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Which translates as "The Chess Novella" by Steve Twig.
English presents a dull title, "The Royal Game."
The book is about a chess player in solitary confinement during World War II.
At first he makes chess pieces out of bits of dust on the floor.
Then he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling.
There's an imaginary chess board up there. Later, all he has to do is close his eyes.
Flash forward to an ocean liner on its way from Europe down to Argentina.
Aboard is the former prisoner, along with Centovic, the world chess champion.
They set up on the deck with most of the passengers watching.
The war prisoner starts by winning every game. It turns out the thought in his cell was pretty good.
I'm making this part up, but let's say that the poor guy, avoiding the psychological disintegration that usually happens, discovered the weeper of the house sub-variation of the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense, which in tennis terms would be continental grip.
The voyage from Europe to Argentina is a long one according to quick glance at any globe.
The score is something like seven to seven as the liner plies down the South Atlantic with a single play-off game remaining to determine all. The play starts.
Centovic smiles-- inwardly-- as the upstart makes one horrible blunder after another.
This war victim used to mentally play five or six games at the same time, it turns out, and now he has confused one with the other.
This is what I expect when I have recovered from present injury enough to return to some tennis court.
I am so overloaded with new ideas that I know I'm in big trouble.
Will need a year or more to sort the stuff out.
But I like the idea of people on different continents performing the same experiment in continental grip-- the more the merrier.
Were past participants in the continental dispute using the Ben Hogan golf swing as their model? I doubt it.
So why should we lend them any credence?
However, when Rick Stott speaks of "puffed chest" at contact, I'm wondering if this might not be a 12-syllable Alexandrine, an Alexandrine Parakeet, the Alexandrian Quartet and the Alexander method of body extension in sport. (What do you think, Alexandra?)
It all comes down to scapular retraction. As we all know, John McEnroe does not, characteristically, sink his knees into a volley but rather extends them.
So if he did the same thing on a ground stroke, and melded leg drive up into a rising of his rib cage, would not that move provide horizontal, scapular retraction to add to force, control and work exerted on a tennis ball?
In serving, of course, one uses a different kind of scapular retraction in which the rib cage moves horizontally to get itself out of the way.
Yes, this is the secret formula I've been working out in my prison cell:
Horizontal movement of rib cage equals vertical scapular cock.
Vertical movement of rib cage (upward) equals horizontal scapular adduct.
English presents a dull title, "The Royal Game."
The book is about a chess player in solitary confinement during World War II.
At first he makes chess pieces out of bits of dust on the floor.
Then he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling.
There's an imaginary chess board up there. Later, all he has to do is close his eyes.
Flash forward to an ocean liner on its way from Europe down to Argentina.
Aboard is the former prisoner, along with Centovic, the world chess champion.
They set up on the deck with most of the passengers watching.
The war prisoner starts by winning every game. It turns out the thought in his cell was pretty good.
I'm making this part up, but let's say that the poor guy, avoiding the psychological disintegration that usually happens, discovered the weeper of the house sub-variation of the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense, which in tennis terms would be continental grip.
The voyage from Europe to Argentina is a long one according to quick glance at any globe.
The score is something like seven to seven as the liner plies down the South Atlantic with a single play-off game remaining to determine all. The play starts.
Centovic smiles-- inwardly-- as the upstart makes one horrible blunder after another.
This war victim used to mentally play five or six games at the same time, it turns out, and now he has confused one with the other.
This is what I expect when I have recovered from present injury enough to return to some tennis court.
I am so overloaded with new ideas that I know I'm in big trouble.
Will need a year or more to sort the stuff out.
But I like the idea of people on different continents performing the same experiment in continental grip-- the more the merrier.
Were past participants in the continental dispute using the Ben Hogan golf swing as their model? I doubt it.
So why should we lend them any credence?
However, when Rick Stott speaks of "puffed chest" at contact, I'm wondering if this might not be a 12-syllable Alexandrine, an Alexandrine Parakeet, the Alexandrian Quartet and the Alexander method of body extension in sport. (What do you think, Alexandra?)
It all comes down to scapular retraction. As we all know, John McEnroe does not, characteristically, sink his knees into a volley but rather extends them.
So if he did the same thing on a ground stroke, and melded leg drive up into a rising of his rib cage, would not that move provide horizontal, scapular retraction to add to force, control and work exerted on a tennis ball?
In serving, of course, one uses a different kind of scapular retraction in which the rib cage moves horizontally to get itself out of the way.
Yes, this is the secret formula I've been working out in my prison cell:
Horizontal movement of rib cage equals vertical scapular cock.
Vertical movement of rib cage (upward) equals horizontal scapular adduct.
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