A New Year's Serve

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The Manufacture of Loose Motion for a Restricted Shoulder Person in a Serve that is Fantastically Quick behind the Back

I believe this is necessary in order to coordinate the conflict between leg and bod thrust on the one hand and racket lowering on the other.

What we demand is terribly fast and therefore difficult but perhaps can be done.

In the snakelike coil that occurs from ball release to ball acme and slight leftward curl-drop, one must refrain from any ESR (external rotation of the shoulder or more precisely of the humerus).

The arm should slightly bend. It shouldn't do anything else.

In the boyhood throw preparation consisting of wrist flipping open combined with two halves of arm pressing together, ESR shall similarly be prohibited.

In the vigorously scaled sidearm throw that initiates quick arm extension up to the ball, any ESR shall henceforth be STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

That leaves all ESR to happen between arm clench and sidearm throw no matter how quick all this action must be.

Note: A sidearm throw is a sidearm throw even when it goes almost straight upward.

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Furniture One, Ralston

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ice_serve.html

The toss is near the palm tree. The nose stays pointed at the palm tree until the moment the ball is hit. Then the body continues its rotation as it bows, turning and lowering the head as well. Since most athletic motion starts in its preceding phase it seems likely that ISR started from strings on ball (or a little before). But the main flattening out occurs after the ball is hit.

Try one where there is no ISR? Try one where there's early ISR to put strings flush on ball then carve to a paveloader finish?

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When Should Wrist Open in a Fast-Action-Behind-the-Back Serve, Continued?

In furniture one it happens with hand high to start no pause transition from slow arm to fast arm-- no?

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ice_serve.html)

Starting with wrist like this is the quickest way to press the two halves of the arm together? Seems to conjure up a good brain impulse? Something about the way one threw a rock when one was a boy?

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The Evolution of a Soft yet Highly Controlled Topspin Forehand Perfect for Hitting at the Feet of a Doubles Player Charging the Net.

It starts from other developmental shots. It probably will be good, in the future, for different specific situations as well. I'd like to try it for See Sees but will probably have to take time to work that purpose up in self-feed.

The shot is absolutely new since I only discovered it on Wednesday (it's Friday). On Monday I succeeded on a high pass down the alley off of a short ball. I could have stayed away from the net man but do I really like that much wisdom? That net man was looking to put away a volley but not a high one. Which is why I went high.

The mechanics were weird. A 243 on Welby Van Horn's big clock combined with the perverseness of an arm first bod-massage the ball second Ziegenfuss. (Valerie Ziegenfuss Cooper, back in the days when she was a playing pro, got the idea for the shot from a dude in a Texas bar.)

But I'm sure my version is different from anything Valerie would do. I started at 2, straightened to 4, scissored to 3 (contact) and bod-massaged the ball high down the line.

Tom Roberts, the cut-shot organizer of the SMTC (Grosse Pointe Senior Men's Tennis Club), was nursing a stiff shoulder so had nothing better to do than sit on a bench and watch.

"Oh my God," he said. "I suppose you're going to say you did that on purpose."

Yep.

A couple days later I thought, why ever remove such a shot from one's arsenal? But how about a related shot using more conventionally spread out transfer with hips ending parallel to net, with shoulders turned a bit beyond that, with racket face slightly canted toward left fence?

And a 253 instead of a 243? And the arm scissoring more fully both under and over the ball? Which will be taken way out front with no twist of the arm, i.e., no windshield wipe which one will save for one's straight arm Federfore?

A striking imitation of a Nautilus.

Small circle melding into big circle and therefore cochleate and more organic than a waterwheel.

With ball landing perfectly at the onrusher's feet.

(https://www.google.com/search?q=naut...hrome&ie=UTF-8)

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When Should Wrist Open in a Fast-Action-Behind-the-Back Serve, Continued?

In furniture one it happens with hand high to start no pause transition from slow arm to fast arm-- no?

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ice_serve.html)

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Imbuing the Wrist with Snakier Feel

If you like me see a huge difference in your slices and topspin serves through just a slight increase in racket head speed you should knock yourself out to find the little thing that will effect this.

I tried to say an "effortless" thing but that is half true. We simply want more loose speed behind the back.

To that end I propose a snakier hit arm coil while holding the toss arm up.

Before (yesterday): Arm slowly bent. Upper arm did a small proportion of its ESR.

After (today): Those things still happen while wrist also slowly coils preparatory to the strike.

There are good servers who cock their wrist in the fast part of the serve. I will try to become one of them if the present experiment fails.

But consider the change both physical and mental I have just outlined. Did I remove manipulation from the incredibly fast assertive action precisely where one must have incredibly fast action?

The arm is now free to bend and unbend in a loose flash with not much else happening other than fast ESR during the bend part.

Well, how much does the arm bend to reach its fully squeezed position? Depends on where the coiling forearm points on the giant clock. I suggested two o'clock but that was just to begin: two-thirty? two forty-five? Three? One-thirty? Don't need to know. Only need to learn the where that works.

The subsequent squeeze and triceptic throw will be too quick to think about.

So does the change in hand direction at approximately the middle of the throw succeed in fooling all muscles that wanted to resist?

Two more proposed changes: No longer permit oneself to think about pronation, which is inward twist of the forearm. Just focus on internal twist from the humerus in the shoulder (ISR). And let this ISR passively straighten the wrist for the high-five if you still think there ought to be a high-five.

Me, I don't. A slap is a stop. How about a go?

Nothing to stop then especially the experiments. Imbue the wrist with feel. It even could open from beginning of the toss. Just don't ever confuse one arm with the other.

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Is Pro Drop Position Reached in Furniture One here?

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...ice_serve.html)

Answer: No.

In furniture two, which is Pancho Gonzalez hitting a great wide slice serve? Answer: Yes.

In all the furnitures in the following two free videos, which you reach by giving Brent Abel your email address but why in the world WOULDN'T you? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YTAYswQqq8). Answer: No.

Brent Abel, who very recently won another age specific national title (seventies singles) slants his arm extension up to the right just the way that Dennis does even though Brent is hitting topspin serves in his videos and Dennis slices in his.

Neither comes close to pro drop position, which is really a matter of youthful flexibility more than anything else.

And yet both deliver extremely effective serves.

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Greatest Tennis Lesson as Example. For Teaching English, Math, History, Science and all other Disciplines

Aleady I am abrasive with impugning that most tennis lessons are not great, right?

To which we can build further indictment against myself by adding one count of celebrity-worship.

The celebrity is Luke Jensen, who won the French Open doubles with his brother Murph.

I've told the story before and will tell it again. Luke came to the Har-Tru courts of the Grosse Pointe Michican Yacht Club to conduct an exhibition tennis lesson.

Three ball machines were set up on three adjacent courts with their backs toward the water.

The class of 40 women were lined up in three groups with their backs toward Lake Shore Drive.

Luke demonstrated what he wanted everyone to do. First, pretend that the ball machine was popping out serves. Second, hit a sharp angle return short in the alley. Third, hit a crisp volley or overhead to the exact same spot.

As I watched from outside the fence behind the ball machines, I came to understand that Luke could do the assignment but no one else could. And yet the ladies all wore sun visors. And tennis shoes. And tennis clothes. And carried rackets. So there was connection to what Luke said.

I, the one male there besides Luke, now had a specific burning coal at the back of my mind-- or should-- for every time I would return serve from the deuce court in doubles for the rest of my life.

Short in the alley (1). Short in the alley (2).

On Friday, I hit one that was short enough. Against almost any other player it would have been a clean winner-- and that was the trouble. I wasn't ready for what came next.

Al Truhan, who is a very good player, got to the ball when it was three inches from the ground and dinked it up. This hasn't happened enough. I wasn't ready.

Halfway to the goal then. That's where I am. But this post is about teaching even more than learning.

One must have a good connection-- and nobody has better patter than Luke Jensen-- but one also must have a very high expectation. The goal must be almost but not quite out of reach.

But I, tipped off half an hour before by an anesthesiologist at The Edsel and Eleanor Ford House, was the only one of 40 persons there who was behind a fence and without a racket.

That Luke then came over to chat with me and knew me by name ("the one and only Bottle?") was very interesting, but my question is about the other 40 persons.

Did any of them absorb the lesson or even try to put it in effect?

Possible. Which is why the teacher must have the high expectation. But on the other hand the yacht club just paved over the courts to make them like all the others in Grosse Pointe and require less maintenance.

To the yacht club's credit they set the new courts at 90 degrees to the old ones so that the sun would no longer be such a problem.

But did anybody learn anything? Dunno. Replace clay courts? Basically uneducable?

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Putting More Logic Behind a Scissoring 243 Forehand

Scissoring brings the racket up to 3 (waist height) on Welby Van Horn's Big Clock.

The key word is "up." An incline is established. One wants the exact same angle of incline immediately post-contact as immediately pre-contact. How to do that? With aeronautical banking so that shoulders are in the process of both turning around and lifting up.

This consideration could alter rear end of loop. For aeronautical banking upward to occur aeronautical banking down must first occur. But the 243 formula indicates subtlety of change, i.e., not much. The loop no longer will come all from arm. And arm can straighten sideward or backward more than downward now since playing shoulder will be the partial agent of getting the racket down to 4 .

Since, obviously, the goal is to fool the 10-cent computer with the billion dollar computer, envision a smooth 233 forehand that is all arm. From your wait position your wrist can stand in for the good computer. It will assess speed of the oncoming ball and bend up in tandem with moving arm to 2 o'clock at that speed. Next arm will straighten to three. Next arm will bend (scissor) again to three. Sounds complicated and stupid and like an unforced error, but we are trying for a bit of tomfoolery here where the billion dollar computer is Tom.

While arm is following this direction the bod is moving in certain ways as well. Goes without saying.

While we are impressed with expensive toys, we also are influenced by a recent article read on the subject of automation. The possibilities, according to one big pooh-bah in the field, are, 1) wonderful and 2) horrible at odds of 50-50 . The biggest problem with all the new expensive machinery a lot of which has just been invented, is how to give it intelligent instruction since people aren't particularly intelligent and seldom are well-trained.

To jump back to the other side of the analogy, we've got to use our 10-cent computer whether we like it or not since it's all we have to tell the billion dollar computer what to do. I suggest aeronautical banking of the rear shoulder down one number or digit on the clock face. By itself, the shoulder would go from 2 to 3. But we've already got the arm going from 2 to 3.

Add the two movements together and we get 2 to 4, which is what we wanted all along!

So, did we fool the bod? Did we become a beautiful animal? One can hope.

And reverse the logic, calling the new shot a 242 in which the ball gets hit at 3 .

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Putting More Logic Behind a Scissoring 243 Forehand

Scissoring brings the racket up to 3 (waist height) on Welby Van Horn's Big Clock.

The key word is "up." An incline is established. One wants the exact same angle of incline immediately post-contact as immediately pre-contact. How to do that? With aeronautical banking so that shoulders are in the process of both turning around and lifting up.

This consideration could alter rear end of loop. For aeronautical banking upward to occur aeronautical banking down must first occur. But the 243 formula indicates subtlety of change, i.e., not much. The loop no longer will come all from arm. And arm can straighten backward more than downward now since playing shoulder will be the partial agent of getting the racket down to 4 .

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Short Ones, Long Ones

Here's one with a short backswing that seems to make some sense. The hands and racket stay joined with wrist opening close to bod. The two arms then start slowly upward, separating in a small fountain of movement. One hasn't tossed yet! Before one tosses, one can be slow and deliberate and do anything one wants.

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Note: Barnaby from the photos in his books is totally on front foot to start and never gets off of it: a minuscule amount of frontward glide leads into hip protrusion and toss.

No lifting of front foot for him.

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More Dynamic Posture or a New Can of Worms?

Might as well stay positive while looking at least for the small thing that might make a big difference.

Raising one's front leg is a big choice from which we can retreat by merely lifting the front heel (or toes) instead.

But that would be the earliest retreat in my personal history so I oppose it.

With one leg raised like The Karate Kid, I explore every possible arraignment of the two arms with an eye toward creating and maintaining best balance.

Remember, the arm carrying the racket weighs more than the arm carrying the tennis ball.

And a tightrope walker carries a long pole not a short one.

Is that a dictate of straight arms before the toss?

Want them low or high?

And I am determined to cock wrist early since I hate not knowing where else to do it.

So what do you say, reader? Should I return to down together up together ritual, the factory-made default setting for us all? Are you sure?

[bottle]

And, Since One Good Essay Deserves Another (before I return to serves and forehands), Here's Hermann Hesse on THE IDIOT

(http://world.std.com/~raparker/explo...son_idiot.html)

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The Apolitical Tennis Player as Reader of World Literature

It can happen, so long as the tennis player's beachside house complete with a dark musty library filled with old books does not get washed away.

For a while-- for a matter of years in fact-- the name of Fyodor Dostoyevsky was batted about in these pages like a tennis ball in a prolonged volley exchange.

Having just completed my re-read of THE IDIOT, I conclude that Myshkin and Aglaia are two of the great characters in all literature.

But I always felt that seriousness was missing in our discussions here and somebody needed to provide illumination. And so I offer this essay by Vladimir Nabokov (https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/m...stoyevsky.html).