Pickleball then tennis

 1.5 hours of pickleball this am. The whole court is 44' long and 20' wide. 

It's really hard to lob over anyone and not hit long. Should probably practice lobs, but doing it during games and not getting it deep enough invites smash responses. My operating theory for now is to hit them higher and shorter to keep them in. Timing would be a challenge for returning a high lob.

I'm having fun slicing back serves. Many rallies finish as the serving team often hits those into the net. I don't know how I'd handle one of my own returns, as almost no one else does it.

The dink (drop shot) is an art form. It takes serious concentration on the racket-ball contact. A touch deep or high and an opposing player can drive it back for a winner.

The pickleball group here has an aggressive schedule coming up. Three meets in five days.

I don't think it hurts my tennis game. My tennis game has its own load of issues. Ha

Tennis in the pm. Machine balls are easy, if I let myself camp at just the right place so I never have to move. I help myself if I plant myself squarely in front of the machine and skitter back diagonally to hit. I still must consciously tell myself how to do the unit turn. I forgot to check if my chin was on one shoulder to start and the other shoulder after the contact. Having intention for where to hit the ball is easy against the machine, but almost impossible when hitting with another player. Keeping a relaxed grip and a high rear elbow: still a challenge.  Leading with the non-hitting arm: also difficult to remember. Throwing vs pushing the racket: hm.

Had to stop playing tennis after 90 minutes due to mental fatigue--inability to concentrate on technique. This is how beginners and intermediate players struggle to improve.

Tennis lesson for Tom?

 Tom had an appointment for a lesson with a tennis coach yesterday. What happened? I didn’t ask and Tom didn’t offer. I’m guessing that it didn’t excite him enough to talk about it.

I was hitting balls when he came to the courts with his racket and two hoppers of balls. 

I can’t recall who asked who if they wanted to hit balls, but if I asked, it was one of those courtesy things you do involuntarily. We hit for about forty minutes. My footwork wasn’t great so I didn’t always get the best shots. I still have to consciously remind myself of technique points while hitting. I get lazy if we’re only using half the court, so I suggested using the whole court, thinking I’d want to chase balls more. I still struggle to recognize short balls, and Tom hits many of those, so I adjusted my bias to move forward more. After I quit, I watched Tom hit machine balls. He camps about 6-10’ behind the baseline hitting balls thrown by the machine from the baseline at the other end of the court. For most balls, he started his take back after the ball bounced. If he had that tennis lesson, a more timely take-back wasn’t his homework assignment. 

It’s really hard to learn new habits—the old ones have a tenacious hold of us. When I started playing in late 2019, I never even thought of that aspect of human nature, so I didn’t take lessons. I must have thought my tennis from the 70s was a good enough foundation. I had an old school forehand with a  Continental/Eastern grip and I hit with my arm.  That may have made learning the modern forehand more difficult.  And performing a shadow swing of the modern forehand is easy—if I never had to hit a ball, it would always be perfect.  Add the ball, and my ancient muscle memory kicks into high gear—good luck finding the modern forehand. It takes tremendous mental energy to lead the stroke with my non-hitting arm. It’s exhausting!

I can understand if Tom doesn’t want to replace old habits with new ones. It’s difficult. One has to consciously fight old habits—mental fatigue develops. Unfortunately, better results (hitting the balls in the court consistently) don’t come without hard work. Doing the same thing over and over is easy, but it is magical thinking (or insanity) to expect different results. 

If listening to jazz music makes you not want to improve your tennis, turn the volume to minus four, please. 

The Country Living Grain Mill, motorized on the cheap

 The country living grain mill is the Cadillac of grain mills. It's only drawbacks are: it’s a fully manual grain mill and it costs $500. After you spent all that money, you really don't wanna spend another $500 for the motorization kit. Well I started searching on the Internet and on YouTube for a cheaper alternative. I found a clip from YouTube's Cincinnatus Again channel using a 12 volt windshield wiper motor mounted directly to the shaft of the grain mill. I tried that, but failed probably because my power supply was rated at only 5 watts. The power supply didn't drive the mill when using a 3" pulley to drive the larger 12" pulley on the mill. I bought a power supply that was rated at 360 Watts for about the same price (amazingly). I mounted the motor on a hinged board about 15" away from the mill, allowing for wobble from an imperfect attachment of the pulley to the motor.

Final result is a kit that runs the mill at 27 RPM, well below 100 RPM, the mill maker's upper limit for keeping the mill from wearing out and for keeping the flour from heating up (and losing nutrient value). Here is a link to the video I made of the motor kit, or view it below.

Parts list:

Motor US$25-40 new at eBay (or amazon). Mine was spec'd for a VW Jetta. Unloaded, it ran at 120 RPM--that speed changes with a load. The motor runs hot to the touch after grinding about a cup of grain.

power supply $21 at Amazon.

v-Belt $8

power cord & plug (from extension cord) $2

Power strip with on/off switch, $6

hinge $2

board $2

wire $2

Motor mount, welded from scrap metal and drilled for the motor, free

3" pulley, $10 from Amazon. Different sizes will work. Anything from 1.5-6" will work fine. Prices vary depending on size and the phase of the moon. 

Tennis obsession and breakthrough?

Someone has commented on a tennis video, “swing fast, not hard.” I dimly recall “liking” this comment two months ago.  I’m only now beginning to swing fast.  Swinging hard–that’s like hitting flatter, hitting into the ball and swinging into the court. I’d strung my racket to 60# hoping to keep balls from flying over the baseline—I’ve begun to swing over the back of the ball, finishing high and catching the racquet over my left shoulders. I thought I was already doing that, but this week it feels different, though I don’t know what it looks like. 

Swinging fast with lower string tension will do what: balls spin more or sail long?

Re the type of strings and the tension of those strings. A full bed of polyester might go “dead" in under ten hours of play. 

Next, does a lower strung racquet have less control?

I restrung the racquets at 50 lb. The Racquettune app on my phone said the stick strung with poly was 43.3# while the one strung with a multifilament read 50#. Weeks later they’re at 38 and 43 lb. Both racquets play very differently from when they were strung at 55-60#. I could put more spin on the ball because it didn’t jump off as quickly and I really felt like the ball was on the strings longer. Am I getting better or is the racquet strung more appropriately for me? 

April 1, 2023.  64° in Vegas yesterday and sunny—tennis with Tom.  I was huffing and puffing all over the court chasing down errant balls. I finally saw Tom, in his sweatsuit, barely breathing more than a hibernating bear. I asked, “why aren’t you winded like I am?” 

Tom: “I’m not moving very much.”

Me (thinking): “Yeah, you have a static ready position on your heels, you don’t split-step, you don’t chase down balls and you look like you’re here to do community service as punishment for some crime.” 

I refrained from cruelly suggesting that he play golf instead of Tennis. 

I watched him as he picked up balls—he was walking pretty slowly.  (The beat of a different drummer?) He was framing 80-90% of his volleys. 

I had theories about those things: He doesn’t want to play with me and only came out because he can’t bear the idea of offending me.  His thyroid has dropped out of gear. He’s still on Standard Time. He had a bad night. He has psychic pain. His joints hurt. Listening to jazz makes people sluggish. He needs a Tony Robbins refresher seminar.  He needs Tennis lessons. He needs golf lessons.  Maybe this is who he is now. 

Mini-tennis anyone?

 Tom loves to hit tennis balls, but no one knows the psychological reason. He doesn’t like or dislike playing points. He has a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face when a ball lands short and bounces a second time or when a ball lands more than two steps away. He’s often said he doesn’t want to play games or sets—he just “wants to rally.“ I’ve sent him links to YouTube videos to help with various aspects of tennis, but he seems to have absorbed very little. “I’ll get better if I practice” he says.

Tom got me interested in tennis in late 2019. I played in junior high school and had fun, but stopped. I couldn’t hit the ball well and I wasn’t having fun. Lessons were expensive then. Now we have dozens of YouTube tennis channels that give out free technique that I can watch many times over. I video myself hitting balls so I can discover what I’m doing or not. 

Tom likes to play mini-tennis for 15-20 minutes and then go right to the baseline rally full court. He says it warms him up and says Joe and I are the only people he knows that will play mini-tennis for two hours. I must have made him do that yesterday for 40-50 minutes. 

Today I said I would skip mini-tennis, because it wasn’t helping my full court rally. I insisted on starting full court. I said, you’re a lot better than I am, so you don’t need that.  After twenty minutes he complained that he wasn’t warmed up. I said it didn’t seem to affect his tendency to start rallies with the ball flying far to either side of me. I offered to stand in the ad court if he’d hit there. (If he saw that as a cruel remark, he didn’t let on). Eventually I relented and we played some mini-tennis.

We each stood 8-10’ from the net and volleyed. After a few exchanges, he asked, “is this supposed to be aggressive?” Me: “it would appear that way if you sit on your heels and don’t split step. I’m just hitting volleys." 

I blandly suggested that he take lessons to at least learn to start a rally from the baseline. He doesn’t want to pay for lessons. I can teach him to do that by using his ability to start rallies from the service line and move him back five feet at a time. 

Tennis Choke

 Tennis with Jennifer, Jay and Jonathan. Jonny said I was moving forward and hitting, that I should have split step and hit the ball from a stable base. Jay  said I didn’t execute my forehand stroke well—swing path and follow through deficient  

I know where my body parts are when hitting. I have anxiety related performance failure. Funny that I only had one double fault while serving, I’m sure because I have total control over the point as server. 

Resolved, practices should include playing points, maybe four by each player. We should then progress to playing games. 

Insanity and learning tennis

Hitting tennis balls with Tom. I said I created a spreadsheet to calculate the lowest percentage of good serves one could hit and still win a game. 31.25% if you only played through one deuce score, and the more deuce scores played in a game the closer one could approach a low of 25%. Tom didn’t comment, if he was listening.  

I pointed out a technique to improve his aim on groundstrokes, which he found helpful. After an hour of hitting,I prepared to leave. I watched as Tom hit over 75% of serves out. 

Me: is your serve improving?

Tom: it could be better

Me: I thought you just liked to knock the felt off the balls.  how would it be better?

Tom:I want a better toss. 

Me: when you have a better toss, does that make anything else better?

Tom: it’ll make my serve more consistent

Me: YouTube has a bunch of great instructions for that. I’ve sent you links before. The tip I gave you today came from YouTube  

Tom: I’ll get better if I just practice

Me, thinking: the definition of insanity, doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Me, aloud: okay, see ya later!