A New Year's Serve

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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.

Logically, one can do that. Or spread closing of strings throughout the down and up of the backswing.

With less logic but more feel, one can just close during the down, i.e., the drop from semi-high waiting position slightly off-center to left.

That is an option created by early separation as used by Evert, Connors, Austin and McEnroe.

The arm can close racket face more organically and less mechanically than with two hands on racket.

Now the up to inside of slot-- arm motion only-- becomes in a sense a rehearsal of the short slap down about to occur.

And that slap down can come exclusively or primarily from tilting the shoulders if you want to play in Alexander's ragtime band.

Here's a next question: Since The Alexander System always predicts extension from snout to foot or foot to snout or rotating hips sending energy both up and down or it all is a lightning strike with the lightning going one way the electrons the other, i.e., is spread through a lot of body parts and muscles, how little leg extension could there effectively be if you chose to stay low?

An inch? A quarter-inch?

In self-feed first, reduce the amount of leg extension this way to feel the upward banking of the hitting shoulder more as you administer topspin.

Second question. Will there still be any arm roll during the forward stroke?

Possible, but a lot less of it and sometimes none.

[bottle]

McEnrueful Going Crazy

How can one take a neutral step, then push out the front hip, then rotate the hips? It all takes too long.

So one had better lower rear shoulder early to bank it properly during the forward swing which will become even more upward if one simultaneously plays a riff in Alexander’s Ragtime Band.

Now my shoulders are not level as I run or otherwise move around the court. Is life worth living?

What are the possible solutions? 1) Sit and hit, dropping rear shoulder, 2) Hit the McEnrueful from open stance like a John McEnroe forehand. 3) Hit a neutral stance shot but with rear shoulder dropped early.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_forehand/mac_forehand.html?MacFHWideSide2.mov

But has John lowered back shoulder the way he does on his topspin backhand?

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterCourtLevelFront2.mov

Surprise. He has.

Well, I think I like the hitting drop from relaxed shoulder I’ve developed in the past months. Baseball players do it and I can do it. I haven’t overintellectualized the exact time when I step out—I just let it happen—but the hips turn immediately after the step out does not appear damaged by the slight hitting drop.

So I want to keep that drop.

Racket goes down two times in a McEnrueful or even a John McEnroe forehand, right?

So I’ll send the shoulder down the first time but not the second, okay?

If I can’t run around with front shoulder up in the air to bulge front hip forward, I might as well hit a Federfore but maybe I can. As in The Can-Can. Yes I can.

Note: This run with a bulge stuff would be for a neutral stance (square step toward the net with toes pointing at 1 on Welby Van Horn's ground clock). If I choose to hit open instead, then the Beep-Beep post just before this one has the information that best will apply. ("Beep-Beep" is an indication of new iteration which perhaps will occur again after I return from self-feed at the court.)

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These two shots, neutral and open, are perfect in self-feed. The only trick left is to translate them into actual play.

Note: One may not have to roll strings closed during the backswing, but if I ever decide to do that I will know when in the backswing to do it-- early.

[bottle]

Other Strokes Hit in Self-Feed Today, Diarists and INVICTUS the Horrible Poem

Forehand volley patterned on John McEnroe: there is double propulsion from shoulders turn and arm coming into body. This gets racket butt pointing at left hip at contact. Turning racket open as it comes into body seems a good idea. The head stays still. That means no pivot around opposite shoulder. The pivot is around the body core as exemplified by the still head. The big determinant always however is footwork and weight coming through.

I've noticed from the McEnroe videos that all of his basic volleys are pretty much
hit with racket parallel to the court. That is different philosophy from Welby Van Horn's advanced backhand volley where racket tip is considerably above hand. I'm not saying one is better than the other, am just trying to figure what's what.

In serves I'm finding that how much I take racket back on weight shift from front to rear foot at this point doesn't matter much. So I'm for using different amounts even in a match to look for an advantage and maybe confuse an opponent. I've always wondered if a rotorded server like me should have more motion and at different times and places in the overall tract than an unrotorded server. Since repetition is both the boon and the bane of tennis, I'm all for this new variety. Of course if I'm holding serve I might keep doing what got me there. Note: the tract that takes racket back and up into arm bend is always the same no matter what percentage of it is up together.

Backhands today were a little different from when I played Friday night. A very good teaching pro once told me to keep my front shoulder down but I was trying to examine that. John McEnroe first tilts his shoulders down but then levels them as part of the stroke. And sometimes his front shoulder even goes up.

I don't know why I self-fed backhands in this session when they have been fine. Everything changes, I guess-- especially one's ideas.

On diary, my least favorite literary form: One can say I'm a autodidact or didactic, i.e., inclined to teach or pound something home. That is what I mostly do in this thread, which is basically how-to. And I try not to type something just because it happened. But I just read an English professor's book claiming that memoir is the cat's pajama. Me, I think it horrible like the following poem which I was forced to memorize at the Hotchkiss School. Wonder if I'll get the capitalization and punctuation right. This poem has correctly been called the worst in the English language, perhaps because it tries to be good, setting the level high but is mawkish at the core (oh, sorry to use the word "core" twice in one post):

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody yet unbowed.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll.
I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul.

I'm glad I'm not that person. I've winced and bitched plenty of times.

The author of this self-pitiful tripe, William Henley Fool or whatever his name is, should be rocketed to the Andromeda Galaxy along with all the war loving Republicans and Democrats in this land though the time and place frames aren't right. Along with the diarists and memoirists too. And definitely the professor who thinks that memoir is the form for our age. Doesn't he know the repetition that occurs when one starts to recount one's actual life? Better to be a liar writing about one woman than three or thirty. Better to combine the best and worst traits of all in one.

Well, we can't set the people we don't like in an open boat in Hudson's Bay since a bunch of 1 per centers in a stinkpot would come along and include everybody in a cocktail party. One of the mutineers who set Henry Hudson adrift was later disembowled by Indians so one can only imagine what happened to Henry himself.

[bottle]

Right. He never winced nor cried aloud because he was tougher than normal people. And he wrote the poem and died before he even could hear Frank Sinatra sing. But-- HE DID IT HIS WAY.

[bottle]

Learning through Self-Contradiction

This is a club. The people who are always right need not apply.

I say I want to drop elbow from the shoulder to initiate a forehand swing. That desire, once identified, gives me something to build on even if through self-contradiction.

Loose motion of the arm by itself? Loose motion of the arm abetted by full body dropping of the rear shoulder? Full body dropping of the rear shoulder by itself?

I always listen to my 100-year-old friend Frieda, who lives by herself in her own house and has one bathroom on the second floor and never takes a pill of any kind. "You look for some stupid little thing that might make a big difference."

Full body dropping of the rear shoulder by itself starts to work on open McEnruefuls. Then why not on neutral McEnruefuls? Because the extra step away from adjustment foot needs to be followed by immediate hips rotation and there isn't time for anything else?

But I don't want two different swings for open and neutral shots if I can have one.

Resolved therefore: Speed up the whole apparatus. Minimize the rear shoulder drop-- easy to do with the McEnrueful down and up backswing. Fiddle around but keep the same basic shot. And do not confuse it in any way with a Federfore except for keeping opposite hand on racket for longer followed by dog pat to produce one's sharpest of short angles.

[bottle]

Banking in a Roger Federer Forehand

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_Court_Level_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Inside_Out&stroke=FH%20InsideOut%20CourtLevelFront5%20500fps.mp4

Observe the banking at 0:09 of this clip. Simply stop the capsule at 0:09 to see how one shoulder is higher than the other. Then run the whole clip to see when the hitting shoulder lowers and how far it spirals up (to level here) while blended with Alexander's ragtime extension. If you have more concern about this, reader, simply grasp the capsule under the imagery with your cursor and gently slide the imagery back and forth.

"Banking" is an aeronautical term used by Welby Van Horn in the Ed Weiss book SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER. I don't believe that banking normally gets discussed in connection with Roger Federer's forehand but should.

[bottle]

Keep Going

Look for banking in other clips, these and others.

One might even find the banking in YouTube, but not as good as this one.
Oh, the shoulders didn’t bank quite up to level this time! Interesting. The small plane, a Maule, still has right wing down a little:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_Court_Level_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Inside_Out&stroke=FH%20InsideOut%20CourtLevelFront6%20500fps.mov

I now go searching real time for a forehand where right wing banks higher than left wing.

Only at the very end—possibly—after the ball is gone.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_Court_Level_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Inside_Out&stroke=FH%20InsideOut%20CourtLevelFront2%20500fps.mp4

Less banking for this high one, I’d say. A little in the followthrough. But he started with the two wings level.

Here’s the last entry in the inside out high speed Roger archive:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_Court_Level_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Inside_Out&stroke=FH%20InsideOut%20CourtLevelRear3%20500fps.mp4

A pretty high ball this time but there still is banking from hitting shoulder lowered up to level. I don’t usually see balls that bounce up this high because of the prowess of my competition. But I’m now ready to say that on my Federfore, the norm shall be banking from shoulders tilt to level or to a little less than level.

Inside in:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_Court_Level_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Inside_In&stroke=FH%20InsideIn%20CourtLevelFront2%20500fps.mp4

Just the same. But I wonder why Roger Federer started out with right shoulder dropped, then leveled it, then dropped it, then leveled it.

He must be a human being after all.

[bottle]

Hips That Counter Direction Of Travel

In the next one, Roger goes slightly to his right but his hips go slightly to his left, which would be when his shoulders get on the new axis that will make the hitting shoulder revolve downward before it revolves up. This process resembles the golfer’s exercise where one threads a pin behind one’s tilted back and then does practice swings. In the case of a tennis player or Roger just in case he is the only tennis player, the moment of greatest tilt is very fleeting and occurs when the hips suddenly slide away from the ball as if they don’t like it. This is going to start a lot of banking. A straightness of back from hips up is a principle ingredient:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_Court_Level_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Center&stroke=FH%20Center%20OpenStance%20CourtLevelFront1%20500fps.mp4

The countering of hips to direction of travel becomes apparent when one studies them in relation to the printed letters on wall behind.

Later addition: Wow. Now I don't see hips moving from moviemaker's left to right across the word "bank" but rather staying put at the "b" of that word.

The upper body, on the other hand, bends from the hips toward the upper caste B of BNP PARIBAS, and Roger's head therefore goes slightly down on that B as well.

The point is not to get hung up on small distinction but rather to realize that forward body turn, not some sort of transition between backswing and foreswing establishes low point. If one does this on a Federfore or McEnrueful or any other forehand, one swings fast through a low point that may be farther forward (and lower) than one thought.

The transition preparing for this is the slight bowing from hips however it happens.

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Pure Speculation: Cool vs. Emergency

The slight bowing at hips (shoulders going one way or hips the other or both) corresponds to the broom toppling over in repeating video in this article on Alexander Method provided by gzhpcu.

http://www.tenniswithouttension.com/article4.html

But the perfectly postured jab with outside foot identified by 10splayer as characteristic Federer means that the mild bow into golfer's separation only occurs when Roger gets to ball.

Alexander ragtime happens in that case in the process of Roger hitting the ball.

A new bow happens as Roger returns to center having traveled way out to his right. All such recoveries are emergency and top priority intensity, one could say, emergency and routine combined in one. One may or may not be able to relax while moving to a ball but never while getting back. That's where one must be fast-- always.

Ragtime (or Alexander "Method" if you prefer) can happen both for movement and to hit the ball. One strikes high like a rattlesnake either to get someplace or to hit the ball.

The previous bow from hips is always mild like toppling of the broom.

Options now emerging are upright leg jab (and probably two more steps) or gravity step for distant (emergency) balls.

In the emergency cases of wide balls to one's forehand side, the broom has already toppled, so why should you bother to restore your perfect posture until you are in the process of hitting the ball?

Playing cool with either a McEnrueful or Federfore or any forehand however is most fun. Look at all the fun John McEnroe and Roger Federer have by staying perfectly upright so much of the time.

[bottle]

How to Invent in Tennis or Anything

1) Envision.

2) Try to do it.

[bottle]

Topple

Ramrod back hinges (mildly bows) only from the hips.

McEnrueful: Do this at change of direction, the precise pause between backswing and foreswing.

Federfore: Insert without disrupting at end of dog pat.

Will the smooth swing then be remarkable? Yes through being longer with low point farther forward so that beginning of swing is a down before up with solid arm-body connection through the down.

Am talking about two different grips but Alexandrian body extension in both shots or restoration of tall posture through the most vigorous part of the stroke.

Late topple is saved for elegant, unrushed shots.

In case of long emergency runs to ball the topple is part of the starter block acceleration. The golfer's lean can be kept through the subsequent footwork until one is actually hitting the ball.

Non-believing teaching pros may tell their students to only copy Roger's supposed mannerism if not basic of staring back at contact point after the ball is gone. Roger's Orphean look-back is considered evidence of a still head when actually it is just "keep your eye on the ball." For the head has just gone down and is coming up (is MOVING for crying out loud) and therefore requires more than normally intense concentration and eye-work if it isn't going to spoil the stroke.

To consider another variation now, it is hard to imagine John McEnroe ever running around his backhand to hit a forehand.

One could do this however to hit a McEnrueful using down and up backswing combined with Roger's footwork.

The topple or taking of body angle occurs early as Roger moves to his left. Butt moves left to get away from the ball. Another way of putting this is that butt segments under shoulders. In this video, the bulging of the butt creates a momentum that brings Roger's right foot after it and then replaces left foot nearer to the left fence. The ball then could be hit off of either foot:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/phantom/Roger_Federer_Court_Level_HD_HS/index.html?dir=Forehand/RF_FH_Inside_Out&stroke=FH%20InsideOut%20CourtLevelFront5%20500fps.mp4

[don_budge]

The Run Around…sans McEnroe

To consider another variation now, it is hard to imagine John McEnroe ever running around his backhand to hit a forehand.

What an interesting observation.

[bottle]

Thankee

[bottle]

Speculative Plan for Rotorded Servers, i.e., Try It, Rotorded Ones

Time arm to finish getting completely bent when racket tip has turned out to its farthermost point toward right fence.

The idea is to maximize both halves of a full throw. The first half is external arm rotation. Maximize it. The second half is internal arm rotation. Maximize it.

At the same time, maximize arm bend and loose arm extension activated entirely by the internal arm rotation which first looks like a tomahawk throw before flaring out to the right.

The arm must have straightened by contact.