A New Year's Serve

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1HBH: Zeroing in on Squaring up

1) tennisone.com

2) Doug King

3) Finding Zero-- Backhand

4) Zeroing in on Squaring up.

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Reading Between the Lines

I can tell that don_budge doesn't like the idea of delayed bod
in the forehand ground stroke. He is a kinetic chain constitutionalist
in that he wants to see hips turn starting in neutral step-out followed
by shoulders rotation followed by springing arm.

That model can lead to good forehands. But it's not the only possible
model. I first became aware of big bod delayed rotation in reading
Valerie Ziegenfuss's forehand section in the old book TENNIS FOR
WOMEN. There, the lace-wearing Valerie, now a Real Estate mogul
in San Diego, told about a tennis conversation she had in a Texas bar.

Some guy convinced her to give her forehand more place to go by delaying
her bod. She subsequently won the bronze doubles medal with Peaches Barkowicz
of Hamtramck, Michigan in Mexico City.

I see some of this design thought in the TennisOne/TennisPlayer lessons
of Doug King. Doug preaches short power. The racket kind of sneaks
up on the ball (very much from underneath) and then adds on to the
incipient spin a big bod push.

Ivan Lendl, a golfer-tennis player like Petr Korda or Ellsworth Vines, drew
distinction between full golf swing and full forehand-- in the book he co-wrote
with the late Eugene Scott.

Without going into the detail of what Ivan said, I just think that we as tennis
players should always be alive to forehand prescriptions that sort of
catch-and-sling the ball rather than crush it with control-draining huge
swatted impact.

Also, I think that kinetic chain may work best as a concentrate as in a
Muhammad Ali jab. Protracted kinetic chain may or may not work-- a
bit iffy in my case. But a faster kinetic chain does seem to work pretty
much all of the time, i.e., leads to more consistency.

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To Explore: How Racket Should Best Fall from High
and Narrow Forehand Spot

A spot? Yes, a spot in the air. High? Yes, high through
early and stacked separation of bent arms. Narrow? Yes,
because classical big impact swing at ball from behind has
been eliminated.

If one can accept all that, one will be in position to ask how
racket should fall in this particular waterwheel-imaged forehand.

The question pertains to elbow position in the higher spot. Elbow
now points more inward.

So if one presses one's palm straight down like a basketball
dribble, elbow point won't affect this drop.

If the fall is a bit more passive than that, nothing but gravity will
take the racket down so that it spirals in and out.

Those are two alternatives leading to a third, which is a curved
path that stays parallel to side fence.

The third alternative creates an earlier waterwheel. All three
are apt to produce different effects on the ball.

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Big Change on Serve

Brought over the distinctive toss from the Doug King service videos
but not ALL the rest of Doug's recommendations. Or maybe they
were there, at work, whether I knew it or not. As Doug himself says
in one of those videos, you cannot possibly nor should you try to
think of everything at once.

What I did do to prepare for my pay-off night (one in a thousand)
was arrive early in search of a good hitting partner. He wasn't
yet there and all the hard courts were occupied by USTA. So
went back to the clay courts where nobody could see me and
self-fed forehands, backhands and serves.

On serve, I went farther away from J. Donald Budge videos and
back to rocking like Don Brosseau with a maximum use of gravity.
Why though, I asked myself, do you have to lower both hands
together? Just keep left hand up and bring it around with hip
rotation while left arm is still bent. At same time the racket
can be going down and up. The toss with ice cream cone
hold can be with bent arm. The ball is just there when you
are there ready to paste it or scrape it or whatever. Drove
all six pretty good opponents thoroughly nuts.

Will I ever change again? I hope not.

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Oh What a Night

A lot came together, not least the acquisition of three different
first grade doubles partners. The tennis social was unexpectedly
small but with unexpectedly good participants all the way around.
Didn't lose and in the last round, against tiptop players in the
club prevailed 6-3 .

My partner, a research scientist at BASF injection molding, was
somebody I had never met. He served first, then asked me which
side I wanted to play. "Judging only from your serve," I said, "I
give you the backhand side."

Afterwards, during the social part of the tennis social, he offered
me a beer. And later, when I was about to go home, he came
by again and said "Amazing. Just amazing." These things happen,
I tell you, if you persist in your madness whatever it is.

Can't say the topspin backhand was what kept us in there, with me
having at least 30 years on the next oldest. But the forehands did
give our opponents trouble, both forehands and both opponents, and
so did my serve although it was nothing like my partner's.

When he served, I stood tight in to the net on the singles line. Didn't
want to get killed from behind.

Tennis is so much about whether one feels good. I hadn't felt that
good in a long, long time. Guess I'd better learn the dude's name.

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Open Face One Hand Topspin Backhand

Well, it's open while behind the back. J. Donald Budge's worked that way.
So did Gene Mayer's. Ivan Lendl's did not.

As I watch or re-watch Doug King's many videos on one hand backhand
I realize I've been getting away from a certain sensory instruction and
plan now to return to it.

That is the idea of scraping inner edge of racket down the upper part
of one's opposite arm.

Then: Straightening of arm to separate hands and put racket out to
side with tip very low.

Then: Roll of arm to square racket as body squares too.

Then: Force both ends of racket with arm and handle right-angled
to rise as if on front of a water wheel.

One truly gets to feel the heel of the hand pulling on the butt rim
just before the squaring begins. That should help.

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Water Wheel

The water wheel image worked well in self-feed.
Will see if it works in competition tonight.
Much will depend on a good warmup hit with
another player if I can find him or her before the
round-robin begins.

The modern forehands I've examined mostly come
from square or beveled racket in the preparation.
This need not preclude coming to the ball with an
open face. But one does recall tennis writer John
M. Barnaby's prototypical description of someone
with many strokes most of which are in disrepair.

Before I eliminate something however I want to try
open face and closed face in the same set just for
the sake of expanding my knowledge. The initial hand
move for both is not much different. For open face the two
elbows rise to same level. For closed face the hitting
elbow rises higher than the other yet maintains constant
distance between both within same imaginary hoop.

It is one thing to react to what happens on a tennis court,
quite another to react or over or under react to some
conceptual image that may form some new and possibly
very exciting stroke design.

The higher elbow forms more fullness of water wheel,
it seems to me, with rounded fall on back of wheel along
with rounded rise that occurs on front of the wheel.

Such knowledge has immediate implication for essential
arm work on a one hand backhand as well.

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More than One Way to Skin a Tennis Ball

A design feature of the new forehand model that
intrigues me so much is the chance of "gel" between
arm roll and part of the tract where the two ends of
the racket travel together.

A way to help along this future fantasy of realistic
neurological improvement may be to delay mondo
after twin elbow rise.

The succinct loop coming up so much from under the
ball rather than from behind it can actualize the poetic
image of an old fashioned water wheel turning up.

Backward arm rotation and late mondo form a loop that
seems part of the subsequent water wheel.

To summarize, arm pattern starts with double elbow rise
to drain momentum out of racket tip to help make racket
"disappear."

The idea for what comes next then is racket opening to one
part of the ball, closing to another part of the ball, and then
ripping over a third part of the ball-- which is very good method.

What I propose as alternative though is simplification of transition
from faux catch to push of both racket ends. This seems
good way to implement the water wheel image. But one
now catches back of the ball rather than the bottom of
it (none of this of course actually happens). One will initially
have lifted hitting elbow higher than other elbow to achieve the
difference.

Have no idea as yet of whether this scheme is workable but
am curious to find out.

Can a great forehand possess the following racket work similar
to a shortstop in baseball barehanding a ball and slinging it to
first?: 1) backward rotation of arm plus mondo, 2) pushing with
both ends of the racket which is water wheel or Ferris wheel,
3) wiping the racket home.

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Two Questions

How much should people discuss stroke technique?

Answer: A lot. In fact, with no limit. In other arcane
subjects, say horse-riding, the kind of saddle soap
one uses may not interest any outsider but nevertheless
remains one of a thousand obsessive details all part
of somebody's overwhelming passion. Without which
there never is significant expansion of one's consciousness.

2) Are the power cord of Doug King and the aeronautical
banking of Welby Van Horn the same thing?

Answer: I don't have the full answer-- yet. There are similarities
in body rise. Is the advocacy of Van Horn more toward flat forehands,
that of King more toward topspin forehands? This area requires
further thought but at least I have posed the question.

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Topspin Forehand Imagery for Coming to Ball with
Open Strings (continued)

Make as if to catch lower inner quadrant of ball with the
open strings. Then square racket as if against back of
ball. Then use image of a rising square bucket on a
water wheel to contact the ball with both ends of racket
rising equally. Do it right and the roll blends into the lift.

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Fashion Statement

All the men wore orange with stegosaurian stripe
down the spine. All the women wore black ice
picks. Except for a few whose skirts were declared
to be in confessional mode.

Confessional screen at church inspired one of the Nike
designers to put a sieve full of small holes in every
skirt so that voices could travel through.

Ted Tingling meanwhile tingled in his grave.

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Infielder Catches Grounder and Throws to First

Can't see why this is a bad rhythmic model. How you catch,
how you throw of course is very important. I seek a throw in
which racket opens as part of a small loop then closes which
closing adds to upward body force.

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Doing Your Own Counting

By that I mean that while there are many capable teaching pros and
tennis writers who can recommend two or three counts for a ground
stroke and three or two counts for a serve, they seldom tell you, at
least not with convincing force, exactly which part of the action should
correspond to which count.

I realize that this discussion should pertain only to learning phase, but
since I believe in learning phase all the time, I find myself chanting
numbers a lot.

In this forehand description or rather what it might inspire
(https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...e.outline.html), I am thinking
of two counts but with demarcation in a place I have almost never thought
of. Click on Racket & Live Ball Stroking under "Forehand Training."

Perhaps I can explain by replacing the 1-2 of 1-2 rhythm with the words
catch and throw or catch-throw.

Further, I'm sure that playing Christine, Doug King's assistant pro in the
video, would be a huge challenge, probably like taking on Simona Halep
in my case.

Still, I think Christine uses up too much hips rotation in coming to the ball. I
would rather come to the ball pretty much with arm only before the
major muscle groups take over. I'm not a great player and never will
be so I've got to play smart and think this is the way.

So, in the 1 or "catch" of 1-2 rhythm, I perform all the functions of
preparation and getting hand out to the side (and just slightly
forward) with strings open to bottom inner quadrant of ball in
a single count that includes all necessary footwork.

The last key micro-element-- rolling strings square to back of ball- can
then function somewhere between finesse and power move.

Your cranking hard from the shoulder blends into that part of the
hit where both ends of the racket accelerate at the same time
and the big body elements blend in. You add to racket head
speed in other words but a racket head speed that largely
is provided by the bod followed by the almost extraneous windshield
wiper, extraneous in that the ball already is gone but a good indicator
of whether the ball was hit well.

Couldn't play and didn't have time to line up a hit or a match so did
self-feed.

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The Score

Any time you have three new strokes to show, or even old
shots with slight modification, something unexpected is apt
to occur.

Especially in Detroit. As I drove up to the tennis facility I
noticed that the place was pitch black. And there were no
cars in the parking lot. And the gates were locked. With
a small sign on one declaring a power blackout in that
part of Detroit.

So there was no Friday night tennis social, and I hope that
I now don't over-intellectualize the strokes.

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Excitement as Prerequisite to Instilling Good Stroke Design

Coming at 8 p.m.: One of the Friday night tennis socials where I put my new ideas
to full test.

I'm so excited this time-- which can prove the most awful place to be. One can
step out on the court and immediately get swung around by one's racket as every
one of one's too many ideas suddenly flees, old habits flare, the evening
becomes no fun.

This evening feels different. I just love my new word, new at least to me
(http://www.bing.com/search?q=katas+d...R&pc=EUPP_DCTE).
Wow, 1,520,000 hits. A few other tennis players have looked it up.

Before this, "Kata" was a woman on a poster on every pillar in Budapest.

I can't wait to insert my "Two Birds-At-Swim" kata into the very first stroke of warmup.

I've modified it a little. Only one hand-- the hitting hand-- need turn out, opening the
racket through mondo and faux catch.

Left hand can be relaxed and still, doesn't need to spin unless one is a professional
dancer.

But what a neat and succinct new loop the hitting hand is going to perform.

Everything will depend on height of the initially raised elbows with hand and throat
nestled in between.

No extra turn. What a waste of time that's been for decades. You listen to me, tennis
player. I've done the experiments, which you needn't repeat unless you want to. Either
turn your shoulders completely with both hands on the racket or turn them completely
while separating your hands. But don't first keep both hands on racket while turning
shoulders and then separate hands while turning shoulders more because THAT
WASTES TIME. You ought to listen to me even if you won't.

The symmetrical raising of the two elbows drains tip momentum right out of the racket
which is what one wants.

The height of the elbows is such that the racket can go down with natural fall and without
one thinking about it. (One does not want racket hand to have to go up again before it falls.)

Thinking about the succinct loop would probably be all right through installation mode.

Opening racket loops up right under the ball. Whole arm rolls strings up and square as big bod
takes over with both ends of racket locked to travel at same speed melding into final wipe.