A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Zenith or Nadir?

I spoke of fanny slap, which some midwives in Fredonia still use. Obstetricians and modern midwives are more likely to suction nose and mouth but in any case do something immediate to send a signal to the baby's brain.

This serve is close to breathing, but its development is also approaching an absurdity. If decelerative racket is swooping up to a beautiful pause, why not just call the pause an ugly hitch, and question whether all the gravity action has any relation to everything else, and declare the whole iteration an abbreviated serve, and start with one hand by left thigh, the other at the end of your straight arm way up in the air? Soon you'll be demented and double-faulting your way off the tour and possibly out of tennis altogether.

In fact, extreme abbreviated version will become a learning method, an intermediate step to inflict upon novices, but I believe this serve retains its promise, and the drop and swoop CAN become integral.

First experiment to make it so is an extra drop from tossing hand of a few inches. This can happen just before hitting elbow reaches its zenith, and why not bend knees a little then too-- in fact do anything or not do anything one can think of to maintain continuity and keep "beautiful pause" from becoming "ugly hitch?"

An ugly hitch is never going to produce a first-rate serve. What works best looks good, too.

[bottle]

Can One Say What Will Work Beforehand? Sometimes.

Rainy day with indoor court time altogether too expensive. I go indoors to play only. I've never spent a winter in Detroit but am counting on global warming to permit me to do what I want to do, and who gets cold? Not former oarsmen. The occasional bystander who tells me how "dedicated" I am-- he's cold.

Used to get that in rowing, too. The person means well, but the truth is that I'm curious, not dedicated. I simply want to know what I can and can't do.

The iteration here is quite mental, but I've played Groundhog Day for so long, i.e., tried to get things right with each new dawn, that, something interesting to me at least always emerges from the experiment.

Right shoulder up to start is easier than making right shoulder go up during the serve. (I'm assuming that someone thinks a high right shoulder of any kind is a good idea.)

Arm swoops up slightly to the right. High right shoulder now goes down in slow inverted pantomime of the way it will zing up to hit the ball. That implies both kinds of upper body rotation backward then forward in immediately linked sequence.

As right shoulder goes down and around, left shoulder goes up, assisting the toss.

Remember, it all started from an extreme stance, so the ONLY backward body rotation occurs on the first forward weight shift.

Racket arm swooping up before toss even starts, assures that elbow will be high. The subsequent new circular body bend rounds off the transition or pause or calm before the serve, makes it less abrupt. The serving motion is comfortable.

This is different from tossing then bending under the toss. There is some of that, but the bend starts during the toss, is part of it. This is my version of a combination longbow and cylinder serve for now.

[bottle]

String the Bow, Don't Cock It

The snow is messing with my serve.

Start with left shoulder higher than right. Start with right shoulder higher than left. Start with both shoulders level. Which of these choices promises the most?

Me, I'm not sure of the answer, so I'll give left shoulder higher the try for now.

This simplifies toss and previous effort. The image I now may want is, "String an old English longbow as in the Lawrence Olivier film KING HENRY THE FIFTH." And I'm starting with top of the bow strung first.

Of course, if you follow me, reader, and you now string the lower half of the bow, you will have merely gotten the string strung rather than cocked-- a problem of archery, not tennis.

Also, no archer is going to wind upper body back as he tosses something-- so, get lost, archers, we used you when we needed you.

Completion of body bend contains every element from before but with some reduced in amount.

Everything discussed here concerns things happening in advance of the force.
More lower body motion goes down rather than forward and down.

Try starting with more body bow formed and then just a little. Find what works best within this particular category of address.

One should distinguish between movements that achieve force, I believe, and those that merely achieve desired positions which could be achieved just as well with enlightened static poses.

Thus a stance way turned around with racket pointed at the right fence. Thus the present bowing of body before the serve even begins. And hence less lowering of rear shoulder during the toss and press-- most of that has already been done.

The arms will suddenly become a curiosity in this serve. Why won't front arm rising later want to imitate the swoop of rear arm? And should this tendency be indulged or resisted? Should toss feel more like a bowl or a lift?

[bottle]

A Scythe And A Snake

Right arm holding racket goes up like a Tolstoyan scythe wielded by Levin in ANNA KARENINA. Left arm goes up like an S-shaped figure in some broad field in Russia or western Maine.

The tossing arm waits to start until precisely the moment when the hitting arm has scythed up to its zenith. The tossing arm then starts out slightly to the right rather than straight up. It snakes right then snakes left before a very high release. If this doesn't produce the desired, consistent J-toss, one will have to try something else.

Goal: A toss slightly out front that moves in the air from right to left while staying parallel to the baseline.

For this the front arm will almost feel like it too is a scythe since its smooth movement is slightly in the direction of the net post; however, it also serpentines right and then left before release and keeps going up in the same direction just established.

How should one hold the ball? I prefer the instructors who say hand can be under or slightly to the side rather than "ACHTUNG: There's only one way, and this is the way it's got to be."

For me, influenced by John McEnroe's toss, the hand is to the side with a bit of lip underneath. For this particular toss, I can't see what else would work, but I have a few issues in my tossing arm that probably cause a bias from more smoothness in one direction than another.

In any case the two arms rising in perfect sequence (first one then the other) give overall motion its shape. Once hitting arm has risen, elbow stays higher than shoulder. This goes for all members of the rotordation nation-- the only known way for them, including me, to get racket tip completely pointed down at the court along right edge of the bod.

Most unique about all of these iterations is the way the late toss only starts with rear shoulder and bending arm simultaneously winding down a bit.

Note: I hate to say this but here it is. Thinking of new ideas about serving is love affair; reportage on how they work out is marriage.

[bottle]

Structuring an Invention Session for Present Serve

Invention is heady stuff. When people advocate instead slow evolution and boot camp drills, not to mention yoga, tai chi, karate, a good hairdresser, pop empowerment, bag checks and The Alexandrian Quartet (which core lengthening method includes neck stretching straight up toward the sky), they might be coming across as boring, even distracted.

Excitement in tennis is not so much Ivan Lendl's parents tieing him to a net post, but his refusal to tone down his self-invented forehand to please the Czech tennis federation. And best of all, Andy Roddick's teen-age service invention on a day when he felt cross.

Roddick isn't the greatest all around player in the world, but he is a thrilling player. As someone who watched him bounce serve after serve over the BNP Paribas billboard in Davis Cup, Winston-Salem, I believe that each occurrence of his thrilling anybody harkens back to the day of his service invention.

Inspiring, that's what his invention is. But nobody knows too much about where inspiration comes from. Should one permit oneself to become cross?
Giddy? Cultivate sleeplessness? Build tracts of hypothesis and evaluation?

Some kind of discipline seems necessary. I go with the tract or track idea. One beats down a track through the thicket of unknown possibility.

Right arm goes up, left arm goes up, serve happens, forming a 1-2-3 count. How then does one adjust the exact moment when racket flies down and up for maximum efficiency?

One needs to invent a proper mechanism for making essential mistakes with which to frame one's best result.

Many serves use the method of slowly or not so slowly working one's elbow up. This serve does the opposite, working elbow down. And as the solidly connected, high elbow comes down (staying high relative to shoulder), the arm bends.

So there is the answer. One can follow the natural orthodoxy of the concept, i.e., one's blueprint. Or one can become an engineer and slightly tweak some commencement this way or that.

One can send one straight arm up and then the other and start bending arm at that exact moment. Or one can toss when straight hitting arm is still going up. Or one can start bending arm before tossing arm goes up. And try each choice to varying degree.

Remember, shoulders tilt backward a bit every time the arm starts its bend-- that's a given. Me, I'm slowly winding shoulders around a little bit more just then, too.

[bottle]

Enhancement to One-Handed Topspin Backhand

In post # 469 in this thread, I outlined three sizes of the same backhand, with no clue that one of these choices would lead someplace else. I didn't know WHICH of the three choices would prove more productive in an extra-curricular way, either.

It's choice 1), the smallest backhand, in which one simultaneously turns shoulders and throws weight of the human head to one's left as soon as one knows he will be hitting a backhand over there.

This sounds like early and complete commitment, but the hands haven't gone back any farther than the natural turn takes them. The idea of this is to keep hitting hand close to projected ball and give oneself the chance to draw upon one's inborn hand-to-eye coordination.

Next step is to raise rear shoulder as if it's a rising wave. Hands can naturally go up as if they are a wave-rider. I hump my wrist then too since I use continental grip and need to close the racket face. I am convinced that doing this is easier than hitting an eastern backhand (not the conventional view). People would rather say that John McEnroe is a genius than that he has common sense.

Now comes the innovation. Rear shoulder will go down as a result of two simultaneous and related actions. Hips go out while remaining essentially parallel to sideline (but possibly with minimal turn also) and front shoulder rises up (it has to if rear shoulder is in the process of tilting down).

At the same time the upper arm can levelly wind back farther in opposition to hip traveling forward.

That creates a lot of tension/stored power. Additional power comes from the COD (sudden change of direction) about to happen. In the past, I think, whether the backhand was a drive or a slice, I took the barrel toward the net then clenched shoulder-blades together. But what specific action took barrel toward net? A slight straightening of the arm without using all of it up.

This is what I wish to replace, at least when I'm hitting for power. The new action will feel like gouging someone you don't like with your elbow.

That action now will start the "swing" forward. Quickly, it will blend with shoulder-blades clench off to right. A line through both shoulders could end up pointing at the target. The lower the front shoulder stays-- even though it must have come up some-- the faster the shot.

Low point in this stroke is no longer back by left thigh but is forward of that, as determined by direction elbow was pointing when you let it straighten passively in response to the sudden change of direction.

I no longer believe that arm must necessarily be straight by time of contact
if the straightening is passive and quick.

[bottle]

Whom Should We Blame for Serbia's Loss in Davis Cup Doubles?

We could blame the great French players Michael Llodra or Arnaud Clement. That would be kinder than blaming Nenad Zimonjic or Viktor Troicki, who played great after all. Or worse, blaming Slobadan Milosevic, Ratko Mladic or Radovan Karadzic.

This was supposed to be Serbia's finest hour, but for three sets, one wondered if Radovan Karadzic was loose in the sold-out stands of the third largest tennis venue in the world.

For, with Serbia ahead two sets to love, someone in the stands whistled while Clement was in the middle of his service motion.

So he stopped. And the person did it again. And again, in fact, EVERY TIME that Clement served.

Did the Serbians find the creep and throw him out? Hell no. Were Serbians in the crowd smiling about this? They were.

There was whistling between points and every conceivable kind of noise just the way that a Davis Cup final is supposed to be. But this whistling during Clement's serve was entirely different-- ugliness in the extreme. And exactly how Serbia, looking for a new world of dignity, did not want to present itself.

So how did Arnaud Clement, he with the tennis elbow, react? Guess what: He lifted his game and never stopped his service motion again. And the whistler in the stands got what he deserved after all.

[bottle]

Serbia and Viktor Troicki deserved to win the 2010 Davis Cup, and they did.

[bottle]

Smooth Serve with a Late Toss

Hands drop down together but right hand continues up by itself. Before right elbow reaches its desired height relative to shoulder it starts to bend. But whenever arm bends the shoulders tilt. And whenever the shoulders tilt, they do so as part of total body bend including compression of legs.

Using this logic, one can toss when front shoulder starts up, when it is going up or when it is already up-- more toys to play with!

As body and hitting arm are bending, hitting elbow should continue up to desired position relative to shoulder.

Shoulders can be level and body tall as part of original stance for this serve.

[bottle]

More Scythe

Hands go around.

Hands go up.

Hips go out as elbow twists in.
__________________________________________________ ________
That's the 1HTSBH preparation for today. Let's take a minute to think about it. More must be said. First, although hips went out, rear shoulder did not sink down as much as it could. Second, elbow is high and inside, with racket up in the air and rather closed. Third, elbow is pointed down and to outside. Fourth, racket kept twisting up-- and back-- as hips went out. Fifth the elbow is pressed so far in to body that it has more scope to gouge in an essentially level path outward.

The term "gouge" in this case means one didn't like somebody, and one decided to hit them with one's elbow. But one is also deathly afraid of hurting one's elbow. So one decides to make contact with the fleshy part on the outside.
__________________________________________________ ____________
Now, to hit the ball, there can't be time for elaborate sequence. So we'll put elbow gouge and blades clench together, i.e., make them simultaneous. Things which before comprised the separate halves of a change of direction are now going the same way and at the same time. We return to Arthur Ashe's advice to sling the racket at the ball. So, is there still a change of direction? Yes. The arm will lift from the fairly low front shoulder straight toward the target with both ends of the racket going up together.
__________________________________________________ ______________
If two counts, there's the preparation and the hit. If three counts, there's the preparation, the sling outward, the lift toward the target. If five counts, there's the three steps of the preparation and the two steps of the hit.

[bottle]

Court Report

As I tried new backhand # 490, I discovered it was no better or worse than my others, some of which are easier to hit.

UNTIL I started spearing a bit more to the outside, which activated the wrist. If you think about it, where's the racket going to go except around the end of your arm if your wrist is like a card dealer's and the arm has just stopped and got straight?

So I had luck simultaneously accelerating elbow gouge and blades clench. The harder I did this, the more pronounced "turning the corner" became, another key phrase from Arthur Ashe's backhand vocabulary.

For flat backhand with enough topspin: Take elbow straight back as hips go out. Put elbow gouge and blades clench on opposite sides of the COD (change of direction).

For topspin backhand, which goes high, bounces high, but still has a lot of pace: Put elbow gouge and blades clench on same side of the COD, highly possible with continental wrist, which bends a whole different way from eastern wrist.

xxxxx

For Federfore: Keep working on more arm extension behind the back, but still in slot, with mondo (on-the-fly wrist layback and forarm supination done at same instant) countering 1) hips going out or 2) hips rotating. Try every possible combination of hips and shoulders rotation, always honoring, however, the premise that long arm and rotating body are firmly connected (no solo by arm, normally, except as racket returns from contact).

xxxxx

For serve: Letting left hand sit idly while hitting arm goes up seems a waste. So send it toward right fence in unison but don't call this slow motion anything but preparation for the J-toss.

Actual toss can then occur as hitting arm and body start to bend and hitting elbow continues up to a single desired level for business part of the serve.

[bottle]

In Tennis, Point at Right Fence a Lot

One simple but possibly non-respected source of inspiration is to say, "I'm going to stay open to new ideas, I'm not going to be too bullheaded about what I already know."

The little discovery about service I made yesterday on the court, that I can take speed of racket lift from gravity drop and apply same speed to different arm rising in unison in a different direction, leads immediately to new conclusions:

1) The best reason for doing this is that it feels great

2) A short toss from right to left may work well if it accelerates from slow speed already started

3) A tossing arm that goes straight down and up may produce an overly straight toss, not the desired, curved one

4) Path of hand during actual toss can prefigure toss trajectory

5) Even though tossing arm is now to start toward right fence, that is rough direction, not prescription of a perfect right angle-- experiment with slightly different directions, in other words, e.g., more toward net post or less

6) A person who's learned to point left hand across body to generate the bulk of forehand body turn will immediately feel like doing a similar thing on a serve such as this. And one should not resist this "feel." Although I've reduced backward body rotation through the use of radical stance, I've still felt the need of some turn for reason of rhythm. And taking a little backward rotation as left hand is in the process of pointing toward right fence seems wiser than doing it during the actual right to left toss.

[bottle]

Rejection of Everything on Wind-up except for Longbow

Why should anyone change their serve as much as I do? Maybe because they got in a doubles match, and one person couldn't return their serve but the other could-- because the racket wasn't accelerating properly off of the ball.

The major difference I can see between my longbow serve and that of Mark Papas at Revolutionary Tennis.com is that I am using a more turned around stance, which therefore requires a greater use of horizontally rotational elements at least on a first serve.

In common: Rejection of tallness to start idea with body beginning bend only after the toss.

No, these longbow serves start forward travel and sink from the first instant when hands start dropping down together. The "longbow" image is from left foot all the way up to sky-pointing tossing arm. You cock the bow and that's all you do to prepare. In between comes a conventional down and up toss. So what does the hitting arm do during this period? It uses gravity to establish its speed down and up, bending near the top with elbow in desired, high position.

This is a good serve to practice with one's eyes closed, and with mind concentrating on slowness of the total bend.

[bottle]

Dreadful New Revelations about Five Strokes

Serve: From Mark Papas, my favorite tennis writer other than John M. Barnaby: "To say 'up together' does not occur is to say one arm hangs down at 6 o'clock motionless while the other rises. Poppycock."

Forehand: I timed Roger Federer's forehand and found he takes longer to produce it than his backhand. If one has Federer's footwork, timing and youth, this won't be a problem. Those of us who occasionally get rushed, however, might consider a shortcut. From top of backswing where bent arm is just closing racket as left arm points across body at right fence, one can throw sidearm down and around. Ingredients of this scaling motion: a bit of body rotation to start combined with backward/downward mondo of wrist and extension of the arm while shoulders are still. Then, late, second rotation of the shoulders can take straight or straightening arm still farther out toward the target before arm does a solo to return racket to body. When one has more time on a slower ball, then, one can extend arm way back toward rear fence and whirl it around in a great, solid, long-levered sweep like Roger.

Backhand: It's time to return to JMBH with a vengeance. The whole time I was thinking about the John McEnroe topspin backhand, I never looked at his slice-- what a mistake!

The JM slice employs a great COD (change of direction). But backswing takes racket farther behind the head than mine. Do shoulders rotate forward much during the stroke? I'd say not. Is arm bent a lot? I'd say not. Is it bent? Definitely. Does McEnroe hold the bend until he clenches? Yes. Does all this mean that elbow gouge is in effect to initiate things? Yes.

To translate from these apparent truths to topspin drive: Combine body turn with lowering of front shoulder (saves time and Virginia Wade was a pro at this). If one doesn't rush, one has time to change grip and then flatten wrist a bit. I have in mind more humping of the wrist later on. Use ocean wave theory to tilt shoulders to level with the court. Use elbow gouge with some body rotation to initiate stroke. One always has the option to perform one's clench then, too. But following McEnroe's example seems a common sense idea: Clench shoulder-blades on this particular shot not in two directions but in one. Point straight down with non-hitting hand as anchor from which clench moves away and around.

Backhand volley and half-volley along with slice show back hand jumping up more.

His backhand volleys are simplified slices shortened at both ends, hit only with the back clench. Same thing for half volley: http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...HalfVFront.mov

On any backhand, does JM take upper arm back farther as hips go out? No.
Smoothly, he stretches upper arm back early.

[bottle]

Papas and Archer's Bow

This is about service, obviously, and listening carefully whenever someone is kind enough to lay out a scenario for you. I'm convinced that the process works best in a bar, but sometimes it's good in a grocery store line or on the web, too. Does it ever happen during a formal tennis lesson? That's possible if the teaching pro wasn't overly allusive or over-detailed and you didn't get confused. As Mark Papas writes about his approach at his website, what does anybody have to lose-- nothing, but gain-- everything, i.e., improvement. Everybody should learn the subtle art of robbing other peoples' brains having chosen those people carefully and pay particular attention to their asides, is what I say, but then have a brain of one's own.

You shift toward front foot, taking most of the bow, then complete it as arm bends. The tossing arm (up straight) and the racket tip squeeze toward one another. The ratio of "most" to "complete" is maybe 8 to 1 . All information in this paragraph comes from a repeating visual in Mark Papas' website, Revolutionary Tennis.

I'll put the link here. Then look for the sentence where Mark advises clicking three times on a special picture, which then shows him doing the cocking-the-bow sequence three times. There are a lot of pictures of other servers, too. But the "three-click" one really does express a new idea for me, to then be combined with Mark's thought on acquiring gracefulness. The presentation of this communicator is very great but the substance is even better, I'm pretty sure.

http://www.revolutionarytennis.com/step12_2.html

If you successfully navigated to the visual I mean (Mark Papas also gives you other direction about how to get there), you may notice Mark staying strong in front leg without bending it very much. But others pictured bend it more. That should give you, me or anybody more options to fool around with. Has leg bend/push dynamic become over-emphasized? Mark puts it in perspective as a subset of archer's bow. He thinks too much leg bend is one of a couple of factors that kept Tim Henman's serve from reaching its potential. Personally, I'm grateful to Mark for giving a new take on a subject I have thought and written about a lot.