A New Year's Serve

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Centenarian's Serve Cued Another Way

This serve has become extremely simple. The way it is thought of can become more simple yet.

Reduce hip moves (post # 440) from four to two-- backward and frontward.

Keep shoulder moves at three physical and one mental for a total of four (4).

Shoulders catch up to hips twice. Then they don't do anything (the mental element). Then they go all out as the centenarian draws on every bit of force left in her transverse stomach muscles.

The key is in the psychological nature of the shoulders' non-move right after release of archer's bow. What could work best would be to imagine shoulders going backward while understanding this doesn't actually happen.

One could say the shoulders cock backward and not be far off.

Delay shoulder from release of archer's bow.

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Re # 439, "Killing the Reference Points"

A note to anyone trying this or perhaps to myself: Do things as described but
keep head still, i.e., don't compress knees after final step (the hitting step).

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Cutting Down Further

The serve was getting too big for a 70-year-old even as it was getting rather promising for a 70-year-old. Depend more on the final fifth of a second to make one fly.

That's the Michael Jordan part in a two-stage rocket. Let the others have their one-stage rocket if they possess even that.

The biggest development was to start everything with racket perpendicular and body parallel to the right fence. The second biggest development was to make all compression and extension of the front leg-- in a platform stance serve-- a subset of archer's bow.

These abbreviations were of the body only, not of the racket work. While some think that Tim Henman bends leg too much and Stan Wawrinka too little, ignore those commentators and players both and go to a knee clinic instead. The joint people there may tell you that when you get up out of a chair you put fifty times your body weight on your knees. So how much pressure is there when serving in tennis and from one leg only?

The specific body abbreviations I mention could enable a centenarian to employ the quadruple hip motions of Pete Sampras.

A little hips to start, with shoulders to catch up, and all of this coincident with cocking of archer's bow. A little hips the opposite way with shoulders to catch up coincident with release of archer's bow. A little hips then to trigger second rocket stage. A little hips then beneath big thrust from shoulders cranking sixty degrees or more. Put your adrenalin THERE.

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Killing the Reference Points

Start with LP (low point) which no longer will be a spot as you probably learned but rather a process or continuation or series of points-- a flow.

This certainly happens on a serve. There's a low point behind your back but then another farther to the right with everything tocked through in between.

On a forehand this phenomenon also can pertain but probably more completely than in the design one already uses. Yes, the LP is behind the rear leg-- at first-- but continues toward the ball as the front hip pushes out. "Sink into the shot," Virginia Wade used to say.

Backhand in this respect is the same. Has anyone ever seen a film of the full Tony Roche topspin backhand? Try the old Australian VHS MASTER TENNIS series where the Roche backhand, repeated three times, comes complete with eery sound effect. As Vic Braden recently said, implying that not enough players do, you always have to get low enough for at least a 30-degree upward racket trajectory.

Like the upper body tilting back and slowly compressing leg and ankle in ground strokes the slowly extending arm and even controlled forearm-and-wrist action can contribute to attenuated low point. Never let anything happen all at once but keep rhythm like a wave welling down until it surges up?

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Ace from a Short Windup

Never mind where any idea came from. That might distract you. The idea is yours, I tell you, yours if you want it, and you're getting sleepy, so sleeepy.

Your body is turned way around. You've assumed an "extreme stance," a space cadet would surely say. Your upper and lower bodies are square with one another. You're facing the side fence, and your racket is pointing...nowhere.

Your hands, the ball, the racket are intimate, contiguous. Your weight is pretty much on the back foot. Your left arm is getting ready to go wherever it must to produce a lazy seagull high enough to invite a full stretch by you and drifting slowly sideways back across you going "CAW, CAW."

Altogether now A+B+(A+C+B)+A+(A+5B) where A=hips turn, B=shoulders
turn and C=release of archer's bow.

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Is the Meat Behind your Hand the Meat Between your Ears?

This question may sound obnoxious but, actually, all I'm trying to do is open up another possibility for a person choosing to hit one-handed topspin backhands.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd give up the eastern backhand grip I'd held for decades. And could that even be a viable idea? Not in the view of Sebastien Foka, a teaching pro at Eastside Tennis Club here in Detroit.

In most cases you wouldn't change a grip you'd held for years even if it wasn't
a perfect choice in the beginning. Exception to the rule happened for one reason. I was able through relentless experimentation in a series of not always smooth discoveries to make my continental backhands work at least as well as my eastern backhands.

At that point I was ready to say, 1) you don't have to change over from forehand grip as far, 2) you can easily be ready to hit slice every time then change it to topspin at the last second, 3) you can easily change back to eastern if for some strange reason the continental version goes sour on you since both strokes utilize the same wave-like structure combined with abrupt change of direction and controlled (not uninhibited) use of the forearm-wrist yoke.

Like any recent convert, I'm ready to proselytize. That isn't the point. More than to be an advocate I want to be even more curious than before. Perhaps still other tennis discoveries remain for me-- of course there are for anyone, always.

Here in my view is the most curious aspect of the continental topspin backhand, modeled on John McEnroe, all over again: For change of direction the wrist starts bent the opposite way from the eastern backhanders. It's hunched or convex and pliable rather than concave and locked and feels more like dealing cards. Once I settled on that I then decided in my personal yet still scientific experiments to combine a little forearm roll with a little relaxed straightening of that hunched wrist just at the COD (change of direction).

Maybe this innovation harks back to a ski accident when I was fourteen in which I broke the radius in my right arm-- I don't know.

All I can say is I find the hunch-straighten sequence more natural while tending to get the racket tip lower.

In the old VHS TENNIS OUR WAY Arthur Ashe advocated more meat behind the hand for the general tennis populace. With less meat behind the hand, as in his case, he suggested, one needed to find the same strength in timing alone.

But I wonder-- is the timing required so difficult and exotic and virtuoso? Developing structure seems more important. Develop wave structure and change of direction on any 1HTSBH, say I, and then you can choose continental grip if you wish.

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Evolution

Absolutely. Except that some knees and other things nevertheless do go bad. I'm just back from a fiftieth anniversary of my eight-oared crew, The Orphans of the Seekonk, and literally had to haul the guy behind me out of the boat after our row because he didn't have any knees left. Just then 300 Brown University oarsmen and oarswomen began to cheer and clap and shout for us.

The trans-generational evolution and momentum not just in equipment and rowing style and program seemed to stand still for just a moment.

Maybe the ovation happened because we seventy-year-olds made it back to the dock. And still were friends after 50 years. And made it to the reunion.

Also, however, we hired the first paid coach, we transformed a rowing club into a varsity sport, we made first contact with the man who donated the boat house, we were invited to row in the 1960 Olympic Trials and did. One of our guys, a tremendous men's freshman coach, then became the first coach of the women, a program which has been to the White House a couple of times. That happened later but in the beginning, after three years of steady effort, we got the sport recognized despite the determination of one Dean and one Director of Athletics to stop us, and without that, I don't think any of the later national championships for both the women and the men would have happened.

There are similar sport stories all over the world, I suspect. The stroke and frequent captain of our crew, sponsor of the Iraqi national crew's current visit to the United States, brought those beleaguered yet charming and extremely polite oarsmen to our reunion with him.

And before we could even carry the shell and oars we just used up into the boathouse, the current Brown oarsmen did it for us.

[gzhpcu]

And Cliff Drysdale, the tennis commentator, tells about playing tennis with Jack Nicklaus, the golfer. Amazed at what he saw, Drysdale said, "Jack, why do you keep changing your strokes?"

"I've done that my whole life."

Rafa Nadal is another prime example: he constantly wants to improve. I have been going through this process all my life. Never satisfied with my game, always have a project to improve some aspect.

But then have always been fascinated with learning. Have always been fascinated by theoretical physics and cosmology. Currently am reading up on the latest developments of M-theory. As long as you want to keep learning and evolve, mentally and physically, I feel one keeps eternally young...

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We Try to Explain the 1hbh Anyway

Which gets better from the effort.

Arm goes faster than body in every stroke-- a good reason to start it a bit later (in both directions).

Back shoulder rises-- a very pure motion easy to understand and to explain to another person.

Then that shoulder drops into a trough of water moving toward the shore. What else is moving in this easy part of the stroke? The hip going out but not turning. The front shoulder going out yes by turning. The arm shipping the racket barrel first.

And where is all of this easy energy going as it moves the hand into good hitting position? Toward the left net post or the left fence post depending on which body parts you want to discuss.

Next: Turning the corner while letting the wave crest.

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Discovery

No one human being has ever satisfactorily explained a whole tennis stroke.

The best teaching pros can take you only so far. You must fill in the rest of the information yourself.

But what if you don't have it? Then, perhaps, you can turn to other teaching pros since each, inevitably, will explain some aspect better than the others.

Should one weep? I don't think so. This basic situation, understood, leads to self-empowerment, the very quality for which junior players in the United States get constantly criticized. They won't exercise their own intelligence and become their own coach.

But, I would argue, this deficiency coming from the eagerness of other people to do stuff for them extends past their negligence of the half-court game to the structure of their strokes itself.

They know that toss should curve back slightly over their body because Vince van Patten said so when instructing the travel person on the Tennis Channel even though that wasn't the first problem with her serve.

They're not crazy enough like Henri le Conte deciding he was going to hit every toss on the rise like Big Bill Tilden.

They don't go snarfing around every tennis court like the young Pancho Gonzalez looking for elements or strokes to emulate.

If you won't be a searcher in tennis and continue your search all through your life, you'll reach your level of mediocrity breathtakingly soon. You won't have enough interest in the game to continue with it every day.

The physician sister of a former number one in U.S. doubles told me at an oysterfest the other night that her sister no longer plays tennis.

Why? Because she can't stand recreational tennis. To her, tennis is about a certain level of competition. Without that, there simply isn't any thrill.

The difference between this player and Bill Tilden is that Tilden was working on an extra hitting step right up to the end, a special move that had taken his game down another notch.

And Cliff Drysdale, the tennis commentator, tells about playing tennis with Jack Nicklaus, the golfer. Amazed at what he saw, Drysdale said, "Jack, why do you keep changing your strokes?"

"I've done that my whole life."

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Two Wave Backhand

I'm thinking of an unruffled surface but with large swells. The first rise occurs in the rear shoulder before one steps out.

If a little wave becomes big, is it one wave or two? (Note to two-handed backhanders: It is my sad duty to inform you that you have been excluded from this ride.)

The racket head falls into the trough. The racket butt spears a bit toward left fence post. The shoulders turn to no more than perpendicular to left net post.

It's a lot of fine distinction but we wouldn't want to miss the wave so let's keep swimming hard. The wrist and forearm becomes relaxed yet controlled. The shoulder-blades begin their clench. The racket head and racket handle rise.

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Tennis Players Need to Study Cinema and Languages

The tennis players' study of cinema should concentrate on freeze motion,
slow motion, natural motion, speeded-up motion; otherwise, they'll be deceived by video and film. (This will happen anyway but, because of their studies, they'll be deceived less often.)

Tennis players also must try to be good at English because a lot of tennis ideas are spoken or written in English. But not all tennis ideas come from the United States. (A few come from Great Britain, too.)

The rest of the world also produces tennis ideas. So tennis players should study foreign languages as well.

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Alternately

Alternately, the back shoulder can never come back to level. Even the follow-through can demonstrate a slight upward slant from back shoulder to front even if weight is pitching into the court.

Not the only way to stroke the ball by any means. And one will need knowledgeable control from arm then to square up racket at contact.

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What Happens as Wave Comes Up?

In using the wave theory approach to the previous one-handed backhand in post # 428, I think it easy to determine where a wave should gather strength, e.g., when rear shoulder goes down.

Determining when that shoulder goes up (for a second time) could be a bit trickier even for a person who revels in complexity. It kind of goes up and over, doesn't it, if weight is transferring properly through the shot?

Here's the perennial dispute in a nutshell (for nuts): "Don't over-think your tennis!" "Okay, dude. Don't under-think your tennis!"

The best time to bring the rear shoulder up again can best be determined from what one has learned from immersion in waves-- from body-surfing, surf-boarding or using boogie-boards.

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Wrist Movement in John McEnroe and Arthur Ashe Topspin Backhands

When we’ve come speculating here before we’ve almost reached an understanding but never completed our puzzle.

So, should we beat up on ourself or anyone else or should anyone else beat up on us? Since wrist movement remains essential and yet is the most difficult thing to explain in a one-handed topspun backhand—98 per cent of instructors don’t even bother—aspiring players are left abysmally on their own.

Who among these wretched, abandoned players has the chance for actual understanding? A very limited group starting with people who already possess great one-handers and must, most likely, also be foosballers or feathering oarsmen or passionate indulgers in some other exotic activity where “it’s all in the wrist.”

FOOSBALL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e5Is2c-CzA

EIGHT-OARED ROWING

http://www.row2k.com/video/view.cfm?vid=10569

What the foosballer and beginning oarsman have in common is a wrist action that is inextricable from forearm roll. The wrist motion is straightening or depression or transition from concave to convex or vice-versa. The forearm roll must happen—if it didn’t, how could the foosballer’s two rods at a time ever turn? From whole arm? I’m not a foosballer but whole arm seems slow to me. In rowing one again must turn a round, rod-like object, in this case the oar handle. It goes 90 degrees in opposite directions at the beginning and conclusion of every stroke in a non-disruptive way that neither misdirects the oar up or down. So wrist and forearm motions are linked, with their co-dependency increasing control. The hand is slightly angled on the oar so that one could almost be turning a dial.

As the oarsman improves, perhaps after a year or two of experience, fingers gradually take over the feathering responsibility. I don’t know of anything like this learning transition in another sport.

Tennis now. In a John McEnroe type shot, the wrist first hunches then straightens. But would the hunching, rolling wrist also have to roll oppositely during the straightening phase? Why couldn’t wrist alone passively straighten—centrifugate, you might say—in response to the change of direction provided by shoulder-blades clench? It could, it can, it does, but haven’t you lost some control?

Arthur Ashe also would hunch his wrist early in the atypical way of John McEnroe, but with the likely difference that he spun his whole arm during the subsequent straightening.

Ashe wanted to see elbow facing down at the finish of a topspin backhand but McEnroe concludes with elbow faced more sideways. Ashe would advocate finishing a flat backhand that way—with elbow faced sideways—and finishing a slice backhand with elbow faced up. He thought the followthroughs determined everything and that he could even use this fact to teach the different strokes to a beginner—true within his system.

Most topspinners on the backhand side do appear to roll from both whole arm and forearm to varying degree, but John McEnroe rolls whole arm little or not at all. That means pronounced forearm roll. How else could he keep racket square at contact on a high ball like this one?

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

The moral of this narrative is that one can be precise in delineating wrist action in one’s topspin backhand. The mind-blowing aspect is that someone with an eastern grip—Federer, say—rolls the same way but simultaneously moves his wrist the opposite way from the the c-grippers Ashe and McEnroe when all three reach the area of contact.

The foosballers, I believe from what I just read on the web, make a similar distinction between what they call “push” and “pull” shots.