A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

I love this response from the professor's son, too. Especially with its effort near the end to keep the door open just a little. Surely, the philosophy of opposites in all things is profoundly eastern. On the other hand, Brian Gordon, another son of academia, has a great knack for clarifying opposites in The West, right here in the world of dominant gadgetry, and Li Na along with all the other Chinese need to read him. But if they do figure out topspin better, watch out. In any case I subscribe to the late anthropologist/polymath Leonard Shlain's notion that east needs west and west needs east.

When John Escher wants something specific, viz., more racket head speed, he is very apt to write some such post as follows.

[bottle]

The Three Mates of the Pequod

Readers of MOBY DICK have always thought these sailors went down to the bottom of the sea. In reality, however, Starbuck was headed for a coffee chain. Flask (third mate) would discover that all his friends and relatives had joined Alanon. Stubb would become the foundation of a new way of hitting a tennis ball.

To consider furniture number 15 in the article here, why wouldn't a normal person immediately search for practical application?

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/biomechanics/brian_gordon/developing_an_atp_forehand_part_01/

I know I will whether I'm normal or not. Chris Lewit and Oscar Wegner both are fans of the scissoring arm. Well, if you want to scrape that way, here's how to do it better.

And if one stubs one's hand to increase racket head speed in a simple hinge, and stubs to increase rotational speed in upper and lower arms, and already is ripping one's shoulderblades together (scapular retraction) as one pulls them farther apart (scapular adduction), why not start extending legs while compressing them and pro-actively search for every other body place where one can similarly stub?

And how many of these stubbing actions can one perform at the same time? To what extent do we admire conflict and know how to use it in our lives?

[tennis_chiro]

My Takeaway

Yeah...I don't know bottle. Weigh in? Hmmmm....

I read the article...Developing an ATP forehand part 1:The Dynamic Slot. My first impression? Yawn.... I am a little skeptical of guys with phd's as it is. I don't know what they do with their lives. worldsbestcoach comes to mind. A seemingly intelligent, discerning individual, yet he had his problems playing with others. I remember trying to sort out a little donnybrook between the two of you. Sigh...those were the good old days.

Brian Gordon's article? How can one dispute it? The latest gadgetry. Millions of sensors taking billions of measurements. How can one dispute science? Hmmm... But I am one of those guys who is still not certain we ever went to the moon. I am not saying we didn't...I just want to see some more proof. From somebody other than those that serve their own best interests.

To tell the truth...in my opinion...I didn't read anything new. I had a difficult time staying focused enough to read through the entire article. I found it boring...I am not sorry to admit it. Biomechanics isn't my thing. Neither are gizmos or gadgets. I am one of those guys that just wants to get to the heart of the matter. I understand it but what does it have to do with the price of salt? I see everyone else buying into it...that in itself makes me want to run the other way.

The acronym in itself is obnoxious. Words manipulated to add more credence to another meaningless credential to the end of a name. BEST? Get real...in a real sense. More virtual reality. More virtual morality. Orwellian doublespeak. From Descartes...I doubt it.

There is nothing new in the article that I can discern. More rehash from the technique experts. I believe that there is more to the game than zillions of words devoted to technique. For me the game is more about tactics. It is more about metaphysics. More art than science. I would just as soon sum it up in one...and it isn't even a word. Swoooooshhh! Passing the face of the racquet through the path of the ball. Tilden is the book.

No surprise though...this is typical stuff that gives people a warm and cozy feeling these days. Gadgets, gizmos...electronics. It proves it all!!! I don't know. When someone writes the "Bible" on tennis it gives me the creeps. Especially when they recommend following the Spanish or the Israelis or whomever. I, for one, believe that the answer is right at home staring us in the face....but for some reason we don't want to see it. We don't want to acknowledge what the problem really is.

The article? Much ado about nothing. Nothing new under the sun. That is the way I see it. Bigger racquets allow for bigger swings because there is more margin for error to miss the sweet spot. All of the players used as models are using too strong of grips to play all court tennis...except of course, The Man. That is all it is. The rest of it...window dressing. Celine would call it applesauce. A couple of guys getting together in their garage...reinventing the wheel. Maybe part 2 or part 3,4 or 5 will convince me.

I'd love to spend 3 or 4 hours trying to construct an adequate response to don_budge's post, but I just don't have the time. I have to drive to NY in less than 3 weeks for a summer as a full-time tennis pro and … no time. But I can't let this go by…

I love the article. But then, I am always a little too much in love with technology. Harvey Mudd and all that…The trick is what do you take away and use. Some may sign up for an immediate session or franchise with Brian and Rick's BEST, but that won't be most of the people on this site, certainly not me, but there is definitely something here I can use.

I already teach a forehand very similar to what is being advocated by Brian. I have to convince other people that this is a good way to go. Imagine three pros advocating their various techniques:

Pro A. The old timer who has been teaching in the park for over 40 years, get the racket straight back and low early and point the racket to the opposite fence on the followthrough: "I've been doing it this way and it works. It's simple. My students don't have time for all this fancy stuff."

Pro B. Picked up a little information from Oscar Wegner and has had great success telling his students to get the racket back, but a little higher and finish with the back of your right hand on your left ear or cheek. Of course, he missed the part where Oscar said don't take a backswing. But, hey, he's teaching the Modern Tennis Method, he thinks. Unfortunately, none of his students ever learn to hit through the ball.

Pro C. Mr. Classical. He teaches the high backswing, but getting the racket all the way back early. He thinks he's teaching the Lansdorp stroke because he tries to get students to finish like the pros of the 80's and early 90's up over their left shoulders.

Then there I am. I want a unit turn with a tiny bit of backswing to move the racket head off the right shoulder where the hand will have very little additional posterior movement as the racket head moves back through a loop and inside and then onto the plane directed toward the intended target.

Now I have ammunition as to why there is an advantage and benefits to be gained by that type of swing. I feel there are advantages in terms of consistency and accuracy as well, but Brian's study says you get additional racket head speed from doing it this way. It will, however, be the rare student that I will engage in a discussion about rotation, supination, etc. Too much thinking. If, in fact, as Brian states (I think I remember this) gravity is not a significant contributor to racket head speed, I am not convinced that the force it generates is not a contributor to the player's ability to hit with consistency and accuracy because of the the reliable feedback he gets from the drop. Besides, I love telling people to use gravity; they don't charge you anything for it! Perhaps when I was doing my medicine ball drill, I was really engaging the stretch reflex reaction more than calling on gravity, but I don't think it would work without gravity.

The point is, I can definitely say, you get more power by starting without pulling the racket so far back so early. People like power. It's tougher to get them to fall in love with consistency and accuracy. But I argue that tennis always has been and always will be C.A.P., necessarily in that order: Consistency, Accuracy and Power. The more powerful player wins by forcing the more consistent player to play at a speed at which he is no longer more consistent, etc. (I also made up a new one this week: Commitment leads to Competence and Confidence which leads to an Attitude where a player can express Agressivity while Adapting and Adjusting Appropriately with Positivity that ultimately creates an enhanced and Peak Performance.)

Bottom line: Brian's research is a great tool for me to use to backup the unit turn/backswing and type of swing I've been trying to get my students to use. And I suspect, don_budge, that the same could be said for the swing you advocate for your students.

I do want to hear more about the function of the wrist, which I describe as a passive hinge which controls the shot, but is not a primary motor unit, although it certainly makes a contribution; it's primary function is control. I believe it is the forearm pronation and shoulder internal rotation that is providing the power to add the topspin.

don

[bottle]

"The Pro Shot"

The pro shot, as I understand it, is the short angle that obviates the need for an approach shot down the line and finishes the point right here right now with a ping-pong-like slam.

A touring professional, supposedly, will make this shot 100 times out of 100 attempts.

Peter Burwash of Burwash international tennis advised that, if the ball is high, we hit a "lolly." The lolly would be a flat swing with the racket head beveled.

But there are ways to hit good short-angle topspin from low to high when the ball is very low, too. I make this shot 2 times out of 100 attempts but have been trying to improve all of my life.

One time I hit this shot in a match against Frank Partridge, the head piano player for all the dancers at the North Carolina School for the Arts, and a spectator cried, "Buggy whip, buggy whip-- WOW!!!"

Is, reader, a very long and complicated buggy whip the way to go?

Okay, here's a stab at "the practical application" I discussed in # 1157. Using http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ehand_part_01/ for inspiration, specifically furniture # 15 if you count from the beginning and # -9 if you count backward from the end of Part 2, you see a video that illuminates use of the elbow hinge.

I simply want to explore this movement all on its own for the short-angled put-a-way I desire. Not much extension is required, right? And I'll agree with Don that the power for deeply placed topspin comes from upper and lower arm rotations.

(Whether hinging should be used or forbidden as an additive is another question.)

I knew a good player in Virginia, Anita deFranco, who used a pure hinge for all of her shots, but I want it just for short angle. I'm thinking, no loop, racket starts fast for about one third of the downswing. After that it's braking the whole way, building up pressure to make the racket head change direction seamlessly like the top of the backswing in golf.

[bottle]

Cross-eyed, Cross-armed Backhand

The imagination doesn't plod from forehand to backhand, it flies.

Starting with furniture 1 at

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/biomechanics/brian_gordon/developing_an_atp_forehand_part_01/

and all the other repeating videos of Federer et al. in this landmark two-part article, we note that Roger gets his shoulder to his chin very soon. But then he straightens his left arm toward the right fence. What's that about? I used to think the pointing itself was what put shoulder under chin. And then I wondered if Roger was maybe delaying the left hand through the extra extension, marking time as it were. Finally, I saw a little more movement of shoulder under the chin. And concluded that Roger was performing scapular adduction just then.

"Scapular adduction, scapular retraction." Are these terms too much for you, reader? When I found them in Wikipedia I was grateful. Because I had heard teaching pros, even very respected ones apply the term "adduction" to tennis serves without me ever knowing precisely-- in a kinesthetic sense-- what they were talking about.

Scour these repeating videos of Roger Federer for the following phenomena: 1) slow scapular adduction (husking) as left arm straightens, 2) medium speed scapular retraction (arching of back) as racket flips/mondoes, 3) fast scapular adduction (sling-shot) from flip to contact.

Loading and release of wiper are happening at the same time.

Whoops, I just took a shower. Would a person significantly hurt his serve if, before he started his motion, he pressed both elbows toward the net to open out his shoulderblades behind him?

On single hand topspin backhand one can and should try to get hitting shoulder under the chin right away mirroring forehand. Could one be pressing shoulderblades together at the same time? Why not? Hitting shoulder might be a little short of chin, I guess.

As forward hips create same passive-resistant spearing effect in handle, could not the shoulderblades pull far apart? Here is where I propose crossing the arms. I've always admired two-hand one-hand backhands but don't want to use that construction myself. And long ago, I trained myself to drop hitting arm down from left hand.

One could, to learn, cross one's eyes while crossing one's arms. With stroke learnt, one could normalize the eyes.

[bottle]

Experiments in Stroking Technique

It is interesting how, when confronted with any new idea, most tennis players will unnecessarily place themselves in an either/or, right/wrong frame of mind. I seldom see much comfort with the uncertainty and appreciation for opposites of the Feynman-defined scientist. If you come up with an unproductive idea, can you go back? Sideways before you go forward again? Of course!

I've been contemplating the crucial speed of hips pivot-- since that's one of the current forum topics-- and how I started out in tennis thinking about nothing else. I must have been 17 or 18 and already obsessed with another sport-- crew-- but would play in mid-summer against the oldest daughter in a huge tennis family where everybody was a state champion, college captain or teaching pro or in the case of my friend, a totally consistent Chris Evert clone.

She quit a good career in New York magazines to attend Harvard Law School where she cracked up-- had a breakdown so severe that she was obliged to spend the rest of her life as tennis champion of both the males and females in different mental institutions. Ochi, who used to participate in this forum, suggested that I wanted to crack up myself so that I could join her there. No, but he was right about my liking her.

If we played tennis 30 times, the score was 29-1 . The day I beat her, as on all those days, my spin was horrible with much too much side in the mix. I was cranking my hips as fast and hard as I could, and temporarily zoned out, and hit the ball consistently deep.

Later, I read Ted Williams on the subject. He advised 3/4 power for the hips, 4/4 power for shoulders above the hips, with hips starting "marginally" first. And with backward and forward hips motion completely linked-- no pause whatsoever in between. Everybody knows about Ted Williams' hitting, but what about his teaching and the 17-point rise in batting average across the board at the Washington Senators?

Later, too, I met a 20-year-old dude with sciatica from cranking his hips too hard on every forehand. The diagnosis came to me through his father, a physician. Since I now have sciatica myself, I need to remember this.

One of the best but least used words in tennis instruction is the following verb: "to sum" or "summing." Oscar Wegner uses it very effectively in his McGraw-Hill book. And Martina Navratilova while TV-announcing has spoken out against too much sequence.

Sequence and simultaneity can never exclude one another. Life and tennis simply aren't that simple. But as Martina points out, the more sequence there is in any tennis stroke, the sooner the next mistake.

[bottle]

NABRUG Lurking

Like Quilty in LOLITA or his spin-off Q in the early Star-Trek episodes, NABRUG, Der fliegende Hollander, still is scouring all forum posts to find his opening.

And NABRUG, like Malvolio at the end of TWELFTH NIGHT, would say if he were more articulate and knew English better, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you."

Should NABRUG and I ever meet in person, it will be murder at first bite.

NABRUG long ago ceased positing his posts here and withdrew from this website, but much to my surprise, there he was this week in the comments under the following YouTube video, pretending to have read my novel THE PURSE MAKER'S CLASP and claiming that it bored him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

Perhaps NABRUG has access to some tennis club's feed or is just naturally ubiquitous like Quilty or Q.

The form of his literary review was Post # 61 in the "Developing an ATP Forehand Part 1: The Dynamic Slot" thread, a series of "Z's" since NABRUG seldom has ideas of his own.

Give this to NABRUG though.

He knows how to pick a supremely ugly moniker ("NABRUG") and will choose sometimes the very simple course of a blocked, redirected shot.

[stotty]

Like Quilty in LOLITA or his spin-off Q in the early Star-Trek episodes, NABRUG, Der fliegende Hollander, still is scouring all forum posts to find his opening.

And NABRUG, like Malvolio at the end of TWELFTH NIGHT, would say if he were more articulate and knew English better, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you."

Should NABRUG and I ever meet in person, it will be murder at first bite.

NABRUG long ago ceased positing his posts here and withdrew from this website, but much to my surprise, there he was this week in the comments under the following YouTube video, pretending to have read my novel THE PURSE MAKER'S CLASP and claiming that it bored him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

Perhaps NABRUG has access to some tennis club's feed or is just naturally ubiquitous like Quilty or Q.

The form of his literary review was Post # 61 in the "Developing an ATP Forehand Part 1: The Dynamic Slot" thread, a series of "Z's" since NABRUG seldom has ideas of his own.

Give this to NABRUG though.

He knows how to pick a supremely ugly moniker ("NABRUG") and will choose sometimes the very simple course of a blocked, redirected shot.

The question is WHY? Why does he go out of his way to be vindictive? It's one thing to bump into folk in a forum and become heated over issues (It's not something I would do on a forum, but I can understand the temperament of those that might) But to surf the net and seek you out, bottle, seems strange...very important to bury hatchets in my view...lest they eat away at you...

[bottle]

Agreed. And, speaking just for myself, I'll take your wisdom to heart and not indulge myself in further thinking about NABRUG's foul deed even though you appear to be a generation younger than I-- kaff-kaff. (I read a very English book by Geoffrey Wilkinson once. The main character Fotherington Tomas always punctuated his utterances with a "kaff-kaff.")

[don_budge]

Harmless...

The infamous Nabrug who dwells somewhere in the Netherlands. In a word he is a bit of a character. His behavior on this forum was a bit perplexing. I could never get a handle on his angles. Or his tennis philosophy for that matter. Nabrug made a comment about me on one of Don aka tennis_chiro's videos of his serve. I felt rather complimented that he remembered me for some reason. You should feel the same bottle.

For him to comment on your book with the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's is rather amusing. It wasn't the language in the end that prevented me from understanding Nabrug...it was his attitude. Like Stotty notes...he seemed to get vindictive yet never offered up anything of substance to back up his nastiness. I remember him commenting about my letter to Robin Söderling's father and he wondered who did I think I was offering advice to the number four player in the world.

In a word...a character. A bit of an odd one at that.

[bottle]

Yup, good ol' Nabrug.

[stotty]

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about". Oscar Wilde

Hope you two haven't resurrected this bloke...the bait must be irresistible.... might he be lurking secretly in the forum.

[bottle]

Rotorded Kicker Continued: No Pathetic Chain

Complication of explanation level: Considerable. That won't stop me, though. Never has.

The two bent elbows permit a careful monitoring of all loading of a sling-shot.

The only body rotation permitted up to contact is in a backward direction.

The toss and bend then are formed by the elbows in a down-and-up figure 8 pattern doing a double-wind [1) and 2)]: Simultaneously, 1) they pull apart, 2) they revolve backward into the perfect upward slant or "archer's bow" involving the whole body except with chest opened to the sky, 3) The lower body as organic part of this goes up on front toes as rear leg sinks down a bit more.

To describe this a different way, both knees and both elbows line up in similar fashion. One knee gets higher than the other. One elbow gets just slightly higher than the other.

All that remains is a small bit of leg assistance, as small as three inches, however you choose to administer it. The shoulders hold position for this. They already revolved backward and tilted and stretched. Now they're silent.

Leg or legs apply the last bit of tension between the shoulders fully loading the sling-shot.

(Followed by release with shoulders still silent and aslant. Body rotation forward only begins from contact.)

Within the three inches of leg assist (I won't even use the term "leg drive" in this version), the arm goes down and up.

Comment: In the Lloyd Budge contact model for this (see book cover attached to post # 1151), Budge has hitting shoulder higher than tossing shoulder at contact. How did this happen?

The possibilities seem twofold: 1) shoulders rotated forward on their laid back, sky-facing axis, 2) scapular adduction (sling-shot) caused hitting elbow to pass other elbow in height.

In present experiment I choose 2) as my imperative rather than 1) or 1) and 2) both.

[bottle]

Jaegersports

http://www.jaegersports.com/home.php

I just have to include the Jaegersports link once again, advising this time that the tennis serving student go to the videos page and watch EVERYTHING.

Long toss philosophy must apply to serves-- not so much to the almost forceless, all spin serve I'm trying to develop in the previous post-- but certainly to hard serves.

And with some application to all serves, period.

I know JY has, contrary to traditional thought from Tilden onward, discussed some of the ways serving motion is not like a baseball throw, but I think anyone with a specific serving challenge should remain open to every available idea and possibility.

The exercises here for getting blood out to the arm (with musical background), among other things, are pretty interesting, too.

[bottle]

Rotorded, Personalized Kick Serve: Simpler and Simpler

Second to biggest feature is starting with knees comfortably bent.

The big feature is tossing with a bent arm. That's a no no no. And a no, no, no, no, no.

Rules are made to be broken by those who know them.

Just stay firm at the elbow and toss exactly the same way you do in your normal, straight-armed version. Works like a charm.

But accomplish everything you want in the way of body coil and bend right away, sooner perhaps than before.

Then, keeping both feet flat for stability, go up about three inches.

Then release the sling-shot (scapular adduction).