A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Praying Mantis Look

The way one describes anything in tennis is not to be underestimated. We who believe in neuro-linguistic programming are apt to pursue those words and images we associate with tennis results and not be dissuaded from them just because somebody else uses different terms to describe or not describe the same thing.

In Lloyd-kick (that would be Lloyd Budge and not John Lloyd or Lloyd's of London), I've spoken of a three-sided box formed by shoulders line and the two elbows. That's okay but a bit geometric and therefore sterile. If you have reason like me and most servers in the world to learn a Lloyd-kick serve, make yourself look like a big tall praying mantis (see old book cover photo at # 1151).

Then play with language again to ensure that you are pro-active and not just a supplicant-- change the words "praying mantis" to "preying mantis."

[bottle]

The Two Slots

Although I'm not responsible for the abomination of tennis language that contextualizes the word "slot" in two separate ways, I can accept the distinction, just have to concentrate overly much, think anybody else will have to concentrate too much also, and there should be a public flogging or boiling in oil.

Speaking in forehand, I'll call Slot 1 the area directly to the right of a right-handed player looking toward the net. This is the unvarying method of orientation that a car mechanic uses-- he uses the driver's point of view. The shots that "stay in the slot" keep everything from backswing to flip to contact and a bit afterward in the passenger's seat.

Slot 2 is the coincision of straight line and inside out arc. For a drawing of this (though on the backhand side) see Post # 1149 .

The coincision is the collision is the contact is "the slot." Old-fashioned instructors would describe it thus: "C-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-R-R-R-Y the ball." But then we learned that contact only lasts four thousandths of a second. But you could be carrying when the contact occurred, the geezers would argue. They were advocating manipulation, which is a deliberate carrying forward of both ends of the racket at the same time and a diminishing of potential of the players who try it.

Is the secret instead an uninhibited arc but a bit of weight transfer to prolong the contact by a micro-second?

Additionally, racket (or golf club) coming out to ball on the broadest arc possible will generate extra pace since you'll "catch more of the ball."

So, how does one do this? Well, different shapes of swing in tennis or golf are possible. If backswing is outside of target line, and you then cross line to the inside, you get weakly smothered slice. If backswing is way to inside and you then cross line to the outside you get weakly smothered hook. Backswing can go slightly to the outside, and forward swing come slightly from the inside after a small loop-- not the only way to put yourself on the ball but one of the possibilities.

[bottle]

Lloyd-kick, Cont'd

Some of the pre-loads are more mystical than others. The pre-load for upper arm twist is most mystical of all. So I'll take it for granted, i.e., half ignore it for today.

My thinking is that I made a big stride yesterday but wouldn't want to spoil anything. A lily is fine just the way it is, does not require an application of gold leaf.

So I'll choose much simpler triceptic pre-load instead. Yes, Bottle, dwell on that and call it Wednesday concentration.

The way to make the triceps work best, I decided while still in bed (my partner just loves it when I wave my arm around swatting her in her sleep-- not!) is to firmly anchor the hand in midair, then sling-shot the elbow around it on a rising path.

Upper and lower arm will try to come together to form a single needle. Make that difficult. Resist the compression. It will happen anyway.

Zounds! Now the triceps is a sling-shot, too. A zing and a zing and a ping!

[bottle]

Result

Not as much kick as Jared Palmer, but a lot for a rotorded server such as me, and no health challenges were indicated whatsoever once I got to the court and saw what was what. Even if a person can't by temperament follow all of my detail, he or she should be interested in the old fashioned idea of keeping one's chest open to the sky, as opposed to the Maria Sharapova-Venus Williams style of serve where there is a big cartwheel of back shoulder rising over front shoulder. Which is great if the server is so flexible that he can point downward with his racket even as his head is pitching forward. Well, such serves may be great. They at least appear to be workable.

A rotorded server can only speculate, he'll never know.

Since I'm giving myself a report card here, I'll go on to forehand and backhand.

With all the new Gordon-Yandell-Macci information, I'm sticking with the nubbing out the heel of the hand idea until after the strings have wiped up-- as the main thing I need to change in my forehand right now.

There is a lot to remember always, on every shot, and that is the trouble. When one is confident and willing to let one's curiosity for further experimentation rest a bit, then one needs to make sure that one is doing everything in one's approved design. How? My idea is to consider only one detail per day-- but there always will be some whim to lead me off the track, and I'm not sure squelching a whim or anything to do with the imagination is ever a good idea.

As David Lynch, the film-maker says, "If you don't write the idea down, later you'll want to kill yourself."

A final note on the new serve. Keeping both arms bent for a kick serve may seem to discard any notion of deception, but on the other hand the rhythm for it and other serves in which one doesn't do that can remain the same. Also, newness of construction may lead to sub-variations of the Najdorf Variation of The Sicilian Defense.

I'm very pleased with recent changes to forehand since there is no longer any reason whatsoever to strain the wiper. The shot is the natural combination of topspin and pace appropriate to me.

On backhand I didn't do so well, trying to prepare with arm out to the side instead of back. The future for me is the hip and arm shot I'd already developed with Geoff Williams' help, and you can't get the racket wrapped around yourself too much for that. Especially if you know how to get there with a flying grip change. Luckily, this one-hander hadn't been down in the crypt of lost shots for long. Forward hips accelerate the racket through a tight loop by passively straightening the arm. Scapular retraction is relegated to end of followthrough like Federer. I like very much the idea of stepping closed when have time, hitting the shot open when am strapped for time, running through the ball to the end of next week and forgoing recovery when one is completely desperate.

(Maybe one can find an outdoor art show adjacent to the tennis facility and carefully inspect each painting before returning for the next point.)

[bottle]

Three Sides of a Box

First I'll write this. Then try it. Then report back in a separate post.

When it's time for the service sling-shot, add forward thrust from the shoulder ball while glomming on internal rotation of the upper arm.

This distortion of elbow close into upward facing chest puts racket frame out to the right as never before. Both elbows will end up forward of the shoulders line at contact (see Lloyd Budge on book cover at # 1151).

The shoulders line and the two elbows form three sides of a box rather than the straight line more commonly advised.

The difference between this experiment and previous ones by me involving knifed elbow is the force provided by more knowledgeable scapular adduction (sling-shot).

This is a powerful motion that won't act on tossed ball by itself but rather will pre-load A) upper arm, B) triceps and C) lower arm, all of which are trying to do something opposite.

An uninvited inference is that the two halves of the arm will press together later than in previous designs, after, not during the three inches of leg extension.

Wanted or not, this is what we shall try.

"Forward thrust from the shoulder ball" perhaps requires further explanation. Scapular retraction and adduction are a sure way of moving the elbow about the body with force. Twist of upper arm involves rotator cuff muscles and is powerful too. "Forward thrust from the shoulder ball" is in my personal view however mechanical ball-in-socket movement useful for positioning but not for generating muscular force.

A server whose previous motion has always been so continuous that he could never understand other people who seem to pause or almost pause with racket tip straight up may now find himself doing something similar.

Sling-shot is so sharp, so definite, so powerful that one can be assured of it dominating the oppositional muscles, which therefore can be given considerable rein.

This will form essential snap in scrape up the ball.

Can one hurt oneself this way? Possibly. Can one generate effective spin? Definitely. Should one super-relax the arm to avoid such hurt? Absolutely.

In feel, one finally can replace artificial sequence, i.e., elbow extension and then internal rotation of upper arm, with a single unified throw.

One motion overpowering another is what the pre-load philosophy is all about. The arm wrestling scene in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway is perhaps the best image to express this.

In that scene Santos, the Latino fisherman, keeps his hand from being pushed all the way down to the table. The gathering of force that saves him then pushes both his arm and his opponent's the other way.

This incident expresses simple forces that can occur in a tennis stroke. When rotational forces in the upper arm are included, the analogy, though less perfect, still applies just as much.

Another feature of the serve being propounded if not belabored here is a ripple-like roll traveling up the body to stretch the already stretched sling-shot's elastic.

One starts with legs and pushes rib cage up to separate the shoulders.

[bottle]

A Song Sung by Fred Perry's Girlfriend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKxaMAxC3Go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irhlNJdqqbs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56QzGcAKZc&feature=related

[bottle]

Ben Hogan, Translated?

Keep the heel or nub of the forehanding hand ahead of the strings until you have rolled the frame upward to and off of the ball.

Roll the frame upward more powerfully yet easily than before by issuing an executive brain command to your arm to start its roll while the hand is going down.

An executive brain command? Me? Does not everybody in tennis say, "Don't think too much?"

Unquestionably, they are right. But they never say, "Make sure to think enough."

So, is the executive brain command merely intellectual or will it cause a physiological reaction in the body? Oppositional muscles may/will activate in the arm and shoulder giving rise to a resistance that will build and fight the downward motion of the frame.

Are these thoughts rehash, i.e., regurgitated dimunition of good information we're all privy to at Tennis Player? Or does it add to overall discussion? Probably depends on the reader. But to my mind it is translation.

Translation from Ben Hogan? Well, Ben Hogan is where the mental train began, as once again I invoked in my mind a series of six-irons hit from the middle of the incredibly long ninth fairway in Lakeville, Connecticut. The teaching pro standing with me and speaking constantly of Ben Hogan was trying to delay the forearm roll-over he just had taught to me.

Translation from Ben Hogan to what then? To tennis and to Bottlespeak since I want to bring this information home to myself.

Similarly, reader, you should translate all the useful information you encounter to your own readerspeak.

[bottle]

Rotorded, Personalized Kick Serve: Simpler and Simpler

Second to biggest feature is starting with knees comfortably bent.

The big feature is tossing with a bent arm. That's a no no no. And a no, no, no, no, no.

Rules are made to be broken by those who know them.

Just stay firm at the elbow and toss exactly the same way you do in your normal, straight-armed version. Works like a charm.

But accomplish everything you want in the way of body coil and bend right away, sooner perhaps than before.

Then, keeping both feet flat for stability, go up about three inches.

Then release the sling-shot (scapular adduction).

[bottle]

Jaegersports

http://www.jaegersports.com/home.php

I just have to include the Jaegersports link once again, advising this time that the tennis serving student go to the videos page and watch EVERYTHING.

Long toss philosophy must apply to serves-- not so much to the almost forceless, all spin serve I'm trying to develop in the previous post-- but certainly to hard serves.

And with some application to all serves, period.

I know JY has, contrary to traditional thought from Tilden onward, discussed some of the ways serving motion is not like a baseball throw, but I think anyone with a specific serving challenge should remain open to every available idea and possibility.

The exercises here for getting blood out to the arm (with musical background), among other things, are pretty interesting, too.

[bottle]

Rotorded Kicker Continued: No Pathetic Chain

Complication of explanation level: Considerable. That won't stop me, though. Never has.

The two bent elbows permit a careful monitoring of all loading of a sling-shot.

The only body rotation permitted up to contact is in a backward direction.

The toss and bend then are formed by the elbows in a down-and-up figure 8 pattern doing a double-wind [1) and 2)]: Simultaneously, 1) they pull apart, 2) they revolve backward into the perfect upward slant or "archer's bow" involving the whole body except with chest opened to the sky, 3) The lower body as organic part of this goes up on front toes as rear leg sinks down a bit more.

To describe this a different way, both knees and both elbows line up in similar fashion. One knee gets higher than the other. One elbow gets just slightly higher than the other.

All that remains is a small bit of leg assistance, as small as three inches, however you choose to administer it. The shoulders hold position for this. They already revolved backward and tilted and stretched. Now they're silent.

Leg or legs apply the last bit of tension between the shoulders fully loading the sling-shot.

(Followed by release with shoulders still silent and aslant. Body rotation forward only begins from contact.)

Within the three inches of leg assist (I won't even use the term "leg drive" in this version), the arm goes down and up.

Comment: In the Lloyd Budge contact model for this (see book cover attached to post # 1151), Budge has hitting shoulder higher than tossing shoulder at contact. How did this happen?

The possibilities seem twofold: 1) shoulders rotated forward on their laid back, sky-facing axis, 2) scapular adduction (sling-shot) caused hitting elbow to pass other elbow in height.

In present experiment I choose 2) as my imperative rather than 1) or 1) and 2) both.

[stotty]

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about". Oscar Wilde

Hope you two haven't resurrected this bloke...the bait must be irresistible.... might he be lurking secretly in the forum.

[bottle]

Yup, good ol' Nabrug.

[don_budge]

Harmless...

The infamous Nabrug who dwells somewhere in the Netherlands. In a word he is a bit of a character. His behavior on this forum was a bit perplexing. I could never get a handle on his angles. Or his tennis philosophy for that matter. Nabrug made a comment about me on one of Don aka tennis_chiro's videos of his serve. I felt rather complimented that he remembered me for some reason. You should feel the same bottle.

For him to comment on your book with the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's is rather amusing. It wasn't the language in the end that prevented me from understanding Nabrug...it was his attitude. Like Stotty notes...he seemed to get vindictive yet never offered up anything of substance to back up his nastiness. I remember him commenting about my letter to Robin Söderling's father and he wondered who did I think I was offering advice to the number four player in the world.

In a word...a character. A bit of an odd one at that.

[bottle]

Agreed. And, speaking just for myself, I'll take your wisdom to heart and not indulge myself in further thinking about NABRUG's foul deed even though you appear to be a generation younger than I-- kaff-kaff. (I read a very English book by Geoffrey Wilkinson once. The main character Fotherington Tomas always punctuated his utterances with a "kaff-kaff.")

[stotty]

Like Quilty in LOLITA or his spin-off Q in the early Star-Trek episodes, NABRUG, Der fliegende Hollander, still is scouring all forum posts to find his opening.

And NABRUG, like Malvolio at the end of TWELFTH NIGHT, would say if he were more articulate and knew English better, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you."

Should NABRUG and I ever meet in person, it will be murder at first bite.

NABRUG long ago ceased positing his posts here and withdrew from this website, but much to my surprise, there he was this week in the comments under the following YouTube video, pretending to have read my novel THE PURSE MAKER'S CLASP and claiming that it bored him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ABvVJnG2F0

Perhaps NABRUG has access to some tennis club's feed or is just naturally ubiquitous like Quilty or Q.

The form of his literary review was Post # 61 in the "Developing an ATP Forehand Part 1: The Dynamic Slot" thread, a series of "Z's" since NABRUG seldom has ideas of his own.

Give this to NABRUG though.

He knows how to pick a supremely ugly moniker ("NABRUG") and will choose sometimes the very simple course of a blocked, redirected shot.

The question is WHY? Why does he go out of his way to be vindictive? It's one thing to bump into folk in a forum and become heated over issues (It's not something I would do on a forum, but I can understand the temperament of those that might) But to surf the net and seek you out, bottle, seems strange...very important to bury hatchets in my view...lest they eat away at you...