A New Year's Serve

[stotty]

3000th reply...not bad.

[bottle]

Where Serve is Today

Thanks.

I won my serve at love once this morning but overall didn't do well. Can blame partners' volleying skills a bit but need to take my share of the blame. Have been working on serve after all, had down time with nothing to do but overthink. Wasn't match tough after the lay-off. Besides, the other guys are younger and that is a fact. Unlike a lot of players, though, I think it better to think than not to think.

The Sampras rotations are too complex for a 1938 serve; still, 1938 comes before 2020 and we can modify those body turns for old, young and middle age.

What we want is quick, solid arm work about the body reinforced by body at key points in the two seconds of the serve, especially at the one twentieth of duration from pro drop to contact, i.e., .1 second.

We all should have a sense of serving in which no words go through the skull.

However, I think I want the two hands to fall down naturally followed by a big shoulders turn followed by a heel-raising hip turn to catch up followed by heel-flattening forward hip turn followed by hip turn to take racket tip from first drop to pro drop with both feet flat! Then comes the big shoulders surge (70 degrees in .1 second) to reinforce ISR (internal shoulder rotation) to the ball.

The right heel rotates up on toes against flat braced foot. Foot only walks when ISR has finished taking racket head out to right. The video and the still photos of drawings are a bit different on heel questions.

(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DB1stSRear.mov)

[don_budge]

Classic Don Budge...

(http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DB1stSRear.mov)

Favorite service drawings ever…outstanding stuff. Really classic stuff. Just the way he taught it too.

[bottle]

Watching the Video

Weight never goes back, does it? Because weight was back to begin. And toss goes to two feet in front of the baseline.

[bottle]

The Serve: Pure Confidence and Exhalation

One could take ten big breaths the way one does before the start of a crew race.

One could, but two or three deep intakes on the front foot should be enough.

We seek paralysis neither by analysis nor from holding our breath, so we shall affect Donald Trump's nozzle and start letting air out of our inflated toy as we slowly shift weight to the back foot while still holding our arms moderately high in original position.

No one has ever had the interest to measure the duration of my serve so I shall do so right now and report back. Yup, two seconds, for which I had to slow the backward shift a little but succeeded. A slight hiss coming out of the nozzle keeps this move deliberate and loose despite being extremely slow.

Now we start forward, turning the shoulders backward against flat feet. It is important to ask, probably while sleeping, which of two entities in the serve is driving the other at any point along the way. The entities are shoulders and hips. The honest answer will be one then the other then the other then the one and finally the other.

We toss very soon in this arrangement-- to two feet in front of the baseline.

Can I serve this way tonight at the tennis social without 10,000 miles, hours and reps put in first?

Not only can but will.

P.S. I almost forgot. One second to shift weight to starting position on the rear foot. Two seconds for the serve. A total of three seconds then out of an evening of tennis and food.

[bottle]

In the New Backhand

Challenge every assumption. That's what I learned. So I'll challenge my own assumption that elbow movement to the outside combined with shoulderblades clench to the inside is best dynamic way to make strings go straight after keying around in this newly discovered bent-arm shot.

"Bend the stick the other way," said tennis writer and 50-year Harvard coach John M. Barnaby. Without taking that advice too literally this one time, I play, i.e., fool around with reversing previous concept while keeping its goal of balanced straightness.

We stay with the keying (THE KEEEYING) but instruct the subsequent shoulderblades clench to take strings to the outside. We meanwhile instruct elbow to release to the inside. Will shoulders have to be more turned backward for this new design to work? Yes. Will the new stroke, by introducing confusion of intent, ruin these backhands for tonight? Probably.

Very theoretical of us, reader, wouldn't you say, to have achieved dynamic balance in opposite ways?

All that will remain to us-- decide which shot we like better. Or maybe situation will decide the one we use.

But will strings go truly straight? Given the curve of batting move in every batting sport, wouldn't we be closer to the truth if we spoke of pinching the ball's outer edge?

[bottle]

Tennis Social Report

We won our three sets, whoever my partner and I were. That was lucky. "How are you hitting them?" a stranger then asked.

"Okay," I said, "but the new shots were pretty bad as new shots always are."

"New shots?" he said.

End of conversation.

In fact, the never tried serve wasn't bad, so I hit it far more than just one time for three seconds. Need to work on it to integrate the ISR (internal shoulder rotation) better with all the new moves. ISR is definitely better in my old serves, but those old serves don't and won't carry as much pace.

As for the new backhand, that was self-fulfilling prophecy. The moment I asked "Will the new stroke by introducing confusion of intent ruin these backhands for tonight?" I was cooked.

Tried the sucker only once for a mishit. I played all evening with backhand slice. It doesn't take long for strangers to go to my forehand-- a good opportunity for me to explore new and old forehands both.

Doubles is an imperfect field for the development of new personalized stroke technology. Singles offers many more reps. Old age however, sciatica, stiffness, knee replacement dictate doubles which I'm more than happy to have.

[bottle]

Connecting the Dots: A Very Exciting New Idea to me

I've been playing with the idea, gleaned from reading Dennis Ralston, that hand should lead one's backward body turn in ground strokes.

In my most reliable forehand of the past year, my McEnrueful, I've developed early separation of the hands but have continued somehow to think of the whole procedure as a unit turn.

No, the hand is quicker than the butt. The early separation accomplishes what Ralston is talking about. The unit turn though no longer preceding independent arm motion, still can come very soon and not be as delayed as I have been making it with a strong eastern grip for poptop (the McEnrueful being a differently gripped shot).

Also, the arm work can be slightly longer than I have been making it. Instead of a mere slight push of hands to right one can slightly swing one's elbow down (barely down!) as if one's arm is the 100-foot pendulum in a science museum. Of course, the arm is bent. And when arm is bent, for purpose of economy, one should try to key the forearm whenever possible (that potential is there!). And why can't one do this at the same time one does the pendulum thing through a very small arc?

Suddenly the racket tip is farther back. It certainly is in the slot but without going so far that it is pointing at rear fence.

So one keys and shallowly bowls rearward with backward core chiming in to initiate the shot. In this one respect the McEnrueful and one's basic poptop of a sizzling flat forehand are now closer together despite other differences in production and behavior of the ball once it lands.

Now one keys hand forward while keeping the elbow back. Because of the new elbow position the strings go slightly down. The elbow releases forward and upward toward full extension through a longer path. Contact point may have been drawn slightly back. The followthrough will be with back of hand to neck or left ear same as before.

One will feel, in this new shot, that one is letting the racket head do more of the work.

[bottle]

Bent Arm Backhand: Clench Shoulders to the Outside while Elbow Clenches to Inside

These shots-- in self-feed-- seemed more solid than opposite arrangement where shoulders clench to the inside while elbow flies to the outside.

The reason we think about this subject at all is our love for the keystone or keychain function of any ground stroke that starts off with forearm pivoting around on elbow before said elbow takes off.

Our conclusion certainly is an argument for Arthur Ashe's stepping on a 45 degree rather than the 90 degree angle toward the net that most tennis instructors preach.

Our conclusion also is an argument for preparing with elbow out rather than in, so that it will have someplace to fly with the strength to gouge someone. I opine here, reader, that you are mean so ask would you rather gouge to the outside or to the inside? Remember, Lloyd Budge, J. Donald's brother, advised backhand preparation with elbow out.

And 45 degrees of stepping across (or less) helps turn the shoulders more for assured scapular rip to the outside. Does this discussion confuse? I hope not. The terms inside and outside, in golf and tennis both, are relative to a straight line drawn at the target.

[bottle]

Or, Clench Shoulders to the Inside while Elbow Clenches to Inside

Ray Brown, the neuroscientist, seemed to know a lot of physics, too. At his and his wife Becky's tennis website one time he put up a drawing that purported to show dwell increasing or rather the creation of straightness when center of one rotating wheel was on the perimeter of another rotating wheel.

[bottle]

Fun

What's most fun in serving right now-- for me-- is a lower rise of racket within the ancient down together up together formula.

That leaves faster and longer action to take racket up and around and round again to pro drop position where racket comes into alignment with the ball just as it begins to fall.

One perhaps gets the serve off a smidge sooner than some unwitting stranger may expect.

[bottle]

In 1htsbh: Clench Shoulders to Inside while Elbow Clenches to Inside

Challenge every assumption. That's what I learned.

Ray Brown, the neuroscientist, seems to know a lot of physics too. At his and his wife Becky's tennis website he once put up a drawing that argued that a spinning wheel on the perimeter of another spinning wheel produces a straight line good for dwell.

[bottle]

Or, in Bent Arm 1htsbh: Fire Power Structures Early

Then let elbow go as arm straightens with both to make racket form a long straight line.

Try anything that might cause improvement. Wouldn't be the first or last time.

[bottle]

Tennis Exposed

The best tennis is played in tennis socials. Tournament tennis is one big mistake factory.

[bottle]

An Honest Question

Which is better for a recreational player: A serve modeled on Roger Federer (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...ar2_500fps.mp4) or a serve modeled on Don Budge (http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...1stSRear.mov)?