A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

I'm part way thru reading your book The Last Words of Richard Holbrooke. I'm enjoying the read and agree with much of what you say.

Amazing, isn't it, that the educated people who run our respective countries haven't learnt from history and the mistakes made in the past. Brings to mind a quote (and the title of a chapter in one of his books) by Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

"Education doesn't make you smarter"...could be some truth in that.

[bottle]

Words and the Right Brain Topspin Backhand

Winston-Salem, N.C., 2002 . Bea Bielik, on her way toward winning the NCAA singles championship is demolishing everybody in sight. This is an earlier season tournament at the Wake Forest University Indoor Tennis Facility-- which gives home court advantage to the 6-foot Beatrix named after King Matyas' wife, the sixteenth century queen of Hungary. "Bielik's main weapon," according to Wikipedia, "was her powerful serve, which happened to be a major cause of injuries." A bit of revealing sports trivia lies in that concluding biographical statement along with its slight inaccuracy. For the Budapest born but very American Bea offered another main weapon, her backhand-- one rather similar to that of Richard Gasquet, I would and do say.

As I wander around speaking to everybody in the audience sitting or standing on the high ship's bridge separating the two extensive sets of playing courts but concentrating especially on formidable and pretty players, I notice a consensus of opinion beginning to emerge. The subject isn't Bea's overwhelming serve-- for there are some other great serves in the building-- but the very quirkiness of any great one hander. How many people in the world actually have one?

Bea's is clearly superior to all the two-handers that ten college women's teams under the same roof can produce but also to the one or two other one handers.

"I can't understand it," a nationally ranked (high up) two hander probably from Duke, UNC, Clemson, Michigan or some other big place says. "I just don't see how she gets all that topspin, and all that pace, and all that consistency and accuracy. It's very strange. How does it work? I have no idea."

Perfecting a one hander in a single lifetime of course is a joke. That's why we see David Letterman miming his on late night television.

Golfers mime their strokes, too. And not just weekend warriors. Jack Nicklaus told Cliff Drysdale that he has fiddled around with his strokes for every day of his life.

So, if you agree on that as advisable action, how's the best way to go about it? Read books? Watch videos exclusively? Play only, never watch?

I say, read, talk and all of the above. But of course I would say "read" since I'm a writer. I just think that on-court coaching and watching models isn't enough. Too much explanation is involved as one acquires one's strokes which we've already decided is a lifetime process.

This does of course suggest left brainedness, that bane of tennis, the tendency to atomize, the famous paralysis by analysis in which a centipede has a major breakdown.

For psychologists, those labellers, tend to view language as left brain. But isn't the truth in that idea limited to the language of scheming logic and quarry and attack? Poetic and visual language draws an exemption in my view.

[stotty]

So, if you agree on that as advisable action, how's the best way to go about it? Read books? Watch videos exclusively? Play only, never watch?

Reading books certainly won't do it. You're a good writer and it isn't always easy to follow your explanations and relate them to an image of you carrying out a certain stroke.

No, videos are definitely the most powerful tool for conveying to students how to do x, y, and z.

The most important thing after that is to practice mentally. When I was a kid I used to practise tennis strokes mentally whenever I was involved in anything boring or mundane...like school. I would envisage myself carrying out wonderful strokes, hitting passing shots, serving aces...it works...you can improve a shot simply by working on it mentally.

[bottle]

That's right brain (the image part). But right brain language could give even more shape to the image-- take it a step closer to something that would work on the court SOON.

Hey, I know I lose people sometimes. Goes with the territory. But what I aspire to is different.

Maybe an actual poet-- a tennis-loving poet like Richard Wilbur could do it.
But younger. Richard Wilbur is well into his nineties by now.

Wouldn't that be amazing? Beautiful language yet language that everyone could understand? Because the language would speak immediately to the human hand?

There was a writer over here named Wallace that everybody decided was the cat's pajama. Actually, he had been a promising junior tennis player. I usually hold off on my literary judgments because I know they're apt to change after 10 or 12 years, which is when I'll be ready to read Mr. Wallace. Because I was thoroughly turned off by the article he wrote on Roger Federer's forehand in The New York Times Magazine. In any case, the poor bastard killed himself, so I certainly can't feel jealous. And I HATE suicides. We're supposed to feel sympathy, but a better response, when you consider what that act does to the people left behind, is total awareness of the total selfishness of the scrawny, boil-infested mutt.

[bottle]

Anti-Chaos for Auntie and Uncy

If you're looking at films, why do you need me or anybody to tell you about the films? Because A) films like words obscure tennis and B) As Jon Lovitz might cry, "You're lazy and don't really want to look at the films as much as you should!"

Let's search for a unifying principle today in the forehand ground stroke technique of Djoker, Nadal, Federer, Murray, Ferrer, all good one-handed topspin backhands and all good two-handed topspin backhands.

You can, in fact, sift through the videos of the top 20 players, men and women, to pan out this gold or can simply take it from one player right here in the repeating video, fifth furniture down, in "Suffering and Service Returns: Novak and Rafa and the 2012 Aussie Final." Note how close the stoppage of Djoker's shoulders is to his contact with the ball.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strategy/craig_o_shannessy/suffering_and_service_returns/

Here's the principle: Body turn, no body turn, body turn. That means abruptly stopping the body on every modern ground stroke so that the arm then flies. "Deceleration-acceleration," Vic Braden called it. Of course he delineated kinetic chain in excruciating detail as well, and the two ideas taken together succeeded in manufacturing chaos. Maybe the young Braden had a tournament that week and wanted to make sure that he won.

So let's just stick with deceleration-acceleration. Freezing stomach muscles and any other devices you can think of stop the whirling body so that the arm flies. Once arm has flown, body can continue to rotate.

[bottle]

Pro-Mondo Army on the Surge!

If kinetic chain distracted from deceleration-acceleration, how about reverse action? Bane or benefit?

Well, reverse action works almost too well in old-fashioned ground strokes making for good power and slightly poor accuracy. That's where the arm is still winding back while the shoulders are winding forward.

Djoker doesn't do that. But his wrist does wind back while his shoulders are winding forward. The arm, though? No, he saves it. It's solid with the body until he stops the body.

All reports from the front indicate that the Anti-Mondo Army has paid off the peasants to turn in anyone who looked at them funny for imprisonment in Guantanamo.

[bottle]

You Gotta Do Those Dishes

This is Earth to Major Steve. You been practicing your layup? Been going to the dentist? Been stuck in the Amazon conversion machine? A big translation job came down? Swedish Nobel Committee Critique of Norwegian Nobel Committee in English with a copy in Magyarul to Pest? Horse pooped upon? Literary agented? Been Stig Larsoned?

[bottle]

Cardio and Innovation in Shot Technique

How amusing it is to think of people with unchanging technique. They may play better than little u-i but will never come close to realizing their potential. But we practically had to muzzle the two theoreticians on my eight-oared crew if we wanted to continue to win races. We wanted everybody A) to shut up and B) keep their eyes in the boat. In my case, since I was one of the two with complicating ideas, I was fortunate as the lightest member of the crew to be relatively frail. The first ten strokes of every practice therefore knocked the stuffing out of me along with my fancy notions, so that I rowed through the next couple of hours more or less the way I'd been taught. Of course this was in the full-pressure-every-stroke days before the Kiel-Ratzeburg crew of Germany brought interval training to worldwide competitive rowing once and for all. Along with a plethora of new developments came the alternation of soft and hard strokes throughout every practice (e.g. 20 hard-20 soft-20, 20, 20 all through an hour and a half, my favorite practice after I eventually became a crew coach).

What's the correlation in tennis? Proper self-management of time and attention between points? Perfect recovery to the center of possibilities so that the player never is rushed? A better appreciation of the many opposites that characterize the sport? Identify the opposites in tennis-- that's what we all should do.

In this time of cardio tennis I wonder how much conscious thought if any today's players devote to their technique. Cardio tennis, designed to dissolve overthinking, inevitably brings out some fine adjustment right in the middle of some exercise out on the court. What about rough adjustment however? What allowance does current American tennis make for a brainstorm?

This is why I think bars, restaurants, this forum, daydreams, nightdreams, showers, restless sleep, visualization and cerebration are so important.

Tennis is "clever" with extraordinary room for innovative thought if we only permit it to flourish.

One is very apt to feel insufficient in the art of tennis change in the beginning. Eventually though, if one persists, the new ideas will build on the old and actually work.

One's forehand could suddenly become more potent through adopting something one was exposed to decades before-- the old idea, say, of concealing the racket behind one's body rather than keeping it in the slot.

And this idea might combine with the notion of more inside out extension-- viz., that a ground stroke continues to the outside after contact before crossing to opposite side of the body.

Many teaching pros espouse full extension but offer differences in precise direction in which this should occur-- a little to the outside, say, compared to dead center or a little to the inside.

Today, on the forehand, I'll try A) keeping hands baseballed closer together in waiting position, B) pushing shoulders around farther therefore with guide hand as part of the initial turn, C) lifting racket higher over the top with elbow kept down similar to a Federfore even though this will be a bent arm shot, D) closing of racket face at top of backward racket arc as in a Federfore but doing this a surprisingly small bit, E) straightening at elbow to desired bent arm position as guide hand points at side fence (while also straightening) to complete extreme turn of the shoulders, F) using both shoulders and arm completely to conceal racket from opponent, G) refusing to close racket extremely much from a 3.5-3 grip during the backswing to tip off extra topspin. Such exaggerated closing, which won't happen at all on a flat shot, to be relegated to forward swing. But where in forward swing? Well, there are two pre-contact parts-- body then arm. During the kinetic chain characterized body turn then.

To me, the most harmful terms in advanced tennis instruction are "kinetic chain" and "windshield wiper." While both methods of hitting the ball may exist, they lead most players to misunderstanding. An ordinary person never understands that kinetic chain should be as fast as Muhammad Ali's jab. An ordinary person never understands that windshield wiper can happen long before or long after contact but not during the contact-- not if one is pursuing with a single focus the deceleration-acceleration theory of best racket head propulsion in modern ground strokes.

[bottle]

Choreography

Hiding the racket behind the body, endorsed by Chris Lewit in one of the various Tennis Bibles out on the Market, may be an old idea but it is a very good idea. Is there a more graceful way to turn the back on the opponent however than that outlined in # 1028, which took left hand way back before it diverged to point at right fence?

How about starting both hands (connected) toward right fence upon recognition that this will be a forehand. Then, diverging left hand early, keep body rotating backward, which will push said left hand farther toward right fence. Finally, use left hand as the active agent pointing at right fence to pull the shoulders even farther around.

[bottle]

Hand to Control Direction

Sounds simple but isn't. For authority on this question I turn to a present teaching pro, Chris Lewit, and a past teaching pro, John M. Barnaby. Lewit, in his writing, wants us to swing pretty much the same whether we're going down the line or crosscourt. Barnaby, in his various books, likes to pair shots mentally in the exact same fashion.

Reader, please work out your down the center shot all by yourself.

As for me, I follow my frequent method of summarizing someone's idea, but in the summary, distorting or personalizing information to make it my own. "Embroidery," one critic said, a charge which I cannot accept. I shut up unless the first idea gives me a second idea, and I urge other people to do the same.

For a DTL bent arm FH topspin, 3.5-3 grip, with mondo, in the new ground stroke system unfurling here, the racket backswings over the top but not perfectly over the top. Included is a slight component of roundaboutness. That's saying a lot in the context of maximum shoulders turn, but we may need to bring all truths to bear at once to achieve our clearcut goal of returning to an older time, of concealing the racket, of betting on more deception than that used by Roger Federer or any other player who keeps his racket out in the slot where the opponent can see it.

Deceleration-acceleration is the key, and we need sufficient space in which to rip our squnched racket through the top and bottom of a compressed forehand loop. Is this compressed loop a loop within a loop? Depends on how you see things. In any case the wrist regresses while twisting the racket head down. That's half of a loop. The other half occurs in rapid succession as the whole arm twists the racket closed.

Okay, so we apply kinetic chain to make the shoulders fast and furious but smooth. But we take our cue from the poet Robert Frost, who unlike lesser explainers knew where any metaphor breaks down. So we cut off the kinetic chain at the arm. Stop the shoulders utterly and let the just twisted forward arm fly.

For down the line, during the first forward body rotation, twist arm from the hand. For crosscourt twist arm from the elbow but maintain same contact point. In both cases fully extend the bent arm construction (i.e., stay bent) to the outside after contact before returning racket to bod.

[bottle]

Long Arm Shots

Those would be the one hand backhand and the Federfore. The two principles of hand direction remain the same (twist from hand to go down the line; twist from elbow to go crosscourt).

On one hand backhand, I recently learned, with Geoff Williams' help, not to mess with locked wrist as racket accelerates through a small C-loop U-turn (and with body driving this compressed rip, I would add).

On any topspin version forehand, whether long arm or short arm, if one has now found a better place to close racket, one needn't do it at top of the backward loop like Roger-- one less inhibiting and tipping off thing to distract. Follow this advice and you may always be ready to hit a lob as an added benefit.

[bottle]

Note

When you twist from the hand-- properly-- the racket head closes but stays in same relation to hand. When you twist from the elbow, the motion is similar, but the racket head can easily deflect to the inside, something I wish to use.

[bottle]

One Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures (Again)

The arguments never cease with one choice here supposedly better than the others: visual, verbal, kinesthetic, rational, visceral. The one that makes sense however comes from Friends, i.e., Quakers: "Truth from any source."

In the mail, I receive copies of two stapled articles, one that seems to suggest that any conscious idea is worthless since the unconscious does everything, the other a physician's tale about the benefits of good coaching AT EVERY LEVEL in every specialization-- from public school teacher to tennis player to surgeon in operating room.

It's all true, I'm sure, except for the part about conscious ideas being worthless. Clearly we want a hyperlink between conscious and unconscious thought.

Well, I got me a loop within a loop on the backhand side, and it's so nifty why wouldn't I want something comparable on the forehand side?

The best coaches, according to the coach article, seldom talk about themselves. That leaves me out, I guess, unless I'm two persons-- both coach and coachee.

The coachee, he big talk. The coach, he quiet injun.

[stotty]

The best coaches, according to the coach article, seldom talk about themselves.

This is a golden rule, an imperative...unless you are a Lendl or a Tony Roche, of course.

[bottle]

I've had it.