A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Small Surgery on One's Mondo

Seems like everybody has a mondo or "flip" in their forehand nowadays-- very fashionable but how useful is it? Could it be too mechanical or harsh? Would you, reader, play better tennis if you didn't have it? Or if you modified it? Just wonderin'.

Three of the five iterations in # 2698 put forearm roll with initial backswing, thus cutting mondo in half. This change creates a small loop that ends with hand laying back from wrist in a downward direction.

But one can reverse the two halves of the mondo while bisecting it too, i.e., open wrist gradually as part of the backswing, which leaves forearm roll to complete a small loop.

I'm trying these new shots both ways while remaining open to the temptation of a huge overhand loop like Novak Djokovic's once in a long while for comic, I mean serious relief as in Pope Francis replacing Donald Trump at center of the public eye.

[stotty]

Continentals watch out...

Seems like everybody has a mondo or "flip" in their forehand nowadays-- very fashionable but how useful is it? Could it be too mechanical or harsh? Would you, reader, play better tennis if you didn't have it? Or if you modified it? Just wonderin'.

I tried it but it doesn't lend itself well to those who use a true continental grip like me. Actually, if we follow the BG blueprint (using Federer as the model) you cannot commence the prescribed take back (racket tip pointing up to the sky) using a continental grip. It just doesn't work without having to contort the forearm to make the position. With a mild eastern it can be done, with true continental it cannot. We continentals come to a similar problem when trying to achieve the dog pat later in the stroke. It's really uncomfortable and unnatural to lay the face down like that.

Plenty of players flip, though not always much comes out. I say flip if you have talent and don't if you don't. And don't if you are a true continental.

[bottle]

But continental requires a lot of talent too. (Me-- strong Eastern for all of my forehands except for my McEnrueful where I use a composite, which is what I volley with on both sides and slice with on the backhand side.)

[bottle]

And Now New Backhands from the New Wait Position

The new wait position with elbow glued to side and with racket tip keyed down is even more cheated toward the backhand than the old wait position.

Can we have a serious conversation whether real or mental, reader? Would the subject be interesting enough? Only if you are still open to radical innovation.

The racket is more cheated over in the sense of tip turned farther around the body. On the other hand the racket is pretty low and therefore good for using slice on a low ball. Good also for getting off a mildly topspun drive from a low ball.

What about medium height and high balls? Almost on purpose I didn't think about this until now and yet a small, private doubles tournament (eight persons) happens tomorrow.

A disaster waiting to happen? Stevie Twig's SCHACHNOVELLE in which a former prisoner of war affected by too much solitary confinement isn't sure of which chess game he is actually playing as he tries to finish off the world champion Centovic (think Djokovic) on the deck of an ocean liner steaming from Bremerhaven to Buenos Aires?

I don't care. I will have fun through self-authorization of everything. The most interesting challenge may be high to low Federian double-rolled chop. To launch this shot one will have to pretend one's racket is an elevator and take it almost straight up.

Not too steep a price to pay for a bunch of good forehands.

But unforced errors are likely to become unfortunate stat.

Doesn't matter. Flying grip change philosophy may make all of these backhands better than one thought. There is room here for surprise.

[bottle]

Post Small Surgery on Mondo

My attempted compromise between mondo and no mondo appeared to receive a good test yesterday. Restoring to one's forehand side a bunch of shots with a moving farm gate embedded in the middle is the significant development here.

Success with one's drop-shot can animate every part of one's tennis game. The see see short angle is far from a drop-shot but can do the same.

As the most minimalist of a special array of farm gate shots the see see is hit from the same wait position of those (and of one's other ground strokes as well).

Then one can gradually open wrist on the backswing. Because of the keyed position, this will send racket tip slightly upward.

On the foreswing one can next send racket tip slightly down. From what source? Roll from forearm that feels like beginning of a sidearm throw.

The essential and remaining part of the shot then occurs-- a blending of forearm brush and taffy turn of whole body. I am in favor of keeping elbow tight to body during this phase. After the ball is gone one can do whatever one wants to feel relaxed.

P.S. A first question is how much talent one has. A second question is how much common sense one has. A shot in which one keeps one's forearm perfectly parallel to the court-- through all the important parts of the overall cycle-- offers navigational advantage but requires repetitions too.

[bottle]

Dream Shot

Method: Pantomime with racket but no ball.

See see with forearm perfectly parallel to court. Sway forearm back and forth on elbow in close. This is "farm gate." Now drop the racket tip 45 degrees from hand only. This is "ulnar deviation."

The dropped tip position like the nose of a Concorde airliner can be a feature of wait position. Re-raise it later if you must. Maybe you've had content of full mondo wrong all along? Not just wrist layback and forearm roll-down but a third simultaneous element-- ulnar deviation.

Draw a level line through the air to open the farm gate. Now close gate along same line to aim point. Make the full mondo so prolonged and mild that its occurrence is in tandem with closing of the gate.

Brush and followthrough with elbow still pressed into side.

[bottle]

Tennis for Inchworms

Time to write a new tennis book, this one 1120 pages long. That is the length I have come to think of as ideal ever since I ploughed into A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE by John Cowper Powys. A favored passage just slightly doctored through the use of one extra ellipses mark (...): "But long after that star of the west went down behind Brent Knoll, Mr. Evans' tormented murmur floated out over the Glastonbury roofs-- 'If only I could see it once...just once...with my own eyes...what Merlin hid...what Joseph found...the Cauldron of Yr Echwyd...the undying grail...this madness would pass from me...but...but...I...don't... want...to see it!'"

She and I don't you know (this is autobiographical now; it is I and not Powys) would take her two dogs up Brent Knoll. I have trouble, in retrospect, establishing their breed. Woods & Copeland perhaps at 300-600 horsepower. They would tow us upward as if we were water skiers or swimmers standing on mud-o-planes. This was good for me since due to tennis misadventure I was already bone on bone in my left leg.

I see repeated scenario here: The tennis player gets older and older until knee replacement replaces meniscus repair. What then would be the best footwork for such a person, not in staple tennis emergencies but when the ball is readily available? In Powys' own words, "The strongest of all psychic forces in the world is unsatisfied desire." Left-right-left for semi-open and square stance shots. Right-left-right for semi-open and open shots.

[bottle]

Square Stance See See

It's just a trick! Any dummy can learn a trick.

John M. Barnaby: RACKET WORK: THE KEY TO TENNIS, page 127:

"Hide Your Angle

Study Figure 47 carefully. (I Bottle have attached it below.) Note the player uses a closed stance, obviously threatening to play straight. This serves to conceal the planned crosscourt or at least prevent an anticipatory move by the opponent. As the shot is made the striker pivots sharply so he is actually facing crosscourt at the conclusion of the swing and his right leg has walked completely around the ball, thus turning it decisively to the left at the last minute. See Figure 47 again. If this turning effect is withheld as long as possible it is extremely difficult for an opponent to divine one's intent, so he gets a late start on what should be a long journey."

This seems so simple and is tennis instruction I have been aware of for many decades but maybe wasn't ready for until now. And maybe the best tennis instruction never gives up all of its meaning, the final part of which the true student must work out on his or her own.

And maybe the best information always has something behind it, a secret.

Let us indeed study Figure 47 or "The Topspin Angle" carefully as Barnaby twice tells us in the one paragraph, looking for any secrets or perhaps if failing to find any invent one or more of our own.

First, note Barnaby's straight wrist, for this photo essay is of John M. Barnaby himself, the most underappreciated tennis writer there ever has been just as John Cowper Powys is the most underappreciated first rate novelist there ever has been.

Me, I don't want that straight wrist. Not when I've spent beaucoups time learning to mondo. Also I think that the player using a laid back hand can deliver more vertical brush (from forearm roll) than Barnaby will as he envelops the ball. The easier route in my view is yes to get the hand laid back but without losing one's aim point.

To that purpose I advocate using a right-angled arm as a farm gate to get the racket head fully around to where it needs to be. But the forearm can keep going around on same fulcrum of elbow held in even after the brushed contact.

As for the "trick" here, which is the delay of right or adjustment foot which then steps decisively all the way through, I decided in self-feed to start the step with strings five inches from the ball.

I think the distinction Welby Van Horn makes between anchor foot and adjustment foot is useful here. Heel of right foot (the adjustment foot), gets up in the air but doesn't turn out as in a conventional forehand.

Left foot (the anchor) stays flat a long time as in a conventional straight ahead but is ready to get up on toes for a big pivot, which is different. That rotation/pivot, delayed, comes all from or with the sudden walk through.

[bottle]

Reality of Ulnar-Radial Adjustment

The radius (inner and bigger) and the ulna (outer and smaller) are the two long bones in the forearm. "Radial deviation" therefore refers to one of the possible directions the human hand can go, "ulnar deviation" another.

But movement and pre-movement adjustment are two different things. My friend who played on the tour used more "deviation" in his ground strokes than most people do. This pretty much worked on the forehand side: His shot was not fast enough for very top of the tour but was uncannily accurate. From trying to do the same on the backhand side he ruined his wrist for a long time.

I'm not sure I want any of it. Well, maybe on a topspin lob once in a while.

The "adjustment" however needs to be thoroughly fooled around with particularly if one is attempting see see.

Because everything with see see has to do with constant error, i.e., hitting too much into the court or too high or into the net.

We once were told to keep hand cocked above wrist for racket firmness-- on what? Groundstrokes and volleys both. And we know that when volleying we can easily achieve a sharper crosscourt angle by simply lifting racket tip a bit higher.

Why should these considerations not apply to the see see as well even though topspin is involved? Would one be able to bend the ball like Beckham or a skillful golfer in tennis toward the net and away from the opponent?

[bottle]

The Topspin Angle: I Thinks and I Don't Thinks

Are the dozen students who actually clicked on the five # 2708 pdf pictures called The Topspin Angle still with me?

I don't think that John M. Barnaby is "stacked" but rather is AS MUCH BENT OVER FROM THE HIPS as Ellsworth Vines, Rory McIlroy or Tiger Woods.

But I think upper body turns first, the evidence being what rear foot is doing in frame 5 .

I think the upper body is pulling the lower body which pulls the leg through.

I don't think the rear foot walks through at all.

It rather is pulled to the side.

The difference in rear leg as compass setting from beginning to end is 100 degrees.

Rear leg goes on a straight diagonal path. Weight goes on that same straight path. Shoulders turn crosscourt but weight goes out to right above the footwork and preceding it.

The angle of the spine (and Barnaby's is bent too much) is such that turn of the shoulders will form an uppercut. The back can be straight and still be bent over at essential angle.

My grip-- part of a four sharp ridge thumbnail system that I now use for all of my shots except for my serve and overhead-- is more westernized for this shot only.

To conceal this grip I keep racket at exact same pitch in wait position as for a straight ahead but slip my thumbnail one pointy ridge to the right.

The jury still is out, but to start the kinetic or forward shot I simultaneously twist both upper and lower arm. Upper arm, because of right-angled and in close elbow, "farm-gates" the racket tip around while lower arm "power-closes" the strings.

Returning to Barnaby, racket tip swings along the sideline for frames one, two and three.

Think about that, reader, but think about direction of weight transfer too.

Arthur Ashe once envisioned a fantasy forehand in which human head pitched to the left and the human hit the left side court with his right shoulder.

In studying head in relation to the broad black stripe on the ceiling one can see that head (and weight) went to the right, not to the left, by completion of this shot during which elbow flew up past the shoulder.

Note: Subtraction of body weight from the see see to me is mind-blowing idee. But the farm gate arm work I propose is different from Barnaby. Why not try both arm arrangements before making a choice?

[bottle]

Continued

Good morning class. I see that not all 12 showed up. That's okay. The shot we're learning is only for those who truly want it.

First, let's all make arm the length of Jack Barnaby's. Concealed grip is what I advised yesterday (more westernized than a strong eastern like Roger Federer's). Take arm back as far as one would for a straight ahead shot. Use a three-step inchworm to direct last step by left foot square toward the net.

As racket changes direction, lay back from the wrist. Forget the forearm roll-down and ulnar deviation of a full mondo. Wrist lay back is the most significant departure from Jack (John M.) Barnaby. He keeps his wrist straight.

Body tilt to right is important. So are the notions of subtracting weight, diagonal step to change compass reading of rear leg by 100 degrees, head finally moving slightly to right, rear foot rising at heel but not turning out, delay of leg finally being pulled forward to side, initial shoulders turn before that, roll from muscles in both upper and lower arms to accelerate the racket tip parallel to the sideline.

It is a lot to remember and best taken step by step until one can finally just decide to hit the shot. The process is identical to learning a seemingly impossible sentence in a foreign language.

My design thought here is that it's easier to roll first and sweep later than vice-versa if you actually want to make the shot.

Lever getting longer implies easy acceleration. Racket head therefore goes faster just about the time that body weight diverges from shot.

Here is the five-photo sequence again of Jack Barnaby making the shot. He was the main tennis coach at Harvard for 50 years. But there is a lot of rowing (crew) at Harvard. Perhaps that is why he takes a bit more body angle as racket goes forward. This hunching along with the double arm roll, to my mind, increases the distance of racket moving parallel to sideline.

[bottle]

Look at the Five Pictures

Study Figure 47 carefully...See Figure 47 again.-- John M. Barnaby

The longer arm plus the stronger grip plus simultaneous rolls from both the upper and lower arm combined with moving hunch from the hips close the racket to a seemingly ridiculous degree.

Go ahead but time the cinnamon rolls so that their tail end coincides with the beginning of upper body rotation with back foot still in contact with the court and heel slightly raised but not turned back toward rear fence as in a standard neutral forehand. Create a fish hook shape in other words. The shank of the hook is slightly lengthened by the moving hunch and body weight slanting off to right.

How can such a closed racket face be effective? Perhaps the answer is not to analyze too much. When hand moves away from body, one's racket pitch opens. Balancing considerations obtain desired pitch.

[bottle]

Step by Step Creation of a Difficult Shot (Until It is Easy)

Have tried shoulders then hips then leg. Now try hips only from frame four of Barnaby's see see. You can detect the early hips turn connected to first half of the diagonal step...

The first three frames show all arm with slight divergence from sideline.

Now body and arm or rather arm and body take over in frames four and five.

Mentally but not physically divide the step in two.

Welby Van Horn and Ed Weiss in SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER discuss normal "third movement" or "key role of the adjustment foot in the rotation."

In a square stance forehand, there can be a little of it, just a few inches to outside good for balance and extending the hip rotation which up till then worked against the flat anchor foot.

But hips rotation is hips rotation no matter how it is done and some of the methodology may be interchangeable.

The Johnson/Boswell combination of Van Horn/Weiss discuss sliding rear foot considerable distance to turn closed shot into square shot right while hitting ball in a one hand backhand.

And reducing excessive width between feet in a square stance shot by sliding rear foot closer during production of some shot that started badly.

I now see Barnaby's model here as biggest adjustment step ever, with this diagonal step connected to ALL of the delayed hips rotation and eventual rotation of the anchor foot even more delayed within that.

Note: One experiment will keep wrist straight just like Barnaby's combined with a circular and level arm swing to get the racket tip sufficiently around before the hips take over. Target is radical requiring extreme measures.

[bottle]

Roll-less and Soul-less and Simple and Maybe Effective

This experiment is predicated on whatever the grip that works. Straight-wristed swing keeps level and away from core and comes smoothly around to where hips chime (or kick) in. Brush to come from radial deviation of hand (hand movement upward toward radius bone).

A first question assuming substance of first paragraph here is promising in self-feed: I've swung arm from shoulder already. Why would I want to do that more? A first observation: Front foot is pointed at 1 o'clock on ground clock where 12 would be toes pointing at net on a perpendicular. Racket can swing level to coincision with front foot, i.e., both foot and racket will point in the same 1 o'clock direction and serve as cue to "walk." Second obs: Weight gets all the way on front foot early since this shot will be "brush up and don't hit." That's why adjustment foot's heel rose a little before the big diagonal catch step.

Body slides forward while the arm and racket make their slow circle to the pointer foot, but from there the hips rotate around a still axis. Or an almost still axis. For body weight slants almost imperceptibly now in a new direction away from the ball.

Note: Toes point at 1 but front foot step is on a perpendicular to 12 and delayed rear foot step is on a diagonal to 2:30 with toes pointing to 12 .

[bottle]

Tennis: Don't Overthink but when you Must, Have Fun with it

For instance, to return to "Figure 47" (don't watch it twice but rather 12 times) note that during step with front foot the rear heel stays down (frame one). In frame two the arm has circled around staying level and the non-turning right heel has just come up. So what did the body weight do just then? Consolidated as if you just stepped across a small creek and are getting settled on the other side.