Thoughts about Tennis Tradition...

[tennis_chiro]

Johhny_Rattlesnake?

You are a piece of work, Johnny_Rattlesnake. The partner I won my gold ball with is part Apache. He played like it too. As good as anyone I ever saw inside the service line. Had to be to win a gold ball with me. But no groundies. He returned serve from a foot behind the service line, half-volleying the serves of some pretty good players and beating them to the net. In the mid 70's he had the long hair too. He should have played it up to get onto the Riordan circuit. But that's another story...

It would have been nice to have Bin Laden in a nice clean trial, but that would never have happened. By the way, you leave out the fact that he clearly put out videos under no apparent distress that he indeed was responsible for the things we accused him of. Clearly, there are way too many things covered up and needing of a little disinfecting sunlight. But those commandos were probably under strict orders to take no chances if there was any resistance at all. Let's not get the conspiracy theorists started on another fairy tale. There's enough real problems (like the story the ex-FBI agent came out with this week that there was a lot more Saudi involvement then we ever heard about).

My irritation is that while there seem to be lots of places in the world where, as Stotty might put it, a little American intervention seems warranted, we only get really involved when it involves our own financial interest. For one tenth or perhaps one fiftieth of the cost of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we could have been better off just sending in a few drones to kill Saddam and his cronies in Iraq and the leaders of the Taliban tribes in Afghanistan, for just a small cost, we could intervene in Africa and same millions, maybe even tens of millions of lives from poverty, disease and tyranny. We might even have been able to build some markets where we could have sold products or even created some manufacturing systems that could have thrived with our direction while raising the quality of life for those people. The cheapest way to solve the problem in the Middle East would be to just take the money we spend to maintain that situation and use it instead to raise up the standard of living of every Palestinian. Turn their part of the desert into an oasis. It must cost us upwards of $100,000 per Palestinian over the last 50 years. The real cost we pay per gallon of gasoline is probably double what you pay in Sweden, but the M/I complex is doing just fine, thankyou. What if we had just invested that money in building them up. Nope. We go to war and end up ... well, if you get to read Bottle's "Last Words of Richard Holbrook", you'll just get more worked up. I started, but it just gets me more upset.

Instead of using intervention for good, we have created enemies. We make pacts of cooperation with hoodlums like Karzai and send drones in to kill innocent participants in weddings. Collateral damage. Not to the damaged. And the cost: a broken economy and a generation of young men we need in the future who are shattered and irreparably changed by their participation in these "elective" wars.

These "get them over there before they get us over here" nuts have caused unbelievable damage to our culture, our economy and our principles. I don't think the founding fathers would approve of the Bush "adventures". There is a reason there is so much acrimony and inability to get anything done in Washington. Too much of our government is based on a policy that counts others as less than ourselves. That is not America!

The soldiers fighting for Saddam Hussein could have cared less about the United States. They certainly didn't care about Saddam. The fighters we kill in Afghanistan are mostly doing what their tribal leaders and mullahs tell them to do. The people sending those suicide bombers survive and even thrive. By and large, they live in the same conditions they lived in in the Middle Ages. Except now they have guns and IED's.

No...let's not do this. Let's leave the Tennisplayer forum a politics-free zone. Please.

don

[don_budge]

Geronimo...Bin Laden and wasps.

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

Yes...where was the trial? Usually it is at the trial where the evidence is presented. Hmmm...apparently Mr. Bin Laden was not even wanted for the "crime"...he wasn't charged at any rate. This is a new precedent isn't it...execution without a trial. Well it's too bad sometimes...that dead men can't talk.

If a lie is assumed to be true...then everything that follows that is predicated on that lie is, in fact, a lie also.

Historically speaking it wasn’t so long ago that America had their own problem with terrorists. Well, they weren’t really terrorists, they were the original inhabitants of the land. They had families, a way of life, probably even a judicial system to take care of the bad guys. They were the real "Americans".

Way back when...before I was don_budge, when I was johnny_rattlesnake I met a direct descendant of my favorite American ever. The man that I met was a Native American living in Arizona. Once upon a time...I was a little distraught with my life and the way that I was being treated by a fickle girlfriend and a harassing boss, so I went on a bit of a sojourn out west where one evening I found myself completely alone outside of Fort Bowie in the Chiricahua Mountains at dusk. For some inexplicable reason I yelled to the ruins of the fort, three times...Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo. There was no reply.

The next day as I was driving on the outskirts of a town in Arizona...on a dusty road there stood a crude sign written on a piece of cardboard that said...Geronimo III. Recognizing instantly that I was having a Carlos Castaneda moment I pulled off the road to seek the man that I was destined to meet. I never learned his real name but I called him Grandfather. When I visited him over the years, I would sit at his feet with a mini cassette recorder with which I taped our conversations while I listened to his story. The story was one about his great grandfather...Geronimo. In the end he gave me his hat...the shaman's hat.

A couple of times, since I have moved to Sweden, I have been asked who my favorite American is or was. Without thinking my lips form the same word that I yelled to the abandoned fort at dusk that evening in Arizona...Geronimo. I get some funny looks. The story that Grandfather told me during that period when I sat at his feet like a schoolboy (I was thirty or so at the time) was a compelling and passionate account of the man and the legend...and how he was hunted like a dog by the American government. His crime was that he was fighting for his freedom, his people and his life. That made him a freedom fighter...not a terrorist. It’s all about point of view...perspective.

The operation that supposedly terminated the life of Osama Bin Laden was called Operation Geronimo...or so we are led to believe. Who can believe anything these days? The official account has been somewhat garbled and edited with liberal use of the edit function and we are left to sort out the puzzle to somehow come up with some plausible explanation that will serve as the truth for us in the future.

Anyways, the Apache people are very offended that this man’s name would be used in connection with the manhunt that the Western world considers the worst scoundrel in history...witness that he has elevated his status to the most evil one...Adolf Hitler. They are a little touchy about their ancestors you see...they have great respect for tradition and the old ways. At least they did before the soul of their people was ripped from them. There aren't many Apache people around anymore, most of them were wiped off the map by the American government. Those that survive live on a minimal existence and are mostly delegated to fixed spots in the country called a reservation...in a land that once was their land, where they were free to come and go as they pleased. No passports and no tickets needed. We as a nation designated a holiday to these people called Thanksgiving...it helps us to sleep better at night.

Osama Bin Laden is a man who by all accounts used to be an employee for some nefarious projects that the American government had been conducting in Afghanistan and other points in the Arab world. I have never met him. I have never met any of his family. I have never even met anybody who claimed to have known him. Judging by the accuracy of what passes for the news these days...I cannot even know one single solitary fact about him. I must honestly say...I don't even sympathize with him. I don't know him. All I know is what I have heard...and that amounts to here say. I for one...am in favor of judicial proceedings. I am against assassinations and extradicial renderings and torture. I for another...want to know the truth and the problem with dead men...is that they cannot talk.

This summer my wife and I made a huge project of painting the farm here. At a number of points in our project I encountered colonies of bees and wasps that had built their homes and nests at various locations around the property. I suppose that I had a choice in the matter about how to manage these critters, these terrorists...afterall I am bigger than them, and certainly more intelligent, right? I could of used my God given right to kill them, they used to call it "Manifest Destiny" back when the Native population was being eradicated in America...I could kill every single little bitty one of the pesky varmits...or I could use the tact that I chose. I talked to them. I soothed their little angry hearts. I assumed they were my equals. I assumed that they had a right to exist. I told them...that I understood. I was in their territory but I had some business to take care of but I would leave directly after it was done...and I promised that I would never disturb them in the future. I told them they could have their space. I respected them...and their God given right to live freely.

I never got stung...not once.

[tennis_chiro]

Those webs!!

Problem is those webs sometimes stay "sticky" way after they have done the job they were intended to do and pretty soon the webs are more problem than the varmints they were supposed to catch!
don

[stotty]

Bottle,

Many countries have copied or taken from various aspects of the British judicial system...until someone comes up with something better, it's the best model going...Despite all our faults, we are, on balance, one of the fairest countries around...many would argue or contest this, but when you look around and compare us with other countries there is some truth in what I say.

As to your country:

Without America policing the world here and there, what state would the world be in now? It's a question we can never know the answer to because what is done is done....but on balance... the world would probably be worse off without US intervention....you ain't so bad you yanks... your more good than bad...Blair shouldn't have backed you over Iraq, but he did because we owed you favours from the past....he lied to us to field those favours back to you...we all know that now on our side of the pond.

Ultimately we've both paid the price for propping up dictatorships........I shan't go on...politics gets so complicated...Oh what a tangled web we weave...when first we practise to deceive...

[bottle]

Agreed. But we could perhaps look to the American justice system, which took its beginnings from the England where you live, I believe, in order to give the clueless some idea of how to deal with very baddy, baddy, baddy baddies.

[stotty]

I fully understand the point you're making, bottle....and agree with many of your comments. But by any standards Bin Laden was most definitely a bad guy. Whether he was the true mastermind of 9/11 or not, he led the organization the did it...or did they...was it someone else....

[bottle]

[ATTACH]445[/ATTACH]

[bottle]

Sorry, Stotty, I'd rather go to the court and work on one-sided scapular retraction right now, but weren't we the original supporters of Bin Laden, as he stood up against the Russians in Afghanistan?

And don't we Americans have a dreary tendency to turn everything into an American western, with good guys vs. bad guys?

The Cambridge, Massachusetts linguist Noam Chomsky, not at all sure that Bin Laden was the actual mastermind of 9/11, said that for Bin to claim to be so, was like him, Chomsky, claiming to have won the Boston Marathon.

Are you, Stotty, or is anyone we know, actually sure that Bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11 ? If so, what is the evidence? Was there a trial?

You see, all we have to do is decide that we don't need evidentiary trials any more, and then we can kill anybody we want-- just call him a bad guy-- could be a woman or child or animal in Afghanistan.

I watched a video this morning in which Ray McGovern, the 72-year-old former top CIA analyst and spokesman through countless presidencies was dragged out of a speech by Hillary Clinton and bloodied, bruised and beaten-- not even for saying anything but for turning his back on her while he was in the audience.

Did Hillary drag him out? Possibly, but the camera showed two thugs who were working for her.

She meanwhile was holding forth about Mubarak's abuse of free speaking
protesters in Egypt, and she pretended not to notice what was happening right in front of her.

We have many fascistic tendencies here in the U.S. I won't speak for Great Britain but I've heard rumors (rumours).

Our last two presidents, similarly awful on torture and needless war, have done everything in their power to perpetuate them.

[stotty]

Worst thing about 9/11 is Bin Laden achieved everything he could have hope for and cemented himself in history for ever more...in a similar, vile way as Hitler. Shame we can't erase the existence of such monsters forever.

Hitler has few followers these days, let's hope Bin Laden's dwindle in the same way over time...

[don_budge]

September 13, 2001...

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

On September 13th...two days later, my boss asked me to handle this assignment in our department and this is what I said to my employees:

"The company has asked that we join other major Detroit organizations in observing a moment of silence in memory of the killed or injured in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. I asked a number of you whether we should observe this individually or as a group. It was decided we would do this as a group.

The question is no longer a question of diversity but a question of unity. All of our lives have been dramatically altered since the terrorist attack on our country on Tuesday, we cannot begin to comprehend. The question is now what do we all have in common. The answer to this is quite simple...we are all Americans and we are all Ford Motor Company employees. Now we must all pull together to the best of our ability.

On Tuesday, there were thousands of people who went to work in New York City and Washington D. C. who thought it was just another day, another day at work, just like we did...and now they are no more. Let us observe a moment of silence for the dead and injured."

We sobbed and cried as a group that day...and today the American people are divided and confused. We could not begin to comprehend...the future.

[don_budge]

9/11/01-9/11/10...what happened?

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

Surreal day yesterday. The day after the epic on Ashe where the King was slain. Full moon. Tenth anniversary of the strangest day in the history of "modern man". Propaganda all day long...just to remind everybody. The authorities retelling the story. Everybody on the same page? Good boys and girls. Political correctness working.

So what were you doing 10 years ago? I went to work as the manager of a quality control testing facility in one of the Big Three car companies in Detroit. The planes hit...the news spread. Then a plane supposedly hit the Pentagon, at which point I left my job and went home directly.

I said to myself, "that is the most protected airspace in the world, nothing gets through those defenses". I watched the news...they repeated the same thing over and over. It seemed like a zillion times. Video of planes hitting the towers...but not the Pentagon. Why not?

That night I read George Orwell's "1984" again...in it's entirety. I knew that the world had changed that day. A lot of our traditions died that day...which is a dangerous thing.

The story is sketchy...the evidence doesn't add up. We needed Sherlock Holmes to sort it out...they wanted to give us Henry Kissinger instead.

Yesterday was a strange day...I couldn't wait until it was over.

[bottle]

No More Celebrations of 9/11 as The Biggest Crime in the History of Mankind

Yes, I've always loved that shot and did in fact hit it against the hi-tech wall at the town park just on Friday since the high school had already slurped up every available court.

When I'd watch videos of Stan Smith doing it, I'd think, "He gets going first. And whatever else he needs to do he does along the way."

O my sciatica. O my myelin. O my my my.

If I do it with more crouch combined with a more schoolish unit turn, to begin, I may revert to John playing tennis his very first day, according to Matthew Syed, author of the book called BOUNCE, so instead, "Cry havoc and let slip the doglets of war!"

Yeah, skip forward and whup up on all warmongering fruitcakes everywhere.

Have these pomposities ever heard of Hiroshima? Me and Mothra are going to get these silly fear-biters. You mark my words.

[don_budge]

Latin Dancing...and footwork.

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

Welcome to my playground! I'm Bigfoot. Wherever you hit the ball, there I will be.

This is essential intelligence for a tall person such as myself. Get there first.
Then refine position with small adjustments if needs be or maybe throw in a couple extra just to stay alive.

Before I was don_budge...I was johnny_tango. Buenos Aires...tango by night and red clay tennis by day.

John...I mean Bigfoot...er, bottle. If you have a wall over there on Lake St. Clair that you can hit against, try this. As the ball comes back to you...get in position, crouch, with your back foot start with a cha cha cha. Three small, quick steps and now you are ready to go forward to plant your front foot to deliver the payload! Ole!

[bottle]

Playground

Welcome to my playground! I'm Bigfoot. Wherever you hit the ball, there I will be. Once, John Yandell used a lovely parenthetical regarding myself. "If he behaves himself..." he said. The pressure has been on ever since. Still don't know if I can do it.

I, too, applaud the above article by Tom Allsopp on stopping time. Among its other virtues is its smashing up of one of those ready made ideas that can creep, insidiously and unbeknownst to the person, into anyone's unconscious.

From reading the old book RICK ELSTEIN'S TENNIS KINETICS, WITH MARTINA NAVRATILOVA and starring Mary Carillo in its visuals, I got the idea of little steps. Watching people like John McEnroe or Justine Henin or even Roger Federer only reinforced this.

But Tom, with eyes like a dermatologist, has noticed something that the rest of us can see only once it has been pointed out-- that when Roger isn't using small steps, he's using big steps.

This is essential intelligence for a tall person such as myself. Get there first.
Then refine position with small adjustments if needs be or maybe throw in a couple extra just to stay alive.

Also, in Roger's first match at The Open last night, he took countless balls on the rise-- talk about stopping time! It's fun to see an uneven match once in a while. The virtuoso comes out.

[don_budge]

Time...is on my side, yes it is! (The Rolling Stones)

tradi’tion n. body of beliefs, facts, etc., handed down to generation to generation without being reduced to writing; the process of handing down.

Well tpatennis...you will find that anything that you have to say is not entirely out of place here on the forum. Stumphges may disagree with me though, he rather succinctly let me know that one of my posts certainly did not belong to a certain thread he was conducting or was being written in his honor or his behalf, I think it was about spaghetti strings. He really dismissed me. Which is alright...he is entirely within his rights. In my book. Btw...excusssse me all to pieces stumphges. I have read your stuff...and it's impressive, very scientific and all of that. I am not arguing that. I can do the math. I still don't understand why I used to be able to generate much more kick spin with my old wood racquets with the gut strings than I can with the new fangled stuff. I think that the answer was in your recent post, though I am not certain. But that's ok...I am on a need to know basis. I can't serve like I used to. This much I do know. Yes tpatennis...it's all on the table here at the tennisplayer.net forum...John Yandell's baby and bottle's playground...and the rest of us.

There are a few here that are making some noise...or creating whatever it is that describes the phenomena of the internet (chatter?), but there are many more that are just listening and reading...and wondering. Some great ones that are not contributing on a regular basis...or at all for that matter. I wonder what they are thinking. One of the many entertaining aspects of this site is to view who is online and to see what they are reading...often times I go there and read exactly what they are reading. Terribly entertaining. To me, at least.

One thing leads to another. Yes it does. Connect the dots. Follow the leads...and see where it takes you. Sherlock Holmes...the greatest Brit of all? Sometimes I think bottle is throwing curveballs and maybe he is, but isn't that what it is all about...applying spin? We are all "Spin Doctors" in the end. I spin to you, you spin to me. The world is a ball...spinning through time and space. So your article is of particular interest to this conversation...absolutely. It's all on the table...just not in the sense that Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Oblabla mean it.

Time...and the manipulation. According to the books "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge", "Journey to Ixtlan" and "A Separate Reality", a story about a young Hispanic anthropologist named Carlos Castaneda who meets an ancient Yaqui Indian in the Sonoran Desert, it is possible to "stop the world". It's not only possible but imperative to living a healthy life, as it turns out. I spent some time in the Arizona deserts learning this little peculiar facet of life with an ancient Apache Indian. My father was recently visiting me and he made the comment to me that it seemed to him that time is passing so quickly and my response was that it seems to be going on forever...it's dragging it's feet. I guess that I learned my lesson. The trick is to not have children...this is besides what the old Indian taught. My father is 83 years old now, and to some people that may sound old but I can tell you that he still moves like a cat...if not an "older cat". We went out on the tennis court and I put him in a group with two ten year old girls named Nora and Tilda...that was an interesting blend. An interesting visual. I was showing him how to hit a topspin backhand with a strong eastern grip and he caught on really quick...which is amazing seeing that he hit his backhand predominately with underspin and a continental grip all of his life. He hadn't played tennis in some thirty years...but he was an amazing athlete. He still is. He's old school.

I loved your point about good old George Knudson...I have taught golf professionally as well and one of my little pearl's that I would dispense to my students was the importance of not trying to hit too hard...or to swing too fast. I actually used as an example for my students to try to drive slower than normal, slightly under the speed limit, in fact...what an effort that is in our modern society. Has anybody tried taking their time to do anything lately? It's only a matter of time before some maniac in the midst of their own road rage is inches behind your rear bumper trying to drive you off the road...for driving too slow. Everyone is running around pall mall...like chicken's with their heads cut off. Ironically going nowhere. When it comes time to take that golf swing you had better have yourself under control...and it helps to stop the world in that moment. I would recommend swinging at 85% percent capacity because this tempo is easier to dial into on a daily basis rather than full machine, 100%, all of the time. Some days you feel better than others and your 100% is all of a sudden 110%...and then you spend the entire round trying to compensate for that extra speed in your swing. Or vice versa. Some days you don't feel so well and your 100% is all of a sudden 87.2%...then you find yourself trying to compensate for the lack of speed by swinging harder, instead of merely accepting your loss of distance and hitting the ball comfortably down the fairway. In order to stop the world...you have to be able to dial into your own clock. Time management.

So when I hear someone say that they are 83 years old, or 71 years old, or 57 years old (my age now and Don Budge's age when I met him in 1972), or 30 years of age...I think that the number represents the number of times that the earth has traveled around the sun with that person on it. The number is not so much an age as it is an indicator...or a standard, or merely a measurement of time. My father may be 71 years old when compared to another 83 year old or the 30 year old may have the wisdom of someone who is 57 years old...and so on and so forth. Everybody lives to be one...one lifetime that is. You are born and then you die. In the wink of a young girl's eye? Some people say that you are only as old as you feel...I say that you are only as old as the woman that you feel. In the end, it's not the miles...it's the terrain. Time is a river...you can feel it flowing in your veins, if you can stop the world.

So of course great athletes learn to manipulate time as you assert in your article...but only on the smallest scale, the minutest of scale. A pinprick in the universe. Roger does it best of all...on every shot he virtually stops the world. I can see it...so can you for that matter, if you know what it is you are looking for. Tiger Woods used to be able to do it...before he got "distracted". The only problem these guys have is that while they have discovered how to bend time a bit in the craft that they pursue...in reality their lives are running along lickity split...it's over before they know it. Because in reality...their time is not their own because of the professional demands upon it. When it comes down to it, the whole thing boils down to "time management" or early preparation, but that only applies to "real time" and I am a bit uncertain how it applies nowadays to "virtual time"...which I hate to inform everyone, we exist in. It's the collective unconscious vs. the internet. It's the truth vs. psychobabble. Old school vs. new school. Reality as we knew it...those of us old enough to of known the old days, is in the past. Some of the posters here think that I am stuck in the past because of my great love and respect for the traditional and original game of tennis...they actually used to call it "real" tennis early on, but I can assure them that I am not stuck anywhere because I am in the moment, the spot in front of my nose, and that moment is flowing along with the rest of the river...to the destination.

So tpatennis...your article is very welcome here. It actually ties in very nicely. Food for thought. We thank you for any provocative thoughts you send our way. It's refreshing. We appreciate new blood. I thought that it was very interesting. It's another dot along the way...in the river. So to speak. Dot, dot, dot. Footwork, Speed, Reaction Time and Technique are all key facilitators in the management of time when a great athlete is performing his craft, what a beautiful ballerina is doing as she is whirling and twirling like a dervish, when an old Indian shaman puts one foot in front of the other on the ground like a prayer...like a McEnroe when he ever so deftly and delicately plants his right foot, like a litany, on the forehand volley, arguably the toughest stroke in tennis. All of that blinding preparation gives you one small pinprick in time to be under control, when you begin to go forward with your swing as if you have all of the time in the world. When in reality you're are under the most impossible of time constraints. Oh Lord...to get in position! Like Roger. Just once in my Life. The moment of truth. But all of this just contributes to "stopping the world"...even though it is a forgotten art that is remembered only by the ancients and is being rejected by the modern world...largely through science...and that is when the scientists are not acting like they are reinventing the concept. But just one more point my young friend...don't forget the element of ANTICIPATION. What is going to happen, what is about to happen...in the future! Don't ever forget...these are only moments that we borrow.

Time manipulation...what an interesting thought.