Going Wipeless as Never Before

[bottle]

Chatham, Cape Cod. Just a few more days of living with really good tennis players.

Certainly other than the aches and stiffness of old age I have nothing to complain about.

But I'm getting bored with my 16-year-old's forehand what with all of its twisting of the arm. Could the twisting whether carried out before or during contact or both be the source of the mediocrity of too many of these shots?

If winning were the only goal, I'd just hit McEnruefuls off of the forehand side, i.e., try to imitate John McEnroe as much as possible for a 76-year-old who never played that way in his prime. You can bang the ball hard or soft then use the same composite grip for slice backhands that most of the girls can't volley.

But I want to top the ball more often with a strong eastern. So I think I'll go back to leading my backswing with my elbow to keep palm parallel to court.

Will reintroduce mondo to form a pencil-thin loop. Will do all of this a bit farther around. The forearm will pry same as it's been doing for quite some time. And this will now serve to activate the mondo. From there however the elbow will take off to scale the ball same as scaling a flat rock across the surface of a flat pond.

[bottle]

Reader do you Believe in Opposites? I do.

I've been working on short backswing forehands to accomodate the oncoming of old age. Now I own some fairly reliable short strokes, so it's time to reinstitute a great big hellaceous loop for when the ball comes right to me and is just sitting there while offering me an hour or more in which to hit it.

I'll lead back with my elbow. I'll straighten my arm to any length at all. But during the straightening I'll mondo on top of the head of an imaginary dog and call this "dogpat."

Why mondo so early? So as to start cranking the arm in time for the departing ball to hook slightly to my right-hander's left.

What elements will take the strings to the ball and beyond? What will be the essential structure of this shot? Will the phrase "windshield wiper" be of utility?

Not unless you're willing to pop your windshield out of its frame over the hood of your car while you wipe.

Okay, let's establish that as a good idea.

Next question: How to generate the push? From bod? Sure. From arm? Sure if by that you mean forward push of the elbow. From extending elbow if it was bent? Not in my philosophy. From twist of the elbow that takes racket forward and keeps it from opening too much while one performs one's wipe whether arm was bent or straight?

Yes.

[gzhpcu]

video please....

[bottle]

But one word is worth a thousand images. Also, I need to try out the new shot I designed-- to which I think you are reacting, gzhpcu-- before I bring in Warner Brothers to film it.

[gzhpcu]

You can film it with an iPhone, upload it to YouTube and link to it. Easy, no Warner Brothers needed. We are in the 21st century😉

[bottle]

I don't want to film it, gzhpcu. I want to torture you, 21st century style, with words. Do you even understand that you may be a photographic side Nazi? Balance, here, hear!

If I can't convey the meaning I seek in words, I'm not interested. I write about my tennis and play it in 3-D and that seems sufficient. Two photographers-- my sister and my "significant other"-- are enough people in the family to always be flattening stuff out. If I weren't a writer I'd be a sculptor, not a photographer or painter or cinnamon nut.

[gzhpcu]

I have always been a visual person. Apart from the fact that I paint, when I worked and had to make IT Technology presentations, I always preferred to work with pictures and diagrams. Don't know why people are so shy about posting videos of their strokes...

[bottle]

I have always been a visual person. Apart from the fact that I paint, when I worked and had to make IT Technology presentations, I always preferred to work with pictures and diagrams. Don't know why people are so shy about posting videos of their strokes...

I'm not at all shy, do what I do out of conviction and don't understand why you can't accept that. I think that the connection between verbal instruction and stroke production is palpable and something I want to exclusively focus upon.

As a crew coach, I certainly used camera work to get more out of my oarsmen and oarswomen. And believe I could do it if I were coaching someone in tennis right now. Think I could do it in my own case, too-- think I might even be a better player if I saw myself hitting balls in video more, and then after that was exposed to the very best tennis minds the world can offer in that these persons would have seen the same video and then have served up wonderfully helpful advice with which I would march.

I would get positively high for a few days as I implemented their remarks. And then I'm sure I would return to my previous level of mediocrity. Because, frankly speaking, I would get bored as I once again realized that there just isn't some magic tennis coach anywhere with the wisdom of God.

Of course there are some coaches and players who are much better at explaining stuff than others. It is my humble goal to be one of them. But there could be a pinch of rebellion required for that. And if everybody is going the visual and filmic way I believe I ought to go another way.

Here is a question for you, hopefully without rancor: if film is so useful in tennis instruction, why isn't American men's tennis five times better than it currently is? We have the best film and film techniques, right?

[gzhpcu]

Because bottle, better than film is the actual demonstrating on court. Did you ever read John's book, "Visual Tennis"? I doubt that Serbs and Spaniards read books on tennis technique.

[don_budge]

The Unimaginative Generation...

Because bottle, better than film is the actual demonstrating on court. Did you ever read John's book, "Visual Tennis"? I doubt that Serbs and Spaniards read books on tennis technique.

You of all people should get it. The Painter. Paint by numbers is more like it. I recently taught a very wonderful and beautiful Czechoslovakian woman to play tennis in a week...it was last week as a matter of fact. Five hours. No kidding...she is an artist and has an absolutely stunning imagination. She has only studied art for a year and everything she has showed me is absolutely inspiring. She can paint complex human issues and experience. bottle is painting pictures with his words and he doesn't need the visual to illustrate. He's an artist. He needs no validation other than his own. It doesn't surprise me that you don't get it and keep badgering him. He'll never post a video of himself. It's not his thing. But keep posting...I promise to never say that I disagree with you.

The Unimaginative Generation. They need electronic devices to help them to dream. I just rebuilt my golf swing in my imagination from reading a book. "The Inside Path to Better Golf" by Peter Kostis. Never saw one video. Never took one video of myself. I worked it out from the beginning by working with the author...via his words. I hadn't played in two years and when I was in the States this summer I shot 37 on my first nine. The swing was perfect and my buddies were amazed. But it was I that was even more amazed...I hadn't played in two years. I had played nine holes two years ago and hadn't played at all for three years before that. t don't think I ever felt such a natural high as that 37 although I have shot 68 in competition. If I could have chipped and putted it would have been another story altogether. I would be in the 60's all day long. I have fallen in love once more...with golf.

It's a good question about the video aspect. Many a good tennis player in the past was developed without it. A lot of people in the golf business say that video has been the game changer. What about the tennis profession? Come to think of it...don't they all look alike now. One dimensional. Is it possible that the reverse is actually true. What is art? It's imagination. What is left to the imagination in video? Very little...or nothing at all. I have never used a video camera in my life. Which is not to say that it doesn't work for others. I still think that tennis is an art...as well as a science. It's psychological...and philosophical as well. Just what is it that you can learn from video...technique? What if it is more importantly a game of feel...a game of feeling. That would be my contention.

I am making a movie about a player that I developed. I will post this in the future. I hope that it will be viewed as a work of art without getting bogged down in the visual details.

http://www.skultorptennis.se/Nyheter/SkultorpsTK-senastenytt/Projektmedinstruktionsfilm/

[stotty]

Here is a question for you, hopefully without rancor: if film is so useful in tennis instruction, why isn't American men's tennis five times better than it currently is? We have the best film and film techniques, right?

Good point! I think I know why. I have filmed myself and gone out and tried to alter and rectify what I have seen in a given stroke. When I the view the altered stroke on video, it looks nothing like what I thought it might. What seemed like a big change in my swing is sometimes barely perceptible at all. Coaching oneself through video has limitations and one can become incredibly vain in doing so.

You then come to the conclusion that Pancho Gonzales was right all along. Better to walk around and visually capture the strokes of great players you admire. Interpret those the best you can and steal them for yourself. They won't be exactly the same but you may get close, with luck your interpretation of the stroke might be even better. I believe it is the case that Gonzales often came away with a better stroke than the original.

Tennis is certainly a game of feel and interpretation. Over and over again Pancho states this in that weird film by Gino someone. Gonzales was obsessive about feel, and about preparing for every conceivable eventuality. Back then all great players went by feel and interpretation, and in many ways players were better off for it.

Describing any tennis stroke in graphic detail is without doubt a significant, artistic challenge. I cannot think of a greater challenge in writing.

[gzhpcu]

We are all different. I get more from watching matches on TV, than from verbose descriptions in tennis instruction books. The great thing about this site is that the articles are filled with little videos...

[bottle]

Me too, gzhpcu (watch matches on TV). We therefore are exactly the same. I wouldn't want to be verbose though. Neither would I want to say too little like you. (Gertrude Stein: "What is silent in a young man must become spoken.") I know, I know, you're not a young man. But sure you are, me too.

[bottle]

Because bottle, better than film is the actual demonstrating on court. Did you ever read John's book, "Visual Tennis"? I doubt that Serbs and Spaniards read books on tennis technique.

I demonstrate on court all the time. And I own the book VISUAL TENNIS and have read it many times. I'm even not a Serb or Spaniard though I like both. All my recent discussion of different arm lengths directly derives from the book VISUAL TENNIS (and that is alliteration) but I guess if it was too verbose (my discussion and not the text of VISUAL TENNIS) you wouldn't have read it and therefore wouldn't be able to figure out the source.

[bottle]

Thanks to my weird friends don_budge and Stotty for their posts in this thread. Yes the word "weird" is a compliment.