A New Year's Serve

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Skunk Tail

In backhand slice.

In backhand drive.

In service act.

Explore.

Backhand slice and drive, yes; jury still out on service act.

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Trick Shoulder Serve

On down of DTUT the ha barely clears bod.

On up of DTUT the ha completely compresses.

On leg drive and hover the compressed elbow, cochleate, climbs way above the shoulders then opposes torso twist to produce the limited ESR that a rotorded server can claim.

TERMS: bod=body; ha=hitting arm; DTUT=down together up together; ESR=external shoulder rotation; cochleate=snail-like; rotorded server=a tennis player who can't twist his upper arm axle-like very far backward in its socket.

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Report

Trick Shoulder Serve

On down of DTUT the ha barely clears bod.

On up of DTUT the ha completely compresses.

On leg drive and hover the compressed elbow, cochleate, climbs way above the shoulders then opposes torso twist to produce the limited ESR that a rotorded server can claim.

TERMS: bod=body; ha=hitting arm; DTUT=down together up together; ESR=external shoulder rotation; cochleate=snail-like; rotorded server=a tennis player who can't twist his upper arm axle-like very far backward in its socket.

Very easily produced. Better direction of spin. High ball trajectories. Turn front foot even more than Isner's. Rock on a 45 degree angle to and from right fence. Serves were a bit soft but not all of them. The elbow, despite what I thought, probably throws (twists robustly forward) a bit to accumulate energy along with torso twist for the sudden straightening (arm snap). This total service action seems like a keeper for me and may in time produce, if not nonreturnables, a goodly number of weak returns.

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Oh Oh Here Comes the Next Idea and So Soon too. Why can't it Leave me Alone?

Because the next idea might/might not be even better than the last one.

Instead of folding the arm in a DTUT just pause the ta (tossing arm) down low while ha winds up from elbow?

Now the compressed arm winds up as shoulders lean in same direction to add strength to the toss.

Perhaps the elbow should not go all the way to high physical limit but rather leave itself some play to oppose the leg drive.

Legs drive from start to finish opposes racket drop from start to finish but no one spelled out exactly how the racket should drop.

Except for Brian Gordon in the article where he shows opposing arrows encircling the humerus.

None of his research subjects however were rotorded. None worried as much as I need do about spending ESR too soon.

Finding how much if any of the newfound and considerable elastic elbow rise should be accomplished slowly before legs drive complete the rest and meld into torso twist is the new challenge.

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More on Ten Years in Tennis

The poet and tennis player Ezra Pound was, in the words of one literary biographer, "a cut-shot artist."

The poet and tennis player Richard Wilbur compared the writing of a sonnet to a drop-shot.

But it is the poet and tennis player Theodore Roethke who seems most relevant to my present serve thanks to a statement he made about "ten years."

Roethke's "ten years" is nothing like Malcolm Gladwell's "ten years" which is the ten years that the tennis world swallowed.

Gladwell himself comes from a literary background, his father William Shawn the editor of The New Yorker, his mother Jamaica Kincaid, a writer of extremely poetic prose.

Despite that rich personal background, however, Gladwell chose Sparta over Athens when it came to his tenet that tennis is typical of all tough disciplines.

Train train is one Gladwellian message. And never change anything. If you change even the smallest thing you must put in ten years more or 10,000 repetitions whichever comes first. Okay, I'm being a little glib. But maybe Gladwell deserves it.

Roethke's ten years is more congenial though a bit wistful too. If you have spent ten years making something, i.e., in coming to a full understanding of it, you cannot expect that other persons will understand it right away.

That is how I feel about the "rotorded serve" theme I have written about so repeatedly in this thread.

First, I remain unconvinced that the majority of tennis players are more flexible than I although the best servers most definitely are.

Just as Justin Gimmelstob once complained to the world about Pete Sampras' double-jointedness. (Justin's lament in my own words: "Oh why wasn't I born that way?")

I see a persisting class system in tennis no matter how tennis has changed.

Anyway, could it be that a player has little chance of synchronizing his leg drive with his racket drop if his ESR is small?

So what should he do If he wants to continue in the game? The apparent answer is develop a pitty-pat serve.

Against this I rebel since ESR (external shoulder rotation) ought to be able to happen either when racket is going down or up.

The double-jointed players seem to have ESR to spare and can spread it out in both places in the overall tract.

For anybody else, I think, the closer ESR is to ISR the better.

**************

A given in this discussion is that there is excitement in progressing design. I am scheduled to play in 25 minutes but probably will not do as well as I should because of three design changes in the last 24 hours.

And frankly, I let myself get so excited about them that I couldn't sleep despite remembering that the last time I didn't sleep was a tennis disaster.

Also, although I was able to practice two of the designs I will have to try the third for the first time in actual play-- not an ideal situation.

"The shot you practiced is the shot you play with," said Stan Smith.

But his wise advice is not for me. To me, since progressing design is the most exciting aspect of tennis, I always go with my most recent thought.

So, with stance and everything else oriented toward side fence, I'll spread out the bending of the arm. And won't be in a such a hurry to see it fully bent with both halves of the arm pressed together.

But the racket can first bend up solely from the elbow.

Then both elbows can lift.

Then legs can drive to finish the squeeze and the lift even as they pitch one's head slightly forward.

Then ESR, finally available as sharp adjunct to torso twist can move the action ahead to ISR along with everything else that must go on.

Note after playing: It took me a first set to stop being stubborn and realize that the down together up together serves were best of the different alternatives I set out for myself. And one of the opponents during coffee said my serve was living proof that a serve needn't be fast to win points.

Well gee, I didn't realize it was THAT slow. But who is to say that easily produced serves won't become fast later?

And I just realized that the pressure of play along with the switching back and forth prevented me from serving exactly the better way I did in practice.

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Terms

Abduction: Arm moves away from body.

Adduction: Arm moves toward body.

Using the example of jumping jacks which we did for some weird reason in preparation for crew, as arms go up toward the sky they first move away from bod then back toward bod.

The arms then move away from bod and toward bod as they go down.

A return to Latin roots however indicates that these movements can be more loosely defined. They don't have to happen in the vertical dimension.

Away from bod or toward bod, that's it.

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Lewis and Clark Delayed Trick Elbow Iterations, Continued

The lynchpin of these serves is elbow stillness during the UT of DTUT.

The toss arm and the racket tip go up together while the elbow remains still, bending in low position.

The body cantilevers (segments) in direction of the side fences at the same time.

The economical form of this motion is simultaneous toss and press.

Legs drive with cartwheel is permitted then to counter a very elastic rise of elbow which because of human anatomy must raise and lower the hand at the same time.

Very important it is, I think, to establish this lynchpin/launchpin to discover the proper dropdown menu for what one may discover next.

Is this a plot just to deal with bottle's freakiness? Yes, but which might have wider application for other persons. Who knows or should care right now?

I try to solve my individual problem first.

Well, no one has suggested exactly where one should situate the elbow on the DT of DTUT formula. We already postulated that it be low.

Explore now the foremost possible elbow placement. Have no idea if that will lead to something of further interest, but It will dramatically open the racket face.

So many modern serves but not Federer's start from open racket face at the address. Mine doesn't either but now I get to explore open or square racket dynamics through radically different direction for the elbow bend.

I immediately see ten variations. How much did racket tumble open in DT of DTUT and, again, exactly to where did elbow come down or down and back?

Imagine the different feel of diagonal elbow rise driven by legs, cartwheel and some hips twist off of rear foot very much in a countering movement.

Live dangerously, Bottle. Stick elbow into side and feel it roll as racket tumbles open.

Next bend the arm.

Next abduct the arm.

Next adduct the arm.

One certainly ought to hit far fence on the fly.

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To Learn Better

Using one's computer, click on "Past Issues" directly under search box. Click on October 2018 . Click on "The Serve: The Rotations in the Upward Swing" to obtain this link (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...n_upper_swing/).

This is not my favorite of the Brian Gordon videos. That would be the one where he describes himself as an eight-year-old. But this is the one describing seven upward arm rotations, and it starts by showing exactly where the tenth of a second tract begins.

The first of the seven rotations is 1) Tatiana coming out of her backswing with a little ESR or external rotation of the shoulder (upper arm backward twist), 2) forearm supination (the opposite of pronation), 3) wrist extension, 4) batting in cleanup extremely fast lift of shoulder almost straight up, 5) motion dependent straightening of the arm 6) ulnar deviation, 7) ISR plus wrist extension to straight with ulnar deviation continuing just past contact snakelike.

Three more mental steps, I believe, also must be mastered: A) synchronization of lower and upper body, which is one of many items requiring personal interpretation since I am the guy here trying for a better serve. There is no break or jackknifing from the hips. That is a likely factoid from archaic instruction and from the airborne Roger Federer's slight jutting out of hips toward rear fence (happens from his pulling up legs into the plane like landing gear after the ball is gone?). Instead of a page break being inserted into one's heighth, everything is about straightening body and arm. The rear hip also is driven around a bit by rear foot as rear foot also drives bod into a spoke-like somersault with both legs driving bod into being stretched and straight (AKA Alexander Technique in which one strives to put more space between the vertebrae).

B) Translate forward rotations from angle numbers to fixtures around the court, e.g., flat serves could be 90 degrees straight at target, slice could be 30 degrees to the right of that, kick could be 30 degrees to the right of that, with you having previously appropriated landmarks as if you were navigating toward visible land from far out at sea.

C) Work on transition from forward bod rotation to torso twist (exactly where?) but keeping in mind that the torso twist is included in the slight pitching forward of your head.

Personal note: I cannot afford to give away any ESR in the backswing. I therefore must use other means to place racket head in a somewhat downward pointing direction.

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Further Speculation during the Annual Meeting of the Rotordation Society in Jefferson Plantation, the Highest Tennis Resort in the Ozarks

The group discussion was lively and raucous as a person might expect.

On the one hand were the benders of elbow before lifting it.

On the other the lifters of elbow before bending it.

"Conventional! Ordinary! Banal!" was one strident shout.

"Listen," Maggie Han, five-year president of the society finally declared. "We've discussed this matter until we are blue in the face. It's time for a vote. All in favor of lift-bend raise their right hand. Five votes, Mr. Secretary Tom. All in favor of bend-lift? Five votes, Tom. Record it. That leaves 31 votes according to my calculation for simultaneous lift and bend. But let's see the hands. Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnine...Only 23 votes? That means eight persons absconded."

I take this final tally very seriously and now twist my elbow gradually as it rises above the line between my two shoulder balls, rises as it keeps twisting as it opens from compacted to a right angle which shortens the whip-crack distance for arm to passively get itself straight while still working the racket tip out to the right.

The key to me is the sudden last instant leap of elbow upward to fire the passive whip-crack, and for this I enlist the service of both legs which I have purposely delayed although they were ready to go to work before that.

I really want to declare, like Vic Braden, these words: "Fire the extensors, baby!" and am convinced that this is the best way to go.

On the other hand it's a long drive from the Ozarks back to Detroit offering much time for further thought.

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The Real Significance of Hips-Jut

In the 1970 FUNDAMENTALS OF TENNIS, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, Stanley Plagenhoef shows a bunch of great servers hitting the ball while jutting their hips slightly toward rear fence.

Well, if they were extending body and arm rather than folding from the hips, how could this be?

All I can come up with is that they started that way before all the extension.

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More Screwing

Screw the elbow up like John Isner. Forget any dirty jokes about growing an extra foot at the same time. Observe in the following video exactly what we are talking about. Other servers lift their elbow up. John screws it up. And screwing it up might be just the ticket for a rotorded server.

But don't screw this up. There-- the last obvious joke. Can we just refrain from jokes for the few minutes of this post?

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4)

Other servers may get their arm to a right angle. Not the same as pressing the halves of the arm together as Ivan Lendl advised in one of his two books. C'mon, reader, be honest. How often does anybody even discuss the important subject of how much to bend the arm and when and where?

Some servers never bend beyond a right angle. Others get to the right angle then get to the squeeze briefly on their way to contact. Other variations exist too. Squeeze first then open a little but don't compromise the snap?

John Isner glides his racket way out toward the RIGHT fence then bends his arm all the way across his back for a LONG RIDE.

Now if your name is John Escher and even if it isn't and you possess normal human curiosity maybe you should give John Isner a try. Well, his serves aren't slow. They don't go as slow as yours, reader, right?

We can't suddenly make ourselves as tall as John Isner but we could try getting our arm all pressed together and keep it that way for a long time to screw the elbow up and around like a swamp buggy fan to drive what had been broad movement into a tight circle, a much more succinct form than that of most serves.

Maybe it's just that John is so large that certain things become visible. I can see adduction (which to be good must be pronounced and as Brian Gordon recently said and showed us with a young girl's arm must be very fast because of what it triggers next). I can see this adduction if I watch a bunch of the Isner service videos.

Any rotorded server in my view should try anything if he is unsatisfied the way he ought to be.

If he is pinpoint he should try platform. If he is platform he should try pinpoint. John Isner is pinpoint and with the back toes is pinpoint like someone in ballet.

Well, how long should the motion dependent arm snap be? Maximum or middle? Which is more powerful?

Is there DTUT in this serve? No. One arm goes before the other. I suggest trying both ways.

Isner's left arm rises first. Escher's right arm goes first. This means Escher can spend more time in crossing his back at least for now but I want to try both ways.

Left arm first might be better for a pinpoint, right arm first for a platform-- will have to see.

What a change of direction there is-- a 90-degree corner actually-- in the body movement of a John Isner serve.

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Report Card on Two Parks in Grosse Pointe, Michigan

One park, even if you don't ask, will leave one net up for the practice of swerves.

The other, despite a polite request, won't.

A for first park, F- for second park. (Don't they even have an old beat-up net someplace?)

I am consigned to park # 2 but, fortunately, enjoy imagining a net.

Last winter someone stretched a cloth tape from net post to net post on the same court of twenty I mostly use.

But a no net court has advantages.

You never hit the net. You are quicker getting to the other end to pick up your balls.

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A Visual Argument for the Becker-Edberg One Hand Backhand

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpZnZlXWxQw)

The first thing to understand is that it is steeper than most one hand topspin backhands.

Perhaps one could compare it to the Sam Snead as opposed to Ben Hogan swing in golf although I am not prepared to return to my caddy days and once again try to analyze anybody's golf swing. (I just react here on the "look" level like a dermatologist.)

But tennis? No. Let's analyze.

First, the Becker-Edberg is steep in contrast to video of Don Budge and a thousand other one-handers that reveal some kind of figure eight.

Not for Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg. That might take too long for them. They generate pronounced stretch of the shoulder housing at top of the backswing.

This enables the arm to catch up with whatever the bod is doing. A shorter backswing may fail-- so block the ball in that case with slice?

Essential to the Becker-Edberg, it seems to me, is timed straightening of the arm melded with roll to properly transfer energy through the hand while "turning the corner" of the shot.

The racket tip comes around fast and inside out.

Is there more roll after contact? Probably some but also a feel of both ends of the racket proceeding together. I call that a hybrid follow through that affects what happens on the ball.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpZnZlXWxQw)

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Isner's Serve, Continued

The wide stance is huge. No, the huge stance is wide.

After the pinpoint is established he bends his knees more!

And then the pinpointed foot with heel upraised gives a bit but never completely flattens as it lifts off.

In a sense then he loads on the rear foot three times, once when he steps, once when he bends more, once when he lifts off.

I want the pattern of this serve for spin in old guy doubles but here nevertheless is a first serve.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4)

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A Second or Doubles Serve or Two

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4)

Completes cantilevering lean at side fences before he steps.

I am comfortable with speculation, would like to become adept in dreaming, too.

Once John Isner has screwed up his elbow, it is so high, that, one has to strain to imagine it going any higher in the crucial adduction stage.

That helps me to think the adduction is forward and in a bit toward body core.

With torso twist-- simultaneous-- taking everything up a bit more.

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...r%20500fps.mp4)

A big thing that Brian Gordon and John Yandell and Rick Macci all are emphasizing right now is coordination of the beginning and end of leg drive with the beginning and end of racket drop.

In Isner's case the leg drive seems to start when the racket, thanks to the screwing elbow, is at top dead center or a little past.

The screwing is continuous then with arm immediately pressing together to help get the racket to low point, i.e., the end of the backswing.

Here is where the one tenth of a second sequence up to the ball begins.

The legs, synchronized with the arm movements, have fired but the bod still is reacting.

In my case at least no animals were harmed in the making of this design and no ESR was used in the process of lowering the racket head.

ESR (external shoulder rotation) therefore is available as first of the elements in the upward racket zip.