A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Let Ulnar Deviation be Slow but Kinetic rather than Static

My one-hand backhand has put through a message on its psycho-metric broadcast system.

The message asks that I please not mess with my 1hbh very much, keeping in mind that it seems recently to have gelled.

So the added fiddling will be during wind back of bod on the forehand side.

You're already fiddling with old forehands quite a lot, bot, so just add some ulnar deviation to the mix. Calibrate speed of deviation to speed of bod turning back.

[bottle]

You were right, bottle, to despise the poor vectors that come with axle-like forehand arm roll of a laid back wrist. The finger pressure only solution you came up with, however, was not as good as what follows.

Realizing the implications of things can be extremely embarrassing, which could be the reason that so many people refuse ever to do it.

Sometime back, someone in this forum suggested that I might be on the wrong track with my effort to twist my racket like a feathering oar.

While feathering can work beautifully in a one-hand backhand, in fact can solve the ancient bugaboo of "turning the corner," the same sort of roll on forehand side, while not a complete disaster, nevertheless drains racket head speed and weakens the force of racket rise.

Worse, it creates unstable directions of one's strings.

The relaxed way of spinning the racket offered by Mr. X in posts 4212 and 4213 is more reasonable.

(But, as I always tell my second graders, "How can you expect to get credit if you don't put your name on your work?")

We should, Mr. X says, pull on butt rim with the pinkie, and see how this increases length of one's lever.

Yes, but why not then lengthen it still more by placing fulcrum at intersection of the two streets known as shoulder and neck?

Thus, instead of twisting the arm (axle-like) or lifting the arm (an inherently weak act) we start the wipe from whirling bod combined with aeronautical banking alone.

And then, immediately after the ball is gone, finish with solo arm work consisting of wrist straighten, elbow fold and roll.

Yes, "folderol" is what it is, the nihilists will say, wrong once again (https://www.google.com/search?q=fold...hrome&ie=UTF-8).

The folderol is decelerative but the continuing bod whirl is not and ensures that both wiper whip and poptop have occurred.

We think we have come to understand, through acquisition of our McEnrueful, how aeronautical banking (AB) works.

The McEnrueful is a flat shot hit with composite grip. Hips rotating forward lower the hitting shoulder for the subsequent AB through the ball.

No reason that same sequence cannot be applied to the strong eastern topspin shot with its narrowed down power column.

Hips can add in a similar way to all lowering of the racket.

Now though, the AB is not through the ball but up the ball.

Transverse stomach muscles provide the solid connection.

Arm though supported by continuing bod whirl can solo onward from there.

The AB, so important in adding pace to a McEnrueful, is now rather used to administer topspin in the narrow column shot.

Body whirl takes over the role of adding pace.

Windshield wipe or rather whip wipe is no longer from the arm.

It rather is from the bod until the ball is gone.

The whip is first from the bod.

Then and only then do arm and bod independently re-assert.

To summarize: Arm and bod take fist forward away from stationary racket tip.

Bod alone then administers the topspin.

Arm and bod then continue the vigorous pull to ensure that proper acceleration happened (Arias).

It is the AB that lightens one's feet.

And that is when you want to be looking back at contact like Steffi or Roger but not Orpheus.

[bottle]

Ideas for a Post (and Self-Feed)

Bod whirl is primary in a McEnrueful. AB (aeronautical banking) is a secondary additive.

AB is primary in a bod wipe. Bod whirl is a secondary additive.

Well, it's one way of looking at things. To the extent that it is true, one should no longer dwell on loading up the whirl...but rather the bending and straightening instead.

One takes body angle and straightens thus shooting energy both up and down to the tune of Alexander's Ragtime Band.

To carry out the dictates of the Alexander Technique.

One siphons off some energy for this from the bod whirl additive, which has another function too, viz., the administration of poptop.

There is some bod whirl in an eight-oared shell, too. It enables one to be long or overly long at the catch. (One has only one oar.)

The primary sequence however is legs back arms.

Back and legs or legs and back then for the whip wipe. One doesn't need to think about that sequence since legs will always overpower the back.

Might be good to think of the bod whirl as more dance step than propellant.

A whirling jump which from beginning to end gathers momentum and speed.

Kick forward to render bod whirl more secondary at least in the hitting zone.

[bottle]

Overheard from Adjacent Court

"He might be getting paid for what he's doing."

I don't think so.

[bottle]

More Effortless Topspin

The new shot is such a good topspin forehand that one shouldn't hyper-criticize the second of its whip wipe names: 1) "bod whip" and 2) "bod wipe."

First shots tried in self-feed yesterday were loaded with both pace and spin and arced very high. They divebombed late, one would like to think, and bounded very high again.

But what will happen when one wants to flatten them out for a short angle or pass?

They'll go long, that's what. So slide thumb to the next pointy ridge even if one has resisted that move for one's entire life.

And ignore one's slight concern that thumb-pointer is getting too straight-- no longer properly diagonal-- in these heretofore unexplored regions of the racket handle.

For the new way of spinning the ball won't care anything about the thumb or whether it gets a blister.

One can barely graze Mount Extremis or even take the thumb off.

For It's firmed up pinky pulling on the rim that activates the bod whip.

To summarize: Adopt the new grip and make sure the outward elbows are high. With strings about waist level and kept parallel to court employ smooth ulnar deflection in first half of backswing. Exaggerate in second half of backswing backward hips rotation to jut inside knee and lower the shoulder and thus the poised bent arm. Start forward action from elbow and gut. Focus the bod lift by kicking out one's inside foot which lately went up on its toes.

Note: In a McEnrueful, a flat shot hit from composite grip and neutral rather than semi-open step-out, forward hips turn lowers the shoulder.

Here, backward hips turn lowers the shoulder as part of backswing, not foreswing.

That leaves stomach and flying mondo to start the rest of the act.

One commits early to outside foot.

The pushing out of relaxed fist from stationary racket head now becomes comfortable. It is more smooth stretch and less the distraction of a sudden elbow throw.

Bod whip can only happen once-- on the ball.

[bottle]

Report

Needed about half the grip change I thought to get what I wanted. That puts thumb pointer, in my system, loosely on flat part of top of racket. Will know more of course the minute I start to play which ought to be the morning of June 6 since I have that day off and the seniors' outside round robin or "carousel" will have started and runs MWF all summer. Theoretically, I'm in favor of grip changes that are inexact-- many grip changes with all of them permitted to feel like jazz improvisation.

In fact, however, I'm a guy I suspect like many others who needs more structure or "baseline" than that. Which is why I developed a thumb point system.

[bottle]

Time to Integrate Specific Footwork into the Two Forehands

For the McEnrueful, left right left.

For the wipe whip right left right.

These are baseline ideas whether these shots are hit from the baseline or not.

The third step for a whip wipe can be forward, backward or replacement-- whatever works best with oncoming ball to establish semi-open stance.

[bottle]

And Now, Continue the Progression of Discovery (or not) through Hauling on the Butt Rim Before the Flying Mondo is Complete.

Hit only topspin forehands for the entire self-feed, indulging oneself in variations of footwork but eschewing all the other strokes.

Save work on serve or anything else for another time. What proportion of his teaching energy does developmental coach Olga Morozova's husband Viktor Roubanov spend on forehand compared to the other shots? And why should this proportion change when the player is self-teaching in self-feed in later life?

Term here: "flying mondo." What then is the difference between a mondo and one that flies? Arm extension from the elbow. While the distinction between straight arm and bent arm forehands gets frequently discussed, those forehands that transition from bent to straight in the most critical phase of the stroke out front seldom receive the same attention.

A university academic who once was a forum regular-- yes there is turnover here-- liked to deny the common premise that "whip" is possible in a forehand.

Well, let's find out. By hauling on the butt rim before the flying mondo is complete.

[bottle]

More tortuous and inhumane writing: what dullards unwilling to try anything new may deserve. But no one should have to decipher too much. All explainers should aspire to clarity.

If keeping opposite hand on racket is as hot an idea as everyone says, then a minimal separation should do minimal damage to its wonderfulness.

I propose as an experiment that immediate separation of the two hands be accomplished by ulnar deflection only.

Ulnar or radial deflection is a waggle of the hand to right or left.

The ulna is the thin bone on the outside of one's forearm. The radius is the thicker bone on the inside.

The design thought I'm working on here is that one can take a huge bod turn and still end up with racket pointing at side fence-- a far cry from the classical tip to point at rear fence.

This post was about a reduction of independent arm work in an early separation forehand backswing.

[bottle]

Spawning Ground for Invention

Last summer I had to drive all the way across Detroit, twice, for each MWF session of the Grosse Pointe Seniors Men Carousel. Now I live just off of Mack Avenue two miles away.

In fact, the carousel runs all year round. But I only join it (10$ annual dues) when it moves outside.

[bottle]

Simple Description of a Forehand

A flying cookery school.

[bottle]

Remembering One's Own Design Points

A university academic who once was a forum regular-- yes there is turnover here-- liked to deny the common premise that "whip" is possible in a forehand.

Well, let's find out. By hauling on the butt rim before the flying mondo is complete.

The design points have a way of fleeing your brain the minute you are in an actual game. Or maybe even in an actual hit. They really have to be driven into your muscles and nerves before they are of any use at all-- that is to say, PRACTICED.

But practiced how much? 10,000 times? I doubt that. For all you and I know, the new point may be attached to some other move you have practiced 20,000 times or hours. And not a person on earth can predict if the new flourish means you have to go to jail and not pass Go and start on your 10,000 miles all over again.

Or whether the flourish will pass immediately and effortlessly into your nerve bed. Or something less extreme but nevertheless quite practical can occur.

So, since nobody knows, my idea is just to go ahead and invent. The chips will fall where they may.

But first you have to remember your invention of yesterday today. That would be the whip idea. I was so focused on using nothing but ulnar deflection for hand separation that I never got to my whip experiment.

So, tomorrow morning in self-feed: whip experiment.

But I sure hope the eight guys in Roger Horsley's group won't be there taking two courts for their doubles the way they were last time, only with one guy not having showed up. They're kind of pretending they don't know me or they do.

I'm still in self-feed and not ready for the highest level of competition I can easily find.

[bottle]

If'n

If'n
yousen
bin
mak'n
whip'n
yousen
donna
need'n
turn'n
kin
whip'n
anyway
an
service return'n
whip'n
nuther time'n
biggun
turn'n
crack
crack
crack
you
won'
be a
man
my son
no hair'n
yo chest man
but
you'n
yourn
grandson
kin
whip'n
dem
badassen
und
whippem
all
day
long.

[bottle]

Report

Sadly, the whips produced were not so virulent a sharp noise as in the previous post; still, we're getting there.

It's all about wet towels as we always suspected, not the bull whips that certain prominent tennis instructors have purchased for the purpose of self-instruction.

It starts when as a kid at a public swimming pool you kill a horsefly buzzing in mid-flight by timing the crack of your wet towel just right.

And now in your dotage with polygrip dentures, as 10splayer has suggested, you start the right hand (ulnar deviation), continue the turn with left hand pointing across while spiraling and tilting bod low for your hearty take-off with fist pushing out from stationary racket head-- and now the whip through straightening bod against butt rim just before the arm has finished mid-mondo straightening of itself.

I've already reported that the result was sadder than expected, but that is nonsense since I haven't yet driven to the tennis courts.

[bottle]

Forward Hips as Main Drive

I now wish to find some use of forward hips equivalent to the break-through that eventually occurred on the backhand side.

I remain committed to ulnar deflection (UD) as my agent of hand separation in a topspin forehand.

The small waggle of the hand can meld into pull-back of the shoulders (though surely that movement begins just as soon as the UD does).

The shoulders rotating backward naturally cock the hips as well but not in conjunction with great racket lowering as discovered before. A bit of lowering however can derive from a simple loading or tilt backward. I get that from having watched a great player today.

Forward hips rotation then farther lowers arm before it drives arm upward coupled with aeronautical banking of the shoulders.

Will one fly or rather stay connected to the ground with knees pressing toward the net like a topspun forehand designed by Tom Okker?

I'm not sure, although such uncertainty only annoys me by now.

I'm always revising just as I used to on backhand side.

The first time I have a hit with any kind of a good player (which also occurred today) I have to devote 90 per cent of my focus to simple recall of all the points I wish to cover-- usually three or four.

The whole idea of developmental practice is not to have to do this any more.

Well, how can you groove something when you stil haven't stopped revising it?

I got past this stage on the backhand side so I can do the same on the forehand side.

All slack will have been removed from the power train when forward hips drive commences to take the arm down and up combined with AB (aeronautical banking) for solid bod lift through the hitting zone followed by more freedom of arm movement once the ball is gone.