A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Two Kick Variations to Try

One's wish in either case is improvement in the squareness of the total body bend. This term "squareness" may be slippery. Better that the term be slippery, however, than the movement it describes. Smoothness, balance and perfect confidence in one's lower body are achievable, I believe. First serve body bend, in which leading hip glides out toward the net may pollute one's second serve.

Whether the player is Stan Smith with the slightest of serving step, or Tom Allsopp or John Escher with no step at all, the working image now becomes cantilevered knees and shoulders toward the opposite side fences.

This is what I decided to try:

1) Find the most natural way to slope shoulders upward toward the net without compromising twin push from legs.

OR

2) Keep shoulders square like Bill Tilden, during the body bend. Rear shoulder now has less distance to rise. Is that bad or good?

Conclusion: The first contest out on the court, today, was not between slope and level (slope was clearly the best way for me to go), but all arm vs. arm-and-body on the 45 degree takeback/takeup.

The second contest was about how best to achieve slope of shoulders without sending front hip toward net. Should you do it as part of the toss? I prefer, for now, a slow tilt that embraces an arm only takeback, i.e., the tilting starts a bit before the toss and continues a bit after it.

[bottle]

~

Wouldn't life be exciting for a rotorded server if the Tilden model worked well for him-- level shoulders to sloped shoulders late?

He'd be starting his throw from higher.

I must confess, I haven't tried this yet.

[bottle]

Building on # 760, Tom Allsopp's Brief Demonstration of Kick Serve

Try verbal if not physical modification of # 787 toss-and-catch drill: (1) toss, (2) point, (3) catch, (4) pause (poise).

To build specifically on # 760, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQSd3...eature=related, try one serve with no horizontally backward body turn at all, just the arm going on the 45 degree angle up and around the body. To achieve this goal, the feet will be parallel to one another, no?

Here's the first high profile guy-- Tilden-- to talk about this arm going around the body idea-- before Gonzalez and Ralston for slice. Has anyone ever specifically refuted it? Not in the tennis literature I've read. Maybe in non-verbal language out on the court in first serves.

Tom Allsopp, above, shows some backward body turn-- a minimal amount. Note how Tom's shoulders are sloped upward even though the movement of his knees toward right fence is pure and square. Tilden shows no backward body turn here but yes forward body turn of every kind:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/billtilden/billtilden_sa.html?BTServeArmActionKickRear.mov

[bottle]

Speculation, i.e., I Don't Know

The big question in tennis, always, is whether to change something or not.

Old school says, "Change nothing and hit the same old boring shot and make it every time."

New school, which includes the study of myelin, says, "Improve the wiring in your nervous system by making small adjustments and corrections, some of which you will find through raising the level of difficulty to where you just start to make mistakes."

And yet author Daniel Coyle feels that only three per cent of future myelin knowledge-- such a new subject!-- currently exists.

So, when you make some seemingly small change, do you build on the neural advantage of previous practice or have you just started all over toward the 10,000 hours necessary, according to Malcolm Gladwell, for anyone to master anything?

Given present uncertainty, one's course is probably determined by individual temperament and the ideas one has heard.

If, say, the player reads books and studied GOLF IN THE KINGDOM by Michael Murphy, he probably thinks that every tennis stroke and golf stroke ought to be a little different from every other.

Figure out the best electrical wiring for that!

Can learning itself be myelinized? I think so. Can the ability to incorporate change faster than other people be myelinized? Possibly.

I repeat my favorite part of THE MEMOIRS OF HELEN OF TROY: A NOVEL by
Amanda Elyot.

In a bedroom scene, Theseus explains to Helen his success with women. "However slow you want to go," he says, "go ten times slower than that."

[bottle]

Revise Backhand!

I've decided I like Emira Stafford's backhand better than Stanislas Wawrinka's, at least as something for me to do. And once you're fifty or more, as I understand it, your myelin begins to crack. You've got bad sparkplug wires! No one knows the perfect remedy, but the best course clearly seems to be to lay down some fresh, twisted goop through trying something that's somewhat new.

The first question I've had in trying to understand Stafford's backhand is whether she uses body-arm sequence in lowering the racket head behind her back.

Instead of tackling the question as research, however-- which would amount to dry scholarship over Bottle's own self-interested stroke development-- I'm not going to ask anybody but rather follow Martina Navratilova's dictum that when the choice is between sequence or simultaneity, simultaneity is usually better since it won't break down as soon.

So the hips going out will level the shoulders, but racket, having wound up higher than in my Wawrinkan version, can drop, independent, from the shoulder joint at precisely the same time.

Face it, if a player does both while also removing slack from the arm, the racket head is going to tuck in close behind the hips with handle out toward the side fence. One therefore will put more stick into the stroke, i.e., the racket length will swing around with more snap.

The whole emphasis, for me, will now lie naturally where it always should have been-- in the area of contact.

After the racket comes around (one might even say "pivots" or "twirls"), the tip and handle rise at the same rate. Can or should we analyze this rise further? Unless we're a centipede fearing paralysis, yes! There's acceleration with a bit of deceleration at the tail end.

Hence, the beautiful truncated finish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEyyXV5o9oA&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_630357

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i3M9tY-oKE&feature=related

[bottle]

Here's Some Fun

To get to # 760, start with figure eights, then adapt Don's toss-and-catch drill to the new construction.

First serve will remain unpolluted and gravity driven, with racket falling near the body to start the action, with big feel natural weight shifts from front foot to back foot and then re-accomplished out on front foot and beyond.

If anything, the addition of # 760 to one's toolbox will make one more aware of these weight shifts through differentness, and probably will lead to more weight on rear foot for a longer time (on a first serve).

Using # 760 as second serve model will finally free up an old guy to keep his weight more centered and use both instead of just one of his arthritic legs, which he may want to place closer together at the outset, also.

Brenda Schultz McCarthy always advised this for a person with arthritic legs or not-- get WAY OUT on front leg for a first serve but center yourself and thrust with both legs for a double barreled effect on the second.

But perhaps the shotgun image is too dramatic. Instead, one should perhaps take a soccer description from Tom Allsopp that occurs in one of the 164 comments under the # 760 video. The football reference is to the way a player throws overhead with both arms after the ball has gone out of bounds. This throw never looks like much to someone outside of the sport. It's nothing like a goalie's distance throw. It involves the whole body, however, and is extremely accurate and therefore important.

So, building from that idea, I go from a basic three or more service counts to two simple counts. Am I going to abandon initial drop of the racket from eye level? Of course not. But I'm not going to begin my two-count until the racket is low like Tom Allsopp's. And I'm not going to shift weight in any direction until then either.

Don's toss and catch drill, to review his own words, goes like this:

A good drill is to integrate the practice toss-and-catch with the figure 8. Establish the rhythm with the toss-and-catch, then continuously, work in the figure 8 so that you go "Toss(1) - and(2) -Catch(3) -Pause(4)

You catch the ball as your left hand is just beginning to descend. As you complete the retracing of the motion to the beginning the force of gravity drops to zero and that is your "Pause".

http://www.youtube.com/user/GlobalTennisDC#p/u/24/_wkhxlMD-0o

Don't be intimidated by the 4-count for learning toss-and-catch within a figure eight. Count for the new overall second serve is a different thing (fewer counts, only 2 in fact!).

The takeback on the # 760 serve is three-quarters-- half up but half around, with racket separated out to side of body. Will scapular retraction keep racket head down enough as strings rise toward the falling ball?

And am I having fun yet? I think so-- the only reason other than myelinization to undertake a project of this magnitude.

But what about deception? Hasn't little u-i abandoned it? Bah, humbug. Deception isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Just have a hundred pitches available, like Satchel Paige, each with a colorful name.

[bottle]

~

Oh man, Tom. This is a great day after all. Sure, go ahead and use the review of THE TALENT CODE. And I'll be in touch very soon. When you mentioned Malcolm Gladwell, if not before, I realized that you were coming at tennis and tennis instruction from interesting new perspectives.

[tpatennis]

Tom Alsopp

Thanks, Stotty. I can't take too much credit for the find since a good friend was the one who sent this video to me. But I'm glad as hell that I can generate meaningful exchange, and that I still retain some of the reportorial skill necessary for doing that.

"I just want to make a quick video on how to hit a topspin serve," Tom Allsopp begins, and his "quickness," I believe, is key to his success here. Not quickness of racket head, though that too is essential component, but shortness of the video and verbal expression almost like a single exhalation of breath.

Not that he's tossing off information, i.e., being affectedly casual-- he isn't.
He's being straightforward and helpful. But do you notice, reader, there's none of the Joel Chandler Harris chapter ending cliche that used to pervade media tennis instruction even worse than nowadays?

Harris is the author of kid stories. At the end of each chapter there'd be something about "If the clock doesn't fall off the table, then we'll find out next time about Uncle Wiggily and the hornet's nest." Actually, that sounds pretty good. But in tennis, the next chapter usually promises some fantastic improvement for the player who has taken time to absorb the tip.

My main tennis teacher, Jim Kacian, e.g., once published a tennis tip on making body glide through a volley like a speed skater. The editor then tacked on a funky statement that went something like, "And if you do this you'll soon be slicing up your most fearsome opponent as if he's wiener schnitzel." Again, that doesn't sound as bad as it should.

I also recommend all 164 comments under the video. From them-- but not from all of them-- a USTA study in the ignorance that holds back American tennis could be undertaken.

My favorite reply to one of these comments-- by Tom Allsopp himself: "You can't give constructive criticism when you don't know anything."

We Americans are likely to underestimate Brits when it comes to something as macho as a great kick serve. Maybe this derives from the movie WIMBLEDON where the British fop pointed at his toss for longer and longer in order to win the affections of Kirsten Dunst. We think it's okay for Brad Gilbert to go over to Great Britain and tell the nation what to do, but not okay for somebody like Allsopp to come over here and do the same.

Anyone who thinks Allsopp is a bad coach needs to watch the following video with the sound turned up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEyyX...otation_630357

Hi,

I was looking at my website stats for http://tpatennis.net/ and I saw some people had gone there from here and also written some things about me. It's nice to see people talking about real tennis topics with a brain rather than the youtube idiots I deal with. I didn't realize how messed up people are until I started posting videos on youtube.

I also liked your review on the talent code, I would love to used the review on my site and maybe contact you to talk about other things you could write.

Thanks for the kind words and if you are interested in talking or writing more please contact me via my website, it's pretty easy.

You seem like a real tennis enthusiast with good tennis knowledge, maybe you would find these articles interesting.... even if your point of view differs from mine:

A video from myself: http://tpatennis.net/why-tennis-pare...e-coach-coach/

http://tpatennis.net/how-fc-barcelonas-youth-academy-can-help-junior-tennis/

http://tpatennis.net/analyzing-the-10000-hours-rule-in-tennis/

http://tpatennis.net/the-tennis-virus-of-the-mind/

Thanks

Tom Allsopp

[bottle]

Elmira and Tom

EMIRA and Tom-- sorry!

I'll have to keep this idyll going, I guess:

http://tpatennis.net/how-to-improve-your-touch-feel/

[stotty]

Another nice clip!

There are some good coaches over here....just too few of them.

Money dominates the coaching scene over here. Coaching provides a good living. Coaches are not so interested in coaching good players as earning lots of cash. A lot of the better coaches are happy teaching 40 hours to beginners and club players because it's far less hassle, and less work in a certain sense, than coaching a performance players. The riches are at the bottom, not the top.

Me, I prefer to teach good players if I can...it makes the job much more tenable and stops the brain turning to mush.

I must look this Allsopp fellow up...

[bottle]

Tom Allsopp

Thanks, Stotty. I can't take too much credit for the find since a good friend was the one who sent this video to me. But I'm glad as hell that I can generate meaningful exchange, and that I still retain some of the reportorial skill necessary for doing that.

"I just want to make a quick video on how to hit a topspin serve," Tom Allsopp begins, and his "quickness," I believe, is key to his success here. Not quickness of racket head, though that too is essential component, but shortness of the video and verbal expression almost like a single exhalation of breath.

Not that he's tossing off information, i.e., being affectedly casual-- he isn't.
He's being straightforward and helpful. But do you notice, reader, there's none of the Joel Chandler Harris chapter ending cliche that used to pervade media tennis instruction even worse than nowadays?

Harris is the author of kid stories. At the end of each chapter there'd be something about "If the clock doesn't fall off the table, then we'll find out next time about Uncle Wiggily and the hornet's nest." Actually, that sounds pretty good. But in tennis, the next chapter usually promises some fantastic improvement for the player who has taken time to absorb the tip.

My main tennis teacher, Jim Kacian, e.g., once published a tennis tip on making body glide through a volley like a speed skater. The editor then tacked on a funky statement that went something like, "And if you do this you'll soon be slicing up your most fearsome opponent as if he's wiener schnitzel." Again, that doesn't sound as bad as it should.

I also recommend all 164 comments under the video. From them-- but not from all of them-- a USTA study in the ignorance that holds back American tennis could be undertaken.

My favorite reply to one of these comments-- by Tom Allsopp himself: "You can't give constructive criticism when you don't know anything."

We Americans are likely to underestimate Brits when it comes to something as macho as a great kick serve. Maybe this derives from the movie WIMBLEDON where the British fop pointed at his toss for longer and longer in order to win the affections of Kirsten Dunst. We think it's okay for Brad Gilbert to go over to Great Britain and tell the nation what to do, but not okay for somebody like Allsopp to come over here and do the same.

Anyone who thinks Allsopp is a bad coach needs to watch the following video with the sound turned up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEyyXV5o9oA&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_630357

[stotty]

Nice clip

Nice find!

The part that interests me most with the kick serve is the follow through. Years ago I bought a book called TENNIS STROKES AND STRATEGIES. I think it was published in the 70s. I self-taught myself tennis thru this particular book and another one which I cannot remember the name. It used the leading players of the day as examples: Arthur Ashe for backhand volley, Tom Okker for forehands, John Newcombe for serves, etc. I remember the book (or maybe it was the other book, not sure) advocating the follow through remain on the hitting side of the body after the strike and throughout the swing as a learning option. It virtually guarantees reverse kick if the other mechanics of the serve are sound. To this day I follow through entirely down the right side (hitting side) of my body...and yes my shoulder is fine...no injuries despite the sudden and abrupt end this type of follow through creates. Don't know why more players don't use it to produce even greater topspin.

I'm off to Majorca again tomorrow....c u guys when i get back

[bottle]

Hitting Up On The Ball

Here's a good one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQSd3lYxvak&feature=related

[bottle]

Arching in a Serve Remains Sequential

1) Legs compress with knees going out toward side fence

2) Scapular retraction combined with inhalation of breath completes the arch.

Note: Spare the lumbar region. Just don't let it get involved. Keep sciatica out of your life for as long as possible.

Observation: I have to say, that, if I've settled on inhalation as helpmeet to a good arch, I'm going to at least try as an experiment exhalation as helpmeet to "scapular adduction" to use terminology in this case from Wikipedia.

[bottle]

Adduction in a Serve is Scapular Only

I could phrase that as a question, but I'm sure, by now, that if I'm either wrong or should remain agnostic, someone will set me straight.