A New Year's Serve

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Forehand Loop

The precise design of one's loop may not be essential to production of a forehand but still is part of a cycle any part of which affects any other.

A recent experiment in which I emulated this forehand (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...DBFHFront1.mov) surprised me by the extent to which it didn't alter my basic forehands.

I hit a few of them in matches and thought, "Wow, why not all the time if it's smaller yet produces the same result?"

A week later I had returned to my normal loop which once in a while it produced a better than ordinary shot.

But does that mean no further change to my forehand loop ever? Hardly. In fact the little side-road reminded me that I've played a lot with different elbow positions and that elbow lift in the backswing, if one decides to use it, need not be extreme.

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What is Trophy Position?

If that means toss arm vertical but hitting elbow pressed against bod as in Vic Braden's derisive portrait in TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE, that is very bad.

But if trophy position has toss arm vertical and has or produces upper part of hit arm yardarmed or 10 degrees higher than yardarmed that's okay.

If I set up in this good trophy, with weight evenly distributed on both legs, I can then perform a leftward lean and rockstep on rear foot, thus loading properly for what comes next.

But also can alternately eschew the rockstep, i.e., do the leftward lean with weight still evenly distributed.

In either case, once bod leans it holds the lean through the cartwheel then the torso twist.

A secret would seem to be that one feels enough momentum in hit shoulder through cartwheel that one can continue to feel it during the torso twist in a new direction.

These observations are predicated on some forward body motion during the toss.

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Suspect will find, in match play tomorrow morning, that if I start traveling during the toss I will not want to stop, rockstep and start all over again. So it will be toss travel, cartwheel and torso twist in a single continuum.

Think I'll concentrate on momentum build as felt in rear shoulder and nothing else except for lobbing the Mabel. It's good to have a plan.

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Head to Side

Had a pretty good day, but more important is this question: Would final rise of the racket change direction less if head were moving out of the way during the transition of cartwheel to torso twist?

I have seen serves in which this late veering off of the head was visible. Were they superior serves but I just didn't know it?

Synchronization of abduction/adduction and torso twist might help, i.e., if one makes these two things simultaneous .

But abduction/adduction is the fourth of the upward arm rotations.

And we know where it starts-- from low point.

That means the 1) ESR, 2) ER of forearm, and 3) wrist extension occurred just to achieve low point simultaneous with leg thrust.

So make all of this more conscious before it mercifully becomes less so?

In addition, a lot of the famous Sidney Plagenhoef book drawings show hips pretty much over the feet at maximum speed of the cartwheel.

So where did the speed come from? From hearty thrust from rear foot, yes, but from shoulders kicking forward as fanny kicks back, too?

Remember: If that happened during contact it would earn itself the pejorative "jackknifing" the way Brian Gordon uses that term. He'd rather, if I understand him correctly, see the bod not do that and in a perfect world be doing the opposite, extending to get taller.

But if it happens before torso twist, you as server conceivably could obtain something good.

Now, in terms of cue, you won't be able to coordinate leg thrust with three of the arm rotations-- too much to think about.

Coordinating leg thrust with the third of them, however, might be possible.

Try to coordinate leg thrust with extension of the wrist.

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The Recent Tennis Player Discussion of Hesitation Serving Makes me Want to Conduct my own Experiment

Instead of assuming pre-toss trophy as Brian said he has his students do for about a month, or as Dennis Ralston did to develop his famous slice (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ice_serve.html), I draw on personal trials in the past of bent-arm horizontal take back.

The toss will happen a bit sooner from still being simultaneous with arm and bod take back.

This serve will invite a slight replacement of front foot (optional of course).

It will invite more total end-over-end form through both cartwheel and torso twist by putting full load on rear foot and a saving of leftward lean (or slight head veer) for when one is in the actual process of hitting the ball.

I see no separate drop of toss arm to initiate cartwheel but rather a folding inward of that arm to accelerate both cartwheel and torso twist.

And dream of extending upper body skyward during the torso twist.

I had the experience, when I was very young, of playing singles against someone who actually received his serving lessons at Wesleyan University from Stanley Plagenhoef.

I now believe this bending and straightening of the whole body is what the late Steve Crampton did.

[bottle]

Book Review

Rich Solak, a regular tennis partner/opponent of mine, used to be the city manager of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.

His wife Nancy, a librarian, decided to write books late.

Her first, reviewed here, is set in Italy, her second in China, a third underway will be declared fiction.

I am not permitted by disgusting Amazon to be one of 77 reviewers of Nancy's first book since I have not purchased $50 in books from them in the last 12 months and in fact took this one out of the library.

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A FOOTPATH IN UMBRIA, Review, by John Escher

A FOOTPATH IN UMBRIA is not a travel book, it is a book. And its author, Nancy Yuktonis Solak, is not a reluctant traveler. She loves to travel (and to read-- a similar idea). And I could go on and will: Rather than nonfiction this book is fiction in the very best sense. It has a wise and sympathetic protagonist whose flaws and fears are her strengths, it has well drawn characters both major and minor, it has a unifying sensibility along with a compelling narrative. Most of all it lures us into a strange and wonderful world (old world) that we may or may not have encountered before.

Okay, it is a travel book, too. But does LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL fail as autobiography just because Thomas Wolfe called Asheville "Altamont" and Chapel Hill "Pulpit Hill?"

The best American fiction of the last hundred years, it seems to me, does not fit into neat categories whether we like that or not. Good writing is good writing, and, given a healthy interest in people, is largely the result of 1) energy, 2) detail and 3) overall shape (structure).

The Italian washing machines here carry too little water and rotate back and forth while making a strident racket, the dogs are polite, the opportunity for "connection" with locals seems enhanced-- some of which surely is due to the attractive personalities of Nancy and her husband Rich themselves.

The fifty photographs in the book, extremely effective, reflect the remarkably sunny disposition of Italians living at home in Italy. My Italian brother-in-law however seems to do well in the United States.

The thing I love most about this book, other than Nancy's cultural insights and the fact that she often feels cold and so learns to drink Italian wine to stay warm, is its title and central image. The place that Nancy and Rich find to rent in the countryside has one serious drawback in view of their determination to walk back and forth the three miles from town: A very dangerous highway loaded with big trucks and other traffic. Nancy's fear is relatable to this reader. And her pleasure is relatable too, specifically of basic individual and unassisted discovery-- in pieces-- of an all but abandoned alternate route lush with a secret garden quality all of its own.

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Good Tennis Strokes are Aspirational

By that I mean that any how-to that anybody comes up with should be articulated in advance of physical trial. Then, to steal from Pete Seeger, you may be right, you may be wrong, but you have "the right to sing this song."

How-to after the trial is just too late. One's heart is no longer engaged. One is on to other things.

And so, to consider loopy forehands today, let us examine some probable developments in one's sorry past: 1) too tight a grip, 2) too big a loop, 3) too much influence of Federer, 4) too much effort to perform the loop at a single speed.

The last point, 4) is the one I choose to discuss here. For I always heard that one should pause or at least slow the racket somewhere near the rear of the top of the loop.

Which led me to not having sufficient time to hit the shot every time I tried it.

But with a small or medium size loop, one can have sufficient time provided one's method is "natural" enough.

Such "naturalness" can come from holding the racket handle in a ring of thumb and middle finger. The other three fingers are still on the racket but may as well not be at least in hitting a fast shot. The flip lays wrist all the way back for bio-mechanical firmness. Which means you don't have to discover optimal finger pressure as for other shots.

The loop thus performed will be the same for flattened out shots and topspin shots in which the racket gets twirled by thumb-and-middle finger ring on one side and extended tip of index finger on the other.

A slight lift of elbow as one flies the racket head can create the utterly relaxed and cushioned weightlessness that such analysts as Pancho Segura have always seemed to write about and advise.

Racket goes up slightly to the outside. it loops slightly down to the inside but remains in the slot. That is when the flip occurs.

From there one implements the alternative of flattened out or more topspin.

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Return of the McEnrueful

We want to be open-minded-- I know we do. I cut out (eschewed) my McEnrueful thanks to new information obtained online from Tomaz Mencinger. Just hearing Tomaz, who is good at explaining things, picked up my strong eastern groundies to the point where I didn't think I needed my composite grip forehand any more.

In many areas of overlap that is probably true. But in the case of a low ball very far out front that causes me to swoop in pretty fast, I miss the old shot, hence restore it now.

The McEnrueful is an imitation John McEnroe forehand acquired with instruction from nobody. A study of John McEnroe forehands in the Tennis Player archive led to a very solid, economical shot with no independent arm work in it at all.

Well, I guess you could say there is arm work in its down and up pendulum backswing, but does backswing count?

From apogee of backswing-- pretty low it seems to me-- the shot becomes solid. The racket, having just risen, falls again but this time in conjunction with turning hips in a neutral stance which lowers the rear shoulder.

Okay, so the hips have gone. Now torso twist takes over. The composite grip makes the racket face comparable to a seven iron in golf with just enough loft to clear the net.

Because the shot is so solid, and because one is still gliding forward as one hits it, one generates surprising pace. And unexpected spin for control that I can't explain.

And why would I want to if it's as good a shot as I say? When I used to hit it at somebody their reply would most often sail long.

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The Reality of Proposed Change and Actual Play against Decent Opposition

I wrote yesterday that I was going to reinstate my McEnrueful (#4533). So how many times did I actually hit that shot in three sets played last night?

Once, a service return which I muffed. And how often did the situation arise I mentioned in my post, a very short low ball way out in front but with time nevertheless to get there?

Once. And did I hit the shot? Nope. I forgot to try it. And looped my regular forehand into the net.

This is the reality I have come to appreciate from the amount of experimentation I do.

I start in self-feed to work on something.

The first time I play I usually will hit the new shot once.

I am just telling it like it is.

Later, one hits more. Eventually one owns the shot and get this-- for this is the controversial part-- one becomes a better player or at the very least doesn't bore oneself.

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Stir the Pot to hit a DBBH

That would be a J. Donald Budge backhand, which you will never hit, but you might succeed in hitting the type.

I hit one the other day, interspersed with my normal topspin backhand, which is a much more abbreviated affair.

But the DBBH, done properly, might not take as much time to launch as one thinks.

I'll try it every once in a while on general principle.

When should we stop aspiring to a great shot?

I was playing ad court and no one was poaching. "Now," I said to myself.

As it turned out my opponent serving to me got quite far in for his first volley.

Already though I was far in too into my stir-the-pot-with-both-hands backswing.

The pot one is stirring is level, right? Has to be. If it weren't the eyes of newt would roll all over the ground.

So my two hands, hardly higher than waist level (here's the template-- https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...l?DBBHRear.mov) swing to the outside then bend themselves slightly to the inside and then...

Well, in a baseball batter's drop one arm straightens at the elbow, the other encircles the slim slope of young Esther Williams, not swimming but dancing.

To summarize, right hand for Ted Williams, left hand for slope of Esther Williams.

The shot made as if to land at the service line. The server volleyed it into the curtain behind me.

One shot, that highly effective, should have consequence since life is too short for anything else.

A normal person (that would be me) should want to repeat it.

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Letter to an Old Friend who Suddenly Brought up the Subject of Vic Braden

I've written a lot about Vic Braden. A lot of it wasn't too complimentary and existed for more than a year in proposal form after I met with a literary agent at a Hollins graduate school reunion. The lady, whose nose was red from too much drink, admitted after the year was up that she knew nothing about tennis and so could not proceed further.


Then I met Vic Braden at Tennis Pro Day in Virginia and found him to be fabulous. On line, he answered every question even before that. And once sent me a fine letter, or his staff did, (on paper yes stationery!) from his tennis university in Coto de Caza. He was a short mesomorph with wide shoulders. He set up a target on the sideline close, very close to the net, and hit it on the first try with a soft slice serve. All this was under a huge tent with 500 people inside. With huge rain drops pelting the tent for five hours, an hour per hundred people. Tennis pros were there from all over Virginia. One worked with me on my serve. Vic himself asked me how I learned and concluded that, "You'll be all right. It just will take you longer."

His brother, a puny runt whom he had not seen in decades, drove to Winchester from D.C. He was a psychologist in charge of a huge government agency. Dysfunctional geniuses if you know what I mean.

I just wrote today about hitting one Don Budge backhand (the best backhand ever) in a match Friday night, and how this will encourage me to try more. The entire basis of Vic's famous book, TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE, was his hitchhiking from Kalamazoo College where he was on the tennis team. He hitched to Detroit and observed Don Budge hitting backhands through a knothole in a wooden fence.

So he then mass-produced a backhand for the tennis boom of the seventies. I learned it. It doesn't work. But it did work when Vic played my friend Harry Constant at Hillsboro College. And when Vic played Vic Seixas, the only player ever to win Wimbledon without a backhand.

Vic and I, he dead and I sort of alive, have different interpretations of the Don Budge backhands although there are some similarities.

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I guess I should have mentioned that Vic held forth nonstop for most of the five-and-a-half hours. With maybe a short break here or there. You could walk away for half an hour and work with one of the other pros, then come back and pick up on the conversation.

There were a lot of courts under that tent.

But the other thing that made the whole thing seem like a circus was that Vic didn't just talk. From self-feed he hit one backhand after another.

I'll tell you this. They all landed deep, close to the line, and bounded high, almost to the top of the tent.

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Though Grateful for the Hesitation Serve Sidetrack-- Great for Stabilizing the Elbow-- I'm Happy to Return to Grocery Bag Continuity so Worthy of a Nobel Prize for Tomaz Mencinger

A plastic grocery bag is just one arrow in the quiver of all the badasses so glibly out to destroy the world.

Plastic bags are everywhere, polluting my kitchen cabinet as well as getting stuck in gills and killing ocean fish. Insist on cloth, dumbbells, until grocery store operators learn to do the same.

But for now the awful bags are here. So how can one use them?

Tomaz Mencinger recommends putting four tennis balls in one to loosen up one's wrist in one's serve.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sSwBnGHmQM)

This inspiration, boo-hoo, puts more expensive tools designed for the same purpose out of business.

The Tomaz exercises, like his others, seem wonderful to me, and I am more than glad to add them to the figure eights of my service narratives.

My personal method of telling one's serve over and over, is not one I necessarily recommend to another although it is right for me. Easily, it can prove deleterious to human relationship with wife or lover-- I know.

But now the racket rise behind one can come more from right to left. One need not freeze like a hunk of cheap metal from the trophy shop but can pass right through the skunk tail position.

Racket can then use gravity to wind down 160 degrees with esr, efr and wrist extension taking place in 20 degrees more.

The legs meanwhile can be exploding in opposite direction to place one's head ahead of one's arm at contact.

Under no circumstances should you be able to see your arm.

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Grocery Bag Serves, Vandalism, Self-Driving Cars: The Future of Tennis and Mankind in Detroit

My car, vandalized, after seven weeks still isn't fixed. My mechanic has the used steering column we need in his shop but is out starting cars today since the weather is snowy and cold. Also, higher paying customers are higher priority.

So my doubles partner Bill Wright gave me a ride home from the indoor tennis facility to which I always walk across Balduc Field (haven't been mugged yet). I always walk slow as the cons advised me in the two prisons where I taught writing. And brandish my racket arrhythmically as I walk.

Bill took a detour through the crime-riddled streets of the larger Warren Avenue area which used to contain English Village with high end housing. He wanted to show me his self-driving car so we went out on the interstate, returned on Verner to Mack and came back south to the charity where I live.

Once in my apartment I looked up the name of the dystopian novel I just downloaded and read, FROSTLANDS by John Feffer. Had to because I'd already forgotten that name. Maybe I wouldn't have if the author had been more careful to include low temperatures from nuclear winter. The book's predecessor, SPLINTERLANDS, is a better title but now I don't want to read that one.

FROSTLANDS taught me that the future, if the book is accurate, will be exactly like life in a gated community. If you ever lived in one of those you know exactly how FROSTLANDS will be.

Bill meanwhile taught me the three levels of automation in the present self-driving cars. The car's radar as we drove allowed it to come very close to another car before it did its next thing, which as I recall was not to hit the other car. Every once in a while it beeped to wake Bill up. He might have been sleepy after all the tennis. Top level would be if I had walked to Eastside Tennis and didn't get too badly mugged in the middle of Balduc Field. Then, with the doubles and coffee over, I could have my smartphone signal the car to drive over from the charity and pick me up.

All very nice but in the meantime I want to improve my serve, which I'm doing with four balls in a grocery bag, swinging that thing around so as to keep tension at all times in the "handle" or stalk.

A very good use of plastic grocery bags. Especially if you are disinclined toward hesitation serves.
Picking up dog poops is good too. You turn the bag inside out on the poop.

But do these uses justify the existence of a prevalence that is doing such harm to the environment?

https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/53479-13-pounds-of-plastic-found-in-dead-sperm-whale

[stotty]

FROSTLANDS

I read an excerpt from the first chapter over at Amazon. I liked it. The book gets off to an intriguing start. I liked the author's style, also, which is important as I can't read a writer whose writing style I don't like. Although, strangely, I can go back to a book some years later and like a writer's style that I previously didn't like. Why is that? What happened between then and now that would alter my view of a writer's style? I've never figured that one out.

I like that very early on in the first chapter we get to know the main character is 80 years old, which in itself is unusual as most novelists never pitch their main characters that old. The author wants to make a point of it and does it so well.

Anyway, I purchased the book. So thanks.