A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

How to Hard-boil an Egg, Parallel Park, Hit a Kick Serve

Mr. Laconic is Bob of Bob and Hiroko Ray at Rayco Tennis in San Diego, California. Now that I've seen a bunch of his videos on everything from George Soros to replacing grommets, I modify my first assessment: This man is droll, knowledgeable, a great entertainer and entrepreneur and probably a crackerjack businessman. In addition, his cat is a movie star.

I remain blown away by the clarity and economy of the above video, post 254. It's amazing how much power one can generate through the simple decision to straighten wrist in time with extending arm and both legs, and of course I'm already letting the wrist go sooner in one of my slice serves (but not the other).

To me it's interesting that when Bob Ray hits this nifty kick serve his left foot stays still but mine doesn't. Mine pivots. Want to work on that and on toss
of course. Best toss place is personal, not what some other person thinks.

As for your question, Ochi, I'd say put the three words "pure slice serves" in a search engine; you'll probably start off with the 10-frame photo essay by Jeff Cooper. It's not bad.

When Vic Braden came to Winchester, VA, he splattered his short, wide target on his first attempt at pure slice from the deuce court.

To others obsessed like me with mastering a good kick serve despite physical limitation, I'd say Bob Ray's video is evidence that you should always put something like "How do you hit a good kick serve?" in your search engine-- periodically.

Because there's always something new and different coming up, and all you need is to find the one special lesson that will work for you.

[bottle]

Re: Bob Ray Kick

I see a big supporting movement from upper body clocking straight (wisely) from left to right. The right leg kicking vigorously toward right fence gives, taken together with upper body going the same way, the total impression of a jackknife.

Work on these two moves as one: a jackknife. This is the move that then very naturally returns back leg to its starting place behind front leg without disturbing it.

This is a fun realization, easy from then on to do.

[bottle]

It's a punt, that's wot.

[bottle]

Bob and Hiroko Ray Family Business Kick, Continued

The following, like most ideas is worth a try. I haven't tried this try yet because of rain but will.

Bend body as you go down.

Straighten body as you go up (the opposite of servers who thrust more bend into their total body as they drive up). Use top of extreme American football punt to abruptly stop straightening body just as hand slows down. Most of wrist has straightened by then. A bit of wrist curl remains to combine with over-pronation (caused by extreme grip at one-quarter turn past normal continental grip). This over-pronation manifests itself not only in forearm twist but whole arm twist, which one purposefully saves for this occasion.

[bottle]

Chopping Down to Chop Up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8v_qQ3FHys&feature=player_embedded

To chop as Bob Ray demonstrates means that elbow must start in a high position and then come down, even when the action is behind him with everything seeming to rise up. He demonstrates, doesn't explain-- good since explanation always requires too many words. I am the one who is using words here. And I'm telling you: The elbow comes down, the forearm goes up, the triceps extends, the wrist bends closed to take the racket head up. And Bob Ray demonstrates it as the single move it actually is down in front of him. And you can practice it by using a full length ax in one arm to split slab wood like an inland Mainer against a chopping block.

So what's the takeaway? It's all in what comes immediately before: A service motion in which elbow is pointed up at the sky and close to your head in a position inherently weak, sickly and self-injurious in one of your other serves involving spinning wheels stacked one upon the other in the slat-marked kinetic segments of Vic Braden's stegosaurus.

[bottle]

Well, it's still raining, and I haven't tried this, and Bob Ray certainly doesn't show any up and down of the elbow in the chop performed in front of him. There is plenty of upper arm movement however in the actual serve which is fast enough to be difficult to figure out. The only question is when. Is it later, assisting the over-pronation? In the middle? Spread throughout? You decide, dear reader. Me, I'm just grateful to have this new thought to fan my consciousness and hopes for progress in this promising and very different serve.

[bottle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8v_qQ3FHys&feature=player_embedded

Using right leg to stop straightening body: good. Better than trying to do it with your feeble left arm for sure. All the tennis palaver about stopping the whirling shoulders with left hand has always seemed a bit superstitious and fishy to me. I'll take a good punt any time. Once that thigh has risen enough, you have the makings of an actual brake, not some fantasy brake. And the already closing wrist, conceding this point, really will pop for you. Yes, cracking a whip is indeed possible in a tennis serve. (But thanks to lukman41985 for challenging that idea, so long ago. Progress comes as much from challenge-- well, partly as much-- as support.)

Chopper seems enough grip for now. And if upper arm is slightly higher than parallel to court, the immediately straightening wrist brings racket around from left. Upper arm movement seems to come later with less of it than I thought. So, one out of three rainy day ideas worked when I finally got to court, a ratio that seems about right.

[bottle]

Why Millions of Tennis Players Denied Whip-Crack

I genuinely wondered, always remembering Malivai Washington's serve. Not for nothing did people call him "The Muleteer." Everything was relaxed and flowing, like a wet towel. And everything came down to a crack of Mal's wrist in Rock Creek Park.

Tom Stow's student Jim McLennan always emphasized wrist snap with his own tennis students-- so much that his family gave him a bullwhip either for his birthday or for Christmas-- can't remember which.

And then the tennis voices began to appear. I can't remember in whose ear, other than Joan of Arc. The tennis players in Arc lost faith in the crack in Rock Creek Park.

But the voices resonating around the world from France no longer contained the snark of those in Arc. These new voices said, "I don't think this whip-crack is the genuine article. I think it's an illusion, a phantasm, a romantic notion."

I always wondered if Jim McLennan's faith was shattered by this Arc attack. So I noted with interest twenty years later surfing around the web the other day that, he has a newsletter which anyone can receive if they will overcome a few computer glitches such as overactive spam filter. And I noted that McLennan was still preaching wrist crack, in fact demonstrated how the wrist moved right there on the web video advertising the newsletter.

But I still had questions, so I conducted a rigorous pilot study of my own in which I interviewed six thousand bullwhips, six hundred wet towels, and six black snakes.

I'll spare you the towels and the snakes, dear reader, but here's what the bullwhips undulated in perfect unison speaking as one: "Look, Bot, at how I'm built. A short black handle and a long braided tail, right? I coil, I snap. Simple, no? Can't understand tennis talk anyway."

I didn't press my luck. I thought it perfectly all right to put the pronation after the whip-crack, or before it, or during it, depending on the serve, so long as you only used the word "pronation" among tennis players.

And for years there have been millions of tennis players who thought you only
pronated at service contact-- poor souls. Perhaps one can reason with them.

As for the bullwhip, the wet towel and the black snake, don't even try. They don't understand. You can use them. Other than that, for your own good, just leave them alone.

[bottle]

The Stopper 3

The human body is very silly once again, and applying too much projective or conceptual logic to it a waste. Among the tennis-specific exercises in Chris Lewit's most recent article are a rowing finish to strengthen back muscles needed to stop the arm so the wrist will snap better and a slight chopping down of the elbow before the arm straightens up.

1) Rowing release move. A tennis player is not the only one who has occasion to try to touch his shoulderblades together. A sweep oarsman does it along with a double biceps squeeze to make a vacuum behind his blade, which then can pop clean into the air with no water resistance that would slow the boat. Using those same back muscles during a kick serve suggests that everyone should arch while raising their sternum at the very last instant before release of the wrist. This new move replaces left arm or right leg as THE BIG STOPPER. One can punt with one's leg after contact in a Bob Ray type kick serve.

2) Chopping down of the elbow. A rotorded server such as I, who can't get deep enough in Lewit's "all-important buttscratch," hates to give away any of his angle. However, if bringing elbow closer to right ear and as high as possible is now to be permitted (famous teaching pros have used WMD arguments against this with dramatizations of a poor plastic doll experiencing the complete separation, flesh and all, of her arm from her shoulder), such a natural throwing motion might become feasible.

To the court now and report back: 1) Yes. 2) Yes. Well, both ideas are very promising.

[bottle]

Well, if my last formulation was inaccurate, if arch of the back is to happen slightly earlier, then what, O what, stops the arm to crack the semi-loose wrist better? Muscles in the shoulder developed through exercises? "Let no question go unanswered and no answer go unquestioned."

Perhaps from the foregoing, dear reader, you could conclude that I re-read Chris Lewit's first two articles on acquiring a kick serve-- part of what has to be the most complete and interesting presentation of the subject ever. I think I misrepresented what Lewit said and demonstrated about elbow. My impression now is that he never permits a student to give away one degree of her or his possible upward "angle" except maybe for twist kick. Just watch the way he always keeps one hand on the elbow to restrain it when manipulating a student through the service motion or part of it.

Also, I'm afraid that it's back to a more extreme stance, with more body rotation, muted or precisely controlled as it is in Lewit's system. Bob Ray's example served me well through several matches, but now I go back closer
to what I used to do.

One may wonder about my "dilettantism" with its possibility for destroying myelinization or muscle memory. All I can say is that I would prefer above all else to myelinize the process of tennis learning itself.

[bottle]

Mondoes for Dessert

1) Mondo is going backward as racket contacts ball.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/roger_federer/roger_federer_high_speed.html?FHCenterSide-0002720-0001.mov

2) Mondo was earlier and now wrist is unfurling (closing) at contact.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/roger_federer/roger_federer_high_speed.html?FHCenterFront1-0001716-0001.mov

3) Mondo was early. Then wrist unfurled. Now wrist is mondoeing for a second time.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/roger_federer/roger_federer_high_speed.html?FHCenterFront2-0003715-0001.mov

[nabrug]

1) Mondo is going backward as racket contacts ball.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/roger_federer/roger_federer_high_speed.html?FHCenterSide-0002720-0001.mov

2) Mondo was earlier and now wrist is unfurling (closing) at contact.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/roger_federer/roger_federer_high_speed.html?FHCenterFront1-0001716-0001.mov

3) Mondo was early. Then wrist unfurled. Now wrist is mondoeing for a second time.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...03715-0001.mov

What is mondo or a mondo? Never have understood this.

[bottle]

"Mondo" Defined

"Mondo" is tour slang for simultaneously bending the wrist back to the max and rolling the forearm down to the max, only doing this late in the stroke cycle during or just before contact.

Theoretically, you could perform the same double action very soon in the back-swing or even while in waiting position. Practically, however, this would drain comfort and rhythm from anyone's looped forehand and would not be called "mondo," in fact would probably not be called anything but might work as a species of no backswing service return or emergency get where you lay down strings and step across with outside foot and hit ball and that's all-- very quick and simple.

If I were trying this now I might roll forearm down to the max but save some backward play in the wrist to absorb the shock of a very fast first serve.
(The strings do this anyway but you can add to their absorption with backward component of a ball catch-- you use some springy "give" in your wrist in other words.)

Returning to full loop version, we need an example, almost any current tour player regardless of whether he uses double-bend or relaxedly almost straight arm structure.

In the versions shown above (post # 267), Federer lays wrist back part way as he raises racket tip up to his side. Then he closes racket and starts extending arm back on a downward slant to about the one-third mark at which point he starts a smooth rotation of the shoulders forward while continuing to extend arm. Is there an admittedly short piece of tract where straight arm swings while solid with the shoulders? I think so.

Federer swings his shoulders around so early compared to a traditional forehand. The precedent is the innovative and great top-spinner Tiny Tom Okker of Holland.

In all cases the last minute nature of the combined wrist and forearm backward motion is part of the definition of "mondo" in my view. Since the term is slang not in a dictionary, one can never be sure, but I'm willing to bluff my way through. Language should be fun and therefore I say there is a "hot dog" or "hotshot" or "look at me!" or "ain't I great!?" aspect to every mondo.

Which is precisely why traditional instructors won't teach it. They hate show-offs and last-secondedness. Constantly, however, they underestimate the athletic ability of their recreational players. Underestimation of peasants and overestimation of aristocrats is what masters of the universe are all about.

NOTE: The last time I clicked on the three url's in post # 267 I simply was taken to high speed archive without the specific video coming up. If that happens to you, and you want to connect the one line descriptions to their intended videos, start with # 3 under Forehand, "FH Center Side." Next is
"FH Center Front." The third and final video is "FH Center Front 1," the topmost entry on the list.

[bottle]

The Missing Ingredient

Many players use free wrist movement as an essential ingredient in their one-handed backhand without ever explaining where or how. And professional tennis teachers always say too little or too much on every subject. And when a person watches the famous one-handers on video, he-she may find correct understanding of such a small movement exceedingly difficult to come by.

Slo-mo video of John McEnroe may prove the exception to this. We know from his autobiography that he always holds his big knuckle on 1.5 no matter what the stroke-- a good beginning for our detective work. Then, in the slo-mo film, because of such a strange grip, he curls his wrist until it is humped as part of his regular preparation. Next there's a bit of arm straightening, after which true vigor asserts itself. "Keep your elbow in!" McEnroe has said while criticizing Greg Radetzky (I can't help it if I like the Rusedski March)-- a second bit of evidence. In fact, when one then applies Arthur Ashe's language for another essential ingredient-- "turn the corner"-- one can see that McEnroe does this without changing his pitch. How?

There can only be one answer: He flips his racket tip around with his wrist while rolling his elbow down while keeping that elbow in.

Remember, McEnroe curled his wrist until it was unhealthily humped. But now he quickly straightens it until it is healthy as could be. The question is, What if you started with a concave wrist, curled it straight, added a bit of arm straightening, then rapidly tocked your wrist until it was concave again in assiduous imitation of McEnroe?

Would this work? Or would you have to adopt McEnroe's grip? I tried it. Voila! I'm so glad I made this discovery before my seventieth birthday. One derives immense satisfaction in finally getting around the outside edge of the ball, avoiding unwanted shear.

[bottle]

Ron, Bob, Kyril and Roger

This should be fun. Not enough fun could be the most significant factor behind most failed kick serves. The following serves are all very good, in my view. "Masters of the universe," to use Tom Wolfe's phrase, will disagree. But ask the cosmos itself. When have the MOTU's actually mattered? I just want a special serve to add to my array of stuff that stays low. I want to toss up an old, dead ball like Ron Waite and see it jump up over the crossbar on the opposite fence just like him.

Ron is a remarkable man. When you read him on the web, you discover his back, shoulder and knee troubles, along with the broken thumb on his hitting hand-- big factors affecting his serves.

And when he talks, if you are honest, you may admit that he talks as well as anybody-- a quality that some snooty tennis players will hold against a person. Not me. I'm snooty, but I think talking well is great, and I don't see how any teaching pro can be effective without it-- he won't get the girl, for one thing. So here is Ron's kick. His pockets are full of apples but not his mouth:

http://www.tennisserver.com/turbo/turbo_09_09.shtml

Now we go to Bob. It's interesting to compare Ron's use of wrist and his. Ron's excellent wrist snap is all of a piece, as any excellent wrist snap always must be, but it occurs after his arm is straight, does it not? Bob is different.
His wrist straightens as his arm straightens. Pronation, unconscious or not, happens afterward:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8v_qQ3FHys&feature=player_embedded

We go next to Kyril. He's pretty tough:

http://www.tennisopolis.com/video/1869403:Video:89120

I might prefer to play Roger over Coach Kyril. What kind of man is it who speaks of making pronation especially long-- "long pronation," an interesting phrase which could perhaps open a few new doors. He's pinpoint, like Ron, while Bob and Roger are platform. And Roger, he doesn't say much. I'm tempted to say he speaks with his racket or left leg, but I won't say either. Instead, I'll say he speaks by retracting his landing gear in mid-flight.

Yes, Roger extends his legs but then immediately compresses them. And turns his hips in mid-air without pivoting his front foot-- no, not until he's coming down. Think about this. You can pivot your hips any time you want. You don't have to be up in the air. And you can watch either foot pivot along with your hips-- you just have to decide which one.

Now is the time to remember what Bob promised, that he would show how Roger and other notables hit kick. And he was telling the truth. For as Roger extends his arm he straightens his wrist, too. The difference is that Bob straightens his wrist in time with his straightening front leg. Roger, he straightens his wrist in time with his compressing front leg (and back leg also, the two of them together forming his retractable landing gear):

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/roger_federer/roger_federer_high_speed.html?2ndSDeuceRear-0094020-0001.mov