A New Year's Serve

[don_budge]

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/31/reuters-kosovan-farmer-names-pet-wolf-president-trump/

The strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf.

[bottle]

Echolalia. Eat the wolf, I say. Skin that sucker and nail the hide on the outhouse wall. And no, I never click on anything that has the word "breitbart" in it. That organization doesn't even have Steve Bannon working for it any more. So what good is it?

[don_budge]

HERE'S JOHNNY!!! JOHN ESCHER...DETROIT SCHOOL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

[bottle]

HERE'S JOHNNY!!! JOHN ESCHER...DETROIT SCHOOL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

No, as usual, you have things wrong. I am not a regular teacher. I am a sub teacher three times a week. And as far as the video, I barely know that person. I have lost 30 pounds and moved on.

[bottle]

The Core of the Thing

Few pose the question other than Stevie Innuendo, the Italian Gang Boss and Mussolini of our time. (He has antlers and plans to move to the north of Sweden thanks to the new pastures opening up there.

Why does Bottle write so much, Stevie the Innuendo asked, then answered his own question (a good thing to do although he then comes up with a substandard and under-imagined thought): Because Bottle thinks he is a writer and therefore must produce something every day.

No, Bottle knows he is a writer and the rest. If a day goes by without him writing something he gets the taste of ashes in his mouth.

Here at Tennis Player, though, the urge is different than in other venues. Here Bottle's writing all comes down to a single Gordian knot, that of a workable solution to the problem of rotorded serving.

I have heard of knotted ropes and stoppados in steambaths, the use of small weights challenging one's down-behind-the-back physical limit, and my own proposal, the locking of oneself in one's car and driving to the nearest dump crusher and insistence on staying in the car.

None of these routes has ever seemed genial enough.

I want my solution in design.

And so, today I propose to try to eschew the turning around of the shoulders to the ball so essential in the philosophy of Dennis Van Der Meer.

Separate the elbows but combine this with body bend.

Then start one's cartwheel with body turning BACK!

If this ploy is successful, the sensible person will want to solve the problem of Donald Trump's presidency.

And go for the answer to that next Gordian knot-- how to rid ourselves of the jerk through good sense.

[don_budge]

Yeah, and it led to a fellowship and a year of working with William Golding. Cool, eh?

[don_budge]

"deeep state" whatever that is.

[bottle]

Mr. Innuendo does innuendo. But sometimes even what the innuendo is is unclear. Doesn't matter. What's important to remember is that anybody who speaks of deeeeeeeeeeep state is a profound person. The state they speak of is deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeper than the well of Democritus.

[bottle]

Note how every precious catchword of the right always applies to itself, is double-edged, gives the mopeheads a chance to launch a spurious attack with words that apply to themselves in even amount or more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_in_the_United_States

[don_budge]

The state they speak of is deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeper than...

[bottle]

Left Hand Does a Lot, Right Hand Does a Little. The Proportion is Four to One. Am Talking About Forehand Backswing.

Somebody decided to pay for Friday night warmup drills for bottle. I got to work last night with a favorite teaching pro the diminutive Aggie the size of a small bug.

Halfway through our hour, which some would call a "cardio session," Aggie very gently showed all the big hitters how they could eliminate their grossly huge backswings and merely turn their bodies and send their racket down and up.

It was in this demonstration along with her footwork that one could see just how good a player Aggie is.

Her wait position and turn are solid, human, ordinary with both hands together on the racket to bring the body around.

It's in what happens next that her personal style asserts itself-- very vertical racket work, an arm that unbends who knows how, economy and forward emphasis everywhere.

Who says a woman takes her racket behind her back like Madison Keys?

Will the big hitters listen? Of course not.

Should Bottle change? No. But he (I) don't have a gross backswing, and my wait position is lower and cheat left and different from the one Aggie showed.

I'm having fun with what Stotty told me in post # 4027 . Amazing how easily great information can fly across the pond.

Wow, what short hand work within overall quick backswing when racket tip ends up high but still tilted toward the net.

Had a great hit too with my young Chrysler engineer friend Bill Grant after the three 45 minute competitions and dinner.

Am about to abandon all pretense of three part forehands once and for all. Fognini and a million others can have unit turn, breastroke, and forward stroke all to themselves.

I started experimenting with no interval between backward and forward bod turns decades ago.

A USPTA pro who was captain of his college team and played on the tour carefully observed and was impressed and didn't change anything.

I think I can make 1-2 rhythm work by fleshing out both turns, by applying more wisdom (or thought if you prefer) throughout but not alter total duration of the stroke.

Backward Bod Turn:
Left hand stays on racket for longer than in a McEnrueful but still separates early. The point across with left arm is full and lusty and connected to farther turn. The racket tip goes up but not all the way to vertical (or skunk tail). All these items, especially the brief slow rise of the racket tip like a snake's head at center of its coils create a slightly slower backswing than one had before.

Forward Bod Turn:
The arm extension may go backward and downward before forward or maybe forward the whole way-- I don't know. Whatever one is doing the pathway is curved in the vertical plane. The mondo happens practically on the ball. The transition from mondo to wipe is non-existent-- it's all one act. The follow through is over yoke or around opposite shoulder. All these ideas add slightly to the duration of the foreswing. If you can use the term "backswing" you can use the term "foreswing."

Total duration of this topspin forehand is-- to repeat-- same as before.

I didn't think I could substitute teach and play four or five hours of tennis in the same day. I teach all subjects and grade levels K-12. In fact on Friday I was in a school called Dove Academy Detroit laid out as a maze. I've been there six or seven times but still don't know my way around. And had to lug heavy bags from room to room, constantly going up and down the wrong staircase then retracing my steps. Lugging a classroom's worth of books and a million papers in three stories of concrete structure-- a whole desk's worth.

A good nap and strategically drunk coffee figured in later tennis success.

Also, as my former partner Hope informed me, I am 78 not 79 . I did the math. Went online. She's right.

But I got severe cramps in lower left leg in bed in middle of the night.

The evening was worth them.

P.S. If you want to see a lousy serve, read # 4040. It got clobbered. I quickly resorted to better serves.

[bottle]

Which is More Important, the Point or the Match?

The point if you are losing the match.

But the point can be pretty interesting even when you are winning the match.

Pat Blaskower, one of the more provocative authors ever of tennis books on doubles, divides the roles of the two players on a team into "terminator" (the person slightly closer to net) and "the crosscourt player."

This useful distinction leads to good team balance between offense and defense and often to a long crosscourt duel of attrition pending ideal development, viz., the defensive player finally succeeds in setting up the terminator for a clean put-away or almost.

The role of the more defensive player is not to win the point outright. That happening nevertheless would be nice.

Last evening I was in such a duel that became very prolonged with all shots topspin forehands.

This gave me a chance to test a precept of Brian Gordon, viz., that twisting or windshield wiping arm ("twirling" or "baton twirling" or "propeller whirling" are the terms I prefer) produces more topspin than a lifting arm.

Many players try to do both, which raises another question: Does one or the other method produce more topspin than both together? We leave that question to hang Dylanesque in the wind (http://www.searchingforagem.com/Misc/who.htm).

And last night I tried to keep the forehand exchange basic and simple once I saw it might go on forever. My partner was too timid to poach so...as simple and deep as possible.

Each of my forehands was a Waterwheel, a form in which the racket loops smoothly down and forward until it accelerates from vigorous lift of the elbow.

I wasn't supposed to end the point but did when I hit a Federfore in which arm twirled instead of lifted.

This elicited an unforced error from my opponent.

Was the error due to change in quality of the spin? Or was the Federfore simply a better shot? Would change from a bunch of Federfores to one Waterwheel have produced the same mistake?

All perfectly sane questions.

Whatever the answer to each one, I knew at that moment I was glad I could produce two different kinds of spin from the same preparation.

[bottle]

Duration of One's Forehand

The snake's head is either concealed or distracted from by the last coil being set across. All those scales. A serpent horribilis.

The backswing turn is a big coil encircling the barely lifting right hand.

If one divides backswing into two even halves-- bod turn with opposite hand on racket and bod turn as separated hand points across, the desired prolonging of backswing becomes not that hard to achieve.

Just as Roger Federer uses earlier hand separation than Grigor Dimitrov, we shall use an earlier one too but one later than in our McEnrueful.

Will backswing still be quick enough? Yes, it's one move. But did it draw time from abandonment of breaststroke or any other interim between backswing and foreswing? A little.

We want same duration of total stroke we've used for years but with the parts more wisely assembled.

To achieve this goal we must make a similar time alteration to the foreswing-- more difficult.

I was thinking that some players push through contact with their knees like Tom Okker but then extend them as he often does not bother to do. That could spend more time.

In his extraordinary essay in the old book MASTER YOUR TENNIS STROKES, Okker excoriates recreational players for rushing their strokes and leaping up thus robbing effortless weight from the shot. He speaks of two seconds as achievable possibility. But when Jack Kramer got around to measuring Okker's forehand, he came up with an average among the photo studies he had of about 1.20 seconds.

Does anybody still ever put a stopwatch on one's forehand nowadays? I saw the coach of Arantxa Sanchez Vicario measuring her forehand that way decades ago at Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.

[bottle]

10splayer, do you think I should try the snake shot tonight or just go with McEnruefuls and Waterwheels?

Steve thinks the snake shot is twisted.

[bottle]

10splayer, do you think I should try the snake shot tonight or just go with McEnruefuls and Waterwheels?

Steve thinks the snake shot is twisted.

Never mind. Don't waste any effort or time with an answer. The tennis social is canceled because of snow. The hiss forehand will have to wait until next week, and by then-- who knows?-- it may be ready, and in the meantime, right now, boots on and down the stairs to the cross-country track. Oh boy is it going to be fast. Everybody agrees that never in the history of this place has anyone cross-country skiied the length of the long, long building this way then that way then over and over again. And after I do that, since I no longer have to unbury my car until tomorrow, I shall take 100 strokes on my Concept II Indoor Rower, arms for 10, arms and back for 10, arms and back and half legs for 10, full strokes for 10-- now there are only 60 strokes to go to reach 100. On the paddle or full pressure or 20,20,20?-- will see how I feel.

All the experts agree that 100 strokes isn't enough to do anything good for your body but I don't care. The skiing in heavy falling snow and the hundred strokes at no more than 20 strokes a minute will put me in a real good mood for mocking all Trumpsters for the next two days. The only drawback to this plan is that it's too easy to do.

On with the smart wool socks. On with the wool hat. On with the Rossignol boots. On with the ultra-light green jacket. Time to go.

One demerit for each automatic door clicked against by skiis and poles.