A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

What I Want to Try

Extreme arm bend and upper arm twist to the max with palm first facing down but then toward the head-- the natural result of performing these two acts, which together feel very much like windup for throwing a rock coincident with body and legs bend.

Then comes combined UBR and stirring of elbow which ought to be enough centrifugality to open the arm the necessary inches to a right angle-- but you twist racket out from the forearm at the same time.

This produces an interesting sequence bucking kinetic chain dogma.

The forearm fires outward before the whole arm fires triceptically, and with forearm then of course, AFTER THAT, twisting the opposite way.

Or you can keep the arm spaghettied (loose, passive) a bit longer while you through axle-like twist fire the upper arm to partially straighten whole arm with new centrifugality now directed more to the left.

A different serve. Back to the first. Vic Braden once reported success among his many students by accelerating the loop in the loopy serves he taught everybody.

Similarly, the neuronal pathway I've described here gets a lot of service functions out of the way before firing the triceps just as legs and catapult fire.

So how did these ideas work this day when I took them to court? My bidnis and not yours unless you're playing me. Here's a much more interesting and totally relevant thought: "There are two aspects to our psyches-- reason and madness-- and we deny either at great peril." -- Leonard Shlain

[lgvargas]

Bottle-you do realize that no one reads your dissertations on the serve and is purely for your amusement and pleasure.

[stroke]

lgvargas,

So true. John, please make it stop.

[johnyandell]

There might someone out there besides bottle who likes it...I see it as a harmless idiosnycracy of the site so long as he behaves himself.

[bottle]

Justine vs. Pete

I did read the foregoing, and I am so hurt that I can barely continue.

Although Justine modeled her potent serve on Pete, she came up with something very different. First her feet start closer together. Second, the two halves of her arm squeeze completely together. Third (I am watching the first video under 1st Serve Deuce in the stroke archive) the arm appears to straighten from completely pressed together to completely straight all in one direction from a muscular burst of the triceps.

My caution in using the word "appears" comes from the logical possibility that Justine could loosely extend the arm to a right angle with centrifugal force before finishing this extension off with triceptic burst.

However, although her upper body is revolving under the hub of her head coincident with her "catapult" (which term can be defined as rotation that moves the head), she isn't using the most effective centrifugator of a spaghetti arm available. That would be twist from rotor muscles in the shoulder according to Brian Gordon.

She does use such force but only where it can be multiplied by simultaneous rotation from the forearm muscles after the arm is straight.

[bottle]

Questions for my Antagonists

What exactly is wrong with amusing oneself? It's how I developed a forehand and then a backhand far superior to the sheeple-taught synthetic strokes I had before. Now I'm simply trying to achieve a similar improvement in my serve. No one need listen. Or they can if they want.

Also (am I behaving, am I behaving?!), what is it about the name Leonard Shlain that terrorizes humorless youths and incites them to battle? Is it that Shlain is an intellectual? This older larger right brain younger smaller left brain subject is not a joke, you know, and pertains directly to every level of tennis.

John McEnroe hits a beautiful shot (right brain).

John McEnroe makes an ugly remark (left brain).

[bottle]

Triceptic Extension in John McEnroe's Serve

I'm sorry that so many people in website discussions of tennis (they're fine out on any court) oppose the use of their natural intelligence. My assumption has to be that they're charter members of the famous 29 per cent of unquestioning Americans.

Modern Legends, John McEnroe, 1st serve ad, video five, court level front 2 shows no upper arm rotation to straighten arm through centrifugation. The black patch on the bottom of McEnroe's sleeve does not turn under until the arm is straight.

That along with McEnroe's contorted face makes me think the extension is triceptic, and if so, why wouldn't it start when the two halves of the arm are squeezed together.

In that case, however, the forearm fires out (twists) as triceps fires.

This produces exceptionally vigorous feel.

And right angle position of the arm becomes a passing photographic happening with no especial significance for the server.

P.S. I also examined whether upper arm was rotating within McEnroe's sleeve (to centrifugate passive or spaghetti arm extension) and concluded that it was not.

Old Count

1. feather
2. bend
3. invert low compressed elbow slightly
4. wind forearm while extending arm to a right angle
5. fire with upper arm twist to outside of ball.

New Count

1. feather
2. bend
3. slightly invert low squeezed arm coincident with low weight shift onto front foot
4. fire triceps and twist forearm out and send elbow up fast, too
5. reverse the throw.

[bottle]

Another Solution to an Intractable Problem

If I or you or anybody wanted to develop more smoothness in a John McEnroe-type serve, he probably could by turning his racket out at address or as it goes by his rear knee or as he folds the two halves of his arm together.

He then might have an experience similar to mine where a minister taking his early morning walk (I believe his name was the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale) said, "I think your serve is looking better than it did several months ago."

True no doubt, but, a serve is defined by what the ball does after it bounces, and my better opponents were creaming the hell out of it, so I then changed it-- quickly, again and again and again.

Yesterday, I became mad at myself, saying loud enough for other people to hear if they wanted, which they didn't, "Stop tossing too soon, Bottle!" not realizing that all I had to do was speed up the right arm after the two hands separate.

The reason for all of this was to explore the look of video one in the Stroke Archive. There, John McEnroe tosses as he feathers the racket open in place, which gives the appearance of a hitch. And hitches are ugly. No minister would want one.

To confuse the issue (a good idea according to most American tennis players), in other videos John McEnroe appears to toss just before he opens the racket face. But that's what I have customarily done myself whenever I wasn't keeping my palm down to perform the Vic Braden curlicue, so what fun was there in that?

(The great tennis writer John M. Barnaby, by the way, long ago rejected palm-down continuity without using the name "Vic Braden" or the word
"curlicue." He said, in RACKET WORK: THE KEY TO TENNIS, page 64, "many people fall into one trap that can cause a lot of trouble: they turn the striking face of the racket in (towards them) as they drop the racket, instead of opening it out. Experimentation will show that turning it in gets you all twisted up the wrong way and makes it necessary to untwist as part of cocking the racket (the next motion). This results in a lot of funny-looking twirling of the racket...it is POSSIBLE to serve this way, but it is...much more difficult to learn and keep in trim later. All readers are urged to turn the face out as the racket is dropped so that the cocking of the racket is the simplest
possible motion.")

So, returning to John McEnroe, who does open out, when should one toss? Slightly before or during racket feather-- wherever in that likely-to-blend-later
but sort of rough area that feels good.

Here seems the place to ask, "Why should John McEnroe be a model for Bottle's serve?" Well, experience is the best teacher, and in the Crooked Run Racquet Club, Front Royal, Virginia where I belonged, there was a psychologist with a McEnroe-patterned first serve that NOBODY could return. He therefore made it to club champion in doubles but in an early round of the singles drew me. His first serve was missing the court more than usual. And his second serve was exceptionally weak. And I wowed every first serve that went in sometimes by employing a hundred below zero body freeze. Like any psychologist, he bit on this, trying for more and more. I think he viewed his eventual loss to me as so ignominious that he quit the sport forever-- if so, I am genuinely sorry because he had a great first serve and was a nice guy and a promising player.

For me, who has had huge trouble learning the universal kick (because of earlier sports injuries I believe), John McEnroe, who had a bad back, is all about a second serve alternative. His brother Patrick McEnroe, captain of the Davis Cup team, certainly has conventional kick. When Davis Cub was most recently held here in Winston-Salem, one observer who manned telephones for the tie (not I but a bar-mate) thought that Patrick McEnroe, in practice sessions, was a more beautiful player than Matthieu, Gasquet, Blake, Clement, Llodra, Roddick, the Bryan brothers, or anyone.

This makes me ask: Didn't John McEnroe try at some point before he was 15 to hit conventional kick serves? And didn't someone tell him that his topspin slice was good enough? And isn't there only the slightest difference in his method between first and second serves? And isn't simplicity in tennis always an advantage?

[bottle]

To the Private emailer

You are correct. Having (or stealing) the time to perfect one's serve and one's art is a tremendous luxury. Contrarily, of course, one can try to subsist on nothing but sour pickles.

[bottle]

Modifying John McEnroe for a Slightly Different Toss System

Don't anyone get mad. This is science, all sweet science.

Term: Luis Tiant turn: Luis Tiant, an extremely effective Cuban pitcher 1964-1982 for six teams in the American and National leagues. On every pitch he turned his back on the batter like McEnroe.

We may ask, "What made John McEnroe decide on his pre-toss Luis Tiant shoulders turn when so many subsequent servers wait until later to start the turn if they do it at all?"

We may also ask, "Why would I (Bottle) want to modify McEnroe's excellent serve, even in imitation, when all such previous attempts have resulted in ignominy?"

Answer: "Because this particular modification doesn't deteriorate the serve so long as the imitator remembers to turn his shoulders like McEnroe/Tiant even though his tossing hand is not on the racket."

The Substance: Instead of turning shoulders and racket together in a single unit like the start for a forehand, one takes arm around to almost parallel to the baseline as he performs his Tiant/McEnroe turn instead of performing the two acts in sequence.

Result: A person can then toss while FEATHERING; i.e., while twirling the racket open in place or during minor relocation of the arm. And a current physiological axiom holds that the less you do with your hitting arm while tossing the smoother your toss will be.

Note: Taking both hands up a little at address and then dropping them is a nice touch for starting this motion.

[bottle]

Making a Lowbow Throw Work

The people who love to hate my letters will be glad to hear I threw one out. In fact I always throw out many more than I post.

I decided today that since I'm expending energy to separate my arms, why not just start with them apart the way Chris Evert used to do, only more so.

That way I can employ the Tiant/John McEnroe turn, still keeping the palm of my tossing hand vertical to start, like McEnroe (then it gets horizontal as it releases the ball and immediately becomes vertical again). I think that vertical palm like palm down, still leads to McEnroe/Tiant feel, something which palm up orthodoxy can never achieve. John McEnroe and Boris Becker and Jack Kramer before them are guys who fooled around more with palm and could toss well from farther back.

This arms-far-apart serve may look funny but retains increased control over racket when it is behind the back and allows one to perform the same other functions previously discussed.

And, it's easier to make fine adjustment to something that's going slow than to something that's going fast. Then maybe you can switch mental gears and apply the adjustment to your longer, fuller motion. So you try different distances between the two hands at address. "Hmm, think I'll try this one with less UBR and more catapult (I view these two basic motions by now as corollaries in inverse proportion to one another and always to be administered simultaneously). Hmm, a little kick. How strange."

But watch the films carefully to see how far out from his body John McEnroe's elbow is once he's compressed together the two halves of his arm.

Once you are in the arm and knees compressed position with center of gravity shifting to front foot, turn your elbow while keeping it down. The films may make you think it's going up but don't be fooled, its going up a little later.
Simply keep the elbow slightly out from the body and in one place but twist it so the racket tip comes down to form a second head somewhere behind your human head.

The throw-- or my throw at least-- wants to initiate from there with racket tip as low as one can get it in an arm contruction of such weird uprightness. Watch the films to see where McEnroe then makes contact-- slightly to the side of the shoulders line rather than directly along it, no? ("in front," some would say).

How effective will such study be for you? I don't know. I do know from long ago strength testing of my straight right arm by a far out chiropractor that the slightest variation in movement vector is as big a determinant of strength or weakness as the sequence of sugar bag, rice bag and possibly voodoo doll she kept setting up next to my shoulder as it lay pressed down against hard steel.

The new arm-apart serve is good enough to be distressing. It's more economical, certainly, and elicited immediate comment from the bicyclists
pedaling past, but do I want to give up on what I recently achieved? Right now I'm using both addresses. And the differences in rhythm ought to unbalance an opponent-stranger at least for now.

New count:

1. Use slow baseball pitcher's turn to bring arms into perfect position for both of their jobs.
2. Toss while slowly twirling racket open.
3. Bend arm completely.
4. Lower racket tip to form a second head behind your human head.
5. Hit.

[bottle]

An Educational Shortcut

When I said that making adjustments to slow motion is easier than to fast motion, I should have added that adjusting a static or stopped pose is easiest of all.

I'm "chuffed" (a British word meaning full of elation and enthusiasm) about the new serve, which starts with both arms straight and far apart, and, aside from a John McEnroe-like rocking forward from toes of back foot and then shifting the heel back down relies exclusively on Tiant/McEnroe baseball-pitcher-like
rotation to achieve all of my or anyone's I should think pre-toss service objectives with each hand in the exact right place (even if you have three).

Although the question of whether to use this serve all the time is interesting, another major aspect is that it reduces all elements of the overall serve to a manageable unit easier to comprehend and adjust.

Moreover, one does so little to prepare that one can, if one wishes, add the slightest of hitting arm travel to the active turn thus changing which edge of the ball one will strike, and possibly though not necessarily affording a bit more rhythm as well.

You've reduced early arm motion so much-- to nothing if you want-- that now you can put a little back.

These discoveries certainly make me question my previous bent arm address if not reject it.

A compromise possibility would be to start with straight arms about as far apart as Chris Evert held hers, then start slowly drawing hand back to wherever you want before ever going into the Tiant/McEnroe tilt-upright-and-turn.

None of these variations will alter the basic feel of the serve. You can use them in other words to drive your opponent to distraction.

A big factor is a grip of the ball and a grip of the racket (mild continental) that keeps both palms vertical or faced a little down with strings perfectly on edge. The balancing verticalities allow for maximum arm control even with hands apart.

To summarize: Serve from body turn only. Serve then from arm and body turn. Then arm then body turn. Then arm then arm and body turn. Try all of these variations and others from bent arms and hands together at address. Need there ever be a hurry before you toss? You have time-- all the time in the world-- so why not use it? And no one will ever understand what the hell you are doing-- in fact the standpoint I have written from all along, but which, by now, I would hope makes perfect sense.

Just watch the movie Groundhog Day. It's all there.

Elation seems unlikely to produce one's best tennis, but slightly chuffed may, and in fact I did win my match this afternoon.

[lgvargas]

Bottle-during a platform stance what is the proper weight shift as you toss the ball and launch your body upward towards contact. Is your weight primarily on your front or back foot? Also, how does McEnroe and Nadals serve differ regarding their weight shift?

[bottle]

Off of the front foot, at least if you're John McEnroe, Pete Sampras or Roger Federer. There's a little shift toward the net right after the knees get bent but before they get straight again.

Nadal, though, he's not a platformer-- he gets both legs together for double-thrust from a pinpoint stance.

Some platformers like Brenda Schultz-McCarthy and Justine Henin may use both legs on second serves more than on first. Henin pivots front foot back on its heel-- on a second serve-- but pivots same heel forward a bit on toes for first serve! McCarthy, a great server in her own right, advocates both legs for second serves and front leg for first serve in one of her instructional articles available through a simple Google search of her name on the web. For a first serve, she says "get weight WAY out on the front foot."

Of course the term "weight shift" itself is slippery since it does continue during body launch, JD, as your post suggested. But I'm fascinated with the little move while knees are still bent. It's got me on all serves launching off of front leg like McEnroe even though I've modified his serve to make it easier. By the way, I think that people should use full leg drive in rowing but not in tennis.

I don't mind the idea that you shift slightly forward during the toss, more during the bend, and still more on leg and body move.

[bottle]

Continued Motion as Wisdom in the Chicken-elicitor Serve

Yes, this serve brings out the chicken in people.

No one will try it.

To them I say "Buk-buk-bukkety-buk."

Actually I'm happy to keep it for myself.

Personally speaking, though, I'm always willing to try anything in the way of some new (or returning) new idea of a serve.

There's even Ken, the fellow in Swaims Grocery who decided that Patrick McEnroe was a more beautiful tennis player than anyone on his Davis Cup Team. (Did Ken confuse Patrick McEnroe with Patrick's actress wife?)

Poor Ken. Wincing, he couldn't follow the five simple steps I delineated for him, and this was first hand, real life, out loud with facial expressions, hand gestures, beer, noise and all. So I got up and showed him and the other patrons. The needle on the collective galvanometer barely budged.

The motion was too simple, not theatrical enough.

If however someone is trying it, work on vertical palms and the transition from counts three to four.

Three is where you bend your arm deeply as you bend your legs deeply.

Because you twirled your arm open while it was otherwise still solid with your body just before that, the hand and racket now come up in a crossing direction that doesn't feel bad.

Just keep this direction going after the two halves of your arm have squeezed together to start the racket head down.

This squeezed arm clock-like motion occurs precisely as body weight, low, is gliding out on the front foot.

All your effort to get the racket head low when you had a high twisted elbow in conventional service effort is repeated here.

The difference is that you keep the elbow low, don't let it come up a single inch. The tip therefore can't go down far. But you're still looking for a good stretch.

Other likely areas for tweak are, at address before movement, distance of hands apart, original placement of hands, level of the two free-floating hands respective to one another.

One "feel" secret in this serve is that the slow-rocking Tiant/McEnroe backward rotation substitutes for the downswing that many people use before they toss.