A New Year's Serve

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Finger-Feather and Reverse Wrist for Kick by Rotorded Server

One wants to get racket handle snuggled deep in cleft between forefinger and thumb.

I propose doing this rather late in the serving cycle.

I am the coyote trying to squash the road-runner with a helium-filled boulder. But no one will laugh if it works. Think of King Henry V or Novak Djokovic in their transition from funnyman to number one who is a slight bore.

Listing all elements crucial to this plot would be tedious.

Features include a pitching forward of the racket to tilt over the ball since sport physicists tell us that is one of the factors generating upward/forward turbo-spin. Not the only one for sure, but those sport physicists are right. I plan to do this with arm more than upper body this time.

That will leave upper body to provide a small amount of lift to the spin mix.

The finger-feather or twiddle I'm talking about will be achieved by holding a thin-handled racket with thumb and second down joint of the middle finger. This notion comes from watching a film on pitching a curve in baseball although that grip is farther out nearer both fingertips.

Weight will stay on rear foot for a long time. The rear leg will bend to load late.

The arm wind-up by contrast will be quicker than in most serves, but that doesn't mean that arm speed won't be gravity-determined as the hands first fall.

Serve or rather arm starts accelerating from point when racket is down by the ground, a flowing and liquid time appropriate to collecting energy and well-being and wit.

Arm starts bending early simultaneous with the toss. Twiddle-- if one believes in twiddle-- can happen as late as when two halves of arm have finished squeezing together and begin to open. One can simultaneously hump the wrist to prepare for its reverse action. It then will unfurl.

This serve won't resemble any other including my own others what with its arm before body action and its reverse wrist.

Reverse wrist? Didn't you mean "reverse twist," bottle? No, I meant reverse wrist. What else can you expect, reader, from someone who believes in helium-filled boulders?

Gravity takes the racket down. Smooth and early arm throw including the squeezing together of both halves of the arm takes it up.

Because this server-- so what if it's I-- can't get his racket tip as low as he would like on any serve, he has decided to delay the three main power packages available to him.

These are first, upper arm rotation, second and third hip rotation braked to fly upper body up and over-- up on contact, over on follow-through.

Part of the plot is to cock the upper arm and forearm against one's arm extension. And racket tip already started working to outside with the twiddle. Twiddle doesn't provide muscle but every racket head in motion carries momentum which will flow in this case into pre-load of the whole arm which by now is also twisting to the outside against increasing resistance, i.e., build-up.

As arm finally reverses its twist, racket snuggles down in the yoke. Then wrist and arm whirl strings around and up and arm carries racket way out toward side fence before returning to conventional follow-through.

Just another design.

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An Easy Double Toss that Transforms into a Quite Powerful Throw (cont'd)

The arm work I propose is designed for rotorded servers like me who haven't yet embarked on the following yoga course:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppToA1N0CgE

The kick or at least topspin serve I have in mind gets arm to slant out toward the net quite early in the total cycle.

What does that mean? A lot. Arm has gradually bent and gone through totally squeezed together black hole and proceeded out the other side where it starts to straighten again.

Okay, that's the form of the smooth forward slant, but any forward slant has to have been caused by something. If the cause is upper arm rotation, what is left for you, poor rotord? You need your upper arm rotation for power, right?

Right.

So you wind up upper arm all over again only this time with a pre-load.

Sequence: 1) Finger twiddle combined with wrist "hump" thus avoiding such pseudo-intellectual and encoded terms as flexion and extension which always mean the opposite of what they should;

2) Axle-like backward twist of the upper arm which the pseudo-intellectuals would like to call "external rotation" and which I would too if I thought that would help my serve. Note: Backward twist can happen a) when upper arm is parallel to court or b) when it is slanted up at the sky-- it can happen any ole time but we choose b) here and start the muscles the other way while racket still is winding out to right (I am right-handed);

3) Upper arm twist-- forward-- to bring racket head around like a helicopter blade first to left and slightly down and then to right and slightly up.

All of this will mean little or nothing if not coordinated with way turned around stance and extremely late body work, i.e., hips driving front heel down to brake them and send upper body over the top.

Note: I was really looking forward to trying this serve but when I arrived at Eastside Tennis Facility, Detroit early this morning for doubles I encountered a sign: "Power out. Club closed."

[bottle]

New One Hand Backhands All Over The Place

What's the difference between an eastern backhand and one hit with continental grip and finger adjustment? Any advantage to one over the other?

Eastern is simple. But continental with fingers offers more feel. The player is less robotic and more alive.

How about fingers adjustment from a full eastern grip to hit more topspin? Works though not particularly solid. Useful especially for short angles. I advocate a full flying grip change combining immediate pull back of the arm for this one. More topspin requires more time. Should be an axiom.

I'm off to the court for self-feed to explore these thoughts. One aspect: Desired discovery of individual limits when it comes to double roll, e.g., does one want to hit flat from the continental (plus fingers twiddled in opposite direction than for slice?). Or eastern grip with fingers as for slice but with the big Budgian forward roll? A different grip now includes three options: no adjustment, adjustment this way, adjustment that way. Since fingers are delicate, there are apt to be gradations in between, too.

The final Serbian Davis Cup finalist-- Dusan Lajovic-- has a beautiful one hand backhand if the beholder of it thinks, as I do, that machines can be beautiful. Beautiful, yes, but too mechanical by half.

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Sculpted Kick Serves

Twice in my life I have watched "successful" sculptors (i.e., the ones who get the grants) shape a three-dimensional head.

Although the two women were very different in temperament, they had one basic in common-- they never got bogged down in a single detail.

They never completed an eye, a nose or a wart all at once but kept working all of the clay in wave after wave until they decided the whole piece was finished.

A good barber or hairdresser often does the same thing, it seems to me. And I don't see why designing a tennis stroke should be any different, i.e., you proceed by keeping everything soft and pliable with no idea however good permitted to take over. You'll be re-handling the whole serve soon, so if you want to change something, change it then.

This going over and over could happen in the mind maybe during a walk or a shower or a walk in a rain-shower or out on the court.

In # 1877 there are a lot of right-handed ideas about twisting the racket far to the right during the serve. I now propose at least as an exercise to do all the twisting including the finger twiddle before the serve even starts. This puts the strings roughly horizontal in front of one as if the hitting side of one's racket is now ready to carry a glass of champagne. The arm will be bent, probably too much just at that moment for one's liking, but all twisting out to the right will have been accomplished so that one can concentrate on other stuff.

If the exercise becomes one's eventual kick serve, fine. If not, one can then figure out all over again just where best to re-introduce each of these things that turn racket to the right.

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If No Design Then No Modified Design Hence No Progress

To quote myself in # 1877: "So you wind up upper arm all over again only this time with a pre-load."

I can hardly believe that I wrote such a thing. On the other hand, I still see a solid idea beneath this for a rotorded kick serve.

Having a shorter runway to work with, the rotorded server is always out ahead of himself. A real double-clutch could be the answer.

Note: Have not tried this yet.

But, using # 1879, the twiddle is taken care of. The forearm is taken care of. The easy swing forward is bent-armed and abbreviated, but if one is willing to go that far, why not just lift the racket to somewhere in the vicinity of the front of one's head?

Now the racket twists back and the two halves of one's arm press together and the hips load on rear foot as front heel comes up.

The hips spin round and front leg brakes to speed shoulders up and over in classic baseball pitcher's sequence, which now is more unified with upper arm rotation which starts racket up but whirls it in and out all as one motion.

The hitting part of the stroke is more compressed.

Within the exotically humped and about to unfurl wrist category, this is a new design.

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Same Day Discoveries

1) Kick looks like it never will be first-rate but hops higher when I keep elbow in front but pointed at side fence, not helicoptered toward net and opposite fence. What does this mean? Higher bounds. The upper arm is quite horizontal to start. The wrist is reversed. One feels like one is winding racket straight up at bottom of the ball.

2) More power on three first serves-- flat, slice and reverse wrist when you go through black hole (the point where the two halves of the arm press together) and start throwing at rear fence as rapid combo of braked hip-- shoulders flying over the top tugs the other way.

3) Continental grip twiddled to hit a flat backhand is beginning to work.

Thought: Why not add more body to the minimal arm work of 1). Use extreme stance. Use hips braked-shoulders over the top sequence to create a more conventional stance (on the run, i.e., mid-serve). First get bound to its highest and gradually add these body elements so long as bound doesn't begin to decline.

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Mutiny Hearing On One's Last Forehand

"Did you pet the dog?"

"Yes."

"Did you tap the dog?"

"Possibly."

"Did you knock the dog out?"

"Absolutely not."

[bottle]

Use Volley Preparation For Volleys Only

You (or at least I) set the strings where you want and wait and wait and wait. But the ball is coming fast. So you wait and wait. You stop time.

On full ground strokes (remembering that there will be instances when a volley-like reflection or deflection will prove best choice), one wants more arm work before the contact.

The finger-feather option I have been propounding enables a last minuteness of selection as never before.

Just on one hand backhand preparation, from continental grip for slice one can twiddle to outside to hit flat with same mechanics. For topspin one can use the same skunk tail (vertical racket) but with an eastern backhand grip which would only tip off the most perceptive among one's opponents. The unity in this new one hand system is worth that risk.

For topspin, the loop will be twice as deep as for slice or flat-- a good thing if as Elliot Teltscher once opined big loop is essential to sufficient one hand topspin racket head speed.

From skunk tail, I see finger twiddle to the outside happening during the waterfall to simulate the hitting action of a more extremely gripped backhand while drawing on the musculature the player has most likely developed and is used to.

The purity of this tall fall will also enable ease of wrist straightening to whatever pitch setting one desires, i.e., fingers and wrist will dial together.

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A New Kick Serve (but sometimes it bounces low-- very low)

Down and up to full squeeze. The down and up however was out to right, not to behind the body as in other serves. But the body was way turned around from the start-- so much that some could say the racket is behind the body-- not me, I wouldn't say that.

Now a transition happens, in which the arm one-fourth extends, the back leg loads, the fingers twiddle to turn frame more on edge, the wrist humps, the handle drops into yoke, the arm winds back farther slowing down since it is already trying to whirl the opposite way.

The elbow stays in alignment with the shoulders throughout a quick but low spiraling round-a-bout decapitation of the ball. Otherwise one has spawned a decel.

[bottle]

Building on the New Kick of # 1884

The new design at least created good sizzle, and sometimes the sizzle had its upward component. The session included light snow. I restricted myself-- with difficulty-- to hitting this one shot.

I'm thinking now however I'd like to try compressing the rear leg as arm finishes its own compression instead of during the stuff-filled transition I outlined.

The physiological question this raises is an old one. Is it better, in serving, to go down and come up immediately, as in jumping, or to go down, pause, and then jump or whirl or whatever it is one wants most to do (whirl in my case).

The fact that one is going to whirl more than jump might produce a different answer, so I'll need to experiment more-- nothing new about that.

[bottle]

Backhand Slice through Double Roll

Review the cusp-- the point where second roll in this one hander stops and roll-less sweep (some might say "follow-through") begins.

What happens when ball is hit during the second roll? After the second roll? Precisely on the cusp?

By "what happens?" I mean how does the ball fly and what does it do after landing on the opponent's side of the net.

Perfect knowledge of all three possibilities would delineate one's choice and command, i.e., make one a better player.

Hitting ball on cusp undoubtedly happens to anyone staying with these double rolls for long, but who is perfect enough to do it every time?

The other two outcomes-- hitting before and after cusp-- may be perfectly known.

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How Important is the Active Design and Orchestration of One's Shots?

Not very, some would say, and "Just go ahead and hit the same old boring shot."

Sorry, that is not my temperament although it might be my tactic on a given day.

Getting orchestration just right may not be of crucial importance and could be the game of "perfecto" that W. Timothy Gallwey objected to, but James Galway, the flutist, did not.

Major and continuing emphasis on orchestration is loads more fun than 12 hours of stretching, 10 hours of clinical psychology, four hours of push-ups, two hours of quarter-mile laps and three sets of The Nifty Nine, a bevy of special exercises the U.S. Naval Academy once foisted upon its program for the accreditation of rowing coaches.

Crew is a sport that actively seeks perfection, and I don't see why tennis can't be, too. A big difference is the huge variety of effective shots possible in tennis.

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The Answer to # 1885

During the end of fully compressing one's arm (bringing its two halves together) one should load on one's rear foot if one is looking for constancy.

Then one pauses for a beat while arm does the machinations explained in # 1884.

The extra beat corresponds to bringing the foot forward in a pinpoint serve. Platform stance however is the ticket here, along with a different interpretation of transfer in which one keeps the weight back for a long time. And since one isn't moving one's rear foot, one is doing less, and therefore-- please forgive me for asserting this-- is superior.

This serve is answer to the kick-hungry rotorded server's quest for long runway in a second serve. The new runway isn't vertical but rather is a shallow spiral in which the shallowness is helped by hand slightly rising as arm continues to wind back during what I call the transition stage.

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Surprises in Every Progression of Designs

Once one decides that one won't live by the old maxim that "creating a new tennis stroke is very difficult," and in fact believes that point of view makes Rob and Susie very dull middle-agers indeed, one may be signing up for unexpected spills and thrills.

In searching for the best kick serve available to oneself, one may discover a new form that could apply across the board to one's other serves as well.

Maybe one had no thought in mind of changing one's flat and slice serves, was perfectly content with them, but still wonders if the new form might improve them if not improve them beyond belief.

That is where I am with my new stop the body and keep the arm going and then reintroduce the body serve discovered in posts # 1884-5 .

Final determinations will be made from doubles play on both hard and soft courts. I'll choose, I promise-- whichever serves work best. But it would be nice always to start with the same radically turned around stance and Boris Becker like toss which lifts from fairly deep behind one and goes to left but very much forward-- on EVERY serve.

All three serves employ a natural twiddle of middle finger over thumb to ensure that racket frame stays on edge whether the edge is snicking around from left or is rising more straight up at the ball. I see the twiddle as essential additive to my continental grip that doesn't affect its natural and one would hope habituated and developed musculature. That may seem provocative but is a sound idea reinforced by those who know: Every grip in tennis uses its own set of muscles.

Second serve: Humps wrist as twiddle occurs as arm lifts from full compression one quarter of available range and winds back an extra amount.

Flat serve (a first serve only): Keeps wrist straight as twiddle occurs as arm lifts from full compression and winds back an extra amount.

Slice serve (a first serve only): Same as flat except that the elbow was placed slightly more forward of shoulders line than in second serve or in flat serve. This slight difference can most easily happen as arm creates its "black hole" or transient moment when its two halves are most closely pressed together.

Stopping the body for arm transition creates stable serves, it seems to me. If I ever decide these serves aren't powerful enough, however, I'll return to previous system in which hips whirl immediately after load on rear leg and the springing over the top of shoulders builds tension against arm beginning to throw in opposite direction.

During easy first part of that one, the arm does not compress completely closed so soon.

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Ulnar Distraction in Serves and Forehands

Oh, sorry-- I meant "ulnar deflection."