A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

An Elder's View of Tennis

In Virginia there were two brothers who built a clay court. One had a Swedish wife; the other an American wife who looked Swedish. Their headbands were pure Bjorn Borg and so were their strokes. Even though they played well, some of us laughed at them after Bjorn Borg removed himself from the tour though never completely from the limelight.

Roger and I (sounds like the Michael Moore film) are different. Although my forehand, my backhand, and my serve are now patterned on Roger Federer, it's not that I didn't expose myself to other influences.

Roger is just what works best for me and is clearly better than something I might invent that resembled nobody but myself.

There are many classical elements and some common sense that come easily across-- simple as that.

So here's where I am in my continuing evolution, which I hope doesn't accelerate by 7 a.m. tomorrow. At 69 I am "a village elder," as David Korten would say and worthy of respect (ha-ha!).

One reason I like TennisPlayer.net is that I seldom get it. This keeps my tennis at least-- if not myself-- honest.

BACKHAND. I broke Roger's into seven little bits, but all occurring after movement to the ball-- a different subject. Hands to outside, rear shoulder up, racket moving past it, arm extension, upper body rotation, horizontal arm slow swing, and rip. Then I went to the notebooks of the late poet Theodore Roethke, who, although his body looked a bit dumpy, was a hell of a good player. He even COACHED TENNIS at Penn State. There, his sweat pants, rejects from the football team, fell down. They had been through the washing machines once too often, cooking the elastics.

"A many-sided man has many rhythms," Roethke says.

So I divvyed up the seven motions in a series of experiments, which ultimately broke one of them in two, i.e., arm extension, which is first two-armed and then one-armed in Roger's case.

Now I had eight acts to deal with instead of seven-- hands, shoulder, racket,
two-hands (backswing); one-hand, UBR, level slow arm, rip (foreswing). From trial and error this works best for me, at least right now.

FOREHAND. The "long fan" experiment is going well. It comes largely from the
UTube video with crowd up on the wall behind Roger looking down. Could they hit more like Roger if they believed it possible? Of course. But does Roger always keep his elbow this much in one place? No, he's warming up or practicing. The TennisPlayer videos show him sometimes raising the elbow just a little at the end of the racket-still-being-high phase. Degree of separation is degree of confidence, someone said. (It was Vic Braden and in different words.) The stroke gets a little flatter, the lever longer, the ball faster though it was going fast enough already.

SERVE. Simultaneously straightening the body and turning the shoulders back while tossing is not disruptive as I thought, and adds power and length to the toss.

[bottle]

Invention instead of Imitation

It was a big thing for me to realize that Roger lifts his head and turns his shoulders back during his toss. At the same time, I decided, his right arm works in a similar way, independent of his body and yet supplemented by it.

If the tossing arm were to give up its independence, there would be no toss. But if the hitting arm, swinging back, pendulous, suddenly became fixed to the body, which next double-turned, what would be lost?

This was the challenge I took to the court. And I wasn't too disappointed. I had to pay the standard fee for changing anything, but the experiment seems promising, maybe depending on my young man's throw of a rock at a telephone pole in Eastpole, Maine, or wherever it was.

I was trying to impress my Swedish girlfriend, and I missed the pole, but that doesn't matter. The throw was very hard, with no independent arm motion during the huge windup.

"Good in the windup," she said.

The speed of the throw, indicating fine arm and hand transfer, was a good illustration of a cardinal principle of Bill Wright, Coach at the University of California, Berkeley: Great drama in tennis strokes can organize totality of body and soul, producing a tremendous shot.

Left-brain analysis, which breaks stuff into small bits, all too often leaves them unattached to one another.

[bottle]

How to Hit the Roger Federer Forehand

"Having fought through, perhaps for years, to understand an experience, and having at last come to that experience, how quick we are to resent someone else's not understanding it..." Theodore Roethke, major American poet and former tennis coach at Penn State.

So I'm back to considering my Federfore. That's what happens in tennis when someone's serve picks up. He immediately evaluates his other strokes.

But in my case "Federfore" is not only my generic if personal forehand, based on Roger Federer, but the whole discussion of whether one can have a significant learning experience in a video-laden website such as this one.

Yes, I say, and I do, but to some others, TennisPlayer or TennisOne are mere entertainment. One would however think that even the uneducable would have a better than normal chance of learning something new when they are entertained.

A sometimes opposite view comes from Roethke again: "In teaching, gruffness may be the true cortesia." That word, Spanish, means courtesy or politeness. The gruff teacher does one a favor, therefore, but HOW is personal interpretation. Perhaps the student won't become too quagmired in the teacher's thought, will develop his own.

"How to Hit the Roger Federer Forehand" was the title of my long discussion-string at Tennis Warehouse, and got deleted at 27,000 hits due to abusive contributors, all in America. No one from Formosa, the Philippines or the Inner Hebrides was abusive, as I recall.

I just remember being banned for a week (I, the thread starter, not the worst abuser, was barred). So I barred myself for life. By then, I think, with no warning the administrator had deleted the thread.

Among the good stuff that went down the Warehouse rat-hole was a question from Tyler Weekes, owner of the Vic Braden Tennis College in Utah. He doubted that anyone other than Roger knew exactly where in his forehand he turns on the power.

By now, I do know. It happens precisely after Roger's racket smoothly fans, closes and lowers backward. There is a semblance of a pause, particularly noticeable in all the UTube videos with crowds hanging on the walls over Roger as he practices or warms up. And the easier he hits, the more noticeable the pause. Always there, I say, whether you see it or not.

Then comes the great power, from leg all the way up. The wrist lays back and down ("Mondo's" during the power), giving Roger the best of both worlds-- body acceleration before contact and a killed racket that allows him virtually to touch the ball.

P.S. Will there be an archaic revival in America? If Citibank can go down a rat-hole, will Tennis Warehouse? That wouldn't bother me.

If Yannick Noah could hit with a board, so can I.

[bottle]

In Praise of Imprecision

(Not in tennis but in the kinesthetic cues that lead to good tennis.)

For good Federfores, reader, which one of these cues seems best: 1-2-3-4-FIVE! Fan, Aim, Fire! F-A-N, AIM, FIRE! Ready, Aim, Fire! Rea-dy, Aim, Fire!

If I had to choose one today, it would be "Ready, Aim, Fire!" even though I hate the NRA and greatly admire the Winter Soldiers, whom Iraq vet poet Brian Turner recently suggested "may be the greatest patriots in The United States"; and I argue against particular war every day in blogs or "reaction sections." (John Escher's Blog, Bottle at Common Dreams, Bottle at The Daily Beast, John Escher at Truthout.)

Real conversation in Moe's Southwest Grill an hour ago placing order with "my brother from another mother": "Obama beans but no Afghanistan."

The fact is, I don't have to choose one of the cues nor did I have to write them down here, and my tennis would benefit if I didn't; yes, keep everything oral, even better, fluid, pre-verbal, right-brained.

But reader, if you're not worried about all of Roger Federer's unforced errors (more than any other top ten player) and you haven't given up on the RF forehand or committed suicide like the famous novelist who penned an article on that subject for the failing New York Times Magazine, maybe one of the foregoing cues will temporarily resonate with you unless you've made up a better one yourself or are about to-- highly possible.

Reader, some good forehands are lurking for us amongst these cues whether yours or mine, so long as we don't settle on any one too hard. (I use the word "amongst" on purpose, hoping for an archaic revival replete with new shamans.) Fan the racket over and down having closed from the forearm while strings were still up-top. Now, if using numbers, waste a beat here although that sounds absurd. I mean if you're going to stop the racket at the bottom of your loop, why didn't you just take it back straight in the first place? No, no-- faulty logic. Total body rhythm is wished. And, although the racket is still with wrist not yet distended and everything just resting there mean and male, the left hand is in constant feminine motion, imagistically smoothing the waters and even disturbing your opponent.

Backhand: Easy to overdo the left-brain/right-brain stuff, i.e., to perform all take-back with the left hand, all slow fore-swing with the right hand. That idea, too schematic, is therefore left-brained. Better to take the racket back with left hand, start the arms extension (still backward) with both hands
then let right arm, already at work, take over.

A third possibility would be to perform all extension with the right arm and with left hand traveling along only for passive guidance role. Some day I may get back to exploring this but only if backhand goes sour.

Serve: Re-read the famous Harold Brody article about how sweet spot changes with different strokes. Am hitting and liking serves at a contact point closer to racket tip.

[stumphges]

Thank you dear elder

My initial reaction was confusion, followed by irritation, so I can understand others' reactions to this thread - but not the rudeness - well, that can be understood too, but shouldn't be excused easily on a public forum. Can we use our anonymity as opportunity to be more noble, not more base?

Today I came back and read the last four pages and want to say to bottle: Thank You for writing this.

And to John Yandell: I think it's more and better than harmless idiosyncrasy. And also: I joined and paid my hundred without my wife's consent. I thought she'd be angry; but no - she said your good work deserves it.

[johnyandell]

Ok then more Tennisplayer added value... Your wife seems like a wise woman, by the way...

[bottle]

The Pinwheel Firework Serve

Revise and streamline, dear reader, and revert to classic urgings to throw an old racket as far as you can.

An elder's advisory might be to spin the old racket as fast as you can once it's out of your hand.

Yes, spin it end over end like a knife thrower only as quickly as possible. (Never mind if you hit the girl. You'll probably just go to a funny farm and not to jail.)

This beats the demure thrust of a dart-thrower who's then going to unscrew a light-bulb having just spoken with twenty paid consultants.

It restores function to the upper arm rotors, which if you're like me, you've practically shut down in an effort to achieve more upwardness of spin. But a good throw has always combined and unified the various sources of power.

The hated phrase "throws like a girl" in fact describes a motion that comes from the triceptic muscle only.

Don't say it around the members of a women's semi-pro softball team.

Sudden, light, pre-loaded action from the triceps is great (this isn't a one-arm push-up from the sky down, you know), but combine it with the other pre-loaded sources of body and axle rotation of the upper arm, and be fully dramatic about this, crazy even.

Yes, let your craziness tell your body what to do.

If you authorize enough adrenalin, you may not even have to knife-throw a racket at all but just go with the idea of doing so.

Don't whap roundhouse with the shoulder (at least not from the shoulder joint). Unless of course it works for you. For me, it doesn't.

This approach of full, crazy drama should restore the greatest spinniness you ever achieved.

"T'was on one first serve in a match in 1949, and I remember it well."

How sad if the spin then or at any time was in a downward direction, but at least if you're using the power sources correctly, you don't draw overly much on the one that exacerbates this fault.

Get MAXIMUM spin first, THEN modify it to go upward and have a nice day.

[bottle]

Do it Wrong

Follow normal service pattern through toss and bend, then stop all body involvement and hit really lousy serves-- doesn't matter if they even go over the net.

The idea is to be shallow with your lowering of the racket tip-- just fire the rotors and triceps with a unified arm throw, but in premature fashion.

We're working on pre-load here-- pre-load of the rotors, and pre-load of the triceps.

We're telling ourselves when we want to activate the rotors, the triceps.

Early!

Then when we add various combinations of leg or legs, upper body rotation, and catapult (I hate the word "cartwheel") and time everything right, the racket tip, overpowered, goes down although you're throwing with your rotors and triceps toward the ball. Once you understand this phenomenon of throw one direction while racket goes in the opposite direction, I don't see how you can call anything "passive." The rotors and triceps, very active, get overpowered, that's all.

The early start gives light quickness to the hand action, i.e. builds "snap."

You can hit light, spinny serves this way, or you can hit heavy ones. Heaviness will mostly come from how well body is traveling toward the net at contact.

For me, taking these two recent ideas together-- double pre-load and vigorously end-over-ending the racket by the blade as if you're a knife-thrower-- works best.

[bottle]

Knife-throw 2 (the Basics)

Knife-throw as a serving concept gives the player something interesting to do, psychologically speaking. Also, it emphasizes thumb and forefinger as holders and keeps the racket on edge for a long time, but how does it work, or would that knowledge spoil a person's chance for stratospheric racket head speed once and for all?

There's danger in every scheme, which may become dry, dead formula. Here nevertheless is the physics, which comes from what generally is known as the check book, or TENNIS: PLAY TO WIN THE CZECH WAY by Dr. Jindrich Hohm,
a cheaply printed and bound affair, starring photographic displays of Lendl, Navratilova and Mandlikova, and which started to fall apart almost as soon as I bought it around 1987.

Professor Hohm likes to reduce tennis to working principles. One of these with regard to acceleration is your starting a swing with a short lever but then extending it much as rocket scientists might kick a satellite farther out from earth where it will travel faster.

This idea gets even more interesting in tennis when you watch films of Roger Federer or Charlie Chaplin hitting that forehand in which they scissor from the elbow thus SHORTENING the effective lever and creating whip acceleration in a totally opposite way.

A serve combines both methods, no? as does knife throw-- especially one where you throw to hurtle the knife end over end a maximum number of times after it leaves your hand. Treating your racket this way involves loose but strong fingers, both types of wrist rotation, stopping the hand-- all kinds of things-- but the aspect we're most interested in here is controlled twist from the shoulder rotors as part of a unified throw involving the triceps muscle as well and making perfect transfer of all energy through the hand to the racket tip.

If you throw an actual knife by its blade you create a circular action with radius LENGTHENING then if all muscles in the hand area are loose enough you get whip from SHORTENING of the lever.

My point is simple: People can lose racket speed for years by thinking that arm extension is linear. An image of more circular knife throw should improve racket head speed for anyone.

For a person who doesn't have too much upper directed rotors play available, I think whatever there is should happen in prolonged fashion.

The image of throwing some knife by the blade can achieve a bunch of objectives including transfer of sweet spot farther out toward racket tip (!)

One additional aspect of this serve is turning wrist in to slightly open racket face at address. Then you can form a right angle in arm coincident with body bend and travel. Then springing body can close arm another 40 degrees. Then, as you pre-load rotors and triceps in next overpowered 40 degrees, you can reverse-bend wrist as if turning it inside out.

Now the delicate work is out of the way and you can be uninhibited yet light with the knife throw.

[bottle]

Centrifugate the Heel of the Hand

We tomahawk-throwers are always looking for the best thing to centrifugate, right?

So yes turn in the hand to open the racket at address.

But no don't use wrist muscles to reverse this angulation to where you want it (in my opinion) on the opposite side of the arm.

Pre-load rotors and triceps together.

Hurl tomahawk from rotors and triceps together.

The hand won't exactly flop over (that would be crude and unworkable) but it will quite smoothly and naturally reverse cock for the next thing, i.e., pronation and wrist straightening and finger-clenching, none of it to be thought about very much once you are beyond designer stage.

Keeping wrist humped while you build up energy in rotors and triceps is an interesting feel in more ways than one.

A lot of problems in tennis seem to come from not knowing where the racket is. When wrist is bent like this it can act as a sensor to tell you how far hand
is behind you.

One way or another, you need distance between your hand and your body,
a matter of simple leverage. Neale Fraser's hand and racket were not back
toward rear fence like many good servers (from one photo) but were more toward side fence and in the middle of his body, not along right side of body as is well prescribed. He was extremely flexible, however, and his big arch got the racket far beyond his back.

[stumphges]

bottle,

does Your federfore concern itself with grips? Do you feel that a hybrid 3.5/3, very buttery and relaxed grip is important in allowing your arm and body to have the right liquidity for the stroke?

[stroke]

I think we have entered the twilight zone here. Someone is actually asking bottle his thoughts on tennis technique.

[bottle]

stroke, I'm not supposed to say this,

but you are a twit.

[bottle]

Stumphges, Sure it Does

That's an eastern, with heel in middle of panel and big knuckle low on the same panel or maybe even on the point.

You're right about hand tension ("like holding a bird's nest," my Russian student said). Personally, my big knuckle is on the 3.5 ridge.

But Roger's may be up a bit from that ridge.

Will Hamilton (who has a bunch of other Maryland area pros to work with) just did a study on Roger's grip at FYB (Fuzzy Yellow Balls). It's a UTube video for anybody. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXcsblS3Jl4&fmt=22

Maybe you had seen it already. Hamilton and his people studied 3000 instances in which they found both Roger's heel (of hand) and big knuckle on panel 3, which is a conventional eastern grip.

As for "stroke," I no longer have any respect for him even though that's a rowing term. Someone of a political nature could say I am just returning his floccinaucinihilipilification here, but it's more than that. I compare him with George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, i.e., a subhuman torturer and a real jerk.

In addition, no one in tennis can ever reach his true potential WITHOUT entering the twilight zone. To quote Billie Jean King, "the better the player, the less they know what they're doing."

It's all about left brain and right brain, with right brain being "the twilight zone" and left brain where people are unspeakably rude, calculating (he wanted to get a rise and succeeded) but most of all male at its most boring and mean.

Any of my ideas come from first hand-experience-- just me, out on the court. I wonder if stroke with all of his dismissiveness-- so fashionable nowadays-- can say the same.

[johnyandell]

Bottle don't make me kick you out of the forum. You've posted dozens if not hundreds of times to yourself alone--and that's ok. You should laugh and admit it actually is a bit of twilight zone scenario. End of name calling now please.