A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Using one Serve for Confidence to Develop Another

I'm sensitive on this subject because somebody important in tennis may have accused me of "taking a step backward" when I developed my Pooch Serve.
The ol' Pooch, however, doesn't come just from TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE by Vic Braden and from watching Dennis Ralston's video-laden slice lesson here at Tennis Player. No, my father, editor of the old large format golf and ski heavy "Sports Illustrated" magazine had an unusually upright golf swing like Sam Snead. My father regularly interviewed top tour players during rounds on the golf course and had a metropolitan handicap of 2, but he only lived to 54 . He sold the name "Sports Illlustrated" one time to Time-Life Inc. for $100 and sprang for one golf lesson for me. The teaching pro in Lakeville, Connecticut got me using my knees as never before. Would I want to give up that little knee trick just because I'm a tennis player?

I'm not in favor of lifting heels and bringing the back one in on forward swing like Jack Nicklaus-- just in case someone besides myself ever wants to try the Pooch. Nope, feet are flat as pancakes. It's just a little backward then forward roll of the knees to activate a natural loop same as a golfer before roundabout throw takes over.

From the deuce court Pooch Ace is quick and effective, flaring out wide. Down the middle, however, it's mediocre, sits up, says "Blast me!" That doesn't mean I don't use it down the middle for its sneaky quickness for surprise. Similarly, when I get my Cilicas working just the way I want, I'll occasionally try a first serve Cilica out wide.

[bottle]

No Taking it Back to the Manufacturer

Will a Toyota Celica accelerate wildly, all by itself? If so, that's what I want.

[bottle]

Transitioning Back and Forth Between Cilicas and Full Turn Serves

The difficulty in mastering Cilicas for this server is in re-tooling loop. But once one has reverted to an old down-together up together tossing system but with arm pinching early, he's ready to put the elbow on a slanted pathway down and back to start a different-shaped loop.

In THINK TO WIN, Allen Fox, using the example of John McEnroe, suggests that extreme turn of the shoulders is a basic way for anybody to generate more power with the trade-off that the person only gets to push with one leg.

Fox wrote THINK TO WIN a long time ago before the advent of the new platformers-- anyone who like Sampras, Federer or Henin doesn't bring up back foot next to front foot and then start lift-off with both.

There are a lot of both kinds of servers around by now, effective platformers and effective pinpointers. McEnroe, however, turns his shoulders even more than Federer or Sampras, and I don't see what the big hangup is about anybody using that back injury inspired extreme design again.

As far as McEnroe himself has been concerned, at least at one point in his seniors tour participation, he didn't believe one could take the racket around far enough-- with body and arm both, hence his need for a lesson recorded in Tennis Player about what happens when one starts arm from TOO FAR around.

The way I'm trying to realize extreme turn serves (maybe not the simplest) is learn to serve somewhat like Marin Cilic then add more shoulders turn.

Or learn to serve with more shoulders turn then add the far around deep-tall loop of Marin Cilic. Since I've come to believe that HUBR and VUBR (horizontal and vertical upper body rotation) are corollaries in inverse proportion to one another like judgment and sympathy in drama or fiction, I'll try this approach in my eternally evolving service motion today.

[bottle]

Upside Down Golf Swing

(And Other Fascinating Sub-Topics of the Pursuit of Ideal Tennis Serves)

Bill Mathias, former 65's national champion on clay and grass, used to say, "I have just discovered that arching the back is the source of all power in the tennis serve."

What an essential joke! Tweaks of motion and thought should be lifetime and maybe are eternal.

TECHNICAL TENNIS, by Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey, contains a picture of a golf swing next to a tennis swing (page 36). I want to say their book is by Crosby, Stills and Ted Nash, but that would be a mistake. Nevertheless, the tennis physicist Howard Brody of the University of Pennsylvania has a big hand (and the Foreword) in it.

This comparison of tennis to golf swing is only a small incident of half a page, I am happy to say. And any tennis idea, like ideas in other fields, comes on fast, takes over for a minute, then fades.

So the inverted golf swing idea will help someone, viz., me for a day, and then I'll be better off if I can forget it.

For fun, however, let's try to hold on to this idea a little longer as if it's dwell in a ground stroke, let's say for a day-and-a-half.

Wisely, Crosby, Stills and Nash don't show the arm extending in their composite drawing. That would be too complicated, and the reader of their book would close it and slam it down hard. Clearly, however, it is the folding and unfolding right arm of both golfer and tennis player that is being discussed and not the famous straight left arm of any excellent golfer.

That understood, the focus is on delayed wrist snap, on keeping wrist cocked, on building up as Edna St. Vincent Millay said in discussing something else, until "you can't stand it any more."

This kind of release is more intelligent than any human being one knows, dear reader, starting with oneself, and SEEMS to contradict all the teaching pros who advocate twisting of the whole arm over wrist flexion.

It's Brian Gordon's figures that keep the two things in balance. In his dissertation on elite college players, apparati were attached to different parts of their bodies.

And in the area of contact, i.e., from just before the ball up to the ball, the main factors whole arm twist and wrist flexion were seen, statistically speaking, to make a roughly equal contribution to racket head speed.

So, does roll occur in the golf swing contact in addition to the wrist straightening? Definitely!

The analogy holds up pretty well.

[bottle]

Saturday Practice after Friday Match

Drawings to keep coming back to:

postcard.gif


The drawing on the left is topspin and sidespin. The drawing on the right is topspin, sidespin and spiralspin. The two arrows are supposed to be parallel. The arrow on the right is higher on the ball, that's all. Is the racket face more closed, too? No doubt.

Thinking is bad. Everybody knows that. So let's think. Bad is fun.

We've decided to hit topspun serves with a balanced combination of wrist flexion and shoulder twist. The wrist flexion will be of the uninhibited type that straightens the wrist and then bends it with knuckles toppling over. The shoulder twist will be of the uninhibited type that, axle-like, rotates the upper arm within the shoulder socket.

So where should the elbow point in maximum wind-up? Forward, backward, upward-- some exotic combination of these? Good questions. Some famous baseball pitchers have had just one favorite elbow position, but Satchel Paige, most immortal of them all, had a plethora of them.

An elbow pointed straight up is both farther back and will whirl the racket in a slightly different direction, with all such considerations deeply affected by stance, respective amount of HUBR, VUBR, leg drive, etc.

But that's enough thought. Time to go to the court. I recommend one of the old fashioned table-top baskets, heavy as could be. You just work on your motion, hitting one serve after another as if you don't have a care in the world. And you do this enough that all the neighborhood kids see you coming and wonder once again what kind of a nut you are. It seems like a placid existence. Some thought to the previously mentioned elbow positions, however, may turn out to be a good idea.

[bottle]

Kick Serve Commonality and New Cue for Absorption Federfore

The great kick serves have this in common:

The upper arm points straight up at the sky and is perpendicular to the court.

But how does it get that way? Ah, exactly, and that's what we should work on.

Doesn't having a clear goal help, though?

New cue for absorption Federfore: Using the pivot point just before base of thumb drawn on page 54 of Crosby, Stills and Nash, i.e., TECHNICAL TENNIS by Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey, come to an understanding that racket butt turns forward as strings turn backward during collision with the ball. Buddhists and Willie Mays wannabes can concentrate on the strings going backward, aiding the natural absorption of the strings. Type A persons however will have more fun just spearing with that inch or two of racket butt. The result should be exactly the same. Psychologically speaking, macho men such as myself prefer doing something pro-active, i.e., move something forward, never move anything backward. One might be suprised at how aim improves. But no one should be fooled into thinking this is the only kind of Federfore there is. Crosby, Stills and Nash don't even seem aware of the other types in which strings may be the only shock-reducing agent or if hand is involved, it's playing a smaller role, might be shearing, say, which is neither going backwards or forwards but sideways or upwards or both.

[bottle]

Big Conclusions on Rotorded Kick Serving

1) One can do it even though one's shoulder rotors aren't as loose as Sampras and Roddick.

2) ATA (air the armpit), carefully examining five or more options on where best to do this: A) on the down of down-and-up straight racket arm movement, B) on the up of down-and-up straight racket arm movement, C) on the bend of arm to a right angle, D) on the inversion of elbow, E) on two or three or all four of these options. Spread the ATA out, in other words.

3) It has been suggested that the rotorded server needs to get his elbow higher than other servers, higher in internal arrangement. Taking elbow BACK, however, can get the elbow just as high, only through external, more perimeterized movement which would be A) VUBR (vertical upper body rotation that moves head and sometimes is called "cartwheel"), B) HUBR (horizontal upper body rotation around still head with minimalist amount in any case determined by degree of stance), C) A slight veering of head to left to get it out of the way and raise elbow that last tiny bit to late upper arm verticality.

4) Having put a new premium on getting elbow back rather than up, be solid, i.e., maintain a rigid connection between arm and body for at least part of the post elbow inversion route to verticality (with "verticality" being defined as that part of kick serve where upper arm is perfectly vertical or perpendicular to the court).

5) Chain chain chain (Aretha). Just as the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone, one can work on a motion where VUBR precedes HUBR. Is that provocative and therefore worth saying? Yes, since some experts prescribe the opposite, HUBR before VUBR or both at same time. Get the head still near contact, say I. Have solid arm and body connection, then a little independent motion of bent arm, maybe, then extension and all the rest.

6) Go ahead and think about all this. Don't be a non-intellectual wimp, i.e., somebody who refuses to think about anything if it's complicated.

[bottle]

Old and New Federfores

Old: Hand sometimes lifted above shoulder.

New: Hand never lifts above shoulder.

(Note to reader: Reader, this post is brief, I know, a relief. Still, you ought
to read the one before this.)

[chokomakashi]

hey there

hello there.. i reaed couple of your thread and has great information..It is a shame that people do not interact out here... should share information together not just with your thread...

I will try to read more... yes as we know.. serve can get very complex and not many people want to bother about it... and that's why we see more and more people service incorrectly....

See one of the biggest problem.. for me it is.. maybe you already discussed in your thread but i didn't catch it.....so if you have idea you can tell me..

one of the biggest challenge i see myself and my student is ....

put racket in correct position before you hit... fist of all racket is too long to start with.. unlike basebal or football.. so racket go though the correct path in oder to get to final position... which is face is pointing to side fence.. before pronate.. see.. to me even pros to get to final positino they take bit different path... most common one is racket face pointing back of head before arm goes up...

For me.... only one method worked so far...imagine racket is football and throw that to reciever... see funny thing.. if you don't think this is tennis.. acutally i do really well... see one very simiilarity throwing football and racket is before they throw their hand... opposite of palm is pointing side fence... however, baseball. when you throw palm is pointing to catcher....or opposite of palm is pointing to center field....

see if you serve with racket compelely choke up (hold just below the racket face) and serve... you will find out it is so much easier.. but when you hold grip.. then it gets so tough....

well, any thoughts...

[bottle]

Do you have American Footballs in Japan?

Is that where you are? It may not only be the palm that ought to be central to any football-tennis discussion but spiralspin on the ball itself.

Actually, I've been looking at your posts and wondering what to do about them.
I promise to respond more fully soon. Have been very busy traveling. I wouldn't worry about immediate response to a post at this website. Much like teaching,
you can never be entirely sure about who was listening. Years later, in the street, you see a student who compliments you, and you say, "That person never said a word, just sat there in row ten!"

More soon. I know you're sincere. And any sincere voice in tennis gets heard.
We all love the same thing-- right?

[bottle]

Mauro Marcos and all the new Free Forehand Stuff out on the Web

"up the broad Nile and in to the river bank
I brought my dipping squadron."

-- Odysseus telling a tall tale in THE ODYSSEY

Amazing what can happen if you're open to new tennis instruction and finding old girlfriends on the web. She was an English professor's daughter in Middletown, Connecticut but now, 46 years later, is a high level business consultant in Detroit, Michigan. As I prepare to move from Winston-Salem to Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan looking to find Aaron Krickstein for a hit (though actually I prefer opponents who generate slightly less topspin than he), I see that Coach Kyril, mentioned with a film here in this thread, has made the inspired and truly wise decision to pair himself with Mauro Marcos.

Already I've met the Grosse Pointe French teaching pro Sebastian, who played for Wayne State, and Ochi has suggested that my new/old girlfriend may be looking for an annuity, which is a real laugh.

Coach Kyril's journey is no less real than mine. Mauro Marcos, famous for his work with Jennifer Capriati, is one of the best talking, most dramatically demonstrative and charming tennis teaching pros who ever lived. And the surprisingly good at listening Coach Kyril and Mauro together seem to produce a new free forehand video, well made, every day.

I may not agree with everything Mauro says, prejudiced as I am by my Federfore and by those like Eric Matuszewski, J.M. Peredo, Jeff Counts and
Carrera Kent who helped me develop it. Mauro's classic two-handed pivot to immediately get the racket head back I've called the "Waxyhatcheetaxchee" for many decades by now after the National Tennis Academy printed materials. The NTA provided me with my mail order certification so I'm no doubt some kind of dreadful ingrate. However, this quick take-back followed immediately by a further takeback of the arm followed by the three NTA inchworm steps BIMP, BIMP, BIMP has always made me know I was performing the 1950's dance The Bunny Hop. Furthermore, it was Tom Okker who suggested that pointing directly at the oncoming ball was "overly mannered"-- better to point across at the right fence like Federer. And it was J.M. Peredo who suggested that it was perfectly okay to complete the body turn a little later with that cross-over left arm-- makes you more natural and better able to cope with funny bounces, I think. And for what happens next with left arm I've always preferred Okker's image above others: The left arm "smooths the waters."

There is more than one way to hit a tennis ball, however, and the immensely knowledgeable Mauro Marcos (just look into his notebooks as it is possible to do in the films) probably knows them all. He is not averse, e.g., to "all topspin" shots while remaining committed to the hit-through additive, even throws his racket down the alley at the net to show where he thinks the energy ought to go.

No one will ever suffer from doing as he: Simply stand at one end of an alley, drop a ball, hit to the opposite end of the alley. How accurate was this shot? Closer to one tramline than the other? How deep? How high? And did you take your full cut at the ball?

Mauro also has provocative notions about straight arm to bent arm sequence, contact point (way out front), wrist layback, twisty wrist additive to scissoring arm, "catching" the ball first and many other subjects, providing just enough detail where there is a detail vacuum according to one of his on-film students.

Whatever else one thinks, one shouldn't deny that people like Mauro and Will Hamilton, just like Robert Lansdorp, offer a distinctive voice.

A distinctive voice in tennis may represent someone who ought to be your guru or not. Eschew the guru, say I. Just be very quiet to turn on his faucet and then pick his brain.

[bottle]

Rough Instruction Beats Fine Instruction Every Time

Chokomakashi,

There's something in between simplissimus, e.g., throw a football, and a completely dry, technical and overly thorough, clotted description of the service motion.

1) Take racket down to right fence or rear fence or in between combined with maximum body turn

2) Change direction and toss with right arm continuing its low short path around

3) Bend onto front foot with right arm continuing its low short path around

4) Bend arm to right angle as part of leg drive and VUBR

5) Use HUBR to bend arm rest of way and cock elbow as high as you want it-- anywhere from upper arm parallel to court to vertical to court. Palm down orientation will facilitate these options.

6) A) extend arm and B) twist arm while extending arm in 2/5-3/5 acceleration ratio.

Terms: VUBR (vertical upper body rotation), HUBR (horizontal upper body rotation), SUBR (sideways upper body rotation), DUBR (diagonal upper body rotation).

II. Rotorded Version: Substitute SUBR for VUBR. In other words keep head still almost until you hit ball then move it sideways to help achieve more verticality. This simplifies arm compression also. There's no conscious bending or loop of arm whatsoever. HUBR does it all.

NOTE: All serves, like life itself, are in progress.

QUESTION: Is HUBR still HUBR after body has tilted to the left? A saboteur could call it DUBR or a different kind of VUBR. So let's strictly define HUBR as motion propelled by transverse stomach muscles that spin shoulders around beneath a mostly still head.

[chokomakashi]

hello

hello there.. you got great knowledge... last question your said.. i can't really figure out.. i will read more...

hey bottle.. do you know how to put picture in this thread?

thanks

[bottle]

You'd better ask John.

[bottle]

Backhand Finesse: John McEnroe Model

Once you're in position with racket behind you, just barely beyond a perpendicular toward rear fence, you lower racket to inside then roll-wrist it to outside then clench your shoulder-blades together for the leg-enjoined real power in the stroke.

Roll-wrist as a verb is tricky, with too many meanings perhaps. And just because someone does something a certain way doesn't mean another person ought to do the same thing. The wrist and forearm roll straight, the arm then rolls with elbow turning down. Throughout the arm roll the wrist can continue to move the racket tip around.

I'm trying to stress one thing here: the inside-out nature of the pre-swing before muscles in the back take over. This is a useful cue for generating "snap" in the stroke, like John McEnroe, as seen here:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_backhand/mac_backhand.html?MacBHCenterFront.pct

(Click on BH Center Front)