A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Serve and Forehand: Two Different Kinds of Sling-Shot

The first is a WHAMO consisting of a "Y" and elastic connecting the two upper prongs. The second, in my secular view, is the type used by David to slay Goliath.

Supposedly, David whirled a rock round and around and then released it on the desired tangent.

To serve, one keeps a stiff left arm upraised from which one has wound the racket back in a circle, using scapular retraction in both shoulders.

To hit a forehand, one can, with rhythmic motion, post the opposite arm in an advantageous place and similarly use muscles across the front of the chest to abruptly change direction of the hitting hand from forward to sideward as previously discussed.

This plan, in a straight arm forehand started from high ice cream cone position (for discussion of this see previous posts) makes me want, naturally, to keep slight bend in left arm as straight right arm separates to form hold position (a running hold in most cases).

Left arm then, as it smooths the waters, also becomes straight like left arm in a serve and helps arch the back again through scapular retraction in both shoulders.

"Stretch-shorten cycle" as useful tennis buzzword practically dictates this.

If, like me, you seek the most powerful way to suddenly make hitting hand veer left, this is the way, the sling-shot way, to do it.

[bottle]

"Find out what's in your arm on any given day."

For better serves and forehands both, go to the following website and click on the first video called "Jaeger Sports Baseball Throwing Program."

http://www.jaegersports.com/blog/category/videos/

Watch where in throwing cycle the chest opens out.

[bottle]

Re Developmental Post # 1141

It might be shrewder for some players on a forehand to keep the left arm bent at all times in keeping with the trend in all these recent posts toward wiser use of muscles in back and chest. And straightness of arm per se may not contribute to this wisdom since stability of the left elbow is what one really wants. Even in serving there are a few examples in tennis history of great athletes keeping a bent left arm upraised, e.g., Lloyd Budge producing awesome kick on the cover of his old book TENNIS MADE EASY.

In a current Bollettieri Academy service video, the speaker's voice advocates that one keep one's straight arm upraised for a few extra microseconds by turning it and hooking the hand on a high imaginary fence. But I hate all authority today, especially Porcine Paper Publishing Very Ltd., and I don't want to turn my arm just because some idiot says so. If the court dries out, I'll instead try in sequence 1) toss 2) continued stretching of extended left arm 3) bending of left arm 4) lowering of left arm.

[stotty]

For better serves and forehands both, go to the following website and click on the first video called "Jaeger Sports Baseball Throwing Program."

http://www.jaegersports.com/blog/category/videos/

Watch where in throwing cycle the chest opens out.

Now that is a great teaching clip.

[bottle]

Agreed.

[bottle]

Scapular Retraction on Both Sides, Scapular Adduction on One Side Only

An idea can be short but not contained.

I'll try it on serve.

[bottle]

A Return to The Big Conversation

The big though one-sided conversation here has always been about how a rotorded server (i.e., most servers in the world) can nevertheless learn how to produce effective kick spin.

Hope and I have a few printer/scanner issues right now, so I can’t easily reproduce the cover of TENNIS MADE EASY by Lloyd Budge, and I couldn’t find it in the following collage although it’s surely one of the most interesting tennis book covers of all time.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=tennis%20book%20covers&biw=1920&bih=1111&sei=rPq0T82FJ4KC8QT6l5QD

Lloyd Budge’s kick serve, not pictured, has looked like “junior” kick to some, but was senior enough to get him and his partner to the final of the U.S. Open, Forest Hills, where they lost to his kid brother and Don Mako in four sets. Remember too that Lloyd Budge at that time was quite old for a tennis player.

That book cover for those who can find it may give some clues: Face open to sky and parallel with court, both arms bent and upraised (AT CONTACT!), big front foot flat, rear foot up on toes, no leaving the earth whatsoever, a toss so far back that it can only be imagined by the eyes.

Brenda Schultz McCarthy, one of the best women servers of all time, advocates front leg pressure for a first serve and double-leg pressure for a second serve, so I think I’ll use rear leg pressure for a second serve. Among other reasons, my front leg hurts. The rear leg can carry the front leg along with it up to a flat-footed finish while maintaining upward body tilt longer than usual.

Further ideas conjured by the Lloyd Budge “kick” image viewed by me for the 500th time were so bizarre that I abandoned my usual routine of writing first and trying the stroke later. Since I didn’t want to embarrass myself, I stealthily drove down to the court next to the great lake. (All the Great Lakes are connected so there really is just one.)

First, I would toss from a bent rather than a straight arm. I would keep my right arm similarly bent. I would use standard down and up structure but miniaturized and started from high over the head. (And I would adapt this address later to my other serves if the experiment said, “Go ahead!”)

With both arms continuously bent, the hands would come down much less than usual. I’d keep the hand movements pretty much high. With both arms bent and in front of me, I could be more aware of how the distance between the two elbows changes to produce a sling-shot. To prepare myself, I could do figure 8 exercises with bent left arm kept up in the air at all times.

Hitting arm could go down behind back and compress as usual but re-extend only to pre-established length.

I would bounce balls over the net to begin, resolved forever to kick ball between points to opponent this way.

As you would expect with all these ridiculous ideas there was an unexpected result.

Worked quite well although the serves weren’t big. If height of bounce is the sole objective, these serves win over any of my others.

[bottle]

Re Ice Cream Cone and Hungarian Hot Dog of # 1141

The full topspin version of this shot worked better for me if I set the upright hot dog at six o'clock, i.e., lined up on the perpendicular to the rear fence. Also better was carrying the ice cream cone a bit lower than I previously had in mind. A full glass of merlot also would work. You wouldn't want to spill it and you'd have a better chance of not doing so if your arm was slightly bent as you ran. Slightly, I said!

Let's have both arms at the same length right now. Seems a thumping good idea. Then, if you're tall like me or even if you aren't for all I know, the arm can fall almost like a paper cutter but on a slight inward slant to seven o'clock.

Chris Lewit wants racket to go back in the five to six o'clock range unless his student is weak. Then he'll permit racket to go round a bit farther.

Me, I'm weak and infirm but don't mind. Anything to put a little more free gravity into my stroke.

To iterate, when I'm ready to hit but not before, the racket falls. At the bottom of the fall it mondoes, i.e., quickly folds back and down from wrist and forearm. Here is where the spearing or flashlight action simultaneously begins. Here too is where effective kinetic chain can occur. I'm thinking specifically of the hips to shoulders link. The two can be so close together you're barely aware of any sequence. The arm just fell and you wouldn't want to lose that natural energy, so hips, shoulders and arm all drive the flashlight toward the opponent for as long as possible.

Just before contact the handle veers left thanks to scapular adduction in the hitting shoulder. This slings strings AHEAD-- not in a straight line but along a very broad arc from right to left.

Anyway you cut it, this is an inside out swing, and the ball should hop way up having just veered a bit to the left during its main flight.

Note, some days later: All the business about "keeping flashlight going toward the opponent for as long as possible" should be taken with reservation. Assuming that the flashlight is turned on, it won't shine directly in the opponent's eyes for long. Yes, the butt of the racket will still lead but it will have turned somewhat.

[bottle]

I think the previous post is essentially correct, although I slightly screwed up the educational tools needed for full understanding of inside-out swing in either tennis or golf. So I'll conjure up some drawings used earlier. I made them for hitting single-handed topspin drives. You'll need to reverse everything for a forehand.

The golfer lines up his shot with a straight line parallel to the tips of both feet. That's the norm anyway. So, the ingredients in the formula for better understanding include a straight line and an arc, not two arcs as I suggested.

The arc just briefly coincides with the straight line-- for the moment when you hit the ball CLEANLY and PERFECTLY. One can increase the odds of this happening with a slight bit of forward body shift as arc touches line, Don Brosseau suggested, to stay on the ball for an extra microsecond.

postcard 2.gif and postcard 3.gif show what NOT to do.

[bottle]

About Confusing Mannerisms of the Pros with their Excellent Dynamics

To my mind this is a greatly exaggerated "problem" in American and world tennis. What this notion does is spoil fun and give overly controlling teaching pros another avenue for manipulation. Squelching the natural inclination players have for imitation seems a dreadful mistake. In fact, Djoker's impersonations might be the best of his mannerisms for the complete beginner to burlesque.

Real life, not a spoof:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is53xJBJlYA

[bottle]

A Subversive Message to All Rotorded Servers

Fantasize from this famous photograph in the public domain. If you can achieve this basic position-- WITH POWER-- you may achieve your heart's goal of effective kick spin.

Note the flat front foot. And the whereabouts of the toss. And the rear foot up on its toes. And the maintained contact with the ground. And Lloyd's curved line of belly (does that come from raising the diaphragm? Worth a try). And the two bent arms. And the left bent arm still up at contact. And the chest open to the sky. And Lloyd's face still upward and parallel to ground AT CONTACT! And the right shoulder higher than the left BUT WITH LLOYD'S FACE STILL OPEN TO THE SKY.

Rejected: Immanuel Kant, as Jim Fullerton, the varsity hockey coach at Brown University used to say. And "The Happiness of Sysiphus" by Camus (see Post # 1091).

Accepted instead: The wretchedness or not of the kick serve actually derived.

Okay, to pursue the Lloyd Budge photograph, what must we do? Well, YOU may have to do something different from ME. But here's something I'm going to try:

A longer and slower and less explosive extension of both legs activated by muscles only in the rear leg. Details: Start with flat feet and bent knees. Then go down farther so that front leg rises on its toes. As rear leg extends front heel may or may not re-lower to the court. Front leg will only complete its extension as rear leg rises up on its toes. The simple effect of this will be a slow-rising elevator which in no way leads to significant alteration of attitude in the upper body.

Servers like Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova can throw their head forward all they want before they hit the ball. We, knowing the limitations of our physique, shall follow Lloyd Budge's example by keeping our faces open to the sky.

[tennis_chiro]

Simplicity is elegant

I think the previous post is essentially correct, although I slightly screwed up the educational tools needed for full understanding of inside-out swing in either tennis or golf. So I'll conjure up some drawings used earlier. I made them for hitting single-handed topspin drives. You'll need to reverse everything for a forehand.

The golfer lines up his shot with a straight line parallel to the tips of both feet. That's the norm anyway. So, the ingredients in the formula for better understanding include a straight line and an arc, not two arcs as I suggested.

The arc just briefly coincides with the straight line-- for the moment when you hit the ball CLEANLY and PERFECTLY. One can increase the odds of this happening with a slight bit of forward body shift as arc touches line, Don Brosseau suggested, to stay on the ball for an extra microsecond.

postcard 2.gif and postcard 3.gif show what NOT to do.

Bottle, I have to admit there is elegance in the straight-forward simplicity and clarity of your drawings.

don

[bottle]

Short Forehands, Short Backhands

Thank you very much, Don. There's so much to react to right now in this site. So much enthusiasm! It's heartening. But of course one then wonders what the persons who haven't yet weighed in will have to say (you, Steve, Phil?). And I've noticed a disturbing tendency in myself, in past instances, to become very critical later in direct proportion to the degree of my initial enthusiasm.

Already, I'm tempted to cavil at the use of acronyms, having learned in my pre-tennis life a very deep hatred of acronyms, which immediately create an in group of people with special understanding of what the letters stand for. So if you have a forehand you want me to think about, and you call it "The ATP Forehand," I may think "Association of Touring Professionals Forehand" (and I'm not even going to check now to see whether those words are correct) but I might just as well think, "Awful Tennis Pro Forehand." Or if you call something "The BEST System," I'm apt to think of THE TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE: VOLUME ONE, a book the contents of which I like very much but whose title I detest, even though the author, Chris Lewit, writes in his text that his next book will be entitled THE METAMORPHOSIS, which means that he has read Franz Kafka and therefore is a good man, at least as good as Gregor Samsa, who wakes up as a dung beetle in the story's climactic first sentence.

BEST System indeed. It may well be the best system, but I don't want to waste brain cells figuring out what the letters stand for. Let's see. The "B" stands for biometric or biological-- something like that. The "E" stands for engineered. So far so good. But the "S" and the "T" elude me. I could look at the Tennis Player article to get them right but don't want to. I'd rather go to the court and continue to work on short groundstrokes and not feel the effort of someone telling me that something is very good when I'd rather decide that for myself.

Yesterday it was dropping balls and hitting abbreviated Ferrerfores and Federfores-- went well. I hit a few serves, too, remembering for the first time in a long time Brian Gordon's informed ideas (and animation!) about the oppositional upper arm muscles during a great serve. Today will be about making a shorter one hand backhand work the same way.

The idea that short ground strokes, properly designed, are better (while gaining time) for generating considerable yet unforced topspin is very provocative.

A huge key from the new TP article, it seems to me, is getting a head start on upper arm rotation by sending out an early restaurant order for positive oppositional muscle action and then drowning it in contrary body motion so powerful that it creates a "stubbing" elastic effect. (See all the article's visuals on this subject and then imagine others.)

In a right hander's one-hand backhand then, flying grip change can take hands quite far out toward left fence rather than behind back. Some bend in hitting arm is essential to how I personally start any of my one hand backhand drives but I can see how starting with a straight arm should work, too. I'm thinking I'll use scapular retraction along with hips rotation to drown the oppositional muscles already trying to wipe up the ball. I think this all, Don, will be thoroughly compatible with the inside out swing we talked about.

Incidentally, I remember one of these posts-- or was it at Talk Tennis before I received my lifetime ban-- where some tennis player expressed disdain for any changes to one's game which occur in an office and not on a court. At the time I was impressed with this fellow's wish to "be in the moment" but later came to develop a diametrically opposite view.

Design is best accomplished on a designer's table.

I'm not ready to reveal the title of my new tennis book, but I'll tell you right now, the choice of it reflects true cynicism.

[don_budge]

BEST? I doubt it.

Yeah...I don't know bottle. Weigh in? Hmmmm....

I read the article...Developing an ATP forehand part 1:The Dynamic Slot. My first impression? Yawn.... I am a little skeptical of guys with phd's as it is. I don't know what they do with their lives. worldsbestcoach comes to mind. A seemingly intelligent, discerning individual, yet he had his problems playing with others. I remember trying to sort out a little donnybrook between the two of you. Sigh...those were the good old days.

Brian Gordon's article? How can one dispute it? The latest gadgetry. Millions of sensors taking billions of measurements. How can one dispute science? Hmmm... But I am one of those guys who is still not certain we ever went to the moon. I am not saying we didn't...I just want to see some more proof. From somebody other than those that serve their own best interests.

To tell the truth...in my opinion...I didn't read anything new. I had a difficult time staying focused enough to read through the entire article. I found it boring...I am not sorry to admit it. Biomechanics isn't my thing. Neither are gizmos or gadgets. I am one of those guys that just wants to get to the heart of the matter. I understand it but what does it have to do with the price of salt? I see everyone else buying into it...that in itself makes me want to run the other way.

The acronym in itself is obnoxious. Words manipulated to add more credence to another meaningless credential to the end of a name. BEST? Get real...in a real sense. More virtual reality. More virtual morality. Orwellian doublespeak. From Descartes...I doubt it.

There is nothing new in the article that I can discern. More rehash from the technique experts. I believe that there is more to the game than zillions of words devoted to technique. For me the game is more about tactics. It is more about metaphysics. More art than science. I would just as soon sum it up in one...and it isn't even a word. Swoooooshhh! Passing the face of the racquet through the path of the ball. Tilden is the book.

No surprise though...this is typical stuff that gives people a warm and cozy feeling these days. Gadgets, gizmos...electronics. It proves it all!!! I don't know. When someone writes the "Bible" on tennis it gives me the creeps. Especially when they recommend following the Spanish or the Israelis or whomever. I, for one, believe that the answer is right at home staring us in the face....but for some reason we don't want to see it. We don't want to acknowledge what the problem really is.

The article? Much ado about nothing. Nothing new under the sun. That is the way I see it. Bigger racquets allow for bigger swings because there is more margin for error to miss the sweet spot. All of the players used as models are using too strong of grips to play all court tennis...except of course, The Man. That is all it is. The rest of it...window dressing. Celine would call it applesauce. A couple of guys getting together in their garage...reinventing the wheel. Maybe part 2 or part 3,4 or 5 will convince me.

[stotty]

So true

No surprise though...this is typical stuff that gives people a warm and cozy feeling these days. Gadgets, gizmos...electronics. It proves it all!!! I don't know. When someone writes the "Bible" on tennis it gives me the creeps. Especially when they recommend following the Spanish or the Israelis or whomever. I, for one, believe that the answer is right at home staring us in the face....but for some reason we don't want to see it. We don't want to acknowledge what the problem really is.

How true is that...couldn't agree more