A New Year's Serve

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Weird Order of Posts

To my mind I wrote one then Stotty wrote one then I wrote one. Who knows (or much cares).

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Fixed wrist or Straightening Wrist on Backhand?

That is the question.

With regard to a McEnroe modeled full backhand.

Steve and I, I think, have both been operating on the premise that wrist starts curled but straightens before contact.

I always have to wonder because of some of the wild things I've read whether
wrist should give (curl) a second time, at contact.

Maybe I only heard the give idea in connection to eastern backhand grip-- I don't know. Geoffrey Williams wants fixed grip, and his palm is still farther over on the handle.

I'm now delaying, i.e., keeping for a long time, the bends at elbow and wrist both on my mild grip backhand. Rising body then straightens all this slack at once from the shoulder down. I don't feel I even have to think about it any more, not if I've delayed properly through using wave and boat imagery.

The shoulders slant up toward rear fence, with racket parallel to the shoulders line. My boat is on the front of a wave. Now the boat levels. Both shoulders line and parallel racket beneath it are parallel to the court, which is level sea.

Now comes a moderate swell. I'm right on top of it! So shoulders line and parallel racket are still level.

Then and only then does arm start its quick journey down and up.

As in the clip of Laver where he so clearly doesn't lower his arm and racket until his body is coming up.

[bottle]

Rear Leg Serve

1) Faster initial rise of racket to make more time for body coil, which is where one should linger most. But every idea spawns another idea. Down together, up together? Why? Tossing arm up first? Why? Hitting arm up first? Why not, in this serve, if one has correctly figured out where to linger? And if one in secret has always wanted coil to assist the toss? Back off from this idea? Might in fact lead to LESS lingering? Won't know till try it.

2) Let drive from flat foot morph into drive from ball of foot and toes and calf and internal raising of right hip over left hip (something learned in physical therapy).

[tennis_chiro]

What are the constraints?

1) Faster initial rise of racket to make more time for body coil, which is where one should linger most. But every idea spawns another idea. Down together, up together? Why? Tossing arm up first? Why? Hitting arm up first? Why not, in this serve, if one has correctly figured out where to linger? And if one in secret has always wanted coil to assist the toss? Back off from this idea? Won't know till try it.

2) Let drive from flat foot morph into drive from ball of foot and toes and calf and internal raising of right hip over left hip (something learned in physical therapy).

If it's just about power, you can justify all kinds of different rhythms. The left arm has something to do with power, but really very little in comparison to the right side. But if you attach significance to the toss, ...that is, if it is just as important to be able to get the toss to the same place regardless of pressure, fatigue, conditions, ...then the motion and coordination of the right and left sides of the body in a way that produces a consistent toss is just as important as the coil, leg thrust, internal shoulder rotation, etc. Generally, I find this is not acknowledged. Now, a tossing action that reduces power should not be adopted anymore than a hitting action that reduces consistency on the toss. Furthermore, the rhythm of that toss (which I offer is intrinsically linked to the weight transfer, or at least should be) must produce a motion that contributes to easy and repeatable positions and postures that produce maximum power. When you start to put all those elements together, simplicity would seem (according to me) to dictate that the most efficient and repeatable motion is synchronizing the right and left arms in a down and up together kind of action. As soon as you depart from that structural and rhythmic approach (which obviously most of today's current top players do), you have made the overall motion more complicated and inherently less consistent.

If someone can make it work and be consistent enough without regard for what I have put forth right here, great; but if someone is having difficulty, there is indeed a logic behind "down together up together, weight forward as you toss the ball".

don
still tilting at windmills!

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Yuppety-yup-up-up-up (to be combined with a sharp intake of breath)

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~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gROO7xSTxfY

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Connecticut Yankees

I expect to kick some ass in social tennis tonight, but you will never know, kind readers, how my experience worked out.

Before I tape around my patella to keep it centered, however, I would like to thank some of the persons early in my life responsible for tonight's success.

First there is Mr. Lawrence Leighton of Old Lyme, the New Haven Railroad foreman whose eyes were the color of the limestone rocks we picked out from between the rotten track ties.

Next is Wilbert Snow, Middletown School Board Chairman and coastal poet from Maine and fast friend of Robert Frost.

Bill Snow said, "Figure out exactly what you want to say and then say it in words as hard as dimes."

"In words as hard as dimes" is not only iambic trimeter but perfect tennis advice.

Words, tennis strokes with purpose-- what's the difference?

Then comes Katharine Hepburn, who helped me beat her brother and my brother in doubles. Want to know what she was? An apostle of definiteness.

"Be definite" was a message she projected without even trying. And be quick, very quick, with a hand quicker than the eye in Parchesi.

The one time that Katharine Houghton took me in West Hartford to meet her grandfather, Katharine Hepburn was there, too.

And I quickly realized that Kate's father, the urologist from Richmond, Virginia, was as definite as she.

Make crisp pronouncements about this and that and this. Pete Seeger: "I may be right, I may be wrong, but I've got the right to sing this song." As Dr. Robert Hepburn Sr. and his beautiful wife Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn, the birth control suffragette, told Howard Hughes when he landed his plane on the fifth hole fairway in Fenwick and came into the Hepburn kitchen for a visit, "In this family, we read books."

But there, in the second West Hartford house, Dr. Hepburn made the pronouncements as the great Kate (there is a website now called "The Great Kate") quailed at anything he said.

I have never seen a daughter anywhere so hang-dog in the presence of her pop.

Which makes me think some opposite was at work. Servile in the presence of one's father but just as definite a self-starter as he anytime and anywhere else.

[bottle]

Re-VISION of Constricted Serves

The new experiment: Every premise needs a challenge. A big full wind-up is supposed to help constricted servers more than abbreviation.

But one can maintain basic down together up together rhythm and still re-design to extend racket tract at the precise moments when upper arm ought to twist backward in response to body thrust.

The constricted or rotorded person does not get to twist arm backward as far as other servers. How then can he or she effectively pre-load in the precise way that Brian Gordon has described and actualized in animation at Tennis Player? He can do it. It's possible. An ace will sometimes happen. Even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn.

Greater range however-- of backward twist of upper arm-- could improve his number of aces and sensibility-numbing kick serves.

My idea is to steal from a good overhead because I feel that many rotorded servers do have good overheads. And it's easy to see why. The more forward twist that is effective in an overhead would not be effective in serving where there is a greater need for upwardness.

Here essay stops and autobiography begins. My damaged front leg has dictated a rear leg serve.

Sacrificed: Normally healthful forward body glide during toss. No, I stay tall and still on rear foot, which is splayed at the target and positioned near the line. Front foot, almost in the same place, is parallel to the line.

On the up of "down-and-up" the hitting arm starts bending in a blended way. This keeps palm down with strings to skim top of head. Backward hips turn bends front leg up on front toes and compresses rear leg and tilts well-postured back toward left rear fence post and sends front hip out in the two intended directions. Add something to this simultaneous mix-- a drawing of the elbow away from neck and toward the fence.

All backward twist of the upper arm has been kept available for NOW, and I've never tried this...

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A good serve. If I say it's the best I ever had, though, most people won't believe me. Unless they've played me. And then they'll say, "Yep, probably the best you've had."

Does this serve produce sensibility-numbing kick, though? Depends on the sensibility.

One of the things it does automatically is establish good separation and alignment of elbow with shoulders before the full available range of backward twist-- of upper arm-- takes place.

It's possible that I've learned something about constricted serves simply from trying for a solution to one through various experiments for so long-- ever since crashing on my right shoulder in a downhill ski race with ten other college coaches (I was the rowing coach and was coming up on the leading oriental master skier, Professor Chu, when I took a shortcut through woods and hit a bare spot).

What a beautiful race, though. I wouldn't trade for it. Ten complete nuts declaring their own holiday and rebelling against an athletic director nobody liked. And then plunging down West Mountain above Glens Falls, NY all at once and definitely not against some clock.

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Snake Strikes

Would a rattlesnake strike off of its front foot? I don't think it has a front foot.

It could strike off the front of its bottom-most coil if it wanted to, I suppose, with a slight weight shift first, but I doubt it would.

A copperhead, now, that's different. Typically, copperheads and water moccasins (cottonmouths) strike low, rattlesnakes high.

How close to its rattle would a rattlesnake exert the most pressure against the ground?

You can see I'm having fun with my new exploration of back foot serve whether this subject gets discussed or not.

[bottle]

John McEnroe Backswing for a Federfore

Don't read this if you're having mood problems or have noticed any recent signs of mental instability within yourself.

On the other hand, I'm proposing a simple little experiment best accomplished by researchers in the continental forehand field. For these members of such a tiny group, what harm can a slight experiment do?

Quite a bit. Especially if they have an important match coming up. In my case, all of my upcoming matches are important and three match-ups with different partners will happen tonight. Most importantly, before the competition begins, there will be a 30-minute hit which I will try to extend to 40 minutes.

Time here to backtrack, to discuss the recent events of my present progression. Only one continental forehand emerged from the melee. (Got that, Mylae Ramey? Oh, sorry. The cute traveler of Tennis Channel's "Destination Tennis" that 99-year-old Gardnar Mulloy liked so much is named Mai Leen or Mylene or something like that, should I look it up?). Oh my, Myleen.

The continental forehand that emerged from personal, scientific research is "Fast-Hand Hogan" taken from the famous YouTube video "Gary Player on Ben Hogan's golf swing."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ywZ4b6vjFc

"Fast-Hand Hogan," as I have conceived it, quite literally follows the example of Ben Hogan's right arm in the video.

Note especially the top of his backswing. Forward hips rotation cocks the wrist.

Do this correctly, in tennis, and you will put the straight-wristed John McEnroe behind, left to his own devices, but don't worry, he will do quite well. You, on the other hand, will produce a hard deep ball that will glance low and to your left.

Do anything else, i.e., depart in any way from slavish imitation of Ben Hogan's right arm and you will find yourself no longer in John McEnroe's backswing but in John McCain's, which means that you will run into power lines.

Here, eventually, if I can still find it: video animation of John McCain steering his plane into power lines. Wouldn't be surprised if somebody removed it from YouTube.

Okay, now we're ready for the 3.5 version (I refer to grip placement, not playing level).

McEnroe's uni-grip according to his autobiography YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS is 2.5 . We like to wait with this, we do, with racket cheated over to left side.

Now, though, a Federfore! And how to do that from left hand on the racket's throat. Not a strangulation but a mild twiddle from the fingers to change big knuckle from 2.5 pointy ridge to 3.5 pointy ridge. German oarsmen will like this move, a feather to produce the featherfore, the Federfore auf Deutsch.

Unit turn has simultaneously begun of course but twiddled left hand immediately abandons racket according to McEnroe's down and up bowled (bold) backswing.

Both arms go down and up in fact. But the left or opposite arm pointing across is especially crucial, having taken over the shoulders turn function from "leaving left hand on the racket."

Right arm now. Down and up she goes, preserving elbow bend. On "up" the wrist bends up, all ready to straighten along with elbow to pat a dog.

NOTE: JUST RE-LOOKED AT THE HOGAN VIDEO AND THE ABOVE STATEMENT ABOUT FORWARD HIP ROTATION COCKING THE WRIST IS COMPLETELY WRONG. WELL, RE-LOOKING IS HOW WE LEARN. THIS COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING OR MAYBE NOT!

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Why, Bottle? Why? Why?

Because you can hit your backhand with any grip you want (Navratilova). And because, the continental topspin backhand as hit by Laver, McEnroe and Navratilova is a very good shot. Of course they are left handers. Does that mean that right handers shouldn't hit it? Depends on how superstitious (as Carl Sagan described) the person doing the analysis.

So we wait cheated to left with 2.5 grip. Slice now is easier than ever. And the topspin backhand becomes a discipline that starts with a 45-degree step-out split between side and far fences.

Me, I find wave imagery useful. Rear shoulder rises and falls. Both shoulders, level, rise. The loose arm work is something subsidiary that happens near the cusp of these linked gross body actions.

The leveling of shoulders, however, starts tossing downward the fixed but double-bent hooplike arm. I would like at this point to invoke another image of a left-handed topspin backhand, that of Tony Roche.

I have only seen it three times-- one stroke repeated three times in the old three-part Australian VCR series called MASTER TENNIS accompanied by swooping and soaring electronic music.

But Roche's is not a L or M or N. It's larger.

Almost as if a giant coin is set on edge.

I see the backhand I want as smaller coin than Roche's but well worth cheating the racket over.

Which leads to the previous post.

All this is not to say that one can't still wait with forehand grip in a more neutral position and use a conventional overhand loop and do a flying grip change for all backhands.

I suspect, impartially, that one of these two systems will soon conquer the other in results.

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Backward Snap for Inner Slingshot

Backward snap is the source of true power in tennis according to Geoff Williams and Jeff Counts.

So, let's look into this statement re personal BH, FH, serve, overhead, lob and volleys.

BH: Racket backward and downward since body is going forward and upward.

FH: Alternative to conventional overhand loop and to McEnroe's down and up continental preparation both: grip change from opposite fingers melds into level takeback carried out by solid racket-body connection which in turn melds at hand separation into pencil thin upper loop (wrist both flexes up and pats down above the straight line established by arm straightening-- body tilt doesn't qualify as part of this thought).

SERVE: One unified move to find cooties with a mirror and free-fall the racket for a second time. That dictates higher arm lift to create proper vector in the elbow hinge. Arm can go as high as it wants the first time it goes up and John Newcomb proved it. There is no impingement because one isn't hitting the ball yet.

The "finding of cooties" is accomplished through drawing elbow into alignment with shoulders. This alignment can be found from below or above or exact placement of elbow on the up of "down and up" in the first place.

Me, I want to go way up to discover what will happen. To reap the benefit of a long free fall. Gravity will close or almost close the two halves of the arm faster than the cootie check with both things simultaneous and all of it simultaneous with body coil.

And I'm throwing forward with the edge of my hand as leg kicks in (or rather forward and up) to overpower or pre-load the beginning of the throw.

Note: I don't use forward hips rotation to throw, only leg and gut and forward press from upper body. But I am a back leg server. But Tony Trabert, a front leg server, does the same thing.

OVERHEADS, LOBS AND VOLLEYS: The more one uses curlecues of racket path, subtle approaches to the ball or complication of any kind, the more difficult to identify the precise point where racket abruptly changes direction and thus picks up speed, but maybe one doesn't want that identification and would rather be an animal since sometimes, but not always, animals are more effective.

In straight over the shoulder overhead windup as taught by Arthur Ashe, straight down racket lowering as lob preparation, slight backswing added to normal volley preparation, I use 20 years of woodsplitting experience.

We lived on a mountain in Virginia and heated by wood. I always thought my straight up log-splitting "backswing" was inferior to the huge loops of the champion log-splitters, and it was, but they were complimentary about my efficiency-- at an annual woodcutter's competition where a girl lost a finger in mixed doubles.

Okay-- a sad story, but everyone survived and the annual competition continues.

Volleys, it seems to me, compress the elements of longer strokes into a short space and therefore best express the Geoff Williams' thesis-- or at least express it in compact form.

You set up for a volley with your hand out front. But the ball comes unexpectedly soft and slow and high.

So you take a bit of backswing and whollop it.

What has happened? Body and arm went in two different directions so that the arm changed direction and caught up-- one of the many examples of "reverse action" in tennis.

As Geoff Williams suggests, the sockdolager volley is not something one should always do. Me, I do it about one in 10 times, despite the Winston-Salem clinic in which the teaching pro tried to get me to "stick" pretty much everything.

Much better in most cases to use the speed of the oncoming ball combined with a slow block forward.

[bottle]

Wrist Loop vs. Tsunamis

Without having tried any of this, I look outside at the snow and wish to communicate my best plan for three contingencies.

1) You-I-one-a right-handed tennis player are in a small boat when...

2) You-I-one are swimming in the ocean when...

3) You-I-one are waiting with continental grip cheated over to backhand side when heavy topspin comes your way and you decide to hit a Federfore.

To take 3) first, twiddle from 2.5 to 3.5 flattening strings parallel to court as part of thorough unit turn and tug in your left shoulder.

Assuming left hand on racket throat, this move is slow-motion left-handed frisbee throw coordinated with the body turn-- fast, medium or slow twiddle for relaxation with right hand utterly loose and along for the ride. What sensory cues beyond frisbee might work? A left-handed offering of a tray of canapes? A left-handed smoothing of waters before the oncoming wave?

An unexamined problem may be what to do with slightly turned under left arm after the two hands separate. And elbow from its repetition of years likes to be in one compass dial setting as it points at side fence for all the best forehands-- so put it there?

Right arm remains loose despite being on a crazed one-setting-in-relation-to-body mission. It is only the right wrist which forms a loop through rise and fall as arm straightens to slightly accelerate the edge-wise strings backward.

One doesn't want strain or extreme violence. So relax. Take it slow.

The language of search or quest is not the same as American how-to, which mistakenly assumes that its writer knows the simplest way to assemble some roller-coaster for marbles. In other words, American how-to arrogantly assumes that its writer knows what he's talking about. (When all else fails, read the directions.)

The rough forehand design here is exactly that-- rough, so let's bring in the engineers. My proposal is that forward/upward body motion will start at end of the unit turn and passively extend the arm (fast!) preparatory to its catching up with the rest of the stroke. My assumption is that any re-adjustment of arm to body setting will ruin the zen of this. I also believe that this whippersnapper's whip-snap should be slow enough to allow time for the wrist to flex upward and then get straight.

Wrist provides top half of a loop. Flip will provide the bottom half. If total wrist action is too rushed I'll start it sooner, maybe combine twiddle with the flex.

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A Moral Question

Okay, something good comes along in tennis, an historical event as it were, in this case "The ATP Forehand" with the philosophy and research behind it applying to the other strokes as well.

Are we "all in" to use Rick Macci's term, and if this is so, does this mean that we can start by buying the ATP forehand off of the shelf?

We could do worse, especially if the basic model produces a better spin-pace ratio than our old stroke, and we can now get our forehands off quicker with each one of them henceforth to be quite rhythmic.

"The serious player" however or even "the serious student of the game" will have to make the new information her or his own, will first have to enter a period of stroke "discovery" identified by the teaching pro Rip Stott of Great Britain.

Some won't be able to do this, having never learned in their whole life how to make some invention or historical event or scientific finding or poem, painting, song or book their own.

One needs in this case to know the respective lengths of each arm and to command true understanding of the rest of one's temperament or game.

Me, I wait cheated to backhand side with continental grip, and am looking for a little transition from flowing grip change to "patting the dog," an expression we all are hoping too much will prove a magic elixir.

I call this transition "top of the backswing" or "upper arc of a loop" in which left arm actively points across and racket head is closing to the "try this" still image in the Macci video.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_performance/rick_macci/develop_atp_forehand/

From there, to answer a previous question posed by myself, the pat-the-dog will indeed go straight down since the body will just have vacated its station.

Yeah, the body will have mostly gone up.

Note: A re-look at the "try this" part of video with sound off: After "pat-the-dog" the arm is straight, the body and arm have come down, the wrist is still cocked up, the racket is still higher than the hand.