A New Year's Serve

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Where Others See Nuthin Special I See Turning a Paradigm on a Dime

Specifically, I refer to the little wave low and behind the back described in Narim's video. I shan't play the video here for fear of distracting from my message. If somebody insists, however, they can see it in post #4302 . The wave is a loosey-goosey and passive lifting of the elbow followed by a lifting of the hand, but with everything kept low and within specific parameters.

Well, what does the little wave replace? Trophy position, that's all, the great right angled fol-de-rol from which all great throws are supposed to emanate.

I figure that this rigid mindset originally did come from the top of a cheap tennis trophy. Which came from a cheap design in somebody's 10-cent computer. Vic Braden had a lot of fun deriding it. I'd like to share in his mirth.

So does the little wave come from one's cerebellar computer, the billion dollar jobbie? Possible. For a person whose physique offers too little range up to the ball, adoption of this low wave seems a no brainer. Or, better put, a back brainer.

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What a Serve!

The geezers were buffaloed. No forward bod progress during the toss.

One arm goes up, the other sideways. It's one and the same time.

We proceed now to the second of three counts. Tossing arm stays up. Hitting arm does its little wave. Body compresses and winds backward to get ready for the throw.

Count three: Everything you ever dreamed. But where was the weight? Spread evenly between the two legs-- throughout. Next, try some of these serves all from front foot, all from back foot, again from both feet.

Pegleg, delayed, finally does swashbuckle through to catch your weight.

Note: This post was written before I went out to play with the geezers. It is a representation of how I would like things to be.

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You Won't Believe This

Both hands up slightly (linked).

Both hands down slightly (linked). Knees use the downward rhythm to bend.

Toss and wave all at once.

If you were tossing an old racket for distance the time would be now.

The wave humps the wrist.

The throw depresses the wrist.

The curve-ball is similar to the one or two foot long pave-loader exercise you did.

Narim's wave leads into a soft bit of tract in which the humped wrist cocks (opens).

So now you redo the pave-loader exercise.

Instead of finishing behind you each time you only do that in the first instance.

And in the second instance. But in the third instance you finish where you started in the first instance.

Now you continue the progression so as to mimic the distance from wave to contact. You can return to original pave-load finish.

Using your chosen distance, mimic it, each time working farther up.

But this is not enough. Why mimic a move, other than to learn the feel of it, that primarily is on the left side of the bod when the right side is where you want it?

So now you mimic formation of the wave from two hands down together over and over.

When you are confident of that, you declare this repeated move the same as the original pave-load finish only on the right side of your bod now.

This might be a good time to remember that, through the pave-loaders, you were practicing a constant speed both in opening the wrist and in closing it.

Well, do the same thing now on the right side only in reverse.

Now, where before the wrist opened, it closes. And where it closed, now it opens.

Practice this to and from a catch at the point where the two linked hands will come down together in the real serve. Your cerebellum may ask for a more laid back wrist when the two hands are linked by the racket.

All this-- every bit of the elaborateness in all of the short sections of movement you established for yourself-- is a plot to simulate the soft section of curve-ball that now will happen right after the wave.

Instead of returning to the linked position of both hands on the racket, you will perform a similar movement but with the hitting arm only and take it up, not down.

It won't be all arm since bod will be helping in the real serve, but there is nothing wrong in practicing the arm action over and over by itself.

That would be separate to hump and back to two hands, over and over, both directions, until you feel ready to add the next step.

But other things are beginning to happen as the result of your persistence. You owe it to yourself to notice what they are.

First, there no longer is any independent take-back of the arm before it goes into the wave.

So, to get racket far enough around to generate significant force, the bod needs to turn backward at the same time.

To facilitate this, you might think, the left arm, the tossing arm, should now point acoss at right fence same as on a forehand.

But are we on the track we want? No. We wanted one arm going up, the other going back, or if not that, forming a wave.

Don't give up! You are almost there.

It is not the left arm pointing across that turns the bod as in a forehand. For the left arm does not point across. It goes up very high to perform the toss.

So it is the right arm that pulls the bod around. It stays connected as it goes into the wave.

Up-down, then toss-wave and pull around all at once.

In fact, you feel as if the pull-around is levering the toss up, and maybe it is.

But everything is in preparation for the crucial next step, a slow curve-ball pitch that is part of the wind-up and therefore is smooth rather than fast and forcible.

The body turns inside out. The scapula stretches. The arm curves as you have practiced. The wrist opens as you have practiced. The elbow stays back. Only the bod prevents the racket face from opening beyond control.

Let's continue to think things through since Gallwey's billion dollar computer works best from clear command.

The wrist is depressed, not humped. The wrist is open. The wrist is cocked. And throwing a slow curve-ball. It's still winding the racket up to the ball. But the extensors are firing. You just won't permit them to roll the ball up, as they will if you do things wrong-- you'll get bod-produced topspin that is straight up but painfully weak.

The firing of the extensors is powerful and muscular but slow enough still to store energy.

Which all releases through a combination of ISR and wrist turning inside out from depressed to humped and last but not least the bottom three fingers tightening hard.

Smooth to the ball and snap.

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The Details of a Shiva-like Multiple-armed Serve on the Cover of FUNDAMENTALS OF TENNIS by Stanley Plagenhoef are Different from What Thought in that the Wrist from Wave Upward remains Humped through Four Fifths of Arm Extension.

The second part of Narim's "wave" is just an educational tool designed to put one on the right track.

In fact once the elbow goes up the hand goes up in rapid forceless succession.

So keep going with no hesitation whatsoever.

With the full alternation of wrist position continuing, as I described before, just later.

The wrist snap must therefore be re-clarified and re-conditioned-- always a tragedy.

This is just how one man, Stanley Plagenhoef, does his serve or describes it.

Just one man, but a good man, with a serve that deserves a throw (of one's dice).

The humped wrist gets the swashbuckler's sword edge close to ball as if about to decapitate a soft boiled egg in a tall English eggcup.

But at last instant goes from humped to cocked-- the full change of available range.

Yet you still have not made contact. So the suddenly opening racket appears almost to catch the ball.

But remember-- still has not made contact.

Can this opening be forcible? I think not. But is the ISR starting at the same time forcible? Yes.

Hand force only begins now with a great tightening of one's fingers.

Which turns wrist through full range the opposite way.

I predict, despite knowing of teaching pros who absolutely disagree with this, that the fingers tightening can trigger the wrist action and at last make it work.

The hitting arm is straight from before contact to after contact but not over-extended.

This is the kernel of the serve. Not enough people give it sufficient thought. Thought first, no thought later.

One has to discover one's effective snap before one turns it over to habit.

I think players who don't have great kick on their serve-- thousands and thousands of players-- should get the rest of their serve in order then throw every experiment they can think of at the "kernel."

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Shouted Words to Live by: "Old Men Shouldn't Jump up in the Air!"

They came from a geezer in the middle of the geezer's division of a large tennis tournament in northwest Virginia. All the geezers were lined up side by side on about ten adjacent courts all along the same fence.

If they are true, and they are, a geezer needs to stay low to the ground.

To this purpose, I propose a pair of alliterative and alternative hip turns within the same forehand.

The first hip or rather hips turn (since one has two of them or did) is with both feet flat on the ground. And while you're at it, geezer reader, turn your shoulders on top of your turning hips. All tennis experts agree that this will slow down your hips.

But you always want to defy the experts, geezer, so willfully speed up your hips again. Do this by turning your hips and back knee into your rigid front knee just at the moment you hurl your arm.

The philosophy of this will permit your rear heel to come up at last, which will be fun, even fine.

The sequence: Knees, torso and arm.

Knees, torso and (hips and arm).

[Mamie]

The idea I recently had-- totally strange to me at least-- is of using ISR on a forehand the way you do on a serve pros and cons of 888casino. This makes top edge of the racket push forward rather than remaining vertical and fanning upward.

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The idea I recently had-- totally strange to me at least-- is of using ISR on a forehand the way you do on a serve pros and cons of 888casino. This makes top edge of the racket push forward rather than remaining vertical and fanning upward.

Bad idea. Been there, done that. The racket might be closed a little but shouldn't be closing. In fact some think it ought to be opening (which I doubt). But for sure topspin comes from how racket leaves the ball (top edge first). And since there is independent arm movement in an ATP3 that's one source of the spin. As in a Joe Palooka uppercut (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5SKBn8xERw). Or, if the swing is level rather than rising and the racket was closed a little ("beveled") we would be apt to call that administration of spin "poptop."

The other source of topspin, more optional, it seems to me, is windshield wipe, which if done best preserves constant racket pitch through contact, i.e., a little before (under) and a little after (over).

The thing is, from reading and listening to Brian Gordon in his videos, that arm "swing" or "throw" or "ply" or whatever you want to call it happens simultaneous with the wipe when wipe occurs. You want to make sure your arm is full of blood same as in the long toss exercise for pitching or throws from the outfield in baseball. (Guys get on a football field and toss a baseball from one end zone to the other-- they build up to that by teaching themselves in five-yard increments to have a live arm.)

But the other idea you advance, which victimized me for years before I knew better, is very tempting, especially for short angle topspin forehands. You can do it, probably best in that direction, and you will hit some winners and immediately become addicted. Just say no! And strive for repeatability instead. (Right, your link to casino stuff shows you already were aware on some level of the crapshoot nature of changing pitch on the ball. Dropshots are another subject-- okay to try it there since you are subtracting speed from what just arrived.)

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Tweaking a Narim-inspired Service Using Plagenhoef Wrist Reversal while Giving Self a Chance to Learn it

The wrist reversal, pretty technical, is described in #4309 and perhaps elsewhere.

The challenge, as in any serve, is to master the infernal kernel up over your head.

I suggest moving the wrist opening down from four fifths of arm extension to one half arm extension.

This provides extra time to activate subsequent wrist action through massive tightening of the fingers.

But ISR will need to start early too.

The ball should land in the service box.

The serves may not be terrific but could be good.

As these crucial beginning actions become more ingrained one can push them up closer to the ball.

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Straight Arm Forehand Simplissimus

Flip wrist open with left hand and take racket back level as left arm pointing across assists the unit turn.

Step or step-step-step or hit the ball off right foot. Perhaps, third forehand struck today, I was following the #4310 prescription.

Ball, loaded with pace and spin, lands deep in crosscourt alley.

Comment from geezers: "That's from 50 years of playing tennis."

Actually, I'm very sure that this forehand was a completely new invention that I never hit before in my life.

Haven't tried it in self-feed. Haven't had a hit with anybody (Iryna went back to The Ukraine). It worked well for the duration of the two hours, but nothing was as spectacular as that third shot.

So, the racket is back level. Me, I've got thumb loose Top Dead Center, an old automotive term. Both knees rotation and torso rotation, in sequence, are used to straighten arm. Thumb presses down a small bit too. My excuse for doing this if I need an excuse is a boyhood fracture of my right arm radius in two places from crashing while skiing down the alligator shaped burial mound in Granville, Ohio.

Next comes arm throw with or without a twist (circular wipe with strings at one pitch).

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Incapacities of Serving

What if one isn't as physically impaired as one thinks and doesn't have a five-cent computer instead of the usual ten-cent computer in the top front of his brain, as one also thinks?

I now try (today) serves in which, after Narim's wave, one squeezes the two halves of one's arm together while opening the wrist.

Remember, we've done extensive experiments in which we-- full range-- close and open the wrist all over the place, here, there, no there.

Now the hand, menacing, approaches the ear. And if we lay it back so palm faces the sky, Braden tells us, we won't get good spin. Palm needs to be parallel to ear and side of the head, Vic says, so we try it, but this time rebel against the first part, that wrist can't lay back.

No, we've opened and closed wrist in different spots all over the place, which has empowered us. We feel free to try wrist closing or opening at any point we want. We'll try an opening but still get the palm parallel to the side of the head.

Next we apply finger pressure to the racket handle like the jaw of a hyena. While proactively but not too violently straightening the arm at all of its joints. While violently clenching the scapula. While pacifically attacking the right edge of the ball.

Until ISR takes over to hump the wrist to the right of contact.

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Two Breakthroughs

It's not what Plagenhoef's book cover shows (there's really NOBODY in whom totally to believe although I would take Plagenhoef's one hand backhand any day and have).

But there is a service vector in which to believe. With elbow raised and wrist opened right next to ear-- all the subsequent straightening of joints is going to create racket head momentum upward but from left to right to before ISR continues it only more sharply to right.

Where exactly in the arm action one should apply hyena's jaw fingers compression I haven't figured out yet and maybe never will or want to, but it happens, is going to happen, must happen.

On forehand, we are again indebted to a book, MASTERING YOUR GROUND STROKES, Tom Okker division. Okker and Okker's editors impose black arrows on the photos of Okker hitting forehands.

The black arrows, drawn on Okker's knees, show those knees pressing through every contact rather than leaping or even straightening.

To hit the ball this way yourself, I suggest that both knees not always press toward the target but rather along the line formed by the splayed front foot wherever that points.

The front knee thus is pliable in the direction for which it was built but stiff or resistant as far as any new rotation is concerned. (A significant amount of knees rotation happened on flat feet an instant before torso rotation in the same neutral stance shot.)

The rear knee meanwhile has pivoted inwardly to end up closer to the other knee and press in the same direction as arm begins its blood-filled solo.

Note: A trouble with big guys who overcook neutral stance forehands is that a replacement step (of the rear foot) always happens and tends to be overly large. Welby Van Horn didn't preach against it, but the good choice he saw was no replacement step or a small one.

In a forehand somewhat like Tom Okker's but with the huge rear end loop lopped off, the knees and torso can fire in rapid sequence to straighten the arm. Kinetic chain principle says the torso firing will slow the knees (and hips). Already then we have the chance of improved balance. But that chance should get even better if right heel comes up at end of torso firing as hips rotate into braced front leg. With arm to take off as parallel knees fold forward through the ball.

Immediately one sees the option of a smaller forehand in which one does not try to hit so hard. Just don't turn out right foot thus defying the orthodoxy of unit turn. You won't get as much backward turn but you won't have to make an effort to get the knees parallel to one another either.

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The Original Church Lady in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

"She would have been a good woman," the Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/a...ence-of-grace/)

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Touchstone in Tombstone

Paveloader finish and opening is the touchstone for future service experiments. Full range of wrist movement is the ne plus ultra. Carved serves are the tombstone-- or so we've been told. You don't peel the ball. Nobody peels a ball. You peel an onion, an apple, an orange.

But contact is 4 thousandths of a second. So the peeling idea is okay, just a directional thing so long as you don't peel at supersonic speed. And it's only for soft serves in a certain direction.

It's the opening part from these exercises that is most useful.

Start with wrists crossed and lodged together, off to left. Make the arrangement comfortable, with toss arm resting on top and avoiding wrist strap contact with lower arm on this side or that.

Turn of the shoulders is the ne plus ultra. Oh, sorry, now we have three ne plus ultras. A black strainer is the important object-- the only object other than pictures on my wall.

Right arm, the hitting arm, is well situated for gravity assisted getting out of the way.

The elbow turns up and compresses a little as wrist humps. This used to happen behind one, now it's in front. The shoulders are turning.

Everything discussed so far is a half-move. Whole move is the toss as hitting hand winds up with palm slowly opening toward ear. The thing looks like a geezer serve that isn't a real serve-- so what? Instead of making a foolish value judgment, count. I count to one.

Count two is when the ball starts coming down. Blooey! That's the non-sound of legs firing to cock the upper arm, i.e., twist the humerus like an axle some more. Hand therefore plunges down more, always a bit more than planned.

Count three is rest of the serve.

Did body bend backward when you tossed? It should have. You want to get most body bend out of the way
to make sure a little more of that happens, too.

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Whole New Reference World


The new serve opens up a body of new references, a different drop-down menu.

New cues will be forthcoming unless I decide somehow that this new serve isn't very good.

Here's a nicely grotesque cue (one of the best kind since less forgettable).

Instead of opening wrist toward right ear one can aim at top of head then back of head.

Put Braden's imaginary mirror in palm of your hand.

First you check for cooties on the top of your head. Then on the back of head. Then legs fire to lower hand still more.

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What's the Hurry?

One wants an easy action, but the new pathway this discussion has embarked upon naturally raises the question of how long one's hands should remain linked.

Has turning one's body during the toss ever improved a toss any more than bending the knees during a toss?

An idea or three: Turn body before the toss. Bend body as part of the toss. Start with knees relaxed and lower them a little as you turn.

A slow, thorough bod turn to start serve will establish sufficient rhythm and raise left heel-- one more thing out of the way and not requiring further thought.

Hands to start can be connected just in front of one's wrist bones-- that feels good and one can still wear a watch if one chooses.

The total change in all this replaces the mirror sliding over top and back of head but that is just as well. It was a bit fancy.

One can think of Djokovic's bent arm controlled whirls during Wimbledon 2018 and how well they worked.

I expect that my own arm will not just be bent but will have to be bending more. It's okay.

What concerns me more is the dead Luxilon copoly in all three of my rackets. John McEnroe uses longer lasting natural gut, right?

(https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...-all-the-above)