A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Three Cups of Bertrand Russell

"The distinctive feature of the unintelligent man is the hastiness and absoluteness of his opinions; the scientist is slow to believe, and never speaks without modification."

When Bertrand Russell had, by his second wife, a first child, a friend accosted .him with, "Congratulations, Bertie! Is it a girl or a boy?" Russell replied, "Yes, of course, what else could it be?"

Francis Younghusband on Bertrand Russell's equanimity:
"Apparently the way to really enjoy oneself is to be full of dark forebodings and expect the worst; then if the worst actually happens it is only what one had expected, and if anything less than the worst occurs one can be in uproarious good-humour."

[bottle]

Oh, just go back through a couple posts then and watch the movies. No Sanskrit there. Just ideas or arm movements that could be improved, it turns out. (Just watch cartoons on Saturday morning, too. You'll be all right. An alternate suggestion: Learn Sanskrit. It will expand your mind.)

There was a 6'10" Lithuanian basketball star at Wake Forest before Chris Paul and after Tim Duncan. His coach, Skip Prosser, had him teach him one new word of Lithuanian every day.

This should have ensured a long life for Skip but didn't. So I abandon any serious thesis here.

[10splayer]

No, I hold contempt for complacency. I hope never to be satisfied. Now if I were about to play for a Gold Ball I wouldn't mess with my serve. But I'm not. And I do not understand at all where you're coming from. Do you conduct the rest of your life this way? (As don_budge has pretty much indicated, one dig deserves another.)

No, just saying this thread was started in sanskrit, and there doesn't seem to be much improvement. Perhaps a different approach is in order. Just thinking out loud...

[bottle]

Hmm, still working on the old serve huh? Isn't your arm bout to fall off? Might want to think about picking up the pace on this whole improvement thingy.

No, I hold contempt for complacency. I hope never to be satisfied. Now if I were about to play for a Gold Ball I wouldn't mess with my serve. But I'm not. And I do not understand at all where you're coming from. Do you conduct the rest of your life this way? (As don_budge has pretty much indicated, one dig deserves another.)

[10splayer]

Hmm, still working on the old serve huh? Isn't your arm bout to fall off? Might want to think about picking up the pace on this whole improvement thingy.

[bottle]

After a lousy night of serving, I went to outside court and did something which seemed pretty much to work.

Now I try to figure it out.

My rotordedness, I have recently concluded, indicates a largely palm down serve. As of today I would say "a severely palm down serve" starting from high two-handed address with strings parallel to net.

During the Vic Braden phenomenon there were some constants in his first book then others, his correspondence, his videos, his conferences and "tennis universities" and most of all the huge jamborees he held all around the country with acolyte teaching pros helping him.

The first video I ever saw had Vic standing with both feet on the baseline as he twisted his broad shoulders back then abruptly changed their direction to facilitate a natural loop.

"Nice easy hundred-miles-per-hour serve," he would say each time you re-played the video.

Seems very different from any serve seen now on the tour or illustrated in a lesson from Tomaz Mencinger or Brian Gordon.

But might be the best alternative for a rotorded server, i.e., a server with short drive belts attached to and wrapped around the bone in his shoulder cave.

I can remember somewhere in the Braden talk the idea that one could consciously speed up the helicopter like palm down whirl to one's inside. Well this is what I'm trying to do now while working at the same time to develop upward component.

Most tennis players have heard at least some of the many criticisms leveled at Vic. For somebody like me, however, the title of his initial book may deeply apply right now: TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE.

[bottle]

Exhortative

I'll try not to repeat myself except for the cootie stuff.

Use the second person pronoun and order that guy about whether first-rate poets approve or not. (I am still influenced by criticism received during an Irish poetry reading contest at Wake Forest University ten years ago when I was in the running for the big prize.)

If something feels awkward, put it in the address. I just started serves from a high still box. A box? Well, whatever you want to call an irregular pentagon with uneven sides. (Left elbow points down with racket parallel to court.)

To quote from previous post: "There appears only one way to maximize a limited range of ESR. And that is to fold arm early for a cootie check on the back of one's head."

Well, one can rock back and forth all one wants with arms and racket in the static five-sided shape.

Next one can take elbow around but start squeezing it proactively and almost immediately for the imaginary mirror's cootie check.

The ta meanwhile can take whatever kind of a backswing/downswing it wants, maybe a small circular move.

Now the toss goes up marginally ahead of rear leg push.

As arm squeezes to a needle the bod loads down on rear foot. (My stance just got wider to move rear leg thrust farther behind center of gravity.)

At risk of repeating too much, the delayed ESR can now be spread between racket lowering and sweep of its tip out to right.

These were better serves than mine in competition last night although other contestants said I played well.

There won't be much in common between a serve like this and that of John Isner although one can perhaps copy his long tract of needled elbow to good effect.

[bottle]

Count One of Two is Divided into Four Sub-species

New scheme. Do not film. Too early. Get to a practice court. That is a necessity.

a) Rock forward while right elbow rises over left elbow as hinge so that racket shaft is parallel to court.

b) I hate the next image but strive to achieve it anyway. The top of a missile silo opens as one rocks back on rear foot. Hand with palm facing right fence has circled behind the neck.

c) Toss.

d) Arm folds for cootie check as knees and bod settle/re-configure.

Count Two (the hit) explodes. Legs and torso twist drive as needled ESR spreads between lowering racket and sweeping its tip out to the right.

There appears only one way to maximize a limited range of ESR. And that is to fold arm early for a cootie check on the back of one's head.

[bottle]

Nature of Reality: One New Dance Step Leads to Another

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTDKjA2ObVo

Let's try giving ta a backswing untouched by the romanticism and time loss of a gravity drop. All that 32 feet per second per second can be replaced by a simple arm squeeze. Hence ta, starting bent, bends a little more. The elbow then lifts ball while passively straightening arm which sets ball into a right to left arc above the head.

ha meanwhile enjoys the same little squeeze since both hands are on the racket at the same point.

One would like to think that as ta tosses, ha inverts/temporizes/sends elbow up. Sadly however linking the motions that closely presses strings into ta.

So the following rhythm is needed: From the double arm squeeze, ta does nothing for a split-beat while ha barely straightens to a right angle thus freeing the two arms from each other.

Next, as toss goes out and over, the elbow of ha inverts to the high level required by any rotorded server.

But racket won't be properly aligned with the keyed, Allen wrench like forearm. So wrist needs to flex. It can immediately extend back to straightness thus lending feel and slowness of momentum to the raising of the forearm to vertical as the whole bod coils.

This present series of new serves is mostly based on reduction of moving parts. But two moving parts-- wrist flexion and extension-- get put back or injected into this particular serve thus adding feel to the humeral twist of forearm upward.

And with more feel comes a better chance of coordinating racket drop with leg drive.

[bottle]

State of the Topspin Backhands (SOTBs): a National Address

Be just as quick and willful as Becker or Edberg in driving the racket down but do so with a lowering of racket tip to the inside and a probably invisible roll the other way and a finish up and forward from the ball with both ends of the racket traveling at the same speed.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqpARpkF8WA)

Exception. To take the ball off at service line (crosscourt short angle): Using a slightly shortened backswing just roll the racket forward like Becker and Edberg and keep rolling from contact.

[bottle]

SERVE FOR AN 8O-YEAR-OLD--the Continuing Story

There's one guy who couldn't return it at all, not one of them, but he was overly affected by its novelty. It's a good serve but not that good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXRUWubs0-E

And I want it to keep changing. Might get worse, might get better. I want to keep at this book, I mean serve, with successive drafts until I'm sure it's getting better, then I'll quit all promiscuous invention right then and just play doubles matches with the thing and tune into the running conversation at "Gold Ball Hunting" for all other aspects of tennis while I'm ahead.

Whether ta is bent or straight or somewhere in between doesn't matter to me right now so long as I get the arced toss I want.

And the scheme in the video is nice and simple, I know. One elbow, the other elbow, and then keying to vertical as the body screws down-- hate to abandon something that clearly is working but am apt to anyway in the hope of evolving something even better.

I've been starting with both hands drawn around the left side of my bod. Make that starting point a bit higher. And abandon the three-part pattern so carefully worked out. It can be two parts or maybe even one part instead.

ta will go down on a straightening elbow just as in a pendulum serve but in an outward direction and with no pause will swoop up over the head. At the same time ha will temporize. That's right. The hand will go down as the elbow goes up.

Now comes the key action of bent ha to get the forearm vertical. I'm not in total agreement with Nick Wheatley's article just re-posted in the forum by don_budge. You all know how I love don_budge and Nick Wheatley too. It's a great and tremendously useful article but I'm not with Nick on the subject of off vertical ignition place. That in my view is for a probation serve. And the racket tip then slowly clocks to vertical at which time the serve takes off.

But 80-YEAR is continuous. So I want the right arm in its form of an Allen wrench to clock a long way to 12 a.m. as the knees bend to distribute the shoulders backward and the ass forward.

[bottle]

A Favorite Video from Nine Years ago

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is53xJBJlYA)

But I don't remember the sound being this bad, and I thought a dead bird fell on the court.

[bottle]

Good writer that Nate. That's the best piece I've read on an exhausted subject for quite some time. He shows a lot of intelligence and has a style all of his own. He's different.

Agreed in all respects. My video called SERVE FOR AN EIGHTY-YEAR-OLD, by the way, seems to be uploading and supposedly will be ready in another hour. One of my videos was watched five times, the other 15 times. So I tell you because I think you might want to be one of the five.

I don't understand why more people will read one of my posts than watch one of my videos. I thought a picture was supposed to be worth several words.

[stotty]

Good writer that Nate. That's the best piece I've read on an exhausted subject for quite some time. He shows a lot of intelligence and has a style all of his own. He's different.

[bottle]

Serve for an 80-year-old. I invented it while I was 79.

Left elbow, right elbow, load.

We have the scheme.

So now we (I) look for any cue that might abet it.

The command "left elbow" isn't bad. It refers to the part of the serve in which both hands are on the racket. The left hand on the throat pushes the right elbow up. The same motion begins the liquid toss.

The command "right elbow" isn't bad. It separates the hands away from each other and places the racket tip at 45 degrees to go to reach TDC (top dead center).

The command "load" isn't...well, you already know I think I'm on to something here. Humeral twist keys racket tip 45 degrees up at the sky. The racket screws up while the knees screw down.

This serve is just another dance step. If you like it or need it then use it.

P.S. I made a video to go along with this post but apparently don't have enough data in my phone right now to upload it, may have to wait for a new billing cycle in a couple of days.