A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Whom Should We Blame for Serbia's Loss in Davis Cup Doubles?

We could blame the great French players Michael Llodra or Arnaud Clement. That would be kinder than blaming Nenad Zimonjic or Viktor Troicki, who played great after all. Or worse, blaming Slobadan Milosevic, Ratko Mladic or Radovan Karadzic.

This was supposed to be Serbia's finest hour, but for three sets, one wondered if Radovan Karadzic was loose in the sold-out stands of the third largest tennis venue in the world.

For, with Serbia ahead two sets to love, someone in the stands whistled while Clement was in the middle of his service motion.

So he stopped. And the person did it again. And again, in fact, EVERY TIME that Clement served.

Did the Serbians find the creep and throw him out? Hell no. Were Serbians in the crowd smiling about this? They were.

There was whistling between points and every conceivable kind of noise just the way that a Davis Cup final is supposed to be. But this whistling during Clement's serve was entirely different-- ugliness in the extreme. And exactly how Serbia, looking for a new world of dignity, did not want to present itself.

So how did Arnaud Clement, he with the tennis elbow, react? Guess what: He lifted his game and never stopped his service motion again. And the whistler in the stands got what he deserved after all.

[bottle]

Enhancement to One-Handed Topspin Backhand

In post # 469 in this thread, I outlined three sizes of the same backhand, with no clue that one of these choices would lead someplace else. I didn't know WHICH of the three choices would prove more productive in an extra-curricular way, either.

It's choice 1), the smallest backhand, in which one simultaneously turns shoulders and throws weight of the human head to one's left as soon as one knows he will be hitting a backhand over there.

This sounds like early and complete commitment, but the hands haven't gone back any farther than the natural turn takes them. The idea of this is to keep hitting hand close to projected ball and give oneself the chance to draw upon one's inborn hand-to-eye coordination.

Next step is to raise rear shoulder as if it's a rising wave. Hands can naturally go up as if they are a wave-rider. I hump my wrist then too since I use continental grip and need to close the racket face. I am convinced that doing this is easier than hitting an eastern backhand (not the conventional view). People would rather say that John McEnroe is a genius than that he has common sense.

Now comes the innovation. Rear shoulder will go down as a result of two simultaneous and related actions. Hips go out while remaining essentially parallel to sideline (but possibly with minimal turn also) and front shoulder rises up (it has to if rear shoulder is in the process of tilting down).

At the same time the upper arm can levelly wind back farther in opposition to hip traveling forward.

That creates a lot of tension/stored power. Additional power comes from the COD (sudden change of direction) about to happen. In the past, I think, whether the backhand was a drive or a slice, I took the barrel toward the net then clenched shoulder-blades together. But what specific action took barrel toward net? A slight straightening of the arm without using all of it up.

This is what I wish to replace, at least when I'm hitting for power. The new action will feel like gouging someone you don't like with your elbow.

That action now will start the "swing" forward. Quickly, it will blend with shoulder-blades clench off to right. A line through both shoulders could end up pointing at the target. The lower the front shoulder stays-- even though it must have come up some-- the faster the shot.

Low point in this stroke is no longer back by left thigh but is forward of that, as determined by direction elbow was pointing when you let it straighten passively in response to the sudden change of direction.

I no longer believe that arm must necessarily be straight by time of contact
if the straightening is passive and quick.

[bottle]

Structuring an Invention Session for Present Serve

Invention is heady stuff. When people advocate instead slow evolution and boot camp drills, not to mention yoga, tai chi, karate, a good hairdresser, pop empowerment, bag checks and The Alexandrian Quartet (which core lengthening method includes neck stretching straight up toward the sky), they might be coming across as boring, even distracted.

Excitement in tennis is not so much Ivan Lendl's parents tieing him to a net post, but his refusal to tone down his self-invented forehand to please the Czech tennis federation. And best of all, Andy Roddick's teen-age service invention on a day when he felt cross.

Roddick isn't the greatest all around player in the world, but he is a thrilling player. As someone who watched him bounce serve after serve over the BNP Paribas billboard in Davis Cup, Winston-Salem, I believe that each occurrence of his thrilling anybody harkens back to the day of his service invention.

Inspiring, that's what his invention is. But nobody knows too much about where inspiration comes from. Should one permit oneself to become cross?
Giddy? Cultivate sleeplessness? Build tracts of hypothesis and evaluation?

Some kind of discipline seems necessary. I go with the tract or track idea. One beats down a track through the thicket of unknown possibility.

Right arm goes up, left arm goes up, serve happens, forming a 1-2-3 count. How then does one adjust the exact moment when racket flies down and up for maximum efficiency?

One needs to invent a proper mechanism for making essential mistakes with which to frame one's best result.

Many serves use the method of slowly or not so slowly working one's elbow up. This serve does the opposite, working elbow down. And as the solidly connected, high elbow comes down (staying high relative to shoulder), the arm bends.

So there is the answer. One can follow the natural orthodoxy of the concept, i.e., one's blueprint. Or one can become an engineer and slightly tweak some commencement this way or that.

One can send one straight arm up and then the other and start bending arm at that exact moment. Or one can toss when straight hitting arm is still going up. Or one can start bending arm before tossing arm goes up. And try each choice to varying degree.

Remember, shoulders tilt backward a bit every time the arm starts its bend-- that's a given. Me, I'm slowly winding shoulders around a little bit more just then, too.

[bottle]

A Scythe And A Snake

Right arm holding racket goes up like a Tolstoyan scythe wielded by Levin in ANNA KARENINA. Left arm goes up like an S-shaped figure in some broad field in Russia or western Maine.

The tossing arm waits to start until precisely the moment when the hitting arm has scythed up to its zenith. The tossing arm then starts out slightly to the right rather than straight up. It snakes right then snakes left before a very high release. If this doesn't produce the desired, consistent J-toss, one will have to try something else.

Goal: A toss slightly out front that moves in the air from right to left while staying parallel to the baseline.

For this the front arm will almost feel like it too is a scythe since its smooth movement is slightly in the direction of the net post; however, it also serpentines right and then left before release and keeps going up in the same direction just established.

How should one hold the ball? I prefer the instructors who say hand can be under or slightly to the side rather than "ACHTUNG: There's only one way, and this is the way it's got to be."

For me, influenced by John McEnroe's toss, the hand is to the side with a bit of lip underneath. For this particular toss, I can't see what else would work, but I have a few issues in my tossing arm that probably cause a bias from more smoothness in one direction than another.

In any case the two arms rising in perfect sequence (first one then the other) give overall motion its shape. Once hitting arm has risen, elbow stays higher than shoulder. This goes for all members of the rotordation nation-- the only known way for them, including me, to get racket tip completely pointed down at the court along right edge of the bod.

Most unique about all of these iterations is the way the late toss only starts with rear shoulder and bending arm simultaneously winding down a bit.

Note: I hate to say this but here it is. Thinking of new ideas about serving is love affair; reportage on how they work out is marriage.

[bottle]

String the Bow, Don't Cock It

The snow is messing with my serve.

Start with left shoulder higher than right. Start with right shoulder higher than left. Start with both shoulders level. Which of these choices promises the most?

Me, I'm not sure of the answer, so I'll give left shoulder higher the try for now.

This simplifies toss and previous effort. The image I now may want is, "String an old English longbow as in the Lawrence Olivier film KING HENRY THE FIFTH." And I'm starting with top of the bow strung first.

Of course, if you follow me, reader, and you now string the lower half of the bow, you will have merely gotten the string strung rather than cocked-- a problem of archery, not tennis.

Also, no archer is going to wind upper body back as he tosses something-- so, get lost, archers, we used you when we needed you.

Completion of body bend contains every element from before but with some reduced in amount.

Everything discussed here concerns things happening in advance of the force.
More lower body motion goes down rather than forward and down.

Try starting with more body bow formed and then just a little. Find what works best within this particular category of address.

One should distinguish between movements that achieve force, I believe, and those that merely achieve desired positions which could be achieved just as well with enlightened static poses.

Thus a stance way turned around with racket pointed at the right fence. Thus the present bowing of body before the serve even begins. And hence less lowering of rear shoulder during the toss and press-- most of that has already been done.

The arms will suddenly become a curiosity in this serve. Why won't front arm rising later want to imitate the swoop of rear arm? And should this tendency be indulged or resisted? Should toss feel more like a bowl or a lift?

[bottle]

Can One Say What Will Work Beforehand? Sometimes.

Rainy day with indoor court time altogether too expensive. I go indoors to play only. I've never spent a winter in Detroit but am counting on global warming to permit me to do what I want to do, and who gets cold? Not former oarsmen. The occasional bystander who tells me how "dedicated" I am-- he's cold.

Used to get that in rowing, too. The person means well, but the truth is that I'm curious, not dedicated. I simply want to know what I can and can't do.

The iteration here is quite mental, but I've played Groundhog Day for so long, i.e., tried to get things right with each new dawn, that, something interesting to me at least always emerges from the experiment.

Right shoulder up to start is easier than making right shoulder go up during the serve. (I'm assuming that someone thinks a high right shoulder of any kind is a good idea.)

Arm swoops up slightly to the right. High right shoulder now goes down in slow inverted pantomime of the way it will zing up to hit the ball. That implies both kinds of upper body rotation backward then forward in immediately linked sequence.

As right shoulder goes down and around, left shoulder goes up, assisting the toss.

Remember, it all started from an extreme stance, so the ONLY backward body rotation occurs on the first forward weight shift.

Racket arm swooping up before toss even starts, assures that elbow will be high. The subsequent new circular body bend rounds off the transition or pause or calm before the serve, makes it less abrupt. The serving motion is comfortable.

This is different from tossing then bending under the toss. There is some of that, but the bend starts during the toss, is part of it. This is my version of a combination longbow and cylinder serve for now.

[bottle]

Zenith or Nadir?

I spoke of fanny slap, which some midwives in Fredonia still use. Obstetricians and modern midwives are more likely to suction nose and mouth but in any case do something immediate to send a signal to the baby's brain.

This serve is close to breathing, but its development is also approaching an absurdity. If decelerative racket is swooping up to a beautiful pause, why not just call the pause an ugly hitch, and question whether all the gravity action has any relation to everything else, and declare the whole iteration an abbreviated serve, and start with one hand by left thigh, the other at the end of your straight arm way up in the air? Soon you'll be demented and double-faulting your way off the tour and possibly out of tennis altogether.

In fact, extreme abbreviated version will become a learning method, an intermediate step to inflict upon novices, but I believe this serve retains its promise, and the drop and swoop CAN become integral.

First experiment to make it so is an extra drop from tossing hand of a few inches. This can happen just before hitting elbow reaches its zenith, and why not bend knees a little then too-- in fact do anything or not do anything one can think of to maintain continuity and keep "beautiful pause" from becoming "ugly hitch?"

An ugly hitch is never going to produce a first-rate serve. What works best looks good, too.

[bottle]

Reinforcing a Toss

Met a man in a bar who complained that his toss might go high enough in the early part of a match but not by the end.

Regardless of whether this is a mental or physical problem, some extra body assistance wouldn't hurt, and longbow method can provide it.

The learning narrative I have gradually been building has taken hitting elbow higher and higher as part of a drop morphing into a swoop.

If a totally relaxed arm and racket creates natural acceleration downward, the same formula could use gravity for deceleration upward.

It all might work to create a perfectly natural pause at just the right place like a perfect top to the backswing in golf-- but if this goal is too utopian, a small bit of muscular force to take hitting arm up the final bit of tract might still be necessary.

The tossing arm now is ready to chime in, but should it go up from shoulder only as both shoulders remain level, with the tilting of them to come afterward? Or could all of this happen at once with the tilting itself contributing to firmness of the toss? And if so, should there be sequence in the different functions or should it all be simultaneous?

How does the body like to wriggle anyway, and at what speed and from which end to begin-- or should the beginning come from one's belt? And why shouldn't body bend when raising front shoulder not be part of the pre-release as well as the post-release and with all of it working together?

[bottle]

Can't Get No Satisfaction

That's good. Will check it out. Thanks.

The search is on for a super-cue, something tangible to index a huge swatch of psycho-muscular circuitry.

Without talking about the slight difference among flat, topspin, slice, etc., I can assert a big difference among major iterations. In other words, the quested after super-cue will very likely be different for one iteration over another.

The present high arm early version, which I would like eventually to name "my serve," might reach its full potential through a focus on respective elbow positions in front of and behind one's eyes.

Thus, both elbows just reach same level at ball release, after which front elbow goes higher while rear elbow goes lower. Very quickly then rear elbow rotates in a couple of ways over front elbow. One wants to keep the two elbows far apart and solidly connected at least for a while.

Previously, I've spoken at length of "longbow," a very central image, but one which possibly now becomes educational and subordinated to the past.

Put another way, one thinks firm elbow separation or longbow but not both at the same time. One tries one cue then another and perhaps a third, fourth, fifth until one arrives at the fanny slap that makes the newborn baby sing.

All this is true, especially the part about never holding more than an idea or two in the mind at the same time.

So how about lifting the linked hands all the way up over the left shoulder to start? Or if for any reason one doesn't like that, how about a little muscular straightening from the elbow to assist the gravity drop?

Here's the lucubration behind such contemplations: to do away with the old down together up together feeling, which involves (perhaps!) unnecessary effort. I'd like the tossing arm to launch, and that does require smooth exertion, but I'd like to see the racket elbow attain the same height at the exact same moment with little or no effort.

Good thing there's an "Edit" button here. Rear elbow level with front hand at release is the goal.

[gzhpcu]

If you look at the discussion of Roscoe Tanner's serve we are having, I think you will find an example of not too much kinetic chain. Simple, concerted and fast.

[rosheem]

The kinetic chain is a computer virus designed to destroy your tennis strokes by slowing them down.

If I seem overly much to disparage the tried and true building block of a dozen different sports, then I give you your kinetic chain back only in lightning form.

If you can remember, Muhammad Ali would paralyze his opponent's arm with a jab. Then he would paralyze the other arm with a second jab. The third jab must have felt to him as if he was kicking the person's chin with the ball of one foot.

Bottle,

I haven't had time to catch up with your thread since renewing my subscription, but once again we've both arrived at a similar conclusion. I was just describing how "too much kinetic chain" was messing up my serve.

A few months away from tennis allowed me to explore my serve with fresh senses. I made some big improvements in the process.

[bottle]

Gravity Section, Weight on Rear Foot, Body Tall

Hands naturally accelerate down and decelerate up to two specific arm positions-- left hand to inside of left thigh and right hand at end of a yardarm straight out from right shoulder and parallel to court.

But didn't I just use words similar to "down and up?" And didn't the left hand only go down and not come up? Please live with this, dear reader, i.e., take right arm for the description.

Now we're ready for a slight weight shift forward as left arm launches up to top of skull (release point) and right arm does a controlled but vigorous and borderline uncomfortable stretch from 0 up to 45 degrees. Why 45 degrees? Because any more than that would pinch upper arm toward head and reduce internal leverage altogether too much. And any less than 45 degrees wouldn't allow for the rotordedness of us 94.3 per cent of the serving populace.

Yes, I divined that figure through dark arts but am pretty sure that all tennis instruction is aimed at only five per cent of servers, the ones who can substantially twirl the upper arm bone in their rotator cuff a bit like Roddick or Sampras.

When you admit your rotordedness to a teaching pro he may say "There are compensations" but seldom tell you what they are. Well, sometimes, if he knows them.

My speculative idea is that, besides high elbow, longbow image and longbow philosophy could be the answer. One could, e.g., take first half of longbow cocking on toss and second half to complete the slow coil and settle, with this formulation to replace such earlier mental sequences as knee-bend then forward travel or forward travel then knee-bend.

Besides this, one's raising of toss arm above head can combine with upper body tilt, thus replacing the Kirsten Dunce movie admonition to "keep tossing arm up" with something more active and organic and fun, a full-bodied stretch of left arm straight up to the sky.

As front shoulder tilts up rear shoulder tilts down while hitting arm coils, with all arching of the upper BACK now thoroughly delayed and relegated to take place as part of UNARCHING of LONGBOW, i.e., straightening of the full bod.

[bottle]

Third of the Arch on the Toss

Build on toss down and up the net post, only on the "up" part squeeze left shoulder-blade toward right shoulder-blade by release.

Since raising then dropping of hands is going to start every serve, one has a unique opportunity to use gravity to the max to establish the two hand-speeds. A high drop is supposed to create rush but try it anyway.

The higher the hands rise to start, the more tract the racket has in which to accelerate at 32 feet per second per second. Let the left hand drop naturally and pause while racket dives and soars with all of this happening before you apply any muscle.

Now use controlled, classic up together form to release the ball only with the third of an arch described, i.e., left shoulder-blade squeezes toward right shoulder-blade. A rotorded player needing extra elbow height now has attained it, extremely early, by time of the ball release.

The hands thus will get into very interesting relation to one another. The tossing hand will enjoy a long rising tract from inside of left thigh to top of skull. The straight racket elbow will move at the exact same time a very small and therefore minimally disruptive amount to precisely desired height.

Now there truly won't be any rush as, simultaneous, 1) tossing hand continues and stays up, 2) body cocks into a longbow creating upper body tilt (as well as lower body tilt), 3) elbow solid with shoulder therefore has to naturally drop, 4) elbow cocks to a right angle, 5) right shoulder-blade squeezes toward left shoulder-blade.

One might call 5) the other half of an arch. Fortunately, though, life is not that simple. If it were, then all of us would be geese instead of just most of us. It is my theory that America became jealous of Polish and blonde jokes and so decided to turn itself into an American joke.

First shoulder-blade move was a third. Second shoulder-blade move was a third. Third third is when rib cage rolls up the front of body in response to thrust from leg.

[bottle]

Kinetic Chain as Computer Virus

The kinetic chain is a computer virus designed to destroy your tennis strokes by slowing them down.

If I seem overly much to disparage the tried and true building block of a dozen different sports, then I give you your kinetic chain back only in lightning form.

If you can remember, Muhammad Ali would paralyze his opponent's arm with a jab. Then he would paralyze the other arm with a second jab. The third jab must have felt to him as if he was kicking the person's chin with the ball of one foot.

[bottle]

Fixed Elbow Above Shoulder

I'd like to discuss a single detail in the newest splendid offering by gzhpcu .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QL1sglyouU

The detail occurs in Rod Laver's serve, in which his elbow gets high early.

Next elbow goes down a little then up in linked, rhythmic and body driven action due to a firm connection between body and arm.

The thousands of servers fooling with elbow height at this point, i.e., are shifting elbow from shoulder joint upward, downward, or in any other direction are much less apt to derive this solid benefit built into Laver's and many other great serves.