A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Apology for Post # 3975 with its Allusion to the Butterfly Stroke in Swimming

Easing the Contortion in a Strong Eastern BULL-BOY

Thus we nudge the swim term breaststroke one notch toward butterfly.

Perhaps there is too much idealism is this provisionally revised shot, perhaps not.

I had the forehander swimming backward. Replace butterfly with "fountain" or fleur de lis or butterfly backstroke.

No no, don't do that. Read on instead.

[bottle]

Up Together Replaced by Up and Sideways Together

There is snow on the courts. Will play inside on Friday night, but with no way to tweak the new service design before then-- except at dream level. In fact have been cross-country skiing instead of taking my basket of balls to a court with a piece of plastic tape stretched from post to post and well attached with duct tape at either end.

So here's a new idea for a hitting-arm-to-go-up-first serve. After that unique lift with racket tip pro-actively drooping down behind, and toss hand docile and still and left behind, start to inspect the toss hand with the hit hand before the toss hand arrives at its full height.

In spite of everything, you (I) as server still get to move both hands at the same time.

Hands no longer go up together although they fell together. And managed to stay moderately close thanks to the drooping or temporization. As hit hand now begins to inspect toss hand, they resemble sportive aircraft.

This slows down sideways travel of the hit hand as well-- an added benefit.

[bottle]

Serves

Send both arms up together.

Send one arm up ahead of the other.

Send the other arm up ahead of the other.

How do these three experiments compare?

Send hit arm up first, temporizing all the way. The hit arm goes all scarecrow, but at least the elbow got emphatically high while toss arm took a nice snooze down by the side.

Now one adds rowing to the delayed toss to shift the action from one side of the bod to the other.

The rhythm is down together, dead stick for toss arm. If one likes this enough one will not proceed to the two other experiments.

But what have we created? Did we really want to see another Star Wars movie with little pods flitting about like drain bugs?

Stop fighting reality.

The back of hit hand now inspects the toss hand as slow racket threatens to decapitate.

But misses your head altogether thanks to fleeing shoulders and timely fountain spurt.

Leaving serve to proceed with increased stir around and down at once.

[bottle]

Brent Abel on Swing Freedom

"You can have the greatest stroke technique of all time, but if you can't perform 2 simple skills over and over and over, then you can't use that great stroke technique, and the numbers are going to pile up under your unforced error column.

1 - footwork that creates the ideal spatial distance away from the path of the incoming ball so that you can potentially have ... swing freedom.

2 - allow yourself to 'wait' for the just the right time to make contact ... the ideal timing that unlocks swing freedom.

Most players rush that contact moment, get ahead of themselves, and they're actually too early --- a hair too far out in front.

For example, if your topspin forehand is landing short over there --- the chances are you're making contact too far in front and not getting enough contact time.

We tend to rush getting rid of the ball. We're just not confident allowing enough time to let the ball get into 'the pocket'.

So, if you're making too many unforced errors and giving away points to your opponents, then it's time to forget stroke technique for awhile, and instead, get out there and discover what is your unique spatial distance away from the ball AND what's the timing that allows the ball to get into the pocket."

[bottle]

Coyote and Roadrunner # 998: The Two Hands Stay Close Together Except for a Brief Fountain in Middle of the Serve

"Fountain" is the moment when toss hand finally departs toward net while hit hand finally departs toward rear fence-- a temporary situation after which the two hands come together (almost) again.

Let us follow this plot with due diligence.

As hands drop together a clear option opens up. Maybe the left hand gets to relax but the right doesn't. The right can keep falling thanks to early ISR (internal shoulder rotation). This turn of elbow so that it points upward keeps both hands in the same low neighborhood.

But since slow is preferable to quick in the preamble of any serve, one can instead lag the racket hand (temporize) as arm goes up. This is the second option.

Whichever, toss must be high. If it's not high there won't be time for a good plot. We're doing down together up together here. But instead of thinking that the two hands go up together (even though that is true) think that the toss hand goes up with the hit elbow.

This keeps the arms close like two insect feelers reaching up at the sky. It also keeps the hitting palm severely down. One feeler may be slightly bent compared to the straight other.

The toss was high! This allows time now for hit hand to rearrange itself yet stay close to the toss hand almost as if performing inspection of a different part of it more to the back and lower down. This further allows time for right palm with imaginary mirror in it to shift its evil inspection to Vic Braden's famous imaginary cooties (imaginary we hope) on one's real head.

Once these two checks are complete the fountain spurts. This fountain is as much a fireworks fountain as a Roman fountain. Maybe it is a Roman candle.

Now leg thrust maximizes the ESR (external shoulder rotation). But one doesn't want to get fancy yet. We keep the image of a fountain as simple as possible. One hand goes one way. The other hand the opposite way. One's body thrusts straight up in between.

As we all should know by now from previous attempts at service improvement things get lighter and niftier and more difficult from this point.

To employ conical form, the body rotations have progressed from large circles to smaller and smaller circles until the ball itself becomes a tight circle.

(A single image for all this is a mat unrolling on a table. As that process proceeds the roll grows smaller and faster.)

Practically speaking, what does that mean-- one example please. Well, as arm extends the hand turns out. Following best advice, I like to thrust my forefinger up at the sky while not holding a racket or anything else just to self-explain the next specific and minimal motion to myself. Thumb circles forefinger in a clockwise or curve ball throwing direction.

Then comes big ISR and scrape of ball and bend of arm to form a hoop, i.e., the two hands come close together again.

Key points: The right hand inspects the left hand then inspects top back of head.

********************

This is who knows or cares what year of "A New Year's Serve." There is no reward for this work other than a good serve and good other strokes.

(I know they are good because an unsolicited and very professional teaching pro just told me so. Of course she may have been sweetening me up in the hope that I will buy some private lessons.)

[bottle]

Serves

Send both arms up together.

Send one arm up ahead of the other.

Send the other arm up ahead of the other.

How do these three experiments compare?

[bottle]

Alternate BULL-BOY and Butterfly Variation of BULL-BOY

How else can one know which is better.

[bottle]

Easing the Contortion in a Strong Eastern BULL-BOY

BULL-BOY himself has more of his hand under the racket and therefore does not figure in this discussion.

Where one has one's racket in WP (wait position) of course affects what happens after that.

From moderately low left WP, the design goal here is to face strings at right fence partway through the continuous backswing. That implies two elements that ought to be simultaneous: 1) cocking hand up on wrist hinge and 2) rolling elbow up to close racket and both palms equally down.

The hand-cocking is fairly mechanical and predictable; the elbow roll however more organic and uncomfortable.

One certainly wouldn't want to jettison it but could reduce the amount of it by bowling racket tip with both hands down a small bit to arrive at comparable setting and place.

Bowling sounds like a terrible choice when one can make time by using a straight line instead.

There could be good trade-off however. One can contort the elbow less now. Racket also will carry more kinetic energy and a bit of mild loop up and down in the breaststroke that follows.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander, so put a little overhead arc in left hand's pathway too.

Thus we nudge the swim term breaststroke one notch toward butterfly.

Perhaps there is too much idealism is this provisionally revised shot, perhaps not.

[bottle]

Among Possible Service Tweaks: Shortening the Toss at Bottom and Lengthening it at Top


First and foremost, I would guess, is elevation of both elbows a small amount as body turns back with hands still connected.

Not.

[bottle]

A Move that Must be Practiced, Refined and Even Drilled

Initial move in a BULL-BOY, that is.

The two parts of one's backswing before one melds them into a rapid stew could even be thought to be interlaced with a third part (ono, these thoughts are taking us away from simplicity).

Well, the total backswing must be fast, hence the fine detail that comprises it must be perfectly worked out so that later we needn't think.

Should simultaneous cocking of the wrist and raising of the elbow happen on unit turn or breaststroke or in between?

I don't have the answer, only know this move involves the use of both hands much like flying grip change for a one hand backhand and must be as streamlined as possible.

The cue to face the strings at side fence does help.

A simultaneous turning down of both thumbs starting while hands and racket are still connected could be one good answer.

Left thumb can simply turn down from the forearm. Right thumb can turn down as wrist depresses from elbow turning up. Now the hands though separated are still close.

Calm down and smooth the waters with palms down.

[bottle]

Note: BULL-BOY Appears to Roll before Lift

Scissor to roll to lift all seem part of a train. Would arm still be rolling during the lift? Maybe and maybe not.

But we have carefully been taught to despise such speculation. So let's have an absolute and unvarying decree and here it is: SUBORDINATE HIPS TO THE SHOULDERS!

[bottle]

BULL-BOY the Forehand Named after BULL-BOY the Player

Eschew the kinetic chain. Relegate the kinetic chain to another forehand, in my case the McEnrueful. Equate the kinetic chain with some ancient deity how about Baal. In this way one can add religious weight to one's alternate forehand while retaining secularity for one's staple forehand named after a common man. That would be BULL-BOY.

The BULL-BOY has a rough connection to Ivan Lendl's forehand and here it is:

The hips do not precede the shoulders. They follow them. They are in fact passive. This is what gives them their slow, smooth and prolonged look so good for concluding balance. You hit the ball with your shoulders. Your shoulders are the pre-eminent part.

But for a very low ball you can add to the passivity the piston of rear knee driving down at the court just like BULL-BOY in early part of the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYLU...s_digest-vrecs).

Recognize however the difference of this from those shots where some guy pops all body parts up. One is hitting topspin while the lower bod sinks down. And BULL-BOY doesn't do this all the time, just on very low balls.

Although this shot is secular, it might behoove one to declare for the moment this video as "the one and only video."

The backswing now becomes fully comprehensible perhaps for the first time in tennis instruction history. Unit turn, wrist and elbow face strings at side fence-- one half of the backswing.

The second half is a breaststroke of the two arms while rest of the bod remains perfectly still.

In self-feed, one may hit two or three BULL-BOYS in 1-2-3 rhythm where 1 is unit turn, 2 is breaststroke, 3 is the forward stroke.

Two or three of these self-feeds however-- no more. Then it is time to mush the two halves of the backswing into a single unit of motion and accelerate it.

Shy not from reps. Backswing, foreswing, backswing, foreswing. Now we have the 1-2 rhythm we want.

[bottle]

Report

# 3967 works great in self-feed but not well enough against big hitters in actual play to continue with it. One does better to emulate the forehand of BULL-BOY in all its unadulterated naturalness. The exact same mechanics are at work but more spread out, which allows for everything to happen in its uncrowded place.

Bent arm to strings facing side fence enables a hearty turn. There is no additional turn during point across. The complete turn is with both hands on the racket. Hence the subsequent breaststroke is very pure, a consolidation of balance.

Still, in hitting arm, I am willing to use "straighten, bend and wipe" all-toward-the-ball as an exercise to create proper scissor to wipe blend.

Get that and then put the arm straightening part in backswing instead of foreswing and keep everything despite the separate parts in 1-2 rhythm.

Another thing to notice is the earliness and length of shoulders turn combined with slowness of steady hips that characterize this shot.

[bottle]

Among Possible Service Tweaks: Shortening the Toss at Bottom and Lengthening it at Top

Just keep hands and racket connected for longer. They can go down together and around and up together before they separate.

This changes the shape of things, including the tossing arm, which could be good or bad.

I'm adding a cochleate roll of the hitting arm to be coincident with delayed toss as well.

"Cochleate" means snail-like. Instead of raising the two hands together, one can raise one and roll together the other like a Danish pastry and still end up with two high elbows. And do all this by time of the ball release.

From ball release then the toss arm continues upward. The racket arm meanwhile can straighten until the two arms are like insect feelers close together and high in the air.

But something else just happened that is best expressed as a "kata," i.e. as conceptual setpiece without one's racket in one's hand.

The forefinger extended skyward rolls around so that thumb turns toward rear fence.

Now one makes a similar motion but with hand on racket (where forefinger might be extended or not).

The trick is to have both hands high in the air at once. A higher toss can help in this. And maybe just got higher due to having started from a higher place.

Has body bowed the way it used to? Probably.

As one finally serves, the two hands never get very far apart from one another.

So let's be honest now. Are these tweaks just tweaks or part of an overhaul?

Overhaul.

And if one doesn't like it, perhaps one can go back. Or nevertheless forge ahead.

But why would one ever change one's serve this much? Perhaps because the old one got beat up on.

Success of the design, like a new dance step, may depend on doing specific things well.

First and foremost, I would guess, is elevation of both elbows a small amount as body turns back with hands still connected.

[bottle]

A Different Way of Thinking about Front Knee in One's One Hand Topspin Backhand

The front knee becomes a braking mechanism to slow one's hip rotation while simultaneously permitting weight transfer to come through on a rising plane.

Hips rotation thus converts into arm rotation on a straight line to the outside while also lifting on a rising plane.

Are the two planes the same? Not really. The body weight goes toward the target. The arm rotation goes to the left of the target and then to the right of the target.

Between those two directions the racket goes straight toward the target, one could argue, I suppose.

Rotation of the hips thus becomes a mechanism to straighten the arm a little or a lot depending on one's preference for barred arm or gradual straightening of the arm throughout the shot.