Texas seminars

The weekend of Oct. 11-13 I'll be on staff with Dennis Conatser and Brian Duffy at Mr. Duffy's AKF camp in Austin.
The last Saturday of the month, Oct 26, I'll be doing a seminar on two-man defenses at Round Rock Karate Academy here. www.rrkarate.com
The Dallas area seminar will be May 17 in Coppell at Oscar Steele's.  

August seminars

I'll be traveling a lot this coming month.
August 3-4 I'll be at Marc Shay's American Karate in Broomall, near Philadelphia. Saturday seminars are open to all. One session for kids and two for adults. The adult sessions will cover Two Man Set and Grafting. Sunday is a Comprehensive Review seminar, Part One.

August 9-10 it's Coastal Kenpo Karate in Goose Creek, near Charleston, SC. Nick Dreiling hosts. Open seminar Friday evening along with classes for kids taught by Bruce Meyer. Adults sessions Saturday on zone theory, grafting and category completion.

August 17 I'm in Ohio at Steve Hatfield's Panther Kenpo Karate near Columbus, in Mount Vernon. Kids and adults sessions. Adults will cover line and flow drills along with technique extensions.

The AKTS camp in New York is the last stop for the month. This is John Sepulveda's camp and it's director is Tim Murphy in Rockland, NY. This will be a biggie and it's my first time teaching in New York state. Dates are 8/23-25.

Contact info for all the above is on my site at www.wedlakekenpotv.com/leewedlake/seminars-2

Upcoming Seminars

I'll be in New Bedford, MA this weekend with Lance Soares. Subjects for this weekend include gun defense and sleeper holds/concussions.
Plymouth, England with Gary Ellis is set for the last weekend of June. Coincidental that Lance lives in Plymouth, MA. Flow drills, two man techs and weapon work there.
Ft. Myers, FL will host Part 2 of the comprehensive review seminar we started back in April. Forms 4/5/6 are on the schedule as well as finishing off the techniques.
A multiple attacker seminar is tentative for Round Rock, TX in July.
August sees Broomall, PA, Charleston, SC, Mount Vernon, OH and Stony Point, NY on the schedule.
More dates and places can be found on my site at www.wedlakekenpotv.com/leewedlake/seminars-2

Pennsylvania Seminars

Last weekend I went to Leesport, PA to Brian Price's studio in Leesport to teach seminars for the kids and adults. The kids class was on staying focused in training and we even had parents on the mat with us. The adult subjects were concussions/sleeper holds for the first and the second was on "category completion". The turnouts were very good and many schools were represented.
   We were honored to have Hanshi Ron Martin, 8th dan, Goju-Ryu present. He was the captain of the first US Karate Team and was known as one of the top karate fighters.

Self, Brian Price, Hanshi Martin

 

 Mr. Price had recently earned his instructor certificate in Systema and we did a little hands-on during the weekend, which was fun. He and his wife, Sue (who bakes a mean cake), took me to dinner Friday and we had an enjoyable evening. Saturday's dinner after the seminar was attended by about 15 people, including Mark Schiffman, Jim Deery, Marc Shay, Mike Corsello, Stephanie Hammond and Hanshi Martin. It was entertaining, to say the least.

  Photos to follow.
  I'll be in the Philadelphia area the weekend of July 27-28 at Marc Shay's and hope to see our PA people again.

April's Germany Visit

Marc Sigle flew me over to Esslingen, near Stuttgart. I went a day early and he and I went screaming down the Autobahn to Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance.

Lake Constance

 

Marc's parents have a condo down there so we had lunch, went to the Zeppelin museum, http://www.zeppelin-museum.de/dasmuseum0.0.html then out to the airport there for a huge aviation expo they happened to be having. On the way to the condo we stopped at the church at Birnau, famous for its Baroque architecture. http://en.seeferien.com/Cultural-activities/Birnau-The-pilgrimage-church-and-baroque-jewel-of-Lake-Constance

 

We went back to Esslingen on Friday to start the weekend off with a children's class and one for the adults on the gun defenses. By then, Thomas Kozitzky and Claudia Neumann had arrived from Willich as well as Phil Buck from England.
Saturday and Sunday were full days with more gun defense, forms work, and an emphasis on working with the Web of Knowledge. Saturday night we went to our usual dinner spot at Katerinalinde, which overlooks Stuttgart with a beautiful view.

 

Working the gun techniques in Europe is always a bit different because they don't have the widespread ownership and have less experience with handling guns than many Americans. I spent extra time on the handling and the psychology of a gun fighter or criminal. I have gotten good feedback on this approach.

Phil Buck bet me I couldn't work a line from a Monty Python movie, of his choosing, into my seminar; "He's not the Messiah, but he a very naughty boy." He lost. Below, he has a light snack at Barista in Esslingen.

 

 

 

There was a all-over positive atmosphere the entire weekend. Maybe it was Kirsten's cookies. But everyone had a great time. Marc is a wonderful host and I can't thank him enough. We both thank everyone who supported the event.

 

 

South Carolina PDS

Nick Dreiling hosted one of my Professional Development Seminars at his new location in Goose Creek, near Charleston, on Saturday, April 13. He was a bit under the weather but toughed it out.
A PDS is a small-group, intensive seminar very focused on a subject or subjects and this one was a continuation of detailing the original Ed Parker purple belt techniques.
Fourteen participants from all over SC and Genie Byrd drove up from Florida. Nick had lunch catered in. We ran about six hours and covered a lot of material.
Friday night we ran some seminars, too, with Bruce Meyer working with juniors and I taught a class on the freestyle techniques. It's always interesting to watch Mr. Meyer with a class and this time was no exception. He started to teach the advanced juniors a thesis form he's been working on. When I say started, I mean he gave them the first part. As I listened and watched I saw how well he had thought out what he had created, and that's what we want to see as instructors- what's come out of what we put in.
Thanks to Nick's wife Terri and his mom, Linda, for handling lunch. I think their baby girl, Lily, had a hand in there, too.  Nick's dad picked me up at the airport when Nick was feeling ill, so it was a pleasure to get a chance to know him, too.
I'll be back in SC in August, watch the website for details.

And I saw Bill Murray at the airport!

Ft. Myers Comprehensive Review Seminar Recap

They came, they saw, they had enough after 6 1/2 hours. Genie Byrd hosted at Imperial Dragon Kenpo in Ft. Myers, FL. About a dozen black belts participated in the review, coming from the local studio, Ed Cabrera's in Tampa, Tim Walker's AKKU in Branford and American Karate in Tallahassee. Jim Deery flew in from Philly. Four of them had just passed their 20 year anniversary on kenpo under me.
Jim Deery had a car accident and totaled his vehicle, went to the hospital and made it to the studio anyway! That's dedication. Frank Triolo, who is fighting and beating cancer sat in, too. Big pats on the back to these two.
We started with the original yellow, went into the orange and the extensions, continued up to purple with extensions, too, and on to blue. The forms from one thru Long Three were done also. We discussed variations, themes, relationships, where the techniques came from and I told some anecdotes. The feedback has been very positive.
This session was designed for those working toward 3rd and above, hence the amount of detail and the length of time it took. Other sessions are planned in other states as well as a follow up to this one so we can finish. Watch for dates on my website seminar page at www.wedlakekenpotv.com/leewedlake/seminars-2 and on my Facebook pages.
  I managed to see my tai chi teacher, Tom Baeli, very briefly and my Systema buddy, Pater Annazone. I spent some time working with Dr. Marc Rowe, who took over my tai chi classes at the hospital when I left Ft. Myers. It's always interesting hanging with him. One of my tai chi students from Celebration, Deborah Porter, came down and had dinner with us as a group after the Saturday class. She told me I'd inspired her and she's now in her second year as a student of Chinese medicine and will be an acupuncturist.
  I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to but got some time with my sisters and my dad, who will be 86 this month and is doing well. Since it seems I got most of his genes, it looks like I'll be around a while to pass on the knowledge.
  Thanks to all who supported the event. It was good to see y'all.
  

Damewood, Walker, Caldwell, Byrd, Cabrera, Shaffer, Jenkins, self, Weil, Deery and Miragliotta. Brad Congress and Frank Triolo missing.

Texas Seminars This Weekend

I'll be at Oscar Steele's Kenpo in Coppell on Denton Tap Rd, near Dallas, this Saturday. Three seminars, one for kids, two for adults. The adult sessions will be on flow drills and two man techniques. I've been there before and it's a nice group.   www.oscarsteeleskenpokarate.com/

Recap of the Kenpo Senior Conference, pt. 1

Steve White and I partnered up to make this event happen back in early 2012. Steve urged me to do this as we believed that after 22 years since Mr. Parker's passing that the four seniors we had teach were of like mind. The conference was named such because we wanted to talk with the seniors and see where, or if, this would go.
That's why we named it the Conference. This is not a resurrection of the Kenpo Senior Council/League of Kenpo Organizations. It is not intended to be an organization at all. It was an event. We did have our conference on Saturday and we are of like mind and will move forward as such. In the future you'll see more of our respective lineages working together.
People started arriving in Austin on Wednesday and Thursday. They came from Germany, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, California, Kansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Colorado, Washington state, South Carolina and Texas. Several associations were represented such as my PKS, the AKTS, AKF and NCKKA.
Steve White came down with Tim MacKenzie and Julie Stockwell. She and Tim helped out with registration and other things along with Janis Nyman. Graham Lelliott arrived from CA with Pete Valdez  on Thursday.
The Omni hotel Southpark is near the airport and was a venue that Brian and Lee Duffy use when she hosts the annual songwriter's conference in January. www.austinsongwritersgroup.com/ It turned out to be the perfect spot. The staff was efficient, rooms comfortable, meeting areas suitable and the food was good. The location lent itself to people being able to catch a quick cab ride down to the 6th Street party zone and other downtown attractions. The free shuttle made it easy for people to get there.

We have to thank Steve White's program director at his studio, Lee McDonald for the work he did on the flyers, t-shirt design and participation certificates.
Part 2 to come.

Seminar at Marc Shay's

I was at Marc Shay's American Karate studio in Broomall, PA, near Philadelphia, last weekend. I spent the day teaching a seminar and some private lessons before having to head back to the Baltimore area, where I had attended a family get-together for Jan.
I started the day by working privately with Marc. He and I have a common experience in being studio owners and teaching Yang Tai Chi along with the Parker system. Marc's forms look strong. Being a "forms guy", it's close to my heart. I have accepted Marc as a direct lineage student after his completing my required one-year "probation". It was a pleasure to see his face light up when I "punched him in" as Sam Babikian watched. Marc is now working on his thesis for sixth black.
  The seminar was on "Pre-fight Indicators". Marc had asked me to do that based on a comment I make in my seminars. I ask people to think about what leads up to having to face an opponent and apply a technique. It was the first time I'd done that seminar, so I'm glad he asked. I'm told it was interesting. We'll have that subject covered here at the Austin event by retired police officer Ron Sanchez of Southern California, too.
  Just before the seminar, my student Brian Price of Leesport, PA, promoted Stephanie Hammond to third black. Brian is my "main man" in Pennsylvania. He's a strong, all-around martial artist and he trained Stephanie for third after her coming to him as a second degree. He had her run Form Six and some technique extensions she created in front of a packed house. I've known her since she was a teenager living in Florida, so it was good to see her progress.
  The seminar was pretty packed with several schools represented. Dan Meck was there, it's always good to see him.

Alex

Sam

   I finished the day with three more privates with Sam Babikian, Alex Collo and Jim Deery. They work as a team. They took notes for each other, something you don't see often. I'm happy to see their progress.
  It was a good visit, and too short. I had to go back to make an early morning flight out of BWI (too early). I'll be back up in PA in the late spring. Watch my site for dates.

Australia wrap-up

With Melbourne's Peter Tas

Jack Nilon and Peter Tas worked together to arrange a tour of several clubs and schools in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. I did nine seminars over 7 days to both youth and adult groups. Subjects included my "Great Escapes" and the rearrangement principle for the kids, Ed Parker's freestyle techniques, club defenses, "Broken Techniques" and technique interruption drills for the adults. I did private and class sessions, too. Pete had asked me to be a special guest at his juniors tournament on the first Saturday, too. I sat on the forms boards and was the center judge for the upper ranks in sparring. The tournament ran well and the kids took home a bunch of nice trophies. I ran a short seminar for the participants immediately afterward, too.
    Along the way I met many people I'd been contacted by online and was able to put faces with names. I saw some whom I'd met at a previous seminar I did in Sydney in 1999 or at Graham Lelliott's Wonder Valley camp in California. Good to reconnect as well as meet new people.
   The instructors who hosted seminars were Peter Tas in Melbourne, Tony Billman in Epping (near Melbourne), Tim Barnes in Adelaide ( place with a time-zone difference of one-half hour), Jack Nilon in the Sydney area and Jo Stenzel in the Brisbane area (she was helped out by Steve Broadbent there, too).


With Tony Billman

   I stayed with the Tas family the first few nights. Pete's wife, Jodie, was a marvelous hostess and put up with Jack, Tim Barnes, and myself. Pete is a bit of a shrinking violet (far from it), so it got a little nuts at times. Memorable quote from was from his daughter to Jack; "You've just been owned by a nine-year-old girl." Jack, Pete, Tim and I went to the Peninsula Hot Springs the day I arrived. Quite an experience and a great way to relax after a loooong flight. www.peninsulahotsprings.com/ The weather was perfect and it went down the tubes the following days, turning to rainy and colder.

   One of the days with the Tas family we went down to downtown Melbourne. Along the way we stopped at the beaches. We went up in the Eureka Tower to the 88th floor observation deck and the weather cooperated. We followed that with a visit to The Shrine of Remembrance, a war memorial to the ANZAC veterans. It's worth a visit.  www.shrine.org.au/


Adelaide kid's seminar, Jack Nilon assists

 
Tim Barnes hosted in Adelaide. He's a chemistry professor at the "Uni" there. Aussies abbreviate almost everything and "uni" is the university. I'd never been to either Melbourne or Adelaide before and it was a treat to see the areas. Tim and his wife, Tracey, put Pete, Jack and myself up for a night, then we were back to Melbourne. They have a beautiful little girl who will be a heart-breaker and probably win a Nobel Prize.
  Tuesday, back in Melbourne, we went over to Tony Billman's Australian Kenpo Concepts. Tony's instructor is Tommy Chavies. Mr. Chavies is an excellent technician. I'd met him at the Pasadena studio and we've crossed paths at the IKC many times. Good man, and his rep, Tony, looks to be doing it right.
  I stayed with Jack, and his brother, Adam, and their mom in Sydney. I caught up with Adam and some of Jack's mates. It was good to see how they're doing. Jack and I went to do some ATV/quad-bike riding out along Peat's Ridge. First time for me. Jack told people I was throwing dust and dirt at him but I believe he was ahead of me most of the time. Good fun.
   We jumped another airplane up to Brisbane (Aussie security is nothing like the the TSA) and met up with Peter Tas again and Steve Broadbent "Broadie". Steve and Pete work under Graham Lelliott, and they love him. Steve's wife, Merry, was now in the mix with us and she gave as good as she got. The Friday night seminar was at Jo Stenzel's Studio MMA www.studiomma.com.au and the turnout for both seminars was good. She had a small barby afterward with steaks and sausages, so we could talk with the troops. We joined her again at her home with her husband, Ted, the next night for more good food and conversation.
  Broadie took us to Mt. Tamborin for a look around. It's on the edge of the rainforest and has an artsy downtown area. The road going up is pretty intersting and I saw lots of motorcycles heading that way.  Afterward we went down to the Gold Coast, next to Surfer's Paradise. It's a lot like Ft. Lauderdale. The Brisbane area looks a lot like south Florida.
   Nilon took the entire time off work to be with me through the trip. That gave me lots of time to look at his material, watch him teach, check his time-in-grade and see how he worked. I promoted him to 4th degree black. He's now got his assignment for his 5th black thesis and moving forward.

Melbourne seminar

  Peter Tas took a lot of work time off, too. He was with me in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane. He, like most of the people I met, are hungry for info and want to represent the system well. Pete took the photos you see here, too. More later.

Kenpo Senior Conference

Here's the proposed schedule for the event here in Austin, TX on Oct 26-28.
Register at www.wedlakekenpotv.com/kenposeniorconference

Kenpo Senior Conference Schedule                         May be altered as required             

Friday Oct 26 evening schedule
S= Striking Track Omni A
C= Concept Track             Omni B
G= Grappling Track           Omni C

You may switch tracks at any time but the track sessions will be assigned to one room.

6pm
(G) Steve White, 8^th degree from Manchester, NH  Kenpo counters to common grappling attacks
(S) Ed Cabrera 4^th degree from Tampa, FL  Kenpo Fusion
(C)Tom Graves 7^th degree from Seattle, WA        Expanded Knot Concept

7:05
(G) Glenn Haley 4^th degree from Austin, TX   2nd Point of View where the Opponent is a grappler
(S) Marc Sigle 4^th degree from Esslingen, Germany     Integrating Pressure Points
(C) Graham Lelliott  8^th degree from Clovis, CA Ed Parker’s Motion Chart and the Universal Pattern

8:10
(G) Brian Duffy 7^th degree from Austin, TX   Joint Manipulations in the weapon techniques
(S) Ron Sanchez  5^th degree from CA    Pre-fight indicators
(C)  Bruce Meyer 6^th degree from Columbia, SC  Teaching Children

Saturday Oct 27 schedule   Omni ballroom

8:45 Opening remarks and bow in
9am – 1030         Mr. Sepulveda  Variable Expansion
10:45 -  12:15     Mr. Wedlake  Principles of Instructing
1:30 – 3pm          Mr. White  Closing the Gap/Technique Entries
3:15 -  4:45          Mr. LaBounty Rough and Tumble strike-downs and wind-downs
4:45-5pm             Closing Remarks and bow-out

Dinner Buffet 7-9pm
Presentation of the Dr. Francis Rene award
Question and Answer period after dinner

Sunday Oct 28   Omni ballroom
8am Iron Monkey forms workout
0830  Tommy Burks 8^th degree from Ft. Worth, TX  2 man knife drills

Private lessons if previously scheduled with the instructor

Noon - Check out and “head for the ranch”.

Texas seminar at Oscar Steele's

I taught in the Dallas area last month at Oscar Steele's studio in Coppell. Three seminars, one for the kids, another on the freestyle techs and my Defending the Third Person seminar.
It was a pleasure to be invited, they're a very nice group. Two black belts came down from Plano, too.
I got some great feedback. It seems we all enjoyed ourselves. Looking forward to going back sometime.

How I spent (part of) the weekend

No, they didn't all get out of that airplane. These are the instructors and participants for a Civil Air Patrol Squadron Leadership School held at the Sarasota airport this weekend. I was asked to teach a section there on Professional Development. I had also been asked to do a presentation on overwater safety at an open house on the St. Petersburg/Whitted airport that same day, representing the Federal Aviation Administration (I'm a volunteer safety team member for them). It was a busy day, flying around Florida. The weather was great and I met some interesting people.

One participant at the school asked me what martial art I did because I had mentioned that I teach and that perspective is so important. We tend to look at things one way from the teacher's point of view and another totally different way is from that of the student, and teachers tend to forget that, which was my point. He guessed that I was a grappling guy. No, I told him. Shotokan? No again. He was at a loss so I told him Kenpo and he responded that he was a Tae Kwon Do person. I did not get to ask him why he guessed those other arts because we were interrupted. I'm curious as to his reasoning. Was it my body type or demeanor? Interesting.

The other interesting thing was the Whitted airport itself. It's a historic place because that's the first scheduled airline service was started almost 100 years ago. Cool stuff, this aviation thing.

Down time

Shaolin Temple

Ozzie Rivero, one of my Ft. Myers black belts who moved to Chicago, sent this. He's standing in front of the Shaolin Temple in China. That makes him the second one of my guys to visit there.

Tucson seminars

Shawn and Rebecca Knight packed their school when they hosted a successful seminar weekend in Tucson. I was there to teach with Steve LaBounty and Ed Parker. I met many new people from Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Frank Soto was there from Mexico, too. Dennis Conatser from Scottdale showed up; I hadn't seen him since Ed Parker's funeral in 1990.

What a great group they have out there. They remind me a lot of Steve White's group in New England. They are very cohesive, organized, and eager to perpetuate their art. One of their black belts, a girl named Candace, was found to have leukemia. They've been very supportive of the family in so many ways I can't describe. At the post-seminar dinner on Saturday night the young lady and her family came by for a few minutes. The school members had folded almost 1400 paper cranes for her, which they presented to her there. The cranes are significant in that they represent wishes for her return to health. One family is planning to go to Japan to a place where they hang these paper cranes outside. The wind and sun deteriorates them and when they break up, they believe the wishes are dispersed with the wind to spread the good wishes. That's just one sample of the family atmosphere of the AIK schools out there.

I was able to connect with my judo teacher, Carole Wolken-Melcher, who lives in Tucson. She came down to the studio and we had dinner together. She's 77 now, looks great, and we had a nice dinner and conversation. It was so good to be able to see her.

The seminars were very well attended, and seemed to be be well-received, based on the feedback I got. It was the first time I'd actually gotten to watch Mr. LaBounty teach. His session on what-ifs using forearms and elbows was right up my alley. It was a pleasure to watch. Ed Parker had the crowd going, with applause breaking out frequently.

Another really cool thing was going up toward Mt. Lemmon with some of his people and watching them run their forms out on the rocks up at 6,000 above sea level. The weather was nice and the view was spectacular.

All in all, it was a good weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing them again in 2009. Thanks to crew for hosting.

You have to know why

I do occasional flight instruction and a few weeks ago I was asked to fly with a lady that the regular instructor was having problems getting ready for her flight test. Since I didn't know her I felt that asking her about her motivation for learning to fly was fair game as she had close to 200 hours logged and had failed her FAA flight test three times. She had a nice Piper Cherokee 140 like what I had learned to fly in that her boyfriend had bought for her to learn in. He owns a Beechcraft Bonanza.
She told me that she got very nervous during an exam, and that she didn't feel the examiners had been fair with her. I questioned about what she thought she would do after she got her pilot license, since I had seen a bit of self-sabotage in both karate and flight training when someone got near a "promotion". She answered that her boyfriend, who was quite a bit older, had expressed the desire for her to fly his bigger, faster, more complex airplane in the event he lost his medical certificate. A medical is necessary for pilots to fly aircraft of the type most of us fly. She stated she didn't want to fly it because it scared her. So it boiled down to her training to get a license she really didn't want to fly and airplane she didn't want to fly.
We went out to fly and she did a fine job. When we landed I told her I thought there was no reason she couldn't be a pilot if she really wanted to. But I counseled her that she really had to want to do it for herself and nobody else. Yesterday I got a phone call from her flight instructor telling me that she and her boyfriend were selling both airplanes and she was quitting. "You nailed it" he said.
I've seen many a student in my studio who was there because someone else wanted them there; a parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse who was really into the arts and wanted this person to be as well. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. As my title says, you have to know why you're doing something. A little introspection can be a good thing.

Who would have thought?

Over the weekend I taught a seminar at Gulf Coast Kenpo in Cape Coral, FL, hosted by Mike and Renee Squatrito. Five schools were represented. I was a bit surprised by the turnout on a holiday weekend. Local students from Gulf Coast and K. Zwarg's studio in Ft. Myers were there in force. But out-of-state attendees came from Windy City Kenpo in Chicago, Keith Mathew's studio in Canton, GA, and Gary Bell, a Bruce Meyer black belt were there. Australia's Jack Nilon was there, too. It was good to see some people I hadn't seen in a while, including some of the younger students I had trained when I owned the Ft. Myers studio.

I covered some techniques and extensions from the original Ed Parker purple belt curriculum in two seminars. It would be impossible to cover all 32 techniques in any detail in three hours, so a few related techniques and others often misunderstood were the focus. There were some white belts present as well as up to 4th blacks, so everyone could pick up something. All attendees received a certificate of participation.
My niece was promoted there also. She's being trained by Genie Byrd, who did the promotion ceremony.

The doctor is in

Marc Rowe found this information and it's related to a tennis stroke but certainly applies to any motion.

Technique: The Kinetic Chain
10/12/04 6:57 PM
(The information in this article was taken or adapted from the High
Performance Coaching Program Study Guide.)
The parts of the body act as a system of chain links, whereby the
energy or force generated by one link (or part of the body) can be
transferred successively to the next link. The link system in the service
action, which starts from the ground, can be explained in the following way
(Elliott and Saviano, 2001; Elliott & Kilderry, 1983):
a.. Leg drive
b.. Trunk rotation
c.. Upper arm elevation
d.. Forearm extension, upper arm internal rotation and forearm
pronation
e.. Hand flexion
The optimum coordination (timing) of these body segments and their
movements will allow for the efficient transfer of energy and power up
through the body, moving from one body segment to the next. Each movement
in the sequence builds upon the previous motion and they all contribute to
the generations of racket speed.
This transfer of energy in sequential coordination is also enhanced by
the stretch-shortening cycle of muscle action. The stretch-shortening cycle
involves the active stretching (the muscle is activated but is elongated by
another force) of a muscle in a countermovement immediately followed by a
more forceful shortening of the muscle in the desired direction. In the
forehand, for example, the chest and shoulder muscles are actively stretched
(coaches often use the cue "loading" here) as the trunk rotates into the
shot and the inertia of the arm and racket cause them to lag behind.
The active stretch of the muscle stores energy in the elastic elements
of muscle and associated tissues such as tendons, which is reused as the
muscle begins to shorten. This sequence of muscular coordination tends to be
chosen naturally by the brain, but sometimes this must be coached in players
who develop pauses, that in turn lead to missed segment rotations or
problems in sequencing segments.
The most effective tennis strokes begin with leg drive generating
ground reaction forces that can be transferred up the segments of the
kinetic chain to the racket. Proper timing of the segments in the kinematic
chain and stretch-shortening cycle muscle actions maximize the transfer of
energy to generate the greatest racket speed.
Example-One-handed backhands tend typically involve five kinematic
links that the player has to coordinate (Groppel, 1992). In most cases the
one-handed backhand is based on a sequential summing of the motions of the
legs, trunk, arm, forearm, and wrist/hand. Two-handed backhands during
early learning use fewer body segments, so many young players find this
stroke easier to coordinate. In the modern two-handed stroke a similar
number of segments are rotated as for the on-handed stroke.