A New Year's Serve

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Mental Breakdown

Sounds awful, but what is the choice when you are committed to an innovative design?

Okay, so you can produce good serves on your own but not yet in a match.

The design, as I have outlined it, has five counts, with three of them simple.

If count five goes wrong, simply use it (i.e., ISR or internal shoulder rotation) to slam balls on one bounce over the net.

And if counts one and two don't work, then simply slow them down. And bring elbow close to where it touches your side as a crutch. And slow down more. Why not? You haven't tossed the ball yet so you can go as slow as you want.

Furthermore, stop considering these first two counts as counts at all but rather as preamble so simple that within a week you can forget it altogether.

This turns five counts into a three-count serve. And you can forget count five too simply through the repetition of the one-bounce slams.

Now you are free to concentrate on counts three and four, the only complex counts in the serve. Anything goes. Call them counts one and two or porridge and spinach.

I see this as mental breakdown-- not the one that turns you into a gibbering idiot but rather the one that puts focus where it belongs.

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Still Heel to Cock Better at Transverse Stomach Muscles

The serve is evolving. So let it evolve. That sounds obvious but isn't. A bit of human arrogance generates itself with each new discovery. You think everything is ticketyboo before it is.

Okay, so we called the first two counts of our five-count serve "preamble" with the idea in mind of forgetting them at the end of one week.

We also suggested that these two counts were so very simple that one should never make a mistake in either one.

That degree of simplicity could indicate that one ought to subtract something from count three, known for its complexity, and put it in count two.

As hips turn back therefore let front heel rise on its toes. Stomach wind coincident with toss will no longer be diluted by rising heel since that move will be out of the way.

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In the Mind but not on the Snow

There is too much snow on the court the park attendants keep in operation for me right next to Lake St. Clair. They are great guys who watch my service attempts and give me support.

The trend lately is toward initial set-up quite far around, with tossing elbow connected to bent forearm like a rudder pointing at or rather away from the target.

Or maybe a little less than that so one can still watch one's opponent.

How much relevance my new serve has for other players I do not know. The literary agent Susan Schulman has explained that the reason I don't write best-sellers is that everything for me is "too personal."

Fine. I can accept that and even think it is the way to go. But Pam Shriver and I are the only two tennis players I know who have a lapsed right shoulder. Which is another way of saying that the whole shoulder housing somehow dropped down due to a sudden lurch as we came out of the womb.

Can the shoulder housing move up to natural position? Sure. Does this movement hurt? Not at all. But is it athletic? Not very.

Should Pam and I have learned to serve with the left arm? Probably. Did Pam ever master a good kick serve? No. Flat and slice, yes.

I've been looking for best correlation between shoulder housing rise and thrust from the rear leg. All of this pertains to count four (or should I say "kata four") in my proposed serve.

Kata four is incredibly complex, containing many sub-katas. One could almost think of a drop-dead beautiful drop-down menu or sub-nuclear particles.

I mean, the elbow leads. Then the arm starts to straighten as the fingers relax. Then the arm does ESR (external shoulder rotation) as if hurling a short arm curve ball. With all of this occurring in a split-second before ISR (internal shoulder rotation) plus continued arm extension and stiffening of front bod edge.

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A Few Words in the Head about Keeping Serve behind the Head

I go to play right now. And maybe am unhappy with the way I started serving last time when I had absolutely no words in my head.

A rotorded server wants to put more of the serve behind his head. Any server should want to put more serve behind his head, it seems to me.

Now I have returned home and can use more words in telling how the first words worked out.

Well and good. Held three times, didn't hold one time. Pretty good for a green serve. And count four is where the future lies in playing doubles on indoor Har-Tru against crafty old foxes.

The challenge now may be to detach count four and work on it by itself, just as one can isolate and repeat some especially difficult phrase when one is learning a new language.

Count four is the curveball part of the serve. Ingredients: Relaxation, pre-load of triceps, leading with elbow before arm partially opens with fingers loosening before ESR.

Should this total action be snappy? I think so. Could one practice throwing tennis balls in this short-armed but curveball producing way?

We want to call count four "kata four," an athletic movement to be perfected for later assembly in the larger design.

Note: Once one authorizes oneself to have ideas, new ones may proliferate. I no longer see the need to look at my opponent during the address of my serve. One can stare at Braden's imaginary friend standing by the rear fence instead and say, "Hi, how are ya?" This person could even be a beautiful woman named Patricia Muse.

The point is that with the new design of this serve, one doesn't have to waste energy turning backward like the famous old baseball pitcher Luis Tiant. One is already turned back, but this doesn't mean one won't turn more. One can start by turning back right-angled arm held close like a farm gate and go as slow as one wants.

One next can turn hips, again as slowly as one wants but make sure to let the hips raise front heel.

Then comes the toss and squeeze of the hitting arm and turn of the shoulders backward to switch racket from one side of the body to the other while holding everything together.

Then comes count four, the short-arm curveball. And count five the screwball.

For hard slice serves ISR to occur after contact; for soft slice serves ISR not to occur at all meaning that you will carve to a paveloader's finish.

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Facing the Rear Fence

It's never the information itself but rather how the tennis student interprets it. I who am both teacher and student have to admit I find some of my discoveries more amusing than others.

I really love the idea of facing the rear fence when I step up to the line to serve. It happened perhaps three times-- naturally-- early yesterday morning while playing doubles against old foxes.

Racket and bod were turned pretty far around. I just was tired of the strain to twist in order to watch my receiving opponent. Can't remember whether I then won the point so let's say I did two out of three times.

Regardless, the serves were pretty good and open the question of just how far around any player can be turned and still be successful.

Can't wait for snow on the courts to melt so I can pursue this exploration. (The snow was gone for one day and I tried this. Prescription: No turning completely around for the time being except on occasion.)

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Speed Phase in Arm Work in Any Serve

Doug King, I know, believes that anyone should be free to use anyone's tennis idea without attribution. I agree, believing as I do that attribution is a heavy ball and chain if one is actually going to be inventive and create.

Still, I find Doug's idea a wowser that the curveball phase of a curveball-screwball serve is the speed phase and immediately subsequent screwball phase is the push phase.

I'm also impressed by Chris Lewit's idea that long runway is essential to sufficient racket head speed.

To combine these ideas in a single experiment, I wish to abandon my pre-conception of 50-50 or 75-25 curveball to screwball. (These terms by the way are mine not Doug's so don't blame him blame me.)

The experiment: 0-100 curveball to screwball. Delayed fly-up of elbow from bod side to shoulder level to leave arm compressed. Have been having some success with arm opening to about a right angle in curveball phase but now want to keep arm compressed or compressing then instead.

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Barred vs. Gradually Straightening Arm

Where? What are you talking about, bottle? On one hand backhands where you come over and those where you go under (slice). On backhand volleys too, to realize inside out ideal.

What do you think, reader, about the barred vs. gradually straightening question? Advocates of barred are quite passionate and set in their ways, I have noticed. Their definiteness of declaration has occasionally caused me to go in that direction.

But early on I developed a backhand slice in which arm straightened just before contact. Then I discovered a tennis book, the German "Barron's book" with a picture of Steffi Graf on its cover.

This book advocated some arm straightening on all backhands (if not volleys). So this is at least one perfectly acceptable way to go.

However I no longer favor, other than as a trick shot, barrel toward the net slice backhand in which the suddenly clenching shoulderblades passively accelerate arm at the elbow. That indeed is a whipping action that can generate huge rpm's of spin. It is especially useful for sidespun service returns from the right-hander's right court in doubles. The buzzing ball goes slow and sharp and bounces away from one's opponent.

Another use for this trick or "special" shot is a very low ball straight in front of you. As body charge provides all necessary weight, the strings can whip sideways to make ball clear the net or even form a deep sidespun lob.

Gradual and secondary extension of the arm seems muscular through subordinate to scapular action for an entirely different feel.

Excuse me for saying this, but I feel that this feel has application to topspin, slice and volleys, all on the backhand side depending on whether one adores inside out shots for prolonged and effective coincision as in golf.

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At Last Some Compensation for One's Rotordedness

The bod does not care whether one's elbow is lifted to shoulder level or is pressed into one's side. If the player is rotorded, i.e, cannot twist his humerus very far, the physical limit will assert itself at the same place in either position.

Right-angled arm with elbow pressed into side therefore will send you a signal as to when you should twist your hips thus raising your front heel.

This logic will quickly translate into a sensuous cue, i.e., you will get the result of the logic but won't have to think at all.

The cue: Hand and forearm, like a farm gate, go round until they don't want to or can't go round any more. At that point elbow makes the hips turn thus lifting front heel.

Refined further, the hand lifts the front heel. You get to this happy simplicity through training yourself but once there can make a single move with the hand from then on.

This is just a new count one in a five-count serve that I have been working on for a long time.

To combine two previous counts into one as I just have done indicates that I should make a different mental break in my motion if I wish to retain five-count design.

I choose to put the break between contact and one's scarecrow finish.

With all of this part of an evolution in which there will be no counts or breaks at all.

Thus:

handtosskickthrowcrow
handtosskickthrowcrow
handtosskickthrowcrow

The first serve here was hard slice, the second soft slice, the third with early ISR.

Andy Roddick and Pete Sampras will not be able to use this system. Their humeral range isn't short enough.

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Moving Slowly Toward Seamlessness

Dividing the service action into five sections is something that a left brain dominant lawyer would do.

I've done it so maybe I qualify as a lawyer although Judge Gorsuch would disagree.

To mitigate the damage, I look now for a better mantra: Hand Hand Serve.

That sounds more right brain but the lawyer in me will quickly re-assert itself. What are all the actions in the first "Hand?" In the second "Hand?" In the term "Serve?" Does "Serve" imply ESR, ISR and scarecrow finish as well? Etc., etc.

We can delve deep beneath the three words but ought to do so only at a place where we still have a question.

First "Hand" takes the racket around. The front heel goes up but the hips rotate farther than that.

Second "Hand" is the toss section in which one shoulder winds up while the other winds down.

It seems a shame not to use the lowered hitting shoulder for longer runway up to the ball.

But getting the hitting hand low just then may build too big an upward downward and upward loop to the ball. Maybe the hitting hand folded upward from the elbow during the toss. That is what I have been doing. Such a "squeeze" creates a down and up loop rather than an up down and up loop.

Of how much loop are we you he she I it and other rotorded servers capable? Out on the court to determine that.

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Note

If using the fuller loop offered in # 3519, one could start it coincident with toss and make it as fast as the racket work behind Alexandr Dolgopolov.

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Two Elements Down the Line; Three for Crosscourt

Just want to try this tactic for a match or two then forget it.

Am talking about one-hand backhands that are gradual straighteners.

The elements being discussed in order of their importance are 1) scapular retraction, 2) straightening of the arm, 3) level swinging of the elbow from one's shoulder socket.

1) and 2) for down the line. 1), 2) and 3) for crosscourt. A blend in all cases. Along with worship of simultaneity. And followthroughs left to tend to themselves.

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Simplification (but only if one Likes it)

Address the serve with front heel up. One more extraneous action removed!

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Amalgamation

hand hand serve
hand toss serve
hand hand serve

This mantra, now arrived at, predicts a new change emanating from the principle that simultaneity is usually better than sequence.

First "hand" is farm gate rotation (forearm going around parallel to the court) and hips turning around with weight on flat back foot at the same time. Raised front heel from address helps one keep weight back during this phase. The racket goes around from two different fulcra, in other words, with sequence between them no longer taking place.

Second "hand" or toss is conditioned by tossing shoulder winding up as toss hand goes up too as shoulders wind around while weight glides onto front foot with rear leg coiling like a spring.

Enough to think about for now.

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Tighten, Loosen-- Seems like a Good Pattern for Day to Day Service Development

The "tight" part was starting serves with front heel raised. The "loosen" part, carried out on another day, is restoration of heel rising as the result of hips rotation just as one can do when hitting a forehand only in reverse since we're talking here about backward coil.

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Elbows Slightly out at Address

If one has tossed for decades with a straight arm, ice cream cone, and then started tossing one day with a right-angled arm, ice cream cone, and that worked too, it should be nothing to toss, ice cream cone, with arm set at 135 degrees.

I want to start serve now with elbows held slightly out. The biggest change will be to the hitting arm which also will be set at 135 degrees. If one still does the farm gate thing, the strings are going to open as they go around.

Fine! Let them. Just start with them square. Pitch gets to where you want but later. And racket tip travels farther with the same effort. How could that be bad?

Well, the reason for this big change is to make time for elbow to lead for longer so that energy from arm extension combined with ISR will not expend itself too soon.

The elbow turns up but with a motion smaller than I was using. This makes time for elbow to continue upward thanks to rotation of the shoulders which are set on a slight leftward lean. The axis of the shoulders rotation, in other words, is on a tilt.