A New Year's Serve

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Adding Finesse to One's Personalized Version of Ziegenfuss

Once one realizes how much a Federfore consists of hurling a telephone pole from back to side fence, one may be ready, like me, to reconsider any possible and perhaps extremely useful opposite to this stroke.

The term "telephone pole" is not to be taken as literal since arms must always relax and remain pliable in tennis even when extended. Straight is still bent a little. But Roger Federer throws a huge unit back there, with windshield wiper in both directions the significant additive.

The second term "throws" refers to a whole constellation of exertion but more specifically here to what the extended left arm ignition does-- it fires left to start a body rotation that is much earlier than any of us ever learned or taught ourselves except maybe for Tom Okker.

Me, I don't want to use both hands on the racket to take the shoulders very far around in my initial move-- some yes and that's essential. But the real fun is in using left arm pointing across to do the bulk of the job, and early.

So, what's the opposite of all this? A closed Ziegenfuss in which there's no exigency about getting the shoulders around because you won't be using them for a long while. Nor will you "throw." You'll spring not swing. So take your time for the love of Pete.

Well, I couldn't love him too much when he was young since he didn't make me laugh enough, but he's gotten a whole lot better with age as has Ivan Lendl.

Back to the Ziegenfuss. Valerie Ziegenfuss equals arm first, body finishing it off. So why not invent a strange pair of pincers? Instead of pointing at right fence quickly, point at it slowly, taking body turn a bit at a time.

Fooey. You could be turning shoulders backward right up to the time that you reverse them forward, I wouldn't care. And why not just leave left arm where it is, relaxed? The body rotation will take it away just before converging right arm passes under it or collides with it.

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This shot is already changing. (It is 11:55 a.m. on Dec. 31st after all.) Although I hit it with some success off of Federforian preparation the other night, wouldn't the stroke be more economical if both arms went off to the right more Agassi-like from the very outset?

The design idea here is to give right arm less to do so that the two hands, one driven by shoulders still winding back and the other by straightening, looping, easing arm, can squeeze toward one another at the same time.

Extending right arm can start higher than extending left arm and loop under it as body reverses its tilt in reinforcement.

The last-moment wiper, which goes backward only (during which time it will actually be on the ball) along with the very nature of this shot, enables shallower racket work, i.e., you don't need an early take-back of racket tip and you don't need to take it back far.

Am not worried about deception for now (if ever). When one either gets tired of these goat-foot body-slam shots or occasion dictates, one can hit an open-stance Federfore with one's hand farther back at contact like an jai-alai player.

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Double Feeler Insect Forehand, Genus, Ziegenfuss

This has been an especially good New Year here at New Year's Serve, and I hope to get back to Service soon, but for now some new closed forehand possibilities have filled the fish bowl of inventive consciousness.

The guppies in the fish bowl keep rising to the surface and snapping their lips. Which insects have they been eating? Let's catch one and subject it to 1000x magnification.

Here's what we see, different from yesterday. The forehand sends two long feelers along the 45-degree path of the goat foot. Inchworm movement precludes the need for a unit turn-- hind foot can gradually splay as it inches along.

The two arms start bent, so they can gradually extend from the elbows. Left hand has gone through a startling evolution from the first tennis lesson in the player's life.

He or she learned to take racket back very fast and far by keeping left hand on the handle, strings or throat.

Then, as she gradually acquired precepts from a Federfore, she pointed her left arm at the right fence to get the shoulders way around. But as she became even more curious, studying the Ziegenfuss, she pointed on a 45-degree angle at the net. The shoulders didn't care, they only wanted to turn way around.

With changes occurring at a frequency sometimes of more than one per day, a tennis player or coach might well ask, "Do I want to get all instruction correct in the first year or is that romantic nonsense? Isn't a program that stresses self-discovery through all the years more advisable?"

We've discussed the left arm, consider now the right. We had both hands traveling along the goat path but, actually, that's probably truer of left than right. Right, the hitting arm, can extend roughly in the same direction but a bit more toward right fence, a bit lower, too. Then, if you slightly angulate left hip like an Austrian skier toward the net, the rear shoulder will load racket down even more.

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Service and Words

The elbow should twist 180 degrees, Phil of Lugano recently quoted Vic Braden as saying, with the reason being that people who open up the racket too soon push the ball rather than hit it. In a VHS three or four decades old, Vic demonstrated the same thing by manipulating the arm of his young assistant Angie. Vic's ideas have changed on a number of topics, it would seem, but not this one.

To rein this opinion in and apply it to self, one needs to decide, I think, how much of this turn should come from horizontal body rotation and how much from horizontal, helicopter-like movement of upper arm in the same direction.

My hope for this discussion is to offer a more repeatable means of adjustment on this point rather than reliance on the pre-verbal. The unconscious serve is the best serve, of course, but the unconscious isn't always one's best friend.

One can turn shoulders more, upper arm less and vice-versa-- no? One wants racket to knife at the ball rather than come at it too open-- yes? Consciousness of how one can play with the two variables along with a third, stance, seems like self-empowerment to me.

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Don't Mess with Pivot Point while Trying to Go Around a Sharp Corner

From examining films of Roger Federer's forehand and John McEnroe's backhand, I reached this startling conclusion: It's common sense, but when do people heed their common sense?

No matter where Roger Federer's racket tip points at contact, his hand is pretty far back, at least in a majority of the new issue forehands of last November. He does everything of course and therefore is difficult to categorize, but in the majority of this series his legs drive his body straight up as his hips and shoulders provide the pivot that underlies his hitting through the ball.

Similarly, in a characteristic closed McEnroe backhand, JM puts weight on front foot early and drives hips straight up as they pivot. I've been preoccupied (happily) with forming a rising wave with rear shoulder. I now believe that wave can maintain or still be happening even during the final, short hitting step.

Again, like Roger, John does all kinds of things, e.g., once weight is on front foot he sends hip out a bit more before he drives up on his strong front leg-- more difficult. HE DOES THAT AND HE DOESN'T DO THAT. My job is not to imitate everything, not even to classify all, but to take precisely what will help my own game.

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Non-Stop Anti-Intellectualism

Detroit's Eastside Tennis Facility, three different pro-facilitators, an hour-and-a-half session, two different surfaces, fast drills where you're moving all the time-- there's no time to think, which of course I do too much.

These are the best players in the club and they're all a lot younger than my 71. I fall once, after hitting a volley, am trying to move in for another split-step, but one foot hits the other and I roll.

Funny. Has this ever happened in my life? Need to keep feet farther apart. Especially when running backward, as the pro Mark Miller tells me.

And, "Don't turn your back!" a very good woman player cautions. "Not in this group!" I like the way everybody speaks in exclamation points.

I have some contusions and abrasions today but that's all right. I missed some shots but hit some clean winners, too. Maybe hitting a winner has nothing to do with level of the opposition.

My group spends half an hour with each pro, one closer to my age who greets me as a long lost card holder in Gray Power. Then it's on to the next, everything in a rush.

I've never seen anything so effective, but then I never played in college or attended a camp-- was out on a river doing freeze drills in crew.

But-- a high-intensity session like this is not a refutation of my method. No matter how formidable these players are, they all would turn out better if they reconsidered their stroke patterns more often-- not as much as I do but more often than they ever have-- clearly.

Everyone needs a more liquid view for more liquid strokes with no limitation built into them.

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Wiper, Viper-- What's the Difference

Is a "viper" simply the way a German touring professional pronounces the word "wiper" or could the two reptiles be different?

The term wiper is universal. The term viper is private, peculiar no doubt to me. Macht nichts, doesn't matter.

If wiper is an action that happens on the ball, then viper is an overall stroke that finishes by left shoulder or elbow. Or, reverse these definitions or replace one of the nouns. We know which one. The other is here to stay.

The point is to reduce confusion by making essential distinction between overall stroke pattern and a relatively small part of the tract-- in which the racket first wipes back and down, and then wipes forward and up.

In a Federfore the racket wipes back in reaction to start of body rotation driving a straight arm. The tour term for this phenomenon is or was "mondo"--players with a bent arm structure do it as well. I very carefully watched a great player do this the other night. Racket wiped back then forward in quick succession as part of a firm overall stroke.

Coaches and analysts often throw out the word "wiper" and then tediously allude to or attempt to explain give in the wrist and forearm followed by a corresponding roll the other way. I'd like to conflate all the blather as exactly the same thing.

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One-Two Punch: Golfing Backhand Followed by Ball-Rolling Ziegenfuss

Two of my best readers have said they prefer blogs like # 516 in which I make no mention of arms. Sorry, playing tennis without arms isn't an attractive alternative and is one of the many reasons why, in blogs at other websites, I have opposed the Iraq and Afghan wars so much.

On the subject of one of the most simple 1HTSBH's in existence, it amazes me that I keep finding new things to say, which happens in the middle of the night, I'm quite sure. Today I need the golf instruction of the early twentieth century Scotch pro Percy Boomer to try and explain to myself one aspect of John McEnroe's backhand. To say that JM golfs the ball is not too far from the truth. Trying this, one can combine the instruction of Virginia Wade from an old video. On the backswing she doesn't twist upper shoulders extremely much but rather does twist back her hips as she "props," to apply Tony Roche's useful term. The action tilts down the front shoulder at the last minute, i.e., back shoulder goes up in a first wave as advised nowadays by Doug King.

From there one can step and golf. The foot rhythm if one were a John McEnroe might be scamper-scamper-scam-per, where "scam" is a bringing up of outside foot to broaden the base of the prop, and "per" is a short hitting step with that same foot. Does one resemble then a dancer, a bird or Groucho Marx?

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHWideSide.mov

Notice how all the motion is unified with nothing abrupt. The shoulders reverse their tilt but just slightly, and this mild action is elongated from step to end of the follow-through. The front leg extends, which action starts immediately from step, which lifts arm's pivot point (front shoulder) more. The easily golfing, straightening arm accelerates. Why? Because you've changed its fulcrum upward. Energy from leg extension and the overall swing also is elongated all the way to end of the follow-through, or so it appears if we notice how, in various filmstrips, body flies a tittle before settling on balance somewhat into the court.

In post # 506, I found a way to passively roll the wrist in a unit all of its own, and was surprised that I could hit something effective that way, all loaded with extreme topspin, in an actual match. Now, however, I'm thinking of that as a trick shot, almost a fluke. Today I prefer arm extension and card dealing with wrist and forearm to be all of a piece and smooth and accomplished without any clench of the shoulder-blades. That will occur to change direction after the card is dealt.

*****

Present Ziegenfuss takes both arms extending like insect feelers off to the right but with a slight separation between them sufficient to hold a soccer ball or basketball. Since a Ziegenfuss is a body shot more than a body-and-arm shot, the challenge is to lower rear shoulder and then raise it again in a wave action. What is the best way to do this?

One can bulge left hip out toward net. Or simply lower rear shoulder. Or do some of both. A basic idea in tennis and editing, however, is always to pare things down if one can, and the two arms going out like feelers afford such a chance.

As the arms go out simply revolve them around one another. Front shoulder will go up, rear shoulder go down. Additionally, front shoulder following hand pointing on a 45 degree angle toward net can go around toward right fence with trailing shoulder turning in. It's all how you roll-adjust an imaginary ball, I'd say "steering wheel," but steering wheel only covers one dimension.

With racket now cocked in two different directions, you apply your upward-forward slam from body as relaxed wrist and forearm colliding with oncoming shot yield backward. You have to prepare for this by keeping wrist straight through all of the pre-contact cycle. (I find this relaxes me a lot.)

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The Backhand: A Review

Reader, I hope you find the above title as ludicrous as I do, even though tennis books have postulated assertions like that for over a century. "The Backhand" indeed, as if there's a single one.

If you have read carefully, reader, and I would never accuse you of anything else, you know that I advocate continental grip.

Only on the backhand side, however. A year-long experiment playing with a John McEnroe type forehand convinced me once and for all that I wanted nothing further to do with that stroke.

The reason I like continental grip for a topspin backhand is that it enables one to curl and straighten the wrist as if dealing a card. This makes two key phrases used by Arthur Ashe come to life. They are "Turn the corner" and "Sling the racket at the ball."

I'm quite the ignoramus about western backhand grip but have played with strong eastern on both sides for most of my life.

The eastern backhand puts more hand behind the ball. A perceived weakness forces the continental player to use timing to achieve equivalent strength.

Are we talking here about extraordinarily gifted players? I argue that any intermediate player needs the timing challenge even more. Continental grip will force him or her to hit the ball well or not at all.

I wish now to view this shot from a different standpoint than in previous posts. Still taking guidance from the Tennis Player clips of John McEnroe, I point to the way, typically, his front foot lifts an inch or two from the court and rearranges itself a small but significant distance toward the net. The significance is that body weight is going into the court.

I've always wanted a simple way to understand this simple shot, and now, finally, this may be possible. One golfs or bowls the racket barrel with a free arm (for more detail, see earlier posts).

As soon as front foot steps out you raise shoulder by extending front leg. But that force isn't-- or shouldn't be-- enough to lift you off of the court. What then causes the phenomenon of small flight?

It is a combination of two factors: 1) tilt of shoulder slowly reversing from contact of foot with court to top of the follow-through and 2) clenching of the shoulder-blades together. Although the front shoulder, which was down, doesn't go up very much (except for a lob), it does so enough to re-arrange the vector of the clench. This is what makes McEnroe, and could make anyone, fly at an altitude of one inch.

At the same time there is a change of direction, but this, too, is very slight.
Racket butt is gliding easily toward opposite left fence post when rising fulcrum of the shoulder, mostly from leg drive, slightly accelerates it. At the same time, too, the wrist straightens in unforced, unhurried manner, and just then the shoulder-blades clenching take racket in a new direction up to the right.

How much of a change of direction is there? And how solid is the body-arm connection as arm goes up? The greatest amount of loose arm action occurs as you golf the racket barrel down and forward slightly to the outside. The most body-arm connection occurs during the clench.

There still is residual looseness in the arm, however. There has to be. You don't want the racket entirely to follow the right shoulder clenching around, but rather to go up to the left of it, at least through contact.

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Dr. Spain

If tennis is self-expression, one needs to learn it from the inside out instead of by rote. I've got my Federfore and my Ziegenfuss and now I want a third forehand, highly personal but influenced or rather re-inspired by Chris Lewit's tennis studies in Spain. Think I'll call it my "Dr. Spain."

As one of the 22 per cent of Americans who believe in evolution, I don't think anyone receives or should receive all their tennis information in one big lump just as they are setting out. I know the familiar argument-- that tennis technique is horribly difficult to change once learned and that one should hit the same old boring shot again and again. True if one is a bore. Then the bore and the boring shot can act as one for the rest of the person's life.

More congenial to me are the twin notions that in tennis no two strokes are ever alike and that if one learns from the beginning HOW TO LEARN (could involve some philosophy of science), then changing one's tennis technique will never be anything but a delight.

Federfore is a fast and versatile shot but I now am interested primarily in the one version where hips stay back and ball is struck with a straight arm. The purity of this arrangement affords the chance for kinetic chain to work in a repeatable way; it happened only occasionally for me in the earlier life forms of my forehand technique-- a molten surge of energy out of all proportion to my application of a small, additional use of hips. Ivan Lendl, who hit the ball hard enough, said in his book with Eugene Scott that he wasn't interested in loss of control, that his hips followed his shoulders as far as he was concerned.

My Ziegenfuss right now offers an exciting balance of medium heavy topspin and pace with surprising accuracy. The topspin is more straight up and less of a mixture with sidespin. Pushing an imaginary beach ball through and straight up the back with one's body makes good sense.

The Dr. Spain I'm working on reintroduces scissoring of the arm. From Federfore I transplant the notion of letting forward body rotation activate some passive wrist and forearm in the opposite direction.

And from double-feeler approach in a Ziegenfuss only more toward the right fence I simply curl one of the feelers-- the racket arm-- down and around rear thigh with just enough space toward the rear fence to permit a small and comfortable loop as mondo occurs, followed then by a second but forward wipe.

Most important, I wind back shoulders to the max with left arm. This enables the "summing of forces" to generate racket head speed that Oscar Wegner has written so much about. Forward whirl of the shoulders is a big component of the sum.

In Federfore there is a section of the backswing where shoulders are still but arm continues. In the Ziegenfuss and Dr. Spain as I currently am developing them, this isn't true. Shoulders turn back more slowly but simply change direction. The middle step is gone.

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Evolution Caused by Tennis Social-- a Very Good Time to Experiment

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterFront.mov

If a golf swing, a flat one. The knees go out, after the step, before they go up.

The trajectory of the swing to come thenceforth becomes "flatter," i.e., more baseball-like.

If bowling is vertical movement close to the body and baseball is horizontal movement far from the body, a flat golf swing is between those two extremes.

Ziegenfuss: Better to get shoulders turned and stopped before adjusting the
steering globe. Why not call it "the world" rather than a soccer ball, a basketball, a beach ball or a tennis ball? One could cheat on this if one wanted. One could start the double turning while still performing foot work if one wanted to do less near contact.

Dr. Spain: Racket work is too ponderous right now. Not getting the clink I want yet.

Serve: Better to be loose, starting with weight on front foot if that's what one has always done, but naturally incorporating the recent improvements, viz., higher toss and philosophy of the longbow.

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At Lucubration Lane: Right and Right Again

DETROIT 1/10: Teaching professionals in three states have praised my one hand topspin backhand. Only I know it isn't any good.

So, following all approved models for ground-strokes, I'll slightly overhaul my backhand according to a daydream I had this morning. Backhand model:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterFront.mov

Backhand followed by forehand model: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v16tK...FF568&index=22

From the Stockholm Open model I take the spleen required for an overhaul. From the backhand model I adopt John McEnroe's lowering of racket tip behind his back in conjunction with hips going out. Note that tip also WINDS down. For a third cooking ingredient I'll add some curling of the wrist.

What to happen next? Just this. Arm will straighten from the elbow. Forearm will rotate. Wrist will stay curled. Elbow won't move relative to body. Forearm rotation will work for one reason only: Angle of the arm toward the court.

And then? Whole arm will rotate in tandem with straightening wrist. Turning of the corner is complete.

All that remains is a violent clench together of the shoulder-blades employing arm trajectory as described in a previous post and resulting in human flight at an altitude of one inch.

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Ideas for a Better Dr. Spain

Hit it off of Federforian preparation, which isn't hard to learn. As Jonas Bjorkman once indicated, he could, through mime, do everything with Roger Federer's forehand that Roger could except produce the same result.

My belief is that Bjorkman was playing too much tennis and therefore didn't have time to finish the experiment, which required his becoming analytical, i.e., that he go into the wheels and springs of a Swiss watch rather than concern himself only with the face. Very few tennis players actually want to become technicians, and we hear the upside of this all the time ("Never thinks-- hallelujah-- that's why he's so wonderful!").

The equally valid converse of this, far less publicized: "He never thinks, therefore he never reaches his true potential." Anti-intellectualism is a huge component of modern life no matter what your particular profession or interest.

A third avenue is that of exceptionalism, in which you decide that the greatness of players at the top has no relevance for lowly you. It's a variation of the Bernstein song in WEST SIDE STORY: "Keep to your own kind." Such players then find themselves a good shop manual, firm adherents of back to basics, which can work if they hire a good and imaginative instructor.

With some reservations, I'm for solid instruction at the beginning of one's tennis career. But women in particular cling to this for too long, and everybody should after a short while branch out.

For a better Dr. Spain, such an independent-minded player, as Chris Lewit has suggested, could explore the phenomenon of scissoring the elbow on the ball. I remember the great derision my early web discussions on this subject incurred. Derision or refusal even to discuss the subject.

Two main elements vie for precedence when one takes up the subject of this distinct genre of stroke: wiper and the scissoring. Are they different or the same? How should they combine? On a high ball one might sequence them but not on a low ball? How about picking up the energy from leg extension with arm then scissoring in rapid sequence? In studying Tennis Player filmstrips of four Spanish players I saw elbow bending on the ball, after the ball, and before the ball-- a beginning reconsideration of the basic strokes that Oscar Wegner has always taught.

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Federfore: Windshield Wiper Control from '97 Camry Owner's Manual

"The 'INT TIME' band lets you adjust the wiping time interval when the wiper lever is in the intermittent position. Twist the band upward to increase the time between sweeps, and downward to decrease it."

To apply these concepts to tennis, one might introduce a third element between mondo and anti-mondo, viz., spearing with the racket barrel. By giving oneself more to do, one might, like Roger Federer, prolong by a microsecond the interval when wiper is at rest, thus improving spin while at the same time producing forehand contact farther out front.

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Proper Range of Possibility with Racket Edge

Remember: People talk about some great serves coming up with BACKSIDE of the strings facing the ball. This is beyond the bisection idea, viz., that your frame can look as if it will cut the ball in two.

Thousands of us need to consider such matters in the light of agreement among a bunch of formidable instructors that opening the racket too soon or too much pushes the ball and spoils the serve through giving your opponent too easy a reply.

To be scientific, the server needs to explore ALL possible combinations of stance, body rotation, and helicoptering, where the term "helicoptering" refers to roundabout movement of the upper limb from the shoulder joint, usually with the two halves of the arm bent toward one another or glued.

If one helicopters less, one can rotate body more to point elbow at the same spot with theoretically no change in quality of spin administered-- and vice-versa.

In reality, however, reducing body rotation subtracts from racket head speed, assuming that cocking and release of archer's bow is the same.

So, one needs to be aggressive and pro-active to find "the beam" of better struck serves. This means bending the stick in both directions, i.e., push the ball on purpose, knife it so much that you hit it with the frame, even hit the ball with the non-hitting side of the strings.

Will these deliberate and conscious experiments apply just to flat serves or to all serves?

Make them apply to all serves while understanding that in some spin serves racket may both come at and depart from ball in a slightly different direction. Doesn't matter, the principle is the same: Racket must knife first to empower left edge for when internal rotation from the shoulder takes over.

Another variable-- a joker factor as far as I am concerned-- gets introduced if you ever try reverse wrist serves. I have one in which it's easy to push the ball in a very high trajectory-- the wrist, first curled, opens out. Such an innocuous serve sometimes wins the point when nothing else can against very good players. But this will become more than a mere surprise serve if application of the ideas above can generate more clink and hop.