Tennisone Courses

[johnyandell]

If you guys are bored or just insatiable for tennis info you now have a big bonus. Free access to all the courses that were once available through Tennisone. Just go to www.tennisone.com and login with your Tennisplayer login.
You may have heard Tennisone went bankrupt. I have acquired the assets and made them available to the Tennisone data base when they subscribe to Tennisplayer.
But it's free for you guys since obviously you are already subscribers...

WARNING: There is a ton of info there from a lot of coaches, some known and other not. I don't necessarily agree or endorse anything there--and mostly I probably am confused and/or disagree. BUT you be the judge. I won't be spending time trying to figure out the things said in those courses and won't really be a good source for questions.
Discuss among yourselves!

[bdole]

Fantastic and thanks!!!

[klacr]

Awesome! Thanks John!

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[bottle]

Power Pocket

I've restrained myself, haven't commented until now. My experience is that if you point too overtly to the excellence of something, substance gets lost. "Look at that landscape, Peter. It's gorgeous!" Peter looks. He sees some scraggly trees.

Doug King took me seriously enough to send me his CD's on topspin forehand and one-handed topspin backhand some time ago-- an extremely generous gift to say the least. Now here is everything totally accessible from those CD's again at the top of the list when you click on this link (http://www.tennisone.com/). You sign in then remain signed in.

But the stuff changed. Or I changed. Does it matter which?

It's never the lesson or word itself but what it inspires.

For me (starting with forehand) I'm old with a partial replacement in left leg and squashed but stable meniscus in the right leg. For those reasons and others I don't want much loop and know the difference in stroke effectiveness I seek lies at the front anyway.
(Later observation: NOT).

I posit here then: Double backswing (SIM) to set the racket on three-quarter length arm slightly to the outside. (Later observation: This worked for me but only after arm got straight out in the slot first.)

Hips then clear as elbow tucks into pocket formed by retreating right side. (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...owerpocket.php). (Later observation: Don't contort body for the straight arm version.)

Now you pull the string with elbow doubly powered toward outside fence. Is that windshield wipe? Not if you think of WW as going from right to left. Do that after you hit the ball. The total wipe regardless of any metaphor used to describe it (circular eraser on blackboard wipe rather than windshield wipe?) now goes left to right before right to left. And the imparted topspin, depending on height of contact in the wipe, might cause ball to veer right, left or not at all (straight up topspin).

(Later observation: If you don't open shoulders so much, snapping power cord on right edge of bod will lift elbow more to right to initiate the circular wipe. Internal shoulder rotation (ISR), it seems to me, can start at the same time.)

[bottle]

Agonizing Reappraisal

If you actually try to say something rather than write poof whether in tennis or anything else, there are going to be inaccuracies, inadvisabilities and even mistakes.

The reality is that when you take new stuff into a match some of it will work, other not, and the results will NEVER EVER be exactly what you predicted.

Here, straight arm forehand as described actually worked. Bent arm forehand did not. I've been working to learn Doug King's takeback for a three-quarter length bent arm power pocket forehand ever since and believe the process has been going well.

[bottle]

Method in the Madness?

Perhaps. The preparation for my McEnrueful mimics John McEnroe's forehand backswing, almost a bowling underneath while opposite hand points across. The straight arm topspin to-the-side preparation is not significantly different other than grip since there still is no raising of the racket tip, no loop unless you want to call the mondo itself a loop. The idea is to get the arm quickly straight-arming an imaginary safety in elongated ball American football.

Now there will be higher racket tip preparation as in the Doug King forehand lessons. You could even call this a delayed forehand loop. This in my personal orchestration will be for a forehand hit with three-quarter length arm and with hands separation occurring later to keep left arm longer on the racket throat.

[stotty]

Interesting looking a Phil Dent's instruction on the ball toss. I looked also at John's article on the ball toss. I just wondered if one element is missing from both. When a player commences the ball toss...at the very start, shouldn't the hand be neutral rather than completely supinated? At the end of Phil's video he demonstrates the ball toss from a completely supinated start. At the same time he emphasises a toss should not involve the wrist and that it should be fixed. Doesn't a supinated start make it more likely a player will break at the elbow joint or wrist rather than keeping the entire arm straight and fixed?

I always think the great advantage of a rotary toss is that it naturally initiates an "ice-cream cone" start to the ball toss.

Stotty

[bottle]

Ice cream cone for me. I tried everything. The cone was best. Never quite got over the palm down rotary tosses advocated by Vic Braden, though. I think I finally went by the scores of games in which I served.

[bottle]

Interesting looking a Phil Dent's instruction on the ball toss. I looked also at John's article on the ball toss. I just wondered if one element is missing from both. When a player commences the ball toss...at the very start, shouldn't the hand be neutral rather than completely supinated? At the end of Phil's video he demonstrates the ball toss from a completely supinated start. At the same time he emphasises a toss should not involve the wrist and that it should be fixed. Doesn't a supinated start make it more likely a player will break at the elbow joint or wrist rather than keeping the entire arm straight and fixed?

I always think the great advantage of a rotary toss is that it naturally initiates an "ice-cream cone" start to the ball toss.

Stotty

Stotty, I'm not surprised that you have already progressed down the TennisOne list to Phil Dent and his words on toss.

Me, I'm stuck in the Doug King (but delightfully so). I come round and around to "keeping things in hand" in the forehand CD (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...andshaveit.php).

These Doug King presentations are so densely packed that one MUST come back to them-- it is the only way.

Try it. You will see. You'll notice something you couldn't absorb the first time.

[gzhpcu]

John, what has happened to all of the tennisone articles?

[stotty]

Stotty, I'm not surprised that you have already progressed down the TennisOne list to Phil Dent and his words on toss.

Me, I'm stuck in the Doug King (but delightfully so). I come round and around to "keeping things in hand" in the forehand CD (https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/m...andshaveit.php).

These Doug King presentations are so densely packed that one MUST come back to them-- it is the only way.

Try it. You will see. You'll notice something you couldn't absorb the first time.

Okay I will take a look.

I tend not to "work my way down" the articles systematically as one should. I tend to flit around just looking at what takes my fancy.

[johnyandell]

Phil,
The articles exist. Many many are of poor quality and the organization is a disaster. We have a few other projects ahead of them in line but hope eventually to rehabilitate at least some of them.

[bottle]

Some of them are so good that what you mention could seem by comparison small potatoes.

[johnyandell]

We disagree.

[bottle]

Sure. Because it's a different paradigm.