A New Year's Serve

[don_budge]

Walk it Back...Straw Man. All of the way back.

"Identitarian Ethnostate"

http://readersupportednews.org/news-...ionalist-group

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/16/ap-white-nationalist-disavow-connection-florida-school-shooter/

No evidence. Oh yeah...4 X 4 = 16. Brilliant.

[don_budge]

These couple of quotes are only the tip of the iceberg of your ravings of Nazi's. You own all of it. Poor you.

[don_budge]

Trash Talk

"2x2=4," I say.

"You're losing it," my opponent says.

"4x4=16 ."

"You've lost it."

Ist nicht a conspiracy, mein Steve. It's more that anybody who becomes president in this country goes under a magnifying glass. Clearly, you underestimated, with your pie in the sky predictions for Dear Leader, the obvious truth of that.

This is how far I got this time before I stopped reading. You are not engaging your reader. You are failing to make contact. Everybody knows it's just more diatribe, not succeeding in the basic task of writing or communication.

What would the result of a poll be that asks every American if he or she thinks that mein Donald is a Nazi? 53 per cent yes? 47 per cent no? It wouldn't be the exact same thing as approval rating, where mein Donald does worse. And of course we couldn't use the expression "mein Donald," mein Steve, for that would skew the result, but who knows which way? Many people might say, "Oh yeah, that sounds like German from Nazi Germany days. I didn't think of that. Yeah, Donald Trump is mein Donald and shows a list of Nazi tendencies too long to enumerate. I just didn't realize it. I just didn't connect the dots." Then it would be an even larger majority who realized mein Donald is a Nazi. But of course the expression would have the opposite effect on you, just polarize you even more if that were possible. Because you always want to be the victim, always want to think there is a conspiracy coming at you, trying to fix the game and load the outcome.

Anyway, game is the word for you. And for mein Donald too. Deals, game-- same idea. Neither of you care about anything but points and advantage and arm-wrestling and the imagined score (which once in a hundred tries you get right). It's all-- this discussion and this thread-- a game for you. Deny the other person his experience. Emasculate him. What mein Donald and mein Steve have in common, besides 50 or 60 other mutual characteristics, is a superficial and very crass connection to life on this earth. Misogony, ageism, take an absolutist stance against immigrants although they have been the foundation of this country. And exceptionalism always (super-duper supermen). You name it.

Personally, i'm glad you're in Sweden. Detroit needs another Nazi like a hole in the head (Nazis and Nazi enablers are both Nazis but you have most of the traits of both).

What Detroit-- and Michigan-- needs is a new governor. And his name is Shri Thanedar. You can read his beautifully written autobiography at www.shri2018.com . If elected, he will not be another Nazi like Rick Snyder or Betsy de Vos. I include Betsy even though she has not been a governor because of the huge influence she has had on Detroit schools-- the humongous number of charter schools with slogans all over the walls. And slogans were a big part of Nazi Germany. One can imagine some of the same slogans on the walls of Blackwater run by her brother, which changed its name for purpose of propaganda-- volumes of propaganda (lies) being another Nazi characteristic.

Personally, I call people Nazis who discriminate against huge groups on the basis of race and culture. And people who are meaner than usual. And are like Ralph in LORD OF THE FLIES. Did i get the right one-- hope so. Maybe it was Jack-- the one that kills Piggy. I'll look it up and report back. Answer: No, Ralph is a good leader but isn't bloodthirsty enough for the others, like Jack or Roger, who sharpens both ends of a stick. (Ono, his name is Roger-- say it ain't so, Joe.)

Nazis are not hard to identify, though for many people such as yourself they are hard to recognize. First, they are authoritarian. In favor of dungeons, prisons and torture as in Guantanamo and the special rendition sites. They love torture-- that is for sure-- are all for it. That love alone is enough to firmly establish someone as a Nazi. Some person sticks a sprig of hedge through the abdomen of a horse fly and then releases it to watch it fly and laugh. A Nazi. True of any age or any country or any year.

It's complicated...Straw Man. All of the Naziisms...just wearing it out. Then to come back and say that 2 X 2 ='s 4...well therein lies the definition of the personna that you have created for yourself here on the tennis forum. I say tennis forum because that is what it is. But you have changed this forum into a personal vendetta to remove the sitting President of the United States of America. The truth is...you have lost it. But two to the power of two does indeed equal four. Happy to see that you could come to that conclusion without invoking the spector of Nazi's.

Just think of how many German people you have offended with your insane rants about Nazi's. Let's put you in a room full of German folk and turn out the lights after you rant at them about the Nazi's. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get a royal ass kicking which is what you deserve.

Straw Man...Straw Man...you ain't nothing but a Straw Man. Your Nazi meme is yours now. You own it. I wonder how Philipp Kohlshreiber would take to your nonsense. I listened to the tournament in Rotterdam in German all week. Are these people all Nazi's? I just wonder how they might react to your insane rants. You...a little old angry man living in a shell. Keep crying.

don_budge

[bottle]

Trash Talk

"2x2=4," I say.

"You're losing it," my opponent says.

"4x4=16 ."

"You've lost it."

[bottle]

Shot Beams in, Stays a Month, Beams out Never to be Seen Again

I know. This happened to me, could happen to you. It's a mystery I can't solve though I tried.

Maybe if I now talk about the shot it will come back, something I doubt but stranger things have happened.

The shot as outlined in RACKET WORK: THE KEY TO TENNIS by John M. Barnaby is a forehand service return that ought to belong on one's long list of alternatives to try when the others won't work.

Or maybe if it is working it should be alternative one or two. This happened for the month when I had it.

One "mondoes," (my word, not Barnaby's), uses a neutral step-out and hits the ball with solid bod.

If nothing else this shot is economical.

Does one turn one's hips and shoulders back in a unit turn? Not this time. The shoulders turn a little because of the step-out with left foot. This bit of shoulders turn is all you need.

But can "mondo," isolated, be a timing unit all by itself? It can. The wrist flops back as if to catch the bottom of the ball. The forearm flops the racket under. The two simultaneous flops make a single flip or mondo.

But I prefer to save the word "flip" for the air raid siren that a prairie dog uses when he sees the shadow of a big black bird flying overhead.

The self-proclaimed sentinel does a huge back flip (prairie dog flips-- YouTube-- https://www.google.com/search?q=prai...hrome&ie=UTF-8) and all the prairie dogs disappear in their burrows.

So you mondo because there is danger coming your way-- a big serve too hot to handle.

You open wrist, step, hit.

This shot is also an old-fashioned way of dealing with a ball that is impossibly out of reach.

P.S. The philosophy of balance in all things dictates that abrupt movement like that of a backflipping prairie dog should be offset by slow, smooth and deliberate movement when one isn't panicked.

One learns to mondo but is this always the best idea? Why shouldn't wrist opening happen gradually and in the backswing for some shots?

[bottle]

It's All How One Thinks about it

I've got the basic form of a new forehand waiting to be born.

Have slowed the timing of both backward and forward turns to make up for lack of an interim.

But I have hit the other way for half of a lifetime-- the way of everybody else with backward bod then interim then forward bod.

Newness therefore may feel horrible.

Don't know how the experiment will crack up because haven't tried it yet.

But if it does feel horrible it won't do so because of technical flaw.

And if it doesn't feel horrible one can jump into the purity of the new design with great shots to come later.

But let's assume the new design will feel horrible and one can barely hit the ball.

That will indicate a timing thing.

All one will have to do is substitute some element of the new stroke into the old timing pattern.

Most likely candidate is the pointing across with left hand-- a good thing to think about while there is a foot of snow on every court and one is cross-country skiing after school rather than doing any kind of tennis.

Initial turn is achieved with left hand on racket.

Additional turn is achieved with pointing across.

This pointing across can be made to substitute for the interim breaststroke or dogpat or whatever that just about all tennis players use.

If that's what you want.

Dullards won't like this.

They'll say-- oh never mind. How can any other person's words matter when you're conducting honest experiment?

Unless they're willing and able to help you-- that would be rare.

No interim for service return with point across integrated into the whole stroke.

Point across for interim when one has time.

[bottle]

Sic Semper Tyrannis

I leave it to your imagination, reader, to figure out what may have recently happened on an imaginative level in these pages. Since I am an American, not a Royalist who believes in the Divine Right of Kings or American presidents, I reject out of hand macho male chauvinists of any stripe including macho conservative expats who think "Mein Donald" is just grand. And I aspire to using the "Sic Semper Tyrannis" expression more wisely than that abysmal jerk John Wilkes Booth.

I was recently devastated to learn that Pat Blaskower died of rapid cancer on October 2, 2017 . A charmingly literary person, she was also fantastically successful as a tennis coach. Just ask players in Marin County, California or the women of Trumbull, Connecticut. She was number one in the nation in Womens' Open Doubles, played Billie Jean King once in singles losing 4 and 4 but thought she should have won. The most famous book she wrote, THE ART OF DOUBLES, may be, as her obit suggests, the greatest book on tennis doubles ever written.

The only other book that comes close is THE GAME OF DOUBLES IN TENNIS by Talbert and Old. Just my opinion.

Part of the reason I was so saddened is the striking picture of Ms. Blaskower, tall, strong and youthful, on the cover of THE ART OF DOUBLES. Other photos however reveal that she got to be old like me and even went into Real Estate.

I was looking for the website Ms. Blaskower said-- a year or so ago on line-- she was about to put up. That's how I learned of her death.

I then became intensely interested in more than just Pat Blaskower's tennis. How old was she? And why, although I am neither the best nor most aggressive of researchers, could I never come close to her birth date, not even through attempts to crack the rolls of the Branson School in Ross, California, Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, the University of Cal at Berkeley which obviously offered greener tennis pastures than Vassar did.

Since you have so far humored my opinions, mein reader, let me give you another one. Page 107 is best page of THE ART OF DOUBLES, this best of all doubles books.

It and page 108 delineate four circumstances to contemplate every time your partner is receiving serve while you hold terminator position at service line.

1) is poach by server's partner. Blaskower will have you mirror the poacher's movement, "being careful to stay in line with your opponent's racquet."

2) Server does not come in or ball bounces in front of him. Your position mirrors that of ball.

3) Server comes in but your partner's service return is high. Your position mirrors that of ball.

4) Server comes in but your partner's service return is low. You get to abandon the mirroring responsibility and break for the center in a huge poach.

Knowing precisely what to do in each of the four cases could be as valuable as knowing an opening in chess whereby you can defeat players even better than you if they don't know it.

[bottle]

10splayer, do you think I should try the snake shot tonight or just go with McEnruefuls and Waterwheels?

Steve thinks the snake shot is twisted.

Never mind. Don't waste any effort or time with an answer. The tennis social is canceled because of snow. The hiss forehand will have to wait until next week, and by then-- who knows?-- it may be ready, and in the meantime, right now, boots on and down the stairs to the cross-country track. Oh boy is it going to be fast. Everybody agrees that never in the history of this place has anyone cross-country skiied the length of the long, long building this way then that way then over and over again. And after I do that, since I no longer have to unbury my car until tomorrow, I shall take 100 strokes on my Concept II Indoor Rower, arms for 10, arms and back for 10, arms and back and half legs for 10, full strokes for 10-- now there are only 60 strokes to go to reach 100. On the paddle or full pressure or 20,20,20?-- will see how I feel.

All the experts agree that 100 strokes isn't enough to do anything good for your body but I don't care. The skiing in heavy falling snow and the hundred strokes at no more than 20 strokes a minute will put me in a real good mood for mocking all Trumpsters for the next two days. The only drawback to this plan is that it's too easy to do.

On with the smart wool socks. On with the wool hat. On with the Rossignol boots. On with the ultra-light green jacket. Time to go.

One demerit for each automatic door clicked against by skiis and poles.

[bottle]

10splayer, do you think I should try the snake shot tonight or just go with McEnruefuls and Waterwheels?

Steve thinks the snake shot is twisted.

[bottle]

Duration of One's Forehand

The snake's head is either concealed or distracted from by the last coil being set across. All those scales. A serpent horribilis.

The backswing turn is a big coil encircling the barely lifting right hand.

If one divides backswing into two even halves-- bod turn with opposite hand on racket and bod turn as separated hand points across, the desired prolonging of backswing becomes not that hard to achieve.

Just as Roger Federer uses earlier hand separation than Grigor Dimitrov, we shall use an earlier one too but one later than in our McEnrueful.

Will backswing still be quick enough? Yes, it's one move. But did it draw time from abandonment of breaststroke or any other interim between backswing and foreswing? A little.

We want same duration of total stroke we've used for years but with the parts more wisely assembled.

To achieve this goal we must make a similar time alteration to the foreswing-- more difficult.

I was thinking that some players push through contact with their knees like Tom Okker but then extend them as he often does not bother to do. That could spend more time.

In his extraordinary essay in the old book MASTER YOUR TENNIS STROKES, Okker excoriates recreational players for rushing their strokes and leaping up thus robbing effortless weight from the shot. He speaks of two seconds as achievable possibility. But when Jack Kramer got around to measuring Okker's forehand, he came up with an average among the photo studies he had of about 1.20 seconds.

Does anybody still ever put a stopwatch on one's forehand nowadays? I saw the coach of Arantxa Sanchez Vicario measuring her forehand that way decades ago at Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.

[bottle]

Which is More Important, the Point or the Match?

The point if you are losing the match.

But the point can be pretty interesting even when you are winning the match.

Pat Blaskower, one of the more provocative authors ever of tennis books on doubles, divides the roles of the two players on a team into "terminator" (the person slightly closer to net) and "the crosscourt player."

This useful distinction leads to good team balance between offense and defense and often to a long crosscourt duel of attrition pending ideal development, viz., the defensive player finally succeeds in setting up the terminator for a clean put-away or almost.

The role of the more defensive player is not to win the point outright. That happening nevertheless would be nice.

Last evening I was in such a duel that became very prolonged with all shots topspin forehands.

This gave me a chance to test a precept of Brian Gordon, viz., that twisting or windshield wiping arm ("twirling" or "baton twirling" or "propeller whirling" are the terms I prefer) produces more topspin than a lifting arm.

Many players try to do both, which raises another question: Does one or the other method produce more topspin than both together? We leave that question to hang Dylanesque in the wind (http://www.searchingforagem.com/Misc/who.htm).

And last night I tried to keep the forehand exchange basic and simple once I saw it might go on forever. My partner was too timid to poach so...as simple and deep as possible.

Each of my forehands was a Waterwheel, a form in which the racket loops smoothly down and forward until it accelerates from vigorous lift of the elbow.

I wasn't supposed to end the point but did when I hit a Federfore in which arm twirled instead of lifted.

This elicited an unforced error from my opponent.

Was the error due to change in quality of the spin? Or was the Federfore simply a better shot? Would change from a bunch of Federfores to one Waterwheel have produced the same mistake?

All perfectly sane questions.

Whatever the answer to each one, I knew at that moment I was glad I could produce two different kinds of spin from the same preparation.

[bottle]

Left Hand Does a Lot, Right Hand Does a Little. The Proportion is Four to One. Am Talking About Forehand Backswing.

Somebody decided to pay for Friday night warmup drills for bottle. I got to work last night with a favorite teaching pro the diminutive Aggie the size of a small bug.

Halfway through our hour, which some would call a "cardio session," Aggie very gently showed all the big hitters how they could eliminate their grossly huge backswings and merely turn their bodies and send their racket down and up.

It was in this demonstration along with her footwork that one could see just how good a player Aggie is.

Her wait position and turn are solid, human, ordinary with both hands together on the racket to bring the body around.

It's in what happens next that her personal style asserts itself-- very vertical racket work, an arm that unbends who knows how, economy and forward emphasis everywhere.

Who says a woman takes her racket behind her back like Madison Keys?

Will the big hitters listen? Of course not.

Should Bottle change? No. But he (I) don't have a gross backswing, and my wait position is lower and cheat left and different from the one Aggie showed.

I'm having fun with what Stotty told me in post # 4027 . Amazing how easily great information can fly across the pond.

Wow, what short hand work within overall quick backswing when racket tip ends up high but still tilted toward the net.

Had a great hit too with my young Chrysler engineer friend Bill Grant after the three 45 minute competitions and dinner.

Am about to abandon all pretense of three part forehands once and for all. Fognini and a million others can have unit turn, breastroke, and forward stroke all to themselves.

I started experimenting with no interval between backward and forward bod turns decades ago.

A USPTA pro who was captain of his college team and played on the tour carefully observed and was impressed and didn't change anything.

I think I can make 1-2 rhythm work by fleshing out both turns, by applying more wisdom (or thought if you prefer) throughout but not alter total duration of the stroke.

Backward Bod Turn:
Left hand stays on racket for longer than in a McEnrueful but still separates early. The point across with left arm is full and lusty and connected to farther turn. The racket tip goes up but not all the way to vertical (or skunk tail). All these items, especially the brief slow rise of the racket tip like a snake's head at center of its coils create a slightly slower backswing than one had before.

Forward Bod Turn:
The arm extension may go backward and downward before forward or maybe forward the whole way-- I don't know. Whatever one is doing the pathway is curved in the vertical plane. The mondo happens practically on the ball. The transition from mondo to wipe is non-existent-- it's all one act. The follow through is over yoke or around opposite shoulder. All these ideas add slightly to the duration of the foreswing. If you can use the term "backswing" you can use the term "foreswing."

Total duration of this topspin forehand is-- to repeat-- same as before.

I didn't think I could substitute teach and play four or five hours of tennis in the same day. I teach all subjects and grade levels K-12. In fact on Friday I was in a school called Dove Academy Detroit laid out as a maze. I've been there six or seven times but still don't know my way around. And had to lug heavy bags from room to room, constantly going up and down the wrong staircase then retracing my steps. Lugging a classroom's worth of books and a million papers in three stories of concrete structure-- a whole desk's worth.

A good nap and strategically drunk coffee figured in later tennis success.

Also, as my former partner Hope informed me, I am 78 not 79 . I did the math. Went online. She's right.

But I got severe cramps in lower left leg in bed in middle of the night.

The evening was worth them.

P.S. If you want to see a lousy serve, read # 4040. It got clobbered. I quickly resorted to better serves.

[don_budge]

The state they speak of is deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeper than...

[bottle]

Note how every precious catchword of the right always applies to itself, is double-edged, gives the mopeheads a chance to launch a spurious attack with words that apply to themselves in even amount or more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_in_the_United_States

[bottle]

Mr. Innuendo does innuendo. But sometimes even what the innuendo is is unclear. Doesn't matter. What's important to remember is that anybody who speaks of deeeeeeeeeeep state is a profound person. The state they speak of is deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeper than the well of Democritus.