A New Year's Serve

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Make a Horrible Face as Part One of Tripartite Initial Serve

Part two is tossing arm (TA) straightening as it flies across your body on a horizontal beeline toward the right rear fence post. If Ta has a voice, and it does, it can tell you that it doesn't feel much difference, rhythmically speaking, from the down together in a conventional serve. And that it has the best of intentions which is to help turn your body-- immediately-- into a dynamic position.

Part three is the rise of your bent arm (Ha) so hand and elbow and racket are behind you and high over your head.

This whole beginning is somewhere between a Karate or Tai Chi move and a pitcher's wind-up in baseball.

If you don't think a pitcher should make a horrible face at the top of his wind-up, then replace it with the birdie look of Caroline Wozniacki receiving a worm or don't use any special expression at all.

Question: How high should the toss be in this serve? I've worked a lot recently on heightening my toss. On the other hand, the way this current serve is cracking up, we've eliminated much garbage thus making scads of time so that maybe a low toss will be adequate.

Will record this serve for the first time this morning so that later I can pull out my phone in my car and see if I like it (the serve).

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Elephant Serve

Much is still but something is always moving. But if nothing is moving you're angry and about to charge and stomp on a human head. As Tom Rinaldi would say "What does it mean? What does this mean to you?" It means that nothing is moving and you can't serve at all.

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Serve: How about Changing Direction of Toss Arm once it has Released the Ball?

It's just an idea. I tried it in the rain but don't have a definitive answer yet as to if it is any good.

What if, after release, Ta rotated toward the net instead of roughly parallel to the net. The change of direction would relate to body somersault.

If nothing else, this makes shooting right hand near to left hand much easier.

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In Praise of Lopsided Loops

There isn't much I can add to the title of this post. The bulge in the backswing for forehands and one hand backhands can be high and to the outside.

The arm, swiveling freely from the shoulder, is bent from wait position to the bulge and beyond, then straightens as it divebombs down to the inside and outside, after which both ends of the racket go straight for a short while after which everything heads for the barn.

That's just one kind of forehand, propelled by pad at base of index finger, with the rest of that finger along with ring and pinkie fingers slightly off of the handle.

Another species, wiper-viper-hyper, is loose from the shoulder the same way but can use the index finger (forefinger) extended up the racket and propped under it.

Will arm remain straight to twist or scissor at the elbow? The answer should make a difference in the direction the fingers turn the racket. I see tip of forefinger as being active but in longitudinal direction if one scissors, active instead as baton twirl if one doesn't.

Scissoring, it seems to me, has never been sufficiently discussed by me or anyone else. Yet quite a few prominent coaches propose it as fine option for their students. Should scissoring even happen if there is ISR (internal shoulder rotation) going on? Does scissoring combine well with other means of rasping the strings upward or not, and if so, with which ones?

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Ta Now is Straightening Horizontally Almost Toward Right Rear Fence Post

This means that the 100 degrees toss (from start to finish) can pitch ball into court as well as to one's left were it to hit the ground. I'm not sure I can do an eleven o'clock contact but am probably good for straight over the head and a bit into the court. Twist has now been all but completely purged from my serve in favor of shoulder over shoulder forward rotation. I'm even wondering now why hopping left foot needs to do its little Charleston step in mid-air. Yes, I am influenced by Brian Gordon's current video article. I tend to be carried away by intelligent expression and sometime try to embroider it too much. But my serve now is finally not cramped with low elbow coming painfully around right side of bod. More of the serve-- none was before-- is behind the back. This is the future of serving for me, partial left knee replacement or not. I just plan not to land hard. The serve gets to breathe.

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Reduce Steps, Increase Flow

Ta and Ha can start where they have started in the past, hands linked by the racket.

Ta straightens down as Ha straightens sideways and up to form a horizontal yardarm.

In tandem, both arms can then go up together while keeping distance between them.

This move points Ha at the sky and front hip at the net while extending the distance between hip and shoulder while lifting front heel on toes while bending rear leg to catch weight.

Weight on the toss in other words has gone from rear foot to front foot and back to rear foot.

There is no transition from sky-pointing Ha to bending Ha. The fall from pivot point of the elbow begins immediately as rear leg and front leg in rapid succession drive up.

The natural racket fall compresses the two halves of the arm together and continues down in a slightly different direction due to upper arm twist.

The somersault continues to load the upper arm. Which won't release until the triceps muscle has fired.

ISR (internal shoulder rotation) pushes the ball leading to mediocrity if done too soon.

ISR clips the ball with great velocity if properly delayed.

Acceleration of racket edge is the way to go.

ISR then seems to happen by itself since arm wants to return to a healthy position.

Do you the player contribute to this process?

Perhaps but only if you "let go."

This beginning is too complex for me to have gotten elbow up to where it needs to be. Better is if bent hitting arm Ha goes directly around and and up to a position where elbow seemingly points at the sky, a very fast movement. Accompanied by straightening of Ta which is exactly as fast.

The reason I say the elbow "seemingly points at the sky" is that it also points toward the rear fence, or, put other ways points at a patch of sky over the rear fence or points upward 45 degrees from yardarm. It's cocked high and back. To someone standing directly behind, the elbow points at the sky. But that is a trick of perspective. The images behind these statements come from the TED section of this article (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members..._the_kick.html).

To use clock imagery, Ta can now become second hand moving through 100 degrees of arc while Ha stays still other than tilting down a bit as hips go out as part of the toss. Ta then can become still as a minute hand as Ha, now the second hand, also moves through 100 degrees of arc but with a short radius (forearm as opposed to whole arm).

If "still" head doesn't veer left something is wrong. Am checking out own filmed serves now. Something is wrong. The upward path must be such that the head needs to get out of the way.

Form, according to Doug King, is the two hands close together so as almost to form a hoop. So violate this principle in the beginning of the serve and uphold it in the middle by shooting the right hand at where the left hand just was. Want to exaggerate? Then shoot right hand at left hand but don't be early.

The paused right arm is at right angles to the toss. The paused left arm is at right angles to Ha's clocking forearm.

100 degrees by Ta with Ha staying still. 100 degrees by Ha (though using a smaller clock) with Ta staying still. Envisioning these two circles or clock pictures in close sequence that completes 190 degrees of the same circle is one way of cueing the whole serve.

I think I'd be happy if the second perpendicular circle (would it help to think of a whirligig?) started just before the first ended-- that's why I said 190 instead of 200 degrees.

Now, to pursue this whirligig idea: a whirligig is a nature-driven fan that has a tail that acts as a weathervane. Can't see that it matters much whether the tail is on the net side or the rear fence side. The tail, to mix metaphors still further, suggests a rudder. Which suggests the back leg kicking back. It seems that there will be a lot of means by which to steer the ball in these serves.

I so prefer this imagery of two linked circles-- big and little-- to hanging from a steel ring to keep Ta up.

Keeping Ta up, with sexual connotation fully intended, was the subject after all of a stupid tennis movie called WIMBLEDON.

Film later. Never film a day too soon.

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Reduce Steps, Increase Flow

Ta and Ha can start where they have started in the past, hands linked by the racket.

Ta straightens down as Ha straightens sideways and up to form a horizontal yardarm.

In tandem, both arms can then go up together while keeping distance between them.

This move points Ha at the sky and front hip at the net while extending the distance between hip and shoulder while lifting front heel on toes while bending rear leg to catch weight.

Weight on the toss in other words has gone from rear foot to front foot and back to rear foot.

There is no transition from sky-pointing Ha to bending Ha. The fall from pivot point of the elbow begins immediately as rear leg and front leg in rapid succession drive up.

The natural racket fall compresses the two halves of the arm together and continues down in a slightly different direction due to upper arm twist.

The somersault continues to load the upper arm. Which won't release until the triceps muscle has fired.

ISR (internal shoulder rotation) pushes the ball leading to mediocrity if done too soon.

ISR clips the ball with great velocity if properly delayed.

Acceleration of racket edge is the way to go.

ISR then seems to happen by itself since arm wants to return to a healthy position.

Do you the player contribute to this process?

Perhaps but only if you "let go."

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The main building block is that racket fall (all of it) is matched by staggered leg extension and cartwheel (all of it). Both "alls" are of the same duration.

So there is a generality meant to apply to all serves no matter who performs them.

When we come to bypass of a trick shoulder however it seems that the two hands should not start together.

Otherwise, the trickiness will never allow the elbow to get high enough for an effective serve to occur.

I propose therefore to start with hitting arm in fully straight and yardarmed position.

The down of glass holding toss hand then is performed alone.

The up of down and up serve initiation however is performed again by both arms. The left arm, assisted by muscles between shoulder and hip, is so pro-active and vigorous (unless one wants to say "violent") that ball rises a mile high and upper arm touches left ear, there to stay for the seemingly next ten minutes.

The right arm, kept straight, goes from horizontal to vertical in the same period. This puts the racket way up there.

Although using the muscles between left hip and left shoulder started the arch, more arch is administered by hip thrusting toward net now and both legs bending as if readying themselves for a high leap record (although highness is something this server does not want).

Was toss high enough to accommodate this? If so, the left upper arm is still touching the left ear. As ball slowly starts to arc and fall. As hitting arm slowly and delicately bends a small amount.

Now the serve begins.

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Using the Denseness of Computer Technology to Improve one's Serve

There is one word to say when one wishes to place a video on YouTube as one has done before, along with thousands or millions of other persons.

One word to say when one's particular phone seems to make this transfer overly difficult.

"Good!"

Now one will view the before and after videos in solitude.

Now one will concentrate on service mechanics rather than computer mechanics and human animosity and bias. ("Guilty till proven innocent," I always say.)

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Centrifugated Ground Strokes

The present version, which works, consists of three core elements turning within the arm and racket unit, which, although free-wheeling and independent, always is made to lag: 1) backward shoulders, 2) backward hips, 3) forward hips.

Can same effect be produced with two elements instead? Backward rotation of shoulders, after all, is bound to pull the hips with it.

Outside inside straight is a mantra to enable the arm to whip.

Pictorial form is a racket laid on the court with its stalk or handle pointed at the net.

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Ha & Ta Went up a Hill

All tennis players want a good serve. We should be interested therefore in what other people try. But we frequently are not. The following service concept is for the minority of tennis players who have a trick shoulder.

Ha = hitting arm.

Ta = tossing arm.

Ha and Ta went up a hill. But Ha went first. Once Ha was at the top, both Ha and Ta became very quiet. Ha, at the top, and Ta, at the bottom, kept their silence in common.

They waited for the hill to shift to its right.

When the hill shifted, Ha came down a little. No surprise there. But Ta came up a little. Amazing. Ta must have been stuck on a lower slope. When the lower slope came up, so did Ta. Put another way, Ta was no longer at the bottom despite being low.

Now Ta continued its acceleration upward as Ha's utter relaxation allowed the racket she carried to fall from gravity alone.

Nice story but time to play tennis. The serve from then on was ordinary except that the racket fell back toward the bod simply because of the original placement and setting of Ha's elbow: Very high, above the shoulder, with arm almost straight so as to increase the length of the downward slanting Fall path.

If there was a person involved in this story, a person with any humanity, he or she felt very weird, as if about to vomit a rabbit.

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Addendum

The way I try to develop this feel or talent is simply to hit a few dinks off one bounce at a bangboard.

Finger pressure can be left as sole determinant of direction of the outgoing shot.

Ironically, if each shot is combined with a little peanut butter jar (lid) opening of the racket face, one's power volleys soon become more powered and one's finesse volleys more finessed.

Report: Applying the finger pressure principle to McEnrueful forehands did not prove particularly successful (but might at a later date). I wanted to win so went with bowl ball topspin forehands with fingers flared at the end...like Mencinger's nephew compressing a tennis ball and rolling it along a bench.

Avoiding too much Categorical Thought

As in, "All YouTube tennis instruction sucks." While this generality holds some water, if there are 80 billion instructors out there, 8 or 10 of them are apt to be pretty good.

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Addendum

The way I try to develop this feel or talent is simply to hit a few dinks off one bounce at a bangboard.

Finger pressure can be left as sole determinant of direction of the outgoing shot.

Ironically, if each shot is combined with a little peanut butter jar (lid) opening of the racket face, one's power volleys soon become more powered and one's finesse volleys more finessed.

Report: Applying the finger pressure principle to McEnrueful forehands did not prove particularly successful (but might at a later date). I wanted to win so went with bowl ball topspin forehands with fingers flared at the end...like Mencinger's nephew compressing a tennis ball and rolling it along a bench.

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Finger Pressure on Last Day with the Geezers

They move inside. Me, I stay outside for another month. So this will be the last day for me of playing in the Grosse Pointe Senior Men's Tennis Association until next summer. And I want to do something special. What it will be: From first stroke of the day a more conscious use of finger pressure per Dennis Ralston volleys but applied to McEnruefuls (which are stay down imitation of the John McEnroe forehand stroke).

From the end of September I will play with another seniors group in another indoor club-- was just invited by the former City Manager of Grosse Pointe.

Review: The summer was very good. The best forehands I've hit have been strong eastern bowl balls with centrifugation learned on line from Tomaz Mencinger at "Feel Tennis." And I'll hit more today but not at the beginning of the two hours. As I say, it's return to McEnrueful time.

Always strive to be more unconscious, right? Wrong! Go with more awareness of finger pressure to determine direction of the McEnrueful finesse shot.

This shot is opposite philosophy from the Mencinger-King bowl balls. There, the forehands are hit with early coin edge slot drop so that contact is extreme looseness of grip so that all firmness comes from natural biomechanical position of wrist which is fully laid back with additional springboard of forearm muscles built in. Very different. With "abandon" or letting go very possible.

When wrist is straight, the firmness must be supplied by you, not by biomechanical design. With more conscious awareness of what the fingers do.

Note: From Chris Evert's coverage of U.S. Open 2018 one can deduce that she has very fine estimation of Dennis Ralston, her old coach. And here or there or both is Dennis Ralston speaking about finger pressure as a key component of a great volley. This, it seems to me, is not a usual matter of discussion by other coaches anywhere.

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Heights of Elbow, Water and Literature

From the announcers at the U.S. Open 2018 one hears a lot about height of elbow when serving.

Me, I wanted to describe my new serve as a count of three. No, it has to be four, at least for the time being. For the elbow is still low at the end of count one. Rising but still low. On two it can travel an equal distance to an apogee behind the bod. Overlap of count three (the toss) and count two (up to apogee behind you) seems likely, but toss is a count of its own (count three). Someday one and two may become a single count, but only after the low elbow habit is forever broken.

Toss on count two, not count one, please. The service motion will be slower. But with the same basic design.

Which is, right arm first, left arm second, and a big swish of racket behind one's neck as part of the big conclusion. In evaluating all this, we can ask, what's the use of starting out with a low elbow if you won't get it up? What's the use of bending the arm when it can already be bent and produce at least as good a serve? What's the use of complicating a motion if the complication doesn't add anything positive? What's the use of bending knees when they can already be bent?

Notes on literature and Fyodor Dostoyevsky: NOTES FROM THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD reveals that all prison life is the same always. The most important idea in THE IDIOT is that you can can tell children anything and they will understand. DEMONS is deeply revealing of Dostoyevsky's reversal of social viewpoint and the seething reformist ideas that characterized Russia for a full hundred years before the "Ravolution."

Brief description of the action of A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE by John Cowper Powys: A lot of water comes up the Bristol Channel and floods England.

Powys' running lecture on Dostoyevsky, which convinced his wife to marry him, is, in book form such a collector's item that it costs hundreds of dollars.