Not Covering the Waterfront
Insisting on one's self-interest has got to make common sense in the complicated subject of service motion. I may love the idea of turning shoulders both ways in rapid succession with palm down to activate a natural loop, but that's not what I'm doing at the moment nor am likely to resume except maybe for a trick serve here or there.
My present iterations have to do with the consistency that comes from an easily repeated down and up motion. As Don Brosseau recently wrote in the Tilden thread:
"My argument is that if you use the assistance of gravity, it can be a great help to your rhythm and therefore your consistency. I don't think it makes that much difference to the speed of the serve, but I feel not enough emphasis is placed on developing a motion that is repeatable and has a consistent rhythm...Now if you can synchronize the movement of the left hand with the right and gravity is determining the speed of the right hand, then gravity is determining the speed of the toss. That would be a pretty comfortable and consistent toss with a very consistent rhythm.
"If someone has no problem making a consistent toss and their motion is working for them, but needs a little tweaking, I will leave their motion alone, but if they are having trouble getting a consistent toss, I know gravity works for everyone although it can be difficult to change a habit at first. I think too much emphasis is spent on trying to get that last ounce of explosion out of the leg drive, when it would be a whole lot more effective to serve 10 mph slower and get in 70% of first serves instead of 55% or 60% at the higher speed. Worse, the numbers are more like 40% to 50% for anyone below world class. And sometimes even world class players."
Applied to me, that helps me self-authorize an extreme stance, i.e., with body and feet turned way around, and to start with a still racket pointing to right of net post so that there need be little or no backward body rotation.
The hands drop and then go up. They drop together separating but there's sequence in a horse race from then on. Racket arm seems to be getting out ahead, next the tossing arm passes it, next the straight racket arm continues on its fifty-fifty path up and around during the upraised tossing-hand-to-tennis-shoe-body-bow, and here comes Beedlebom.
Beedlebom could be one's bending of a conscious right angle into the arm at last just as weight settles nicely on the front foot. On the other hand, Roger Federer gets his arm bent earlier than that in more relaxed fashion, which leads to something resembling the slow top of a great golfer's backswing.
The fast part of the serve then is not so much blast-off as release of archer's bow-- though that's only half of the muscle (am talking about myself here, don't know about Federer).
The other half is hip-shoulder combo in which shoulders start behind the rotating hips but end up ahead of them-- a new horse race crossing the finish line.
The wrist, forearm, elbow and upper arm children are to receive no tennis instruction in the hope that they will behave.
Watching Gael Monfils defeat Andy Murray and Roger Federer back to back could make one ask, "In a serve where body doesn't rotate until the very end, could one be well advised to start with both feet together?"
Insisting on one's self-interest has got to make common sense in the complicated subject of service motion. I may love the idea of turning shoulders both ways in rapid succession with palm down to activate a natural loop, but that's not what I'm doing at the moment nor am likely to resume except maybe for a trick serve here or there.
My present iterations have to do with the consistency that comes from an easily repeated down and up motion. As Don Brosseau recently wrote in the Tilden thread:
"My argument is that if you use the assistance of gravity, it can be a great help to your rhythm and therefore your consistency. I don't think it makes that much difference to the speed of the serve, but I feel not enough emphasis is placed on developing a motion that is repeatable and has a consistent rhythm...Now if you can synchronize the movement of the left hand with the right and gravity is determining the speed of the right hand, then gravity is determining the speed of the toss. That would be a pretty comfortable and consistent toss with a very consistent rhythm.
"If someone has no problem making a consistent toss and their motion is working for them, but needs a little tweaking, I will leave their motion alone, but if they are having trouble getting a consistent toss, I know gravity works for everyone although it can be difficult to change a habit at first. I think too much emphasis is spent on trying to get that last ounce of explosion out of the leg drive, when it would be a whole lot more effective to serve 10 mph slower and get in 70% of first serves instead of 55% or 60% at the higher speed. Worse, the numbers are more like 40% to 50% for anyone below world class. And sometimes even world class players."
Applied to me, that helps me self-authorize an extreme stance, i.e., with body and feet turned way around, and to start with a still racket pointing to right of net post so that there need be little or no backward body rotation.
The hands drop and then go up. They drop together separating but there's sequence in a horse race from then on. Racket arm seems to be getting out ahead, next the tossing arm passes it, next the straight racket arm continues on its fifty-fifty path up and around during the upraised tossing-hand-to-tennis-shoe-body-bow, and here comes Beedlebom.
Beedlebom could be one's bending of a conscious right angle into the arm at last just as weight settles nicely on the front foot. On the other hand, Roger Federer gets his arm bent earlier than that in more relaxed fashion, which leads to something resembling the slow top of a great golfer's backswing.
The fast part of the serve then is not so much blast-off as release of archer's bow-- though that's only half of the muscle (am talking about myself here, don't know about Federer).
The other half is hip-shoulder combo in which shoulders start behind the rotating hips but end up ahead of them-- a new horse race crossing the finish line.
The wrist, forearm, elbow and upper arm children are to receive no tennis instruction in the hope that they will behave.
Watching Gael Monfils defeat Andy Murray and Roger Federer back to back could make one ask, "In a serve where body doesn't rotate until the very end, could one be well advised to start with both feet together?"
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