A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Nice Long Track for the Hips to Trundle Along

This track is long at both ends.

So we've got the track established just the way we want it.

Time then to work on the verb that takes the hips along the full length of this track: (https://www.google.com/search?q=trun...hrome&ie=UTF-8). Remove any connotation of noise.

This is not the usual serve where you toss and then wind under the ball.

The toss and the wind are combined into a single step.

Somebody may not like that. It is nevertheless what I have come up with.

The trundle is part of the toss.

Winding back is part of the toss.

The steep racket work going down and up is in stark contrast with the width of one's action at its base.

[bottle]

Took a day off on Saturday to recover from so much tennis on Friday night. So today was really first work session on the new serve. Found I liked pre-toss at a couple of different speeds. And liked coordinating the toss with bend of the arm. But this worked best when not just bending at the elbow but drawing back upper arm a bit at same time. The two actions, you could say, constituted a "coil," very reminiscent of throwing a ball some time long long ago.

This is most result from least motion. Seems like it's going to save energy since one does about half as much. And I personally have always thought that easily produced motions make return of serve pretty difficult.

[bottle]

The Big Question

Is, I guess, whether the racket tip gets lower in this serve than in more conventional motions where most likely there is a down together up together pattern before the real action begins.

Me, I think racket tip lowness or the lack therof is the same, but that a conjunction of low racket and summing forces is easier to obtain when one has a whole lot more time with which to play.

The extra time comes from the late toss but even more from the combining of toss and wind (long "i" as in Long Island).

This brings about the chance for more control since so much less is happening.

I could be right, I could be wrong, but I've got the right to sing this song.

In my new motion there is a specific move intended to deal with a specific handicap, a congenitally dropped shoulder.

Look at this person in the posture line. The left shoulder is square but the right shoulder slopes down.

Pam Shriver, with the same malady, never obtained the topspin component she desired for her otherwise great serve.

I've tried everything within the conventional mode of serving.

In lifting the shoulder housing to the normal human level before I really start the serve (if toss is the true beginning of a serve), I seem to have allayed if not solved a couple of other problems too.

The first of these is shoulder flexibility, the second a wish never to hop on a knee replacement.

One tries a bunch of different motions if one is serious. (Reader, you may substitute the word "crazy" for "serious" if you wish and I won't object.)

And maybe one gets lucky some day not with the same bang as Andy Roddick the teenager but still pretty good.

I think of Vic Braden's whirligig, that video where he keeps palm down while torquing his shoulders in opposite direction in rapid succession, then thoughtfully reflects, "nice 100 mile per hour serve."

Which whirligig forms a very rapid and completely natural spaghetti arm loop.

I've returned to this model from time to time across the decades but believe it was never destined to work for me unless I could find a way to produce the same fast whirligig in a more vertical plane.

That is what the new serve seems to do. And while I don't notice a huge new surge in power I do notice along with a higher outgoing ball trajectory more ease and pinpointing of placement.

Whatever I'm doing is more fun than some little voice nagging in my ear all the time, "Toss higher, Bot."

[bottle]

With two balls in hand perform ten figure eights. They will never have felt so economical and neat.

For #'s eleven and twelve throw two tosses into the whirligig.

Stop.

Reflect upon what you just did.

Serve a basket of balls.

Stop. Do something else.

[bottle]

Desired: Forehands that combine forward arm position with backward (turned around) bod.

This has become a creed with me.

I am still influenced by Brent Abel's approving view of senior seniors national champion Paul Wulf as a man who started late but "figured out how to play the game."

In any case, I have found some new relative success by eliminating the custom of extensive arm work between backward and forward bod rotations.

Which paring away invites natural comparison with dead stick to spring stick in billiards. Does one draw one's pool cue back then stop it then shoot it forward? Or is the drawing back and shooting forward a single unified action?

The sport scientists speak of "stretch-shorten cycle" which is confusing enough to be impressive.

Applications include the upper arm twisting backward while trying to twist forward thus creating a build-up of conflict followed by a whooshing release.

But why not apply the same design principle to the thin stripe of flesh between belly button and hips?

Just have hips turn to the max. (Did the right-hander not only splay right foot but make sure left heel lifted dramatically up?)

And was racket tip still tilted toward the net at that point?

One needs to maximize hips turn and belly turn and resistance to the belly turn while minimizing the amount of distance the arm goes back.

How far forward can the racket be?

That is a subject to explore.

[bottle]

Shrill Voice's Great Advice on How to Prepare for the Big Final

Do everything you do very well all day.

[bottle]

Underhand Minimal but Looped Knife Stab

See See Commitment: In close, out front, set up to outside, straight wrist, lift don't roll.

Commitment is key. One can know that one's wiper would work yet still reject that.

On these grounds: The wiper would work less often. The wiper depends on fully laid back wrist. One would therefore need to set up with everything turned too far around toward the target.

[bottle]

Bent vs. Straight Arm: a Speculation

Back in the days when I was a cub reporter, men were men and newspapers were newspapers and posters were things on billboards.

I there discovered in my fledgling efforts at English expression that present and past facts tied one's hands, that freedom best emerged when one described an empty sky or vast, boatless river.

I now venture a similar claim for discourse about tennis and all other stripes of arcane knowledge.

One dreams, one speculates, and in so doing becomes alive.

Specifically, in topspin serves and ground strokes, one generates more RPS if one's whole arm is a straight rather than bent axle.

Why? A tight arc. The tighter arc with hand right-angling racket to the arm is more manageable by a human being than the bent axle choice.

This argument presupposes however that maximum RPS are a good idea when usually they aren't. (Note that we use "RPS" rather than the clunkier "RPM" more appropriate to long-playing vinyl.)

The argument also flies in the face of what we know of rocketry and man-made satellites, that the one shot farthest goes fastest if remaining in orbit.

According to that prescription a bent-arm serve or wipered forehand where strings are farther out from fulcrum of wipe or ISR ought to generate more racket head speed when in fact it generates less.

Human beings are frail, that's why, and therefore don't enjoy being on the wrong end of a power lever, not even Rafa Nadal.

Here's a conclusion: Use a still partially bent arm when employing any ground stroke for maximum push on the ball. The rising or pop-topping racket will provide enough spin.

But when going for the maximum spin of which one is capable straighten arm its last few inches of range but out to the side a bit to maximize pressure from your body twirl.

All serves to be hit from fully straightened arm even if that means tossing a bit higher.

Soft angled ground strokes to be hit from bent or bending arm (forehand), or from either straight or bent arm (one-hand backhand characterized by lift only but not windshield wipe).

Summary of technical point in another way: Bent arm forehand wiper is slowest; straight arm wiper forehand also with laid back wrist is faster; straight arm with straight wrist service wiper is fastest.

[bottle]

Changing Volley Direction through Finger Pressure Only

The idea came from reading Dennis Ralston. The execution of it took me about a month. First some of my forehand volleys became a whole lot crisper. And I started making some forehand volleys that ran parallel to the net, and they were firm. Then backhand volleys began to work better, too. And I revised my contact points, took the ball a bit farther back to allow for the change in what the racket tip now does.

Here's a guy who seems to believe that anybody can learn anything in a month. It's important to note that Max Deutsch, the guy I'm talking about, achieved all but one of the following goals:

https://medium.com/@maxdeutsch/m2m-d...s-9843700c741f

The first thing Max does every time, it seems to me, is devise a learning strategy. With my volleys, the big thing was hitting little chips against a bangboard, something I plan to do forever just for a minute or two at the end of any practice.

The ball can bounce once, twice, any number of times-- what does that matter? I'm trying to make things easy for myself, so I don't try to take the ball out of the air-- I do that when I play a match. Thus the shots turn into ground strokes. But so what? Pressure of the fingers, particularly of the bottom three. is the subject here, nothing else. All the shots against the bangboard are hit softly with as much finesse as I can muster.

[bottle]

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/this-is-what-happens-when-magnus-carlsen-takes-on-his-closest-rival-in-chess-2015-1

[bottle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNimEUTmQy8

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cORHXi_sfA

[bottle]

Arm Whip Experiment that May or May not Go Beyond One's Capability of Performance

In trading ground strokes during informal hitting the other night I noticed that my raising of racket tip from my chosen wait position had nothing to do with the efficacy of some forehand.

I could just have left racket sloughed out to side in the position where I thought it ought to be and the shot would be no worse.

That position: Elbow medium high and racket tilted forward, arm bent and relaxed, and this whole mechanism including the wrist about to yield to bod and become a cast net.

But I remember USPTR pro Walt Malinowski telling me he went to the outer courts at the D.C. Classic and watched some playing pros returning serves with their arms only.

Should be fun if the present cold rain will stop to try some arm onlies using no bod rotation, followed by some shots with a little bod rotation and arm lift to supplement the final scrape of strings past the ball.

Since I always have a see see in mind as the shot I most want to perfect.

Bringing into view this time idea number three at the end of post # 4148, the supposition that ISR is quickest when arm and wrist both are perfectly straight.

If this shot should work, it would be a combination of modern ISR-emphasized serving principle and a see see and a Ziegenfuss, that latter shot being a forehand that sends arm first at the ball with bod then chiming in to provide a long follow-through.

Valerie Ziegenfuss (Cooper), bronze medalist in doubles at the Mexico City Olympics with Peaches Barkowitcz, came up with that shot as the result of a chat she had with a tennis nut in a Texas bar.

[bottle]

What's Wrong with Hitting a Straight Armed Topspin Forehand with a Straight Wrist?

You'll roll over the ball. That's true. But not as much as if your arm was bent. Which would have the added disadvantage of pushing the strings sideways just at the time you wish they would go someplace else.

I am still in self-feed mode with this shot, I'll admit, but am very curious to see whether it works in competition.

A factor of course is that one may have hit 80 billion forehands the other way-- with a mondo to lay back the wrist first.

That virtually every player you've even seen does that however doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I'd learn the new principle while keeping the old one available for emergencies or choice.

The concept for this shot derives from observing the way that ISR is best employed in a serve-- certainly not with wrist either humped or laid back.

No, the wrist recently got straight.

Straight wrist produces more RPS. And if that is true for a serve why not for a forehand?

Should I be excited at the differentness of this new arrangement? Why not?

To hit this shot, take it farther to the right than for a cast net forehand which depends on straight push from the rod of the forearm.

This one gloms into and multiplies the force of whirling bod.

The multiplication comes from long lever to the side.

I am impressed by the current article here by Jimmy Arias on his father's contribution to his (at the time) innovative forehand. And how the rest of the world eventually caught up but for a while Jimmy got to clean up.

The implication-- that a whole sport could be stupid-- is close to astounding. Similarly, that some little Greek engineer could be smarter than all tennis but I fervently believe it.

I mean, talk to tennis players. Observe them. Watch the equipment they buy. How many of their decisions are based on quest for the best or on simple-minded fashion?

That's how I felt this afternoon after a day as sub teacher with 28 wild and crazy kindergarteners. On the way home I stopped at a tennis court. With no expectation I tried one of the many experiments I have in mind. In the cold rain, I dropped a ball and hit it reverse cross-court deep into the opposite alley. Then I tried the same shot the new way and the ball landed in the exact same spot.

So that's the tale of how I got excited. If the new shot is as good as or better than the old one, then all of tennis may have been on the wrong track for a couple of decades with its silly flip.

But if the second shot was an example only of passing excellence, then tennis (and I) go back to where we were.

[10splayer]

What's Wrong with Hitting a Straight Armed Topspin Forehand with a Straight Wrist?

You'll roll over the ball. That's true. But not as much as if your arm was bent. Which would have the added disadvantage of pushing the strings sideways just at the time you wish they would go someplace else.

I am still in self-feed mode with this shot, I'll admit, but am very curious to see whether it works in competition.

A factor of course is that one may have hit 80 billion forehands the other way-- with a mondo to lay back the wrist first.

That virtually every player you've even seen does that however doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I'd learn the new principle while keeping the old one available for emergencies or choice.

The concept for this shot derives from observing the way that ISR is best employed in a serve-- certainly not with wrist either humped or laid back.

No, the wrist recently got straight.

Straight wrist produces more RPS. And if that is true for a serve why not for a forehand?

Should I be excited at the differentness of this new arrangement? Why not?

To hit this shot, take it farther to the right than for a cast net forehand which depends on straight push from the rod of the forearm.

This one gloms into and multiplies the force of whirling bod.

The multiplication comes from long lever to the side.

I am impressed by the current article here by Jimmy Arias on his father's contribution to his (at the time) innovative forehand. And how the rest of the world eventually caught up but for a while Jimmy got to clean up.

The implication-- that a whole sport could be stupid-- is close to astounding. Similarly, that some little Greek engineer could be smarter than all tennis but I fervently believe it.

I mean, talk to tennis players. Observe them. Watch the equipment they buy. How many of their decisions are based on quest for the best or on simple-minded fashion?

That's how I felt this afternoon after a day as sub teacher with 28 wild and crazy kindergarteners. On the way home I stopped at a tennis court. With no expectation I tried one of the many experiments I have in mind. In the cold rain, I dropped a ball and hit it reverse cross-court deep into the opposite alley. Then I tried the same shot the new way and the ball landed in the exact same spot.

So that's the tale of how I got excited. If the new shot is as good as or better than the old one, then all of tennis may have been on the wrong track for a couple of decades with its silly flip.

But if the second shot was an example only of passing excellence, then tennis (and I) go back to where we were.

What do you mean by rolling over the ball. I would suspect this is misguided, but shoot.