A New Year's Serve

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Where is Hand at Beginning of the Korda Chord?

The hand is behind the body, elbow near midline or navel.

The shot is a chord because it's musical.

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Simpler than You and Me

In self-feed today we'll start with Kordite Cord of Wood backhands, making sure to keep slightly rolling elbow set at navel as still as one's unbelieving head.

Word of the excellence of this shot will quickly become "viral" and two-handers won't exist.

Neither shall the complicated one-handers of the stars. Petr Korda was ahead of his time. No one could understand. Here he is again (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA).

In 1938 three-gear ratio in serve, instead of 10, 40, 80 try for 20, 10, 60. No more decels! But the 10 includes hearty arm extension.

We like to hit our McEnruefuls entirely solid. This dictates a more forward placement of the arm, in order to shorten the Dry Bones song, at end of the backswing. While the footbone is connected to the anklebone, the handbone to the fingerbones, we don't want something as long as Donald Trump's wall or the Titanic's kinetic anchor chain.

The principle we shall use is from Stanley Plagenhoef. There shall be independent arm swing in our McEnrueful occurring only after contact in order to relieve pressure on the shoulder. Where that superfluous arm goes shan't matter very much either.

"And I have the kickshawe as good as any man in Illyria," Sir Andrew Aguecheek says, over and over, for 413 years.

That leaves only one's most staple shot, in my case my BAM forehand, but only for reflection, not for change. Is it raining? Yes it is. ("For the rain it raineth every day.") Are my tennis balls old? Yes they are. Is my tennis racket strung with natural gut? No it is not.

ADDENDUM: Do Petr Korda and Ivan Lendl have daughters who play high level golf? Yes they do. Do daddies teach their kids sports? Yes they do. Do tennis players know what they're talking about? Rarely but sometimes.

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The Grandpop Pushing a Baby Carriage

Ono, a baby was involved this time. Fortunately, the babe was too young to speak English and therefore could not have apprehended the import of my words although I am sure they made him or her uneasy.

"You need somebody to hit those shots back," the grandpop said.

"No I don't, thank you," I said. "That will be tomorrow when I play tennis. I'm practicing today, thank you."

Silence. Only the sound of turning carriage wheels.

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Rules for Living Well

Open snail mail once a month.

Constantly invent new tennis strokes.

But settle on Petr Korda's backhand.

Who should not be a national hero in his own country if he can do this? http://chronicle.augusta.com/sports/...alian-open#%29

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Why Do Many Male Tennis Players Now Wear a Vertical Stripe on their Back?

Is it to show that they have a spine? But I thought they do have a spine.

Why do many female tennis players now wear the same pattern and even same color as their opponents? Is it to show that they have a spine?

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Chord Backhand Evolution

The chord is a note that needs to be struck with masterful precision.

And doubles is a miserable medium for the introduction of any new shot. The repetition in singles is far better. On the other hand I don't play singles any more so have to make due with what I've got.

Add to this some physical problems along with transition from indoors to outdoors and three partners who know one's game too well and therefore isolate one all the time mostly with boring if well struck lobs.

The answer of course is more drifts, shifts and poaches and to practice incessantly one's overhead, i.e., to become an activist rather than a slowly developing target. (Thank you, Steve, for pointing out this inherent risk in a certain kind of unfun doubles.)

On the other hand I really want to see my chord backhand work.

This may not be entirely rational since every backhand I hit is sliced in the best doubles I currently can play.

So first day outside was not a personal success for me, just for the other three players.

The Kordite Chord, although a perfectly good service return, traveled too low, in fact landed short or too close to the line or was struck late or (ahem) even went into the net.

I therefore propose for myself less or no secondary roll in the latter three fourths of the execution.

Initial roll with elbow held back and down and in to take care of all discovery of pitch.

A greater emphasis on same contact point every time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA).

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BAM! Forehand

Take racket back farther to reintroduce down and up into the BAM.

On down the racket mondoes. On forward and up the racket wipes. The single BAM then decelerates to knuckles against opposite ear.

If there were no roll/wipe, would blood more effectively try to centrifugate? ("Centrifugate" needs to be a verb in tennis language whether it already exists or doesn't-- it doesn't.)

Probably. So that's the channel for adjustment of the unusually fast action of this forehand: where blood does not quite try to spurt from one's fingertips.

Note: I'm lacking the plug-in I need right now to see the last video of Kyle's forehand in YOUR STROKES: KYLE LACROIX FOREHAND. Nevertheless, get that video up on your screen, reader. I'm thinking a left right left of my feet while floating the racket. If one can be that deliberate in last instant body turn one can probably time this shot even for the usual tennis emergency when there are fewer microseconds with which to work.

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Sharpening Forehand, Backhand

The weight is where the racket is. Sling the racket at the ball in the Woulda Korda backhand. Farther back (and down) than before in the Bam forehand. Hold the onions, add tomatoes and cheese. Eliminate the down-and-up-- that was a bad idea. A slowly rising trajectory in the Bam, i.e., put a shallow spiral into the out and in, but if you're going to say that, understand that the hand first was in. The thought of lengthening elbow travel is not awful but let the travel all be upward before it returns your knuckles to your left ear. Mondo and wipe both to occur in that sequence as part of upward component of the single noise BAM.

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Next Forehand Idea: Should I Do This?

I think I should, if nothing else for my own tennis.

Handbodhandbod-- that's four beats. Kyle LaCroix's footwork in the last video of the current article on his forehand: four beats.

Hmmm, four beats and four beats. But only a moron would overthink them into jamming together. ("Look, ma, I'm the tin woodman.")

Still, if one weren't consciously working for that all of the beats might coalesce for a great shot compared to a good one.

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Bam!

Yeah, it's Saturday, I went to the park and tried it. This is revolution and rebellion against late wipe after contact. How about wiping TO contact while keeping elbow back. Then just as last of the four footsteps settles down: BOOM! The elbow and body put a big push on the ball for twice the fun.

An important something to keep in mind however: The weight is no longer where the racket is but rather where the racket head is.

I wrote that before I went. May or may not be true. The actual practice session came down to this: Lower and further back elbow position so racket tip points at ball.

The four beats of handbodhandbod: How they now crack up. 1) Twist and float arm and racket, 2) Take body around some more, 3) Mondo and wipe while keying toward ball, 4) Bam out with elbow and return knuckles to left ear.

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Hold the Onions, Key the Mondo, Hold the Wipe and Bam!

And now, since we so shun superstition and admire Charles Darwin, seeking hard truth, we drop the wipe we've worked on for so many decades, drop it altogether so that it may transmute.

Transmute!? To what? To the bent arm keying (kee-ying) action we've also flirted with for many decades.

Both do the same thing after all. To rephrase, wipe comes mainly from a twist of the upper arm as does KEE-YING. In this sense they are one and the same.

And so we try our new idea out, just a minor incident along the road of our vicious gamey game of "Perfecto" first identified by Timothy Gallway the captain of the Harvard tennis team and subsequent business consultant as well as by Timothy Gallwey the flutist.

One man's Perfecto is the viciousness that keeps him from becoming a good tennis player, the other's the cool balm that keeps him calm. (Hymn: "There is a balm in Gilead that heals the sin-sick soul.")

Set-up is exactly the same with twisted elbow lower and back farther than before though racket still is in the slot.

Mondo too is the same though rather extreme due to the influence of President Sock.

Where before there was wipe there now is KEE-YING which as I've already postulated is much the same thing.

Then comes the BAM! as we shove open the stuck cellar door.

Finally though all in one continued move we gently return our knuckles to the opposite ear.

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I Made This Up

Victor Nance has my McEnrueful in the shop. I'm pretty excited about this as you can imagine. Although I don't know who Victor is, he points out that I hit my McEnrueful well when I'm coming into the net. And he thinks I can hit it just as well when I'm not coming into the net. Just a matter of swinging more slowly, he believes.

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Motion-Dependent Rather than Artificially Manipulated Backward Roll in DB Serve

The Budge brothers both-- Lloyd and Don-- were very clever.

In Don's case the cleverness extended to whom he got to help him.

We only seem to have available two really good serve videos of the Don Budge serve, and of those for some reason rear view yields more information.

What however about the sideways racket move at beginning of the front view choice (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...stSFront.mov)?

The racket is placed to the player's right. Racket head then goes up to player's face. Racket then drops to outside and then inside to point at rear fence-- a very natural and unencumbered move.

Is this sideways "bubble" to be viewed as useless personal mannerism or as solid essential for the aspirant like me who has decided that the Don Budge type serve is the serve for him?

The sideways motion is more than personalized waggle, I would argue, in that it creates motion-dependent roll as the racket goes back to point at the rear fence.

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Ratio

1 to 3 ratio between the two forward halves of the Korda backhand?

I raise this question of speed ratio (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA).

Experiments need to be conducted in 2 to 1, 1 to 1, 1 to 2, 1 to 3, 1 to 4 and 1 to 5 .

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Formy Backhand

The strict form of The Woulda Korda Backhand-- racket tip comes round then both ends of the racket travel together-- should provide in time all kinds of new freedom to any level of player: different speed ratio of two halves of forward racket swing, different ratio of distances of the two halves also, deceleration, acceleration, steady state within the given half, etc.

Why then don't we tennis players see more of this unique shot out on the court?

Because teaching pros haven't championed it enough? Just a guess.

The new freedoms I see are similar to those provided by poetic conventions such as limerick, sonnet or haiku.

People who don't know the first thing about writing a poem are able to do well since they suddenly have a few rules to guide them.

The alternative is the virtuoso one-hand backhand gleaned from the modern tour.

In every case the player rolls over the ball, i.e., his racket is rolling as it hits the ball.

This is nothing more or less than JOKER FACTOR applying to ground strokes on either side.

Great players can time the roll. Mediocre players can time the roll on a certain day. But there becomes a bigger separation between great and mediocre players thanks to this method of hitting a tennis ball.

This separation is throwback to the days when tennis was an elitist sport.