A New Year's Serve

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Reflection

It is interesting to see what other people think is important in tennis. Need I explain more? I have already explained enough. And believe in this material even when it goes wrong, which is often.

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Perfecting the Forehand Plush

"Plush" is a word coined by John M. Barnaby to describe a certain kind of rapidly spun yet heavy slice.

I'm pursuing only the forehand version since I have other types of slice to hit off backhand side.

The plush I want is a forehand approach shot down the line. I include basic description here as I see it, along with a paper cutter type fall of straight arm and racket before I pull it across.

I have added this brief fall not as embellishment to a great shot but so as to develop three-beat syncopation compatible with my other shots.

I always want to know I'm using three counts, in other words, on any ground stroke or even volley, where one prepares, waits, then hits the ball.

"Wait" is the key word. How does one best hurry up and wait?

In the plush forehand down the line the instruction simply to put racket out to side on a straight arm is not good enough for me.

I want a mild down and up swoop to put it there but in one beat only, accompanied by shoulders getting themselves roughly perpendicular to the target but just a little more (to accomodate subsequent walk through).

Then the straight arm shall fall a few inches. This is count two and the wait part.

Count three is the actual plush, the pull of racket butt across as one pushes from jackknifing body and stepping around.

But if one didn't want any long arm fall, one could simply wait between preparation and performance-- hover the racket in mid-air the way one does on a volley.

Barnaby's description: "The weight pushes forward as the racket cuts across. Note that the right leg walks through to add weight. Note the bottom edge of the racket leads decisively all the way through."

Like it or not, there is some mild closing of the wrist involved too.

If one waits well for a volley, perhaps one can wait well before launching THIS shot.

If one's nerves give one trouble with static weight times, however, moving something like an elephant could be the best idea, e.g., an ear, trunk, tail, take the arm bent to the side then straighten it.

How about take the arm while straightening it far to the side, then count to one, then do the plush, the monster plush?

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De-fanging and Re-fanging of a Flat Forehand

Detection of a growing glitch becomes possible due to the tripartite form of the flat forehand-- huge superfast turn, still breaststroke, the forward swing.

Breaststroke could be just the suggestion of a breaststroke, we said, comprised of a slight moving out of both elbows.

Well, move them out a bit more.

Couple this with more decisive separation from the ball.

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The Crosscourt Dropshot that Complements Forehand Plush Approach Shot Down the Line

I can't conceive of any new shot I haven't tried in self-feed.

A carioca step will definitely send the message that a plush shot down the line is about to occur.

But-- whoops-- a sharp crosscourt dropshot just happened instead.

Is the drop-shot basically good in self-feed? Why good, so very good? Because the shoulders are never turned far away from the shot and everything in the arm gets to curl-- not just the wrist but the elbow A.K.A. "scissoring."

So actual exploration of this shot, which has been all theory up to now, has begun.

Self-feed of course is one thing, actual play another. We shall see if the shot lives up to its self-feed promise.

A lot of people want to bring back the all-court game.

Well, here is a part of doing that instead of just talking about it.

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Someone New to Hate

I'm looking for someone new to hate. Not that I plan to take any less of a dim view of Trump, Bannon, Sessions, Bridge-boy, Huckabee Sanders and her father Huckabee, etc., etc. I greatly miss Sean Spicer and Kellyann Conway. On the other hand I've put a lot of people behind by deciding not to watch TV any longer. Even turned down the offer of a free one today. I prefer to read.

My first nomination for Spicer replacement is a person in a song. Can't tell whether it's man, woman or android. Don't know anything about this nondescript person other than it lives on the western side of the Missouri River and longs for the Shenandoah Valley (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfI2dgMHOTg).

I've lived in the Shenandoah Valley. It had many things to recommend it, even some good tennis around Winchester and Berryville. All in all though it wasn't that hot except for a Hungarian woman living on an offshoot creek that ran across huge flat rocks into the North Fork of the Shenandoah River.

So what kind of a person, who doesn't have ears, eyes, a brain, a soul, an opinion of any kind, lives by one river while longing for another?

A worthy target, I'd say, for total hatred.

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Pusillanimous Tennis

A good word, eh? It's not enough that I hit a good tennis shot. I'd like to throw a brickbat or two as well.

We can't think. And we certainly can't use the word "inches." Wouldn't be natural. Would be too schematic. A hopeless attempt at logic, when, as Jim Courier tells us, one doesn't find logic in top tennis.

I rebel against that! With abandon, I start my forehands with a quick, one-piece backswing near the end of which my two hands have separated to one-and-a-half feet apart.

For flat version the front hand goes forward three inches while the rear hand goes backward three inches. My core does not turn in any direction. I call this part of the tract "my breaststroke." It is a time to consolidate balance. The two hands moving in opposite direction help do this. They simultaneously create some wait-- you hurried up to get here but now it's time to wait for the ball.

Wait as well as weight is also built into the topspin version although arm contribution to desired balance is carried out in a very different way.

The left hand stops high where it is. The right arm straightens as it inverts to press one's palm down at the court. I almost think of a post hole digger. One anchors the stroke with a post.

The shortness of this plunge is due to the hands being out from one's body. The process of it meanwhile takes the hitting hand nine inches forward.

Both hands now begin to move with rotating upper body, which pushes hips forward and slightly away from the ball. The right shoulder spins down as much as around. Which cancels scissoring from the arm, so that there is a short level pathway of racket travel down near the court. And the scissoring carries the racket head nine inches more to a spot directly below one's guide hand.

The hips now kick in. If this stroke is characterized by kinetic chain despite one's shoulders having decisively turned first, that chain starts now. Might be more productive, though, to think of the hips and bent knees as carrying one's natural weight into the court.

Well, as hips go, the elbow lifts-- BAM!-- and racket after extending beautifully forward settles over yoke of opposite shoulder.

Is there any wipe (twisting of the arm) built into this explosive lift? There might or might not be. One already gave some of that potential away when one inverted while pressing down with the palm of one's hand.

Still, though, there could be some. If so, it wouldn't be of the wimpy windshield-wiping or baton-twirling kind but rather be combined with the dynamic upward/forward explosion of the elbow.

My friend Richard Wilbur,* a passionate and very good tennis player with his own court in Cummington, Massachusetts, thought poetry should celebrate, not be the vehicle of hate-filled criticism.

Much of his celebrated imagery-- a battered bird, caught in his daughter Ellen's room at the prow of the old grey arc of a house where the Wilbur family lived in Portland, Connecticut finally finding the open window and soaring away; the mind caught underground finally correcting the cave that surrounds it.

For me, consistently hitting topspin forehands from the hips would be something like that.

Ellen tells me that at Dick's funeral, in Cummington, there were even more farmers present than writers-- something that would have pleased her father very much.

* At a time when the internet is filled with interviews of Richard Wilbur, the former poet laureate, saying that he was your friend may sound pretentious. But he was my friend. He told me that a newspaper article I wrote was the sole reason for the sale of tax-free but commercial My Weekly Reader for 58 million dollars. I made Wesleyan University go straight in other words.

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More Precise Mechanical Delineation in the McEnrueful-- DTL Approach Shot-- Crosscourt Dropshot Complex

Is that title off-putting? So sorry, my reader, but remember I am not here to entertain you but rather to work on my own orchestration.

If someone wishes to come along in my forehand progressions, fine. If not, that's fine, too.

"Orchestration." A big word not used enough. And continuous orchestration is a huge part of my tennis life. I would much rather do forehand re-orchestration than a cardio drill.

I recently went through studies from all films and available information on the Ellsworth Vines and J. Donald Budge forehands. The result of those experiments was a beefed up flat forehand for myself which I now am all but ready to jettison.

For I see that new flat forehand as mere scaffolding for a big topspin forehand. Which, if fully mastered, will prove better complement to the softer composite grip McEnrueful than something eastern-gripped and fast and basically flat (and likely to go out in my and probably your case too).

The McEnrueful-- one of my favorite subjects in all of tennis-- is imitation of just one of John McEnroe's forehands, the one where he keeps his knees bent rather than extend them in a pogo-stock finish that carries weight through the ball.

But hips to shoulders sequence is still one of this shot's characteristics. The hips rotating foward lower the shoulder and racket behind one. The shoulders rotating forward then bank up to the ball for a quite accurate shot.

From same composite grip one can do much similar but some different to prepare for one's down the line approach shot. The racket goes down and up to one's side, not behind one. And the arm meanwhile straightens more. Contact is slightly to the right.

Elbow fall seems a good image to glom on even though one is dragging the racket butt across. The full arm slices down and across in a unified blend. It then folds at the elbow. This folding happens sooner than I have done it before, which makes the crossing much more comfortable and assured.

So, straight arm to bent but with the bending (or scissoring) to happen after the ball is gone.*

This pattern is reversed for the dropshot. Straight arm bends soon while hitting the ball. And the topspin forehand hit from a strong eastern within a narrow more vertically oriented frame better balances these shots. Which adds up to four forehands-- enough.

* In re-checking John M. Barnaby, which after all is where this great shot came from, I notice he doesn't ever bend the arm, just keeps it straight and going sideways. Whatever works best.

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Put the Going Down Closer to the Coming Up

This is continuation of the orchestration of four forehands described in post # 3937 .

More specifically, I refer to a tall narrow frame in which to contain the topspin shot.

"Windshield wiper" and "getting the racket tip back" are minimized maybe even sacrificed in this new PLOT to put more longitude into the form of the SHOT.

So elbow goes up a little behind you or short in the SLOT. That twists the arm. Then as you push palm down you twist the arm more.

It only follows that the more you twist the arm and racket before you hit the ball, the less you will be wiping during contact, n'est-ce pas?

With a strong eastern you can now almost get the netside frame lower than the rear fence side frame.

The shot from there is hit as already has been described with arm scissoring before exploding forward and upward and then settling over opposite shoulder best described in three letters, BAM!.

The advice or self-advice here pertains to shape more than body segmentation, which has been explored before.

Desired shape for the whole stroke is a tall narrow coffin set on end. Sorry about that.

But you must admit, reader, that a bent arm brings hand up closer to front of your head than a straight arm.

And everything in your bod, with the exception of your legs, contributes to the narrow upwardness.

The squeezed path indicates another shot in which racket path, designed to administer maximum spin, is at right angles to one's bod movement delivered toward the net by pliable knees in this case.

Jack Kramer in THE GAME: MY 40 YEARS IN TENNIS, attributes a youthful gaining understanding of weight transfer to watching Ellsworth Vines.

I wholly buy into this, in fact bought into it a long time ago, and believe that Tom Okker uses the same bending of the knees combined with late hips turn for the same purpose.

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Why Does Right Leg Kick toward Right Fence in Old-Fashioned Kick Serves?

Guess: Because the server's ordinary serve contains forward hips rotation that carries right leg (dead leg) into the court. But now the server wants to scrape the ball upward from its lower left quadrant. So he inhibits the hips turn.

This can lead to upward body segmentation similar to that of an inchworm. The two legs can drive together although weight is shifting from rear to front foot at the same time. The right leg, suddenly released, kicks toward right fence.

Next question: Are shoulders also inhibited from their customary turn? Keeping them closed until after contact seems like a good idea.

Next question: Does humped wrist (if in fact the server has humped it) open out as strings scrape ball or continue to stay humped for similar reason of wanting to brush up left side of ball?

Google's first answer to first question: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrBCX2ESnlE).

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Simultaneity or Sequence

An old Chet Murphy alternative for players with deep-seated physical impossibility of producing significant upward service spin is to actually straighten arm so late that this happens on the ball.

This sort of works, in my view, if you come up to ball with racket on edge. And then pronate right after hand passes ear. Arm then can snap straight.

But if this "sort of works," then why won't it work even better if you combine all available elements into a single simultaneity rather than breaking them into sequential bits.

Thus one keeps the arm squeezed together for a long time with humped wrist as one ingredient of this coiled spring.

The unified transition then will be from full spring-like coil to fully extended arm by which time the ball will be scraped and gone.

Immediate follow through of straight arm will then be a trip far to the side. This serve would preclude conventional follow through were it not for rotation of the shoulders finally chiming in.

A question I won't let go of is whether the humped wrist stays humped or is in process of opening at contact. And if so, how much? Whatever produces the most distinctly heard sound of tearing silk.

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Perfecting Forehand Plush Shot Down the Line

If we are supposed to create rather than imitate, there has to be an exception.

Strict imitation of the John M. Barnaby photographic production of this shot is the way to go.

So why don't I buy a scanner or go to the library or print shop or learn how to use the camera buried somewhere in my very old dumbphone?

Too many other pressing matters. And to be blunt, reader, you wouldn't know how to interpret what you saw even if you bothered to click on it-- and you have a record of insufficient clicking on photo attachments.

Just be fairly hunched over as you down-and-up the racket on straight arm way out to side.

Push the upper bod a little more as the drawn paper cutter starts down. Walk outside foot through almost as if to shove the ball with it.

Right foot directly beneath ball is what I see before same foot finishes its slow stride toward net and target.

Straight arm continues to opposite side.

If there is any relief to the arm pressure of this it comes at the very end. Both wrist and elbow can bend a tiny amount.

The racket and outside foot arrive at the ball at the same moment. One substitutes two hitting steps for the normal one in a neutral stance forehand with second still in the air as one makes contact.

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Note to Self

Experiment with straight wrist kick where tossed-to-place is ideal and humped wrist with toss farther to the right.

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Practice One-Step and Two-Step Plush Forehands Down the Line in Strict Alternation

Do this and you will see that there is something behind this post and it is not just words. In the one-step, at contact, the front foot will be down. In the two-step, reflecting more commitment, the gliding walk through foot will still be mid-air.

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My Journey: Why Presented Here?

Well, the journey ought to be of interest since everyone is on a journey of one kind or another.

If the journey is toward better tennis strokes as in my case the conclusions someone may reach may be very different from my own.

But we both are looking for something different-- don't we have that in common?

I get excited-- this has happened before. Narrow frame idea for better topspin comes from the Doug King teaching videos available to anyone at TennisPlayer.

While I'm working on topspin forehand right now, eventually I would like to put my topspin backhand in a narrow frame as well.

This could lead to the amazingly high follow through of Chris Lewit himself (but not that of the students as far as I can tell) in his TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE.

Jimmy Arias is another player with that same high follow through but only in his younger days.

The steeper, closer lowering and raising of one's racket like two ocean waves huddled together puts more emphasis on natural body transfer, it seems to me, to provide effortless pace.

I understand that one could put EVERYTHING into the generation of extreme topspin but think that's not for me.

I prefer the black arrows that Tom Okker places behind both knees in photos of him hitting his forehands.

Narrow frame then but with pliable knees adding or subtracting weight from the result.

I'm biased enough (but let's call it "convinced enough") that everyone should have two black arrows, one behind each knee.

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How Many Hitting Steps in a Plush Forehand Down the Line?

1.5 .