A New Year's Serve

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Mantra Division of Self-Cue: "Speed, Push, Crow"

"Crow" refers to bent arm scarecrow finish, not to crowing like a rooster. Read Bill Tilden on arrogance in tennis-- the best author ever on that subject. Do not be distracted by his sex life.

"Push" refers to ISR (internal shoulder rotation) once arm is straight. Combined with some netward push by the bod.

"Speed" refers to uninhibited and unopposed triceptic extension of the arm. It is speed without heft and takes strings to outside of ball.

Image chauvinists who think words hold an inferior place in tennis instruction too often fail to realize that A) words may either wallow in lugubrious detail or convey the lightning flash of a cohesive visual image-- perhaps convey it even better than drawing, photo or film and B) words can convey either lugubrious detail or dramatic cue such as a stage actor uses-- not the same at all.

The mantra "speed push crow," while sounding like the 123 of the overall serve proposed here is not the same.

First count in the overall proposal is simple rotation of the hips accompanied by a little drawing back of the elbow followed by simple rotation of the shoulders to take racket down on opposite side of bod, i.e., behind one's back.

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A Good Morning

Thinking back to two tight sets in doubles early this morning (4-6,6-2), I realize I held serve in all but one game.

And ask myself, "Why did I lose that game?" And realize that I simply forgot half of Braden's "cootie search" as earlier described.

I just had written about remembering something specific-- the "grazing" with palm of one hand-- and then, for one game, forgot it.

A very common occurrence. Human perversity. You tell yourself to do something and then do the opposite. So I tell myself again and hope I won't forget this time.

I suppose that the development of some serve radically different from the one one had is largely a matter of memory and how well one can concentrate-- until the new motion through many correct reps becomes more natural and one doesn't have to think so much.

Because of the length of the first set I never got to play with the strongest possible partner in a third.

A good morning though. The 6-2 win was reversal from same partners two days before.

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Reduction of detail in a Formy Forehand

"Formy" because the two hands don't get far apart. Could call it a "hoop" forehand. Or a loop forehand
with great regularity of roundness of loop. Or a basic water wheel with fixed buckets.

The detail I wish to suppress or make more subtle is such notions as formation of a power pocket followed by "pulling of the power cord."

I believe that same stuff may still occur but with less conscious effort if one maintains hoop form with the two hands.

Thus, if right hand goes downward as shoulders tilt left hand may go up. And those motions may exist while being very mild.

Early separation of hands may create great roundness (and smoothness) of loop. Although agreeing with those tennis analysts who state that shape of backswing does not really matter, I next conclude-- why not?-- that one should choose maximum symmetry of form.

This will help in developing good cue structure in the future. Less chaos in one's design is a positive feature when it comes to later innovation.

Whatever else I'm doing in backswing I now like the feel of catching (or almost catching) the ball from an on-edge loop.

At that point elbow leaves the barn as part of a big bod push on the ball which makes both ends of the racket rise sharply at the same time.

The small muscle group adjustments of hand and forearm also don't want to be overly conscious (or blatant).

Round loop followed by a big push is best form for THIS player of THIS ability, i.e., the best deep forehands of sufficient margin.

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A New Toss

This stuff is beginning to excite-- me at least-- and is helping me to hold serve.

Dementieva, Safina and Ivanovich-- all retired from great careers in which they never realized their full potential-- failed by too often tossing to the right.

Many men and women even at the recreational level do figure out a sensible toss but only after becoming professional jugglers.

An easier way is to abandon down and up tosses once and for all.

In down and up, the arm gets straight on down.

But one can get arm straight with hand starting much higher.

In a three-count serve, tossing arm now can straighten in second half of first count. The front shoulder is rising just then. The total action therefore could be called one's toss, but I'm choosing to say what comes next, from the shoulder, is the true toss.

True toss over one's head happens as hitting hand performs its cootie search.

That cootie search can create enough motion dependence to keep racket turning to outside of ball without using any muscles that would oppose one's triceptic extension and thus make it inhibited.

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Forehand: More Feel in the Waterwheel on Some Days than Others

On days when there is less feel, one ought to hit more McEnruefuls (imitation John McEnroe forehands) or at least I should. There is no waterwheel to go wrong in that shot.

But I've been visualizing waterwheels on both sides, forehand and backhand, for quite a while. Now could be the time to investigate just how a 19th century waterwheel in Connecticut actually worked (http://www.bing.com/search?q=waterwh...R&pc=EUPP_DCTE).

If the water came along a sluice into the buckets at a high level it filled each one thus turning the wheel.

I've got nothing like that going for me out on a tennis court but maybe could imagine it. Each bucket would fill then at a point slightly behind my right shoulder.

One would waste no time in placing one's bucket (which would have nothing to do with one's disappeared racket) under the sluice.

That ought to create some wit gathering, space, balance, timing, patience, spin, space, heaviness of ball, margin, etc., etc.

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Three Forehands

The physics in each is an interesting topic. A player is better off however in analyzing cue structure if analyze he must. And he must-- at least to start.

Thus, the New York Times reporter who went down to Florida to take a tennis lesson from Brian Gordon was no doubt correct to muse heavily on what the term "pre-load" means. But probably was helped more when Brian told him to be still pointing at left fence with left hand when his hips fire.

1) BIG SHOVE off of a symmetrical waterwheel. High elbow to lead backswing with left hand low and in close to help turn the bod. Both ends of the racket push on the ball at same time. "Windshield wipe" to occur only after contact.

2) FEDERFORE (an imitation Roger Federer forehand). So nice to see this stroke re-emerge like an old friend. One still employs the image of a waterwheel but this time lets the racket head describe it and not the racket hand. The strings get going in other words. They rise early just like Roger's although I don't hold on to the racket as long as he does. The left hand starts making its way toward right fence straight off. And contact point is farther to the right then for BIG PUSH. The arm straightens as it comes out of bottom of loop-- with wrist and forearm laying back at same time. In both BIG SHOVE and FEDERFORE the racket comes down to the ball, not below it. Although in a FEDERFORE the racket tip is more slanted down. And in that shot the "windshield wipe" starts right on the ball.

3) McENRUEFUL. A very solid if primitive shot in my view. Hit with fixed shoulder and straight wrist. One time I hit five winners with it in a row. The sixth attempt was a horrible ue.

2) and 3) make a big deal out of pointing at side fence. 1) maintains a strict hoop form in which one hand goes down as the other goes up.

Note: Everyone must find his own way. I feel that ideally I am using different arm lengths for all three shots. They vary from 3/4 extended at the elbow (BIG PUSH) to 15/18 (McENRUEFUL) to 8/9 (FEDERFORE).

Grips: Strong Eastern for 1) and 2); Composite (between Continental and Eastern) for 3).

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Here, Sir, is your New Forehand Shrink-Wrapped but Without a Ribbon

Phylum: Animal

Genus: Federfora

Personal Note: I haven't tried this yet.

Narrative: One abandons one's big point across whether using one's other model (the following model other than Roger-- http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...=0&FORM=VDQVAP).

One declares, "I am a snake." In same microsecond one squeezes one's arm into a ball or a coil if one prefers.

From low left wait position, the two halves of one's arm squeeze together at the elbow. The racket then can actually rest on top of tucked in left hand.

The appearance then is of strike readiness but don't strike. Your arm instead feels out for the ball as hips rotate forward and hitting shoulder lowers and left hand naturally rises: the essence of "fast catch" in this case.

One still gets to point across every time one hits one's McEnrueful, using down together up together pattern/rhythm stolen from classic serve.

In the snake shot, very different, one tries for maximum strings-ball interaction for maximum bling-fling.

The cue structure (never what actually happens) is that you hit ball on lower inside then backside dead center then upper outside.

A big shove forehand hit off of a waterwheel is linear in that one's weight travels in a straight line toward ball and net.

Thus snake forehand (at least in this case) is not like that.

The shoving, when it comes, is circular. The power cord or aeronautical banking counters bod and arm circularity by moving shoulder to the outside.

The sideways extended arm should be weak but isn't. I think of a reverse lever, a speed lever, with true power which always is slow power residing in the body core.

Other Notes

1) Mondo occurs in Big Shove and The Snake forehands but not in the McEnrueful. Wrist stays fixed and straight in a McEnrueful.

2) If you are going to have vertical forehand loops why not have horizontal forehand platters as well-- 33, 45 and 78 rpm?

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Fullest Possible Motion on the Serve

The discussion has long ranged if not raged on which route a server of limited ESR is best off to follow; abbreviation or full caboodle.

ESR is an acronym for external shoulder rotation. Important to understand, I think, that, the external rotation occurs internally i.e., within the cave where the bump laden end of the humerus is twiddled like a skittle by an improbable pair of human ropes.

The same linguistic oddity (or should I say obscurity) does not exist in the opposite twist direction of ISR. There, thanks to a pun, the word "internal" is used in two different ways, one directional and the other anatomical, so that everything lines up better, I guess.

But should we ever let obscurity creep into our tennis instruction? I think not and therefore have coined the neologism "rotordedness" to describe the condition of a server with limited ESR.

Recently, I acquired a pretty accurate abbreviated serve. Yesterday however my doubles partner spoke of my "slow serves." We got to 5-0 . Then the slow serve got too slow and we only won the set at 6-3 . Unacceptable. I now choose the fullest motion possible thus adjudging the abbreviated serves as kata (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...e=UTF-8#q=kata) for newly emerging and differently full serves now.

So-- down together up together becomes my working mantra once again. "Down" however shall include along with dropping hands both on the racket at least for a while and backward rotating hips, a body bend from the hips with back held straight.

"Up" to include a complete reversal of this bend so that chest faces the sky. At same time tossing arm gets straight but does not toss. The tossing shoulder and arm are so high at beginning of toss that arcing the ball over one's head to inside although still a challenge becomes less of a problem.

Where, yes somewhere, have we progressed? To late toss into the service mechanism.

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The term "kata" (see # 3458) is well suited for learning progressions outside of as well as inside of the martial arts.

We learn to walk through katas (crawling for instance) unless we are an ibex ready to "hit the ground running at the end of the day" and other stupid clichés (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...#q=ibex+images).

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Alternate Scheme

Premise: People don't try different stuff enough.

1) Both hands down followed by body bend then knees bend to continue the downwardness. During the knee bend stage of this prolonged gravity fall the hips shall rotate backward.


2) Shoulders rotate backward as the line between them tilts upward, and lower half of bod shifts toward net while upper half of bod shifts toward rear fence while chest shifts toward sky, and arms prepare for their two different functions, which are

A) Straight arm or bent arm or bent arm to straight arm toss

B) Compression of two halves of arm combined with ESR (external shoulder rotation or "cootie check").


3) Simultaneous toss and triceptic extension to speed strings toward outside of ball. The bod now combines with ISR (internal shoulder rotation) to put an upward push on the ball. The arm returns to scarecrow form (bent) for ride home.

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Comment on my Tennis Enemies

What a passel of prurient preening peacocks proudly proclaiming how they ignore people. When I ignore, I don't proclaim. In fact, reader, when you say that you are ignoring someone you are not ignoring that person. And so, my phonies, absorb this message. Learn from it well. Think next time before you write. And sneck up!

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Rejection of Sluiceway 3/4ths of the Way up the Waterwheel

Acceptance of Left Hand Tucked in Close to Belly as Bod Turns

Continuation of Forehands that use both a Waterwheel Loop and a Platter Loop (an editing down of Roger Federer's forehand loop)

Water from sluiceway fills the buckets and thus hires gravity to turn the wheel. But, as Robert Frost asserted, there is a point at which every metaphor breaks down. As you push some analogy further and farther, the new points of correspondence between the two things being compared are no longer true or become a dissonance you don't want.

Me, I have experienced tennis instruction in various forms that advocated a pause or slowing down in vicinity of the top of one's forehand loop.

Now that seems something that leads to big shove in the wrong place.

On waterwheel then hand loops down and around at even pace as if to catch the ball, at which point whole bod chimes in.

In platter version the hand snakes way out to side, almost going backward thanks to the direction in which one's elbow points.

Again, the idea is a fast catch but with maximum interaction between strings and ball as full bod chimes in.

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Alternate Scheme
Premise: People don't try different stuff enough.
1) Both hands down followed by body bend then knees bend to continue the downwardness. During the knee bend stage of this prolonged gravity fall the hips shall rotate backward.
2) Shoulders rotate backward as the line between them tilts upward, and lower half of bod shifts toward net while upper half of bod shifts toward rear fence while chest shifts toward sky, and arms prepare for their two different functions, which are
A) Straight arm or bent arm or bent arm to straight arm toss
B) Compression of two halves of arm combined with ESR (external shoulder rotation or "cootie check").
3) Simultaneous toss and triceptic extension to speed strings toward outside of ball. The bod now combines with ISR (internal shoulder rotation) to put an upward push on the ball. The arm returns to scarecrow form (bent) for ride home.

Only tried this serve once, outside, before the snows came. Seemed promising, but on the other hand I'm going to play inside tomorrow, and doubt I'll know enough about this serve to do well with it.

The real reason I write about tennis technique is that I seldom hear from other people the kinds of thing I need or would like to hear.

For instance, Vic Braden discussed early vs. late legs thrust. And no one else did. Why not? Clearly this is a basic choice made by all players.

The new serve here is of the late legs thrust variety. If nothing else it should keep head up or even rising during the hit.

Don't know whether I'll reject this serve or keep it. We'll see. The determination may come tomorrow or perhaps later after more practice time.

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Unexpected Pathways

Most tennis players don't go on a hike (they already know everything about everything), but those who do sooner or later will be in for a surprise.

A technical discovery can occur out on the court during a match as well as in one's shower.

I love tennis writer John M. Barnaby's old take on returning against an overwhelming serve.

It boils down to "Have a bunch of different possible service returns to try. Go down the list until you find the one that works."

But once one finds it, one may wish to adapt it to ordinary ground strokes. Because all tennis strokes have larger principles in common.

Always, we want economy and efficiency of stroke production along with adaptability to the most recent emergency which we know will recur.

Me, I tried what I call "The Jamaican forehand service return" simply because I once witnessed in Winston-Salem a large Jamaican pro with beautiful dreadlocks teach this return to a young small white guy with money enough to pay for the lesson.

The stroke the pro demonstrated involved a true unit turn in which arm goes independently back along with shoulders, hips and outside forefoot.

Most "unit turns," as commonly taught, include the gross body part but withhold the arm movement until later.

Independent from turning core, palm facing down goes around in The Jamaican Forehand Service Return.
Now hips turn forward whether inside foot has replaced or not.

The hips turn lowers the racket. One then can use Ivan Lendl's prescription to swing the shoulders in such a way that hips follow rather than lead.

But there appears a contradiction. We said that forward hips turn lowers the racket. Which implies that hips lead the shoulders.

Well, hips turn wants to be a long rather than short thing.

Hips can lead shoulders. Aeronautically banking shoulders can then lead the hips.

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Elimination

The previously narrated service return (# 3464) has eliminated my Federfore. In trying to imitate the Roger Federer forehand I repeated the experiment of the Swede Jonas Bjorkman. I learned Roger's forehand in excruciating detail only to realize I now had a forehand worse than my old one. The difference is that Bjorkman quickly went back to his old forehand. Me, I kept trying to imitate Roger for almost two decades.

But I'm not sorry. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So I reaped great vicarious satisfaction as Roger Federer defeated Rafael Nadal to win the 2017 Australian Open.

Okay, but recently I instituted a "Platter Loop" to try to decapitate top of the Federforian backswing-- the place where I'm sure the remaining obstacle lay (#3462). This shot works great in self-feed but in fast play takes too long to get off.

So now I've got three forehands: Big Push, Jamaican Bobsled, and my McEnrueful.

Notes:

The McEnrueful is a very live shot if just a bit hit or miss for someone who is less of an athletic freak than John McEnroe. Can nevertheless put that consideration aside and declare that something alive can be viewed in a number of ways. Today I wish to say that the McEnrueful backswing is a shallow version of a down-together-and-up-together classic serve. It's just a little forehand. The arms go shallowly down and up in perfect unison as the body makes a full turn back.

In Big Push I've been hitting hard recently but not with sufficient depth. I'm a doubles player so have to think about an opponent's poach. But when nobody's poaching, I certainly ought to put more air beneath the ball.

How to do this? First thought is a contact point farther in front since both ends of the racket are going up in similar fashion thus opening the strings.

But is this realistic? Isn't one better off always trying for the same contact point?

In that case one could roll the racket down from the forearm a bit more. Or roll hips forward out of the way to let one's bod be the agent of changing racket pitch.

Jamaican Bobsled is a tabula rasa, a blank tablet. It is an effective service return. But who knows how it will work out in ordinary play?