A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Inside-Out

Huge shoulders turn emphasizes the inside out nature of this shot (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nt1_500fps.mp4).

So does the pulling of the bent arm to rear inner edge of the shot slot.

Both things happen at once: big coil of the core and independent arm movement (accompanied by internal rotation of the arm).

The summing occurs on both the backswing and the foreswing.

Note: I didn't mention hitter's drop or "plunge" as in a golf or full baseball swing before greatest physical effort turns on, or, mondo, or, early wipe, did I? They seem essential to this shot but sometimes best not thought about.

[lobndropshot]

bottle,

I would like to report some improvement on my forehand. Its decided that it likes the contact point and facing the ball at the beginning of the swing.

Thanks for your input,

L&D

[bottle]

Thanks.

[bottle]

Excuse

"10,000 hours or 10 years or 10,000 repetitions-- whichever comes first."

The biggest excuse in tennis not to create. An invitation to become Spartan rather than Athenian. Perhaps the 10 of whatever should be applied to basics and not to variation.

[bottle]

Anxiety at Return to the Game

The knee replacement seems good. Ran a couple of W's. Need to run (and even walk) more.

Unfortunately, I pulled something around the left sacroiliac while moving 50 bags of garden waste.

Slowly, however, the swelling seems to be going down. And in any case I shall play tennis Monday, barring rain, for the first time since February.

If something goes SPROING, this could be curtains, so I plan to be hyper-careful as I do carousel with the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's in the Grosse Pointe Senior Men's Tennis Club.

[lobndropshot]

The knee replacement seems good. Ran a couple of W's. Need to run (and even walk) more.

Unfortunately, I pulled something around the left sacroiliac while moving 50 bags of garden waste.

Slowly, however, the swelling seems to be going down. And in any case I shall play tennis Monday, barring rain, for the first time since February.

If something goes SPROING, this could be curtains, so I plan to be hyper-careful as I do carousel with the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's in the Grosse Pointe Seniors Tennis Club.

Good luck! Just remember the screwy bike. Your knee has gone through a big change.

[don_budge]

Go...

Good luck! Just remember the screwy bike. Your knee has gone through a big change.

…real slow. Specialize in having fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxtL-3_2OiM

[bottle]

Excellent advice. The knee was fine. The sciatica was awful. Time for some chiropractic. The serves were okay but could have used more starch. Attempted one short angle and made it for a winner but don't know exactly how I hit it. Backhand seemed very good. It was TENNIS, and I'm pretty sure that more short angles will follow. Movement should improve.

[bottle]

Federfore Can Be Two Parts Instead Of Three

The Federfore like The Kicking Mercutio, a short angle I describe today, can also consist of two parts but with its own description: 1) Raising of tip and closing of racket on high plateau, 2) All the rest.

Note: Speaking of bromance, there was Romeo and Mercutio before there was Romeo and Juliet.

[bottle]

Doubles Tennis Can Perform An Editing Function

Amazing how one playing session, after a lay-off, can edit the experimental player's game.

Trains 1 and 2 of Federfore no longer exist. Only train 3 remains, as described in # 2604 .

Some of these recent assertions may not seem like much.

Getting correct elements together, however, is one thing; the way one then organizes some shot matters tremendously much.

[bottle]

Federfore: Don't Gladwell the Top of the Backswing

Gladwell: "Ten thousand miles..." Ten of anything.

Temporize: A terrible thing in tennis. One of the worst. Webster's, origin, "to pass the time."

But do break the rule and pass some time up there. And go for spontaneity and feel. Save repetitions for first move toward the ball, distance from the ball, other good stuff like that.

In a Federfore, I figure, a great unit turn has to be a given. While it's happening, though, the racket tip flies up but does not complete the rainbow down behind you.

Instead, the elbow moves in toward the body to close the racket and keep the strings on their initial path. This is the delicate part of the stroke. It is art not engineering. It is Athens (inspiration) over Sparta (regimentation).

[bottle]

Carousel

Love the carousel. A different composition of four players every game. Moved a little better than the first day (this was the second).

[bottle]

How High is Arm at Top of RF's Backswing?

Not very. One can therefore immediately start pulling it around ("horizontal adduction") to add to all the other forces in the shot.

Arm then in a sense can straighten while on the fly.

You will hit ball with good separation out to right as you should but also take it sooner.

Upper arm of course will be traveling in one direction, lower arm in another but so what.

Bi-direction is an old and solid idea in tennis.

Traditionally, body often traveled in one direction while arm traveled at right angles to it.

If that idea was good, it still is good, and can apply to the different halves of the human arm as well (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...2%20500fps.mp4).

[bottle]

Brave or Silly Change?

I totally sympathize with anyone trying to transition from a rainbowed backswing to close-racket-at-the-top different configuration of Roger Federer himself.

The technical job isn't difficult once one realizes how little hand manipulation is involved. It's a matter of retarding racket tip while pulling the elbow in. (Just took me 15 years to figure that one out.)

The challenge is not to be ahead of oneself now that one has-- courageously or foolhardily-- altered shape of what probably was one's best shot.

Perhaps there is too much temptation to push arm straight rather than extend from the elbow naturally the way one did before.

Perhaps just naturally one gets to the ball sooner than one did before.

Taking it easy now seems paramount.

Clearly, though, if one doesn't like the new direction one can return to what one knows already works.

I am going through this after a four-month lay-off from competitive tennis. (Oh, sorry, I mean from competitively recreational tennis.)

Temporary return to the rainbow can help one better gear up the new shot.

I am in fact surprised and grateful that I have come this far in my long range attempt to learn from Roger and wonder maybe if a rainbowed backswing was not essential for intermediate development.

Note: I really like Don's observation about pulling from high and Steve's advice about sit-down. Other people want to talk about mondo/flip but I consider that part already learned and semi-conscious or in a sense to be taken for granted, and there has to come a time when hip and shoulders rotation can be taken for granted, too.

[bottle]

On Federfore: Put Arm Straightening with Backswing

Right now I've got it with the foreswing, like a hitter's drop in baseball, but one should experiment. This will not prove as dangerous as Zomblicans and other persons think.

One will have to speed up lift of the racket tip so that manipulation can still be slower than the subsequent arm straightening yet everything taken together will expend the same time as a complete rainbow.

Manipulation: Despite the Latin root of this word, the action here is not done with the hand so much as a drawing in of the elbow. (Arma virumque cano: "Arms and the man I sing.") First line of THE AENEID. "To arms, to arms!" Warmongers everywhere.

Use the hand a little perhaps to force racket tip slightly down but that's all. Re-institute a dogpat even while understanding that it will be a compromised dogpat with yelping dog since no longer will it be the slowest thing in the stroke.

Will this arm work work or will it all taken together be a bit too much? Quick lift of tip, slow manipulation, slow dogpat yet quicker than the manipulation.

(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...2%20500fps.mp4)

Note: Now I see how the technology works. First you click on one of the arrows. Then you use your keyboard arrow. Immediately, I see that lifting of the racket tip is slower than I thought. But this is not about how smart or dumb I am, but what will be useful to you, the reader. So I suggest that you do your own count and I am sure that Jeffrey Counts who helped develop the counting doo-dad would agree.

Mine: 45 clicks to get tip up, 40 to close racket, 30 to start of mondo.

To return to title of this post: Who knows whether a hitter's drop in baseball is part of the backswing or the foreswing. Both-- no?