A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Problem-solving with a Smooth Pen

New ideas are permitted, encouraged, as are revision and modification of old ones. None of this panders to the reader as much as commercial prose. It's more like lab report!

On serve: Pulling hand across to bend arm (completely) and then twist the elbow to make it go up and back and farther around doesn't make sense...since you can accomplish all of these goals with one simultaneous motion which is much more economical.

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On forehand (a Federfore): Most people agree that grip should be so light and relaxed that racket almost flies out every time. There might be more disagreement on whether Roger Federer and a lot of other tour players hit the ball in the center of the racket or in the lower half. Anyone with worries about racket twisting in hand at contact should join the latter group and seek out those videos of Roger in his prime where he's hit the ball but his racket is now turned over out of all proportion to where it should be given his known grip.

If the racket is going to slip, in other words, make it slip in the right direction.
Hit all balls in the lower part of the racket or in the middle but never in the upper part (if it were horizontal which it isn't).

Okay, that takes care of horizontal orientation. Vertically speaking,
Harold Brody has shown through "bonking" experiments at Penn that the faster the racket head moves relative to the hand the closer to racket tip the sweet spot is. He has other technical terms for fixed items in racket design.

stumphges, if you are reading this, I don't know about you but in my case I use more forearm muscles on some of these shots than others, and when
I do am confident that I'm swinging the frame more, which makes it "track" more, i.e., makes it less likely to slip in the loose hand.

[bottle]

Wild Experiment 999

Service development has been going well. Adding body to toss replaced the Tiantric turn which PRECEDES toss in the John McEnroe serve. Recent experiments have concerned the winding up of the arm in all basic serves.

But I have a different slice available in which the arm bends earlier and only to a right angle-- took this from the Dennis Ralston article about hitting out very wide and very low.

Would I want to make a second bizarre option available to myself in which I steal back from McEnroe his squeezing together of arm before racket tip goes significantly down?

I (you) wouldn't have to turn arm out the way he does since you've already got it turned out at address.

AT THE COURT. This is neither Federer nor McEnroe, and the only question is whether it is me. Squeeze arm completely together about twice as fast as usual during body bend/travel. Since I'd like to preserve the present (and kinetic) "wrist starts bent this way and then as consequence of centrifugality gets naturally bent the opposite way," my elbow had better get far back or I'll hit myself in the head. But my elbow had better get far back any time.

RESULT: Arm coiled this way is very snakelike (and how could that right-brain image ever be bad?). Pre-load of triceps from there will invoke a steel band holding both halves of the arm together as they strive to pull apart. Body-arm conflict, so useful, will now be relegated to shoulder rotors pre-load. And there will be much more rotors play (with which to play).

Rotordedness has been a secret when not so secret subject of all these posted service experiments.

This serve worked quite well. The most economic way to go, in this experiment, seems to be to bend arm completely then let elbow passively rotate upward a bit during the spring and simultaneous pre-load of rotors.

On the other hand, the first time I saw the Bea Bielik serve at Wake Forest University the year she was NCAA champion, I was amazed at the duration of time and distance in which her racket traversed her back.

This was (and remains) one of the smoothest and niftiest motions I will ever see, and admiration should always lead one to experiment. (I'LL be the one to decide if I shouldn't try something at home, thank you.)

I have no idea what Bea was actually doing, and didn't ask her when I met her in Leon's bar, but in my own terms if I start with arm out a bit to my right and then bend it completely but let the travel leftward continue, the elbow will rise-- has to.

But I will have added a new motion or lengthened the old one and do I want to do that?

All depends on racket head speed and direction generated by the different possibilities as always.

[bottle]

Wow!

is all I can say. Have you read any biography of Bill Tilden?
Some think his shot-making improved after the removal of
some of his digits.

I'm holding a racket right now and looking down. I think most
control from the thumb is in the digit closest to the hand. And
I didn't lose that much control when I took the thumbnail part off
and there was no practice-- it was just an experiment of a couple of
minutes!

Service grip could be really interesting. Mine has moved over the years
down toward web between thumb and forefinger, where I'm stronger, maybe because of a broken wrist when I was 13 or 14.

Yes, controlled experiments are the best except maybe in the case of the next one.

[stumphges]

Thanks bottle

Thanks bottle,

Much appreciated. Don't worry, I'm not going to try to drag you into unnecessary grip conversations. It sounds like you've got all you need - just don't let the bird fly out of your hand.

Sorry I didn't tell you the rationale, but I like a controlled experiment. I'm missing half a thumb on my playing hand (not as bad as it sounds actually, only really hampered two or three activities my whole life - remember those old car door handles where you had to push the hard metal button with your thumb? - now obsolete).

However, my grip seems a little unstable, especially on high-swingspeed forehands. So, just wanted to get an outside view. The main thing seems to be that that the thumb, index and third finger form a 'ring' 'round the grip that prevents the handle torquing off the hand when it pivots about the index knuckle. But without a thumb on bevel 8, this ring is incomplete, and on certain shots the handle can break out a little bit and wobble on the pivot. This also leads to excessive hand tension - and thus arm tension, shoulder tension...

No need to reply, of course. Thanks again for your help.

[bottle]

Thumb-off Experiment

Peter Perret, former director of the Winston-Salem Symphony, is a tremendous educator who again and again has leapfrogged kids' scores in math and reading through the use of music in public and private schools across the country.

He talks and writes about neuronal connections in the brain, about how when there are more of them, well myelinized, old people become less subject to Alzheimers (if one pathway breaks down others take the load-- good then to have many, he suggests).

The health, vigor and longevity of orchestra directors is legend of course.

But who knew that a challenged kid's corpus callosum, the organ that takes information in both directions between right and left brain actually grows from exposure to classical music (the so-called Mozart effect).

A great example in tennis of brain hemispheres working together is John McEnroe's launching of the cups. Meanness (left-brain) combined with spatial awareness (right-brain) so that he launched the full cups and not the table under them. I saw Ivan Lendl do a similar thing at Rock Creek Park to a bee.

Peter Perret reported in the talk I heard that Clarence Big House Gaines used both to read and have others read while bouncing a basketball.

Smart athletes, whether conscious about it or not, figure out ways to combine mind and matter.
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stumphges, I tried taking thumb off the racket while hitting a Federer type forehand exactly as you described. I could hit the shot but lost a bit of accuracy, and didn't like the idea of last instant manipulation (restoring thumb to panel eight) during contact, and I had a match to play. Contact is so fast-- .004 of a second-- and my previously expressed divot/slapshot idea gives one much to do already, i.e., simultaneously lay hand back and twist it down,
so why complicate this?

I love all experiments however, and the wilder the better. Some would call that just part of brainstorming, which I am convinced most players don't do nearly enough of. In my philosophy of tennis a first day kid would not just learn separation but to modify her strokes as part of a routine for the rest of her life.

I looked at the eleven forehands in High Speed Archive in connection with your question. If this link doesn't work, http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...04813-0001.mov ,
just go to High Speed Archive and click on the last of Roger's forehands and decide for yourself what he does.

Not that anyone has to imitate him of course.

[bottle]

Editing Excess Looseness out of Service Motion

Sure, John, and I liked the word "please." But I think I made clear my pitch for the necessity of "twilight zone" or a better, less loaded term, "hypnagogy"
or the "hypnagogic" if one doesn't fear success and really wants best possible stroke action for oneself in this lifetime.

Sure, stumphges, I'd be glad to try that thumb straight experiment and report back, and thanks. I'm also on the same page with you about the problems of being overly literal, analytic, pedantic, rigid, legalistic, particular, written word oriented, not funny at all and very mean, i.e., left-brain. The answer is to use both hemispheres together and rely on complete images much more, and sure, laugh like hell when you lose unless you're a competitor.
Then, if you don't taste ashes you weren't trying hard enough.

But about hip snap, elbow straightening, wrist laying back...you may be right but I see this a different way.

I see a very straight line from elbow to racket tip, with Roger's elbow out a bit from his body thus producing a loop far more simple than I ever could have imagined (I had to arrive at it laboriously by trial and by error).

The left hand (always right-brained!) can start the racket head up and out while elbow pivots in one place. The forearm can turn the bottom edge toward rear fence as separated left arm pulls body into a huge turn. The right arm then completes its extension with wrist still straight.

Now you're ready to go, and I compare what happens next to a golfer taking a divot or a hockey player slapping the tip of his stick back. There isn't turf or ice to help you, so you have to kill the racket tip with perfect timing, because
your body now is springing and turning very FAST. What does help is if you gathered your wits and your muscles for the big spring just as your arm got straight. No matter what anyone may tell you, timing is not difficult even against the hardest hit balls if you prepared in this way. Looseness of grip has a lot to do with how the racket tip will go down and back just as you cream the ball. (I'm not permitting myself to think about different parts of the hand at contact just now although there may have been a time for that.)

On service, I asked myself today, "Why take 40 degrees of loose compression of arm from its right angle before you take an additional 40 degrees in which to build resistance?"

Why not, starting with straight arm, take 90 degrees during bend/travel, and 80 degrees during which you gradually build the pressure in your shoulder rotors and in your triceps.

I wrote this out before the gratuitous insult, but wanted to wait till I tried it. Saw no lessening of ball behavior but a modest increase in smooth continuity, which makes me want to go with it.

[stumphges]

That's an eastern, with heel in middle of panel and big knuckle low on the same panel or maybe even on the point.

You're right about hand tension ("like holding a bird's nest," my Russian student said). Personally, my big knuckle is on the 3.5 ridge.

But Roger's may be up a bit from that ridge.

Will Hamilton (who has a bunch of other Maryland area pros to work with) just did a study on Roger's grip at FYB (Fuzzy Yellow Balls). It's a UTube video for anybody. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXcsblS3Jl4&fmt=22

Maybe you had seen it already. Hamilton and his people studied 3000 instances in which they found both Roger's heel (of hand) and big knuckle on panel 3, which is a conventional eastern grip.

Thanks, yes, I had seen it, but after I'd posted my question for you. So into a left-brain-worded twilight-zone we go (I'm pretty literal, (but liberal), I'm afraid):

Could you do an experimental favor for me bottle?

You know how Roger leaves his thumb straight and relaxed during the backswing, all the way until the right hip snaps, the elbow straightens, and the wrist lays back? Then he blocks the backward snap of the 'top' of the handle with his index knuckle, index finger, and end of thumb (which drops onto bevel 8 at this moment, completing the ring).

Could you try leaving your thumb straight, rather than grabbing onto bevel 8, and see what happens? Can you still do the stroke? I'd be happy for your report.

[johnyandell]

Bottle don't make me kick you out of the forum. You've posted dozens if not hundreds of times to yourself alone--and that's ok. You should laugh and admit it actually is a bit of twilight zone scenario. End of name calling now please.

[bottle]

Stumphges, Sure it Does

That's an eastern, with heel in middle of panel and big knuckle low on the same panel or maybe even on the point.

You're right about hand tension ("like holding a bird's nest," my Russian student said). Personally, my big knuckle is on the 3.5 ridge.

But Roger's may be up a bit from that ridge.

Will Hamilton (who has a bunch of other Maryland area pros to work with) just did a study on Roger's grip at FYB (Fuzzy Yellow Balls). It's a UTube video for anybody. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXcsblS3Jl4&fmt=22

Maybe you had seen it already. Hamilton and his people studied 3000 instances in which they found both Roger's heel (of hand) and big knuckle on panel 3, which is a conventional eastern grip.

As for "stroke," I no longer have any respect for him even though that's a rowing term. Someone of a political nature could say I am just returning his floccinaucinihilipilification here, but it's more than that. I compare him with George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, i.e., a subhuman torturer and a real jerk.

In addition, no one in tennis can ever reach his true potential WITHOUT entering the twilight zone. To quote Billie Jean King, "the better the player, the less they know what they're doing."

It's all about left brain and right brain, with right brain being "the twilight zone" and left brain where people are unspeakably rude, calculating (he wanted to get a rise and succeeded) but most of all male at its most boring and mean.

Any of my ideas come from first hand-experience-- just me, out on the court. I wonder if stroke with all of his dismissiveness-- so fashionable nowadays-- can say the same.

[bottle]

stroke, I'm not supposed to say this,

but you are a twit.

[stroke]

I think we have entered the twilight zone here. Someone is actually asking bottle his thoughts on tennis technique.

[stumphges]

bottle,

does Your federfore concern itself with grips? Do you feel that a hybrid 3.5/3, very buttery and relaxed grip is important in allowing your arm and body to have the right liquidity for the stroke?

[bottle]

Centrifugate the Heel of the Hand

We tomahawk-throwers are always looking for the best thing to centrifugate, right?

So yes turn in the hand to open the racket at address.

But no don't use wrist muscles to reverse this angulation to where you want it (in my opinion) on the opposite side of the arm.

Pre-load rotors and triceps together.

Hurl tomahawk from rotors and triceps together.

The hand won't exactly flop over (that would be crude and unworkable) but it will quite smoothly and naturally reverse cock for the next thing, i.e., pronation and wrist straightening and finger-clenching, none of it to be thought about very much once you are beyond designer stage.

Keeping wrist humped while you build up energy in rotors and triceps is an interesting feel in more ways than one.

A lot of problems in tennis seem to come from not knowing where the racket is. When wrist is bent like this it can act as a sensor to tell you how far hand
is behind you.

One way or another, you need distance between your hand and your body,
a matter of simple leverage. Neale Fraser's hand and racket were not back
toward rear fence like many good servers (from one photo) but were more toward side fence and in the middle of his body, not along right side of body as is well prescribed. He was extremely flexible, however, and his big arch got the racket far beyond his back.

[bottle]

Knife-throw 2 (the Basics)

Knife-throw as a serving concept gives the player something interesting to do, psychologically speaking. Also, it emphasizes thumb and forefinger as holders and keeps the racket on edge for a long time, but how does it work, or would that knowledge spoil a person's chance for stratospheric racket head speed once and for all?

There's danger in every scheme, which may become dry, dead formula. Here nevertheless is the physics, which comes from what generally is known as the check book, or TENNIS: PLAY TO WIN THE CZECH WAY by Dr. Jindrich Hohm,
a cheaply printed and bound affair, starring photographic displays of Lendl, Navratilova and Mandlikova, and which started to fall apart almost as soon as I bought it around 1987.

Professor Hohm likes to reduce tennis to working principles. One of these with regard to acceleration is your starting a swing with a short lever but then extending it much as rocket scientists might kick a satellite farther out from earth where it will travel faster.

This idea gets even more interesting in tennis when you watch films of Roger Federer or Charlie Chaplin hitting that forehand in which they scissor from the elbow thus SHORTENING the effective lever and creating whip acceleration in a totally opposite way.

A serve combines both methods, no? as does knife throw-- especially one where you throw to hurtle the knife end over end a maximum number of times after it leaves your hand. Treating your racket this way involves loose but strong fingers, both types of wrist rotation, stopping the hand-- all kinds of things-- but the aspect we're most interested in here is controlled twist from the shoulder rotors as part of a unified throw involving the triceps muscle as well and making perfect transfer of all energy through the hand to the racket tip.

If you throw an actual knife by its blade you create a circular action with radius LENGTHENING then if all muscles in the hand area are loose enough you get whip from SHORTENING of the lever.

My point is simple: People can lose racket speed for years by thinking that arm extension is linear. An image of more circular knife throw should improve racket head speed for anyone.

For a person who doesn't have too much upper directed rotors play available, I think whatever there is should happen in prolonged fashion.

The image of throwing some knife by the blade can achieve a bunch of objectives including transfer of sweet spot farther out toward racket tip (!)

One additional aspect of this serve is turning wrist in to slightly open racket face at address. Then you can form a right angle in arm coincident with body bend and travel. Then springing body can close arm another 40 degrees. Then, as you pre-load rotors and triceps in next overpowered 40 degrees, you can reverse-bend wrist as if turning it inside out.

Now the delicate work is out of the way and you can be uninhibited yet light with the knife throw.

[bottle]

Do it Wrong

Follow normal service pattern through toss and bend, then stop all body involvement and hit really lousy serves-- doesn't matter if they even go over the net.

The idea is to be shallow with your lowering of the racket tip-- just fire the rotors and triceps with a unified arm throw, but in premature fashion.

We're working on pre-load here-- pre-load of the rotors, and pre-load of the triceps.

We're telling ourselves when we want to activate the rotors, the triceps.

Early!

Then when we add various combinations of leg or legs, upper body rotation, and catapult (I hate the word "cartwheel") and time everything right, the racket tip, overpowered, goes down although you're throwing with your rotors and triceps toward the ball. Once you understand this phenomenon of throw one direction while racket goes in the opposite direction, I don't see how you can call anything "passive." The rotors and triceps, very active, get overpowered, that's all.

The early start gives light quickness to the hand action, i.e. builds "snap."

You can hit light, spinny serves this way, or you can hit heavy ones. Heaviness will mostly come from how well body is traveling toward the net at contact.

For me, taking these two recent ideas together-- double pre-load and vigorously end-over-ending the racket by the blade as if you're a knife-thrower-- works best.