A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Report

Is 50-50 on holds for a serve you've never practiced in your life sufficient encouragement?

Perhaps, but today I'll try this one (http://www.hi-techtennis.com/serve/martin_serve.php) and stick with it through a whole doubles session just as I did with the other one last night.

As for 1), 3), and 4) in # 4726, I'll wait for a snow melt and practice outside.

The Todd Martin serve should have the advantage of starting with a bent arm and keeping it at same bend while setting it in place.

The commentary to the left of the repeating serve is very good and helpful, too.

This serve is a "probation" serve but with just a little rhythm added to replace the flop take-back.

The racket head appears to come up and then settle barely down but the elbow just comes up and holds alignment.

[stotty]

Footwork Plus Slight Austrian Accent

The footwork here of either Ginger or Fred will work well against the doctors later today.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwMA9H69qVc)

Amazing....just love Fred...he floats.

Fred Astaire's life has never been portrayed on film. He left a clause in his will requesting his life never be portrayed in film stating, "It is there because I have no particular desire to have my life misinterpreted, which it would be."

[bottle]

Main Criticism of Tennis Instruction

The same as so often of instruction of anything, it

1) does not encourage the student to take hold of his own fate and be his own coach

and

2) does not encourage him to invent.

[bottle]

Footwork Plus Slight Austrian Accent

The footwork here of either Ginger or Fred will work well against the doctors later today.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwMA9H69qVc)

[bottle]

Fragility of Serve Mirrors Fragility of Life

"Members of the ski patrol had detonated explosives near Kachina Peak (Taos, N.M.) early Thursday morning in an effort to reduce the risk of avalanche," Stagg said. "The measure is meant to trigger a potential slide before skiers take to the slopes."

But...

[bottle]

Report: Doctors Make One a Bit Nervous

So when I actually get out there I'll only want to try Variation 2).

[bottle]

At Play-- Two-Birds

How ta and ha get there doesn't matter so long as they do get there with time to spare.

ta points up. So does ha but with arm bent in perfect position to key your bod into dramatic reconfiguration.

Variable backswings?

Repetitive motion is supposed to be good.

So don't do it.

League players, Big and Little, would argue with you.

But what do they know? They're not even in the same sport.

Could somebody authorize themself to use four different service backswings in one match and yet get away with this crime against humanity?

1) Down together up together but ta starts high and only drops two inches.

2) Don't lower ta at all but keep her bent. ha goes back slow and level while getting straight. ha then bends as ta goes up straightening.

3) Extend both arms toward right end of net but keep them disconnected. Drop ta two inches as ha flies downward in a shallow arc. Now ta flies 40 feet straight up like a wild turkey (think Mitch McConnell) while ha bends in gentle second half of its arc, the part of the arc that goes up.

4) From same start point toss sooner with no downswing. As ta goes up, ha goes down at same speed, a pendulum, but then accelerates bending to chosen spot of brandishment.

Verdict: Not enough backswings. Work up more.

One lesson: Downswing on toss is a psychological aid and not physical necessity. In just presented variation 2) ha can carry all psychological load.

[bottle]

Doctors with Weed Whaquets

I know. I should invest in one, too. After I pay for my next crown (the kind in my teeth not on my head).

When these doctors get perfectly lined up for their forehand they sure do hit it hard.

The secret is to make them run a long way before they swing.

[bottle]

AT SWIM-- TWO-BIRDS: Novel by Flann O'Brien

At swim, spaghetti arm: best possible serve by a rotorded player

At swim, spaghetti arm in fold but not twist

At twist, spaghetti arm just before it folds

At twist, spaghetti arm just after it folds

The plan: arm twist just before the fold controls speed of the fold, slowing it down for coordination with legs driving the other way.

Plaintive note: A more sentient serve is promised by full motion with hesitation.

Afterthought: The hesitation = bent arm brandishment of one's sword at circa 20 degrees before TDC (top dead center or skunk tail).

Rhythm of the serve: Down together but not up together. The ha accelerates faster than that to make time for its hesitation.

Worth a try.

[bottle]

Six Month Tweak to Backhand Orchestration

Thought over a binary choice for several days before making my crisp decision. Crispness is a good idea. Right thinking could make the crispness even better.

Aside from slice, chop and sidespin of which I hit a lot, my default backhand is Becker-Edberg. They are the two players who most often hit their one handers in the certain way that allows no bellying out of the racket behind one.

The shot looks like a tall vertical monstrosity of a swing of a pre-weed whacker golf club cutter.

It defies the convention of figure eight shape in a one hand topspin backhand.

It contains a kinetic straightening of the arm and roll of the wrist in fast sequence as the racket golfs directly down and up to the ball.

I think of the roll as then coming to a stop so that both ends of the racket travel at the same speed through contact and up to a natural finish.

An exception to this can be a short topspin angle service return in which the double-ending is replaced by continued arm roll-- a tremendous weapon from the ad court for those who can pull it off.

The choice I made today takes me halfway toward the classical Don Budge figure eight to put a bit more tricky delay into an alternative when I have extra time to spend-- rare occurrence but it happens.

My commitment to this back-bellied alternative is not total however since I think keeping the same high linear backswing is more important.

The shot with compromise is good enough.

Racket does belly a bit behind the back, but no part of the backswing ever travels toward left fence despite the big body turn in that direction.

A flying grip change triggers all elements of the full high one-piece backswing in both of these shots.

[bottle]

I would of course love to be more of a central participant of the great discussion going on over in the Probation! thread, but...

I am very sure I am doing my best to put these notions into effect, which is different.

Each decision must be as crisp and willful as a tennis shot. There is a reason that Katharine Hepburn was a good tennis player.

That is not the same as open discussion.

When one is unsure of something one uses algebra.

One plunges ahead in the expectation of later solution.

But as the public discussion continues the number of unknowns shrinks.

I think Seano's questions are especially good, but not to be judgmental about any of this material seems the best course.

The ideas are fine enough just to do them.

Still, I can ask whether 10 20 30 40 50 degrees of pre-brandishment ESR is best idea.

Influenced by Brian's saying that if he had to choose between ESR going down and ESR during the sweep right he would choose the sweep.

And I certainly believe the palm will face down if probation/hesitation point happens before skunk tail which now becomes ephemeral anyway and not the brandishment itself.

The frozen sword wave will occur at a chosen amount of degrees before top dead center taken from the above range.

Very interesting the point about the shortcoming of pointing racket tip forward.

To the side then? A little backward? A lot backward?

I don't mind having to decide. Whatever gets you the best diagonal, right?

Heady stuff. You'll agree (if you already didn't) when you suddenly hold serve where you didn't before.

[bottle]

Here are Two New Mantras of Service Development Whether They Apply to You Personally or Not

1) No opening out by right shin.

2) One less moving part.

Achievement of 1) achieves 2). The total of improvements here is therefore one.

And is predicated on an excellent toss continually practiced all by itself since toss is where recidivism is most likely to lurk.

Toss while you're cooking eggs. Toss between the time you cut halfway through a bagel lying on its side and finish the cut with bagel on edge through downward pressure of your big knife.

Practice toss while avoiding a trip to the emergency room.

Is the toss an arc to the left? Is the toss high enough? See how easily the toss can regress to the straightness of a telephone pole. When if ever have you given the toss this much juggler's attention?

The subtraction of opening out by the shin gives a new succinctness to the down together up together form of this old serve. (Old in the sense that it follows the form you have used most often in your tennis life.)

The difference from more recent history though is a matter of perfect self-assurance about what will happen once elbow is at desired level.

ESR will happen, that's what, to key the racket 30 degrees to vertical or "skunk tail," as I like to say.

There will in this be no supination of the forearm assuming that "supination" means "anti-pronation."

There will be a simple keying of the humerus as if the humerus is the shaft in your house lock.

And while the key slowly turns the tumblers within you shall finish all last instant rearrangement of your bod.

Think about this! You used to bend core parts while you bent your arm. Now, once again, you bend your arm earlier, your ha, on the second rise of it instead.

You could have just kept it bent since it started out bent but don't tempt fate by mimicking Novak Djokovic.

He gets to do impersonations, you do not.

The serves you've hit most often in life have involved first straightening the arm then bending it so do that now but once it is bent, key it.

[bottle]

More Reflection on the Becker-Edberg One Hand Backhand

I adopted it simply because it is more streamlined and economical than all the other one handers starting with J. Donald Budge and even the one I love so much of Petr Korda.

There is not a big waggle of the racket head down to the left-- and then right on a level path that surely does take the racket tip around in a hurry.

That's great but takes time. The Becker-Edberg straightens and rolls straight toward contact. I guess someone could argue that there still are waggles but little ones.

Having hit these elegant backhands now for more than half a year, I believe the time has come for a report.

I'm not Stefan Edberg. I do not hit the ball as cleanly as he. Still, this shot justifies its use through the speed with which I get it off.

Lately, when I have extra time, I notice myself almost naturally returning to the older more classical pattern in which player's path to the ball takes the form of a figure eight.

Or to go with Tomaz Mencinger's useful image for ground strokes on both sides, it follows the shape of a racket laid on the court with its handle pointed toward the target. Follows the perimeter of the racket head and then goes along the stalk.

We're constantly urged to stick with the shots we know and work on strategy. Yes to strategy but I rebel against the notion I have to limit myself to the strokes I have-- what fun is that?

Why can't I have both kinds of one hander? And hit with the Don Budge type of bigger waggle when I have extra time?

[bottle]

Service Report 2/7/19

Put self on probation right away (served from brandishment-- look, ma, I'm waving a sword). Used a few Seguran full windups too. Result: lost serve three times, including once at love.

Then went with the simplest rock-a-lot serve possible, the one Stotty sent me a video of, attached to an email. I adjusted toss to go with it. Higher and more to left. Held twice at love.

How often is this true? That everything is about the toss, not a hundred other concerns. Very often.

But does this mean I will abandon the variations that made me lose today? I won't because I am intrigued by them. And when you are intrigued by something you should look into it.

But how did I get the toss farther to the left? It's one thing to talk about it, another to do it. In my case I get there by not taking such a deep downstroke with ta. If I go low with ta I get a toss to the right and as straight up as a telephone pole.

If I start with hands fairly high and do have a downstroke of the ta but not much of one, I get a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it whether that's corny or not.

[bottle]

New Dance Cue (Fred Astaire) for a Staggered Segura-like Toss

I love this because it's so different from the usual down together up together. Maybe one can get bored even with something that is good.

Here is the cue. Lean way forward like Pancho Segura with both hands gliding out like insect feelers. They are not linked on the racket. I have already been doing this.

But what you (I) want is right hand slightly higher than left. But let's assume both hands wouldn't mind going out level. To get desired configuration then, slightly lift right arm as you slightly lower left arm.

This combined motion is very small yet prefigures in reverse the larger staggered toss motion immediately afterward in which left hand (ta) goes up as right hand (ha) goes down.