Got to Try
Just as Jack Sock, down a set, got excited and zoned out while playing David Ferrer, I get excited when I think about what happened last night.
My excitement is about search, not find, and I didn't get to sign a sock and give it to a delighted woman in Auckland.
Steve Navarro had told me that what I need is a good hitting partner, and I found one before the start of the Eastside Detroit Friday night tennis social.
He is Ken Hunt, a senior senior like me, and I have hit with him before then played better than usual in the three sets of doubles that follow.
If Ken didn't teach tennis, he should have. Not that he talked, he didn't except with his racket, but he kept the ball deep with medium pace.
A person having a one-on-one hit should quickly be able to determine whom the hit is about. When it was over Ken said "Better and better."
Well, Ken's game was the same throughout. But as this happy session which caused me to run out of gas by the end of the evening continued, I became aware of just how long we were keeping a single ball in play despite hitting decisively and pretty hard.
When that happens, and one player is building up the other, the other-- I-- has time to figure a few things out.
Forward emphasis, I decided on court, may not mean putting all mechanics out front so much as not putting the bulk of them behind or above one.
So I started taking my FETF (forward emphasis topspin forehand) farther back on level plane. That was all that happened during the hit with Ken, but overnight I've been building on this new idea.
1) For most of backswing keep the elbow in snug against one's side. This is how John McEnroe can prepare his forehand volley so fast even though his wait position is far, far away. So let us, just as a baseball player sometimes pulls in his elbows to get his bat around faster, keep elbow in to get racket tip around quick and far.
2) With racket tip then around and pointing at rear right fence post, let elbow rise no more than a few inches while consequently turning it slightly to close strings. If racket were pointing precisely at fence post it could keep doing so during this process.
3) Time this forehand with a 1-2 rhythm, rising turning elbow then to be classified with backswing. There is no separate transition here.
4) Awareness that duration of end of backswing similar to stop or slowing or easing or floating at top of a looped forehand can vary, in fact invite variance to give you more freedom to choose direction, etc.
5) The raised elbow skews the right angled arm for a second bout of keying, this time in opposite direction down and in toward body to activate mondo (flip).
6) The raised elbow is the extension that teaching pros talk so much about. In imagism, then, ask this question: Does the 20th century teaching metaphor of pushing on a stuck cellar door still apply to 21st century and if not, why not?
7) During body shove part of a quick forehand does bent arm extend (move) against the stuck cellar door? I think not. The arm is firm and activated and part of the push but shouldn't move, not if properly overpowered.
8) Lack of movement in the arm push frees up the arm wipe. One can apply more Zen Buddhism or stretch-shorten or racket head speed focus or whatever one wants to call it.
9) Racket head will rotate down and in before it rotates up and out and finally up and over on a precise perpendicular to one's target.
The overall image here is of a fan-driven swamp buggy boring through the Everglades.
If this forehand doesn't work, I'm sorry.
Note: Shoulder banks down as part of mondo, stays down for contact, banks back up as part of the followthough.
Just as Jack Sock, down a set, got excited and zoned out while playing David Ferrer, I get excited when I think about what happened last night.
My excitement is about search, not find, and I didn't get to sign a sock and give it to a delighted woman in Auckland.
Steve Navarro had told me that what I need is a good hitting partner, and I found one before the start of the Eastside Detroit Friday night tennis social.
He is Ken Hunt, a senior senior like me, and I have hit with him before then played better than usual in the three sets of doubles that follow.
If Ken didn't teach tennis, he should have. Not that he talked, he didn't except with his racket, but he kept the ball deep with medium pace.
A person having a one-on-one hit should quickly be able to determine whom the hit is about. When it was over Ken said "Better and better."
Well, Ken's game was the same throughout. But as this happy session which caused me to run out of gas by the end of the evening continued, I became aware of just how long we were keeping a single ball in play despite hitting decisively and pretty hard.
When that happens, and one player is building up the other, the other-- I-- has time to figure a few things out.
Forward emphasis, I decided on court, may not mean putting all mechanics out front so much as not putting the bulk of them behind or above one.
So I started taking my FETF (forward emphasis topspin forehand) farther back on level plane. That was all that happened during the hit with Ken, but overnight I've been building on this new idea.
1) For most of backswing keep the elbow in snug against one's side. This is how John McEnroe can prepare his forehand volley so fast even though his wait position is far, far away. So let us, just as a baseball player sometimes pulls in his elbows to get his bat around faster, keep elbow in to get racket tip around quick and far.
2) With racket tip then around and pointing at rear right fence post, let elbow rise no more than a few inches while consequently turning it slightly to close strings. If racket were pointing precisely at fence post it could keep doing so during this process.
3) Time this forehand with a 1-2 rhythm, rising turning elbow then to be classified with backswing. There is no separate transition here.
4) Awareness that duration of end of backswing similar to stop or slowing or easing or floating at top of a looped forehand can vary, in fact invite variance to give you more freedom to choose direction, etc.
5) The raised elbow skews the right angled arm for a second bout of keying, this time in opposite direction down and in toward body to activate mondo (flip).
6) The raised elbow is the extension that teaching pros talk so much about. In imagism, then, ask this question: Does the 20th century teaching metaphor of pushing on a stuck cellar door still apply to 21st century and if not, why not?
7) During body shove part of a quick forehand does bent arm extend (move) against the stuck cellar door? I think not. The arm is firm and activated and part of the push but shouldn't move, not if properly overpowered.
8) Lack of movement in the arm push frees up the arm wipe. One can apply more Zen Buddhism or stretch-shorten or racket head speed focus or whatever one wants to call it.
9) Racket head will rotate down and in before it rotates up and out and finally up and over on a precise perpendicular to one's target.
The overall image here is of a fan-driven swamp buggy boring through the Everglades.
If this forehand doesn't work, I'm sorry.
Note: Shoulder banks down as part of mondo, stays down for contact, banks back up as part of the followthough.
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