A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

No, that's probably funny about the tambourine.

[stotty]

No, that's probably funny about the tambourine.

It was. I did have a chuckle.

Stotty

[bottle]

Report

Played doubles yesterday. Decided to try what my physical therapist tells me when I'm supine on her table for sciatica. "As you do that, keep your lower back flat against the table." Well, I didn't have a table with me but tried what she said anyway. And immediately hit some extra hard forehands. Could this be a 103-year-old Aunt Frieda's "stupid little thing that might make a big difference?"

[10splayer]

Another progress report?

https://youtu.be/H07zYvkNYL8

[bottle]

Another progress report?

https://youtu.be/H07zYvkNYL8

Good but a vague reference. And generally speaking, a bad idea.

[bottle]

Report: Tennis Social

First match: There is a lefty on the other side but if you hit to his backhand you will be all right. Me and my partner are ahead 5-0 with my partner serving. He is such a dingbat that he doesn't realize he just held to win the set. So we play on and lose the game. "Well, it's Christmas," I think. 6-1 .

Second match with different players: We lose the first set 6-2 but are up 4-0 in the second when the switch occurs.

Third match: Sarah, the organizer, has put me with three young Turks, all of about the age and ability of don_budge. One of our opponents has a 120 mph serve. And my partner is someone I have not played with in three years. In silence, he drifted over to steal one of my shots, crowding my forehand in the process so that I hit myself in the head and drove myself to the hospital to be re-glued. (Much to the consternation of the indoors club since it is supposed to concern itself with the subject of concussion-- so they gave me a free ticket to something sort of like PR for preventative litigation.)

This is the first time since then that Don (his true name) and I have played together. "Mine!" he frequently calls out. I go for a wild poach at the net but can't get to it and keep going to deuce side of court. "Why didn't you stay?" he asks. "I thought I could make it. I couldn't." "But why didn't you stay where you were." "I was going too fast. Sorry but I disagree."

Our opponents look bemused. "Contention within our ranks," I tell them.

First it's 1-1, then 2-2. "Nice hold," Don says.

Then the shit hits the fan. I chip the fast serve back for two winners, but have yet to return to this dude from my forehand.

And I am tired, especially from the physical therapy in the morning. 6-2 .

[10splayer]

Report: Tennis Social

First match: There is a lefty on the other side but if you hit to his backhand you will be all right. Me and my partner are ahead 5-0 with my partner serving. He is such a dingbat that he doesn't realize he just held to win the set. So we play on and lose the game. "Well, it's Christmas," I think. 6-1 .

Second match with different players: We lose the first set 6-2 but are up 4-0 in the second when the switch occurs.

Third match: Sarah, the organizer, has put me with three young Turks, all of about the age and ability of don_budge. One of our opponents has a 120 mph serve. And my partner is someone I have not played with in three years. In silence, he drifted over to steal one of my shots, crowding my forehand in the process so that I hit myself in the head and drove myself to the hospital to be re-glued. (Much to the consternation of the indoors club since it is supposed to concern itself with the subject of concussion-- so they gave me a free ticket to something sort of like PR for preventative litigation.)

This is the first time since then that Don (his true name) and I have played together. "Mine!" he frequently calls out. I go for a wild poach at the net but can't get to it and keep going to deuce side of court. "Why didn't you stay?" he asks. "I thought I could make it. I couldn't." "But why didn't you stay where you were." "I was going too fast. Sorry but I disagree."

Our opponents look bemused. "Contention within our ranks," I tell them.

First it's 1-1, then 2-2. "Nice hold," Don says.

Then the shit hits the fan. I chip the fast serve back for two winners, but have yet to return to this dude from my forehand.

And I am tired, especially from the physical therapy in the morning. 6-2 .

You hit yourself in the head??? I'm no expert, but wouldn't that represent some severe motor skill issues? Let me guess... did the "on call" doctor also order a battery of psychological test following the admittance interview?

[bottle]

No, he knew I was screwed up long before that.

[bottle]

Early Separation Enables Better Distortion of One's Waterwheel (if in Fact One Has a Waterwheel)

I'll have to try this. Perhaps I won't be able to stand up, snow or not, in which case there will be reversion if not full concession to conventional form. But I love the term "dynamic wobble" with no further explanation to dilute it.

Here are some katas to try: Without a racket, make forehand waterwheels with one's arm. Waterwheels are very much like windmills so long as the windmill spins in the right direction. The arm can adjust from the elbow to make perfect circles.

Try waterwheels of different sizes and bodily investment. But why waterwheels in the first place? Well, if shape of backswing does not much matter, why not choose the most regular and beautiful form available, a perfect circle? Do 20 more, all with hand, not with a racket.

Now prepare to distort, which one can do in two different ways: 1) with the arm, 2) with the bod.

We choose bod for today and ideally for all days, although of course in the real world one will often use some combination. One never wants to be overly pure in tennis.

Early separation frees left hand to go wherever it wants. It is intimately connected to horizontal backward turn-- that is for sure. But if at the same time it now plunges downward a little it can raise right shoulder and hip.

To review, we start with waterwheels. Which shape we start by lifting the right elbow. Left hand going down while going around now further removes momentum from the racket head and further closes it and brings it to the inside.

From where it will go to the outside, the inside, and the outside, thus achieving the trajectory one desires. At the same time it will have gone from down to up to down to up.

Hardly a model in which coin stays balanced on the racket's upper rim.

So what has the left hand done through all of this? Well, it started off going down and around. Then it went the other way around and up. Next it clears to left side.

One could say it started out telling the bod what to do but by the middle the bod was telling it what to do.

[bottle]

Right Edge to Right Edge of Ball

I asked this forum once exactly what body parts were involved in taking racket tip out to the right for a serve. The one answer I received was from Doug Eng, who now, I believe, is at Harvard. Or maybe he was back then, too. Macht nichts.

Doug identified every possible contributing body part, it seems to me. Questions then naturally remained as to which elements a player was best off suppressing or emphasizing and to what degree.

I am again impressed, as I always am by the left coast polymath Doug King on this same subject. He too identified a number of factors, buts one stands out as being taken directly from baseball. One can take a baseball or tennis ball in a baseball pitcher's grip and turn the ball a wide range just from the wrist and forearm.

[Guest]

Right Edge to Right Edge of Ball

I asked this forum once exactly what body parts were involved in taking racket tip out to the right for a serve. The one answer I received was from Doug Eng, who now, I believe, is at Harvard. Or maybe he was back then, too. Macht nichts.

Doug identified every possible contributing body part, it seems to me. Questions then naturally remained as to which elements a player was best off suppressing or emphasizing and to what degree.

I am again impressed, as I always am by the left coast polymath Doug King on this same subject. He too identified a number of factors, buts one stands out as being taken directly from baseball. One can take a baseball or tennis ball in a baseball pitcher's grip and turn the ball a wide range just from the wrist and forearm.

Why the plural of "but?" That's GAY!!!!

[bottle]

Gotta give you a typo to make your day. But I accept your grammatical correction if not your conclusion and will leave the error up as a monument to your growing grammatical acumen. You should thank every English teacher you ever had (well, not "had" in the way you'd like) of whom I am one.

[10splayer]

Gotta give you a typo to make your day. But I accept your grammatical correction if not your conclusion and will leave the error up as a monument to your growing grammatical acumen. You should thank every English teacher you ever had (well, not "had" in the way you'd like) of whom I am one.

Not my post. You should know better. I'm in no way qualified to question someone of your intelligence and deductive reasoning skill.

[bottle]

Not my post. You should know better. I'm in no way qualified to question someone of your intelligence and deductive reasoning skill.

I'm looking at the post. No mention of your name anywhere.

[bottle]

Changing One's Address

What I care about is open vs. closed racket face in the address of one's serve. All the rest about who in the forum has credibility is dreck (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...=UTF-8#q=dreck).

Now, on the other hand, Donald Trump does concern me. His appointments show that he is out to hurt this country in a big way.

Open racket face-- I have never fully understood it. And have asked knowledgeable people to illuminate the subject 15 different times. When no one honors such a request (because you are such a jerk which is the essence of every English teacher, my sophomoric and sociopathic bait shop owners would say), I explore the subject on my own and sometime come up with a tidbit of interest.

So, both hands up in the air. With ball like a single scoop of bilious green/yellow ice cream in a brown wheat cone.

I hold the racket in my accustomed grip and position developed through a million repetitions. But I feather the racket 90 degrees while fully laying back the wrist right there up in the air to give myself a new address.

No twist of the bod, but the hands go down and back up. Now you/I am a pitcher in baseball with his two high hands joined together.

As hips turn back, the hitting forearm, which is right-angled to the upper arm, falls downward while pre-loading that upper arm since elbow stays at whatever level the shoulder enjoys and will enjoy.

As the integrated toss and shoulders coil takes racket down behind one's back, the racket arm stays on a line with the shoulders.

End of coil, which is in the arm, puts strings on outside of the tossed ball.

Notes:

A) In shower the two fists came together and rolled outward during this contact with right wrist fully laid back. Thus the downward winding of the forearm will create a motion continued at same speed and along same path as the sinking right shoulder.

B) The term "pre-load" is not the same as "pre-load" in various scientific documents. The "pre-load" here is simple "twisting of the stick the other way." And the actual load as arm finds outside of ball is "conflict load." Because the drive belts attached to the internal shoulder are trying to twist the humeral bumps one way while they are still twisting the other.

C) Most English teachers are not writers, but a writer must be an English teacher to be a writer. Reader, if you think you are a writer, to go along with your pre-verbal tennis instruction, why not try pre-verbal squeaks and make them look good on the page?