A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

In Praise of the First Subtle Distinction Among Serves

I refuse to keep things simple. There are enough people trying to do that in tennis already, and not one of them is playing at Wimbledon.

There are two basic ways to serve, although the espouser of one will seldom recognize the validity much less the existence of the other:

1) Leg drive is early

2) Leg drive is late

To his credit, the owner of this website once recommended that a person do the one or the other but not both-- although he might or might not agree with the way I have indexed them.

The first group includes nearly all the elite players we have seen on the tour except maybe for Roscoe Tanner and a few other alleged freaks.

Among recreational players, the two categories seem evenly split. The simplest version of way 2) occurs in the two bucket drill, where a lab rat student, with one leg in one bucket, other in the other, turns to and fro, with spaghetti arm folding up in response to the change of direction before extending again.

I wish to pursue my interest in both methods, lifetime.

As a rotorded server, i.e., one of the numerous servers in the world with tight shoulder rotors, I believe what one high level instructor told me about this: "There are compensations," he said.

What they were, of course, he wouldn't say without a fee, and besides, I don't like to give away my soul; also, one retains information better if one figures it out by oneself although this isn't always possible.

Any idea at all to get the racket lower is good, in my view, and every idea within the two categories is valid until disproved.

Why restrict oneself to one of the two kinds of serve when a lower racket drop might be possible in the other?

[gzhpcu]

Hi bottle, been meaning to ask you since quite a while: what is the meaning of "rotorded"?

[don_budge]

???

Hi bottle, been meaning to ask you since quite a while: what is the meaning of "rotorded"?

Hi bottle. Me too. At first I thought you were misspelling "retarded"...as in slow and slower.

[bottle]

~

Glad you got it. Maybe this will encourage others to get it, too. Rotorded
servers are the norm all over the world.

[bottle]

One has to Keep Things Sufficiently Complicated to Untangle a Fishing Line

More low point, solution 9b:

Line up with racket pointed not at opponent but at side fence. Some of this is accomplished through stance, some by backward turn of the hips before the service motion even begins. Third, one can set the arm, independent of the body, farther around than normal.

Try then: Down and up with turn in and turn out, followed by turn out and turn in during the drop.

We've been through this before but with slightly different thought. To serial readers, the language may be familiar-- an advantage. And bad readers seldom understand anything, so why should we be overly concerned other than wishing for educational reform?

Basic starting point is the forward windmill drill at the end of the article in post # 663 on Phil Picuri's serve, http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...e_2_01_06.html

I am extremely glad that this article is about Phil and not me. Both author and Phil seem to think it beneficial but I wonder.

This particular knight of the rueful countenance has to say that the filmed flaw is frozen in his imagination.

From now on, I may not be able to think of Phil's serve, despite its vigorous
hurling of body against ball, as anything but flaw.

Yet Phil like me with my serve is ambitious for change.

The idealist's serve will always be protean, changing sometimes at a rate of once every seven seconds.

Was this filmed serve one of Phil's aces? If a serve of mine were destined for posterity, I would want it to be one of my aces.

So, the working idea shall be in and out racket work during a down-and-up. And out and in racket work during the drop with twice as much or more than usual happening just then.

Will more kinds of motion lead to a deeper drop? Will such an addition change overall timing?

Stay tuned (yeccchhhh).

[bottle]

~

"Rotorded," adjective: Inflexible in the rotors; characterized by not enough free play in the rotator cuff; unable like Phil Picuri or John Escher to twist racket tip low enough.

[gzhpcu]

"Rotorded," adjective: Inflexible in the rotors; characterized by not enough free play in the rotator cuff; unable like Phil Picuri or John Escher to twist racket tip low enough.

I am flattered to serve as a negative example in a semantical definition... but who is John Escher?

[don_budge]

John Escher...

He's bottle!

[bottle]

3-Twist Up and Down Back-swing: Plenty Complicated and Plenty Good

Nowhere to go but down now that I've been identified.

This take up may contain four twists instead of three depending on how one defines things-- pretty complicated. Note: One could assemble a crew of film-makers, photographers, kitchen workers and concession persons with a grant from Warner Brothers to make things more complicated yet.

The turns of which I speak begin with a slight twisting of the racket outward as it falls. Second twist is to the inside. Third, to the outside again, starts with arm straight and ends with arm bending. Fourth closes the racket again.

Why would anyone employ such crazy twists? To reduce arm work. Each turn pushing racket slightly ahead means that the arm can go a bit more slow (ly) and maybe not quite as far.

Assuming that one is able to accept that, wouldn't one want to know whether arm just twists to best setting at top of backswing or keeps twisting while arm is in the act of bending-- for more economy?

Maybe. I'd probably suggest that as a question to a student, but I was just at a party here in Grosse Pointe, where Curt Leibbrand and his two brothers were celebrating their parents' 60th wedding anniversary.

Half the people at the party, including the parents, were great tennis players, and Curt was one of the most successful teaching pros in this part of Michigan along with Peaches Bartkowitz, the late Ken Angyl, Steve Navarro and half a dozen others.

Curt, just starting out, was so adept at identifying any student weakness and then fixing it that his telephone was soon ringing off the hook with requests for lessons.

The volume was so great that Curt had to enlist his two younger brothers in the enterprise whether they wanted to become teaching pros or not.

In our conversation, Curt stressed that the most important thing in tennis instruction may be knowing when to shut up.

I agreed. Still, I'd tell my student if I had one today all about the three and maybe even four arm turns.

The goal is to create a deeper racket drop in which the player receives the benefits of gravity for a second time.

[bottle]

Animal Kingdom, Plant Kingdom

If down and up serves are animal kingdom, and 8-board serves are the plant kingdom, then try 3-turn back-swing with both.

More detail on how to do this in animal kingdom serves is available in post # 669, and the same ideas can work in plant kingdom although the overall motion will be more compact, the three arm turns more closely cobbled together.

In plant kingdom serves, hips move constantly to form a moebius strip. M.C. Escher liked to draw moebius strips and my name is John Escher (unrelated), but never mind, I like to draw moebius strips with my body.

A moebius strip, which is the symbol of infinity, is a sculpted figure eight in which the loops go up and down as well as around.

In the short time you wind hips back and up, which naturally sends hitting arm-- quite solidly connected to body-- down, you can make all three arm turns, but you should try two, also, and none, and various numbers of them in different sequence.

Getting too literal minded about this serve will be counterproductive since it is a knacky, right brain thing. It kind of works or it doesn't. Although it will be better on certain days, it's always good for a change of atmosphere or to surprise.

The big question is what is the quality of the ball spin/pace it produces.

If spin is very good, you may find yourself going with this serve more and more, particularly as you grow old.

The distinction I draw between animal and plant kingdom serves, though possibly stupid, is not as stupid as the men are from Mars, women from Venus idea, which was one first step for mankind to learn as little as possible about these two planets.

[bottle]

A More Specific Service Trial: Will this Spoil the Progress?

I can do only one set of experiments at a time. This one is in plant kingdom (post # 670).

One-- Turn elbow down as it falls and straightens though pretty much in tandem with roiling body
Two-- Roll forearm and straighten wrist
Three and Four-- Turn elbow down again (both while arm is straight and while it is bending).
Five-- Close racket to aid in completing racket drop as elbow twists up

If trial seems promising, run it again, but in the animal kingdom.

[bottle]

Hold the Coil

"Hold the coil" means keep coiling in three dimensions. The persistence of this will help with the toss.

A statement here. Unlike most tennis writers, I have no allegiance to anything I've written. My only allegiance is to better strokes up ahead.

So, as far as the arm-turns-during-service idea, I and others need to remain flexible. The principle at the center, which came by way of Don Brosseau of Griffith Park, Hollywood, is that racket can move slowly ahead in the windup of any serve.

How exactly this happens may not be important. One good first step can be a rolling of whole arm to the outside-- the outside being the natural direction of the windup. Turning racket inward might also seem effective, but wouldn't this counter the natural motion?

I could repeat the last sentence here as it might pertain to a second step but won't. Simply roll the wrist straight with the forearm, which will close the racket for the first of two separate times.

If you're going to open the racket twice, you'll need to close it twice in order for things to come out even.

But if this seems logical enough, then you can simply combine steps one and two, dropping the opening racket in tandem with the roiling and never stopping hips. And keep the racket tip going around by rolling wrist straight. And blend this all into a single move. To put things another way straightening of the arm can be spread out while strings first open then close.

Again, I'm still working within the previously identified plant kingdom, waiting until later to apply these or similar ideas to what I call the animal kingdom.

Here's a Don Brosseau exercise that helps ANY kind of serve.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiGmAHOCtCk&feature=related

Only 27 hits at youtube to catch the greatest and most assimilative tennis tip ever offered in one of their videos? Tennis players must be stupid!

[bottle]

~

Next step is to combine arm rolls one and two just the way u-i did in # 672 but without thinking about it.

[bottle]

~

Now, going to the animal kingdom, swing the racket tip all the way up to peak of the backswing. Body winds back, pauses for toss and traveling bend, then winds forward without or with leg drive.

Keep going through racket drop and enhanced snap and artificial completion loop to keep producing a repeating figure eight precisely the way Don has taught us in his 23 free videos at Global Tennis DC, YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiGmAHOCtCk&feature=related

[bottle]

Now Check Grip and Return to Experiment

Check grip demonstration here:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/teaching_systems/kerry_mitchell/the_lesson_process_serve_part_1/

I think the 2-1 continental is important.

Heel of my hand was slipping down to the 2-bevel for comfort and everything
was getting too straight.

You want just a little discomfort? You don't want too much straightness-- that's for sure. One wants the added arm to racket angle that having the two markers on different slats will produce.

There are different possibilities of course, but this is a very interesting one, and as for all the grip demonstrations we've ever seen, this has to be one of the very best.