A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Tennis Book Query-- GOOFY GOLFY BACKSWING: WAVE OF THE FUTURE

Once that our hero John McEnroe declined to write the preface to our proposed tennis book (proposed right here), we decided to defer all writing of the main manuscript until you messieurs and mesdames of American publishing decide as you inevitably must that resuscitation is deep in your genes or jeans.

In the meantime, we thought, a smaller form than 480 pages of exposition would be most appropriate to our personal needs. Please understand, ms. and sir, in using the pronoun "we" we really mean "I."

In this light I think that haiku would be best form for my project. But I don't know how to write a haiku. So here in a nutshell-- a post at TennisPlayer-- are my current ideas about goofy bowl-back/golf-back.

1) Like Johnny the Mac himself, keep hitting arm as straight as straight arm in a pendulous golf swing.

2) Burlesquing the Don Budge forehand, adopt the bent/bending/straightening arm of a golf swing and throw sidearm/underarm like an infielder in baseball.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/donbudge/donbudge_sa.html?DBFHFront1.mov

3) Vary grip to swing level with no twist of the arm.

4) With eastern grip hit a Federfore (ATP-3 forehand) only with no patting of the dog.

5) Place base knuckle on plane 4, heel on 3, and backswing farther (higher), then suddenly break arm into a double bend to hit a Thomas Berdych forehand.

6) With a grip of your choice, backswing even longer (higher), so high that arm breaks behind neck to prepare one to hit an Ellsworth Vines forehand, one of the fastest and flattest forehands the world has ever known.

These are just a few of the variations available in this new or if not new at least different way of hitting a forehand. The topspin of Tom Okker also comes to mind but without his huge loop. How important is a huge loop anyway? Is a loop in a tennis forehand any less showy and loopy than the boxer Kid Gavilan's pawing, impotent bolo punch? Note also in any McEnroe clip how Johnboy edits out the time-wasting turn of shoulder through opposite hand on the racket. No, he turns the shoulders just as well but with a huge point across with opposite hand. In other words he plays tennis with more economy than the current players at Wimbledon.

Even an Amazon demoralized and alcohol suffused publisher ought to have enough brain cells left to recognize the efficacy of these thoughts and have a nice day and thank you very much for your kind patience and consideration.

See you on the court, you loopy suckers.

Will kick your ass.

Sincerely

[bottle]

Tennis Book Query: BOLO TENNIS IS SUCKY TENNIS, 479 Pages

We understand very well, New York publishers, that you wouldn’t know a good book if it came up and bit you in the ass.

We I mean I will nevertheless try here to keep things brief and very simple for you, all publishers, so that you can quickly and painlessly realize that this is the tennis book you want to go with.

Our hero John McEnroe will do the forehand visuals. He has already provided them (they are all over the place!). These films will demonstrate once again just as the late Cuban Kid Gavilan once demonstrated in the sport of boxing that loop or bolo is unnecessary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Gavilan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_punch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzgfp_Hz0gw

Extraneous loop in tennis as in boxing, baseball, hockey, golf and jai alai sucks, simple as that.

Please send me an advance, option or retainer right away.

But do you play tennis by chance, Mr., Miss or Mrs. publisher, with a loop in your forehand? If so, I would like to engage with you as soon as possible on a tennis court of your choosing in order to give you some religion.

[bottle]

Smarter

The thing people most can’t stand about John McEnroe is that he is smarter than they.

The backswing for the John McEnroe forehand is a good example. It is more simple than the loops that most players including McEnroe's brother and myself have used and in fact I haven’t found a forehand yet that can’t be hit with a John McEnroe type backswing.

Those in doubt about all arguments for more stripped down backswings might ask themselves why most tennis instructors start by teaching “straight back.” It is a rare instructor who starts with loop.

If straight back is so basic, then, why should anyone ever abandon it? Many people think the loop adds racket head speed. Really? How can a “pat the dog” sequence in the ATP3-- considering the gentleness implied in those words-- add force or speed? To me the spearing with the racket butt that institutes and succeeds flip is the important part.

Okay, to try for more logic, if loop by itself doesn’t add force, it must be employed for comfort, continuity and timing, but I have to ask, why lift when you can drop? Works on a serve so why not on a forehand?

The one convincing argument I can find against straight back is that it is a bit stiff and mechanical and the timing therefore may not be good.

Okay, but don’t these points apply to backward path that duplicates the upcoming forward path? Golf in which backward and forward paths are different is extremely advantageous for timing, it seems to me, and I can’t see why this should not be true for tennis as well.

In any case:

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/anniegetyourgun/anythingyoucando.htm

[stotty]

The one convincing argument I can find against straight back is that it is a bit stiff and mechanical and the timing therefore may not be good.

The thing for me is that the racket must stop and the end of the backswing to then come back, the motion cannot be continuous. It's impossible to ignore Mac's genius in all this and that he is, perhaps, the only player who has achieved such lofty heights with the method...although Connors did pretty well with his straight back "racket stuck up" method...skunk tail.

When I try the method I feel like I have less time than with a loop because of the stall at the end of the backswing before swinging forward again. I find "racket back early" (a no-no in coaching these days) is the only way to make it workable for me. Once I do this I feel like McEnroe, and I can achieve that wristless technique...only seen in McEnroe and John Bromwich

[don_budge]

A golf tip for bottle...

Okay, but don’t these points apply to backward path that duplicates the upcoming forward path? Golf in which backward and forward paths are different is extremely advantageous for timing, it seems to me, and I can’t see why this should not be true for tennis as well.

In any case:

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/annie...ngyoucando.htm

Food for thought...my friend. It is true. You want to know a little secret...the key to the flip is actually in the turning of the hips. Hogan says so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz6lNsrnV0U

Zach Allen interprets and expounds upon Ben Hogan after he plays a beautiful round on Shell's Wonderful World of Golf.

[bottle]

Yes Steve we are arguing for the same thing. (But I want a par round the next time I play golf too.) Note: Yikes, the word "flip" may soon have too many different meanings.

[bottle]

The thing for me is that the racket must stop and the end of the backswing to then come back, the motion cannot be continuous. It's impossible to ignore Mac's genius in all this and that he is, perhaps, the only player who has achieved such lofty heights with the method...although Connors did pretty well with his straight back "racket stuck up" method...skunk tail.

When I try the method I feel like I have less time than with a loop because of the stall at the end of the backswing before swinging forward again. I find "racket back early" (a no-no in coaching these days) is the only way to make it workable for me. Once I do this I feel like McEnroe, and I can achieve that wristless technique...only seen in McEnroe and John Bromwich

But isn't the no-no in coaching of racket back early the unconscious adoption of idea from the other coach the coaches most love to hate, Oscar Wegner?

They hate him but do what he says. As he himself has said, he doesn't care about the lack of attribution but does wish they would get his stolen ideas right.

Forget for good measure who manages to come up with any idea ever?

The decision then to delay taking the racket immediately all the way around is for purposes of sizing up the ball, of keeping racket close to ball until late in order to preserve natural hand to eye coordination and not get too cerebral, i.e, "out ahead of the pitch" asking "Do I pull the trigger now? Now? Now?" And "has my original projection of height of oncoming ball and height of my racket proven to be correct?"

Think of swinging all the way back in January and then swinging forward in February. Might be tough to hit the ball. I understand that.

My solution is a psychological attempt to locate the sizing up in some other part of the body-racket package than hitting hand or racket.

I therefore put imaginary eyeballs in the crossing arm.

Sure the racket is already back precisely like rhythmic unhurried top of backswing in golf but I am not lining up the ball with hitting hand or frame but rather with the eyeballs in the front arm staying close to ball and watching ball carefully pretty much till ball is gone.

Tom Okker called an old method of lining up a forehand with extended opposite hand "mannered," i.e., fatuous and stupid, but he was talking about pointing directly at the ball.

The imaginary eyeballs are in the side of an arm, not in fingers or palm pointed directly at the ball.

Too fanciful, this? I don't care-- if it works-- and it does and can for anyone not just for genius.

Good rhythm makes it possible-- a simple dance maneuver in which both arms go down together and come up together.

I also am arguing for waiting position cheated for backhand (high left for a right-hander). That is where either forehand or backhand waterfall can best start.

You are right, Stotty, that time is expended at top of the backswing, in fact one-handed changes of grip are even possible there.

But earlier grip change is preferable. Most preferable is no grip change at all while one repeats one's immediately previous shot.

The ticket or best cue is unhurried top of the backswing in golf with hip driven change of direction and plane. If one insisted on still calling this a continuous "loop" one could but a loop for which the unhurried time was deliberately and clearly bought.

Most over arm loops are pretty rushed and mechanical in my view. The good ones (rare) have a bit of organic pause or slowing down built in.

I'll still plan occasionally to try mine but only for a switcheroo.

[bottle]

Love and Tennis Compared

If you want to learn something about love you read Symborska, Sappho, Ahkmatova, Bishop, W.C. Williams, Homer, Euripides, Aeneas, Ovid, Catullus, Goethe, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Hawthorne. You don't talk with Dr. Ruth. You don't talk with anybody whose talk in the least resembles that of Dr. Ruth, Dr. Phil, Dr. Wayne, Dr. 6-pak or Dr. Anybody since doctors are not noticeably better at love than other persons.

"Before art, psychoanalysis should lay down its arms." -- Sigmund Freud

You can try some actual loving, too. That might teach you something.

In tennis, there are those who read and those who don't. More specifically there are those who read about tennis. Both Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King stated in separate autobiography that they read every single word they could find on tennis.

The relationship between tennis and literature is of exceeding interest at least to me. Ezra Pound was a cut-shot artist extraordinaire. Richard Wilbur compared the writing of a sonnet with hitting a drop-shot. Theodore Roethke was assistant men's coach at Penn State. Thornton Wilder's brother made it to Wimbledon although he lost in the first round.

Reading and studying tennis can clearly help some. Has it harmed others? Maybe.

More likely there was something else that hurt them.

My 11-year-old friend and hitting partner Maxine, who is as good at love as my 100-year-old friend Frieda, says or rather wrote in a school project full of poems, drawings and other stuff, "Love is happiness."

[stotty]

In other words he plays tennis with more economy than the current players at Wimbledon.

Yes incredibly simple. But why is that I need more time on the ball to play like McEnroe than Federer? Is it because I am not McEnroe that I cannot get the shot out in time off fast balls? But then I'm not Federer either.

Is the continuity of a loop faster to produce than a McEnroe style forehand? Sure feels like it.

If it were a spaghetti western gunfight, Federer would get his shot off first and McEnroe would be dead.

[GeoffWilliams]

Mad mac at his very best would be destroyed by today's top four, (even on his horse steroids) and that goes without saying every past echelon. Let no man strike asunder what life has struck aseparate.

The same delusional old guys who think tiny wooden racquets are better than current, believe tiny wooden golf drivers better than titanium/basalt. The "young" guys are now 19/23. They used to be 16/18 yrs. old ala Hewitt and Ped/nadal.

Borg quit at 26. Does anyone think Nadal will quit at 28 even with bad knees?

[bottle]

Yes incredibly simple. But why is that I need more time on the ball to play like McEnroe than Federer? Is it because I am not McEnroe that I cannot get the shot out in time off fast balls? But then I'm not Federer either.

Is the continuity of a loop faster to produce than a McEnroe style forehand? Sure feels like it.

If it were a spaghetti western gunfight, Federer would get his shot off first and McEnroe would be dead.

My experience is opposite-- the McEnrueful is faster if not of same duration. We could put a stopwatch on the two different basic ways of hitting a ball. You and I must be doing something different. In any case, when I play, I end far more points (with clean winners) using the McEnrueful rather than my Federfore.

[bottle]

More

I haven't put a stopwatch on my McEnrueful and my Federfore yet to compare their duration since I think that act would resemble an emotionally dysfunctional doctor trying to figure out a patient prescription for love.

But I do think the Federfore has not been as quick as it could be ever since I got through my consciousness the notion of simultaneously tilting my head and turning my body toward the place where I want to go.

What some people might term explosive unit turn getting racket sufficiently back all at once I now compare to premature ejaculation. Rather, the unit turn should be the beginning of movement to some specific place. And the shoulders should continue to turn as the non-hitting arm then points across.

If one has started out with racket head up and cheated over for backhand as I do, the racket path will become quite interesting, even bizarre: sideways first staying near ball and only then going back as one "pats the dog."

This, needless to say, takes time. And is pretty complicated.

The McEnrueful, by contrast, just lets racket fall down and up as in down and up preparation for a serve.

Simultaneously the non-hitting hand while also falling down and up points itself nearer and nearer to the side fence thus pulling the shoulders around as far as one wants.

Some editing has occurred in other words. Gone: patting the dog. Gone: the initial sequence of turning shoulders followed by slow extension of the arm (and more turning of the shoulders).

Racket work and turning back of the body have combined into the more unified nature of a golf backswing.

So what does one do with the extra nano-seconds now procured?

Put them into a relaxed body loop, I would suggest, a loop in which the racket head gets into perfectly solid connection with the body as the body turns inside out.

Yes, there is independent motion from the shoulder during the down and up of the two separate arms, but hitting arm welds itself to what the body is doing, viz., a unique skittle-like forward motion resembling Ben Hogan's hip turn.

Next question: Do hips turn forward while racket is still naturally decelerating up? I think so. Next question: Is the forward hips turn so extreme and so fast that it stops before resuming like that of Zach Allen in the video that Steve Navarro provided (post # 2165)? Or should it never stop the way Ben Hogan's lead hip does?

In either case the tennis racket or golf club has lagged. In either case there finally is a release. Ben Hogan speaks of that, too. Yes, he uses the word "release."

With all of this said, I turn to the humongously looped forehand of the homunculus Tiny Tom Okker and what he said in my old but extremely valued tennis book called "MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES."

Oh damn. I can't easily find it. And people are coming. And there is a lot to do.

But what Okker says is that most hackers spend about one second getting off their forehand when the time ought to be around two seconds.

Jack Kramer, however, closely examined Okker's humongously looped topspin forehand in a photo-essay for TENNIS, I think it was.

The time for those photo-examined forehands was 1.20 or less. Maybe Tom Okker was rushing his strokes that day; maybe what Tom says and does are different.

I love his contention though that one ought to improve one's movement to the point that one can take more time to hit the shot.

That throws the gunslinger's analogy back to Karl May and other fictioneers of the old American west including my schoolboy friend David Peoples, author of the Clint Eastwood film THE UNFORGIVEN.

Those fictioneers of The Wild West can keep fast draw to themselves although I do admit it can come in handy in tennis in the form of a sudden block.

[bottle]

More McEnrueful

No answers. Just progressions. That's me.

So it's always what I want to do, i.e., try next.

A strange way to play tennis? Which keeps tennis of great interest.

I say I think the arm is still going back as the hips snail and roll forward Ben Hogan like. Or do hips snail forward and then roll? Or combine the snail and the roll all at once?

Dunno. Better not to know at least with precision.

Is the arm still going back during the forward hip action as I posited? Am not so sure today from hitting with a very strong player after months of inaction due to foot injury. Like Steve Navarro I am beginning to get back on the court and find my shots. I'll state here unequivocally that the arm goes exactly where it wants to go. Figure out that position then and adjust to that.

Wes and I hit balls all over the grid, but the most interesting conversation we repeatedly had was a hard fast cross-court by me, more like a ping-pong slam than anything else followed by a beautifully lifted topspin forehand from him.

Fast and flat, high and controlled, back and forth, over and over. Not that his shots didn't go fast, too.

So great just to have such a hit after a too long lay-off. Some all age inter-generational doubles sets were played too since this was the Fourth of July.

I'm trying to answer Stotty's rhetorical question as if it is an actual question directed to me.

He wanted to know why his McEnroe-like forehand seems slower to him than his looped continental forehand.

I've tried to outline some editing that I think can go on, at least in the case of somebody who knows nothing, which excludes Stotty, someone who has taught me a lot.

As I participated in these long cross-court rallies I began to feel more and more of a pause as the racket changed direction-- with better and better results.

This feeling makes me want to hit a neutral step version in which the foot goes out naturally-- not far and not splayed.

"Not splayed" means that one doesn't believe that forward hips turn starts during the step but immediately afterward.

My wish is to keep all shot ingredients minimal followed by a big hit.

I want to try a down and up backswing shaded to the outside. In the middle comes step out, which continues to turn already turning shoulders. As forward hips turn kicks in, the racket continues to turn back or rather to inside with solid body arm connection (i.e., there is no independent arm movement from the shoulder at this point).

[bottle]

Sideways Element in McEnrueful Backswing

You're either wrong or you're partially right.-- Craig B. Mello

My McEnrueful wants essentially to be neutral stance shot. There will be an inner foot step-out whether this telegraphs to opposing net-man in doubles or not.

The designer in me says to use the fact that any step-out causes extra turning of the shoulders to pare down the shot even more.

I'm thinking that the down-and-up of hitting arm can shorten if it happens more on a straight slant from inside to outside.

But I still want perfect coordination between the two arms as in the old serving saw "down together, up together."

As the arms come up the body has substantially turned while the left hand has pointed throughout and gotten nearer to the side fence.

Should this pointing now stop? I think not. Am talking about extra pointing from step-out only.

What kind of step-out though?

With stepping foot square or splayed?

If splayed, you think that hips turn ought to start while foot is still in the air. Detroit Tiger Craig Monroe expounded this concept in a baseball telecast.

It (hips turn) certainly won't stop when foot comes down, not if one plans to finish like Ben Hogan.

[bottle]

New Backhand, New Forehand

The two grandkids along with my daughter-in-law and son are off to their next stop in Cleveland in a cloud of weasel poop.

It was a great if expensive annual visit. Now at 74 with sciatica on both sides, a sprained right ankle and a strong wish not to replace my arthritic left knee, the time is here to go to a tennis court and self-feed # 2174, Sideways Element in McEnrueful Backswing. I'll do this as soon as the rain stops if I can briefly forestall work in Hope's professional gardening Co.

But I want to try something completely new on backhand side, as well, building on my square-racket-from-here-to-eternity one hand topspin backhand.

That cleanly struck shot goes high, is very firm and consistent and deep.

But I don't think anyone can keep such a shot on edge (square) from beginning to end without a bit of forward roll.

Well, it's "slow swing" from back far enough that the racket tip gets around in time. A bit of forward roll or adjustment won't spoil a slow swing.

But now the ball comes very fast. And I need to hit a good pass. Or a short angle. Or anything with more top.

Since racket started cheated left at shoulder level, there was amazingly little to do to get the shot off, and because of this relaxed shot, I'm pretty sure, Marina, a very excellent woman player against whom I compete only once a year on the Fourth of July, called my whole game "awesome."

Hope's daughter Melissa and I however lost to Marina and her son Nicholas Vanderbrink, the best Little League baseball player in Grosse Pointe since Prince Fielder 6-3 .

Hope thought the 11-year-old Nick had never had a tennis lesson so natural appearing was he.

"Are you kidding?" he said. "I've been playing tennis ever since I was five years old."

So, I want to build on the easy topped backhands, thumb on a diagonal (but NOT extended more than that up the racket!).

My scheme here is about short angle. I figure that if I can hit good short angle I can hit anything.

Arthur Ashe allowed in the old VHS TENNIS OUR WAY or was it someplace else that on a day when his topped backhand short angle wasn't working he wouldn't even attempt it.

Imagine an athlete as smooth as Arthur Ashe or Chris Paul having days when he can't hit some shot. Gives perspective, doesn't it?

On a day when this short angle WAS working for Arthur Ashe, he wouldn't, he said, even bother to conceal it, would lower his racket more directly and right away.

That is what I want, would like to try when the rain stops.

Backswing is from same shoulder-level position cheated left. The addition is slow flattening of wrist from there to waist level with the speed of the whole move accelerated to resemble a Vic Braden sit and hit.

In other words the racket will reach low point just as the hitting step touches down (very different).

With racket in this waist high position and parallel to court I will build up tension between the two hands before a "cutting of the wire."

My previous ideas about building this tension during straightening of the arm whether expressed here or not were fanciful because of wrong vectors.

Is what I am proposing a continuous swing? Hardly. Continuous swing is saved for the easy topped shot and includes step-out while the racket remains high with shoulders turning backward.

The slightly flattening wrist will act as a signal to speed everything up in order to make time for the tension-creating pause. Followed by cut the wire and ball zinging with plenty of top to the short tee (hee).