A New Year's Serve

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Understanding the Difference between Forearm Scissoring and Forum Forearm Farm Gate

Until you master this tongue-twister, reader, you won't have any idea what I'm talking about.

But if you recently have eaten some brain food and therefore can make the necessary distinction between the two things, know this:

"Farm-gating the forearm" as I call it brings the hand around level and parallel to the court.

The motion that permits this is ISR or internal shoulder rotation so famed for its power that you wouldn't want to use it up in premature ejaculation.

The very different term "scissoring" learned from Geoffrey Williams takes hand around by contrast on a slightly upward path.

This upwardness combined with eschewing of the kinetic chain as popularly misinterpreted and golfing the shoulder down ahead of hips-fire again produces levelness of hand travel.

And elongation of the low prairie thus produced can mean a truly steep mountain on the far side, a sheer cliff rising like El Capitan.

(https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C...w=1258&bih=647)

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From 1-2-3 to 1-2 Rhythm

This transition can be applied to any forehand, at any time.

In most but not all cases, the 1-2 delineation will occur at top of a backswing that looks something like this:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs).

Hopefully, the evolutionary period of 1-2-3 will have instilled solid structure in the shot, and this structure will remain intact once it comes across to its wilder manifestation.

How does anybody naturally arrive at such a huge decision?

Through emergency, when one was rushed and thereby hit a 1-2 shot far superior (i.e., more powerful) than any of one's 1-2-3 shots.

But can and should one ever go back to one's 1-2-3 shot? Of course. One should never hit as hard as one can all of the time.

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A Great Looking Forehand Hit by A BULL

Suffering only from insufficient language in describing it. Of course I haven't tried it and won't today since today I go cross-country skiing at the park where the park attendants maintain my self-feed court which is a bit under the weather. I did hit a few balls yesterday out of hand with no bounce. The yellow shows up well for subsequent plucking.

Here it is again. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs). Nice. So take it and make it your own. Throw in a few bowled backswings to go along with McEnruefuls if you have McEnruefuls (a dubious assumption but I myself do have McEnruefuls).

Gabe suggests that anybody who straightens arm in the follow through is throwback to the time when people played with a continental grip. Well, I don't have a continental grip but do have a composite grip like John McEnroe and my arm stays at one length. It's true that I don't wrap, only will wrap with the new strong eastern TSFH and the transition strong eastern TSFH I've been working on for a long time.

Although I didn't realize that transition was its possible purpose.

No need to jettison an old stroke unless it's worse than the new one.

Commonality between the two TSFH's: Arm getting straight then scissoring into a wipe. Difference: Higher backswing through middle register in the newer one. Difference: Conventional interpretation of kinetic chain over that of Okker, Budge and Vines. Difference: the body weight and racket vector mix = more exploration. Possibility for a linguistic clue that more or less achieves the goal of facing strings toward right fence: Gradually lay wrist back/up to tandemize with entire middle register backswing.

This accomplishes half the function of a mondo and therefore may be called a demi-mondo.

With rolling of racket under the forearm-- during the 2 of 1-2 rhythm-- providing the other half.

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No no, Dummy

K.I.S.S. Not enough just to watch. Visual tennis is great, but you need to turn up the sound and listen to what Gabe is saying too. And combine all three-- what you see and what you hear and what you already knew.

Be reminded. That's what a good teaching pro can do. He or she can provide another set of eyes. Her name tonight was Aggie, doing the warm-up drill. Like you (me), she values craziness, says it makes life more interesting.

Isn't Aga Radwanska good enough for you?

Snap-face the strings at right fence. That makes wrist layback quick and over and out of the way. Put the emphasis where it belongs on the linked arm rolls one way then the other. You do it on a serve so why wouldn't you do it here? Slingshot then is ISR conquering ESR. How do you think a medieval catapult worked?

Pick another form of slingshot to concentrate on some other time.

That thought should be the end of this post but is not. Is semi-mondo backward too harsh? Start some of the backward roll sooner then. I want a mat that gets smaller and tighter and quicker as it naturally unspools along a table.

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The Image of BULL-BOY Hitting Forehands Continues to Seize Our Imagination

So here he is in rapid-fire glory once again, fed extremely low balls by Coach Gabe Jaramillo before moving back to the baseline for conventional waist-high shots.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs)

To this piece of cinema we add the perverted thought of ostensibly reversing au Tom Okker the center piece of any kinetic chain, the marginal precedence of hips before shoulders so well documented by Ted Williams in THE ART OF HITTING.

Tom, when wishing to hit his famously ground-breaking topspin forehand, sends shoulders around instead.

Then hips fire as both knees press bod into the court to provide an effortless heavy ball in performing the weight transfer that finishes off the shot.

Call this final thrust a Connecticut chain all of its own if you must.

More important, make sure to face your strings at right fence like BULL-BOY on his way back.

And despite the heresy you now will attempt, straighten and bend at the elbow like BULL-BOY over Tom Okker's maintenance of his long and stringy arm.

It is your strings' ephemeral facing toward side fence that triggers perfect alignment of elbow extension and compression.

The arm bends exactly the same way it just extended. The racket went down. Then it came up on same plane and all from the elbow.

So let's review what got us here. We need to do this since BULL-BOY no doubt is using a more westernized grip.

We with our strong easterns consciously lift the elbow as we bend up the wrist.

This briefly faces our strings at the side fence.

Now the arm, fighting itself, extends and bends.

All motion in in this stroke must be continuous as Gabe Jaramillo reminds us.

A 1-2 rhythm I would say with embarkation of the 2 from top of the middle school backswing.

And arm can still be fighting to bend as it opens out in therefore delayed fashion-- while right shoulder rotates downward which causes level travel of the racket.

At which point the hips and lifting twisting wiper kick in.

"Lifting twisting wiper" means precisely this: The wiper wipes but the base of it-- the axis of the wipe-- lifts at the exact same time.

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Altering a McEnrueful for More Topspin

On a day when my newly invented strong eastern grip topspin forehands weren't especially bad just weren't giving our opponents much trouble I suddenly hit a couple of McEnruefuls that jumped up and forced an error.

The McEnrueful, an imitation of one kind of John MEnroe forehand, the one where he doesn't straighten his legs while hitting it, is a simple shot consisting of three parts: 1) free down and up arm, 2) solid lowering of racket with whole bod, 3) aeronautical banking up to ball with whole bod.

In self-feed the shot always works, in actual play produces unwanted backspin sometimes, and then which is equally surprising, may win the point anyway.

All that is a way of saying that the McEnrueful is a basically flat shot characterized by solid connection between shoulders and arm as one makes contact.

Its composite grip halfway between eastern and continental is good for a surprisingly quick shot off of a low bounce.

This occurrence is impressive enough to make one think it is the be-all and end-all of the shot.

If one uses the same basic form, however, one can hit assured topspin that may be surprisingly troublesome to one's opponents.

Keep bod and racket solid and connected but with a steeper bank.

Use slower horizontal rotation of the shoulders combined with body wriggle closer to straight up.

Such a reconfiguration of the shot, though seeming improbable, is perfectly possible.

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Further Modification to the Forehand of BULL-BOY

Here is BULL-BOY's forehand once again. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs). One should learn it and use it.

But then, instead of straightening the arm behind yourself the way BULL-BOY does, keep it bent through the loop.

Now, as shoulders fire, straighten the arm and bend it again which combined spring-like action melds into flying windshield wipe coincident with hips and pliable knees finishing this variable heaviness shot off.

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A Different Way of Thinking about Front Knee in One's One Hand Topspin Backhand

The front knee becomes a braking mechanism to slow one's hip rotation while simultaneously permitting weight transfer to come through on a rising plane.

Hips rotation thus converts into arm rotation on a straight line to the outside while also lifting on a rising plane.

Are the two planes the same? Not really. The body weight goes toward the target. The arm rotation goes to the left of the target and then to the right of the target.

Between those two directions the racket goes straight toward the target, one could argue, I suppose.

Rotation of the hips thus becomes a mechanism to straighten the arm a little or a lot depending on one's preference for barred arm or gradual straightening of the arm throughout the shot.

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Among Possible Service Tweaks: Shortening the Toss at Bottom and Lengthening it at Top

Just keep hands and racket connected for longer. They can go down together and around and up together before they separate.

This changes the shape of things, including the tossing arm, which could be good or bad.

I'm adding a cochleate roll of the hitting arm to be coincident with delayed toss as well.

"Cochleate" means snail-like. Instead of raising the two hands together, one can raise one and roll together the other like a Danish pastry and still end up with two high elbows. And do all this by time of the ball release.

From ball release then the toss arm continues upward. The racket arm meanwhile can straighten until the two arms are like insect feelers close together and high in the air.

But something else just happened that is best expressed as a "kata," i.e. as conceptual setpiece without one's racket in one's hand.

The forefinger extended skyward rolls around so that thumb turns toward rear fence.

Now one makes a similar motion but with hand on racket (where forefinger might be extended or not).

The trick is to have both hands high in the air at once. A higher toss can help in this. And maybe just got higher due to having started from a higher place.

Has body bowed the way it used to? Probably.

As one finally serves, the two hands never get very far apart from one another.

So let's be honest now. Are these tweaks just tweaks or part of an overhaul?

Overhaul.

And if one doesn't like it, perhaps one can go back. Or nevertheless forge ahead.

But why would one ever change one's serve this much? Perhaps because the old one got beat up on.

Success of the design, like a new dance step, may depend on doing specific things well.

First and foremost, I would guess, is elevation of both elbows a small amount as body turns back with hands still connected.

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Report

# 3967 works great in self-feed but not well enough against big hitters in actual play to continue with it. One does better to emulate the forehand of BULL-BOY in all its unadulterated naturalness. The exact same mechanics are at work but more spread out, which allows for everything to happen in its uncrowded place.

Bent arm to strings facing side fence enables a hearty turn. There is no additional turn during point across. The complete turn is with both hands on the racket. Hence the subsequent breaststroke is very pure, a consolidation of balance.

Still, in hitting arm, I am willing to use "straighten, bend and wipe" all-toward-the-ball as an exercise to create proper scissor to wipe blend.

Get that and then put the arm straightening part in backswing instead of foreswing and keep everything despite the separate parts in 1-2 rhythm.

Another thing to notice is the earliness and length of shoulders turn combined with slowness of steady hips that characterize this shot.

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BULL-BOY the Forehand Named after BULL-BOY the Player

Eschew the kinetic chain. Relegate the kinetic chain to another forehand, in my case the McEnrueful. Equate the kinetic chain with some ancient deity how about Baal. In this way one can add religious weight to one's alternate forehand while retaining secularity for one's staple forehand named after a common man. That would be BULL-BOY.

The BULL-BOY has a rough connection to Ivan Lendl's forehand and here it is:

The hips do not precede the shoulders. They follow them. They are in fact passive. This is what gives them their slow, smooth and prolonged look so good for concluding balance. You hit the ball with your shoulders. Your shoulders are the pre-eminent part.

But for a very low ball you can add to the passivity the piston of rear knee driving down at the court just like BULL-BOY in early part of the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs).

Recognize however the difference of this from those shots where some guy pops all body parts up. One is hitting topspin while the lower bod sinks down. And BULL-BOY doesn't do this all the time, just on very low balls.

Although this shot is secular, it might behoove one to declare for the moment this video as "the one and only video."

The backswing now becomes fully comprehensible perhaps for the first time in tennis instruction history. Unit turn, wrist and elbow face strings at side fence-- one half of the backswing.

The second half is a breaststroke of the two arms while rest of the bod remains perfectly still.

In self-feed, one may hit two or three BULL-BOYS in 1-2-3 rhythm where 1 is unit turn, 2 is breaststroke, 3 is the forward stroke.

Two or three of these self-feeds however-- no more. Then it is time to mush the two halves of the backswing into a single unit of motion and accelerate it.

Shy not from reps. Backswing, foreswing, backswing, foreswing. Now we have the 1-2 rhythm we want.

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Note: BULL-BOY Appears to Roll before Lift

Scissor to roll to lift all seem part of a train. Would arm still be rolling during the lift? Maybe and maybe not.

But we have carefully been taught to despise such speculation. So let's have an absolute and unvarying decree and here it is: SUBORDINATE HIPS TO THE SHOULDERS!

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A Move that Must be Practiced, Refined and Even Drilled

Initial move in a BULL-BOY, that is.

The two parts of one's backswing before one melds them into a rapid stew could even be thought to be interlaced with a third part (ono, these thoughts are taking us away from simplicity).

Well, the total backswing must be fast, hence the fine detail that comprises it must be perfectly worked out so that later we needn't think.

Should simultaneous cocking of the wrist and raising of the elbow happen on unit turn or breaststroke or in between?

I don't have the answer, only know this move involves the use of both hands much like flying grip change for a one hand backhand and must be as streamlined as possible.

The cue to face the strings at side fence does help.

A simultaneous turning down of both thumbs starting while hands and racket are still connected could be one good answer.

Left thumb can simply turn down from the forearm. Right thumb can turn down as wrist depresses from elbow turning up. Now the hands though separated are still close.

Calm down and smooth the waters with palms down.

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Among Possible Service Tweaks: Shortening the Toss at Bottom and Lengthening it at Top


First and foremost, I would guess, is elevation of both elbows a small amount as body turns back with hands still connected.

Not.

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Easing the Contortion in a Strong Eastern BULL-BOY

BULL-BOY himself has more of his hand under the racket and therefore does not figure in this discussion.

Where one has one's racket in WP (wait position) of course affects what happens after that.

From moderately low left WP, the design goal here is to face strings at right fence partway through the continuous backswing. That implies two elements that ought to be simultaneous: 1) cocking hand up on wrist hinge and 2) rolling elbow up to close racket and both palms equally down.

The hand-cocking is fairly mechanical and predictable; the elbow roll however more organic and uncomfortable.

One certainly wouldn't want to jettison it but could reduce the amount of it by bowling racket tip with both hands down a small bit to arrive at comparable setting and place.

Bowling sounds like a terrible choice when one can make time by using a straight line instead.

There could be good trade-off however. One can contort the elbow less now. Racket also will carry more kinetic energy and a bit of mild loop up and down in the breaststroke that follows.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander, so put a little overhead arc in left hand's pathway too.

Thus we nudge the swim term breaststroke one notch toward butterfly.

Perhaps there is too much idealism is this provisionally revised shot, perhaps not.