A New Year's Serve

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Nasty, Griping Tennis Observation

I'm tired of BIG WIPE. I saw it in 10-year-old Cate when we went to England. I've struggled with it for decades, developed my Federfore, made it work, won some matches.

But, in my case, it's a willowy shot that only crackles once in a while.

So I work on my swingpush shot instead-- get the grip and swing pattern that allows me to push the hand out and back to left ear with everything I've got, body, soul and bent arm all together.

The Federfore is a long arm shot. I'll bring it up to snuff later.

Just got an enhancement idea for the swingpush. Swing for right fence before whooshing knuckles out and up to left ear. "Blood out to fingertips." Remember that one?

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Report (Forehand): Swingpush Shot

In four sets you (I) hit the ball long once. That was not enough on a night when you (I) were hitting huge forehands that plunged short. Needed a few more mistakes of too much length to find the range.

The means for this adjustment is counter-intuitive. Swing elbow more horizontally before pushing it vertically.

The strings then will rise more steeply, the ball will fly higher, land deeper.

You-I could go to opposite extreme by shortening the horizontal swing. Why other than curiosity even think about this, however, when you have a better flat alternative, The McEnrueful, a shot that is all body and no arm.

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Or just get the racket up where you want it, sway back, pause a little, and start the mechanism. That's like dead stick in pool or billiards (cowboy pool) and is rhythmic enough.

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Half an inch down, half an inch up, let the shortened backward weight shift (with such a narrow stance) adjust to what the two hands are doing rather than vice-versa. Now you've got rhythm and are ready to start the serve.

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New Thoughts on an Old-Fashioned Serve

Draw back.

View it again.

Be subjective.

Be more right brain.

Get the feel of it.

What do you see?

The left shoulder gets wound back and up as weight concludes on front foot (95 per cent?).

Shoulder is still going back, in other words, as the hips beneath whirl forward and flatten the foot.

How far apart are the feet? Seven or nine inches! That's NOTHING.

A new way to think of it: The shoulders turning back are on their way to their upward tilted frontward position in which the tossed ball will start to come down.

So they never stop their wind-back. It's just that this motion is a very slow stretch as of thick elastic.

The hips have time to turn both backward and forward in the middle of the action of tossing shoulder winding back and up.

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Hold the Pickle (conscious breathing) but add Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Here's the old fashioned serve on which to build (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DB1stSRear.mov). You might want to do this because you are getting old or maybe you realize you're an actual recreational player (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_jQBgzU-I).

Notice: the narrowness of stance to begin, unlike Justine Henin or Roger Federer.

You wouldn't want to leave yourself with an overly long step as the service motion pulls your outside leg into the court, would you (?), would like to get easily to net, don't want to waste the step in just getting foot past your bod.

We love the easy mechanics of the new serve but would like to add some feel, a bit of rock and roll, to the beginning of it.

We abandon strenuous and elaborate waggles now along with the overly conscious breathing we were working on.

As we rock forward, in our narrowed stance, we slightly-- ever so slightly-- lift both hands, maybe one inch up.

As we rock backward, in our narrowed stance, we lower and lift the hands again, maybe an inch down an inch up so that racket is now is in the same place as Don Budge's as he begins the actual serve.

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How A Tennis Stroke Inventor Supports Himself

Hope and I are conducting an estate sale. Down in the basement of the estate I discovered an old pool table buried under dust and slabs of concrete and other rubble. I vacuumed it, got one of the overhead lights to work, found cues and a boxed set of discs that now are sliding on wires. Then I wrote up the rules for Cowboy Pool as it has been played at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire ever since the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson established them. Reader, you remember him, right? He wrote "Richard Corey" and a lot of other great stuff. Anyway, if I can sell the table we'll get a commission.

Miniver Cheevy
By Edwin Arlington Robinson

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam’s neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediæval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

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Second Choice is Better

So practice this new serve's unique breathing in waggles to start. Mouth and nose intake to raise the racket. Exhale through ovaled mouth in unison with each racket fall.

Do this cycle two times. On the third try launch into serve as described above.

The reason I got this most recent idea is that I took a shower after playing tennis-- always dangerous.

Note: Waggle three times instead of two if you want to be a pain in the ass.

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To Adapt a Rocking Motion to a Donald Budge Type Serve

It could be so simple. Get racket up. Hold everything still while you rock back. Then start the motion just as Don Budge does here (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DB1stSRear.mov).

But I want to talk about breathing and make that talk a good idea. (Such talk frequently isn't when somebody including myself discusses a serve.) Draw breath slowly in through nose and mouth both as racket rises and weight draws back. Then exhale slowly through an ovaled mouth for the duration of the serve.

Or, breathe in through mouth and nose as you lift racket up, a motion that simulates a wag in golf. Hold breath then as you rock back. You're not doing enough to screw the rock up by holding your breath!

Ha-ha. See how fast a tennis conversation becomes complex the moment you give yourself a second choice.

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Juicing Up an Ordinary Backhand

You may recall, reader, that I was at a tennis social where complete strangers suddenly began to praise the smoothness of my new backhand.

I had hit it for only two days. The shot is explained in the attachment section of post # 3031 . Six people have clicked on that attachment.

Stanley Plagenhoef, author of the backhand, writes, "Control of the follow-through insures a longer flat area around the contact point, making errors less likely to occur if the timing is off slightly...Even though a roll of the racket is evident during the entire swing, the racket should not roll through the impact area."

We now ingest the pill that Stephen Hawking has been talking about, the one that doubles one's IQ. The strangers who noticed new smoothness did so because I was trying to hit with the natural swing of Don Budge only abbreviated to a scope I could handle-- right?

The abbreviation came from a blending of straight arm roll and arm swing. The main source of these two events is located in the shoulder house-- right?

But Plagenhoef says "Even though a roll of the racket is evident during the entire swing, the racket should not roll through the impact area."

The pill wasn't strong enough. I take another. Now my IQ is four times higher than normal. I look at the illustrations in Post # 3031 once again. The ink and pen figure points at ball with racket butt. He points at net with racket tip. In between he hits the ball. This is how I achieved the smoothness. So I talk to myself.

"Do you want to abandon all progress by rolling first, stopping the roll during contact, resuming the roll afterward until racket points at net?"

I try this in self-feed. Much to my surprise, the shots are more solid, but just a bit.

The falling snow and rain mix stops. The clouds part. The Voice of Knowledge speaks.

"You can juice up your brain, Escher, but that won't juice up your arm. Try rolling all the way through. Then once in a while, Escher, but only when if ever the score is 40 love, try roll, stop, roll-- before the lifted follow-through with weight returning to the back foot.

"If that works, fine, continue with it. If it doesn't, be happy with the simplicity of your newfound smoothness."

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Is Turning Hips into Front Foot a Bad Idea?

In a forehand or serve of the grounded variety. If it's a bad idea, then why does Welby Van Horn teach it?

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Rhythm

Yes, very exciting. Try this with two humped camel rock since you can do anything you want before you start your actual serve.

On first rise of the hands breathe in. As weight shifts back let a bit of air out. As hands rise again on rear foot breathe in.

Then slowly exhale during the whole serve through an ovaled mouth.

Do this without a racket while watching yourself in a long mirror before going to the court. You can vary the hand risings, making one bigger than the other. You can make both small, both big. You can turn the racket in a little, turn it out, do neither-- nothing disrupts the rhythm if you are determined and musical enough to keep it constant.

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Serve: Grip Loose or Firmed up at Contact?

Everybody seems to advocate the looser choice. But Stanley Plagenhoef back in 1970 (FUNDAMENTALS OF TENNIS, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey) went just the opposite way. He cites statistics where great servers achieved faster speeds with slower swings this way-- ball speeds that exceeded those achieved with faster swings.

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A likely trap in this thinking about design is too much either/or. I may choose throwing elbow into a shot over keeping it stable as a pivot point but might key for one inch first to establish new direction for the shot I am about to hit.

One tries stuff. One decides one likes one thing but not another. After self-feed I reject the idea of keying for one inch before pushing the elbow. To change direction like that I now prefer to slide elbow level before pushing it up. In fact, I might do that on all of these shots. The trouble with pushing elbow from a rearward position is that elbow will go down from wherever you set it. You'll get a down and up in your elbow throw-- not as powerful as elbow level first then elbow push up with a small amount of arm roll to keep strings at constant angle as they fly. But moving elbow on a level plane should most likely be called a short swing rather than a push. Cue next becomes "swing then push."

Next Day Observation: When do our thoughts about arm roll have more to do with racket position then with the administration of force? One could get the roll out of the way during the level slide forward of the elbow, thus making oneself more uninhibited for the elbow THROW. Hmmm. Wouldn't one rather be rolling forearm the opposite way just then as part of one's mondo? To pursue this line of thought then just use a stronger grip so you can roll in the direction you want to roll. But I'm going to have a straight arm variation of this shot available as well with a lot of wipe in it right on the ball and call it my evolved Federfore.

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handbodhandbod

That is the choral cue with which I explore my new forehand. If I try to explain this at a party, people are apt to think I am out of my gourd. To them a forehand is a forehand, a backhand a backhand. If racket comes through one inch farther from the body or one inch closer to it the forehand is a completely different stroke. Does my audience get it? Probably not.

And non tennis players certainly can't grasp stuff like "keying" or "not keying." Some experienced players can't either.

A tennis player should view subtle arcs through the air as a very full subject of infinite possibility just the way a sculptor does.

A likely trap in this thinking about design is too much either/or. I may choose throwing elbow into a shot over keeping it stable as a pivot point but might key for one inch first to establish new direction for the shot I am about to hit.