A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

1. INITIAL BODY. Use John McEnroe’s stance only you can keep your bent arms address if that’s what you have. Also you probably don’t need to lean over as far while getting same effect by taking some extra body angle forward with the (a) straightening and drop of tossing arm palm vertical and (b) straightening and separation of hitting arm with palm at setting it naturally wants to be and so that the two hands become at least a yard apart and (c) push of hips backward and (d) turn upper body backward in a baseball pitcher’s way enough to remove rotational slack from LOWER BODY and put downward part of toss to RIGHT of left knee. It’s all smooth and simultaneous and unhurried. I am right-handed.

2. TOSS is assisted by body angle transfer forward to backward at end of hips travel along baseline. Rising toss hand revolves inner edge so palm just gets horizontal for release and once the ball is gone the palm reverts back to vertical. The hitting arm since it is so far back to start has little to do thus making it less likely to interfere with smoothness of toss (a physiological possibility apparently). Like tossing arm it revolves the palm up and that is the main thing it does accompanied by a very small rise of itself. The two palms thus turning outward can lead to the romantic notion that one brain impulse serves all. If there is a little sequence one way or the other I can’t see the harm.

3. THE BEND. (Sit down on imaginary seat and shift knees for front foot take-off.) The hitting arm, thanks to the palm having revolved, can now compress completely on a low, trophied elbow, assuring that saved elbow will rise a maximum amount as it twists upward in the next step. But, as arm bends this way, your wrist also humps (a very natural feeling, this, to do both things at once). This assures a maximum amount of loose wrist from humped to open in the next step.

4. THE BODY THRUST AND CATAPULT now takes place; i.e. the rest of the serve. Although I have read about radical rotation I don’t believe there’s that much at least for a second serve. McEnroe at contact has shoulders turned back at about 60 degrees rather than the 45 degrees that is usually prescribed. I’m sticking with an idea from reading Brenda Schultz: UBR (upper body rotation) only starts from contact. Contact is over the head.

5. ARM MOVEMENT: One should take tennis interpreter Jeff Counts very seriously when he describes all the players who neglect to twist their forearm out when they serve. In John McEnroe’s case, this movement flows out of the wrist shift from humped to open as part of the motion we all do inverting our elbow up basically in response to leg drive but sometimes in response to UBR or catapult. McEnroe: leg. But what happens immediately after that?

A next frame will probably show McEnroe’s arm in a right angle, which means it’s about to twist as if you are throwing a tomahawk (straight up in the sky, someone said after watching McEnroe’s slippery racket fly). It sends the arm on a new slant as well. EVERYBODY needs this extra power. It’s the device by which even the most rotorded player can bounce a short overhead over an adjacent fence.

The trouble occurs when we rotorded ones move this power position backward for an upward spinning serve. I myself shunned it for a while because I thought I was giving away racket angle. But when you study McEnroe closely you see the loss is not very much.

In one frame he (M) has arm compressed, wrist opened out, forearm parallel to the court. In the next frame he (M) has arm right-angled, wrist opened, forearm still pretty much parallel to the court though pointing in a different direction more toward rear fence.

This tomahawk or right angle is what Brian Gordon points to as the main source of centrifugation. And with less or more than a right angle (and I am the one opining here but you knew that already), the tomahawking movement, in which upper arm violently twists, cannot be efficient: a simple matter of maximum leverage.

The active tomahawking can passively straighten a spaghetti arm for sure accelerating it faster than any other way.

So how to get from compressed arm to right angle? By using triceps? Tried it. Best for me is just opened wrist flowing into muscular twisting of forearm in same direction, with this forearm twist sufficient to open arm desired amount in an entirely passive way.

P.S. It’s raining. Otherwise I’d be doing this stuff rather than writing it.

[bottle]

Immediate On-court Thoughts and Modifications

1. Start completely leaned over. Shoulders can slowly start rising up even before toss arm has reached low point; 2., the cadence of toss may be different from what one is used to: I think of the science classroom device where a metal ball swings down and hits another, that then takes off. This toss is really three counts, not two; 3., I see a transition between backward and forward travel along baseline where front leg is straight and still while upper body continues up, then the knees start bend/glide just before release assisting height and direction of toss; 4., When arm opens to right angle it is important to keep elbow pointing in constant direction or you lose your pre-load; 5., Turning both palms outward on one brain impulse is easier than I thought since hitting arm is already back at ball release and therefore doesn't have much to do; 6., I am struck more and more by the distinction between servers who "bend the two halves of their arm together" in the words of Ivan Lendl, who advised it, and those who don't. But even these arm compressors need a section of arm work where there is a right angle, which means that upper arm from shoulder can twist and have it mean something.

Mark Phillippoussis besides John McEnroe is an example of somebody who first squeezes arm completely together then forms the right angle. And of course there are many others. And then a bunch who never do this at all, don't compress much beyond a right angle in the first place.

[bottle]

M Serve: One Hell of a Swoop

Once you (correctly!) figure out the intricate parts of John McEnroe's serve--
an almost impossible feat for which you will get little or no help-- you don't get to the next level unless you combine everything into a single, flowing arabesque.

I know that tennis players aren't supposed to talk this way but rather grunt,
"Stick dat volley. Which way to da beach? I play very good today. Tennis very good to me."

I yam who I yam, however, and Alec Bechtold of Queens, Long Island, New York told me that when he was little he'd go to the playground for some hoop and there would be this dumpy little kid sinking threes from a quarter mile away.

To learn the dumpy kid's serve (or any stroke for that matter), go for:

.creation, not imitation
.feel, not thought
.kinesthesiology (sensory verbal cues to consolidate complex physical acts)
.film and words both
.the Jonah Lehrer book "Proust was a Neuroscientist" rather than the Leonard Shlain book, "The Alphabet versus the Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image"-- at least until you've read it.

Jonah Lehrer, editor of Seed Magazine, examines ALL the senses. He speaks of experiments in which hand beats eye in recognizing imperceptible bumps (not to mention hand with a racket in it to recognize imperceptible chumps).

Wouldn't it be great if one's hand, not too tight, could be the teller rather than one's skull about how to personalize a John McEnroe serve?

On eyesight, exclusion of excessive visual detail, and the painter Cezanne, Lehrer points out that fibers going from eyes to brain are one tenth as plentiful as those going from brain to eyes.

The same visual cells are fired by a detailed mountain or the same landscape suggested by a single curved line as Cezanne does.

There is a huge and underestimated interpretative component to eyesight in other words-- we mostly make stuff up. If we can't or don't do this we
get a chaos of light and smear.

So whom did I model on before? Gonzalez, Budge, Newcomb, Lendl, Phillippoussis, Navratilova, Ashe, McEnroe, King, Wade, Roger Taylor, Venus Williams, Sharapova, Kuznsetsova, others I forgot. So why McEnroe again and now? Because those other serves didn't work well enough.

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I thought the hitting arm was coming up in a pendulum. This misperception spoiled everything. Then one of Yandell's videos from a special angle surprised me by showing how the arm baseballs around.

So, start by watching some video of John McEnroe serving. I recommend especially the ones entitled "serve and volley" not least because they show how the ball bounces after it hits.

Then go to a court with your basket. Get arms straight with back heel up.
Keep arms and body a solid unit through the first significant step which is rocking rear foot flat while rotating the upper body an amount which though small is a BASEBALL CUT that continues with independent arm motion. And willfully continue the animated hand through its entire complex pattern to balanced landing and travel into the net.

[oliensis]

helluva serve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZwc2cdaqU

helluva serve

[nabrug]

Try to find the Bottle service / A different perspective.

Try to find the Bottle service / A different perspective.

Fase1: imagine the 1st/2nd service ball trajectory. Let’s concentrate on the 1st service. The ball trajectory is a straight line.
Fase 2: from which point does that trajectory begin!!!!! This is in my opinion the crucial thing you should concentrate on during your preparation. I would describe that point as the point where both the body and the racket of Bottle are paralel to each other and make a 90 degree angle to the ground. The racquet is in front of your body like Bottle likes it most. (Most of the time it is the same distance what YOU have in your FH.)
Only visualize this during preparation of your sevice and not all your 5.000.000 (joking!) other remarks (How can you do that? KISS!). You already made up your tactics.

I hope you will try it.

Nico Mol
Amsterdam
Holland

[bottle]

Wrist and Forearm First before Elbow Inversion

Just remember that I'm related to the late MC Escher of Holland who knew plenty about the moebius strip-- simplest pattern of all.

Saw progress this morning in relaxing tract through elbow inversion-- a place where other servers including myself have pre-loaded the upper arm.

But in the M serve the tension or torsion needs to happen only as arm forms the right angle/tomahawk/meat cleaver.

From behind, as in the case of certain other servers who compress the two arm halves together before opening them out to the right (square) angle which will then accelerate energy in a new direction, McEnroe's hand and racket tip move pretty much at the same deliberate speed in the last little bit of travel (to the right angle).

This parallelism seen in the videos means to me that forearm is not winding/cocking/coiling-- it wound/cocked/coiled before.

In any case earlier twisting out from forearm feels good and simplifies the upper arm pre-load about to happen and described and illustrated with colored arrows and animation so well in Brian Gordon's serving treatises in this website.

Whether muscle is still needed to form the right angle with so much to-the-outside momentum available I won't know until tomorrow.

Simplicity of pre-load, however, has to be a virtue.

You don't want much else going on just then other than upper arm twist back contesting against your catapult.

-- John Escher

[bottle]

oliensis: that film is great

and the perfect illustration of everything I say

[bottle]

Intimacy as Knowledge

I have been reflecting upon the Dutchman Nico Mol's description of Mr. Hulot's serve from France (post # 5). Nico did a good job of mimicing my method and I would suggest that he continue with this by going ahead and mimicing other people's thinking, writing and speaking about tennis, too, just as Novak Djokovic can imitate anyone's service style at the drop of a hat.

Because real knowledge is intimacy, not booklearning or televised tennis matches.

I can think I know something about John McEnroe's serve, but until I have given full consciousness to passionate imitation in regular sessions over a period of weeks, I will know nothing.

Then the question will arise whether I'm getting somewhere.

All I can say is that if you don't feel sick to your stomach at the prospect of attaining the best serves in your lifetime when you are 69 years old you should be.

[bottle]

Triceptic Bread and Spaghetti Sandwich

It's pretty starchy, I know, but YOU DON'T HAVE TO EAT IT. In fact, YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO IT. But if, like me, you are modeling the John McEnroe
serve, and you don't seek an answer to the following question-- well...you're the idiot, not me.

What's the best way to get from the two halves of the arm clenched together to arm at right angle?

C'mon-- no smartass answers. Take the possibilities out on a court and report back. The object is to develop something potent to crush your favorite opponent even worse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was Sunday and my thoughts were of peace and I had two innovations to try:

1. Counter-whirl a bit extra for address, putting arms and low racket
a little farther around than McEnroe has them.

2. Use muscle to form the mad cook's meat cleaver. It's not the same muscle as the muscles pre-loading in the shoulder and therefore shouldn't interfere-- and just a little muscle is required. This may be personal preference since one could also form the right angle more passively. But I want exact control and tempo just then. Spaghetti arm, about to happen, can help fulfill the passivity requirement-- i.e., use as much p as possible until it begins to compromise power and control.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The counter-whirl idea is not only sound but affords a little more double
shoulder twist and gives your own signature to the shot. I'm doing it
today for a main reason, though. It feels good. Those shoulders rotate
as you rock the back heel down. And the back heel hitting the court is an electric switch for the arms to separate. Right arm can continue the "whirl."
I use quote marks because I want whirl feel not whirl speed. The arm can go
slow and loose. Everything to this part of the serve should be totally loose,
both arms hanging down with all tension drained out through your feet.
Left arm can stay exactly where it is or rearrange slightly for a backswing or backdown to the toss-- doesn't matter.

The spaghetti sandwich idea also worked well-- at least on Sunday. But don't be surprised if your consciousness suddenly changes. Consciousness is a floating thing. Right brain and left brain are duking it out. Consciousness has no specific seat in the cortex. We re-invent identity all the time just the way I do my serve.

Does this make me a worse player? Not necessarily, but do allow enough years and applied/focused energy for slow and sure neuronal development.
The younger you are in that case the faster you learn.

I suggested, last time I think, that wrist and forearm simultaneously turn out.
Palm goes from down/humped/closed to almost up (open). This combined with winding forearm creates a lariat or cochleate (snail-like) effect. Best, cocking the forearm is DONE. The next rotation-- wider-- comes as elbow turns in its various directions. McEnroe's doesn't turn forward too much but does turn forward quite a lot-- more than a lot of players.

A little opening with the triceps now and you've got your right angle. At this same moment of squaring the whole arm the upper arm twists passively back like an axle in the shoulder socket. The different muscles involved allow you to do both things at once. The rotor muscles should already be activating to fire forward.

It's all rapid-fire sequence of course and the firing upper arm throws your tomahawk-- I mean your tennis racket-- on a loose or spaghettied arm, which when almost straight you extend from triceps again but this time firing hard.

[bottle]

To Nica Mol

I googled the name "Nico Mol." A pretty good player, I think. Well, Nico, I wanted to say you should use "K.I.S.S." for your kissing but that might not be a good idea either. Progress proceeds by opposites-- tennis is simple and tennis is complicated. Billie Jean King wrote in one of her books that the better a player is, the less he knows what he's doing.

Okay, but Billie Jean herself is and was EXTREMELY ARTICULATE about all the minutiae of tennis technique as well as many other subjects. Arthur Ashe was the exact same way.

Some (a few) can talk a hole in your belly even as they play well. In baseball-- I know, not a Dutch game-- but we've had Mike Mussina, Don Sutton, Ted Williams, and Roger Clemens who is so much more convincing when he discusses pitching technique than drugs.

This is a good debate, however (talking/doing vs. just doing) and one I always have with my brothers.

[bottle]

Tennis/Poetry/Flu re McEnroe Serve

The author Leonard Shlain says you ski with your right brain, so I assume he thinks you play tennis with it, too. I think you do when you play your best.

I'm writing this with my left-brained right hand, however, which probably means what's coming out is bellicose, analytical, linear, overly logical and misogynist: just the way I want to be when trying to figure out John McEnroe's serve.

If I open the whole arm behind my back; i.e., twist from the shoulder I get one pattern of events up to the ball, and quite another if I open my forearm instead back there. In both cases I'm arranging the racket so I can hump the racket with the wrist in the same direction that the elbow compresses the two halves of my arm.

Option one (twisted the whole arm): (1) bend the arm then wrist; (2) stir the racket tip in the opposite direction with forearm and wrist; (3) continue to stir the racket tip but in a wider orbit by twisting the compressed arm upward and slightly to forward of the shoulders line; (4) use triceps to achieve a right angle while pre-loading upper arm; (5) fire from the shoulder with your upper arm a stationary but violently twisting axle.

Option two (twisted the forearm): (1) bend the arm then wrist; (2) stir the racket tip in the opposite direction with wrist and elbow; (3) twist the compressed arm upward (you already twisted it forward) (4) use triceps to achieve a right angle while pre-loading upper arm; (5) fire from the shoulder with your upper arm a stationary but violently twisting axle.

I had a match today so didn't equally explore the two options. I did try both,
which probably resulted in neuronal pathway damage to both-- a small setback and price to pay for being one's own human lab.

In the meantime I found a first serve video sequence of McEnroe with light and shadow on the inside of his elbow that clearly showed whole arm twist.

Of course we want to be independent and objective, avoiding hagiography. Just because McEnroe does something doesn't necessarily mean it's best.

Prolonged exposure to the McEnroe serve, however, reveals that it is fiendishly clever, that it is almost impossible to improve upon, that it led to Sampras, Federer and all the other radically rotated stance serves now in modern tennis, and all this came about since McEnroe wanted passionately to compensate for a stiff back.

Of course (again) rotation of whole arm and of forearm both behind oneself are a third possibility to check out.

I wrote the following scenarios before I went to the court. You could call them "various options among the two options" I did examine in my match.

A. Option two was awesome even though I had never tried it before, and option one had proved dependable over several days of basket serving, using the following method: Place high rise basket directly in front of you but far enough away so you take a couple of economic steps for the next ball after you've completed your forward motion. I will continue to explore option two.

B. Option one was more dependable, but I'd practiced it for several days, and option two worked well a few serves. To give option two a fair shake I need to practice it, too.

C. I'll stay with option one. Option two wasn't promising enough for further exploration.

Conclusion I: Go with choice C unless simultaneously using both rotor and forearm muscles to turn racket open is proven superior (for me).

Conclusion II: If Shlaim is correct, but a right-handed poet likes her pen, she should try writing her next poem with her left hand.

Conclusion III: Dizziness from flu most affects the right brain.

[bottle]

Every Day is Groundhog Day

John McEnroe gets arm way back-- almost along baseline-- but read John Yandell's instructional article about working with McEnroe and discovering that McEnroe was going around too far.

McEnroe may twist whole arm out during his bending of it.

McEnroe may not hump wrist at all-- maybe it's naturally straight for half of the serve.

Maybe the slightest hint of a pause as elevating hand approaches brain stem will lead to more rhythm, ease, and control.

I don't see any parallelism this time.

More of a KEYING of racket all the way to the square.

And more of a pause to change racket direction when everything is up.

Neither end of the racket to go past the other.

The racket spins as if there was an axle in the middle of it, like a single-blade airplane propeller.

But the racket is held at one end. So one needs a strong, right-brained image, almost visionary, of racket revolving around its midpoint.

The elbow rises (all the way to "square") while the wrist opens and forearm twists and the arm opens out, and THE ALL OF IT revolves the racket around its midpoint.

But the motion has a start place. There is either a pause or the hint of a pause before the unique motion begins. Up till then the arm was smoothly compressing with wrist in natural/neutral position.

One might think of the top of the backswing in golf.

How will you know when you are beginning to achieve this? The racket head will go slightly down from where it is. The hand will go slightly upward from where it is.

Term: "square"
The fleeting moment in tract when arm opens out to a right angle.

[bottle]

Hypothemonk: He Combines Science and Religion

If you explore your serve long enough, you will generate new selves. That's right: You will break down into a bunch of different people.

Hypothemonk, in my case, is just one of them. He says, If you plan to discharge a fully compressed arm, then squeeze the two halves reflexively together with UBR (upper body rotation) and worry about little else.

He says, Go ahead and keep your palm down. Start from a stance as extreme as Pete Sampras and maybe turned around as much as John McEnroe.

He says, Whirl the shoulders forward as much as Sampras while staying low then change your body into a catapult toward net with no more UBR until after contact.

He says, Scissoring the arm this way creates the feel of stirring a pot, does it not? so keep on stirring-- a lot!

He says, Permit your elbow to knife ahead while your stirring, extending forearm forces the racket tip well to the outside.

He says, Your racket will still be in good position because of the radical beginning stance and then your restraint about using continued UBR.

He says, Finally, fire your triceps to start your racket tip direction the opposite way but with full energy overall continuing to fly out to the right.

He says, Don't push off of one leg when you can push off of two, and to do this pivot front foot back on its heel during early pre-toss windback of your upper body.

And, Practice the double-leg thrust and catapult component by itself, throwing your head forward (after the legs!) with initial UBR minimized.

He says, For widest slice and most powerful first serves, go directly to a right-angled arm and then load up the rotor muscles-- reflexively-- rather than continuing with the contest between bicep and triceps (the Brian Gordon pre-load strategy in a different context), reserving that for serves in which you scissor completely.

"Don't bother to bend the arm all the way while opening out the racket and keeping the elbow trophied low like John McEnroe," he declares. "It can work-- maybe even spectacularly-- but just keep the arm squared like so many other servers in their pre-load phase throughout the world. More simple."

[bottle]

Hypothemonk Expanded

Hypothemonk says, "Analytical words are not the same as right brain imagery-- especially because of their emphasis on time and sequence. Expand from the shots you already have. In arm-squeeze serves don't always stop the UBR (upper body rotation). Let everything whirl-- and keep going-- the UBR (horizontal rotation), the catapult (vertical rotation), the arm, the racket tip.
This may be the most pleasurable serve you ever will hit because of its exaggerated flow. You might or might not like the resultant spin. How high was your elbow? The ball will go fast though not as fast as your best first serve. In returning to squared arm serves for their more specialized purposes, understand that fleeting square arm utterly changes the direction of arm extension."

Hypothemonk says, "Read 'The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: the Conflict between Word and Image,' the greatest tennis book ever written. When," he further argues, "the neophyte discovers there are subjects in this book other
than tennis, and the word 'tennis' may never appear in its 464 pages, he should blame, bite, or kill me rather than the person who created me since I am a fictive character."

[bottle]

Noise in the Flow Serve

"All professional educators should spend one half of their residency at a tennis court." --Hypothemonk

One lesson from imitating McEnroe is that you can bend the arm completely together using your biceps without harming overall structure of the serve.

Call this one extreme. More recently, I've been trying again to squeeze the halves together reflexively-- the opposite extreme.

Somewhere in between-- most likely-- is an arrangement that leads to improved noise at contact (tearing silk is what you want). You suddenly find the noise, almost by accident, and then you lose it as you maintain rhythm in your serving practice, finishing your motion and taking a couple of steps toward the high rise basket and the next ball, stepping back and serving again all in a rhythm that includes the steps. There should be more doing than conscious thought in this continuous process. You're looking for a certain noise, focus, radio station where tearing silk plays all the time. Almost automatically, you try bending your arm at a slightly different place. Maybe the phantom radio station is somewhere around the transition between your arm folding in and extending out (the racket tip winding on your forearm to the outside). You stir your knifing elbow a little more, a little less-- and there it is. But this is a pretty old radio. Can you keep the dial on such a fine line?

And what if everything went back more toward the rear fence instead of around to the right?

Then when UBR combined with catapult could you not toss to a contact point more directly overhead?

I can't help but think that when some instructor-- maybe even yourself!-- wants you to stop some element in your serve there is the alternative available of simply using a more extreme stance.

Should you turn your racket out, like McEnroe, or concentrate on keeping palm toward ear while it goes past as the man (Vic Braden) always prescribed for spinny serves.

If you've decided to turn the racket out, you have many options of where to do it, no? Up over head? Down by legs? Won't the result be much the same? Which works best? And what's the best time to turn forearm out? Does the time of this matter? Should you consider turning forearm out and elbow in behind your neck at the same time?