osmosis forehand

[kwaconsult]

picture won't show at the bottom of the article. is it my computer or the download.

[johnyandell]

If you have Quick Time you should get a picture of Nadal in the box. Click on that and the movie will download. If that's not happening, then there is a problem with Quick Time on your system.

[harpoon]

Unfortunately, this works neither on my Apple at home, nor on my PC at work (where I cannot install QT)...

[johnyandell]

Well without Quick Time it's impossible. But I suspect it's some other problem because every Mac has Quick Time. I have viewed it on mine as well as the PCs in our office.

[stmoore]

I can't see the picture at the bottom of the article either....and I have a mac with quicktime and it works fine for everything else?

[johnyandell]

Strange! What do you see??

[giancarlo]

Safari won't do it...

Hello, my powerbook and safari do not like it either--no picture. However, Firefox, which is a fantastic alternative and maybe a better choice, works flawlessly.
GC

[johnyandell]

Cool. So we'll try to get it fixed up for Safari, but the Firefox browser is good to have and works for me too on pc:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

[bottle]

"Just Hit the Ball"

This pertains more to "Osmosis Forehand" than "Broken Link"? I hope so.
I wrote it on a clipboard during a long trip. I seem to like to do that kind of thing, and it always has later effect. No experiment-- no improvement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I went up north and saw my brother again, and he told me the same thing for the nine hundredth time (see above). I'm interested in those aspects of tennis, however, which pertain either to the intellect or common sense-- quite a few, as it turns out.

If trying to hit a Federer-type forehand, one might notice video sequences of Roger taken from the side, in which his racket tip flies under the handle, with this happening while everything is still behind the body.

It took me the longest time to realize that this action is very fast. As such, it has the potential to satisfy my lifetime longing for a quick action downward before the quick action up that everybody shares.

Of course this isn't exactly what happens. The best way to achieve sudden acceleration is to get the racket moving slowly in one direction and then pull it abruptly in another.

If enormous, low-geared body movement takes the spearing racket down somewhat (as you use hand and arm only to keep it parallel to the court), you have the best of a couple of worlds: You feel slowly for the ball but also are preparing to unleash great power and deception. The racket's going to change from golf or maybe bowling to baseball all in a microsecond. Put another way, what's vertical becomes horizontal-- the old dipsey-doodle-- and you should be able to hit cute angles to either side.

So what's making the racket tip go so fast and strong? Not the wrist. That stays back. Not twisting forearm and whole arm-- that's only for minor adjustment. Well, it might add a little pop sometimes, but beware of doing it too much since control comes nowadays from lower half of the strings, which you don't want to be too much in retreat.

If the hand flies up the racket tip flies down. If the hand flies left the racket tip flies right.

I'm exhausted by analytical arguments on all sides as to whether Roger's circular swing is inside-out or outside-in, and so am looking for simple ideas.
This part of the stroke is so fast that I don't even like the word "swing."

A cue I've been using (only during acquirement) is, "Lift up and across toward left fence post finishing around left upper arm."

What is left fence post? It's in a lonely, single, chain-link tennis court out in woods imagined or real.

One question the "far back, sit back nature" of these strokes might answer is, "How can Roger's racket be so closed behind him when his knuckle is only on third bump to the right on his racket handle? Is he twisting something unnaturally?"

No. The more you push your hand and racket out front the more the hitting face opens up. The more you push your hand and racket out back the more the hitting face closes down. This latter thing is what Roger does. When he finally Mondo's his wrist (deftly bends it out) his hand and racket is quite high.
The lowering has just begun. You may find a lot of new chances for racket pitch control in the racket length dimension.

We need simplicity in tennis but complexity of thought, too, and of course not to think about any of it when playing a match.