A New Year's Serve

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It Seems like I'm Copying Someone, John Isner to be Exact

Actually, I'm adopting the rough form of his serve but adjusting the various parts to my own physique.

What I'm learning is that the arms have agency. They just don't go up (left) and out (right) to levels that feel natural.

Left needs to go so far up that it has nowhere to go except back toward the bod which by coincidence is what I desire.

Right arm needs to bend completely even before the right foot has replaced itself.

The sequence as bod is cantilevering is different from Isner's. Left arm goes up and over; total bend of right arm then; right foot replaces on its toes.

There will be no added bending of the knees any more than there is a double-clutch in the steep one hand backhand of Becker & Edberg.

Becker sometimes will double-clutch, Edberg never will.

And Isner while serving sometimes bends his knees an extra amount after his right foot pinpoints but I hope never to do that.

Lift, coil at elbow, finish step, fire legs: that's my new mantra.

Discovered all this just today with bounceless balls at a frigid, netless tennis court.

Am not quite ready to clobber the other geezers with this new serve but expect to be ready for that soon.

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How to Write

Start with two good paragraphs as Vivian Shaw does to begin her novel DREADFUL COMPANY:

"There was a monster in Greta Helsing's hotel bathroom sink.

"She stared at it, hands on hips, and it stared back at her. After a few moments it apparently decided she wasn't an immediate threat, gave a froggy glup sound, and settled down in the marble basin for what looked like an extended lurk."

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Consolidation was to be the Goal for Today; Already however there has been a New Discovery

Arm is bent at address. So simply bend it some more. A snake can coil its neck very rapidly but also can take more time to reach the same place.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XryKA3z_uWk)

Taking one's time puts emphasis on toss and smoothness of the cantilevering act which aids the toss.

The hitting arm meanwhile becomes theatrical in order to simulate the low point or end of backswing of a conventional serve.

Here is the crux of the matter. One has found a different use for legs-driven cartwheel-- to oppose the elastic drawing back of elbow from one's bod.

This delays one's ESR exclusively to where it can do good as part of the upward rotations.

Trick shoulder means one formerly used up one's limited store of ESR too soon thus impairing racket head speed.

But how high or low should one perform the simulation? The lower the elbow the higher the racket tip. The higher the elbow the more the racket points down but with less range for adduction.

Adduction is the kernel of one's throw as far as I can see.

I'm still on paper here, haven't driven to the netless court yet.

A promising development however is that when one no longer has to straighten arm before one bends it, one will naturally pull arm farther around one's back.

Thus keep more action behind one where it belongs.

And if leg drive and hangtime are fierce and prolonged enough they still will load one's ESR only on the way up.

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Aesop (More or Less)

THE MEMBERS of the Body rebelled against the Belly, and said, “Why should we be perpetually engaged in administering to your wants, while you do nothing but take your rest, and enjoy yourself in luxury and self-indulgence?” The Members carried out their resolve and refused their assistance to the Belly. The whole Body quickly became debilitated, and the hands, feet, mouth, and eyes, when too late, repented of their folly.

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Maria Butina, I Will Give You Free Tennis Lessons

You can find me online.

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Humbug. It's Here, There, Everywhere.

I don't see how one can have a reasonable discussion of "the most important part" unless one agrees that in the best serves the ESR happens both when the racket is dropping down and when it flies up.

I'm the only person I know to use these letters, which stand for "external shoulder rotation," i.e., for backward twist of the humerus in the shoulder socket. Hmmmm. Is that clear?

Lots of people accept the language "ISR" (internal shoulder rotation) so why wouldn't they agree to its opposite? Unless they think they know a more workable term. Say it and I'll use it if that is so. A most important thing in any subject should never remain vague and without specific (colorful would be good) identification.

Brian has indicated that first ESR comes then ISR to form a stretch-shorten cycle. The better the ESR the better the ISR, one would think, or at least the chance for it.

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Taking Racket all the Way up for a Steep Plunge without Equivocation

This is what Stefan Edberg appears to do with his one hand backhand.

One might think racket at 45 degrees would be more efficient. But it isn't, not at least in my self-feed experiments.

Perhaps one is apt to underestimate the effect of pure gravity which happens best from a steeply poised racket.

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Cannot Be Right

The cold balls should easily hit the opposite fence on the fly.

Try the Isner reach with both arms again.

Fold the arm rhythmically while drawing the elbow back and compressing the whole body into a giant spring.

Line up the elbow with the two shoulder balls then and only then.

Reverse the film. Start it forward.

The left arm releases the ball as the right arm starts its fold.

The needling is completed just past skunk tail position.

The legs fire from there.

The needle cranks in a circle that concludes with elbow screwing decisively up and forward. Which is abduction/adduction or screwing or cleanup rotation or whatever you want to call it so long as you give it its own minor attention.

The rest of the serve you ought to know by now.

Ray Liotta, through the use of Chantix, has quit smoking.

Durance vile is over.

I have my serve.

End of story.

Film it.

It's a wrap.

A day or two ago,
I thought I'd take a ride,
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side;
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
We got into a drifted bank,
And then we got upsot.

Now the ground is white
Go it while you're young
Take the girls tonight
And sing this sleighing song
Just get a bob tailed bay
two-forty as his speed
Hitch him to an open sleigh
And crack! you'll take the lead

Oh........

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In Preserving the Isnerian Iterations, One might Enjoy the Following Efforts:

1) Hit some serves with no ESR and no ISR. How does this affect arm arrangement at contact? How does it affect one's looseness of arm extension from the elbow?

2) Delay the turning of racket to edge on. Have it happen higher in the tract? Restoring edge or frame is apt to become a priority for anyone who serves a lot. Charlie Pasarel would periodically serve with an eastern forehand grip temporarily and in practice only to restore his "edge" then resume his service grip.

Regardless of remedy, one needs to appreciate this common malady. From too much practice the strings get sloppily facile, come too flat at the ball and spoil the serve.

3) Reject over-concern about whether one is employing 180 degrees of ISR. Failure more likely stems from imperfect ESR coming just before.

A different subject and useful if the previous wasn't:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvId...=EmailCampaign

Suggested hook song, country and western, "I got tears in my ears from lying on my back in my bed cryin' over you." Condensed version: "I got tears in my ears." More positive and still more condensed: "I got..." That leaves more time for the other stuff. Under reason 2 near the beginning of this wonderfully animated talk from Brent Abel, don't man up since being soft and sensitive will help you determine your best next choice.

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Re "Jingle Bells"

The best part is where the sleigh runs into a drift with a dirt bank in it and gets "upsot."

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One or Two Words in a Dozen Languages

deleterious, deleterio, deletério, délétère, perjudicial, vrednyy, káros, skuldig, skuldelig, Linguee, pernicioso, verderblich

What we're talking about here, in my special trick arm case, is too much worry about how to transition from low point to pro drop.

Actually, though, I seek a language different from any of these called "cueball."

To take elbow back in Isnerian form, one folds it while drawing it around snakelike.

This is good for lining it up with the shoulderballs but I require that it be higher than that.

And the way I'll get to highest is not doing the snaky thing but rather just bending the arm to the full and continue elbow in the same vector.

In mechanistic sequence (with a little bump in the middle) the hand winds up on the elbow. The needled elbow continues up over the shoulder. Everything is much closer to head than one would like, but I once knew a club champion in Virginia like that whose serve could and did devastate.

One is filled with apprehension of course from remembering a Vic Braden video on the subject of impingement in which Vic pulls the twiggy arm off of a small rubbery doll.

"It's all right," says John Yandell in one of his articles. In any case, if my arm was going to fall off it would have done so by now.

But the air is thinner up there in the stratosphere. Where a small bit of ESR will change angle of upcoming racket path to the ball more.

In the language of cueball, I just want to aim at the upper right quadrant of the tossed ball and let a lot of other things take care of themselves.

How high is elbow going to be when the legs fire? The look and feel of this could be different than for other players.

Also to be worked out as always in tennis is simultaneity vs. sequence-- which is better?

If one recently was drawing elbow backward as part of the racket fold-up, one can now draw elbow straight up thus doing away with overly mechanistic sequence and still arrive at the same place.

One take-away from John Isner's serve-- something I can do and like-- is use the great cantilevering effect that John employs to keep the toss arm up. If toss arm moves at all up top-- finally-- it is from bod only.

And then, if reason has taken one that far, one can call the toss arm "guide arm" as well.

The toss arm will take the ball up to a slightly leftward release spot.
It will go farther leftward again from shoulder joint. And farther yet from the cantilevering act.

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A Tumble of New Ideas: Friend or Enemy?

Shouldn't ask? Just keep forging ahead? Who knows where it all will lead. To holds, I hope, that are unexpected right now by my opponents,

One theory of bad serving is that the person never knew that abduction/adduction should exist, but if they did, their understanding of it remained imperfect.

I've heard the magic words that proved the existence of a/a for me but not yet the words that would help master it. Are there even such words?

In their absence, I return to the paveloader exercise taught by John M. Barnaby and discredited in certain circles perhaps for its association with ISR-absent carved slice serves.

One doesn't have to love those serves to like the exercise. Start with racket at one's side not turned over and resembling the scoop of a paveloader slightly behind you.

Now take the racket a short distance toward net then return it to its paveload pose. Repeat but with a bit more distance toward net. And so on, around and on up in increments all the way to the very top but always coming back to the original finish/start position.

I've done this at various points in my tennis career without regret.

But now, with John Isner rather than Milos Raonic elbow, I want to explore loose arm extension during every increment of distance.

On very first movement toward the net I add a needle-nosed look to my apparatus by completely squeezing the two halves of my arm together.

Then, as I return elbow to paveload with a bit of force, the arm naturally (and passively) straightens and then bends somewhat to resume its comfortable finish/start position.

Repeat cycle in small increments all the way up.

You are practicing motion-dependent arm extension at each step..

Abduction is when elbow moves away from bod. Adduction is when elbow moves toward bod. Movement toward the paveloader's finish no matter from how far is adduction every time.

The combination of abduction and arm compression feels like a very natural backswing a lot like what the right arm does in golf.

Adduction of needle leads to an easy swoosh as arm straightens but with no contribution from triceps. Motion dependent means no muscle.

As one attains one's higher reaches as if one is a mountain, one can eventually introduce some ESR-ISR sequence to this by now established pattern.

Gone (destroyed) will be the paveloader position since one's racket will have inverted.

In fact, one no longer will want to practice all the way to end of the follow through, saving that for actual serves.

ISR will start late and finish soon with racket still high.

ISR will start before contact for kick serves, will start just after contact for slice serves.

Isnerian serves of the type I now pursue can easily flatten out or implement a steeper trajectory from the outset, starting with a very steep abductive backswing (upswing close to the head) combined with arm squeeze just as in the exercise.

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How to: A Whole On-Court Session to Achieve just one Serve that one Liked and which was Not Immediately Repeatable

I must try to say what I think might have happened to produce that one great serve.

I must, since my approach to discovery is narrative words, a method clearly established long, long ago.

In using modified Isnerian form, one wastes no time in lifting elbow into a needled skyscraper.

This seems as high (1) and as far (2) toward one's back as one can go.

(1) is true; (2) is not.

For legs, kicking just then, drive the needle farther to actual physical limit which is toward side fence behind one.

The amount of this additional stretch is significant since it will become the abduction/adduction (upward rotation # 4) going the other way.

The legs also kick the three previous external rotations into play as in a conventional serve where elbow is lined up with the shoulderballs.

However, ESR, the first of these rotations, despite how much or little of it one has available, does not immediately edge the racket as far as it could to the right.

The reason is that you, the player, are fighting it. You have already started the muscle group that produces the ISR before it happens.

And so, while racket moves out to right thanks to conquering legs and back, the racket push to right is slow if anything can be slow in the space of a tenth of a second. With the slowness extending through abduction/adduction and one-half of motion-dependent arm extension as continuing leg and torso twist drive up to the ball.

EXERCISE: Mime in slow slow motion the conflict between ESR and ISR before ISR actually happens. Level of elbow should not matter for this exercise. Twist elbow the two opposing directions at same time until the bully force gives way to the other.

Take it easy while doing this. Only through taking it easy will you
(viz.,e.e. cummings' "little u-i") ever learn the requisite feel.

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This Serve is Coming Along

It got better and stronger through three different sets. So maybe I shouldn't fool with it. But I will since I am an inveterate tweaker. Messing around with stroke mechanics is half of my pleasure in the game.

My plan from here has to do with the tight circle that characterizes the middle part of John Isner's motion. His needled arm resembles a rapid clock hand. To emulate that, I need to work on better and better coordination of racket motion and leg drive.

The details of which must, due to the weird nature of trick arm serves, be strictly personal rather than universal unless somewhere in the world is another congenitally lapsed shoulder exactly like mine. (Why didn't I think to switch to the normal other arm when I was 12 years old?)

Part of this plan has to do with my recognition, that, no matter what my legs were doing, there wasn't enough easy motion available to match it before real stretch-shorten cycle chimed in.

Well, some potential comes now from the simplification of arm being needled. Exactly when if at all to dynamically press the two halves of the arm together may have been unnecessary concern.

Very simply, not thinking about dynamics, you can finish squeezing the needle at the place that will start the easiest swing. My suspicion is that, while simultaneity of elbow lift and elbow bend is a fine and time-saving idea, the bend still can conclude first to lengthen the beginning feel of a whirling clock hand.

Precisely when arm gets fully bent is when I wish for my legs to fire. But I don't think I can conceive of the point for that in advance in this room. Trial from various o'clocks out on the court must occur.

To run the experiment the elbow can wind straight up at a relaxed rate. The bend however could be twice or thrice or four or five times as quick as that.

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Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

I think I would be more impressed with somebody attempting the prescriptions of Dr. Brian Gordon and then reporting back on how they worked out than in somebody who simply praises Dr. Gordon to high heaven.

That sentiment of mine could do a couple bad things: 1) make me some new enemies whom I need like a hole in the head and 2) lead to my being over-impressed with myself and in that way fail to develop a devastating trick arm serve.

In cinematic vaults there is the example of an Indian cricketeer known for hurling balls that are unreturnable or uncontrollable if one succeeds in touching one.

This indigenous recruit as part of an all-Indian team then mows the occupying Brits down in spite of all the accumulated experience of cricket they bring to the subcontinent.

Pure fiction or based on true incident? In American baseball Sandy Koufax, who pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers, had a similarly withered arm and along with it a curve ball like nobody else's ever.

Well, that's what I would like, and I'm trying to follow Brian's prescription of getting the hand under the elbow so that both are lined up with the ball.

For me with my elbow so heedless of possible impingement located way above center line because so thoroughly and improbably skyed this spatial challenge is different from that of an ordinary server where the necessary alignment happens for him a bit lower and more to his right.

If a hypothetical server now, someone with a congenitally dropped shoulder exactly like mine, does find unexpected springiness, strength and healthful range directly overhead, he should want to explore.

As elbow screws up to the mountain summit and over it, fractionally lowered now, should its mountain path have come from the right, the left or straight up the fall line?

Which path puts one in perfect position at low point to pass up through pro drop-- aligned-- as all of Brian's correctly sequenced upward rotations kick in?