where'd the bent arm come from anyway?

[bottle]

Where am I?

In Winston-Salem, NC working on three books and with very little cash: John Escher, in the phone book.

Jeff, thanks for the nice note. But, (you always knew there would be a but, didn't you?) on this subject of personal anecdote, Richard P. Feynman was a
pretty good scientist and didn't shun it, embedded a razor blade in a wooden block for instance to produce more quantifiably rapid slicing of string beans, but abandoned this experiment when he suddenly realized his life was in danger. Another one was when he went around counting to a fixed number, pretending he was a second hand on a clock. Then he would compare himself with an actual clock, measure himself at different times of the day and lights, in different moods, after different meals, etc., etc. And then he made all his friends do the same thing, keeping impeccable data, of course. I don't think his two Nobel prizes came from either of these experiments, but...it's very interesting and revealing of a more expansive and very sound view of science, I think.

I remember one time at the Crooked Run Racquet Club, Front Royal, VA (more of an exercise gym by now) a computer expert at Lord Fairfax Community College, Middletown, came out of tennis retirement and didn't look very good to me, and I never saw him play a match with anybody. Then he beat a really
good player-- an absolutely terrific player-- for the club championship. All he'd done was hit the wall and think. He was his own scientist, is what I'm trying to say.

My coach doesn't really have a base, but i guess you could say California, as he goes to where the tournaments are...his most recent success was Bethanie Mattek...getting her into top 40 (but doesn't work with her anymore), now he works primarily with Artem Sitak...who since changing to the extended arm foreahand from the bent has made the semis in three of his last three tournaments, so i suspect we will see his ranking continue to move up. he's moved up about 75-100 spots in the past month.

I am communicating with Brian Gordon to hopefully get some science behind the feel with Artem so that we can quantify the massive amount of improvement we've seen lately.

Bottle, where are you?

[jeffreycounts]

And Kent, please don't let the posters here convince you that you are arrogant. But be grateful that a person named Bungalow Bill hasn't joined the discussion. I now have read this entire thread. I didn't find a single arrogant word from you. Whoops-- well, maybe "get your heads out of the sand box." Up till then you were perfect and from then on, too.

What has upset people is your healthy challenge to the double-arm structure they teach too much. And what mightily confuses me is an article by John Yandell I read in Tennis Magazine suggesting that Roger Federer's forehand might be "a stroke for the masses." Anyway, I call such imitations "Federfores" because it's easier to have a name for them, and I definitely am "the masses," but I see a few of them working awfully well at the Randy Pate Tennis Academy for gifted youths here in Winston-Salem, also. The father is usually a tennis wonk, it seems to me. And won't let anybody change his boy to static double-bend (I make a distinction between that and "scissoring arm," a term I learned from Bungalow Bill). Roger scissors 60 per cent of the time and doesn't 40 per cent, no? Or did I reverse the percentages, and who really cares? Call it about half and half (scissoring is easier but you can still get the racket head passively to unfurl to the right while doing it).

I'm so glad my forehand has become five times more accurate just because I persisted in using Roger as the model. Even a tour technician advised that I use Todd Martin instead. The ball goes faster, too. And I win 6-0, 6-1 against the same player who used to beat me 4-6, 5-7. BELIEVE ME, DEAR READER AND EVERYBODY IF YOU HONOR PERSONAL TESTIMONY AND ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE. I think it trumps well financed research projects every time, in fact is the best kind of energized raw data, is sports science itself.

Science is always suspect of personal testimony and anecdotal evidence. That's why science hasn't embraced ufo sightings or psychic phenomenon. But I must say that Bottle and Carrera Kent are on the same wavelength here. I do prefer Bottle's posts with his literary references and fanciful metaphors.

Bottle - I think you should arrange a session with Carrera's coach and corroborate.

Carrera - where is your coach based? What player level does he work with?

[bottle]

Absolutely.

And Kent, please don't let the posters here convince you that you are arrogant. But be grateful that a person named Bungalow Bill hasn't joined the discussion. I now have read this entire thread. I didn't find a single arrogant word from you. Whoops-- well, maybe "get your heads out of the sand box." Up till then you were perfect and from then on, too.

What has upset people is your healthy challenge to the double-arm structure they teach too much. And what mightily confuses me is an article by John Yandell I read in Tennis Magazine suggesting that Roger Federer's forehand might be "a stroke for the masses." Anyway, I call such imitations "Federfores" because it's easier to have a name for them, and I definitely am "the masses," but I see a few of them working awfully well at the Randy Pate Tennis Academy for gifted youths here in Winston-Salem, also. The father is usually a tennis wonk, it seems to me. And won't let anybody change his boy to static double-bend (I make a distinction between that and "scissoring arm," a term I learned from Bungalow Bill). Roger scissors 60 per cent of the time and doesn't 40 per cent, no? Or did I reverse the percentages, and who really cares? Call it about half and half (scissoring is easier but you can still get the racket head passively to unfurl to the right while doing it).

I'm so glad my forehand has become five times more accurate just because I persisted in using Roger as the model. Even a tour technician advised that I use Todd Martin instead. The ball goes faster, too. And I win 6-0, 6-1 against the same player who used to beat me 4-6, 5-7. BELIEVE ME, DEAR READER AND EVERYBODY IF YOU HONOR PERSONAL TESTIMONY AND ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE. I think it trumps well financed research projects every time, in fact is the best kind of energized raw data, is sports science itself.

A Federfore is a CONSERVATIVE stroke. Lendl: Elbow all over the place. Agassi: Elbow all over the place. Del Potro: Elbow all over the place. Federer: Elbow in one place.

bottle, don't know about you, but what you just described is a bunch of guys constantly changing and altering to try and get things to work the way they wanted and one guy that just let's natural movement and forces create consistent contact points for him.

[holyhobo]

Absolutely far and FUZZY!

bottle, absolutely correct! speed instead of leverage. that's a huge differing factor. in order for a player to go from double bend to straight, you have to make them distance themselves far enough away from the ball that they have no choice but to elongate. once they make contact with one totally effortless FH like they have never hit in their lives before, then they start trying to duplicate it. the coach then has to watch out for the single bend sneaking in cause it will over and over. have to keep focusing on the distance from their back hip and contact point and moving them further from the ball when they TRY to hit it hard.

jeff,

i don't have time to reply to everything you said right now, but i am going to take some video after the pro season of one of my coaches players that just changed from a bent arm to a FH like Federer just this spring. All of a sudden he is kicking butt and his own testimony and video will be informative once i can get on here.

btw, this pro player changed over the course of four weeks and he swears by it. the talk on tour was that his forehand was his weakness. definitely not anymore.

more later.

thanks for your reply.

[bottle]

Addendum

A Federfore is a CONSERVATIVE stroke. Lendl: Elbow all over the place. Agassi: Elbow all over the place. Del Potro: Elbow all over the place. Federer: Elbow in one place.

[bottle]

Racket Head Unfurling to Right

No, I think Roger Federer's forehand is more easily imitated than any other great stroke in the last hundred years, e.g., with less to figure out certainly than in a Don Budge backhand, which according to him was an exceedingly natural shot that anyone could do, at least in a beneficial if not open championship way (but concave to straight to concave-- wrist-- who would have thought it?). His brother Lloyd, the teaching pro in the family, taught something pretty similar to everybody, and among older players, the great one-handers often still look Budge-influenced.

Through simple pursuit of my Federfore, like carrerakent, I experienced a sea change in accuracy, with my learning method consisting of no more than dropping two and one-half basket of balls every day and hitting them, and then playing matches twice a week against a good opponent, someone who never changes his game very much. (I did this for about three years, but there was no way to know what I know now-- a much shorter time becomes increasingly possible for other players, I'm sure, as the pool of available knowledge grows.)

The hardest thing to figure out was what other players were trying to say about Federer on the internet.

And I do think all of us probably say too much. But when carerrakent identifies two different impulses: 1) to hit through the ball or 2) to hit past it, I think he is perfectly in focus. I should know better than anyone that when you bury information that essential in other detail it quickly gets lost, i.e., all the various ideas on every topic begin to compete with themselves.

Whether the wrist or forearm or both releases as the racket head unfurls to right I don't know, but do believe it's a passive, effortless movement caused by two changes of direction in the path of the swing combined with loose grip.

You keep your head down like a good golfer. Some things are going to the left and some to the right, and the whole of it feels great. The strings make a surgical incision in the air.

There's push but it comes from the great spiraling body swing only.

I do think the arm is strong when it's scissoring (a moving double-bend?) but that its weakness when fully extended probably doesn't matter much. I see that maximum separation shot as a speed lever, not a strength lever.

[jeffreycounts]

Jeff, i like your analogy, but a tennis ball doesn't require a body to be "behind it" to generate all of the necessary force does it? racket head speed is what we are after as tennis players, right? less energy expenditure and greater accuracy is what we are after right? since i used to hit a single bend because all of my money got my elbow tucked into my side and now i hit extended and at age 45 and i know i hit twice as hard a ball this year as two years ago i just can't think of letting my son hit with a bent arm by design.

i used to teach to be firm behind your shots hit through it and all of the old methods of elbow in and you are so much stronger with your racket in closer to you...i think that is where the double bend came from. a misunderstanding of how to exhibit maximum racket head force. when people were starting to try to hit the cover off the ball, there weren't any physiologists, "famous coaches" standing there, God forbid, and biomechanical devices testing the best method. it was an evolution of kids trying to adapt and i think that is the answer to Mr. Yandell questions as to why is it so prevalent then...i think cause the experts and the most gifted athletes in the world weren't the one's evolving. it would only take one kid showing up at IMG or Saddlebrook hitting the ball harder than anyone else and within 6 months that is THE way to hit it. Regardless of whether or not it was the best way. Do you agree?

I'm trying to figure out a way to get everyone "pulling" off the extended forehand. If the coaches don't get it, the students never will.

I actually agree with you that Federer's straighter arm and integration of the wrist on some balls gives him a technical edge. I think he takes the ball earlier than other players and can generate more torque with these technical changes. I would even say that this technical edge is probably the biggest reason he has been able to dominate for so long.

I'm just not convinced that it is so easy to do. I actually think it is a lot harder than the standard double bend because you have to integrate the legs, torso rotation, the wrist and the arm/forearm to pull it off and I think Federer's timing is just tremendous and is something that would require years of repetition and thousand of hours of practice to ever get right. I think it is easy to ignore the fact that Federer has probably been playing 4-5 hours of tennis a day for 20+ years. He makes it look easy - and that is his genius - but the complexity of the interacting elements there is undeniable.

The other problem is that if you have been playing with a double bend forehand for years it would be close to impossible to change your technique so drastically. I do not believe that any professional player would be able to convert from a double bend to a straighter arm. And if they couldn't do it, how on earth could any of us?

However, I'm glad it worked for you and would love to see some examples of students doing this and to hear from your coach. As they say - proof is in the pudding.

[jeffreycounts]

You're a giver.
Any time you want to post videos so we can all see what you're talking about, I'm eager to be enlightened.

BTW, here's what I'll give... a link to a picture of my first Tae Kwon Do master doing a speed break of two bricks with a strike called an Inside Sudo Maki, which uses the closest thing to a forehand motion that you'll find in martial arts, striking with the meety part of the blade of the hand with the palm turned up. The bricks rest on the holder's hands, one behind the other with no support. So the speed of the strike must be so extreme that the bricks, which are unsupported, break before they have a chance to move.

And lookee there, at the configuration of the elbow and hand! Could that be...is it possible it's...no, it couldn't be the....d-d-d-d-d-d...

http://www.madisontkd.com/images/TKD31.jpg

Look at the focus of his eyes and the stillness of his head!...how the left hand has pulled across, how he's rotating through what would be called a square stance in tennis...

It's a shame he got his spacing wrong!

Great example! Love the pic!

[johnyandell]

carerra, if i want your input on my forehand i'll be sure to let you know...in the meantime keep the disrespect out of it and i'm serious about that.

[airforce1]

i've already said, you want video proof. look at federer videos. no one has ever hit so many forehand winners with such consistent pace, spin, and accuracy with so much ease. it looks effortless, doesn't it? does nadal look duplicatable and effortless. No way. That's my point, ease of effort, maximum return and accuracy...not generating maximum force that the body is capable of like you master.

this is what I was looking for with my earlier question.
I think I get your point better about what you feel this FH does so well.

[airforce1]

You're a giver.

http://www.madisontkd.com/images/TKD31.jpg

Look at the focus of his eyes and the stillness of his head!...how the left hand has pulled across, how he's rotating through what would be called a square stance in tennis...

It's a shame he got his spacing wrong!

What a crazy awesome pic!