A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Evolution

Absolutely. Except that some knees and other things nevertheless do go bad. I'm just back from a fiftieth anniversary of my eight-oared crew, The Orphans of the Seekonk, and literally had to haul the guy behind me out of the boat after our row because he didn't have any knees left. Just then 300 Brown University oarsmen and oarswomen began to cheer and clap and shout for us.

The trans-generational evolution and momentum not just in equipment and rowing style and program seemed to stand still for just a moment.

Maybe the ovation happened because we seventy-year-olds made it back to the dock. And still were friends after 50 years. And made it to the reunion.

Also, however, we hired the first paid coach, we transformed a rowing club into a varsity sport, we made first contact with the man who donated the boat house, we were invited to row in the 1960 Olympic Trials and did. One of our guys, a tremendous men's freshman coach, then became the first coach of the women, a program which has been to the White House a couple of times. That happened later but in the beginning, after three years of steady effort, we got the sport recognized despite the determination of one Dean and one Director of Athletics to stop us, and without that, I don't think any of the later national championships for both the women and the men would have happened.

There are similar sport stories all over the world, I suspect. The stroke and frequent captain of our crew, sponsor of the Iraqi national crew's current visit to the United States, brought those beleaguered yet charming and extremely polite oarsmen to our reunion with him.

And before we could even carry the shell and oars we just used up into the boathouse, the current Brown oarsmen did it for us.

[bottle]

Is the Meat Behind your Hand the Meat Between your Ears?

This question may sound obnoxious but, actually, all I'm trying to do is open up another possibility for a person choosing to hit one-handed topspin backhands.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd give up the eastern backhand grip I'd held for decades. And could that even be a viable idea? Not in the view of Sebastien Foka, a teaching pro at Eastside Tennis Club here in Detroit.

In most cases you wouldn't change a grip you'd held for years even if it wasn't
a perfect choice in the beginning. Exception to the rule happened for one reason. I was able through relentless experimentation in a series of not always smooth discoveries to make my continental backhands work at least as well as my eastern backhands.

At that point I was ready to say, 1) you don't have to change over from forehand grip as far, 2) you can easily be ready to hit slice every time then change it to topspin at the last second, 3) you can easily change back to eastern if for some strange reason the continental version goes sour on you since both strokes utilize the same wave-like structure combined with abrupt change of direction and controlled (not uninhibited) use of the forearm-wrist yoke.

Like any recent convert, I'm ready to proselytize. That isn't the point. More than to be an advocate I want to be even more curious than before. Perhaps still other tennis discoveries remain for me-- of course there are for anyone, always.

Here in my view is the most curious aspect of the continental topspin backhand, modeled on John McEnroe, all over again: For change of direction the wrist starts bent the opposite way from the eastern backhanders. It's hunched or convex and pliable rather than concave and locked and feels more like dealing cards. Once I settled on that I then decided in my personal yet still scientific experiments to combine a little forearm roll with a little relaxed straightening of that hunched wrist just at the COD (change of direction).

Maybe this innovation harks back to a ski accident when I was fourteen in which I broke the radius in my right arm-- I don't know.

All I can say is I find the hunch-straighten sequence more natural while tending to get the racket tip lower.

In the old VHS TENNIS OUR WAY Arthur Ashe advocated more meat behind the hand for the general tennis populace. With less meat behind the hand, as in his case, he suggested, one needed to find the same strength in timing alone.

But I wonder-- is the timing required so difficult and exotic and virtuoso? Developing structure seems more important. Develop wave structure and change of direction on any 1HTSBH, say I, and then you can choose continental grip if you wish.

[bottle]

Ace from a Short Windup

Never mind where any idea came from. That might distract you. The idea is yours, I tell you, yours if you want it, and you're getting sleepy, so sleeepy.

Your body is turned way around. You've assumed an "extreme stance," a space cadet would surely say. Your upper and lower bodies are square with one another. You're facing the side fence, and your racket is pointing...nowhere.

Your hands, the ball, the racket are intimate, contiguous. Your weight is pretty much on the back foot. Your left arm is getting ready to go wherever it must to produce a lazy seagull high enough to invite a full stretch by you and drifting slowly sideways back across you going "CAW, CAW."

Altogether now A+B+(A+C+B)+A+(A+5B) where A=hips turn, B=shoulders
turn and C=release of archer's bow.

[bottle]

Killing the Reference Points

Start with LP (low point) which no longer will be a spot as you probably learned but rather a process or continuation or series of points-- a flow.

This certainly happens on a serve. There's a low point behind your back but then another farther to the right with everything tocked through in between.

On a forehand this phenomenon also can pertain but probably more completely than in the design one already uses. Yes, the LP is behind the rear leg-- at first-- but continues toward the ball as the front hip pushes out. "Sink into the shot," Virginia Wade used to say.

Backhand in this respect is the same. Has anyone ever seen a film of the full Tony Roche topspin backhand? Try the old Australian VHS MASTER TENNIS series where the Roche backhand, repeated three times, comes complete with eery sound effect. As Vic Braden recently said, implying that not enough players do, you always have to get low enough for at least a 30-degree upward racket trajectory.

Like the upper body tilting back and slowly compressing leg and ankle in ground strokes the slowly extending arm and even controlled forearm-and-wrist action can contribute to attenuated low point. Never let anything happen all at once but keep rhythm like a wave welling down until it surges up?

[bottle]

Cutting Down Further

The serve was getting too big for a 70-year-old even as it was getting rather promising for a 70-year-old. Depend more on the final fifth of a second to make one fly.

That's the Michael Jordan part in a two-stage rocket. Let the others have their one-stage rocket if they possess even that.

The biggest development was to start everything with racket perpendicular and body parallel to the right fence. The second biggest development was to make all compression and extension of the front leg-- in a platform stance serve-- a subset of archer's bow.

These abbreviations were of the body only, not of the racket work. While some think that Tim Henman bends leg too much and Stan Wawrinka too little, ignore those commentators and players both and go to a knee clinic instead. The joint people there may tell you that when you get up out of a chair you put fifty times your body weight on your knees. So how much pressure is there when serving in tennis and from one leg only?

The specific body abbreviations I mention could enable a centenarian to employ the quadruple hip motions of Pete Sampras.

A little hips to start, with shoulders to catch up, and all of this coincident with cocking of archer's bow. A little hips the opposite way with shoulders to catch up coincident with release of archer's bow. A little hips then to trigger second rocket stage. A little hips then beneath big thrust from shoulders cranking sixty degrees or more. Put your adrenalin THERE.

[bottle]

Re # 439, "Killing the Reference Points"

A note to anyone trying this or perhaps to myself: Do things as described but
keep head still, i.e., don't compress knees after final step (the hitting step).

[bottle]

Centenarian's Serve Cued Another Way

This serve has become extremely simple. The way it is thought of can become more simple yet.

Reduce hip moves (post # 440) from four to two-- backward and frontward.

Keep shoulder moves at three physical and one mental for a total of four (4).

Shoulders catch up to hips twice. Then they don't do anything (the mental element). Then they go all out as the centenarian draws on every bit of force left in her transverse stomach muscles.

The key is in the psychological nature of the shoulders' non-move right after release of archer's bow. What could work best would be to imagine shoulders going backward while understanding this doesn't actually happen.

One could say the shoulders cock backward and not be far off.

Delay shoulder from release of archer's bow.

[bottle]

The Truth: Somewhere Among #'s 438, 440, and 442

Despite what I may have thought, one needs a vigorous throw from the hips started from release of archer's bow. Knowing exactly what to accelerate seems indispensable to any serve. Relatedly, Ted Williams, the batting expert, always preached hips cranking marginally ahead of shoulders and all done with awesome power.

[bottle]

Thriple Serve III

Hips go back, you make the shoulders catch up; hips go forward, you release the archer's bow; hips go forward again, powerfully, to initiate final throw from the gut.

The first of these turns is horizontal, the second vertical (primarily), the third both.

The toss can be-- though it needn't be-- one of the lowest in history.

The biggest change over previous description is that one says to oneself, "I'm not going to worry about the shoulders catching up during release of the bow any more-- that part will take care of itself-- it just involves vertical cartwheel over horizontal twist of the body."

In fact, limiting focus creates dynamism. The light rotation of hips forward ratchets more tension into the bow which therefore may be more of a crossbow than a longbow.

Put another way, this whole central image (the longbow) is falling apart. Which doesn't matter at all if one gets a great serve out of it.

I hope that anybody reading this understands that as shoulders catch up to hips for the first time, those hips have already bulged toward the net (drawing of the bow).

************************************************** **************

The ultimate reason that longbow image should now fade away is that "longbow" implies too much force too early. I'm all for maximum efficiency in body straightening but wish to save major power for what comes next.

[bottle]

Upward Spin

is enhanced if one lifts front heel during windup and uses mild forward hips turn and mild straightening of body before the more vigorous turning of the hips and shoulders.

In fact, the mildness generates time in which to implement the vigorous sequence, which now can happen on the way up rather than from highest body position.

A surprise to me is how soon the vigorous hips crank works in serves of best result.

This truly is a serve structured on three hip turns now, the first two like little trial balloons and then the big enchilada occurring a half-beat later.

In first trials I found cleaner hits if I performed a bit of racket arm travel before initiating the body sequence, including toss.

[bottle]

Paradox, Irony and the Toss

If one obtains cleaner hits with racket travel before the serve even begins, then WHAT KIND of racket travel would be easiest? Horizontal with racket circling like a fin? No, down-and-up that provides a gravity boost.

So where should racket and linked tossing hand point if you remember that both hands like at least to start down together? The pointing should put the tossing hand on the line that will produce, most simply, the best toss.

For me that's somewhat to the right of the net post, further forward than I may have pointed for a while. Both upper and lower body remain parallel to right fence.

The two hands go down and separate with racket still falling down. The tossing hand can stay down for a beat-- no problem there. The racket hand however uses the gravity boost to continue up toward fences, just as toss at beginning of the serve chimes in.

If toss and drawing of the longbow and first hip-shoulder sequence now are coincident (and I'm sure that in anyone's serving history, they've tossed first, then bent under the toss probably for years or decades) you get some added body into the toss and perhaps heighten it. Nothing seems wrong with this other than that hips and shoulders rotating backward are going to affect toss, too, which phenomenon one was trying to avoid by not pointing racket at opponent.

You're back to what you were trying to avoid but in lesser amount. So adjust original point place to allow for the inches of deflection that backward hip and shoulder sequence will produce by the time of ball release.

I'll start exploration by dropping hands on a line with net post. The subsequent deflection should mean that toss goes more sideways than backward over my head.

Even someone refuting my approach to serve-- one new iteration along with a baby aspirin every day-- might admit that such mental exercise can lead to deep respect for any hellacious serve. Some good invention whether from the player's grandfather, his great aunt, his teaching pro or himself went into that thing.

[bottle]

Not My Choice

"Why do you keep changing your strokes, Jack?" "I've done that my whole life." -- Cliff Drysdale and Jack Nicklaus

The latest change is to my serve but not what I had in mind. The change works better than non-change.

In post # 446, I argued for down-and-up rather than bringing the racket around on a horizontal plane. Since either happens before the point where I've decided the rhythmic serve actually begins, I can spend any time with it I want.

In using horizontal plane, I've got racket on edge and slowly easing along. A strong temptation exists to experiment with different lengths of this motion.

But what I'd like to see this time is the arm traveling to a point where all it has to do is raise a little as tossing arm raises a lot.

To get over-detailed perhaps, I still can rationalize some of the down-and-up idea into these moves since I start my address with both arms slightly bent. Technically, that leads to "down, around and up" as verbal description, with the "down" meant to indicate both hands descending very slightly while linked from simple straightening of the elbows.

Pancho Gonzalez wrote that one doesn't necessarily have to lower the tossing hand before sending it up.

[bottle]

Eye of Innocence

In the Meltzer-Nadal quarter-final in Shanghai, the Chinese showed they can be different from tennis enthusiasts elsewhere in the world.

On one point, which was extraordinary both for its length and the quality of its ground strokes, the crowd started to roar at each strike of the ball and then kept right on doing it louder every time.

The excitement and suspense this built lifted both players, the referees, ball
persons, announcers and even the television audience watching through Tennis Channel, so that everybody seemed to applaud neither Meltzer nor Nadal but both-- on every shot.

[bottle]

Progression

Building on # 447, one can either bend the arm during the toss like Virginia Wade or keep it straight for longer.

If A) bend arm and body during the toss the elbow can compress the hand upward the same amount it just extended it downward before fin-like round-a-bout-- make a perfect U in other words.

If B) keep arm straight one can lift from shoulder during first rotational pair, activate a longer reflex loop from second rotational pair ("pair" = hips and shoulders sequence.)

If C) "don't know, don't care," one can probably have more fun, especially if the serve goes in.

[bottle]

Stealing from USPTA 990770809

I'd like to steal from USPTA 990770809 today. In his post # 85 at "Nadal's 130 plus MPH serve" he goes looking for something specific on the web but finds two U-Tube videos that are far superior. This is in fact the way to use the web. Either that or steal videos identified by other persons.

The first video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLf_M...eature=related , is an interesting contrast to Martina Navratilova's admonition to go more for simultaneity than elaborate sequence when hitting a serve. Of course one can always try to be a real intellectual and do both things at once. Most provocative, I find, is the video's section on hips with its contention that tennis players don't use hips nearly enough. The hips turn visually portrayed is what I'd call both internal and external. Since I haven't been doing this, it will be nothing, after coffee, to go to the court and try it out. It's Sunday after all, and my girlfriend Hope is at church.

Perhaps I've been keeping one foot or the other flat for too long. I'm going to get on both sets of toes when I start dropping the racket with both hands. I'll be ready for a bigger pivot then-- internal and external both and simultaneous and in both directions. Will tell you readers how it worked out.

It worked out great. I concluded with getting on all toes. Might be perfect for a young man. Me, I've got a reduced backswing from the way I now line up, so can keep a foot flat for control till pretty late. Think I just want the big pivot going forward not backward and once you're in the air there's no more concern about foot connecton to the court anyway.

I must say however that the most discouraging aspect of this Somax video is the part about how Sharapova only gets her forearm down 40 degrees compared to Roddick's 127, suggesting a difference of 87 mph just from that. So what's left for me in life with my 30 degrees? Well, I can use a lot more hips-- a body part where people haven't yet quantified the contributing mph.

While I was at the court, I also used USPTA 99077089's second video,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLmCqGIotM in which poor ole Roger is reduced to the mere skeleton of what he was. I wanted to make sure I was using the swimming scissor kick with the left leg, so clearly portrayed, to decelerate lower body just as left arm decelerates upper body. Voila, a good practice! Thanks, Don.