A New Year's Serve

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Re: # 388

Jeff, I did it.

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C-grip 1hbh: Control the Roll

I've had luck, at least in thinking, by slowing everything down-- the hunching of the wrist, the straightening of the wrist, the rolling of both halves of the arm. In fact, I've decided on installing a governor in my backhand automobile so that I'll never burn too much gas at any one time.

Speed of hunch is henceforth to dictate all, well, nearly all. It pre-sets the speed for corner-turning and roll of the arm. This is a basic idea from rowing but so what? Is there something wrong with rowing? In rowing a constant hand speed organizes all motion on the recovery.

Here the speed of wrist hunching shall determine the speed of wrist straightening and arm rolling even as that arm flies out (at some unrelated speed).

Of course this deliberateness will mean an earlier start to straightening of the wrist. This straightening will begin right after the hunch.

For a while I had a moment where there was no turn other than the body's small, unconscious thing and the shots weren't half bad. But the new approach should work better, giving the arm more to do so it doesn't get in trouble.

We've made body turning and wrist straightening simultaneous before; this
time we'll simply do it more unhurriedly.

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Undoing an Idea

The old idea was to exaggerate the upper body rotation in a one-hand backhand and then stop it abruptly so that the arm accelerates in a circular path about the body.

The new pattern instead utilizes two wrist changes (post #392) to bring racket tip down and around at uni-speed before the arm ever moves out of its railroad station.

The uni-speed then continues in arm roll as the arm lifts sensuously in straightforward rather then circular fashion-- this might be a definition of "good extension."

Additionally, this more feeling stroke employs the one bit of technical advice that all tennis hacks always give on the BBC: to "keep the strings on the outside of the ball."

Personally, I find the new method a far more easily produced, less frenetic
and more liquid way of hitting and sometimes even of caressing the ball.

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Two Hand One Hand Flat Hand Slice

A certain scheme met a court test even though I hadn't tried it when I explained it (post # 392). I like this approach, believing that too much standardized testing drains the verve not only from public education but from tennis explanation. More tennis ideas, crazy and sane, are what I crave.

When Hope and I made a recent trip downeast my brother-in-law who used to pitch in the Orioles organization explained flat hand hitting in baseball in 16 seconds or less.

A luminary of national seniors softball, he has at least one home run in each of the past 50 seasons. Last year he didn't get a home run until the last game; this year he got it in the first game.

As we stood in my sister's and his kitchen he pulled out LAU'S LAWS OF HITTING, which explains the two hand one hand underspun shot now favored by most major leaguers for distance hitting.

So, put one palm on top of the handle and one palm under and swing the racket as an arm-and-body solid unit. Then stop the swing as in the first paragraph of post # 393 . I'm for keeping the front arm bent and relaxed until you stop your shoulder. The arm can centrifugate straight with no internal boost at the elbow from you.

I have another slice, one I'm perfectly happy with, but wouldn't mind adding this one depending on how well it works.

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Adjusting the New Shot to One’s Particular Game

The experiment (post # 394) is positive but why change any present grip system, i.e, carry out the letter too much of Lau’s law?

The next to last thing anyone wants is to hit a home run, last to hit the ball into the net.

If I had a two-handed backhand I’d nevertheless be even more interested in flat hands hitting.

Since, building on my working change of direction slice, I’ve gone to considerable trouble to learn topspin off of a same continental grip with quite similar
preparation, I’m not ready to now overhaul my entire backhand side once again.

So my left hand rides somewhere between handle and throat as it has for 20 years. For staple slice including approach shots and service returns I slowly send the barrel toward the net then clench shoulderblades together—this whips racket on loose arm in a new direction.

To prepare, one tries to see an imaginary ring on one’s middle finger, an effective cue for getting strings near best possible pitch.

But I haven’t permitted myself a really huge slice since I passed though a tennis adolescence which in my case occurred when I was 50 years old.

Consideration of Lau’s law now suggests a writhing sea-serpent form that looks exactly like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9g28DDm02g

Or: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp4FsjUQn8g

Or: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8Rib...eature=related

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Finding One's Way out of Topspin Serving Jail

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url]http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/mystheavyball/john_yandell/heavy_serve_practical_implications/heavy_serve_practical_implications.html[/url]

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Previous Post on Serving (# 396)

The person who is bad at absorbing street directions will be bad at absorbing topspin serve directions as well. (He may be bad at using modern technology too-- especially when he wants to post a pair of drawings.)

If you're a teacher, you'll really need to simplify your instruction for such a person as he, perhaps through drawings instead of using terms like 60 degrees (topspin with slice), 45 degrees (highest bouncing topspin), 30 degrees (topspin with kick).

In the drawing in 396, the imaginary line farthest to the left with no arrowhead on it runs from where you're standing. It's perpendicular to the net, the service lines, the baselines, the end fences.

The first arrow is designed to produce a topspin/slice/big pace mix; the second arrow topspin/big pace mix; the third arrow topspin/kick/big pace mix.

Question: Which arrow points at the net post? (Note: You remember something better if you figure it out for yourself-- therefore I won't tell you.)

Another fair question: What are these arrows really about? They are indicators of where your racket should point after contact but before it crosses to left side of your body.

Because of the pace requirement in these three serves (see linked article in 396), a new drawing is required. I'll try to put it up. In case I fail, however,
let me tell you that it's a very simple drawing. The difference between it and the first one is that there is forward motion toward the net before the racket
changes direction off to the right. Forward motion will continue through the ball even as racket glances off to the right as well.

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Second Drawing

Here should appear a second drawing.

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Writhing Sea-serpent Slice

Just as TSBH now goes straight up in a brief lift, a similar three wrist positioned shot can go straight down in a brief, shallow drop.

The word "shallow" is important. You're chopping the ball but sending the racket out for good extension right at the same time.

The arm travel in this slice design is linear not circular and is enabled by a gradual roll that administers a controlled amount of support to the shot from the racket's upper edge.

So what are the three wrist positions? 1) concave 2) convex 3) straight.
The transition 123 offers, in the topspin shot, a little wrist loop very good for taking the racket tip down and immediately starting it up in very intuitive fashion along a linear arm lift path.

In writhing sea-serpent slice, however, the same little loop becomes bizarre since it happens high. Wrist going from concave to convex takes racket down. Wrist going from convex to straight takes the racket up.

If you are like me you will become acutely aware of a "half again" feeling. The racket goes up half as far as it went down, with all this occurring within a very small loop.

What is the advantage of this? A sense of aiming high then low then right on perhaps.

Both of these shots have in common relaxed arm travel from the shoulder straight toward a target-- combined with controlled rolling from both halves of the arm.

A path not taken in both cases is change of tilt in the front shoulder just while one hits the ball. That's possible but inadvisable. Shoulder becomes level in TS version; shoulder stays slanted down in slice version-- one less thing to worry about.

Mastery of the writhing sea-serpent may affect the orchestration of other, more sidespun shots perhaps hit with the simplicity of a fixed, concave wrist, and of course one will want to apply a big shoulderblades clench to the hitting end of the new shot as well just to see what will happen.

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Reality Check

Subtract one or two wrist positions. I myself became interested in going
directly from concave wrist to straight wrist with no convex wrist in between.
When should this happen? Probably with racket high and with upper body
rotating forward a natural bit. You can see Steffi's racket tip suddenly lower a bit about at that time. But when you see anybody's racket tip lower, if you're like me you seldom know what in the body is making that happen. So I either watch some good local players or talk to somebody or study some videos or go ahead and make the action up.

It's interesting to see an instructional slice video in the midst of a bunch of
u-tube videos of Steffi's slice. The instruction only has a very loose connection to what Steffi is doing.

I'm about ready to return to right brain image of a writhing sea-serpent
rather than dwell on individual parts of the slice action-- maybe because I've just been whale-watching and saw a pod of nine hunchbacks up close.

It seems to me that Steffi gets shoulders sloped down right away. That's
one element to close racket face. A second would be to straighten wrist
from concave to straight. A third is roll of the arm.

So all three of these actions being employed close the racket face! But one wants it open. So to compensate one sends the arm way ahead and "really knifes under the ball" as Tracycakes said in describing Steffi's slice.

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SIM not SEQ on a 2-COUNT

SIM=simultaneous

SEQ=sequential

MN=Martina Navratilova

SIM="Better to have your body parts all going in the same direction at the same time...If you're using sequence your timing has to be perfect."--MN

2-COUNT="Most serves are two or three count but hers is four."--MN criticizing Elena Dementieva's new serve as having too many small parts going in every which direction.

MN="Elena went to Holland and worked with Richard Krajicek on a very full motion a few years ago. She'd serve beautifully in practice but not in matches. But she practiced the new serve too much. She didn't need to do that. She had it! She hurt her shoulder and had to withdraw from Wimbledon."

2-COUNT=PROVOCATIVE! Perhaps one shouldn't be so eager to try anything to improve one's serve before simplifying it all the way down to two or three counts.

This experiment means in my case winding up with full compression on front foot with arm cocked into a right angle all in a single count.

A snake will sometimes coil smoothly but quickly. And the snake generates good power-- perhaps the best reason to compare yourself to him.

For some reason this improves my stare at the bottom of the tossed ball.
It concentrates lower arm folding and upper arm twist-loading as small part of a single big hitting action to be called "count # two."

"We had some luck with speeding up the entire motion."--Vic Braden

"Fire the extensors, baby!"--Vic Braden

MN="The service motion already is complicated. That's why you want to make yours as simple as possible."

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On Coiling

You don't think the word "coil" in tennis refers to a Tessla coil, do you? No, it refers to SNAKE and STRIKE or am I wrong?

When people use terms like "core values" or "core strength" they're already
diluting their tennis through the imbibing of too many of the phrases that everybody else uses all the time. Better to get back to snake.

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wow... just spent the last 15 minutes exploring some of this thread, and I must thank you John for allowing it to survive.

This is a truly fascinating piece of work.

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O gee.

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Release the Tension

One has to ask whether, in a given hour, one is achieving simplicity or is becoming a simpleton, a male version of the Dementedieva described in post # 401 by Martina Navratilova (I used to call her "Martina Navrattleova" when she was beating someone I liked long before I came to admire her so much).

In the backhand evolving here, one would like of course to replicate it, i.e., merchandise the best backhand one ever hit since that is the American way.

If however the backhand is living rather than a thing, then something about it is always changing even if only at a cellular, neuronal level.

No, I want more change in it than that, specifically at the very top, after the rolling arm has lifted.

I was thinking of having the arm roll stop and the arm and right knee bend and the upper body turn and the weight gather on the pivoting right foot while the racket still was high-- not my idea but so what.

My ways of recovering from a topspin backhand, it seems to me, are: 1)
retreat on the same footwork and side-skip, 2) plant outside foot wide and drive off of it back toward center (desperate), 3) plant the back foot up closer to front one and moonwalk off of right foot toward the center.

Perhaps one of these three methods will eventually prevail over the others or something different will emerge.

One should never take the moonwalk too seriously-- at least that's my view. One should not always try to look like the late Michael Jackson in other words. If feet were far apart the inside one may slide back toward the other. If feet were closer together the wide foot should stay where it is to compress your weight to continue starter block energy.