS Pointing THAT WAY!

If I can't think about spine of scapula too much, then I'm going to look at different illustrations and descriptions and learn about this subject in every which way I can which is how the scapula works anyhow.

Always, I think, I've had a fondness for human anatomy-- that ought to help.

Once in my youth I made my way into the bedroom of a Harvard medical student from Wichitaw Falls, Texas. I won't reveal her name since she subsequently became a very famous person conducting medical research in South America and I wouldn't want to embarrass her or myself.

In fact however very little happened between us in that tiny room except that she reached under her bed and pulled out a handsome wooden box and slid back the cover and pulled something out.

"The clavicle," she said, "the most beautiful bone in the human body."

What is sex? Maybe not what most people think. Maybe sex isn't even sunlight as D.H. Lawrence thought.

And what is a clavicle other than a collarbone? When one googles clavicle and clicks on "images," one sees among the countless photos of decolletage a bevy of distinguished female models with well pronounced collarbones just under the skin.

Does a clavicle move? Not if the woman doesn't. It's fixed and independent-- the reason it's easy to break one, something I don't recommend.

On the posterior side of the body, the spine of scapula wiggles this way and that. It's the excrescence atop the scapula and therefore is one unit with the unstable scapular bone, which stretches on muscle in all kinds of surprising directions and is pretty large and appears the shape of Ossabaw Island ten miles from Savannah, Georgia.

Of all the wonderful information just provided by Doug Eng at "Coaching Tools Required to Fix This" I single out this included link, particularly post # 2 because of its compelling description of scapular instability.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=395796

We tennis players subscribe to kinetic chain without ever considering that a chain is only as good as its weakest link, and as we learn from Eng's posts a lot of people think the backbone is connected to the armbone and leave out Ossabaw Island.

No wonder that Mike Mussina could pitch a perfect game and give up 12 runs four days later. No wonder that Roger couldn't serve worth a damn against Nole in Abu Dhabi.

Everything having to do with scapular throw is inspiration. The scapula is uncertainty itself. A basic shape of bodily construction however seems ideal. That would be the spine of scapula lined up with clavicle and upper arm at the moment of greatest transmission of energy-- a matter of simple leverage.

The clavicle as I'm receiving the information (and Doug Eng uses the term "clavicle" as much as anyone else) becomes a rough guide for what the spine of scapula ought to be doing since clavicle is in the front of the body and easier to keep track of.

But SOS could point in any which direction and frequently does. We'd like clavicle and SOS to point in the same rough direction-- a challenge in that all of this human bone tends to be curved.

"Line up the levers"-- no?

[bottle]

Improvement on Teeter-Totter

Re # 953: A better cue than teeter-totter: The slight twirl counter-clockwise of a baton.

Or switch back and forth from one cue to the other. Or invent a third. The desired action is all that matters.

Also, in re-watching the following clip of Steffi (at 22 point in the video), I see preparatory turning down of shoulders followed by a jackknifing of the waist while on the ball-- two different actions in different parts of the overall cycle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8RibH0lB3w

The baton twirl backward, however, is in the same half-cycle as forward roll of straightening arm from the shoulder.

Both arm rolls are melded together in just the forward action.

But the body rolls-- that's a different story-- they're more spread out. If you buy my premise that Steffi-slice is a two-part rather than three-part creature, then the front shoulder goes down twice and the whole stroke could be called "a big dig."

Last but not least, the force of the jackknife carries Steffi's left foot up to her right. This is straight out of John M. Barnaby if one gets one's tennis from instruction books, or right out of video if one is a paragon of visual transmission.

Regardless of where one obtains ideas, one can take this re-balancing step right out of the present video and do it oneself and maybe continue on to the net.

[stotty]

Re # 953: A better cue than teeter-totter: The slight twirl counter-clockwise of a baton.

Or switch back and forth from one cue to the other. Or invent a third. The desired action is all that matters.

Also, in re-watching the following clip of Steffi (at 22 point), I see preparatory turning down of shoulders followed by a jackknifing of the waist while on the ball-- two different actions in different parts of the overall cycle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8RibH0lB3w

The baton twirl backward, however, is in the same half-cycle as forward roll of straightening arm from the shoulder.

Both arm rolls are melded together in just the forward action in other words.

But the body rolls-- that's a different story. If you buy my premise that Steffi-slice is a two-part rather than three-part creature, then the front shoulder goes down twice and it all could be called "a big dig."

Never liked the way Steffi did that...point 22...it created too much slice... made the ball hover....never really noticed the over-slicing until I saw her live at Wimbledon...clips only tell you so much....watching a player in the flesh tells so much more...

Loved the 954 post, bottle...great stuff.

[bottle]

Venomous Spin

Thanks. But excessive slice! I want it.

No, I don't want the ball to hover, but if the slice of Graf, Dolgopolov and Federer all is excessive for us ordinary players' purpose, can we not add that each produces the excess with different technique?

Actually, I'm not yet prepared to analyze Dolgopolov, but he did use this slow slice yesterday to help dispatch Gilles Simon (on TV).

But the way that Steffi and Roger produce the excessive rpm's deserves comparison right now. Both use double arm roll as one would expect. But Roger's backward roll (and for that matter some of his forward roll, too) occurs behind his head. And as one would expect of a Swiss gentleman, his stroke is tidy, reasonable, and well timed.

Steffi-slice on the other hand is way out front and employs a lot of surf as in Wagner's opera THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. First the rear shoulder goes up. When a comber rises like this, I can only think of the black stallion rising in a poem by Stephen Crane. Stephen Crane would always use the objects of land to describe water. A rearing horse with short forelegs pawing the air (Oh, I added that part) to describe a rearing wave. Before one's impression is over, the horse as it rears actually seems to be inside of the rearing wave.

In his short story THE OPEN BOAT almost all of Stephen Crane's seascape is described through land images, e.g., big mudflats. And Ernest Hemingway, who worshipped him, attempted much the same effect in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA although I'll have to check.

These guys were geniuses, so why not use their perceptions wherever we can to produce excellent tennis strokes?

In Steffi-slice, let's say first that her rising shoulder is a wave. And then a cliff. And then her racket head tumbles down the face of the cliff rolling this way and that. And then-- CRASH-- the wave breaks right on the ball as she takes her body bow, with rear foot pulled up even from the racket work.

A stroke with body jackknifing like this affords opportunity carefully to calibrate the amount of body weight pressing through. Depth of shot is therefore easy to achieve. Withholding weight will be smart for the short angle. But if ball hovered, then hit the next one like Ken Rosewall with level shoulders but still make it sizzle "with venomous spin." (Expression from John M. Barnaby.)

[stotty]

Thanks. But excessive slice! I want it.

No, I don't want the ball to hover, but if the slice of Graf, Dolgopolov and Federer all is excessive for us ordinary players' purpose, can we not add that each produces the excess with different technique?

Actually, I'm not yet prepared to analyze Dolgopolov, but he did use this slow slice yesterday to help dispatch Gilles Simon (on TV).

But the way that Steffi and Roger produce the excessive rpm's deserves comparison right now. Both use double arm roll as one would expect. But Roger's backward roll (and for that matter some of his forward roll, too) occurs behind his head. And as one would expect of a Swiss gentleman, his stroke is tidy, reasonable, and well timed.

Steffi-slice on the other hand is way out front and employs a lot of Wagnerian surf. First the rear shoulder goes up. When a comber rises like this, I can only think of the black stallion rising in a poem by Stephen Crane. Stephen Crane would always use the objects of land to describe water. A rearing horse with short forelegs pawing the air (Oh, I added that part) to describe a rearing wave. Before one's impression is over, the horse as it rears actually seems to be inside of the rearing wave.

In his short story THE OPEN BOAT almost all of Stephen Crane's seascape is described through land images, e.g., big mudflats. And Ernest Hemingway, who worshipped him, attempted much the same effect in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA although I'll have to check.

These guys were geniuses, so why not use their perceptions wherever we can to produce excellent tennis strokes?

In Steffi-slice, let's say first that her rising shoulder is a wave. And then a cliff. And then her racket head tumbles down the face of the cliff rolling this way and that. And then-- CRASH-- the wave breaks right on the ball as she takes her body bow, with rear foot pulled up even from the racket work.

A stroke with body jackknifing like this affords opportunity carefully to calibrate the amount of body weight pressing through. Depth of shot is therefore easy to achieve. Withholding weight will be smart for the short angle. But if ball hovered, then hit the next one like Ken Rosewall with level shoulders but still make it sizzle "with venomous spin." (Expression from John M. Barnaby.)

Yes, give me Rosewall any day. No jackknifing here. Just effortless fluency that is only possible through wonderful technique. Rosewall could hit passing shots with his sliced backhand...can Federer or could Steffi...I doubt it.

[bottle]

This was good. I know it helped clarify my thoughts. And I think I'll be trying both almost any time I play. Once you become a student of slice, which many players won't even try, you discover all kinds of variations-- I think. Then I guess it becomes a matter of how much you want or need to specialize. You wouldn't want to have some variations that were in disrepair since you didn't use them enough.

Also, a lot has to do with what works for the individual. I know that in social doubles on Friday I tried some simple chip service returns, which didn't work as well as when I tried the Steffi-slice. Not definitive, I know, but maybe somebody did something in the past that provided some kind of foundation?

There's individual physique of course and individual ability to learn something (to learn something that had better be soon in my case). And relative difficulty of the subject.

Which is easier to learn, Ken-slice or Steffi-slice? Monica certainly had great respect for Steffi's slice.

Personally speaking, I don't think people knew too much about Steffi-slice although it was right out there in public for everyone to see. I know that my understanding started with a vague image of something that looked like a sea serpent or maybe a dolphin and I started from there.

I think learning either-- Ken-slice or Steffi-slice-- is going to take a long time for most people. No, let's not say "learning" but rather "mastering."

[bottle]

Re-Orchestrating the One-Handers

Who am I to defy the common wisdom that one hand backhanders need to hit through the ball more?

Let's say for purposes of argument that I have a topspin backhand that works well. I've certainly described it enough. It features early travel of the elbow which aids passive straightening of the arm. The strings then roll vertically up the back of the ball. That move is accelerative while elbow keeps traveling at a slow even rate.

The park attendant who keeps one net up for me through the winter loves this shot. He says I can make it land deep in a two foot square patch all day long.

(Yes there are people who encourage me in my madness.)

But I'm not happy with my attempted flatter version of this shot. Today I'll try different mechanics. Roll will occur immediately, well before the ball simultaneous with both an active component of muscularly regulated arm straightening and the same early-off-the-mark elbow travel.

Strings will ease into the plane of the subsequent long arm swing in other words, and if this won't work immediately in competitive play, I'll of course return to my mental drawing board.