A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Tadalafil Dad

The same Grosse Pointe physician who tipped me off that the tennis personality Luke Jensen was in town sent me once an unsolicited e-mail that was out of the blue and on a subject we never discussed.

With no announcement or pre-amble, this stalwart seniors player presented me with a supposedly Canadian pharmaceutical check list complete with electronic shopping cart.

The well-organized items, with price, included Cialis, Viagra and Levitra.

The physician and seniors enthusiast, with no evidence, seemed to understand something about me-- something that was correct.

When I tried to order, however, the electronic shopping cart didn't work.

So I tried to go to my own physician, a very nice woman, and asked her assistant for a prescription which the doctor was glad to write out.

They wired the prescription to my druggist, another gentle and very nice human being, who came out of the back room where he works most and asked whether I realized how exorbitantly expensive the little container was going to be.

"How much?"

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Go ahead."

"About $800 ."

Canceling the order, I went online and began to learn about the corrupt "dysfunction" trade in America, so much more extensive and central to our society than young persons in their physical prime can even imagine.

This term "dysfunction" was among the many things that disgusted me.

What is unnatural about reduced blood flow when you get old?

Mark Twain of the twentieth and nineteenth centuries, clearly waiting for the discovery of tadalafil, railed against an old age in which women are sexually fine but men aren't. And Michel de Montaigne in the sixteenth century felt exactly the same.

Embarrassment of course is what keeps people from discussing this topic. The same embarrassment enables a flourishing and utterly corrupt trade in which placebos or maybe rat poison are easier to order than the real thing. If I had my way, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would be forced to give their best proposal for correcting this blight.

Again I went online and began to read all the horror stories of people cheated when seeking reasonable price on the three mentioned drugs and very many others.

People reviled Canada, India, the Caribbean, and any place other than the United States that would send out the little pills. You wouldn't know what you got, they asserted.

Finally, I took the plunge into an electronic shopping cart that worked-- this time.

The business may have been in Canada. The very polite reply to my e-mail warned that my package might be delayed in Customs.

The thirty 10 mg pills were a bit over $3 apiece.

Postage had been criminally high, about $45 .

In the meantime I'd visited my physician and talked to her personally this time, telling her how I went online and printed out a free trial coupon for a couple of 20 mg pills of Cialis.

The same pharmacist wouldn't give me more pills of smaller potency since 20 mg was what my lady doctor prescribed. And the first one worked almost too well but gave me a dangerous headache. About 5 mg was perfect, but I had to learn this by experiment because of no transparency anywhere.

My doctor explained to me that to save money her other patients cut a pill into little bits.

My pills arrived from FLORIDA!!!

They weren't Cialis at all but rather tadalafil, its ingredient, and work fine. I bisect each one with a pill cutter.

That comes to about $1.60 per pill not counting "postage." I thank the tadalafil dad in Grosse Pointe and everyone else who helped.

Note: On the back of each container of 10 pills, in print too small to read except with special magnification and even then the reading is dicey, are the apparent words: "Industrial State, Gujarat, BARODA." Further magnification of the fine print revealed the word "hadad," which I took as "ha dad." Anyone who would disparage the quality of honesty in India should consider the number of people in that place.

[stotty]

Mac

Think John McEnroe as a tennis announcer. He's very good but suffers from overexposure. Remember how so many of us, including John McEnroe, came to resent Dick Enberg although we think he's fine by now? We simply heard and watched too much Dick Enberg over a period of years, maybe decades.

The great thing about McEnroe is he doesn't repeat himself. His commentaries are always original. He really is an expert and can fill up airtime with observations he's never made before. I don't think you can easily get fed up with McEnroe. He is as good a commentator as he was a tennis player.

I really like McEnroe. He's intelligent and has evolved significantly since his brat years...unlike Borg who remains the same man he was when he was 22. Some of us evolve and some of us remain eternally the same...or so it seems.

[bottle]

I agree, and I have a friend who partnered with him (when M was 15) and speaks extremely well of him. My belief is that he's much kinder to amateurs every day than he was to referees, has respect for anybody who is serious about his or her tennis. And I'm sure he has great perceptions that would help any of us. That's a good point about him not repeating himself-- I just hadn't thought about it, but come to think of it...it's remarkable.

It's definitely true that right from the beginning he's been a thousand times better than Dick Enberg, who at one time had become a duck-billed platitude but has improved with age.

I just think that M experiences more air time than is good for anybody. True criticism starts, I think, with the critic loving or liking something. Which provides the touchstone for his remarks even if the touchstone itself never gets expressed. And I've heard M be very incisive, which makes me very aware how he can do it. More simply, he shouldn't be wasted for limitless hours of filling time.

He's extremely funny-- like Luke Jensen-- but brevity is the soul of wit. I'd just like to see him at his very best perceptive and funny self all the time-- an impossible wish, perhaps. The thing we don't want to do is turn a great resource like him into a disc jockey, a guy just spinning the matches. Don't get me wrong-- he's good company. I think the producers need to marshal his intensity a little better, though.

[bottle]

Not Too Much Scapular Retraction

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Inside_In&stroke=RFFHInsideInRear6_500fps.mp4

But yes, there is scapular adduction (slingshot) right after late flip just before contact.

Extreme scapular retraction would load slingshot, that's true, but the man knows how to accomplish all necessary loading in a more forward arm position.

Is there pre-loading then? When the two hands draw apart, the right from the left?

Is there arm wrestle in the right arm-- a ghost arm trying to spring forward even as the real arm draws back? Or is everything relaxed with no tension at all? Careful here. Reader, are you sure?

I'd put the pin from the sixth green at Lochmoor Country Club here in Detroit across his back just so that everybody (but especially I) could see how his shoulders line and his straight arm are the same line in the middle portion of the forward stroke.

I've never been to Lochmoor but don_budge is rumored to have taught tennis there before he moved to Sweden and married a Swede and lived way out in the woods and helped breed horses and taught both tennis and golf.

[bottle]

One Unit with Tension Building on Still Arm

I like to pursue and marshal any design ideas before I take them to court, always keeping the pun in "court."

Then I try whatever I've proposed for better or worse. If relaxed, extending arm wins out over ghost arm wrestle (with both described in # 1279) I'll apply a totally new idea, viz., that, in a Federfore, any time one relaxes too much in solid middle portion of the stroke, the shoulder housing is going to retreat/retract in response to the shoulders whirling forward.

This could be good if more arm speed through the ball were the goal since the arm would try to catch up. But could be bad if outfront contact point with perfect friction on the ball is the goal.

One wants to do something (anything!) to enhance the scapular adduction (slingshot) so intimately related to string speed upward.

One can apply enough forward pressure to arm (that's scapular adduction too but can build before release) so that straight arm doesn't move independently in any direction but remains fixed on the imaginary line through both shoulders during middle portion of the stroke.

[bottle]

Plan

Indoor tennis begins tonight. Intermediate tango began last night. Deadheading roses occurred earlier in the day. My gimpy left leg and sciaticized right leg both plan to survive these indignities and more.

So how does this specific evening look? Well, I hope to arrive early and find the Asian kid with the big forehand. Think I'll call him Formosan for now until I finally retain his name and get informed better.

Then when the social doubles begins, I'll tend to my own needs and not criticize my partner no matter how bad or good. One querulous lady who hasn't smiled since 1980 has the loot to purchase an endless string of lessons but has yet to turn her shoulders for any stroke. Another, more corpulent, is much higher ranked because she hits the crap out of the ball. She doesn't move any better than I do-- now-- and she never heard of spin in her life. A hit-or-miss miss. (Well, I didn't use the more appropriate word "bitch.") It's her arrogance that most offends, but just shut up, bottle, your instructional days are over. Shut up and avoid politics of every kind and play-- the chips and chops will fall where they may.

Also, don't eat too much. And forget most of the new ideas unless you discover out there that some of them have worked down into the nerves. Except for the new forehand idea since I've got to have fun! With such a low expectation I probably will.

The new forehand idea (# 1280): build scapular retention in more forward position for the subsequent slingshot. Hit more Federfores than Ferrerfores.

[bottle]

Chunking a First Serve Another Way

Two different I's might lead to wholesale change: Idealism and Injury.

But all change after a while is cyclical return to something one did before.

The idea of learning something right the first time when one is a kid is a hoot designed to make very doctrinaire people feel good.

I mean, if the kid got everything right at the outset, it could only be due to the extreme brilliance of his coach or grandpop-- right? And this can be the story for the kid's entire tennis life: Grandpop's old-fashioned design. Or did the kid just have darling genes? In any case, the best kids are for the most part and for whatever reason destined to a tennis lifetime of tinkering with their serve.

It's no big deal then to adjust to physical change or new idea. Been doing that all along. Besides, old men shouldn't jump up in the air. Replace the yump and twanging bow with a couple of screw jacks-- get more out of the gut. And slowly screw the body over instead of violently contracting every muscle along the front edge.

Source for new/old concept: eight sequential drawings of J. Donald Budge serving in THE GAME OF SINGLES IN TENNIS by Talbert and Old.

Not the greatest of serves but not the worst either. And what I want for a first serve in doubles right now. My second serve is bouncing too slowly and getting clobbered on typical hard courts that are "more abrasive" in the words of the other don_budge, who used to work for the first Don Budge.

Scanner's as busted as my legs or you'd see the drawings. Of course by telling it instead I get to choose my own emphasis.

Feet start flat. Racket gravity-drops and flies up. Front heel goes up only to come down again as part of minimal forward rotation of the hips. "left foot pivots only slightly throughout."

The toss is TWO FEET in front of the baseline! (Exclamation point from chess notation.) The shoulders wind back as the hips screw forward (flattening the foot as I already said).

Okay, there's one screw. But I always want another screw. So, as shoulders and scapula (slingshot) release, the head will be slightly screwing or slow-cartwheeling straight ahead toward the net, and this will add weight to the shot. Why wouldn't it when the cart is heavy and oaken and drawn by mules.

As front heel went slowly down the back heel started to rise. Isn't that always the way?

But the big old slow cartwheel is just going to keep the back heel rising-- up, up even though front foot has been flat for some time. Stationed front foot imparts more elastic energy to the gut.

Toss is not only forward but out to right. Although contact then obviously is out to right as well, the racket's going to whip even farther to the right of that, and then return level and parallel to court around to left side.

"The left arm serves as a good counterbalance. Snap wrist forward, pointing the racket head toward the receiving court, shifting your weight to the left foot, which pivots only slightly throughout. Thereupon the right foot is pulled naturally forward, bringing the body back to anticipatory position."

Re not aggravating sproinged front leg: You absolutely will not lower front heel with destructive or any kind of substantial force. The front heel comes easily down to start the mule or oxen driven "big wheel." Front foot stays solid to fully activate the gut. Minimal extension of legs should have been sufficient to stretch the scapula a little bit more.

[bottle]

Open Racket, Chop; Laura Robson in China

So why didn't I open up for my chops for thirty years? Because I was in love with meat cleavers. Any time I was ready to chop I aimed the cleaver's edge straight down. Made perfect sense to me.

All wrong. As Tom Avery explains in one of his videos, the steeper the downward path of the racket, the more you need to have opened it.

But did I make the change and practice this? Was on the schedule. But, at the tennis social, my pickup partner and I faced two pretty good opponents. Except one of them had a weak second serve. And here it came. I chopped.

I'd never hit this new chop in all my life. Zing. The ball died in a place uninhabited by all four players. Clean winner. Next second serve from same guy I did the same thing.

My partner wanted to know how I did it. "Open more, chop," I explained. But now I'd externalized the shot and so forgot to try it again the rest of the evening.

Exactly like Laura Robson, 18, attempting one moonball in her first circuit singles final. ("SU-WEI BEATS LAURA ROBSON IN THREE CLOSE SETS TO WIN IN GUANGZHOU.") Su-wei, a line drive hitter herself, made a ue. But Laura never remembered to try another moonball.

Hey, Stotty over there in Great Britain. If you see Laura Robson, please tell her that when things aren't perfect, to at least try the opposite of what she's been doing. And to work on special put-a-ways of slow slice saves by her opponent. And teach her some better desperation slice herself, okay? It's depressing to watch someone-- anyone-- get to a ball three inches off the court a mile away and then hit a sand wedge so it pops up. Could you teach her to cross the ball instead and keep it low?

Jimmy Connor's failure to cross the ball was how Arthur Ashe exploited him in their famous Wimbledon final according to our distinguished American tennis writer John M. Barnaby.

[stotty]

Hey, Stotty over there in Great Britain. If you see Laura Robson, please tell her that when things aren't perfect, to at least try the opposite of what she's been doing. And to work on special put-a-ways of slow slice saves by her opponent. And teach her some better desperation slice herself, okay? It's depressing to watch someone-- anyone-- get to a ball three inches off the court a mile away and then hit a sand wedge so it pops up. Could you teach her to cross the ball instead and keep it low?

Jimmy Connor's failure to cross the ball was how Arthur Ashe exploited him in their famous Wimbledon final according to our distinguished American tennis writer John M. Barnaby.

Given the chance, I would do my best with Laura, but Laura, like many women on the tour, has just the one game...no game B.

I felt the reason Connors lost to Ashe is because he was still attached to his mother's apron. That final, pipped only by Nastase's loss to Stan Smith, was the worst result in Wimbledon history. Jimmy was head and shoulders better than anyone at that time. Everyone goes on about Ashe being the wonderful, meditating tactician....but Jimmy beat himself that day...he should have won three straight.

[bottle]

Low, Hissy, Short-angled

No, no-- Arthur had a common sense strategy before the final and the smooth technique to carry it out and it wasn't his head meditating under the towel: "Keep the ball low with spin and make him run the farthest possible distance at all times." Su-wei used a bit of this-- sparingly but tellingly-- as well. I did feel sorry for Laura if not for her coach, but who could feel sorry for Jimmy back at that time? He was number one in the world in tennis and number two in arrogance or was he number one there, too? Outcome is always determined by both players, and the chink in the armor of Jimmy's game had been found. I'll bet that Aaron Krickstein enjoys watching that video: I know that I still do, maybe because I myself was able to carry off that strategy against a far superior player just once in my life, a Mr. Callahan. Got a pretty good play on the first sports page of the Winchester (Virginia) Star. Unfortunately, I had to play Mr. Callahan just two days later in another division of the same tournament.

[bottle]

Rotorded Servers of the World-- Listen Up

You don't have to unite, but you do have to stop being retarded besides rotorded.

The J. Donald Budge serve in my case only comes around once every twenty years. It is a planet with a ten-year orbit. Somehow I missed it ten years ago.

These Michael Jordan serves that everybody has depend on a long runway. Well, all serves depend on a long runway.

JUST TOSS THE BALL TWO FEET IN FRONT OF THE BASELINE.

You won't bang the ball down from as high. You won't be a Federer turning himself into a Karlovic.

But a good baseball pitcher gets good heat on the ball. And he doesn't spring his body up into the sky. No, he hurls it toward the plate.

I do wonder why the eight Ed Vebell drawings of the Budge serve in THE GAME OF SINGLES IN TENNIS by Talbert and Old don't include racket-down-in-the-slot position.

Could it be that J. Donald Budge was ROTORDED?

Probably not. But whatever he was, he had a long runway, and you can have a long runway, too.

[bottle]

Feet Not Far Apart

The feet, not far apart, are one behind the other, i.e., are lined up toward the target in the old "booming" serve of Don Budge.

How much then did he rock his head and shoulders backward as if he was the little guy Pancho Segura? Only a bit. But the rocking forward is considerable and comes from the feet.

Rear foot starts flat. Minimal backward hips turn lifts the front heel. Minimal forward hips turn lowers the same heel as rear heel starts to rise.

You never will see this in a more modern serve with toss overhead and longitudinal energy going upward, not forward and upward.

In other respects there are more similarities than differences, e.g., one needs to be tall (and still and firm) at contact to generate topspin.

After contact the shoulders plunge farther ahead of the ass. Thus trailing foot is pulled ahead naturally. Who wants to perform big counterbalanced hops up and down on a gimpy left leg? And are gimpy left legs common in modern tennis? Yes.

Is there (or should there be) bowing/jackknifing from the hips to complete the forward action? Well, there could be. The old drawings however show left heel rising for a second time-- a different kind of pitching forward.

[don_budge]

Pictures please...

Hello John...any possibility of posting those drawings that you are talking about. I know that serve quite well. I had some old 8mm film that I had copied to VCR tape with me playing doubles with the old boy. I call him that because he was my age when I played doubles with him. Great memory! He was such a good guy.

[bottle]

I envy you that film. Is it gone, like my scanner? But we're getting a new printer with scanner, and I will put those Ed Vebell illustrations up here soon even if it means a trip to a shop where I may have a heated copyright argument with the clerk like the time I put a Lloyd Budge serve up here. I have to, because now I'm getting more into the intricacies of this course I chose. Already, I'm thinking that DB did not angulate, i.e, thrust his leading hip toward the net the way everybody, myself included, all are used to doing nowadays. No archer's bow in other words! Well, at least not in the Ed Vebell drawings. Which might be feeble drawings for all I know. If you heard a bow twang from next to you when J. Donald was serving in doubles that would be the last word.

Another mind-blowing thing: He's up on on rear toes for three of the eight frames. A Talbert and Old caption has him throwing body forward, but that might suggest to an impressionable person that body hurls through the ball and I don't think so. Everything including late force from double leg extension seems to go up a very straight, still track. As I tried to suggest, both feet are pretty close together, which would help in that, the one foot thrusting from flat, the rear from toes. It's just that the straight track is slanted forward.

All of it will make more sense when the drawings are up-- I agree. Then, as part of the eyewitness program, I hope you'll tell what you know.

[tennis_chiro]

You can trace your own drawings!!!

I envy you that film. Is it gone, like my scanner? But we're getting a new printer with scanner, and I will put those Ed Vebell illustrations up here soon even if it means a trip to a shop where I may have a heated copyright argument with the clerk like the time I put a Lloyd Budge serve up here. I have to, because now I'm getting more into the intricacies of this course I chose. Already, I'm thinking that DB did not angulate, i.e, thrust his leading hip toward the net the way everybody, myself included, all are used to doing nowadays. No archer's bow in other words! Well, at least not in the Ed Vebell drawings. Which might be feeble drawings for all I know. If you heard a bow twang from next to you when J. Donald was serving in doubles that would be the last word.

Another mind-blowing thing: He's up on on rear toes for three of the eight frames. A Talbert and Old caption has him throwing body forward, but that might suggest to an impressionable person that body hurls through the ball and I don't think so. Everything including late force from double leg extension seems to go up a very straight, still track. As I tried to suggest, both feet are pretty close together, which would help in that, the one foot thrusting from flat, the rear from toes. It's just that the straight track is slanted forward.

All of it will make more sense when the drawings are up-- I agree. Then, as part of the eyewitness program, I hope you'll tell what you know.

Here from Tennisplayer's own Stroke Archive:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DB1stSRear.mov

Just trace out a few frames. Pretty good looking motion to me. Of course, that left foot stays on the ground until contact and Budge is a little more bent over at the waist than a Gonzales

Here's Gonzales:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/panchogonzales/panchogonzales.html?PGServeFront1.mov

don