A New Year's Serve

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How Fast Does Left Foot Get Up On Its Toes?

Very fast. It's immediate. (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...2%20500fps.mp4). If you're running then, you may be doing so with one foot flat and the other not. (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4). (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...4%20500fps.mp4).

The greatest player at the courts yesterday has played for about an hour and is crossing the street to use the facilities in The Neighborhood Club.

And smiles at me. He doesn't know me. But saw me stop everything I was doing to gawk at his forehands.

What I saw was imbalance beginning with his left foot getting up on its toes.

And more imbalance as his body tilted slightly backward.

And still more imbalance as his hips rotated forward while sliding forward.

And great verticality therefore as his shoulders performed their aeronautical banking.

And the huge supersonic turn concluding with hips faced at the net.

That last micro-instant is like a ball thrown into a pit of wet sawdust.

Or a jet just landed on an aircraft carrier.

The feet continue around for their balanced landing.

But not as a result of hips turning more.

I think of this description as "body loop."

The difficulty of arriving at it does not make the task of performing it more difficult or less.

Me, I can't see why if you have a good body loop you need a medium sized arm loop superimposed on top of it the way the great player has.

I chose not to have an arm loop and will stick with that choice at least for now.

Note: I'm realizing that the videos shown above add complication in that Roger is moving to his left. A more conventional forehand is that of Cageman in the 3-shot sequence that opens the site. One foot flat, the other on its toes as Cageman makes his move to the ball.

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The Attempt to Whirl Both Feet from Same Power Train is Interesting Enough (one up, one out)

But to carry out this entire project within the space of one ulnar deflection most likely crowds too much action together.

Training or sequencing the ulnar deflection now into one's normal mondo buys time for the feet to do their thing (which includes taking one to the ball).

More, it deletes overly passive mondoes in which "resistance," to use Stotty's word, is non-existent.

For the same reason it deletes flying mondoes in which hand motion and extension from the elbow are perfectly synchronized even if the racket head does succeed in staying back.

That move shows style-- but the proposal here now is to start hand first then have extension from the elbow counter it for similar conflict but with the elements reversed.

Extension from elbow as last thing that happens seems more compatible with immediate bod tug connected through firm pinky embedded under the butt rim.

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To Arrive at Answers or Questions?

I was speaking with a lady from South Africa who believes that good discussion whether in a classroom or a cafe should lead to questions rather than answers.

A difficult proposition when applied to tennis, right? And she is a tennis player-- we established that.

Perhaps the shots of which one is assured almost to the point of arrogance provide a good structure for the shot in which one still has doubt-- in my case, the forehand.

Regular summer play begins for me tomorrow (Memorial Day). Ready or not, I'll participate.

The general design for every forehand is pretty spare and good, I feel, but wish that every detail could have been hammered out.

The racket can lower this way-- or that way. Try both?

And don't think much about any of the other shots?

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Easy to Think and Wrong for This Shot

That the purpose of kicking out the left leg is to slow hips rotation and thereby-- just at contact-- accelerate the shoulders or arm.

Anybody steeped in Vic Braden's ground stroke theory, which might have shifted once or twice, is apt to think this. I refer to his period of advancing the term "acceleration-deceleration."

But there are many different ways to hit a ball. We rather go now with those students of the game who want to maximize (say "concentrate") the speed of their hips turn.

And aeronautical banking can happen at the same time. Along with-- even-- a subtle change of tilt of bod length from backward to forward.

The kicking forward therefore is seen as part of the way to finish the shot, i.e., to land.

Seen as happening, like a lot of other things, after contact.

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But then you watch a bunch of the high speed archive Federer videos, and notice that he turns his hips just a little on many of his forehands, more in the category marked "Center," almost not at all in "Running Forehands." And if you look further, you find forehands where the hips definitely rotate very late at the tail end of the landing.

Another seniors player I occasionally hit with at the Grosse Pointe Neighborhood Club and I have pretty much come to an agreement that if you make any statement at all about tennis technique, you will find it contradicted within six or seven hours. Both of us are in the same boat-- working on nothing but our forehands after two lives full of a lot of tennis.

So I know less now than I did before. There are players like Geoffrey Williams who will tell you everything in the highest level tennis is about cracking the hips fast-- much faster than recreational players do. Fast? Far? What is it? And if you think I am criticizing Geoffrey Williams you are absolutely wrong. He gave me my best backhands. His advice to use hips rotation to obliterate your one-hander's clever arm work is the best, most translatable advice I ever received from anybody. Even though I don't believe in barring one's arm early like him and as the people at Essential Tennis advise-- an internet virus as far as I am concerned which I try to unsubscribe to at every opportunity without that click ever working. More ads for "Essential Tennis" keep popping up. In a recent lesson on one handers, the girl victim of two tennis teachers, one white and the other black, had the most awkward looking weak-wristed attempt at a one hander I have ever witnessed either on the internet or out on any court.

So, lots of hips or not? A little bit of hips perfectly applied? Late hips that end up pointing the racket at the target as Vines' coach Mercer Beasley and J. Donald Budge advised? Vic Braden spoke of a big crack of the hips as an emergency measure when ball somehow gets almost by you. One would assume he had other things in mind for a non-emergency.

There will be more on this and related forehand subjects by me whether kept at home in my notes or published here-- there always is. But I fully appreciate that some tennis players more accomplished than I can't stand my word flow. I don't blame them. Braden noticed that I am a person who has to explain everything to himself but predicted late-blooming success for me nevertheless. "It just will take you longer," he said.

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Roger Federer's Forehand is Nothing like a Ben Hogan Golf Swing

First, in most cases Roger turns his hips less and sometimes not at all as he hits the ball.

Second, the forward hips rotation that Roger uses is not of the kind where the axis slides forward at the same time.

So anyone with the cupidity to try and steal Roger's thunder should maybe attempt some hip action with the fulcrum of it standing still.

Ironically, a John McEnroe forehand, never considered a big forehand by anyone, does resemble Ben Hogan in the way John's hips turn forward as they slide.

This lowers the hittig shoulder behind the slide. Then aeronautical banking from the gut takes over.

Note: I once opined that Roger's kick happens after he contacts the ball. Now I am not so sure.

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Loser? Winner?

I believe that many experiments don't make you a loser but rather a winner for at least doing the right thing.

One trouble with stretch-shorten cycle is that there are too many different places in the human bod where one can apply the theory.

One can find a way to properly activate all these organs and end up with a monster we would have to term "an unwieldy and impossible shot."

So one has to pick and choose-- very carefully-- and one won't, I think, get much help from other persons along the way.

I recently saw a player just pulverizing his forehand on an adjacent court.

A myth (or is it not myth) about Pancho Gonzalez is that he would walk around a bunch of active courts and steal what he wanted.

Can a player of less talent learn to do that? I think so.

The pulverator took both hands up high and close to his head then extended his arm from the elbow down on a slant to the outside.

Call that backswing.

He then pushed his fist forward from his stationary racket head.

But was the racket head really stationary? No, it was relatively stationary since his whole bod was spinning at that time with both legs thrusting out in opposite direction (thank you, Kerry Mitchell).

Call this foreswing although there is of course more to it than what I just described.

In the case of the pulverator he also swayed his quite erect bod slightly backward and slightly forward to add more power.

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Ulnar Deflection

Sorry I ever mentioned it. But it best happens, I believe, as one of three ingredients that make the culinary dish known as "flip" or "mondo." Before, I thought there were two ingredients, wrist layback (though it's the hand that actually lays back) and forearm roll-down (though upper arm could also be involved in the rolling act).

To these two we now add ulnar deflection although it was there all the time.

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David's Slingshot was not a Wham-O

He whirled the thing around his bod first forward then sideward.

It was during the sideward that the rock flew out and brained Goliath.

You (I mean I) should try the same thing on our topspin forehand.

Pinky to pull rim of racket butt forward (with good extension). Pinky then to abruptly change direction to pull rim of racket butt SIDEWAYS.

With no pause or slowing down of racket near top of one's loop. That was for the olden days.

Could the forward and the sideward be at different speeds? Sure.

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To Prove: That the sideways pull of Gordon and the sideways hand wipe of Wegner are one and the same thing.

The goal is not to imitate but to create. From high two handed lift the arm can dogpat toward right fence. What if arm coujld stay disengaged from the whirling bod until it were in perfect position for pinky embedded against butt rim driven windshield wipe?

Would not the smooth almost slow advance of the hand abrruptly turn into a sideways yank as arm became linked to already whirling bod?

What if the dogpat and mondo could slow enough that bod whirl, catching it violently propelled hand sideways?

Would not the mondo be mild for having delibrately happened before the abrupt change of direction?

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Clear Head at Lift-Off

Combine dogpat with mondo. Start forward rotations of bod before arm chimes in (connects).

Dogpat/mondo is toward right fence. Pull hand sideways not forward.

Which pulls racket head (slingshots it) forward as well as sideways because of the bend already created at the end of one's arm.

Feel as if hand is coming back toward you even before hand does come back at you.

Straighten wrist, bend arm, roll arm (SIM) after contact.

Unweight while thrusting out legs to derive more power from gut.

Try for fun some neutral stance forehands where feet replicate each other though a bit farther out (Rafter).

Patrick Rafter demonstrates that somewhere in photographs.

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Mondo is Earlier Now

And faster, happening as other arm points across.

Mondo is pro (pre) active.

Mondo is conscious decision, no longer passive.

Mondo, though quicker, is also milder, since accomplished before the sudden change of direction.

But I wrote that before even trying it or watching the Gordon video in the present issue. The next challenge will be integrating the freeze position to outside that Gordon says he pretty much insists upon with his students. Because, I, unlike them and most playing pros, don't have dead time between bod turning back and bod turning forward.

That's not criticism. It's just a choice I long ago decided to explore thanks to the encouragement of a U.S.P.T.A. pro who was watching me do self-feed one day. He watched with a curiosity similar to what I felt. And he was knowledgeable. He knew a lot.

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All the Way Over: 1/2 of Backswing

Almost straight arm down to B.G. recommended position: second half of backswing.

The shoulders still are turning backward during second half of backswing in my case.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...sue/2018/june/)

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Stotty

I know you have a connection to Italy, and aren't you worried about Excommunication?

Strong continental forehands in which the wrist "pumps": blasphemy!

I'd always heard that continental players use more wrist than other players. But John McEnroe doesn't. Or does he?

Is that what the announcers on the Ploughshares Tour mean when they say that John has added a bit more topspin to his forehand arsenal?

Is that how he does it, or does he do it some other way?

Well, when you do it do you pump forward or upward or both?

I ask you because I'd like to try it although I understand you never would teach such a thing to one of your students.

Also, I heard you used to hang out with the werewolves I mean the Lloyds of London. Did John Lloyd do that thing too? Is that what happened to his marriage to Chrissie?

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On Editors

I had an editor who purposely made all his notes to his reporters very ungrammatical.

But I'm not sure that approach worked for him unless he was trying to leave an historical artifact.

For when the time came for the biggest post deadline headline of his life: "Kennedy Assassinated," one of the s's in "assassinated" got left out.