Thoughts about Tennis Tradition...

[don_budge]

The Shoes! The Shoes! The Shoes!

Once upon a time I started this thread because of my deep respect for the game of traditional tennis. My deep respect for tradition in general. But of course when talking about tradition these days you are alone and others like to offset any intelligent discussion with comments like..."the good old days". But on the other hand, everyone now is coming to grips with the realisation that "with every invention comes a curse". Society in general is being torn apart by a new radical philosophy that paints the past in broad strokes as evil and negative.

https://www.the-sun.com/sport/athletics/3402421/super-shoe-nike-world-records-controversy/

Another problem has come to light in the 2021 "Woke" Olympics and that is with the shoes of the track and running athletes. Not only is the track engineered to produce faster times but the shoes are being monkeyed with to the point where Usain Bolt is worried that the technology will render him obsolete in the annals of history in the near future.

Tennis was actually destroyed in concept with an engineering bonanza that seemingly came out of nowhere. I know that for a fact...I was there. The athletic shoes of the Olympics are metaphoring life in a way that we have seen tennis metaphor life for the past ten years in this thread.

[don_budge]

Note to self...chipping. Forehead on specific point on the ball. Rotate back with left arm "connected" to side. Keep forehead on specific point...rotate back towards target with hands following shoulders. Hands pass between the ball and the feet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZOb3QzjP1U

[don_budge]

10 days ago I came 4th out of 4 playing absolute rubbish against players whom in my head I should beat hollow. Cue couple of days wondering what the hell I'm doing at my age, and wouldn't I just be better remembering that as a youngster I used to be considered good? 2 days ago I beat the club #1 playing really quite well and serving in line with memory. I'm still enjoying a two-day high from that victory. It feels good. Good enough to keep going, even though I know I'll screw up again pretty soon and feel desolate again.

Come on don_budge! We're in this together. Your next high is just around the corner.

Congratulations glacierguy! At your age! I still think you should turn to golf. It is a possibility to play golf into your seventies. If you stay in good physical condition. That would give you ample time to lay the groundwork and right about retirement time you make your move. It's not for everybody. Tennis players make excellent golf students much of the time. After all...tennis is golf on the run. Thanks for the word of encouragement. Appreciate your participation on the forum too.

I know the score. Many years ago...twenty-seven to be exact I took lessons at a TPC course in Dearborn, Michigan and the pro there taught me the entire short game in five lessons. I picked up on it pretty quick. I had all kind of touch and ball sense left over from my tennis playing days. But when you start at forty the blueprint somehow can disappear from disuse or extended layoffs. It isn't like riding a bike. So I hired my friend Andreas...to help me find my "feel". The process is getting the necessary instruction and cues from the coach and performing in front of his watchful eye. They the next step is being able to accomplish the lesson in practice on one's own. Lastly, you can take it out on the course. At first with mixed results.

Yesterday I got together with the coach and managed to accomplish the shots in his estimation even better than the time before. An exhausting day. Eighteen holes in the morning and then to the other course for the lesson. After the lesson I hit another 150 shots out of the bunker and didn't leave a single one in the bunker. I was able to keep the rhythm going after Andreas left. Today I returned to the practice area rather tired from the day before but managed to perform without the coach. Not as well as with him. But all things considered...at least a logical progression.

So I got my fix. Like an addict. Although I maintain it is more of a fascination than an addiction. It certainly appears to be an addiction. It's not like I could quit even after being humiliated by the game. Like tennis, it has it's ups and downs. Like life actually. So you hang in there and approach it intelligently. In my case I hired some help. Obviously all of the pro tennis players and golfers have their coaches. It seems to have saved me a lot of time and effort so far. Even some sanity. Maybe not so much sanity. Maybe so. It's hard to say. But after yesterday he asked me if I was happy. I said..."very".

So keep up the good work glacierguy. Particularly happy to hear that you served well. Perhaps you might spot us a video. Maybe I will post one of me hitting out of the sand. Like Seve Ballesteros.

[glacierguy]

10 days ago I came 4th out of 4 playing absolute rubbish against players whom in my head I should beat hollow. Cue couple of days wondering what the hell I'm doing at my age, and wouldn't I just be better remembering that as a youngster I used to be considered good? 2 days ago I beat the club #1 playing really quite well and serving in line with memory. I'm still enjoying a two-day high from that victory. It feels good. Good enough to keep going, even though I know I'll screw up again pretty soon and feel desolate again.

Come on don_budge! We're in this together. Your next high is just around the corner.

[don_budge]

don_budge: Performance Analyst, cannot account for his own performance (cont.)

Back to square one. Maybe square two. I played 18 holes and absolutely sucked at all of the things I excelled at in my "out of body" experience. What to do? Back to the pro...after 18 holes today. Nobody will outwork me. Or outthink me. I have a mission, which I have chose to accept. Copy that again...I absolutely sucked. Am I discouraged? No. Tired? Yes. This is God's gift to mankind in terms of recreation. We test ourselves. Tennis and golf.

[don_budge]

don_budge: Performance Analyst, cannot account for his own performance (cont.)

So then we try some shorter chip shots. A smaller motion and one that is even more difficult to perform as the tolerances are so fine. We work at this a bit and without great results. No problem...no sense on dwelling on it. We go to the bunker. He give me another cue. The track of the backswing again. The flaws in my swing are like a red thread throughout. From the tee to the green. From the biggest swings to the shortest. In short, I tend to life in my backswing instead of turning. I begin in the bunker. It starts with some pretty ok shots. Everything gets out of the bunker relatively cleanly. Then it really kicks in. Lunar power. Extreme focus fuelled by logical deficits. Good reasons why I shouldn't be able to do this. But we spend nearly twenty or thirty minutes in the bunker and it is flawless. He is obviously rather surprised. To say the least. He says, "beautiful" so many times. He cannot believe what he is seeing. For my part...I accept it. It is far easier to accept this little miracle than the dismal efforts I have been experiencing. I remember praying to God earlier in the day...let me get this right. For your Glory. We get out of the bunker and chat a bit. We go back to the original shot. Twenty-five meter or so. This is getting ridiculous. Same basic cue about the backswing track. Now I am threatening the hole with many of these delicate pitches. I know enough to not question what is going on. I am dialled in. We conclude the session with the shorter chips. The most delicate of shots. Limited success. Noticeable improvement to me, though. Leave it for next time.

Andreas left me with a big bucket of balls and trust me...I hit every single one of them. The last twenty or so I realised that I was too tired to continue pounding them so I went back to hitting the pitch shots we had worked on. It's getting late. I had told the wife I would be home by eight-thirty to get the horse in. Here it was a quarter past eight and I just got in my car for the ride home which might ordinarily take 35 minutes or so. Wouldn't you know it? I get behind the slowest of drivers who is going barely the speed limit down this narrow, winding country rode. As I am driving home the full moon is now staring me in the face all the way. I tell myself to be patient. It's like I have a team of race horses in my chest. The experience of perfection in the bunker. The perfect pitching. The promise to be home at such and such a time to my wife. It wasn't life or death. But there is that eery feeling. The lunacy. The full moon madness. The slow driver takes the same turn in from of me twice. Patience. Inside I am frothing at the mouth a bit. I can feel it. It's crazy. Then they turn off and I'm off. Another slow driver. More momentary madness. What's the hurry? I pass and they disappear in the rearview. Meandering through the way home. Sweden. The countryside. A couple of moose off in the pastures.

The full moon hit me in the face the entire way home. Driving out in the open. Farm land to either side. The moon looming through the windshield. Rays piercing me to my Wolfman core. Down the last nine kilometres to the dirt road. Two more kilometres to go. Home at last. Down the driveway to the hidden abode. I swear nobody knows we are there. I saw a wolf out there the other week. A real wild wolf. He was at the end of our driveway in the very early morning. I was out with my wolf. He never saw the other. A most unusual sight. An inspiring sight. A blessed sign. I'm home. Still in a trance. I don't even change clothes. I just put on my boots with the steel toes. In case the horse should step on me. She might too. Very high spirited and sometimes the walk to the stable becomes a bit of a competition. My will against hers. I walk out to the stable with my wife. She makes a comment about the size of the moon. I hear but I don't acknowledge. I am in a heightened awareness state. My focus is only on summoning enough energy to get that horse in the barn. It might come down to me against her. She weighs at least 700 pounds. If she only knew she could toss me around like a bag. After prepping the stall with their food and such we head down to the field. We let the first horse go and she makes a beeline for the stable. My wife cannot control her. But I lead the other one. She gets a bit excited when she sees the other galloping off to the food in the stable but I make her believe that I am the boss. Sometimes she believes me. Last night she sort of did. I got the horse in the barn.

I took a shower and ate. Trying to wind down. I woke at five this morning. I went down to the wolf and the lab. We dozed in the living room. A episode of "The Simpsons" on the boob tube. Strange show. I'm still in my trance. The moon is still full. Strange...isn't it?

I think performance issues are at the top of a coach's list to work on with his athlete. I forgot one interesting detail of my preparation yesterday for my coaching session. I watched this video below of Seve Ballesteros giving a lesson in the bunker. At the 3:50 mark in the video he says..."Ok...let's play the shot and see what happens." I kept the curser on that point and played the shot of him making the bunker swing over and over and over. The short segment following shows him playing the shot from other angles. I kept watching it. I put the timer in the settings on the slowest speed and watched it over and over. I sort of hynoptized myself and all Andreas had to do was give me the proper cue.

As a performance analyst...I study and learn. As an athlete, I do the same. It was a fascinating experience. Almost out of body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIXjPMYjLPk

[onielrickler]

So many traditions we can see in racquetball sport in our days. I start to play in racquetball instead of tennis and bought Wilson WRT218(review https://warevise.com/best-racquetbal...#Wilson-WRT218). And have a question: If there should be space between fingertip and palm, why aren't racquet grips larger, like tennis racquet grips?

[don_budge]

don_budge: Performance Analyst, cannot account for his own performance (cont.)

So then we try some shorter chip shots. A smaller motion and one that is even more difficult to perform as the tolerances are so fine. We work at this a bit and without great results. No problem...no sense on dwelling on it. We go to the bunker. He give me another cue. The track of the backswing again. The flaws in my swing are like a red thread throughout. From the tee to the green. From the biggest swings to the shortest. In short, I tend to life in my backswing instead of turning. I begin in the bunker. It starts with some pretty ok shots. Everything gets out of the bunker relatively cleanly. Then it really kicks in. Lunar power. Extreme focus fuelled by logical deficits. Good reasons why I shouldn't be able to do this. But we spend nearly twenty or thirty minutes in the bunker and it is flawless. He is obviously rather surprised. To say the least. He says, "beautiful" so many times. He cannot believe what he is seeing. For my part...I accept it. It is far easier to accept this little miracle than the dismal efforts I have been experiencing. I remember praying to God earlier in the day...let me get this right. For your Glory. We get out of the bunker and chat a bit. We go back to the original shot. Twenty-five meter or so. This is getting ridiculous. Same basic cue about the backswing track. Now I am threatening the hole with many of these delicate pitches. I know enough to not question what is going on. I am dialled in. We conclude the session with the shorter chips. The most delicate of shots. Limited success. Noticeable improvement to me, though. Leave it for next time.

Andreas left me with a big bucket of balls and trust me...I hit every single one of them. The last twenty or so I realised that I was too tired to continue pounding them so I went back to hitting the pitch shots we had worked on. It's getting late. I had told the wife I would be home by eight-thirty to get the horse in. Here it was a quarter past eight and I just got in my car for the ride home which might ordinarily take 35 minutes or so. Wouldn't you know it? I get behind the slowest of drivers who is going barely the speed limit down this narrow, winding country rode. As I am driving home the full moon is now staring me in the face all the way. I tell myself to be patient. It's like I have a team of race horses in my chest. The experience of perfection in the bunker. The perfect pitching. The promise to be home at such and such a time to my wife. It wasn't life or death. But there is that eery feeling. The lunacy. The full moon madness. The slow driver takes the same turn in from of me twice. Patience. Inside I am frothing at the mouth a bit. I can feel it. It's crazy. Then they turn off and I'm off. Another slow driver. More momentary madness. What's the hurry? I pass and they disappear in the rearview. Meandering through the way home. Sweden. The countryside. A couple of moose off in the pastures.

The full moon hit me in the face the entire way home. Driving out in the open. Farm land to either side. The moon looming through the windshield. Rays piercing me to my Wolfman core. Down the last nine kilometres to the dirt road. Two more kilometres to go. Home at last. Down the driveway to the hidden abode. I swear nobody knows we are there. I saw a wolf out there the other week. A real wild wolf. He was at the end of our driveway in the very early morning. I was out with my wolf. He never saw the other. A most unusual sight. An inspiring sight. A blessed sign. I'm home. Still in a trance. I don't even change clothes. I just put on my boots with the steel toes. In case the horse should step on me. She might too. Very high spirited and sometimes the walk to the stable becomes a bit of a competition. My will against hers. I walk out to the stable with my wife. She makes a comment about the size of the moon. I hear but I don't acknowledge. I am in a heightened awareness state. My focus is only on summoning enough energy to get that horse in the barn. It might come down to me against her. She weighs at least 700 pounds. If she only knew she could toss me around like a bag. After prepping the stall with their food and such we head down to the field. We let the first horse go and she makes a beeline for the stable. My wife cannot control her. But I lead the other one. She gets a bit excited when she sees the other galloping off to the food in the stable but I make her believe that I am the boss. Sometimes she believes me. Last night she sort of did. I got the horse in the barn.

I took a shower and ate. Trying to wind down. I woke at five this morning. I went down to the wolf and the lab. We dozed in the living room. A episode of "The Simpsons" on the boob tube. Strange show. I'm still in my trance. The moon is still full. Strange...isn't it?

[don_budge]

don_budge: Performance Analyst, cannot account for his own performance

So where was I? Or better yet, where am I? Round and round we go, where we end up nobody knows. If we cannot explain our own existence then what right to we have to speculate about the existence of others? These are questions. ANSWER THE QUESTION...YOU JERK!!! In my best John McEnroe reverberating voice. Is that even a word? Did I just make that up? Reverberating? It came clean of spell check...therefore it must be.

I found myself in a bit of a strange mood recently. Something wasn't sitting well with me. I mean...it could be a whole host of things. Could it be an excess of EMR in the air? Electro Magnetic Radiation? Are we all getting a bit frazzled? But keep in mind...the moon. The moon has been waxing and last night it climaxed in a gushing full moon. Full blown lunacy? That could explain it. A combination...EMR and full moon equals don_budge in a quandry? Eerie. It felt strange. I found myself in the woods with the wolf asking myself...are we real people? Out in nature all these years. Civilisation lives in another neighbourhood allowing me the freedom from the commotion. Out in the country...there is only motion. The birds. The wind. Animals. Peace of mind? Or a recipe for madness? Are we real people? Is this how God envisioned us a couple of thousand years down the road? Cell phones. A trip to the grocery store. Driving around in automobiles. Is this for real? Now we are stuck in our computers, living out a virtual reality. Information coming from all different directions and angles. What the fuck is real? What about that service motion of "The Tsitsipatti Kid"?

Yesterday started pretty normal. Woke up wondering how I do it. Crawling out of bed trying to get the old body in motion. The first few steps and the trip down the stairs are really tentative. Greeted at the bottom by The Wolf and The Lab. Both eager to begin there day. Happy to see me as if it had been an eternity. Puntzie goes out the back door and I go out the front with York on a leash. Breakfast as usual. The very same thing every day for the past umpteen years. You see...I never get bored. A bit of "news" on the internet. Bad news of course. Then to the stable. Led the horses down to their field. Return to the stable to grab a load of hay and lug it out to the field. Return again to grab a bucket of water in each hand to fill up their water. The wolf is howling in the yard as I type now. He's feeling it too. Lunacy...madness of the full moon. Howling forlornly. I could howl back at him. He would understand.

After the water drill, I clean the two stalls. Every day the same. I make it nice for them. Meticulously making their bed for the next night. Once I finished their beds, I came inside and quickly changed clothes and I am off to town for supplies. Groceries and animal feed. Dogs and horses. I changed from my farm chic to town. City slicker. Golf pants and shoes. Golf sweater. I am headed to the golf club on the way home. I get there and it's the usual. Take a couple of hundred swings. My golf partner shows up. Interesting guy. Adopted from Korea by Swedish parents. He's a performer. Tough competitor. Golf, tennis and floor ball. Billiards, fishing...you name it. Business up and running on its own while he ducks out every day to play golf. Quite a guy. A real performer in my book. We are talking and trying to understand just what it is we are trying to do. Making perfect out of imperfect game. Golf is a real enigma. I remember saying to him that the real mystery is in the transition from the backswing to forwards swing. I wasn't even pretending to understand it. But that doesn't stop me from trying. Patrick left and I went over the practice green and more futility. The short shots are even more madness than the long swing. I left the course tired. Knowing full well that I had a session with the coach I hired last week.

What prompted me to hire a coach was the sand shot. Bunker play. The professional golfers prefer to be in the sand than in the thick grass. It is only a technique to them. There is no mystery. But if you don't understand the technique, as I don't/didn't, the bunker is a nightmare. Just waiting to happen. You play the course to avoid them and the more you play to avoid them...the more you find them. Not understanding the technique is the results tend to be disastrous. Turning a routine par or bogey into a multiple bogey. The perfectionist's nightmare. Armageddon. The Apocalypse. It hurts. It wounds the pride. The only thing that saves you is the knowledge that you don't have the knowledge. So I hired Andreas. A child prodigy. He broke and owned the course record at the club when he was sixteen. He shot 66. But then it went wrong. He was afflicted with the yips. A strange malady. Unable to perform simple movements under pressure. Or even no pressure. The pressure comes from within. The pressure to perform. Coming from me...a Performance Analyst. Ask me about the Stefanos Tsitsipas serve under pressure. It didn't work. You wonder why.

I came home after the session at the club. Already tired. Now I was anticipating my session with the coach. Really dreading not being able to perform. The first session was basically a failure in the sense that I was unable to come even close to hitting the ball out of the sand. I could go into the technique but I won't. This little post is about performance. The mystery of what makes us tick. In my anticipation I thought of nourishment and tried to consume something to stabilise myself. I eat the same thing virtually every day. No surprises. I tried to relax and get some rest. But I've been uneasy the past couple of days. The moon is waxing. Full blown working on the tide of my bodies water. Pulling me apart. My mind pulling in two directions. The battle in my brain over my left and my right raging. I'm trying to get ready to do the impossible under less than favourable conditions. Tearing myself apart. I get a letter from the Swedish tax authorities. There looking into my stupid fucking business trying to extract blood from a turnip. I've got the IRS too! They want their portion of flesh. The letter set off another series of action. Calls to the tax preparer in Sweden. A call to the person at the Swedish tax authorities. Get the picture?

So I set off for the course. It's another course in another direction. I drive through the Swedish countryside as if it is another world. I've made this trip maybe a dozen times. It's still not familiar. It is difficult to get your bearings in another country. Another world. The drive is serene however. The drone of American politics in a distant universe. The CD player doesn't work in my 2004 Alfa Romero. The engine is sweet. Humming quietly with the road. The countryside. Full moon visible in my rear view. In broad daylight. Just to let me know he's there. Mr. Moon. I make all the right turns. I have made wrong ones before. You have to be vigilant. A wrong turn takes you nowhere and you might drift for a long time before you realise you have lost your way. But I make it. Billingen Golf Club. I'm early. Trying to get prepared. I buy a bucket of balls. The thought occurs to me how expensive a bucket of practice balls cost at the range. I make my way to the practice green and wonder how to get the parts moving.

I begin by tossing the balls at the bucket underhand as this is sort of the motion and the tempo you should have with the short pitch shots and the chipping. Then I begin to use the club on the balls but my timing is sporadic which means the motion is unsound and insecure. I can feel it. It is like impending doom before you even attempt the shot. I am not even aiming at a target on the green. Ugh. More torture. That spastic feeling in the hands. The dreaded yips. I keep trying with various amounts of success or lack of failure. Depending how you want to look at it. Either way it feels like crap. I'm not going to tippy toe around this. I suck. But, on the other hand, I don't quit either. So I continue. Getting ready for my appointment. Andreas comes over and finishing with another group and we chat a bit about what I want to accomplish. My goal is to get my feel back. No need to be standing over the golf ball thinking about what the hell you want to do. Tearing the swing down into a million moving parts. That is a recipe for disaster. I want to feel. So we begin and sure enough the hands are not behaving. Keep in mind that my fatigue level and the full moon have me in a trance like state. Andreas give me a cue. The track of the backswing. Immediately things start to synch. I am pitching to a flag about twenty or twenty five meters away. Earlier the balls were all over the place. A random dispersion. Faulty mechanics and the inability to produce the same motion twice in a row. But the track of the back swing starts to synch the rhythm of the swing. A delicate swing with a 54 degree wedge. Short grass. You have to pretty much hit it clean. It begins to be repeatable and the dispersion of the balls improves by at least a hundred percent.

[don_budge]

May God Bless America...

[doctorhl]

You guys make we wish I had kept my white, cable, v- neck sweaters. I even bought a canvas bucket hat to replace my old Bancroft one, but I couldn’t find one in white canvas.

[don_budge]

If, for some reason communication breaks down in the next few days...rest assured, we will meet again on the other side. ...don_budge

[don_budge]

Thanks don_budge! Happy New Year to you too.

After watching some of the beautiful videos recently posted in another thread, I'm resolving to play a little bit more like I learnt to in the '80s and to hell with the consequences.

Philosophically it makes sense. The push for the progressiveness takes things to the edge of the abyss. Modernism? When is enough...enough? So take it back a bit when fundamentals were the rule of the day. You've seen some John McEnroe lately. He was even a blast from the past with his reverence for Rod Laver. His one grip for every shot. I saw a bit of that in your service motion. Dial it back. To hell with the consequences? Interesting. I like the sound of it. A certain belligerence for the latest and the greatest. Yes...come to think of it. To hell with the consequences. Well played. Bring back tradition.

[glacierguy]

Thanks don_budge! Happy New Year to you too.

After watching some of the beautiful videos recently posted in another thread, I'm resolving to play a little bit more like I learnt to in the '80s and to hell with the consequences.

[don_budge]

Best of luck to everyone in 2021! I have a feeling we are going to need it. Two days in and how's it feel. A bit iffy?