A New Year's Serve

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Gordon, Williams

As a person who is always trying to figure out stuff for himself, I have to say, that, while my bailiwick is unexplored country and maybe even the ammonia whirlpool at the top of Saturn, a single individual, if persistent enough, will find the natural limit to what he can or even wants to learn.

This is how I feel about both Brian Gordon's new intelligence about wrist in a Federfore, and Geoffrey Williams' expertise in hitting with only one side of the racket strings.

I'll do the new forehand thing-- have every reason in the world to try it-- but won't give up my flying grip change to eastern-and-no-more on my backhand. I never will hit as much topspin as Geoff or my youngest brother Echo-- I know that-- but will and already have achieved a good mix of topspin and pace thanks to Geoff's advice about pivoting hips straightening a slight relaxed bend out of the arm for lift-off racket acceleration.

So what makes me think I can use my wrist in a forehand as Brian Gordon not only describes but prescribes (or reports as advantageous from researching a large data base)? My answer should be entirely personal and individualized, as should yours, reader.

When I started getting more serious about tennis with Jane C. at 16, I was all hips and wrist and very wild. Once in a while I subdued that wrist. It still moved but didn't snap. Result: Did better. (Samuel Beckett: "So you failed. Good. Fail better next time.")

In addition, a month ago I hit with a real kid, someone generating huge pop and topspin, and he was pushing me around too much.

After trying every single remedy I knew, I started to use a bit of wrist.

Good experience.

In learning new forehand technique, however, progress isn't linear even when the transitional stroke path is.

The item of greatest difference is apt not even to have been included in the teacher's or writer's explanation that intrigued one that day.

The teacher (Gordon) will have generated/stimulated it, but nobody can achieve anything other than the player himself.

On my Federfore-- on which I spent years or decades trying to figure it out (even dropping balls on ice in Maine)-- I no longer consciously close racket right after its high point.

The closing rather happens naturally from taking elbow slightly away from body on a shallow rise approximately toward right rear fence post.

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Continued

Great feel and synthesis is possible if one keeps the total action compact and unified.

The sequence is unit turn, then raising of the racket tip, then moving the elbow, then straightening the arm.

Develop these steps by keeping them small, then forget them, i.e., let them blend?

The totality of this "backswing" or rather "diagonalswing" will then not be a "swing" at all but rather a succinct easing of the racket toward fence post to prepare for a perfect flip every time.

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More on Luke Jensen

One can imagine what the female tennis players at Duke, UNC or Wake Forest must think if through superb play they manage to climb the NCAA ladder once again and now see Syracuse University listed as their next opponent.

Assuming the coach has done his homework, the Wake Forest women will look for something very specific in the doubles point.

The coach will have gravely warned each doubles team member with even the slightest weakness of serve to expect a drop-shot short in the alley followed by a firm cross-court volley near the same spot.

For this is what the Syracuse women's coach Luke Jensen was recently teaching in his clinic at the Grosse Pointe, Michigan Yacht Club as regular pros there manned different ball machines.

Luke himself, demonstrating once only, hit the perfect combination of the two shots. None of the club members, male or female, however, could emulate him very well.

Somebody hit the drop-shot with bite but followed it with a flaccid, blooping volley. Or either shot would land too much toward the middle of the court.

Me, I watched from behind the fence, the only person doing that although people offered to lend me a racket and invited me in. Finally, Luke came over to see what I was about.

Syracuse University only has a women's team, he told me. But I knew a male varsity player at Syracuse. His name was Richard Woodley and he was the reporter sitting next to me at The Middletown Press in Connecticut.

Richard was a lefty, the city champ of East Hartford. He had a withered right arm and an overdeveloped left arm and was very smooth on and off of a tennis court.

Because Richard was a sort of tennis prodigy, the Syracuse men's coach had offered him a scholarship. And had given him a better racket purchased just for Richard at his (the coach's) personal expense.

The first time Richard played with it however he smashed it after hitting a bad shot.

So the coach kicked him off the team. And Richard left Syracuse to play basketball as a point guard at CCNY. And that was the end of men's varsity tennis at Syracuse.

Well, I don't know about the last sentence. I like theory of fiction better than historiography, you see.

And I didn't tell this story to Luke Jensen, reader, only to you.

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The Courage of One's Convictions

Oscar Wegner has always emphasized the sideways component of arm and hand travel in generating considerable topspin in a forehand.

This has led to much contention in the tennis world.

But here is Brian Gordon saying the same thing in a slightly different way of course but telling us that a Roger-Rafa-Novak forehand must be hit so much in front of the body (or away from body?) that the sideways arm component can kick in.

Of what does this sideways component consist? Of up to one half of available wrist range, one would think, but of wrist used non-forcibly and for aim only.

And of arm going sideways to likewise get the hand out of the way at the very last instant, but with this done in forcible fashion.

So that's my thinking from reading the first two Gordon-Yandell-Macci articles.

Today therefore I shall delay my ongoing scapular retraction-scapular adduction experiment set piece until late in the forehand cycle.

Length of backswing can certainly be adjusted (probably shortened) to facilitate this.

And scapular retraction (with body whirling) will make the spear fly straighter.

My idea here is to utilize my own distinction between upper arm motion caused by shoulder housing and that caused by shoulder ball action within "the house" (the whole scapula with attached muscles).

Shoulder ball action within the housing (bowling) then to make the racket shaft spear at the ball.

Shoulder housing action to create the sudden change of direction Oscar has spoken and filmed and written so much about-- a very vigorous slingshotting action indeed.

Perhaps such thinking will place "slingshot" too late. (Note: I'm discussing here the DAVID rather than WHAMO brand of slingshot I use in discussions of my rotorded kick serve.) If so, I'll back off by slingshotting rather than bowling the spear again.

My only goal since everybody in the discussion (except for me) has great reputation-- and trying to add to or subtract from anybody's reputation would be utterly stupid-- is to generate maximum topspin with maximum ease. Right. For ME to do that.

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My New(tral) Forehand

My 2000th forehand may work best in neutral stance.

Its relaxed flip and bowl is from shoulder ball and not shoulder housing, although shoulder housing (scapula) retracts during the bowl. And while I've just posited relaxation as essential, the pre-load of arm twist muscles is a different subset of relaxation in that it builds up tension.

Now for a choice, learned from state tax forms and ophthalmologic exam:

A) My new open forehand, a first cousin, works best if I slingshot rather than bowl the spear. Conclusion then: Open forehand is WHAMO slingshot while neutral forehand is the DAVID brand.

or

B) My new open forehand works exactly the same as the neutral version. The only difference is that neutral bowl is longer, and, beside everything else, puts linear weight on the shot since it involves more leg travel toward the net.

I'd like to say that B) wins the contest between itself and A) but actually the opposite is the case.

And I'd like to say that A) wins the contest between itself and B) but actually the opposite is the case.

Trial yourself, reader, and decide which screen is clearer-- I dare you. Yes, make a decision! I know better than to ask you to report back, but if I haven't heard anything in 30 years I'll decide all by myself.

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Verb Contest

Teaching pros need language that will lodge in the brains of bleary eyed babes.

"Balance, babe!"

"Set, babe!"

"Relax!"

"Wait!"

"Prop!"

So what verb will work best to facilitate the perfect transition phase of a type three forehand?

Sweep? Bowl? Sling? Jankovic?

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The Big Experiment

The big experiment is scheduled for this Wimbledon quiet morning while my partner goes to church albeit not in Wimbledon. I remember the Wimbledon churches as my bus rolled through (and you may have thought Wimbledon was just a tennis complex and not a big old town embedded in the outskirts of London) . Last Sunday I went to church but today I’ll go to my favorite tennis court down by Lake St. Clair in Michigan. And I’ll go with expectations. Will they be frustrated or confirmed? Experience tells me there’ll be at least one surprise. (First surprise: no connection to internet so all this Sunday talk will become Monday talk after the technician arrives.)

The experiment: Agglomeration of design features from all recent posts having to do with Federfores. First to try: All body “pulling on a rope” to make the racket butt spear toward the ball for as long as possible with scapular retraction finally occurring to prolong the spearing even more. Immediate scapular adduction combined with non-forcible wrist action to provide the sudden change of direction which imparts most of the spin.

I’m very interested in furniture # 17 in the seminal article http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ehand_part_02/. To find furniture # 17 you start at top and count down through the visuals. One actually needs then to perform the portrayed action with thumb and forefinger, not just look at it. Because the same action will be performed in the full stroke only with more hand on the grip which will convert to more easy upwardness if I correctly understand the assertion in this part of the piece.

In following Brian Gordon’s pre-load philosophy (derived from or supported by his hard research), do we need to pre-load in every possible place in the body we can? Maybe, maybe not.

I’m wondering in particular about activating the oppositional muscles that retard backward twist of the upper arm as if it's an axle—which happens or should happen in a SERVE. On the forehand, now, is conclusion the same? Or does furniture # 17 demonstrate a mechanism that needs to be discrete and pure? In other words, will said mechanism work better if uncluttered? Or can both of these described mechanisms sum with each other?

At the court, I simply dropped balls and hit them, but it was very important that I bounce the balls farther in front or farther to the side than I usually do to create proper suddenness in change of direction.

And it was very important that forward body motion start while hand was still headed toward right rear fence post. Without that there would be no reverse action whip all the way through inward circling and flip and transition. Sounds complicated but if everything is in place it’s a nice swing and probably easier in nature than whatever one did before.

Finally got to court. The ball didn’t care much which way I hit it. But how can that be a definitive result if the person has been hitting the ball more one way than the other? So one has to continue the experiment. Same thing with finding the best verbs. I strongly feel that all tennis instructors must become English majors.

All shots seemed improved by more stepping into them, however.

On kick serve made progress with the old hand behind neck cue. Or rather got hand closer to back of neck than where it had been, a good idea perhaps for a rotorded server. Did some reverse wrist action serves producing a slightly different bounce. Just a matter of turning the wrist one way instead of the other at the same point in the preparation.

On an adjacent court was a father who I felt was beating the stuffing out of his little girl. “ Stop stop moving your feet like that.” The advice wasn’t bad but I felt that with each extra step she took she didn’t earn a dollar. Rather, another puff of air hissed out of her balloon ensuring future losses. Like many tennis parents, he tried to balance his negative criticisms with lavishly extravagant praise: "THAT'S THE BEST BACKHAND YOU HIT TODAY!" The only trouble was that he wasn't aware of his own tone. Since the tone of his negative statements was more penetrating than the tone of his positive statements was soothing, he produced a net conclusion in this observer that the overall session with his daughter was a downer.

Personally to me, however, this father turned out to be a nice man. “That’s quite a big hopper you have there.” “Yes, I picked it out of a garbage can. I love it. I gave up my modern, sleeker one. The weight of it picks up the balls by itself.”

More information than he wanted, perhaps, but it’s always a good idea to try and stretch any consciousness in Grosse Pointe.

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Building Federfore: How High is Roger's Racket Just as it Finishes Closing?

To rephrase this, how high does Roger's racket get, not at its high point but just as it has somewhat lowered?

To rephrase again, how high or low does Roger's racket get just before it whips and flips to inside of the ball?

And how does the player close the racket anyway? Not by consciously turning it, but by 1) moving elbow on a diagonal out from body and 2) extending the arm.

Ray Brown, the neuroscientist was one of the first persons to ever explain 2) for tennis players. Tennis coaches are apt to think such information isn't important but often they are nuts.

Grips mess with pitch but so too does amount of arm extension. Hence a western grip used to hit a basic forehand employs a bent arm, a continental grip a straight arm, and an eastern grip, which is in between, either a bent arm or a straight arm.

To return to the original question, how high is Roger's racket just before it flips to inside?

No one is bound to slavish imitation of Roger, but having a firm understanding of how racket butt moves into transition is very important. Is it or is it not aided by gravity and if so by how much?

And, is it or is it not aided by reverse action, i.e., by body starting its driving rotation early so that arm to catch up must go backward-sideways-downward first? And if so, by how much?

Finally, is whip and flip from shoulder ball or from slingshot, i.e., from the end of a scapular retraction-scapular adduction sequence?

I keep this final question like a bone in my teeth and won't let go no matter how hard anyone pulls. Does slingshot happen here and toward the net ,or, sideways an instant later to have handle just miss the ball?

If one can hit the ball either way, which prevails? Or doesn't anyone know?

"Which screen is clearer?" the ophthalmologist asks, "A or B?"

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Outside Inside Inside?

In Federfores, what would happen if the player abandoned his ready made idea of a figure eight swing and simply set up to the outside of the ball and then used the same double lowering loop, and next sent more turned racket butt straight at the ball and veered hand left barely to miss and hit ball right in the seat of its pants?

Now that might lead to some new contact points.

It's still a topspin shot.

And how about a followthrough straight over the shoulder yoke for a field goal?

I'm interested in the theory here, which eliminates one change of direction for more racket head speed. Might not this lead to light spinny shots and heavy shots as well?

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Serve Not Crazy Enough?

Could be that serve is only adequate and, in the translated words of the Portuguee Fernando Pessoa writing under his most passionate heteronym Alvaro de Campos in the great poem MARITIME ODE is "tied to the apron strings of civilization."

So, building on my second serve bent arm version, which unfortunately resembles a swastika, I shall now add a huge forward shoulders rotation.

I can already hear the anonymous voice of some diabolical twerp on how to do this, "Toss higher."

But I don't want to do that. I want to use the low bent arm toss I've recently developed, and I want to toss during forward rotation-- a decision everybody except maybe for Vic Braden has always deemed horrible.

But Uncle Vic in a long tennis lifetime has said lots of things. And he hasn't advocated crazy toss for everybody all of the time. And when he did go in that direction he liked palm down. But I'll make cone toss work with tossing shoulder scapular adduction carefully calibrated to counter the forward shoulders rotation and thus retain the precision of more static, more ordinary, probably more reliable but less dynamic tosses.

Okay, how does this amped up service look? How coming? Pretty bad.

The model is Jose Valverde, Papa Grande, closer for the Detroit Tigers.

Keep hands together. Rotate to the left. Rotate to the right. All this pre-pitch. "Mannerism!" NABRUG shrieks.

But I haven't even tossed yet. So I can do as I please, even hold forth on the internet.

Pete Seeger: "I may be right, I may be wrong, but I've got the right to sing this song."

If one hasn't tossed one has all the time in the world, and as I said, the hands are still together.

So I, you, we, they, nobody but me shall separate the hands now. And let us slow down our mental wheels though not our physical ones. After all, reader, what would you be doing if you weren't reading this? Hope to Pete Seeger: "So what are you doing nowadays?" Pete Seeger to Hope: "Washing dishes." Unfortunately, that gave Hope the idea of never again washing dishes herself.

Okay, we gotta bust loose. So the arms separate. How? Scapular retraction is spread out but is most important in the tossing shoulder here, just now. Which prepares for crazy toss. By then, since the shoulders will have whirled, the player will be in normal position for a rotorded kick.

Haven't tried this serve on a tennis court yet. But find the Papa Grande pre-serve ritual very interesting. With both hands rotating backward with shoulders, you wouldn't think shoulders should rotate backward any more, but if that's the rhythm you're used to, you'll do it-- rotate shoulders backward just a bit more while arms separate causing timed scapular retraction at front of bod. Now shoulders rotate forward as well-timed scapular adduction occurs to tame the rise of tossing arm.

Note on Wimbledon 2012: If your name is Baker, never play anyone named Cabbage Clerk, i.e., Kohlschreiber.

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Feeble-minded Forehand

We wanted to be dumb, right? Be "time out of mind." Sought amnesia.

When one makes the conscious decision to pay attention to detail instead, one most likely will pay a fearful price.

Unless one persists in keeping the detail and the amnesia together.

Lately, in personal research on the dynamic of change of direction for upward acceleration in a Federfore, I've been playing with two marbles instead of three.

Marble one: slingshot or scapular adduction (which means there was scapular retraction just before). Marble two: passive round the body movement of upper arm from the shoulder ball.

Instead of viewing marble two as an alternative to marble one, why not declare it mere lubricant or position changer like the subdued wrist closure we all just learned about?

And permit, in one's mind, a marble three, which is simple body rotation.

Here's the challenge: You've fired the racket butt and want it to veer left of the ball at the last instant.

How? Powerfully. So I propose-- today-- that you do this with body rotation only.

Early driving rotation of the body whips the arm then in all sorts of directions.
As arm catches up, however, the body rotation slows. Now the body rotation picks up again and hand goes with it, sideways.

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Swastika Serve

Even something good has to come out of every Nazi era. My bent arms separate starting from a rearward position. As they do there begins a relaxed scapular retraction in both shoulders. Let us discuss the two shoulders separately. I am right-handed.

Relaxed scapular retraction on front edge of the body means that relaxed scapular adduction is available to become a component of the toss. While I'd like to maintain equality between the words "slingshot" and "adduction" in every projected case, scapular adduction can in fact be fast, medium, or slow.

Relaxed scapular retraction on trailing edge of the body enables careful and deliberate arch. Mark Phillippoussis: "I arch throughout the serve." So the two elbows and the two shoulders can slowly move away from each other.

Moderation of right retraction now lets upper body rotation get into the act of continuing arm separation since a trailing body part wants to open.

Next, legs can chime in by combining with internal lift of rib cage converting into a wedge.

Note: We've always been told that left arm stops the body rotation. Well, if left arm down low can do that, it can do it up high as well. For a model of this, click on old book cover at Post # 1151 on page 116 in this thread.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/showthread.php?t=1198&page=116

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Inevitable and Dramatic Reversal of View

Re # 1196, "Feeble-minded Forehand," most arm movement in first repeating furniture occurs from contact. I'm apt to conclude from this that opposite arm, which has spun to Roger's left, now retards body rotation even when not catching the racket as it does in this case.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/biomechanics/brian_gordon/developing_an_atp_forehand_part_01/

And that further makes me think that this final leftward swipe with right arm is passive and from shoulder ball and not from scapular adduction which has already occurred.

And that the change of direction occurs on the ball and accelerates before it decelerates.

As in many classical forehand learning patterns, catching racket for a while seems advisable. Roger's own classification of his forehand: "Modern retro."

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Ziegenfussing a Federfore

I'm emboldened by the fact that Valerie Ziegenfuss Bradshaw has never called to object to my frequent characterizations of her forehand.

To Ziegenfuss a Federfore now, we'll keep the shoulders cocked and knees bent for much longer and speed racket through flip toward the ball with a scapular retraction-scapular adduction sequence only.

Then, as the spear gets close, we'll launch a driving body rotation with relaxed but not loosey-goosey hand converting a significant part of the energy to upward wipe.

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Underestimating a Federfore is as Bad as Underestimating Roger Federer

Always, I think, people will underestimate the subtleties of anything new. Maybe this is good. Their thinking that the path is simple may be the one thing that causes them to change, i.e., to act.

A slight difference is available in the way the hand may lower in a Federfore. If one has performed "diagonal load," to use Geoffrey Williams' useful term, the arm starts out neither toward the side fence or rear fence but in between.

Because of this 45-degree angle, if racket then simultaneously lowers from both the shoulder joint and extension at elbow, it must of necessity come somewhat toward the body.

This is an earlier inward looping than the person trying to hit his Federfore may have envisioned.

Other people already know the answer-- early dropping from shoulder joint or not along with increasing scope in either case?-- but I'm going to find out for myself.