A New Year's Serve

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Serve: Lift Left Foot like an Egret

Do like the featured player in this month's issue of Golf Magazine, the delicate girl who wins all the long drive contests and hit one ball 404 feet. It helps that she used to be a shot-putter and took up golf late after Cornell and knows all about how a baseball pitcher loads up his right side.

I can't remember her name since my casual reading of the magazine occurred in Dave's Barbershop, Grosse Pointe Michigan where people were discussing other subjects. But a golf magazine is best read in a barbershop or doctor's office rather than at home.

I'll keep both hands in close against trunk as I turn for this one. The toss then will be with both arms kept bent and separating to mirror one another.

The left foot will go down as the right foot comes up in the air while becoming pigeontoed for a topspin serve.

The right foot will stay put once the left foot has come down for carved slice and lagged flat serves.

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Butterball 243 vs. Harsh Flip 243

There is a young tennis pro in Dave's Barbershop just come from teaching lessons. He doesn't know I play tennis. "You can't get racket back too soon," he says to Dave. That's not what Welby Van Horn says in SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER. Welby: You let the ball push your racket back at its oncoming speed. But the young pro in Dave's Barbershop is right, too, in the case of my Federfore. I find this out from THREE wide forehand service returns all from ad court.

I hit THREE service returns to outside of the right alley! I didn't do that once in the past month. Well, am I educable?

"Don't beat yourself up, John," Aggie Guastella recently told me. She is a diminutive teaching pro at Eastside Tennis here in Detroit.

No, no, I do want to beat myself up for not being more educable after the first missed shot. Then to make the exact same mistake two more times?

Be grateful, Escher, that it happened, and is telling you what to do. You had to figure it out later, in your sleep, at home, but so what?

See this as simple confirmation of the 10-cent computer in the front top of your brain. You've got to be quicker about shifting to the billion dollar computer low and behind. And don't call it a lizard brain unless this is a day when you think all lizards are beautiful.

Be honest, Escher. Didn't you just write that your worst idea of the week was to flip wrist from opposite hand on the racket throat? Flip that. Authorize yourself. Flip flip flip.

Flip and flip.

[stotty]

I can keep this subject to tennis. I can think that Welby Van Horn is the best tennis instructor there ever was and still prefer level volleys like those of Billie Jean King over volleys that chop down a little.

Me too.

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Next Subject: Hero Worship vs. Having a Critical Mind ("I Want to Sit at the Dining Room Table of Don Corleone")

I can keep this subject to tennis. I can think that Welby Van Horn is the best tennis instructor there ever was and still prefer level volleys like those of Billie Jean King over volleys that chop down a little.

So what happened? I read some SECRETS OF A TRUE TENNIS MASTER. My volleys were screwed up for one day. I had to go to a bangboard and hit little chips to get them back.

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Further Orchestration of Two Forehands

So I'm conditioned to come up with new stroke ideas during the night. Question: If I am scheduled to play during the day will I play worse than if I had dreamt about women instead?

A fair question despite its pluralism, but I think the answer is no. How one performs is another subject. Of course one can overthink anything. But one learns when to put some dish on the back burner. All in all, if one wants to do something well one should authorize oneself to think about that subject all he wants and more.

But with the following idea the eventual goal: "See the ball. Hit the ball."

My new forehand, my bending arm 243, is a moderate "keep the ball in the court" type of shot despite its short angle possibilities. My Federfore, which I've had for a lot longer, now begins from the same backswing and uses the same measured wrist opening adjusted to estimated speed of oncoming ball so is a 243 as well. But with a different shape at rear of the loop, steep and straight down to allow for maximum independent arm sweep through the ball.

My moderate forehands, the bending arm 243 and my McEnrueful are the shots I plan to use the most. The 243 is probably more in the range of my natural ability. I need a good day-- then the McEnrueful can get spectacular, in particular for a low ball as one sweeps forward.

The McEnrueful grew out of curiosity about John McEnroe's forehand. It is a strange shot for somebody like me to have, but the one that draws most praise. On a bad day it goes sour.

Any time I want to hit hard I will try a Federfore, but with full wipe to down low on left side.

I'll try some without the wipe and finish over the shoulder.

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Mine works best if I happen to wake up about 3am. I have my best ideas in the middle of the night.

Me too. And once you give in to this as routine the ideas may come in more and more profusion. I actually had another project in mind for this summer but tennis technique ideas kept asserting themselves at 3 or 4 a.m., so I write them down. They haven't cut out the other project although they've made it go a bit more slowly. Which could be a good thing-- who knows? But whatever the worth of my tennis ideas, the best may have happened today: Cut the service motion in half with half as much energy expended and the same or better result. And maybe find some difficult way to take a nap during the day to make up for the lost time. I'm telling you, what with lumbar pain, it's not often that I will make two trips to two different courts to work on my serve in a single day. But it happened today, this Thursday. That's how excited I am. Fortunately geezer tennis happens tomorrow, which ought to put all this in perspective. But what if I come away from it even more excited? Could easily happen.

[stotty]

Mine works best if I happen to wake up about 3am. I have my best ideas in the middle of the night.

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Results

The whole thing is to drive to the court and let the more interesting part of your brain sort things out. Mine works best when I am asleep, but despite what everybody thinks, staying a bit sleepy at the court might be helpful as well.

First message from beautiful lizards: Hold one ball at a time. Second, don't worry about initial routine or usual grips of ball and racket-- they're fine. Third, let new design glom into previous experience just as bending arm 243 glommed into my old Ziegenfuss forehands but with a much more liquid loop. Fourth, don't take the two hands back nearly as high as conceived (conceptualized). Raising of arm can be part of turning the body inside out-- you already know this. Use what you know.

Fifth, tossing hand will now be inverted half as much as thought. Toss then will be more palm down Kramerisch. Let hand set itself at the angle it wants.

Slice serves (carved) and flat serves (lagged) were better than usual. Kick serves have room for improvement but when has that ever not been true.

Ease of production makes all of these serves a big go with a lot less to think about.

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Actual Report

Forthcoming.

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Possible Report

Toss for kick is from forearm. Toss for flat and slice is from forearm and elbow both. The toss arm never gets fully straight. This is going to take a while.

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Ice Cream Cone Grip but Upside Down. Ice Cream Seen as Not Good for you. So Hold the Cone Point up.

Method: 1) Pure theory, 2) Go to court.

Thinking of ball as a single scoop of lemon orange swirlbert, one decides not to let the ball fall out of the hand.

So we are happy to change the reference. I think of a left hand bridge in pocket billiards. Arrange the fingers in such a way that ball is supported either from underneath or from sides. The hand becomes a freer launching pad once it inverts. I plan to work out details at the court. Thumb and first finger or thumb and first two fingers to form an O smaller than ball seems likely.

From one's accustomed address, both hands fly up to right shoulder as bod performs a solid wind around. Now one tosses from bottom of hand to here for kick, to here for flat, to there for slice.

You'll need to forget your ready made ideas about best tossing mechanics. Forearm is more active. The hitting wrist is open.

But toss is not just an arm thing. Bod forms a bow. Shoulder housing stretches upward. I've always thought of this part of any serve as "turning inside out." The action of it contributes to kinetics and direction and confidence of the new toss, which is low with racket striking it at once at its apogee.

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Make bending and straight arm 243 forehands dissimilar; orchestrate them for complement.

How bod rotation best works in the bending version I am not sure. There is a chance that the reason the shot plays well for me is that it somewhat resembles my old Ziegenfuss, an arm first bod second forehand. I played with that shot for a number of years. It made me more consistent but less mercurial than I would like since I am a romantic.

Assuming this assessment is correct, the straight arm version (a "Federfore" I call it) should tend toward more accepted sequence: knees then torso then arm. The shot for waist high ball and neutral stance step-out is still a 243 (backswing to 2, arm extension to 4, arm twist to 3), but the knees and torso rotations take place between 2 and 4 at the rear end of the stroke during straightening of the arm.

Full bodied arm throw from 4 to 3 and beyond will then have a much more forward component to it along with the optional roll from the humerus. If "the weight is where the racket is," as Stan Smith famously said, transfer of it will then extend all the way from torso rotation to one's chosen extension point out front and a bit to left before hand makes its full return.

Worst idea of the week: To flip the wrist open with other hand. Much better to leave this opening as single arm function: Hand lays smoothly back from wrist as part of attaining 2 on Welby Van Horn's big clock. The smoothness of this is very useful.

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Carved and Lagged Serves Once Again

Even as notable a former number one player in the world as Patrick Rafter has questioned the myth that carved serves are no good and won't work in tennis.

My great failing was that I believed those telling me not to peel an onion because 1) I couldn't imagine an onion as big as a jeep and 2) I didn't recognize the bias of instructors whose entire serving background lies in the topspin phylum.

The result was that those buzzards took away my best serve.

They simply never read John M. Barnaby's RACKET WORK: THE KEY TO TENNIS, or if they did they didn't read it with full understanding.

Me, I read it 20 times (since I was grateful to it for giving me an interesting and winning if not great serve). But I nevertheless achieved a comprehension breakthrough only on the 21st reading.

The author, Barnaby, wanted to come up with an everyman's serve that would win games for the old, the delicate, and the infirm.

He never denied the efficacy ot the other serves, the top serves in the game. But he probably didn't like the people who had them as much. So he wrote enough to show he understood them without making that kind of serving his central focus.

Press out, pull down. I want to retrieve my carved and lagged serves and give them new life.

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Canted Racket Tip to Right is Gone too

Habitual address and setup rhythm are fine.

Then however we take from our own early separation 243 forehand.

If opening the wrist to 2 on the giant clock feels great, then opening it to 1 or 12 or 11 will feel great, too.

One man's meat is another's poison.

For me, the poison is a full windup no matter how many experts, all too apt to be unsympathetic, declare that best for a rotorded server. They won't even use the neologism "rotorded" so what do they really know?

Abbreviated service motion is best for me and probably for a lot of other 78-year-olds.

Arm stays bent. It never straightens until I'm hitting the ball.

Tosses now are divided between those a foot out and those directly overhead.

Press straight out to ball with elbow somewhat forward and wrist lagged for slice and sliced flat.

Press straight up to ball with elbow kept back for serves in the topspin phylum.

Toss should look similar to the receiver. You count on his long perspective to keep him from knowing whether the toss was a foot toward him or directly over your head.

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"One man's meat is another man's poison."-- John M. Barnaby