A New Year's Serve

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Well,

second thoughts about upper body rotation in a first serve hit with a "bow."
Isner appears to use both lower and upper body rotation simultaneous with
straightening of his bow, i.e., release of his inverted C position.

The idea of withholding upper body rotation until contact comes from Brenda Schultz McCarthy, and relates to her description and films of her second serve kick. She uses pinpoint stance. Does that change everything? Maybe, maybe not.

What has really interested me for a long time about anybody's good serve (and no one appears to want to talk with me about this) is how the racket aways gets so smoothly out to the right.

One of the variables affecting this is loading twist into the upper arm. That
always happens but when is best? One could do it down by the back foot or
even when the racket was quite high, technically speaking. The speed with
which Isner's racket crosses his back in the videos, contrasted with the slowness with which it prepares in the opposite direction, makes me think that he is applying three rotations simultaneously: 1) upper body from gut; 2) lower body from the way he leaves the ground; 3) UAR or upper arm rotation
in a backward direction.

[bottle]

Two Serves: The Cylinder and The Bow

Eastern backhand grip for both and looser than anyone can imagine.

Decide with me that "the kinetic chain" is a crock and always has been, that tennis is too fast for elaborate left-brain sequenced scenarios, that K.C. might have some theoretical basis but no practical usefulness for anyone ever.

So, to take cylinder first, understand that the idea comes from golf, specifically the instruction of the Scotch teaching pro Percy Boomer, who was subsequently ripped off by American teaching pro David Ledbetter. But don't blame Ledbetter too much. A good idea is a good idea and anyone can have it.

Stand up then with knees slightly bent like a point guard in basketball. Imagine your whole body is enveloped by a zinc cylinder. Now you wouldn't want to hit the zinc with any part of your body, would you, dear reader? So don't bend your knees too much, just enough to stay loose. And don't cartwheel since that would move your head. Don't move head in any direction. Stay clear of the zinc! And rotate your shoulders backward against a little countering pressure from the front knee. Now rotate shoulders forward against a little countering pressure from the front knee. The two pressures will work opposite to one another. You'll get good power from your transverse gut muscles, reader. Congratulations. Throw your loose floppy wrist to right of the ball with strings to open just a little from the shoulder. This opening twist from the shoulder isn't a main propulsion package, it's just a subsidiary
of triceptic or hammering thrust. Bounce balls across the net. You'll get the idea that way. No release from forearm or wrist muscles until after the hit.
Throw racket head at net post.

Now for The Bow. Start sinking from the knees as racket goes down and keep on sinkin and hold the arm up high after the toss since that will help develop the desired body bow like John Isner. Get the hip way out there. And use
no HUBR (Horizontal Upper Body Rotation) until contact is over. Snap body straight from the bow so that left foot and racket tip and ball suddenly line up at contact in the most delightfully old-fashioned way. Again, delay any use of forearm or wrist muscles until after contact. The three delays are key ingredients in the recipe. Toss has to be in perfect spot, further left, but the
loose, floppy racket work is much the same as in The Cylinder.

The increase in grip, if you were only using a continental before, makes it easy to keep palm down. And with palm down this much I believe it's better
never to make a consciously muscular right angle in the hitting arm, just to
do the old Braden thing of letting upper body rotation reversal be the sole agent to bend the spaghetti arm and send it through its tricks.

Horizontal upper body rotation, vertical upper body rotation with immediate firmed up left side-- what's the difference as far as arm action is concerned. Don't screw up toss with step and pointpoint is my advice but you're going to do what you wanna anyway. The palm down will allow a natural loop in either The Cylinder or The Bow.

[bottle]

Neither Braden nor McEnroe, with Similarity to Both

Vic Braden taught the "sit 'n hit" drill, in which the student makes a three-point landing-- front foot on court, fanny on chair, and non-dominant fingers against thigh just above the knee.

John McEnroe does nothing of the sort. A golfer keeps front arm straight; by most definitions McEnroe's arm gets straight and points toward fence early.
One could call his arm "relaxedly straight" and it gets that way BEFORE he steps out. (Of course the right-handed Braden experimented with similar construction, arm pointed at left fence before it curled down to left knee.)

Some players get racket to its lowest point early as in sit 'n hit; some keep arm bent and only straighten it after foot has come down; John McEnroe gets arm straight and low even before step-out (compare to the higher take-back of Federer, Henin or Lendl) and then does the "body-body hit" described in post # 372.

With so little free motion of the arm to interfere, and that restricted to the very end of the forward stroke, McEnroe is no doubt better able to make all his small adjustment steps (count them!):

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

Solidity of arm and body is the virtue of both the Braden and McEnroe backhands. The first however powers more from hips rotation, the second more shoulders rotation on a non-yielding lower foundation.

What you yourself come up with, if trying to learn an extremely economical one-hand backhand from all this, will no doubt be conditioned by your grip, your physique and your ideas should you have any.

[bottle]

So Sudden

Two hands back, then slightly open the racket head, body-body arm.

That's one backhand. Let's try another.

Two hands back, then slightly open the racket head, body-body arm.

The first part is slow, the "body-body arm" very fast.

First "body" = lower the racket by drawing the human head back, i.e., by vertical rotation of the upper body in a backward direction.

Second "body" = whirl the shoulders from the gut. That means there's firmness in the crouched lower body. The second "body" draws Zen-like power and speed from the first. The two actions are a speed link between vertical UBR (backward) and horizontal UBR (forward).

"arm" = both ends of the racket proceeding at roughly the same speed. I am not even sure that the strings are accelerating through the ball any more. Well, they're going faster than they were at the beginning of the stroke but slower than during the speed link a micro-second before.

The ball probably doesn't know or care. Its only knowledge is that it has been struck clean and fast and with power.

Power? Where from? Extending legs and from everything that whirled the racket tip on to the ball and from beginning of the clench of the shoulder-blades from end of contact through end of follow-through.

Speed? Where from? The two rotations of the shoulders-- vertically backward then horizontally forward during which the wrist both humps and straightens into the ball. I am also using an old tennis idea that the arm should straighten all the way to contact but never in any one place very much.

This is a system in which lower edge of the racket hits the ball because of the two ends of the racket finally bowling at roughly the same speed, which takes elbow away from body at last.

Sometimes the racket head rolls over the ball for a sharper angle-- call this a different basic stroke altogether.

The expression "body-body arm" comes from cat language, i.e., from what a human being might say to a naughty cat: "baddy baddy baddy baddy."

[bottle]

Re Post # 369:

That works for some shots. For others better to let swing pull the legs up. Staying low longer is probably best for tall players 95 per cent of the time.

Next question: Does JM, who isn't very tall, start shoulders rotating while he is still low most or all of the time? Answer from a single round of watching the first six TP JM BH videos with just this question in mind: Yes in five of the six. The lowering of back shoulder blends into upper body rotation while he is still low and leg drive then blends into that.

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

[bottle]

An Unagonized Reappraisal

Go with what hitting backhands with my partner (Hope) is teaching me (you).

But I go with what John McEnroe said about keeping the elbow in as well.

And with the idea of trying to be as smooth as Arthur Ashe was with his easy topspin backhand hit on a sharp angle.

And with Allen Fox's idea, expressed for the forehand, that good shots can combine wrist and gross body actions while minimizing the arm.

Well, the wrist is supposed to be much weaker on the backhand side. But I'm not sure that's true if one sets up this action the way McEnroe does as evidenced in the Tennis Player videos. The tennis world didn't always have the benefit of stop-frame videos, easily available, and perhaps will catch up some day.

The whole stroke if one keeps the aforementioned elements in mind becomes an easy circular thing with even the bending arm at its conclusion seeming to perpetuate racket edge movement begun earlier.

No longer do I want to hold bent arm still during step-out but rather to keep it creamily active all the time. If this is a departure from McEnroe, so be it.

Also, I want to preserve the easy hitting footwork I've developed over decades. Bad habit perhaps but easy. I don't usually draw outside foot up to the other and plant toes before stepping out but I might be sliding foot to a similar point instead.

"Sling the racket at the ball," Arthur Ashe said, but I'd like to modify that to "Sling the racket tip at the ball."

In other words I want to envision myself using a slow internal swing in both directions with racket tip moving slightly faster and then much faster in the contact area.

Follow-through as key now becomes more apparent if not as much as Ashe's when hitting short angles in the old VHS "Tennis Our Way."

If the entire stroke in design terms becomes about moving racket tip smoothly and constantly throughout except for one brief burst of acceleration (the sling through uncomplicated and extremely fast wrist straightening), one may want to think about what comes immediately afterward.

The arm should remain straight before it bends.

To return to the crucial subject of wrist power and possible strain, yes, the wrist is weak, but in a well-designed golf swing or tennis serve becomes the powerful transmitter of stored energy.

Some people can hit a backhand the same way.

No one can do it if they don't try.

[bottle]

Snap. I Want it. Don't you?

Push up with front leg while racket still is flying down.

[bottle]

Iterative Rather than Linear Learning

The word "iterative" means almost the same thing as "reiterative," i.e., characterized by repetition. You go round and around, making the same discoveries you made before but with a slight difference.

My next determination after all of the foregoing material on JM type backhands was whether the shoulders, having slid backward to fatten the drop, should slide immediately forward again to fatten the lift.

The answer was no, at least when taking JM as the model. The shoulders do stop going backward long before the hit so that all weight can go through the ball.