A New Year's Serve

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Bold Moves

I am tall. My backhand stride is shoulders width when it needs to be that width AND A HALF.

Remedy? Measure shoulders and add half? Put marks on a floor? Nail slats down there set at one shoulders width and a half?

After those measures, another, equally bold: Switch from pre-set method of keeping weight balanced over back leg before the stride-- to the 50-50 method. To quote Lau Jr. (with Jeffrey Flanagan):

"For comfort reasons, other players choose a different way of staying back. They start with the head centered between the feet prior to beginning the stride. They slightly shift their weight toward the back side as the stride foot goes forward. Fred McGriff, Cecil Fielder, and Frank Thomas are all examples of players who choose to keep their weight back in this fashion. The reasoning behind this move is to counteract the forward movement of the stride with simultaneous movement backward of the upper body (hands, head, etc.)."

Not workable? Return to pre-set method or raise leg like a dog (Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Bobby Bonilla) or draw in front foot on toes before stepping out with it.

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Slingshot Again

In all of the planet known as tennis, Tom Avery is one of my very favorite talking heads. I just admire the easy, clear and sympathetic way he explains everything even when I don't think it's the best thing (but most often it is).

The following rap on forehand could almost be seen as switch-over of the progression in one hand backhand I've tried to launch, the essence of which from the baseballers' LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING is "no roll-over until after contact."

Which in tennis could mean the same thing or no roll-over at all. But let's get real by getting something straight: Roll-over during contact when you want to if it's appropriate and you have the skill.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/10456380/tennis_forehand_technique_tips_from_coach_tom_avery_at_tomaveryt/

I have to question something in this video, don't I (?) since one ought to question everything in life or so I learned in college.

The part about continuing the hitting zone by pushing both ends of the racket for six inches or a foot after contact seems old-fashioned and likely to reduce racket head speed when Lau Jr. tells me that what I want instead is pull not push the whole way.

As I opined in # 1935, the significant free arm motion is not at the end or beginning but IN THE MIDDLE of the stroke.

But maybe should go a bit beyond that too.

On both forehand and backhand then, the racket can keep spearing as shoulders from fully cocked gut suddenly change hand direction to form a David's slingshot.

Goal: A maximum collision of ball and racket or "scrape" if you prefer in which extension will be so good that one will gain the same effect of "staying on the ball."

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Adjustment to the Environment

Coldest day in 20 years. Big snow. People going nuts all over the place. They evaporate their personal mojo by using the cold as supposed evidence to deny global warming.

The tennis result for me is that I can't perform my experiments outside, even had to turn back in cross-country skiing when I came to the big field where the powder driving sideways both from the sky and the field itself created wind-chill of 50 below.

So I have to wait until scheduled indoors doubles on Thursday. And how much experiment can one or should one do in an overly brief warmup?

My stroke change opinings therefore are rather abstract even as Marriott unveils sketches for a heated swimming pool at the North Pole.

Backhand: Palm sandwich backswing with horizontal loop for crosscourts, a closer down and up for down the line (quite vertical preparation or forward "feeling") using same basic mechanics and contact point since palm will work itself level out front by then. Forehand: Good lowering of racket head by breaking the unified hips turn into intellectual part (1) where foot is flat and (2) where heel comes fully up on toes and (3) where front leg effectively slams on the brakes since human head won't be stationed too far forward. Serve: Explore, for lower racket tip possibilities eastern forehand end of grip spectrum with different finger twiddles during service motion or before it starts.

[bottle]

Backhand Design Refinement

To a point, the mind doesn't stop in cold, in fact may work better. I'm thinking, that, in a palm sandwich backhand one could finish straightening the arm as foot strides out, then continue to stretch any residual slack out of said arm at beginning of hips turn when rear foot still is flat.

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Snowbound Backhand: Weight but not Head is Over Front Foot

That pretty much is what I want to say. The dynamic weight is in the book CHARLEY LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING. If you ever get to see it, reader, note how the photographed home running baseballers slam on the brake (the front leg) to clear the distant fence with their arm by the knob having taken a solo.

So where is head? Halfway between the two feet but in the case of a pull hitter about one third of the way to the closed front foot.

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Rosewallian Slice Reviewed

In the three backhand slices shown in the Krosero video, Ken Rosewall's racket head slides under the ball to a point slightly lower than where the ball just was before racket continues forward and out to the right.

If I knew this, I wondered if a dig from the front shoulder was responsible (as in Stefanie Graf's backhand slice). Not in today's viewing. Arm and hand produce this important effect which is specifically the addition of controlling spin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR7kvBGntW8

Note the couple in the background of this video slowly walking up the tilted road while getting a good look. Those are smart people. Everybody else on the planet known as tennis probably is a dope.

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Something can be Either Provocative or Foolish when you Don't Agree

I don't agree right now with the presumption that a topspin one hand backhand requires a huge straight armed and mechanical looking loop to generate sufficient racket head speed.

In fact, many persons trying to use this method will achieve maximum RHS too soon and therefore will hit decels and won't get around on the ball in time.

The key, in the present learning progression I am using for backhand drives, saves loose arm motion for the middle of the stroke and looks like hitting off of the back foot although in reality that doesn't happen.

This hard drive also looks like straight back preparation-- just too simple?-- but again is not what it appears.

Whatever one would think of it once one understood it, one would have to concede that it is closer to the bent arm, straight arm combination of the most well known topspin one-handers on the tour.

I've been trying to describe these Lausian swings after the model provided in CHARLEY LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING for some time, so if you want to take me seriously, reader, please look to the posts before this one or even better to the baseball book itself.

And if I want to take myself seriously, i.e., produce entirely positive experimentation, then I will continue to hit some backhands as fully realized as those in old man doubles this morning, only with more topspin while still without the roll-over at contact that inevitably shortens extension.

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Turning the Corner and Fatness of Hand

The main topic, reader, is mildly topspun one hand drive backhand if you didn't guess that.

I've wondered ever since witnessing a high level tennis lesson in a huge inflated white bubble in the middle of Budapest which languages are best for the instruction of tennis. Old English is good for many things but maybe not for tennis technique.

The phrase "turning the corner" for example doesn't mean much if one hasn't understood that 1) corner happens fast and 2) could be synonymous with "slinging the racket head at the ball" but might refer to the total action in which a minor action is enclosed, 3) direction is equally up and out, 4) roll but not roll-over is involved, 5) home run hitting power comes from body rotation setting up a tug-o-war with early establishment of arm glide, 6) This is David's slingshot whether Old Testament or not or whether one goes to a Christian church every Sunday or not.

Or so I would have it.

The phrase "fatness of hand" is more straightbackward. Arthur Ashe, who put almost no hand behind his handle but curled wrist instead, was quick to advise udders to put more beef behind. "Udders" of course is a word used by Andre Agassi in the phrase "give to udders."

The most interesting photograph I've seen on this subject is the tennis instructor John M. Barnaby bonking a netpost with the karate edge of his fist.

(My readers now absorb themselves in karate for five years before returning to this post.)

Just think about a palm sandwich swing. One palm faces down, the other up with racket handle the filling in between.

If one has arrived at this pose from a flying grip change, the racket is behind one and the hitting arm is somewhat bent.

From there, as one takes a one shoulders width and a half stride, one can slightly straighten upper body (backward!) and finish straightening the arm and turn the racket slightly around one's body to the inside with all of this happening at once.

The hitting palm no longer is parallel to the court. The goal will be a return to parallelism or palm down at contact.

One's head is between one's feet, not strictly over one or the other. This is the body cylinder that golfers think about.

Hips start spinning before arm glides. Racket knob then glides on a beeline toward ball as hips complete their rotation to fully lift up heel on rear toes.

A beeline? Yes. Charley Lau Jr. thinks hands should twist bat down a little at the one-fourth part of forward home run swing but I already took care of this as I finished straightening my arm to enable a slightly upward beeline uninfected by any downward dip.

To hit the ball one rotates one's shoulders which snaps the strings simultaneously forward and around and up, restoring palm downness or "solid bonk" for coming off the ball into a followthrough hugely extended toward the target.

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Progression Progression but is there Progress?

Sara Sessions, the tennis social organizer, gave me a 5.0 partner-- I took backhand side and we won 6-0, 6-0 . Before that, there was a half hour hit with my golf caddy friend Victor and two other sets which I and my other partners did not lose either. Why did I have a good night? Because I was working on my backhand and forgot to be bad.

This reminds me of Steve Navarro winning a golf tournament in central Sweden because he was thinking about keeping his chest on the ball. Or Jack Nicklaus saying that he has changed his strokes every day of his life.

Other players in all sports never think that way. They have already put in their experiment and practice time, don't you know? So they think about strategy or psychobabble or like my painterly 4.5 ex, about clouds-- best of all if you are this kind of person.

I'm not. And I obviously have great fun with my perpetual experiments and need to learn never again to doubt the efficacy of them.

So how was my backhand? Miserable. There were one or two good ones but no great ones like two days ago when whatever partner I had along with me lost every set.

I think I need the baseballer's classic launch position if I'm going to learn from the Charley Lau's senior and junior (45 degree implement just off rear shoulder).

Junior sees lower and upper body triggers: 1) Front knee turns in as hips cock to explode and 2) Hand and arms go out behind you as you stride.

But how does a baseball stride compare to a tennis stride when hitting a backhand? The baseballer starts at shoulder's width. He then strides another half shoulders width.

The tennis player props on rear foot if he ever listened to Tony Roche's "Prop, Prop! I'm telling you, PROP!" But where is front foot as one props? In various positions. But can one turn in knee and cock hips no matter where front foot is? Why not?

The trick is to achieve-- on stride-- the equidistance of dynamic balance (head halfway between feet with there being a slight tilt from back to keep weight on balls of those good feet).

The baseball player already has this pose waiting for the ball. And recreates it as part of the re-plant. The tennis player on the other hand must achieve his dynamic balance and equidistance in one swell foop.

My last new concerns: Was not at all happy when I lowered racket tip to inside as I stepped out. No, one steps out and then lowers to a farther forward place close to the body as part of a bowling action slightly to the outside. There is no way I can take knob on a beeline toward the ball without bowling it.

Also, I cannot afford any more to think about delaying knob while hips start to explode.

I need to let go.

[don_budge]

Charlie's Laws...apply to Johnny Escher and Johnny McEnroe

This reminds me of Steve Navarro winning a golf tournament in central Sweden because he was thinking about keeping his chest on the ball. Or Jack Nicklaus saying that he has changed his strokes every day of his life.

I need to let go.

Wow...how cool is that? To be mentioned with Jack Nicklaus in the same paragraph when discussing something related to golf...or tennis, or baseball swings for that matter.

Say there Johnny...I have been following your discussion with keen interest. All swings have something very much in common. All swings that are properly engineered, that is. Be it a a baseball bat, a tennis racquet, golf club or hockey stick. In golf for instance there are certain fundamentals that putting strokes, chipping strokes and pitching strokes have in common with the driver swing. In tennis...be it a forehand or a backhand, volleys, half-volleys, all share certain fundamental characteristics. There is always some wiggle room...but I always recommend being Fundamentally Correct (FC).

One of the most important Fundamentals of Swing when applied to any of the aforementioned objects is to keep your chest on the ball.

Just for the sake of it...point your right shoulder a bit downward at the incoming ball. Put the racquet back on the same line of your shoulders and step to the ball on the same line. Left elbow pretty much attached to your left side and hip.

Here comes the forward motion...turning the shoulders while simultaneously pulling the racquet butt at the ball to begin the swing. Keeping the racquet on the same line with the shoulders will happen quite naturally. Once your rotation gets to the point where the chest is on the ball keep it on the ball...which should be slightly before the point of impact...then the racquet arm should be whizzing through your field of vision if you keep your head down and stay behind the ball. After impact and follow through the chest should still be on the ball tracking it.

One more thing...with regards to the left hand. Keep the left hand on the racquet long enough to get the thing going forwards. It is actually a two hand swing...the left side of the body must be engaged. Just as the batter's right hand side is engaged.

This Johnny does a pretty good job of it...and I now believe that his grip is the eastern side of continental. Due to the experiment of last year. But doesn't it appear that he gets his "chest on the ball" right about the moment of impact. Doesn't he keep it there and allow his arm and racquet to swing up and through the ball? It sure looks that way to me.

See the three lines of shoulders, racquet and feet...ala McEnroe backhand. For righthanders...just pretend you are looking in a mirror.

Front view...

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterFront.mov

Rear view...

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterRear1.mov

I trust that none of this breaks any of Charlie's laws...and we all sort of need to let go as well.

I swing a baseball bat left-handed and swing a golf club right-handed. I throw right-handed and play tennis left-handed. Perhaps that accounts for my fascination with mirror images.

This guy did a pretty good job of keeping his chest on the ball as well...here he is running wide and he still manages to do it on the full run...ala Don Budge. The real one as Doug Eng discretely put it.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DBBHSide.mov

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Two Hand One Hand for a High Ball

Never swing at anything above the hands.-- Charley Lau Jr.

Yup, Steve, great. But my Quicktime Plug-in 7.7.1 has crashed. Hope to get around that soon.

Adjectives I really like in the Lau book are "liquid," "sweet," "one-piece."

Stan Wawrinka's one hander surely does open up the possibility of more shoulders rotation than we were taught.

Billie Jean's shoulders used to be square to departing ball at end of her backhand.

If following the Lau Jr. prescription for Big League hitting one can just set down front foot and bust the hips around while pulling on the knob with one hand or two but not pulling with the shoulders yet.

Now let the shoulders release to change direction of the front arm spearing action that the Laus admire so much in a Little League or any league swing.

The cover of LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING has a small kid with good front arm extension on the right, a slightly bigger kid lifting front leg like a flamingo only with knee turned in on the left, and Barry Bonds in followthrough in the center with amazing symmetry of all body parts.

If Bonds is using steroids he is using them well in that photograph.

His hips are centered between his feet. His front leg is straight and braking on a great backward slanting vector. His two shoulders form a straight line with his bat.

That indicates to me that if I really want to incorporate a Big League home run swing into my backhand I need to keep the free shoulder motion going after my spearing to the outside.

If I didn't my implement would not line up with shoulders the way Bonds' does.

I'm thinking that for a high ball I ought to use a two hand one hand to solve Roger's problem with Rafa once and for all.

For a low ball from standard baseballer's launch position (45 degrees implement just off rear shoulder) I'll bowl down and up getting closer to body and be one-handed for a longer proportion of tract.

I appreciate your latitude in de-emphasizing the difference between two handers and one handers.

The Laus certainly do that in advising a single pull from knob-adjacent hand the whole way whether it's a two hander to finish or two hander one hander (one hander from contact) or baseball or golf.

My upper New York state older brother-in-law Allie Malavase, despite two knee replacements, hits all kinds of home runs batting this way and keeps on winning golf tournaments and says swing for both is the same.

He wasn't quite as good a golfer as my father but I would play nine holes with both of them and then feel pretty inadequate unless I had just won a mixed doubles best ball tournament with the arthritic niece of Katharine Hepburn, yeah the little one who married Sidney Poitier in GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER.

We won because I hit long and she hit short and careful, even "cherce," you might say.

From the Talmud though Escher is a Swiss name (and I know you already know this): "A lesson taught with humor is a lesson retained."

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No Reinvention of the Wheel

My skunk tail slice is too important to my game for me to use different structure for any other backhand save roll-over topspin at somebody's feet or short off the court.

Last week I hit my skunk tail slice to my diagonal opponent. He then turned to his doubles partner and said he missed the shot because he was trying to figure out how I hit mine. Not a tactic to count on, so next time I see the fellow I'll tell him how to hit that shot if he wants to learn it.

Go to skunk tail position while cocking hips enough to turn front knee in. (I think I'll call this "cocking the lower body.")

Adjust vertical racket to the 45-degree slant known in baseball as "launch position" while stepping out closed and straightening the hitting arm. (I think I'll call this "cocking the upper body.")

Land on flat foot but more on heel, reader, and pivot hips for all you are worth and fully enough to lift rear heel up on toes and swivel front toes two inches around while laying down rubber. Pull knob with hitting hand toward ball at same time. Left hand can stay on racket as passive guidance for part of the way or all of the way for a high ball as I have suggested although this still is personal theory not yet developed in practice.

Now swing both shoulders and arm freely from THE SHOULDER with combined motion creating huge extension. (You need physical strength for this!)

In the case of slice, because of continental grip, the strings can slide down from ball just a little before they fly out and to the right (if one is a right-hander).

In the case of drive, because of palm sandwich grip, the whole hand stays naturally behind the butt rim through contact, or put another way the strings stay naturally behind the hand by a lot.

In both of these strokes there need be some forward roll to ball but none after the ball. Hand and racket roughly retain achieved position relative to one another to the end of time and followthrough.

Note: I'll probably keep the shoulders fairly closed and let the arm do the work in a slice and save the two shoulders turn plus arm swing for full drive.

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Grip-Shots by Top Photographer at GM

FIRST SHOT: A palm sandwich with both palms parallel to floor and racket handle in between.

SECOND SHOT: Same structure but now the palms are vertical, i.e., perpendicular to floor.

THIRD SHOT: Same structure but now the palms are diagonal to the floor ("launch position" from baseball).

FOURTH SHOT (one fourth through forward swing): Palms are now less than parallel to the floor, i.e., the plane they form slants somewhat upward at the ceiling of the War Memorial in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

FIFTH SHOT (contact): Whatever the plane of the swing the width of the hand is entirely behind the ball and on that plane lending beef.

SIXTH SHOT (followthrough): Great extension but who should care about tilt of the sandwich any more once ball is gone?

SEVENTH SHOT (contact point of a soft topspin passing shot either to opponent's feet or short angled off of the court): Because of roll-over and short extension and lack of weight behind this stroke, the knuckles have turned toward the target.

Actually, none of this happened so I can't reproduce these pictures here. The photographer for General Motors was doing a shoot of the hundredth birthday of my friend Frieda Johnston, a tennis player, skier and motorcycle rider whose parental family originally came to Detroit from Buchavina. To me, from having been a ghost-writer of resumes, a person carries all experience in every present moment.

The photographer did a great job but neglected to intrude upon my thoughts.

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Turning the Corner and Great Extension

Reader, what is tennis to you? And how is what tennis is to you different from what tennis is to me? Tennis pros may tell you not to get hung up on the really technical stuff in the game but here I am precisely in that boat.

Played seniors doubles this morning. The newcomer in our group was the Director of Tennis at Indian Village, Detroit. He has flat hard ground strokes impossible to read.

Against him and a very good defensive player, my friend Ron Carloni and I got behind 1-5 but pulled out the set 7-5 . Then the new fellow and I partnered and again I found myself down 1-5 . How did that happen? Fatigue? At some point my partner said we would come back and we finally did, getting the score to 4-5, but we couldn't pull out the set.

The new backhand worked pretty well but the finer points aren't completely mastered yet. I'm partial, I think, to stride on a 45 rather than 90 degree angle to the net. More of the extension then gets on the ball, it seems to me.

At Hope's 70th birthday party I spoke with an 11-year-old prodigy baseball player whose last name is Vanderbrink. "When you're hitting, Nick, do you use your lead hand to pull the knob at the ball?"

"Yes!" he said.

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Letting Go through an Accumulation of Excruciating Detail

Sounds like a very sick joke but actually is a serious recipe for a blending of form and content, of passion and discipline.

The detail has to be THE RIGHT DETAIL, doesn't it (?!), and the prescription may not exist in any book or virtual or real tennis lesson but has to be found by an individual tennis player determined to make such discovery.

If you don't try at this, nothing happens-- you stay roughly and forever at your own personal level of mediocrity.

Subject today: Beefy bonk one hand backhand which would be a drive characterized by maximum amount of hand behind the handle-- a shot that will exist only in one's imagination until one learns to hit it each and every time one chooses to hit it.

Is the Trail to this shot as long as the Appalachian from Stone Mountain, Georgia to Mount Ktaadn, Maine? Probably. (There are a lot of different available spellings for Mount Katahdin so why shouldn't an American Literature major choose that of Henry David Thoreau?)

Yesterday, in seventh week on the Trail, the wisdom of skunk-tailed Rosewallian slice began to seep sideways into this stroke.

The skunk tail came from a surviving film strip put up here again and again by Rip Stott, Phil Picuri and myself. It is called 1954 DAVIS CUP-- remember those words and put them in a search engine any time you want to see the video-- the quickest way to get there. Ironically but perhaps only in my own mind, the foremost modern imitator of Rosewallian Slice, Trey Waltke, chose not to use skunk tail but went directly to what is known in baseball as "launch position." Study the following visuals of Trey Waltke to see this:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/classiclessons/trey_waltke/the_slice_backhand/the_slice_backhand.html

Lau Jr., the very good baseball batting coach, teaches his people of all ages to do this, explaining that sluggers of all stripe start with the bat in exotic positions but then all change to "launch position," so why not just save time and avoid slumps and simplify by going directly to launch position in the first place unless something else definitely is working for you.

Well, "something else is working for me," and now I want to modify it for a solid drive with a modicum of topspin for repeatability of the best two or three backhands I hit in my life, which suddenly happened during backhand service returns from the ad court one week and a half ago.

These shot were hit from waist high straight back palm sandwich preparation, something I don't want to use any more since I only hit the great backhands three times in a two-hour doubles session. (I am very greedy, don't you see.)

So, if you are playing against me in either singles or doubles, reader, and you watch me go directly to launch position, you may not be able to decipher my grip but will nevertheless know that I am about to hit a drive, not a slice, and you can use this information to beat me, but that's all right.

Most players of course never notice such a fine distinction or distinction in general, and deception in tennis except possibly at the very highest level is overrated. As Stan Smith once said while teaching his flat forehand: "The ball will be so well hit that disguise won't matter."

From a design standpoint, I'm copying the rhythm and uniform bite sizes of the three slices by Ken Rosewall in the Krosero posted 1954 DAVIS CUP video without copying the skunk tail there.

I only would use the skunk tail if I were hitting the underspin used by the batters in the instructional book LAU'S LAWS ON HITTING by Charley Lau Jr. with Jeffrey Flanagan and forward by George Brett.

Equal Mouthfuls
The difference between skunk tail and launch position is the same as launch position to palm sandwich from which the change to low point at one fourth of the dynamic forward swing is just the same amount of clock face again.

Did I try this? Not yet.