A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Sensitizing the Elbow

Today's iteration comes from fooling around with an Isner-like serve. John Isner gets his elbow back, out, and up to the right. When he bends his arm then, keeping elbow still, the racket tip heads into the court on his left side. Have seen this in other giants serving as well. And when I tried it, the motion felt great but I served into the net.

Sure! Good! Why not? You see, I'm 6' 4" not 6'9". So, into the net makes perfect sense while showing that I may be on the track of a great motion, i.e.,
the longest, slowest, purest, most natural crossing behind one like Bea Bielik.

Here's what I decided on next: To open the racket a slight bit-- duh. Okay
but where or more specifically when?

My decision on this point was affected by exposure to a pair of service ideas, first, that to simplify the loop behind one's back one can open the racket face when it is down passing by the right leg, and second, that to improve toss one can minimize hitting arm motion just then in whatever way is possible.

The philosophy of this second point has to do with a little recognized principle of physiology: that tossing arm goes up less smoothly and predictably when right arm is doing a lot at the same time-- a very far cry from the old "down together, up together."

Decision then: Just turn the racket out a desired small amount while keeping hand low. Continuous motion is preserved but twisting hand stays in one spot.

Then, during body bend, fold arm to the conventional right angle same as always while simultaneously lifting elbow to about where Isner has it when he turns on the power.

This arm wind-up from two joints instead of one feels less mechanical, more organic, more right brain, more like a powerful throw since the enlivened elbow is about to rise a whole lot more anyway.

One does want the elbow to get still but why so early as before? I can't see that the early stillness with hand behind the neck got me anything, not at least the way it does in a cylinder serve.

No, this is a bow serve where anything and everything can go.

[bottle]

No Backswing at All

In writing about John McEnroe's advice for another player's backhand overheard at Wimbledon in the 1980's, I think, the teaching pro Oscar Wegner reported JM as saying, for grass, "Don't use any backswing at all."

Since I've been experimenting with a JM-type continental grip backhand for some time, I've been asking myself recently, "Just what's the limit? What's the shortest backswing possible?"

The answer is very short or none or maybe even pushing the hands out front similar to Monica Seles measuring a two-hander.

If you push the hands slightly out front during a flying grip change, the body can then take racket around a little more and then lower it, and then the strings can lower some more as wrist hunches.

If one then straightens wrist to healthy, strong position by contact, one can have the full effect of a 90-degree spin around of the racket head-- something that happens a lot in all tennis and carpentry (except there it's with a hammer head).

I was taught that a continental player has to make contact far back to avoid hitting up into the air. Untrue. Few players hit a backhand as far out front as John McEnroe.

[bottle]

Building Topspin from Cylinder Serve

The cylinder serve worked better in the heat of battle than the bow serve, so let's take the best feature from the first and apply it to the second.

That would be upper body rotation on a firmed up lower body foundation.

So how to firm up the foundation? For first way, with slightly bent knees, see post #373 . Second way is with compressed knees and body bend. Use more stance, i.e., turn yourself around more before you start-- fire with legs (front or both) but keep them firing straight (not with simultaneously spiraling, internally wagging knees which is a different and difficult philosophy).

Hit it in other respects like a cylinder serve.

If you fire legs this way with shoulders going you won't hurt yourself. Not legs first or shoulders first (the subject of high-level tennis theory debates), but together. I don't care about the debates but will try anything if I think it might lead to best result for myself.

[bottle]

Stabilizing Foundation for More Effective Upward Swipe

You lower knee into the zinc. That takes care of stabilizing foundation on the backswing. If that's too obscure, reader, well here's some further explanation. I allude to an imaginary cylinder (zinc) superimposed on your body. If your knees are slightly bent, they can freely revolve within the cylinder. If they're greatly bent however they hit the cylinder like a drum brake and go nowhere. But that's what we want in the present experiment to derive more power out of the gut.

On the forward rotation, one wants the same stability in the lower body foundation, which is rising now. But maybe we don't need a similarly clever trick (which wasn't really so clever anyway since it merely reflected that slightly bent knees naturally revolve more freely than extremely bent knees). On the forward rotation, knowledge of one's intention-- to keep leg thrust straight-- might be enough.

Considerable body bend in the right fence-left fence dimension is the goal of this thought. And a refusal to then give this body angle away and maybe even increase it by contact.

[bottle]

Evolving 1HBH, JM-type

Substitute body-bonk-bowl for body-body-arm. It still sounds like something a cat would understand, but what's "bonk?" That's when you step up to a net post and gently hit it with the heel of your hand. People through the years have told us to spear with the racket butt; well, here's a chance to do it better. We add to the equation a pair of seminal phrases used separately by Arthur Ashe in the backhand discussion section of the old VHS TENNIS OUR WAY: 1) "Sling the racket at the ball" and 2) "Turn the corner."

When you "turn the corner," you should begin to hammer the ball like John McEnroe. Everybody calls him a tennis genius, and he is, but for more fun let's call him a good carpenter, i.e., someone who hammers a nail with a compact and consistent motion.

Instead of deciding exactly how far back to take the racket and where on some fence to point it, let's simply prepare to bring the racket head around in the amount of 110 degrees. And let's delay this sudden cornering or snap or hammer blow. Let's make it really work through a slow bonk first.

The business half of the one-hander then begins to crack up like this: All the preparation including three or four scampers and a hitting step of only a few inches is fully complete. All that remains is to hit the ball, in a single motion. The following is therefore a single motion. The back shoulder drops both itself and racket followed by a controlled arm bonk followed by the sudden hammering followed by an upward bowling motion of both ends of the racket out toward the target.

This is more of an arm-about-the-body shot than one driven by a lot of internal body rotation. The following two film clips seem to illustrate this idea:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHShortSide.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHShortCourtLevelRear.mov

Harder hit variations show more UBR supporting the bonk:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHShortRear.mov

Note: I follow a contrarian method in which I often spell out some iteration before I try it. (I haven't tried out this new idea yet but will soon.)

[bottle]

Cylinder Principles Applied to Bow

The ball didn't jump up enough, so I return to Bill Tilden's conviction that arm whipping about body should supplant a lot of moaning, sighs and internal body rotation.

I'm following a track of interesting discoveries however and am far from abandoning the whole railroad.

The next hybrid therefore involves all the ideas of Post # 378 . The difference is that forward upper body rotation shall be slow and far exceeded by the arm throwing action. The UBR shall no longer be considered direct contribution to racket head speed but rather mere part of the method by which the arm folds and cocks and the player regains balance.

The rest, then, should be as Tilden says (and demonstrates):

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

[bottle]

Stance Check

Hello, I'm Bottle. And this is my stance check. I have my front foot turned way around and my back foot too. That way, with my whole body turned around, I can make sure that I hit the ball too flat when I try for a kick serve. This is Bottle and that was my stance check-- I hope you enjoyed it.

[bottle]

Crazy Cats

I once saw a very good backhand. The racket seemed to come out of the teaching pro's stomach. That appears a characteristic of John McEnroe's backhand too. The period in which hand and racket bowl up together seems about as long as possible. So I return to the earlier construction "body body arm" knowing that any cat hearing those words will become confused. The difference between this and some earlier iterations will be that I'll use a little more backswing and possibly even delay straightening of the wrist. There would be a sequence in that case between UBR from the gut and straightening of the wrist. I had both hunching and straightening of the wrist happening during the horizontal gut action at one point. Now I'll put the wrist straightening at beginning of the upward bowl. I don't know the answer, may or may not find it at the court. The important thing is to keep some meticulousness in the fooling around to evaluate all possible combinations as I see them (I believe).

[bottle]

Myth and Videotapes

Pardon me for enjoying my search for something I may never find. The goal is an effective minimalist backhand in the style of John McEnroe. The ball is supposed to fly up and hit an overhead lamp. The ball is supposed to wound my wrist and maybe even break off my hand.

So far none of this has happened.

As I suggested in post # 338 however I still have unresolved issues in that part of the forward stroke where the hand is closest to the body. Elements of confidence: "body body arm" to give a broad description. The upper body tilts backward, the upper body cranks, the arm flies away. This much is certain.

A great deal of paralytic, deductive reasoning however is a threat to athletic excellence's reliance on smoothness and magic. The jocks of this world, closer to Tom Sawyer than to Huck or Jim, are romanticists who go exclusively for "feel."

My alternate hope is for relentless elimination of what's extraneous until the logical nub of some stroke emerges.

But one has only a dry plan then, so this is the time when one ought to turn back in the direction of "feel," mysticism, and breakthrough magical discovery.

Go for magic too soon and you lock yourself forever at your present level of mediocrity. This applies to Nadal, Williams, Federer or anyone else.

[bottle]

Free-wristed Strokes

I don't even know if I'll get to a tennis court today. When I do however I'll try a more simple version of JM-modeled backhand.

The big questions have been just when to hunch wrist and whether to straighten it again and if so when.

One looks for guidance anywhere, most obviously in videos of John McEnroe hitting backhands. And he does re-straighten wrist. When does he do so
however and when before that does he hunch that wrist?

Answer: At different times in different videos. Clearly then it's time to stop worrying about John McEnroe and start worrying about me.

I'm going to hunch wrist as upper body does its small tilt backward. I'm going to close wrist in sync with forward rotation from the gut to take me to contact. Will there be independent motion of the arm toward the net in this phase? Maybe, maybe not. And maybe I'll delay the hunch-straighten sequence to closer to contact later for special effects.

Suppose that this experiment is 100 per cent positive (unlikely, I know). Then, this question arises: "Are you going to be entirely satisfied with your Federfore, a pretty good stroke, Bottle, though successfully exploited by an old Lebanese cut-shot artist, or are you going to explore free-wristed continental grip strokes on the forehand side as well-- a place you've been before?"

The Australian tennis writer Paul Metzler suggested that modern players are so basically ignorant that they don't even know what true free-wristed groundstrokes are.

Metzler in one book defines them as groundstrokes in which laid back wrist near fence closes in sync with body rotation all the way to contact.

[bottle]

I Now Hate the Word "Bowl"

and regret that I ever used it. The trouble with "bowl" is that it violently changes racket pitch every nano-second. And lends weakness to the human arm, which is stronger when swinging AROUND the body. Finally, shoulders going around lend force better to arm if it goes around, too. (But yeah, sure, the arm lifts as it swings around.)

[bottle]

Cutting Down on Body Rotation in a C-grip 1hbh

Maybe drop from front shoulder going up and wrist hunching the racket down is all you need as part of the hitting action.

(I'm thinking of relegating UBR-- upper body rotation-- once again to the variability of the unconscious.)

Swinging arm around the body is a basic yet usually underestimated principle in tennis applicable to all kinds of strokes.

You do get some power from simultaneously cranking UB and arm (arm as if it's an old fashioned car crank) and flattening wrist, but you may be able to eliminate or at least sublimate the UBR part of this if you coordinate racket drop and bringing around of the racket tip as a directly connected motion.

You might or might not have been able to do this when pronounced UBR was part of the equation, but what I'm suggesting is to try this simplification.

This would be maximum use of arm drop and snap just leavened slightly by subtle rotation of the body.

I don't view such experiments as fawning, sycophantic, adulatory or celebrity-worshipping (i.e., deferring too much to the prime NBC tennis analyst). The fact is however, no matter who John McEnroe is, he knows how to hit a one-hander while keeping his elbow in, and if one tries every possible way of administering that JM verbal cue one is assured sooner or later of stealing a smidgeon of the JM magic.

Well, maybe if one possesses very good movement and timing first.

[jeffreycounts]

Maybe drop from front shoulder going up and wrist hunching the racket down is all you need as part of the hitting action.

(I'm thinking of relegating UBR-- upper body rotation-- once again to the variability of the unconscious.)

Swinging arm around the body is a basic yet usually underestimated principle in tennis applicable to all kinds of strokes.

You do get some power from simultaneously cranking UB and arm (arm as if it's an old fashioned car crank) and flattening wrist, but you may be able to eliminate or at least sublimate the UBR part of this if you coordinate racket drop and bringing around of the racket tip as a directly connected motion.

You might or might not have been able to do this when pronounced UBR was part of the equation, but what I'm suggesting is to try this simplification.

This would be maximum use of arm drop and snap just leavened slightly by subtle rotation of the body.

I don't view such experiments as fawning, sycophantic, adulatory or celebrity-worshipping (i.e., deferring too much to the prime NBC tennis analyst). The fact is however, no matter who John McEnroe is, he knows how to hit a one-hander while keeping his elbow in, and if one tries every possible way of administering that JM verbal cue one is assured sooner or later of stealing a smidgeon of the JM magic.

Well, maybe if one possesses very good movement and timing first.

Hi Bottle,

Got a quick question for you. Could you send me an email: jco872@gmail.com?

Thanks,

Jeff

[bottle]

Another C-grip 1hbh to Try

The arm gets fairly straight-- early-- in all of these shots. And wrist hunches the racket tip down as shoulders straighten up a little to bring it a bit lower than that.

This is the starting point for a next experiment. Instead of simultaneously rolling the arm and straightening the wrist, we'll delay both items.

The result will be A) a delayed roll that can lead to more gradualness in this action, so that the strings can stay perpendicular to the net regardless of slight variations in contact point (Remember how Vic Braden would stick a stroke pattern of balls in a fence to serve as a guide for this perpendicularity) and B) The body, which always rotates a little whether we want it to or not, can be the sole agent to bring hunched wrist slightly around. C) Straightening wrist can then complete the essential "turning of the corner" while also triggering in a sensuous way the whole arm turn and arm swing or arm bowl or both.

This latter part (bowl-swing) occurs slightly before contact and continues a long way afterward.

[bottle]

Step Press Hit

That's a good way to organize a lot of 1hbh information. The step lowers the body. The press lowers the racket head some more. The whole idea is more provocative than it first may seem since it says that great linear transfer just as you hit the ball is too chancy to rely upon every time.

In a C-grip JM-type backhand during the "press" the wrist also hunches the racket head low. The eastern backhanders, a resistant group, may not like this; nevertheless, that's what happens.

The eastern backhanders can still have a happy life by finding more exotic ways to get the racket tip low. One thinks of Ivan Lendl, who spoke to his forebears, negotiating exceptionally long strong fingers on his left hand that could steady his racket even though they were hyper-extended.

Or, like my brother, any person can simply adopt a western grip and henceforth egg the ball and think he's got it made in the topspin department. I knew a player like this-- Ricky-- played third on his college team. The trouble was, as he got older, his great backhand sometimes wouldn't kick in until the third set.

So, returning to C-grip "syndrome" as its opponents might call it, let's examine how today's experimental backhands once "step" and "press" are out of the way may crack up.

We may have to revert to some early tennis incarnation before we had our own tennis mind, back in the days when we simply did what we were told
like any sheeple or tennis players bleating "Baaahhh, baaahhh, baahhhh
three bags full."

Racket went back straight to left thigh on a relaxedly straight arm. I was permitted to find out for myself how far away from my body my racket should hover-- three inches in my case.

Briefly, the teaching pro was intrigued by this shot. The arm would suddenly and simply and unhurriedly lift. Straight up topspin, also depth and accuracy would result.

However this same teaching pro observed me playing a cabinet maker,
an unusually strong specimen of mensch from wielding a hammer all day every day.

"You need to do something more, Bot," the pro said. "That's a good shot against weaker players, but he's overpowering it every time."

My present flourishes decades later permit enough power but where's the straight up spin? So we'll press through the old 3-inch spot today, then straighten wrist to trigger a gradual roll to keep strings parallel to net regardless of contact point.