A New Year's Serve

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Taking Racket all the Way up for a Steep Plunge without Equivocation

This is what Stefan Edberg appears to do with his one hand backhand.

One might think racket at 45 degrees would be more efficient. But it isn't, not at least in my self-feed experiments.

Perhaps one is apt to underestimate the effect of pure gravity which happens best from a steeply poised racket.

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Humbug. It's Here, There, Everywhere.

I don't see how one can have a reasonable discussion of "the most important part" unless one agrees that in the best serves the ESR happens both when the racket is dropping down and when it flies up.

I'm the only person I know to use these letters, which stand for "external shoulder rotation," i.e., for backward twist of the humerus in the shoulder socket. Hmmmm. Is that clear?

Lots of people accept the language "ISR" (internal shoulder rotation) so why wouldn't they agree to its opposite? Unless they think they know a more workable term. Say it and I'll use it if that is so. A most important thing in any subject should never remain vague and without specific (colorful would be good) identification.

Brian has indicated that first ESR comes then ISR to form a stretch-shorten cycle. The better the ESR the better the ISR, one would think, or at least the chance for it.

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Maria Butina, I Will Give You Free Tennis Lessons

You can find me online.

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Aesop (More or Less)

THE MEMBERS of the Body rebelled against the Belly, and said, “Why should we be perpetually engaged in administering to your wants, while you do nothing but take your rest, and enjoy yourself in luxury and self-indulgence?” The Members carried out their resolve and refused their assistance to the Belly. The whole Body quickly became debilitated, and the hands, feet, mouth, and eyes, when too late, repented of their folly.

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Consolidation was to be the Goal for Today; Already however there has been a New Discovery

Arm is bent at address. So simply bend it some more. A snake can coil its neck very rapidly but also can take more time to reach the same place.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk)

Taking one's time puts emphasis on toss and smoothness of the cantilevering act which aids the toss.

The hitting arm meanwhile becomes theatrical in order to simulate the low point or end of backswing of a conventional serve.

Here is the crux of the matter. One has found a different use for legs-driven cartwheel-- to oppose the elastic drawing back of elbow from one's bod.

This delays one's ESR exclusively to where it can do good as part of the upward rotations.

Trick shoulder means one formerly used up one's limited store of ESR too soon thus impairing racket head speed.

But how high or low should one perform the simulation? The lower the elbow the higher the racket tip. The higher the elbow the more the racket points down but with less range for adduction.

Adduction is the kernel of one's throw as far as I can see.

I'm still on paper here, haven't driven to the netless court yet.

A promising development however is that when one no longer has to straighten arm before one bends it, one will naturally pull arm farther around one's back.

Thus keep more action behind one where it belongs.

And if leg drive and hangtime are fierce and prolonged enough they still will load one's ESR only on the way up.

[bottle]

How to Write

Start with two good paragraphs as Vivian Shaw does to begin her novel DREADFUL COMPANY:

"There was a monster in Greta Helsing's hotel bathroom sink.

"She stared at it, hands on hips, and it stared back at her. After a few moments it apparently decided she wasn't an immediate threat, gave a froggy glup sound, and settled down in the marble basin for what looked like an extended lurk."

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It Seems like I'm Copying Someone, John Isner to be Exact

Actually, I'm adopting the rough form of his serve but adjusting the various parts to my own physique.

What I'm learning is that the arms have agency. They just don't go up (left) and out (right) to levels that feel natural.

Left needs to go so far up that it has nowhere to go except back toward the bod which by coincidence is what I desire.

Right arm needs to bend completely even before the right foot has replaced itself.

The sequence as bod is cantilevering is different from Isner's. Left arm goes up and over; total bend of right arm then; right foot replaces on its toes.

There will be no added bending of the knees any more than there is a double-clutch in the steep one hand backhand of Becker & Edberg.

Becker sometimes will double-clutch, Edberg never will.

And Isner while serving sometimes bends his knees an extra amount after his right foot pinpoints but I hope never to do that.

Lift, coil at elbow, finish step, fire legs: that's my new mantra.

Discovered all this just today with bounceless balls at a frigid, netless tennis court.

Am not quite ready to clobber the other geezers with this new serve but expect to be ready for that soon.

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Imagined Conversation with the Other Geezers if This Stuff Works

"You shouldn't have given me a week off."

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Practical Prescription

A trip to netless court. Don't film yet.

Cross the bridge in one's Isnerian serve with whole bod cantilevering in two directions.

Right foot comes up to left foot.

Arm completely bends as knees bend a little more.

Legs fire as shoulder stretches backward to put more of the serve behind you.

This also preserves more range for upward forward thrust (fast!) of the needled elbow.

But shoulder must be extremely relaxed.

Did arm go back just far enough to clear the bod during the initial cantilevering?

Did one rockstep con brio to establish needed rhythm?

You spoke before, Bottle, of "screwing the elbow upward."

Not a bad idea.

But have you been doing this too soon?

Oppose leg thrust/cartwheel with stretching the shoulder BACK.

[bottle]

When a Shoulder Stretches Backward it Raises the Elbow too

For purpose of sanity, i.e., to keep things clear, one could call this "stretching the elbow backward" and use the words "raising the elbow" to refer to something else, viz., number four or cleanup spot in the upward arm rotations.

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Everyone is Built Differently

And even though Pam Shriver's description of her trick shoulder is similar to mine of mine, if a quick-look anatomical wizard (say tennischiro) placed us shoulder to shoulder, he would note a huge difference that wasn't just political.

And might stress the difference in our tennis careers even pointing out that Pam's shoulder didn't cause her to write most of "A New Year's Serve."

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Arturo Hernandez, Jim McLennan and John Escher (Bottle) all Praising Tomaz Mencinger

Not that we are the only ones.

"It's very simple," says Ian Wilson, a player-friend of mine who spent two months studying the videos at "Feel Tennis" and trying to put them into effect.

"I don't know everything," Tomaz himself recently said.

But he knows a lot.

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When you're a hermit swamped in papers with all kinds of projects going on you're apt to lose track of some schedule here or there.

I just checked. I'm not scheduled to play this week-- not on Tuesday not on Thursday. No play then until with young Turks Friday night inside at Eastside Detroit.

Good. More time to work on Isnerian serve. And I noticed today that even when it's too cold for tennis balls to bounce very much you can self-feed a backhand belonging in the Becker-- Edberg phylum.

You just have to toss the ball very high so it will go down and then make it back up to your waist.

Here's what I decided or learned-- much the same idea.

On Isnerian serve take your ta up to top of head on initial move whether Isner does that or not. (I just checked: He takes it quite a bit higher than that. Good-- try for higher tomorrow. That ought to get ball farther left over one's head after ta hooks to side.)

On Becker-Edberg steep and golfy backhand apply a bit of common sense to total orchestration.

Although one may have all sorts of slice to draw upon, try choosing the one closest to Becker-Edberg backhand topspin for now.

Stretch shoulder housing at top, in other words, still in slot but way back.

Could lead to very effective flat slice while doing away with any semblance of loop.

[bottle]

Accelerate the Full Squeeze to Become a Viper about to Strike?

One will obtain one's needle sooner.

So that the needle will have more time to do tricks.

My drive to the netless court today will make this experiment very real.

I play with this serve for the second time, tomorrow morning.

Tried it against young Turks Friday night. Hadn't used a pinpoint in 25 years.

Held half the time.

Tomorrow I go with my regular geezers, Rich, Ron, Leon or maybe Tom-- each an old weasel eager to eat me up.

Am not going to let them do it.

In self-feed today, although it is cold enough so the balls won't bounce, I'll work on ratio.

Narragansett Bay didn't freeze. We didn't wait for much but preferred cold sunlight for slow water work since we didn't have ergometers and surely not an indoor tank.

We were under 18 strokes per minute compared to 40 on race day.

My sophomore year we went all the way down to 12 . And then briefly we rowed at 8 strokes per minute. Every error of all eight guys became perfectly magnified. When something is magnified you can fix it.

Throughout the beginning and middle winter we did four to one ratio-- sweeps in air for four beats, in water for one beat. (People sometimes still called oarsmen like us "sweepswingers" in those days.)

Here in my John Isner imitation the slow part may take two seconds-- how will I know? My hands will be too full to put a stopwatch on myself,

But make that the assumption: two seconds for slow part of the serve, one tenth of a second for quick part.

A ratio of 1 to 20 or reversed 20 to 1. Oars/sweeps in air for 20 beats. Oars in water for one beat.

Forget the follow through. It can take care of itself. But watch the way the huge Isner sticks his ta way out to the left for perfect landing and balance.

I'm about to present the guy who said, "I never met an oarsman I didn't like." But as Bill Stowe the stroke of a more recent Olympic gold medal crew said, "Yes, but he never met the Amlong brothers."

https://www.si.com/vault/1955/06/06/602152/mr-rowing

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Come Together, Rotorded Servers. Needle! Give it a try. Milos Raonic won't but you could.

(https://www.google.com/search?q=hard...hrome&ie=UTF-8)

John Isner really does this. Why couldn't I see it before. And did somebody ever talk about it? Maybe a coach who helped John develop his serve? If so, I sure wasn't privy to the discussion. Or did John develop his serve all by himself the way Andy Roddick did? What is the history of the evolution of this remarkable thing-- Isner's tight little needle swing, anyways?

Isner gets the two halves of his arm pressed together rather early in his serve and then swings them as a single needle this way and that way and this way, but, most astonishlngly, it works!