A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Be a Seal Bouncing a Beach Ball Up Off of Nose

Don't be the Navy Seal adulated by warmongers but a real seal in a circus.

Alexander Technique is all about body extension from head to foot (or perhaps tail), and Alexander was Alexander The Great, so bounce an imaginary ball off of your snout as you do everything else to make clean contact in this serve.

[hockeyscout]

Don't be the Navy Seal adulated by warmongers but a real seal in a circus.

Alexander Technique is all about body extension from head to foot (or perhaps tail), and Alexander was Alexander The Great, so bounce an imaginary ball off of your snout as you do everything else to make clean contact in this serve.

Very interesting Bottle. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. He looks like he has a few principals we can steal, and mould into our own. Can you tell me what you are liking about his program? Next's ect. By the way, interesting thread. We're all over your stuff here in the Ukraine. Thanks a lot, and keep up the great postings.

[hockeyscout]

over-conceptualization -- thanks for that post. Brilliance.

[hockeyscout]

over-conceptualization -- thanks for that post. Brilliance.

[bottle]

Very interesting Bottle. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. He looks like he has a few principles we can steal, and mould into our own. Can you tell me what you are liking about his program? Next's etc. By the way, interesting thread. We're all over your stuff here in the Ukraine. Thanks a lot and keep up the great postings.

First and foremost the name Alexander. But then the prospect of doglike efficiency. Or that of my favorite fox snake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk

Also just the heresy of going head first. So different from kinetic chain's ground up. Put them together and you get something electrical? I mean the lightning seeming to go the Zeus way (down) and the electrons the other?

The figure eight guy, Jack Broudy, wants energy to emanate in both directions up and down from the hips.

Should we make big distinction between Alexander ragtime used for movement to ball and for hitting that ball?

Well, the same principles of elongation can apply no matter where it initiates. I'm just worried about when I know that I and klacr and Raonic and Berdych and Anderson and Isner and Karlovic ought to stay down although I'm by far the shortest in this group.

I can't comment too much further since I've never bought into the ragtime too much until right now and am just discovering I like it mostly because of the video of the dog's starter block acceleration.

But I also think that anyone who imitates the fox snake in any way, so long as they don't watch Fox news, will turn into a very good tennis player.

Sorry my computer doesn't have Skype possibility. Maybe I'll get a new one some day.

Note: Your efforts to expand tennis consciousness to include known principles of quick movement in other sports just has to be good, isn't going to hurt anybody, might lead to innovation. I also love the idea of new forehands with higher number than ATP3. I spent more than a decade discussing and developing my Federfore, which is nothing more or less than an ATP3. The ATP3 is largely based on one man's forehand, Roger Federer. But if somebody imitates him, not even Dimitrov, he won't become Federer. The first question I would ask is how far back does the candidate's wrist bend.

My Federfore has turned out to be a very consistent shot but not my greatest forehand weapon, which is my McEnrueful. My thumb, a little more toward strings than thumb of most players, is consistent with diagonal thumb in my one hand backhand. A little adjustment at any time (and not the flying grip change I used to use), always puts thumb on panel seven (topspin backhand), on ridge 7.5 (volleys, McEnruefuls and backhand slice) or on ridge 8.5 (Federfore/ATP3).

I know this probably sounds overconceptual but would add that it's more thumb feeling the sharp ridge than some precisely analytical position. And thumb is always bent about the same amount for all of my shots except maybe serve and overhead. I haven't yet felt sorry about this.

[hockeyscout]

First and foremost the name Alexander. But then the prospect of doglike efficiency. Or that of my favorite fox snake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk

Also just the heresy of going head first. So different from kinetic chain's ground up. Put them together and you get something electrical? I mean the juice seeming to go one way and the electrons the other?

The figure eight guy, Jack Broudy, wants energy to emanate in both directions up and down from the hips.

Should we make big distinction between Alexander ragtime used for movement to ball and for hitting that ball?

Well, the same principles of elongation can apply no matter where it initiates. I'm just worried about when I know that I and klacr and Raonic and Berdych and Anderson and Isner and Karlovic ought to stay down although I'm by far the shortest in this group.

I can't comment too much further since I've never bought into the ragtime too much until right now and am just discovering I like it mostly because of the video of the dog's starter block acceleration.

But I also think that anyone who imitates the fox snake in any way, so long as they don't watch Fox news, will turn into a very good tennis player.

Sorry my computer doesn't have Skype possibility. Maybe I'll get a new one some day.

Note: Your efforts to expand tennis consciousness to include known principles of quick movement in other sports just has to be good, isn't going to hurt anybody, might lead to innovation. I also love the idea of new forehands with higher number than ATP3. I spent more than a decade discussing and developing my Federfore, which is nothing more or less than an ATP3. The ATP3 is largely based on one man's forehand, Roger Federer. But if somebody imitates him, not even Dimitrov, he won't become Federer. The first question I would ask is how far back does the candidate's wrist bend.

My Federfore has turned out to be a very consistent shot but not my greatest forehand weapon, which is my McEnrueful. My thumb, a little more toward strings than thumb of most players, is consistent with diagonal thumb in my one hand backhand. A little adjustment at any time (and not the flying grip change I used to use), always puts thumb on panel seven (topspin backhand), on ridge 7.5 (volleys, McEnruefuls and backhand slice) or on ridge 8.5 (Federfore/ATP3).

I know this probably sounds overconceptual but would add that it's more thumb feeling the sharp ridge than some precisely analytical position. And thumb is always bent about the same amount for all of my shots except maybe serve and overhead. I haven't yet felt sorry about this.

Thanks so much. Love your postings. Keep up the good work.

[bottle]

A Rule for Tennis Stroke Invention

Backhand volley and backhand slice are not the same length; nevertheless, when you try something new on one make sure to try it on the other.

[bottle]

Toward a More Rudderly Temperament

What does that mean? Reader, I am so glad you asked.

A rudder goes to the left and you go to the left, goes to the right and you...etc.

Perhaps you noticed (in youth in my case) that when you were most extended to the left, the volley you hit was sharpest, i.e., best went along the net close on your opponent's side of the court.

In that case your racket went left to make the ball go to the right. So let's shift our focus from rudder to tiller. You pull the tiller left and the boat goes to the right.

But reader, you are a tennis player and therefore despise mental gymnastics.

Just don't get too close to the ball. And swing or whatever you do to the OUTSIDE. My best self-feed exercises in short angle groundies, whether sliced or topspun, are all about a navigation that seems very nautical to me.

What if, for all short angles, you discipline yourself into a contact with the racket pointed at the outside net post.

This predicts a contact in which the racket head is higher than the wrist for either sliced or topspun shots.

The discipline of this, almost as if some shrill-voiced command style teaching pro is screaming out what you must do, means that, in order to commit yourself to sufficient spin, you must put much more swing before the contact than in a normal ground stroke hit for depth. There, it is best to condense body turn though not the amount of it through exclusive pointing while keeping racket in the slot.

Try for contact then, slice or topspin with elevated racket tip pointing at net post. But let's exclusively consider the forehand topspin version most difficult to explain (and which therefore is most difficult to perform).

Arbitrarily, I've advocated open or semi-open stance and do not abandon that notion now. I simply think that if your inside foot is later of the two to move, you are blocked for anything but a lob or drive down the line.

But closed or neutral stance helps one turn the shoulders and is a boost which discipline now has taken away.

So one must do everything else in one's power to turn the shoulders an extra amount which is sure at first to seem unnatural:

1) One keeps bent left arm on the racket throughout a maximized unit turn.

2) One keeps the shoulders turn going by pointing across at right fence with hitting hand simultaneously dog-patting behind you so that racket gets around edge of the slot and slants a bit back toward LEFT fence.

Although I am using a composite grip, my arm is as straight as if I am hitting my Federfore.

My wrist is not flipped and laid back, in fact is extremely straight.

The straight arm is best for performing precise yet vigorous arm roll.

Is there "flashlight" in this shot, i.e., a pulling of the racket butt toward the ball and net post?

I say not since racket butt to begin is turned around even more than that.

There is only time, after such extreme conniptions, for arm roll and nothing but arm roll to point the racket at net post for the contact.

In any Federfore, with 3/3 grip, the arm roll is pure, relegating forward propulsion to one's body.

In a McEnrueful, rolled early or late (late this time), the composite grip is 2/2.5 in which heel measurement-- 2-- is listed first. Furthermore, the arm roll is impure, a 50-50 mix in which frame energy is split half between going up and half toward the target.

The solution for this shot seems more like a blockbuster final exam problem in math or geometry than anything conceivably athletic.

Precisely. This is a shot for someone aging ungracefully who wishes to remain competitive vs. younger persons beyond discretion or good sense.

This is a shot in which, quite simply, the player has taken the torturous time required to figure a knotty problem out.

To repeat, this is math not tennis. Unless one thinks that tennis is big enough to include some math.

[bottle]

Inverted Loop (IL): A Great Energy Saver

I've written enough about inverted loop (IL). So shouldn't I leave it alone? Not my way. But I admit that IL flies too much in the face of convention to change the Indian head on a paradime. Although Margaret Mead wrote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, this is the only thing that ever has," the best I can hope for, in static tennis climate, is to open the minds of a few people to forehand backswing along the lines of Chris Evert, Jimmy Connors, Tracy Austin and John McEnroe.

Or, failing even to achieve that influence, I can simply take my McEnrueful out on the court and play with it and after this hopefully not talk too much about it.

In Cocoa Beach, Florida, there used to be and maybe still is a bar called The Tic-Toc. The clocks went tic-toc. The pool cues went tic-toc. It was the most boring bar in the world.

Routine however saves energy. And the tic of John McEnroe's backswing goes slightly down and up. So he doesn't have to lift his arm and racket into a big loop like everybody else. The energy saved adds up in a bunch of sets, which leaves him open to the horrible accusation of possessing common sense.

My buying into this design doesn't mean I'll never use overhand loop. On the contrary my overhand loop will be more effective and not just due to surprise.

The tic backswing tells me exactly where to stop or slow the racket before my slap-shot consisting of a 45-degree "slap" combined with forward roll puts racket head in front of hand, followed by a long smooth sweep like that of Evert or Connors through the ball.

Then, if I want, I can use any huge loop of my choosing so long as it ends in the same place as my "tic" backswing.

In self-feed, overhand/overhead version of the same shot (OL) could result in a faster ball. "Now that is a good forehand," an unknown woman playing doubles on the adjacent court said yesterday. I didn't thank her or even acknowledge her and wasn't sure she was even talking about me until I figured out she was, through process of deduction. I truly believe however in such oblique comments in and around a tennis court. They are so spontaneous that they often must be believed. And I took the comment as reinforcement that one of my forehands was more dangerous than the other to both opponent and myself.

While one must compare the OL and IL versions of my McEnrueful for consistency, accuracy and power in match play, the most immediate consideration is that the IL, by establishing best "transition point" removes from OL the usual mystery of where active forward swing should begin.

[bottle]

Toward a More Rudderly Temperament, Cont'd

To repeat, this is math not tennis. Unless one thinks that tennis is big enough to include some math.

I see that I advised an open or semi-open stance for this special short angle rasped with a composite grip. To build on that by rejecting it, I see now I don't want to do anything that will restrict long run possibility.

And I can go farther in extreme need with a traditional (neutral) or even closed hitting step (across).

The trick will be to make contact WAY OUT FRONT but to my right side.

The inside to outside but 50-50 arm roll I previously detailed (# 2363), producing contact in which racket is pointed at net post before followthrough as if net post is a lighthouse holds no matter which foot leads.

The angle of the racket length to the net post (0, 5, 15 degrees?) determines where the ball goes, not the setting of the feet.

[bottle]

Better than Normal Tweak Possibility in Ravine Serve

The process here is not about being smart but rather exceeding one's natural non-intelligence like the Bill Murray character in GROUNDHOG DAY through repetition that builds upon what came immediately before.

So the "down" of this down and up serve puts racket deep into a ravine as weight shifts from front foot to back.

Horizontal body rotation at the same time takes opposite arm sideways into tossing position.

My question is how far the racket should have gone down and back at this time.

Improving one's throw is not total overhaul of Tiger Woods' golf swing but rather a series of small tweaks such as a baseball pitcher and Jack Nicklaus (and Tiger Woods too) go through every day.

The farther back the racket goes the higher it rises thereby shortening its subsequent more vertical lift as part of the "up together" body tilt.

The pattern of this serve is firmly in place. A shorter or longer lift of the hitting arm should therefore amount to a rather large tweak.

[bottle]

Welby Van Horn's "Third Motion"

Successfully absorbing new information into one's tennis game is a very unique kind of pleasure. Most tennis players, I say cynically, don't believe in this route at all, and writers like Malcolm Gladwell and Matthew Syed-- inadvertently perhaps but ultimately-- encourage the rank stupidity of non-inventiveness.

Well, who wants to bother inventing something that will only be ready in ten years?

"The third motion" in SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER by Ed Weiss applies to both forehands and beginner's serve. On page 58 there are two photos next to each other (and no I don't have a scanner). A player has just sent his forehand hitting step along a line. Both sets of toes are roughly two inches from the line. The front tennis shoe points at 1 on Welby Van Horn's "ground clock." A racket bisected lengthwise by the painted line lies on the court.

In the second photo the player's rear foot, "the adjustment foot," is lifted up on its toes which are touching middle of the strings.

"The racket helps teach the student to accomplish the third movement by slightly lifting the foot off the ground and then placing it on the racket-- if the student incorrectly attempts to accomplish the movement by dragging the foot on the ground, the student will hit the racket frame and push the racket away from him."

To me, first movement is a neutral stance hitting step. Second movement is body rotation with motionless front foot staying flat. Third movement then is replacement of rear foot a couple inches to the right with rear heel already up.

I need to be absolutely confident of this. An irony for us at (or rather in) Tennis Player, is that Welby's article on serving includes a repeating video of beginning serve in which the woman's adjustment foot slides just the way Welby and Ed communicate that it should not on a FOREHAND.

Should beginner's serve be different from forehand then concerning this fine point? I am perfectly content either to hear someone's answer or work out the answer for myself.

The way I work out a self-arrived answer is to bludgeon it into submission. I train whatever it is I have decided until I have complete confidence.

If I appear to be unnecessarily beating up on myself, let me add that when I was 15-- very late to be discovering one's forehand-- I had a huge save step off to the right.

The first time a teaching pro witnessed this, he groaned and explained how I was slowing recovery to the center.

But, was my instinct wrong? Here is the same thing only two inches rather than two feet.

[bottle]

For Tennis Social Tonight

Keep body quite upright.

[bottle]

Unwanted Adjustment

No. Wrong title. Slap and Sweep

On McEnruefuls: Replace rolling slap of slap-shot with rolling slap that keeps elbow farther toward rear fence until it's time to sweep.

There is no excuse whatsoever-- not even a dearth of competitive tennis for a month-- for hitting the ball up into the rafters (and I don't mean Pat and his family-- he's not watching from up there) with this stroke.

But hit the shot long on purpose to find its range. And look for a new correspondence between self-feed and actual play.

Correct McEnruefuls in self-feed should fly into the bottom of the net. When you take them into a match they then will land perfectly in the court.

But perhaps this scheme does not return process far enough back toward its origin. Self-feed is not enough. One wants to roll racket in an armchair. The elbow stays on one arm of the chair or only slides slightly off of it while the McEnrueful rolls strings ahead of hand-- the new slap of slap and sweep.

Sort of like our gardening company Hope and Help aka Hope and Helpless.

Fortunately my Federfore was better than fair at the Friday night tennis fair.

But I forgot to try the McEnrueful short angle I worked on all week-- onset of dementia no doubt.

Have been beating myself up blaming racket work for the sky full of McEnruefuls. But perhaps it was the mid-shot aeronautical banking of the two shoulders combined with the Alexander ragtime I have been teaching myself-- unresearched medication. Should one take these pills at the same time or spread them out?

"You are a writer?" said my doubles partner the electrical engineer Dusan of Serbia. "Then you've been thinking too much. Words go slow. The body is fast."

Well, HIS body is fast.

[bottle]

New Iteration for McEnrueful Beep Beep

Backswing goes down and up while it goes out and in. So why not simply close the racket face during the up and in.

Then throw down the elbow (the slap) to start the sweep.

(Later.) But throw it down with shoulder to prepare for upward banking.