A New Year's Serve

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On Experts

I have ordered the Welby Van Horn/Ed Weiss book, i.e., have put my gardening money where my mouth is.

That said, I don't care how brilliant any tennis coach is whether dead or alive-- they need to be challenged. As all authority must be challenged. Otherwise, we may as well go to church. Or if that sounds too harsh, reader, simply recite this mantra every morning:

"I am a little pitcher. Please fill me up."

My persisting questions about every coach and physician are, "Will this person give me what I need? And will the best stuff come out during our little conversation?" The only expert I never question is a plumber.

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Tomahawk, re # 2310

Easier and therefore better although any such change will probably give rise to niggling problems which in my case just haven't had time to awaken yet-- my fingers are crossed.

I have re-upped my membership card in the tomahawk religion.

Questions related to my certainty that better serves result when on edge frame gets very close to ball before opening out to complete internal arm rotation:

Arm cannot be entirely relaxed if you preserve the right angle in it close to contact, no? You would want it to turn to spaghetti just there and nowhere else, no?

You want the simplest motion to form the right angle and this could come from flaring racket at bottom of the first drop, no?

You would want added motion to form the right angle from closer in toward your head if you kept palm down and/or had bent your arm completely, no?

You might want to do what you are most used to, no?

You might opt for simplicity even if that weren't habit, no?

Tomahawk can be uninhibited since it is just the first half of succinct but complete and very fast internal arm rotation, no?

Too much arm bend or put another way too much straightening of relaxed arm offers compromise to the tomahawk ideal, no? Even though you've sat in the lounge of a racket club and quietly listened to a convincing speaker assert that some server out on the court could squeeze the two halves of his arm more completely together with great effect, no?

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Tomahawk Development

Am I disgruntled? Why not?

Go to 3:11 in this video for more tomahawk development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6CZ4qCXD4

It's a full squeezing of two halves of the arm together, but the squeeze is early in establishing racket edge on to ball.

Did I contradict my recent posts? Then like Walt Whitman I contain multitudes.

Note that racket frame is edge on at beginning of Naomi's 3:11 demonstration and still on edge at the end of it.

I am supposed to be an over-analytical person but would like to point out to you, reader, the figure eight pattern of Naomi's service motion in this clip. And what is over-analytical about a figure eight? Nothing! A figure eight is almost as right brain as a butterfly or hummingbird.

Here's more Dougherty on a similar serve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKCBJXdkjf8

In reviewing both of these videos I think I see most of the core rotation as having concluded by the time the tomahawk gets underway.

The super slow motion sequences show that-- for me-- better in the Naomi than in the Sany but maybe that's due to different cinematography.

I'd like to think that most of the core rotation IS concluded for purposes of developing more precision as racket edge snicks close to ball almost cleaving it in half.

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A Good Serve is on the Way

That's right. One good serve in the midst of others.

Once this good serve is established, it shall multiply. That hasn't happened in the past other than for a game or two but this time everything shall be different, a change of paradigm like spring ice-out in a northern lake.

Should I continue with my complete flaring out of racket at bottom of the first drop? I think not. That design was for a scapular adduction dominant serve, the blueprint for which I have abandoned.

In fact, there shall be no scapular adduction at a critical moment and scapular retraction shall be preserved past contact. Just as shoulders rotation from the gut will be delayed until past contact. "Stay closed!" the great baseball pitcher advises.

Reader, we all know that I am one of the few people on the planet who talks about the two scapulars-- retraction and adduction-- but upper body rotation? All sorts of people talk about UBR. And Brenda Schultz McCarthy said to hold it till past contact so I shall.

This cobbling together of what various people have thought and said, if those people are the right people, is just as good a pathway to fine serving as any else. But I'll have to do a lot with hips, what with my sciatica and rheumatism and erectile dysfunction and all.

I'll take taladafil for the ED but substitute forward hip rotation for younger dudes' rocket blast from legs straight up into the stratosphere.

Wise maxim: OLD MEN SHOULD NOT JUMP UP IN THE AIR.

Flare out of racket head at bottom of first drop is not a bad idea. But let's spread the flaring to beginning of the tomahawk.

Why? Because Totkan tomahawk and internal arm rotation are continuum. When serving this way make sure that upper arm twists to do the work as Naomi Totka's does in her demonstration of hammering or tomahawk (or throwing a tomahawk or old tennis racket over a fence).

Another way of putting this is when you flare the racket out, no matter where or how little or much, you start to pre-load the upper arm.

And top muscular performance of the upper arm is so essential to what we want that we might consider injecting it with taladafil or anatabloc (I am not serious!).

Viagra, vigor-- same idea.

Wind up the arm, slightly opening (flaring the racket) the whole way. One ends up with arm all coiled and racket head a smidge inside of elbow. Throw then from the shoulder, i.e., use forward twist but no adduction of any kind.

The tomahawking of this, i.e., the keeping of racket on edge until it has practically cloven the ball in half will blend naturally with what we tennis wonks seem to have to so abysmally call "internal arm rotation."

Tomahawking and internal arm rotation are one and the same, and this fact carries huge implication. But let's look a bit more closely at the idea of keeping racket on edge . Better to say for a smidge more of accuracy and pop that slightly open racket face naturally closes as it tomahawks so that it only gets perfectly edge-on very near the ball before flying abruptly to the outside.

I bet all my marbles on this serve before I've tested it because its internal rotation of the arm and its tomahawk are one and the same thing, offering a more economical arrangement than anything tried before.

Note: Michel de Montaigne and Mark Twain, many hundreds of years apart, were thoroughly disheartened that taladafil had not been invented and marketed during their lifetimes.

Well, as a writer, my first interest was in fiction, my second in tennis prose. Next fallback, plan C, for which I am available, is a series of ads for taladafil far exceeding any presently on television or even in parody form on Saturday Night Live.

First item, a period piece, will carry a superimposed title in large Gothic print:
THE RAGE OF 'TAIGNE AND TWAIN. The second ad will start with the character Popeye's use of a corncob in the fiction of William Faulkner.

Note 2: Come to think of it, flaring out of racket can better begin after the first part of the Rory McIlroy backswing (arm gliding ahead of shoulders only rotation). This will create more succinct upper arm twist pre-load though still spread out enough to be effective in the case of rotorded servers.

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"Avoid Decels": No Commentato, She

Every time Pam Shriver uses the word "decel" to describe what went wrong with the serve we watched together, she gives a one-word tennis lesson to whomever had their television set turned on just then. In this case, one word is worth a thousand images.

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I could do without her.

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Must be why your serve sucks.

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Totally.

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Self-Feed 10/8/14

1) There remains a way to go with the new tomahawk prominent spaghetti arm serve but what should one expect? NEVER PUSH A SERVE AGAIN. Present judgment on this serve: Promising.

2) Cut the wire flat, mild topspin, or slice short angle backhands: These shots can be bent arm if you get close to the ball. What does this matter if arm is passive, straightening in response to previous tension between opposite hand and back of upper hitting arm?

The reason not to do this might be that you could get hurt.

But if arm is relaxed and passively getting straight you do not get hurt because, at contact, nothing forwardly muscular is going on within the vulnerable middle of the arm.

I think I mentioned that one can pit the two mentioned pressure points against each other to form radial deflection of wrist and added bend to one's spring at the elbow.

3) Soft forehand topspin off a low ball hit with an Australian grip. What is the point in owning a grip east of an eastern and not adjusting for low balls-- the only sensible use for it in the ridiculous conventional view, e.g., "Well it might be good for a low ball: That's the only good thing I can say about it."

Remember, reader, there is a spectrum of arm bend for all the grips. If you don't believe me, observe the picture of Geoffrey Williams' extreme western forehand in his most recent article here in Tennis Player. From 1982 to the present in all the tennis matches I've played whether in singles or doubles I've never seen a forehand with arm as bent as that. Which is not a criticism but a recommendation.

At opposite end of the spectrum are Australian and even beyond that continental, both hit with a straight arm. Well, if you've got bone on bone in a knee you may no longer be what the girls in gardening call a "bendable." Maybe you'd like to bend some but to get strings low enough for a ball almost on the court a straight arm will definitely help.

Ray Brown, the neuroscientist and teaching pro, also pointed out that as you look down the spectrum you should notice that the progressive straightening in the milder grips naturally closes the racket face a bit. Converse of this is that if Geoff Williams didn't bend his arm so much he would with his favored grip hit the ball straight down into the court-- it wouldn't clear the net.

Going Australian, one can loft easy topspin for a short soft crosscourt angle. Backswing down and up to the outside helps. So does an adjustment in when one rolls the racket. I like to feel back knee, loosely bent, pushing around. And racket rolling up from forward low point (I feel that I should bowl in both directions) to get approximately square just at contact. I think this roll should be slow, an adjustment within the total stroke. Followthrough can keep the racket square.

For soft deep topspin off of same grip and arm length one can also crowd the ball and roll to square with followthough then keeping the racket square. The only real difference is that one uses normal backswing.

These two Australians are in marked contrast to a third that maybe even the Australians don't know about. Reader, do the slap of a slap-shot while closing the racket face to square. Then hit a flat shot like Chrissie when she uses an eastern grip with heel of hand on panel 2 . A slightly bent arm like Chrissie will be good too. But heel of your hand should rest on 1.5 . And save the straight arm Federfore/ATP3 hit with 3/3 (not classical eastern) for when you need it.

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Use SIM for Simian Pro Shot and Sick Kick

The tragic flaw of kinetic chain is that those who don't understand it-- most people-- use it to supply the form of some shot.

In fact, kinetic chain is best used as insertion of an energy stripe into some other form that looks different.

Regardless, one ought to shrink down kinetic chain farther and even eliminate it when hitting "the pro shot" or a "sick kick" serve.

"The pro shot" is the short forehand crosscourt that finishes the point as if just hit by a chimp who never misses.

That's one way this shot is SIM. The other is a combination of forward hips and shoulders at once. The hips turn from the legs, the shoulders from the gut, but both things happen at once and not in the sequence (SEQ) of heavier shots.

Similarly, in "sick kick," one can try for the sound of tearing silk and not much else. Because one's chest is open to the sky one can simultaneously rotate hips from the legs and shoulders from the gut to lift the elbow very high without compromise to elbow's alignment with the shoulders line.

Both this "sick kick" and "the pro shot" end with a lot of arm.

If pro shot is a McEnrueful, one uses a lot of roll, more than could feel good in classical eastern grip.

If serve is sick kick one can fire one's skewed tomahawk-- skewed because of arced toss and highness of elbow-- for a contact in which hand and strings are at same level.

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Backhand Volley Drill in the Light of New Design

Assume that feed will put oncoming ball in the exact same place every time. Maybe a very good ball machine would.

Block one volley down the line. Stick the next crosscourt.

Establish this alternation and keep it going for a long time.

Then reverse the assignment. Stick down the line and block crosscourt.

But with what nature of stick? And with what nature of block? I have a feeling that after someone has played for a decade or more, they volley the way they always have volleyed no matter what changes or refinements they would like to implement for themselves.

But who should endorse such inertia? Other than a perfect sizzler, any volley could be cleaner, crisper and sharper.

For blocked volleys, try the Mercer Beasley formula from bent arm getting gradually straight. One uses fine muscle control to ease the strings into the path of the oncoming ball. Body skates easily forward at the same time. The purpose is to be very solid and use oncoming speed for one's power and not impose any of one's own.

To stick, try a cut the wire mini-slice backhand. Build tension between opposite hand on the throat of the racket and back of upper hitting arm.

Then cut the wire so that passive elbow, with no muscular effort from extensors shoots toward straightness.

If this method is not immediate improvement go back to unthinking volleys of the type you (I) have always used.

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On Hooped and Sticked Full Slice Backhands and Related Backhand Volleys

"Build tension between opposite hand and back of upper hitting arm," I said, but the idea is growing toward placing the conflicting pressure points even farther apart.

How did this change of mind come about before I could even try out the first design?

From a head numbed for the dental implant performed today. And valium. And steroids. And penicillin. And Motrin. Together, a full cocktail.

Along with 10 minutes of ice applied to mouth alternated with 10 minutes (without ice) all day long.

A regimen like that is bound to lead to revised stroke ideas.

Philosophy: The two scapulae are bigger than the minor shoulder muscle putting pressure on upper back of the hitting arm. Not that we (I) shouldn't use any minor shoulder muscle too. We want to sum the available forces so long as they are easily produced. Forward hips rotation while straightening knob of racket toward ball will matter too. But we add to all of this the indexing design of scapular retraction on both sides of the back.

This is a different shot from the very good slice Oscar Wegner has shown on video in which one pulls hand back to where one can see a ring on the middle finger and gently start racket barrel toward the net then clench the shoulder-blades abruptly to change direction thus increasing racket head speed.

In MY proposed shot, the hands stay connected for a longer time. The double scapular retraction builds tension preparatory to sudden release of the two hands (known in the upper levels of tennis I think as "cutting the wire" as when firing a catapult).

This shot involves the entire circle of the body. I have spoken of a "hoop" before but some of its hoop arc ran across the front of the body. Now, force or tension can build up in large muscles on rear edge of the body.

One wouldn't want to use this as volley form for a very fast oncoming ball as most are these days.

In that case a simple block is better.

But if ball is slow or slightly slow or hanging just a bit, as always, one can set the racket face quiet as first step of fundamental form.

And still have time for tension build-up through shrinking of the package and cut-the-wire release.

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Vic Braden's Instructive Debates

He answered everyone's email and before email answered snail letters with snail letters.

I at least have a letter on stationery taped to the front inside cover of my copy of TENNIS FOR THE FUTURE which is all about the different segments of kinetic chain.

It isn't signed "Vic Braden" but rather "THE VIC BRADEN TENNIS COLLEGE STAFF" but I think from the style of the emails I later received in various letter boards that it was written by Vic himself.

I won't quote it here (probably did somewhere) since my ideas about kinetic chain have moved past that letter and I have no wish to speak ill of the dead.

Our written exchanges happened long before I met Vic in person at which time I made no attempt to connect the letters and posts with him since I wanted to hear what he had to say with no interruption for schmooze.

Well, we (I) tried to read all of Vic's correspondence with tennis players of every country and stripe.

Again and again, the question arose of when legs should extend in a serve, early or late even during contact ("late coming up to contact") Vic would argue, which at least gives me something new to try with my evolving Chubby Checker serve now that it includes simultaneous rotations of hips and shoulders to raise the hitting elbow while maintaining perfect alignment of the elbow with the shoulders line.

Through the past year or two I have combined forward hips turn with front leg extension to form an early brake for quicker release of the gut.

But the "paradigm" was different, a word I hate to inflict on a tennis player such as yourself, reader. The paradigm was some sort of deceleration-acceleration now to be replaced with Totkan tomahawk.

Hence my latest wrinkle (and tennis without constant search bores me silly).

I haven't gotten to the court because of multifarious dentistry but hope to do so this morning replete with penicillin, steroid, valium, Motrin and all.

UBR (upper body rotation) and LBR (lower body rotation) shall occur SIM (simultaneously) but on moderately bent knees with front heel still up.

Foot flattening leg extension will then occur SIM with skewed Totkan tomahawk in my attempt to achieve the Totkan sick kick (accurate but slow).

Note: Ice better than an ice pack is rounded ice in a small dixie cup whether applied to left inner knee where bones jam together or to right Achilles heel or to upper lip.

One rips off a small strip of the cardboard and paints the injury and does this soon or forget it.

If repeatedly crossing upper lip with the dixie cup one can lean forward over a sink to catch the melt and stretch hamstrings at the same time.

One of two alternatives here-- breaking the forward hips rotation through quick lowering heel SIM with extending leg, or, same leg and heel occurrence but not until after the shoulders and hips rotations are done low should provide a new 'digm (dime).

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Setback

Again and again, the question arose of when legs should extend in a serve, early or late even during contact ("late coming up to contact") Vic would argue, which at least gives me something new to try with my evolving Chubby Checker serve now that it includes simultaneous rotations of hips and shoulders to raise the hitting elbow while maintaining perfect alignment of the elbow with the shoulders line.

Through the past year or two I have combined forward hips turn with front leg extension to form an early brake for quicker release of the gut.

Tenniswise, these posts are useless unless I report setback along with advance. I must now advise levelness of shoulders for longer if I want effective use of the Totkan tomahawk illustrated at 3:11 of the following video, the very last service sequence of which shows Naomi kicking very late body bend in before its release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6CZ4qCXD4

Throwing a dull tomahawk or old tennis racket over a fence into soft dirt should help lead to vertical end-over-end serve.

One can or cannot analyze this all one wants. I only know this vertical spin should barely miss the ball and be reinforced by late release of body bend if not by exhalation of one's breath. Reader, where are your mishits? Some mishits seem essential for showing yourself that you are getting frame close enough to the ball before it naturally turns slightly out. Hit the ball too flat and you have lost.

Now-- the idea of SIM upper and lower body rotations from Australian grip for short angle forehand "pro shot" does appear effective at least so far.

Just not as part of my or any serve.

Better seems to withhold UBR (upper body rotation) altogether until after contact for control. The difference between a down the middle serve from deuce court for a right-hander and his out wide slice could then be scapular adduction withheld vs. used during contact.

I now review the Totkan sick kick. Does Naomi lift her hitting shoulder like Pete Sampras? Only a smidge and very late SIM with late leg drive creating late body bend and release of same. (Careful here old guys.)

Note: Since I'm now maintaining double scapula retraction started before this late body bend and lasting throughout the contact area (some would call this "arching the back") I'd like to add a large volume of air to the internal mix in the upper chest. Perhaps that entails holding one's breath and turning red in the face like Boris Becker but consider how bad he looks now in middle age as he sits in Novak Djokovic's corner. Does he do something or does he just sit there for show like Clarence Thomas getting ready to vote with Anthony Scalia?

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Briefly, Reader

Don't think too much. Don't think too little. Find the perfect cusp between the two (different on different days).