Serve sequence

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Originally uploaded by TigerPuppala.

Click on the photo to go to Flickr to check out the serve sequence. It's interesting to follow the arm position and weight transfer.

Blind faith

Yesterday while practicing I firmly decided to glue my head to the right shoulder and look sideways at or just past the point of contact, and resist the temptation to look where the ball's going after the hit. This is after I realized that I hit almost every forehand on the frame (top of the racquet or trailing side), meaning that I pull away from the ball because I'm trying to look where the ball's going. I figured that if I look where the ball's going, I'm going to miss the shot for sure. If I don't, the worst that can happen is I won't be able to react as quickly to the opponent, but it won't matter if I don't make the shot in the first place! So it's decided: I shall look behind the point of contact for as long as I can, before my shoulders turn my head towards the net. It does seem to magically work; I'm not going to try to figure out why. I need to figure out how to replicate the very weird feeling associated with looking sideways on the backhand (because on the forehand I actively seek to press my chin into the right shoulder, whereas on the backhand I'm sideways to the net and square to the ball; need to look at some Federer backhand photos). Ok, looks like his head is leaning just a bit to the left, looking over the top of the racquet:

Serve timing

Notes to self: raise the racquet on the wind-up a little earlier, so it goes up almost at the same time as the tossing arm.

Lesson Nine

Couple notes from the last night's lesson: when Dan and I played the baseline game (baseline rally to 11 points), I was missing a lot of first balls--easy balls he fed me from the baseline down the middle of the court. He commented that I was late with my preparation. The next couple games I tried to do what I do when I hit with the ball machine: start preparing as soon as the ball leaves the opponent's racquet, and did better. He also fed me balls from the hand while standing just several feet away from me, and had me generate my own pace. I missed almost all forehands. Surprisingly, I made almost all backhand shots. Dan's analysis was that because I think my forehand is strong, I'm trying to do too much with it, whereas with the backhand I'm not expecting to hit winners, so I'm hitting with less pace but more consistently. Basically, I need more humility on my forehand to get my consistency up, before I think about beating the fuzz off the ball.

Whack!

I did this exercise the last couple days: holding the racquet with a Continental grip, I bounce the ball off the ground and whack it against the wall as hard as I can with as little effort as possible. It comes out as a slice or a chop. I think of trying to slice the ball in two with the leading edge of the racquet frame; inevitably at the last moment the wrist pronates by itself, and the racquet face hits the ball, sometimes for a very flat shot. It comes out harder if I flick the racquet. It's a nice feeling of generating immense power with very little effort. I then try to replicate the feel when serving. If I tomahawk at the ball at about 45 degrees to the baseline, I can generate very flat and hard serves down the T. The point of this is that it's impossible to whack the ball hard by muscling through it, so I'm trying to remember the muscle feeling of the shots that come out hard with little effort.

Book Baton

Number of Books on the Shelf:

Not sure, a hundred or so.

Last Book Purchased:

False Flat: Why Dutch design is so good

Book Reading Right Now:

Good to Great by Jim Collins

Last Five Books Read:

1. The Alphabet Versus the Goddes, by Leonard Shlain
2. Envisioning Information, by Edward Tufte
3. Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond
4. On Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins
5. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad