A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Unexpected Result

One can use the 45-degree outside loop for topspin shots as well as for Ellie-bams.

One merely will need to keep arm bent from bottom of loop.

The topspin might not be as great as that produced by a larger loop but for seniors to the third doubles will suffice.

Now one won't tip off which stroke one is about to hit.

Lifting elbow sharply to administer the spin before arm rolls-- like Johanna Konta-- seems one avenue of possibility to explore.

[don_budge]

Here's the Memo that Blew Up the NSC

"Fired White House staffer argued "deep state" attacked Trump administration because the president represents a threat to cultural Marxist memes, globalists, and bankers."

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/10/...ew-up-the-nsc/

bottle...question: Are you in fact a Marxist? Please read the memo within the article...if you can make it through it. You have inadvertently or not aligned yourself with the precise agenda of this "memo" and I wonder if you will admit to it or at least say that it does resemble your political paradigm. You know what a paradigm is of course:

paradigm |ˈperəˌdīm| noun

1 technical a typical example or pattern of something; a model: there is a new paradigm for public art in this country.

• a worldview underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject: the discovery of universal gravitation became the paradigm of successful science.

2 a set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles: English determiners form a paradigm: we can say “a book” or “his book” but not “a his book.” Often contrasted with syntagm.

• (in the traditional grammar of Latin, Greek, and other inflected languages) a table of all the inflected forms of a particular verb, noun, or adjective, serving as a model for other words of the same conjugation or declension.

Here's the memo in another file just in case you are unable to access it.

https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...ml#document/p5

You really should read it and answer the question...are you a Marxist Communist?

[bottle]

Arm to Bod, Bod to Arm: No Time to Quit Now

Most players are content to employ one of these patterns but not the other. Use both, I say, and you'll have more fun.

But there still are details to nail down especially on the topspin side.

The two forehands will look the same till top of the loop.

Forward hips turn will start things in the case of topspin. Bod, not arm, will lower the racket. During the lowering however the left arm plying in straightened form will "smooth the waters" in crossing to one's left side.

And fixed hitting arm will have lowered while remaining BENT.

Lift of elbow comes next followed by roll of the arm.

Questions: Mondo works well for flat shot. How about for this pared down topspin shot? Nope. Does not. I therefore propose to manipulatively (actively) lay back wrist and turn forearm under during the hips rotation produced lowering of the racket.

Post Self-Feed Observations

Correct was the assertion that mondo can work well in an Ellie-bam (the best flat forehand known to man or at least to this man). Ellsworth Vines edited his teacher's forehand to point that his 45 degree outside loop replaced all the arm work of the Beasley-bam that occurs close in and around and behind one's back. The editing created this new improved sequence: 1) outside loop, 2) body pivot. It is body pivot plus gradual extension of the arm that hits the ball. Well, what then is the time interval necessary for success in this weight-transferring sweep? Enough to include a mondo at its beginning with hips turn more than powerful enough to trigger the hot dog passiveness that the mondo fashion statement requires.

In early hips topspin version of this shot, however, there is nothing left to trigger a mondo other than arm work. If one then plans on elbow lift followed by high windshield wiping arm over the shoulder, the stroke already includes two elements or brain commands. Adding a third is likely to be one too many. One can make three elements work if one has time to spare but who does?

Simply adding the mondo elements to hip rotation in an active and less showy way (wrist layback and twisting the forearm under) seemed best choice therefore in self-feed today.

But one wants to use inside out swing philosophy in any good forehand. And since hips rotation no longer can do this (since it is already spent), one may wish to lift elbow slightly to outside before continuing with it up and over the opposite shoulder.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cS3eIob78o)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8CcCQyj4fc#t=58.043776)

(I wouldn't want to play Katherine Harris in ping-pong.)

[bottle]

Taffy Shot: an Ellie-bam Emphasizing Smoothness over Crude Shove

Unit turn establishes the connected hands out to the right. The left hand then goes forward while the right arm goes down.

Well, HOW should the right-angled right arm go down? Go down while preserving the right angle at the elbow in order to create a more substantial arm and hip shove an instant later as one hits the ball? Does one want a bigger shove or bigger smoothness since smoothness equates with power.

Today's self-feed experiment will spread out the arm straightening. The arm will be straightening already as it forces the racket down. The principle of this extends all the way back to the Beasley-bam, a shot that was successful because it gradually straightened from the elbow starting to do this even during the backswing.

Now the structure is different. The arm action is out to the right rather than in close behind one's back.

The idea of protracted straightening need not change however. Unless the shot doesn't work in which case one can revert to a more abrupt arm shove.

But one shouldn't compromise before going wholeheartedly toward the smoothness ideal.

That would be a forehand in which left arm finishes straightening before the right. In which the gradual straightening leads to a more comfortable bent hitting arm at the end.

Also, left arm gets to be more comfortable. It simply straightens then bends coincident with weight-shifting pivot of the bod. There is no moving the arm sideways in between to smooth the waters as in other forehands. Straighten and bend-- that's it.

[bottle]

To the Inside while Traveling toward the Outside

Seano, in another thread, rephrases Brian Gordon to John Yandell's satisfaction. Me, I'm big on rephrasing and reacting and "putting things in your own words." The personal reaction may reveal more than the substance that elicited it, slightly repackage it and make it come alive to someone for the first time.

Centripetal force from a passive wrist joint, similar to a boat turning and pulling a skier and wiping them around. After the "flip", the arm and racquet will move forward 2 ways. First, they move in a linear path to the ball. Secondly, the racquet moves in a rotational manner due to the hand pulling in closer to the body (because it's attached to the shoulder), causing centripetal force so the racquet face will square up to the ball. The force starts at the butt end of the racquet and pulls the top end around...Vertical racquet speed, caused by internal rotation of the shoulder (along with forward racquet speed) is what produces the true heavy ball (speed and spin).

And so, to put my own spin on this, I think everything is perfect except for the part about the arm and racket moving forward in two ways. I want to pare this down to one way.

And, building on Seano's statement that force starts at the butt of the racket and pulls the top end around, I want a kinesthetic cue to convey the same idea. For me, that's elbow pointed down and sliding sideways from outside to inside, a sensory image, something one can "feel."

At the same time the lagged racket is flying out to the ball. One can be looking down the slope of one's shoulder off to one's right at the ball.

This may be new or old thought-- doesn't matter. Good for a round of attempted improvement of topspin in self-feed today.

[bottle]

A Note on Ongoing Computer Blockage

Blocking don_budge was easy. I don't read a word of what he writes, and have been a much happier person ever since I made that decision. To block all other tennis Nazis however may be more difficult in that there are so many of them. It's not just that they pattern themselves on the behavior of Donald Trump, whether they think he will be the greatest of all American presidents as don_budge and hockeyscout both declared pre-blockage, but they are not open to any ideas not their own. And they are not civil. And have no sense of humor.

Think "Orcs" in THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien.

[bottle]

Re-Phrasing One's Topspin Forehand

One can't do this enough, in my view. My tennis enemies would never try such a thing. They learned their forehand by divine edict from Der Feuhrer himself, whomever at the moment that might be.

We go ahead, blocking these Tennis Nazis from our computers and from our consciousness once and for all since they are of no use to ourselves whatsoever.

So far I have blocked two persons from all future tennis discussion but am looking for a third.

It was Oscar Wegner's second tennis book (published by McGraw-Hill) in which he wiped his palm across a blackboard.

Later he stated that one almost feels as if one is drawing the racket backward into oneself.

His many enemies used all this to assert "poor extension," but then along came Brian Gordon, emphasizing sideways component to arm movement once the mondo or flip has occurred.

I go with the model advanced in # 3740, am adding nothing new to my forehand equation today.

Other than to remind readers of the Nazi intolerance that characterizes so much of what passes for tennis instruction in the United States.

[don_budge]

A Note on Ongoing Computer Blockage

Blocking don_budge was easy. I don't read a word of what he writes, and have been a much happier person ever since I made that decision. To block all other tennis Nazis however may be more difficult in that there are so many of them. It's not just that they pattern themselves on the behavior of Donald Trump, whether they think he will be the greatest of all American presidents as don_budge and hockeyscout both declared pre-blockage, but they are not open to any ideas not their own. And they are not civil. And have no sense of humor.

Think "Orcs" in THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Re-Phrasing One's Topspin Forehand

One can't do this enough, in my view. My tennis enemies would never try such a thing. They learned their forehand by divine edict from Der Feuhrer himself, whomever at the moment that might be.

We go ahead, blocking these Tennis Nazis from our computers and from our consciousness once and for all since they are of no use to ourselves whatsoever.

So far I have blocked two persons from all future tennis discussion but am looking for a third.

It was Oscar Wegner's second tennis book (published by McGraw-Hill) in which he wiped his palm across a blackboard.

Later he stated that one almost feels as if one is drawing the racket backward into oneself.

His many enemies used all this to assert "poor extension," but then along came Brian Gordon, emphasizing sideways component to arm movement once the mondo or flip has occurred.

I go with the model advanced in # 3740, am adding nothing new to my forehand equation today.

Other than to remind readers of the Nazi intolerance that characterizes so much of what passes for tennis instruction in the United States.

Paranoid. Delusional.

[bottle]

Adding a Big Crunch to an Ellie-bam

When all of your energy is not wasted on demonizing people the way a tennis Nazi compulsively does, you can begin to look for subtle distinction within a given stroke.

A tennis Communist might be an ogre or not; a tennis Nazi invariably is.

An Ellie-bam is an imagined imitation of an Ellsworth Vines forehand circa 1933 .

In the four years that Vines held the crown of best tennis player in the world, he was especially known for a very good serve but most of all for a uniquely flat spinless forehand described by cynics as "hit or miss."

To reduce the misses, he and his coach, Mercer Beasley, would endlessly perform consistency drills, which kept Vines consistently at the top.

Still, the premise that every forehand he hit would be a winner or a loser was very important.

So if one would like to resurrect this shot, as I have tried to do, it's not enough to see it begin to work, to stay in the court and be easily produced.

No, one wants to imbue into the shot more risk factor than that. One has from same outside loop preparation one's topspin shots available, after all, for when one seeks larger margin.

The main characteristics of the Ellie-bam, I have concluded, are a gradual straightening of right arm throughout combined with a late hips pivot that accomplishes in its entirety one's weight transfer and almost throws one's racket at target after the departing ball.

Not enough to see these balls stay in. A wily opponent will beat up on them. Needed, the big crunch from the stomach that one can see in some of the old Vines filmed sequences.

That preserves fairly upright posture at beginning of the forward stroke and a big hunch forward right while striking the ball.

This will increase risk factor precisely as one wants. One will produce a clean winner. Or a clean miss.

[bottle]

To my Readers:

I know that don_budge has been writing about me although I haven't read a single word of it. He is blocked from my computer, so if he says something he hasn't said before (something new in other words) please let me know.

Admittedly, a dubious proposition, don-budge being the tennis Nazi of all tennis Nazis who repeats himself the most.

For Roger Federer is still the living poof, and Harry Hopkinton still marks the start of The Boston Marathon. don_budge's catechism of tennis excellence, with those two features in it, has withstood the trial of time-- just ask him, he's already said so. (Couldn't wait for other persons to recognize his excellence.)

[bottle]

A New Biumvirate of Ellie-bams and Federfores

Gradually, over the years and even decades of forum participation here at TennisPlayer.net, I have come to realize who my readership is.

It is not the large majority of civil tennis players with good senses of humor that I thought.

No, it is THE TENNIS NAZIS, that creepy minority of Trump enablers that exist within the tennis community in about the same proportion as in the larger American community.

I have a unique ability to infuriate this group (notice that I don't use the expression "piss them off" since that is their language and not mine).

We could analyze-- endlessly I suppose-- why exactly this is. Why bother? Good enough to know that Bottle, a 78-year-old tennis player just in the process of discovering his two best strokes, insults the Tennis Nazis to their very core every time he mentions The Ellie-bam or The Federfore.

We do know this: Tennis Nazis are power-addicted. So when they see another person who is power-addicted like them (the Warthog voting for Warthog syndrome), they immediately predict that he will go down in history as the greatest American president.

Notice they don't say he IS the greatest American president since too much evidence already is in, but rather "he will go down as the greatest American president." The future tense seems safer to them even though they can't realize that a man can go down without going down as "greatest president."

Federfores and Ellie-bams, on the other hand, belong to that sphere of tennis and human life where there is actual substance, not image or illusion.

A Federfore, ironically, is best learned from a single photograph in Chris Lewit's book THE TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE, VOLUME ONE, in which Roger Federer is seen in the process of siting down the slope of his shoulders at the ball.

If one combines this photo with sport history knowledge that Federer had an outside forehand loop before he started bringing his racket tip straight up, one can simply skip what Federer later did and have a pretty good imitation of a Roger Federer forehand.

And then, from same outside loop, develop the Ellie-bam to go with it.

[bottle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcY4pkX5GC8

When I look at the last forehand in this clip, and try to follow what Vines' eyes are doing, I think that the final pointing of racket at departing ball and beyond it the target happens a split-instant before the hitting arm bends. So that bent arm then points a little bit to the left of the target.

It's not a prescription that would work with a lot of modern forehands although both Mercer Beasley and J. Donald Budge went with it all the way. I'm not saying they followed MY prescription, arrived at tediously. They both simply suggested that if you let go of the racket it would fly on the same path as the outgoing ball toward your precise target. And Beasley taught his students to determine final aim by where the hips end up, just the opposite, say, of Peter Burwash who rather has arm and wrist determining that final aim.

On a Federfore, I now think what we have called dogpat and flip and mondo and arm straightening and lowering of the right shoulder by virtue of keeping one's heinie away from ball is all the same thing. You can start with outside placement of the racket, palm slightly down, and immediately go into internal contortion of the body which then continues an external whirl all through the stroke.

So, yes, hips start earlier, much earlier than in an Ellie-bam but then keep going all the way through end of weight transfer. Roger is alleged in Chris Bowers' early book about him to have called his forehand "modern retro." Maybe the retro part should apply to "non-stopped shoulders"-- I don't know. A Federfore simply does not stop its body motion like a Johanna Konta forehand or a Vic Braden serve or forehand on the theory that arm will accelerate when body is abruptly stopped.

The arm does accelerate but not because the body stopped.

All this is just how one guy is currently explaining a couple of shots that seem to be working well for him right now.
Of course if I keep up the self-explanation I can maybe kill them-- something I'd rather not do. A top level Canadian figure skater I knew once came up with a great invention that he then, by his own admission, killed through over-practice and over-thought.

He stopped trying for Olympic gold and spawned a large tribe of kids.

[bottle]

Is there any Farm Gate in Roger Federer's Forehand Volley?

Term: "farm gate." A right-angled configuration in which upper arm is vertical like the pins in the hinges of a farm gate. Lower arm meanwhile keys parallel to the court.

The question arose for me while watching Roger's 2017 Wimbledon training session with Tomas Berdych either on U-Tube or at the Federer website with bubble hearts rising on right side of one's screen.

I thought I saw the elbow stay back while the forearm keyed forward. So I went to a trove of younger Federer FHVs in TennisPlayer.net . The whole U of Roger's arm moved at once. Shorthand for that might be that the elbow moved.

So I went back to the Berdych training session. Yes the elbow did stay back. The strings rolled open. Farm gating occurred but with the added factor that strings rolling open sent lower edge of the racket forward at a faster speed than the hand.

Does this attention to detail indicate autism or Asperger's on my part? Possibly. And too much detail will kill anybody.

The same accusation, however, can be made of too little detail.

So what is going on here? My guess is that the volleys in which elbow moves are blocked volleys. The volleys in which elbow stays back can be "stuck" or "struck" volleys in which one "sticks" the ball.

Remember: Ben Ford, a tour technician, once said I knew enough tennis to be dangerous. And I haven't tried sticking the shot precisely this way yet but will.

[bottle]

A Subtle Transition

Write first. Do second. That, my method, is not one I am about to change now.

Previously, we worked on combining mondo with body elements to make the 2 in 1 2-3 rhythm feel like "a turning inside out."

We also worked on eschewing (turning up our nose at) axle-like twisting of upper arm in most forehands or should I say "most Federfores."

We tried hard to isolate the arm motion that best imparts spin while squaring racket face to the target.

The cue I came up with was quite straight elbow pointed down and accelerating sideways. "Sideways in what direction?" you could ask and should.

Most centrally, we tried to make post-mondo independent arm motion into one motion and not two.

Slow down here, please, reader, in saucy attempt to understand.

All the reasoning we applied-- and too many players think one shouldn't do that at all-- went toward establishing 1 2-3 rhythm.

The 3 in that rhythm unfortunately contains very complex actions in that the arm both goes out and comes back not to mention looks like it is traveling quite levelly and pronouncedly toward left fence in Roger Federer's case.

Not to be taken seriously! The ball was already hit.

So the body turned inside out to get the heinie away from the ball. ("Heinie" is an improvement on whatever term Bill Tilden used or didn't use or maybe he did use it-- who knows? Katharine Hepburn is dead so I can't ask her.)

The arm accelerated sideways to impart spin and square the strings to the target. The arm then came back to the bod.

Not good enough. The arm must proceed beyond squaring the strings to the target to pointing the racket tip at the target before coming back to the bod.

Yes, that must happen if one wants to get the Zen of this thing right.

[bottle]

Ono, Not more Theory Applied to these Already Secure Shots!?

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

We can leave the Ellie-bam alone. The Federfore however may be susceptible to a pair of improvements.

1) In a neutral stance Federfore, with elbow at the beginning of its sideways acceleration can not one's outside foot kick backward to help left hand in its task of slightly decelerating one's whirling bod so that the elbow accelerates even more?

Answer: It can, but on the other hand a pogo-stick-like hop becomes probable, a hop that bottle's partial knee replacement won't like, in fact that replacement hates all hops.

2) In a semi-open or open Federfore, with elbow at the beginning of its sideways acceleration can not one's inside foot kick forward to help left hand in its task of slightly deceleratiing one's whirling bod so that the elbow accelerates even more?

Answer: Just because Roger does it doesn't mean that other people can't.