A New Year's Serve

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Here, Sir, is your New Forehand Shrink-Wrapped but Without a Ribbon

Phylum: Animal

Genus: Federfora

Personal Note: I haven't tried this yet.

Narrative: One abandons one's big point across whether using one's other model (the following model other than Roger-- http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...=0&FORM=VDQVAP).

One declares, "I am a snake." In same microsecond one squeezes one's arm into a ball or a coil if one prefers.

From low left wait position, the two halves of one's arm squeeze together at the elbow. The racket then can actually rest on top of tucked in left hand.

The appearance then is of strike readiness but don't strike. Your arm instead feels out for the ball as hips rotate forward and hitting shoulder lowers and left hand naturally rises: the essence of "fast catch" in this case.

One still gets to point across every time one hits one's McEnrueful, using down together up together pattern/rhythm stolen from classic serve.

In the snake shot, very different, one tries for maximum strings-ball interaction for maximum bling-fling.

The cue structure (never what actually happens) is that you hit ball on lower inside then backside dead center then upper outside.

A big shove forehand hit off of a waterwheel is linear in that one's weight travels in a straight line toward ball and net.

Thus snake forehand (at least in this case) is not like that.

The shoving, when it comes, is circular. The power cord or aeronautical banking counters bod and arm circularity by moving shoulder to the outside.

The sideways extended arm should be weak but isn't. I think of a reverse lever, a speed lever, with true power which always is slow power residing in the body core.

Other Notes

1) Mondo occurs in Big Shove and The Snake forehands but not in the McEnrueful. Wrist stays fixed and straight in a McEnrueful.

2) If you are going to have vertical forehand loops why not have horizontal forehand platters as well-- 33, 45 and 78 rpm?

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Three Forehands

The physics in each is an interesting topic. A player is better off however in analyzing cue structure if analyze he must. And he must-- at least to start.

Thus, the New York Times reporter who went down to Florida to take a tennis lesson from Brian Gordon was no doubt correct to muse heavily on what the term "pre-load" means. But probably was helped more when Brian told him to be still pointing at left fence with left hand when his hips fire.

1) BIG SHOVE off of a symmetrical waterwheel. High elbow to lead backswing with left hand low and in close to help turn the bod. Both ends of the racket push on the ball at same time. "Windshield wipe" to occur only after contact.

2) FEDERFORE (an imitation Roger Federer forehand). So nice to see this stroke re-emerge like an old friend. One still employs the image of a waterwheel but this time lets the racket head describe it and not the racket hand. The strings get going in other words. They rise early just like Roger's although I don't hold on to the racket as long as he does. The left hand starts making its way toward right fence straight off. And contact point is farther to the right then for BIG PUSH. The arm straightens as it comes out of bottom of loop-- with wrist and forearm laying back at same time. In both BIG SHOVE and FEDERFORE the racket comes down to the ball, not below it. Although in a FEDERFORE the racket tip is more slanted down. And in that shot the "windshield wipe" starts right on the ball.

3) McENRUEFUL. A very solid if primitive shot in my view. Hit with fixed shoulder and straight wrist. One time I hit five winners with it in a row. The sixth attempt was a horrible ue.

2) and 3) make a big deal out of pointing at side fence. 1) maintains a strict hoop form in which one hand goes down as the other goes up.

Note: Everyone must find his own way. I feel that ideally I am using different arm lengths for all three shots. They vary from 3/4 extended at the elbow (BIG PUSH) to 15/18 (McENRUEFUL) to 8/9 (FEDERFORE).

Grips: Strong Eastern for 1) and 2); Composite (between Continental and Eastern) for 3).

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Forehand: More Feel in the Waterwheel on Some Days than Others

On days when there is less feel, one ought to hit more McEnruefuls (imitation John McEnroe forehands) or at least I should. There is no waterwheel to go wrong in that shot.

But I've been visualizing waterwheels on both sides, forehand and backhand, for quite a while. Now could be the time to investigate just how a 19th century waterwheel in Connecticut actually worked (http://www.bing.com/search?q=waterwh...R&pc=EUPP_DCTE).

If the water came along a sluice into the buckets at a high level it filled each one thus turning the wheel.

I've got nothing like that going for me out on a tennis court but maybe could imagine it. Each bucket would fill then at a point slightly behind my right shoulder.

One would waste no time in placing one's bucket (which would have nothing to do with one's disappeared racket) under the sluice.

That ought to create some wit gathering, space, balance, timing, patience, spin, space, heaviness of ball, margin, etc., etc.

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A New Toss

This stuff is beginning to excite-- me at least-- and is helping me to hold serve.

Dementieva, Safina and Ivanovich-- all retired from great careers in which they never realized their full potential-- failed by too often tossing to the right.

Many men and women even at the recreational level do figure out a sensible toss but only after becoming professional jugglers.

An easier way is to abandon down and up tosses once and for all.

In down and up, the arm gets straight on down.

But one can get arm straight with hand starting much higher.

In a three-count serve, tossing arm now can straighten in second half of first count. The front shoulder is rising just then. The total action therefore could be called one's toss, but I'm choosing to say what comes next, from the shoulder, is the true toss.

True toss over one's head happens as hitting hand performs its cootie search.

That cootie search can create enough motion dependence to keep racket turning to outside of ball without using any muscles that would oppose one's triceptic extension and thus make it inhibited.

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Reduction of detail in a Formy Forehand

"Formy" because the two hands don't get far apart. Could call it a "hoop" forehand. Or a loop forehand
with great regularity of roundness of loop. Or a basic water wheel with fixed buckets.

The detail I wish to suppress or make more subtle is such notions as formation of a power pocket followed by "pulling of the power cord."

I believe that same stuff may still occur but with less conscious effort if one maintains hoop form with the two hands.

Thus, if right hand goes downward as shoulders tilt left hand may go up. And those motions may exist while being very mild.

Early separation of hands may create great roundness (and smoothness) of loop. Although agreeing with those tennis analysts who state that shape of backswing does not really matter, I next conclude-- why not?-- that one should choose maximum symmetry of form.

This will help in developing good cue structure in the future. Less chaos in one's design is a positive feature when it comes to later innovation.

Whatever else I'm doing in backswing I now like the feel of catching (or almost catching) the ball from an on-edge loop.

At that point elbow leaves the barn as part of a big bod push on the ball which makes both ends of the racket rise sharply at the same time.

The small muscle group adjustments of hand and forearm also don't want to be overly conscious (or blatant).

Round loop followed by a big push is best form for THIS player of THIS ability, i.e., the best deep forehands of sufficient margin.

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A Good Morning

Thinking back to two tight sets in doubles early this morning (4-6,6-2), I realize I held serve in all but one game.

And ask myself, "Why did I lose that game?" And realize that I simply forgot half of Braden's "cootie search" as earlier described.

I just had written about remembering something specific-- the "grazing" with palm of one hand-- and then, for one game, forgot it.

A very common occurrence. Human perversity. You tell yourself to do something and then do the opposite. So I tell myself again and hope I won't forget this time.

I suppose that the development of some serve radically different from the one one had is largely a matter of memory and how well one can concentrate-- until the new motion through many correct reps becomes more natural and one doesn't have to think so much.

Because of the length of the first set I never got to play with the strongest possible partner in a third.

A good morning though. The 6-2 win was reversal from same partners two days before.

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Mantra Division of Self-Cue: "Speed, Push, Crow"

"Crow" refers to bent arm scarecrow finish, not to crowing like a rooster. Read Bill Tilden on arrogance in tennis-- the best author ever on that subject. Do not be distracted by his sex life.

"Push" refers to ISR (internal shoulder rotation) once arm is straight. Combined with some netward push by the bod.

"Speed" refers to uninhibited and unopposed triceptic extension of the arm. It is speed without heft and takes strings to outside of ball.

Image chauvinists who think words hold an inferior place in tennis instruction too often fail to realize that A) words may either wallow in lugubrious detail or convey the lightning flash of a cohesive visual image-- perhaps convey it even better than drawing, photo or film and B) words can convey either lugubrious detail or dramatic cue such as a stage actor uses-- not the same at all.

The mantra "speed push crow," while sounding like the 123 of the overall serve proposed here is not the same.

First count in the overall proposal is simple rotation of the hips accompanied by a little drawing back of the elbow followed by simple rotation of the shoulders to take racket down on opposite side of bod, i.e., behind one's back.

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In this Particular Service Development Program

How long can you hold a mostly wound up pose before you toss?

An hour, a week, a year. The pose is "mostly wound up" in that hips have wound, then shoulders have wound, but upper arm (humerus) has not yet wound. Or "twisted." Or "pre-loaded," the term that implies the build-up of conflict or spring one wants.

We have posited, in this design, the toss to be simultaneous with Braden's cootie search, the little palm-down move intended to make us famous by next week.

I held serve this morning after I remembered the sideways component of palm grazing head from right to left. Spring-loading the arm by squeezing the two halves of it together is by itself not enough. There always is unforgiving detail to remember when one is developing a new serve.

Holding in doubles with the new serve was in any case a pleasure. But I want to teach myself something essential; namely, to slow the hips-shoulders sequence, to slow it way down, to slow it and stop it altogether and then wait for a year before the toss.

One won't do this in actual play. One will seek rhythm there in the shoulder winding up toward the sky before one performs the actual toss.

But delay as exercise is in order. There is a place to delay so take it in order to build confidence. How slow can one go through the early phases of this new serve? Very slow.

Eventually in going slow like this one should be able to feel the toss and cootie search as a great gathering of added force.

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Next Step in More Integrated Serve

Steps one and two are out of the way. Step three now gets a bit of modification. As the player (I myself) tosses, he squeezes the two halves of his arm together while performing ESR (external shoulder rotation).

This combined squeezing and counter-rotation of the upper arm is the famous cootie check of Vic Braden. He assumed a small mirror in your palm. And elsewhere while demonstrating said, "This little move will make you famous by next Friday."

So what's so great about the squeeze? It's a squeeze as if against a spring, thus anesthetizing one's countering muscles for faster triceptic extension. To squeeze and then extend may take less time than just to extend.

And what's so great about the ESR, which happens internally within the shoulder? The skittle of the upper arm gets spun one way while trying to spin the other. (Drive bands attached to bony bumps achieve this.)

Again, an example of pre-load.

Does upper arm continue to do ESR as it extends from the elbow? Perhaps from the racket momentum already started. But any muscular effort other than triceptic extension will slow things down.

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Tennis: Not Golf on Wheels but Rowing through Air

The contributor WBTC (world's best tennis coach), unable to keep forum members happy enough for the effective conveyance of ideas, was nevertheless truly provocative in everything he had to say.

Central to his vision of the modern game was the notion that the forehands emphasize their rearward component too much.

Translated, could that mean, "Hit out front?" Yes but maybe don't swing through the ball from back to front, too, and don't have huge loops behind one and possibly some other stuff.

Hit too far out front and you lose power, Lendl pointed out. Hit out front and you hit too flat, Wegner felt. In his first book he used diagrams and text to advocate late contact, i.e., contact almost behind one. And Lendl, an excellent golfer, discussed the difference between basic golf and tennis strokes in the first of HIS two books.

Hit a tennis ball with all the linkage in a full golf swing, he opined, and you throw all control out the window forever.

So one might seek other analogies.

The notion I'd like to bring across from rowing (and for all strokes not just forehands) is that of "fast catch," of perfect interaction between one's strings and the ball before one flings it with topspin.

In rowing, aside from the first stroke one takes on a given day, the water is rushing past at the approximate pace of a champion miler in track.

That's not the speed of light but nevertheless is quick enough so that you, if you want to catch up to it without missing water must do something quicker than the human eye.

You lift from both shoulders. Yet do this in a very unconscious way as if using the oar handle to pick a fly from the back of the person in front of you.

Do this with mastery and you turn the water into concrete against which you then can pry (or explode, depending on whether you are following instructions). Do it perfectly and you don't miss an inch, a centimeter or a millimeter.

Perfect interaction between one's blade and the water is one of the many things that rowing through human history has always been about.

To simulate this interaction in tennis employ Roger Federer to hit a forehand from behind you and by your right side so that you can put your own forehand on Roger's forehand as it zips past.

To return to rowing, now, one finds it easier to achieve a firm catch into a headwind. Why? The water is moving more slowly. Eventually, however, one can learn just as firm a catch in a tailwind.

And fast catch is what we want all the time in either sport. But the actuality is that oncoming ball is easier to put a solid stroke on than Roger's ball coming from behind. One uses the oncoming speed. One adds to it one's own.

So how about an exercise where one person tosses a ball from behind, soon to be replaced by a ball machine until the ball machine pops one in the spine? The idea is a reforming of one's tennis stroke design until one learns to hit all solid strokes, then apply this new knowledge to easier oncoming balls. On reconsideration, why not just imagine all of this?

Summary: Devise strokes so efficient that they stop the ball to make it feel like concrete.

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Tossing into the Serve

would seem to be the next step in a logical progression of service development well under way.

Previously, one may or may not have been successful in producing toss-into-the-serve component, a good idea as all ideas are good that produce any degree of added integration in classical service design. Those serves however were different form. One sometimes has to learn something all over again.

The Friday night tennis social at Detroit's Eastside indoor tennis facility is the best means for this particular player to measure positive or negative change in stroke design.

Call this weekly event a tennis mixer and you won't learn anything. Call it a tennis social and you might.

I arrived an hour early and started self-feed. Half an hour into it a young kid asked me if I wanted to hit. This is an aspect of self-feed that the retarded bastards who criticize it will not have thought through.

The young dude gets to hit against an old guy advancing weird and zany strokes-- in other words, might learn something, i.e., how better to deal with the unexpected.

The old guy gets to hit with a young dude who hits the cover off the ball.

In actual play, I lost my serve once near the end of the three sets when I was bone tired and the never before tried serve began to seem new.

So the 123 idea was fine but beckons to new improvement. How about including backward shoulders rotation in count one? That puts toss and fast catch in count two.

Everything else in count three.

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Evanescence (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...nce+definition)

Of equal interest to the overall Isner-Johnson match recently fought out in the antipodes was one slo-mo sequence delineating a Stevie Johnson forehand.

This shot was characterized by its great extension. By its contact way out front. By its right-to-left windshield wiper occurrring only after the arm extension. And by the windshield wiper taking place both during and after the contact.

If all of these assertions are true (and I welcome thoughtful challenge) the perpetually confused tennis player may ask, "Could completing arm extension before the wipe be a good idea? Or should both happen at once? Or either of these possibilities at different times?"

My personal conviction, incidentally, is that the minute the tennis player becomes unconfused he becomes an arrogant punk.

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123-- Let's Fall in Love (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhxFKwUyGsA)

My giddiness does not extend this time to a new girlfriend or any other living creature (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...ie=UTF-8#q=ewe) but rather to a thing, i.e., my new serve.

Tennis serve went wrong pretty much from the outset in adapting its double form, i.e., tossing mechanism with one side of bod; and winding and hitting the ball with the other.

Let's call anything that knits these two functions closer together simple editing, i.e., a more integrated serve.

So it's one two three: One, hips rotate with hitting hand slowly racing ahead of tossing hand on their mutual level path. I'm all for scapular retraction and arch of the back to take racket more easily back during this initial count.

Two. Toss and shoulders wind (one and the same) to take racket down on opposite side of bod.

Three. Fast catch and fling of the ball.

Although I'm busy right now performing the role of "knee replacement coach" as defined by Ford Hospital West Bloomfield, Michigan, I hope to get to an inside court and try this serve out for the first time tomorrow night.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhxFKwUyGsA)

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Throw like a Girl, Churl

Remember, reader, the 50's and early 60's which still were the 50's, when "to throw like a girl" meant to throw from the elbow? An earlier manifestation of the same phenomenon developed in the 30's: the Heil Hitler salute.

You've got to do this, Yevgeny Vassilievitch Bazarov (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...TF-8#q=Bazarov), lest you spend any of your precious ISR on the way up to the ball. You make that mistake, reader, and your shortened ISR will create a downward component in your spin, just what you don't want.

ISR, of course, is Internal Shoulder Rotation, which is a pun in that it has two different meanings. One has to do with direction, the other with anatomy.

So let's look at a shot-putter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM5DLcSvRtw). Turn off the sound. See the triceptic extension. No ISR at all until the arm is straight and the ball is ready to leave the hand.

(But if you have the curiosity of a normal human being, turn on the sound now and watch the video again.)

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You're going too far. I think you're just a little combative at times.

Well yes for chrissake, I'm a tennis player and a real one.