A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

How Much Wood Should A Writer-Chuck Shuck?

E.M. Forester recounts in his great book for all writers ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL that Sir Walter Scott wrote every morning until he had three-and-one-half pages then around 10 a.m. got on his horse.

And that Thomas Mann only wrote one-and-one-half pages but polished it a lot to bring out strands in his prose.

Nancy Hale, descendant of Nathan and first woman reporter for The New York Times and later a successful short story and nonfiction writer, novelist, editor became a mentor of mine after Jean Valentine, someone who later won the National Poetry Award, arranged a private reading for me in front of Nancy and Jean at the MacDowell Colony.

Nancy, I believe, managed to write five pages a day (far more than I for those who think I am too prolific). She and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings were two early women writers taken on by the most famous American editor ever Maxwell E. Perkins at Scribners Publishing House, New York.

Neither could be said to rival Perkins' other discoveries Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Thomas Wolfe but still... And one of the last things Nancy ever said to me was, "You'll be all right." I am not entirely sure that is true. (Car has still not been taken into the next door mechanic's garage and I can think of other problems such as sciatica just as Nancy had.)

And Perkins says the following in his next to last paragraph of his introduction to LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, referring to the mountains around Asheville, North Carolina:

"Wolfe was in those mountains-- he tells of the train whistles at night-- the trains winding their way out into the great world where it seemed to the boy there was everything desirable, and vast, and wonderful.

"It was probably that which made him want to see everything, and read everything, and experience everything, and say everything. There was a night when he lived on First Avenue that Nancy Hale who lived on East 49th Street near Third Avenue, heard a kind of chant, which grew louder. She got up and looked out of the window at two or three in the morning and there was the great figure of Thomas Wolfe, advancing in his long country-man's stride, with his swaying black raincoat, and what he was chanting was, 'I wrote ten thousand words today-- I wrote ten thousand words today.'"

But old tennis shoes are a subject more interesting than this-- of course. And Wolfe, at least to judge by Eugene Gant, protagonist of LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, was more cavernous than John Isner of Greensboro.

[bottle]

Create. Don't Imitate.

Then when you get it right your wife, if she's still around, will say, "Oh yes. I think that's what I've done all along."

Who wants to lift the back leg other than a dog?

We humanoid tennis players would rather drive off of the back leg, using quad and ankle both. Whether we have an old fashioned serve or not.

If the dog's jumping instead of peeing, he probably will do the same thing.

Isn't that ankle and quad drive what that master teacher was instructing five player-pros one day at the D.C. Classic on an outlying court of Rock Creek Park?

"You can all get more out of your ankles," he said. "Really."

That sabotages the threshing pattern worked upon for years, the one where front heel goes down or partially down as rear heel goes up.

A heel only goes up when a knee is bending, not driving.

So you drive off of rear foot one way or another and then the right hip takes over which makes the right shoulder go up just as your elbow, in the form of a javelin, zings.

Can one think too much about this stuff and go mad? Of course.

But teaching pros from Braden to Van Horn-- a back-eddy school?-- have liked the idea of a service action that straightens the legs.

Or should that expression be "straighten the leg" with leg being singular? Should rear leg drive with front leg still bent to allow the .1 second total arm action to pull the front leg straight?

[bottle]

Dotty

We''re always trying to connect dots, right? How about a connection in Kramerserve between racket pointing at left fence and lift of right foot?

And another between racket pointing at left fence and toss arm arriving at TDC (Top Dead Center, the highest spot in the planetarium at which you can point your index finger.)

We're still speaking of slow part of the serve ending with slight lift of elbow and smooth fold then of forearm.

Though slow, the racket tip still is gliding fast enough to make picking out some reference point a dicey job.

If racket were just pointing at left fence and rear knee was just lifting and left knee was just bending, however, nice balance might be achieved.

Unless that is too theoretical. Maybe we seek parameters and approximations to give us the ability to think, "What I want is somewhere around here."

Similar, arrival of toss arm at TDC. Did it come to there from release of ball? When is life that dryly schematic? I opt for release and racket continuing to go up as follow-through to release. And farther follow-through to TDC after that.

Wouldn't it be great if the whole .1 second itself pulled your bod up?

[bottle]

Note

Kramer's hitting hand may be slightly lower than his tossing hand at bottom start of his serve, but both hands go out from his bod-- that is a point.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ServeFront.mov).

One would not be too far off to say the two hands rise from roughly the same level.

[bottle]

Some Do's and Don't's of an Old Fashioned Serve

Some of which apply to a newfangled post rule change serve as well.

Jack Kramer is my model.

Appreciate the minimalism and great feel of a pitching motion that only raises the elbow several inches before the arm bends. Meld the two things together to form the rhythmic beginning of a powerful throw whether of ball or racket. And contrast this with motions in which the elbow rises up a distance in feet or a yard. Why? Because appreciation brings one closer to do.

Correspondingly, be amazed that all the racket head speed that countless teaching pros have attributed to triceptic (muscular) extension comes from elbow throw instead. I refer to rotation number five in Brian's map. Which is whip-straightening of arm at the elbow that is motion dependent or passive and lightning quick.

One drives one's elbow to end of its tether. That's how to do it.

[bottle]

Loose Motion of the Elbow Upward

Brian Gordon has told us that he has plans to advise us of enhancement to the seven upward rotations which some of us have just learned for the first time.

So should we sit back and wait for the next installment in his video series so as to be sure we get the information right before we apply it?

Don't wanna do that.

Not when here I am, rocking like a hurricane.

So I go to the Raymond James longevity ad in which Rosemary Harris before hang-gliding in the mountains of North Carolina hits ping-pong forehands that suggest a small amount of slow paddle progress followed by adduction or slam or accelerative rush (https://www.pinterest.com/billiardfa...ebs-ping-pong/).

Why can't one do the same thing in a Kramer-style serve?

The elbow, behind one, rises slowly in straightened arm.

It rises again, before one, inverted and fast.

It reaches the end of its tether, which causes the arm to straighten at the elbow faster than muscle could do. So point the tether the correct way to maximize this!

Followed by ulnar chop followed by ISR and full wrist flexion exploding all around the ball.

Try it again.

How about to Fox Trot rhythm?

Slow slow quick-quick slow...etc.

Slow is the straight arm rise.

Slow is the forearm fold.

Quick is ESR (shoulder) and EFR (forearm) and extension of wrist.

Quick is elbow finally getting relaxed and letting go thus escaping from rest of the serve.

Also everything else that follows and melds into a marshmallow.

Let's go again, this time letting go of the Fox Trot rhythm.

Just .1 of a second.

What is .1 of a second?

Itself.

1-2-3. Slow arm lift. Slow arm bend. Zoom.

1-2-hit-slow.

1-2-exhale-slow.

1-2-noise-slow.

Gravity drop doesn't count.

First count is when both hands go up.

1-2-NOISE-slow.

1-2-pffffuttt-slow.

[bottle]

In Pursuit of an Old Fashioned Serve

I love the tennistas who say the older serves were harder to master but more accurate in placement while putting more balls in the court.

The tennistas who say the new serves with their prime characteristic of bod and feet leaving ground definitely do produce unprecedented kick but with big trade-off.

Tennistas who say the best of the old fashioned serves produced enough pace and spin anyway (Gonzalez and Kramer are among those who come to mind).

Concluding thought: Post rule change serves being easier to learn does not necessarily make them better.

Note: It wasn't just overfeeding of Gonzalez the night before a barnstorming match that caused Kramer to be so competitive with him.

===========

All that is background to a decision to try and serve like Jack Kramer now.

A more currently apprehended point is that Kramer places his racket at gradually realized low point far behind his back.

Possible ways to go there: 1) more of a wide descent naturally to turn the racket tip more; 2) Slightly roll the racket to square as it drops farther in closer to bod.

Number 2) is better since 1) creates unwanted momentum where one wants smooth control, i.e., at the beginning of "up-together."

Next to determine: How does the slow rise of the elbow behind one (simultaneous with the toss) affect the sharp rise of the elbow now inverted and out front-- one needs to save a proper amount of range-- is that not so? But couldn't some advantage come from thinking of these two moves as connected with stuff between them so fast that it almost doesn't happen but surely does?

The soft rise behind compared to the hard rise before might consist of small movement with number of inches to be determined later by what works best.

[bottle]

Backward Setting of the Watch

Attention must be paid to this small detail.

I join the ranks of all tennis thinkers who have ever tried to keep their own toss arm up or that of their students. Many of the cue-tips have been clever, amusing and even sure-fire if only the student will do them.

Pull on a stuck old fashioned toilet chain, hang from an inner ring high on the wall in your cell at The Spanish Inquisition.

My idea is to set one's watch backward until the hour hand is at the high point in the sky and the shorter minute hand keeps going.

But one must practice this all by itself. Do it a hundred times-- the only way to mildly overcome the bad habit of dropping the toss hand too soon.

Then, having done that, integrate one's new habit into the Newcombe since there one can reinforce it easier.

Next, integrate it into the Kramer you (I) envision, the serve that starts with hit arm (ha) turned way back square, the serve about to become my staple for the rest of my life.

[bottle]

From Four to Two

Such a decision can come about from a single evening of play. Just as the FEEL TENNIS videos of Tomaz Mencinger finally destroyed my very interesting but somewhat unpredictable McEnrueful by giving me two strong eastern forehand alternatives, the existing videos of Jack Kramer serving inspire my old guy's reluctance to jump up in the air.

And why did I want to do that anyway unless I was trying to jolt my knee replacement when I came down on my left leg or my squashed meniscus if hopping onto my right leg like Newcombe, Becker or Stich?

C'mon, Bottle, you sat in Jeffrey the orthopedic surgeon's flourescence drenched office one afternoon while he showed you your MRI, pointing to the meniscus oozing from both ends of the bone. Don't forget that. Not unless you have a death wish to withdraw from tennis. The idea is to play for as long as possible, nicht wahr? "We don't do cosmetic surgery," Jeffrey said.

So hip hip hooray for Jack Kramer's serve whether you would have liked him as a person or not. It's his serve that you need to love. He commandeered his own hellacIous slice. So why resort to Dennis Ralston's more extreme version with ball taken way way out front. Just one "way" in out front ought to suffice.

But what about the Newcombe take-off serve? Coming along nicely though causing me to hop onto the oozing meniscus. And a dull ache began to develop. One opponent was kind enough to say that it was succeeding in annoying him greatly with its high bounce.

Modify it then to the Kramer paradigm but with arm coming up from the side-- the only difference from a regular Kramer serve, which itself by the way can make the ball kick high but maybe not as much.

[bottle]

Interesting Timing Here in View of my Next Two Posts

I've always wanted to get rear leg more involved. Comes with having been an oarsman. One learns a double-barreled push. Used it once in a short story where one kid ejected another from a tree house.

Maybe I sprang too high without knowing what I was doing. I'm quite sure the landing, not the lift-off was the start of my cycle of leg and back hurt.

[stotty]

I wonder if Jack had arthritis in his left knee and hip like Stotty. The trouble with lateral pinpoint, as used by Jack and Stotty, is that the right leg is merely a stabiliser and takes almost nothing of the load. All the driving up is done by the left leg. Over 40 years this has wear and tear consequences.

[bottle]

Low Point of Initial Gravity Drop in a Jack Kramer Serve

I insist that this is a type of serve that anyone can glom into if he wants.

And casually negligent persons, in their phony quest for natural spontaneity, may ignore something like this at risk to their own development of a future great serve.

Kramer's arm, in this video, opens gradually as it takes racket down to a low point way behind his back (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ServeFront.mov).

The formula "down together-- up together" can mean too many different things.

The racket doesn't fall down to low point at one's right heel and then start up.

Or fall to a low point anywhere else than what we see in the video.

Which creates a short amount of steepness for racket as both arms go up.

[bottle]

Report

With car in shop, I had to walk to the indoor facility to play with three tough players with no selfie or self-feed or practice of any kind first.

Tried a few Becker type serves. They carried neither sufficient depth nor direction so that they were returned off of the clay rather fast with their own speed.

I'm not sure, being old, I even want to jump onto the right leg or any leg. If I do jump however that is how I'll do it because of a partial replacement in the other leg.

Returning to ground-hugging serve by Jack Kramer as model: Bending front knee will never make the heel go down. So does Kramer bend knee before he simultaneously lowers heel (somewhat) and lifts rear leg?

Absolutely. Also note that downswing of toss arm is barely down and mostly horizontal.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ServeFront.mov)

This abbreviates the total distance traveled by the toss arm.

Now: When is the toss, in relation to front knee bend?

Just before.

So front leg bend and (partial lowering of left heel simultaneous with lifting of right knee) is a 1-2 sequence that starts with ball release.

Forward travel starts before that.

The gliding leg shows where the weight is.

Glide leg's toes pivot in air unlike Don Budge who pivots toes first.

In both cases the right hip rises in mid-stride to help right shoulder also bank upward.

[bottle]

Newcombe Variation of the Bottle Quartet

This of my four serves is least developed but on its way. It has little to do with John Newcombe or his tennis ranch other than that it lands on one's right foot which should make it very good in the far future for far forays into the net.

The main reason it takes John's name in vain if in vain this effort must be is the extremely high elbow it sports to begin.

Also of great utilitarian value is the image for keep-uppage of toss arm it engenders.

Think of how when you set your watch you pull out its nub perhaps with soft fingernails.

The time you want may be slightly in the past.

So you turn the nub backward. As you do so the minute hand goes faster and farther than the hour hand.

To achieve this seminal action you will eschew your usual gravity drop.

So you'll take the two arms down very slowly, with the understanding that everything will be on the up-and-up.

I've already said, I think, that arm/arms will come up from the side, not behind you, and elbows will squunch a small bit inward toward the ears.

If you do this too much you will lose the ability to throw the elbow quickly upward when you most need to do that which will be soon.

In the meantime you've tossed and both arms may now continue to move in the same direction toward the left fence.

The toss arm, the hour hand, will stop at 12 o'clock, the meridian, the highest point in the sky-- a cue for excellence which you (I) can use in the other three serves.

With everything synchronized, knees and hit arm will have started their fateful bend.

[bottle]

Straight-Arm Forehand Cues

Cues are everything to me. Some people would call them tips. How about cue-tips? Or neuro-linguistic programming?

What I have noticed in my quest for a straight-armed forehand is that analyzing what Roger does at the top of his racket lift is an overly complicated task and doesn't work. Even if one's analysis were correct one probably would not be able to do it.

What does seem to work is absorption of two different ideas or simple corollaries that vary in inverse proportion to one another.

The first is an outside to inside and outside and straight stirring of a pot. The image that Tomaz Mencinger uses in his online instruction of this is a racket laid on the court. That can be the image of one's racket path.

But in one dimension only. The second idea is height and the use of gravity.

One wants moderate height of racket lift and modest adherence to the outside inside outside and straight formula, which is a distinct shape with handle pointing at the net.

I am just saying that if you use a bit of height and natural fall you can keep the curves of the racket rim image but minimize them.