A New Year's Serve

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Absorption

Working from this single video alone, how does absorption at contact best work? (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m....wavemodel.php)
From fingers loosening and grabbing or fingers and wrist doing it? If the wrist is not involved (one needs to play catch to check this out), then one doesn't need to adopt the free wristed approach outlined in the previous post. But could anyway to create better angles.

One of these days all of this stuff is going to just happen. I have such days (as anybody who sticks with their tennis does, I assume). It's what keeps me going.

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Ja, We ist der Superman, Super-Duper Superman

Ja, wir sind der Ubermensch, Super-uber Ubermensch

One doesn't want to be like that, in tennis or anywhere else. Further, one doesn't want to elect such a person one's president.

In a whirligig serve I suggested a while back that one may need to speed up the first part of one's whirligig to make time for the racket to revolve 180 degrees from ISR (internal shoulder rotation).

whirligig (http://www.bing.com/search?q=whirlig...R&pc=EUPP_DCTE).

Now I reverse the notion, which can be called "bending the stick the other way" to solve the problem of breaking the stick (maybe one is building a campfire).

In tennis, breaking the stick is considered poor form but the richer, more spoiled players do it all the time.

Do they try to do it overhead in their serves however? Well, they should. Because, although the racket won't break they may generate a powerful serve.

To this purpose I now cram desired form into a shorter time box.

So, within this model (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...DB1stSRear.mov), the racket reaches the first of its two bottom positions as ball reaches the top of the toss.

The racket reaches the second of its two bottom positions, tocked out to right, as ball begins to fall.

Now there is less time for the racket length to spin 180 degrees. It therefore goes fast. That is the theory, and it's good to have a theory before one goes to practice.

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Back to Doug King Forehand

Maybe it's good, when you are convinced that something is very good, that somebody else tell you it is not good.

The Doug King forehand, though not "The ATP Forehand," is effective and beautiful.

Today I'd like to check out how much one's human head goes backward and forward, having already ceded that it rises a bit.

(https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m....wavemodel.php)

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Power Pocket is Established in Waiting Position before the Stroke Even Begins

https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/membership/videos/king.forehand.new/14.slowmotion.php

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Relevance

This discussion (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...orecontact.php) ought to have relevance to your forehand, reader, whether you have an ATP3, a power cord, a Skeeziks, a Ziegenfuss, a Dirty Sock, a Nicolescu or a McEnrueful.

Should have relevance to your volley, too.

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Learning this Special Kind of Forehand with Personal Philosophy for Doing So

Don't be a dope like Donald Trump, a hero with clay feet.

Allow your listener to craft her or his response to everything you say, understanding that words have their own life and don't really exist until the response, a response you can't spin or later control.

Conversely, to read or receive correctly, one crafts one's own response.

(https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...slowmotion.php)

Like it or no, there is a huge transition from pointing tip forward to racket butt pointing out at future contact or to the far side of it.

There is a rush of acceleration as the racket tip goes down and topples up to contact.

Racket butt may point to outside of ball as on one-handed backhand too.

All the roll you've worked on provides acceleration not preparation same as on backhand. Backhand discipline applies here too.

You counter the big muscle groups with small muscle groups until big naturally overpowers small and the racket zings.

It's near the end of this video-- you have to relax hand so it can add speed as it grabs.

There has to be a snap just as on the backhand side.

The sequence now is mondo-hand or mondopop.

The racket does not come around.

It golfs under, rakishly.

It golfs. It does not baseball. It's close to a lob. The lob however does not happen.

The bod rotation and power cord activate this toppling-under SWISH.

The strings go from open at top to mondoed at bottom.

The racket wriggles to this closed position as it descends to inside of slot and behind one.

Only from closed racket face can racket tock under to contact at great speed, the fastest thing by far in this slo-mo video.

The small muscle groups never break out (from) the larger muscle groups path.

The power cord helps take the racket butt to climax.

The mondo takes the racket tip back when everything is going forward to create delayed acceleration.

Racket speed is relatively slow both before and after the sudden acceleration.

Open at top. Closed at bottom.

The left hand is still for this.

"Light quick turn in the hands." Sure, with the turn a golfy swish down and up to near square.

The left hand goes fast. The two arms do not go together as thought.

As left hand goes the racket tip fights to stay back!

If there is learning progress here it can be marked in growth from mondo alone to mondopop.

Slow before mondopop. Slow after mondopop.

The mondo has changed from forearm rolling racket open as happens in other genres of forehand.

You already rolled racket open.

Racket in fact rolls closed. Yes, but wrist still snaps back.

Racket butt leads the racket down with straight wrist.

The circle of the arm is a subject in itself.

Point racket tip at ball or even to outside.

Open racket abbreviating rearward path. Take it down open.

At last moment synonymous with the tuck do a mondo with reversed forearm roll to close strings.

It's fast. It's quick. It's light. It's not over till the pop of mondopop.

Practice the body form. Make no attempt to do anything special with the hand. Don't worry about pitch or anything else. Move body only through the path. Let the hand just ride along. Do this without racket, holding hands together. Then try it with hands moving apart.

Then add the unique hand action just outlined.

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Adopt Semiwestern Grip

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The racket wriggles to this closed position as it descends to inside of slot and behind one.
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I don't think such a "wriggle" or other awkward adjustment becomes necessary if one is willing to use a semiwestern grip. Doug King explains very well why semiwestern fits this forehand. (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...ew/7.grips.php). I thought I could hit these shots with my strong eastern but am conducting self-feed all the time. And self-feed is the first thing to guide my decisions. (Forgive me for being so enthusiastic about this new forehand if you don't like enthusiasm).

Now I have three different grips for the three different forehands I will use, each with thumb on a different pointy ridge.

One backhand grip will have same thumb position as for a McEnrueful-- i.e., composite grip for a flat and very-solid-with-bod forehand and for backhand slice.

I just considered all the tennis advice ever offered by anybody to anybody one day and chose J. Donald Budge's to ordinary players (or any players) to hit backhands better by putting more thumb behind the ball.

This has led, in my case, to perching thumb on a sharp ridge no matter the grip.

Topspin backhand perches thumb on pointy ridge just under rearward slat. A power cord forehand puts it on third pointy ridge to the right of that. Pointy ridges are my self worked out system, you see. The forehands don't much care if a thumb is in front of them rather than wrapped, I have found.

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Better to Know or not to Know when Shoulders still are Turning Back?

Regardless of the answer, I am curious and want to know-- Faustian behavior for which I may burn. And I say that they are turning back as arm solos back while still up high (which opens the racket face a bit).

The shoulders then don't rotate forward much during the racket drop and simultaneous shape-shifting although they do change from level to backward tilt.

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What is Left Hand Doing-- Really?

To determine this turn off the sound and just watch the left hand from start to end of the video (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...slowmotion.php).

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My Job: To Invent not to Imitate, Especially not to Imitate Myself

But I sometimes submit myself to 16th century apprenticeship, which ought to come first.

I'll bring over the wave lift, the power pocket tautening into a power cord, and most of all the semiwestern grip which I now adopt at the age of 76 for some of my shots.

To use Doug King's term, I want to "keep form" for longer. I want to hit the ball way out front with folded forward forearm pointing at the net, for better push and wipe both.

I choose the early hands separation of Connors, Austin, Evert and McEnroe. Evert probably kept both hands connected a bit longer than the other three but that's only a feeling since I'm not about to do a study of THAT. The arms still will form/hold King's hoop though with a shoulders width gap in it.

I want this early separation as in my composite grip more to the side contact McEnrueful and to build upon that now.

I want to initiate backswing with the hand as Dennis Ralston advised in opposition to all the body-firsters. Handbodhandbod is the mantra I developed for myself.

So, to hit a topspin forehand, I take left hand way across which thoroughly turns the bod while keeping both hands level and rising yet separating on the same wave like two different boats.

The slow wave reverses as waves like to do.

The hands reverse too. The left hand goes up. The right hand goes down. At the same time the hitting forearm folds forward. Thus the two hands maintain their constant distance from one another but now are in vertical alignment. The right hand going down embeds itself in the power pocket being formed as hips clear themselves.

But where is the wiggle room in this? Am I finding the ball? Won't know until self-feed. Perfect would be solid body arm connection. Wiser would be to give the arms more freedom than this-- the freedom to move together in any direction even as they depict a new wave.

Contact-- catch and toss-- is the same as in a Doug King forehand. Cranky wipey optional additive works better when rod of arm points properly forward. Followthrough goes where it wants.

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The descent of the racket to be curved to back and then front.

The first half of this action to be free fall followed by folding of the arm rod forward.

This arm work to go through a longer path than that undergone by the larger bod-- appropriate since arm always goes faster and farther than bod.

And if it all doesn't work, so what. And if it does, great.

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Next Challenge

Great. And great for hitting without and with W-wipe. Now to use Doug King's advice-- at contact-- to simulate the catch in crew. He points out that an oarsman buries his blade, which action turns the water into concrete against which he explodes, or more mildly expressed, "pushes," and some have said, "pries."

One needs resistance, in other words, and although the ball creates some, one needs to manufacture more for "hard" contact. But some of the manufacture comes from subtle and soft movement of the hand.

As a senior sweep oarsman and former crew coach I have to say: If I can't run with this advice then most probably all tennis instruction is useless in my personal case. First idea is to start the final push of large muscle groups forward/upward slightly before the hand work has settled into place in order to create the necessary conflict.

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More Feel as Elbow Settles into Power Pocket

Early separation of the hands (right back from left) can include inward roll of the arm to keep racket tip pointing at oncoming ball.

One half of the power pocket is formed by waiting with a fold in the middle of one's bod, the second by shape shift to tilt shoulders up toward net.

As rotating hips clear toward the net.

The most natural loop of hand settling into the pocket may be a sidearm or even underarm throw including mondo and rod fold forward but while keeping power still in reserve.

I've never hit a tennis ball this way. The possibility is enabled by the new grip (semiwestern in my case). I'd love to build infinite variation in amount of rod fold and precisely where elbow comes into side but will limit myself for now to choice of three different landing spots an inch or two apart.

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Pliskova could crack a dirty joke right after she wins a match

Or smile or be animated or do something! Maybe interject some pauses or changes of inflection into her English. American Indians sometime fall into the same mistake, the same monotone of words spewing out like grains of barley as many professional tennis players of both genders do. I would like to hire myself out to this specialized market of diffident persons as a drama coach for $279 per hour.

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A New Year's Serve

Can a serve get weaker as one conditions one's ISR to go faster and faster?

Yes if one did not integrate the ISR (internal shoulder rotation) properly with all the rest of one's body contribution.

Doug King does not believe in the proprietorship of tennis ideas. Anyone in his view can take his or anyone else's and treat them as their own.

In fact, if one is not willing occasionally to do this, to go all in with new information, is not one then selling oneself short? The goal is better serving, period, so why won't a serious student of the game try anything?

I'm taken right now with double helix and weight-lifter's two-part lift scheme. (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...e.outline.html) (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...e.outline.html) .

I use the word "scheme" in the singular since I think both ideas are part of the same plot.

That would be a serve where body and arm take the racket up one side of the body, perform a transition with the arm to put it on the other side of the body and continue pushing upward with arm extensor until it's time for the body to chime in, I mean chime up again.

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Speed, Push, Turn

What an idea.