A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Toward an Integrated One Hand Backhand System: Point with Arm not Racket

Most learning in tennis occurs through sensory cues-- from something that looks or tastes good to something that pulls a hamstring or is too loud or stinks.

Just within the visual realm, natural science illustration can get into places where photography can't, imagery within language into places where neither can.

Most people of course had at least one English teacher the guts of whom they detested. In my case the number is over ten. We former students are apt to be overly dismissive of language, and everybody-- increasingly-- sees dry, stupid, glib verbiage being used to make specious pronouncements.

Well, where were we?

We were pointing with our forearm at a spot somewhere along the side fence so that after our step-out turned the shoulders an extra amount the forearm would be parallel to the sidelines.

This was for a flat backhand derived from the seminal book ED FAULKNER'S TENNIS in which Ed and his co-author Fred stayed purposefully vague about height of cheated over racket in waiting position for a ground stroke.

They probably knew that if they used the terms "racket tip" or even "racket head" they would lose the attention of their language-hating reader once and for all.

So they posited instead "racket at level of shoulder." And then after forward hip turn straightened arm at the elbow, "racket at level of waist." From which I inferred "racket parallel to court."

So that is flat with a nice slow arm swing upcoming to get the racket tip around to the ball and up and out.

In topspin and slice shots I want to use one formula with its horrid implication for tennis that logic can somehow apply (an attempt by me at sarcasm has just occurred).

On initial turn whether or not accomplished over several running steps get forearm perpendicular to rear fence so that it will turn farther with one's diagonal step out.

For cut the wire topspin early flattening of the wrist during this process will point the racket tip where-- who cares?

For backhand slice, early winding open of the racket will point the racket tip where-- who cares?

In both cases one can point with the forearm to the same place.

[bottle]

Popular Views of the John McEnroe Forehand

Hey, I've got a personal investment in making my McEnrueful work. In one match almost nobody was able to hit one back. In another I sprayed all over the place.

While reading a million views of John McEnroe’s forehand, I was struck by how far off the mark they usually were. I felt that most of these online comments were written by people who had never tried to hit the John McEnroe forehand or adapt it like me—not once.

Why would they make that effort when they had been told that the JM forehand is a lousy forehand, which it isn’t. These people appeared thoroughly brainwashed in other words.

Just one example of a view that wasn’t “spot-on” (in my view) although that was exactly what another person's crackbrained opinion called it:

The view was that John McEnroe hits his forehand close to the body when actually there is good separation.

Watch this video carefully.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_forehand/mac_forehand.html?MacFHCenterCourtLevelRear4.mov

He takes racket back like a pendulum close to his body.

He swings racket forward slightly away from his body.

He does not take racket forward on same trajectory he used to take it back.

To repeat:

Elbow close to body going back.

Elbow slightly away from body going forward.

Compare with Ben Hogan's golf swing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_6M_xZvq0

Ben's elbow comes up to plane of body.

But he isn’t Sam Snead, he’s Ben Hogan, so the beginning of his forward swing is less precipitous, i.e. not steep and upright.

For a golf swing Ben is hitting the ball pretty flat, one might say, with a bit of a baseball swing in there.

The first transition is just at the beginning of his forward hips turn which is the lynchpin of his great swing (hips revolving while they go out).

You can see hands go away from body not stay close to it.

Just as John McEnroe’s hand goes away from body rather than stays perfectly close to it.

[klacr]

"Is simplicity best? Or simply the easiest?..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3phAqQeMMcc

Speaking of Depeche Mode, This date in Music history...26 years ago Depeche Mode sold out the Pasadena Rose Bowl for their Music For The Masses Tour. Wish I could have been there, but I was 6 years old. June 18th, 1988.

Bottle,

I like your thread. The learning process can be a treacherous one. It can also be greatly rewarding. The funny thing about experience is that you only get it just after you actually needed it.

Sometimes learning a new stroke or enhancing an existing one is more about the process than the actual result.

There is no right or wrong way to hit a shot, however, there are better, more economical and efficient ways to do it. As long as specific technical checkpoints are met, your stroke can be effective. Try to copy my strokes and we may end up looking completely different. Avoid copying my strokes and we may look more similar than you had hoped.

Keep doing your thing bottle. I enjoy the thread, your exploration and your discoveries. The rabbit hole goes deep my friend.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[bottle]

Thanks so very much, Kyle. I may have needed this. Everybody needs this.

Dépêche-toi et va mettre un manteau.
You'd better run and get a coat.
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Dépêche-toi, je dois faire vite.
I've got to be gone by four.
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Senpai, Depeche toi!. (Hey, the short angle and flat ball marks fell off.)
Senpai, hurry up!
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Dépêche-toi, Scout!
Hurry up, Scout.
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Dépêche-toi!
Quick, come on!
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Dépêche-toi!
Come on, man!
•
•

[bottle]

For Good McEnruefuls, Line Up Tennis Ball With Third Eyeball On Opposite Arm

One may as well switch off numbers one, two, four and five.

The opposite arm of course glides "from the gitgo" toward the side fence. "From the gitgo" is an expression favored by salesmen.

Reader, if you want to call opposite arm the flying wing in a jetplane that only has one wing feel free to do so.

In a Federfore hit from high left waiting position you would use left hand on racket to follow the baseline and thereby turn the shoulders.

You then would point across with left arm to turn the shoulders more as you patted a dog with hitting arm. As you did so you would site the oncoming tennis ball with imaginary eyeball one or with imaginary eyeballs one and two if you were trying for depth of vision.

Not in the McEnrueful where you want to be more single-minded and therefore only use imaginary eyeball number three.

Here the crossing arm accomplishes all of the shoulders turn, in fact provides as little or as much of that as you want.

Imaginary eyeball in the center of your flying wing can light up the night and prepare a new racket trajectory to the outside as you change direction from backswing to foreswing using a perfect replica of the hip action in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_6M_xZvq0

If we view our own and all tennis strokes from high above with Jovian detachment, we may reach this conclusion:

In both the McEnrueful and the John McEnroe forehand there is more solidity between body and arm than in the typical Federfore. (To whom do I owe this information?)

[bottle]

Johnny Mac and Ben Hogan Go Inside Out

Sorry, I can't figure where the McEnrovian heel of hand is no matter how many videos I watch.

I know where John's base knuckle is because he told me in his autobiography.

So I'll just make up the heel part, i.e., do what I want. The McEnrueful is a forehand peculiar to me anyway, so why should I worry any more about what other forehands it resembles? The big question is, "does it work, i.e., did I just hit a winner?" and bigger, "Is John McEnroe a heel?" Of course not.

This little stroke of mine-- The McEnrueful-- has undergone a big change just in the last 24 hours.

Out of all of Steve Navarro's readers, only five dared to give an opinion on whether there is flip in the John McEnroe forehand.

That result was inconclusive enough to leave Steve's laudably insistent question hanging in the wind.

So here finally is my personal answer with no ands, ifs or buts.

No flip. No whipping forward with racket barrel like a flashlight coming toward Mrs. Bollettieri in the wee hours.

That happens in my Federfore, not in my McEnrueful, the ticket for which is the following video viewed more than 2 million times.

Reader, you may ask why I post this video over and over again. Simply because it is the greatest swing video-- in any sport-- that I know.

Just put the name 'Ben Hogan' in a search engine and you will find yourself poring through reams of newsprint and video none of which comes close to the quality of this here video, where less is more and the plainspoken man holds forth himself immediately after winning a major.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_6M_xZvq0

The shoulders and arms follow the hips, Ben Hogan says.

So don't be a dummy, reader, just do it.

You can thread a golf club behind your neck to see how solid connection works but leave the exotic experiments there.

A golf club. A golf pin from the sixth green. Or a tennis racket. Threaded from hand to hand behind your neck.

Perhaps through some grievous mistake you had been staying too close to body and bowling hand toward the ball confident in the knowledge that arm roll sending racket through and up the ball in 50-50 proportion would find a decent and workable pitch at contact. You can rest assured that now, although the same principle will still apply, you need less roll.

That is what happens when solid arm and body connection makes you feel that your hand is trailing behind you even as you hit the ball out to the side and in front.

The racket achieved separation behind you through the McEnrovian pendulum backswing.

The separation, preserved, rotated to the side.

As spinning hips glided out to the target like a skittle on the march.

Here's another video that's pretty good. Try turning the music off halfway through and at the start of any viewings after that?

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

[don_budge]

Nine holes...Hoganesque

Here's another video that's pretty good. Try turning the music off halfway through and at the start of any viewings after that?

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

One of my favorite clips of all time. Hogan on the most important part of the golf swing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_6M_xZvq0

Pretty good? Gene Sarazan said of Hogan's round against Sam Snead on Shell's Wonderful World of Golf that it was the best round he had ever witnessed.

I played last Wednesday for the first time in three years with my American buddy...The Ugly American. It was flawless from tee to green and if I could putt and chip it would have been sub par.

There was only room for one swing thought all the way around the 9 holes that I played. It worked but I cannot remember what exactly it was.

[don_budge]

The music...

The music in the video sounds like Ennio Morricone...n'est pas?

[stotty]

The music in the video sounds like Ennio Morricone...n'est pas?

Morricone...prolific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLXyVwaC5qU

[bottle]

Pretty good. I'm getting into it. But I've always been a sucker for pan pipes ever since first watching Peter Weir's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK.

[bottle]

Short Angled McEnrueful

Some people wonder why I write about the McEnrueful so much.

There is a lot to say. And this stroke gets sadder and sadder the more it realizes that it isn't the McEnroeful.

The McEnrueful changes the face of the person hitting it, too.

Longer and longer grows his face (or "countenance" if one is thinking of The Knight of the Rueful Countenance).

There is progression here not toward bestiality as in the case of Dr. Jekyll but regret and longing and chagrin at lost opportunity.

For sharper angles one can perhaps send one's backward pendulum more to the outside.

The one piece shoulders turn happening at the same time should bring the total racket movement inward to precisely where you want it and no more and no less.

The left hand gliding across toward side fence from the outset should provide good cover and distraction from this plot.

The big mistake in all of these McEnruefuls I'm pretty sure is to treat the backward shoulders turn and the backward pendulum drop and rise as if they are disengaged from one another.

The backward racket work and shoulders turn can conclude at same moment but did these two phenomena speak to one another along the way? Doubtful.

I play with anthropomorphism here-- not usually a good idea-- but shouldn't one goal for effective strokes be a less mechanical and more live arm?

Other big considerations come from pursuing the perennial single vs. double trajectory discussion endemic to golf and to tennis too the minute one opens oneself to the golfiness (pun) of John McEnroe's forehand.

Is not a single path for backswing and foreswing most simple? And does not this philosophy provide last instant rehearsal?

Reader, I leave the answer to you.

Online however you can find refutation of those golf pros who insist that Ben Hogan followed the one path.

One voice short on energy and croaking from the grave points out that Ben compared action of his right arm to a shortstop in baseball throwing combination underarm and sidearm to first base-- a clear argument for a second trajectory unlike Ben's first.

The McEnrueful however-- and for that matter the McEnroeful-- burlesques the straight arm and not the bent arm of golf thus leaving us again without the simple answers we crave.

[bottle]

Four Different Heel Positions Equals Four Different McEnruefuls

Put big knuckle on 2.5 for all four...but, heel on 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 equals four different forehands.

[bottle]

Articulated Reticulated Python Shot

That would be short-angled one hand backhand topspin service return from ad court in seniors doubles.

One will no doubt be tempted to hit backhand slice to the same place (short T) if one owns that shot.

Don't always do it.

The scheme is to use as handy departure point the basic square strings minimalist looped flat drive discussed here in recent posts.

That shot starts from shoulder level and progresses to waist level. It consists of a firmly connected shoulder turn and a simple lowering from the elbow only, to place racket length parallel to the court.

The forward swing then is smooth and slow-- and one-handed!-- from this rearward position, allowing the racket tip ample space in which to come around.

This swing could otherwise be described as level followed by easy lift with the racket staying on edge from beginning to end.

We or rather I now wish to preserve this reliably even rhythm rather than resort to other more violent and usual forms of 1htsbh-- specifically the genre of spearing, flashlighting, swinging with two hands part of the way and the "cut the wire" formula which involves the two hands pulling against each other before a big release.

The main difference from the gentle basic vertical racket head shot could be a greater lowering and rising from the knees.

Many times when hitting the basic shot, it seems to me, body level stays constant on athletically bent knees until after the ball is gone.

Now, one abandons this constraint by getting oneself extra low. One rises as one makes contact.

Simultaneous, one rolls the racket from square to beveled by 10 degrees.

Concept 2: Keep head exceedingly still. To do this, don't raise from knees, just roll the racket the appropriate amount (ten degrees or less).

Concept 3: Tuck thumb against middle finger. This tuck is good for rolling.

Concept 4 (with more concepts hopefully to follow): Tuck thumb against ring finger, locking it there with middle finger.

[bottle]

Concept 5

Am going to accomplish the clear goal with arm not legs. But won't rely on the diceyness of rolling at contact. I therefore shall slightly flatten wrist early as part of rearward leveling of racket length.

Next question: Should "cut the wire" formula now be applied? Perhaps.

If so, to what degree? Is there a middle road between flashlight (pulling knob toward ball) and no flashlight (the easy swing that works through evenness not high speed)?

This attempt is still at a long arm swing, i.e., with no forward portion of double-handed racket action whatsoever, but with slight tug developed early between hands so that slightly more racket head speed will be imparted to punch with the slightly closed racket.

[bottle]

Concept 6

This shot, as one might suspect, builds on Concept 5. Everything is the same except for the addition of ripping the shoulderblades together.

Why do this? Because "cutting the wire" may result in racket head acceleration too near the place where the hands flew apart.

By the time the racket head gets to the ball, you may, reader, be hitting a decel.

The answer since racket head is coming around nicely and probably getting in front of you sooner than before could be a sudden change of direction provided by scapular retraction.

The racket head now speed-shifts a second time. In astonishing sideways direction. Provided that your grip and backswing and step-out are perfectly suited to the task.