A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

Incredible film and photo...

Incredible photo. I didn't realise rowing built up such fine legs in men, clearly it does.

Incredible film....absolutely loved it! I watch a film like that and wonder if any of those men are still alive. Wonderful, natural athletes long since forgotten, by most, one would have thought. I know nothing of rowing but found the atmosphere of the race truly, truly amazing. You sense there was much at stake.

[bottle]

Rowing and Tennis: A Preview of "Boys in the Boat," the Film

hockeycoach was the forum member who most expressed an interest in whatever commonalities there are between rowing and tennis. He's gone! I nevertheless proceed.

Since I recently gave in these pages an imaginary tennis lesson to the late Bill Stowe, author of ALL TOGETHER and stroke of the 1964 Gold Medal eight-oared crew, here is a photo of that crew with Stowe the first tall guy on the left (https://www.flickr.com/photos/thehap...356/?ytcheck=1). The scrawny looking coxswain, Bob Zimonyi, much older than the other guys, defected from Budapest, Hungary to the Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia.

I've tried today to post the Tokyo final from that year, wanted in particular to see if the crew kept their arms slightly bent at the catch as Stowe recounted in his book; however, that film is less widely circulated than other Olympic footage, perhaps because the race was run at night.

The 1936 film is much more available. The film-maker, Leni Riefenstahl, was as Nazi as she was good. This film gives a good sense of the excitement at the core of the current best-seller THE BOYS IN THE BOAT. The Germans were supposed to win. There is a thematic correlation to Jesse Owens track performances and the famous tennis match between J. Donald Budge and Gottfried von Cramm, with Adolph Hitler personally calling von Cramm just BEFORE that match to put some pressure on him and then sending him to the eastern front when he didn't win.

Here, Hitler is in the crowd. The U.S., with his help, got a lousy lane assignment. The race was won by a yard. The film is all about the German crew until the U.S. wins.

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

[bottle]

The first fascination in my case.

[gzhpcu]

Been searching all my life, the endless quest... That is part of the fascination of the game...

[bottle]

Further Assessment

Also, I never had any game. I'm just finding some game right now. How my physique stands up to the new game is another question.

[bottle]

I'm nothing like this. My devices, like yours, are internal.

[gzhpcu]

[gzhpcu]

That's right gzhpcu…everyone else is living in the past. You are the only one who is smart enough and cool enough to be hip, up to date and in the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsCyC1dZiN8

Yeah…rock 'n roll was better years ago as well. Oops…there I go again. Living in the Past.

Very perceptive, you got it right...

[bottle]

Cut the Wire Technology

The phrase "cut the wire," reader, should immediately conjure up for you a huge one-hand topspin backhand, but if it doesn't, well, shame on you.

Me, I've got a small one-hander in which I keep front shoulder down. "Cut the wire" wisdom applies neither there nor to my slices. Simply put, the racket head speed comes from other sources.

But on the biggie I'm now about to institute, I'm going to alter my thought pattern, such course correction lying at the heart of all significant tennis stroke change.

Long, long ago there was a small green book, "the Arco book" that contained John Newcombe's and Roger Taylor's serves, Virginia Wade's forehand and Evonne Goolagong's backhand.

It was a riffle book. You riffled the pages like a deck of cards to animate each one of these four shots. A small bit of text in the margin explained the huge amount of tension created between Goolagong's shoulder and her hand before she suddenly released her racket.

Forget the image now of a waterfall, I'm thinking. A waterfall conveys too much tranquility.

Yes, the racket coming down behind the back does appear in free fall. But tension must build between shoulder and hand at the same time.

For "tension" defined we go quickly to Google: The tension force is the force that is transmitted through a string, rope, cable or wire when it is pulled tight by forces acting from opposite ends. The tension force is directed along the length of the wire and pulls equally on the objects on the opposite ends of the wire.

Next step: Identify the "ends." Front end is the shoulder pressing forward from hips rotation underneath. Rear end is you, the tennis player, holding hand back as arm straightens at the elbow. My new idea, heretical or not but certainly not a thing of the past, shows itself as exhortative or coxswain's command:

Cut the wire.

[bottle]

On Tennis Stroke Invention

I figure it's difficult, and tennis players don't like difficulty, and so they say stuff like "Don't think!"

[bottle]

Seems like she is not the only one living in 1939....

That's right. My father was living then too. AND SHE IS MY MOTHER!

[don_budge]

Living in the Past…Jethro Tull

Seems like she is not the only one living in 1939....

That's right gzhpcu…everyone else is living in the past. You are the only one who is smart enough and cool enough to be hip, up to date and in the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsCyC1dZiN8

Yeah…rock 'n roll was better years ago as well. Oops…there I go again. Living in the Past.

[gzhpcu]

Seems like she is not the only one living in 1939....

[bottle]

Yes, extremely relevant (the year I was born).

[stotty]

I just had to share this with someone...1939 forever. Play the video.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35734889