A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Pendulum Motion of the Serve

The subject of this post is limited to first video in Cross article (post # 645, probably the one before this one).

Two points.

1) The elbow and shoulders line are scrupulously connected (one less link therefore to worry about-- which link if it existed would weaken not strengthen the serve).

2) Let's translate fractions or percentages-- incomprehensible-- to ratio, which is closer to ATHLETE-READY.

Thus, elbow roughly preserves its compressed configuration for 70 per cent of its path up to the ball. Arm then extends in next 15 per cent of pathway. And starts twisting in final 15 per cent.

Translated to usable ratio, fire elbow for three out of four counts and split the final count between arm extension and arm twist.

Don't quantify the last instant change of direction from forearm motion to ulnar deviation. This happens too close to the ball to permit anyone that self-indulgence. You either produced great spin or you didn't.

[bottle]

Long and Smooth

Both Don Brosseau, in L.A., and Steve Navarro, east of Goteborg, have impressed on me the need for an extreme length of take-back on a smooth down and up serve.

Don's figure eight exercises at YouTube have provided a kind of revelation-- that one can lengthen and further smooth-- over whatever it was-- "the down" or "the up" or both or any tract of racket travel in any serve.

I love this idea of racket head moving past hand and have been marching with it through a string of personal experiments which hopefully haven't been too elaborate. Today I decided that turning the racket slightly inward toward closed during the down and slightly outward toward open during the up might prove a very natural-feeling option, and put the racket at the same desired vertical pitch at top of the backswing as anything else.

[bottle]

Re # 647: Why I Like this Particular Twist-Twist So Much

It increases the feel in down together, up together. It enables one to develop a more subtle top to one's backswing similar to golf. It follows the Virginia Wade idea of using enough gravity to swoop the racket up to where one wants it with little or no effort.

In other words, the racket can accelerate naturally going down and decelerate naturally while going up, with twisting racket head in the two different directions assisting in this process.

Finally, three options open up: 1) Use the increased sensitization of hand and racket to time bending of arm with bending of body in a continuous-racket-head-travel-serve, 2) Just bend arm a little, pausing racket then while body bend continues, 3) Bend arm way early like Virginia Wade in synch with toss. She then would keep skunk-tailed racket poised for a maximum amount of body bending time to help her deal with any vagrancy of toss, as Pancho Gonzalez asserted in his admiring TV commentary on the thirty-year-old Wade's defeat of the decade younger Martina Navratilova one bright day at Hilton Head.

[gzhpcu]

Both Don Brosseau, in L.A., and Steve Navarro, east of Goteborg, have impressed on me the need for an extreme length of take-back on a smooth down and up serve.

This is also what John advocates...

Look at the excercise at the end of this article...
http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...e_2_01_06.html

[don_budge]

Literally swinging...

Today I decided that turning the racket slightly inward toward closed during the down and slightly outward toward open during the up might prove a very natural-feeling option, and put the racket at the same desired vertical pitch at top of the backswing as anything else.

That's a beautiful way of putting it...bottle.

[bottle]

Twist, Twist

Thanks very much, Mr. Budge. The posts are flying. I wrote this one between
Phil's and yours.

The article Phil just embedded is extremely useful, but I'm wondering if I really like the windmill in the last video, and the consequent palm up just before the fellow bends his arm.

My bias may simply come from where I am in my own current progression of experiments (excitement!).

Never mind about me, however. Anyone, i.e., Phil, I, and other rotorded servers, should faithfully do Don's figure eight exercises-- and the different pieces of them each with its own separate video.

Not that anybody should take any of it as ex cathedra prescription but rather to absorb the feel Don talks about along with his overall principle of slowly moving racket against the hand as if they are in a slo-mo contest.

Don's first exercise, in fact, has a player standing with racket on his right and faced up. He then turns the racket (and palm) down as he pulls the racket behind him to his left. He then turns palm up as he takes racket back to right, repeating and building speed along with confidence.

I'm all for the confidence, but I'm reversing the order of the exercise when I incorporate it in a full figure eight or real serve.

Will Don care? I doubt it. Not if he's interested in feel and principle rather than the letter of some nonexistent law.

Palm can turn in as racket goes down. Palm can turn out as racket goes up. Why do this? Because it feels great.

Note: The amounts of the little twists are to be determined by the player himself.

[bottle]

A Day Later

Forward windmill looks like a good way to get feel for fullest possible drop.

As to the various slow twist combinations on the way down and up, I'm still open to them all, which is to say I'm continuing to try whatever I can think of.

A brief catalogue: in then out, out then in, neither, in then out then neither, out then in then neither, neither followed by out then in, neither followed by in then out, out or in during the loop, out then neither then in, more open starting position, more closed starting position, etc., etc.

It's fooling around. It's questing for what's simple and works.

The only criterion is consistently good serves at a level higher than one's current possession.

Note: In a recent episode of "Fuzzy Yellow Balls," Will Hamilton criticized the Tin Henman serve for not getting racket up on edge enough (at top of backswing). But Vic Braden has always emphasized keeping palm down so that you can form a natural loop. So who in the world can elucidate this overall subject, keeping both viewpoints in mind at the same time? But if Hamilton is right and one should get racket on edge, then can one go BEYOND racket on edge? That is what I saw when I looked at the forward windmill clip for the first time. One way or another-- perhaps as a result of his starting position-- the guy gets palm up before arm then bends during the loop. Does this increase lowness of the drop because of a greater twist of the arm necessity just then?

Maybe it's all, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" And maybe not. Perhaps this search for better serves makes perfect good sense. What do people think of "snake then spaghetti" serves or should one stay away from that?

[gzhpcu]

[QUOTE=bottle;14503
Palm turns in as racket goes down). Palm turns out as racket goes up. Why do this? Because it feels great.
[/QUOTE]
bottle, the palm should only turn out after impact. If you do it too soon before impact, you end up with the waiter's serve....

[bottle]

Doesn't compute. If you had racket way closed and then opened it out a little it would still be closed. If you opened it a bit more it might have vertical or neutral pitch. But if you had palm up like the guy in the forward windmill video, the dropping racket could close racket naturally during beginning of the loop. But would this feel good? Would it lead to better serves? Why not be open-minded until one has run one's own experiments ad nauseam.

I totally agree that racket must be on edge until very close to the ball. All of my aces and good serves have happened that way.

[gzhpcu]

Maybe we just have a problem of semantics... which is why a picture is worth a thousand words...

[bottle]

A picture is worth a thousand worms.

[bottle]

Is This a Good Question or a Bad One?

Does Don open and close his racket during his down and up first to help achieve such a nice drop?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb70sir9BZw

[bottle]

A Naval Joke

I said "Naval," not "navel." This story pertains directly to the question of whether, once a person has decided to build a maximum amount of gravity into his serve, he then opens his racket a bit as it falls down and closes it a bit as it roller-coasts up.

Or should the racket close a bit as it falls down and open a bit as it roller-coasts up? Or do neither, just fall and rise with no complicating slow turns of the wrist?

Any of these possibilities and others will work. The server will put the ball in the court. This will satisfy all those coaches who don't mind having a low expectation so long as they get their check.

Actually, however, the answer may matter, and there may be better and worse choices similar to some crucial fine point of technique in another sport.

The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, for obvious reasons, has always prided itself on rowing and eight-oared crews. There were the Navy Admirals who won Olympic gold in 1920, and a reincarnation crew by the same name and maybe even greater, who also won the Olympic gold in 1952 Helsinki.

In much of the late twentieth century the head coach at Navy was named Rick. (Sorry, Rick.) He went out in his single (that's one person with two small oars or "sculls") and meditated.

Right then, out in so much salt air all by himself, Rick performed experiments in extracting an oar from the water. He then taught his conclusion to all the Navy sweep oarsmen ("sweep" means one big oar per person).

In the 1980's, 1990's and beyond, there were no more major championships for Navy, Olympic or anything else, because in sports of technique, small details can matter. The other bigtime crews lifted their oars out of the water before they feathered them. Navy feathered in the water.

Is this twist-twist idea in tennis equally important? Who knows? The correct answer might lead to more championships or personal satisfaction.

[bottle]

Coinciding Pointer Positions

Consider first the twin videos halfway down the page (and definitely don't buy anything). I see less similarity between the two than the author does:

http://optimumtennis.net/tennis-serve-lesson.htm

Roger: The racket strings, not the frame, largely face the target as arm first bends. The frame gets edge on later.

Good pitcher: Hand gets very low with ball looking at target, i.e., the flesh of the hand is behind it. The straight arm is a good indicator at this stage of where it (arm) is going and is a pointer. All the loop action, every bit of it, is embedded in the upward slant from this pointer position to a second one, which is 45 degrees off the target. The upper arm and elbow will echo the first pointer position, i.e., if you discounted the sequence between them they would form a single straight line.

Hunch: That if a tennis player could figure out out how to serve this way, his serve would rival that of Roger Federer.

[bottle]

Progress from #'s 651 to 658

The out and in slow turns feel easier and therefore superior to one's previous, more roundabout racket work. One easily generates topspin whether one is rotorded or not, with pace scheduled to follow as overall timing adjusts to the change. Pendulum can fall close to body without then spoiling pitch and setting of the racket at its first high point.

In a snake and spaghetti variation, racket can initially drop in a similar way but close in a different way going up-- the wrist hinge can simply hump.

Or, more simply, one can simultaneously open racket and hump wrist, while both first fall, or do both later at bottom of the arc or behind one's back-- remember, this is simple search for good serves, but through bringing more than ordinary variety to the table.

For pitch and setting to work, will one have to open strings more (no matter
where one does it)? Probably.

The strike will come from way back.

Someone will have seen snake and spaghetti variation demonstrated as I did
on YouTube but then be unable easily to retrieve it a second time despite trying all kinds of search engine catchwords. The video I'm thinking of contains a tennis pro and a naive tennis student, both of whom play on the same softball team.

The pro opines that a snake and spaghetti throw is one of the most natural
actions in human nature. So he always teaches it to his students. Just think of all the anguish and paralysis by analysis that this will prevent!

Snake is simply a humping of the wrist like a snake's neck but with fingers
like the snake's fangs a bit closer to the target than they could be. Spaghetti is loose throw-- Vic Braden often has spoken of spaghetti arm. Don't think in other words-- always a good idea if you want to be a dumb tennis player. One might think of the desired amnesia that Rick Moody, the novelist, says is the reason that people have illicit love affairs.

The softball buddies play catch. Then the pro shows how you can snake and spaghetti against a wall, personifying the wall as if it's your buddy, saying "Hey, wall" somewhat like the Pyramus and Thisbe act in MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Finally, the pro applies the same throw to serves with toss so low he hits the
bottom of the net, but, he hits that net very hard and, gradually, he raises toss until the ball goes in.

Both he and the naive buddy then try some real serves. The pro looks okay
and the naive buddy looks horrible, but he puts the ball in the service box.

He has made a beginning.