A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

A Big Personal Implication of Three Katas Close to Service Contact

1) Speed. This to me is the slap of the hi-5 that teaching pros often discuss.

2) Push. This is the famous ISR lauded by sport scientists as the most potent part of any well constructed serve.

3) Turn. This is delayed bod turn.

Please understand that I follow specific courses of empirical change in my tennis posts. Of course I am aware of other lines of thought.

"Speed" is best enabled by treating first half of arm extension from arm squeeze as continuation of body coil. Some raising of shoulder might also occur right then if it didn't occur before. "Speed" or "hi-5 slap" then occurs in second half of arm going straight.

Next comes push. Does push come then before contact? Probably, in which case the ideas "speed" and "slap" may no longer happen at once, i.e., the racket does hi-5 slap but the actual slap of strings on ball comes a nanosecond later.

Doug King, in discussing the three katas of speed, push and turn urges prospective servers to maintain them in distinct sequence rather than mush them together.

I embrace this advice and why not? First, I am a "rotorded" server, i.e., a server like most other servers in the world rather than the double-jointed Sampras or Roddick who can coil racket tip much lower. And we learn (are dogmatically taught, one might say) that long runway up to ball is absolutely essential to producing significant upward spin.

Short acceleration offers a good alternative we don't so often hear about.

[don_budge]

10splayer...a man of fewer words

I'm comfortable in my own skin.

In these six words (or is it seven with the hyphenated "I'm") you capture what Rudyard Kipling so infinitely and eloquently expresses in his epic poem..."If".

[bottle]

Yeah, just leave Rudi, I mean Rudyard alone, just let him go his own way.

[10splayer]

And...which is more...




You are a good man. You impress me with your control. We can all be better men. There's always room for improvement. Here...read this. I am sure you will agree with me.

If...Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And— which is more— you’'ll be a Man, my son!



Punctuation, pronunciation, grammar...mere words. Manliness...quite another thing.

Thanks DB,

I'm comfortable in my own skin.There's no point arguing with a guy like this.

[bottle]

No, I don't like that sentence either. It refers to a special enemy cell. With a special name, "The Legion." If this were a western, the baddest of the bad guys would have a funny name, maybe Cap'n Hook. And he'd have a bronze hook. Maybe be played by Johnny Depp. Anything to glorify the enemy once we've killed him. (We killed him but boy was he tough. We had to be good, real good.)

And we ALL killed him. No more "think you can push around Mr. American." Last week we killed the absolute premier leader of Isis. We got the head of the snake. We've turned this thing around. This is a great day in a glorious world! I feel so alive!

Rise up, dumbasses! Give us the new episode of your wonderfulness next week!

[stotty]

The New York Times. Whoops. Sorry I said that. Everybody knows the Times is awful by now. The thing the critics miss, however, is the size of the thing. On a given day I'll find four things to detest and four to love. As I said, it's awful.

Recently, I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle. I encountered a phrase I've never seen before: "Make America white again." Pretty good. Pretty right to the point. So maybe that's a good paper though certainly not as good as The Guardian.

The Wall Street Journal is noted for its news writing, especially small stories such as rabid cop bites raccoon in barn. But is equally noted for mental retardation on its editorial page.

When we were in England, Hope's son-in-law from the Rhodesian diaspora got me The Telegraph every day while buying The London Times for himself. He never asked but did that every day. So I never did get to the Guardian, am more apt to see some of it online when I am over here which sadly is too much of the time.

Maybe the best course (no of course it is) is never to view anything or anybody as part of a monolith. Labels suck, in other words. But every statement deserves an exception. We all need to recognize fascists so we can stop them.

Thanks!

The Guardian is wonderful. Some of the articles are mediocre, but far more are excellent, some absolutely outstanding. The Telegraph was once THE newspaper for tennis coverage, mainly due to Lance Tingay, but it remained good even after he left. Nowadays their coverage is no better or worse than any other paper.

I just went to NYT and the first thing I read was this:

One by one, American and allied forces have killed the most important of roughly a dozen members of an ISIS cell that the F.B.I. calls “the Legion.”

I didn't like the sentence. However, I will persevere a bit longer.

Stotty

[bottle]

Finding Zero-- Backhand

1) Put TennisOne in search engine
2) Enter TennisPlayer password
3) Click on Doug King: Finding Zero-- Backhand
4) Click on Finding Zero.

For the purpose of this post, click only on this one video, ignoring
the many other tempting choices just for the moment.

There is no shame whatsoever in returning to one hand topspin
backhand basics again and again although I think you'll find Doug's
basics a bit different from anybody else's. My friend John Boros,
director of tennis at Indian Village, Detroit, suggests that improving
one's backhand is a lifetime project for anyone. (He has a one-hander
of course.)

The kata Doug King demonstrates in this backhand video, near the
beginning, is similar to the waterwheel image I now am using for staple
forehands.

In this kata, the arm goes round and around thus maximizing double-ending
effect as one contacts the ball.

But the backhand in slow evolution here will look quite different.

For that matter, once you have added essential big muscle motions (rotating,
rocking, straightening) to the corresponding forehand, that stroke too stops
resembling a waterwheel.

Doug's experiential focus stressing addition and subtraction while using
Nicolas Almagro as example is in my view the best or at least most
useful to me one hand backhand teaching video I have ever watched.

[bottle]

bottle,

I very much like 10splayer's writing. He has a way of hitting the nail on the head despite a few errors here and there.

Where can I read good American journalism? Over here we have The Guardian. Can you recommend a newspaper equally as good over there?

Stotty

The New York Times. Whoops. Sorry I said that. Everybody knows the Times is awful by now. The thing the critics miss, however, is the size of the thing. On a given day I'll find four things to detest and four to love. As I said, it's awful.

Recently, I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle. I encountered a phrase I've never seen before: "Make America white again." Pretty good. Pretty right to the point. So maybe that's a good paper though certainly not as good as The Guardian.

The Wall Street Journal is noted for its news writing, especially small stories such as rabid cop bites raccoon in barn. But is equally noted for mental retardation on its editorial page.

When we were in England, Hope's son-in-law from the Rhodesian diaspora got me The Telegraph every day while buying The London Times for himself. He never asked but did that every day. So I never did get to the Guardian, am more apt to see some of it online when I am over here which sadly is too much of the time.

Maybe the best course (no of course it is) is never to view anything or anybody as part of a monolith. Labels suck, in other words. But every statement deserves an exception. We all need to recognize fascists so we can stop them.

[stotty]

bottle,

I very much like 10splayer's writing. He has a way of hitting the nail on the head despite a few errors here and there.

Where can I read good American journalism? Over here we have The Guardian. Can you recommend a newspaper equally as good over there?

Stotty

[bottle]

My Argument Continues for Free-Wheeling Hoop

The subject here: Keeping form in a forehand. To me that means the two hands never get too far away from one another. I know there are forehands where left hand does get far around. Then the two hands come back toward one another like a lobster's pincer claws. Although these forehands may even be good there is no rule saying I have to like them. When it comes to tennis I'd rather be a dancer than a lobster although in fact I am neither.

I have been hitting with a 12-year-old who's had a lot of lessons. He comes from one of the great tennis families of Cleveland. The adults give the children the basics after which they are on their own.

They proceed to be the captain of a college team here, the number one player on a huge university recreational travel team there, the top playing counselor in a tennis camp, etc., etc.

Judging from my 12-year-old friend's game, his forehand came to him from his daddy, and all the counselors, coaches and college kids teaching tennis for the summer never mess with it.

Semi-western grip, immediately gets racket into a waist high table top next to his bod and not far back at all. A bit of hip waggle lowers the strings then and that's it. A good but not great forehand that he becomes too casual with on occasion. You can see a deadly nonchalance creep into his face. But give him an opening and he'll put the ball away almost every time.

I love the elegance of this shot just the way I love the stripped down forehands and backhands of gzhpcu (see the thread called "Teaching with the Eyecoach").

And will experiment to emulate.

While retaining my waterwheel forehand for more mercurial shots, i.e., exhilarating put-a-ways or complete misses.

The grip for this waterwheel has easternized a bit but not much. And the thumb has returned to a wrap. I've written or tried to write about the new double-ending that starts early and continues through contact in this shot.

I have supposed that the closed strings are opening a little as they push and lift the ball.

True but maybe too simple an overall description. Power pocket and hips going out may open the strings before they close to back of ball and fling it.

Note: I write for discovery not for advocacy.

[bottle]

O WHAT A MAN, WHAT A MAN WHAT A VERY FINE MAN

I like the fact that cute little Freddie Bartholomew, stuck forever in the movie version of Rudyard Kipling's famous tale of becoming a man-- CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS-- does become a manly man as he pantomimes the size of a fish on the long drive from Gloucester, Massachusetts back to Manhattan, with his buddy poor Manuel, played by Spencer Tracy, having had the legs crushed out from under him by a falling mast. Freddie's rich parents listen with attention totally foreign to them, grateful for boyish enthusiasm that was never there in Freddie before. They listen but do they, can they even comprehend? Maybe 2 per cent. Freddie's father, played by Frederick March, is destined lifetime to remain a short attention rich guy with a silver spoon in his mouth just the way the infant Freddie was before. But, the long chauffeured limousine, relentless, continues to purr its way down the east coast back to Trump Tower.

[don_budge]

The Better Man...Pearl Jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbpUfWz-rlc

[don_budge]

And...which is more...

You make me want to be a better man.

You are a good man. You impress me with your control. We can all be better men. There's always room for improvement. Here...read this. I am sure you will agree with me.

If...Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And— which is more— you’'ll be a Man, my son!



Punctuation, pronunciation, grammar...mere words. Manliness...quite another thing.

Nice careful sentence. But you did it. Just like the incredible topspin angle you hit last week. I had nothing to do with either. Was you, all you.

You make me want to be a better man.

[bottle]

And I am eternally grateful for your guidance.

Nice careful sentence. But you did it. Just like the incredible topspin angle you hit last week. I had nothing to do with either. Was you, all you.