A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

So, How is the New Imaginary Serve System Coming Along?

Glad you asked.

Probably, I should be using whatever powers of visualization I have to create new exercises and programs for speedy recovery from partial knee replacement since the professionals have decided with my concurrence to leave me alone.

But no, that's not how the imagination works. Sometimes you can tell it what to do, more often it wants to tell you what to do and will if you dare to let it.

Think now of the middle of Andy Roddick's serve while ignoring its overall structure (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DeuceSide1.mov).

How much external rotation of the arm is there before the internal rotation? And how straight is Andy's loose arm when that transition occurs? Finally, is it a speed transition involving muscles with agonists defeating antagonists-- and did the motion dependent tension or load build up properly first?

The serves I want keep the whole arm a wet noodle ("spaghetti arm" you've heard but I prefer noodles tonight).

Everything is about Brian Gordon's circular arrows changing color as the humerus, spun by two industrial conveyer belts working from opposite sides of the body spin the humerus in one direction if I correctly understand Chas. Stumpfel.

This is like the British game of skittles in which a string spins a top only now there are two strings on the stalk of the top and it is as if two people are administering the spin in the same direction in the same split-second.

In addition the magic takes place in a mobile cave in the middle of the most unstable if versatile joint in the human body. If the cave is not held perfectly centered by muscles fore and aft there will be hell to pay in the form of injury or feckless serves. (Feckless, Webster's Collegiate: 1) weak, ineffective 2) worthless, irresponsible.)

Reader, have you ever faced huge cannonballs that come at you at astonishing speed but with downward spin? Figuring out how to return them is not as difficult as usual, and in fact many of them don't land in the service box in the first place.

But they may have good power and copious amounts of lousy spin.

The question is whether external arm rotation can effectively centrifuge arm straight upward and maybe even a bit backward at the ball, with other parts of your body compensating to bring racket edge more forward to the ball.

("They always tell you to hit the ball way out front," a friend of mine in Winston-Salem NC, Johnny Johnston, owner of the bar Swaim's Grocery, said. "Well, way out front is right over your forehead.")

This scheme, off of Big Unit Randy Johnson baseball windup, perhaps improbable in its chances of actually working, at least affords inflexible servers with range of movement in which to work.

And one can always go back to what one did before.

[bottle]

Two Jacks and One Dennis

I'm sorry, reader, but this is not the way you hit your slice serve, and I don't mean the low takeback. A lot of people do that (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ServeFront.mov).

No, the proof is in the paveloader finish. Jack Kramer looks as if he has just used his racket to scoop up some loose dirt and rocks. He did not use the external internal humeral twist sequence that we all like but rather carved from contact in precisely the old-fashioned way that currently is ANATHEMA.

You think, reader, I don't know what I'm talking about? Well you are wrong. If Jack Kramer had just internally rotated his arm so racket tip went way out to his right side before it finished way back behind him as here, he might have been looking for total leg replacement right after this film was made.

So why is this kind of serve ANATHEMA? Because it unteaches the ex-in we want? Because it is ineffective? Er, why then did Jack use it? Or why did it enable me and my beginner partner-- he of the great kick serve-- to win the biggest doubles tournament of my life?

John M. Barnaby (Jack), the Harvard coach of 50 years whose three books taught me the paveloader finish, didn't seem to care about the other genre of serve for his particular readership. His attitude was that one gets all that stuff from magazines or other instructors or on one's own. This enabled me to win. I've got to love him.

I remember the zingy noise my strings made as they carved the ball. And how that didn't happen as often once I shifted over to the modern way. And how, with that shift, I lost my best serve seemingly forever? Why wasn't I smart enough to keep on practicing it along with the others? Why shouldn't a tennis player go for maximum variety like Hana Mandlikova? Okay, she only won The U.S. Open rather than the eight other majors she could have won had her game been more boring.

This is a different kind of slice, it seems to me. In any case the number one high school doubles team whom we played in the final acted as if my serve came from another planet. Stays low, it seems to me-- something Jack figured out.

Hope I can get it back. But does that mean I now lose interest in THIS slice
(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...e_serve.html)?

Not at all.

NOTE: The way Barnaby's books taught me the paveloader finish (my term not his) was through the following backwardness.

Start fully finished, copying end of the video here of Jack Kramer.

Next slightly raise the racket tip and chop back to the same finish.

Then take racket a bit closer toward the net and repeat, but don't return to the original position.

In nibbles like this, one works up toward a place where contact may actually occur.

Somewhere in the midst of the nibbles, start adding a bit of fingers loosening and closing to the mix.

The whole deal does not take long.

Now starting at paveloader, do the same thing again, only finish at full paveloader each time.

NOTE II: Damn the new technology. Grabbing the capsule to stop it and mush it around with one's cursor reveals immediately Jack's internal rotation from the ball, thus disproving once and for all my contention that carve has occurred from the ball.

This illustrates the sudden reversals possible in tennis stroke intricacy research.
But why then does Jack carve the rest of the way to paveloader finish way back? To be ready in case he wants to carve one?

[bottle]

Appius Claudius Caecus (Seek-us): "Man is the Architect of His Own Fate"

You pick a name for your new serve and soon will find the name contains secret history you forgot or were unaware of.

Will this secret power affect the serve? Of course.

Appius built the Appian Way connecting Capua and Rome. He built the first Roman aqueduct, Aqua Appia, which brought water into Rome from the Sabine Hills (See The Sabine Women). He was a Roman dictator before there were Roman dictators. He said, famously, "Man is the architect of his own fate" and he didn't like the sound of Z or see its need in the Latin alphabet which meant that it was out for the next 300 years. (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...laudius+caecus)

Appius Claudius became Appius Claudius Caecus according to Livy the Roman historian when somebody or something put a curse on him which caused him to go blind in his early sixties but this didn't slow him down.

So, one picks and sticks even though the name, different from what one thought, is Caecus Seekus rather than Caecus Cake-us or Long I (land) Kaikus maybe in Brooklyn. I was about to launch a ship with CLAUDIUS CAECUS lettered in gilt on its bow to celebrate my new serve but think I'll just modify the serve itself a bit.

My serve in development is not as exotic as first thought. We probably all have played opponents who try to serve somewhat this way (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ServeFront.mov).

I love a big down-and-up to way back and around in that it will offer me an Appian Way back to my regular serve any time the chicks begin to cluck.

But if one is going to twist the humerus the opposite way why not just do it off the first fall of both hands: tossing arm then goes up while hitting arm, real slow, bends and paws the ground like a bull about to charge.

The elbow is more or less as middling as Big Unit Randy Johnson's level of wind-up but the forearm is ready to wind downward on the press and downward more as the rocket takes off. And then the racket takes off. Seek-us and ye shall Find-us.

[stotty]

Wardie...

Who needs so much laundry aired in public? What player-coach combination doesn't need to incubate the player's chances in darkness? We're talking about the thin edge between winning and losing here. Which in John's case came down to a point or two after he won the first two sets of the second Davis Cup match against Wardie (I loved the home crowd chants of "Wardie, Wardie") in Glasgow, Scotland.

I blame John's troubles on too much coach's BLAB.

Good point.

I missed the tie due to a heavy workload. God knows how Wardie beat Isner. Doesn't seem possible on paper. That's two years running the US have lost to the Brits. We can hardly believe it.

I am surprised Courier didn't put on his shorts and come to the rescue.

[bottle]

How Bout Those Brits

Donald Young beats Wardie, so poor John Isner ends up the American goat (but not the greatest of all time). Poor John. Not enough pleasant experiences in his recent tennis history. First he gets taken over a barrel by ANATABLOC and then has the great misfortune to be coached by Justin Gimelstob. I like Justin, met him with Eugene Scott at Davis Cup Winston-Salem. And I'm sure he's a good coach. And a better commentato I mean commentator than some people think although he sometimes wheedles a bit. It's just that lead announcer for Davis Cup puts unneeded pressure on the lead player for the U.S. in this case.

Here is my argument, which comes from Stendhal writing on love. Too much openness (read "publicity") destroys love. There is a wombish aspect to coaching as well as to love. For love there needs to be a hornbeam twig in a dark crystal cave where crystals keep growing on the wood (Stendhal's famous image, not mine). Another way of putting this is that a tennis personality less prominent than Coach Justin has a better chance of bringing John to match readiness.

Who needs so much laundry aired in public? What player-coach combination doesn't need to incubate the player's chances in darkness? We're talking about the thin edge between winning and losing here. Which in John's case came down to a point or two after he won the first two sets of the second Davis Cup match against Wardie (I loved the home crowd chants of "Wardie, Wardie") in Glasgow, Scotland.

I blame John's troubles on too much coach's BLAB.

[bottle]

Claudius Caican Figure Eights, Henin-Wawrinkan Grip Change

The Caecus will either work or it won't. I of course will have a better chance for success with The Claudius Caecus serve than anybody else because of longer incubation time allowing me to work any wrinkles out. Went for a caneless two-mile walk yesterday wearing a pressure sock. Did not fall on the ice. Some quarter-slide work is indicated for today on Concept 2 Rowing Ergometer in basement including extra leg straightening in release position. Today's assignment came from the physical therapist during her final visit.

If the Claudius Caecus does not go as I expect, I will return to the Esther Eckhardt online yoga stretches of back and shoulders but only after my legs can fold. (They have never folded properly and so I have shunned yoga for my entire life.) Sorry Esther, you were too young, I too old, and besides, both of us already were involved...unless the grimmest scenario outlined here comes to be.

The Henin-Wawrinkan grip change is easy to do. Just remember, reader, start with fingers and wrist of the left hand then keep screwing and watch how easy-peazey the left elbow rises up.

[bottle]

Contrast and Compare these Backhands with Those of Justine and Stan

First, in these one-handers of Roger we see a lower elbow at top of the backswing along with forward roll for 360 degrees of stroke arc. The beginning of this roll comes from partial straightening of wrist. Again as on Roger's forehand we should think of the extraordinary amount of wrist layback available to him.

Second, where is the grip change? All one-handers deal with the challenge of grip change in this direction or that, even Roger. So where and how does he do it?

Third, spin. Not always but sometimes the spin of the ball is "impure," i.e., hybrid rather than straight up. (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...r%20500fps.mp4) (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...e%20500fps.mp4) (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20500fps.mp4) (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...3%20500fps.mp4) (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1%20250fps.mp4) (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...2%20250fps.mp4) (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...e%20500fps.mp4).

One may, as I do, view Roger's straightening wrist as unneeded complication great for him not for me.

And while I see the huge stroke grip change in the case of Stan and Justine, Stan is a combination of timing and strength, Justine an example of perfect timing alone . She is strong but not an ox. (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...neBackhand.mov) (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...tanceSide6.mov).

Justine therefore seems best model although my body type is very different from hers. Another reason for this decision is a 4.5 Afro-American friend of mine in North Carolina who sometimes would win that division in the tournaments. I don't think he received as much coaching as many of the other players in Winston-Salem. On his own, he took pains to copy Justine's backhand. The result was the strongest shot by far in his arsenal even though he is huge.

Note: In the case of Justine and Stan both I can see how left fingers and wrist start turning into loosened hitting hand but the left elbow then continues up to its coil-- all a single motion if one finds that knowledge useful.

Forward roll or zing to the ball or "turning the corner" now seems the most essential element of all three backhands. It starts with strings by trailing hip and ends with them on outer edge of the ball. I used to think that Stan rolled the whole way through the entire stroke like Roger but now see Stan's racket behind him as more of a descending knife, Justine's too.

Is the rumor I heard true that Roger springs his racket head loose having built up tension first in the other hand? One can try that or be content with natural separation since the racket spearing to outside at that point creates tension for the change of direction about to occur anyway.

If we know how the racket goes down with arm straightening in response to forward hip rotation as in all good one-handers everywhere, and we know how the racket slings around to contact, we then are in position to decide to continue arm roll after contact like Roger and Stan or send racket straight up the body angulation of a Belgian skier.

[bottle]

Roll to the Ball or Through the Ball?

To the cusp (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...neBackhand.mov).

Now one can hit the ball with no force as in "on the paddle" in crew. (Read THE BOYS IN THE BOAT or see the movie to learn a few things but not everything about rowing.)

The best forms in any sport work both on the paddle and at full strength and everything in between.

Also, I wonder if Justine's slow grip change is not the siting/timing mechanism that some coaches write about.

For coordinating one's watching of the oncoming ball I can see the argument.

Behind one I think of a piece of lumber being jostled into place since the tip no longer goes back overly fast.

Personally, for my "little backhand" with preparation to side I still fan hitting hand over top of handle; but, for THIS shot I twist the racket clockwise with left hand as I do counterclockwise to change to a forehand.

This provides the memorizable feel/look of left arm snakily coiled at the top-- clear delineation between backswing and foreswing, slow speed and fast speed, delicacy and drop.

Note: The great extension lauded in beauiful one-handers can come from the design factor of roll to the ball rather than muscularity.

[bottle]

No Then Yes On Baseball Swing

(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...neBackhand.mov)

Now I'm adding something a few days later. The grip that Justine chooses combined with a very straight line toward contact fulfills a verbal imperative instilled in us by many tennis instructors including Nick Bollettieri.

The shaft of the racket is a flashlight. Or a spear. Or a rope.

The "swing" toward the ball is therefore more down than anything else. It is a drop or a push or golfer's descent or bowl as in bowling or a pull (I don't care which as long as it isn't a roundabout baseball swing). The racket butt goes straight as a taut rope until the racket head is close to the trailing hip.

From that benchmark the arm rolls to bring the strings zinging onto outside of the ball.

The speed of the zing achieves this. The subtle arm then uppercuts more like the baseball swing it just took pains to avoid.

[bottle]

When Should One Claim Victory

Never? After an ace? Certainly not before one has tried the Claudius Caecus (internal flesh requires about six weeks to heal even in the case of my partial knee replacement, the therapist said yesterday).

Still, if the Claudius Caecus is a great shot, even external internal servers who have enjoyed spectacular success for scores of years may wish to try the CC just as a matter of self-education. It is truly "twisting the stick the other way."

When it comes to rotorded servers-- the ones who have trouble pointing their racket tip at the ground-- no more sympathy for them.

Not if they now have a good way of pointing the racket tip at the ground but refuse to use it.

If the Claudius Caecus (internal external internal arm rotations in that sequence) won't work-- and there could be many reasons-- the rotorded students can bump along through life same as usual.

I and others won't mock them other than to beat up on their serves.

[bottle]

Through not Over the Top?

I thought of that too. Maybe the miming-- the rolling of the strings on different sides of the ball-- was meant to mimic the overall stroke, to pull and compress it down into kernel form. Also, could one say that Justine does roll her arm but rolls it through the ball rather than around it? But if the racket does close a little at impact the oncoming ball is the agent, not Justine?

[bottle]

Look Again

Now re-examine these four clips of Justine to see that she does not do what she thinks she does:

(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...neBackhand.mov)
(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nterFront2.mov), (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nterFront4.mov), (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...LevelRear1.mov)

Note first, reader, the total deliberateness with which Justine changes to an extreme grip. The change is in two parts concluding with her re-adjustment of fingers of her hitting hand. This is one part of a fast stroke in which she thoroughly takes her time.

Second, grab the capsule with your cursor and slide it backward and forward. This is great technology so don't let it go to waste-- use it.

Third, reader, notice that Justine comes to the ball with racket beveled so that the strings open naturally to contact. Contrary to what she mimed in her TV demo the strings do not roll over the ball in any one of these four clips.

[bottle]

Dancing in the Face of Abusive Food and Drugs

I've always thought, Bottle, that you had a special spot in your heart for people crying out for justice.

The following is very upsetting. You can watch it for free until March 6.

And you should.

https://boughtmovie.net/free-viewing/thank-you.php?AFFID=NONE&email=donbrosseau@earthlink.net

don

Yes, as house parent for retarded young adults in Yellow Springs, West Virginia, I loved the wild dancing with them every single night.

Thanks, Don, for posting this appalling, awakening, consciousness-expanding film. I do think the FDA has let us down and find very interesting the film's assertion that pharmaceutical research was only on the level in the 1960's and 1970's and since then the companies had their greedy way leading to documented increases in diabetes, obesity, autism, Alzheimers, etc., etc., etc. We need a return to honesty in research and everything else and to a true concern for public health.

[bottle]

Either Or With More Ors

Roll takes place in a Wawrinkle (backhand) either...

1) Throughout the entire forward stroke starting with the drop.

2) During the drop. Then there is no roll to contact during which tract the strings open naturally from closed to square. Then there is roll all the way to end of the follow-through.

One or the other.

If 2), initial roll for down the line can be pure like a sculler performing his feather-- however, if sculling or rowing perform smooth roll over the ankles late but before the quicker-than-the-eye drop (the catch). Also if 2), initial roll for crosscourt can include some impure turning forward of the racket tip.

Arthur Ashe: "Sling the racket at the ball."

Note: In one of the many casette videos that Vic Braden made, he demonstrated backhand acceleration-deceleration. This blew my mind since to me it countered everything else he was teaching about his own unique backhand.

Vic was short but unlike his brother who came to Winchester, Virginia the day I saw them both had very broad shoulders.

In the video Vic rotated his shoulders very quickly but stopped them abruptly with everything he had. The arm then accelerated forward in linear fashion.

If 2) again, this same process ought to work as one mimics Stan Wawrinka's atypical among all one-handers early substantial turn of his shoulders.

Here is Justine (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...neBackhand.mov), (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nterFront2.mov), (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...nterFront4.mov), (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...LevelRear1.mov) and here is Stan (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...tanceSide6.mov), (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...LevelFront.mov), (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...anceSide13.mov).

Was my either or enough? Did it cover the basic possibilities? I think not.

I need to build from what already works. That only makes sense.

I've never in a thousand tries come up with the consistent big backhands I want although I did achieve the small backhands and table top slice I set out for myself as worthy goals.

As I examine these seven (7) clips I see a smoothness of stroke that precludes the abruptness of acceleration-deceleration. Both players obviously employ roll while on the ball and in the case of Stan to a large degree afterward. When there is roll in a one-hander or for that matter a serve there can be no acceleration-deceleration. At least that seems like common sense to me.

What's all the early opening of shoulders in a Stanislas backhand then? What is its purpose?

Well, it combines with arm roll to put the strings inside out on the outside of the ball. One handers who stay closed perform the same function more with arm only-- that's all I can figure out.

In Justine and Stan both, it seems to me at least for today, there is a lot of spearing with the racket butt before the roll begins.

As far as knowledge of Justine's roll is concerned, it comes exclusively from a short demo she made for TV. "I turn de racket over on de ball like dis," she said, rolling her strings around every possible facet of de round ting.

[bottle]

Admission of Rotordedness Serve Awarded the Claudius Caecus Name

Claudius Caecus, a name awaiting a stroke, was assigned to a special needs serve yesterday during a brief ceremony at the annual Tennis Show in Detroit.

"Claudius Caecus," the man who removed the Z from the alphabet, now becomes a palm down serve that goes down and down some more before it rises through both external and internal rotation and goes down again to complete a 360-degree circle.

Will this serve work? Nobody knows. In the meantime it has a name.

Thanks to Alexander Dolgopolov and William T. Tilden II for their explicit help in development of the look of this shot.